3rd (and last for now) review feedback from a new player

So I finished the campaign (just restarted on cruel - I'm not sure I'll redo it though), completed one Sekhemat and one Chaos trial.

Conclusion: game has some really well done parts, and some others which doesn't resonate with me that much. All in all I did have fun and I don't regret having bought the EA. But ARPG-s are just probably not for me. Also, F2P games are probably not for me.

- I find "limited stash space unless you pay up" kind of a d*ck move TBH. I found out that with EA access I also got some coins with which I was able to purchase plenty of stash space. Still, I'd much prefer having to pay the full price of the game instead of such milking strategies.

- Player inventory feels too small. I hate having to teleport back (especially because of the loading time) from the middle of a dungeon. (Plus there is the added fear, because portals sometimes just cease for no reason.)

- Towards Act 3 I frankly became somewhat bored with the game - but that's a symptom I have with other ARPG-s as well, so that's probably on me. I hoped that WSAD and dodge roll would make this one more enjoyable for me.

But the thing is, towards the end of the campaign hordes became so big and fast that the only viable approach seemed to mindlessly fire AoE skills into them and reposition every now and then.

Also maybe I didn't have good enough gear - but I simply just couldn't be bothered. Gear is 99% of the time trash (I even got absolutely trash unic gear (with single digit damage and all) the few times that I got unic gear at all). So I went with good enough gear, which meant that I was able to deal with bosses (well, not for the first time, but it wasn't hopeless either), but mobs posed absolutely no threat. Still they took way too long to kill.

Towards the end I got into the habit of Elden-Ring-rushing through them, only dropping an AoE every now and then for good measure - gear drops are trash anyway, so why would I bother?

- Campaign maps are way way way way way way way way too big. Less is more sometimes!

- I really enjoyed Act 1. Act 2 was... well, I guess it's an industry standard that desert levels have to be barren. However, the moving hub was fantastic, and I generally still enjoyed the story enough to power through the more boring areas (Mastodon Badlands, anyone?).

(Please just delete the jumping p*nis monsters that hide in the sand. It looks gross, and it's not fun that it's invulnerable except when it attacks.)

Act 3 however was not immersive for me. The jungle was ok (it was confusing that members of the two tribes were called entirely different things, so instead of "Azak Carver" it's just "Carver"). But I'm not fan of the time travel.

My problem is not time travel itself. (Though the Hooded One's revelation was a bit WTF for me - gotta assume that he referred stories from POE 1)
My problem is that the story makes no sense:
when we arrive, the Vaals immediately attack us without reason. Then we proceed to murder everyone in town. Then the evil lady just teleports away and stops giving any more f*cks whatsoever. We rescue Alva and during that we learn that the Vaal are absolutely f-ed up sick bastards. (Btw how did Alva know that she's "of Vaal blood"??)
And when we finally overcome the Mengele of this world, we just humbly ask him for help. Sorry, but this story is a mess.

Also, I don't like the Black Chamber. It's too much, and the grossness serves no apparent purpose. (E.g.: we never learn how those horrors were supposed to save their people.)

To top it all, I kind of got trapped in the past in the end. I didn't yet want to restart Cruel mode, so I didn't dare to enter the portal to the present. I managed to circumvent this by teleporting to the Chaos trial from the map.

- Trials. I do not enjoy trials. Neither. Why not just send waves of enemies? Or make us defeat bosses? Why the honor BS or the random hazards BS?

- I don't like the evasion vs accuracy design. As Ranger I have very high evasion. Sometimes I clear all of the mob and one strong enemy remains. And we just stand in front of each other and constantly shoot at the other while looking like an idiot. This doesn't feel very epic.

- Stuttering is abysmal for me in towns and in Act 3. I don't know whether it's my machine or the game. But I suspect some of the graphic effects are hard to handle for the game if there are too many on screen.

- Finally a small bug report: Oswald's "The Monkey God" dialog just cuts off at the mid abruptly.

- (why is there no way to find my earlier forum posts?)

> I find "limited stash space unless you pay up" kind of a d*ck move TBH. I found out that with EA access I also got some coins with which I was able to purchase plenty of stash space. Still, I'd much prefer having to pay the full price of the game instead of such milking strategies.

It’s a F2P game. Selling a few stash tabs and cosmetics to players is their whole business model.

Regarding many of the gameplay criticisms I can agree that many of the things you called out are issues. The game does turn into a slog unless you find one of the viable “good” builds and the gap between the good skills and the bad skills is very wide right now.

Regarding the lore questions/criticisms: A lot of lore context is from PoE 1.

Yes, the hooded one reveal is a PoE 1 thing (and tbh it was pretty obvious to most PoE1 players).

Vaal attack because the Vaal society was in full collapse at that moment (see the giant mountain of bodies in the background)

Evil lady teleported away due to getting pulled into a legion monolith. AFAIK that is not something she was in control of. My guess is we will see her again when Legion gets introduced into PoE2 (She was in PoE 1 still stuck in the monolith)

The reason Vaal were dissecting people (in addition to being evil) is because they were experimenting with implanting magic directly into the human body and trying to achieve immortality. PoE lore is generally filled with civilizations trying to make themselves immortal and powerful by implanting gems into their bodies and researching thaumatergy before collapsing. We asked for Doryani’s help because he is the foremost expert in Vaal technology.

Alva knew she was of Vaal blood because she is Azmeri and the Vaal survivors married into the Azmeri tribes thousands of years ago.

Thank you for the clarifications!

Yeah, I get the F2P model, but like I said, I think I prefer the non-F2P model.
I forgot to mention but I kind of dislike to see all the over the top custom character appearances in towns too (I know, the other main form of income, still it looks silly IMO).

As Ranger I intentionally avoided both main paths (lightning and poison) as I wanted to play an archer, not a lightning mage or a poisoner. So that part is on me. I still would welcome more variety in build possibilities. (Monk? Go lightning. Ranger? Go lightning. Sorceress? Go lightning...)
(I like to experiment. Adding Inevitable Crit support to Rain of Arrows is a fun way to earn Frenzy Charges for example.)

I don't know what a legion monolith is.