Small review from a player that played only poe1 for a tiny bit

I never reached end game in poe1 (stopped before that).

PROS

* Graphics and sounds
Game looks super nice and sound design/music is also very good.

* Boss fights
Every boss fight felt unique. Some were harder but never felt impossible (I did manage to reach the end game).

* Spell and support gems
Very nice system, much better than the colored gems on gear. Easier to grasp and the freedom to mix and match gems (so far allowed), is also very good.

CONS

* Losing xp on death
Sadly for me this is the reason I stopped playing. It feels bad spending time in a game, just to see this time go down the drain because my character died. As I understand at higher levels you even lose more % xp. So you get double punished, since it also takes a lot more xp (time) to reach the next level at higher levels. I also felt that the only time I could experiment with builds was at the start of a new level, which is very annoying.

* Identifying items
Why is this in the game? It feels unnecessary since you unlock a npc early in the game that can identify all. Also I wonder if without unidentified items, you could create much better loot filters?

* Waystones
I only played a bit of end game, doing 4 out of 10 tier 1. But I did not get any waystone tier 2 yet. It is not clear when they drop, but it made me wonder if I need to do a lot of farming at lower tiers just to progress at a higher tier, which is not something to look forward to.

Losing XP is a skill check, if you are dying a lot there's something you're doing wrong. It's fine if you don't enjoy that feedback loop, but it does serve a purpose.

Waystones are quite easy to sustain, like many other aspects it's just a matter of learning the mechanics. You can buy waystones up to T5 (T1 infinitely, the others limited number with periodic restock).

There are atlas nodes that help increase chance to drop and chance to drop a tier higher. Tablets you put in towers give increase chance to drop waystones. Waystones themselves have increased chance to drop waystones, run them rare if you can but at least 2 mods to start.

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Valsacar#0268 wrote:

Losing XP is a skill check, if you are dying a lot there's something you're doing wrong. It's fine if you don't enjoy that feedback loop, but it does serve a purpose.

Waystones are quite easy to sustain, like many other aspects it's just a matter of learning the mechanics. You can buy waystones up to T5 (T1 infinitely, the others limited number with periodic restock).

There are atlas nodes that help increase chance to drop and chance to drop a tier higher. Tablets you put in towers give increase chance to drop waystones. Waystones themselves have increased chance to drop waystones, run them rare if you can but at least 2 mods to start.

Diablo 2's stamina system is a skill check, if you are running out of stamina alot there's something you're doing wrong. It's fine if you don't enjoy that feedback loop, but it does serve a purpose.

Running in Diablo 2 is quite easy to sustain, like many other aspects it's just a matter of learning mechanics. You can buy stamina potions throughout the entire game. (From the vendors infinitely, you're not even dependent on periodic restocks).

There are gear drops that increase your stamina pool, or give you unlimited stamina. The button to toggle on and off running can increase the chance that you won't run out of stamina before reaching your next destination. Running around and consuming stamina even increases the ability to farm gear for stamina more quickly. Run rarely if you can, but bring at least 2 stamina potions to start.

I was inspired by your words to add more incredily useful insight and commentary on game design mechanics.

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Valsacar#0268 wrote:

Losing XP is a skill check, if you are dying a lot there's something you're doing wrong. It's fine if you don't enjoy that feedback loop, but it does serve a purpose.

Loosing XP is NOT a skill check. Dying is a skill check. The XP loss is a punishment from GGG used to extend the player gameplay the longer they can which is the wrong way to do it and some game developers fall into this trap.
A game needs to be fun for people to play it in any unmeasurable amount of time. Hitting a “roadblock” is fine and that’s what make people evolve. Being constantly punished while trying to overcome that “roadblock” is not fun.

This game is not hard, it’s just not fun for the most part of it. Most skills need a boost in their low levels because it’s insane that the normal acts are way more difficult than the cruel ones. It’s also insane that you can die to bosses if you miss ONE dodge at times.

There are a lot of issues in this game - and a lot of good things - that I will put in a feedback post but I needed to put this out there. XP loss is not a skill check, is a GGG usual punishment because it’s what they like to do. Trials are another example of GGG line of thought.