Zarokh, the Temporal Fight Phase 2 Feels Bad

I just attempted Zarokh, the Temporal.

The "Pick Up The Hour Glass" moment feels absolutely miserable. I just want to relate what one version of the player experience is here.

1. Do the first half of the fight, dodging around. Try to avoid the glowing orbs, especially during his little rotation thing. If you do hit them, get frozen in place.

2. Zarokh disapears, "Huh, I wonder what's going on?". Avoid the glowing center of the map.

3. Nothing happens. Finally, touch the center of the map.

4. Map zooms out, glowing orbs appear, and things pause.
"Uh, what do I do here? Are they going to attack me? They look similar to the earlier stuff, is it a bullet hell mini-game/sequence?"

5. Nothing happens, there's a countdown, uh, it ticked out... why am I frozen?

6. Die because I didn't pick up the glowing orbs.

If you don't look up a guide for this fight, I cannot stress how bad this one attack feels. I was prepared to die to the boss. I was not prepared to die because the game suddenly switched from "Visual effects are bad" to "Visual effects are now necessary to touch, or you die."

I was given 5 seconds to try to understand this, and then 15 to actually execute on it.

For other attacks/mechanics, there's scaffolding and light tutorials in understanding how certain mechanics work, like the time rewind zones. There's NOTHING in the Trials that remotely explains this phase.

I like playing PoE to see new things, but the way this attack works feels like I should just be looking up guides, and not bothering to try to search for things on my own, or play on my own. And it feels really bad.

I'm not saying the attack has to be removed, or changed, or whatever.

But please, please, please, make it clear what we're supposed to do as players. Introduce it in the campaign, signal in the rest of the trial, make it a mini-game, just don't expect us to learn it in under 5 seconds with no information or prompting.

I know some people figured it out without prompting. Great for them. For me, this just felt really cheap to be told "Spend another hour+ just to learn another single mechanic."

Yeah, you're right, they really should do something to make it more clear.

I have an idea, maybe they can make a sanctum room that's similar. Could have like big glowing crystal things and a timer, you need to run around a click all the glowy crystal things before the timer runs out.

Then when you see something kind of similar happen in the boss fight, you have a clue of what to do. No need for a youtube guide!

"

Yeah, you're right, they really should do something to make it more clear.

I have an idea, maybe they can make a sanctum room that's similar. Could have like big glowing crystal things and a timer, you need to run around a click all the glowy crystal things before the timer runs out.

Then when you see something kind of similar happen in the boss fight, you have a clue of what to do. No need for a youtube guide!

Look mate, I'm not the only one with this issue. I've talked to some other folks who had the same problem.

Games are about context. If I was playing a rhythm game, and suddenly, it turned into bejeweled, it would feel a bit garbage. Same thing here.

Also, to be frank for a moment, every single one of your posts is telling other people that they're bad or wrong. Like, your post history is depressing. I'm not sure if you're trolling or what, but I had the experience I had.

It felt bad. If GGG wants that to be the experience it can be the experience. If it becomes the default experience, I'm probably gonna play less. It just ain't fun.

They show other portents of what to expect in the test of time rooms and then completely omit to test you on the thing that is very likely to kill you

All around cheap and nasty move.

∆∆∆ honestly? What he said is exactly what's required if they insist on keeping this (ok he's being facetious the escape room has no similarity with that phase)

It also needs to scale down in its rng difficulty

I agree with your points, and it’s true that after investing so much time, losing to an unknown mechanic feels awful. However, that seems to align with the core theme of the game. PoE2 is intentionally punishing, often unfair, and frequently offers a poor return on your time investment. IMO, this is a deliberate choice by the developers—to create a sense of struggle and adversity, with the goal of giving players the satisfaction of overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds, much like walking the path of an exile.

This isn't the exarch ball phase it's either a piece of piss or next to impossible based on layout

And exarch you got 6 tries to learn it

Izaro? Straight up gear check

This one they may as well just animate sticking a bullet in a gun and rolling the barrel before shooting you

+1000

The fact that you are given no clue whatsoever what to do when the clock is ticking down is completely absurd.

I'm currently walking around, slowed down, and it hasn't killed me. I had no idea what to do. I can't exit the arena. This is the first time I have been genuinely angry with the design of this game.