Comprehensive feedback of 0.3 The Third Edict

Hello again GGG team and exiles. I am back, it's time for third comprehensive feedback and without further ado let's dive in.

Again I will make sections for making post easy to read and navigate.

Overall look and feel of the game


Game still looks and sounds fantastic, is sharp and is the best look of gaming industry. The atmosphere of the world is still amazing, I noticed some changes to map, areas and monsters and they all look cool! GGG's design team I am clapping to you, you really did a great job as always.
Overall feel is that this patch is a great success. This feeling is the most important for me, if every update will be this big and significant game will be massive in a short time and I will be happy to be there on every update.
Although I still recommend doing mid patch balance changes. I know that nerfing stuff mid patch is not your stile and I totally understand that stance, although buffing skills will not harm anyone.

Campaign


• Campaign feels solid. Sprint addition helped navigating areas very much. Started sprinting from the first zone and never stopped till I got to maps.

• Rare monsters don't feel worse than same area "mini bosses". I can't point finger directly what exactly changed but there was for sure some rebalance and it was massive improvement. Walkthrough feels much more smooth and better.

• A4 is beautiful, total masterpiece. My favorite area became "Prison". I still pray every day that we get Izaro ascension trial in POE2. Before A4, I was fantasizing how amazing lab would look in POE2 but after playing Prison area, where you basically recreated lab, I saw with my eyes how beautiful and amazing it'd feel. and I beg you GGG please, introduce reworked lab trial. It will be such an amazing experience.

• Resetting zones now feel a bit better but I'd totally remove it if it was on me. I can't see why it makes a game a better game, so I can't see it belonging in the game because of that.

• Please make vendors more relevant more we progress into the game. I was sitting on a pile of gold later in campaign and was traveling from vendor to vendor to check if anything good was offered. Would be great If we could reroll vendor windows for some gold cost and fish for upgrades that way.

• Interludes are beautiful. Idea is so smart! I can't stress enough how I liked playing them. "Stones of Serle" is awesome area, loved very much. "Holten" is also nice but "Holten Estate" - OMG Why do you love this mazes guys, boss room door was bugged on release, and I was so confused with roaming around this maze it really affected my gameplay negatively. The "Khari Crossing is unnecessarily huge, cutting radius by half will make that area so much better. I don't know if it's meant to be but if when I left Crossing from one door and entered with another zone rested and I was so frustrated that I had to path again. It' not good feeling guys. Third Interlude was amazing, hand's down best areas. I love the environment, maps, layouts, everything.

• I still think that:
- player should get more base spirit, 30-40 more would feel very good.
- resistances must be reduced at the end of the campaign all at once and not zone by zone.

Skill Tree & Defenses in General


• If a player has enough gold to afford respecing tree, can one please be able to respec without NPC? Please. It will be such a QOL upgrade. I can't stress enough how useful it is when player is balancing a character and tweaking tree.
- Back in POE1 when player uses regret orbs, one gets respec points on tree menu right? We can do that when and where we want. It would be so cool and useful to be able to do that same way just with the gold.

• Players are lacking defenses on tree and one way or another it must be fixed guys.

• We need Life clusters on every part of the tree, some more some less, but at least base minimum of "more" and "increased life" must be present on tree. I was playing on dex side on league start and I really don't want to lose points pathing to ES wheels, why is this still a case.
- On gear getting life got somewhat decent, perfect essence of the body gives increased life on body armor and thanks for that, but can we change it so it can give same stat on all armor pieces at least? most of the time we are tight on affixes and it'd be great help if we could choose where to put that increased life on.
-But again, this small 8-10% increase is miserable stat. I have flat 1972 life on level 93 character and have 15% increased total from body armor and A1 quest that results in 2268 life. If I was able to get from tree for example 152 increased life, and from gear 10 the same character would have had 5167 life.
The difference is huge, we really need to get these stats out there. "Play blue life of die" will never be fun. I did not path through ES this league on purpose to test how life works and it's not bad when you have decent damage, I used Defiance of Destiny amulet but that amulet truly shines when you have large life pool.
-Also would be great to have functional life leech from hits, not only "gain per enemy killed". Would be awesome to have some kind of sustain when facing tough foes.

• Evasion/Deflection must be buffed early game, I guess reducing attackers accuracy will be enough early on. Later when you get good gear and decent evasion it feels good, but to get decent deflection chance is very hard and point intensive.
-I would love the flat stat on gear and/or tree - something like "+20% chance to deflect damage". This way getting 100% chance to deflect would be much more feasible and on top of that it would be good enough defensive layer so dex tree players won't need to path to ES.

• would be great to:
- have damage reduction or mitigation back in game. There is only one notable "Catalysis" that converts physical hits to elemental, and it's very small amount(5%) on the whole tree. We can to better. If all three could give us 5-5-10, 20% conversion would be somewhat decent fist step towards fixing that problem.
- Get more MS among all characters. Movement speed is still a challenge to get, sprinting does not solve this problem. 50% increased movement speed boots are not cheap to get and it's not easily obtainable for mass amounts of players. I don't like the fact that "Movement Speed" in general became a chase stat.
- With lack of MS mostly suffer strength and strength/intelligence characters so I would even suggest that pure armor base body armors can get T1 - 40-50% increased Movement Speed affix on gear itself. It makes sense even design-wise, lighter and better armor character has, faster one can travel. On one hand it will massively benefit str & str/int characters and on dex & dex/int side of tree no one would sacrifice that much defense to use that base at all because armor is useless for that archetypes as nothing complements it from tree.

Ascension


• I still don't like how character is tested of being worthy of ascension, to be more precise making ascension build/archetype specific is the thing that I don't like in general. Plus there is still lot's of RNG included and it makes process not fun when you are weak and trying to get yourself points.
-I really hope that trial of ancestors will be as amazing as it was in 3.22 and it will be a breeze of fresh air for players like me.

• I still think that in Sekhimas, in trials that actually give you points, (not the farming ones) system needs to be better RNG but and not be build bricking.
- Once again I was stuck in a room that will remove all my defenses (es/evasion/life) upon entering multiple times and I had to quit basically and do it over;
- In general anything that will without a doubt will kill player upon entering a zone, and has nothing to do with skill of a player must be removed from RNG pool of trials that give player points. It must be challenging not impossible. Leaving no chance to progress is very bad at that times.
- Mods like that and even worse, can be there for farming trials.

• I still think that first three ascensions must be free to try. Access to that trials can be earned with mechanics/side areas/quests in the campaign.
Anyone who want's to skip a headache will one way or another find a way around it by buying a carry or asking a friend to help or by any other method. So making something more pleasant to people who want to do that themselves will be very appreciated I am sure.

• Getting last points for Trial of Chaos, is still a horrible game design. The fact that you need 3 fragments in advance in your stash to kill Tiralmaster to get points is still nowhere explained. Players still are going to find that out when they will do their first 10 rounds and get 1/3 fragments. And then in the best scenario they need to do 2 more 10-round trials to get other two fragments. GGG, why does this make a game a better game? I can not understand.
Me myself for the first time when I finished 10 rooms I thought I missed other fragments in previous rooms, then I got mad I was not warned in advance that I need fragments at all, then I put one fragment into a dedicated place to check if it fits there or not at all and could not get it out. As I had only one fragment I was scared that it will be deleted on the next run and I would lose that also, because again nothing said it would not be deleted.
So many problems why? just make all bosses drop one fragment, or last make boss drop one general key to the door, but not that horrible experience please.
Explanation on an inscribed ultimatum token is not giving full information and does not explain to player how one will get points after completing this trial.



"secret challenge behind the locked door" - What the hell is this explanation guys? why so shady, why can't explanation be specific.
Where is explanation that player needs 3 fragments to enter the boss room?
That only one fragment can be obtained per 10-room run. which means player needs to play at least 3x 10round trials to get a chance to enter The Trailmaster fight.
And on top of that - what if player is unlucky? what then, what if one drops only same 1 fragment in 5 runs? is this a good design that you torture player to do a core mechanic of the game?

• Corrupted items in rewards pool are useless mostly useless. Either make them decent by having 20% quality and full sockets or just change drop pool fully on currency items for high level tokens.

Ascendancies


• Rework seems to be good. There are many strong archetypes now, but some still need total rework actually. For example path finder, this ascendancy feels so empty. It needs better offensive points, all tree is defenses now. Decent defenses but it needs more offensive notables for real.

• The right to respec them is really good addition although fist lab must be enough, really.

Loot | Crafting | Items


• Overall crafting is real, strong and feels amazing right now. It's something that must not be nerfed at least until any other complementary crafting mechanic is introduced to compensate the loss of one with strength of another. Now it's in it's sweet spot.
• "Omen of normalization" would be a great addition to omen pool that converts magic and rare items to normal. Searching 200 bases per item slot was not fun.
although exceptional bases with additional sockets can stay as they are as a tradeoff. it's ok if they can't be turned back to normal.

• Essences are way better both to use and to farm, it's really enjoyable currency.

• Different tiers of regular currencies also felt great. Tiering of minimum modifier levels is decent.

• Runes - Some of them must be more common then they are now at least on early leveling stages. Their importance for comfortable leveling can not be stressed enough. I don't have much to say about socketables in general. They are decent.

• We need a way to swap resists. I can't wait to this solution. The fact that changing one item results into almost full gear set reset is not a good game design.
- Can we have an omen that will remove a fire resistance modifier and add cold resistance modifier of the same tier for example? It would help a lot.

• Regarding an issue that if an item has a stat on it and player can wear it after equipped it but not before, can we at least get common unique ammy in game with like +100 to all attributes but some disaster downsides at least to make gear changes easy but the item itself useless for anything else..

• Can we talk about an elephant in the room?
- "+# level of X skill gems" modifier is broken in a bad way.
Right now, this mod is so powerful that without it, nearly every weapon or amulet feels objectively terrible. If your character doesn’t have +8 to +10 levels for key skills by mid- to late-game, your build can feel completely invalidated — weak, clunky, and underpowered, especially in endgame content. This creates a situation where the modifier isn’t just strong — it’s mandatory.
That’s a problem because:
-- Builds become defined by access to this one modifier. It narrows build diversity and forces players into specific gearing paths.
-- “with” and “without” +(8-10) levels on character is way too wide difference. It’s not a small power boost it’s the difference between viable and unplayable right nowss.
-- Starting from A1 players need to work towards +2 weapon, +1 offhand, +1 amulet just to feel okay while leveling. This is not good.
It would be far healthier for the game if the raw power granted by gem level mods were instead baked into base skill scaling, weapon types, and support gems. That way, players wouldn't feel locked out of power just because they didn't get the right rolls or couldn't afford the perfect weapon/ammy/offhand.
While all above is true, "+ # to X skill gems" modifier can be aspirational upgrades for late endgame characters who want to get excess power for any reason that is not needed for baseline game i.e. hard juicing maps etc. This can be +2 on amulets, +2 on wands or shields, and it can be split into two mods like +1 all skills and +1 cold skills etc. etc.

Gem System


• Buying gems on trade is a big win. Thanks for adding that.

• I still don't like that skills are gated behind character level.

Movement/Mobility


• Mobility is definitely better not gonna lie here, but it's not that good to close the subject.

• We need real travel skills and mobility on other classes too guys. Ranger/Huntress having so much movement and skill speed on dex tree is good, it must not be nerfed in any way. It's how it should be but casters must get usable travel skills like flame dash and frost blink are in POE1, and strength archetypes too, they need to have same amount of attack speed without downsides on tree as dex characters have movement speed. They must be able to use shield charge and leap slam for decent mobility.
-even if you make them character specific it would be ten times better than them not having anything at all...

• The better movement and mobility is more engaging are maps and combat. It's chained together. The ability to control every second of your character makes game feel so much better.


UX/UI


• In Act maps ("U" menu) glowing objective markers needs more contrast. Especially A4 would benefit from this. I found myself focusing eyes on a map to understand which islands are still glowing to travel to them.

• Secondary/bonus objective icons on the map are not "logically" placed in terms of the actual location in the area they're in. Would be cool If the icon is on the left of the area on the map, you'd expect it to be on the west side when you explore.

• The energy shield bar design doesn't appeal to me. It's too small. When I receive damage, I can't see it at all. Some find comfort in using an overhead icon that can be turned in settings, some of us have great peripheral vision and when I saw ES drop/fluctuate in POE1 I could clearly react. I personally don't like overhead indicator. It distracts me and I prefer using peripheral vision that works well with life fore example.
Here is an alternative design I suggest:


• When we click to respec points on a skill tree, it would be cool to see what respecing will cause in terms of attributes right away before confirming the choice. It's not about cost, it's about convenience and QOL.

• Would be great to have a clear explanation/guide what reforging bench does. (what it can reforge). Why just don't explain it right away when it's introduced or in any other time you think is better. with the same way you explain what skills do. mini video would not harm at all.

• Expedition locker. Why do we still don't have it in 0.3 guys come on. It's such an obvious thing to have.

• Would be great to have a notification for possibility to upgrade a gem level if player has higher level uncut gem and forgot do upgrade.

• The function to open skill/support/spirit gems menu by only clicking the uncut gem. It would be great to have a dedicated button or NPC to be able to browse through gems and gem types without actually clicking on uncut ones. I also was in a position on league start where I did not have spirit gem but wanted to look up what were the requirements for one but I was not able to do so, so I had to pause upgrading gear until it dropped.

• Would be great to be able to see all applicable support gems when choosing a skill on the left side of the window instead of just the recommended ones. Could be 3-9 recommended gems on top and "rest" on bottom with some divider between them. "Show all gems" kind of makes you browse all supports but would be cool to browse all support gems that literally support any chosen skill.

• Can we have collapse/expand all button in "G" skill menu please? Or at least let the game memorize the last setup a player did. e.g. collapsed all and it stays like that forever until changed.


• I think atlas is too overwhelming, it's beautiful at fist but after many hours of playing and exploring it gets too cluttered. Redesign to something simple as cinematics art style or even world map art style would make it feel way more minimalistic and easy to navigate.
-Also if this atlas stays, we need to be able to zoom out at least 2x the amount we can now.

• If "Petition Splinters" know that they should go to Ritual affinity/dedicated tab, why do Simulacrum splinters are still going not into Delirium tab but fragments tab? Same issue with "Breach Splinters" - catalysts go to breach affinity but splinters end up into fragments tab? Why? Can we fix this please.

• I have no idea if tablets are going to say or leave, but if they are staying please give us tab for it. where tablets are sorted by base type. is that too hard?

• Map rolling Hell:
- Regarding anointing maps: Please let us slam the oils like orbs on maps.
- Getting maps ready it too tedious. Most maps drop magic that means player needs to aug, regal, 3x exalt, omen + chaos, desecrate travel, put each map in choose 1 in 3 mods and travel back to get map ready to play.
- There is no agency over modifiers also, no real way to use regex with this system, it would be amazing to have any new currency that can make maps normal, so we can "alchemy/scour" with regex maps comfortably and get a pile ready in couple minutes not couple hours.

• New trade system is amazing, I really loved it. I could not imagine it can be so comfortable, but we need confirmation window per purchase not to get tricked into buying 10ex base for 10 divines or more.

• Can POE1 players have their friends moved to POE2 please? I feel so lonely with empty friends list.

• Map boss skill point tree needs to highlight/dim what is done and what needs to be done. Now it's impossible to understand which objectives are already done.

• Can I be sitting on Rhoa always? why on entering or leaving zones I need to sit back on it.

• Sometimes on abyss maps ritual is not spawning.

• Sometimes when there is no boss in Crowbell arena door is locked from outside and players can't leave.

• Abyss Revealing animations in endgame can be discarded. it's just time waste.

• Non-tradable specters I can understand, but why on earth can't I bind specters my friend killed in an instance I was not present... it's silly.

Abyss


• Abyss is a BIG WIN. One of the cleanest league mechanic introduction in POE.
- In campaign it was a bit annoying when it spawned in corridors or any other tight space, especially annoying when leveling caster builds. I really struggled clearing giga fast rares on horses who were teleporting to me and trying to clear me from existence of the world. (and if they had mana siphon donut around OMG)
- In campaign and in early maps, when character is relatively still weak, avoiding league mechanic was almost impossible. I don't like that kind of design of league mechanic where if player does not like it, one is still forced to engage with it.
- One more annoying thing while doing abyss in late game was "traveling animations". Fist looking down and jumping, then standing up T_T
in campaign it's cool vibes as a first experience but in late game when you are committed to league mechanic and literally do it in every map, and 1 in 3 abysses lead to depths, this animation is getting more and more annoying and made me skip many depths just because of that. If I am to spend 300-400 hours in endgame mapping, it'd be not fun to do in future.

Endgame


General thoughts:

• Ground Loot Means Absolutely Nothing. Chance to find upgrade on ground is 1x1000000000. Starting from yellow maps in trade league most of players just look at raw currency and unique drops. If you still want it to matter I don't know make it broken buffed in SSF where people will really benefit from ground loot. In SC Trade, it's basically impossible to make it relevant.s

• Leveling unique items please? We need something to make our alt character leveling faster and comfortable please. maybe also some leveling jewels for skill tree.s

Subjective thoughts and concerns:

• I have an idea about endgame mapping. I call it Dynamic Biome Mapping System
- Concept is to bind a layout to a way stone and use the same base map layout (like "Ravine") but change the biome when socketing it into your atlas. The terrain structure stays identical, but flora, visuals, and environmental hazards adapt to the selected biome.
- So while layout stays same
Snowy biome is ice-covered terrain with chilled ground effects,
volcanic - lava flows with burning patches,
swamp - pools with poison clouds,
desert - sandstorms or burring grounds.
- This way layouts are consistent while experiencing varied environmental challenges and I think it's less development problem than creating entirely new maps for each biome.

• Early maps are still useless. It does not have purpose and is not rewarding. There is no early/easy farming methods yet that don't scale with maps.

• New method of specializing into league mechanic is really a great upgrade from previous version, but I think this Endgames will be changed and I will not write anything now about how bad towers and atlas skill tree are.
- I will paciently wait for 0.4 patch and then when you will rework endgame give the feedback.

• Visual clarity needs revisiting. I thing the phenomenal graphic with what POE2 is presented actually make monsters too hard to notice on their native terrains. Delirium needs to be tuned down a bit. When you play all deli it's too Black and White.
Top POE2 | Bottom POE1



• Map mods should not be bound to affix, I really would like it to always have all mods on map at least and then different map affixes could increase or not change the values.

• Why is not ultimatum in maps? it would be amazing place to get soul cores and corrupted tiered rare items.

• Can tablets become scarabs?

• All loot in game comes from rare monsters again and it's meh.. I don't like that.

P.S.


• There is still this restrictive aura in game. For example why is stuff like heralds martial weapon only? Why is mana tempest spell only? Why are Rhoas not available for casters? even thematically it's way easier to sawing a wand on Rhoa than shoot bow haha. Please make it caster viable also. And stuff in general like that. more we can interreact better it is for everyone.s

P.P.S.


Much love to GGG again! I bought and play POE2 because I love the company and want the game to be The Best on market.

I will always share my thoughts in times like these, and I am happy to see that many more players are here doing the same.

Amazing post, I agree with like 98% of what you said. Only hard disagree I can think of off the top of my head is movement skills. Sprint has set a perfect pace for the game with the flow they are going for, and now that is that and that book is closed imo.

Massive massive massive hard agree SSF being buffed. Playing without trading feels just absolutely godawful right now, I cannot even believe someone willingly playing SSF in this state. I would play SSF as my only mode if they made it playable, I hate trade, but because rolling your own gear, checking vendors, and ground loot are your only options leveling up, it is just torture and completely unplayable. Massively buff ground loot please, I shouldn't have to ignore what drops from enemies, that is literally the foundational point of the genre.

Huge agree on them adding spirit, resists being shredded post campaign, better defensive/life access on the tree, buffing defenses more, buffing skills mid league (PLEASE BUFF MIDLEAGUE GGG), Sekhima should have no bricking mods while leveling, first 3 ascensions free to try, them rebalancing the level to skill gems problem, etc.

Just generally amazing points overall. GGG please listen to this feedback if you do anything. It is so good.

"

TheModestManiac#1990 wrote:

Just generally amazing points overall. GGG please listen to this feedback if you do anything. It is so good.

Thanks for warm words friend <3