Thoughts from a "bad" player

[Buffinita]

Hello ELG;

I saw your initial kickstarter, skipped however out of principle for all things crowdfunded, and added it to my list of games to keep an eye on. Now the beta is here and I am quite happy to experience all of the progress your team has made.

It’s been a loooooong time since I’ve done a long write up on any game (new or expansion) but I couldn’t sleep last night so I compiled some loose thoughts to share .I’ve been playing PoE since it’s open beta so most of my opinions are based on my tenure there.

I would say I am an average gamer; I cant play every day; when I do get a chance to sit down I’m lucky if I get an hour uninterrupted; My PC isnt great (actually its terrible at the moment). Im not motivated by ladders or setting speed records just want to sit down and have fun working on my builds (good or bad).

So with all that being said here are my sleepless night; mostly unedited scribble notes

monolith for "bad players"

• short chains dont produce keys
• make in monolith zone chests have key drop chance; slow the objective rush to make high chains
• once online make persistent through game close/disconnect???

2h vs s&b

• all of my characters were better once changed to s&b play style (could just be me)
  • buff shard ratios on 2h
  • 2h option for casters?
  • dual wield
    • OP (2 white wands 400-500% damage)

crafting

• mod pool
  • mods feel nice with out useless insta-trash stats
  • relics - I’d like unrestricted mod pool; can be gap filler OR spec booster
• crafting
  • easy to understand
  • rewarding due to mod pool + control over mods

combat

• hit boxes are a little small; find myself swinging into air just out of range.
• doesnt feel like it follows moving enemies
  • HOLD right click on far target; if it moves i still go to original target
• aggro leash needs to be shorter; feel like im dragging enemies from two screens away if rushing. Illusory tree messes with my mind
• on low settings a lot of mobs near invisible in foggy areas (avoid shrouded plateau)

skills

• the skills feel good, I havent studied all of them enough to make true judgement only vaigue ideas
  • despecializing & releveling skills is not painful
    • could be additional gold sink; but limited or inconvenient
      • complete despec = free ; undo last 1 OR 5 points once then force complete despec

arena

It takes a long time to progress through the waves; AFK to not lose progress. make possible to bypass waves by spending more keys

optimization

I am on an enterprise business laptop running the game in lowest settings possible; performance is not great. There is a lot of lag between key press and game action. Audio gets screwy as well when too much is happening on screen. Laptop can play PoE on lowest settings without much issue.

Please know that I have enjoyed my beta experience so far and am planning on continuing to try out all of the different classes and play styles. I’d be happy to provide clarification since this all looks a little vague to me but I didnt want to edit my thoughts too much

[Ventri]

@Buffinita

hit boxes are a little small; find myself swinging into air just out of range

I have this problem myself, wasn’t sure if it was something happening to others or if it’s just the swipe skill. Are you using swipe? I had the thought that maybe it was because swipe says it doesn’t use weapon range so maybe the 2h I use has more range than swipe and that was messing with it.

@Buffinita

buff shard ratios on 2h

I believe 2h already get a multiplier. Chest armor definitely does (1.8x value if I remember correctly) and I’m pretty sure 2h receive a multiplier as well (1.4?). Couldn’t find this info when I went looking for it though.

@Buffinita

aggro leash needs to be shorter; feel like im dragging enemies from two screens away if rushing. Illusory tree messes with my mind

This I feel is the drawback you get for using that ring. You get great movespeed and a huge chunk of minion armor, with the drawback of the annoying tree. I like uniques to have drawbacks and unique effects so they don’t feel like rares. Still a ring I put on at early levels for characters but I’m also quite happy to get rid of it once I have some useful rings as by then the tree has annoyed me.

@Buffinita

monolith for “bad players”

Also something I worry about a bit, especially once it goes online. I really hope that they find a way to make it save your monolith progress between sessions.