I know, a new post, first since March of 2023, other than updates to my General Wishlist post, it’s been a while.
I have cross posted most of this in Lots of Different Feedback – Character Selection, On Death and Other Mechanics, and Many Others on the PoE 2 forums. Also note, for those who don’t know, GGG refers to Grinding Gear Games, the company in New Zealand, who makes Path of Exile.
So I’ve been enjoying the hell out of Path of Exile 2. Path of Exile was long one of my favorite games. I have been on the forums at least since 2012, though not sure when I first started playing as I’ve generally deleted most of my characters once they moved to standard from a league. I do remember I quickly bounced as it was too complicated for me at the time. Eventually with the help of some build guides, I did eventually get to the end game. I’ve never made it too far in the end game, back in the day I’d get to one or two of the main bosses in the corners of the atlas, then now, basically the same point, early red maps where I run out of the ability to progress further. Always with a build guide though, and at that point, it’s usually gear that I’m lacking in, and skill I’m sure. And while I play in trade leagues, I am fairly solo self found in trade.
With PoE 2, I am once again going mostly without a build guide. Trying to understand it myself. So we’ll see how it goes. As I write this, I have finished Act 3, and started Act 1 Cruel (EDIT, time played to about 30 minutes into Act 1 Cruel was 1 day, 15 hours, 10 minutes, 26 seconds, 121 deaths, and killed 24,562 monsters). So not in the endgame maps yet, and some of the thoughts on end game are based on what I’ve seen so far. The rest is more or less based on what I’ve experienced so far in the game. EDIT 9 January 2024, I’m in the End Game, Maps now. Total play time before that was 2 days, 16 hours, 29 minutes and 5 seconds, I died 236 times, and killed 43,107 monsters. So about 40 hours first 3 acts, 24 for the second 3…
I’ve been playing the game off and on, on my Twitch channel, and uploading the highlight (basically the whole stream) to my YouTube.
I got to say that I love WASD for movement. That is perhaps one of PoE 2’s greatest achievements. While I haven’t tried controller support, I hear, aside from a few menu related things, and chat, it is an amazing achievement itself too. So bravo on that. It is one of the game’s best features. I do wish it had a Grim Dawn like ability to spin the camera, which would have been the chef’s kiss in terms of movement and looking around.
I also enjoyed the campaign. It took me 1 Day, 15 hours, 10 minutes through the first 3 acts and to get to Act 1 Cruel. That’s with learning things, trying things on my own, and exploring nearly every nook and cranny. Probably would be closer to 20 to 30 on a normal run. If Act 4 to 6 take about the same length of time, I’m good. I don’t think we should listen to those who are complaining about the campaign length. It takes me a fairly good time to get through the campaign in regular PoE, certainly not as long, but a lot of that is experience with the game, and not exploring as much as I have with this character in the game.
This does get us to one of the problems though. Bringing alts to the end game. Yes, once you’ve played the first character through, the alts can go through much faster, you have a big pool of uncut gems, and you know the game, and I’d guess that once we are used to it all, the campaign won’t take anywhere near as long in future seasons. But still, it’s a pain to have to slog through a very long, though good, campaign. I’ll get to that in my suggestions for campaign skip later.
Anyhow, let’s talk about some suggestions and the like as we go along. Anytime I mention keys, I’m using the default key on a Windows PC, and one would translate that to whatever it is on they controller.
2FA
Two Factor Authentication, even if it is just using Google Authenticator and/or Authy. No reason to make one’s own, but in light of recent supposed hacks, two factor authentication is well past time to be implemented.
EDIT: They said the hacks that inspired me to request this, wouldn’t have fixed that particular hack. They did require it for their employees access to manage accounts, but their fear with requiring it for customers is if the customer loses their 2nd factor, then they have a harder time to re-access the account. They continue to look into the idea though.
Beta Notice
The PC version should remind people that this is Early Access, meaning actual Beta, and that many things are subject to change. This can be just a little disclaimer on the login screen, and then somewhere unobtrusive in the character select screen. I think some of the complaints seem to be thinking this is a finished state, probably because too many games go into Early Access or Beta, and not mean actual Beta and Early Access. Not GGGs fault, but they can certainly remind people of the fact.
Character selection.
Right now we start in the gallows, which is fine for the 6 characters currently in the game, but as we add more characters to pick from, it will be more complex. For this, I think it would be cool to start in a prison cell, sort of like we once did in PoE 1, while in a prison cell on the ship. Here it just wouldn’t be on the ship, and there’s room for all 12 characters. We select our character, and once we’ve confirmed the choice, named them, then we cut to the gallows scene. And this is where I would add another twist. Their spots are semi-random, because of the next bit. 3 weeks before a new class is to be introduced, the new class has a 50/50 chance of being seen on the gallows, 2 weeks before, they are guaranteed to be one of the characters in the gallows, and 1 week before, we can see them in the prison cell, just can’t select them. This is just to tease the characters as they become available. Once they are all introduced, then the selection on the gallows is fully random, save of course the one we selected not being repeated. The prison cell gives us room to select one of 12, and is a nice homage to the original PoE character selection screen. One also really needs to see the ascension options at character selection. I understand that GGG doesn’t really have the budget to make it go class selection, then fully customized character build, ala Diablo IV, as that would require a lot of models, and voice lines done for each class’s male and female models… and all that, but in an ideal world, that would be there.
Runes
EDIT: The 0.1.1 Patch, they made it so you can overwrite the rune you had in with a new one. You lose the old one. This is a good step. I still like the idea of having to use an upgraded bench, see below, for the same effect, but the simple solution was good.
So the inability to remove runes is one of the bigger errors the game has made. I can understand the idea, but I think there’s a better way to do it. Early Act 4, no later than early Act 5 (for current EA, probably as soon as we get to maps), we should gain the ability to upgrade the Salvage Bench to be able to remove the rune. The rune is destroyed, and it might cost 5 Artificer’s Shards (if you have none, but have a full Artificer’s Orb, then it’ll break that into shards, and it just does that behind the scenes in the chest if you don’t have any on you). There is a chance it might destroy the socket too, though this goes down as the gear improves, and perhaps as experience in doing it goes up (it would show this as you hover the hammer over the item, chance to destroy socket x-y%, and that range gets better over time). This gives the mechanic a cost to put a new rune in, but saves good enough gear to make it worthwhile to resocket it, that is gear that is good enough to keep using for the moment, but the rune is perhaps out of spec. Heck, even if it costs a full orb to remove, and then add back in, it’d be worth it. Just let us do it, add a gold cost too if needed. But I think given we’re doing it ourselves at an upgraded salvage bench, the gold cost doesn’t make much sense, just shards, or one orb.
Crafting
So crafting is okay, but not great. Last Epoch rules in the crafting game. And I think we can get to a better point. Once again, using the Salvage Bench, and an upgrade that we can get in Act 6 (for current EA, probably as soon as we get to maps). This time the bench now has a slot we have to put the gear in, then there’s slots on the sides that we can put currencies into. Then slots along the bottom for scrolls, that I’ll detail in a moment. If we spam a currency into an item free hand like we do now, it works as it does now, using this upgraded salvage bench, we can be a bit more deterministic, especially with the scrolls. The scrolls serve the same basic purpose that the Glyphs do in Last Epoch. They can’t be used free hand, they have to be used in the upgraded salvage bench. They help lock in certain suffix or prefix. Say we have a Scroll of Endings (none of the scroll names are fixed in this, just lose ideas), this randomly locks a suffix, if there’s a locked suffix, it first unlocks it, then locks a new one (the chances of the same one relocking should be greatly reduced). A Scroll of Beginnings then randomly locks a prefix. There can only be one locked afix. Back to the slots on the sides for crafting currency items, when selected, and the item is in the item slot, it might show the potential rolls, and then maybe one can be selected to remove that from the potential pool, and then roll it. They could go full LE, and have items that have a crafting potential, and each deterministic craft then costs an x to y amount of craft potential. This like in LE, would be a random amount between x and y. Perhaps there’s a total Salvage Potential, and each time you remove a rune, it costs one salvage potential, adding runes costs none, but deterministic crafting costs the random amount, though should be favored to the lower end of the x to y amount. The better the gear, the better the Salvage Potential, and the lower the spread between x and y.
EDIT: 1 February 2025. I’m still not familiar enough with PoE crafting to understand what people are asking for. I personally would prefer something closer to LE. Even if it required upgrading the bench a couple times, and wasn’t there until a character got to End Game in a league to unlock all the features.
Item Tiers
So when it comes to tiers, PoE 1, did it so that 1 is the best, higher number the worst. This was flipped in PoE 2. I’m good with that as I think it makes far more sense for newer players. Higher is better. However, I do think when holding the Alt key, one should see “Tier x (of y)”, so you can tell how much more room you got. Is 5 the highest? 3? 6? 6 is one more than 5 ain’t it, most blokes are only rocking at 5… no seriously though, it should tell you what the max possible tier is for that item in the details when you hold the Alt key. Also, Tier should be underlined with what that means. Like it shows right now something like +15(11-15)% Fire Resistance, same with the tier listings, and to be fair, I’m not sure how to show the tier, as the Alt key doesn’t seem to say Tier on any of the items, but it should. I could be just confusing myself with some things there though.
I do really like how it says Implicit, Prefix, and Suffix though when one uses the Alt key.
EDIT: 1 February 2025. I still think a “Tier x (of y)” is best, so that you can see what tier is best, I can also see many PoE 1 fans idea of sticking with T1 is best, and I don’t think GGG’s excuse that what happens if you add a new higher tier? Simple, what was T1, is now T2, and everything else shifts down. Still, I think just saying what is the top tier in the item would solve most of the issues. I can get both sides anyhow.
Minions and tight spaces, especially doorways
Minions, and enemy AI seem to have trouble with doorways and other tight spaces. A tight hallway, okay, but doorways shouldn’t be as much an issue. I’d think that on the engine side, a door should be marked as a door, with a radius of say 2 meters. Inside that radius, the Minion AI goes, highest DPS melee first, then if equal, healthiest, then if equal, just random, then same with ranged, though ranged should be beside or behind my character. Same on the enemy AI. Mele that can jump over the others, can and should do that, and in terms of enemy AI, I’ve seen that work still, so that seems to be fine. It’s the other AI that seems to be having problems. I shouldn’t have to run into an area, then hope they follow through. And the ‘ click option should be able to force them, even if they are having troubles.I can see needing to use the ‘ option in tight spaces, but doorways shouldn’t be as big a problem as it is. This is more a bug report than anything else, and I know it’s been reported repeatedly, but it is a fairly big issue and bears repeating.
Zombies
Speaking of minions as a minion player. Zombies seem useless as they are now. There’s not enough corpses to resurrect, especially in boss fights, which might not add mobs to use as a corpse. Like I hear there are things much later, but if I have access to the Zombie early on, I should have something to help make them soon after, even if it’s the next tier, but something earlier.
Chapter 3’s eras
EDIT: 1 February 2025. This seemed to have been fixed with the 0.1.1 patch or somewhere along the line, you can now properly select the zone, era.
There needs to be a way to get to both eras of Chapter 3. Either we go through the rift and can pick, or better yet, the map screen we get another set of tabs under Act 3, where we can pick the era… or like the right side has a spot where we can pick above or below ground, have that on the left side to pick era. I can picture this being an issue even after Act 4 is added, where the rift sends us t o Act 4, and can’t pick the era. Ideally the rift gives the option, AND we can pick it from the map, either another tab below Act 3’s tab, or an option on the left side to select era, or a button… something, even if it’s just clicking the above/below ground button more than once… or like there’s the option to go to the trial below the above/below ground button, maybe like that, bug above the above/below ground button that selects eras… That last one might be the best option, and most consistent with the UI.
Acts 4 and 5, especially the 3rd Ascendancy Trial
These need to drop near as soon as they can, especially 4 with the other ascension trial. Act 6 I get is probably something that will only come out near the end to keep the surprise, but now that the End Game is released in a semi-stable form, some of the teams should be released back to get those acts done. Which act is left as cruel I don’t know…
EDIT: 1 February 2025. During the 0.1.1 Q&A, they seemed confused on how they’d add them for sure, like which act then repeats, I’d say, add Act 4, then leave act 2 and 3 cruel, once you add Act 5, leave Act 3 cruel. Don’t waste time developing Act 4 and 5 cruel.
Campaign Skip
So GGG has repeatedly said there is, and will be, no campaign skip, though it’s one of the most requested features. I think there’s a fair way to do it. One character has to make it to the end game obviously. All side bosses and content must have been completed between the characters at end game (if that’s easy enough to check, otherwise less ideal is one character did them all, ideally between any at the end, this way all side content has been experienced). Then in the end game, around Tier 3 (maybe Tier 1) one of the earlier bosses you see is one we’ll call Skipper Chronos for the purpose of this, not a final name. He’s pretty well guaranteed to be one of the earlier bosses experienced, and probably one of the easiest bosses of the maps. First time you beat him, he drops 2 Skipping Stones (and other than gold, nothing else). These are stackable (up to 20) and tradable currency. You take a stone to the Hooded one, and pay 1,000 gold per act skipped, to bring a character from wherever, to the end game, and at level 58 or 60, with the gear they have on them. Now, said character has to be in the same location as the Hooded one to be able to be pulled forward, so that means playing Act 1 far enough to rescue him, and revive him. And further on, then just have to be in the same town as he’s in. In Act 6, and want to skip for whatever reason, 1,000 gold, Act 5, 2,000 gold, and so on, so pulling a character from Act 1 to the end game costs one Skipping Stone, and 6,000 gold. Meet Skipper Chronos again, he’ll drop one guaranteed, and a small chance to drop 2. Third time, 50/50 dropping one, slim chance of dropping 2, and it keeps going down. Now he’s got his own spots on the Boss atlas tree, which improves the odds of him appearing, and guarantees better Skipping Stone drops, like first node with him, boosts his chances to appear 10%, but also guarantees a minimum of 1 Skipping Stone, with a 50/50 (or 30% maybe) of 2 Skipping Stones. Second node on the tree for him, again boosts his chances to appear, like 20%, but now the odds of 2 Skipping Stones is much improved, and the first time of getting a 3rd stone. The negative of these is that there’s little loot dropping in maps with him, as he only drops the Skipping Stones, so improving the odds of him appearing comes at a cost you might miss the chance at better loot from real bosses. So those two nodes appear early on (maybe as a side to Spoils of War for one, and Fit for a King for the other), but you have to really think if you want to risk just getting Skipping Stones, which are likely valuable early on, but as a season goes on, they become less and less valuable. Having a Skipping Stone alone isn’t enough to skip the campaign, like I said, you have to have completed all the side quests and bosses between characters in the end game, before you can use the Skipping Stone to bring others forward. So the first character is likely the sacrificial lamb to get everything done, and so you can then start skipping the others to the end game.
Changing Ascension
So you can’t change from one ascension to the other. I get that they want to make sure that choosing one comes with consequences. However, I think, like campaign skip, there’s a way to make it fair, and make the choice harder. It should be expensive to respec the ascension tree, and that final node might cost even extra. However, once you select that final point, it pops up with a warning “WARNING: You will lose <x> ascension points and <y> gold if you continue. Do you wish to continue?” At this point, you don’t have any ascension points at all, and you have to restart whatever trial you want all over again. This gives a rather high cost to the change. You don’t get to move those ascension points over to the new ascension, you have to restart from scratch. This keeps it closer to GGG’s desire to make it a more solid choice, while giving players the freedom to change if they find later that style didn’t actually suit them.
EDIT: 1 February 2025. I still think this is the best solution, allow to unspec from the ascension, but you lose all the points, so you have to start all over, you don’t keep those points like you do in PoE 1. Though to be fair, even LE locks you in, but I think we can do better. Unspec, but start over.
On Death Mechanics
Another one of those super controversial things in PoE 1 and 2. Makes less sense with the one one death. And with all the other on screen effects, it can be hard to see when an on death effect is about to trigger. Like my flame wall, and all that should be near invisible when an on death effect comes up so it is that much harder to miss. I want to know the flame wall is still there, but maybe match the opacity of the map overlay so that you see those effects go down, the minions fade down, and then I know, oh, there’s an on death effect about to trigger, and hopefully can see it. That is assuming the mechanic is kept in the first place.
EDIT: 1 February 2025. This is still irritating. I don’t get it. Okay, maybe an On Death Effect from a boss, but no white or blue mob should ever have it, and rares should almost never have them, and if they do, it must be clearly telegraphed. Sort of the effect the last rare on an end game map has now, big, and noticeable.
Maps and the One Death Only Mechanic
EDIT: 9 January 2025. I got to end game maps. Still think the One Death is too much.
EDIT: 1 February 2025, I’ll have far more to say on the One Death Mechanic in my later section.
So I’m far from maps yet, but I understand the frustration over the limit of 1 death per map. I think there’s a potential solution here. Zana. Zana can return, as an NPC in the end game, we might see her in the first town after we find a first waystone in the campaign, where we’ll have the option to talk to her, and she’ll say something like, “ah, a waystone, see me later, I might have a use for you and the waystone then”. Once in the end game, then we can see her to reopen the portals to the waystone we died in at a gold cost. 1,000 gold per portal that has been used, growing each time, and there’s a total limit of 6 still. So if we use 3 to bring loot back, and then die, then that’s 3 portals used, 3 left. She can’t magically make more. Die first portal, portal 2 costs 1,000 gold, portal 3 costs 2,000 gold. In the case of dying after 3 portals bringing back loot, you are in portal 4, so that’s 3,000 gold right at the start. She can also solve the problem of the bricked nodes, but only if it’s a regular node, nothing special like a tower, or town, or whatever, for 10K, she can reopen the portals to it, again, each portal is going to cost extra after the 1st one. If it was a tower it might cost even more, like 25k for each successive attempt at a tower (so a second attempt using her is then 50k). Citadels might be lost if you can’t do it in 6, and you have to chase them down again. If it was a regular node, but had a boss, that boss flees if you lose all 6 portals, even going back to restart the node by spending the 10k to explore it, bringing it back down to whatever it would have rolled… there could be a small like 5% chance a boss ends up there again after it was failed, then explored, but odds are it’ll be a fairly normal map after it was explored, if they really wanted to make it harsh, then explored ones can’t drop uniques, unless a boss ends up there again. The one death just seems too harsh, and I think this method gives them a way to allow it to go forward without compromising too much. But, I think it is still best to just return to the old 6 portals per map, and not have to do this work around. It just doesn’t make much sense, especially if you want to appeal to newer players. Maybe Tier 16 on maps, can do this workaround, like you’ve gone through Tier 1 to 15, now escalate or empower them, and now you have 16 on, at this point, you have one death to a map, unless you use the Zana workaround, and at some point, say Tier 20, if they’ll ever exist, you can’t even do that, you get to the way it is in the game now. But Tiers 1 to 15 should allow for portals, without the Zana workaround proposed here.
Also, if maps don’t have checkpoints, they should, especially if we start allowing more than one portal to it. EDIT: They added them with the 0.1.1 patch.
I also hear lots of complaints about having to backtrack for monsters to complete them, though not sure what to do about that, as we don’t want lots linear maps.
Waystone Tab
EDIT: They said in the 0.1.1 Q&A that it is coming as soon as they can. Not sure what’s so complicated about it, like do it the same as the maps, T1, T2, and another space for the Precurser Tablets….
Undoubtedly coming, but it’s needed from what I can tell. Not sure how this can be done once a waystone has been modified from its base form. Like stack 50 at a time of unmodified ones per tier, but after that, not sure how they’ll do it. Probably why it’s taking a while for them to work that detail out.
Auction House and Insured Trade
So GGG got part way there with the Currency Exchange. And I think an Auction House is the correct next step, despite their desire to keep it more of a one on one interaction. Leave the option for in person trading in place, because that’s the cheaper option for the players. They know the value of currency via the Currency Exchange, and that currency has a gold value to it there. That gold value is paid by both the Buyer and the Seller on the Auction House as a tax. The Auction House only opens up when one reaches maps, and even if they add it to their Hideout, it is there in seasons only after they reach maps. It’s got the equivalent of two tabs for free, up to 4, with additional tabs being available as MTX, an MTX that is understood will be available each season only after a character reaches maps, and both regular auction house tabs, and quad auction house tabs should be available. Both players must have space in their tabs. The seller obviously has to have it in the auction house, and the buyer has to have room to receive it, even if it is fairly instant. Tabs can be set to per item, or a tab can be set per tab. The gold cost makes it more expensive to use, and you can’t use it until maps, so there’s two costs each player has to make before they can buy/sell on it. Regular trading can go on as it is, and without the gold cost, and need for both to be in maps, making it the cheaper option, and better option likely for early gear. The limit of 2 or 4 tabs, means not too many items are listed at a time, unless they pay for premium auction house tabs. Maybe, once an item is sold via the auction house, it gets tagged with a $ crossed out, meaning it can’t be sold via the auction house again, this minimizes reselling for profit, though one can buy there, then sell on the regular trade market at a higher cost, but the existence of the auction house itself adds competition to the market. GGG also knows what the trade site is selling items for, so it can set a default value for the item for players that might not know what to price it at, then they can adjust up and down from there. If they want, they could lock in a minimum price, well above the trade value to an NPC, just to keep players from using the auction house as a dump and causing prices to fall too much, though they have to be careful not to have too much price control. If they really wanted to discourage auction house use, they could add a short shipping timer to move the item. It leaves the seller’s inventory as soon as it is sold, but can take up to an hour or two to arrive, probably just 15 or 20 minutes for low tier items, but higher tier items might have that hour or two wait. This would be displayed to both the buyer and seller with the gold costs. They can further discourage use, by once an item is put in the sale tab, it can’t be removed by the seller, so it sells, or it can be destroyed. One can always change the price down, but maybe not up. So lots of downsides of selling, and the tax and wait might be the downside of buying, but it gives a way out for people who might not feel comfortable doing it in person.
On the person to person trade, the window should the buyer list the item, and the cost, it then ask them to confirm the cost, when they confirm, they are locked in until the buyer accepts, declines or asks for a negotiation (which technically should be done before anyhow), it offers it to the potential buyer, then the buyer has to agree, or decline, or negotiate, which opens the chat, where they can chat a new price, the seller then can put in the new price (they again can’t change price until the buyer does one or the other, that is the price is locked once they confirm the price), confirm again, then the new offer is showed. The buyer can’t suddenly swap what they have in the offer window, as the only way they can swap what’s in the trade window is to decline or negotiate. This change to trade alone might help with some of the issues people have with in person trade. This could be perhaps called, insured trade, where it goes like this. Seller has items for sell period, buyer asks for item via insured trade, the seller then does it via the listing trade window, or if the buyer doesn’t care, they can do the regular trade method, but that gets to complicated having 3 ways to trade, an auction house, an insured trade, and regular trade. So either no insured trade, or that and the auction house become the two methods… I mean I guess there’s nothing to stop regular tade… but I can’t imagine if the other options are there, too many people would use regular trade outside of two friends helping one another out.
So the order is, seller and buyer meet up, seller brings up the insured trade window (probably a right click the item, insured trade), they put the item in, game can automatically bring the price it was offered for, or if they seller and buyer negotiated another price already, they can change the price now. They click confirm on their end. The window now shows to the buyer, and both players see the item from the seller, and the price next to it. Below that is the currency from the buyer, in the same window, but a clear line between the two. The buyer now has the 3 options shown. If accepted, trade accepted is shown to the buyer, and the exchange is made, currency leaves the buyer, and the item goes into their inventory. If declined, the window closes, and they can talk more or boot the visitor. If negotiate is picked, the window stays up, the item says in, but the offered price grays out while it might be changed. When the seller accepts the new price, the price is locked again on their side, and on the buyer side, the new currency shows up on their end, assuming they have it on them (or in their stash if they are in the buyer’s hideout), where it all starts again.
Monsterpedia
Johnathan already said he wants this to come along. Or something like it anyhow. As I see it, after you experience a monster, it appears in the Monsterpedia. You can see the model, see its idle animation, see its attack animation, all via buttons, turn the model around to see it from all sides. Along with the model, is information about it. Name, type, zones, keywords (linked of course), vulnerability and immunity (linked), all by mob level etc. So some might still have ???? after the level number because maybe you haven’t hit that mob at that mob level yet. Not sure the best way to arrange this, by name, or by act, then maps… the search function should be able to find it by name or act. This is basically modeled after the Monster Hunter series monsterpedias. To get back to vulnerability and immunity, maybe it says something like the tier, then the name of the vulnerability or immunity, then like S+, S, A+, A, A-, etc rather than a straight percentage or range that is likely hidden.
Filter
Probably least important, because we currently have Never Sink, but what happens when he decides to step away? Again, Last Epoch is the shining light on this, where almost everything can be set via the in-game menu. One can do it all via, type, tier, rarity, and even character level, so maybe after level 30, I no longer care about tier 1, and only want tier 3 and above on one item type… so it’s not like it would need to be massively overhauled every season. The people who make the actual filter, which 90% of the playerbase will still use, will have to watch for more specific things to highlight, and add sounds (outside of default sounds), and icons to the dropped items (which should still continue to be supported on the back side, but the built-in filter maker might not feature). It would allow people to easily dial in a filter they downloaded, to suit them better, as I doubt too many people will want to do it all from scratch. This should also be per character, not per account.So I don’t have to remember to change it each character. Though that might make it more complicated from the server point, in which case, maybe one has the option to download a filter to a character, with the online filter staying per account, and easier to swap what system one is playing on at the time.
EDIT: 1 February 2025. I still think having something like LE has built in, would help a ton. Yes, 90% of the player base will use a premade one they import in, or follow, but having a tool to make it in game, shouldn’t be too hard, and it’s not like they need to keep it up to date for the economy, just if a new base is added, be sure it’s in the tool.
Drops
Speaking of filters, drops could be modified some. If I’m in Tier 15 maps, I shouldn’t get a bunch of Tier 1 maps dropping, maybe down to level 13, then down to 10 the next level, but below that, it should be very rare. Yes, above, especially if I have that marked in my atlas, but a Tier 1 should be a very rare drop after level 5 or 7 or so, and growing increasingly rare. Have every 3 tiers perhaps lumped together as a drop set, and as one moves from one drop set to the next, the ones further down the line drop less and less, in favor of ones in the same drop set. Same with flasks, and many other items. I don’t mind white items, but their tier and quality should be closer to the level I’m at, so I can still look and say, hey, that might be craftable. I’ll probably still ignore white, unless it has some specific affix that I’m after that my filter is helping me highlight. Even if this means it drops less items, which should be a possibility. Like it rolls, an item comes up matching too low a drop set, it rerolls to see if it drops it (slim chance, say 10%), doesn’t drop anything (semi decent chance, say 50%), or tries to reroll it again period (even if ends up below threshold, probably the 2nd best chance, say 40%), at this point it at least tried. Percentages there are just examples, and not what I’d probably set them at, as I’d probably add a bit more nuance.
Updates After Getting to Endgame 9 January 2025
So I’m in the endgame now, and yeah, I’ve got things to say.
EDIT: 1 February 2025, be sure to read “Further Updates After Endgame As of 1 February 2025” section below for even more on this.
Maps and the One Death Mechanic – It NEEDS Fixed
Yeah, having experienced it myself, this has to go. There’s near zero excuse for this to be in the game the way it is. And when I go back through the portal, monsters better not respawn the way they do now in the campaign, and I’ll get to that in a bit, but this mechanic is in no way new player friendly. Yes, the boss, if there is one, should go back to full health, or flees the map, and if you’ve got all the rares, then the map completes. If a rare was being fought, it can go back to full health, but no respawns otherwise. And add waypoints. That all said, in a Ruthless mode, the one death per map works, and should stay. I’ve got little issue with the rest of the Ruthless mechanics in the game as they are now, but the one death per map on Standard or League, no. Ruthless, yes.It really ruins the fun.
EDIT: 1 February 2025. I address this far more in the “Further Updates After Endgame As of 1 February 2025” section below.
On Death – Yeah, Let’s Dim Other Screen Elements
So I said before that the On Death mechanic is irritating, and it continues to be a bad design. I get they want to keep it, but if so, once there is one, dim other on screen effects, so that the on death effects are more noticeable. I mentioned this before, and it remains one of the biggest pet peeves after the one death per map. The dimming of other on screen elements lets us know there’s something to be watching for, and able to see it.
Armor
So it seems armor has little to no use as it is now. Armor should mitigate damage far more than it does.
I think a good way to handle this would to be add a weight mechanic, more armor means more weight. Weight has the following effects, it slows cast speed, it slows movement speed, at higher levels, it decreases inventory capacity (ignored by Colossal Capacity), a max of 10 inventory slots. There can be points on the passive tree, near the ends, to ignore some of those effects, a caster might for example have a point that says “ignore x% of armor on cast speed”, which when combined with cast speed improvements is multiplicative or additive. Like most games, a caster can barely use armor, and I wouldn’t want to limit its use, but having a weight mechanic that slows things down, sort of gives a real world effect on it.
Armor could also have a damage mechanic, though not as rough as it is in Diablo 4. It would then use Armor Scraps to fix, this can be done at the bench, perhaps not free hand, and obviously the more the damage, the more armor scraps to fix. Damaged armor does less and less damage mitigation as it gets more and more damaged. Armor would never become so damaged it can’t be repaired, but at max damage, it’s not doing much if anything at all, aside from whatever evade, or energy shield it might give.
I think these two mechanics added, would aid armor a great deal. Both effects could be higher in Ruthless mode.
Melee
Melee seems to have a couple key issues.
So most, if not all of melee skills can’t be done while moving, unlike most casting skills. This makes near zero sense. If one is swinging a golf club, a baseball bat, throwing a ball, etc, one just doesn’t move their arms, they put the body into it. If I was to attack somebody with a sword, I’d expect to be moving my body with the attack. If this is just an animation problem that should be fixable. If it’s not even that, then there’s no reason at all not to add it, yeah, maybe from the moment I click the button to attack, movement is slowed down, but not stopped, and the slowdown shouldn’t be by much at all.
Another problem is that during a melee attack, one is open to being attacked, and this is another problem. From the time I click attack, during the wind-up, to attack, there should be a short increase in armor, after the above armor fix, which helps mitigate the damage during the animation sequence. Say 2.5 or 3 times the armor, which goes down to just the armor value right as it hits. So we’re talking a fraction of a second, and it goes down as the animation is going on. Not sure how complicated that would be to add, the adding the increase at the start, I would think would be easy, but making it rapidly decrease in that short time might be tricky. In Ruthless mode, this perhaps isn’t as high, say 1.5 to 2 times at the start.
Ruthless Mode
As noted above, some items should be moved to a Ruthless mode, like the one death per map, the wight and armor damage mechanics, if added, being more pronounced. Maybe the not being able to change ascension could also stay in Ruthless, while the ability to change ascension per the method above (needing to redo the whole ascension and loosing ascension respec points) can be kept here. Perhaps the inability to use the campaign skip scrolls noted above…
Death Log
Something like Last Epoch’s death log. Again, if part of the goal is to be new player friendly, a death log would go a long way.
Additional End Game Ideas
EDIT: 1 February 2025, I’ve decided against most of these. Like I don’t think they’d go over well. Odds are the best solution is return to a more PoE 1 style, fight your way to the boss, kill it, done (but only if we get rid of the one death mechanic), or keep it like it is, hunt the rares, but fix the layouts.
So thinking about end game mapping, right now, it’s mostly kill rares, kill boss if one, do end game mechanics like delirium, breachs, etc. But perhaps other modes could be done, which wouldn’t be combined with most of the others that are in. In none of these, does the map repopulate, enemies killed stay dead, unless otherwise noted, as that was one of the changes I noted above. These all add a new twist to PoE’s usual end game mechanics. Not sure how these would be integrated, would they be able to be influenced by towers, would they by selectable by the player, giving them more agency, random (less good)?
Extract – This mode is an extraction mode. There’s an preset exit point, and you can’t exit before that. If you die, you drop everything in your inventory, and assuming you have portals left, you can go pick them up, and keep going to the extraction point. Where you can escape. You can’t however ever portal out and deposit loot. No boss, but more rares than usual. High potential to get really good gear, but danger is higher.
Hunt – In this mode, you are tasked with finding a specific rare monster. Each 1/3rd damage point, they teleport away and you have to find them again. If they teleport to an explored area, it’ll show on the minimap a general area, with a circle overlay, that narrows down as you get closer. By default it tries to teleport to an unexplored area. Once you kill them, map is complete, you don’t have to get any other rares, save to get the extra XP and items. Hunted rare though gives best rewards. No punishment however for getting all the other rares.
Lost – Item was lost in a chest, explore the area, find the chest with the item, get it, then it is complete. Could be a very quick, might be a longer search. Item then has a gold value. Could be combined with Extract to make it more challenging, by having to extract it.
Escort – Escort an NPC that can defend themselves, and has a decent to generous health pool, and can move as fast as the player, including any blink, etc, and they don’t draw all the aggro, from entrance to exit. Whole map is exposed, and player can pick the path they feel is best. On player death, the NPC starts making their way back to the start, along the cleared path, so they don’t risk death. Health refill spots for the NPC are marked on the map at start, so if needed, player can guide NPC there, but they are protected by a rare, as is the NPC exit. Can be combined with Lost (but not Extract), though if so, then the area the lost item is at is marked with a circle that shrinks as you get closer to it, so one can pick the path again. That all said, people generally hate escort missions in MMOs, though that is somewhat offset here by this NPC being able to defend themselves, and being able to move as fast as the player wants to move.
Further Updates After Endgame As of 1 February 2025
So I love the campaign. I think it does a far better job of teaching the game, and the pacing is good, and over all, a masterful improvement over the original game.
I love the waystones and putting them into the atlas. I enjoy the towers having an effect on zone around them, and the layouts are much better after the 0.1.1 update, where before not being able to see into the room was bad… not sure why on the original design ones they couldn’t just make the roof invisible, and not have to make it all the top floor. Still the new tower types, and all, good improvements. But back to the waystones and atlas, this I really love. I think it’s great. I want them to keep that whole process. I love the fog of war on the atlas. Yeah, maybe bring in the Citadels or whatever closer, and all that, but overall, I think it’s much better than the old map system.
I still think that the everything is too punishing for dying in a map in endgame. You lose the waystone, you lose a lot of XP, and all the modifiers that were on the atlas before you died. All this is just a lot. Especially for new players.
I would NOT want to return to a boss on every map if they keep the one death per map. I’ll address a possible solution to the one death in a bit. Also, got to add, that the one death discourages the player from engaging the mechanics until they finish the map first, then back track, which on the current layouts is a pain.
XP Loss
First thing I’ll address here, but by far not the most important, is the XP loss, and bring it down. I’d say lose the XP lost while playing that map is good, and I’d normally stop there. That’s a good amount to lose. It makes dying still matter.
If they really insist on make it more than just the XP gained while on that map, I’ve got this table to refer to. I’d say that even this is a bit more punishing than needed 100% of the time, I’d roll some sort of chance that it is just the XP gained on the map, then go to the table below.
Red maps here refer to Rare that have more than 3 (or 4?) mods. Not tier levels as in PoE 1.
White, blue, yellow, and red represent the level that the waystone put into the atlas was. The percentage next to the color, is the base percentage that color has to go higher, based on the tier. The row above the T1, T2, etc is the the chance that tier has to add to the base. The T1 is the minimum that any one map level loses.
So example, a Blue T3 is 40 + 4.04 = 44.04% to lose 1.47x XP gained in the map, with the remaining 55.96% chance to losing just the base 1.33x XP gained in the map. A Red T12 is 80 + 16.01 = 96.01% chance to lose 2.77 XP gained in the map, with the remaining 3.99% chance to lose only 2 XP gained during the map.
As I said, I’d give it a chance to be just the XP gained on the map, perhaps the 20%, 40% etc, down the line, though maybe, reverse the order, that is the white has the 80% to lose more than XP gained, while the Red only has a 20% chance to lose more than the XP gained, this helps encourage juicing the map. The penalty if that goes wrong is still worse the better it is juiced, but the chances of that penalty being applied go down.
Again, in a Ruthless mode, perhaps the XP loss can be the same as they are now.
Loss of Modifiers
I’d say anything on an atlas point that came from a tower, stays. Anything on the Waystone itself, obviously stays. If a tower is influencing a point on the atlas, then it is still influencing the point. Something that was there randomly otherwise, maybe could go. If a boss was there, and wasn’t because of the tower had a tablet adding the boss, then it probably flees.
Special Mechanics and Layout
As I mentioned before, the current one death per map discourages the player from engaging the special mechanic, like Ritual, Delirium, or whatever, until you clear the map. At least until you clear the missions, and get to T15. I’m not about to take a chance of dying to something in say Ritual, when I still need 5 more T5 maps to clear. I’ll be sure I clear that map, then attempt the Ritual.
Speaking of Ritual, when I pass it, it’s on the minimap, until I get too far away, then it goes away. Why? I saw it. Leave it on the minimap. If I didn’t discover it, then no, don’t put it on the minimap, but trying to find it again after I cleared the map is a pain. And since we have checkpoints, there probably should be a checkpoint near any special mechanics, be it Ritual, Breach, or whatever. So that when the map is cleared, it’s easy to get to any of the points I discovered.
Layouts also need improved if we’re just going to be hunting Rares. And once more than 3 Rares have been killed (or 50 regular monsters), mark the rest on the minimap they way they seem to at some random point. That way I have a basic idea of where to go. Like, it’s somewhat okay if you follow the Rule of Right, or Rule of Left, where you basically follow the right or left wall, but the maps are big, and complex, which means it takes a while. At the very least, we should see “X of Y Rares Left” right at the start. We can see “more than 50 monsters left” right at the start, if we’re mostly hunting rares, then give us the count right away.
The One Death Per Map Mechanic – Again
This still is one of the worst aspects of the game. It’s made worse by the fact it is just so sudden. While ideally we’d return to being able to use all 6 portals to complete a map, use one to extract loot, you are one down if you die, so use them wisely. Like in Ruthless, as mentioned well above, yes, perhaps keep the one death per map, but for regular Softcore, 6 portals or the below.
That said, here’s a table for an idea of what it could work like, that would make it far less of a sudden stop. (Again: Red maps here refer to Rare that have more than 3 (or 4?) mods. Not tier levels as in PoE 1.)
Notice that the White maps starts punishing the player for not juicing the map after a certain point, and are better off juicing it up. Blue even has less portals then Yellow after a certain point.
Now, that table would be ignored if the map has a boss. Any map with a boss should probably be 6, or use the above, and add 2 portals (up to 6 portals total) if it does have a boss. So say you are on a Yellow T10, which has 4 by default, but would have 6 if it had a boss, a Red would have 4.
The table makes it all less of a sudden stop, and gives a more natural progression after the campaign. I’d still prefer 6 portals total, but I’d take this as a way to ease into the end game.
Boss Every Map
IF, and only if, we get rid of the one death per map, and either adopt the portal table proposal above (adding the 2 extra portals up to 6 total), or returning to 6 portals period, then I can see the appeal of returning to the idea of find the boss, kill him, the map is clear.
BUT, to help keep GGG’s idea going here, perhaps there’s a bonus for clearing all the Rares as well. There can be 3 levels of map clear. “Boss Defeated” gets the boss XP, and any XP gained up to that point. “Killing all the Rares”, gets not only the XP gained, but some bonus XP points, the more rares there were, the more the XP bonus. “Full Clear” is killing all the monsters, which probably almost is never worth it, but it still has a few bonus XP points.
Doryani’s Inventory
Doryani’s waystone inventory is nowhere near as good as Commander Kirac’s was. They need better waystones in the Buy or Sell Items, and a way to refresh the selection like we can refresh Kirac’s. If we don’t have a boss on every map, then Doryani’s inventory could refresh after completing a boss map, after the 10 maps of each tier is done, and any other atlas missions he or whomever may add. Waystones should also be near the level that the current mission requires, if it is T5+, he should have several T5 maps, a couple T6 maybe, and some T1s, with a random selection of others, but he should be guaranteed to have a few of the tier you are actively working on. Especially as there’s not much in the passive atlas to do much map sustain as there was on the PoE 1 passive atlas.
Movement Skills
The lack of good movement skills is noticeable. Hopefully they come back with the 0.2.0 release. The movement skills in PoE 1 were needed, especially with slower characters like the Witch.
Solo Self Found
It is really past time that when playing in SSF, all items dropped get tagged as having came from SSF, this can be shown by having a Chaos Orb with the red no circle/slash over it. Then once done, they can up the drop rates when playing SSF. Also, they can have two levels of SSF, the one as there is, or True SSF, where your other SSF character’s inventory isn’t available to other SSF characters.
Pause
Thank you! Thank you for adding a pause function, even though the game is online. You are alone in an instance, a pause is such a welcome thing. That and the WASD are the biggies.
Souls Like XP
One of the advantages of having more than one portal, as outlined above, and the XP loss as noted above, one can then add a Souls Like XP drop, where you can pick it up. The Rares that died would have to stay dead, though some of the white level monsters could respawn, so long as you have the checkpoints to zip around, see where on the minimap your XP is at, then go get it. Die before you get to it, then that XP is lost, though any XP you picked up on the way to it is now the new XP drop.