Feedback from Doctor Dad

Hello everyone, hopefully including the developers,

I appreciate the way that GGG is running this early access and responding to community feedback very quickly (delirium fog for example). I'm a 44 year old man with kids in 9th and 5th grades who works full time (I'm a radiologist) and I feel like I am the target audience for this game. After cutting my teeth on D2 as a kid, I have been hooked on this genre and POE2 is, by far, best in class. Here I will give my feedback and participate in the early access process from the perspective of a casual gamer who wishes he had more time to be less casual.

For the perspective of anyone who bothers to read this, I started with the Abyss league, took a LA Deadeye to 91 and an Abyssal Lich to 95. I took down Kulemak and T2 Xesht. I think I could take T3 but ran out of time. Ran several hundred maps and never found a citadel. Now Druid level 18.


I would like to start with positive feedback because that's just the best way to do things.

1. The decision to develop both games is a massive win for us. POE2 is clearly benefitting from the experience GGG has from all of the POE1 leagues - just look at how they improved abyss. I hear POE1 is benefitting from all of the content developed for POE2 as well. I barely have time to keep up with POE2 but more serious gamers have 2 games to enjoy. The content may come out at a little slower pace, but I would rather get great content at a slower pace than rapid fire slop. Besides, as a busy guy, I can barely finish the leagues so more content would actually be a negative for me because I would miss more.

2. Communication. I feel like GGG does a fantastic job keeping in touch with us. This is new for me and a welcome change from my experience with other companies. Please make sure that everything with a Twitch drop is clearly shown on the login screen so I don't miss anything, both POE1 and POE2 content. I think you have been doing this, just keep it up.

3. League complexity. The previous and current leagues are both 10/10 for me. Here is a list of what I love about the league mechanics:

- Each engagement with the league is bite-sized. This is important for someone who has small blocks of time to play.
- Meaningful upgrades during campaign feel great.
- Cool crafting mechanics.
- Good endgame experience and a break from constant mapping.
- Cool unique items. I really liked His Scattering Calamity on my Abyssal Lich as a weapon swap.


Now for the things I would like to see changed:

1. Getting to 100. This is HARD to do right now and I'm a completionist. I would like to be able to do this on all of my characters. I am fully aware that the amount of power you get from 5 passive points is very little in the endgame, but I still want to be able to do this.

I recommend removing the XP penalty for being over-leveled in STANDARD LEAGUE ONLY so you can keep the challenge there during the leagues and people like me can still get to 100 in the few days between leagues. It would also be nice if you could start at level 0 so you can have 124 passive tree points (100 from levels and 24 from quests that you can allocate by weapon slot).


2. Item rarity on gear. This has been around forever and I hate it. Giving up character power to gain magic find feels bad. Please REMOVE this from gear, perhaps with the exception of a few unique items. KEEP it on waystones and tablets. I would like to see rarity added to a challenge list so you get more rarity for beating more content. GGG just added the ability to regal/exalt tablets but only after defeating Arbiter. Rarity should be a reward for taking down content as well. You could also put it on that Atlas Tree but this might suck because it would feel mandatory.


3. Citadels. I cleared hundreds of maps and found 0 citadels. I know the spawn rate has been increased and I think this can be fixed by simply letting me see the beacons from a larger distance. I probably just went between them.


4. Markets. There are not enough exalt or divine sinks in the game. We need many more opportunities to burn these orbs so that they keep their value throughout the league. Getting priced out of divine orbs is painful. Having a diminishing value system can fix this, as follows:

- High value added (crafting)
- Medium value added (such as adding modifiers to 1 waystone)
- Low value added (more needed in game)

As you get more exalted orbs, you will move down the list in terms of what you are willing to burn them on, so as the market inflates more sinks will be used by more players. Just give us more ways to burn them and they will get burned.

My suggestion for a divine orb sink may be a bit controversial, but here goes...

- KEEP the Omen of the Blessed to reroll implicit mods only. Make this common.
- ADD an Omen of the Sacred to reroll explicit mods only. Make this common.
- CHANGE the Omen of Sanctification so that it only does the multiplying by 80-120% and does NOT reroll the modifiers before doing this. This will encourage people to sink divines into items to get the best mods prior to sanctification.
- ADD an Omen of Perfection that randomly increases the Tier of 1 modifier by 1 level and then rerolls it in the new tier. This should be rare.


5. Mounts. Either everyone should be able to get a mount or no one should be able to get them. In my opinion GGG should add non-combat mounts with the following rules:

- No spirit reservation
- You can only mount them if there are no monsters within 15m. This should take less than 1 second.
- Movement speed +100% or more
- Mounts CAN be slowed by water and chilled ground, but magnitude is 50% less.
- Auto-dismount if a monster comes within 12m. This should also take less than 1 second.
- Sell me cool looking mounts.


6. League content. I think it would be very cool of each league had 1 or 2 build themes that it really helps to shine in a thematic kind of way. For example, the Abyss League had some cool modifiers that could help minion builds (+spirit and reservation efficiency). I encourage GGG to lean into this concept even more.

GGG should be consistent and make every league as complex as the Fate of the Vaal. A high bar has been set and the game will feel bad if that bar is not met every time.

Please make it easier to understand what is happening at each stage in the Kulemak fight. It would be cool to see which specific modifiers are options from each Lich's desecration.

Preserved vertebrae, my sad collection. Please repurpose these.


7. Standard league. You can make standard league more fun by adding extremely high level content ONLY IN STANDARD that is designed to be overcome with the best gear from multiple leagues added together. I would not necessarily add chase unique items here but maybe special cosmetics that show you have defeated this content. Think Melania from another game.


Thank you for reading if you got this far. I plan to play 1-2 new classes each league and then give feedback on each of them in separate posts.

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jssuther81#5814 написал:

Getting to 100. This is HARD to do right now and I'm a completionist.

Given your job responsibilities, that is not going to happen unless you play your characters in Standard and take all the time you need. Jonathan confirmed in an interview a week ago that reaching 100 is intended to be a competitive goal that only top players reach.

It's standard in PoE1 to reach 93 or 94 and then roll a new character, or to come back next league. That's what I do. Maybe I could get to 100, but the type of gameplay required for that doesn't interest me.