r/pathofexile • u/EvilKnievel38 • 28d ago
Since Chris Wilson stated on Baeclast that he thinks players don't have a problem with the changes to the acts, here is my feedback on the changes and the acts in general, plus a small part about how a friend who is a first time PoE player experienced and failed this league. Discussion
I don't usually feel the need to post here on Reddit. Most topics and feedback have been covered multiple times already, but when I heard Chris state "As far as I'm aware people are not explicitly complaining about the act 1 changes", I felt the need to.. well.. complain (and give feedback) about the act 1 changes.
I'd consider myself a veteran PoE player and I typically have been playing a lot more than the average player over the last couple of leagues. I usually have no problem to reach endgame and push 1 or more characters to their limits per league, beating the newest and hardest content introduced to the game like the feared or 100% delirium.
I convinced a friend to try out PoE and told him to wait for league launch in order for him to simply not know any better than the current state of the game. It would have been a bad thing for him to try out only the campaign in the last week of last league and then redo the campaign after the nerfs to player damage and the monsters getting buffed.
I'll mainly go into my own experience with the acts this league and in general, as I can only speak for myself, but in short; my friend hit a brick wall really fast. He quit the game before finishing act 2, because he didn't like what he was playing at all. He kept dying over and over again with seemingly nothing to do against it.
A while ago GGG buffed monster hp across the board and this included Merveil. Since then I have always found Merveil to be quite a big deal on league start myself and I've always wondered how a new player would experience it. This league it's been made worse. I have never felt strong in act 1 on a league start. This time I felt even weaker. Brutus and Merveil were terrible and that was only act 1 yet. I kept running out of mana and flask charges, which is partially a different discussion on it's own that I'm not getting into, but it definitely did hurt the difficulty.
I hated going through the acts this league. I quit on day 3 before reaching maps, because I just didn't feel like continuing playing. I made it only to the start of act 9 and that also took significantly longer than in previous leagues for me. For reference, normally it would take me 6-7 hours and I'd play 10+ hours the first days or weeks. I played far less this league.
In general the acts feel slow and tedious to me, but my main problem with leveling is that most of the time I don't get to play the build I want to play during leveling. Plenty of uniques that might be required for a build have a high level requirement. Skill gems (active and support) have level requirements. Skills might just simply be too weak until you have your proper endgame gear.
The only way I personally have truly had fun during leveling is playing a dedicated leveling build, using things like Hollow Palm or spellslinger, to absolutely smash and zoom through the campaign. Hollow Palm is only possible on a second or later character and is quite frankly getting very repetitive after a few times. Spellslinger leveling doesn't fit every build. My point here still stands though, I hate that I don't get to play my build most of the time during leveling.
So here's some feedback to GGG about what I would like to see changed in acts. Don't make the early acts more difficult, they were already difficult enough or even too difficult for new players. If anything, make later acts more difficult if you truly think the acts should be more difficult. At that point players have had more time to acquire gear, skill gems are more accessible (level requirements) and new players have had more time to learn the game and get used to it.
I would probably still want a way to get to maps quicker or even instantly on a later character, but I understand you don't want to go that route. I respect that, but then please don't make the acts longer and more tedious. I already found them to be tedious enough previous leagues and it's only gotten worse and probably will get even worse.
You disagreed with the game starting in maps, but for me it simply does. That's where I get to play my build. I no longer have to use leveling skills, items, passives, etc. I can start gearing up for my true build and progress from there. There is usually still plenty of progress to be gained at that point as well. It's not like removing acts means you start maps with a fully geared character ready to destroy endgame content. Personally I typically start maps with mediocre rares or budget uniques (excluding expensive build defining uniques) and progress from there. Leveling gems, crafting or buying better gear, crafting or buying min-maxed endgame gear and potentially double corrupting gear and gems for even more power.
I hope GGG reads this and if there's anything I wish for them to take from this thread it's mainly that I hope they reconsider their changes to the early acts. PoE is notorious for being a nightmare for beginners and this has made it even worse. It's bad enough for many veteran players already.
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u/TheBlackestIrelia Raider 28d ago
I watched the podcast right after i watched bigducks video about how new players hate it.
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u/kylegetsspam 27d ago
The video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrX8Un0dupk
He's right. The campaign should be more or less a tutorial. It should linearly increase in difficulty and prepare people for maps by teaching them new mechanics each act.
Instead, in its current setup, Act 1 is the hardest part* until maps. There's no way this isn't making the game a huge turnoff for new players.
*The early bits of Act 6 are potentially harder, or at least equivalent, if you have bad fire/cold resist. Most everything else is pretty cruisey.
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u/UrieltheFlameofGod 27d ago
Yeah act 1 and act 6 are definitely harder than anything else until like, red maps
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u/lynnharry 28d ago
Currently the campaign needs improvement. The players prolly want it to be shorter to get over the dull part quickly. Chris prolly wants the campaign to be more challenging so it's not that dull.
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u/ThatOneGuy1294 28d ago
A long campaign would be okay if it was also fun to level through every act, but it's not. Currently it's tedious and, for me, decidedly not fun
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u/GoodRedd 28d ago edited 27d ago
Or if it were rewarding.
If currency drops were normalized through the campaign so that I started acquiring more useful currency earlier acts would be way more interesting. And then the extra challenge would be interesting because I could do something about it.
Currently all you can do is pick the meta League-start and hope you get your sockets and links early. Yawn.
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u/FullMetalCOS 27d ago
Or if it had literally anything to do with the rest of the game.
Typically you ignore Alva during levelling because it’s a waste of a temple getting some low level scrubhole. Niko is barely a thing because you get crap all sulphite and honestly it’s better to just wait till you get your “pity progress” than start from scratch. Einhar beasts from levelling are fairly garbage recipes. Maaaaybe Jun isn’t bad, but you typically get very few veils during the campaign so who cares?
So master missions are basically a write off. Currency barely exists unless the league mechanic is generous - Tujen was a real bro this league and gave me like 50 chaos going into maps actually, but this is the exception not the norm. Most other leagues have been fairly pointless to do while levelling in terms of prepping you for the “real game”. Sure, I guess ascendancies? Beyond that there’s basically nothing from the acts you carry forward into maps which will always make it feel like “the shit you have to get out the way before you get to play the game” and there’s no amount of making it more difficult or grindy that’s gonna go down well with the majority of the player base because it just makes the shit you have to get out of the way.... shittier
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u/ThatOneGuy1294 28d ago edited 27d ago
I still don't understand why binding orbs dont drop in the acts
The.number of replies telling me they do drop since 3.14 says quite a bit about their drop rate
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u/yepgeddon 28d ago
Literally the only times you'd ever use em too.
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u/W1ndows91 28d ago
I've used almost all of my binding orbs...rolling maps. Yep, good item.
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u/GoodRedd 28d ago
Well of course, think of how much you've saved by not needing to waste jewelers and fusings on your maps.
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u/BeerBatAIDS 28d ago
Almost ran outta alchs at leaguestart buying zana maps and not vendoring uniques.
Had 20 bindings and was wondering where they had been all my life.
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u/Kusibu 28d ago
IMO, wherever there's a rare item reward from a quest (including sidequests), there should instead be locked but untimed crafting windows with some currencies in them - bindings and chaos, alts and regals, et cetera - and a max item level cap a bit above the quest's level. It'd be way more engaging to do sidequests if they gave you actual agency over what you're doing.
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u/GrimRaith 27d ago
They do drop in acts, I got several while leveling my first character.
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u/ThatOneGuy1294 27d ago
Huh, since when? I'll chalk up my lack of drops due only stopping to kill what's necessary
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u/GrimRaith 27d ago
I know there were there in 3.14 but I can't remember if that was the first one. I think they also only start dropping when 4 socket items start dropping too.
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u/SmoothBrainedApe17 28d ago
A longer campaign is great for a single player game. In a game with such an advanced trade economy, it is extremely prohibitive to all but the best players
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u/daman4567 28d ago
And the problem isn't that it's dull, it's that it's repetitive. I don't want a "skip to maps" button. I just want the "this character can't go into maps until it finishes act 10" restriction to be removed and for there to be more avenues to get to level 68 with 24/24 extra skill points. If I have to go through act 2 for the bandits or something still then so be it, but I just want some variety in leveling a new character.
So many game systems don't exist until maps, and the fact that leveling through the acts is the exact same fucking thing every time is a real drag when you don't have all day every day to play. Even if you have a full time job but are still a power gamer and only play PoE, you're still looking at 2 evenings of leveling a new character in the same shit you've already done 50 times, unless you've gotten really fast then it might only be 1 whole evening, but it really demotivates me from leveling a new character to try a different skill.
Ultimately for me, the problem isn't starting at level 1 and having to get to level 68, it's also having to do all the quests and shit in between, in the exact same order and exact same way as before. Even if the act monsters were harder, it wouldn't help a single bit as it'd just be more deaths on top of having it be the same exact shit. I'd even be down with a way harder version of leveling where you have to somehow figure out how to use your level 1 character to kill way harder monsters, but without having to constantly look for the exit in the same tilesets in the same order with the same bullshit quests.
Heck, I'd even be ok if there was some sort of cost to unlocking an alternate leveling path, like you have to have Niko eat 50k sulphite and it opens up an endless-delve style leveling experience that doesn't actually give delve progression or rewards, but a different experience to the campaign and still lets you go into maps at the end of it. I'd farm up a full set of pure breachstones and then poof them if it meant I could then do some sort of breach bonanza that starts at low level and unlocks the ability to do maps at the end. Heck, I'd do these even if it didn't give the skill point quests, then it'd be a decision of whether or not to go back to the acts and go kill all the gods in act 6-10 or something, at least I'd have a choice at that point.
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u/SponTen SSF 27d ago
I enjoy the campaign myself, even after 1600+ hours, but I really think GGG should look into new levelling systems, like Delve. Even for me, it would be cool to just try levelling a different way.
Perhaps they don't want to sink the resources in, only to have people annoyed that the new levelling systems are slower than the campaign? Or the campaign is now slower, and pointless?
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u/daman4567 27d ago
It totally makes sense to require the first character each league level through the campaign, after all that is how you get the lab trials in the first place. I don't think that the alternate leveling systems have to affect the league start race or anything, they can just solely be an option for leveling subsequent characters when you grow tired of the campaign, but still want to try another build.
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u/hGKmMH 28d ago
Chris prolly wants the campaign to be more challenging so it's not that dull.
Making it take longer with more HP on the mobs and less flasks does not make it less dull.
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u/MermaladeMerk 27d ago
Having to actually fight mobs rather than run from quest marker to quest marker while stepping on some enemies in between makes it more fun for me.
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u/RoseEsque 27d ago
I really don't understand how.
Because making the monsters more challenging now makes something that was just dull become something that's dull and obnoxious.
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u/UnoriginalStanger 27d ago
If having to play the game is obnoxious why not just stay in POB?
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u/GeneticSkill 27d ago
So because someone doesn't enjoy the first 8ish hours of their character they should just give up on the rest of the game ?
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u/Fury_Fury_Fury 27d ago
No. Those first 8h should also be fun, rather than just making them shorter or removing them. Adding challenge to the acts intended to help that.
The problem is, some people don't enjoy challenge and struggle as much. They enjoy smashing through content, being almighty and powerful. Obviously, a challenging campaign won't serve them in any capacity, quite the contrary. I don't know how to marry those things, and I suspect nobody does.
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u/toyota-desu 27d ago
To people who dont want to level their character, say the monsters have too much dmg, the game is "too slow" now - maybe the game is just not for you?
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u/GeneticSkill 27d ago
These are generally the people that play multiple builds a league. If they enjoy the game so much after the acts that they're willing (but not enjoying) to endure the acts again just to try a different build i dont think you can say the game isn't for them
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u/2drunk4you Trickster 27d ago
It's not the entire game tho. Early game (leveling) sucks because your character feels weak af and has no tools to fix it - gems, supports, links and uniques - all the things that make a character feel special and fun to play are gated by levels and therefore maps. People don't hate leveling because they hate playing the game, they hate that part of the game.
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u/lingonn 27d ago
And if that stage wasn't there and you just got decked out instantly you wouldn't feel as powerful in comparison.
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u/wlphoenix 27d ago
But making that part longer doesn't make you feel more satisfied in the end, it just makes you frustrated you have to deal with it longer to get the same level of satisfaction.
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u/Sheriff_K Theorycrafter 27d ago
I miss the days when PoB didn't exist and I could stay in spreadsheets instead.. Spreadsheets are more engaging than PoB (yes, I know I could just not use PoB, but that's not efficient.. in the end, I hate being given options, lol.)
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u/AccountInsomnia 27d ago
If you have to fight, you have to care about your power, if you have to care about your power you have to care about your items. That's the whole fun of the game, being rewarded for progressing your character.
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u/RoseEsque 27d ago
All that will change is that those encounters that you HAVE TO take will be that 10 to 20% longer but no more challenging. So no, you won't have to care more about power than you did previously, unless they increase the monster health/damage by more than 50%.
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u/SponTen SSF 27d ago
It does for me, and most of my friends who've played. This is just a difference of opinion though; no one is wrong here.
Why don't you play Standard though? If the campaign is dull, then you've probably completed it a bunch of times and have multiple high level characters in Standard, right?
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u/BlainWs 27d ago
So, completely forgo every new league mechanic because GGG fails to realize the campaign is the biggest reason people get burnt out and that making it harder does not make you less likely to burn out?
I will still slog through it every league, that doesn't I am going to enjoy it/see the benefits of it after 60+ characters.
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u/Bukake_Baron Shadow 27d ago
Not the person you replied to but I also hate acts. In standard there are no goals for me, while in each league I push for 36/40 challenges.
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u/Kraotic313 28d ago
How does more challenging make it less dull? We're not even playing our builds yet for fucks sake, it is just a thing we do before we can actually start playing the game. Making that thing harder serves no purpose other than to make it more annoying because to reiterate, we're not even able to play our damn builds yet.
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u/Gniggins 28d ago
More challenging just means buffing boss HP and increasing one shots while leveling, thats the only real difficulty POE has, outside of throwing ailments around at lower levels.
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u/BeerBatAIDS 28d ago
Ironically they nerfed just about the only skillful gameplay part of the leveling: Movement skills
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u/rogu14 28d ago
I love how chat on podcast exploded with "?????????" when he said that
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u/EvilKnievel38 28d ago
I watched the podcast on youtube today, so I didn't see that. I tried searching for threads about act 1 or acts in general and with the keywords I was using I didn't find anything recent, but maybe they weren't showing up based on upvotes, I don't know. I just felt that I had to post some feedback on it because of that statement and it did indeed look to me like he was speaking the truth that there was very little feedback specifically on those changes, but rather more in the direction of the other nerfs to flasks, mana, skills, etc. in general that also had their affects on the early acts.
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u/SegmentedSword Hierophant 28d ago
I have heard it elsewhere. I believe Cohh on Dropped Frames mentioned that he struggled with it, and if they gave the act 1 treatment to the other acts, it might make him quit.
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u/MightyBone 27d ago edited 27d ago
I've leveled 3 characters this league and am always shocked at how hard it seems right out the gate. Hillock hits like a truck, if you get swarmed by a pack as melee you can die super easy if you miss and they stun you.
Accessibility is something that has gone almost always in a single direction in gaming for the past 30 years because it turns out letting players learn and get the feel of something is better than just throwing them in the deep end. A progressive scale of difficult lets the player ease into a game, and learn the ropes, and get a progressive sense of achievement as they conquer harder and harder content. I look at Diablo 2 and realize that D2 is likely an easier game for a new player than PoE is at the moment. Gear and skills are simpler, itemization is not as esoteric(for example realizing that Merveil is almost pure cold dmg or that armor is useful early on, D2 doesn't gate you with resists until much later.) Enemies typically can't kill you nearly as quickly either, and iirc potions were instant in D2 as well or at least heal much faster.
I have a group of about 7 or 8 friends that game, all but 1 are oldschool D2 players. All 8 of them have tried PoE, and only 1 has gotten past Act 3. He stayed on and was in red maps a couple weeks ago(i think this is his 4th league.) The others all quit at various points just saying the game seemed too tough and they weren't sure how to make it easier. Several of them have killed Hell Baal multiple times on multiple characters and they just play other games even though they thought PoE was kind of cool, but they all got bored of the difficulty and inability to really know how to itemize or set up gems and builds without going to online guides. The 1 guy that stayed on used Ziz's ED/Contag guide on his first character ever btw after trying out his own char in Act 1. I don't know why he ended up running a guide, but it's not his style typically so I'm guessing he liked the game but felt it was too hard so he went reading about it and went with a guide.
I'd personally love to see all my friends play because I do believe they'd all like it, so it's just weird to me to see them driven off early on because the devs want the game to be challenging from the start.
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u/SpicyPandaBalls r/WholesomePOE 28d ago
I hope GGG reads this
I'd suggest emailing GGG support or Chris directly. He provided his direct email multiple times on the podcast. He does read and respond.
He also said he doesn't read reddit anymore. So emailing him directly is the best way to get your feedback read/heard.
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u/SingleInfinity Occultist 28d ago
While I kinda get what you're going for, if everyone followed this advice, it'd quickly stop being true.
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u/telendria 28d ago
you think if he doesn't read reddit, he will read emails? he probably has a minion or two that goes through the mail first too.
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u/EvilKnievel38 28d ago
I might do that later. Reddit allows to have a discussion about it and see what others think about it too. Maybe it will change my view as well, who knows. I might directly send them a refined version after possibly changing my view, I'll see.
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u/Tikiwikii 28d ago
unironically id say just copy pasting that initial post specially about your new friend would be a great thing
my friend had a similar experience of hitting a wall before these nerfs in act 6 and if i wasn't there to fully respec his build and buy stuff for him so he could keep playing he admitted he'd have stopped playing and im not surprised its so much worse now
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u/SmoothBrainedApe17 28d ago
I will complain about act 1. There was no reason to make it harder. The game is already difficult for new players. The barrier to entry in this game is higher than any other ive ever seen. All making it uarder will do is force people to quit in acts instead of getting into maps, and create a bigger time gap between the "professional" gamer, or organized groups vs the casual player, in terms of time to maps.
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u/2drunk4you Trickster 27d ago
The only thing it does is giving elitists a raging boner when they tell people to just get good.
I don't understand this obsession with difficulty in loot arpgs. This genre is not hard, the only measurement is how much you are willing to suffer before your build is online. And the answer this league was very clear.
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u/Kraviec 27d ago
+1
I think it was my Templar who had to kite Hillock waiting for mana. And I almost died to the first group of crabs on Twilight Strand. Sure, it's no problem for me because I know what this game is about but as a new player experience, it's a joke. I honestly see no reason to make Act 1 harder. You have 10 acts to ramp up difficulty, it makes little sense to throw it all at Act 1, especially the first area.
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u/Tojaro5 Raider 28d ago
I leveled multiple characters with Flicker Strike as main skill starting at lvl 30. An i will probably do it again in the future.
Why? Because like you i like to level with the skill i'll use later.
Compared to this experience the campaign is pretty doable with any normal build. Would it be easier to level with (most likely) any other skill in the game? Yeah. But it wouldn't be a Flicker Strike character if i didn't level it with Flicker Strike.
And honestly, i really do like the new Rhoas. They're actually scary now. Same for the Goatblasters. I'm kind of excited to see what they're gonna do with act 3 Dominus. This fight may become nutty again.
But i guess opinions differ. In the end it seems like GGG wants a slower, harder game so it's either adapt, or leave anyways.
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u/Kristoffer__1 27d ago
I leveled multiple characters with Flicker Strike as main skill starting at lvl 30. An i will probably do it again in the future.
Why? Because like you i like to level with the skill i'll use later.
Me and my friends all do this because not playing the skill you want to play feels so damn bad.
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u/labracadabrador64 28d ago
Rolled a marauder with the intention of making some spicy totem set ups, and very, VERY quickly rerolled a trapper shadow. I'm sure it's better after they loosened the mana nerf, but on league start I have no clue how any new player was expected to find their footing.
Back in legion I was still barely getting to know the game, and I was still able to work my way into yellow maps eventually with an absolute disaster of an arc elementalist build. Even though I ended up playing a cyclone slayer (of course) for the rest of the league, playing through the acts with my crappy self made build taught me a ton about stats and gearing, but most importantly it hooked me. If the new standard for new players is just to immediately start following a guide if you don't want to brick your character before act 4, that's a bad direction. Changing the acts to be more engaging is fine, but you can't just crank up enemy stats and expect anyone but people who already have game knowledge to get into it.
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u/butsuon Chieftain 28d ago
The campaign being difficult in the first act is fine if the game explained anything at all to new players.
Like literally anything. You get two little blurbs on the beach before Hillock and that's it. The new player experience is dog shit.
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u/quickpost32 27d ago
There's a big help menu in the game, and while it's not 100% complete it covers a lot of mechanics. But I doubt many people actually look at it and I don't think GGG has really added much to it since the first implementation.
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u/psychomap 27d ago
Yeah, I think that tutorials have actually improved over the years, they just need to find a way to make players actually interact with the tutorials. Maybe even have voice acted advisors like some other games do for their campaign tutorials.
Few people like to read a lot. For those who do, the game is still fairly easy. And while I've always said that PoE isn't a great game for people who hate reading, the current tutorials are just a bunch of text (well, at least they have some demonstration clips too) that is completely uninteractive.
Players need to learn step by step, and as soon as they learn something, they need to be able to try it out. The tutorials read more like wiki pages for someone looking for a theoretical introduction to a mechanic.
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u/Fart__Smucker ☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜)💨 28d ago
Chris even said himself most players don’t get to maps so why the fuck make it harder? Why also make the mandatory thing almost no one likes to do also longer!? It’s like making your drive to work a different drive but longer as the first it might be cool but anytime after you realize that thing you have to do now just takes longer. Nothing about that is ok and everyone loses.
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u/FlipperN37 28d ago
The drive to work was too easy, so we slashed your tires to make it more interesting
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u/Ender593 27d ago
You're confusing the balance changes with the act changes. ONLY act 1 has received changes in Expedition. You're not talking about ONLY act 1, though.
I'm with you though, like many, I feel like the game doesn't start until you reach maps. Having also watched Baeclast, I'm surprised no one mentioned that the reason for that is actually character progression and how there's a breakpoint of character power in your build at that point for many other reasons (gear access, level, gems/links, stats, etc). Also, it feels like you're giving up 2-8+ hours (depending on the player) just to start having fun. That has nothing to do with the changes to act 1 either, though, except maybe that it ignores the above issues I've mentioned in favor of Chris's argument of making the acts more interesting to play.
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u/Drathmar 27d ago
I'm slow and it only takes me around 5 hours to get through acts this league, I'm leveling my 4th character. This is completely overblown. This is after having not played in 5 years until this league so pretty much a new player. Of course looking through your other comments you seem.to want to just spread negativity as you call people who can finish the acts or dont find them hard elitist because they dont agree with you. Sure the game has a lot of problems, having to go through the acts multiple times being one, but the difficulty of act 1 isnt part of it.
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u/ARPG_RustyGaming 27d ago
To a vetern acts 1 to 10 is a long drawn out tutorial. If you fail to grind through it thats on you it wasnt that hard. The other acts were barely changed just player damage was less.
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u/Darkblitz9 Gladiator 27d ago
I think he means players as a whole and that's probably still not entirely accurate but I would say that improvements to the creatures AI was definitely a nice thing.
I also think the buff to monster life was primarily to counteract the higher base strength of a lot of skills since they received a buff.
Overall Monster defenses feel like they're in an ok place, and it wasn't as bad as I expected.
Monster damage on the other hand, has lots of issues, and I think monster life being in a good spot has exacerbated those problems, oddly enough.
Shifting from zoom zoom to slower but more fun gameplay is turning out to be really painful. I kind of wish we had a league where enemy damage was addressed first and then they made things harder, but I have a feeling that GGG might be tearing off the bandaid now as to ensure that there's no bad taste in people's mouths as PoE 2 launches. That's only a hunch though.
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u/Lward53 Hardcore Incursion 27d ago
Since then I have always found Merveil to be quite a big deal on league start myself and I've always wondered how a new player would experience it.
IMHO Merveil is still a joke. Without even preparing (Sapphire ring for example) I still stomp her, She is a fitting end of act boss. As for struggling with Brutus, I was under the impression nothing changed other than his location, and noticed little difference there. and once i hit around act 3 I'm breezing though the game at normal pace. You say you're a veteran, but I'm not even that good at the game and still demolish the acts...
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u/randompoe 27d ago edited 27d ago
I'm the complete opposite of you. I enjoy seeing the fast progression of a build through the acts. I level as the build I'm playing, I dont do dumb (imo) leveling strats. Because of this I heavily prefer the acts to be engaging and vaguely challenging. Act 1 was amazing for me this league, I actually had to pay attention and even ended up dying on one of my characters due to me being lazy (damn those rhoas!). I genuinely hope they keep this up and improve the rest of the acts too. I respect your opinion, but yeah I just simply prefer the opposite of what you do.
Also just as a counter point. I also had a relatively noob friend play again this league. They preferred Act 1 this time around compared to the last time they tried PoE. Granted they aren't a complete noob but they have only made it to Act 10 once sooo (they are very casual with games and a game like PoE takes way too much time to learn and to progress in).
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u/kileras1a 27d ago
Wtf are you talking about? OP made mistake already in topic. You talk about changes to "acts" and they feel "tedious" now? So let me enlighten you, in this patch ONLY ACT 1 WAS CHANGED.
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u/RoccoHeatt 27d ago
Another point,
Tried getting my friend into the game.
He thought it was way to easy and boring.
This was before these recent changes.
Act 1 and 2 are stupid easy.
The only reason a Mervail or boss might be hard for us is because we rush to it ASAP.
New players are not normally rushing and have okayish gear and level by then.
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u/Sheriff_K Theorycrafter 27d ago edited 27d ago
I miss when leveling, especially Act Bosses, were actually scary..
When you wouldn't even FATHOM the idea of attempting Merveil without at least 1-2 Sapphire Rings.. (now I just yolo her without any resists.) Or when you had to make sure you had Fire/Light resists before attempting Vaal Oversoul, or get insta-gibbed. Or when you needed resists to attempt Piety (and eventually when he was released, Dominus.)
Now you mostly just ignore resists and bosses, and don't really have to make any preparations or important decisions in the leveling process anymore.
Though I actually did enjoy the harder Act 1, personally. As for making it more new player accessible, maybe a better tutorial? Explaining defensive options and actions.
But I do agree that leveling felt a lot slower this League, but I think that was mostly due to me playing slower and being an idiot.. but I SWEAR the map layouts of zones were different than I was used to. I had some REALLY weird layouts I didn't expect, which led to me having to backtrack FAR more than I'm used to while leveling.. Anyone else experience that?
And yes, I do agree that the game doesn't truly start until maps (heck the worst part of a league start is realizing your build idea sucks, then having to re-roll a new character after having wasted days/a week.. that's rather daunting and could lead to immediate burnout.) It also sucks if you can't use the skill you want to use until later... having to use a shitty skill until lvl 28 when you get your ACTUAL skill, is rather annoying.
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u/Steef32 27d ago
No no, I remember when i started learning poe. Getting a 5l or a 6l was almost impossible and was rewarding to link a rare even though its now like 20c worth back then it was pure gold so new players must experience that and the value therof now everyone in act 7 have a 5 or 6 link ez game
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u/miffyrin 27d ago
I mean. I won't say there isn't a lot they could do to make the new player experience a lot better, and be a bit gentler to them.
But on the other hand, your friend's experience isn't unique to 3.15 at all, in fact it lines up perfectly with the statistics of the majority of players never making it to maps - heck, the majority never even makes it past Act 1.
So i'm not sure how a new player's experience is relevant to the changes at all. As a veteran player myself, I had 0 issues with A1, in fact I felt it was more engaging and interesting.
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u/CrimZdh 27d ago
Completely disagree. The act1 changes were great and very welcomed by the players.
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u/Karizmaunit 27d ago
i love the act changes one off the best things they have done in a while. and i had 2 friends play poe for the first time this league and they are currently on t16 maps not beat sirus yet but doing very well first time playing
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u/ProblyANerd 27d ago
Yea I'm not sure what you're talking about with Brutus and Merveil. They felt exactly the same to me. All they did was move Brutus out of his room.
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u/NixThatPls 28d ago
Lol first time players almost always fail until they learn the game.
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u/JDFSSS 28d ago
Yeah, at some point everyone will fail. I don't think it's good to make act 1 so difficult though. When I started playing poe a few years ago I thought the early acts were super easy, and I was a complete noob with zero clue about what I was doing. These days I guess new players get farmed as soon as they make it to mud flats. I just levelled a new character the other day with levelling gear and noticed significant difficulty in act 1. I was thinking it's probably brutal for new players.
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u/DeeJudanne Saboteur 27d ago
acts are and always will be a boring chore
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u/DeeJudanne Saboteur 27d ago
you can't tell me acts are super fun after 90 times
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u/Bahmanis 27d ago
I thought the same until I played the HCSSF Gauntlet. Playing with that level of difficulty and precarity definitely revitalised the acts for me. Maybe I'm in the minority here but I know I'm not the only one.
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u/Klarthy 27d ago
I still like the acts. I know I'm in the minority there. I enjoy the fast character progression, the consistent benchmarking of builds (since you run the same zones/bosses), and the lack of micromanaging/diversions that mapping requires.
Granted, GGG could implement a similar system without story and I'd be happy too. I just don't want maps / endless delve from level 1.
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u/souldrone 3.15 SST GLAD TradeSC SSFHC 28d ago
Levelling has been the Achille's heel of the game. Boring, tedious, taking a long time.
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u/ploki122 28d ago
In general the acts feel slow and tedious to me, but my main problem with leveling is that most of the time I don't get to play the build I want to play during leveling. Plenty of uniques that might be required for a build have a high level requirement. Skill gems (active and support) have level requirements. Skills might just simply be too weak until you have your proper endgame gear.
This is the part that really sums up my experience. I don't really mind longer/harder acts... but I see no value in that. I like maps more than acts, since I get to play my actual build in maps, and maps take a longer time to reach now.
Sure, the acts could be more interesting, where I don't mind repeating it a 36th time... but I'm long past the 36th time. And past a certain point, the game simply becomes silent (your character no longer talks, and all environmental lore must be read instead of being narrated), so that definitely doesn't help either.
So in the first 2.5 acts, I can't use my skill (General's Cry + Charged Dash), before I reach level 40-50 I don't have the passives required for it to feel good (some warcry CDR and Call to Arms)... and by the end of Act 4, the voice acting stops. So there's never a curated experience of me playing my build in a campaign situation... I just do random quests sometimes in silence while walking through the same maps as the last 50 times, in the same order, doing the same choices.
So basically, my question to Chris, regarding the campaign would be "What's supposed to be interesting about playing the campaign?"
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u/cerement 27d ago
Comes back to the main issue that’s been stated so many times (in this thread, on Reddit, on the forums):
- It’s not the challenge or the difficulty, it’s that the Acts are mind-numbingly repetitive
GGG can ramp up the difficulty all they want, but by the 10th time, the 20th time, the 50th time you’ve done the exact same quests, the exact same zones, the exact same NPCs in the exact same order, the boredom and frustration (and, face it, the resentment) starts to set in. We all enjoy rolling new characters, trying out new skills, playing around with new combinations, but that hope starts to die when you realize that you have to face Acts again and again and again …
Even without adding in alternate leveling methods (endless Ledge, Delve, Heist, etc.), I think a lot of the frustration could be handled by just mixing things up a bit – switch around the Acts every League, shuffle the zones within each act … something, anything to relieve the tedium of facing the same zones, the same quests, the same NPCs in the exact same order again …
Thought experiment – same quests, same NPCs, same zones, just switching the Acts:
- The Exile washes up on a lush, forested beach (Southern Forest) and has to fight off beetles and monkeys before facing Hillock, the gate opens into Forest Encampment where the Exile meets Nessa, Tarkleigh, and Bestel. Nessa needs a Medicine Chest that the monkeys have stolen and hidden in The Den, Tarkleigh needs you to find a safe path through the Vaal Ruins, Bestel rewards you for dealing with Captain Fairgraves who lost his Allflame in the Weaver’s Chambers
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u/gnosisshadow 27d ago
I really don't get this part of the answer, he seems to think that players actually enjoys the acts after it have been done multiple times, while having the act more challenging will retain the fun longer but ultimately acts will get boring simple as that, since he like to look at other games. Take doable adventure mode, I will much prefer that than the current system
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u/UrieltheFlameofGod 27d ago
Lots of people have this opinion and I've seen it expressed since the patch notes first hit. He's deliberately ignoring this feedback because they're already committed to making these changes to the rest of the acts
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u/Skware1 28d ago
The fact that you can "fail" is a crucial part of PoE in my opinion. Most people hit a wall on their first character and learn from it and improve. If you friend hit a wall and quit then maybe it's not the game for him.
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u/Ombric_Shalazar Slayer 28d ago
well the difference is that in most games, when you hit a wall, you often can reason with what you've acquired, learned, etc. a way to get over that wall using the tools available to you.
poe doesn't bother teaching you, everything i know was read not even from the wiki but from a datamining site
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u/kypi 27d ago
I agree with this. I've played POE countless hours and struggled back before they started buffing the acts. I nearly quit several times back then because it's HARD if you don't know how to play this sort of game. With the recent changes, I almost quit the league several times and know for sure I'd have 100% quit and never came back if it was my first time playing.
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u/tacitus59 27d ago
And you can die and not have a clue why you died. I need meaningful feedback; without feedback how am I supposed to learn. And its a crap shoot when you try to look up stuff on line - most of the time its out of date. I am familiar with most of the mechanics since I have been playing a very long time - but stuff changes all the time and its really hard to make informed choices.
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u/EvilKnievel38 28d ago
Hitting a wall isn't the problem to me. Hitting that wall in act 1 is.
I started in Talisman and hit that wall in act 3 dominus. By then I experienced enough of the game to know I wanted to invest time in learning the game better.
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u/miasma23 28d ago
Whenever I read comments like yours I wonder if I would have ever even gotten into gaming had the developers of those early NES game adopted your philosophy towards accessibility. I remember failing over and over at Mario, until I finally got better an succeeded. I did this because I loved the game, my sister did not and that's ok. If your friend bailed in act 2 instead of trying again with a better build, that's on him, it's not his game and that's ok. But please stop trying to ruin it for the rest of us. Thank God the developers don't agree with you.
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u/Arianity 28d ago
I remember failing over and over at Mario, until I finally got better an succeeded.
While some NES games are brutal, Mario is actually an example of a game that balances the intro difficulty curve really well.
It's not that failure is a problem -but how often the player fails. If the base number of fails is too high, you can easily turn off a new player who would otherwise enjoy the game once they got a handle on it. It very well might be a game "for them"
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u/Vet_Leeber Bardmode 28d ago
While some NES games are brutal, Mario is actually an example of a game that balances the intro difficulty curve really well.
There are some really great in depth analyses on how, intentionally or not, those first couple levels are amazingly well designed for learning curve. Even the Goomba at the beginning does an excellent job of explaining, with no words, the main mechanics of the game (moving and jumping).
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u/psychomap 27d ago
I think the important part is that act 2 actually hasn't been changed yet, so if someone gives up in act 2 rather than act 1, they would have given up anyway regardless of the overhaul to acts.
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u/EvilKnievel38 28d ago
I get your point, but the very beginning of the game isn't meant to be like that in my opinion. We can disagree on that. I do understand a lot of players want this kind of feeling in games, but for me that has to be after I learned at least the very basics of the game. Let's say that comes from act 3 onwards in PoE or even act 2 already, but act 1 should in my opinion at the very least be accessible to new players to learn the very basics.
Back when I started PoE in Talisman I was overwhelmed by a lot of things PoE threw at me, such as the skill tree, gems and gear. I managed to get to act 3 dominus before hitting a brick wall of dying over and over again. I had learned some things by that time and already gotten a decent feel of the game to know it was something I wanted to invest time in to learn the game. That's where it took off and I started following build guides, watching tutorials, etc. If I had hit that brick wall at the very start of the game I would have quit right there for sure, it happened for me in other games.
PoE has only ever gotten more complicated and I love that, but the new player experience is no longer anywhere near what I had and it can definitely be improved.
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u/compchief 28d ago
This is some flawed logic. "Either you like or or not, thats up to you" said nobody ever in product development. Side note to another flawed point is, early NES time period did not have a wide range of products to choose from and the hype of a game and that particular game made people invest more time and effort than what people trying new games today will do.
Now - you either win or lose based on if your customers gets engaged or not, OP's friend did not get engaged and neither did my friends nor myself 5 years ago the first time i tried PoE, only got into the game because of the endgame many years later.
There are improvements to every system and inhibiting discussion about it is ignorant and backwards thinking.
What in OP's post would "ruin it" for us?
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u/OneAngryWhiteMan 28d ago
I agree and it's amazing how people are always having a meltdown these days if a game requires even a tiniest bit of effort to get into. Not every game needs to be the same handholding experience, if you don't like a particular game then just don't play it, you're not the center of the world and the game does not need to pander specifically to you.
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u/ElZofo 28d ago
Act 1 is definitely overtuned. Even fucking Hailrake is troublesome for melee (And you can't even run from him now with his increased mov speed).
The problem is, people in this subreddit love to circlejerk and talk about how good they are at a game that they have played for literally thousands of hours, so hardly anyone would ever admit that they effectively made act 1 too hard.
If you think that a new player, or hell, even an experienced player has fun getting stun locked or permafreezed to death as early as act 1 (The "tutorial"), you are delusional.
If they really go through with this kind of changes for all 10 acts, I highly doubt the game would get any new players at all (I'm not even sure if they would keep the current players).
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u/nuclearmeltdown2015 27d ago
Make campaign shorter, and reduce the xp it takes to reach 70.
I agree campaign and maps are two different games. I do have fun rolling through campaign usually because I like to speed run but I can see why many players don't.
Campaign takes my friends several days to get through and I usually league start late or intentionally take long breaks so I don't jump too far ahead and discourage them by making them feel slow.
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u/Papafeld42 28d ago
my friend hit a brick wall really fast. He quit the game before finishing act 2, because he didn't like what he was playing at all. He kept dying over and over again with seemingly nothing to do against it.
Didn't they only change act 1? If he got through that then he was gassed out by the regular game not the change in act difficulty. Taking into account that the mana multiplier was noticeable early on
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u/Tikiwikii 28d ago
damage nerfs and mob hp was buffed in general
act 1 is the only act with specific changes rn
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u/BlossomLuxy 28d ago
I mean to be fair the damage nerfs hit pretty hard if you don’t know how to push damage or what to do with the skill tree
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u/h03rnch3n 27d ago
Damage nerfs are irrelevant on low level. They hit only high level, high linked skills.
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u/FlintHolloway 28d ago edited 28d ago
The effect of the damage nerfs in Act 2 on probably a 3 link and early game support gems are in most cases close to zero.
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u/BitterAfternoon 28d ago
Hitpoint increases and damage nerfs were across the board. They were trying to slow down everything. So early on when you have the least links the HP increased the most. And later on when you have more links, your damage has been gutted by support nerfs but the HP is close to what it was before.
That said, yea, act 2 still felt more or less similar to what it used to.
But one of the things I did find the act 1 changes affected is a sense of dread in doing act 1 again. i.e. as much as I've rerolled this league, "ugh act 1 again" was a deterrent before I had twink items. So if you got to act 2 and started thinking "this character's not for me maybe" but then get sandwiched by "but I don't want to play act 1 again" perhaps instead you just quit.
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u/ShumaG Stores Sensible Objects 28d ago
When I read the patch notes, the HP increases are in the Act 1 section. This is why only Hillock and Oozeback Bloom have different numbers and not say...Geofri or Oak.
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u/kypi 27d ago
This is not true. as someone who sucks at this game, I felt the increased HP through most of the acts.
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u/EntropyNZ 27d ago
Because support gems were nerfed.
I'm prepared to be wrong about this, but I'm fairly certain that it was just A1 mobs that got the health increases. Those obviously continue into maps, which is why roas are somewhat terrifying there now.
All the changes to mob HP listed in the patch notes are specifically listed under 'Act 1 changes'. There's been a few people claiming that the HP increase was across the board, bit it's a narrative that I've only seen in the past day or so, so I'm wondering if some streamer has said it, and it's caught on.
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u/ThatOneGuy1294 28d ago
HP was increased across the board starting with Act 1, with that increases scaling down as you get to maps so that map HP is unchanged.
They also specifically nerfed Brutus' and other act 1 boss HP to compensate for the global increase.
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u/grasswhistle28 28d ago
They reduced Brutus because he was in act 1 dude. They only changed act 1 monster hp and ai, they said so specifically in the patch notes and in the livestream.
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u/ThatOneGuy1294 28d ago
Monster life has been increased by roughly 46% at level 1, tapering down to the same amount of life at level 84. Some bosses and monsters in Act 1, such as Hillock and Oozeback have had their life reduced to partially counteract this change.
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u/EntropyNZ 27d ago
That line is in a section titled 'Act 1 changes' in the patch notes.
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u/lingonn 27d ago
Dread for rerolling? A lifesprig & +1 wand or a decent melee unique weapon and it's back to oneshotting everything.
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u/EvilKnievel38 28d ago
They did indeed only change act 1 mechanically, but they nerfed player damage and buffed monster hp across the board. Act 2 is still harder than act 1, as it should be, especially if you don't know what you're doing and you're not improving your gear, gems and passives accordingly. He was new to the game and thus doesn't know better than this state of the game, so he did indeed not quit based on the changes but rather the game itself, but the fact that the game is this terrible for new players is bad and is one of my main points I'm making.
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u/BDOXaz 28d ago
Act 1 is harder than Act 2 though?
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u/Vet_Leeber Bardmode 28d ago
Act 2 is easier than Act 1 for experienced players, because we know how to capitalize on the Heralds and Spider support gems, the flat spell damage wand/phys damage weapon recipes, etc. it's also where you first start hitting notable passives.
Act 2 is only easier for us because we know how to leverage the significant spike in potential player power.
New players don't have that knowledge. People that have played Path of Exile for any length of time tend to forget just how much of the basic game systems new players don't know.
The difference between More & Increased, for instance. How flat damage increases are better at low levels, how spells scale with + gem levels, etc.
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u/EvilKnievel38 28d ago
Act 2 is undeniably harder than act 1. Monsters deal more damage and have more health. You need more stats to deal with it. This is why I specifically mentioned in my previous comment that it's especially harder if you don't know what you're doing and you're not improving your gear, gems and passives. If you do know what you're doing you do indeed have more tools available to you in the form of more gems, more links, more passives, etc. to allow you to be stronger and thus make it feel easier.
Basically it's like saying map bosses are easier than act 1 Merveil, because when you start mapping you have the gear, gems and passives to back you up and you're 1 shotting the bosses.
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u/SunRiseStudios 28d ago
I think doing campaign all over again on each League start is fine, but they really could let us just instantly get to maps on other characters or provide some sort of alternative levellling. This is the only thing that stops me from levelling more characters.
Also I don't think any adjustments ever will make levelling your second, third, etc. etc. character feel good, because maps is where game at, because that's where drops and EXP starts to matter - it's where you want to be. And big factor - this is where you can start using actual items and your actual build starts coming together. As simple as that. Of course they can make going through campaign as rewarding as doing maps, but that would open whole other can of worms and create whole other problem.
Just ease levelling of subsequent characters in League, please, GGG. Alternative levelling, Delve, stright skip, anything...
Come to think of it I wonder how would it feel if I could somehow start playing my actual build on level 1 with items requiring level 67+ and many passive points. O_o Monsters would need to be rebalanced somehow of course. I guess it would still get old pretty quick because of rewards.
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u/Legitimate-Ad-3674 28d ago
But I always used my build skills while leveling (except when it was not available yet). Otherwise I pick up random skills I find fun with.. Never had any issue with "finding boss too hard". And I am a below average player who only killed sirus twice. Unless you think bosses should be one shot to be "not hard"?
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u/Ok-Yogurtcloset-9461 28d ago
i had this question since i started the game since abyss league on my friend recommendation which i still dont have an answer for
why the fuck cant we start lvl one maps or delve once we finished the story from act 1 to 10 for the first time on each new league?
sorry but being bit rude but playing 10 acts for the 900th time made me bit tired
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u/mooseofdoom23 This world is an illusion, exile! 27d ago
Have had absolutely no issue with Act 1 changes. Thought they were amusing. If you had trouble, you need to get good.
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u/Kaflao Tormented Smugler 27d ago
So :
"Veteran player" - Plays a lot -> Quit on day 3 BEFORE reaching maps.
Like you're either not that much of a "veteran" or not play a lot at all. If you're an experienced player, you reach maps by 6/8 hours on the first leveling, so directly at launch or the next day MAXIMUM.
At this point the rest of the point can't be taken really seriously.
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u/What_a_plep 27d ago
Funnily enough my girlfriend started playing a few days ago, and this is her first ARPG ever. She died only 3 times in the first 3 acts, and I found out she was using freezing pulse and fireball, so legitimately fresh player with no guide or help. Doesn’t seem that hard to me.
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u/MasterBaiterTheOld $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ 27d ago
I made sure my headset wasn't stuttering when he said that.
I was like "Really?"
Honestly, I am satisfied with the streamer side in Baeclast. They asked most of the questions I would have asked, and I was kinda surprised Nugi and Raiz were so aggressive.
But it didn't matter, because Chris basically avoided and deflected most questions. Exactly as I expected.
Kinda hyped for the 3.16 changes to the atlas grind Chris mentioned though.
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u/XchaosmasterX 27d ago
Most questions? Did we watch the same podcast? He pulled out internal information that wasn't supposed to be public in order to answer questions when he could've said "we have some plans but I can't tell you because I'll get in trouble".
Just because you don't like the answer he gave it doesn't mean he avoided the question.
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u/EvilKnievel38 27d ago
I have to disagree that Chris avoided and deflected most questions. I think he did a great job at answering questions, but we have to realize and respect that the answer isn't always going to be the answer we want. I can only respect that he takes a firm stand on some cases even if I don't agree with it.
I'm looking forward to 3.16 as well. Baeclast gave hope since Chris agreed that several changes aren't in a state they are pleased with either. This league was probably just a bad combination of nerfs, no league mechanic hype and quite frankly probably some burn-out from playing a ton in ritual and ultimatum. Maybe I'd have less of a problem for myself with the acts if there's more to look forward to after them (new league hype, endgame changes, etc), but I'd still argue for the acts being too hard on new players.
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u/servarus 27d ago
I think you should push when Ziz is going to make a thread for getting the questions for the next podcast. I think it is on next Wednesday.
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u/MasterBaiterTheOld $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ 27d ago
I disagree.
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u/ermagerdzz 28d ago
After going through the acts hundreds of times now I'm just over it. I'm burnt out by the time I even get to maps and usually quit if the league mechanic isn't captivating enough.
I want to start maps at level 1 and fill the atlas out as I level up, or at least have the option of doing the acts or not.
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u/explosivecurry13 StopUsingPoeDotTrade 28d ago
the ONLY thing i didnt like (after my 2nd death) was brutus. walk of shame was pitiful
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u/BillehBear Elementalist 28d ago
The Brutus change just seems weird
Like sure if you don't see it coming it's a shock the first time but after that? Kinda redundant, and a waste of hos initial boss room
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u/EvilKnievel38 28d ago
I actually didn't die to brutus myself due to using portals several times, but did you have to walk all the way from the entrance as usual? That also seemed like such an unneeded change to me. I get that they wanted to make the fight more interesting, but they could have done so inside the actual arena he was in.
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u/explosivecurry13 StopUsingPoeDotTrade 28d ago
He was a bit faster than I remember so I wasn't expecting to get double chunked
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u/Epizarwin 27d ago
I've loved the changes. Feels good having long boss fights. Having to portal out or try to get that last bit of health down before you die. Do you run off and tp or go for it. I can't wait until they update the other acts.
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u/s0meCubanGuy 28d ago
He quit the game before finishing act 2, because he didn't like what he was playing at all. He kept dying over and over again with seemingly nothing to do against it.
According to what GGG has said, and the direction theyve taken the game, they dont want players like your friend in the game. No casuals. PoE is complicated AF to learn, and now you are punished for playing instead of rewarded. Act 1 feels terrible and it feels like you need to be a veteran player to clear it in a reasonable amount of time. A friendof minetried it with zero experience in PoE. He was level 30 when he finally killed Merveil lol. Not a good look imo. Im having a blast playing Last Epoch after hitting tier 3 maps this league. If this is the direction the game is going i'm spending my money and time else where.
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u/EvilKnievel38 28d ago
Sorry to say, but level 30 in act 1 sounds rather made up. PoE has quite a significant exp penalty when overleveled in acts and I can't imagine a new player grinding through that so much to reach level 30 before giving up if that player can't progress.
Other than that, yeah it seems to be heading more and more in a direction where casuals and new players are no longer able to play the game reasonably.
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u/HansGlueck1234 27d ago
my brother quit in mud flats after getting stunlocked and killed by rhoas. Also act 1 without vendor recipe as a caster is dog shit so every new player that plays a caster is screwed from the get go because there is nothing telling u u can do that.
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u/EvilKnievel38 27d ago
Honestly I think most "elitist" people here that are saying act 1 is still easy simply don't realize the amount of basic knowledge they have and apply in act 1 that a new player doesn't have. Things like using the right support gem for damage on boss instead of onslaught. Things like a vendor recipe caster wand like you mention. Just in general gearing and more.
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u/psychomap 27d ago
When I started in 1.3 or 1.4 the game was harder than it is now and I blindly played to level 57 in merciless including the second resistance penalty that is now postponed to the end of the story.
No, I'm not basing my estimation of the current act 1 around all the knowledge I have. I don't even bother with leveling vendor recipes.
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u/WasterOfTimes 27d ago
At some point people just need to man up.
How fun would the game be if a new player could go through 1-10 without dying. People seem to be so scared of a little challenge. Let him learn the game by dying a few times, there is NO penalty al all...
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u/gvdexile9 27d ago
Complete nonsense. Acts were and still are a joke. Unless you play ssf hc gauntlet race, campaign is a piece of cake.
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u/EvilKnievel38 27d ago
Maybe to you, but I don't think you realize the basic knowledge that allows you to breeze through it. The acts are absolutely no joke for beginners. The fact you even know about the gauntlet races tells me enough that you're nowhere near a beginner yourself either. The main point is that it was already hard enough for beginners and it's only been made harder for them and more tedious all around.
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u/HelixtheWarlock 28d ago
Veteran player and it takes you more than 3 days to hit maps? Did you play like 2hrs a day?
Sorry but this is just hard to take serious.
I don't think your criticism is invalid but you have so much to improve on as a player.
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u/EvilKnievel38 28d ago edited 28d ago
No it doesn't take me 3 days to hit maps normally, nor would it have taken 3 days if I played this league, but I didn't feel like playing. The acts were tedious. I played maybe 3 hours on launch (at night time), 4 hours on day 1, 4 hours on day 2 and 1 hour on day 3 when I decided to quit. Part of that playtime was messing around with how explosive concoction functioned, rambling with guildies about the state of the game. Previous leagues it would take me roughly 6-7 hours to get to maps at league start. Not the fastest, but I don't care, I don't have to be. It doesn't make me any less of a veteran though and I don't see how it matters at all here.
I played 10+ hours every day for the first month of ritual and ultimatum, since I sadly had personal shit going on which caused me to be stuck at home without a job. I've played thousands of hours over years. Like I mentioned in the post, I manage to do all content a league has to offer, such as feared in 2 weeks in ritual for example to be more precise about it. Yeah, I'd consider myself a veteran, but you're free to have a different view.
Edit: Added a clarification to the post in case more people care or are bothered by this. "For reference, normally it would take me 6-7 hours and I'd play 10+ hours the first days or weeks. I played far less this league."
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u/CryptoBanano 28d ago
I cant believe this. You did not play 12 hours straight at league launch to improve your earnings while flipping currencies and started selling your red maps after sleeping 3 hours for a little break after these 12 hours straight? Because thats what a "casual" player does here on Reddit.
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u/gerwaric 28d ago
This was so reasonably realistic I had to read it twice before I understood your actual point.
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u/Rajangisevil 28d ago
My opinion, and I mean no disrespect:
If your friend didn't like dying, and didn't like the game in Act1, then this game is not really for him.
I personally don't think Act1 is too hard. You can't just trivialize every monster, and you shouldn't be able to.
Merveil could lose 25% of her HP and still be a big challenge for many players, so maybe there's room for balancing, but realistically, if you can get her down to 25% HP, you can kill her on your next go.
There's no penalty for dying in Act 1.
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u/EvilKnievel38 27d ago
Like I said in other comments, hitting a wall isn't the problem. Hitting that wall in act 1 is though in my opinion.
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u/Rajangisevil 27d ago
I don't think Act 1 should be any easier or harder for a new player than Act 2, aside from learning controls (probably shouldn't be fighting Merveil if controls are still a problem).
The wall your friend hit is a knowledge wall. Act 1 is trivially easy even after difficulty increases if you know what you're doing.
PoE has always been about getting more experience and learning. You shouldn't be able to coast through the game as a brand new player, imo.
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u/SponTen SSF 27d ago
It sucks, but this is just personal preference.
I convinced two of my friends to play PoE in 3.15 specifically because it was harder. One of them has only played for a few hours, and doesn't like ARPGs much in general, and the other played several hundred hours back around 2014, and hasn't played since.
The new player found the game okay, but didn't like the pacing; it was a bit too zoomy for him. He found the difficulty quite applicable for him. He'd die every 20-30 mins, take a minute to think about what happened and ask questions, then jump right back in. He had no major problems with difficulty in Act 1 or 2, but stopped playing after that because he just wasn't having fun.
The old player found the game ridiculously easy. He said he couldn't believe that, after a nerf-heavy patch, it was still so easy to reach insane levels of speed. He said he was just alternating between left click to move, then right click to clear the screen. He said he remembers the game being way harder in the past.
Hitting a wall right at the start could definitely be seen as an issue, I don't disagree with you there. But there's a balancing act here. Some people prefer to be challenged right from the get-go, others will find the same game impossible, and others still will find the same game too easy. If your friend didn't find the game engaging enough despite the difficulty, then perhaps it's not for him? Part of the experience is the intense struggle at the start, at least imo, and it seems in GGG's opinion too.
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u/RdPirate 27d ago
Here is a question for you and them: Would they have continued playing if you were not there to answer questions.
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u/SponTen SSF 27d ago
Well, they quit even with me answering their questions. The reasons they gave me weren't related to the game being too difficult though; both of them cited the game being too zoomy and bloated.
The new player found the difficulty about right, but was overwhelmed with everything going on. He wanted the pacing to be slower to give him time to absorb everything.
The old player found the difficulty way, way too easy. Combined with how easy it was for him to reach, what he considered, "insane speeds", and the sheer amount of things happening on the screen at once, it made everything feel kind of meaningless to him. He mentioned something about "what is the point of 1000 mobs if I just right click once and they all explode?".
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u/psychomap 27d ago
You could recommend the masochist mode gauntlet to that guy when it releases at some point.
There'll be a lot going on, but it definitely won't be easy.
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u/Drexim 28d ago
I gave up with poe as I was just a casual gamer who would drop into a league every now and then, played about 600 hours since harbinger. The game just isn't new player friendly. I haven't played this league at all and I probably won't. My friends have tried the game and quit because its just too much to take in. I hate that I have to follow build guides as I can't just play and try make a build work as respeccing is just so expensive.
Maybe I'm in the minority with this opinion but i enjoyed it much more few years ago but it's too complex for me now.
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u/psychomap 27d ago
I don't think you really have to engage with the added complexity since then. The skill tree is still complicated and you still need to pay attention to what support gems you use, but all the other things and mechanics are optional.
Get life, resistance, and damage, and you'll be able to clear the game if you don't stand in the bad.
When I started out, the first character I tried to make work had Elemental Equilibrium and was self-casting spells of different elements, including Lightning Tendrils rather than Arc, which meant that the first LT hit would always buff the lightning resistance for the next three (because LT wasn't a channelled skill then). I hit a wall somewhere in merciless act 3 IIRC (before the 4th act was added).
After that, I failed a couple of times with characters following guides (I either strayed too far from the guides or got bored). I got back to the game when I met someone else who played it and theorised a Scorching Ray CwC Firestorm build before starting to play and immediately got to yellow maps. It was slow, but it had a lot of damage.
I think one thing that the game is lacking is the ability for players to plan out their builds ingame. If the game had a Path of Building equivalent with a sufficient tutorial, I don't think it would be as big of an issue.
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u/UncookedNoodles 27d ago
breh, really. This is purely an issue of player skill.
How can you be a veteran player and legitimately think act 1 was too much
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u/Faerlina_Lash 28d ago
I actually think the solution is to make the acts challenging but give players solutions via side quests. Like giving out a ring with cold res and a life roll or a 3 link item. This will teach a new player that these stats are impactful. Just giving out gems without giving them items to put them in will cause confusion.