Some early 0.3 feedback

Some of the changes are great while other, more important ones seem somewhat disappointing to me.
I'll try to do a point-by-point breakdown yet keep it short

1 - New act, bosses, monsters, maps & pinnacle : New content is good. The act & monster design was never the problem so expecting this to be great. Moving on

2 - Removing cruel difficulty : Very good. Who wouldn't prefer a few new quests instead ? Moving on.

3 - Abyssal league : While this is clearly just a slightly touched-on version of the old abyss league from POE 1, i do not have an issue with this. As a matter of fact, i think it's a much better idea to bring back most of the best and so far unincluded, leagues of POE 1, than to try to create convoluted new ones that might miss the mark. There's still plenty of time to invent and add new ones later on. Allow new players to experience the glory POE 1 leagues in a POE 2 coat and allow old goats like me the pleasure of experiencing them again. Moving on

4 - Well of Souls crafting : TBD, but at first sight, it's just two more layers of RNG.

5 - Sprint : While this is certainly useful, it seems handicapped. Tying this ability to an obligatory slow dodge roll is annoying. And the fact that getting hit while sprinting not only interrupts your sprint, but also knocks you down means using it in combat always comes with the risk of death. As such, it is in no way a viable substitute for a quicksilver flask.

6 - Support gems revamp : Being limited to a single copy of any support gem was probably THE worst decision ever made and created a copious amount of insurmountable problems. Therefore, the removal of this limit is a very VERY important big step in the right direction. I'm happy this has finally been understood. The lineage support gems are a nice way of dressing up that some gems still require to have a usage limit of 1 and will thus represent the more powerful of the older supports, fine. But tying the drop of some of these to specific boss fights ? This may again prove to be an extremely limiting factor on build diversity. Having multiple tiers for supports is awesome as well. These two changes together unsurprisingly represent the first step back towards the systems of POE 1 that already had those right. And so, this is a good thing. But since you had to make a pass on each and every one the support gems anyway, why not immediately deal with the other issues plagueing supports ? Some of them still read like a convoluted mess of restriction after restriction, where people are just 'supposed to know' that sometimes, things need to be taken VERY literally in this game. Such as 'more' not being counted under 'increases and reductions'. And the list goes on ...

7 - Crafting currency changes : This is garbage, plain and simple. What this will do for everyone after a few hours or days of play, is completely invalidate all the non-perfect, tiered currency in the game. So, thank you for that. In the end, that comes down to the removal of the two lowest tiers for each modifier. But wouldn't it then have been simpler to just do that instead, and leave the currency untouched ? Doing that would additionally also have improved the drops, which is not the case now. Lastly, it makes me wonder what applying a perfect orb on an ilvl 1 item will do ... Do nothing, destroy everything ?

8 - Passive tree changes : TBD, but from what i've read in the patch notes, these do not seem to provide easier access to build-defining nodes. Will stormcaller arrow builds for example, finally be able to reach 'Reduced skill effect duration' nodes without gimping themselves to the core ? Judging from what i've read, no. The tree needed weeding out, desperately, and this looks like a missed opportunity

9 - New trade : Step forward. I like it. Nothing to add.

10 - New uniques, gems : TBD

All in all, some great things in there, some not so great. It just leaves the overall impression in the end that 'The Vision' is still always lurking around in a corner somewhere leaving it's mark on things and it's detrimental to the game. The sooner that is realized as well, the better off the game will be.

No matter how much I try, I cannot agree with number 3. I'm so sick of POE 1 mechanics, I almost instinctively avoid them in POE 2.

Am I the only weirdo that doesn't understand why a new game has to have everything the old one has?
I'm tired of breach, delirium, ritual, etc. I've played those mechanics for thousands of hours until ai felt like puking........make something new, for the love of .....

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lupasvasile#5385 wrote:

No matter how much I try, I cannot agree with number 3. I'm so sick of POE 1 mechanics, I almost instinctively avoid them in POE 2.

Am I the only weirdo that doesn't understand why a new game has to have everything the old one has?

Probably not :) And i do get where you're coming from. But i'm assuming this issue for you will end up solving itself in the long run