Release 0.4 & Warrior Feedback

BUILD & VIDEO

Video: POE2 TITAN - SUNDER / SHIELD WALL QUICK MAP DEMO

Build: TITAN Sunder/Shield Wall

- I've been testing a bunch of skills/spirit things so my own build and gear aren't even close to optimized properly
- Gameplay and build are nothing special just a quick demo to give a little more weight to my post
- I'm not very good at this game but not a complete nooby so go easy on me.
- Played POE2 0.1 on launch, was new to POE, was able to complete both Tier 3? Arbiter and Xhest as Titan.
- Came back to play 0.4

FEEDBACK - OVERALL

- POE2 overall is fun and improves every patch.
- I look forward to playing this over the years ahead as it continues to grow.
- I won't detail all the things this game does well.
- Instead, below is focused on areas for improvement.

HITBOXES AND MODELS

- Visibility of hitboxes needs to match the animations, visual models, and textures more tightly.
- In many cases I've died or was hit by an attack despite being 2 meters away from a slam attack where I am clearly grounded on the floor in safety.
- No other damage or spells or debuffs occurring on screen. I am far from the visual model of the enemy's attack visual model I can fit two of my characters models between the attack visual and my character. But I'm still hit. Feels bad.
- This issue could be related to a few things? The hitbox area doesn't match visually the model/animation, some dodge roll into sprinting that "stretches hitbox" in startup frames all in conjunction with desync/interpolation/"netcode" from client-server?
- Overall just want the game to look and feel better to reward good player execution and that visuals match the hitbox area.

KEY INPUTS & KEY QUEUING

- There is a significant issue with attack/spell queueing on key press.
- There are clear moments where key inputs are ignored or "eaten" by the game.
- I can double-tap forge hammer key so fast and then go to do another action or dodge roll or something else and the game ignores all future commands. Instead what the game does is queue two hammer presses and then throws the forge hammer then retracts it
- This stretches almost a three second period where I am dumbfounded wondering what my character is doing.
- In reality it forced two player actions in a row because I've double or triple-tapped forge hammer to "blanket" the skill press (similar to "plinking" in fighting games)
- There is also a point where the game is ignoring and dropping inputs.
- It's possible it has to do with how skills and inputs are queued and framerate or "netcode".
- For example, when mapping, during a boss encounter or a screen full of mobs it does not always consistently cancel with the same frame or timing.
- There are no debuffs or slows on me nor am I taking damage or standing in any damaging effects or debuffing spells.
- I hit my dodge and nothing happens. Then I spam dodge and still nothing happens as my character is winding up the attack. I am not light stunned nor have taken any damage or have debuffs visible.
- In other cases the same thing happens where my character is just walking and doing nothing, not taking damage but refuses to dodge roll.
- As soon as I go back to my hideout I can instantly animation cancel with dodge roll at any point during the any skill without issue.
- It's instantaneous to my input. I press the key it happens. I've tested this extensively to rule out keyboard issues.
- One solution is that key presses and mouse clicks need to be CPU threaded differently so they are separated from framerate.
- Secondly, the key input queue system needs to be tightened (lowered).
- No clue if this is already attempted to be implemented in this engine or capable.
- Threaded input concept explained here.
- Here are some example threads of this discussed and showcased here and here.
- The showcase of the videos demonstrates that even at 5 FPS (framerate) the mouse click is registered on the exact pixel the button was pressed.
- This is overall about making the game feel more responsive for everyone despite their framerate and computing power.

CAMPAIGN VS ENDGAME

- The game campaign changes from meaningful engagements into a mapping cluster "cluck"
- The game dynamic changes when mapping to a difficulty where every "global cooldown" of attacks needs to clear a large amount of mobs or you will be overwhelmed.
- The "action" and "combat" element of the game cease to exist in the sense that it's most just about blowing up what's on the screen as quickly as possible.
- For example, leaving magic casters up to free cast on you is EXTREMELY bad. The game begins to feel more like you're fighting an invisible "ability/skill time gate" than any sort of combat/action expression of execution, movement and where skilled decision making and meaningful combat matters.
- On this playthrough I did not do any World bosses such as Arbiter or Xhest out of lack of interest and to test what my experience would be like not grinding for keys/breachstones.
- The campaign is still the most fun both times in 0.1 and 0.4 that I had over mapping and bossing. I never expected that.

DODGE & SPRINTING

- SPRINTING needs to be able to be key bound separately.
- STOP forcing player bindings and interactions and combining new abilities without player agency.
- In the campaign even though it's massively easier than 0.1 I died an insane more amount of times. I couldn't believe it!
- I'm pretty sure I logged over 30 deaths during campaign due to sprinting and dodge forced on the same key.
- Sprinting is also bugged where it keeps the sprinted state despite no longer sprinting causing you to be punished on hit.
- Sprinting teleports the model, pinballs you etc. It is exceptionally poor on warrior class.
- I have disabled the auto-sprint option in the menu.
- I also have a deeply formed habit to hold down the space bar after every dodge for ergonomic comfort (which existed for my hundreds of hours in Release 0.1). Then I return to 0.4 and the game forces sprinting on the same key.
- Dodge is still bugged and clips into terrain and world objects. It does not obey key directional presses many times rolling at an odd angle. - I lost count how many times I'm clipped into a tree, stump or rock.

LOOTING

- Controllers get to loot using button press.
- Mouse and Keyboard need a loot keybind so they can loot on key press just like controller in addition to clicking.
- In many cases I click to loot and my character runs over to the item and then stops short of looting. Or my character runs close enough but I have to click again for some reason.
- Example, player runs over loot pile, use scroll wheel to scroll up and down on selected loot (mouse cursor position doesn't matter), then press "LOOT" or "USE" keybinding to pick up that loot.
- This avoids more clicking and would give players an option to make the game more ergonomic or comfortable suited to their preference.

WARRIOR

- I am still waiting for the payoff in the game when this warrior will feel good.
- Every option of increasing skill speed on the tree and warrior is still sluggish or clunky in how the animations and timing of attacks feel
- Remove 5% decrease speed on passives skills in warrior tree area, it's so annoying.
- At end game I have insane attack and skill speed but the animations ONLY INCREASE in how goofy the game looks and feels.
- WARRIOR skills DO NOT obey the position of the mouse. LEAP and other skills simply do whatever they want, the warrior behaves like a pinball.
- This is still broken after 1 year. This needs to be fixed completely so that leap lands where the mouse cursor is and stampede doesn't pinball your character. I've tried all mouse cursor options in the menu for "cursor tracking" nothing changes.
- The animations spasm for volcanic fissure and don't obey cursor location many times.
- When sprinting and then using some slam attack the character can spin in random direction and run back two or three steps before even starting the attack.
- What ends up happening, the same thing in 0.1 as now in 0.4 is that the warrior class always just ends up feeling like some fire elemental rock magic class.
- The playstyle I'm hungry for is that my two-handed weapon is swinging and cleaving and connecting with monsters to cause the damage and impact. Not ground slams and magic effects and AOE splash effects.
- I would love if the warrior class has an ascendency and passive-tree skill-pathway to feel more grounded in actual physical combat and movement.
- Perhaps 2H swords or axes are the future to offer this.
- Its unsatisfying to watch your massive two-handed mace model fly through an enemy hitbox model visually but not register as damage because you are 0.00001 meter too far away.
- Tighten the game up so that you don't have to move a micro pixel to get a hit.
- Make warrior (balance other classes too) to have default melee attack range of +1 or +2. Just bump it up a touch so it doesn't feel so bad.
- Druid feral has a gap closer attack, warrior needed something like this that's not just boneshatter gem. -- Not as aggressive as the wolf leap to gap close, but just something tighter than a slow step forward.
- Many slam attacks, including Sunder and Shield Wall clip into walls and do not generate any slam attack or shield wall fissure. Nothing happens, no attack is generated or registered. Just an empty slam animation into the ground. A clear example of this is slamming into the Abyss Depths edge. The wonky hitbox. This also occurs on trees, stumps, posts, pillars etc all through the game and maps. It's devastatingly broken for Warrior.
- I can dodge roll -> sprint -> sunder and be halfway through the SUNDER animation and then get full stunned by one hit because the game believes I'm still in a SPRINTING state! This is devastating and needs to be fixed asap.


MERCHANT TABS & HIDEOUT LOOP

- Need to be a part of regular STASH view.
- Stop forcing me to click NPCs or assign multiple hotkeys when this can easily be integrated into the STASH view.
- Its okay that Ange is an unlock in the campaign or higher level at some point.
- The issue is for ergonomics and smoothing the gameplay loops by lowering the amount of clicks and running around Hideout area.
- Need to auto identify when you pass by NPC in your hideout (Less clicking)
- Need to be able to auto stash items, for example, I run up to stash and because I have checkboxes for "X currency" it auto dumps it to the stash. I should not have to do three player actions or more to stash this stuff every time. (Less clicking)

ZOOM OUT - VISIBLITY

- Still unable to zoom out further in 0.4
- I can bypass this restriction by using a custom resolution ultra wide
- Why can't we zoom out further when we can just use an ultra-wide?
- It's 100% clear using ultra-wide resolution gives a visibility advantage. Playing 16:9 ratio feels so up-close.
- For example, instead of 2560x1440 resolution I use 2560x1080 to play ultra wide for massive visibility advantage.
- Make the game graphical options more ergonomic or comfortable suited to player preferences.
- I am not asking to be able to zoom out 1000%. I'm just asking that 16:9 ratio be able to zoom out EQUIVALENT to ultra-wide visibility. Make them match with relative zoom values!

SKIN TRANSFERS MTX

- Predatory to charge money for changing skins, in reality this should be free with earned drops in game.
- The predatory aspect arrives when it only applies per item pieces and doesnt let you put items to sell in merchant. You have to unequip your cosmetic skin transfer first. So if you want to leave gear over night in your shop to sell you have to lose the skin.
- Please reach some middle-ground of 10 coin cost per item but make it a permanent skin-transfer account unlock, not a consumable
- This also promotes more player "expression, identity and uniqueness" to how their character appearance.

GOLD COSTS

- Gold Costs, Refunding Passives & Ascendency's still cost way too much gold
- I spent 1.5 million gold without even realizing it from currency exchange and respec'ing
- Example, using currency exchange some transfers costed over 400K which is ridiculous (I understand it might be an anti-measure to botting or RMT or something else)
- There are so many more passive tree and ascendency experiments I want to test in increments but I can't do anymore after burning all my gold
- At one point I bricked my exploration unintentionally and went down to 3,000 gold unknowingly from currency exchange and respeccing.
- I am extremely experimental so I may change 5, 10, 20 points and then try each variation with a different combination of Ascendency.
- I do not copy builds or use path of building or third-party software to calculate or automate.
- I make my own build in-game and I'm punished/held back for wanting to deeply experiment with "micro-tweaks".
- Obviously I mapped for a few gold runs to sell all rares on maps for gold and recouped but this is example of more unnecessary mud.

USER INTERFACE (UI)

- Make Berserk and Rage Buff icons or make it optional UI placement (show Rage buff is boosted by Berserk spirit gem)
- Allow Center UI option regardless of screen resolution (currently only ultra-wide allows it)
- Custom UI - I want to disable all the stuff I don't need to see include frame art.
- I want the UI to look CLEANER showing me only the info I care about.
- Games had customizable UI over 20 years ago.
- Auto-Drop Down Lists - GEMS/SKILLS/WAYSTONES/TABLETS- UI needs to auto fill/drop down with what you already have crafted to fill the slot.
- I should not have to click my stash one billion times to sort through tabs and individual items.
- Creating gems, if you own it already in your stash that you are creating the game should place that gem in the slot already or ping it with PURPLE outline for you.
- Allow removal of Mouse 1 click button hotkey visual and binding on UI.
- ADD option to disable/hide XP bar from UI

KEYBINDINGS

- Allow keybinds for scroll up or scroll down

STASH

- Send all stacks to STASH
- Can't ctrl+right click to send all stack from bag to stash of all items (ex. waystones and uncut gems)

EVENTS

- I have no interest in doing most of these events including EXPEDITION, RITUAL, VAAL Temple
- I entered the VAAL Temple once and saw that you have to build your own map placement and stuff and I never entered again.
- It's not the experience I am looking for. I don't care if that was the new toy for the season and optimal for loot and abuse.
- These events represent more "mouse clicking overhead" mud, slowing down of the map flow and break any sense of "immersion" in the sense of being scripted events.
- It feels more like rinse and repeat of tedium.
- They're anti fun and don't offer variety.
- I don't want to spend a season of POE2 inside a the same temple in the same map in perpetuity.

ABYSS

- The Abyss Depths entrance and Abyssal Trove text overlay on needs to be matching green color to differentiate from white items.
- It was extremely disappointing when entering the Abyss Depths map to learn its just the same layout every time.
- Abyss felt extremely repetitive even on the second time entering the Abyss Depths.
- I think the Abyss entrance should just lead to the boss immediately and spawn more Abyss monsters on the map instead by default.

BOSSES VS MAPPING

- Having to take out gems or swap things for bosses is boring and annoying.
- Its not that I can't do it, and it's not that I can't build something more optimal
- Its not a player skill cap/execution based.
- It's that it's simply anti-fun and tedious
- Its an example of more mud to crawl through to switch off gems every map at the end.
- I understand if someone has a DEEPLY niche build min/max'd insanely for boss or mapping differentiation. Then okay, they might need to be forced to swap out stuff where you're chasing uber bosses fully max'd endgame stuff (or with a fat 6 player group)
- That scenario is fine and makes sense you might need to adjust your gear for a MASSIVE jump in difficult/power scale.
- However, just look at Herald of Ash which is the most basic fundamental spirit gem you get off the rip for warrior and it's useless for bosses.
- To optimize every time even just for ONE thing you would have to swap that out for every boss fight. Just the basic herald that is core for most AOE builds is ZERO value on 99% of bosses.
- In some boss fights swapping out your skill support gems and spirit gems make a massive difference, and it's just an annoying gameplay loop to have to do that.
- I don't have the perfect solution to this but it just leans more to show that end game design and optimization steers towards making a "one button or two button solve everything" so you don't even have to deal with these min/maxing concepts.
- I want the game and boss fights to feel more rewarding based on action/combat, mechanical player execution based that has high skill differentiation. (The campaign does some of this already. And realize I do understand it's an arpg.)

IMMERSION AND ENDLESS PLAY

- I do not like the Super Mario Bros. 3 mapping system nor having to micro manage waystones and tablets and slamming them with exalts and vaals to min/max everything.
- It represents massive mud to crawl through, slowing down the flow and "immersion" of the experience.
- It's immersion breaking in a mechanical and execution based sense of "game flow". I have to go teleport back and do the hideout loop again. Find the next map node, put in another waystone, tablets, dump to stash, rinse and repeat.
- The game experience is being in 6th gear on the highway to map fast and then being dragged right down to a halt by a Red Traffic-light.
- I just want to play the game! There is so much "mouse clicking overhead" and mud to crawl through just to play!
- When I log in I do not want to stare at a map with nodes and keep clicking and dragging for eternity as this laggy map keeps growing.
- It's not a gameplay loop that's fun and immersive. It feels like multiple piling up chores and takes me right out of the gaming session mentally.

ENDLESS PLAY TYPE MODE

- I would love some sort of endless gameplay mode or "climb the tower mode"
- Where map bosses and encounters on maps to be random and offer maximum variety and not know what I'm diving into.
- That represents danger if designed properly would contributes to previous mentions of needed appropriate balance of defensive gems and offensive gems.
- If it wouldn't feel all pre-determined. Map bosses should not be known in advanced by map or environment type.
- I don't have the best solutions for the frustrations I'm bringing up but just offer me the option of a RANDOM portal or something that automatically uses all my tablets and waystones in a set Stash Tab so I don't have to click every freaking time and start a new map.
- I just want to keep going and play the game going through an "endless dungeon crawl" or "tower climb of levels" to see how far I can get. Similar to a rogue-lite perhaps?
- I don't know what other games or arpgs offer in this sense of if it's been attempted in POE1. I don't have the perfect solution, I just want something different than this "node hopping mapping" style.
- It's fine if people love the Atziri Temple and World Map system.
- I'm NOT stating it's objectively bad. I would just love it if I logged in to 0.5 release and NEVER see the World Map ever again.
- I wish the game offered a completely different end game experience that doesn't have this "STOP, FIND, LOAD UP, START, STOP" gameplay loop.

CURRENCY TIERS

- I absolutely hated to come back to 0.4 to see currency tiers of ORBS now having I, II and III levels.
- It's so much more unnecessary mud and clicking to crawl through.
- It's not complex, skill (or intellect) based, or adding value to the gameplay.
- It's not interesting or fun.
- It just adds another layer in your mental schema to process the sequencing and min/maxing.
- Reminder, I didn't play POE1 at all so this artificial layering is something I deeply loathe.
- Am I just going to open the game one day and there's going to be ten tiers of every currency available?

DEFENSIVE & MOVEMENT ABILITY BASED GEMS

- Consider making more defensive and movement ability (non-damaging) based gems that are integral to the game combat mechanics.
- Example, we have blink, leap, shield charge already existing but consider adding some other types of defensive or movement counters to mechanics so that the game steers a bit more towards being "action" and combat focused.
- Make players think about defensive gems as much as offensive gems which leans to the idea of rewarding players based on action/combat, mechanical player execution that has high skill differentiation.

ITEM STATS & POWER INCREMENTS TRANSPARENCY

- Probably an age old topic since POE1 but there is too much unnecessary complexity and under the hood mathematics taking place where a stat says "increase X by %" but in reality not all are equal
- I want the in-game tool tip to be accurate and calculate and show the real values on a target dummy
- Why is there no target dummy to practice on?
- I should not have to use third-party software to appropriately calculate damage (which I refuse to do).

CURRENCY EXCHANGE

- When adding new item into an empty slot it does change values to appropriately match current market values
- For example, "I Want" Exalts is set. I change the "I Have" item. The value of the "I Have" randomly shoots up to a value that doesn't make sense or even match the current market values.
- Another real example, ITEM X is worth 3.76 of ITEM Y. When you set both Buy and Sell currency the value of the trade sets it to exchange RATIO incorrectly to 3. When incrementally you can manually get the exchange ratio to 3.75 which is CLOSE enough to get an instant trade.
- The game doesn't correctly calculate the current asking sell price ratio as close as possible without going over (or the current implementation is broken).

MONSTER SIZE AND PIVOTING ATTACKS

- Monster size including bosses should correlate with their pivoting speed and ability to spin 180 degrees
- There are MASSIVE monsters and bosses that 180 degree spin completely unrealistically. I know this is arpg fantasy so "realistic" is used loosely.
- However, when you treat warrior or druid shapeshifting as a this clunky/"heavy" slow-ass character but then a massive monster or giant boss 500%-1000% larger than you can spin on a dime it ruins some sense of "immersion" and "fairness" in the game.
- Those moments make the game feel more "random" in a bad way. It feels less like an "action" rpg game where 3D-models visually represent some element of combat based physics with relative size and power matching to "physical reality".
- Many cases where it feels more like you are fighting "spinning turrets hitboxes" than a monster.

GAME PERFORMANCE

- 0.4 compared to 0.1 has significantly worse performance
- In 0.1 I did not use DLSS at all, I had upscaling and sharpen turned off.
- Now in 0.4 I have to use in-game setting "Balance" with DLSS 4 with preset K for best visuals and performance
- I've tried all versions of DLSS 4 and 4.5 with forced pre-sets (Latest, K, L, M)
- I've tried all DLSS settings in-game (Ultra, Performance, Balanced, Quality, DLAA).
- Massive FPS drops from 200 frames down to 40-50 frames
- Shader times seem to be loading much more frequently and for longer durations
- Even setting game on DLSS Ultra Performance does not improve frames which tells me the game has become more memory/cpu intensive and is likely the bottleneck.
- CPU: 12900K @ 5.2 Ghz
- GPU: RTX 3080 12GB @ 2.1 Ghz
- RAM: DDR5 32GB C30 @ 6.2 Ghz
- Resolution: 2560x1080 with all lowest graphics settings in-game
- Ping: Average of 27ms

Interesting article discusses the new NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 version and it's performance costs on various generations of GPUs.

BUGS

- Ancestral Empowerment
-- Unlimited Ancestral Empowerment (when using the Ascendency) on Non-slam Skills after a Slam (As long as you don't use another slam)
- Time of Need
-- Elemental Resist / Temporal Chains cleansed by TIME OF NEED. The debuff icon goes away but the debuff remains. The solution is to get cursed again on purpose and then let TIME OF NEED to cleanse one more time.
- World Map
-- Regular simple nodes are not accessible on click even though multiple pathways exist with drawn lines to the map node and are surrounded by green nodes.
- TALISMAN
-- After using a Talisman and shapeshifting then returning to human form the character turn/pivot speed of your character is reduced greatly.
-- Logging out and logging in fixes this immediately. Seems like this is an intention spin speed nerf to druid/talisman class that stays on other characters when using a talisman and wolf form at least.