50+ bug reports (and climbing), suggestions and critique

- complete freeze-up during breach:

Music still runs, mouseover on mobs and minions still work, everything else is frozen though.
Exit to character select screen crashed it completely.

Upon restarting the game, no portals were present in my hideout, so i guess it was the instance rather than the game crashing.

Map is also marked on "endgame map" as attempted rather than completed, although it was "completed" prior to opening the breach.

- hint screen regarding dodge rolling will still say [spacebar] even if you have rebound it

- hex bloom does not appear to work when socketed with blasphemy, vulnerability and ritualistic curse. It IS hard to tell if it does though, so i am not 100% sure here

- ritualistic curse does not appear to work when socketed with blasphemy, vulnerability and hex bloom. I am not sure how it would either, as there is no curse zones to erupt from. I attempted it anyway to see if the 50% aoe size would work. Honestly, i can't tell.


Critique:
I absolutely LOVE how you have changed delirium, with the shattered mirrors along the map to prolong fog time. I just had a map where i was able to fully clear it with delirium on. That has never happened for me before (not in poe1) either. I had a blast while doing that!

After more testing of blasphemy-vulnerability-magnified effect-hex bloom i can with 99% certainty say several aspects of this combination does not work, regardless of what the detailed stat sheet says:



- Cast time and casts per second obviously does not apply (i would think at least)

- Curse (aura) radius seem to correctly be modified by magnified effect, so this part is fine

- Curse duration seems to not work, or sporadically at best. Sometimes a curse seems to stick after applying it within aura range, but i have yet to see a target where it stuck more than a few seconds

- Curse effect modifier. Well, i can't say if this one works.

- Curse application delay seems to maybe sorta work? It seems if i move into aura range of a mob and immediately move out, the curse falls off. If i stay in range for a bit and move out, it MIGHT stick for a very short duration, but it feels like hit and miss

- Curse spreads to enemies within 3m on enemy death does NOT work. I have been running 3 maps now with this setup, and i still can't say for certain that i have seen an application spread. This is normally very visible when applying the curse manually.

It's quite a shame, since the player both have to sacrifice spirit and safety to use this combination. But at the moment, it is either broken or misleading (or both).

- Burial bog
While i love the map and concept behind it, it seems some of the mobs assigned to spawn from the edges aka swamp do not trigger properly or get stuck. Here is an example of a stuck one that neither can path to me or me to it:



I could probably blow it up with some ranged damage, but that isn't the point of this post :)

- endgame map generation

This can be a little wonky at times it seems. Notice below, that the whole upper section is inaccessible unless traversing far on the right. There is no immediate connection on the left either due to water generation.



In itself it isn't a problem, but with the tower/tablet influence mechanic, it is troublesome.

- Suggestion: Tileset generation/fixed parts:
For the maps that seem to always generate the starting area in the same way, could we have this part of the map auto revealed? Here is an example of hidden grotto, and it always seem to generate with this in the start, although the bottom part around the chasm is always empty.

I have zoomed the overlay map to maximum for ease of viewing:

- Unlike other mechanics, new and old, the new/reworked strongbox mechanics does not add to monster count (top right info box). That said, the new version feels SO much better than the old one.

- Endgame map visual, possible bug
Unless you have already, you may want to think about a way to show many modifiers in a smaller space. I have no example of conflicts happening, but i do have this example with 6 modifiers which potentially (i think?) could/could have rolled many mods in adjacent nodes creating visual clutter and possibly overlapping icons:

- Concerns about droprates, map modifiers and so on:

So i just did the map in the post above with 6 modifiers (deadly map boss, breach, delirium, ritual, irradiated (+1), corrupted (+1)) with a fully rolled T15 sporting 275% waystone chance in itself, effectively making the run a super juiced T17 map (mob level: 81). The only thing missing was corrupting the waystone itself, but i admit i did not dare do it in case of ruining it.

After the run and (surprisingly) not dying after doing everything and all mechanics, i must admit i am extremely dissappointed.

Since this is the first and only time i have had this many modifiers on an endgame node, i documented the run with screenshots. The collection can be seen here:

https://imgur.com/a/yg7sKmn

I'll describe the reason and my concerns for each image in the collection below:


1+2) Just shows the waystone used and monster level of the map, no concern here

3) First full inventory and portal to hideout use. Waystones dropped at that point = 1 x T5, 2 x T9. Uncut gems dropped = 2 x lvl 3 support. Delirium has been done at this point, but was rather dissappointing, with the mist depleting rather fast although i hit 2 shattered mirrors before the delirium encounter ended.

4) A level 1 waystone drops. In a T17 (15+2) map. Honestly, that just feels like trolling the player.

5) Just shows 1 monster left on the map, which is the "deadly map boss". Breach and ritual has not been done yet at this point.

6) "Deadly map boss" loot. 1 x T15 waystone although the map is 15+2. So my guess here - and concern - is that waystone tier calculations do not use irradiated and corrupted, although previous map experience suggests otherwise to me. On the other hand, a (insert curse words here) lvl 1 waystone dropped earlier, so... yeah... Also, with a map and mobs this high, i would have expected a chance of greater+ jewelers orb and uncut skill gem lvl 19+. Of course, not seeing those drops do not mean they can't happen, regardless it is a concern of mine.

7) Breach has been done, and was quite frantic. In general it seems that there are a lot more mobs in the starting small radius of the breach than the amount of mobs as the breach reaches middle and maximum radius. Something that feels different from poe1, in a bad way. Also notice no breach ring drops (now that they are finally useful vs the poe1 versions), only 1 splinter and only one catalyst. The breach itself had a somewhat bad placement on the map, but i cleared a good amount of mobs in it (no hands sadly) and expected more honestly.

8) Ritual has been done, and all content on the map has been completed. Notice that i at this point had not gotten a single uncut skill gem, which i would have suspected to be at least lvl 19. However, there is one in the ritual loot - at a dissappointing lvl 18.

9) Ritual loot reroll, and final inventory. Nothing exciting in sight.


So, there you have it. All in all it sums up to:

- Map T15+2, fully modded: Currency used = 3xExalted (waystone started at 3 mods)
- Map node modifiers: Deadly map boss, breach, delirium, ritual, irradiated, corrupted
- Waystones (x9): 1, 4, 5, 9, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15
- Uncut skill gems: 0
- Jewelers: 0
- Exalted orbs: 0
- Orbs of alchemy: 1

In other words, a very poor turnout. The map barely paid for itself, and although the amount of waystones dropped was great, only 1 was the same level as the initial waystone invested.

This just goes to show that some parameters might need a bit of adjustment. Surely i could just have had a long streak of bad luck in that map, but with those initial values (+atlas modifiers which i have not even mentioned), and 3 "boosting" league mechanics on the map, it ought to be somewhat representative of an average or slightly below average run of a similar nature.

Here's a bonus embedded image of the T1 waystone dropping at lvl 81 content: