A Legally Blind Player's Blind Review -{ Part 1 }-

Dear Developers,

My goal in presenting this review is to make some small contribution to your ongoing work. While I do believe in the “sacred text” of the author, and that you should preserve the spirit of your work as you see fit, it is also true that texts (like games) are just as dependent on the reader’s ability to access, explore, and complete the works in their entirety. Having said that, I do also acknowledge that not all books are meant for all people. Joyce’s Ulysses is probably not suited for children, just as Elden Ring is probably not designed for people with anxiety disorders. But it would be an odd book indeed that was written for its audience not to finish, and I would therefore like to believe that you want as wide an audience as possible to play and complete your game.

I’m hopeful you will be receptive because I am perhaps quite far outside your intended target audience, and such a perspective might shine a light on something not many others have. Not only am I a “dinosaur” by today’s standards, but I am also legally blind. I have retinitis pigmentosa, an incurable degenerative eye disease which results in the following:

– Loss of light perception: I cannot distinguish shadows from dark environments or furnishings.

– Loss of color perception: I often cannot distinguish between similar pale/dark colors.

– Loss of peripheral vision: Right now I have about a ten-degree visual field, with an effective visual range of about seven to eight degrees. Basically: if you close one eye and hold a coffee straw up to the other, you see a little bit more than I do.

– Cataracts: These cloud central vision by obstructing, blurring, and scattering light. So in addition to the above, it’s also like seeing everything through a never ending stream of blurry TV static.

How, then, do I play? With a controller for ease of use, and much slower and more carefully than the young professional-grade speedrunners making many of the YouTube videos. I scan the screen constantly, rarely ever looking at my actual character, and rely heavily on visual and aural telegraphing from mobs and bosses. I try to keep my character in blank spaces, if that makes sense, and I try to anticipate when and what I can.

Why am I qualified to write this review? At this point I’ve put in about 66 hours. I am near the end of Act 3 playing SSF (solo, self-found) for most of the time. My only group time has been with my brother and two separate people who asked for help with bosses in Act 2. This means that, even though I have not reached Cruel Mode or “mapping” (whatever that is), I have still experienced a good bit of the available game and am capable of judging at least some things. I also chose, for the purpose of this review, to play perhaps the worst rated class: the Warrior. The slowest, clunkiest, jankiest, noodle-slappingest class at the moment. Considering that even some popular streamers changed away from the Warrior in favor of the witch, I think that playing this class as a blind person gives me a good perspective of the game’s very worst – and best – features. After all, if I can have so much fun with the worst class and still want to come back and play, then the game must have some really good bones.

While I will try to be as brief and objective as possible in the points below, I have never written this kind of review before, so I beg forgiveness if I meander. Verbosity, I’m afraid, is part of my nature. I also beg forgiveness for, at times, being bluntly critical. To do so is part of my profession, and my comments and questions are always and only meant to foster growth. As one editor reminded me, asking and answering the hard questions is the only way we get better.

I would also reiterate that, my gameplay being limited and much slower-paced than others, there are limitations to my understanding of and exposure to the game. I will not pretend to know very much about the game as a whole. Indeed, I may be wrong about things from time to time. I have much more to learn.
Now let’s get to it!

P.S. My love and respect to the wonderful people at GGG. I appreciate your hard work!


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1. Executive Summary
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Overall: Musk is right to call this a potential hall-of-famer. Between the story, general gameplay, and class design, this game does have serious potential for long-term investment and growth. I look for this to be very competitive toward other games on the market, and would readily agree this is a worthy successor to Diablo II.

Story: While not necessarily compelling, the narrative does contextualize the diegesis (the fictional world in games) and provide sufficient reason for the player to go from one point to another. Parts of the script could be revised for improvements such as higher quality of storytelling, improvement on secondary character depth, and better transitions between areas.

Classes: Especially including promised classes, these are generally appealing and provide a good variety of gameplay in terms of breadth and scope. They seem to mitigate fairly well the disparity between melee and ranged combat. As a monk, for example, I am able to weave somewhat seamlessly between close combat and distanced combat. This is absolutely essential for every class in this game. (Cough, Warrior, cough.) Few classes seem to need a “from page one” rewrite.

Progression: This is visible and seems attainable, but comes at a significant cost of time. Current logistics do not seem as respectful of player time and investment as they could be. Plot and stage progression through Act 3 is inhibited somewhat by over-tuned monsters. (There is no reason a yellowed-out Warrior should be one-shotted by non-boss enemies in the regular game. More on this below.) Tweaks to the passive skill system, drop rates, and crafting procedures are recommended.

Mechanics: Boss and monster mechanics are mostly fair, with relatively minor changes recommended. Changes might include damage amounts, animation speeds, timing between attacks, and the addition of ground effects before major damage dealers to better warn players to GTFO.

Interface: Some significant recommendations for improvement include an in-game auction house, revising the support gem UI elements, and expanded bag space.


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2. First Impressions
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Remember that this section is just for initial impressions. More details and examples are in their appropriate sections below.


Having never played a Path of Exile game, and very few isometric ARPGs, I found the learning curve quite steep. The problems, sadly, began at the character select screen and extended throughout Act I. This was problematic because, while Act I should be mostly acclimation, the acclimation itself should be smooth and fluid. It should seem like one part of the game system progresses naturally and logically into the next. Right now, this is not the case. Quite a lot is thrown at new players right away, and some of the necessary mechanics like support gems, upgrading items, charms, runes, gem slots on weapons and armor, and the secondary weapon sets do not seem to have effective introductory quests or tasks to help familiarize new players with the system. To use an analogy: in Skyrim, players receive a quest chain the first time they talk to a blacksmith. This quest chain makes players craft and improve both armor and weapons so that they learn how to use the overall system. This game could use more focus on that.

The class select screen is confusing because there is no way to tell at a glance what I am picking. “Choose a class” is the prompt, but there are no labels for the classes. Are you really wanting new and returning players to manually select each of twelve classes one at a time just to see what they are, or else memorize what each class looks like when creating a new character? How does the current character selection screen help players get quickly and fluidly into the game?

When I do select my class there seems to be a second option: “select a class variant.” If I choose the “stuns” Warrior, the implication is that I will wield a two-handed mace at the start. But I start instead with a one-handed club. Further, I find that it makes no difference what “variant” I choose with any class because all classes start with the same basic blank slate. This is misleading and frustrating for a new player, and gives the impression that there is no real choice. The class variant “option” should be removed, or else revised to say something like “this is what your class can do.”

It should also be noted that the intro videos for Warrior class variants seem to show the same moves for presumably different specs, or else show blocking. Contrast this with the monk variant videos, which seem to show off something specific to that variant. Intro videos should show something specific to the variant itself, enticing and exciting a desire to play that class or variant. At the moment, the Warrior videos are . . . not doing that.

The beginning of the narrative is itself disorienting. I know what I am picking, who they are, and am given a vague notion of why they are being hanged. But it’s not clear where I am relative to the game world. Is it just a random village I start from? Or am I starting in Ogham Village, or in the Ogham Ramparts, being hanged by the unjust and psycho count? And if I start in Ogham, why am I going back to a village that tried to hang me? Why am I not just trying to get out and go south away from them? Why do I care about the man dying on the ground, or about finding his son, if I barely escaped death myself and am trying so desperately to escape the region altogether? Cinematically, the opening looks good. Narratively, it makes no sense.

Past the introductory areas, my first impressions of the passive, gemming, and crafting systems were to say they are nice and perhaps mechanically sound on paper, but they are convoluted, misleading, and a bit of a chore in their current forms. For example, I absolutely love the “sphere grid” layout for the passive skill system because it reminds me of Final Fantasy X and implies the potential for growth into other classes (e.g. giving Tidus the ability to heal). And yet it’s oddly tunneling toward specific weapon choices and play styles, seeming to annihilate any open options. Overall, I feel pigeonholed into certain specs despite a vast passive skill system, and this once again gives the impression that I have no real choice regarding character growth.

Two good things to say about first impressions are that the stage design, art, and music are all consistently wonderful. It seems like every time I enter a new area, that new area is suddenly my favorite place to be in the game. This is exactly what to shoot for, as it keeps me wanting to progress further, and keeps me coming back to the game.


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3. Gameplay Mechanics and Systems
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From here on I get into the nitty-gritty, detailing specific examples of the good, the bad, and the ugly.


General Combat


The Good

The first and best thing about this game is that the combat mechanics do not seem to allow for one-button spamming. In most circumstances the combat upholds the “Goldilocks principal” in being neither too easy nor too difficult. If we think of a game in terms of reaction and response – the computer makes a move, and the player responds – then POE2 is much more conversational than Diablo IV. I have to react to stay alive, and that’s a good thing. At the same time, it is also pretty forgiving in many circumstances, making the overall combat experience enjoyable. Some of the mace spells synergize nicely, making combat preparation and calculated maneuvers very rewarding. One such example is making Shield Charge have increased stun buildup while slotting Magnified Effect on Boneshatter. Charge + Boneshatter = satisfying AOE explosions.

Monsters themselves have nice and fluid animations, and it seems there is a good variety of attack styles. Contrast this with Dragon’s Dogma II, which had . . . maybe five or six. Some of the more notable monsters, like the giant skeletons in Act 2, have clear telegraphing that lets me know to GTFO. And against those monsters, when I do see the animations and don’t get out in time, I don’t feel like the deaths are unfair.

Bosses so far are highly engaging, my favorite being the end boss to Act 1. The three different phases with somewhat forgiving mechanics made for a pleasant experience even despite multiple deaths. That fight, I think, provides a good model for staging and choreographing boss encounters.


The Bad

There are instances where regular monsters are overpowered in comparison to other monsters in the zone. The boars in Act 3, for example, have a tusk attack that seems too fast, and seems to cancel whatever move I try aside from a standard attack. I strongly recommend having a little more time between their attacks to allow for proper player response, or to allow for player spellcasting. On a related note, when boars spawn as yellow enemies, they basically become “bullet sponges” with a too-fast tusk attack. Not only are they overbalanced compared to other rare encounters in the zone, like the quadrilla and the flower thing, the fight itself is completely one-sided and non-engaging. (It just does the one attack over and over, like someone spamming leg sweeps in Mortal Kombat.)

Small note about the boars: I’ve noticed that when I Shield Charge a charging boar, the boar registers as a non-interactable object (like a tree) and diverts my character around and past so that we miss each other entirely and are on opposite sides of the screen. Maybe it’s just me, but I think it would be more engaging (i.e. awesome) if there were some sort of collision detection at that point, and a calculation were run to decide which of the two charging characters gets thrown backward. Such a calculation could take into account player level, monster level, and monster rarity.

Snakes in Act 3 seem to spit poison projectiles a little bit too quickly as well, and could perhaps use more time between attacks, especially since poison is a new affliction at that point in the game.

Some rares in Act 2 and Act 3 (regular game) have physical damage moves which one-shot even a yellow-geared Warrior with armor, life, and recovery buffs. I am generally against one-shots as a rule, and would suggest instead that power moves deal 80-90% player life. I do not suggest this just because I am blind and often can’t see it coming, though I won’t lie about it being a factor. I suggest a slightly forgiving limit because fights can become very complex with many ongoing factors, meaning that mental processing slows down. Normal processing speed to both receive and react to stimulus takes between 250ms and 750ms depending on context and circumstance, and that doesn’t include people with slower processing speed due to dyslexia, specific learning disabilities, mental impairments, or physical restrictions like multiple sclerosis. It also does not factor in the time it takes for players to move their characters out of the area, especially if they are playing the Warrior. (Seriously, it moves like a Vogon.) Having power moves deal 80-90% player health in damage would allow for a mistake while sending a clear message to GTFO, especially if the rare is about to follow up with another attack which would then cause a player death. And remember, you’re already respawning entire zones upon player death, which means the rare may not still be present at all. So players are already being punished severely for a mistake.

If you want the big power moves to be one-shots, though, then I strongly argue that windup times on such attacks should be overgenerous. Having windup times be around three seconds – and above all making sure they are clearly and noticeably telegraphed – will give players zero excuse for not getting out of range in time, even if they are playing the Warrior. Xylucian the Chimera makes for a good example of this: he rears up on his hind legs for a couple seconds before slamming down. The fight is intense (I died a few times), but it’s manageable because I have that clear visual warning and enough time to GTFO if I am paying attention. I think it would benefit a lot of players to have that kind of windup time before a big hit, especially during endgame content where I hear player death means the stage ends completely. (That, by the way, also seems unfair if it is true. Why not have a debuff that gives -10% or even -20% rare loot chance per death instead? That would make it so that players are still punished for dying, but still allow chances at rewards.)

Speaking of Xylucian the Chimera: I strongly suggest always having his shadow on the ground to signal where his air slam move will land, even if to simulate height his shadow starts small and quickly grows large. Surprise “gotcha” moments (like basically everything from zone two onward in Elden Ring) are already frustrating for normal players. For disabled players those unexpected, sudden “gotchas” are disengaging after a while, and especially if they become a norm. (Please don’t make “gotcha” a norm for this game.)


The Ugly

In one word: Jamanra. Narratively, the Jamanra boss fight makes a lot of sense and is consistent with the character. Visually and mechanically, it’s a wild mess that caused me eye strain and mental fatigue to the point I had to shut off the game and walk away. Even though I finally beat him, and as a solo all-melee Warrior to boot, it was not a good experience in many ways. Let me break it down.

— Visually there is just too much going on during Phase Three. Keeping in mind that I have only an effective visual field of seven to eight degrees, I literally cannot track two or three cyclones, two sun blasts, what seem to be multiple earthquake shards, and the boss’s moves all at the same time. No matter how quickly I try to scan the screen, something is always out of my visual range. I am certain I am not the only player who has this kind of trouble, and those others likely have pretty normal vision. Is there some way to simplify the fight just a little bit, so it’s not as visually busy? Alternatively, if you did want to keep things busy, you could consider at least increasing the time between his casts just a little bit. Narratively, he could taunt the players for a bit between each cast.

— Visual telegraphing is a problem. There seem to be very few visual cues to signal big moves. While trying to track all the elements listed above, the boss has a long range slam move and a wide circular swipe with what seems to be very little windup and no indication of where the moves will land. Tornadoes seem to spawn randomly without warning and, on two other moves, he simply holds up his hands, so there’s no way to tell which signal goes for what. Even Uber Lilith in Diablo IV has a ground darkening effect which appears a couple seconds before her fire move lands. Please improve the visual cues on his big moves, especially if you intend to keep the fight as busy as it is now. (Given the boss’s arrogant nature, I might suggest something ostentatious. If it’s a theatrical fight, why not?)

— Aural telegraphing is a significant problem. One way that players learn fights is to associate speech or sound cues with certain signature moves. In The Burning Crusade, for example, there is a boss who shouts, “Come closer and burn,” which signals players to GTFO. In Castlevania: Lament of Innocence the Death boss shouts, “Minions,” just before summoning a swarm players have to dodge through. These are two completely different games from completely different developers and genres, and both use the same cueing strategy. For players with visual impairment, sounds become crucial. Jamanra, it seems, does not have any consistent aural indicators: the speech and sounds seem randomized throughout the fight. I know this because during one fight he shouted something like, “We are endless,” right before summoning the quasi-randomized lightning beam that follows me around; but during another fight he was completely silent. The same holds true for other spell casts, including his big physical moves. Sometimes Jamanra says something, sometimes he doesn’t. I strongly suggest making aural cues consistent during this fight so that players can better gauge and react.

— Phase Three does not seem choreographed for melee at all. As the Jamanra fight progresses, the usable combat area shrinks to such a point that the Warrior’s melee moves become unfeasible. Oftentimes there simply isn’t the room to do them, and it’s a chore to drag the boss out of his comfort zone. This wouldn’t be so bad, except that Molten Blast hits like a wet noodle even when buffed, and it moves me into the fire even when I have the “don’t move” box checked. (More on this in the user experience section.) I strongly suggest removing one of the sun blasts and/or one of the tornadoes to allow a little more space for melee and movement. You might retain the challenge by increasing the remaining tornado’s and/or sun blast’s area of effect by 10-15%.

The Jamanra fight – in fact all boss fights – should be exciting and challenging, yes, but try to remember that what we don’t want are boss fights specific to the point of causing neurosis, or boss fights which cause literal eye strain. There has to be some balance between extremes of overly easy and overly difficult. We do need to be pushed a little outside our comfort zones regarding gameplay challenges so that we have to stretch our skills a little at a time. That’s a good thing. Turning us into Tweak from South Park is probably going a bit far.


General Interface


The Good

Restricting the microtransaction shop to a small button on the menu is very welcome. Please keep it that way.

Having options to make text size bigger is a good thing, as is being able to scale parts of the UI.

The button to respawn at a checkpoint is a nice feature, as it helps prevent getting stuck. Other games don’t have that kind of option.

Having miniature health and mana bars above my character makes a world of difference, as I literally never see the health or mana circles on the sides of the screen. (Can there also be an option to remove the health and mana orbs if we have the mini-bars active? It seems superfluous to have them both active.)


The Bad

Even though some parts of the UI can be scaled, there is no option to enlarge dialog boxes with NPCs. This prevents comfortable reading of key pieces of text like story points and mechanics information.

Information text when creating a new character features light text on light background, making the text difficult to read. Try to remember: light on dark, dark on light. Please make the background darker if text color is going to be light.

Chat size options include small, normal, and large. The in-game experience, however, is that text size is tiniest, tiny, and so large it becomes intrusive. It would be better to have a wider range of size options for chat text, so that players can better select what is most comfortable for reading. (By this I mean size 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, etc.)

Full motion videos should have the option for subtitles.

There seem to be no audio alerts for whispers or guild chat messages at the moment. I cannot overstress how important these can be, especially for people who cannot see chat windows while focusing on the field. Please add audio alerts for chat whispers and party and guild messages.
Inventory space is quite limited and inhibits gameplay, causing more time to be spent in town managing items and less time out in the world adventuring and collecting. This is one point where the interface intrudes on gameplay. You could ease this difficulty by allowing players to purchase more inventory space using in-game gold. Players could spend, say, 5000 gold per horizontal line of bagspace. The interface itself could have a scrolling box so that screen space is preserved.

The big map (pressing down on the D-Pad) really needs the same transparency options as the minimap. It’s been extremely difficult at times to tell where I am and where I need to go because the lines are too transparent and blend in with the game stage. If I could make the map completely opaque (with just the black background and bold blue lines) it would make navigation much easier.

Quest NPCs could be more apparent on the map and minimap.

There really needs to be an option for cooperative looting so that all players get items when in a party. As a blind person, there are often times I don't see item drops because they are out of my visual field. So it's not a matter of not paying attention, it's a matter of literally not being able to see things. It would be really nice if I, and players like me, didn't fall prey to loot ninjas because of a medical condition.

There really needs to be an option to reset all passive points at once and rebuild from zero. This would better encourage players to explore the passive skills to discover unique and effective character builds.

Just like the UI tells how Strength translates to Life, there should be more transparency about how key stats help increase skill damage.

Please make gem slots on weapons and armor always visible, so that we can better tell what we have equipped at a glance.

As with Baldur’s Gate 3 and Diablo IV, there really should be an option to have permanent adjustable highlights on enemies and players alike. This would improve visibility, especially for people like me.

There is so much information on skill and gem tooltips that it’s often tedious and not reader-friendly. I know your staff writer will hate me for quoting A River Runs Through It, but still: How can you say the same thing, but shorter? Like I often tell my students, less words is better.


The Ugly


Trading with Others

The current UI makes trying to do anything involving other players unnecessarily convoluted. Trying to trade with another player, for example, requires me to navigate six different UI elements. Here’s what happens:

— A text box appears and prompts me to press the menu button. (1)

— I press the menu button and the menu comes up. (2)

— The window to accept a trade is on the far left, way outside my visual range, so it takes time to find. Additionally, I have to navigate through a completely separate message box just to get to the message box which accepts the trade. (3 and 4)

— The trade window pops up along with my inventory. I select items I want to trade. (5)

— Before I can accept a trade, I have to manually highlight or look at each item in the trader’s window. (6)

I strongly recommend the following fix:

— Have a box which requests permission to trade. To agree to trade, players simply hold the A button on the controller or else the left mouse button for four or five seconds. I suggest four or five seconds because it is not too long, and because it is typically not something players will do unless it’s intentional. (1)

— After the players agree to trade, the trade and inventory windows automatically pop up. They each select items they want to trade. (2)

— Before completing the trade, players must manually highlight and see the items being traded. This is a very good feature which should be kept. To accept the trade, players once again hold the A button on the controller or else the left mouse button for four or five seconds. (3)

This method would not only streamline navigation, but would also increase accessibility and convenience while maintaining the security of trading.


Selling Items to Other Players

When you make players register with a website to sell something in-game, you literally take them out of the game, and this annihilates any sort of immersion. Not only do players have to deal with messy and confusing interface elements like purchasing and then configuring premium tabs, they have to exit the game and deal with website stuff before going back to configure tabs and price items. This is too much, and I as a player would not be interested to do this. When I log on to play the game, I want to play the game and stay inside the game. Surely I am not the only player who thinks this.

A far simpler solution would be to have an in-game auction house. While I am loathe to mention it because Blizzard has lost a good measure of my respect and most of my business, World of Warcraft really does seem to have an impressive auction house system now. You might look to them for inspiration. Some key features to emulate might be the anonymous posting of items (no gamer ID visible to players, viewable by GGG personnel only) and the automatic pricing recommendations based on current market values.

This part I cannot stress enough: if you are going to have player trading prices require certain specific orbs, then those orbs need to be more accessible in-game. While I will expand upon this in the user experience section, one fix would be to add repeatable radiant quests to each of the Acts. These repeatable radiant quests could be simple kill or fetch quests gotten from a town NPC, and they would reward either a single orb or a few shards. If you wanted to continue the gambling theme of loot in this game, the reward could instead be a “goody bag” which randomly gave rewards ranging from a single shard to an entire orb. The Kalandra mirror could be a 1% drop from the bag. (Still a 99% chance to not get it.) With this method, though, you would need to guard against high level players spamming low level areas for radiant quests. One way to handle that situation would be to disable Act 1 radiant quests when a character enters Act 2, and to disable Act 2 radiant quests when a character enters Act 3. Another way to handle that situation would be to have Act 1 radiant quests only appear between levels one and fifteen, Act 2 radiant quests only appear between levels sixteen and thirty, and so on.


Passive Skills


The Good

The passive skill system is comfy to use and potentially allows for myriad class designs as well as multiple venues for role-playing. The long branches of general stats allows, at least at first glance, for various pathways between weapon and skill choices.


The Bad

I remarked earlier that the game gives an impression of having no real choice regarding role play and character growth. Let’s now consider specific examples.

The Warrior starts on what would be the inner edge of eight on the passive skill “clock.” Suppose I hate maces, and I do, because they are slow and awkward, and that I want instead to use a quarterstaff because the movesets are better. The skill system seems to allow for this, since it lets me assign any stat to my upgrade node and provides general weapon damage increases. But while the Warrior starts at eight, the skills relevant to quarterstaff mastery are on the outermost edge of three. That means the very soonest I could spec into quarterstaff would be level 32, and it would require forsaking necessary combat enhancements like armor, recovery, and stun ability just to reach that specialization. While some would state that is a choice to make, I would argue that while the choice is technically “there” it is neither feasible nor preferable to any significant extent because the class-intended boons are literally aligned with maces.

Why not just play a monk, then? Well, let’s consider. Suppose that I do choose monk, and I want to use maces because there were some cool martial artists in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon who dual-wielded maces. The same problem occurs: I cannot spec into maces until relatively late in the game, and even then I must forsake significant stats. Role-playing seems therefore not a realistic possibility with this game. Despite the massive array of potential skill nodes, players are pigeonholed into certain specs and into certain play styles.


The Ugly

For new players the passive skill “clock” is not only daunting, but also ostensibly (seeming so but not really) liberating. Since I know other players are reading this and may not understand, let me explain.

First: Like Final Fantasy X’s massive sphere grid, all classes seem to have access to all the same non-ascendancy nodes. They seem to merely start out at different places on the clock, like at eight rather than at three, and the “classes” are merely different trapezoidal regions of the clock. This gives the false impression of limitless character growth.

Second: In Final Fantasy X, Tidus starts out as a “fighter” but can eventually work his way over to having healing spells. In POE2, the “Warrior” starts out in the Warrior space but can eventually move over into the Witch area if desired. The difference between the two is that while Final Fantasy X preserves their class system (at least until late endgame), POE2 does not initially seem to. In Final Fantasy X Tidus must first unlock most of his class nodes, including his class specials, before moving over to the “white mage” area. In POE2 a brand new Warrior can immediately start moving over to the Witch area without seeming to take anything class-specific at all. There are literally no basic class-specific nodes on POE2’s skill clock that I can see. This gives a false impression of cross-classing, or of changing a class entirely.

Third: Any class can use any weapon and any armor, so long as the stats support it. In POE2 a level thirty-one Warrior can wield a wand and have skeletal minions just as easily as a Witch can wear plate armor and swing a mace. If the lines between classes seemed blurred by the first two observations, this third gives the impression of almost completely erasing them. The real ability differences in this game are perceived to lie in the weapons.

Fourth: At any point in the game players can reset and reassign their passive skills, giving the false impression that characters can effectively become whatever a player wants whenever the player wants.

The reason I put this under “the ugly” is that as soon as players unlock Warrior ascendancy any and all perceived freedom of weapon choice goes away, and this massive passive skill clock is revealed as kind of a sham. Warbringer and Titan both force players back into maces. So you want to use swords as a Warrior class? Nope, because they won’t work with either ascendency.

But supposing I want to play my mace-wielding Monk, on the other hand, the mace seems perfectly functional with both monk ascendancies! A cursory glance through Maxroll.gg confirms that this problem is not limited to just these two classes. Here are other class ascendancies with seemingly no weapon restrictions: Witchhunter, Gemling Legionnaire, Chronomancer, Pathfinder, and Infernalist.

While this seems like a class-related problem, with the Warrior skills being poorly implemented, I really do think this indicates the possibility of a larger problem: that the passive skill clock itself needs more work and tuning with regard to intended weapon and armor specializations. I can’t speak for all classes, so this is where other players would need to lend their voices.
What I can say is the following: please don’t mislead new or returning players by dangling carrots they can never reach. If you want to allow players the freedom to role play weird or interesting class, weapon, and armor combinations, then please streamline the passive system to better support and encourage that.

If you do want all classes to be able to use all weapons, weapon skills, and armor . . .

— Please make it easier to spec into the specialized weapon and armor nodes while retaining class-oriented passive building. This could be done by editing the current skill clock so that it features “highways” running from specific class nodes to the outer edge where weapon and armor specs could be featured. They already sort of exist, so this change would be minimal yet effective. Non-weapon and non-armor nodes could be shifted inward to replace the moved armor nodes.

— Please tune all ascendancies so that, like with Sorceress and Ranger, there is at least one Ascendancy which allows for other weapons. An example would be changing out one Warrior ascendancy to focus just on shouts which buff and debuff in addition to causing damage; and revising Warbringer to more powerfully support slams and totems. This could be done by moving Infernal Cry to the “general” ascendancy (and buffing it accordingly), shifting Molten Blast up in the tree to be available at early levels (and buffing it accordingly), and consolidating slam and totem bonuses into the Warbringer ascendancy.


Gem System


The Good

This is a novel way to have players unlock and equip spells, and to customize them with desired effects. Generally, I like this approach and enjoy using it.


The Bad

Neither skill gems nor support gems seem to drop as often as they should, especially if players are supposed to try out and experiment with class skills and support gems.

Skills which cannot be supported by certain support gems still register in the UI as “supportable skills.” When a support gem is in my inventory and I highlight or hover over it, a small window pops up on the left which says “supportable skills.” Ideally, this would indicate which skills I have equipped that can be supported by that support gem. But the window seems to list all spells I have equipped, and even some I don’t. If I highlight Arcane Tempo – a support gem which requires a spell rather than a physical attack – all of my skills show up under “supportable skills.” This creates confusion because it gives the impression that Arcane Tempo can be used with Warrior attacks like Rolling Slam or Perfect Strike when it can’t. Another more pertinent example is Stomping Ground. When I hover over that gem, all twelve of my skills show up as “supportable” in the window even though Shield Charge and Leap Slam are really the only two it can be used on. Please fix the “supportable skills” popup window so that it properly displays which skill gems are equipped and can actually be supported by the highlighted support gem.


Upgrading and Crafting Gear


The Good

Being able to upgrade gear using orbs is nice, and I do like that shards can either drop from enemies or deconstructed gear. Being able to add rune slots to weapons and armor is very fun, and I am looking forward to seeing what other runes you develop down the line.


The Bad

I am not a fan of having to identify gear in the first place. Rumor has it, though, that from an architectural perspective it’s healthier on the game itself to do procedural aspect rolling outside of combat. So, okay, I can deal. But why must there be two distinct methods for one simple function? From a logistics perspective, why are Scrolls of Wisdom even in the game when a NPC appears in the opening area of Act 1 who will identify gear for free for the rest of the game? From that point on, Scrolls of Wisdom are a needless redundancy. Why not consolidate the process and have The Hooded One be our constant source?

Gear that has native rune slots never seems to show the rune slots until I hover over them, so I often can’t tell what I have equipped or what I can salvage at the salvage bench. If gear has rune slots, please give the option to make those rune slots visible at all times.

Given the rarity of item drops with either rune slots or quality, the salvage bench seems almost useless, and so far I have largely been unable to use the rune and quality systems at all. Please make all white gear salvageable for either Artificer’s Shards or quality currency shards. Even getting one random shard would make it worthwhile, as doing this would allow players to more actively utilize the crafting systems you want them to use. It would also force a choice between selling white items for gold and milling them down for item fragments, making them prioritize resources.

Must everything always be randomized? And must the crafting system stop at half measures? If you want to have a crafting system in the game, why not fully embrace a crafting system which allows players to gather materials, make their intended gear, and then choose what qualities to enchant and enhance that gear with? Where is the player autonomy in your current system? My thought is that while players would get to choose the particular aspect (say Leech), the mathematical value would still be rolled. So if the players got a low roll, they would have to re-craft the piece all over again. This would maintain your intended level of complexity while allowing for a little player control amidst a veritable Vegas strip.

[ Continued in Part 2 ]