Dawn of the Hunt - What We’re Working On

We hear you that some zones are too large which means you are wrong and something else is the problem?????????????????????????????????

i am beyond words ....

ZONES are too large means ZONES are too large , there is no double meaning .

Every zone in act 3 , should be 50% of its current size .
Every zone in Act 2 , should be reduced by 20-30%
Act 1 is fine .

And for maps you have to go trough each one , most need to be reduced .

imo "larger area size" issue during campain is just simply the area is too big. making mobs die faster could help a bit, but spawning more stuff on the map will just feel shit for every1 who is actually experimenting with a build thats not 100% working.

imagine the same zone with double monster count and you die at 60% so everything respawns. checkpoints also rarely helps with this because people mostly explore campaign zones because they get lost

Amazon/Spears player here.

I think one reason people are very upset about this patch is that balance actually feels significantly worse than in the prior patch. I think it's a hard sell to players if we don't see a positive trajectory in terms of the gaming feeling better and not worse.

With my build I tried to embody the "ethical vision" build and build around the ranged/melee hybrid + parry mechanic. I tried basically using Storm Lance at range 1-2 uses before the pack and then going into melee with parry + Fangs of Frost. This worked kind of ok during the campaign (still took me 24 hours played to maps lmao) but I was immediately getting dumpstered in tier 1 unmodded maps with mobs swarming me and instantly blowing me up in melee even after I pulled off the parry + Fangs of Frost combo.

I have zero issue with playing a more technical multi-button build (I played DD in POE1 and actually prefer a 2-4 button playstyle). The issue for me is that this didn't feel rewarding. Pulling off a ranged attack and then parry + fangs of frost combo should make you feel like a god... or at least clear a white pack. But even when pulling off these difficult combos I felt like I couldn't clear white packs and hitting with fangs of frost on an unparried enemy was like 8-10 attacks to kill most white mobs even when specced fully into damage and crit.

Respecced to the "meta" lightning spear clear + storm lance single target build (thanks Pohx and POE ninja) and have felt much better since because I'm actually doing damage/clearing maps ok now.

I don't think you can expect players to pull off "harder" gameplay if it doesn't feel rewarding to do so and this is the fundamental issue with at least Amazon/Spears right now.

Edit: it also feels pretty weird to see lightning spear being the only spear skill immediately buffed in this announcement. Like... it seems to be the only viable spear skill at endgame (or at all) rn so that's cool in a way but it would have probably made me feel a lot better to see changes that made me think I could revisit the melee/ranged hybrid playstyle (buff to fangs of frost etc). I get that there's a time crunch to get stuff out and this is early access and game development isn't easy. But you cant release a new class/skill set in this state with zero incentive to play the "vision" builds and expect it to go well. I feel like spears needed another month or so in the oven at least and this is actually pretty bad.

minions are incredibly useless against bosses even after update, you can't be serious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdtcR2dBWqo

Anything regarding monster speed? might need to be reduced by 50% they are super fast.

GGG, you have made these exact errors in poe1.
You massively buffed monster life - to the point where you had unkillable monsters because of a life regen mod.
Please leverage lessons learned in the past when designing the future.

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Many players are reporting that areas feel like they are too large. Normally when this is the case, the main reason is due to other concerns such as monster life or player damage being incorrect, or just a lack of entertaining content in the area. However, we are checking to see if there are any outliers that players are spending too long in to see if any changes to area size need to happen.

In the meantime, we did notice that there are some areas that don't have sufficient checkpoints, so we are doing a pass of adding some more of these.

Clueless - let me spell it out for you

The zones
are
too
big

Well done, now make them smaller.

Really enjoying this patch so far!

I understand why some people are not doing so, though I do feel in many cases this is getting very over exaggerated, especially given that the game is in the very early stage of early access. polls I have seen have show that a majority of players are either on the fence, or very positive. As is ever the case unhappy people are the most vocal. additionally it seems many want the game to be PoE1 with a graphics update, whilst from the earliest promotional material for PoE2 it has been clear that this is not the intention, and what has been said, and is clearly still what is being aimed for, is something I have been looking forward to very much.

Regarding parry; I like the mechanic in principal, but currently it does feel somewhat clunky and unreliable. Is some of the reason for parry's failing that the hit is being evaded? If so either the base skill, or perhaps better yet a support, should disable evasion during parry, and perhaps give higher stun threshold as a trade off.

Regarding pacing. I like the fact that monsters are durable enough for combo play, and the active dodge rolling, block and parrying to be relevant, however if the fights are to last longer, and ground loot be more interesting as is a stated goal, I think it would be good if the drop rate of rare items and perhaps currency, especially from bosses and wisp modified rare monsters, should be substantially higher. This I think would help with many players dissatisfaction at the slower rate of progression.

Overall, I love the direction the game seems to be aiming to take, and look forward to further improvements and content as it moves closer to 1.0 and full release.

Somewhy huntress melee skills feels like it should be a fencing swordsman skills or rapiere based.

Why whirlwind with twisters are bind to spears, and not to (quarter-)staffs, is a mystique.

At all, this post shows, that GGG doesn't properly plays their own game, and players are testers, paying their money and time to grind a pain, dissapointment and frustration.

B is for the Balance in GGG.

What about disengage not even giving you your charge when you do spend time to party a mob? I'm assuming the disengage gets stopped by other mobs because they all shift.

What about the Chalupa Monks ascendancy stopping the ES leech when your mana is full?

I have been hearing about tons of issues with Banners not working on tactician, which also wasn't adressed.

It really feels like you guys didn't ever try these skills. Certainly no one hopped on the battle chalupa, picked the updated ascendancy node and right clicked a mob with it or you would have immediately realised something was off.