EDITED feedback and ideas for improvements

Hi, first of all, congratulations on this game! It is very promising, and a lot of things are already awesome. I am currently playing as a warrior, on the "Cruel" difficulty, and I want to share some feedback. I really like the idea of "realistic" swings with a heavy two-handed weapon, no more attacks at the speed of light with a big, heavy weapon. The trade-off between attack speed and powerful blows is a good feature and reinforces the sensation of impact.

However, there are some points that need to be addressed, in my opinion. Up until mid-Cruel difficulty, I didn’t really feel the need to use my mana potion outside of boss fights, or getting the Blood magic Keystone. This is due to two factors. The first one is the basic attack. It's free, upgradable with support gems, and still doesn’t cost any mana. It becomes powerful over time, so I guess you can still use it in the endgame. Using the same attack from level 1 to 100 isn’t very exciting in terms of gameplay, but i can live with it. The thing is, it needs a drawback. Perhaps linking it to a support skill gem would generate a mana cost, like the other skill gems.

The second factor is more general and applies to all characters in the game. It’s the base value of life and mana regeneration for all characters. This base value is around 4% regen, and i think that's too much. The main reason for this may have been the one life potion and the one mana potion, but because of this, i can play as a warrior without using my mana potion at all, even with zero point invested in mana regen nodes in my skill tree, for a very long time throughout the game. A similar issue exists with base life regeneration. The investment in life regen nodes in the tree doesn’t feel rewarding because the nodes are too weak, but above all, the base life regen is too high. What’s the point of spending points in the skill tree for tankiness and gaining only 1.5% life regen when, at level 1, with no gear, you already have a flat 4% life regen? There’s an issue here. In POE1, the flat base life and mana regeneration weren’t as high as they are now, and the nodes in the skill tree were rewarding. We felt the upgrades as we invested points. Damage nodes, on the other hand, seem on point.

I don’t like the gem leveling system, I think it should be leveled up by killing mobs, and support gems should be leveled up too, with stat requirements other than just +5 stats. I understand the limitation of only one support gem, but right now i feel the gem system is too rigid. Giving players more choices would offer more freedom. What about removing the limitation but adding a drawback, such as 50% reduced effectiveness for each additional copy of a used support gem? Or maybe allow two or more skill gems to be linked to one support gem and not being able to use the full five support gems for the corresponding skill gems as a trade-off?

Now, about crafting. I was disappointed by the lack of alteration orbs from POE1, but I understand the desire to give white items more importance and to have them picked up in the endgame for crafting. It feels a bit too much like gambling. We’ll see if there are other features that will improve this aspect in the future.

Thanks for reading


EDIT 02/12/25

After a few months of enjoying the game as a warrior, i feel that POE2 has discarded some good features from POE1 just to "be different" rather than "be better." That’s how I feel.

In addition to my original feedback, here are a few more improvements I would like to see in the future:

Less RNG in Ascendancy Trials: Imbalanced RNG doesn't make things harder, it makes them frustrating and boring. Make it more challenging, reduce the RNG, and balance the difficulty to close the gap between melee and ranged characters.

Current Map System: The current map system is a significant downgrade from POE1; it feels flat and basic. The paths between maps and/or areas lack a grinding mechanic. I miss the concept of unlocking higher-tier maps by completing lower-tier ones, for example. It created a sense of progression and kept players engaged with the lore and the universe of Path of Exile. Right now, i just know i’m running maps to farm currency and items, and that’s it. I feel disconnected from the POE universe. A boss should be present in every map, and killing it should be the objective to complete the map instead of hunting rare monsters. The penalty for death should be the loss of the boss encounter rather than a single portal.

Gem Leveling System: The gem leveling system is still problematic. Mixing it with POE1's gem system would improve it. My stash is filled with unused and unnecessary uncut skill/spirit/support gems from level 2 to max. To prevent this, I would prefer obtaining uncut gems through quests, unlocking gem skills/support/spirit choices based on character level, and leveling them by killing monsters. This would significantly improve the feeling of progression.
The same applies to gem quality. It should apply to support gems as well, not just skill/spirit gems. Personally, I think four Gemcutter's Prisms aren’t enough to max out a gem’s quality. I would prefer a minimum of 10 Gemcutter's Prisms required to achieve 20% quality. Additionally, it would be great to see a recipe (like POE1’s vendor recipe) in the forge to obtain a level 1 gem with 20% quality by trading a level 20 gem and two Gemcutter's Prisms, for example.

MAGA: Make armour great again, even though it never was. At least make it better. Some passives and unique affixes seem to be useless at this point, like Heatproofing and Blackbraid.

Unconsumed Charges: I’d like to see some minimal utility for unconsumed charges. Right now, it's very difficult to generate them, it’s entirely RNG through a support gem or through very specific and contextual passives like "Cranial Impact" (speaking for Endurance Charges).

Leap Slam Animation: Monsters should not be able to hit characters during the leap animation of Leap Slam. It’s just frustrating.

Volatile Blood, Globules, and Explosive Orbs: Mechanics like Volatile Blood, Globules, and purple explosive orbs have no place in the game, in my opinion. I feel they detract from the fight, adding frustration rather than challenge. I would have preferred a direct monster buff or an exploding corpse mechanic instead of these nonsens mechanics by design.

Unique Items: Unique items are mostly unusable because their base item are low-level. Maybe this is intentional, as higher-tier bases aren't fully designed yet, or perhaps a recipe will be introduced with the forge mechanic to upgrade the base item.

Next things i have in mind :

-The Hooded one should identify items in the titan's stash expansion

- Characters should not be able to be hit by attacks or at least melee attacks when in the "air phase" of the leap slam animation.

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