Some "I'm finished with 0.3" Feedback

Context: The only content I didn't do this league is uber Arbiter, and not because my character was incapable, but because I just couldn't bring myself to track down the citadels. I played an Abyssal Lich Bone Prison CoC build to 36% through level 96. Melted all 150 splinter bosses in seconds. In game tooltip DPS for my Bone Prison is 468k before factoring in exposure and CoC casts and armor break. 90% crit, 497% crit damage, etc.

==Overall==
Game is much improved over 0.1. Enjoyed many of the changes, especially the latest patch changing the tower/precursor/atlas system. Having said that, it still feels lacking in interesting/rewarding content to do at end-game.

==Act 4 / Interlude==
I really, really enjoyed the pacing in Act 4. Going from area to area and being able to choose the order was a very welcome change of pace to acts 1-3 of the campaign. Having said that, I did not really enjoy the setting of act 4 or the "yarrr, here be pirates" theme too much.

I gotta be honest here: I liked the Interlude MORE than Act 4. The stories seemed more interesting and even though it has been included as a placeholder the interlude is very well put together. I would argue that it's actually more on-theme and feels more like PoE than Act 4 does.

==Abyss==
It's nice to finally have slightly more control when crafting. The abyss mechanic(s) as a whole feel pretty solid.

The abyssal depths feel like a little bit of a drag to do. They feel to me a bit too big, a bit too empty and a bit too full of small packs of 4-6 white mobs. But the potential for good rewards is there so I feel obligated to slog through it. I would prefer the depths be much shorter, action packed and to the point. Let me fight a dense hallway of monsters that leads to a treasure "room" like the depths currently have with abyssal rares.

==Atlas==
I hate the Atlas. I've hated it since 0.1. I still hate it in 0.3. I vividly recall GGG saying that it was merely something the team hurriedly threw together as a placeholder to get an endgame system in for EA.

I'm sorely disappointed to see them committing to it so seemingly heavily.

Some critiques:
-Navigating or looking around the atlas once you've explored something like 8-10 screens worth becomes obnoxious. Why is there not some kind of "world view" that makes it easier to get the full picture of what I've explored?

-The bookmarks help navigation but they're only a band-aid. the current limit on bookmarks is something I've bumped up against quite a few times this league.

-Clicking and dragging around (maybe better on controller but I don't really see it) feels bad to me.

-The pathing between nodes is... (to me anyway) nonsensical and at times aggravating. I've seen quite a few nodes with lines between them that could not be accessed as well as nodes with no connection to my explored area that I was able to access.

Some praise:
-The recent patch scrapping the tower/precursor mechanics and the "kill every rare" map requirement have made mapping significantly more enjoyable.

-The Grand Project precursor is awesome. Unfortunately, it served (for me anyway) as a jarring reminder of how much less enjoyable the atlas was when I was constrained by the predetermined node connections.

==Crafting==
I hate that scouring orbs and orbs of alteration have been removed. I hated it in 0.1 and I hate it in 0.3. The introduction of exceptional bases as a rare drop only serves to highlight this change. Find a high quality or extra socket base? You get one shot at crafting it into something good (spoiler: You're going to salvage it).

As mentioned above, the additional control afforded by the Well of Souls and Desecration mechanic are much needed improvements and on the whole make both leveling and progressing through end-game smoother. Having said that, why are jewel and ring/amulet/belt desecration bones so f*cking rare???

I still don't really know how I feel about the new tiered crafting currencies. I think overall I lean towards them being a positive for the game as they offer more control over crafting without just straight up guaranteeing good outcomes.

Sanctification as a concept is really cool and I'm surprised it wasn't introduced into PoE as a counterpart to Corruption long ago.

Having said that, since I'm done with the league, I sanctified all 6 of my pretty bonkers uncorrupted rares. Probably 50% of affixes (all of which are t1 or t2) were middle of tier. The rest were high or in a handful of cases perfect.

39 affixes (including 3 implicits), this is the result:
Affixes Decreasing in Value:25
Affixes Increasing in Value:7
Affixes Unchanged:7
Affixes Rolled Below Minimum Tier Range:15
Affixes Rolled Above Maximum Tier Range:3
Affixes remaining within Tier Range: 21

All said and done, I lost about 9% tooltip DPS, roughly 400es/100life and now two of my resists are undercapped. Sanctification is a scam. That is all. =P

==Market Tabs / In-Game Search==
I feel like this addition was large/game-changing enough to dedicate a section entirely to it.

First of all, THANK YOU for finally moving towards a system that doesn't involve multiple monitors and breaking gameplay to go browse the website. Not only did this change bring a bunch of players into the trading fold but it also (intentionally or not) completely destroyed the whole "I PM'd 10 dudes for this item and not a single one responded" situation. So good on you guys.

Having said that, many players (myself included) invested in premium stash tabs exclusively for their ability to facilitate trading.

The addition of Market Tabs destroyed the primary function of the Premium tabs.

"Thanks for buying into our old trading system. Here's the new system, your investment in the old system is now worthless but if you have $5 we'll sell you a new tab so you can do what you were previously doing."

It would have been really nice for people with at least 1 Premium tab to get a single free or at least heavily discounted Market tab. I've given quite a bit of money to GGG since 2012 and buying a Market Tab in PoE2 0.3 was the first time I ever felt less than happy to be forking over $$$ to GGG.

It's nice that the in-game search UI has the full functionality of the trade site. I **REALLY** wish the search UI would just store my last search query until I log or switch characters or something. Having it reset every time I change instances is pretty obnoxious.

Example: Have an item with good affixes and a couple open. Search item to determine if it's worth trading/investing it. It's worth a couple exalts, but if I hit a good desecration the value goes way up. Go to WoS and desecrate. Now I have to reenter all my previous search criteria to check the updated value of the item with the new affix. Annoying.

==Pinnacle/League Content==
Generally the rewards for the pinnacle bosses feel very underwhelming in 0.3. I'm not sure if I just didn't kill them enough in 0.1 to see it or what, but the drop rates on anything but the most common uniques from these bosses are insanely low. And on top of that, the rarer unique items they drop (excluding olroths insane life potion that's BIS for every single build no matter what it rolls) aren't even very good or if they CAN be good are locked behind at LEAST 2 or 3 individual insane RNG rolls for the chance to not immediately be turned into chance shard.

The change to a more uniform boss access system (splinters) for all the league mechanics is a welcome change. I think I only fought ritual boss in 0.1 once because I just never saw the damned invitation.

Simulacrum is way out of line regarding challenge compared to Breach, Ritual and Expedition bosses. I can just kind of mill around and destroy these three in seconds with minimal attention, but Simulacrum requires my full concentration and even then I'm often in sketchy situations in both 100 and 150 splinter simulacrums.

For the love of god, PLEASE FIX THE STASH INSIDE SIMULACRUM BEING HIDDEN BEHIND THE "NEXT WAVE" UI.

Breach feels about like it always did, except I noticed that.... breach rings just don't seem to ever drop from breach hands in maps now. That sucks.

When I first read the description of the unique breach precursor I thought, "hot damn this is awesome". But then I ran my first map and discovered the joy of having to run all over the place just to find that last mob to get the breach to close. No thanks.

Ritual feels better than it did in 0.1 for me. I engaged it more often because I was seeing interesting omens and stuff more often. Not much more to say than that.

Arbiter feels about like it did before though his drop variety, like the rest of these bosses, feels much reduced from before. I killed him 5 times and he dropped that awful RNG chest piece every single time.

Killed him coop for the first time, props to whoever coded in all players behind affected by the knockdown from the weird dragon RP after the boss is killed. Nice touch that surprised me.

==Some Random Thoughts==

Get on with adding the PoE1 mtx already.

I don't like how you've changed the supporter pack structure so that none of the $30 packs include cosmetic armor/weapons any more. Seems a little greedy especially given that 300 points isn't enough to buy any full armor sets.

I would really like some kind of EA roadmap that extends to 1.0 release. Your originally given estimate of 6-12 months in EA is clearly not going to be the case. A roadmap would go a long way towards helping people like me understand what to expect moving forward.

I REALLY dislike the design philosophy behind the highest rank support gems. How they do things totally different than their predecessors in some ways. How many of them have very significant drawbacks, etc.

==In Closing:==
I had a good time with 0.3. Started as a melee build and regretted it before finishing act 1. The game 100% feels like it is moving in the right direction and even though I still have a lot of reservations, I'm hopeful that things will continue to improve.

Thanks for the league, seeya next one (as long as you release more classes... you're releasing more classes right?)

GPT TLDR :

You blasted through the league with a strong Abyssal Lich CoC build, melting bosses with ease, but still found the endgame lacking in rewarding content. Act 4 pacing was great (even if the pirate theme felt off), while the Interlude surprisingly hit harder as proper PoE flavor. Abyss mechanics were solid but depths dragged on, and crafting changes were a mixed bag—more control is nice, but losing alterations/scours and the Sanctification system felt punishing. The Atlas remains clunky and frustrating despite some good patch improvements. Pinnacle boss rewards were underwhelming, with Simulacrum overtuned compared to other encounters. Overall, 0.3 is a big step up from 0.1 and the game is headed in the right direction, but it still needs better endgame rewards, smoother systems, and more content to stay engaging.

Great post. I agree with some of it but

but

....

this isn't the PoE1. In fact PoE1 already exists and you can download it on Steam, it's a free to play title and while not being entirely too popular with a large audience it does hold a small but dedicated player base.

Added some overlooked thoughts and a section on the newly released Market Tabs and In-Game Search functionality.