Feedback from a HC player

[Kalliades]

Hey all, so I have 200 hours in the game so far, going to try my best not to discuss topics I have no knowledge of and give feedback on points which I think are valid.
First off I wanna say the game has been alot of fun and is great for a beta, and although alot of these points may seem negative overall Im very impressed with whats been accomplished so far and am very much looking forward to the future of the game.

Campaign- I know its not finished yet, but I enjoyed it on the whole, some nice difficulty spikes, I went in blind hc, cost me a few chars but I enjoy the challenge. The only complaint I have is visibility in the void area with skills on the floor can be hard to see, purple on dark environments isnt the best, and its quite easy to get shotgunned.

Monolith - Probably gonna be the longest section, Ive managed multiple mid 90 chars so feel I have a decent grip of it so far. Gonna split this up into different sections.

Early Mono- Way too easy, the campaign is harder than early monos, people skipping campaign and entering with level 30 characters without capped resists. I even tried the strat just to see if it was difficult and some of the streamers Ive seen do it were just experienced players, but no it was just easy as hell. I feel the difficulty curve is off here, as it doesnt prepare new players for empowered monos at all, people should be getting shredded coming in here without resists etc.

Empowered Mono- Before getting used to the game, it was a very large difficulty spike and in some ways an unenjoyable one. Mods were just stacking mob hp, I dont think this is the best way to increase the difficulty but I still enjoyed the experience as a whole. Being HC you cant just throw yourself at content, took a char or two to really figure it out.
Some mods completely nullify builds though which I dont think is great considering you have to fight the shade to remove them and if you get unlucky it can completely screw your build aka crit avoidance etc.

Loot- This might be an unpopular opinion but I find the loot kind of boring after a while, the only node that gives you any excitement are exalted items( Only real chase items bar a couple of uniques and blessings). I dont feel there is enough chase, Im sure more time, unique items added to the game will improve this. I feel like some rare nodes should be added, for instance instead of just affix shards, add a node for + skill shards etc. I know its the first iteration so Im not judging too hard, and Im aware more endgames still need to be added. Just hoping for a bit more spice.

Gambling - Its a great gold sink but I really feel it devalues the good bases, most of your initial gearing or even late game can come from here and you can mono for absolutely ages without any meaningful upgrades. For instance you could add a mono node that drops good base types etc. Im sure people love it, im not a 100% against it, its just my opinion. Also one of the best ways for skill affix shards etc. Seems too strong, interested to hear other peoples opinions on this.

Poison Damage - The inital hit damage needs a big buff, its a completely ignorable resist on the whole. I capped mine anyway but most build guides I see never touch it.

Build Diversity- Pretty great on the whole for a beta, I know its still a work in progress. Ive made my own builds and had some good success, aswell as trying more established builds. (Ive stayed away from broken builds aka EQ werebear etc). Im hoping for more though, melee being 99% crit based etc is kind of stale, so looking forward to future updates, more subclasses etc.

That pretty much sums it up, if I forgot anything Ill add to the post, Ive tried to stay away from things I havent interacted with much aka arena etc. As I said overall Im extremely positive about the game and have enjoyed my initial playtime and are nowhere near done with the game. Refreshing to enjoy another Arpg after 4k hours in PoE.

[Heavy]

Hey there,

First and foremost: Welcome to the LE Community!

Just some thoughts on some of the topics you mentioned.

@Kalliades

Early Mono- Way too easy, the campaign is harder than early monos, people skipping campaign and entering with level 30 characters without capped resists. I even tried the strat just to see if it was difficult and some of the streamers Ive seen do it were just experienced players, but no it was just easy as hell. I feel the difficulty curve is off here, as it doesnt prepare new players for empowered monos at all, people should be getting shredded coming in here without resists etc.

Generally the progression through the story and the difficulty curve is something EHG is constantly working on.

They already smoothed out the campaign difficulty in some of the recent patches.
We received overhauls of certain campaign areas already and i am guessign we will receive more and more.

Once they overhauled the whole campaign and add the 9th missing chapter i am sure they will do a balance pass to the whole story.

Early Monolith are super easy i agree, but with the new system it’s way less important, since the new system offers you so much different strategies, that it’s ok IMO.

The only thing that would be appreciated would be some sort of optional mechanic to allow veteran players to ramp up the difficulty faster.

@Kalliades

Empowered Mono- Before getting used to the game, it was a very large difficulty spike and in some ways an unenjoyable one. Mods were just stacking mob hp, I dont think this is the best way to increase the difficulty but I still enjoyed the experience as a whole. Being HC you cant just throw yourself at content, took a char or two to really figure it out.
Some mods completely nullify builds though which I dont think is great considering you have to fight the shade to remove them and if you get unlucky it can completely screw your build aka crit avoidance etc.

I wanted to talk about the bolded section of this.

You don’t need to fight shade to let them run out.
If you accidentally took them, you can just run echeos very close to the center, or do Quest/Special Beacons to let them run out.

Also taking them is a player decision in the first place, so if you can’t handle them that’s your fault.

But i don’t think that the system is that punishing, that you wil not be able to progress further just because you took one bad modifier.

With the new system you always have enough choices, you are never forced to take those “bad”
modifiers, if you build can’t handle them.

@Kalliades

Gambling - Its a great gold sink but I really feel it devalues the good bases, most of your initial gearing or even late game can come from here and you can mono for absolutely ages without any meaningful upgrades. For instance you could add a mono node that drops good base types etc. Im sure people love it, im not a 100% against it, its just my opinion. Also one of the best ways for skill affix shards etc. Seems too strong, interested to hear other peoples opinions on this.

Since the last major change to gambler, which made it waaaaaaaay more expensive i think it’s in a decent spot in terms of how much gold it actually costs.

The only thing that is missing are competitor gold sinks… Maybe some rare glyphs/runes that also require gold to use… dunno just more gold sinks in general that are for endgame.

@Kalliades

Poison Damage - The inital hit damage needs a big buff, its a completely ignorable resist on the whole. I capped mine anyway but most build guides I see never touch it.

I agree, but this got at least a little bit more important, because we actually have a Poison Boss now (Poison Shade), both of it’s poison attacks are very easy to avoid, but it’s a step in the right direction.

I think when we get more bosses/mini.bosses with actual dangerous poison abilities this will become more important

On all the other points i either don’t have any strong opinion about or i just agree.

Anyway, great feedback!

[Shtrak]

@Heavy

They already smoothed out the campaign difficulty in some of the recent patches.

I ran the campaign recently with a new hero.
I did not feel any difficulty peak. Before, there were some peaks (in Heoborea and in Lagon’s island mainly), but now the difficulty has been adjusted all along and it really feels far more smooth.
I was a bit concerned about the raise of difficulty in Maj’Elka and after, but you don’t really feel it. You only feel there is no peak after, which means the progression is far better than before.
And the end difficulty is exactly as it was before.

[Heavy]

Yup i think the campaign difficulty is pretty good, but i agree with OP, that the last chapter of the campaign is already significantly harder than the beginning of MoF.

If we received a chapter 9, this will most likely be similarly difficult or even more difficult, so i think they could make the first 2-3 MoF timeliens a bit harder baseline.

[tny]

I don’t play HC so I won’t comment too much on the points you make but I must say that I greatly appreciate the format and content. Your thoughts are broken out into clearly defined subjects and you provide the reader with ample background information to see the game from your POV while keeping everything concise. Negative feedback is something most people focus on but positive feedback is equally important in my opinion as it can reinforce the decision making from the devs i.e. “players really like this feature, we shouldn’t change it”. Your post has a healthy mix of both.

For what it’s worth I generally agree with everything you said and I’m quite literally at the opposite end of playstyle (I’m at 500+ corruption running content again and again and again until I complete it). Thank you for sharing.