My most important feedback is that the game is fun.
But levels 60-85 are not. The early monoliths and dungeons at this level are too easy (and thus boring) and do not prepare players for the challenges they face once they hit empowered monoliths and the higher tier dungeons (and thus make the “real” end-game more frustrating than fun).
This is the first time I’ve played a character past level 50. My first time. Meaning I barely understand the game’s mechanics, have no idea what unique gear is even available, and don’t know what half of the runes and glyphs even do. I should not find the post campaign unchallenging and unstimulating. But I did, and then some. At some point I stopped moving out of the way of telegraphed attacks because they hardly did any damage. Half the time, an Echo boss died so fast I didn’t even realize it was the boss. The mob density was so thin at times that even in arena fights I had to go looking where the enemies were to advance to the next stage. It got to the point where I became indifferent to playing. For a few days, I went back to Path of Exile because I didn’t see the point of playing: why am I even bothering to chase gear and thinking about improving my character if there isn’t any need to?
But in the back of my mind, I thought there is no possible way my build is this good. Content creators kept emphasizing the importance of well rounded and efficient builds: maybe the game will become challenging once I get to these empowered monoliths they keep talking about. It was really boring knocking out the top four monoliths. But I did it. And then went into these empowered monoliths at about level 85 and immediately got my ass kicked. Yep, levels 60-84 did not prepare me at all for the challenges to come or even hint to me that my build was in fact, bad and inefficient.
I feel the 60-84 levels need to let us (new) players know we are entering into the deep end of the pool and not let us get away with things like not moving out of telegraphed attacks or inefficient builds that will instant kill us once we get into the 3rd tier dungeons or 100 corruption monoliths, which represent a huge power spike. I feel the 3rd tier and 100 corruption difficulty level is correct: ideally the gradient to that point is not nearly so steep.
There is an exception here: the arena bosses, final dungeon and final monolith bosses at the 60-84 level are about right.
The campaign was good too. I just found it really jarring that the content I faced at level 10 was noticeably more challenging and threatening than what I fought at level 70.
Once again, I’ve never even finished the campaign before. I’m not even that good. If I feel the game is giving me the kid glove treatment for 20+ levels, all that is doing is making that eventual spike in difficulty way too sharp and make me that much more unprepared to deal with it. More challenge means more loot, more XP, faster leveling. It’s all good. Hopefully in the future, the entire leveling experience from 1 to 100 is more gradual and we can more smoothly transition into the game’s more difficult content.
Keep up the good work. Again, the game at its core is quite good.
Edit: I’m at level 89 and now that I know what it takes to do these challenges, I’ve reconsidered my build, upgraded some gear, and am doing fine. I’m right where I should be (even as a new player). I absolutely can handle the difficulty. My point was that levels 60-84 could better communicate to me what that difficulty would be,
