Pros:
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General graphics updates: I can’t point to any one thing specifically, but I can definitely tell the game looks and plays better. There are a lot of things I disliked about PoE, but I have to admit their graphic fidelity was absolutely top notch. There were multiple zones where I could zoom in and spend an hour just being amazed by all the little (and, in many cases, horrific) in-universe background details. I’m looking forward to LE getting to that level of artwork.
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New echoes: I’m enjoying them. A lot of people complain about echo variety. I know this will improve over time as EHG keeps adding new echos, but it also requires players to slow down enough to actually look at the echoes. It’s not EHG’s fault if we all blast through them without appreciating them. The skin texture on the snake could be improved, but it IS really damn cool to just stand there and watch it move.
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Nemesis UI update: I like that I can just click Empower without needing to think about which button is which, and I also like that wanting to choose Challenge instead of Empower requires me to consciously stop, think, and find that button. So: think when I need to think, but it also allows me to not need to think when I don’t need to think.
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Echo chains: They definitely do help reduce some of the analysis paralysis.
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Corruption: I was really against this before launch, but I’m finding it to be a decent stepping stone for when I’m stuck between LP levels. The process of finding/upgrading LP items has given me like 8 stash tabs full of Legendary items, some of which are almost as good as the ones I was wearing, but not quite. I was able to corrupt 3 of them to get some minor improvements while I continue to search for the next LP level items. Also, this gave me the edge I needed to beat Abby for the very first time, so I have to give credit where credit’s due.
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I kind of like the UI change to Woven Echo inventory. It’s gonna take me a while to learn where everything is again, but overall I think this will be a plus.
Cons:
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Audio bug: Requires a power cycle. Each time I click on an encounter to summon a Rift Beast into the echo I hear a click and video lags for a moment, and each time it gets worse. After 3-5 of them not only does the audio in the game crash, it also crashes my audio driver for everything on my PC. Fortunately I have an external sound card, and rebooting that fixes the issue, because if I didn’t have an external sound card the only other way to restore my audio would be to completely reboot my PC.
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Portal bug: After a handful of echoes the portal out stops working, and I have to log off and back on, sacrificing the echo rewards. This bug makes the game very unenjoyable, because it really sucks if it happens at the end of an echo chain.
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Nerfs to Woven Riches and Loomed Riches have made those nodes worthless, frankly, and have completely halted my ability to maintain progress with my woven echos, which in turn halts my gear progression.
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Echo maps don’t allow us to search for types of echo chains (yet). If I want to do a Nemesis chain we should be able to search for Nemesis in the search box.
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I wish the filter rules allowed us to hide keys, affixes, and glyphs. The option to modify their appearance is there, so I don’t understand why EHG won’t let us also hide them.
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I have one small change request for the Nemesis UI, and that’s for the Empower button to also be different when the egg is present and empty. There’ve been a few times I’ve cursed myself for clicking Empower too quickly when running a tower.
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I wish we could hide Set echoes. Also need to restore the green/orange background to the generic star icon on the echo web. I can’t tell which echos give unique/set rewards unless I hover over them now.
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Making the purple lines between completed nodes thinner looks nice at a certain zoom level, but viewing echo chains requires us to zoom out more than before, which then makes those lines harder to see. As much as I like the thinner look, I think I might like the lines to be thicker again, or for there to be some other way to see completion at a wider zoom.
Other thoughts:
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I wonder whether or not we’ll be able to sacrifice a corrupted item to reroll in the Gauntlet of Strife, My gut’s telling me EHG probably won’t allow that, but honestly I do hope we can. Some items are so damn hard to get that not being able to use corrupted items as reroll fodder would really suck.
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I’m on the fence about the Idol Altars. I recognize that they add potential, but it adds new affixes to think about, and idols are still pure RNG and it’s not making rolling idols any easier, so it feels like a mixed bag. But I guess I’m fine with that in the long run. Not every mechanic needs to provide immediate benefits.
Overall, I’m enjoying the game, but the portal bug is really a thorn in my side.