- Stat system is fucking dumb, and boring. Seriously. There's no reason for not giving max Might to all characters, nothing has any stat requirement and the overall feeling is that nothing matters unless you're trying to min-max. Not to mention how Intelligence is clearly a dump-stat that Sawyer "solved" by making it the most important in dialog. So yeah, the only reason to make our char use Int is if you want to see some additional dialogs. Meaning anyone creating a custom party will have 5 guys at his back with 3 Int, including the Wizard, cause "D&D sucks and I'll do something better".
- It's too hard to access the mage's spells (open inventory, right click on the grimoire), and I can't see a way to access the priest's "grimoire" in the same way. I'm guessing that it doesn't even exist.
- When reading the character's stat page, you can't switch characters, you have to close it, select a different character and then open it again.
- Combat log is horribly polluted with pointless shit and it records too little:
It's a pain to find relevant info instead of "Bob recovered 0 stamina because stuffie", and you can't scroll back much. It's so short that you usually can't even go as back as the start of a battle you just fought.
- It's hard to see what your characters are doing, and when they have finished doing it. Sure, it's easy to see a fireball flying, but I have a really hard time seeing if the priest has already casted a heal or a buff, or if the fighter has tried his knockdown attack already. The chaotic combat log that hides away relevant info under rubbish makes it even worse.
Also, the spell effects are just too chaotic and get in the way of the action. I can't see for shit here:
They should add some feedback to when you land criticals. BG had the screen shake and characters would shout something. I think that's a good solution.
And they should add something like the attack circles from IE:
A quick glance at the above screen shows that my party is attacking that Ghoul, but there's nothing like that in PoE.
- Character's pathfinding is bad, they constantly get stuck behind each other.
- There's a lot of repetitive and boring spells. Seriously, most of the spells are "decrease/increase X stats", followed then by some damage spells that also "decrease X stats". There are almost no utility spells like Dispel, Identify, Knock, Sense Trap, Charm, Sleep, Detect Invisibility, etc... Instead you have ultra-specific stuff like "decrease by X% the accuracy of disengagement attacks in the area".
Not to mention that they are very repetitive. There's a "Mirror Image" spell for Wizards on Lv 1, 2 and 3:
Very creative. That's what you get for not linking spell's efficiency to the spellcaster level, Sawyer.
- You cannot see spell's detailed effect when selecting the on level up. They only show up when in your Grimoire:
- Documentation is seriously lacking. I.e., the game shows that the Resilience stat raise Concentration. But nowhere it explains what Concentration is.
- The stats description also are confusing as hell. Just try to make sense of this:
"+4 Melee" means melee damage? if so, why it's "on attack"? Why a sword gives Ranged bonus? What "Accuracy, x1,25 Damage" means? Does it adds 1,25x my accuracy to the damage?
But the worst offender are these fucking % everywhere, that you can only guess. "+50% Crush damage" means that it boost my Crush damage in 50%, or it adds 50% of my damage as additional Crush damage? I have no clue. And what the hell is 1000% (lol) Crush damage, since the weapon gives Slashing damage?
Seriously, the game is fun, but it's DESPISE the "Sawyer-ism", that plagues it. It feels like the most convoluted and overly complicated system I ever played. Every time I wanted to cast a spell or change an equipment I was staring at %. It feels like it was made for min-maxers by a guy that hates min-maxing, as if trying to please some distorted stereotypical image he had of what grognards like. Being a master player of PoE means pilling up %s in the right way. People will call me hater for this, but it's MMO as fuck, it's the same design philosophy I saw when playing WoW: you can derp as you want with the stats and it won't mean a thing, but if you want to "play seriously", you better follow this equation to optimal damage output, pile up the correct numbers and deal 7.85% more damage than you do now.
Spells and items are also boring. There are no game changers (at least in the beta). Everything is "gives you a bit more of X". Looking at the item enchantment list, I feel like looking at Diablo's random item generator. And most spells feel superfluous... the important thing is to control your party formation and actions, if you do this right you won't need "+8% of defelction" to win the battle anyway. And it's made worst by the stamina system. Why waste a spell to to things a bit easier, if the damage you're taking is temporary anyway?
And I just don't get how this itemization is supposed to work. Everyone can use everything, so why care? Give the heaviest armor to everyone n the party, there's no minimun requirement or penalty. Your mage and rogue can go full plate and still sneak or cast spells perfectly. So why are the other armors even there? If anything, equipping your party seems to be all about everyone using the heaviest armors, but with different enchantments... again, WoW feelings: "Mage and Priest use the same Cloth Armor, but Mages should enchant Int and Priest enchant Spirit." And WoW had cloth leather, chain and plate mail, each limited to a set of classes.... PoE doesn't even have that.
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