



The Aqueduct

This is one of the best parts of the new act. Great music, great atmosphere; entering the Aqueduct after offing Dominus is delightfully creepy. On top of all that, it's my absolute favorite area type: a tube full of monsters for me to snack on. You got this area just right.



Highgate

Highgate is beautiful, and definitely a nice change to a cool, dimly lit town from the burning yellows and golds of the Sarn Encampment; much more pleasant to look at. Petarus and Vanja are worth a moment's chuckle; Kira's a good NPC; Oyun is serviceable, and Tasuni is awesome.



The Dried Lake

I finally realized why I love this area so much a couple weeks ago; it feels like you've taken our Path character and plonked them down in the middle of Diablo II. The aesthetic is beautiful, sad, and haunting; this area vies for the spot of my favorite with Daresso's end of things. Voll is a nicely challenging fight, and rewards us handsomely for beating him; Voll's Confession is heartbreaking. One thing, though: the bleed is a liiiiiittle high, and by that I mean a lot high. Tone it back a smidge, please?



The Mines

I love all of the new mobs you've introduced in 2.0, but the Pocked Miners/Illuminators/etc are my absolute favorite. Delightfully horrifying, they really speak for the area as a whole. One thing, though--Deshret gets talked up a lot by the NPCs, but all that happens when we free her is that we get to see her rocket into the sky. Even if we can't get to chat with her a bit, maybe at least have her acknowledge you before she leaves?



The Crystal Veins

My Tumblr dashboard has been filled with carousing Steven Universe fans for the last three months, so I always have to verbally backspace a "Gems" out of this area's title. This is a lot like the Mines, though; well-done and serviceable.



Daresso's Dream

This is the crown jewel of the act. Daresso's Dream and the Grand Arena are filled with thematically clever enemies, rough close-quarters combat, rousing music, and generally excellent aesthetic; you guys have wonderfully captured the feel of the Grand Arena especially. What really elevates this above everything else in the act, however, is Daresso. Not so much the fight, though that is loads of fun too, but his monologues to you. We really get a look inside his head, at what kind of man he thought he was, at what drives him; we see his life in his own words, which is exactly what I thought we'd be getting from Kaom, Doedre, Maligaro, and Shavronne. I want to make this clear; the rest of the act is good, even at its worst, but Daresso's wing of the adventure makes everything else seem disappointing by comparison. It is a masterpiece, and in my opinion the finest thing you guys have ever put out.



One thing, though--in the beta, you could ask Oyun about both Kaom and Daresso, and she'd remark that the Maraketh found traces of Kaom's passage, but there was no evidence that Daresso set foot anywhere near the mines, and, in fact, likely died far from Highgate...so how did he end up in the Beast's maw? It was a lovely bit of foreshadowing that the Beast was never truly caged, and that it did to Daresso what it did to Piety and Dominus. In the live version, the Daresso speech option is gone. What gives?



Kaom's Dream

Kaom's Dream is not quite as good.



I have a...thing. I will always, always, always save my favorite part of an experience for last; a good meal, a good game, whatever. I'll get the less-fun or outright boring parts of it out of the way first, then move on to the good stuff.



I have never, ever, done Daresso's Dream first after my initial playthrough in the beta.



Now, Kaom's Dream is okay, but it's easily the worst part of the act. It's too long, for starters. Daresso's wing feels like an adventure; it sweeps you along, thrills you, gets your blood pumping. Kaom's end of things is a slog. Three long areas filled with monotonous scenery and samey enemies--and here's the important bit!--without Kaom talking to you. He leaves a brief message in each area, but you have to hunt it down. I expressed this on reddit a while back, and someone argued that Kaom was not a man of words, not the kind to prattle on about himself like Daresso does; to this I responded:



"This is true, but the Kaom-That-Was, the Kaom that cared for his people above all else, no longer exists. He was murdered by the Beast before he ever set foot in Its dark mountain, twisted by his belief in his own importance, deluding himself into believing he was Tukohama's chosen son. As the old Kaom died, the new Kaom's axe fell five hundred times, and away walked a man who did not live for the glory of the Karui, but believed he WAS the glory of the Karui.



So, yes, I believe the narcissistic murderer who slaughtered entire families for the sake of his own self-important delusions is the kind to rant at you as you enter his dream."



I wanted to hear about Kaom's life from his perspective. Instead, all we heard about was his fall. He talks about the quest, and the slaughter, but we should be hearing about his life before the Beast called to him, and he should be talking to us the way Daresso does.



Belly of the Beast

This area is delightfully disgusting. The new skeletons are great, the revenants are great, the flying eyeball monsters are great. I love it. It's a great leadup to the final area, and, sadly, in a lot of ways a more fulfilling experience than The Harvest.



The Harvest

This is where things get a little iffy.



The Harvest is fairly well-done. It suffers a bit of Upper Sceptre of God syndrome, with the same-enemies-as-the-last-area issue, but it's a lot shorter, so that's okay. It's a little too short, in fact...because of the minibosses.



Doedre, Maligaro, and Shavronne are major lore characters, and all we get from them are brief, easy boss fights. Only Maligaro talks to us. Doedre turns into an ADORABLE FAT TOAD FRIEND (I DEMAND A MINION OR SUMMON), and has a clever fight mechanic with the cursed floor. Shavronne just throws books at you. These three characters have no pomp, no circumstance; no fuss is made about their appearance. You fight them for a grand total of a couple minutes apiece, then move on. This is incredibly disappointing, and aside from Kaom's Dream sucking harder than a Hoover with a nuclear motor is the biggest problem with the act. Had we fought all three of them together, this would have been forgivable, but...we didn't, much to my surprise.



Of course, after Kaom and the Wonder Triplets, the biggest problem with the act is...



Malachai, and the Missing Beast

Let me preface this by saying that the Malachai portion of the Harvest area is nearly perfect, flavorwise. He taunts you, he fights you, he's hard as balls, it's a real triumph when he finally kicks it and implodes. He does have some other problems, though.



Firstly, he's hard as balls. He's too hard. My level 91 had to think on her feet against Cruel Malachai. I can understand having Merciless Malachai be this insane, but tone down Cruel at least, please, because you shouldn't be gated from entering Merciless like this. He also has tons of graphical issues. He doesn't telegraph many of his attacks, and those he does will often make your game seize up. If he were either hard or glitchy, this fight could work as-is and you'd just get some grumbling from me, but the combination is very bad.



Secondly...The Beast.



We've had the Beast, the Nightmare, the source of the virtue gems, the source of the waves of corruption that sweep over Wraeclast every few centuries, hyped up to us over the course of the game in various ways. This builds up to Highgate, where we learn that the Nightmare is not a metaphor, but an actual, breathing, thinking monstrosity.



And then? Then we segue directly into Malachai.



Yes, you do build up that he's controlling the Beast from within, but you don't put a ton of emphasis on it, and it leads to a great big lurching misstep when, after killing Malachai...you just get the portal to the next act.



Where is the Beast?



We're inside the thing, Majin Buu style. Why not, once we kill Malachai, make us run back through the Harvest and the Belly areas while it has one final, dying seizure? Have it spawn constant deformed enemies that don't take much to put down but DO harry us, and then, right when we reach the exit, have it form its own head out of its guts



Act 4 Overall

Overall, I like Act 4 a LOT. From best to worst: Daresso's Wing, The Dried Lake, The Aqueduct, The Mines/Crystal Veins, The Belly of the Beast, The Harvest, your laptop shutting down because Path of Exile made it overheat, going to the store every week to buy batteries for the hand fan you're using to cool your laptop because its internal fan is dead, and Kaom's Wing. The act could do with some improvements, but it's loads of fun.



Now for some of the other changes.



Zone Consolidation

This was a godsend. I personally didn't like the outright removal of the Coves--I would have preferred it be a Dread Thicket-esque side area, it was flavorful and atmospheric as hell--but shortening all these areas was wonderful. One thing, though, is that Act 2 is still too long. It sprawls, it's unfocused, and I always itch to get past it or falter and call it a night partway through the act if I'm tired.



Jewels

I love 'em. I want more. Give me more. GIVE ME MORE.



Divination Cards

I love these, too, as you can, uh,



New Monsters

I LOVE the new set of monsters that 2.0 introduced. I DON'T like how few of them appear in early acts. I enjoy the GIANT ENEMY CRABS, and putting the Pale Blackguards in the Imperial Garden was good, but I'd really like to see some more of them appearing occasionally elsewhere. Not a huge deal, though.



Tempest Shield Rework

I didn't think I was going to like this, but I do. I love it.



Map System Rework

I don't think it's nearly as end-of-the-worldish as others do, but I do believe you've done the game a disservice with the map drop rework. Please, please consider reversing this decision.



Golems

An excellent addition to the game. I like all three. I look forward to many more.



Enlighten and the Reduced Mana gem

I will admit that this change hit me very softly, because I'd been stockpiling Enlightens for fun long before the change was even teased. Still, I'm torn. On the one hand, the aura changes mean that you're running about the same amount of reservation with a little tree investment, but auras are a very fun part of the game.



Speaking of auras--Vitality is far too weak and needs either a buff or a reservation reduction.



TL;DR overall a good experience marred by some missed potential. ALSO SUDDEN TOAD FRIEND I've held off on putting out my thoughts on the release of Path of Exile 2.0 very deliberately. I wanted to experience the full picture, both with new characters and with old. I'm a summoner by taste and by trade; I generally run an unholy all-summons build with zombies, spectres, a chaos golem, SRS, Vaal skeletons, and the animate weapon skill gem, but I do have several other characters, including a facebreaker and an arc totem MF culler. Here's my thoughts on the 2.0 release, starting with the new zones.This is one of the best parts of the new act. Great music, great atmosphere; entering the Aqueduct after offing Dominus is delightfully creepy. On top of all that, it's my absolute favorite area type: a tube full of monsters for me to snack on. You got this area just right.Highgate is beautiful, and definitely a nice change to a cool, dimly lit town from the burning yellows and golds of the Sarn Encampment; much more pleasant to look at. Petarus and Vanja are worth a moment's chuckle; Kira's a good NPC; Oyun is serviceable, and Tasuni is awesome.I finally realized why I love this area so much a couple weeks ago; it feels like you've taken our Path character and plonked them down in the middle of Diablo II. The aesthetic is beautiful, sad, and haunting; this area vies for the spot of my favorite with Daresso's end of things. Voll is a nicely challenging fight, and rewards us handsomely for beating him; Voll's Confession is heartbreaking. One thing, though: the bleed is a liiiiiittle high, and by that I mean a lot high. Tone it back a smidge, please?I love all of the new mobs you've introduced in 2.0, but the Pocked Miners/Illuminators/etc are my absolute favorite. Delightfully horrifying, they really speak for the area as a whole. One thing, though--Deshret gets talked up a lot by the NPCs, but all that happens when we free her is that we get to see her rocket into the sky. Even if we can't get to chat with her a bit, maybe at least have her acknowledge you before she leaves?My Tumblr dashboard has been filled with carousing Steven Universe fans for the last three months, so I always have to verbally backspace a "Gems" out of this area's title. This is a lot like the Mines, though; well-done and serviceable.This is the crown jewel of the act. Daresso's Dream and the Grand Arena are filled with thematically clever enemies, rough close-quarters combat, rousing music, and generally excellent aesthetic; you guys have wonderfully captured the feel of the Grand Arena especially. What really elevates this above everything else in the act, however, is Daresso. Not so much the fight, though that is loads of fun too, but his monologues to you. We really get a look inside his head, at what kind of man he thought he was, at what drives him; we see his life in his own words, which is exactly what I thought we'd be getting from Kaom, Doedre, Maligaro, and Shavronne. I want to make this clear; the rest of the act is good, even at its worst, but Daresso's wing of the adventure makes everything else seem disappointing by comparison. It is a masterpiece, and in my opinion the finest thing you guys have ever put out.One thing, though--in the beta, you could ask Oyun about both Kaom and Daresso, and she'd remark that the Maraketh found traces of Kaom's passage, but there was no evidence that Daresso set foot anywhere near the mines, and, in fact, likely died far from Highgate...so how did he end up in the Beast's maw? It was a lovely bit of foreshadowing that the Beast was never truly caged, and that it did to Daresso what it did to Piety and Dominus. In the live version, the Daresso speech option is gone. What gives?Kaom's Dream is not quite as good.I have a...thing. I will always, always, always save my favorite part of an experience for last; a good meal, a good game, whatever. I'll get the less-fun or outright boring parts of it out of the way first, then move on to the good stuff.I have never, ever, done Daresso's Dream first after my initial playthrough in the beta.Now, Kaom's Dream is okay, but it's easily the worst part of the act. It's too long, for starters. Daresso's wing feels like an adventure; it sweeps you along, thrills you, gets your blood pumping. Kaom's end of things is a slog. Three long areas filled with monotonous scenery and samey enemies--and here's the important bit!--without Kaom talking to you. He leaves a brief message in each area, but you have to hunt it down. I expressed this on reddit a while back, and someone argued that Kaom was not a man of words, not the kind to prattle on about himself like Daresso does; to this I responded:"This is true, but the Kaom-That-Was, the Kaom that cared for his people above all else, no longer exists. He was murdered by the Beast before he ever set foot in Its dark mountain, twisted by his belief in his own importance, deluding himself into believing he was Tukohama's chosen son. As the old Kaom died, the new Kaom's axe fell five hundred times, and away walked a man who did not live for the glory of the Karui, but believed he WAS the glory of the Karui.So, yes, I believe the narcissistic murderer who slaughtered entire families for the sake of his own self-important delusions is the kind to rant at you as you enter his dream."I wanted to hear about Kaom's life from his perspective. Instead, all we heard about was his fall. He talks about the quest, and the slaughter, but we should be hearing about his life before the Beast called to him, and he should be talking to us the way Daresso does.This area is delightfully disgusting. The new skeletons are great, the revenants are great, the flying eyeball monsters are great. I love it. It's a great leadup to the final area, and, sadly, in a lot of ways a more fulfilling experience than The Harvest.This is where things get a little iffy.The Harvest is fairly well-done. It suffers a bit of Upper Sceptre of God syndrome, with the same-enemies-as-the-last-area issue, but it's a lot shorter, so that's okay. It's a little too short, in fact...because of the minibosses.Doedre, Maligaro, and Shavronne are major lore characters, and all we get from them are brief, easy boss fights. Only Maligaro talks to us. Doedre turns into an ADORABLE FAT TOAD FRIEND (I DEMAND A MINION OR SUMMON), and has a clever fight mechanic with the cursed floor. Shavronne just throws books at you. These three characters have no pomp, no circumstance; no fuss is made about their appearance. You fight them for a grand total of a couple minutes apiece, then move on. This is incredibly disappointing, and aside from Kaom's Dream sucking harder than a Hoover with a nuclear motor is the biggest problem with the act. Had we fought all three of them together, this would have been forgivable, but...we didn't, much to my surprise.Of course, after Kaom and the Wonder Triplets, the biggest problem with the act is...Let me preface this by saying that the Malachai portion of the Harvest area is nearly perfect, flavorwise. He taunts you, he fights you, he's hard as balls, it's a real triumph when he finally kicks it and implodes. He does have some other problems, though.Firstly, he's hard as balls. He's too hard. My level 91 had to think on her feet against Cruel Malachai. I can understand having Merciless Malachai be this insane, but tone down Cruel at least, please, because you shouldn't be gated from entering Merciless like this. He also has tons of graphical issues. He doesn't telegraph many of his attacks, and those he does will often make your game seize up. If he were either hard or glitchy, this fight could work as-is and you'd just get some grumbling from me, but the combination is very bad.Secondly...The Beast.We've had the Beast, the Nightmare, the source of the virtue gems, the source of the waves of corruption that sweep over Wraeclast every few centuries, hyped up to us over the course of the game in various ways. This builds up to Highgate, where we learn that the Nightmare is not a metaphor, but an actual, breathing, thinking monstrosity.And then? Then we segue directly into Malachai.Yes, you do build up that he's controlling the Beast from within, but you don't put a ton of emphasis on it, and it leads to a great big lurching misstep when, after killing Malachai...you just get the portal to the next act.Where is the Beast?We're inside the thing, Majin Buu style. Why not, once we kill Malachai, make us run back through the Harvest and the Belly areas while it has one final, dying seizure? Have it spawn constant deformed enemies that don't take much to put down but DO harry us, and then, right when we reach the exit, have it form its own head out of its guts Buu-style which we have to kill before we can leave? That would bring closure to the act in a much more satisfying way.Overall, I like Act 4 a LOT. From best to worst: Daresso's Wing, The Dried Lake, The Aqueduct, The Mines/Crystal Veins, The Belly of the Beast, The Harvest, your laptop shutting down because Path of Exile made it overheat, going to the store every week to buy batteries for the hand fan you're using to cool your laptop because its internal fan is dead, and Kaom's Wing. The act could do with some improvements, but it's loads of fun.Now for some of the other changes.This was a godsend. I personally didn't like the outright removal of the Coves--I would have preferred it be a Dread Thicket-esque side area, it was flavorful and atmospheric as hell--but shortening all these areas was wonderful. One thing, though, is that Act 2 is still too long. It sprawls, it's unfocused, and I always itch to get past it or falter and call it a night partway through the act if I'm tired.I love 'em. I want more. Give me more. GIVE ME MORE.I love these, too, as you can, uh, probably tell . They're too rare, though; they shouldn't be TOO much more common, but a slight buff to their drop rates would be good.I LOVE the new set of monsters that 2.0 introduced. I DON'T like how few of them appear in early acts. I enjoy the GIANT ENEMY CRABS, and putting the Pale Blackguards in the Imperial Garden was good, but I'd really like to see some more of them appearing occasionally elsewhere. Not a huge deal, though.I didn't think I was going to like this, but I do. I love it.I don't think it's nearly as end-of-the-worldish as others do, but I do believe you've done the game a disservice with the map drop rework. Please, please consider reversing this decision.An excellent addition to the game. I like all three. I look forward to many more.I will admit that this change hit me very softly, because I'd been stockpiling Enlightens for fun long before the change was even teased. Still, I'm torn. On the one hand, the aura changes mean that you're running about the same amount of reservation with a little tree investment, but auras are a very fun part of the game.Speaking of auras--Vitality is far too weak and needs either a buff or a reservation reduction.TL;DR overall a good experience marred by some missed potential. ALSO SUDDEN TOAD FRIEND FYI: It's not a fantasy story, it's a cosmic horror story. Last edited by Loreweaver on Aug 7, 2015, 2:16:26 AM