There were some wins and some losses and some head scratchers for this PTR:
1. The portal to the Heavenly Forge should take you back to wherever you come from, not just Kyovashad. Or anywhere on the map for that matter.
2. Enemies with Poison are way too powerful at low levels. Seems like we were back to season 2.
3. I love how frantic the Hell Tides are now. With you actually having to worry about how many enemies are around you and trying to stay out of corners.
4. I like that at Level 42 I had only got one legendary. Makes the yellows and blues feel like they matter. Gives the loot more of a journey feel.
5. The new Tempering system seems… fine. It’s not very exciting to just pick what you want. A solution that meets halfway might be to have the system work as before where you select the category that you want. But instead of making the Scrolls of Retempering only allow once, just let people use as many of the scrolls as they want. Or include a 2-step approach where you can randomly roll from the category as it is now. You get the temper you want. Now the next step it to continue rolling for that affix’s range roll. And still be able to use the scroll as many time as you want on an item.
6. Masterworking is…different. There’s little point to it. I like that the end of Masterworking adds a random greater affix at the very end. That was an improvement. But it’s not really fun clicking 20 times through an item. A better system would have been to have the system from season 10 still, add in a step system where you can choose to go back to 4, or 8 or 12 while including the greater affix roll still after the 12th step. Let you go back to the beginning too if the player wants it. This way there would still be some randomness and it feels like you’re attempting something rather than just clicking the item. Crafting should always be about player agency.
7. Being able to choose The Heavenly Forge as your favourite for teleport would be good as everything you need is there.
8. Toughness clearly shows your defensive strength, and this is great.
9. Gems dropping must be a glitch right?
10. The leveling from 1 to 60 feels good. Not slow and not blazing. Great job on this.
11. The Azmodan fight lasted less than 20 seconds. Was the resilience not added to him? Love that the chest spawns after you kill him right there. The fight gave way too much experience. At level 42, it gave me 7 levels.
12. The new enemy AI seems great.
13. Instantly noticed the improved AI on enemies
14. I really liked the Aegis mechanic in the first Capstone Dungeon.
15. Loved that you finally brought back the enemies from season 3!
16. The Curator fight surprised me with the added mechanics and the secondary boss. Cool addition.
17. The next 2 capstone dungeons were good but a pattern did emerge: Even when over leveled, the dungeons took way to long to complete, mainly because the boss health at the end is staggeringly high. They are just sponges. You literally just sit there hitting and hitting and hitting for minutes.
18. Pit seemed fine. It’s the Pit, nothing new.
19. The tower seemed….like the Pit but upwards? I feel like it needs something major added to really separate it from the Pit somehow.
20. I liked how the bosses from the ladder now mattered as in they were attached to specific activities as well as their own fights. It was a nice shake up.
21. The new “Sanctification” was meh. It’s nice to have a system to complete the journey of an item, but the randomness just makes it feel like one of the obols from Path of Exile that you generally wouldn’t use on end-game items because you can’t afford to brick them. A generalized crafting system would be better for the end-game items. Maybe this material lets you add “X” to the item, this material let’s you change “Y” of the item etc. Something that really gives the player control over their gear’s end journey. Keeping the random “Risk for Reward” material would also be good for players that like to gamble.