Just before i start to share I have been supporting GD since EA days, nowadays getting old (45) and had a long pause of GD in the last 3 years or so (around 2k play hours total).
Have always been solo self found in any ARPG i play - GD i consider the pinnacle of that genre.
Ill try to just summarize some thoughts:
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Game now is just gigantic (which is Good!) but for a title where you can do hundreds of unique builds (main draw) post FoA it needs even more means to setup new characters.
I did a new Spellbreaker (with Lokar set all twinked with my huge stash, potions, merits etc) once I managed to find / farm all the stuff for a Zakull 2h build (thanks Zantai for really the most fun and enjoyable build GD has even seen. It is not OP since its ultra squishy hope it doesnt get killed since i spend 2 dozen hours farming for the MIs for it).
Maybe add another very expensive potion which gives you like 5 Devotion points or something - I was running through Veteran early to get all the shrines and even with Grimtools it took ages.
If I have to do that 10+ more times ill just probably wont endure and GD stash it or just quit -
Ascending altar needs revisiting heavily (it is a great idea but its undercooked at the moment):
- Should affect Re-roll chances etc
- Re-roll cost increase in Souls should be abolished - with 12/13 slots PER character to be Ascended the RNG and costs is just killing any incentive here hence I see most if not all end game players just cheat their way with unlimited resources to get what they need for their build
- Souls drops should be seriously increased - the only semi-acceptable way to farm them is to use fully juiced altart (3 ashes & 1/2 flowers) for Void marked chest farm.
Even with Zakull who is very fast in farming like that - it takes me around 1-2 hours to get 5-6 full Souls! Now that is just to ascend 1 Item which most probably will turn out crap for your build!
With so many slots/items/builds - costs or drops must be changed unless it is by design that only the people who spend 10 hours per day grinding can get a chance to max 1 character
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Ascendant Item Bonus transfer - when? Now if you waste valuable resource to Ascend an Item you are stuck with it - you cannot move it to another one - should be a given here.
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Altar bonuses vs difficulty scaling - this needs to be revisited as well. Currently the risk/reward ratio doesnt feel justifiable unless you just GD Stash one of the dozen truly broken characters.
I just dont see how 80-85% of the Builds can actually decently Farm souls with Altar / use Altar with how the ratio scales.
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I see most Testers/Praetorians measuring a build`s power with how fast it can do Cricuble 200/SR and the new Uber boss - unless you are a new player you will spend most of your end game time in doing full Altar cycles for Souls!
Fully activated altar feels (i dont know actually) at least on part with SR 36 if note more, you also get ganged by Nemesis all the time (which is Awesome!) and the Dread which can f.u up in a second.
What i mean is that my personal experience (with just 3 builds up for FoA end game and I am already a bit burned out from all the grind) is that farming souls with maxed Altar (otherwise you just dont get enough for your times worth) is much more challenging vs running SR 30-31/Cruci. -
Aggressive (7% OA on 1 item!) prefix should be nerfed: most of the End game OP builds i see have half the slots filled with MIs with Aggressive and some 4k+ OA. What happened with variety?
There are SO Many amazing new items but they are never used since you just go for 4k OA and steamroll everything (with GD stash ofc otherwise you can retire by farming for even 1-2 such items). -
Provide means to protect / defend against “HP Reduction” effects!
Most of the mobs in FoA especially later in the game have predominant attacks with direct HP Reduction which is just ultra cheap and you dont have a way to defend against meaningfully?
Perhaps you can add % HP reduction Resistance to Primordis or one of the other not-so-often used Potions.
Overall FoA is really good (despite me not being a fan of the Story and Setting), so happy that we got another expansion. Would happily buy more and more and more.