Dawn of the Hunt - What We’re Working On

rue is a cat

Deciding "what your players really mean" when they give you feedback is disingenuous. You need to take the feedback seriously at face value, and not rephrase it until it makes you happy.

Here are the reasons I think players really think the maps are too big:

1) Your campaign does not actually matter in early access. I'm sorry, that sucks, but it doesn't: people are trying to go to the end game, full stop. Bad enough they have to do Act1-3 once, they have to do it twice. By Act 1 Cruel, they are fed up with it and want endgame. Their patience has evaporated.

2) Movespeed is something you need to seriously consider reviewing, both for players and for monsters. In the campaign, especially in fresh economies, getting your hands on movespeed gear is impossible, and almost none exists on the skill tree. Players are forced to be slower than you likely "intend for them to be", meanwhile monsters are plenty fast in all campaign acts. Besides just long map travel times, players are constantly stopped in their tracks, being surrounded by enemies faster than they are, and not always with skills or abilities that solve that problem.

3) The maps really are too big. As others have said, players do not want more to do on the maps, nobody is complaining that the zones are too empty. They are complaining that they take too long to complete. If you as devs think they are too empty, then that's an internal discussion, but it's not the feedback you were provided, and it's weird you're trying to make it sound like it is.

In case you haven't gathered from the other comments, take the feedback seriously. Don't massage it, don't reword it, and certainly don't treat your community like they're not intelligent enough to understand a game's pain points. They're telling you what they don't like, and as the consumer of your game, what they don't like is of the utmost concern to you. What you intend won't always get to survive player scrutiny, that's an unfortunate truth of publishing a game.

Maybe if we ask for more checkpoints the they'll understand that reduce the map size is needed.

So...

Can we get more checkpoints please?

You know...

one way to solve most of the issues (maps too large, not enough damage) is to do what most ARPG's does...make monsters actually drop decent loot...players will get more damage, it will feel smoother gameplay and the areas will go faster.

Never forget what ARPG is all about, aka the loot itself. All the item drops..

We won't see this update/fixes till after the LE and D4 updates. At that point, the player count will drop another 80k (per steam charts) it went from 245k to 94k. The progression is poor due to bosses (who take forever to kill) dropping magic items with a higher MF % equipped? I don't see them fixing this in time.

POE 2 monsters move too fast and do too much damage to use combos early game. Their auto attacks wreck you while you try to setup your multi skill combo.

So we got a Game like Poe 1 from GGG where every Player could make builds like he wants to play to a Poe 2 that force you to play a class like GGG wants it, i dont understand that, i mean i know that Poe 1 and Poe 2 are different Kind of Games and i'm fully supportive for the New Game, but i hate to get Forced how to play a Class, i want to choose my Path and Class building, if i want to play a Range Huntress Spearthrow class Fantasy, why iam forced to go Meele, because the Class states Meele/Range Hybrid?, thats BS, sorry but if the Classes get so narrative that they need to be played like GGG wants it, then the Whole Support Gem and Skill Gem System is a not worth it.

I mean every Game has a Meta, but that is what people praised about GGG and Poe 1, that the Game was so fantastic developed that Meta wasnt that Big of an Issue, that People had the Freedom of Choice, the Reason why people hate mostly other ARPG, I dont see an Issue in a Slow paced and Hard Game, but i see an Issue in a ARPG where Classes are Metabound.

For me one issue is as well not the Slow pace or hard game, but the Character development itself, its like you begin at level one and till level 40-50 the Character get weaker and weaker and then at one Point in Game it makes a complete Turnaround and that is something i cant understand, in Poe1 i got always the Feeling that the Character got stronger and the Game harder in stages and at Mapping stage the Character could get in Godmode.

For me as a Player it feels shit, if i see youtube videos or Shorts were People Map and you see the classes are really fine and they have fun at the Game, then i think okay i start a character to and after 5 hours i think is it really worth?

Games that are develop for People that dont have other obligations then one Game are mostly getting killed by losing the Playerbase, the only reasons why Path of exile 2 Hold that long is that is in Early Access and People build a big Trustlevel to GGG through Poe 1, but Trustlevel begin to sin after some time the best example was Blizzard.

I will still even if its sounds a bit whiny give the Game further Chances, cause my Trustlevel is still exsting.

Never really post anything been a support since nearly the start of poe 1,

Guys poe2 is a slog to play for someone who works nearly 50 hrs a week and come home to enjoy and blast its like having another job. I love poe 1 its the best arpg every made please stick to what made your company famous.

Poe 2 is not good at all at the moment no loot, zones too long endgame boring and a slog, I know its early access but its been nearly 4 months since this as been out and it looks like not much as updated at all.

was looking at an old video of poe 2 from 3 years ago and that looked so much fun what happened?

Please don't let poe 1 die look after your customer based or your company will go down hill.

You are never to big to fail

Just a thought from a big fan of your company since the beginning

Your take on zones being too large is extremely out of touch.

They feel too large because THEY ARE. You cannot genuinely expect people to want to suffer through 15-20 hours of campaign on a fresh character every single league with these horrendous gigantic layouts. I can finish the entire PoE 1 campaign in half the time and that is 10 acts. The Azak Bog alone is probably the size of 10 PoE 1 zones.

As someone who enjoys making a lot of different characters and trying different builds this campaign length is the #1 thing preventing me from wanting to continue playing. Please actually address it instead of downplaying the concerns.

Just roll back the entire patch — the whole concept is flawed.

I'm not sure if you realize how disastrous this patch has been. Just look at the Steam reviews: you went from 80%+ positive to 80%+ negative. You can’t fix this with just a few tweaks.

Instead of nerfing everything to the ground and breaking most builds, you should have focused on making weaker abilities and builds viable, and on creating more content.

Basically, you removed the things people liked and doubled down on the things they hated.