The Witch and her Miscreations: Tales from the Shadows

A witch and her miscreations reside here. It is said that deep in the forest, hidden away from prying eyes, lies the dwelling of a notorious witch. She is known for her eccentric and sinister experiments, creating creatures that defy the laws of nature. Legend has it that her cottage is adorned with creepy symbols and potions, and eerie sounds emanate from within its walls. Those who dare to approach the vicinity of her abode report feeling an overwhelming sense of dread, as if being watched by unseen eyes. The witch's miscreations, these abominations of her dark sorcery, are said to roam the surrounding woods, their twisted forms and glowing eyes striking fear into the hearts of anyone unfortunate enough to cross paths with them.

These twain, as a king with his fellow
Hold converse of desolate speech :
And her waters are haggard and yellow
And crass with the scurf of the beach
And his garments are grey as the hoary
Wan sky where the day lies dim; 30
And his power is to her, and his glory,
As hers unto him.

Her walls have no granite for girder, No fortalice fronting her stands 50 But reefs the bloodguiltiest of murder Are less than the banks of her sands These number their slain by the thousand For the ship hath no surety to be, When the bank is abreast of her bows and Aflush with the sea. Though hence come the moan that he borrows From darkness and depth, of the night, Though hence be the spring of his sorrows, Hence too is the joy of his might; The delight that his doom is for ever To seek and desire and rejoice, And the sense that eternity never Shall silence his voice.

The witch's miscreations, these abominations of her dark sorcery, are said to roam the surrounding woods, their twisted forms and glowing eyes striking fear into the hearts of anyone unfortunate enough to cross paths with them. Stories of missing animals and strange occurrences abound, leaving locals to whisper in hushed tones of the wicked witch and her monstrous creations. Imagination or reality, it is hard to tell.

Area level scaling in A3 (M) - story complete (update)

yes I'd say the only tough thing about Piety is that ice form. sometimes I think an intended effect of ice arrows is - by design - to make my screen freeze :)
also, they do so much damage through 80% cold res, it's unbelievable.
I've already posted about the need to either nerf the damage of that attack, or fix and improve the rendering so I can actually dodge it without my system locking-up.
preferably both.

as for the Blackguard Witches, Hilbert already has a post about the ridiculous nature of shock stacks.
I have nothing against increasing their (and Piety's) damage with Arc, as long as I won't get zapped for 2k lightning damage (!) despite maxed lighting res and keystones that reduce critical damage received.

and Lunaris is dangerous because of a very specific combo: whipping miscreation + machinegun squid.
the damage dealt by WMs is ridiculous. their Vulnerability on hit is bad enough without hitting you like a truck. and there is always a squid girl ready to take full advantage of the curse. a pack of them in most cases.
GGG should maybe increase their damage, but prevent a pack of more than two squids spawning in one group - because it's a melee nightmare. blue ones especially, because you can't kill them fast enough before getting blasted from zero-range by the others.
also, insert a rule that a whipping miscreation cannot spawn in packs of more than 2, and closer than 1 screen from a squid. it's no problem handling the regular goons and elementals while cursed, but getting cursed then immediately blasted from somewhere you can barely see? that feels like nothing more than an extremely-cheesy difficulty spike. it feels frustrating because it's wrong, not because you made a mistake. "the game cheated".
sadly, the game does things like this far too often.

Ice form : use Immortal call http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io_6bbTXrCc Minute 14
Whipping miscreation : use BLIND( -75% accuracy) or removing curses flasks.

( thax for the update Op )

Anarchy/Onslaught T-Shirt Owner.
Trading Guide : http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/519890
Killing Vaal merc with (600 life) : http://is.gd/qsgV9P [Open Beta]
Let's be Crazy: http://is.gd/TxxLsS / Old Suggestion: http://is.gd/Jd09W0
>

Ice form : use Immortal call http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io_6bbTXrCc Minute 14
Whipping miscreation : use BLIND( -75% accuracy) or removing curses flasks.

( thax for the update Op )

wait. Immortal Call? you're telling me it's mostly physical damage?

heck now I really don't understand how this game works.

Vaal's smash at least has a fiery explosion animation, to indicate it's part fire damage. Piety's ice arrows provide no sign that it's anything but cold.

but I'd use it if the game actually lets me cast it, instead of freezing up each time she fires them.

as for Blind, my Mara has "Unwavering Stance" so I can't dodge anyway. maybe the Ranger will have use for it once she gets there (right now in Act 1 Merc).

Nicely written OP. I made a few comments here and there how recent patches have ruined progress for re-rollers, but above all new players. Commented that current state affairs can not lead to a successful game launch.

I predicted and warned about this happening in the development manifesto:
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/352437/page/69

I even made a paint picture to make it more clear:

Progression based on player feedback and endgame is all dandy and stuff, but they should really look at the time played in zones, played at level, total time played etc. To get a proper overview of the progression. For instance you could clearly see most melee over lvl-ing before doing Vaal Merciless, especially those who wish to solo the content. You either get carried by ranged or solo Vaal, doing Vaal with multiple melee is like Russian roulette with an unpredictable ground slam.

Despite some good intentions most feedback from the player perspective is very shortsighted or has a limited perspective, so does ours. If you really want worthwhile feedback you need access to numbers, to statistics and even have some of that available to the player base.

Another change that made things worse is the useless item mod rolls. In general it seems I hardly get any useful upgrades at all for my characters. I really used my pre-found gear and established character to farm up. I think it is a bad trade-off that game progression suffered for low-life builds (lightning radius).

One bad decision that perhaps has been in at the start of the game are exalted orbs. One of the most interesting crafting orbs so rare, while it yet is so random in its outcome. It could be such an interesting orb for crafting and progression if you could waste it, but instead we got a currency.

I've made this suggestion here and there, but what really would help for item variation, game progression and possibly remedy many of the bad patches is to have Life as an implicit property on items, based on the ilvl of the item
The 109 Life roll is incredibly strong and dwarfs all other rolls. A 59 life roll is still very good, but here we might consider +armor or +evasion or + strength equally strong if the other 50 life of the 109 life is now implicit on the chest/ armour (about 50% of possible ilvl life rolls implicit on items).

Gear variation is more easier with other rolls gaining more value and the life roll itself losing some value. CI builds would be the only builds with a freebie as they do get a bigger base life pool without a need for the life roll. It all balances out. The 50% figure is where you balance the game to your needs. How easy will you make it for the players, how much crafting do you want them to do?

Maybe there are better solutions or some decisions need to be turned back. One thing seems certain and that is that the game progression up to merciless has gotten a lot worse. I do not get the same experience as I did in CB (normal is still quite ok, never been a fan of act 3 ever since its introduction).

I also dislike act 3 and maps for making ring swapping mundane. Maps and act 3 really force you to have all 3 resists maxed out (Lunaris, (Solaris also has cold, but not a lot)). In CB I felt that 3 resists at max was an endgame luxury (before maps in CB) and you could do well in zones by swapping your rings. Act 3 really makes 3 resists maxed out mandatory. Not to mention the horrible addition of needing 1 or 2 chaos resist rolls on your gear (forced gear requirement, just behind rolling life).

First of all the paint picture is a good one and the part about maps and act 3 overlap, lol!

Thanks for the suggestions - the truth is I forgot about blind (about whipping monsters), but it was the first hit that hurt a lot too, I don't know how well would I apply blind (if I could socket it somewhere). Similar to the ice form Piety and immortal call - I am not a big fan of immortal call, I like the charges as they help with resists too.

". feels like nothing more than an extremely-cheesy difficulty spike" (about the Tentacle miscreations and whipping ladies combo)
Honestly, on this character I played today, the machinegun ladies didn't feel all that bad, and that's without maxed fire resist. I think it's the combination of endurance charges and pretty good granite flasks I have got. It definitely felt million times worse on my CI witch, stun and all that, but that was before the new level scaling change where I was lower level without decent gear, too.

Last thing - I know player feedback is severely influenced by the point of view. It's just how I saw things, what impression they gave and how I felt when experiencing them when playing new act 3.. It would be interesting to see the actual numbers but I guess it's top secret.

Within the spoilers I elaborate a bit on the player feedback thing a lot of text to make it a bit more clear. I suggest not discussing it as it will derail/ bring your OP off-topic, which is really nice

Yeah well actually what you experience and what I tested is a different point of feedback from the fast majority of feedback that led to these changes. The fast majority has been endgame feedback from high lvl players. So it helps to have different kinds of feedback only the way the forums goes is that vocal minorities or big issues get swarmed and most of these with simple ad hoc solutions, which get demanded by the crowd.

It would be nice if some moderators get assigned to lead discussions such that 1 argument (whihc might be ad) floods the thread (or the forums). If than developers get involved and share their visions and the goals they try to achieve you might get decent feedback. I imagine alpha is a lot like this, poor us that have to reside here in the open beta forums.

The same is with the very vocal lightning radius crowd and they are right, but the solution that came out is quite bad. The discussion is quite heated, but it shouldn't be. Okay these mods got added what are the consequences, than what are the consequences for new players, what are the consequences within a week and what after 1 month?

Getting the good feedback takes quite long, we can predict and conclude what happens and say what we see now, but it has little value if developers do not clearly state what their goals are. Was it a fix the lightning radius, or was it meant to delude the mod pool and implement long grind sessions in cruel? If your run statistics on loot drops and compare the old items with new, knowing what is useful and what not you could spot a trend faster than waiting for feedback from the player base, which might be a minor vocal biased low life build, with a positive opinion.

I don't think it so much is the player base to blame, rather the OB setting and GGG. I read a few times for example that alpha testers (the patch testers) have to re-roll characters to see how things work out, which really limits the testing potential of patches, if that is true.

I still think the permanent leagues for HC and Default have been somewhat of a mistake or at least the promise that they would be permanent. The game is very much played as a full release and though this generates important feedback on its own it also means people give up on the game as full released. The ladder will forever reflect the bad days of melee. Also valuable testing orientated playing as a result is far less present than it was in closed beta.

I still think the game and many skills and features are in a phase that beckons feedback and thinking about the mechanics rather than the current debate which comes down to: boost or nerf skill x with y damage. The latter has been the predominant feedback style the past months (though with the playerbase smaller again I lately feel more detailed and interesting feedback such as your OP is made).

If you re-roll the most interesting thing to do is create and run random parties for farming on fellshrine merciless. There are hardly original builds that come by, the fast majority is elemental cleave, lighting arrow, spark totems, summoner + curse + totem, wand templar, explosive arrow. Really a mass of new players or players re-rolling flavor builds. Doing maps is no different. With so many players just rolling into flavor builds you hardly end up with useful feedback that expands the game or will enrich it (how many people will say that your build sucks?).

The last bit of devmoon's stream from yesterday is an example (last 30 minutes or so). There is also a bit of an insane drop sequence going on with uniques, exalts and rares drop in a 5 minute time frame (luckily I played in the party during that bit).

IN conclusion: I hope this long elaboration makes it clear what I meant. I really think a better testing environment (forums, game etc.) with good information and feedback from GGG would help us the best. I hope alpha is like this. I tried to do a new self found build (no items feeding to character), the grind was to frustrating so I quit it, but what really would help is get feedback from new players and their opinion should weigh more than the dozen low life build players we have now. That is if you want a bigger playerbase and more new customers at launch.

The only thing that is certain is that in this corner of the world, a witch and her miscreations reside, casting a shadow of fear upon all who dare venture near..

Reviews for "Mysteries Unveiled: A Witch's Miscreations in Plain Sight"

1. John - 1 star - I was really excited to read "A witch and her miscreations reside here" based on the positive reviews, but unfortunately, I found it extremely dull and slow-paced. The characters lacked depth and the plot was predictable. I felt no connection to any of the characters and found it hard to stay engaged throughout the book. Overall, it was a disappointment and I wouldn't recommend it to others.

2. Emily - 2 stars - I have to say "A witch and her miscreations reside here" was not my cup of tea. The writing style felt disjointed and hard to follow, making it difficult to immerse myself in the story. Additionally, the characters felt one-dimensional and lacked development. The plot had potential, but it fell flat for me due to the lackluster execution. I appreciate the effort put into this book, but it just wasn't for me.

3. Sarah - 2.5 stars - I had high expectations for "A witch and her miscreations reside here" based on the intriguing premise, but unfortunately, it didn't live up to the hype. The pacing was uneven, with certain parts dragging on while others felt rushed. The world-building also left much to be desired, as I had trouble visualizing the setting and understanding the magical elements. While the concept was promising, the execution fell short, leaving me feeling underwhelmed.

The Bewitching Creations of a Witch and her Miscreations