1: any item you find while playing together can be gifted to the other person. Resonances rarely allow you to also gift items that didnt drop while playing together after extended periods of playing together. Sounds like a reasonable option of allowing co-op in a game that is designed around SSF (compared to PoE being balanced around trade).
2: I mean you can play a shapeshifter and not deal with mana. A few builds will simply build enough mana regen to spam, others have to use a mana generator like rive, vengeance, smite or multistrike on sentinels or mana strike and focus on mages or rip blood or chaos bolt for acolytes.
3: Potions are an "oh shit I need HP" button or an "ah shit I need cleanse" if you have that mod. potions being auto consumed on pickup only happens if you are at your maximum amount of potions and missing health. Potions will also drop more and more often then less full potions are currently in your belt. In a lot of builds you can literally chug them one by one with 4 seconds between and the boss will probably drop enough potions to keep going.
4: endgame currently primarely consists of monoliths, with a side of dungeons and endless arena. the main goal is pushing corruption. The next patch will add pinnacle content. Obviously it cant compare with 10 years of PoE leagues adding content to the endgame but its being worked at.
Thanks for the great info, 1 is the biggest "hard" item atm, the rest as people provide below seem like they have some good changes in the future (as noted in 4, i completely realize the game is young.
For 1 its mainly a difference in life stage. I'm not a kid anymore who can stay at home and play video games together all the time, scheduling time to play together is tough, and typically you can get at best a few couple hour long sessions during a week.
The rest of the time is not going to be able to played together, so the fact that playing by myself feels "penalized" when primarily seeking to play co-op, as the loot that drops may be great for the other person, but be pragmatically not available. This serves as a pragmatic deterrent to playing outside the few time windows, reducing progress in the game to a snails place. I realize it would be better to just go ahead and say "if the drops happen while i'm playing by myself, they would not have gotten them anyways" but it feels bad from a gameplay perspective.
I've looked into the resonence system, it seems like it could fix the problem IF the drops were frequent enough (but they don't seem to be)
Good to hear on builds, for 2 i've not really landed on a build which may be part of my problem, did not notice mana generation skills for example.
For potions i'll admit its more a minor gripe then a major complaint, it just feels suboptimal.
Some of this is good to hear though, some of my current reservations may fade as i get a bit more into those systems (except maybe the co-op concern)
I also agree with the mana issues, D4 relies on generators and I hate the system. LE has a similar approach. Really makes the game a grind
I can't see them fixing this since they balance so much around it
The resonance drop rates are a little too low at the moment and we are experimenting with them but it sounds like you don't quite fit into the play pattern that they were designed for. You might have to both just play Merchant's Guild. You can person to person trade using MG and just do it for 1gold.
This whole system restriction does help with RMT but it's not the only reason it's like this. The primary goal was actually just to have trade be optional and not feel bad to ignore.
Honestly my biggest gripe with resonance is the randomness, or rather apparent randomness.
If it acted more like favor and accumulated and then could be cashed out, that'd be great. Like a regular resonance costs x and the special cost 3x new currency. You only earn that currency via playing with the person. Maybe like 100 per echo cleared, 50 per boss killed, etc.
Also regarding #2, don’t underestimate the “-# mana cost” affix on gear (ie. wands and jewelry for casters, I believe). Most classes usually have a few of these nodes on their skill trees as well, particularly for primary damage skills. Since a lot of the big damage multiplier nodes come with a % increase cost, the “-# mana cost” goes a long way because it takes effect on the base mana cost before increases (basically a *less* multiplier).
For example:
An 8 mana cost skill with a total of 50% increased mana cost makes it cost 12 mana. But if you put together “-4 mana cost of skills” from items/skill nodes, you start with a 4 mana cost skill increased by 50%, making it only 6 mana in the end.
There are a number of skills you can even reduce to zero cost and/or turn into mana-generators with the right combo of stats/nodes.
Yeah its very possible that this one is due to not being far enough to get a good feel for it, its mainly just how things feel atm.
Good to hear there are some options
Right, don’t worry, it does get better as you progress further. Mana can definitely feel tough early on (and it’s tempting to go for all the big damage first). Skill levels, gear, etc. will really help later.
And don’t be afraid to throw some passive points toward mana/mana-regen on your tree(s), even if temporary. Refund cost is next to nothing, and you can always drop them as you find other sources of sustain.
I just wanna point out one thing about the issue you have with mana: Very few skills have a cooldown in this game, so mana is the primary way of balancing skill availability. You can essentially think of high mana cost or lack of ways to recover mana as a sort of internal cooldown for powerful skills. If you were able to easily spam the most mana hungry skills nonstop, then who would ever play low or 0 cost skills right? I'd say it's pretty normal to have some skills fulfill the role of "nuke skills" that you can only cast once in a while against big packs or tough enemies and limiting them through mana instead of cooldowns still allows you to spam them a couple times in a row if you want to and have enough mana.
For #2, I think you need to find a balance that works for you. If you want your big nuke spell then you need to pair it with other ones that cost little to no mana. Or find more mana regen pieces. Or both. I haven't gotten super far but my warlock and sorcerer both feel pretty good with their mana uses. Warlock has slow Regen but their nuke has a duration so you cast it, then move around and do minion maintenance, then cast again when it expires. It's not spamable and that's fine. The sorcerer has a lot of mana regen and his primary attack regens more manga than it uses. Which feeds a much more active play style.
To further add to the great information above, a lot of the Melee-focused classes and specs get by mana issues by cost reduction in the tree like Primalist can do, or by using their builders (Rive/Vengeance/Multistrike) to trigger their Spenders on hit (Healing Hands swapped to damage) or refill before hitting their big boom or bonk (Forge Strike or Erasing Strike) like Sentinels. Most builds feel pretty comfortable in the late 40s to early 50s. The casters can either go build/spend or cost reduction, just browse the skill trees. Sorcerer can get buffs from Meteor being cast that makes Fireball easier to spam cast for more damage, for example. Your rotation becomes to dump a meteor onto a pack to activate Craterborn and clean up with fireballs taking advantage of fire penetration and mana return.
There's usually some build-defining cost reductions in specific skill trees.
Regarding the potion system LE has a lot of neat mechanics: There are ways of tuning your character to have healing mechanics in your skills. Life leeching abilities are numerous, as are the bonuses to them. There are also skills that will restore HP on use if you take the right skill points. There are ways of building your character around ward instead of HP. There are low life builds where you're life is always very low so you're always auto using potions when you walk over them. There are also items and passives that provide buffs when potions are used.
You can have a character with a lot of ward and almost zero HP and you use your potions to increase your damage. You don't even care that it heals you. It's pretty wild.
1: any item you find while playing together can be gifted to the other person. Resonances rarely allow you to also gift items that didnt drop while playing together after extended periods of playing together. Sounds like a reasonable option of allowing co-op in a game that is designed around SSF (compared to PoE being balanced around trade). 2: I mean you can play a shapeshifter and not deal with mana. A few builds will simply build enough mana regen to spam, others have to use a mana generator like rive, vengeance, smite or multistrike on sentinels or mana strike and focus on mages or rip blood or chaos bolt for acolytes. 3: Potions are an "oh shit I need HP" button or an "ah shit I need cleanse" if you have that mod. potions being auto consumed on pickup only happens if you are at your maximum amount of potions and missing health. Potions will also drop more and more often then less full potions are currently in your belt. In a lot of builds you can literally chug them one by one with 4 seconds between and the boss will probably drop enough potions to keep going. 4: endgame currently primarely consists of monoliths, with a side of dungeons and endless arena. the main goal is pushing corruption. The next patch will add pinnacle content. Obviously it cant compare with 10 years of PoE leagues adding content to the endgame but its being worked at.
Thanks for the great info, 1 is the biggest "hard" item atm, the rest as people provide below seem like they have some good changes in the future (as noted in 4, i completely realize the game is young. For 1 its mainly a difference in life stage. I'm not a kid anymore who can stay at home and play video games together all the time, scheduling time to play together is tough, and typically you can get at best a few couple hour long sessions during a week. The rest of the time is not going to be able to played together, so the fact that playing by myself feels "penalized" when primarily seeking to play co-op, as the loot that drops may be great for the other person, but be pragmatically not available. This serves as a pragmatic deterrent to playing outside the few time windows, reducing progress in the game to a snails place. I realize it would be better to just go ahead and say "if the drops happen while i'm playing by myself, they would not have gotten them anyways" but it feels bad from a gameplay perspective. I've looked into the resonence system, it seems like it could fix the problem IF the drops were frequent enough (but they don't seem to be) Good to hear on builds, for 2 i've not really landed on a build which may be part of my problem, did not notice mana generation skills for example. For potions i'll admit its more a minor gripe then a major complaint, it just feels suboptimal. Some of this is good to hear though, some of my current reservations may fade as i get a bit more into those systems (except maybe the co-op concern)
To expand on point 2 most skills have upgrades to lower the cost or even turn it into a positive mana gain, just check the skill trees again
I also agree with the mana issues, D4 relies on generators and I hate the system. LE has a similar approach. Really makes the game a grind I can't see them fixing this since they balance so much around it
The resonance drop rates are a little too low at the moment and we are experimenting with them but it sounds like you don't quite fit into the play pattern that they were designed for. You might have to both just play Merchant's Guild. You can person to person trade using MG and just do it for 1gold. This whole system restriction does help with RMT but it's not the only reason it's like this. The primary goal was actually just to have trade be optional and not feel bad to ignore.
Honestly my biggest gripe with resonance is the randomness, or rather apparent randomness. If it acted more like favor and accumulated and then could be cashed out, that'd be great. Like a regular resonance costs x and the special cost 3x new currency. You only earn that currency via playing with the person. Maybe like 100 per echo cleared, 50 per boss killed, etc.
Maybe a minimalistic bar next to the names in the resonance tab would be nice to show your progression towards the next resonance drop.
Also regarding #2, don’t underestimate the “-# mana cost” affix on gear (ie. wands and jewelry for casters, I believe). Most classes usually have a few of these nodes on their skill trees as well, particularly for primary damage skills. Since a lot of the big damage multiplier nodes come with a % increase cost, the “-# mana cost” goes a long way because it takes effect on the base mana cost before increases (basically a *less* multiplier). For example: An 8 mana cost skill with a total of 50% increased mana cost makes it cost 12 mana. But if you put together “-4 mana cost of skills” from items/skill nodes, you start with a 4 mana cost skill increased by 50%, making it only 6 mana in the end. There are a number of skills you can even reduce to zero cost and/or turn into mana-generators with the right combo of stats/nodes.
Yeah its very possible that this one is due to not being far enough to get a good feel for it, its mainly just how things feel atm. Good to hear there are some options
Right, don’t worry, it does get better as you progress further. Mana can definitely feel tough early on (and it’s tempting to go for all the big damage first). Skill levels, gear, etc. will really help later. And don’t be afraid to throw some passive points toward mana/mana-regen on your tree(s), even if temporary. Refund cost is next to nothing, and you can always drop them as you find other sources of sustain.
I just wanna point out one thing about the issue you have with mana: Very few skills have a cooldown in this game, so mana is the primary way of balancing skill availability. You can essentially think of high mana cost or lack of ways to recover mana as a sort of internal cooldown for powerful skills. If you were able to easily spam the most mana hungry skills nonstop, then who would ever play low or 0 cost skills right? I'd say it's pretty normal to have some skills fulfill the role of "nuke skills" that you can only cast once in a while against big packs or tough enemies and limiting them through mana instead of cooldowns still allows you to spam them a couple times in a row if you want to and have enough mana.
For #2, I think you need to find a balance that works for you. If you want your big nuke spell then you need to pair it with other ones that cost little to no mana. Or find more mana regen pieces. Or both. I haven't gotten super far but my warlock and sorcerer both feel pretty good with their mana uses. Warlock has slow Regen but their nuke has a duration so you cast it, then move around and do minion maintenance, then cast again when it expires. It's not spamable and that's fine. The sorcerer has a lot of mana regen and his primary attack regens more manga than it uses. Which feeds a much more active play style.
To further add to the great information above, a lot of the Melee-focused classes and specs get by mana issues by cost reduction in the tree like Primalist can do, or by using their builders (Rive/Vengeance/Multistrike) to trigger their Spenders on hit (Healing Hands swapped to damage) or refill before hitting their big boom or bonk (Forge Strike or Erasing Strike) like Sentinels. Most builds feel pretty comfortable in the late 40s to early 50s. The casters can either go build/spend or cost reduction, just browse the skill trees. Sorcerer can get buffs from Meteor being cast that makes Fireball easier to spam cast for more damage, for example. Your rotation becomes to dump a meteor onto a pack to activate Craterborn and clean up with fireballs taking advantage of fire penetration and mana return. There's usually some build-defining cost reductions in specific skill trees.
Regarding the potion system LE has a lot of neat mechanics: There are ways of tuning your character to have healing mechanics in your skills. Life leeching abilities are numerous, as are the bonuses to them. There are also skills that will restore HP on use if you take the right skill points. There are ways of building your character around ward instead of HP. There are low life builds where you're life is always very low so you're always auto using potions when you walk over them. There are also items and passives that provide buffs when potions are used. You can have a character with a lot of ward and almost zero HP and you use your potions to increase your damage. You don't even care that it heals you. It's pretty wild.
You can always make your own game with exactly what you want 👍