Please GGG, nerf ground effects and after death effects VISUALs
I posted in the feedback forum and reposting here for GGG's attention
I've been playing melee through the end game and want to raise something I think is stopping more players into the archetype: you often have no idea what killed you.
Core issue is proximity. Melee requires you to stand inside the pack, on top of the boss, inside AoE skills. That's the fantasy: it's fine. The problem is that this is also exactly where all the dangerous stuff lives: after-death explosions, ground degens, volatiles. A ranged character can see the corpse explode and their 10000% MS would have travelled to another map. A melee character is already standing on it.
This creates a specific kind of death that feels bad: you kill a pack, something happens in the moment of kill, you die, and you don't know what killed you or what you could have done differently.
Suggestions:
1. Clearer after-death effect telegraphing. Even a brief delay or a clear visual on the corpse before it detonates would give melee players a fighting chance to step out. If it messes with the game's art direction, I suggest a toggle for people who want this.
2. Ground effect visibility when obscured by MY SKILLS and hit effects. At close range with skill animations going off (ie. slams), ground hazards are often completely invisible. Higher contrast or a UI indicator for standing-in-damage would help. At least let me tone down my own skill clutter in settings.
3. A death recap screen with damage source. This exists in many ARPGs and I'm not sure why it doesn't exist yet. It would directly address the "I have no idea what killed me" frustration, which has been happening since 0.1. Even just the skill name and the monster that dealt the killing blow would massively help. I don't need a log of all damages that happened, just the one that killed me
I'm not asking for melee to be invincible or for the game to be easier, I just want to be able to learn from my deaths. Right now a lot of end game melee deaths feel random rather than instructive, and that pushed me to play caster/ranged characters, which is the antithesis of "meaningful gameplay"
I play almost exclusively souls games and yet never felt like they're unfair, but in POE2 I do.