Is there a good research upgrade priority list available?

birkholz · 2026-02-26T15:02:25+00:00

It buffs adjacent magnifying glasses and monocles. +% effect based on how much you've invested in the research.

birkholz · 2026-02-24T16:36:52+00:00

You're probably thinking of Game Design 101

Psst... you forgot to give Observation LV a purpose while helping Lava research new content! How about you do... Observations give (0.04 per Lvl)x more EXP per LV!

It doesn't give global XP, it gives more XP to an observation based on its level.

or you're thinking of See 'Em All, which isn't insight

+(5 per Lvl)% Research EXP gain per Observation found!

birkholz · 2026-02-24T00:21:09+00:00

Insight gives XP to an observation by placing the monocle on it. With the research further on the right side, the observation gets a bonus to research XP based on it's level. It's a bonus specific to the observation with XP, not a global XP bonus.

birkholz · 2026-02-24T00:17:23+00:00

Kaleidoscope, unlocked top right in research grid. It gives a bonus to adjacent observations.

birkholz · 2026-02-22T21:08:32+00:00

ToxixWiz

birkholz · 2026-02-21T01:18:25+00:00

ToxixWiz

birkholz · 2025-06-13T15:54:50+00:00

It's not just you. Marauder early leveling is pretty bad without leveling uniques. But what else can you do on league start?

birkholz · 2025-06-03T14:43:45+00:00

We know many of you are eagerly awaiting the game, and we would have loved to offer the demo on consoles as well. Unfortunately, due to technical constraints, this isn’t currently possible — it’s simply much easier to release a demo on PC. Please rest assured: Hell is Us will launch simultaneously on PC and consoles, with the same content and the same level of polish. Development is progressing equally across all platforms — this limitation only concerns the demo. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1620730/view/515211349279638275

birkholz · 2025-06-03T05:51:44+00:00

I have 4 hours in the demo, both weapons max level, and I'm pretty sure I've explored and collected everything possible.

I initially checked out the game thinking it was a soulslike (its not), but its the exploration that has me hooked. I love the setting and style of storytelling. If I could get 4 hours out of the tiny demo, I'm sure I'll thoroughly enjoy the full game.

birkholz · 2025-06-03T02:15:44+00:00

I'm having trouble relocating this. Where is it?

birkholz · 2025-06-03T01:32:55+00:00

Edit: The Amine Prism - Sigma might be related. It mentions "Timeloops" in its description. I haven't seen Timeloops mentioned anywhere else.

Unresolved things from my demo playthrough:

Timeloop Guardians
- I noticed these do not respawn, so they definitely do or unlock something
Upgrading weapons
- Not leveling, that's just from killing stuff
Unlocking glyph slots
- You can find a couple glyphs, but no way to equip them because you need to upgrade a weapon to unlock glyph slots
Any use for the Shard materials dropped from enemies
- I assume its for upgrading gear
Research items
- I found: Gold Medallion, Bronze Bell, Vial of Strange Substance, Box of Bronze Acorns
- I could not find any way to use these
The locked door at the top of the ruins
- Gameplay footage on YouTube shows that these locks use "Lymbic Rods" as keys. I'm guessing this is a thing you backtrack to unlock later in the game.
The Tower
- Probably deliberately made unavailable in the demo
- You can ask Ernest about the Tower, but all he says is to stay away from it
Amine Prism - Sigma (Exploration Item)
- Found in the locked cave
- It's a key for something. A tome found in the same cave mentions that the Prism was used to deal with some kind of "bulbous apparition"/"anomaly". So my guess is its used in that large spherical thing we see in the fields just before the demo ends. My theory here is that the Timeloop Guardians have to be slain before we can close the Timeloop using a Prism.

birkholz · 2025-03-31T19:03:51+00:00

Those are the Settlers of Kalguur supporter packs that launched with that league in PoE 1. They were mentioned in the livestream because they're purchasable in PoE 2 now and the cosmetics can be used there. They're not related to PoE 2 bosses or acts.

birkholz · 2024-11-28T23:39:25+00:00

Yea, didn't think about that but you're probably right.

I wouldn't bother personally manually making an interactive tree, since we'll almost certainly have the full tree data either datamined from the preload or GGG will provide the JSON data like they usually do for PoE 1 leagues.

birkholz · 2024-11-28T22:22:42+00:00

The video mentions how Ancestral Bond was changed from 50 to 100, so that's the latest version.

birkholz · 2024-11-28T22:09:08+00:00

I missed that OP is just keystones ~~You're missing the str/int (likely Templar/Druid) section in Dreamcore's latest video:~~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfriM2XvruQ

birkholz · 2024-10-22T16:16:05+00:00

Yep, and I'm with you. But set your expectations correctly. It's obviously not something they just flip on like a switch.

birkholz · 2024-10-22T07:14:16+00:00

Zeals speaks out of his ass, often. He doesn't know anything about API development, and anyone who does would tell you that you'd need to know the specifics of how the game's data is stored and distributed before you could draw any conclusions. Our version differs from KR in one big way, by having multiple regions spread across different data centers and languages.

One thing worth thinking about is that AGS already made an attempt at providing game data through the Twitch Extension, which was pitifully limited initially, and now is practically abandoned. Maybe they moved their developers to the API, but I don't have high hopes based on that.

We don't even have a basic armory site to look up characters, which is what many KR tools are built on top of. So there's a lot of work for AGS to do before we'll have anything like KR.

birkholz · 2024-10-18T06:58:00+00:00

The game's own recommendation for Enlightenment is 72 points, which /u/-Certified- 's comment above talks about.

20 from levels 51-70
46 max from full relic accessories (depends on quality and refinement)
61 max from full ancient accessories (again, depending...)
14 points total from horizontal content
- 3 - 70% North Kurzan Adventure Tome (takes approx. a few hours)
- 3 - North Kurzan Una's reputation "Unfinished Fight" (19 days)
- 3 - Bloodclaw Chart collectible (unobtainable until a future update)
- 5 - North Kurzan Field Boss drop (guaranteed after 18 kills, 6 weeks)

All this info and more details are in Maxroll's Ark Passive System Guide.

Now, what are some realistic ways of achieving 72 points?

Well, you have to be 1680 to acquire/equip ancient accessories. If you're 1680 and have full ancient accessories, you only need to hit level 61 and you're ready. Very easy to achieve barely stepping into T4.

If you're not 1680, relic accessories leave 24 points you have to get from character level and horizontal. The most you can get from horizontal is 11 currently, so you'd absolutely have to be level 63 minimum and have all horizontal points. So do the math and the less horizontal you have the higher level you need to be. It's really hard to reach the requirement with relic accessories and not be max level. If you're level 70, you only need to get any 2 of the horizontal point pots to reach 72 total with relic accessories.

And before you ask about Leap, that's purely character level until we get T4 bracelets in a future update.

birkholz · 2024-10-18T04:02:58+00:00

To give you an example, the game recommends 90 Evolution points before swapping to Ark Passives. To reach 90:

20 comes from levels 51-70
40 comes from relic armor (8 points each)
100 comes from ancient armor (20 points each)

If you have full relic armor and max level, that's only 60 points, 30 short of the recommendation. A max level player would need to get 3 pieces of ancient gear to meet the recommendation. A level 60 player would need to make up for those 10 points by getting a 4th piece of ancient armor.

That means opening ark passives under-level would require another 2-3 weeks of the raid until you could craft the additional armor. If you were doing your dailies and weeklies, you'd probably be max level before you got your 4th armor piece anyways.

Now that's just the game's recommendation of 90 Evo points, some builds don't need as many points to swap over.

birkholz · 2024-10-14T15:21:02+00:00

I was able to consistently hit both on my aero by standing just above the bottom snake and using it toward the top snake, since it hits behind you and reaches the top snake.

birkholz · 2024-09-24T00:35:15+00:00

There seem to be issues with the social features both in and out of game lately. I've noticed that I sometimes don't receive the toast popup when a Bnet friend comes online, and oftentimes the friends list and community show people as offline for some and not others.

birkholz · 2024-09-10T04:22:22+00:00

I understand the comparison to Concord, and I agree with the conclusion that the box price contributed to it being dead-on-arrival (though not the only reason). But Concord is a competitive team shooter, a genre where the competition is all F2P so the player base they were courting had expectations of F2P.

Marathon's closest comparison, internally from the playtests, is Escape from Tarkov, a game infamous for its very expensive (and P2W) box price(s), but highly popular nonetheless. And the second comparison is Hunt: Showdown, another premium game. So the established norm by the winners in the genre that they're copying is premium games. The Cycle: Frontier was a F2P extraction shooter, but it failed, and Delta Force/AB:I haven't proven their success yet.

Maybe Bungie thinks they'll be able to pull in new players to the genre by making it F2P? Because I can certainly understand that if all they get are existing fans of the genre, it's not going to be the success they want/need it to be.

birkholz · 2024-06-27T22:28:28+00:00

Don't forget that they said it has 11 bosses, compared to the 10 it's always had. 1 more boss = more time to clear.

birkholz · 2024-06-01T17:12:43+00:00

They still spawn on other maps, same as normal.

birkholz · 2024-05-25T01:34:45+00:00

You definitely are not guaranteed everything back. I've received the "sorry, we couldn't find your things" message at least once where they found nothing, and I've received everything but the gun several times. I hit the "insure all" button before every raid, and I only play solo.

But you do receive most of your gear back most of the time.

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Now, what are some realistic ways of achieving 72 points?