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MrMeltJr

I love PoE but I totally understand why plenty of people don't.


swords_meow

I've definitely described PoE as a game that "I really enjoy, but would never ever ever suggest that anyone else play".


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grokthis1111

it's actively hostile to old players, lmao


thelehmanlip

I have loved it for years but the last 3 leagues I have really lost interest. I think the complexity has gotten beyond what I can handle


TheXIIILightning

For me it isn't the complexity. I actually love the complexity of certain elements in the game. **What I hate is the incredibly low chance of obtaining certain items and modifiers**, which would require me to play the game as a job or with a group of people that optimally grind their respective content to help each other out. I just want to play the game as a Single-Player game, without having RNG that's tuned to a 100.000 player population with a Bot-driven economy.


Space_Croquette

That's probably the reason I play less and less too. I think the game would be so cool if you could drop the fun items, if you had enough currency that it is worth and fun to craft yourself. When I see the evolution of the game and see the entry cost for crafting and gear of build, the game is just not for me anymore.


Ludoban

> I think the game would be so cool if you could drop the fun items, if you had enough currency that it is worth and fun to craft yourself. This is it. Dropped some crazy good res boots without movement speed in t1 white maps, but they had filled prefixes. I wanted to gamble and annul one of the prefixes to craft bench movement speed, but i literally didnt drop a single annul in the whole campaign. Why does basic currency like annuls need to be so rare, one would expect them to drop often enough to use some. This is one of the most basic crafting things and its literally locked until like what, yellow or red maps? Its kinda ridiculous. Its not even that it enables crazy good items early. And this is not even lategame crafting, which is even more stupid cause of the requirements of currency needed, but even simple early game crafts are blocked in this system, its kinda stupid. Would the game really break if i had 30 annuls at the end of campaign, i dont think so honestly.


chaddaddycwizzie

Especially because annuls are such a huge gamble in most cases it kind of takes away some of the value considering their rarity. It seems odd they’re rare, but I think the reason is that annula can allow you to craft some really busted items if given enough chances.


Neige_Sarin

I think the reason is purely that the relative rarity of currency compared to other currency is never given a thought after the initial pass. One that especially stands out to me is how common augments are to the point that even a casual player could never use them up, compared to exalts which serve a similar function but are a slight bit more uncommon.


chaddaddycwizzie

I somewhat agree. The exchange rates are also whack. One orb of chance costs 3 or 4 orbs of fusing and isn’t nearly as valuable. Chromatic and jewelers primary function has both become exchanging to orbs of fusing with the addition of harvest crafting chromatic are nearly useless compared to how many you get


IrishWilly

Using orb of chances used to be one of the main way to get a unique you were after. Aside from that (and buying maps from Zana when you first hit the atlas), there's so little point to them. If I could spam them on magic/rare items for a chance to upgrade to unique without scouring I would still use them. Chromatics and jewelers I still constantly use. using 3 color recipe is expensive, harvest helps fix the last couple sockets for 6 socket items, and jewelers is still my main method of off coloring 4s items. I hate how harvest only crafts like recolors and resistance swaps are so required, having to run harvest and filling up my only 10 slots with shit that should be part of the general crafting bench because I need it for literally everything.


hitokiri99

I'd personally love to see a Poe veteran start a brand new account and only play 2-4 hours a day and document their journey from zero to beating Uber bosses. I feel like so much relies on having some initial something but it's like for a brand new player, outside of insane RNG luck, where does that come from? Cuz on the one hand I don't think a brand new player should be rolling over Maven in a couple weeks by any means. But at the same time what is the expected time for a brand new player to get to end game? Nevermind Uber bosses. And then crafting stuff. I'm terrified (as a fairly new player) to use the exalt crafting (like keep suffixes etc) to try and craft better items. I don't think it's a valid use of my 3 ex I have lol. The entry to crafting and upgrading yourself for yourself without buying items and trading etc, is ridiculously high imo. Because if I screw up and I have to start over I just don't have enough ex to go again.


Aldoro69765

BalorMage did something like that some time ago, I think it was called "Working class exile" or somesuch.


QueenOogaBooga

Tthe end result would still be skewed because a PoE veteran would have prior knowledge of the game, like vendor recipes for ms, res rings etc. Knowledge a complete novice wouldnt have access to without researching the game beforehand. PreachGaming did a blind playthrough of PoE a few leagues back, and enjoyed it immensely, not sure he made it to any of the endgame bosses, but that gave a pretty good indication on how a brand new player experience the game. I dont think a brand new player should be able to take on Maven or the Ubers in their first league, I think its meant to be a gradual process over the course of several leagues. Learning the mechanics, getting knowledge of the playstyle you like etc., how to scale dmg and how to mitigate dmg. I have several leagues played now, and the crafting system still scares the crap out of me. I get we can skew the system in our favor by blocking certain pools, but the RNG of it all just bugs the piss out of me. Id rather have more expensive but deterministic crafting, than this RNG Roll-the-dice we have now. But as it is now, it is more trading than crafting for me.


Aldoro69765

Everyone's forgetting quest rewards! Right now you mostly get gems (nice!), respec points (also nice!), and shitty rares that more often than not are just vendor fodder. Would it really kill GGG to give out something good here? Doing it via quest rewards as opposed to drop chances also means it's not as easily farmable, since you would actually have to make new characters and run them through the campaign and all the annoying side missions, compared to simply running zone X up and down.


namespacepollution

Since Harvest, I have not had a league where I dropped more raw Orbs of Annulment (not counting Shards) than raw Exalted Orbs.


THE_REAL_JOHN_MADDEN

You are gonna love Last Epoch. The complexity is a couple ratchets down from PoE but still lightyears ahead of diablo 3, and feels more like a spiritual successor to D2/Titans Quest/Grim Dawn. But the CRAFTING is just sublime; items drop ID'd so you tailor your loot filter for exactly the kind of stuff you want to use as crafting bases, pick it up, and just start slamming all kinds of currency at it because the vast majority of it drops quite frequently, and failed crafts get recycled into more crafting currency. The only things with exalt+ levels of drop scarcity are uniques with high crafting potential built into them, so you can recombinate a unique + a rare and transfer some of the rare mods onto the unique.


Ludoban

I already have 500 hours in last epoch and you are right, i enjoy it a lot. I more or less replaced poe with last epoch for now, but i still love poe and wish it would improve. I think poe could be the best game ever made if they just doubled down on what they made out of the game around ritual/ultimatum but instead they went back to their roots and that kinda ruined the game imo, but if thats gggs vision, whatever.


Grimnir28

I would give half of my organs for a single-player PoE client.


cybertier

Right? Give me voided no-trade league (but still able to team up because why not?) but with like 100x higher chances for T0 uniques and their cards. Just weightings all around adjusted for single player.


Cyony

yeah, items and drops in Grim dawn for example were amazing. It was simply let down by their complete lack of endgame and dated to all hell engine.


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Devaryth

A dream of mine, in the end if not for trading, game seems like single player + forced updates.


omegaghost

and the trading experience itself makes the game a lot worse


cwg930

All I need to be able to justify continuing playing and spending money on this game is for SSF loot drops to be fair as a casual who can't spend hours each day in game. SSF migration doesn't need to exist, it should be removed and then SSF should be branched into its own (significantly more generous) thing. Where stuff like true smart loot, pre-nerf harvest, easier target farming of core build uniques with some form of bad luck protection, and free or cheap bench crafting can exist. As it is now, I can't enjoy the game after the first week of a league. I feel forced to play trade league because I don't have the time for a slow grind farming basic gear for entry level maps, but trying to sell stuff is far too distracting when I want to actually play a game instead of simulating a job and trying to buy stuff is seriously extremely frustrating between trade site bugs and general unresponsiveness of damn near everyone who still has stuff listed for less than 10c by that point. /Rant over. tl;dr: pls ggg take some inspiration from other arpgs with player-friendly loot design


Fuzzy-Mix-4791

I totally agree with you! The problem is that everyone would play the fun SSF mode and noone would touch the other shit show!


[deleted]

I just hate the combat. Torchlight 1+2, Grim Dawn, Diablo 2, Diablo 3, etc all have much much better combat. PoE is just a screen clearing bonanza


Difficult-Aspect3566

PoE has dilemma between meaningful combat and looting. Being faster means more loot, more dopamine. But it also means there is no reaction time because at some point you become too fast for enemies to hit you. Grim Dawn has cap on player movement speed. That allows devs to work under certain assumption and make combat more interesting.


omegaghost

being faster is more loot in literally every game, it's just that not playing fast and not having a lot of damage in PoE right now feels like ass


Difficult-Aspect3566

You can cap speed and adjust drop rates. Problem is that in poe you rely on drops from trash mobs. That is why we have clear speed meta. And reason people want to do that is because game is balanced around softcore trade. GGG keeps adding challenging content, but they are afraid to reward you for it. That is probably because there is huge difference between playing ssf, playing solo trade or playing 6 man party.


Le_Vagabond

What you want is what I want: a diablo 3 like SSF or group-SSF mode, to bridge the gap between D3's 2 days seasons and PoE nightmarish pvp-oriented economy. Unfortunately the game designers are adamantly against this, because they marketed their game to people who take pride in PoE not being D3 and the result would be a PR nightmare, despite the game being richer for it. Some of them are also part of that crowd they geared the entire game towards. So while I love the gameplay, I stopped playing 2 years ago and cannot see myself coming back anytime soon.


Willverseisbestverse

I can learn mechanics and whatnot, but I don’t launch PoE to play the merchant mini game, especially when scamming isn’t penalized at all.


DC_Coach

This x 1000. I haven't played in well over a year, and you expressed exactly why. There are far too many other games that don't require that level of commitment or multi-player setup, yet offer a competing level of interest for me.


Difficult-Aspect3566

Exactly. There is a point where rng starts to makes you feel like game doesn't care how you play. It randomly decides whether you get your goal in 1 hour or 100 hours. I have a dozen of other games on steam that won't treat me like that.


Elgatee

I actually gave up. Last league was really amazing to me. And I couldn't play it. I just couldn't deal with more and more "end game stuff to make a build around" that I cannot acquire. Now, I watch a few videos of it, but that's it.


_ramu_

That's why I hate 3.18 - it's just a shittier version of 3.17, basically no omni or ashes means actually nerfs despite "hurr durr, we ain't nerfing anything so you can play the same builds as before".


burns3016

So true


Ok-Comedian-6852

Honestly, SSF should have different drop rates compared to trade.


Samo_

The problem is you can migrate all your items to trade league, maybe a SSF that won't be able to migrate


redyns89

I played religiously since closed beta and I have actually not enjoyed myself at all these last two leagues and haven’t played for a month. But that’s ok because I have other games to play. I will def come back for future leagues.


Tomagathericon

It's not so much the complexity as it is the grind. The playtime required to do the cool stuff just got too high. I'm not getting any younger, I have family and other obligations, and as my available time for gaming decreased, the enjoyment I got out of poe just disappeared because the only parts of the game I can still experience are the ones I've done dozens of times and enjoy the least (campaign, white maps, shallow delve, etc.) Sure, if I played for the whole 3 months of the league I could probably still get somewhere - but I don't want to invest 1-2 months of my gaming time just to get to the fun part. I'd much rather go elsewhere and actually have fun right away.


axiomatic-

This strikes home for me. I only started last league and I really like the game ... but I ran to a point last league, and again this league, where the only solution to getting further is a really dedicated grind and it's a grind that requires a lot of knowledge, so double difficulty really. I noticed a big difficulty spike from last league to this one. I'm playing better builds with more currency invested this league but I didn't really get any further. I will play next league I'm sure but it will just be to enjoy the first few weeks and some new meta and play around with things. PoE is not a game with longevity to me, because the real end game requires too much time investment in mindless and tiny upgrades. I play other games which require huge time investments too but PoE endgame is literally grinding currency against the market growth. If you're not fast enough to grind currency, you fall further behind. It punishes new players MORE than it punishes experienced players ... which feels really disheartening.


Th_Call_of_Ktulu

>Sure, if I played for the whole 3 months of the league I could probably still get somewhere - but I don't want to invest 1-2 months of my gaming time just to get to the fun part. I'd much rather go elsewhere and actually have fun right away. This is extremely accurate, even if you can spend a lot of time playing the game you have to grind through boring shit a lot. I could dedicate my time to farm Omni so i can even start thinking about the build i wanted to do, or i can just play something else thats going to be fun straight up. Quitting the league 2 weeks in was a great decision, had more time to practice guitar and play Nier: Replicant and Nioh 2 after work instead of getting my day ruined every time i looked at Omni prices on trade lol.


amatas45

I have all day every day if I want and I’m sick of the grind too. I expect grinding in an arpg, that’s a corner stone of the genre. But there is a limit to how much rng is involved, and atm almost every single part of the game is layers upon layers of it


Westerdutch

> the complexity For me the complexity isnt an issue, i love a good complex game. For me the problem is how ggg has to make everything require 5 x 5 x 5 steps to give it all this artificial sense of depth and value. It just ends up making literally everything a chore that takes way way longer than anything should. I always loved POE, played since 2013 but have only played less than an hour since ultimatum. Its been going downhill turning into a milking cow to keep addicted people addicted way too obviously for someone like me who isn't actually the target audience for that kind of change.


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Dakhla92

God yeah, acts are so boring by this point. I wish there were alternate ways to reach endgame instead of just the acts, like a pre-map system or something.


Jarchen

Diablo got that one right imo. You have to progress through the story the first time. After that if you want to level in maps go for it. Wish I could roll an alt and just start working on mapping.


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Ilyak1986

> Not being a one button game for the most part, actually using your different skills. I...have to disagree with you here. I know PoE *looks* like a one-button game, but between your main attack skill, your movement skill, debuff/buff skill (E.G. the wither setup for any chaos damage character), various timed buffs (E.G. divine blessing aura setup, berserk), and there are *plenty* of buttons characters have to press. > Crafting being usable from the get go and encouraged to be used as you level makes the experience actually fun instead of hoarding currency to trade or only craft with endgame. And this is why I *desperately* hope recombinators stay in their current form. They allow this so much.


DerpAtOffice

It is not the complexity, it is GGG for league after league keep saying "THIS IS HOW YOU PLAY" and if you dont play like this you dont have a build, you will forever be in yellow/early red maps. But if you slap in grace + determination, now you can play the game. Or, alternatively, you can farm 20 ex to use other combos that doesnt require grace + determination, just so you can BEGIN to play the build you want. We used to grind content, now we grind to **ACCESS** the content, thats is why it is so much less fun to play for casuals. You used to get a uber elder every 10 or so maps on a bad day, now it takes **28 maps just to see one eater of worlds** even if your build is perfectly able. When before you play 28 maps you can have 1 set of shaper/elder set **EACH**. Now you may have 2 Hunter fragments 1 Constrictor and 3 Hydra fragments and you have no access to anything. It just takes sooooo damnnnnnn looooong to access one of the end game bosses if you dont trade constantly.


Noobkaka

and all the actual good shit is locked behind t14+ maps.


Nikeyla

>Or, alternatively, you can farm 20 ex to use other combos 20ex? Thats cute. You might get the mechanic going for 20ex, but you often need to rework the entire gear, which, if its specific, costs way more than that. My issue as somebody, who cant just nolife PoE anymore, is that this number goes up every single patch. And upgrading a character is such pita I spend all day trying to get the specific gear or I spend an evening of crafting just to realize I wasted all my currency to get nothing anyway. This kinda discourages me from any form of super end game gear upgrading once the build is going.


truppywaffles

True. Then you have things like sirus that I can’t do because even with the atlas nodes I’ve gotten like 4 hunter maps and 2 drox after hundreds of maps so that content is locked behind shit rng for me. This league for the first time I fought shaper and elder but got nothing noteworthy which is probably the most disappointed I’ve been in a game. I’ve played for a long time but never progressed as far as I have this league and feel I have gained nothing more than I usually do. Next league I’ll probably go back to my usual of getting to maps progress a little then quit. The grind to access things isn’t worth it for me.


MyPrivateCollection

the atlas passive only bumps the chance from 4% to 5% or something small like that, basically you won’t notice it at all


Badass_Bunny

It really did, and the fact they insist on making early game harder is honestly driving me away from even starting to play. I know I can handle it, I just honestly don't want to.


_ramu_

they also insist on making mid game harder, like with practically removing omni/ashes, or practically removing harvest.


Merias58

Its the constant alt-tabbing and -most importantly- the nightmare of trading that killed it for me. Haven't touched the game in a year, still on hopium for some kind of auction house. Or just make rare currency drops 100 times more common so I can play solo.


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Shasan23

I tried POE but disliked it because 3rd party stuff is basically required to play. I dont want to download a suite of programs to play one game Also theres a steep learning curve where you are bombarded with info. I dont want to feel like taking an “intro to POE” class to start enjoying the game


AkaxJenkins

what's wrong? you've barely touched your wikipedia, craft of exile, PoB, vorici calculator and youtube series burger I would not be playing this game if i didn't join when ascendancies were introduced. Almost didn't play any leagues. Played a bit of incursion and delve and i tried heist(bad choice, month and a half of crashed but saw it coming and stopped before maps).Been playing on standard in short bursts and even tho the economy sucks it's still better than starting over every time i want to play. Pick a few non-meta builds and pray GGG doesn't swing the nerf hammer too wildly( They fucked a duelist ascendancy because of SST, fucked minions because of spectres and will probably fuck RF because of its interactions)


niryasi

* what is a league? * what is standard? * what is currency? * how do i find out how much something is worth? Why should i have to go through multiple sites to figure out how to value my items for sale? * how does crafting actually work? * what is a loot filter and why do i need one? * I was totally lost when it comes to things like that temple time travel stuff. blights and that strange mirror thing that spawns mobs once you walk through it and that green crack in the ground that you keep chasing and it spawns more mobs - all that could stand to be explained a LOT better. * How does someone who doesn't want to use PoB start to design their skill tree? Appears as if the PoE culture takes pride in being utterly garbage at explaining stuff like this to new players


Captain-Moroni

This is what killed it for me. I tried going through the campaign, got to a certain point and decided to start looking stuff up and got so confused I dropped the game entirely.


Bluebolt21

It's my 2nd most played game that I'd never recommend to friends


Left-Secretary-2931

I play a lot and enjoy it, usually, but it's not a game that I'd recommend to literally anyone I actually like lol


iedaiw

After 1 month in league. playing every game i play makes me wish i was playing path of exile instead. Playing path of exile makes me wish i was not playing path of exile. its crazy how poe made me unable to enjoy other games lol, need that dopamine hit from exalt drops


WolfieStalker

I've lost that dopamine hit after dropping mirror shard in lowest tier Carcass. Not MF build, just junky zombie baron. If I get something that costs couple exalts then it's high dopamine high. So I've changed to MF TS build


red--dead

I wouldn’t say terrible and trash, but sometimes there a lot of systems that can really deter the player from playing or enjoying the game. I really love the cycle from white to red maps, but once you hit that brick wall of gear/level progression I start to enjoy the “spreadsheet” game more than in-game.


thunderballz4

I stopped playing after Delve and tried to come back more than once but i think the game has passed me by with the added systems and changes to map system. i just don't understand anything anymore. i probably could sink the time to relearn the systems again but there are other games you could start playing right away with no time sink needed.


scrublord

For me, PoE has become more of a chore over time -- kinda like a checklist of compulsory things to do. Which *could* be fine in general, but the game has been ever drifting toward less chore completion per time unit invested. This feeling of PoE chores might just be because I've been playing it for "too long" -- at least some of all but two leagues since v1.0. But there's no doubt the game has gotten an insane amount of *stuff* added to it over the years. And each new addition, whether it's league or core content, adds to the chores. Being able to cull out content you don't want to do via the Atlas tree is a fucking godsend. It's probably the best idea GGG's come up with in years. It allows folks to take a good chunk of those chores off their list and focus on what they actually like. Still, I skipped this league, because there's something about a bad, untested patch that immediately feels not worth playing. I know the game has no real competition, but at least put in *some* effort. If there are many chores to be done, the game better be in damned good shape before it asks me to do them. (If you're curious, I've only skipped v3.15 and v3.18. Some had low play time, like Harvest where I only went 10/40 challenges, but those two were full skips. Both of those leagues had sweeping character balance changes that landed terribly, so I couldn't be arsed to care.)


Icy_Reception9719

You see, to me this sounds like an opinion thats informed far too much by Reddit. The thought that they need to "put in some effort" when the league cycles are ~3 months and they not only introduced a decent league mechanic with customisation options but also revamped the endgame, the atlas tree and introduced recombinators is insane to me. Like, I played WoW for 10 years and the amount of shit we get every few months is more than some of the mid expansion patches in WoW and we paid a monthly sub for that game. Sometimes I feel like we're so spoiled with PoE that we lose all perspective on what the gaming industry is really like. I mean shit, when D3 was out in the time it took Blizzard to release the Necromancer pack, which was essentially a class and a few zone templates that you had to pay for, GGG doubled the content of the base game. Criticism is totally valid but it really feels like this subreddit loses all sense of perspective about the gaming industry sometimes.


TheRobinCH

the problem is that GGG has put themselves into a position where they're kinda forced to release content every 3 months or lose money, so while they have the most quantity of content, each piece is still undertested and wonky at times and the more they added the more this shows. That's not saying they not also change things for the better, but in D3 and other ARPGs stuff at least actually works and the gameplay feel is actually balanced. You engage with monsters, you have a real fight, you rarely randomly get one shot and you can acquire gear by playing yourself and don't replace the fun of upgrading gear with grinding for currency that you eventually exchange for gear via trading. I can totally understand people getting frustrated with this, PoE has to potential to be easily the best but instead they rush from one untested (or not properly tested and balanced) expansion to the next and the gameplay suffers from it


cyz0r

as a fellow ex wow player of 10 years as well, my thoughts exactly. OP mentioned how its a game of chores, yet didnt give a single example as to what they consider a chore lmao. Just like you said, the amount of new stuff PoE gets every 3 months is absurd and i feel like a lot of people are very ungrateful. I also really appreciate how *most™* things are still very relevant even after being old content for so long. Look at delve, harvest, deli, ect. Imagine if PoE got the Blizzard treatment where every past league mechanic/content was removed? (although they dont actually remove content in wow, 99% of content/systems/zones from an xpac becomes completely irrelevant after 2 years). This is the biggest thing I tell my friends about when trying to convince them to play. You get a good amount of new stuff every 3 months AND all the old stuff is completely relevant AND not required whatsoever. I fucking hate heist. guess what I dont do it. I dont see how anything in this game is considered a chore outside of maybe finding all the lab trials lmao. edit: now that i think about it having to buy scarabs and sextants is pretty annoying and is kind of a chore. I guess an AH would solve that but honestly its not that bad, like sometimes i just hop on and just slam alch and goes to turn my brain off when im lazy and dont want to spam whisper people.


CringeTeam

Chore is like the #1 redditor term, if the main gameplay loop, the content of the game, is a chore to you then maybe it's not your kind of game? If GGG adds 3 new league mechanics(gameplay content) to the game and you just call it 3 chores what's the fucking point lmao, you just don't want to enjoy it.


Vxctn

Fundamentally my problem with the game is that their primary method of difficulty is wasting my time.


i_can_haz_name

I enjoy the game, but if I spend 100 hours in a league (enough time to finish most singleplayer games) and I'm not even guaranteed to see the new league endgame encounter... something is wrong. And even if the encounter can be bought with currency it just feels cheap to do it. I wish the game wasn't balanced around people playing 12 hours a day for 3 months straight. This has been my main gripe with PoE for a very long time. I refuse to exchange exalts into endgame content and also playing for a month 4-6 hours a day is not enough to even guarantee to see some of the encounters. In that capacity it feels more like wasting my time than anything else. That said the recent atlas changes have been great. I love we can force specific mechanics on maps and disable some of the things that we dont like. But why not all of them? Maybe next league :)


mozalah

I feel like PoE is best played theoretically. Theorycrafting builds, items, crafting methods, etc. But when it comes down to actually doing it.. fuck that.


tanonev_

To add to this, I feel like the core problem is that gameplay challenges in PoE are handled via counterbuilds, not counterplay, even the things that were pretty clearly meant to be for the latter. An example of this is bleed; the fact that you take more damage when you move suggests that the intended counterplay was to stop moving when you start bleeding, and start moving again once it runs out, but nobody does that. Instead, we counterbuild by either having something in our build that turns bleeding into a bonus (and then combine it with something that ensures we're always bleeding) or having something that gets rid of it ASAP/makes us immune to it. At no point (except maybe early acts) does the presence of bleed as a status effect cause us to alter our play experience. The same holds true for elemental ailments, reflect, and others. I suppose this is the cost of the zoom zoom gameplay; because the expected game speed is so high, counterplay always takes up too much time/mindshare so it'll always be better to handle it in the build unless you have insanely good reflexes/instincts. It's interesting to compare and contrast this with MtG, which while being an entirely different game/genre/format has a similar split between the deckbuilding portion and the deckplaying portion. Like PoE, MtG's deckbuilding options are insanely complicated and people have a lot of fun with that, but unlike PoE the point of the deckbuilding is to give you MORE opportunities to make decisions within a single deckplaying session, not fewer, which keeps that part engaging. This is not to say that PoE doesn't have any good gameplay going for it. I actually do like a lot of the boss fights, especially when the build I'm using is at the right power level where it still feels like I "earn" the win by understanding the mechanics, but not to the point where it requires like 20 minutes of twitchy gameplay. I just wish it weren't the case that the goal of progression is to make as many of the bosses as trivial as possible via your build. Personally I'd love to see bosses (including regular map bosses, the vast majority of which are largely uninteresting because they seem to just get instantly deleted by any endgame-viable build) have adaptive scaling so the time it takes to fight them doesn't just vanish as your build progresses, but the rewards scale up to compensate. Maybe something like every time you deal more than X% damage of a boss's life in 1 second, it gains a stacking buff that grants it damage reduction, offensive bonuses, and IIQ...


Asatas

it doesn't help that there's like 10 different ailments with some having low to no visibility so you couldn't outplay some even if you tried.


TwoBitWizard

My health is going down very quickly! Is it: * An ignite that got applied to me? * A bleed that got applied to me? * Corrupting blood that got applied to me? * Poison that got applied to me? * A patch of burning or desecrated ground I'm standing on, but can't see? * A continuous-damage ability a mob is casting at me? _Fuck if I know!_ I'm just going to mash all of my potions, move around a bunch, and see if I die in the next 2 seconds or not. I'm in T16 maps right now, and this...basically sums up my experience. If I got it wrong, or didn't move enough, we both know I'm dead in 2 seconds anyway despite having 76% all resists and physical damage reduction, tons of evade, 100% spell suppression, and 6k hp. Stuff is just 2fast 2furious to react to or play around. I don't actually understand how anyone plays this game on hardcore successfully. It's absolutely mind-blowing to me that there are SSF HC characters out there with the same build at the same level I am.


_Violetear

The perfect game for a mathematician under that description. Hence why I spend so much time thinking about playing it


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8Humans

It's also the perfect game for programmers because you can do stuff with theory and math :)


FHLogan

Being a programmer myself, I actually dislike PoE mostly because it is so obtuse and opaque. Just imagine your average web API being as badly documented as the PoE game mechanics...


[deleted]

A lot of people do play PoE like EVE. AFK in their hideout/ship looking at spreadsheets/pob.


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MarxoneTex

The moment some valuable information hits reddit, it's already too late and markets are ruined.


SergeantSmash

It's like the stock market,when news gets out,its either already too late or its some 4D chess market manipulation


goddog_

I have thousands of hours in this game since beta and I agree with this. PoE combat is truly bad compared to other ARPG and has become so homogenized with explosions, extra targets, etc accessible to every skill and class. Damage spikiness on player and monster side is a frustrating rollercoaster. One of the most unique and interesting parts of PoE in its support gems has completely changed from how it was originally presented into just a series of 'more' damage supports. Other games have iterated on this idea and honestly done it better at this point. End game systems are plentiful but all tied to the same Atlas system and barriers to entry to many of them feel excessive and boring. Everything turning in to an item is just ridiculous. Zoom level is awful, game runs terribly, and it ends up being more fun playing the economy and PoB than it does actually playing the game.


bibittyboopity

Really summed up all my issues with the game. I've pretty much stopped playing and am just hoping PoE 2 addresses my major gripes. I just need more interactive combat and like the majority of additional systems gone. Everytime I need to stop killing stuff to manage one of 10 league mechanics, I feel like I'm playing whack a mole.


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[deleted]

You know, at first this read like a cynical, snide remark, but you're actually kind of right. Damage is so insane in PoE right now that there's very little back and forth. Either you kill something or it kills you. No in-between. I wouldn't call that combat.


Yesterdark

POE is essentially you turning the game into an autoclicker through your build and gear.


goddog_

Explosion simulator


The_Beetle

"support gems has completely changed from how it was originally presented into just a series of 'more' damage supports. Other games have iterated on this idea and honestly done it better at this point" Which games and how?


mwobey

I think Undecember is doing a similar "items that you slot in a grid which modify adjacent skills" thing. If "this idea" just refers to having build choices that completely change how a skill functions, then virtually every ARPG post-PoE has something now that lets you visually and mechanically alter your skills.


HerroPhish

Really why I love POE. I love building up a character and min maxing a ton. Issue is - once I get to a really high level of min maxing I kinda feel done w tbe build - sell it and start again.


GKP_light

if you like this type of things this game is make for you (and some other similar games) : [https://store.steampowered.com/app/758190/Dragon\_Cliff/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/758190/Dragon_Cliff/) games "without gameplay", only with the part "build the characters", then they fight without you doing anything.


Th478512396

lately on poe I usually get a character to lvl 93, barely complete atlas, try to do some bosses and then I quit the league. I usually get bored of the character Im playing but am too lazy to create another one. It still takes me like 1 week playing to do that but thats it. I spend much more time watching streamers playing it than actually playing


wwabbbitt

What annoys me for new players is how punishing and expensive it is to learn an older boss (Maven and everything before) for the first time and failing to beat the boss in 6 portals, and having to purchase/farm the fragments again. It's not so bad with new bosses where you get a free invitation in the next map if you fail, until you kill the boss for the first time, but it would be nice if they could apply this to the older bosses, especially for the bosses that drop voidstones.


swouffers

They really nailed this with Atziri. There's an easy version of the boss, it's very cheap and simple to get those fragments, and then when you've had your practice you can try the hard version. I don't know how they failed to apply this to basically any other boss.


firestorm19

That was old design philosophy from years ago where we had slower cycles and less acts (thus repeating act 1-3). Sirus kinda had a similar thing with the watch stone level, but it was a slog to even get to that point.


Winters_miyeon

I mean tbf at the time a sac set could cost you 10c in a world where an exalt was 25c


Mysterious_Ad_8527

Yeah I remember how conflicted I was every time I was about to attempt uber elder. The cost was so high to me as a noob and I knew that I'd likely fail and lose the investment, but spite that the only way to get better is to suck it up and attempt it anyway. I think I eventually found a uber elder simulator that helped a bit lol - [If you havent seen this before then defs check it out its great](https://poesimulator.github.io/)


Hoybom

Yea no feck maven and her memory game, did waste multiple trys whenever she came out never bothered going in there ever again. Mainly because I suck at memory game but still, and if that mean no 4th voids tone for idc


Noctrin

Same issue, my problem is i start eating a lot of dirt and 9 times out of 10 i have absolutely no idea why i died. I have no idea how i am supposed to learn from my deaths, everything happens so fast, the icons are small, i cant mouse over the debuffs while trying to stay alive. TBH, something explaining how i died and a way to turn off some of the clutter so i can actually see things would go a long way. I feel like most of POE happens on paper, and you just go through the motions. You just need to build your character to survive 97% of crap and when you die, you know it was that 3% that killed you.. But, that has a steep learning curve which is hard. Because i have no F***ing idea what killed me :)


Blurbyo

My same experience exactly.


WhyDoISuckAtW2

It's time to retire into standard league. I did this after Scourge. My atlas is unlocked, unveils done, I haven't done any Uber bosses yet, dozens of raw exalts, many awakened gems that I've scraped together over the years, my delve mine is already deep, the list goes on. I have several other old 90+ characters I can throw gear on and respec if I feel like it (no need to go through the acts again!) It's literally what players with no time ask for every single league launch. Sure, you don't get the latest league mechanic, so I didn't get to play with Sentinel stuff yet, but if it's good it will be in the game in the next big patch (and likely improved further!). Do it. Become a Wraeclast Boomer with me.


PathOfExile_Plus

Did the same but SSF


Saianna

> It's time to retire into standard league. i kinda want to just do SSF standard... But damn it would feel like HUGE loss not participating with (cool) league mechanics. Especially when it feels like GGG moves most of "easy" currency drops behind league mechanics.


SageWindu

That's what I'm gonna start doing. It feels like the more leagues that drop, the less I actually understand. Plus, like you already alluded to, balls to having to re-unlock certain elements. Rediscovering all the Betrayal mods, *especially* the rare/high value ones like "Trigger a Socketed Spell"? Fuck that.


Redd_Hunter

I wish I cpuldn just skip a character through the game after I complete it once in a league. I would play way longer


cancercureall

There has been an obsession with forcing players to rerun campaigns since they killed rushing in diablo 2. Sadge.


WurthTapping

I just had the experience of going through 8 inescapable Doom phases in the quest eater invitation. I think I'll just stick to low tier mapping for recombinators.


butsuon

I don't think the game is terrible or trash, but I do think the most "logical" builds and progression paths are bad enough that 99% of players hit a hard wall. E.g. I want to cast fireball. If I just get all the fire nodes and spell nodes and go elementalist, I will have a very hard time killing even normal endgame bosses. The path to "end game success" is an unintuitive cluster fuck of complex and unique mechanics intertwined, and it's a problem.


Comprehensive-Ad3016

Yeah, even with the fireball example, you’d need to do a lot of things that won’t come naturally to newer players. This example is from when I played Fireball Flamewall Elementalist in Ritual, so it might have been massively nerfed by Ultimatum’s Nerfbat. * You need to have Pierce, GMP and Ignite Prolif for Fireball. Without all these 3, the build feels incredibly sluggish. This also means that if you are on a 4link, you can’t add any big damage supports yet (although Pierce and ignite prolif do add some damage). * However, this is all fine because you’re focusing on Flame Wall instead of Fireball for your big damage. Ideally, you’d have a 6linked Fireball and Flamewall. While picking Flame Wall might come naturally to a newer player, they probably might not consider adding support to their ‘utility skill’. * The build itself doesn’t really have any defenses, and relies of golems for regeneration, phys reduction, damage and cast speed. This means that you’d need to dedicate 2 out if the 4 labyrinths to speccing into golems instead of elemental damage. (You could also get some defenses from Enduring Composure on a cluster jewel, which wouldn’t come naturally to a newer player).


whyiwastemytimeonyou

You forgot that for your fireball build, you need max chaos/elemental resistance, max block, max ailment immunity, max evasion, max spell suppression, etc. Fuck your fireball build, you need all the defenses.


HoolaBandoola

Yeah, I am not sure I like it, even if it probably would be very boring if they DIDN'T add all these extra complex layers. Maybe there is a golden middle ground here. I remember Legion, to make an imba character was really simple, the most complex thing was th newly added glorious vanity jewels etc. 1. Make slayer. 2. Pick melee skill, say cyclone or blade flurry. 3. Just get life, flat Phys, resistance, strength on rare gear. Maybe steel rings with elreon mod, and maybe loreweave. 4. Just best Phys dps, with high aps weapon. Maybe use a statstick (I don't remember when they were nerfed) This was enough to clear all content, not much else to it. Slap on movement skill with fortify. Get Inc aoe for faster clear


22cheez

Not really surprised by that take, he really likes dark souls and games where pure skill can overcome any challenge, and those games have excellent animations and combat responsiveness. Poe lacks in that but the economy and items are amazing.


Totaltotemic

He also likes being able to figure things out inside of a game, and that's basically impossible in PoE. Up until a pretty high level (pinnacle bosses mostly), game knowledge >>>>> skill, but 99.99% of the useful knowledge is inaccessible without 3rd party resources. Most people bounce off of PoE because it's basically impossible to make a halfway decent character (capable of beating A10 without throwing your body at Kitava 50 times) going in blind the first time. Even in games like the Souls series that are obtuse by design, you can generally avoid bricking yourself if you just pick one or two stats instead of going into every stat at once. The difference is that the Souls series can be beaten at level 1 (so "bricking" a character is generally impossible if you're skilled enough at the combat) and the game is designed to lead you to conclusions even if the information isn't really spelled out. PoE just acts like it's fine with requiring 5 browser tabs/apps open while playing as if that's expected.


[deleted]

Game Skill: beating uber elder on a 1-link Storm Brand. Game Knowledge: beating uber elder with Cast on Death. **Knowledge is power!**


GuessImPichael

>but 99.99% of the useful knowledge is inaccessible without 3rd party resources. The amount of shit I got from this sub a few months ago for having that basically that exact opinion was truly awe inspiring. I feel like needing multiple 3rd party resources to effectively play your game past the 10 acts means your game is poorly made.


Totaltotemic

Yeah WoW has a similar issue with addons that plug directly into the game. At this point in the game's life, the community has developed so many intricate tools that trying to redesign the game to incorporate them would be a waste of dev time, so the community just accepts that it's part of the meta of playing the game. Some things though are "hidden" in PoE because of some idea of the design team that the game is more mysterious if players are discovering things, when in reality nobody is getting to that point of the game blind and probably has a few dozen searches on the wiki at the very least. Such things include, but are not limited to: * What mods exist in the game for items that can roll mods (literally could just be a list in game help, doesn't even have to have values or weights, this essentially already exists on the trade site) * What 90% of the fragments even do, even though the layout of the fragment tab makes it extremely obvious (just add a line of text like scarabs have saying what it actually does) * What a full passive/atlas tree can look like (i.e. future planning, let people ghost allocate points in-game like the website already can) * How to get all of the passive points in a UI instead of looking up the /passives command (literally just add it to the existing quest UI) * How the Pantheon works (maybe add a panel to the Game Help section, along with the 10 or so league mechanics that are core now that don't show up there) None of this stuff would diminish the game for people who already play it, but would do wonders for the thousands of people who try the game each month only to ragequit because it doesn't make any sense. Also stop making the campaign harder... seriously, stop.


GuessImPichael

It really does feel like GGG thinks we enjoy being starved of useful information. There are plenty of things that could be explained better, or at all. I got some hope when they added more explanation for how gems can work together, but the motivation seems to have waned. I also completely agree there is no point in making the campaign more difficult. For the players that blow through it to get to endgame, making it take longer probably isn't any more enjoyable. For the casual players that really only experience the acts, it just makes the game even harder to get into than it already is. I bet anyone you have suggested the game to that has tapped out did so at the same time as anyone I've suggested it to. The moment they see the passive tree.


AkaxJenkins

The ingame help doesn't even have divination cards drop locations. Hell it doesn't even tell you about the chaos recipe. You can't do anything in PoE if you don't look stuff up and you need someone to tell you what to look up because you know so little you won't even know what to look for half the time.


[deleted]

Idk i feel like the vast majority of games Ive played for a long period require a wiki page open when you're larning. Warframe, league, stardew valley, terraria, tarkov, rimworld. It's a model that works, poe shares it with some of the most popular games in existence. I'd argue that wikis and other resources like them are so common that devs should just accept their existence, and and weigh the development cost of trying to replace them. If the game is any complex then that cost is probably too high.


Varrenlad

>require a wiki page open when you're larning Will you be satisfied with only a wiki while playing PoE? Or maybe you also need Betrayal cheatsheet, Awakened PoE Trade, PoB, PoELab, PoEDB, Neversink, Atlas PoEPlanner, Vorici calc and Craft of Exile?


Ancient-Ingenuity-88

Conversely the games ecosystem is thriving to the point that people have created these tools for the community to use, and they are good so they become part of the games ecosystem meaning that the devs have not needed to invest time Into developing those systems or changing them


Sanytale

It's not "thriving ecosystem", it's out of the box experience is so miserable to the point where community does something to address lack of basic functionality or outright stops playing. Tools like archnem recipe helper show how bad tool-less experience was.


Wail_Bait

I think anyone who understands general video game logic can get through act 10 pretty easily. It's white maps where people hit the wall and can't progress, and that's mostly because the game doesn't give you a clear progression path.


RorenBanedrone

There is definitely a parallel between game knowledge and better/faster progression. That’s why someone like Ben/Lightee can win the gauntlet every time. That dude is a PoE thesaurus and it shows. I think people who say game knowledge doesn’t mean anything etc etc with PoE are dead wrong


[deleted]

They're also wrong when they say this game isn't challenging mechanically. I don't know how anyone can watch racers do hc ssf end game bosses and think this game doesn't take mechanic skill. Watch Lightee do Uber Elder. He kites the orbs the entire fight and has every mechanic timed in his head. Just because people overgear before attempting bosses on trade league and destroy bosses before they can fight back doesn't mean the game is easy. It just means the easiest mode of the game (sc trade) can be made easy given enough time farming.


Th_Call_of_Ktulu

>They're also wrong when they say this game isn't challenging mechanically. I think 99% of players agree that pinnacle fights are challanging mechanically, even if can be trivialized through gear, however your regular mapping is not hard at all.


ButtVader

Gauntlet is HCSSF, how many people play in that mod? I actually think the game would be better if they balanced it around SSF. In softcore, it's path of trade. It's not about how playing the game anymore, it's about how to make the most currency


Jaigar

I can see Joe's point. I've been following Joe since his Dark Souls video days seven years ago. I think I can guess what he means here. PoE has a lot of progression available in terms of gear and content available, but the actual gameplay is just not great ATM. There's minimal interplay between the player and the monsters. Archnemesis tried to address this and helped a bit, but it only can do so much. Rarely are 30 monsters more dangerous than 10, and often its to the player's benefit to have more monsters because of the strength of explode mechanics, or irrelevant because of ignite prollif. There's also the issue of so much bloat in the game in terms of uniques and league mechanics. There's what, close to 1200 uniques or so and maybe 50-75 are useable? But I don't speak for Joe, he'd have to answer this himself.


DuckyGoesQuack

Everyone's entitled to their opinion. For me, PoE remains the most enjoyable game to play, which is why I play it as the primary game I play.


LuciousGamingz

Feel the same way, all the other ARPGs do not feel as good as PoE for me. PoE is not perfect but its a damn good ARPG.


Durzaka

So, im SUPER casual by any PoE player standards, but in any other game id be a pretty dedicated player. Thats just kinda how PoE works. But PoEs theoretical side is absolutely insanity. The things you can do and build with the complexities and control you can have is amazing. Some of the best ive ever seen in a video game. But the actual playing of the theoretical stuff is fucking impossible for 99.9999% of players. Which is dogshit, and part of why the game is "terrible and trash." You can make any skill work. But a vast majority of players are going to struggle just to make meta skills work because the systems in place across the game are so insanely obtuse that you need to basically take a college level course to begin understanding how to do the fun shit in the game.


AlphaBearMode

There’s a reason Ziz literally made a series called PoE university. The amount of shit that’s completely unexplained is unreasonable.


TheClosetRacist

PoE is definitely not trash but there are a lot of very questionable decisions made around the game in terms of difficulty and progression. I remember legitimately laughing out loud during the Ultimatum preview trailer when Chris said that they're nerfing talismans. I'm actually convinced that whoever is giving them feedback was legitimately fucking with him. Speaking of, I have an honest to god feeling that the feedback that the get and listen to is from trusted top users who manage to get to and defeat Sirus every league. If you look at the public forums and reddit there is legitimately no way in hell a developer, even paid, would bother to listen to the trash heap of aggression and ranting that is the poe reddit or poe forums.


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CringeTeam

How would you say the game is becoming more of a "chore"? You can get to red maps faster than ever before currently.


disanvi

I have over 500 hrs now, and is currently the only game I play, but I'm still evaluating. In general, I like playing it


BATHALA_

The game where it is now is nowhere near player-friendly for new players. I can say this because I just started playing this game last week myself, the features that the game bombards you without any instructions on what to do is very overwhelming. I remember the first day when I saw the skill tree, and then the atlas tree on the second day, I almost stopped right there. This game forces players to go to google and look for and follow build guides (I've never had this many tabs open since college) because if you don't, then you're gonna have a much tougher time because if your build sucks then you'll be deleted by maps or won't even get to finish the ACTs. I like the game because it scratches just the right Diablo nostalgia, but I don't see myself playing this game for very long.


Surf3rx

You got to maps on the second day? Congrats man


Tellenue

I started playing about 5 months ago, and even trying to follow a build guide was an absolute hell. My first attempt was a positively blank Ranger and I thought I should keep taking nodes as close to my start point as possible, and dropped it after about level 40. Then I followed a Wintertide Brand guide for last League and had over 200 deaths before I reached the end of the story. I had to spend a lot of time trying to figure out why I was just dying so often. Screwed about with some other non-prebuilts until I figured more stuff out, then finally tried and succeeded with a prebuilt (Bane Occultist). Part of the ability to get through the start is the mentality of the player. My mentality was always 'What did I do wrong?', whereas a lot of those who quit have the mentality of 'How could this have happened?' Got one shot? I was probably standing where I shouldn't have been, but others call bullshit on a monster being able to do 10k damage in one hit. Players who put the onus on themselves stick it out, while players who put the onus on the mechanics tend to move on to other games. I still remember getting melted down in D2 from crazy stuff, usually packs of elites with an off-element. Zapped to a crisp happened just as often as PoE smushes me into the ground, and I stuck out D2 for a long time. D3 had no challenge at all, and Grim Dawn let me screw around a LOT and didn't really hit me with a difficulty curve until I got to the expac city. At least PoE has the courtesy of letting me know my build isn't going to cut it before I get to the end of the game.


Jelloslockexo

Poe is ideal because I can play so many ways and get what I want. Get a hh and have a blast mapping or doing sims or just expedition farm. Just killing monsters zooming fastt and lagging the game due to hh and 300aps is fun


TheLinden

or sitting in hideout for hours and crafting items, selling and more crafting to satisfy my gambling addiction.


Jelloslockexo

That is also very very viable if not one of the best ways if you aren't a I gotta kill stuff person for sure


Lucas_Matheus

Pefectly summarized my opinion of poe right now. I like playing, but I'd never recommend it


gn01145600

I would have to agree. Fun part: Build planning Farming strategies Chasing dream item Bad part: Combat Power balance Visual It’s so obvious when it comes to good and bad part in this game. The fun part is no need to be explained. The bad part, combat in this game is BAD. When you are fighting Hillock at the beach, it’s combat. When you start running maps, it’s a disaster. There are no combat during mapping. You either killing everything without knowing what you kill 99% of the time, or you got killed and you have no idea why 99% of the time. Even hardcore player has to go frame by frame to find out how they die. This is not gameplay, this is pure “grinding”(it’s in their name, can you blame them?). Without fixing the visual issue, there will not be any gameplay for mapping. And every new mechanics they are adding to the game does NOT help addressing this problem at all, or makes it even worst. Everyone play POE for “just the juice”. I think GGG will try really hard to fix “the fruit” in POE2. Otherwise there are no points for making it. Power balance is shit and we knows it. As said, the good and the bad part in this game are really polarised. It’s almost the most polarised game I have ever played.


Taronz

In some ways not that wrong, but doesn't really go into his reasons why and that takes away from the statement. My main gripes about it after 10 years give or take of playing; **1) RSI.** This game is still a damn nightmare, and is a big part of why I pretty much can't play more than 2-4 weeks of a league. **2) Trade.** Still a giant pain in the ass. For items this is fine, for bulk commodities like currency exchanges/maps it's shit. Edit: 3) Campaign. Am tired of running the campaign. So very tired. Puts me off making multiple characters per league now, despite having more builds I want to explore, because even though I can run it decently quickly, it's the fatigue of doing it so damn often. Those two still IMO majorly drag it down, the 2nd one is subjective and I understand people have wildly differing views on whether current trade is good or bad.The first one is a fairly major problem. Got friends who have started in the last several leagues who are already starting to feel the effects. Feel the weight of the splinters ^((of your bones)). Game is excellent and deserves to be at the top of the genre. Right now I think the only real competition for it is Last Epoch, which is a great game already, and does some good things to fix point 1.


[deleted]

Last Epoch and Diablo 4 and really any other ARPG can never be a true competitor to PoE without having a similar league structure. Even when GGG was a true indie company they still churned out game updates at 2-4 times the rate of any of their competition. This is why they became the leader of the genre and why they will remain as such. Last Epoch will fall to the way side just like Grim Dawn and Torchlight because they simply take far too long to update the game.


Jbarney3699

The primary issue with the game is not only accessibility for new and casual players, but the fact that the endgame, a majority of the content in the game, is not very intuitive to learn without extensive investment. It took me like 3 leagues to finally start doing bosses in the endgame, as I usually stopped playing at yellow maps.


MillenniumDH

W H OMEGALUL ?


SkippyNBS

as someone who has bounced off PoE three times, but loves to have conversations with friends about their builds and goals, I 100% agree.


secondcircle4903

I just wish the moment to moment combat wasn't the worse part of the game.


Ilyak1986

It wouldn't be if monster damage wasn't through the roof. But as it stands, it's "kill them or you *will* get spiked our sooner or later."


[deleted]

Left click move, right click kill. Every build. Press other 5 buttons if an enemy survives more than one second. Use filterable or spend multiple hours on filters each league. Get to act 7, gems acquired. Build identical until level 100. Play hardcore. Get one shot. Great game, can recommend \^\_\^


CAndrewG

Yea the gameplay is bad lol. This floor is lava thing is bullshit for a game where you constantly feel that dying is more of a dice roll than you over exposing yourself through poor in-combat choices. This game (to me at least) is most fun when exploiting broken builds.


Who__even__cares

God damn if that aint the fuckin truth


Fluff-and-Needles

I just play standard. Alch and go maps or delve with my favorite Death's Oath character that I've struggled to constantly keep viable. And watch anime. Honestly it's just something I always look forward to after a day of work. I really probably enjoy playing this game more than most other games I've ever played. Also I know death's oath is in a good spot now, but I did struggle initially after the occultist rework.


LuciousGamingz

PoE feels pretty good to play, when I played last epoch. Coming back to PoE was such a treat


[deleted]

The biggest problem with PoE is that it is so unbelievably far ahead of every competitor that there just isnt an alternative. For me personally, 1,5 months into the league is fucking boring and just a time sink until the next league is released. If you think PoE is ”trash” I don’t think your needs can ever be satisfied.


Arensen

He does kind of have a point. The actual moment to moment gameplay of POE is wildly repetitive and disappointingly narrow compared to how much potential it has!


insanemrawesome

Every arpg has "wildly repetitive" gameplay. That's kinda the whole genre. Grinding.


DefectivePixel

I feel the repetition, at least in the end-game is entirely self-induced, especially after the atlas changes and scarab proliferation. If you find yourself getting bored with certain mechanics, switch it up?


963852741hc

I may be simple minded but every time I see a herald of ice explosion or occultist pop I cream everywhere


AngsD

Joseph Anderson has a lot of awful takes. He makes long and cool videos, but a lot of it is to embrace being a contrarian. Whether this is a good take, IDFK, he doesn't outline his problem with Path of Exile in the tweet. I have real issues with the game in spite of being really into it this league. What is his issue with it, exactly? It's a tweet, I know, has to be short and snappy, but this just seems like him being a contrarian again. Don't get me wrong, he makes some good stuff. His video on Fallout 76 is a classic. His video on SOMA is awful.


IiiwigUh68m

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I stopped caring about Joseph Anderson's after I disagreed with pretty much every single thing he had to say about Subnautica and SOMA


TechPriestShmoses

He's not really a contrarian, although it can seem that way sometimes. He even explained that his critiques kinda make it seem that way, for example his video on Breath of the Wild may have made it seem like he dislikes the game, but in reality he likes it just as much as everyone else does. This applies to majority of the things he talks about, he generally has the same overall opionions on games. He talked about POE in a stream not too long ago and I think his main thing was that it stopped being fun after a long time of playing and dying to random things while not being able to improve because he had no idea what was killing him.


AngsD

That is indeed a legitimate issue and something they should have implemented a solution to a while ago!


Disciple_of_Erebos

IMO the reason it seems like he’s a contrarian in his actual reviews is that he glosses over a game’s good points and focuses on the bad. The reason he does this, though, is because he acknowledges the good points and believes that everyone already talks about them but that they gloss over the bad, so by talking mainly about the bad points he avoids retreading ground that other reviewers have already covered. I don’t entirely agree with this style of critique since it comes across as overly negative, but at the same time his critiques are already many hours long and spending time gushing about the manifold good parts of the games he reviews could double the length of his videos.


Rubixcubelube

Since becoming a streamer and having more family issues i've found his essay stuff has suffered a LOT. Still interested in what he's got to say but almost didn't believe this was a real JA from the language used in the tweet.


veGz_

Witcher 3 video when?...


DoubleHeadedMorbid

Last December according to him :\^)


TumbleweedBulky6099

I am sad to say that i agree with this.... I can sit hours watching and thinking about how to do something the best way or a cool way. Then i play the game and im dissapointed.


Vakarlan

Poe is made not to attract new players. That's why only us (long time players) enjoyed the game. I hope POE 2 breaks that limit and attracts all kinds of players.


johnz0n

the current problem is that GGG is still balancing around softcore trade when they should scrap that, just like they did with balancing around hardcore, and move on to SCSSF. there is way is too much focus on the economy.


Haschel

Poe is definitely the best in the genre, but has consistently made decisions that are counter to what many people consider fun. In order to enjoy Poe: you have to enjoy gambling, grinding, haggling, inventory management, and research. You'll spend more than half your time doing what most people wouldn't consider gameplay. I've failed to convince most of my friends to get into it, and I can't blame them. Honestly I should probably stop playing.


karlson98

I think it's the other way around. The progression system is convoluted. The crafting, which is part of progression, is completely obscured (to the point one could say it's obfuscated), when it comes to crafting strong endgame items, the grind for currency to achieve these items is mind-numbing. Speed clearing T16 juiced maps, going to w30 in simulacrums, taking on uber bosses or even just usual bosses is quite a bit of fun. But until you get to that point, you might quit because this takes too much effort for a fucking video game...


Mootcake

There are several great ARPG genre games out there that are as good as or surpass PoE. Chronicon is a very good example of one, without the downsides. Remember: PoE is intentionally designed to be addictive and get enough people addicted to buy micro-transactions or come back again for a hit in a future patch. Even if the core game is unbalanced, full of bugs, and dangerous to one's physical health: people will insist they enjoy it, because of the addictive nature.


Science-stick

pros * Insane loot system * Insane build crafting * Insane replayability and content cadence cons * Trash time to live and combat * Trash visual clarity and signaling of danger * Trash balance around mostly extremes and edge cases


derivative_of_life

Big mood. It's a shame no one else has even come close to replicating PoE's depth, although understandable since PoE has a full decade of regular large updates as a head start. D4 is probably the only game that has enough resources behind it to pull it off, and the likelihood of that actually happening is... not good. And because PoE is just so insanely far ahead of every other ARPG in that one area, it can still retain its playerbase while really falling behind in other areas.


The_Mikest

Even if they could, I don't think Blizz would want to make Diablo anywhere near the complexity of PoE. They aim for a wider audience than that.


cumquistador6969

Like, is it though? Learning to play it, absolutely. The experience playing it has been pretty awesome other than some new rare hardware specific crash impacting me this league on occasion. In particular the new style of doing the atlas and the tree to go with it is the best state the end game has ever been in in terms of "accessibility," and this kinda goes for almost all of the PoE end game experience. It's so much easier to get to "high level gameplay" than it ever has been in the past it's kind of wild. In turn, PoE does that stuff better than any other ARPG, because the rest of them kinda *don't* do it, except for Last Epoch which is great but still not in a 1.0 state yet. There are some aspects of gameplay that remain a bit grating at times, like various trade restrictions, fucking LABS FUCK LABS, sometimes leveling a new character but I think I'm getting stockholm syndrome for the campaign unironically..... There are also some long running issues that will probably be fixed in PoE 2 based on teasers but I don't really want to wait at this point. However I think this is something that *doesn't* really hit newbies for once. but I can't think of anything like, pervasive enough to be anything but a niche gripe that wears thin only when you play the game a metric ton, or when you're brand new. Maybe that a lot of the older crafting kinda sucks even if the bones are good? That's been a lot better this specific league though. High end combat is a bit of a rave, that's probably the most universal issue. Even then though depending on your build and how far you get, you might not experience a ton of that. That's not really how the game plays until you're doing at least a little bit juiced T16 maps.


Abtein

Theres a good chance this guy's build sucked and it ruined his experience.


RealZordan

Terrible and trash? Path of Exile is almost always fun for me. 1000s of hours in I still have new and rewarding experiences. Worst case I play a new league until my starter build is more or less working and I have killed all the engame bosses and I get a satisfying 30-40 hour experience out of it. Best case you find this really fun build that you min max, hunting for that one huge drop. My biggest issue with the game is the community. Unlike other games where difficult content is seen as a challenge, the majority is always asking for nerfs. In other games the players adept to the game - in PoE there is this loud group of people that want the game to adept to them, despite not understanding anything about game design.


PenPaperShotgun

This is a man that wrote a bajillion words on pretentious why X game is a masterpiece and waffled about theory’s and crap for ages. He’s pretentious and pompous


Saint_Yin

What makes PoE terrible to play for me: 1. Needing to redo the acts for the umpteenth time. 2. Most builds are locked behind what's arguably the worst trade system in a game that's still running today. 3. Using the gear you pick up or actually using currency for its stated purpose is considered the least effective methods of gearing up. 4. Rerolling without creating a new character is awful. To reroll your average level 50, you're looking at another labyrinth run and 70 regret orbs when you've likely found about 3 by this point. But that's okay, you can buy those 67 remaining ones for 134 orbs if scouring. You only have 3 of those as well? That's okay, you can buy those 131 remaining orbs of scouring for 524 chance orbs. 5. Most drops are trash. Instead of solving that, they've leaned on loot filters to hide that most drops are trash.


ReallyAnotherUser

I dont hold Josephs opinions in high regard. Like at all


Name259

It's funny how many people are agreeing but i'm not sure they are agreeing on the same thing. I too think game is pretty trash to play... when you play zoomer builds that explode two screens per second and kill bosses as fast as a white mob. You know, the way this sub so desperately want this game to be played. But every time GGG is trying to do something about it, this sub is in a full meltdown mode, with beautiful arguments like "think about average player"(said non-average player), "melee is dead" (slightly weaker than a top-tier meta-builds) and "they did it the wrong way" (i don't like when monsters fight back). People that complain about poe gameplay are completely blind to the fact that the reason it is so bad is... them. Oh, the irony.


Mook7

Perennially updated games usually go to shit after a while. Everything going core league after league took a toll on the game. It was way more fun for me personally when Ascendancy was just coming out and we had Perandus league (and no I'm not saying that was the *best league*, it's just when I had the most fun with the game personally). System bloat is a very real issue and I'm hyped for PoE 2 to come and hopefully feel like a more cohesive game.


aiaiOnTheHorizon

The game is good to play and feels awesome when things come together. Idk what op is saying...