Is PoE's gameplay good or bad?

So what I’m going to talk about here is however the gameplay of Path of Exile is good or bad?
I will mostly compare it to the way Diablo 3 is played, as I see that game as the opposite to this game’s gameplay.

In my experience Path of Exile is suffering from the “100% or 0%” syndrome, by that I mean either you 1 shot mobs, 1 shot bosses, take 0 dmg from traps or you do the opposite.
I know many people hate the lab for example, if you ever made a Juggernaut with 7k hp and 1.4k hp life reg you would love it, only for the reason that you then are able to ignore everything dangerous in the lab.

When people post builds and say its “Atziri viable” that equals “I kill all the bosses in 1 shot” I know that is a tad over exaggerating, but there is much truth to it.
A good endgame mapper often clear packs with one attack and take almost no damage.

This game is all or nothing, it’s all about your gear and your knowledge, you spend most time preparing your character for an event than adapting, for example: Making it immune to reflect, having all the resists at max, and so on. But when you are playing the map your characters damage is so overpowered that you often steamroll through everything.

The only way to die in Path of Exile is by some freak accident, like 10 devourers popping out of nowhere. Or something similar, almost never by a cleaver game design.
This gameplay is however fun in another way, you feel overpowered and clever. Clever because you think your super op god build broke the game.
And in some cases you probably did break the game as it was intended and that is the beauty of path of exile, but in most cases it’s just the way the game was meant to play.

This way of playing is however extremely bad for team play, if everyone’s character 1 shots everything, only 1 of the teammates is going to get the kills, the rest can only run behind, there is no incitement to play in group, except for increased drop rates.
The only time I ever play in team is when I farm Dried lake, with a character that doesn’t have any good clear speed.

Now let’s talk about Diablo 3, first of all I want you to know that I think Path of exile is by for the better game, but that doesn’t mean D3 don’t have anything good to offer.
D3 has team play! It’s fun to play in a team in D3, monsters have A LOT more hitpoints, more hitpoints equals longer fights and that brings more excitement. Having to spend 30s – 1 minute to kill an elite pack, having to dodge lasers, cold explosions and so on is imo more fun than just 1 shoting them and moving on to the next elite.

None of the lategame aspects of PoE incentivizes team play, Lab runs is much better done alone, Atziri is much better done alone, I have never seen anyone do a 2+ player Atziri. The only thing extra players are good for is a magicfind buff.

In the future I would love to see more endgame oriented content aimed towards multiplayer.
What do you think

Well said. In original D3 with enrage, super heal elites, etc only way to beat it was team play with complementary party buffs, strategy and tactics. Most people didnt understand this so hated on Jay Wilson and cried. Not saying we need to go that far with 5 min long haul elite fights but something between one shotting uber and that would be nice.

Problem is is Chris Wilson has made two comments that he likes it being a face roll fest. That he doesn't want to add "arbitrary HP to monsters and he thinks this face rolling style is more enjoyable to player so I think it's going no where. We shall see if I stick around after 2.4 Watching Grim Dawn and my old D3 vids on youtube makes me think not unless drastic changes are made.

No you are not exaggerating. Builds one shot not only atziri but uber too.
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1633639

Players adapted to the most brutal of situations imaginable within the game content.

Due to the random nature of PoE, those brutal spikes occur but extremely rarely. As a result, characters adapted to these spikes are left with absolutely no threads within the game environment.

Just imagine something like

- volls slam
- added light 100%
- added fire 100%
- vulnerability
- crit

And you build your character to survive some excessive damage like that.

Whatever can the game throw at you at such a point?

The "kill before taking dps" strategy is a result of the complete and excessive freedom players have in ranged coverage.
Take away the AOE potential of ranged characters and this trend would change, pacing the game down again.

Arguably, followed by lots of salty tears from people who assume they are actually "good at gaming" due to this false sense of achievement in brutally stacking damage followed by a massive amount of repetitive
off-screen clicking.

Peace,

-Boem-

Very different from D3... but not on the surface. In D3, you click on something, you hit it. There's no "missing" or "evasion" or anything like that. In PoE, you can miss. You don't see the effects of that at first, or on vids, but you feel it. Combat feels better in PoE. You feel more in control. In D3, you feel like you're clicking on a game.

Path of Exile has a proactive gameplay.
Diablo 3 has a reactive gameplay.

Path of Exile, forces the player to invest a lot of time in learning just about every single part of the game. When the player knows it all and can pro-actively adapt to it. Nothing faces the player.

Diablo 3, forces the player to adapt while playing, every elite pack has to be handled uniquely. I know that in the current meta this isn’t true, though the monk + barb setup makes player almost immortal. But in theory this reactive adapt playstyle is the way the game is meant to play.

And no there is almost no skill in Path of Exile, if you don’t count knowledge about the game as a skill. There is 0 skills in running lab runs, I have done it plenty of times and I ignore everything and face tanks Izaro.

However the lab can be a test of skill, if you use a character not optimized for it. But I think that goes against the human nature.

Gameplay is purrrrfect(except the dc's/lag from time to time), RNG is f-ed. (my opinion, opinions may vary)