Worth playing?

I am a big fan of games such as the Baldurs gate series and Diablo 2 (never played 3)

Currently I have been playing Marvel Heroes, but with the new direction away from PC into consoles (which I don't own), i'm looking for a new game to devote my precious free time to.

How is the game? How is the population? (MH peaks at around 1300 active players and slowly decreasing as it bleeds players).

Is it possible to play as say a Necromancer? or a witch throwing devastating curses ? (always my favourite type of character in any fantasy setting)

With the game being a few years old, would I start too fat behind other players? So to be unable to ever take part in high level group content?

All advice appreciated...

One thing. Path of Exile isn't a MMORPG in the traditional sense - all content in the game is doable solo, and there are few group synergies or group roles.

Yes, there is a Necromancer ascendancy class, and you can play "summoners" as we call them around here with nearly any class. Skeletons and Zombies are currently unpopular among power players, but they are slated to be buffed soon. There are a lot of Curse mechanics in the game you can play around with, yes. Occultist may be your go-to Ascendancy class for that.

The game developers focus on "temporary leagues" which allow a "fresh start" for everybody so you shouldn't really worry about being "too far behind." Currently it is already easy to reach max power fast for people who know what they're doing and have a lot of free time, so IMO you shouldn't worry about catching up with them.

Overall of course I'm a big'ol whiteknighting fanboi so I would say yes the game is worth playing. But it is not for everybody. Despite becoming more accessible over the years, it is still a game where you can and will fail for making the wrong choices because there is such a huge abundance of choices - traditionally people say you will definitely fail your first character (it was true for me back in 2013). There's a lot to learn and that's part of the appeal for me.

EDIT: Since I personally really prefer solo and there's no online players counter it's hard to say about "how's the population." I would say it's "high enough." There are plenty of players online at a given moment to chat with, party with, and trade with, at least in the temporary leagues. I like Standard League (i.e. permanent league) and I often end up having to message 10 people for trades because they're all playing the temp leagues, and you can't do cross-league trades so that the "economy" stays "intact."

More on Occultist. Since your favourite archetype is curse-slinger, I would recommend looking for an Essence Drain Occultist build. It's Chaos Damage, which has that sort of dark mysterious corrupting power feel and makes good use of Occultist abilities.

How's the game?

It's fun. It's your typical ARPG, you become OP, hit dudes, get loot. Rinse and repeat.

A thing to note, is a lot of the complexities comes down to building your characters, more so than actually playing them. Meaning that skill usage and general gameplay is fairly straightforward. You just have to make your character good (Which can be difficult given you have SO much freedom to build)

The population is good. http://steamcharts.com/app/238960

As you can see, on Steam alone, it's averaging around 20k, with peaks of 30-60k. Given that there's also stand alone copies of PoE as well as consoles, it has a decent population.

Necromancing and Cursing are very much possible.

Heck, there's a character who's explicitly able to specialize in either Necromancy or Curses!

The Witch, has the option to become a Necromancer, Occultist or Elementalist.

Will you be too far behind other players?

Not at all. Despite the age, things are still fresh. Thanks to regular seasons, everyone starts from scratch every few months as they experience the new content.

If you play standard, you may find it more difficult to purchase gear from other players as that mode is persistent throughout the entire games life, however, it is possible to gear up for end game all on your own, there's actually been a recent addition of a mode specifically for players to do everything on their own (Its where I play exclusively)

So, yeah, you'll be able to do high level content without much issue. Especially if you play seasons.

As far as advice goes:

Don't get too bummed out when your first character(s) perform terribly. It's natural. There's a pretty steep learning curve to building your characters, as to be expected with such a versatile tree of passive skills to allocate.

Try messing around with a few characters and builds, to get a feel for the game, and figure out what kinds of skills you prefer to use. Then when you're ready to get serious, have a look at some build guides to try and figure out how to make a successful character.

All in all, it's a fun game. It's free to boot, so give it a try as there's nothing to lose!

I play this game much the same way, and with the same devotion as I did D2. Only game that came close to that was Hellgate:London. The game is being remade this summer... soon... so it's a great time to jump in and see what the old game was like so you can relate to everyone who is describing the differences between 1.0-2.6 and 3.0+ games.

It's not great, mainly because it has no replay-ability. Very limited build tree, not many items to find, and very easy to clear all of the content.

(Listen. There's no hope for me, but you can still save yourself and live in the real world. I'm trapped in Wraeclast now. GO NOW. RUN)

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Gaffers wrote:

It's not great, mainly because it has no replay-ability. Very limited build tree, not many items to find, and very easy to clear all of the content.

(Listen. There's no hope for me, but you can still save yourself and live in the real world. I'm trapped in Wraeclast now. GO NOW. RUN)

My was readying my fan-boi machine gun to shred your post to pieces, but then I read the second part. :DD

But yes, people tend to get hooked to this game for years. Some people spend months upon months learning the game and still find themselves being surprised about new mechanics they discovered. If you enjoy exploring, tinkering and learning, this is probably for you.
Expect to lose, be frustrated and sometimes even smash your keyboard few times. But in the end, this is the best thing you'll get atm, even tho it is far from being perfect.

If you are worried about game dying any time soon, it is quite the opposite. The game is growing with every major expansion. With no clear numbers it is hard to judge, but some speculate we might be passing D3 at this point (on average, of course).

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Perq wrote:

but some speculate we might be passing D3 at this point (on average, of course)

There is universal measure of game success in a modern world. Twitch viewers count, right now, in a middle of the season - PoE has 2798 viewers, D3 - 1041. Easy as that.

On topic: the game is fun, it's free, so you'll lose nothing if you'll try it.

If you're looking for sth like Baldur's Gate, this is the wrong place (play that itself in it's enhanced edition + BG2: EE, Icewind Dale EE, maybe Pillars of Eternity)

If you're leaning more to D2, then welcome aboard, this is like a dark twin of it's actual successor. Not saying D3 is bad, I've played it much more than PoE, but coming from D2 one of those games went left, the other one right.

I'd suggest to read some beginner guides, then pick a class and then play a Legacy League character. No need to level a char to 70 only to realize that he's beyond hope and you have to do it all again. But that's my perspective as a theory focused guy.

Will take a while to reach the endgame, but you're playing mostly alone anyway, so no problem. I don't advice solo self found for you will eventually want to buy 5 link and 6 link equipment. You'll know what that is after the beginner guides.

I started with this season (sorry: league :) ) and while I have no currency to speak of, I'm quite happy with my progress and the decision to give the game a shot instead of another D3 season.

IMO now is a good time to start. As others have mentioned, there is a lot to learn and even if you follow a build guide (look for 'cheap' or 'beginner friendly') you will probably be building and discarding one or more builds.

By the time you get a bit more comfortable with the mechanics, the current game with 4 acts repeated 3 times (normal, cruel and merciless difficulty) will be gone. In June or July version 3.0 comes out which adds another act, or another 6 acts, depending on how you look at it.

If you start now you will be in a good position to hit the ground running when the release comes out.

One thing to note. The game is free and nothing you can buy with cash money (converted to in game points) is required, except stash tabs. Even these are not technically 'required', but if you play for a while you will want them. They are on sale regularly. I find a good way to buy points is via 'packs', where you get some extras with your points.