Is Heist Worth Jumping Into?

Didn't like Harvest because of its complexity and because it didn't really add anything to the game besides crafting while maps felt empty, bland and with no loot.

Now I'm close to finishing Trails of Cold Steel I and trying to decide between Heist or some single player game, but haven't really seen any discusions about people loving/hating Heist like it was with the Harvest. Mostly only topics about bugs or how particular builds fail because of the alert.

So what do you think about Heist mechanics? Are they exciting? Worth checking out?

asking on the forums is asking for people with negative bias to blast away.

do you like path of exile? then try it out. if you don't like it then play something else.
i wouldn't take any persons opinion on the league over your own

Try watching someone stream the content and ask yourself if you think that would be fun to do some % slower and some % worse than they do.

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innervation wrote:

Try watching someone stream the content and ask yourself if you think that would be fun to do some % slower and some % worse than they do.

I watched a bit of Raiz and Zizaran, but all I see is them doing maps, but not Heist itself.

IMO league content is good and is worth trying. League mechanics have certain flaws here and there, but concept is fine. Could be easily improved for better.

Now, the bad news.
Game is plagued with bugs and code-related issues. It's safe to say I've never seen PoE in such a pathetic state, and I naively thought I've seen it all through all these years.
It appear that instead of fixing league mechanics, ggg are forced to fix the game instead.

tldr

League is worthy, but will be fully playable in a month or so.

That's good feedback from torturo.

I hated Harvest and left it in just over a week. Currently enjoying Heist as something different that's challenging but relatively accessible. Still early days though so the novelty might wear off quickly but initially I think there's enough to keep people engaged.

There are a lot of bugs, some build breaking and some just bloody annoying. The league lasts for 3 months so you could always play a different single player game then come back here for the last 6 weeks of the league by which stage the bugs should be ironed out and you'll enjoy it more.

Certainly it's a good sign that the we don't have a 30 page topic of why the league sucks just yet.

for now, i think it's not worth it at all because we all know this is the testing period, you will feel frustrated because of client clash and some random bullshit stuff.

but well, we also know the league will get better after a couple of weeks, so you can wait until then and try it out.

If you're not in a hurry give it a shot in two weeks, should feel way better to play.

I'll preface this by saying I'm pretty casual when it comes to PoE. I'll plan for meta builds but I tend to take my time getting there. I've never done "the endgame" (farthest I ever got was T3 maps back in Delirium, and I skipped Harvest) mostly out of burnout / lack of interest. I've also not done a Grand Heist yet, so I can't comment on those or how they might differ mechanically / thematically / etc. from normal ones.

All that being said, I'm hooked on Heist and very much think I will pursue endgame Grand Heists this time around. I just think it's that fun!

Thematically the "PoE meets Ocean's 11" description is quite accurate. You stumble across a secret society of professional burglars who show you the ropes - but as one of them says to you early on, don't get caught up in them as it's not their job to cut you free. The NPC's are each unique in personality, and their dialogues are mostly well written and well voiced (I will say though, they either need more 1-liner responses or else the frequency of which they say things needs to be toned down - hearing "they made a tactical error" every 15 seconds gets old fast).

Mechanically heists are basically maps that you can - and are actually encouraged to - farm while leveling, perhaps even as a means TO level. Rather than "pick a tier, alch, and go" however, there's a bit more to the decision-making process as you have to pay heist-specific currency just for the privilege of starting the map. Usually you get back at least 1.5x what you paid IF you're successful. The NPC partners you have to bring with you - for all their unique flair thematically - are admittedly quite similar to each other in practice. You hire the one that the heist requires, and then at least 2 or 3 times per heist you have them "do the thing" which mostly means waiting several seconds while trying to keep them from getting hit by enemy attacks.

While on the job, the Alert level basically serves as a second loot limiter (the first being your inventory space). Just (presumably) like a real thief, you have to be discreet and picky about what you pilfer and who you engage with. The right modifiers to the heist will drastically affect this though - there are mods that make it so certain enemies don't raise Alert when killed, there are mods that reduce the amount the Alert is raised just in general, and so on.

The story behind Heist League isn't too fleshed out for me so far (again, I'm only level 17) but it's definitely there in the background, waiting for me to unravel it. And all of this is to say nothing of Grand Heists, which I've heard are multi-wing, require more than one NPC partner, and reward you with the coveted "alt uniques/gems" and such.

Basically I thoroughly enjoy the setting and theme, and the game-play is refreshingly different from the standard "kill all in sight and loot all you can" PoE experience. I know it seems counter-intuitive to put what is essentially a NON-ARPG thing into an ARPG, but honestly I think leagues - which only last 3 months, and don't even have to be permanent additions to the game - are the perfect environment in which to experiment like this.

And to me, the experiment is a hit!

I hated harvest with a passion. The basic idea of gardening had no place in an ARPG. The Grove was so terribly implemented, however the actual deterministic crafting was good and hope it gets into core in another way than gardening.

Heist has been a huge let down so far for me. A lot of facepalm designs similar in spirit as the Grove. This forum says it all. Steam charts backs it up. It’s disappointing to see the general greatness that was GGG and PoE in 2018 decline ever since (though credit is due to the art and music/sound teams for constantly creating the best it has ever been).