First and last season of PoE, honest feedback:

I can't say I had a lot of hope for what is essentially "Freeablo" but I gave it an honest go. I wish I had researched more about the game before spending $130 on it but that's my own fault. At first, I loved the game(spent 100 hours playing through the campaign) but more and more I'm finding myself saying aloud, "God I hate this game."

1.) The XP loss is a slap in the face. I have never played a game that does this. I've read past threads where people have all these excuses for why it's good but it's terrible. It does not make me want to keep playing. It does not make me want to give you more money.

2.) The build system in this game is utterly boring. I made the mistake of buying the Sawblade skill effect bundle thinking it would be a cool theme to use. Through the campaign, I had a great time. Every skill served a purpose, the 4 sawblade skills, my Vaal skeletons, my 2 movement abilities. It all synergized nicely and was fun to play. But that's not how this game is "supposed" to be played. It's a straight hack and slash masquerading itself as an ARPG. Beef up one ability and zoom through maps at super-speed killing everything, with most of the rest of your skill slots being auras and defenses. It's mind-numbingly boring. Half the skills and ascendancies aren't even viable for endgame. PoB says my stats are better than the highest DPS Tricksters on poe.ninja but that still doesn't hold a candle to whatever the current meta is. Why have so many skills in the game if most of them suck and builds are centered around using 1 offensive ability? This is a hack and slash game, not an ARPG.

3.) Speaking of endgame, some of these fights and invitations are absolutely ridiculous. It all revolves around killing the boss in 5 seconds before the arena gets filled with garbage that kills you. If you die, half the time you port in right on top of a bunch of degen. Whoever thought of the Elderslayers invitation is a complete sadist. Then the Sirius fight where I literally cannot see on my screen where the opening to the rock circle is and have to guess. The Maven trash with a memory game. ARPGs are supposed to be about having a build with multiple abilities that work together. This game revolves around using 1 skill that does 50M DPS and killing everything in 2 seconds. Fail an invitation? Well now you gotta go kill those 4 bosses again so you can try it again. This game prides itself on wasting your time while pretending that these activities are "content".

4.) The trading is the most archaic thing I have ever seen. No, Chris, you're not giving us "player interaction". We don't chat each other up during a trade lol. At least 95% of the trades I've been in have had no words exchanged. Copy the whisper from the trade site, paste it into chat, they invite you, you go to their hideout, you trade, you leave party. There is no interaction, it's just a waste of time. The other 5%? Either a quick haggle message or a simply "ty". That's it! Every single other game I have ever played with trading among players has some sort of automated process and none of those economies are "ruined" by it.

5.) The monetization in this game is so bad you'd think it was created by the Candy Crush devs. There is no way to justify the cost of any of that and there is nothing anybody can say or do to change my mind. If I want the Incinerator armor I have to pay $480 and get a bunch of stuff I don't want? Seriously?

This game has so much that I like that could make it great but between the "vision" for the game, the boring hack and slash playstyle and the elitist community, I'm just left with a foul taste in my mouth and more buyer's remorse than I've ever had.

Troll me if you want, I have no intention of checking replies to this. And I don't expect anybody at GGG to take any of these comments seriously because I'm not a whale.

1. im lvl100
2. build diversity is good. veterans can find their way to make many different builds work. its very unkind to beginners however.
3. i melt all invitations within seconds. and that's not even as fast as it can go. no i don't die.
4. trade is trash. agreed
5. idk what ur talking about

dont get me wrong. im not a ggg fan, they've done many atrocities for the past year to this game when it was a-ok but the things you call issues usually are non-issues for others.

1. 50-50 but leaning towards disagree. xp penalty is harsh. getting to 100 is an accomplishment. if the 10% xp penalty was not in game, everyone would reach 100 easily. on one hand its good for player power, on another, it robs the achievement of everyone who got to 100. this game has had the penalty since it's early days.

2. agreed. build diversity is a farce. some skills are mechanically superior than others. some multiply damage much more easily than others. the underlying issue is players are forced to optimize as the "end-endgame" can only be done with very optimized builds

3. agreed. you need to melt the invitations or you wont clear em. players who are strong enough to melt invitations need to have a very strong build.

4. agreed x 10.

5. disagree. besides stashes/character slots, everything else is non crucial.
they're expensive yes, but the temp league supporter packs have a lot of value.

The death penalty is about the only thing currently encouraging player to at least pretend to look at their defence or play properly, I realise its frustrating but if you find it frustrating thats because you are feeling exactly what its intended to make you feel.

I suspect the part they can't get around is all the players that don't do something about that :p

Yeaaaa this is a HARDCORE GAME made for PRO GAMER AUDIENCE. If you can't walk the walk, why talk the talk? Trading is great, I can make, like, easily, 5 ex a day just by listing whateves trash I get playing my lmb build. What, if you aren't bothered to make a good build, why blame it on those who actually have positive chaos res.

It's super easy to not die, you just evaluate content and make right decissions. What, you expected it to be an easy clicker game? Oh no, this is a game for only cream of the crop playas. That's right! A game for PRO GAMERS.

There are already so many casuals that they are ruining the game for those who had the courage to have a vision of PoE. PoE trade is about turbo capitalism, not socialism. It's litrlly raining drops left and right you use your filter just don't die, you can kill Sirus with default attack so ez. I also go to gym regulary.

The only thing the exp penalty is REALLY doing is stopping players from trying new, potentially deadly content.

Every sane mind will postpone that till/when/if they hit the next level, doing boring, repetitive content over and over, until they finally level up and don't feel bad for making a mistake and dying in the said "potentially deadly content"

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vmt80 wrote:

There are already so many casuals that they are ruining the game for those who had the courage to have a vision of PoE.

Yeah totally because adding "hard mode" is supporting casuals.. Or putting a % of red map grind behind uber elder.

Casuals arent doing this, the influencers of PoE are, the "pro" players are doing this because they all suckkkkkkk and are playing in easy-mode instead of Hardcore like they should be.

if games too hard why not just play white maps?

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LiMA6 wrote:

if games too hard why not just play white maps?

I've hit 96 in white maps and made so many exalts people doing "farming methods" were like WTF.

its all about clear speed.

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SilentSymphony wrote:

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LiMA6 wrote:

if games too hard why not just play white maps?

I've hit 96 in white maps and made so many exalts people doing "farming methods" were like WTF.

its all about clear speed.

shocking... not sure how i got my gear to be worth 2 mirrors or so