Is Path of Exile fun? Yes, But.

Video format: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZmDCuxJnOI

Transcript for those that would prefer to read than to watch:

Is Path of Exile fun? Yes, but.

That is how I answer when my friends ask me that question. They've played PoE in the past and enjoyed it, but quit for various reasons. Every league, they see me playing and ask the same question, and I have to give them the same answer.

“Yes, but trade still sucks and it's still the only real way to progress your gear.”

“Yes, but Archnemesis has increased the difficulty, frustration, and burden of knowledge even further.”

“Yes, but party play is still 'play in coordinated groups or don't bother.'”

“Yes, but sockets and links are still a frustrating barrier.”

And the list goes on. But I keep reassuring them that GGG is still improving the game, still working to make things better. And I keep playing, despite agreeing with all of their complaints.

And yet I find it harder and harder to justify logging in, playing for too many hours, and praying for the one lucky drop that will allow me to progress my character. I keep trying to make builds work despite the massive checklist they all need to fill just to not feel like trash to play. Just to not get instantly deleted by a random mob in a non-juiced map—and still have that happen anyway.

I have played this game for ten years. More, even; I got my beta email on January 24th, 2012. I have two thousand hours on the Steam client, and at least double that on the standalone. I am the core audience, the hardcore, dedicated player that GGG originally attracted.

And I'm tired. This game has grown so much in ten years, and yet GGG hasn't learned a thing. The same issues from years ago still plague the game, but every improvement has been reverted.

Fossils used to let players randomly craft always useful, and potentially incredible, gear pieces at a very low cost to entry. Then GGG moved the fossil modifiers to Influenced bases, raising the cost out of reach of early endgame players, the ones that benefited the most from their inclusion.

Multimodding used to let mid-level players have achievable endgame crafting goals, allowing them to incrementally craft powerful, but nowhere near top-tier, gear at their own pace, providing projects that could last an entire league and felt amazing to complete. Then GGG nerfed multimod, because those items were apparently “too powerful” (imagine, a 500 DPS two-hander was too powerful).

Harvest allowed players unprecedented freedom in creating builds, smoothing the levelling process, and letting people that never touched crafting have a taste of what the game actually had to offer. It had far and away the most pleasant gearing experience of any league in the game's history, and kept players like me engaged from day one to the very last. Then GGG decided the top end players were making items too easily (as if they weren't going to make those items anyway), and so no one was allowed to have fun crafting but them.

And then GGG decided that socket colors were either power or filler crafts, which boggles my mind.

Yes, but trade still sucks and it's still the only real way to progress.

Yes, but frustration and burden of knowledge are at an all-time high.

Yes, but party play is not even worth it at the top end, let alone for anyone else.

Yes, but sockets and links are still frustrating, and not getting any better.

I want to play with my friends, but I can hardly justify playing myself anymore. I can't tell them the game is getting better. The Atlas has improved, but it's still a long, frustrating grind—and now it's even more frustrating to progress, especially with gear requirements being so strict now. Gotta have 80% allres, including Chaos. Gotta have 100% spell suppression, even 80% isn't enough. Gotta have block, armor, evasion, immunity to everything. Miss one of those? You're going to die, a lot, and most of the time you won't even know what did the deed.

I have so many builds I want to try, but every time I think about making a second character, I just get depressed. I want to do more content, but progressing my gear any further is equally depressing. I look at Craftofexile and see that gear with even two mods that I want would take hundreds of thousands of chaos. Just two mods, let alone a full upgrade. I don't want to trade for everything. Spending hours on the trade site sifting through items is not fun. Killing monsters is fun. Fighting bosses is fun. But that's not Path of Exile. You don't do those things in PoE. You play the stock market or the slot machine.

Yes, but maybe you hit the jackpot, like I did, and sell a double-Hatred Watcher's Eye and fund your dream build (partially, at least).

Or maybe you don't, and you never get any further.

Am I having fun? Yes, but I don't think it'll last. I don't think it'll get any better. And it took so many hours to get to this point.

Am I enjoying Path of Exile?

Yes, but I no longer have faith that GGG will address the issues.

Yes, but I'm telling my friends not to bother.

Yes, but I know it's only because I hit the jackpot, playing a build I lucked into enjoying with gear I lucked into being able to afford. To buy. Not to find.

Yes, but I'm looking at Last Epoch for the first time. And looking at Diablo 3 with nostalgic eyes.

Yes, but I really wish I could just say “yes.”

You spent a lot of time typing all of this out, and I want to say that I feel you. It is a weird feeling to describe. You enjoy the game but with a lot of caveats.

There's a lot to enjoy in this game. It has gotten me to sink a few hundred hours over the course of the last few leagues, and it is a short list of games that I dedicate that much time to. And yet...

I have one friend who still plays PoE. We chat about the game, and that's fun. But he quit last league after the first few days, and even this league he isn't very enthusiastic about it. I tried to get some of my other friends interested but they couldn't get past the massive hurdle of the terrible new player experience.

And so it feels like I'm playing a solo game with a weird trade system.

"

Stealthrider wrote:

“Yes, but trade still sucks and it's still the only real way to progress your gear.”

This this THIS.
Automatic trading would make this game explode in popularity.