first impression

I started about a week before the end of the 3.19 season and then heavily played season 3.20 with over 1k hours. I am probably in the 1% of new player game time.

I have enjoyed POE quite a bit and I want to point that out early, you don't play a game for 1k hours that you don't like. Below are some things I didn't like or had a bad time with.

Too much time is spent outside of POE to learn how to play POE, it's not very intuitive so you will have to watch a lot of videos from previous patches to figure things out, things that maybe got changed in a patch since the video. I don't have a solution for this but I do see it as a barrier to entry for a lot of players.

The trade site works great for the first few weeks of the season then it becomes a hassle to get people to respond to sell items. I can see why, I too don't answer people's buy orders when I am actually playing the game. I guess you want the choice of trade or play though which would be fine if there weren't so many trade bots.

Obviously, if you want to play POE at any sort of high level you will need awakened POE to price check items and I find it to be a great tool but I also found some issues. Lots of these trade bot accounts have underpriced items that they have zero intention of selling but they list it at a low price so when you check the price you under list it because oh hey there are 20 others at the same price even though they NEVER sell the item. An auction house would fix this along with many other issues.

POE insta deaths are very much a thing and I don't think I would have as big of a problem with it if I knew what killed me, since I don't know what killed me I can't really change anything to prevent it.


Crafting is usually one of my favorite things in games, not in POE though. Luckily there is a good tool to help craft, Craft of Exile. However, this is a 3rd party website that again takes me away from actually playing the game. I found craft of exile to be quite useful in the fact that everything I wanted to craft I found to be too much of a hassle so I just bought off the market instead of making an item myself. I have little interest in trying to learn how to craft in this game that's been out 10+ years with my knowledge starting from 0.

I found late-game trade to be heavily influenced by TFT. TFT is an outside discord that controls the market in every way possible. If you want scarabs or deli orbs then good luck unless you want to buy using the TFT discord (and I don't).

I also watched the forbidden flame jewel that utilized focal point for about 2 weeks waiting for a price I found reasonable but that price never came. Instead what I witnessed was blatant price manipulation on a scale I found laughable. I won't elaborate further except to say pull it up in trade and watch it for a week if you don't believe me.

I know I listed only negative things here but I wanted to point out again that I obviously heavily enjoyed the game or I wouldn't have put in over 1k hours. I really enjoyed sanctum and a lot of the early league when there was more players and item availability. I could buy things I want from TFT discord but I really have no interest in doing so. I could even afford the focal point forbidden flame gem at the manipulated bot price but I also will not.

I didn't reach my goal of beating uber bosses but I have little interest in playing anymore currently due to some of the issues I listed. I am sure I could have done things better or faster but after 1000 hours I still have no idea what I am doing in this game. Yes I have currency and some good gear but the person helping me quit after about 2 weeks of the league and I have no one to explain to me 10 years of content and patches. If I can't learn the game in 1000 hours while I am currently not working then I have little motivation to play next season when I will be back to work off medical leave.

I don't know if the community at large feels the same way I do but this is just my 2 cents as a new player.

It's honestly kind of amazing how much you learned about PoE in such a short amount of time. I know, I know, you played for over 1K hours which is a crazy amount, but for just signing up in November of last year it's really amazing.

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Too much time is spent outside of POE to learn how to play POE, it's not very intuitive so you will have to watch a lot of videos from previous patches to figure things out, things that maybe got changed in a patch since the video. I don't have a solution for this but I do see it as a barrier to entry for a lot of players.

Yeah, this is a hard one. I think it would be difficult to introduce tutorials in game that don't somewhat have to water down the game mechanics, and for the most part I feel PoE does appeal to the kind of person that goes out and looks stuff up as opposed to just having it served to them. I will agree I too see it as a barrier of entry, but that can be both a good and bad thing depending how you look at it.

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An auction house would fix this along with many other issues.

I don't want an auction house, but would love a "pop-up" while you are in maps asking if you want to trade this item for the amount you asked for on the trade site. I kind of think there should be a threshold and this only works for lower value items, but there are many times I would love to give someone that 5c item for their build, but I don't want to break up my mapping to do that.

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if I knew what killed me

People have wanted this for a long time. My answer that follows is kinda a joke, and kinda not. Most of the time it can be a simple as "I stopped moving". That's not really a great answer, but it's often right.

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I have little interest in trying to learn how to craft in this game that's been out 10+ years with my knowledge starting from 0.

Crafting is pretty intense in this game. I don't think you need to worry about doing super high end stuff, unless that's what your goal is. Just learn some of the basics and each league you normally branch out just a little more.

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blatant price manipulation

Yeah this is hard. What I normally do is after I see what they are doing I block them on the trade site so I no longer see them. This is not really a good solution, but it's all I got.

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If I can't learn the game in 1000 hours while I am currently not working then I have little motivation to play next season when I will be back to work off medical leave.

No need to learn everything at once, just have fun with it. Some leagues I play delve to 1,000+ depth and then I sometimes don't even really touch it for two leagues. Aside from minion builds and 40/40 I try and focus new stuff each league and it makes everything feel fresh and exciting.

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I don't know if the community at large feels the same way I do but this is just my 2 cents as a new player.

You hit on a lot of important topics, and I think you'll fit right in this community. I've been playing since 2016 and outside of a few specific areas, I'm barely scratching the surface for PoE knowledge. You can view that as a negative, but I think it's cool I have something I've spent so much time with and I get to always learn new things about it even after all these years.

Thank you. Ya I really tried hard, obviously a lot of game time. I probably would play more too if it wasn't such a pain in the butt to get stuff to juice maps. I just want to kill mobs but without juicing maps they feel so empty.

Ya I guess I am part of the community now, I'll keep checking back to see if they fix any of the stuff I want. I am just 1 person though so I don't matter but just wanted to list a new player's perspective.

my troll sense is tingling...or perhaps a second account trying to make a point. November 29th to now was less than 90 days. At 1000 hours that puts you at more than 10 hours a day on average. uh....i don't think so, unless you are some kind of uber popular streamer. Even while not working, that is some absolutely ridiculous time...

Also, the way you talk is not like someone who has only been playing since December (november 29th = basically december). Unless you have friends that have been playing for YEARS, you wouldn't know about half the 3rd party tools you mention in your post and you certainly wouldn't have gone from lvl 80ish bad characters to multiple lvl 100s in 2 months. Nor would you have the items you do. Unless of course you were engaging in things I won't mention.

I'm not sure what is gained out of doing something like this, except to say the something really really stinks.

Your troll tingles are inaccurate then. Why would I troll? You are telling me I played this before? Have GGG inspect my chat logs to the german girl that was helping me till she quit, and have them show my log of how many questions I asked and what type of stuff I asked. You need to take that tin foil hat off man I have nothing to gain or prove from lying. I have played d1,2,3 and many other games. Also, it was like 1200 hours or so on steam so just a bit over 1k.

Edit: to add that I play on steam and have had the same steam account for at least 10 years so... I just don't know what to tell you except your opinion isn't accurate or relevant.