I wish this game were good.

Look, I love the concept of POE. I've been playing it for the better part of a decade. I still remember when Diablo 3 was released and was gifted to me I had juuuuuuuust gotten into POE and ended up never even touching it for more than an hour before I went back to Wraeclast. There's a lot to it that makes it fantastic. The setting is well established and unique. The gameplay is at it's core extremely indulgent and enjoyable when tearing into mobs. The wide scope of builds. etc. But I've also been an on and off player of Candy Crush over the years. Simply put, it's not a game I could ever recommend to people.

From my own personal dealings there are two big obstacles that both prevent me from ever suggesting to others to play it for themselves and that which, in my eyes, limits it from being a great game. To give perspective I'm going to do the entirely unfair act of comparing it to one of the best games to come out in recent history - Dark Souls. At it's core Dark Souls is a deeply compelling game as your deaths and loses are almost always due to your own actions. It is known as a very punishing game series but at the same time, fair. Harsh, but fair. Risk and reward. Dark Souls and POE are entirely different genres but share that similarity in difficulty that makes a challenging game, but that is where they differ. Where as Dark Souls is challenging but rewarding I have very rarely ever felt POE was rewarding. If anything every time I visit in and see what's new there's less of whatever people previously enjoyed. Even my wife jokes about Chris doing his best to remove any fun from the game. Hard mobs? Here's a sprinkle of experience you'll soon lose and a bunch of crap items. Hard boss? Enjoy a one shot and further loot disappointment. Oh, you want to really have a chance at higher end game content? Say no more, instead of developing your own skills and strategy just follow what these people that grind all day build. Don't bother exploring your own strategies, all of the choices you're offered through combinations and experimentation are an illusion as you have no choice but to min-max.

Again, my first point here is that difficulty is fine but there needs to be a suitable and appropriate reward for it. You need that satisfaction and honestly without it, the game is just boring. Add on the bs I mentioned above and well, you just have layers of misery instead of what could be immense opportunity.

My second issue, and I'm sure more than a few will jump to defend GGG over is that one shots are far, far too common. Now I'll concede, I tend to build glass cannons, I enjoy seeing that number go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr up and up and up. Why? Because that shit is fun. It's a play style many people enjoy and finding a good balance is always the challenge but holy hell off screen shots, that one mob moving faster than the speed of light you can't block, the myriad of ways different bosses or mobs can lock you down and quickly end you. You can't even begin to call it a skill issue, it's a gear issue. It's a grinding issue. Maybe that's the game Chris wants. Fine, but I'll still bitch about it because I feel this game can be much better than that.

Let me give you a description of mine and pretty much any friend I know and a loop each of us has discussed being in. One I just ended again tonight. Months, maybe a year or so pass. We remember POE and think it'll be cool to visit again. See what's new, new skills, new areas to explore. Get mildly involved, happy to see my pet frog again. We screw around with some of our builds taking advantage of skill resets. Then, eventually, we start seeing if we can make any progress. A few hours in - death. Any exp gained is lost. Loot? come on lol. We might have a few more orbs but nothing meaningful. Fight some bosses? That could be fun. Oh, one shots. one shots out the ass. All that thought you put into retooling your build for nothing. Maybe we should just watch a youtube and follow the meta. That's a fun way to play a game, spend it all on youtube to figure out how to enjoy end game content instead of - you know, breaking into it for ourselves. Wait, why am I playing this again? If I want to play any content to progress it cant have any interesting map rolls but playing it safe is boring and the loot tables are already dogshit. Screw it, my interest is gone and so is my wallet. Maybe I'll try again in another few months.

Look, I'm not trying to convince you guys of anything I'm simply sharing mine and several other friend's experience with the game. This is a vent out of frustration for a game I feel is genuinely worth talking about because there is much that is right with it but something is also very wrong with it. It is a fantastic looking muscle car that's stuck with a 4 banger under the good instead of a V8. It has the promise and potentially to really be something great and fun but falls on it's face with the end game content and the core experience in terms of risk vs reward. In terms of being harsh, but fair.

Guess I'll check in again next year.

If you don't want to play meta builds, i suggest you check players like Jungroan. I promise you can do high end content with non meta builds too.

PoE has depth and does need any of the 'friction' to be relevant, unlike cheap mobile and f2p MMOs.

Decent feedback.

Honestly an evaluation of rewards would be nice.

D3 ros had been upgrades at least from rifting so it always had some small benefit to engage in the system.

Poe has random loot tables that universally don't feel great to me. Items don't drop in an usable state, unlike other arpgs. You basically need at least 50 life and resists to even consider an item in the endgame. And god help you if you need weapon damage.

In a way crucible feels like how they would implement gradual upgrades. But the system isn't rewarding unless you really, really no life it. Upgrading trees takes so long that you would have quit the league already. And they don't combine really.

Poe is better when you can id and use items. As much as I dislike the campaign for its backtracking, being able to use items off of the floor is very nice. The atlas should have that.

Crafting isn't creating an item, it's gambling. And it's bad gambling. For r ample I collect ilvl 83 gear with low roll es on it, just because that specific mod weight could have easily been something useful like +1 fire. Literally 186 v 200-250 weight. Honestly I craft with low ilvl bases to get better odds of +1. and that is stupid. The game punishes players for leveling up this way.

The whole reward structure is stupid and mobile game Fomo crap. Even has a name pad now for cosmetics... lol.

can ppl stop trying to make poe similar to other games. like poe stands in specific place for specific players and it did for over a decade.

I hear Diablo 4 has a lot going for it give it a shot!

Maybe you'll find success with your 3k hp melee builds there.

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anti4z500 wrote:

can ppl stop trying to make poe similar to other games. like poe stands in specific place for specific players and it did for over a decade.

POE changed it's target audience massively over the last decade, twice in fact.

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Baharoth15 wrote:

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anti4z500 wrote:

can ppl stop trying to make poe similar to other games. like poe stands in specific place for specific players and it did for over a decade.

POE changed it's target audience massively over the last decade, twice in fact.

how did they change that audience? and twice at that

If you read every 10th word it's almost a coherent and reasonable post. lol jk.

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anti4z500 wrote:

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Baharoth15 wrote:

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anti4z500 wrote:

can ppl stop trying to make poe similar to other games. like poe stands in specific place for specific players and it did for over a decade.

POE changed it's target audience massively over the last decade, twice in fact.

how did they change that audience? and twice at that

We went from slow and tough aka "hardcore" at release to a game where powercreep and speed got more and more out of control with each season until 3.13 where GGG decided to make a 180° and now it's back to the roots with ruthless as the "main game" while regular POE get's dragged along like an unwanted child for monetary reasons. POE2 will likely get us back to where we were at release of POE1 a decade ago in terms of speed.