Does the game lend itself to short play sessions?

I am waiting for the new gaming PC I ordered since my last one died recently, and I was curious for input from other players playing Diablo 3, PoE, and other RPG's currently. Does PoE lend itself to enjoyable short term (e.g. 30 minutes) play sessions or is it much for satisfying to have several hours to devote at a time? I am trying to figure out which game (esp D3 vs PoE) will be better for playing with my currently hectic schedule.

It's very easy for a play session to go for longer if you're not careful, but you can certainly progress a bit in half-hour increments for most of the game (waypoint to waypoint).

Bosses take a bit longer, though.

Okay I'll just give you a few tips, assuming you only have 30 minutes to play each session.

There are a few things you can progress in:

1. Waypoints
This might take longer on your first playthrough, because you don't really know where they are, but as soon as you have one you have progressed through the map and can always go back there. If you really want a waypoint, I suggest rushing through the map, and not killing every mob on the way, 30 minutes is enough for that.

2. Level
If you press tab, in the upper right corner you can see which level the map is designated for, or which level the mobs have. Depending on your build, I would try to be in that range, so if you have rushed through a few maps before, just dedicate 30 minutes to killing mobs so you catch up a bit. You'll notice that you can get EXP pretty fast, and it doesn't feel like you wasted your time. (Example: I have a Level 45 witch with /played of 20 hours, and much of that time was just chilling around in town or thinking about my build, so you don't have to be afraid of grinding too much)
This also leads us to number 3:

3. Items
Just taking your 30 minutes once to clear as much of a map as possible, you can get orbs and rare items whichh make it easier to progress.

4. Quests, Bosses, and Dungeons
Quests: Try to 1. get the waypoint nearest to the quest, in your second difficulty you should already know where those are. Next playing session, try to reach the level/equip to be able to beat the boss for the quest. It's also important to note that you don't HAVE to do all the quests. For example, Fetid Pool gives you 2 respec points, but it takes longer than 30 minutes, so you can easily skip it and come back at a higher level for those 2 points.
Bosses: Some of them take a long time to defeat, especially if you don't know what you are doing yet. There are many tips on this forum how to counter bosses, like Cold-Resistance for Merveil, try to read up on those if you have problems with defeating one. You can also try to find a group that opens you a waypoint to the boss, so you don't have to go through the dungeon before the encounter - and groups make it easier and faster to kill the boss, but this also often results in less loot.
Dungeons: With the right build you can easily rush through those, go for good HP/Armor or Energy Shield, because if you are too squishy you'll have a hard time with ranged mobs if you want to rush. Also, again, try to stay on a good level for them.

5. Builds
This is a point thats probably different for everyone, but I sometimes enjoy just spending 30 minutes in the simulator and creating the 'perfect' build, if you have a good build this also makes it easier to decide where you want to put your passive points, so that might be a sense of progression too.


Hope this helps you a bit to decide, and if anyone has anything to add, feel free to do so.

Im in a similar situation and from my very short experience with D3 (haveit installed and borrow friend's account) i would say it is much easier to rush through poe, get kills and loot then log out.

i have not played this game yet but i have played plenty of D3 but with the changes coming to D3 i will stop playing that , im not bashing diablo but after playing it for hours on end and nothing to show for and nothing but negative feed back on their forums i would suggest invest time in Poe . i know i will as soon as possible

I'm fairly adept at finding safe places in an instance to go afk, but monsters have been known to find people from what seems like an entire zone away.

As long as you have a portal handy, you really can start and stop whenever. I consider PoE a very long term game with the potential for very short increments. It is definitely my insta-fix for killing things, something I can let go of when real life calls.