As I've gotten older I have found myself drawn less to grindathon type games and procedural generation content. POE certainly feels like a spiritual successor to Diablo 2 as the game is marketed as and revered for by fans. Which is both a good and bad thing. It certainly takes ideas from D2 and astronomically expands upon them which some may find appealing. I certainly don't. My time with POE was very fun and cathartic with occasional spikes of frustration until I finally cleared the 10 acts and entered the real meat and potatoes of the gameplay loop. The end game. Here I was punched in the throat with a rude awakening of how much grinding I still needed to do in order to properly play the end game... mapping.
Much like in Diablo 2, as you advance into the game, you receive a penalty onto your resistances. And as you go deeper, enemy elemental damage sky rockets. Forcing you to juggle between offense and defense. Or die in one hit from a boss. On paper, this is good design. The main issue with this approach is how loot is completely randomized. Which effectively forces you to spend an outrageous amount of time grinding easy content so you can make the "hard" content easy.
In addition, this game has an extreme amount of systems in play. You have the leveling system which alone is insanely complicated and requiring a ton of research or just straight guides that more dedicated fans have taken the time to make. Convoluted doesn't imply smart. It just implies complicated. While variety at this scale may sound like a good thing (being able to incrementally increase resistance over damage for example), often times when a character build system is this insanely complicated, there is almost always a most efficient way to build your character. You don't really have the options to experiment despite how expansive the character build system is. This in part is due to how allocating stats works in the first place. You are committed to a sphere node when you place it. Though there are limited ways you can undo one node at a time. Quest rewards and loot-able items allow you to undo one point at a time. While that may sound forgiving, there are very limited points you get from quests and the item you can loot is completely RNG based. So you are very committed to your build and you can't really completely change your playstyle if you hit a late game wall without a sizable time investment (grinding for enough items to undo your nodes in a way that lets you change your build).
That said, most nodes you get are kind of general stats anyways. Like +strength, dex or intelligence. Or various affixes or defensive options. There are abilities that will change your gameplay style, but these are typically locked behind Labyrinthine challenges (not a bad thing). The real takeaway here is that the nodes do feel needlessly complicated and overwhelming. Which effectively makes them serve as a gatekeeper for would be new players. The sheer density of the leveling system is what caused me to quit when I first tried this game 3-4 years ago. I never made it past the first act once I realized I had to do hours of research just to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do for leveling...
This time around I just spent time reviewing a guide (took me about 2 hours or so before I felt comfortable starting). Then I didn't really deviate from the guide. To be fair this was my choice, but also to be fair I still had moments of struggling even following a well-researched and theory crafted build... Which means I probably would have struggled MORE if I hadn't bothered with a guide. That's a problem since the real meat and potatoes of the game takes about 40hours or so to even get to. Which is a substantial time investment and can be pretty demoralizing to get there and decide you don't like your build or it's too weak for the late game (which is 100% a possibility). I picked a melee build (Boneshatter Jug) which apparently is extremely weak compared to any range build. Certainly doesn't help when you need to hug a boss to hurt them, while they can one shot you... That alone makes ranged significantly more powerful since you can theoretically avoid damage and slowly whittle down a much stronger enemy.
Another thing the game doesn't really do a good job handling is explaining, in game, the various mechanics they have added over time. They will often just give you giant text/dialogue dumps. Given how most people just skip these in ARPGs, it's not the best way to describe important information to players. Not to mention that it's quite overwhelming between the menagerie, the mine, the hideout, the Necropolis, Heists and Mapping... Each has it's own mechanics and things to learn. Each effectively acts as a way to grind gear but it seems like Mapping is the only activity worth investing in once you hit the late game... albeit there is an acute jump in gear requirements once you hit that point.
Due to the RNG nature and brutal difficulty spikes you will likely need to engage with the trading system in the game. Especially since there are some big items that will be needed for your build to effectively come online. One issue with this system is that your ability to effectively trade is gatekeeped behind a paywall. You need a premium tab in order to have items appear in the POE trading website. Without this tab, you can still contact and trade with people, just can't post items without some third party application. This premium tab is like a 20 dollar investment (costs less but the game uses it's own currency so you're forced to buy more than you need...). Given that the game is free to play, this isn't that big of a deal. The game does do a lot to encourage you to pay money though... significantly limiting your ability to store and organize items which is exactly what this type of game always boils down to. Loot and resource management.
In addition, you will look like a straight clown leveling up unless you spend money on cosmetics. I looked like a goofy Leatherface for most of my playtime. Running around in basically an apron. Again though, this doesn't give you an advantage beyond sex appeal in the game. Not a big deal but of course this is all constructed as an artificial way for them to generate money since these are all digital assets. The only microtransaction gatekeeping that bothers me is blocking you from actively trading your own items from their website unless you pay money. This is far from the worst microtransactions, especially since the game is free to start playing. Given you roughly 40 hours of game play before you would even start considering the micro-transactions (since you will likely need to trade for specific items that bring your build online).
Overall, this game is a clear passion project. It requires a significant investment from you in order to enjoy it. You will need to do extensive research before you can effectively play the game. Then grind for roughly 40-60 hours before you can effectively start playing the real meat and potatoes of the game. The end game.
What I always find silly about this design is how the ultimate end goal is to trivialize the hard content. Which always feels like a bit of a contradiction to me. Shouldn't the goal of getting the best loot be to have a satisfying challenge to test it against? Instead, when your gear is the best, everything just explodes into a rainbow giblets around you, while you click on the stuff that interests you (such as Chaos Orbs). Making it little more than colorful farmville. Although, harvesting the crops results in a rainbow corpse explosion. There is fun to be had here, but I had my fill once I hit that first wall of end game entry. I got what the game was about and it's not really my jam. Worth checking out though.
