Yes, and will probably pay for early access too. PoE1 is one of my favorite games. A few years ago, I considered PoE1 too intimidating and overwhelming and a game I'd never be able to get into...
Yes, and will probably pay for early access too. PoE1 is one of my favorite games.
A few years ago, I considered PoE1 too intimidating and overwhelming and a game I'd never be able to get into because of how complex it seemed, but now I'm glad I played anyway and got accustomed to its systems. A friend convinced me to dive in a bit more, and I'm glad they did.
I won't deny the systems are intimidating but I think people get intimidated by it too easily. No, it's not going to hold your hand (and yes I do personally think GGG could do more to help players learn these systems during their first playthrough), but these are all things i thought but then found out aren't so bad, so I wanted to speak to them here, in case it's putting off people from trying to get into the series:
"oh god way too many currencies" - don't think of them simply as currencies. they're more like items that serve very specific purposes. you can think of it as an expanded idea of items in something like Diablo (runes, charms, gems, scrolls etc) - it's just that, many of them are very specific in PoE to certain mechanics. the base set of currency items you deal with on a daily basis is a small subset of them, and they're very easy to understand. town portal scrolls, identify scrolls, items that increase a gear's rarity, items that reroll the mods on gear, items that add/roll sockets on gear, etc. a lot of the "currencies" are simply crafting tools or league-specific things.
"oh god, the skill tree is enormous" - yes, but, the skill tree accommodates all characters (vs the "every char has their own isolated tree" like a lot of RPGs), and different characters start in different places, and the actual "portion" of the tree you'll be interacting with is a lot smaller than you think. if you zoom out and see a huge tree of 1000 nodes and think its overwhelming, sure- but those aren't your choices. at the beginning of the game, often you just have two different branches you can start on. so your choices aren't 1000, but instead 2. yes it grows more complex over time, but that gives PoE builds unrivaled flexibility. you can eventually branch out your tree into other areas, depending on the type of build you're going for and your gear.
if you play through the campaign and just experiment, you can get a grasp on the mechanics and design philosophy of the game, and I think many, like me, will find out that it looks FAR more intimidating than it actually is. yes, it has plenty of complexity, but as you play you can grasp it all pretty easily, and information on the wiki/web is abundant when you do have questions.
As far as PoE2, it will grow likely to be just as complex, and yes it has large skill trees, but they have streamlined skill gems a bit while making them complex in new and cool ways. They've streamlined the second tree (atlas) for the endgame and made it a bit easier to get at a glance. And, most importantly, PoE2, especially if you get in early (either beta or final release), you'll be getting in at ground zero, instead of having years worth of updates and changes like PoE1 has had.
The complexity is worth it, not as intimidating as it seems, and gives the game plenty of flexibility that other games (that often very much streamline you into a boring few choices) don't. I understand that's still not for everyone, but I do think a lot of people should give PoE in general more of a chance than they do
I bounced off PoE a long time ago, but stayed curious about it and have recently been watching a streamer that's into it. I was planning on trying PoE 2 and you addressed a lot of my exact...
I bounced off PoE a long time ago, but stayed curious about it and have recently been watching a streamer that's into it. I was planning on trying PoE 2 and you addressed a lot of my exact concerns here. Thanks!
Thanks! I'm playing PoE 2 now and so far I would say it is streamlined a bit and there's a small bit of explanations to guide users but I will say it's not a lot and still makes some assumptions...
Thanks! I'm playing PoE 2 now and so far I would say it is streamlined a bit and there's a small bit of explanations to guide users but I will say it's not a lot and still makes some assumptions about what you know about their systems. Not super intimidating or anything but even as a seasoned player of PoE1 I made a mistake with one of my skills and didn't notice for a while. The thing is that you can experiment plenty and easily and that will help you figure things out.
In general things feel easier to grasp, IMO, because there are a lot less systems to immediately wrap your mind around. The campaign process is slow enough now that you aren't bombarded with constant new systems or currencies. Only a couple at a time. And they guide you more with skill choices now which will help new players. They've done a good job of adding some guidance while retaining the flexibility for savvy players. I think they're trying to strike a balance without too much handholding
I still think it's making a ton of assumptions about what the players know, so it's still certainly not the easiest ARPG to jump into, but after playing a bit, it's how I expected it would be- I maintain my recommendation that non-PoE players give it a try (not necessarily EA unless you're really wanting to, since it will eventually be free on release).
I will note the pacing and difficulty feels different, and even more difficult in 2, and it can feel rough including even early rare enemies and boss fights, but the dodge mechanics work well. So def prepare for it to feel a but tough (some bosses have taken me a few tries so far and some rare enemies have rough modifiers)
Thank you for the great write up! I'll get POE2 installed on my laptop once it's out and then give it a go again when I have some time. I think if my friend group had stuck with it I would have...
Thank you for the great write up! I'll get POE2 installed on my laptop once it's out and then give it a go again when I have some time.
I think if my friend group had stuck with it I would have explored more of PoE1.
I had actually considered installing Torchlight 2 again recently to scratch the ARPG itch until I saw this announcement
Absolutely I will. I played Path of Exile 1 for a while and I spent very little money for stash tabs. That transaction didn't feel predatory at all, since the enjoyment I got from the game greatly...
Absolutely I will. I played Path of Exile 1 for a while and I spent very little money for stash tabs. That transaction didn't feel predatory at all, since the enjoyment I got from the game greatly surpassed the little amount that I paid. And it took a very long time for me to even need to buy something. So I have good reason to at least try PoE2.
Even better, those premium stash tabs carry over to PoE2. GGG remains consistent with their vision of fair microtransactions. They have some absurdly priced (cosmetic only) MTX out there but if I...
Even better, those premium stash tabs carry over to PoE2.
GGG remains consistent with their vision of fair microtransactions. They have some absurdly priced (cosmetic only) MTX out there but if I recall correctly that was because the people asked for that.
I'm principally against the idea of microtransactions -I find they almost always steer design choices into perversely motivated dubious directions- but the value proposition of a free game with levelheaded monetization is clearly the best solution to the problem.
I've played PoE since it's beta 10ish years ago. I've never seen a game this old stick so solidly to their stated values. I was reassured about PoE2 when I noticed the MTX shop is barely even...
I've played PoE since it's beta 10ish years ago. I've never seen a game this old stick so solidly to their stated values. I was reassured about PoE2 when I noticed the MTX shop is barely even functional in game with some menus failing to load completely. Most companies would have made sure that was the first thing working. Not to mention the gameplay is just a blast and it's refreshing to not have a hold 1 button setup while playing acts.
Very much so. It's, by the own words, "one of the most iconic Path of Exile systems". It's really what sets apart from other ARPGs. Supposedly, it's a little simpler this time in that there...
Very much so. It's, by the own words, "one of the most iconic Path of Exile systems". It's really what sets apart from other ARPGs. Supposedly, it's a little simpler this time in that there "aren't any wrong choices". I'm don't think I totally believe that, but they have simplified a lot of mechanics, so there should be less moving parts to builds and so you should be less punished for making those wrong choices. But it should be a whole lot easier to respec this time since you can just use the gold that you'll be getting passively instead of needing specific currencies and respecing is also cheaper at lower levels.
That was what sold me in the original beta of the game and got me to convince some of my friends to play. What can I say, we love complexity in our RPGs.
That was what sold me in the original beta of the game and got me to convince some of my friends to play. What can I say, we love complexity in our RPGs.
I don't deny the appeal of what it can do, but when the game just presents it as is at level 2, and doesn't ease you into it whatsoever, it's definitely a "Quit" moment for myself and others. It's...
I don't deny the appeal of what it can do, but when the game just presents it as is at level 2, and doesn't ease you into it whatsoever, it's definitely a "Quit" moment for myself and others. It's unnecessarily intimidating and the only thought in my mind is "How long is it going to take me to understand this"
You don't have to understand the skill tree to enjoy the game. When you're first starting the game, you can beat the campaign by just picking nodes that are in your immediate vicinity that look...
You don't have to understand the skill tree to enjoy the game. When you're first starting the game, you can beat the campaign by just picking nodes that are in your immediate vicinity that look good.
If you don't know what looks good, then you can just wait on spending your skill points until you find a skill you enjoy using or encounter a problem that taking skill points can solve.
So if there was some kind of fog of war or something to cover up all but the first like 10 nodes or so, would that have changed your opinion? The tree is zoomed in by default and the user has to...
So if there was some kind of fog of war or something to cover up all but the first like 10 nodes or so, would that have changed your opinion? The tree is zoomed in by default and the user has to zoom out and scroll around to see the tree, does it change things if they just restricted you from doing that at first?
Yeah. But in practice, you're not interacting with that whole thing, you can just follow the most obvious path and it will be like a regular RPG. I'm sure there are skill trees out there that are...
Yeah. But in practice, you're not interacting with that whole thing, you can just follow the most obvious path and it will be like a regular RPG. I'm sure there are skill trees out there that are just as expansive, but they are split in multiple trees that don't show up all at once. I think it's a little stupid to show everything from level 1, it is needlessly intimidating.
This is actually the thing I'm looking forward to the most right now. Early access is guaranteed for myself and my friends who play it seeing how much we've spent on it since 2014. No other ARPG...
This is actually the thing I'm looking forward to the most right now. Early access is guaranteed for myself and my friends who play it seeing how much we've spent on it since 2014. No other ARPG has come close to the depth that PoE character building has and PoE2 with it's absolutely insane looking end game looks like it's going to continue being that.
PoE is my favorite game of all time. Just in steam, I have over 15,000 hours (though some percentage of that is afk time surely). Those hours don't represent the years I played before the steam...
PoE is my favorite game of all time. Just in steam, I have over 15,000 hours (though some percentage of that is afk time surely). Those hours don't represent the years I played before the steam client was a thing. I've played a lot of PoE.
I will be playing as much as is reasonable for me in my current state of life. It won't be like it was when I found this game over a decade ago, but it'll still be a fair bit.
PoE1 was my "no-life game" - I played a ton of it when I was in college and living alone after graduation. My playing dwindled over the years to the point where I'd play maybe 1 league every year...
PoE1 was my "no-life game" - I played a ton of it when I was in college and living alone after graduation. My playing dwindled over the years to the point where I'd play maybe 1 league every year or year-and-a-half, but I am absolutely coming back for PoE2. I've taken launch day off and I'm going to spend the entire day either playing PoE or reading Wind and Truth.
Yeah, don't count on being able to play. The sale numbers are apparently crazy already, more than on a regular league launch. I don't expect to be able to play during that weekend. Maybe you want...
I've taken launch day off and I'm going to spend the entire day either playing PoE....
Yeah, don't count on being able to play. The sale numbers are apparently crazy already, more than on a regular league launch. I don't expect to be able to play during that weekend. Maybe you want to save that vacation day....
... or reading Wind and Truth
Oooooooh shiiiiiit. I have thousands of hours on PoE but I'm also a huge Sanderson fan and I haven't made the connection until now that they're on the same day. I don't know what to do! :(
Very pumpped for it. I'm a casual fan of poe but it is still one of my most played games on steam and one of the games I've spent the most on. I first played free 2 play through the campaign and...
Very pumpped for it. I'm a casual fan of poe but it is still one of my most played games on steam and one of the games I've spent the most on. I first played free 2 play through the campaign and felt no remorse buying stash tabs. Since then, I've only participate in 4 or 5 leagues over the years but love the depth and design of poe. I love the company and their philosophy of development and sales,its why it was an easy choice for the 60 dollar supporter pack for poe 2.
My biggest gripe with poe was trading, and the currency exchange made it much easier to manage this last league. I wish they would go all the way with trading items too.
Poe 2 seems to have a philosophy of reducing friction with their systems and make it easier to expiriment with skills and combinations, no more penalty when you swap out gems to see if they are good or not, no need to trade for high level gems. More crafting currency, and more deterministic methods for decent gear (like last epoch which is good). I have a feeling they are only giving you the friction as you push for what would be the 30+ div items in poe 1 now and that seems great to me. I often wanted to engage with crafting and other systems in poe but the cost was too great for the rewards. I have hope in poe 2 when you hit endgame it's a trip to the currency tab and not the auction house.
I am certainly planning on playing, but I probably won't be playing the early access version of it. Path of Exile often has rocky league launches with bugs, server issues, poorly balanced enemies,...
I am certainly planning on playing, but I probably won't be playing the early access version of it. Path of Exile often has rocky league launches with bugs, server issues, poorly balanced enemies, and/or mechanics with too much unfun busywork. I can't imagine an early access will be too exciting when all these things may exist and not having immediately fixing these issues be the team's priority. Especially since much of the issues may exist over the holidays when they're all on vacation.
Once the full release comes around however, I'll be all over it. Path of Exile is one of my most played games on Steam and I've been eagerly awaiting Path of Exile 2 since it was announced 5 or so years back.
The past few leagues have been really good, stability-wise, imo! This is a lot of new systems, of course, so who knows. I'm definitely excited to give it a try, though!
The past few leagues have been really good, stability-wise, imo!
This is a lot of new systems, of course, so who knows. I'm definitely excited to give it a try, though!
Perhaps I am being a little pessimistic. But with it being almost an entirely new game and there being a massive influx of new players, I still feel like this is a perfect storm for a lot to go...
Perhaps I am being a little pessimistic. But with it being almost an entirely new game and there being a massive influx of new players, I still feel like this is a perfect storm for a lot to go wrong. I'd rather not risk a souring first experience when I have very little doubt that I will truly enjoy the game later.
Given the games history that's understandable. The past several leagues they've really started to get a grasp on stability at the very least though. Overturned mechanics are still inevitable, but...
Given the games history that's understandable. The past several leagues they've really started to get a grasp on stability at the very least though. Overturned mechanics are still inevitable, but we haven't had to worry about the servers randomly dying for a long time.
Anyone else played on the Early Access launch? After the hiccups the first couple of hours, it was super smooth, and I had a ton of fun! Looking forward to playing more!
Anyone else played on the Early Access launch? After the hiccups the first couple of hours, it was super smooth, and I had a ton of fun! Looking forward to playing more!
I am, after implying above I had no interest in it. Been playing Monk, and was surprised at vets of PoE 1 in the subreddit having so many issues apparently with melee. I've been schmovin. Just...
I am, after implying above I had no interest in it. Been playing Monk, and was surprised at vets of PoE 1 in the subreddit having so many issues apparently with melee. I've been schmovin. Just cleared the ritual area south of the Hunting Grounds, and I've maybe died 3 times the whole game so far.
From what I've gathered, based on their complaints, it seems like they're used to brain dead gameplay where everything just exploded when they touched it? Because again, I just haven't had issues. I feel...appropriately challenged is a good phrase.
A big issue poe1 vets will have is that they're used to plowing through mob packs, then turning around and doing 1-2 aoe attacks to destroy the entire pull. That doesn't work in poe2
A big issue poe1 vets will have is that they're used to plowing through mob packs, then turning around and doing 1-2 aoe attacks to destroy the entire pull. That doesn't work in poe2
Very early on too. People get filtered by the Devourer it seems, but I monk slapped that dude into Sunday without issue. This game is an ARPG unlike any other, the combat actually matters.
Very early on too. People get filtered by the Devourer it seems, but I monk slapped that dude into Sunday without issue.
This game is an ARPG unlike any other, the combat actually matters.
There are some actual-combat ARPGs creeping forward lately, like top-down shooters Combat Complex, Dreadhunter, CyberCorp, Greyskin, and Last Hellion. I've been wanting ARPGs to go a more gameplay...
This game is an ARPG unlike any other, the combat actually matters.
There are some actual-combat ARPGs creeping forward lately, like top-down shooters Combat Complex, Dreadhunter, CyberCorp, Greyskin, and Last Hellion.
I've been wanting ARPGs to go a more gameplay oriented direction for a long time now, but the player community is generally extremely hostile to it. I'm glad PoE2 is looking to go this way, but while I respect that on the surface, I'm very concerned at just how poor their action quality is right now. You can really tell GGG both has little experience with real action and continues to hold painfully arrogant views toward controllers and other styles of play, because as poorly as the game plays on kbm, it's way worse on controller and full of anti-play design choices and just aggressively dumbed down. I really hoped they were going to do better than they did for PoE1 given the talk, but clearly they're still stuck in their old mindsets and not really open to walking the walk or listening.
I'm playing on controller via Steam Input converting to the kbm WASD interface, which is at least less abjectly bad than their built-in controller play, but there are a lot of really unnecessary issues there from their terrible, almost mouse-obsessed kbm UI and various wrongheaded design points they're still stuck on, and there's still the basic issue that even the intended kbm play is noticeably weak/clunky, from the standpoint of good top-down/isometric action games.
Nope. I was trying to get my Steam account linked to my pathofexile.com account all day yesterday, so that my POE2 Early Access key will work on the POE2 Steam client, but no luck so far. Every...
Nope. I was trying to get my Steam account linked to my pathofexile.com account all day yesterday, so that my POE2 Early Access key will work on the POE2 Steam client, but no luck so far. Every time I link Steam to my POE account, it keeps saying it sent a verification email... but it didn't actually do so. The emails that were supposed to be sent like 12 hours ago finally did arrive a short while ago, but clicking on the verification links in them just goes to a "Resource not found" page. :(
So I have the POE2 EA key from my POE account page, which I already redeemed on Steam so I could download the POE2 client on Steam, and I can launch it... but since my accounts aren't linked yet it just keeps saying I need to get an EA key, which I already have but can't f'n use! Sigh.
I don't see a download link for a standalone client anywhere on the POE2 site. The only links I see are to the Steam and Epic store pages. And the download link on the POE site is just for the...
I don't see a download link for a standalone client anywhere on the POE2 site. The only links I see are to the Steam and Epic store pages.
Edit: Found it. There is actually no direct link to it on the POE2 main page anywhere that I could find, but by manually typing in https://pathofexile2.com/download you can see the link to standalone client installer. Gonna download it now and see if it'll work.
Edit2: LOL, and now a bunch more verification emails just showed up in my inbox... the most recent of which actually worked! So my Steam account is finally linked to my POE one, and the standalone client hopefully won't even be necessary now. It only took 12+ hours to get it done! What a shitshow. :/
Edit3: Yay, Steam client is finally letting me log in. It's already 4am here though, so well past the time when I should be in bed. :( Ah well, a few more hours of without sleep won't kill me. ;)
They are supposed to have fixed that. It has for me and I had the same issue. They mentioned that was their top priority. I see you fixed it already, so there was probably something queued up.
They are supposed to have fixed that. It has for me and I had the same issue. They mentioned that was their top priority.
I see you fixed it already, so there was probably something queued up.
The new Path of Exiles 2 launches into early access on December 6th. I've played a bit of the original Path of Exiles but never got too far into it and have been thinking about giving this a go...
The new Path of Exiles 2 launches into early access on December 6th.
I've played a bit of the original Path of Exiles but never got too far into it and have been thinking about giving this a go and doing a slow play through on a standard account. I haven't played an ARPG in a while and feel like it would be fun to have a "click things to death" game to play again. It being F2P also helps in that I'm more budget constrained these days regarding money I spend on my hobbies.
It's being optimized for the deck, so good news there! I don't know what the pause mode entails, but given that the game is an always online one, I'm guessing you can't pause it.
It's being optimized for the deck, so good news there! I don't know what the pause mode entails, but given that the game is an always online one, I'm guessing you can't pause it.
In Diablo 4 (and indeed, many other online games), when you put the Deck into sleep mode (and back), you're effectively disconnected, need to go back to the main menu, reload everything, etc. So...
In Diablo 4 (and indeed, many other online games), when you put the Deck into sleep mode (and back), you're effectively disconnected, need to go back to the main menu, reload everything, etc. So it deters you from playing quick sessions of a few minutes here and there, which is something I loved to do with Diablo 3 on Switch.
And IMO there are ways to handle this gracefully without needing to reload the entire game from scratch : Kick me from the group I'm in, teleport me into town even, but I don't want to navigate menus and watch a loading screen.
Eventually, yes. I've soured on early access recently (even if a game has a good EA period, I still usually get to the point where I don't want to play through it again at full release to get the...
Eventually, yes. I've soured on early access recently (even if a game has a good EA period, I still usually get to the point where I don't want to play through it again at full release to get the rest of the content), so I'll probably wait for the full release, but I know a lot of people that are hyped for EA.
Absolutely. Friends keep pestering me to play PoE1, but what held me back was no WASD controls. I'd try it for a while every time, but get so frustrated at the game that I just had to quit. Now...
Absolutely. Friends keep pestering me to play PoE1, but what held me back was no WASD controls. I'd try it for a while every time, but get so frustrated at the game that I just had to quit.
Now that they've added that in I'm stoked to try it out properly.
Note that you aren't really paying for prerelease itself. You have to buy a certain amount of premium currency via the early access supporter pack. So you get full value in currency, and early...
I won't pay for pre-release, however.
Note that you aren't really paying for prerelease itself. You have to buy a certain amount of premium currency via the early access supporter pack. So you get full value in currency, and early access comes along with that. You pay nothing extra for early access, and things you spend your premium currency on (like much-needed stash space) apply to both PoE2 and PoE1, so even if you feel you're not getting that value out of PoE2's early access sometime, you have all of PoE1 to fall back on.
That detail changed the "pay for early access" proposition a fair bit for me.
Yes, and will probably pay for early access too. PoE1 is one of my favorite games.
A few years ago, I considered PoE1 too intimidating and overwhelming and a game I'd never be able to get into because of how complex it seemed, but now I'm glad I played anyway and got accustomed to its systems. A friend convinced me to dive in a bit more, and I'm glad they did.
I won't deny the systems are intimidating but I think people get intimidated by it too easily. No, it's not going to hold your hand (and yes I do personally think GGG could do more to help players learn these systems during their first playthrough), but these are all things i thought but then found out aren't so bad, so I wanted to speak to them here, in case it's putting off people from trying to get into the series:
"oh god way too many currencies" - don't think of them simply as currencies. they're more like items that serve very specific purposes. you can think of it as an expanded idea of items in something like Diablo (runes, charms, gems, scrolls etc) - it's just that, many of them are very specific in PoE to certain mechanics. the base set of currency items you deal with on a daily basis is a small subset of them, and they're very easy to understand. town portal scrolls, identify scrolls, items that increase a gear's rarity, items that reroll the mods on gear, items that add/roll sockets on gear, etc. a lot of the "currencies" are simply crafting tools or league-specific things.
"oh god, the skill tree is enormous" - yes, but, the skill tree accommodates all characters (vs the "every char has their own isolated tree" like a lot of RPGs), and different characters start in different places, and the actual "portion" of the tree you'll be interacting with is a lot smaller than you think. if you zoom out and see a huge tree of 1000 nodes and think its overwhelming, sure- but those aren't your choices. at the beginning of the game, often you just have two different branches you can start on. so your choices aren't 1000, but instead 2. yes it grows more complex over time, but that gives PoE builds unrivaled flexibility. you can eventually branch out your tree into other areas, depending on the type of build you're going for and your gear.
if you play through the campaign and just experiment, you can get a grasp on the mechanics and design philosophy of the game, and I think many, like me, will find out that it looks FAR more intimidating than it actually is. yes, it has plenty of complexity, but as you play you can grasp it all pretty easily, and information on the wiki/web is abundant when you do have questions.
As far as PoE2, it will grow likely to be just as complex, and yes it has large skill trees, but they have streamlined skill gems a bit while making them complex in new and cool ways. They've streamlined the second tree (atlas) for the endgame and made it a bit easier to get at a glance. And, most importantly, PoE2, especially if you get in early (either beta or final release), you'll be getting in at ground zero, instead of having years worth of updates and changes like PoE1 has had.
The complexity is worth it, not as intimidating as it seems, and gives the game plenty of flexibility that other games (that often very much streamline you into a boring few choices) don't. I understand that's still not for everyone, but I do think a lot of people should give PoE in general more of a chance than they do
I bounced off PoE a long time ago, but stayed curious about it and have recently been watching a streamer that's into it. I was planning on trying PoE 2 and you addressed a lot of my exact concerns here. Thanks!
Thanks! I'm playing PoE 2 now and so far I would say it is streamlined a bit and there's a small bit of explanations to guide users but I will say it's not a lot and still makes some assumptions about what you know about their systems. Not super intimidating or anything but even as a seasoned player of PoE1 I made a mistake with one of my skills and didn't notice for a while. The thing is that you can experiment plenty and easily and that will help you figure things out.
In general things feel easier to grasp, IMO, because there are a lot less systems to immediately wrap your mind around. The campaign process is slow enough now that you aren't bombarded with constant new systems or currencies. Only a couple at a time. And they guide you more with skill choices now which will help new players. They've done a good job of adding some guidance while retaining the flexibility for savvy players. I think they're trying to strike a balance without too much handholding
I still think it's making a ton of assumptions about what the players know, so it's still certainly not the easiest ARPG to jump into, but after playing a bit, it's how I expected it would be- I maintain my recommendation that non-PoE players give it a try (not necessarily EA unless you're really wanting to, since it will eventually be free on release).
I will note the pacing and difficulty feels different, and even more difficult in 2, and it can feel rough including even early rare enemies and boss fights, but the dodge mechanics work well. So def prepare for it to feel a but tough (some bosses have taken me a few tries so far and some rare enemies have rough modifiers)
Thank you for the great write up! I'll get POE2 installed on my laptop once it's out and then give it a go again when I have some time.
I think if my friend group had stuck with it I would have explored more of PoE1.
I had actually considered installing Torchlight 2 again recently to scratch the ARPG itch until I saw this announcement
Absolutely I will. I played Path of Exile 1 for a while and I spent very little money for stash tabs. That transaction didn't feel predatory at all, since the enjoyment I got from the game greatly surpassed the little amount that I paid. And it took a very long time for me to even need to buy something. So I have good reason to at least try PoE2.
Even better, those premium stash tabs carry over to PoE2.
GGG remains consistent with their vision of fair microtransactions. They have some absurdly priced (cosmetic only) MTX out there but if I recall correctly that was because the people asked for that.
I'm principally against the idea of microtransactions -I find they almost always steer design choices into perversely motivated dubious directions- but the value proposition of a free game with levelheaded monetization is clearly the best solution to the problem.
I've played PoE since it's beta 10ish years ago. I've never seen a game this old stick so solidly to their stated values. I was reassured about PoE2 when I noticed the MTX shop is barely even functional in game with some menus failing to load completely. Most companies would have made sure that was the first thing working. Not to mention the gameplay is just a blast and it's refreshing to not have a hold 1 button setup while playing acts.
Is PoE2 still gonna have that awful giant skill map that is an instant "Log off and never touch it" moment for me?
Very much so. It's, by the own words, "one of the most iconic Path of Exile systems". It's really what sets apart from other ARPGs. Supposedly, it's a little simpler this time in that there "aren't any wrong choices". I'm don't think I totally believe that, but they have simplified a lot of mechanics, so there should be less moving parts to builds and so you should be less punished for making those wrong choices. But it should be a whole lot easier to respec this time since you can just use the gold that you'll be getting passively instead of needing specific currencies and respecing is also cheaper at lower levels.
Never... touch it.....?!? But the huge crazy skill map was one of my favorite things about PoE! And I only played it for like... 200 hours!
That was what sold me in the original beta of the game and got me to convince some of my friends to play. What can I say, we love complexity in our RPGs.
I don't deny the appeal of what it can do, but when the game just presents it as is at level 2, and doesn't ease you into it whatsoever, it's definitely a "Quit" moment for myself and others. It's unnecessarily intimidating and the only thought in my mind is "How long is it going to take me to understand this"
You don't have to understand the skill tree to enjoy the game. When you're first starting the game, you can beat the campaign by just picking nodes that are in your immediate vicinity that look good.
If you don't know what looks good, then you can just wait on spending your skill points until you find a skill you enjoy using or encounter a problem that taking skill points can solve.
So if there was some kind of fog of war or something to cover up all but the first like 10 nodes or so, would that have changed your opinion? The tree is zoomed in by default and the user has to zoom out and scroll around to see the tree, does it change things if they just restricted you from doing that at first?
It's one of the selling points of PoE1, so I'd assume so.
Yeah. But in practice, you're not interacting with that whole thing, you can just follow the most obvious path and it will be like a regular RPG. I'm sure there are skill trees out there that are just as expansive, but they are split in multiple trees that don't show up all at once. I think it's a little stupid to show everything from level 1, it is needlessly intimidating.
From what I have seen, yes. POE 2 is building off of the original, so they are still including the large talent tree.
This is actually the thing I'm looking forward to the most right now. Early access is guaranteed for myself and my friends who play it seeing how much we've spent on it since 2014. No other ARPG has come close to the depth that PoE character building has and PoE2 with it's absolutely insane looking end game looks like it's going to continue being that.
PoE is my favorite game of all time. Just in steam, I have over 15,000 hours (though some percentage of that is afk time surely). Those hours don't represent the years I played before the steam client was a thing. I've played a lot of PoE.
I will be playing as much as is reasonable for me in my current state of life. It won't be like it was when I found this game over a decade ago, but it'll still be a fair bit.
PoE1 was my "no-life game" - I played a ton of it when I was in college and living alone after graduation. My playing dwindled over the years to the point where I'd play maybe 1 league every year or year-and-a-half, but I am absolutely coming back for PoE2. I've taken launch day off and I'm going to spend the entire day either playing PoE or reading Wind and Truth.
Yeah, don't count on being able to play. The sale numbers are apparently crazy already, more than on a regular league launch. I don't expect to be able to play during that weekend. Maybe you want to save that vacation day....
Oooooooh shiiiiiit. I have thousands of hours on PoE but I'm also a huge Sanderson fan and I haven't made the connection until now that they're on the same day. I don't know what to do! :(
Very pumpped for it. I'm a casual fan of poe but it is still one of my most played games on steam and one of the games I've spent the most on. I first played free 2 play through the campaign and felt no remorse buying stash tabs. Since then, I've only participate in 4 or 5 leagues over the years but love the depth and design of poe. I love the company and their philosophy of development and sales,its why it was an easy choice for the 60 dollar supporter pack for poe 2.
My biggest gripe with poe was trading, and the currency exchange made it much easier to manage this last league. I wish they would go all the way with trading items too.
Poe 2 seems to have a philosophy of reducing friction with their systems and make it easier to expiriment with skills and combinations, no more penalty when you swap out gems to see if they are good or not, no need to trade for high level gems. More crafting currency, and more deterministic methods for decent gear (like last epoch which is good). I have a feeling they are only giving you the friction as you push for what would be the 30+ div items in poe 1 now and that seems great to me. I often wanted to engage with crafting and other systems in poe but the cost was too great for the rewards. I have hope in poe 2 when you hit endgame it's a trip to the currency tab and not the auction house.
I am certainly planning on playing, but I probably won't be playing the early access version of it. Path of Exile often has rocky league launches with bugs, server issues, poorly balanced enemies, and/or mechanics with too much unfun busywork. I can't imagine an early access will be too exciting when all these things may exist and not having immediately fixing these issues be the team's priority. Especially since much of the issues may exist over the holidays when they're all on vacation.
Once the full release comes around however, I'll be all over it. Path of Exile is one of my most played games on Steam and I've been eagerly awaiting Path of Exile 2 since it was announced 5 or so years back.
The past few leagues have been really good, stability-wise, imo!
This is a lot of new systems, of course, so who knows. I'm definitely excited to give it a try, though!
Perhaps I am being a little pessimistic. But with it being almost an entirely new game and there being a massive influx of new players, I still feel like this is a perfect storm for a lot to go wrong. I'd rather not risk a souring first experience when I have very little doubt that I will truly enjoy the game later.
Given the games history that's understandable. The past several leagues they've really started to get a grasp on stability at the very least though. Overturned mechanics are still inevitable, but we haven't had to worry about the servers randomly dying for a long time.
Anyone else played on the Early Access launch? After the hiccups the first couple of hours, it was super smooth, and I had a ton of fun! Looking forward to playing more!
I am, after implying above I had no interest in it. Been playing Monk, and was surprised at vets of PoE 1 in the subreddit having so many issues apparently with melee. I've been schmovin. Just cleared the ritual area south of the Hunting Grounds, and I've maybe died 3 times the whole game so far.
From what I've gathered, based on their complaints, it seems like they're used to brain dead gameplay where everything just exploded when they touched it? Because again, I just haven't had issues. I feel...appropriately challenged is a good phrase.
A big issue poe1 vets will have is that they're used to plowing through mob packs, then turning around and doing 1-2 aoe attacks to destroy the entire pull. That doesn't work in poe2
Very early on too. People get filtered by the Devourer it seems, but I monk slapped that dude into Sunday without issue.
This game is an ARPG unlike any other, the combat actually matters.
There are some actual-combat ARPGs creeping forward lately, like top-down shooters Combat Complex, Dreadhunter, CyberCorp, Greyskin, and Last Hellion.
I've been wanting ARPGs to go a more gameplay oriented direction for a long time now, but the player community is generally extremely hostile to it. I'm glad PoE2 is looking to go this way, but while I respect that on the surface, I'm very concerned at just how poor their action quality is right now. You can really tell GGG both has little experience with real action and continues to hold painfully arrogant views toward controllers and other styles of play, because as poorly as the game plays on kbm, it's way worse on controller and full of anti-play design choices and just aggressively dumbed down. I really hoped they were going to do better than they did for PoE1 given the talk, but clearly they're still stuck in their old mindsets and not really open to walking the walk or listening.
I'm playing on controller via Steam Input converting to the kbm WASD interface, which is at least less abjectly bad than their built-in controller play, but there are a lot of really unnecessary issues there from their terrible, almost mouse-obsessed kbm UI and various wrongheaded design points they're still stuck on, and there's still the basic issue that even the intended kbm play is noticeably weak/clunky, from the standpoint of good top-down/isometric action games.
Nope. I was trying to get my Steam account linked to my pathofexile.com account all day yesterday, so that my POE2 Early Access key will work on the POE2 Steam client, but no luck so far. Every time I link Steam to my POE account, it keeps saying it sent a verification email... but it didn't actually do so. The emails that were supposed to be sent like 12 hours ago finally did arrive a short while ago, but clicking on the verification links in them just goes to a "Resource not found" page. :(
So I have the POE2 EA key from my POE account page, which I already redeemed on Steam so I could download the POE2 client on Steam, and I can launch it... but since my accounts aren't linked yet it just keeps saying I need to get an EA key, which I already have but can't f'n use! Sigh.
As a temporary workaround, you can use the standalone client! Off the poe2 website... Assuming it loads, I know last night it was off for a while
I don't see a download link for a standalone client anywhere on the POE2 site. The only links I see are to the Steam and Epic store pages.
And the download link on the POE site is just for the original game's standalone client.
Edit: Found it. There is actually no direct link to it on the POE2 main page anywhere that I could find, but by manually typing in https://pathofexile2.com/download you can see the link to standalone client installer. Gonna download it now and see if it'll work.
Edit2: LOL, and now a bunch more verification emails just showed up in my inbox... the most recent of which actually worked! So my Steam account is finally linked to my POE one, and the standalone client hopefully won't even be necessary now. It only took 12+ hours to get it done! What a shitshow. :/
Edit3: Yay, Steam client is finally letting me log in. It's already 4am here though, so well past the time when I should be in bed. :( Ah well, a few more hours of without sleep won't kill me. ;)
They had a big night, haha
They are supposed to have fixed that. It has for me and I had the same issue. They mentioned that was their top priority.
I see you fixed it already, so there was probably something queued up.
The new Path of Exiles 2 launches into early access on December 6th.
I've played a bit of the original Path of Exiles but never got too far into it and have been thinking about giving this a go and doing a slow play through on a standard account. I haven't played an ARPG in a while and feel like it would be fun to have a "click things to death" game to play again. It being F2P also helps in that I'm more budget constrained these days regarding money I spend on my hobbies.
If it runs decently on the Steam Deck and if it can handle being put on sleep (something that Diablo 4 can't do), yeah probably.
It's being optimized for the deck, so good news there! I don't know what the pause mode entails, but given that the game is an always online one, I'm guessing you can't pause it.
You can, if you are playing alone or if everyone in your party pauses.
In Diablo 4 (and indeed, many other online games), when you put the Deck into sleep mode (and back), you're effectively disconnected, need to go back to the main menu, reload everything, etc. So it deters you from playing quick sessions of a few minutes here and there, which is something I loved to do with Diablo 3 on Switch.
And IMO there are ways to handle this gracefully without needing to reload the entire game from scratch : Kick me from the group I'm in, teleport me into town even, but I don't want to navigate menus and watch a loading screen.
Eventually, yes. I've soured on early access recently (even if a game has a good EA period, I still usually get to the point where I don't want to play through it again at full release to get the rest of the content), so I'll probably wait for the full release, but I know a lot of people that are hyped for EA.
Absolutely. Friends keep pestering me to play PoE1, but what held me back was no WASD controls. I'd try it for a while every time, but get so frustrated at the game that I just had to quit.
Now that they've added that in I'm stoked to try it out properly.
When it actually releases, I will.
I won't pay for pre-release, however.
Note that you aren't really paying for prerelease itself. You have to buy a certain amount of premium currency via the early access supporter pack. So you get full value in currency, and early access comes along with that. You pay nothing extra for early access, and things you spend your premium currency on (like much-needed stash space) apply to both PoE2 and PoE1, so even if you feel you're not getting that value out of PoE2's early access sometime, you have all of PoE1 to fall back on.
That detail changed the "pay for early access" proposition a fair bit for me.