when is next league out? surely not in early april?

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Gescom wrote:

Much like how PoE navigated Diablo 3, I think PoE will take a massive drop in players in the middle of this year,

Why would you think so? Diablo3 was such a disappointment, I'm certainly not going to take a risk to waste my time with D4. Staying with POE.

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Vennto wrote:

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Diablo 3 is as flat as a game can be in regards to knowledge required. Even a person with half a brain cell can figure out after getting a full set that you might want to play around the ability that is buffed by a quadrillion more multiplier on that set, and that unique items that enhance that dmg further or favourably alter the playstyle around that specific ability should be added. After that, the other skills and runechoices only have a very minor impact. While people also critique the diminishing build diversity in PoE, it is pretty obvious that we have WAY more choices here than in D3.

PoE on the other hand is quite the opposite. Minor changes have a HUGE impact. Add 1k live and a few % max resistance, increase your block by another 15%, add one tiny modifier that enables burst-phases or get rid of elemental ailments... All of those very few examples can bring a build from barely viable to "actually feels good" at a certain point.

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I think D4 has learned from PoE, though. The skills are notably more complex than they were in D3, and indeed D2: it's not just "number get bigger" increases, there are a lot of nodes which - well,they were probably par with notables or even minor keystones, because they actually alter how some aspect of a skill or character worked.

I was as casual in the beta weekends as I am in PoE, so I didn't explore everything by any means, and I was trying to keep the surprise element open, but there were a lot of different variants: it looked like we'd have 6-7 different accessible skills for each quick access button.

My barb for example had a bash, which I'd boosted for resource generation; an AoE slam selected for crit damage; a Leap which I'd not buffed much, a ballte prep cry which I'd not changed much, and was on the way to more.
Now each of those was one pick from ~5 (plus a couple of utility boosts) and it looked like any combo(s) would be viable. And, from my experimentation, balanced - moving from one to another (respecs were free early, then cheap) was different game feel but similar effective damage.
Similarly for the rogue, there was a lot of variety which I never even scratched, but it was all simple to try out and balanced well, and didn't seem to have levelling skills which you ditch ASAP. Maybe there will be must-level metas, but maybe not, I think it'll come more to preference.

As for building around legendaries, or sets - well, no doubt, though I didn't get so far. But is that different from having to structure your entire build around one or two uniques which a must-have for a build? And at least you can generally drop them, rather than having to trade for must-have Ashes/Omniscience/specific Watcher's Eye variants.

Don't get me wrong, I'll probably keep playing PoE, especially if I find an enjoyable build which doesn't demand trading or massive research to function. But D4 looks much, much smoother to pick up and play.
To make a comparison, D4'd be a shop-bought Honda Goldwing which just runs, where PoE is a cool customised Triumph which leaks oil like crazy and demands ten hours maintenance for every hour on the road.