POE: The Best of Games and the Worst of Games

I like POE quite a bit, am a supporter and have logged quite a few hours in the game.

That said, it is one of the most enigmatic of titles I have ever played, being truly innovative and original in many areas while also at the same time having some systems and features that are among the worst I have experienced in a game of this type.

On the hand, you have the skill system and that transcendent skill tree. Just a picture of that skill tree was enough to get me interested in the game, and I remember spending long periods just looking at the closed beta lottery random picks hoping my name was picked.

The skill system and skill system are easily the best of any game I have played. Super deep and complex it allows for tremendous variations and interesting builds, and the layered interaction with skill and support gems is brilliant. I have no interest in copying other peoples builds, and have started many characters getting better and better each time at making a viable character. I play only hardcore, and the difficulty is well balanced

The flask system is inspired and adds depth to an otherwise throwaway mechanic. POE is truly a visionary leader in these two areas, and they are so good it allows you for quite a long while to ignore the really bad parts.

And the bad parts are as bad as the good parts are brilliant.

The "crafting" system is a complete abomination. Sorry but it is true. It adds literally nothing to the game other than annoyance and frustration and serves no strategic or skill value, rather simply a nested completely random slog through tons of orbs just to get features of an item to progress in the game. There may be underlying "economy" and grinding rationales behind the orb system but the reality is that is not fun on any level and really brings the enjoyment level of the game down significantly. There should be enough barriers in build, gear, monster AI, stat stacking etc...to make progression difficult and thought provoking not to need a gambling system on steroids to grind everything to a screeching halt. I am not convinced it does anything to make people play more, but it certainly will make people leave. It should be completely scrapped and overhauled to be honest. It is abysmal.

Then there is loot. POE does not really have loot, it has core items and orbs. Period. All you get as you play the game is an endless sea of white gear, occasional blues rares and uniques with random sockets that invariably need to be modified using incredibly low drop rate orbs and the terrible crafting system. There is very very rare joy in finding anything in POE. In fact drops are so bad, that it is actually more efficient to sit in town and "buy" items with the crafting orbs, because you are never going to find what you need, and the orbs you have because of the completely random nature are completely useless for trying to actually craft something. For a game that originally promised no currency and a barter system, POE is the most currency-concentric game I have ever played.

POE just needs more fun stuff to drop. Think about the fact that D2 had gens jewels, charms, set items, runes, class specific items, true crafted items and you realize that in D2 you always were finding something interesting even if it didn't make your character better, in POE you very rarely find anything that is interesting. Even the uniques are extremely limited.

Still, it is a very good game. And GGG are awesome in their bi-weekly content updates and additions. To be really sucessfull long term, I really think GGG needs to look at completely overhauling the orb and loot system because as it is, unless the skill system is a big enough hook (like it is for me) the other elements are bad enough to scare people away

Pretty much hit the nail on the head imo...

---------------------------The "crafting" system is a complete abomination. Sorry but it is true. It adds literally nothing to the game other than annoyance and frustration and serves no strategic or skill value, rather simply a nested completely random slog through tons of orbs just to get features of an item to progress in the game. There may be underlying "economy" and grinding rationales behind the orb system but the reality is that is not fun on any level and really brings the enjoyment level of the game down significantly. There should be enough barriers in build, gear, monster AI, stat stacking etc...to make progression difficult and thought provoking not to need a gambling system on steroids to grind everything to a screeching halt. I am not convinced it does anything to make people play more, but it certainly will make people leave. It should be completely scrapped and overhauled to be honest. It is abysmal.----------------------

+1

Well said, agree with it all.

+1 from me.

I made a post sort of similar about this, but I'm a little worried right now for GGG because sooner or later players are going to be tired of this stuff. The fun skills/builds get nerfed to the ground, desync is still a MAJOR issue and will play a big part in the downfall of this game if some of these big issues don't get resolved soon, or at LEAST known to the community they are working on it.

Like I said in my thread, there will still be the diehard kids that will still play and always think the game's better than anything else because simply they are d3/blizzard haters. And the ones who donated large sums of money here will probably stick around too.

Not saying I think that GGG will fail and lose the playerbase, nor do I want them to, I'm just saying right now the way things look it is a strong possibility they will lose a big chunk at least. I know if desync isn't touched up at least enough for me to not have to worry about it and really have to spam /oos (which is broken and doesn't work BTW) then I'll definitely be spending the majority of my time at the PC playing RoS. I'll be playing it when it comes out anyway..but it'll probably be for good unless some changes around here happen!

I've said this many times. The free to play aspect of this game is awesome, but I would LOVE and much rather to pay $60 for this game and have stable servers/connections without worrying about desync and crashing issues all the damn time. That's just a dream though, who knows what's going to happen...we'll find out I guess..

You critically striked the nail on its head
PoE bills itself as a hardcore game (making players accountable for their gameplay actions) but RNG takes it all away.

Also, betting 1 wisdom scroll this threads getting moved

+1 Very well written

As someone who just leveled a character to 65 over the last month at 2 hours a day to be an RF build without a respec (only to figure out I don't quite have enough regen to run RF @ 86% fire res) I have to wholeheartedly agree with this post.



What I just did is what's left for me to do. That or get on my 72 and run piety for hours everyday and hope for a rare that sells well that I can then turn around and spend even more hours flipping in trade chat to get to a point where I can buy the super-expensive-"build enabling"-uniques, only to go back to farming piety or dominus or "end game maps" (which have their own problems).



I like this game, I like the variety and skill tree aspect, but if you're not lucky or spend 6+hours a day trading you're kind of in a mediocrity state constantly. Which sucks. There's a soft-cap to pass that would take an average player a year+ to cross over. Trading requires you find the right person at the right time to get anything out of, shits not easy.

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POE just needs more fun stuff to drop.

+1.

And +1 for crappy "crafting" system, which isnt really crafting. Well i sometimes use jewellers, fusings or chromatics during leveling but everything higher than that (chaos and up) is just "currency" to buy stuff - if you're a non-streamer of course.

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I really think GGG needs to look at completely overhauling the orb and loot system

+1 indeed and very good analysis

Edit: Im going to post something when I think it through more. I agree that the fun is in obtaining better loot, etc. I just feel like there should be a time when you can get to that end result, without a year of several-hour-per-day playing.

I think there is a balance that could be found, that keeps the core principles intact but also perhaps rewards players who play a whole lot.

As far as crafting, I really like the whole idea of the system. I just think the hardcore meter needs to be turned down a notch or two.