How to enjoy and not endure Path of Exile in 10 steps

This is posted in "General Discussion" but watch it magically be moved to "Gameplay Discussion" or "feedback" to be buried liked most people's meaningful posts.


1. Expect to lag or desync at any point in time!! There are certain skills to avoid using which is commonly known to cause it (i.e. Cyclone, Whirling Blades, Flicker Strike, Ice Shot & Summon Skeletons) Avoiding those is not a guranteed method not to ever desync just a reduced chance. **** Dont waste time with Hardcore due to this being a key issue in addition to difficulty with reflect mod monsters and 1 shot killer bosses. ****


2. Dont follow other peopple's "guides" for char builds. (Build "balances" aka Nerfs every 1 to 2 patchs based on w/e popular is streamed.) Create your own and have fun. Successful builds are becoming extremely slim at this point and require specific skills instead of the freedom of making any of the tons of skills actually viable.

3. Level chars from levels 50 min to 70 max. (Any higher is pretty much experimenting or self punishing unless you have tons of time with no job or life) After finishing merciless Dominus just to receive a map as a "reward", it doesnt seem worth the extra effort to continue.

4. Do not expect to find godly rare items nor craft any, using common orbs. (Let's not kid ourselves by wasting currency) Same can be said finding for godly uniques.

5. Any orbs found should be saved for trades for w/e upgrade you might need at a low price, like common uniques or a decent weapon, armor etc..( Trading is EXTREMELY time consuming with having to flip items, argue / debate currency prices before eventuallly bartering actual items themselves.

6. Avoid red areas (corrupted) and rogue exiles. (Vastly challenging fights that will not be worth the time it takes to complete it i.e. crappy items dropped magics or rares and little to no exponetial experience gained). Only engage in that if you want to test yourself. Perfect example of this would be the corrupted boss named Inti, a giant bird that is super hard & fast and lets not forget that boss who uses some ice skill when up close and literally 1 shot kills you from 1-2 screens away!

7. Avoid serious consideration of attempting the collection of all 4 map fragments to fight Queen Atziri. (Dusk and dawn are somewhat common but Midnight and noon can be chalked up as a loss) Aside from managing to gather all 4, the difficulty goes beyond skills and more into requiring expensive gears and be 1 or 2 specific builds to successfully complete it.


8. If a rogue exile is fought and beaten, do not expect them to drop whatever godly gear they used to kick your ass. Instead, look forward to useless blues (magic items) and yellows (rare items). Hence #6's point. Also pointless due to them now having the ability to spam Vaal Skills.

9. Do not waste time "farming" because you'll find yourself wasting hundreds of hours with basically nothing to show for it except tons of common skill gems that are either not worth having due to nerfs or not being strong enough to actually be useful at high levels.

10. HAVE FUN!!! Dont invest time stressing trying to figure out how to overcome the game's faults such as drop rates, difficulty, merry go round trading orb value fluxuations and build nefings. All of those issues have been and are constantly addressed by actual players nearly everyday and does not appear to be likely changed anytime soon.



At this point in the game, it's become blantely obvious that the game is drastically changed in it's gameplay that was initially presented as fun and wonderful in closed / open beta. Now it's more like a constant chore and more work trying to continue playing as it once was instead of accepting the hard reality that the game now is. Dont really give a rat's ass about PvP nor group parties, so it's a shame that the majority of changes are to reflect those.

The only ones that seem to still enjoy this game to the fullest with it's current state are the 2% of guys that complain how things are "OP" (Over Powered) but insist on having the best gears and follow specific builds. It's sad that the game has resulted in people having to avoid 15% of new content added, 30% of current content being increased in difficulty / brick walled which leaves players with the remaining 55% having to either be skipped out completely or avoided due to never being able to acquire high end gears without spending days flipping and trading or resulting to 3rd party websites.

so to have fun you must avoid a lot of content and features?? okay thx bye!

Erm. What? I enjoy the game and i do all that shit.

I guess some people want to make this game into something IT Isn't. O.o

Point 3 is just Silly. If you want good Items you should try for higher levels. And lvl 50 Is super fast to get to, even 70. O.o

Very true OP. Very true. I'd go even further. The only way to enjoy this game, is to not play. Much like heroin, but without the happy feelings. :)

Some points are true and some others are wrong I'd say.

11) unless you feel risky that day - expect that your trading partner is there to scam you. it is not true in 5% of the cases, but in 95% it is. people are making money in this game by scamming noobs and selling them their junk for solid orbs. dont be that noob. use poe.xyz (also prone to manipulation but still better).

12) if on normal HDD (not SSD nor ramdisc) - folder ShaderCache is to be emptied one a week or so. this seriously speed up start time and load time. contrary to name 'cache'.. also find your log file and consider removing it. all chat messages are there and mine is around 200mb in size now (it seems that using poison arrow for some reason DRASTICALLY increases logging)

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sidtherat wrote:

11) unless you feel risky that day - expect that your trading partner is there to scam you. it is not true in 5% of the cases, but in 95% it is. people are making money in this game by scamming noobs and selling them their junk for solid orbs. dont be that noob. use poe.xyz (also prone to manipulation but still better).

12) if on normal HDD (not SSD nor ramdisc) - folder ShaderCache is to be emptied one a week or so. this seriously speed up start time and load time. contrary to name 'cache'.. also find your log file and consider removing it. all chat messages are there and mine is around 200mb in size now (it seems that using poison arrow for some reason DRASTICALLY increases logging)

Hey, thanks for the tip! #12 is something I've never known about and I've been here since closed beta! I wonder if that's the reason for game crashs, sudden game closings and super long start up time.

Great, and appropriately named thread, OP. It's true, to really enjoy the game, you have to minimize your interaction with the faults you're expected to endure. I'd add, if you want to enjoy the loot hunt, don't play much past 40, as the number of layers of RNG are still low enough to give you a somewhat reasonable chance of finding an upgrade. At 40, your avg item will be lvl 20 appropriate. At lvl 70, your avg item will be level 35 appropriate.

Aaaand the thread is in feedback, where threads go to die :)
Great work everyone.

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Hyskoa wrote:

Aaaand the thread is in feedback, where threads go to die :)
Great work everyone.

LOL, that was the OP's most clueless point. I know I'm not the only Beta veteran who avoids the random flack in General Discussion by sticking close to the Feedback and Gameplay Discussion forums. (Not to mention a few lesser known hang-outs that I'm not going to mention.)