Path of Exile

I’m not one for mmos however I can't deny that this one is a ton of fun even if it’s only in small dosages, there's a ton to do both in single player and multiplayer which puts other games like this to shame.

The only issue here is that it does wear out its fun pretty quick as the quests are fairly repetitive here, basically track down an item for an npc whilst travelling through the vast areas filled with enemies that will swarm you. The saving grave is that you can collect items to not only fight off all of the enemies but also experiment with ways on comparing them as there's a ton of spells and weapons to combine with you hero who you can choose the different classes of. I wish I was more into this sort of gameplay, but I do find myself getting bored after a few hours of play, however I do find myself returning to it so maybe it's just a me thing.

I'm not stranger to the ARPG genre and have put more hours into the Diablo franchise than I care to admit, and as of late, Last Epoch. Path of Exile felt like the spiritual successor to Diablo II in a variety of ways, but somehow managed to blow me out of the water by not only succeeding my expectations, but constantly one-upping me every time I thought I had everything figured out. This game opens up so much over the course of one campaign clear that it's insane to think that anyone could compare it to Diablo anymore. It's in its own lane, and it's stealing the whole god damn show.

Before the good, lets dissect the bad.
-It's downright horrible, next to unenjoyable, to play this game without following a build guide for your character, and having a decent idea of what to allocate your points into on your skill tree, as well as what gems to go with.
-Usually you end up sticking with whatever build you've entered the endgame with because it's costly to switch or morph your character into something else due to currency restrictions, especially if it's your first character, so plan accordingly to something for the long term.
-Because of content bloat over the years and just the sheer amount of loot/gear/currency you'll be using, premium tab upgrades are almost a requirement to be able to enjoy the game at its fullest. On top of that specific premium tabs like the Map tab, the Currency tab, no longer feel like QoLs, but literal necessities for a smooth gameplay experience. This will inevitably mean dipping into your wallet.
-Trade system is pretty straight forward, but just unnecessarily tedious. Using their website instead of having some in-game way of price-listing and price-checking is something I hope they look into in the future, because the current standard of price-checking involves an unapproved third-party overlay (though not bannable from what I've seen), and a tab open to their trade section on the official site. Also a premium tab, so real-money is required.
-Some content is obsolete and downright ignored due to newer more shinier content which is kind of sad. I'm hoping GGG will evaluate previous league mechanics that went core and rework/revitalise them in some way to make them relevant in current-day PoE.
-Melee builds are kind of a meme. Boneshatter for the win, though.

And now, the good.
-The crafting system is so unique, dynamic, and fun to use that you can honestly spend hours upon hours figuring out how you're going to chance your incredible base item into the most disgusting powerful rare item with the perfect rolls, by using a sequence of currency usage to do so. A crafting guide video is usually all you need to get up and running with figuring out how to use the game's currencies to craft the gear of your dreams, or at least attempt to do so. It's part of the fun of PoE, and something I recommend every newcomer get up to speed on, instead of just opting to buy gear with currency all the time.
-There is an abundant amount of backed up content from over the years of releasing new league mechanics every quarter-period. The most recent, ToTA, while not everyone's cup of tea, proves to show that GGG is only scratching the surface of what they can incorporate into their ARPG while still keeping the focus towards gear and currency, as well as a rising challenge that scales based on your success. And that's just describing the Ancestor league. Relatively speaking, with the Atlas mapping system too, it's hard to be bored in the end-game PoE has lined up for you.
-The community is kind of wholesome. Very often do I see item-linkages in the chat of people showing the before and afters of their craft attempts and people losing their minds over specific divination card drops that get linked or somebody shows a headhunter they just got and everybody goes bananas. Love that hype-man energy the community has.
-Resistances matter. A lot. Going into Act 10 of the campaign without fully stocked up resistances is like signing your own death warrant. Make. Sure. You. Craft. And. Prioritise. Your. Resistances. It's essential to your progression. Seriously speaking, I find it super satisfying that there is a core focus on defense and life in this game and that no character, not even the Juggernaut Marauder, can face-tank for long, if at all. There's no easy cruise through this game and if you want to survive long and still dish out the damage, you need to pay attention to your armour, life, and resistances, to name a few. In turn, this makes the game much, much more challenging of an ARPG.
-Visually, the game is stunning. The MTX is gorgeous, and even if you don't opt into that nonsense you can still fully appreciate the in-game models and FX.
-Funny enough, it actually has a coherent and engaging story if you pay attention during the campaign and honestly, Kitava is one of my favourite bosses in gaming due to what it represents and why it must be defeated. Shout out to Sin and Innocence as Gods, felt pretty unique and cool.

I could go on and on but honestly if you're an ARPG fan and you haven't tried PoE yet, you should wait for the next stash tab sale (they happen every 3 weeks) and buy some essential tabs, and just launch yourself into the current league with a build guide, follow it, and just play the game. Enjoy the story. Mess around with crafting, hell, engage in memeage in the general chat. Just experience this wonderous ARPG before its sequel game inevitably gets more traction and this gem slowly becomes forgotten.

Well done GGG, you made one of the best games of all time.

I tremendously enjoy the character build system in this game, but PoE is the game that really drove home for me that the diablolike genre runs on gambling psychology.

It's all about the endgame, but the actual progress during mapping has a geological pace to it, and the only thing that breaks up the monotony is the loot showers. The game conditions the player to associate the sounds and colors of rare loot with satisfaction, and then it keeps them hooked with a slow but overstimulating trickle of these stimuli.
You pull the lever, by squashing monsters at a rate of 10 Red Weddings a second, and sometimes an Exalted Orb comes out. The rest of the time you keep listlessly holding right-click, dreaming of a Mirror of Kalandra - and sometimes the monsters squash you, because sometimes RNG stacks mods on a monster that will lead it to one-shot the player.

The game has an adorable complexity and opaqueness to it, consciously inspired by Magic: The Gathering. I've had so much fun getting lost in the comically huge skill tree, crunching numbers in a build planner, but the actual gameplay felt soul-sucking to me. And there are many people like me.

I first started playing Path of Exile in January 2014 after it received the game of the year award from Gamespot and it was definitely a good game back then, but since then the amount of work that has been put into makes it a truly great and decade defining game.

Path of Exile is an action RPG with an isometic view. Call it a Diablo-like or a Diablo-clone, it's definitely built on that template of having to kill hordes of monster and have to shuffle through the loot drops. However Path of Exile has developed its own style with its unique currency with no gold, instead transactions are made with various scrolls and orbs that can also be used to modify your items. It also uses one of the biggest passive skill trees (it has over 1000 nodes), when leveling up you are able to place one node and go in one of the directions you want to take your character to. Skills are acquired through gems which are placed into your gear, each piece of gear has slots for them and as you progress further you will find better gear with more available slots in them. These skills are buffed by support gems that you place in connected gem slots, this system leads to a huge of amount of possibilities as there are tons of different gems available which gives all of the classes many different build styles.

These are the basics of the game which is a great core of features, but what makes it amazing if the amount of content added to the game. The game works on a league system, you can either play standard league which is the core game, or the current league which last 3 months. These leagues are essentially a beta test as they introduce new features to the game, which are then incorporated into the base game during the next league cycle. Since the game has been going on for a while, you can just add all these 3-month cycles and yeah you've got a whole lot of content to work with. As a returning player, I was amazed just how much the early areas had changed and just how much more there was to do in the game. This also gives much hope for the future, as I know the game will be constantly improved over time.

There's a certain barrier to approach the game, it's not quite easy to pick up play as some other action rpgs in the same style. Learning the systems can be a daunting task, but I think most players will still be able to clear the main game content without having to refer to guides, videos or the various wikis. However the end game content is very hardcore and most experienced players will probably say that's where the real game begins. That is the point your build choices (from the passive tree, gear and skills) will really start to matter and the difficulty really starts to spike up there. At this point there are countless things to do in the end game, and it's really fun to progress in the Atlas and attempt the harder challenges of the game.

Path of Exile is not without its faults, I always though the trading system was poor (you have to go to a web browser to trade with other players), it can have bugs/performance issues and there are a lot of instances where you just get one shot killed and you have no idea what hit you (I would not recommend the hardcore-permadeath mode for this reason). However the devs are very responsive to the player community and are constantly patching the game and making small improvements. The game is free to play and you can clear the main game content without having to make any purchases, but during the end game you are going to need those stash tabs to not make your life a living hell. Other microtransactions are purely cosmetic, but still the game can be criticized for being pay to win (I'd rather say it's pay to do the more hardcore stuff). Another annoyance of the game is the reliance on RNG as improving your gear you sometimes just have to get lucky and get the good roll, this can be fun sometimes but other times its painfully annoying.

Overall Path of Exile is not a game that revolutionized the looting action RPG genre as many of its basics are the same as before, but it just does so many things, it's very complex and just a complete experience when you really get into the game. I think all those things added makes it the best of its genre, and best of all you know that the game will always be improving. With the announcement of Path of Exile 2 (which is really just a major overhaul of the game as all current content will remain), things are looking bright for the future of the game and how it will probably remain king in its domain. I would highly recommend giving the game a try, but be warned that you might get completely addicted to it.

When you steal, steal from the best and make it work.
This game is a spruced-up Diablo II with enough modifications that make sense and give the game enough identity of its own. But it is clearly a Diablo II clone.