How much content/playtime does this game have and how much content is locked behind a pay wall?

[Bobermeister]

hey, I recently quit destiny 2 since there is 0 content and almost no updates. POE cought my eye when I was browsing the F2P section of steam. I would really like to ask the community how much content/playtime does this game have and how much of it is locked behind a paywall?

EDIT: I would also like to know what kind of content the game has.

[MrWitz]

One of the 'downsides' to PoE is the sheer amount of content it has. I know that sounds weird.....but unless you're a no-lifer, you likely won't get to experience all of its content. And a lot of its content is extremely deep and complicated. You'll have to spend a lot of time Googling and watching guide videos to understand everything. It's been said that PoE requires a masters degree in accounting, to which I'd probably agree.

For a pleb like me who can't spend 8 hours every day in the game, I'm pretty much forced to use and follow someone else's build. In Grim Dawn, for example, things aren't quite as complicated. I can hop in there, start theory crafting, and have a great time. Not with PoE. You either know the numbers and the ins and outs of endgame bossing and mapping, or you stick to building your character with someone else's build whose been playing for years and is privy to the new patch notes of every league.

PoE basically REQUIRES the use of 2 3rd party applications in order to play - loot filters, and Path of Building. But these things are common in F2P games that have been developed for years. Warframe, for example, requires the use of various websites in order to utilize their trade system efficiently. It is what it is....just wanted to give you a heads up there.

[Bryan]

0 content is locked behind paywalls. You get everything for free. The only things for sale that are really gameplay improving are stashtabs that offer more space and can organize your loot. It's impractical but not impossible to seriously tackle the endgame without these. As in inexperienced player I think you can get through the story in about 20 hours (that was how long it took for me when I first got into it, I do it in about 8 hours now, and ofcourse there are people who are way faster than me). The endgame is practically infinite. There's some bosses to go after via various mechanics (conqueror bosses, sirius) but you can do maps indefinitely. Delves are another example of something you can do indefinitely. You can go progressively deeper and progressively harder. There is never not anything productive you can do in path of exile. And even if you feel like you are done with speccing out a specific character and don't feel like investing more time into it, you can start a new one and do it all again. There's near infinite possibilities with all the skills and passives available in the game.

[Bobermeister]

Originally posted by Bryan:

0 content is locked behind paywalls. You get everything for free. The only things for sale that are really gameplay improving are stashtabs that offer more space and can organize your loot. It's impractical but not impossible to seriously tackle the endgame without these. As in inexperienced player I think you can get through the story in about 20 hours (that was how long it took for me when I first got into it, I do it in about 8 hours now, and ofcourse there are people who are way faster than me). The endgame is practically infinite. There's some bosses to go after via various mechanics (conqueror bosses, sirius) but you can do maps indefinitely. Delves are another example of something you can do indefinitely. You can go progressively deeper and progressively harder. There is never not anything productive you can do in path of exile. And even if you feel like you are done with speccing out a specific character and don't feel like investing more time into it, you can start a new one and do it all again. There's near infinite possibilities with all the skills and passives available in the game.

Sounds exciting! I am a big borderlands fan. Your explanation reminds me a lot of the endgame in borderlands. Is the multiplayer good/fun?

[Bobermeister]

Originally posted by Bryan:

0 content is locked behind paywalls. You get everything for free. The only things for sale that are really gameplay improving are stashtabs that offer more space and can organize your loot. It's impractical but not impossible to seriously tackle the endgame without these. As in inexperienced player I think you can get through the story in about 20 hours (that was how long it took for me when I first got into it, I do it in about 8 hours now, and ofcourse there are people who are way faster than me). The endgame is practically infinite. There's some bosses to go after via various mechanics (conqueror bosses, sirius) but you can do maps indefinitely. Delves are another example of something you can do indefinitely. You can go progressively deeper and progressively harder. There is never not anything productive you can do in path of exile. And even if you feel like you are done with speccing out a specific character and don't feel like investing more time into it, you can start a new one and do it all again. There's near infinite possibilities with all the skills and passives available in the game.

What is the estimated cost of every "essential" thing you need to buy with real life cash?

[Edifier]

Originally posted by Bob:

Sounds exciting! I am a big borderlands fan. Your explanation reminds me a lot of the endgame in borderlands. Is the multiplayer good/fun?

I wouldn't compare it to Borderlands games. Mainly because Borderlands games are very easy to get into and you figure out most of the things pretty quickly.

Path of Exile is the exact opposite of that.
It isn't just that easy to get into. Let alone understand all of the features and items you find.

You might just be overwhelmed and this game is punishingly hard when you do something wrong.
Your build isn't good enough? Well it might just be easier to start over and look up a build.
You'll hit a wall that you won't be able to pass
The whole passive skill tree and all of the skills + it's support gems and what support gems to use. Links on armors, color slots on armors and more.

With the recent update that nerfed a whole lot of things and made enemies harder it has killed plenty Hardcore characters off Streamers who have basically full knowledge about the game. These are people who get to the true end game and farm it. They are dying.

So if you want a challenge where you need to read up on plenty of wiki pages or listen to a lot of Youtubers then yes this game is for you.

Oh and only buy Stash tabs after you've played for more than a certain amount of hours and plan to play far longer. Specially the Currency tab and Unique item tab.

[Bobermeister]

Originally posted by Edifier:

Originally posted by Bob:

Sounds exciting! I am a big borderlands fan. Your explanation reminds me a lot of the endgame in borderlands. Is the multiplayer good/fun?

I wouldn't compare it to Borderlands games. Mainly because Borderlands games are very easy to get into and you figure out most of the things pretty quickly.

Path of Exile is the exact opposite of that.
It isn't just that easy to get into. Let alone understand all of the features and items you find.

You might just be overwhelmed and this game is punishingly hard when you do something wrong.
Your build isn't good enough? Well it might just be easier to start over and look up a build.
You'll hit a wall that you won't be able to pass
The whole passive skill tree and all of the skills + it's support gems and what support gems to use. Links on armors, color slots on armors and more.

With the recent update that nerfed a whole lot of things and made enemies harder it has killed plenty Hardcore characters off Streamers who have basically full knowledge about the game. These are people who get to the true end game and farm it. They are dying.

So if you want a challenge where you need to read up on plenty of wiki pages or listen to a lot of Youtubers then yes this game is for you.

Oh and only buy Stash tabs after you've played for more than a certain amount of hours and plan to play far longer. Specially the Currency tab and Unique item tab.

Good to know, I am looking for a more permanent time-sink-game and POE sounds really cool. What is the estimated price of al the "essential" paid content you reccomend for endgame?

Also, is the multiplayer any good?

Can you re-spec after you screwed up your build?

[Edifier]

Originally posted by Bob:

Good to know, I am looking for a more permanent time-sink-game and POE sounds really cool. What is the estimated price of al the "essential" paid content you reccomend for endgame?

Also, is the multiplayer any good?

Can you re-spec after you screwed up your build?

I think you can get both of the stash tabs that makes the biggest difference for under $15 in total. Those two tabs being the Currency and Unique tab. But I've bought extra tabs so probably spent additional $15 on it.
It isn't that much in total.

You can respec and you get free respec points as you go through the game. But these are mainly for small changes and for a new player it might not enough to fix your build.
It's for the Passive Skill tree.

Now if you have gotten to the end game several times with one account you'll end up with a decent amount of respec points item but there is no easy way to just farm them.
They drop from enemies but at a low % value and you can buy them with other currency items too. But it gets expensive to buy them.

You get 1 Skill tree point per level and you get free ones from various Main story quest in the form of a book. Usually you end up with about 5-6 free respec points by the end of the SP story.

Skill gems on the other hand can always be fixed as you just need to find/buy them and level them up.

[Warmanreaper]

Originally posted by Bob:

hey, I recently quit destiny 2 since there is 0 content and almost no updates. POE cought my eye when I was browsing the F2P section of steam. I would really like to ask the community how much content/playtime does this game have and how much of it is locked behind a paywall?

EDIT: I would also like to know what kind of content the game has.

Theres a ton of content, vault heists, temple expeditions, the frankensteining ur arena with mobs for loot etc.. all previous seasonal content is viable to play in pretty much every league. People make the game out to be more complex than it actually is unless you want to learn crafting recipes inwhich theres a.. metric f*ck ton of.. Sadly, you missed the stash sale that happens every league(It was going yesterday and its not today sadly) but normally stash tabs are about 30-40 for the normal ones, or if you get the better ones probably about 100-150 (honestly.. I'd recommend you buy 1 premium stash tab, 1 currency stash tab, and some normal stash tabs) its about 10/1$, and its also not very worth it to straight out just buy points, if you wanna buy points for tabs, you'd probably wanna buy a supporter bundle which are kind of expensive, but they give you an entire armor set cosmetics wise, some flairs, maybe a pet, and points relative to how much you spend.

[LiquidDisease]

The basic stashes are pretty much useless. You can't name them or order them. So you may have to dish out a few $ for a few stashes like the currency and unique ones (which are, to me, invaluable) then maybe the X4 stash.

However, the game is pretty much "repetition city". Everytime you make a new character, you have to go through the story (I don't even know what it is, it's convoluted and really boring, so I don't bother) then, you get to mapping. It's fun as you progress but this League, getting past Tier 2 is really hard, I used to run 16's easy, last night, I was getting one shot by Tier 2 standard mobs. They changed a lot of mechanics in the game and it seems I lack the will to adapt to them, I liked the game how it was before, it's mainly for hardcore players, casuals can suck a fat one now.

But for the money, POE is still one of the best but it took a severe hit this past Friday.

[Bryan]

Originally posted by Bob:

What is the estimated cost of every "essential" thing you need to buy with real life cash?

Currency tab -> €7.50 The (IMO) most needed one. POE has no traditional currency like gold but instead a ton of different types of currency items that can do useful things to other items but are also often used for trade between players and with vendors. Chaos orbs are the most commonly used trading currency. It can be used to reroll a rare item. Exalted orbs are the high value currency used to trade between players. Exalted orbs could be used to add an extra modifier to a rare item that has not yet reached its limit. The mirror of Kalandra is the highest value item often used to trade. It can duplicate an item (some limitations will be applied to the new clone, it can't be modified further or mirrored itself). Most players have not even seen a mirror in their life. However, there's over 3 dozen or so currency types. They all fit into this currency tab.

Map tab -> €15.00 Maps are the bread-and-butter endgame content for POE. Maps are locations stored on an item that can be rolled and modified and then cleared in order to gather loot. If you want to do other types of endgame, you probably have to collect the resources to do so in maps (fuel for delves comes from maps, contracts for heists come from maps, invitations for maven events come from maps etc). Having the map tab will allow you to store them, and organize them per tier (1 thru 16).

premium tab -> €4.00 each. You can use premium tabs to organize nearly anything. But what makes them so worthwhile that having at least one is practically neccesary to become serious at POE in any of the trade-enabled leagues is the ability to use the tabs to post your items to trade websites. This allows other players to see your items and whisper you to buy them from you.

These three are what I would consider vital to have, but only once you are at the endgame and sure that you like the game. others are really, really nice to have (i.e. divination card tab, essence tab, fragment tab, unique tab) and some are very foccused on certain content. They will only be worth having if you really like that content and want to do lots of it to get valuables (i.e. delve tab, metamorph tab, delirium tab, blight tab). Stashtabs go on sale quite often.

You also asked about MP which I'd say is fun. I often coop with a friend and sometimes with 2. The game simply scales up for MP making encounters about just as hard as solo. There's no content that you need to do in groups, other than PvP.

[Bobermeister]

Originally posted by Bryan:

Originally posted by Bob:

What is the estimated cost of every "essential" thing you need to buy with real life cash?

Currency tab -> €7.50 The (IMO) most needed one. POE has no traditional currency like gold but instead a ton of different types of currency items that can do useful things to other items but are also often used for trade between players and with vendors. Chaos orbs are the most commonly used trading currency. It can be used to reroll a rare item. Exalted orbs are the high value currency used to trade between players. Exalted orbs could be used to add an extra modifier to a rare item that has not yet reached its limit. The mirror of Kalandra is the highest value item often used to trade. It can duplicate an item (some limitations will be applied to the new clone, it can't be modified further or mirrored itself). Most players have not even seen a mirror in their life. However, there's over 3 dozen or so currency types. They all fit into this currency tab.

Map tab -> €15.00 Maps are the bread-and-butter endgame content for POE. Maps are locations stored on an item that can be rolled and modified and then cleared in order to gather loot. If you want to do other types of endgame, you probably have to collect the resources to do so in maps (fuel for delves comes from maps, contracts for heists come from maps, invitations for maven events come from maps etc). Having the map tab will allow you to store them, and organize them per tier (1 thru 16).

premium tab -> €4.00 each. You can use premium tabs to organize nearly anything. But what makes them so worthwhile that having at least one is practically neccesary to become serious at POE in any of the trade-enabled leagues is the ability to use the tabs to post your items to trade websites. This allows other players to see your items and whisper you to buy them from you.

These three are what I would consider vital to have, but only once you are at the endgame and sure that you like the game. others are really, really nice to have (i.e. divination card tab, essence tab, fragment tab, unique tab) and some are very foccused on certain content. They will only be worth having if you really like that content and want to do lots of it to get valuables (i.e. delve tab, metamorph tab, delirium tab, blight tab). Maps go on sale quite often.

You also asked about MP which I'd say is fun. I often coop with a friend and sometimes with 2. The game simply scales up for MP making encounters about just as hard as solo. There's no content that you need to do in groups, other than PvP.

Thanks a lot for the in-depth answer. It's good to hear the game is not a huge money investment. I already have 1 game where I sink way to much money in to (league of legends). I am surely gonna check this game out, it sounds really fun.

[Brian9824]

Also tabs go on sale every few weeks so you can wait for a sale and snag it then.

[PhilNeverLucky]

enough content, some of the content very complex, you will have fun for while, at least 500-1000 hrs

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Path of Exile is grindy, tedious, boring, repetitive and frustrating. If you enjoy being railroaded and following path someone else has laid out for you, then you can probably grab build guide and get through the campaign in a day or two.

You will quickly find out, however, that your progress will grind to a halt rather quickly if you d not trade, and if you trade you will need to buy stash tabs from the cash shop. PoE is not really free to play, that is an illusion.

Acts 6-10 are just repeats of Acts 1-5 (they are the same maps/environments, just with different flavor text). Everything about this game is just a hamster wheel to keep you buying cosmetics and stash tabs.

[Sidian]

Don't listen to pandariuskairos, he is a known for spreading misinformation and lying about Path of Exile.

E.g. you don't need to trade (Solo Self Found is a legit game mode where players beat the game on a regular basis without being able to trade or play with other players), and even if you needed trading, you can use the official website for the same trading features as premium stash tabs but for free.