Completely new to PoE, few questions please

[LLoyd Christmas]

From what I have seen and read, this looks pretty fun. I just had some basic questions if anyone could help..

1. Since I never played PoE 1, is this going to be a little overwhelming?

2. How exactly does skills work. I’m used to Diablo, where each level you get a skill point, and after certain level brackets you unlock more skills, is it similar to that?

3. Any idea if there is replay value at end game? Just kind of wondering what people do after beating the campaign.

Anything helps, thank you :)

[bean]

1. yes, very

2. PoE is mostly about your passives tree

Think of it as a skill tree where everything is a buff / passive and then there are gems which you slot in gear to create your actual skills / combinations / modifiers (ie, adding 'pierce armor' to a skill)

3. the endgame is PoE is deep af and fun. PoE2's looks great but time will tell obv

[SK]

1. Less than PoE1. They've done a lot of work to make it more new player friendly. Much more information in-game, tooltips have underlined terms that can be hovered for explanations, all skill gems have videos showing them being used in-game, and an option for recommended supports on skills. Among other changes.
And even if you select Show All supports, it only shows supports that will work on the selected skill.

2. Active skills are Skill Gems. Whenever you find an Uncut Gem you can pick any gem that is level appropriate to use. Skills are restricted by Weapon Type, but any Weapon can be used on any class as long as you have the required attributes.
Active Skill Gems can have up to 5 support gems, which just modify their behavior. Add projectiles, make them pierce, chain, bleed, etc. In PoE2 you can only have 1 support of each type at a time, so pick the best skill for them. But there are hundreds of supports.

3. Endgame is up to you, PoE is very open ended. Tons of different types of content, and you pick what you want to focus on and play until you get bored or finish your goals.
EA will have 7 types of content at launch and will be adding more.
A big goal for many people is to kill all Uber Bosses, or to complete all challenges. Each League PoE has challenges that award free MTX for completing them, so a lot of people try to finish them all.

[bean]

If i might add, the campaign is pretty cool and mostly singleplayer but it is in the endgame that this game turns from single player to mmo. trading, crafting, partying up to do maps.. all that really opens up in the end game.

[DaDonik[GER]]

All the answers you can get:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpIbaTXJD4g

[Summoner]

The campaign is a small part of it and the game only starts after you finish it. You'll be unlocking different trees for different endgame activities, you can customize the content to your liking and specialize into specific type of activity. You will have multiple "talent trees" so you can progress in each area however you like. Imagine a different tree for helltides, different tree for pits, different tree for dungeons, different tree for open world, so you don't have to respec just because you want to do different activity. There are also trees that make bosses harder to get better rewards. You can tailor the challenges to your liking, focus more on killing bosses, or making dungeons more complicated mazes, or creating a character best for aoe mob clearing with no bosses, or something between, it's up to you. Each class will have access to 3 ascendancies, but other than that you'll be able to learn any skill on any class and combine them in unique builds. Attacks require specific weapons but spells don't.

It will be very overwhelming at first and that's why there's a campaign, which is also acting as a tutorial. If you think Diablo is complicated, this will be 10x more complicated, but you can always copy and paste a build if you don't want to theorycraft. They even want to put a specific function for it into the game, so you just grab a build you want and paste it on your character.

[tankanidis]

POE2 will be much more new player friendly then POE1 is (which is the major selling point imho)

There's also 90% more game in POE after you beat the campaign then most other ARPG's

Since in POE2 you can respec points for gold there's no penalty or chance of 'bricking' a character like POE1 so you are free to try things out and go at your own pace

If at any point you feel overwhelmed, there will be countless guides on youtube from the sweaties who have calculated and simmed everything for you and written build guides and step by step instructions of different playstyles (they will play the game 10,000 hours so you can just follow their build -IF- you want to)

POE2, if it works out as people are hoping/expecting it to work out, will dominate the ARPG market for the forseeable future (hopefully Titan Quest 2 does a good job too, but unknown on what's in it atm)

[Breeze]

1. PoE 2 looks more beginner friendly than PoE 1 is. I think you'll be fine. The giant passive tree always seems overwhelming to new players but remember that there is a search function and that nodes are clustered together in similar groups. It's mostly about finding the passives that would benefit your character most and pathing to them.

2. Skills are items in PoE in the form of Skill Gems. In PoE 1 every specific skill gem has a random chance to drop or you could buy them from vendors, but in PoE 2 you get generic skill gems that you can craft into the specific skill gems you want. Gems you have equipped gain XP individually as you gain XP, and can be leveled up to get stronger after they're full. Any class can equip and use any skill gem so long as they meet its weapon, attribute, and level requirements.

3. PoE 1 has gobs of end game content and it looks like PoE 2 will too. In fact, the devs admitted in the Q&A that they diverted development from the last 3 story acts to focus on end game content, so acts 4-6 won't be available during the start of EA. Instead, you replay acts 1-3 at a higher difficulty before reaching the end game.

[LLoyd Christmas]

Wow thank you all. A lot of information but it will only help me understand. After coming to the realization I will likely never touch D4 again, I needed something better, and this seems promising.

First off, what is EA?

Also, if I am playing campaign(is it required?), can I still co-op with others or say, have my finance tag along with me?

I am kind of understanding what was said above, but frost nova from Diablo 2, was one of my favorite builds, I see on PoE, it appears the sorceress Ice nova seems to kind of be a thing? I ideally wanted to make an assassin or sorceress, something similar to traps/stealth/poison or ice nova/sorc spells etc, and from the videos I saw, a new class called Shadow would probably be closest to an assassin? If so, would I be able to make a Shadow class, and also use Ice nova for some AoE? Iirc, I would need the required weapon and attributes to do so, unless it’s just a spell and thus, I then wouldn’t need the requirements?

Sorry if that sounds confusing lol, just really trying to grasp it a little more.

Thanks again.

[Breeze]

EA = Early Access

The game should have full co-op like PoE 1, so I think anyone can join you at any time. You'll have to beat the campaign before end game mapping.

Shadow is a PoE 1 class, not in PoE 2.

Any class can use any skill gem but Sorceress or Monk will probably use Ice Nova best. They each have an elemental-focused ascendancy class: Storm Weaver and Invoker. Ranger with her Pathfinder ascendency looks like she has excellent potential with poison skills.

Spell skill gems that don't require weapons still have attribute requirements (STR, DEX, and/or INT) that your character will need to meet in order to use them. Edit: You can gain attributes through gear and the passive tree.

[bean]

yes, you and ur fiance can do the campaign together
(in poe 1, at least, idk about 2 but i assume you will be able to eventually, if not immediately)

[manuosiris]

Originally posted by bean:

If i might add, the campaign is pretty cool and mostly singleplayer but it is in the endgame that this game turns from single player to mmo. trading, crafting, partying up to do maps.. all that really opens up in the end game.

Do you have to make the final content with people? Can't play alone? thank you

[LLoyd Christmas]

Oh so they took away Shadow from PoE2, bummer.

Great thank you. I’ll likely try Sorceress and it’s usually my go-to, but I forgot to ask a couple of things.

Level cap, potions and item quality/rarity.

Is there a level cap? Do potions drop from mobs or buy them from vendors? Are the items kind of like magic/blue, rare/yellow and tan/unique?

Don’t mean to ask a million questions, and I’ll have time to watch that video linked above shortly. I think this will sum it up

Thanks

[BitMouse🐭]

https://youtu.be/26xwZyk3FlE?si=ZoGik126Vo4W_S3s