Review from a new player/casual

[Riggs]

For context,

Never played PoE1, never even played an ARPG since Diablo 2 probably, wasnt interested in the grindfest of newer games.
This 'review' is after less than 30 hours of playtime, so take that however one wants. Being an alt-holic for most games i played like 8 characters and are between level 5-15 pretty much. (Have had other games where I end up with 30 high level characters etc if I enjoy it)

Good things;
The visuals of the game are great. the settings and bosses look amazing, spells and skill actions look great.

The boss fights for the most part are exciting, and a change certainly for other similar games it seems. Going even into the very first one in the tutorial and having to sweat to beat 'The Miller' is a good rush.

Having spells that chain off other spells and add effects is really nifty.
Starting with a stash across all characters is cool.


Not good things;

Loot.
I have never played any kind of similar game, or anything RPG like that did not have a bag of holding or extra bag space of some type. Playing on low gold, where you feel compelled to pick up everything, and sell everything, with only room for like 8 items, means running to town like every 2 min on a map. That feels terrible.

Gold drops. Brutal. Vendor sells something for 1k gold, but will only buy it back for like 7%. Early game costs you 25 gold to identify - and 75% of the garbage dropped sells for less than that, so you can run around for a map and come out with the same gold you started with. Terrible. Chests, monsters, and objects drop like 1-2 gold most of the time - it feels pointless. And why have so many rocks/barrels/chests where you waste time breaking them to get 95% of the time 0 gold, and most of the rest again like 1-2 gold. It feels really stupid. Like why even bother put a mechanic into the game that is so pointless?

Having so much utter garbage loot also feels terrible. By level 6 or 7 on my characters i was already ignoring 75% of the things dropped on the ground - which seems really poor design. And at the same time I gave up on trying to buy vendor items for characters most of the time, since I assumed I need to save money for later. So early on I am both ignoring a bunch of loot as pointless, AND not buying stuff because i cant afford it - awesome!

Killing bosses didnt get you anything useful. Maybe a skill gem. Maybe something that sells for more than 25 gold. Doing 'quests' doesnt get you anything. The rush of fighting a boss because of the combat mechanics is immediately dampened down by the lack of any good rewards for doing it.

Playing multuple characters, within an hour or two was already doing the 'well I didnt find anything good for this character I am actually playing, but this item will be good for a new other character' - which seems handy - but is also depressing as you dont feel like you are progressing the character you are actually playing.

Skills and Level up;
Maybe this is news because I had never played PoE1, but having to 'loot' your skills as you level up is a fairly baffling choice. And again - doesnt feel good at all. Levelling up barely feels useful or exciting as the bonuses for most nodes are so small, until you have stacked dozens of them in later levels - feels close to useless. There is no excitement about levelling up because it doesnt do much of anything. Compounded since stats dont actually improve much (until it seems you get far up the tree and can get more bonuses from stats in many cases)

Early game skills feel meh. On multiple characters, despite having the highest rank of a 'main skill' I can get and support gems, it is worse than just attacking with the main weapon. Slower and less damage. Sorc, archer, warrior, all basically the same. Having seen many videos of high level builds where entire screens are exploding, I know it gets better, but it sure drags and doesnt feel good early levels.

Fights all seems the same already. Super fast mobs rush you before you can blink, ranged mobs spam attacks from the back, or some tanky ones walk forward more slowly. Fill the screen with aoe, do this hundreds of times. Every area has different looking mobs - but the function is basically the same.

Game design;
The fact that armor, by many complaints I have seen is 'basically useless' at high level seems like an odd choice.

Melee and basic attacks are clearly not a focus of the game. In all of the build videos and reviews I have seen pretty much any build, any class - is a Sorcerer. Literally every class progresses by filling the screen with explosions. In some cases it seems even killing mobs off screen - one teleporting monk build '200 million dps!' literally just flashed around the map at high speeds, finished a top tier map in 60 seconds - and you didnt even see any monsters after the first moments - everything everywhere literally was insta dead. Fun.

Also, had seen people complaining about ranged attacks not hitting, and have seen that regularly on my Ranger - mouse is on a mob, arrow flies off to the side, like regularly. (not accuracy not hitting, just not registering it seems that you are aiming at that mob, so it goes randomly) - how is this not playtested? But since the game focus is spam spells and not melee/basic attacks....I already know.

There is no crafting, as many have said - it is a gambling system. Having seen other systems where you can choose to add or even remove specific modifiers, and seeing this where its all random - well clearly gambling is the goal, not 'crafting'

The trading website, as other have said, is....sub-optimal. Saw a video showing a previous interview where the devs said the goal is to make trading have 'friction', i.e. slow down the power creep? What an absurd thing to do. Hardcore gamers, many 10s or hundred of thousands of them, will outpace any 'friction' you are trying to add - and just casual gamers get hosed by a janky system that top players benefit from (and keep ahead of the currency inflation curve). Having tried a few times to trade, getting ignored at first, then someone responds, but I find out I need to be level 25 to even trade? Meh - why bother.

There seems to be no 'RPG' in this 'ARPG game really at all - there is no plot or conversations, just 'go that way and kill bad guys, come back after and ill point you in another direction'.

Boss fights, and some mobs that can instakill you, sometimes from off screen? A game that claims to be a 'souls like skill game' that requires you to build in certain ways to avoid attacks you cant see coming seems odd. And from what I have seen/read, a lot of complaints about high level maps where you lose the map if killed etc. Fun for some maybe.

Summary;
The only reason I am even leaving this here is not expecting any changes or feedback (I expect there will be 95% 'git gud scrub' kind of stuff as typical, but whatever). I only spent money on this game because it was promoting itself as 'different' from other similar games, no power based microtransactions, a more 'tactical' game etc. And I feel like that was a misrepresentation and I wasted my money. I mean I had some fun initially, but the game became a slog and looking ahead, there is nothing interesting about grinding out hundreds of hours to 'currency farm' - to buy better gear....to be able to currency farm faster - by pushing two buttons and the screen explodes.

The visuals are great, but this is a gambling/farming game 100% - just with a nice coat of paint. It is designed from the ground up to hook people into the maximum time gambling, require huge investment to optimise classes and skills, and then run around pushing 2 buttons farming a few trade items while ignoring 99% of the things dropping as useless. And players are the ones also being farmed.

I guess I should have paid attention more to the company name - 'Grinding Gear Games' - and took the hint.

Enjoy

[Riggs]

Originally posted by Louzypher:

"Then beat him, go to Act 2, and first named guy on the hill has some super spear chuckers that one shot you from off screen and above so you cant see or get to them."

If this happens, you are either undergeared or did not learn how to avoid attacks. Never got oneshotted by the spears there.

Yes. I am under geared...it seems? Maybe you didnt read the OP?
two - no I dont 'need to learn to avoid an attack from off screen that I cannot see' - I am not bothering with that kind of bs mechanic and quit the game instead.

Thanks for posting without reading.

[SkaldedDawg]

Originally posted by Louzypher:

"Then beat him, go to Act 2, and first named guy on the hill has some super spear chuckers that one shot you from off screen and above so you cant see or get to them."

If this happens, you are either undergeared or did not learn how to avoid attacks. Never got oneshotted by the spears there.

I got destroyed 2 times, then no issue. That's a picky boss. You have to fight so close to the boss.

[Cujo]

In response to loot, do not pick every damn thing up! This is not a game about being a merchant. If that still is a problem for you, play one of the Torchlight games where you can have your pet run to town with your loot and sell it.

[Riggs]

Seen some outside reviews on why loot is so hard to get without buying it, and any good build relies on it. Makes sense for all the design decisions.

Enjoy being farmed.