It looks cool, but frankly I’m far more interested in how it’s going to be monetized. I bought into PoE early access back in the day but stopped playing after a few years because I got fed up with how its game design is compromised in order to accommodate its business model. Specialized stash tabs for currency, maps, cards, etc. are basically a mandatory purchase, since inventory management is hell without them. Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but IMO deliberately introducing game design problems, such as tedious inventory management, so that you can sell the solutions is a scummy practice. The same goes for drop rates, which are frustratingly low in order to force you to trade instead of finding your gear yourself, since in order to trade effectively, you need to buy a few premium tabs. Even though I actually made all these purchases to overcome these artificial hindrances, being squeezed like that left such a bad taste in my mouth that I just couldn’t enjoy the game anymore. If they keep this up in PoE2, I’m going to steer well clear.
On the one hand I totally agree, on the other hand I spent like 40€ on PoE for everything I wanted and got way more gameplay out of it than of many full price games.
Yeah, hard to criticize the model when you can just get everything you need for less then the price of a AAA game. It just makes it a “free to try” game, instead of a truly free to play one, and that’s fine.
And besides, in recent leagues they have gone less hard on the specialized stash tabs model, and more on the cosmetic one. They haven’t added a league specific stash tab since delirium league, and that was over 3 years ago.
I also have a lot of playtime in it, but most of it wasn’t really quality time. I tried real hard to like the game, but in hindsight I should’ve given up on it way sooner. Even with all the tabs, inventory management is still a nightmare. I hate the currency system with a passion, I resent the fact that there’s no loot vacuum, I despise having to manually identify items. I don’t like trading, and trying to find my own gear was like being rolled around in a zorbing ball made out of sandpaper. There’s way too much friction everywhere in the system for no good reason. I love the core gameplay, the monsters have cool designs and are fun to kill, the skills feel punchy and satisfying to use… It’s just the overarching structure built around that that ruins it for me. Shame.
…but IMO deliberately introducing game design problems so that you can sell the solutions is a scummy practice.
This isn’t your personal opinion. This is a valid complaint from many avid gamers. I am not one of these avid gamers. However, I have read about this issue from many gamers in this particular space (i.e. non-casual players).
I dunno, the game seems extremely popular and successful despite this, so clearly a lot of people don’t mind. It’s hard to gauge what the majority opinion is.
Completely disagree. It’s a good game made by good people. You can finish the campaign with just the default tabs, then can buy more tabs if you are enjoying the game.
It is a game developer driven by passion and not corporate profits.
It’s an online ARPG, the campaign is basically just a tutorial, the real meat of the game is in the endgame. So yes, you’re right that you can finish the campaign just fine without making any purchases, but that’s not saying much. Also, the low drop rates will kick your butt throughout the campaign and forever after regardless of whether you make a purchase or not.
You get tens of hours of high-quality gameplay for free when you go through the campaign. How is that not saying much? I feel like it is not a bad deal at all. If you like the game when you probably need to drop some money to get most out of the experience. I think that’s fine. Though it is a fine line where they are walking in terms of monetization through inventory management. Would be interesting to know how large portion of the income is from stash tabs etc vs cosmetics.
I guess, but lots of players do Solo Self Found, ignoring trade entirely. It’s like doing race mode.
Depending on the build you’re going for, it can be more fun. Sucks if you need specific build-enabling uniques that you can’t farm for with div cards, but it works well for lots of builds.
You can still trade between your different characters on the same account, too, so it can be fun to create a character for the items you’ve found.
It’s all in what you think is worth it. For me, it’s my favorite genre. I have spent about $400 or maybe $500 for over 2500 hours of gaming since the beta in PoE which is way less per hour than most games I’ve paid for up front. It’s worth it to me for playing a fun game for all that time. I also don’t really think they purposely design the game to need stash tabs. It’s just what it is. Look at D4 and all the people complaining they can’t buy more. They obviously didn’t design it like that. It’s just that type of game.
Bottom line for me is I haven’t spent money in that game in years and still play every league because everything I ever bought is still there and will be in PoE2 as well from what they say. I wonder about the tabs…
I too enjoy the genre but don’t have any games to play. Can you recommend a new-ish game worth playing?
(gonna pass on D4 tho ;)
I actually love PoE’s inventory management, but I play the game “wrong.” I hardly ever trade, except to grab a cheap unique here or there that enables a build. I pick up and manually ID all the items that could be useful, even knowing that there’s only like a 1/10,000 chance that they actually are. I pick up all currency, even portal scrolls. I clear maps at a pace that might be described as “puttering.” And typically I RIP early in maps and start the league over, so most of my playtime is in the story, where successive characters can pick through my stash for junk my old character was hoarding for no reason, that might now have some use for levelling a different build.
It’s probably my favorite ARPG.
They’ve said that all microtransactions from PoE1 will carry over to PoE2, which implies that all of those stash tab requirements will still exist, and we can presume they’ll just keep adding more.
Wasn’t that back when PoE2 was supposed to just be a big update to PoE1? I haven’t followed the development news all that closely, but I know that used to be the plan.
Nope, they said it again during the live stream where they had two people play part of the third act this exile con. Every mtx that effects something that is present in both games will be shared between them. I’d guess stash tabs will be included in both games, so those should carry over.
I’ve been playing Diablo 4 recently and am missing the helll out of all the options path of exile gives players to work on their gear. I have enjoyed what I’ve seen on poe2, and look forward to playing it eventually.
I don’t even disagree.
I just also can’t deny I had a lot of fun with it, too.
Looks like more Chinese gutter oil garbage. Hard pass.
