2019, Path of Exile, Should Players Play?
Welcome to Path of Exile Player Community, This article mainly explains some of the Path of Exile's story background and the style of the Diablo game, let you know about the Path of Exile and "Should I Play？".
Path of Exile's core gameplay is simple: kill things, get loot, become stronger, kill bigger and scarier things. But that's sort of like saying a Mario game is about jumping - it's the core around which the rest of the game is built, but it provides a scaffolding for all sorts of other gameplay.
In broader terms, PoE is an action RPG, divided between fairly fast-paced combat and more thoughtful character building. Almost everything in the game, from zones to items, is procedurally generated, meaning it tends to have a lot of replayability (particularly in light of the great customization depth - see below).
Most builds will engage in combat using one of a few primary skills. Typically, you'll alternate between trash mobs (weak enemies easily mowed down by your abilities) and bosses (which are stronger and land anywhere between "a slight speed bump" and "a major end-game challenge for your build"). Depending on your build, you might play a melee attacker using a weapon attack, a ranged attacker using projectiles fired from a bow or wand, or a spellcaster using spells from a distance. Most of the central gameplay is aimed at killing enemies as quickly as possible in order to get the most possible item drops - this is mostly about the "twitch" skills of aiming skills properly, dodging enemy abilities, and efficiently pathing around the area to clear out most or all of its enemies.
For character customization, PoE has an extremely deep skill tree of, as of this writing, 1325 nodes, all of which are theoretically accessible to every character (although most characters are only interested in a fraction of these). Moreover, it has a list of hundreds of "unique" items, many of which break the normal rules of the game in various ways and as a result, enable builds not normally possible.
1. You like playing around with extremely deep and complex mechanics. These can be ignored if you don't like them for the most part by following someone else's builds, but if you're the sort that wants to ignore them, there are probably better games for you. If you do like deep mechanics, however, PoE's are fairly consistent and understandable once you've learned the game's lingo, and the number of possible mechanical combinations in the game is pants-on-head insane. In other words, if every time you see a patch note in some other game, you go "hmm, I wonder if...", PoE is probably the game for you.
2. You enjoy a relatively low-energy character grind. PoE has some very challenging content, but it can easily be played semi-casually with moderate time investment. Much of it is fairly relaxing and cathartic mass murder, and it doesn't take extreme skill to see most or all of PoE's content. PoE is certainly not a full-on casual game of the mobile-game sort, but neither is it the sort of massive investment typical of, say, an MMORPG like World of Warcraft.
3. You enjoy other ARPGs, particularly Diablo II. PoE was designed explicitly as a spiritual successor to Diablo II, and many of its mechanics are built on ideas that did (or didn't) work in Diablo's history.
4. You enjoy games with no practical "ceiling" on your character's power. Only the most psychotically-devoted of PoE's players are going to get the absolute best gear available, and the combination of random generation and frequent content updates mean that even the very best gear is often outclassed after a new update. You could play PoE for twenty hours a day and still improve your character in each one for a very long time. (Though you certainly do not have to do so.)
5. You like a relatively dark, pessimistic, adult tone. PoE's world flavor is intentionally hostile, tragic, and rated R.
1. You really hate "grinding". ARPGs as a genre is pretty much designed around it, and if you're not the sort who likes to get into a routine with a game, it's not just PoE you probably want to avoid.
2. You're not prepared to make at least some effort to learn its "language". The cost of PoE's extremely deep potential for character customization, well-implemented though it is, is a fair amount of lingo that you'll need to know to understand what certain items or skills will do. You'll want, for example, to know the difference between a "Spell" and a "Skill", or between a "Damage over Time" effect and an "Ailment". This guide will introduce you to these terms, for the most part, but if your response is "ugh, I have to learn stuff for a game?" - well, that's basically what PoE is about.
3. You want a relatively "friendly" or "happy" game. PoE...isn't that. It's inspired by a game called Diablo, for Pete's sake. Expect plenty of gore and some genuinely unpleasant NPCs.
ARPGs ("action role-playing games") is the broader genre to which Path of Exile belongs. Despite the name, actual story role-playing is usually a minor part of them at most, and "RPG" here refers more to the notion that you're building a character that progresses through the game. Aside from Path of Exile, popular ARPGs include the Diablo, Fable, and Torchlight series.
ARPGs are built around the loot loop: kill stuff, get items, get stronger, kill bigger stuff for better items. The rest of the game is about figuring out how to kill harder things, figuring out how to kill weaker things more efficiently, gear crafting and trading to enable you to kill more and bigger things, and optimizing your build so as to kill things more smoothly. The fun of the game is in that loot, or in the reward, it gives for optimizing your build properly - some players (like myself!) enjoy the planning as much or more than the play!
PoE is no exception to the general rules above. While it has a story, it's optional and ignored by most long-time players, and will probably only be of interest to you the first time you play.
Typically, a session of PoE will be about clearing many areas of the monsters in them. Those monsters drop loot, which you can either equip for yourself, use as a base for crafting, break down into crafting currencies, or trade to other players. The stronger your character, the more and better loot you get.
You can also spend time out of combat crafting, with one of PoE's many currency items. Each currency allows you to modify an item in different ways: some allow you to change the modifiers (like extra life or resistances) it grants, others allow you to modify the sockets into which your character's skills fit. Basic crafting is pretty simple, but the depth of PoE's mechanics can sometimes allow advanced high-cost crafting to produce items of extreme power. As a newbie, you probably won't do much of this, but as you learn the game you might find it enjoyable to try to build the most powerful items available.
It seemed worth having a separate page for this, given that Diablo II set most of the genre standards and Diablo III remains fairly popular. If you've never played those games, you'll find this page pretty useless - but why are you here, to begin with, you silly goose?
Since Diablo II is PoE's express inspiration, players of D2 will quickly find themselves on fairly familiar territory. Many of the differences you'll notice are quality of life changes:
1. Rare items are usually the best items in the game. This was true in the original Diablo II, but players of Lord of Destruction will probably find this a welcome change from Runewords and Uniques far more powerful than almost all rares.
2. Almost no immunities: most builds can do most content. Your Fire Sorc is not going to be helpless against a random Blood Moor Fallen this time around.
3. Far more consistent language and mechanics. Serious D2 players are likely very familiar with the weird mix of additive and multiplicative stacking, inconsistent language, arcane FCS/FHR/FAS breakpoints, and "lying character screens" that characterized D2's mechanics. PoE, for the most part, has great consistency: the word Hit on one item means the same as the word Hit on another, for example, and few mechanics have non-obvious breakpoints or caps.
4. You can bind up to 8 skills, not just 2. By default, they bind to left/middle/right mouse and QWERT.
5. Skills are fairly distinct, not just upgraded or modified versions of each other. For example, Diablo II's Fireball was basically just Firebolt with an explosion tacked on. Most of PoE's skills are much more distinct than this and are instead modified using special Support Gems.
6. A greater variety of endgame skills. Most D2 classes had one, maybe two viable builds per tree, for a total of ~20 viable endgame builds. PoE has several times that.
7. A more varied endgame via the Map system: endgame zones are actually found as drops with different tilesets and mods. This means no more repeating 10,000 Baal runs, although the most hardcore players still tend to focus on a few highly-efficient maps.
8. "Rushing" is mostly non-existent.
9. Auras and buff effects work somewhat differently. Instead of effectively costing your right mouse button slot, PoE's auras are toggles that reduce your maximum mana while active.
10. Limited ability to respect: you'll be able to adjust some of your builds if you make a mistake, but you're strongly encouraged to create a new character entirely if you want to play an entirely different build.
In addition to these QOL changes, a few of PoE's systems are built around properties that emerged from Diablo's. For example, PoE lacks any equivalent to D2's mostly useless Gold and instead substitutes a currency system similar to the High Rune or Stone of Jordan economy that developed in D2. Loot drops can, optionally, be set to "allocate" to particular players for a brief time to avoid the click-spam competition common in D2 parties.
In general: if you like D2, PoE is more of that, with greater depth, more consistency, and modern QOL. You should probably give it a try.
Diablo III took a somewhat different approach from its predecessor in terms of game design. Compared to the current incarnation of D3 as of this writing (counting changes implemented in Reaper of Souls), a D3 player should expect:
1. More endgame variety. PoE has a few possible endgame approaches as opposed to D3's Greater Rift system, and you have a lot more control over it. For example, in PoE, you get Map items as drops, which open portals similar to D3's Rifts but with mods, you can plan around (and you're rewarded for seeking out harder mods with more and better drops).
2. Less clearly-defined builds. Most builds in D3 use a Set of some sort; PoE lacks Set items entirely. As a result, D3's sets tend to define particular builds in a way PoE's items don't. You'll be asked to invest a little bit more in developing a build in PoE than you would in D3.
3. More emphasis on trading, in that PoE, has it and (current) D3 does not. PoE does have an optional "Solo Self-Found" mode that disables partying and trading, however, if you prefer that style of play.
4. Much greater potential for character customization. PoE's skills can be modified in open-ended ways and, in principle, all skills are available to all classes. Combined with rule-breaking Uniques (which in some cases are similar to D3's) and the extremely deep passive tree, this allows a lot more detail to a build.
5. Much more content. PoE has a major release every three to five months with new skills, new uniques, and tweaks to the passive tree.
6. Less technical polish. Because PoE's design team emphasizes an extreme amount of content, things get tested a lot less. Bugs usually aren't game-breaking, but new releases often come with annoying frame-rate or disconnect issues.
7. More complexity and less "pick up and play" design. D3 is quite newbie-friendly and easy to learn precisely because it tends to be fairly railroaded, PoE's open-mindedness can make it difficult to learn.
8. More emphasis on rare items and less on uniques. Many PoE uniques are leveling items or geared towards specific types of build, but with the exception of a few exceptionally rare "chase" uniques, rares are usually the best items in the game.
In general, if you want a game with more depth, though, and decision-making on your part, you'll probably like PoE. But if you prefer the more arcade-y casual style, it may not be for you. It's much more vanilla-WoW or D2-era rough-edges-new-ideas Blizzard design than it is modern polish-for-the-masses Blizzard if that makes sense.
Path of Exile Basics Guide:
In broader terms, PoE is an action RPG, divided between fairly fast-paced combat and more thoughtful character building. Almost everything in the game, from zones to items, is procedurally generated, meaning it tends to have a lot of replayability (particularly in light of the great customization depth - see below).
Most builds will engage in combat using one of a few primary skills. Typically, you'll alternate between trash mobs (weak enemies easily mowed down by your abilities) and bosses (which are stronger and land anywhere between "a slight speed bump" and "a major end-game challenge for your build"). Depending on your build, you might play a melee attacker using a weapon attack, a ranged attacker using projectiles fired from a bow or wand, or a spellcaster using spells from a distance. Most of the central gameplay is aimed at killing enemies as quickly as possible in order to get the most possible item drops - this is mostly about the "twitch" skills of aiming skills properly, dodging enemy abilities, and efficiently pathing around the area to clear out most or all of its enemies.
For character customization, PoE has an extremely deep skill tree of, as of this writing, 1325 nodes, all of which are theoretically accessible to every character (although most characters are only interested in a fraction of these). Moreover, it has a list of hundreds of "unique" items, many of which break the normal rules of the game in various ways and as a result, enable builds not normally possible.
If you are likely to like Path of Exile
2. You enjoy a relatively low-energy character grind. PoE has some very challenging content, but it can easily be played semi-casually with moderate time investment. Much of it is fairly relaxing and cathartic mass murder, and it doesn't take extreme skill to see most or all of PoE's content. PoE is certainly not a full-on casual game of the mobile-game sort, but neither is it the sort of massive investment typical of, say, an MMORPG like World of Warcraft.
3. You enjoy other ARPGs, particularly Diablo II. PoE was designed explicitly as a spiritual successor to Diablo II, and many of its mechanics are built on ideas that did (or didn't) work in Diablo's history.
4. You enjoy games with no practical "ceiling" on your character's power. Only the most psychotically-devoted of PoE's players are going to get the absolute best gear available, and the combination of random generation and frequent content updates mean that even the very best gear is often outclassed after a new update. You could play PoE for twenty hours a day and still improve your character in each one for a very long time. (Though you certainly do not have to do so.)
5. You like a relatively dark, pessimistic, adult tone. PoE's world flavor is intentionally hostile, tragic, and rated R.
If you may not like Path of Exile
2. You're not prepared to make at least some effort to learn its "language". The cost of PoE's extremely deep potential for character customization, well-implemented though it is, is a fair amount of lingo that you'll need to know to understand what certain items or skills will do. You'll want, for example, to know the difference between a "Spell" and a "Skill", or between a "Damage over Time" effect and an "Ailment". This guide will introduce you to these terms, for the most part, but if your response is "ugh, I have to learn stuff for a game?" - well, that's basically what PoE is about.
3. You want a relatively "friendly" or "happy" game. PoE...isn't that. It's inspired by a game called Diablo, for Pete's sake. Expect plenty of gore and some genuinely unpleasant NPCs.
What is absolute ARPGS?
ARPGs are built around the loot loop: kill stuff, get items, get stronger, kill bigger stuff for better items. The rest of the game is about figuring out how to kill harder things, figuring out how to kill weaker things more efficiently, gear crafting and trading to enable you to kill more and bigger things, and optimizing your build so as to kill things more smoothly. The fun of the game is in that loot, or in the reward, it gives for optimizing your build properly - some players (like myself!) enjoy the planning as much or more than the play!
Is Path of Exile ARPG?
Typically, a session of PoE will be about clearing many areas of the monsters in them. Those monsters drop loot, which you can either equip for yourself, use as a base for crafting, break down into crafting currencies, or trade to other players. The stronger your character, the more and better loot you get.
You can also spend time out of combat crafting, with one of PoE's many currency items. Each currency allows you to modify an item in different ways: some allow you to change the modifiers (like extra life or resistances) it grants, others allow you to modify the sockets into which your character's skills fit. Basic crafting is pretty simple, but the depth of PoE's mechanics can sometimes allow advanced high-cost crafting to produce items of extreme power. As a newbie, you probably won't do much of this, but as you learn the game you might find it enjoyable to try to build the most powerful items available.
How Does PoE Stack Up Against the Diablo Series?
Is there a difference between POE and Diablo II?
1. Rare items are usually the best items in the game. This was true in the original Diablo II, but players of Lord of Destruction will probably find this a welcome change from Runewords and Uniques far more powerful than almost all rares.
2. Almost no immunities: most builds can do most content. Your Fire Sorc is not going to be helpless against a random Blood Moor Fallen this time around.
3. Far more consistent language and mechanics. Serious D2 players are likely very familiar with the weird mix of additive and multiplicative stacking, inconsistent language, arcane FCS/FHR/FAS breakpoints, and "lying character screens" that characterized D2's mechanics. PoE, for the most part, has great consistency: the word Hit on one item means the same as the word Hit on another, for example, and few mechanics have non-obvious breakpoints or caps.
4. You can bind up to 8 skills, not just 2. By default, they bind to left/middle/right mouse and QWERT.
5. Skills are fairly distinct, not just upgraded or modified versions of each other. For example, Diablo II's Fireball was basically just Firebolt with an explosion tacked on. Most of PoE's skills are much more distinct than this and are instead modified using special Support Gems.
6. A greater variety of endgame skills. Most D2 classes had one, maybe two viable builds per tree, for a total of ~20 viable endgame builds. PoE has several times that.
7. A more varied endgame via the Map system: endgame zones are actually found as drops with different tilesets and mods. This means no more repeating 10,000 Baal runs, although the most hardcore players still tend to focus on a few highly-efficient maps.
8. "Rushing" is mostly non-existent.
9. Auras and buff effects work somewhat differently. Instead of effectively costing your right mouse button slot, PoE's auras are toggles that reduce your maximum mana while active.
10. Limited ability to respect: you'll be able to adjust some of your builds if you make a mistake, but you're strongly encouraged to create a new character entirely if you want to play an entirely different build.
In addition to these QOL changes, a few of PoE's systems are built around properties that emerged from Diablo's. For example, PoE lacks any equivalent to D2's mostly useless Gold and instead substitutes a currency system similar to the High Rune or Stone of Jordan economy that developed in D2. Loot drops can, optionally, be set to "allocate" to particular players for a brief time to avoid the click-spam competition common in D2 parties.
In general: if you like D2, PoE is more of that, with greater depth, more consistency, and modern QOL. You should probably give it a try.
Is there a difference between POE and Diablo III?
1. More endgame variety. PoE has a few possible endgame approaches as opposed to D3's Greater Rift system, and you have a lot more control over it. For example, in PoE, you get Map items as drops, which open portals similar to D3's Rifts but with mods, you can plan around (and you're rewarded for seeking out harder mods with more and better drops).
2. Less clearly-defined builds. Most builds in D3 use a Set of some sort; PoE lacks Set items entirely. As a result, D3's sets tend to define particular builds in a way PoE's items don't. You'll be asked to invest a little bit more in developing a build in PoE than you would in D3.
3. More emphasis on trading, in that PoE, has it and (current) D3 does not. PoE does have an optional "Solo Self-Found" mode that disables partying and trading, however, if you prefer that style of play.
4. Much greater potential for character customization. PoE's skills can be modified in open-ended ways and, in principle, all skills are available to all classes. Combined with rule-breaking Uniques (which in some cases are similar to D3's) and the extremely deep passive tree, this allows a lot more detail to a build.
5. Much more content. PoE has a major release every three to five months with new skills, new uniques, and tweaks to the passive tree.
6. Less technical polish. Because PoE's design team emphasizes an extreme amount of content, things get tested a lot less. Bugs usually aren't game-breaking, but new releases often come with annoying frame-rate or disconnect issues.
7. More complexity and less "pick up and play" design. D3 is quite newbie-friendly and easy to learn precisely because it tends to be fairly railroaded, PoE's open-mindedness can make it difficult to learn.
8. More emphasis on rare items and less on uniques. Many PoE uniques are leveling items or geared towards specific types of build, but with the exception of a few exceptionally rare "chase" uniques, rares are usually the best items in the game.
In general, if you want a game with more depth, though, and decision-making on your part, you'll probably like PoE. But if you prefer the more arcade-y casual style, it may not be for you. It's much more vanilla-WoW or D2-era rough-edges-new-ideas Blizzard design than it is modern polish-for-the-masses Blizzard if that makes sense.
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