I looked into Path of Exile earlier this year and while I didn't really play it more than a few minutes, a lot of opinions about early game seem to match that. Meaning the end game was good, but for a new player getting there was broken. I know several here are into the game so bear in mind to you all this is opinions I read and not personal experience. I didn't end up playing it because it started to look a bit too MMO to me. Not necessarily in the gameplay but the way it will suck you in and become an addiction. I swore off WoW in 2011 for that reason. It wasn't healthy and I stay away from going down those roads again.
I have almost no doubt they make new characters strong to sell them. They need you losing to it so you will want to trade your money for it too. I used to speculate that with things as simple as weapons in an FPS game even, it's just harder to prove there.
Meaning the end game was good, but for a new player getting there was broken
The problem with a lot of long lasting games, especially seasonal ones, is that they stop expecting "new players" at some point. So the game just becomes built around people who already know how to cheese and skip the entire story mode and just instantly start at end game. Often times with the game itself providing the means to do so.
So for the pure brand new players, its a slog where you are basically expected to get someone to Run you to the end quickly to get to the good parts. Which really isn't any different now than it was back when Diablo 2 came out and set the stage for games like POE.
Well, when I played poe (around 8 months ago and prior), the story was basically what most of us just pushed through to enjoy the end game, because we'd seen it a lot. And you don't really get a lot of abilities to explore the builds with enough skill points or gear until mapping.
Power creep is a problem, but the main issue with PoE was they nerfed fun by 99.999% because of the way they handled loot and difficulty.
I looked into Path of Exile earlier this year and while I didn't really play it more than a few minutes, a lot of opinions about early game seem to match that. Meaning the end game was good, but for a new player getting there was broken. I know several here are into the game so bear in mind to you all this is opinions I read and not personal experience. I didn't end up playing it because it started to look a bit too MMO to me. Not necessarily in the gameplay but the way it will suck you in and become an addiction. I swore off WoW in 2011 for that reason. It wasn't healthy and I stay away from going down those roads again.
I have almost no doubt they make new characters strong to sell them. They need you losing to it so you will want to trade your money for it too. I used to speculate that with things as simple as weapons in an FPS game even, it's just harder to prove there.
The problem with a lot of long lasting games, especially seasonal ones, is that they stop expecting "new players" at some point. So the game just becomes built around people who already know how to cheese and skip the entire story mode and just instantly start at end game. Often times with the game itself providing the means to do so.
So for the pure brand new players, its a slog where you are basically expected to get someone to Run you to the end quickly to get to the good parts. Which really isn't any different now than it was back when Diablo 2 came out and set the stage for games like POE.
Well, when I played poe (around 8 months ago and prior), the story was basically what most of us just pushed through to enjoy the end game, because we'd seen it a lot. And you don't really get a lot of abilities to explore the builds with enough skill points or gear until mapping.
Power creep is a problem, but the main issue with PoE was they nerfed fun by 99.999% because of the way they handled loot and difficulty.
My issue was the shitty drops and lack of progression in a way that made sense.
Every mechanic they had to craft items got nerfed, good loot drops got nerfed. I like grinding, but fucks sake