Going through the absolute shit on offer currently it really is remarkable to me how backwards this industry has gotten. Micro-transactions were one thing but it looks like any kind of co-op game is just some god awful grind fest if it's free to play yet that's what the majority of the cons00mer types seem to be playing now.
At least Stardew Valley and Helldivers 2 can be called video games but honestly I tried PoE and it bored me to death not to mention the obvious trash FPS issues it seems to have right at the beginning. I'm going to just check out the Warframe gameplay rather than play it myself.
Even without the enemies having 500000 hitpoints it seems that matchmaking is often garbage in these games at the best of time which immediately gets me having flashbacks to GTA V and I go into a fetal position over that because rockstars matchmaking is truly awful. I don't think I could ever play co-op with people if they just quit halfway through and inevitably the instance ends right there so you're fucked and have to immediately jump to a queue only to have another twat abandon a game right after. So unless you can keep playing with people even after they leave or solo it that means the game is effectively unplayable.
Yep, offline or solo play only for me.
Looked at PoE back around when Diablo 4 came out. Bought Grim Dawn instead. Spent $25 on sale for the game and all the expansions. It won't ask or gatekeep anything behind any additional money until the next expansion comes out, so I'm happy.
A lot of people love Grim Dawn, and more power to them, but it didn't really grip me. My most recent ARPG that I've enjoyed is Last Epoch. And people are often mixed on it, but I like D3 as well.
My favorite part about Last Epoch was their insane "recruit a friend" system in the game on launch, that basically derailed their entire first few days and killed a lot of momentum they might have had by gutting any attempt to build a community.
They removed it and gave everyone the pet for free, which good on them, but it was such a stupid idea that it blows my mind they let it reach launch.
Also D3 is better than most of these games simply because it doesn't even pretend like it isn't a skinner box meant to be "BIG NUMBERS" and "SHINY COLOR DROPS." They don't jerk you around with any of the nonsense of building a gear set or skill points. Every season you basically get a free Set that makes you explode everything in your vision and then you go around exploding it until you hit a wall where you explode first.
Its a game filled with flaws, but its the most upfront with its "fun" and mindless nature. You don't have to pay someone to powerlevel you through 3 Acts or grind until you get that one drop that makes a build work or any of the other reasons why most people give up on games like Grim Dawn. You are given BIG NUMBER and then can play until that gets boring.
It grabs me for a couple weeks here and there, but that's every game for me. I just don't have the autist in me to go crazy in just one game forever. I know it will keep me interested for a long time as there's so many different builds and I never look up "perfect builds" or whatever I just play around and see what works.
I liked D3 too, but totally skipped it until they'd moved well on from all the things at launch. I won't touch D4 for principle sake and I could download it for nothing on Game Pass at the moment.