[atdrummond]

I historically have not been a major fan of ARPGs and share with you the list of games that haven’t moved the needle for me.

Path of Exile fundamentally changed my view on the genre and enabled me to retrospectively re-evaluate many of the ARPGs I had played to this point.

The granular level of control you have over your playstyle and strategy is incredible; it is insane how rewarding it is to be the first person to create a new approach to playing a character and have this build succeed in combat.

I highly recommend giving it a shot if you at all enjoy the cerebral, long term planning aspects of gaming.

[nottorp]

> cerebral, long term planning

That is, until you reach the end game and you realize how much you have to grind because of their completely random crafting system.

PoE is the game that weaned me off "but the microtransactions are cosmetic". It's simply designed to keep you ingame for so long that you get bored and buy a few hideout skins and character skins.

If you mean the skill tree, most people just follow a guide.

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

<< If you mean the skill tree, most people just follow a guide.

At the beginning? Sure. Eventually though a boredom does set it and a player seeks their own fun be it lore, own builds or something else like gauntlet. I am saying this as a person, who spent too much time on it already.

[nottorp]

I quit when I realized getting +2 to minions on my headgear meant farming 100k of <whatever that item was called> to roll the helmet endlessly.

It's just like lootboxes but you farm them ingame. Still boring.

[notTooFarGone]

You really didn't understand crafting then. It's an optimization problem that you have to solve.

Analogy: You don't try to brute force passwords as it takes far too long, you look for smarter options. Same in PoE - you NEVER roll your gear with chaos orbs, you look for vectors to increase your chances.

The whole game is one optimization simulator and it tingles that part of my brain.

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

Thank you. I was trying to find the words for why it seems so addictive and this captures it. I am now playing ruthless ( ssf hc btw ) and even though I keep getting smacked down, I keep trying to get back up. The mode forces you to work with what you have and optimize at all times.

[nottorp]

I'm not talking about progression, which is pretty fun. I'm talking about what happens when you've done all content except those few last bosses...

[nottorp]

Heh, I've been on all PoE crafting simulators and learned about the optimized paths.

The only difference is you don't use the relatively common chaos orbs but the much less common <whatever orbs>. Time spent grinding is the same.

Still a nope.

[aidenn0]

I'm actually a huge fan of ARPGs (e.g. Seiken Densetsu), just not the kind that are in the Diablo line. I definitely have unusual sensibilities for RPGs in general because I didn't like Planescape Tormet either (though I enjoyed the SSI Gold Box games when I was younger).