[Megathread] Path of Exile

[Dezerte]

I'd recommend following a guide as a new player. This game isn't very good at proving feedback, and I think you'd learn more by reading what other people have discovered.

But I suppose if you have a lot of free time and patience, sure - play away blindly.

[kaminaris]

There is no reason why you should lose a character over badly designed fights.

Then dont play hardcore if you don't want to lose character.

[Gorsameth]

I would never ever recommend anyone play PoE hardcore period.

[Vespian]

Then dont play hardcore if you don't want to lose character.

Excellent comeback to something that doesn't need a gotcha.

The game has traps. Traps that instantly kill you, traps that are basically the developers ideas of a joke, they're just very bad jokes. Your response is typical for people that refuse to look beyond the obvious and just want to push their own opinions on others.

People should really read up on this game before they start to avoid the stupid nonsense that will kill their enjoyment. It's not healthy for a game to let people play unchallenged for 50 levels and then insta-frag them, because they didn't know about an exploding-upon-death miniboss., You literally have 2.5 seconds before he blows up, of which 1 to 1.5 seconds are taken by your brain registering that something is wrong. If you know this ahead of time, you will not die. That's just bad game design.

[Clozer]

Excellent comeback to something that doesn't need a gotcha.

The game has traps. Traps that instantly kill you, traps that are basically the developers ideas of a joke, they're just very bad jokes. Your response is typical for people that refuse to look beyond the obvious and just want to push their own opinions on others.

People should really read up on this game before they start to avoid the stupid nonsense that will kill their enjoyment. It's not healthy for a game to let people play unchallenged for 50 levels and then insta-frag them, because they didn't know about an exploding-upon-death miniboss., You literally have 2.5 seconds before he blows up, of which 1 to 1.5 seconds are taken by your brain registering that something is wrong. If you know this ahead of time, you will not die. That's just bad game design.

Because you don't know a boss mechanic and die, it's bad game design? Sounds to me as working as intended.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Because you don't know a boss mechanic and die, it's bad game design? Sounds to me as working as intended.

One shotting someone and then "OH TOO BAD START ALL OVER AGAIN" in the span of a few seconds is pretty unfair.

[bloodwulf]

This literally could not happen or you are a oracle, let me tell you why. When you first time open up any guide, no matter how beginner friendly, you are getting overwhelmed by new information: POB, ascendancy, sockets, links, supports, pantheon, bandits, flasks, enchants, mana reservation, auras, loot filter and so on.

this is a reality for a NEW player that just heard about PoE for the first time.

So. Either you asked your friends a thousand questions (like my friend asked me when he started playing) when you started playing or googled it up.

There is no way "you just followed guide" for the first time without fundamental knowledge. This is why I always recommend trying it yourself without getting too much information at once, it's ok to fail, its ok to google things up. And its better if you actually try to fiddle around with stuff yourself and gain practical knowledge.

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But it is beginner friendly, the fact you can shoot yourself in foot doesn't mean it's hardcore only, it's just a part of learning experience. Also casual players doesn't mean stupid players.

PoE is simply embodiment of "knowledge is power".

You are being obtuse for no reason. There are guides that break down every step of the campaign, telling you to take this skill as a reward, place a passive at this time, do this vendor recipe for this wand (explaining how to do the recipe), and even telling you what level you should be by the next act. I know because i gave them to my brother and his wife when they started. They made it to maps on their first characters, with the only other ARPG they played being Diablo 2 15 years ago.

A new player does not need to understand the benefit of 76-80 res cap, a new player can understand cap res to 75 and be mostly okay. A new player does not need to know what historical gems are and how they work on their first character. The first character is getting the fundamentals (basic gearing, skill synergy, basic layered defenses, basic crafting), and there is plenty of guides that tell you how to craft your first weapon, gives what to search for on the trade sites, and gives goals for the first 80 levels.

If this game had a death log, less animation bloat, and better optimized engine that was not layers and layers of conflicting systems, then learn while doing might be a thing. But you can literally get offscreened and have no idea why. I have close to 3500 hours in the game and i still don't understand some systems, and guess what, that is fine.

[kaminaris]

You are being obtuse for no reason. There are guides that break down every step of the campaign, telling you to take this skill as a reward, place a passive at this time, do this vendor recipe for this wand (explaining how to do the recipe), and even telling you what level you should be by the next act. I know because i gave them to my brother and his wife when they started. They made it to maps on their first characters, with the only other ARPG they played being Diablo 2 15 years ago.

What a load of crap. Yeah, indeed, great idea to tell new player to skip the story, skip learning process just braindeadly follow guide so you can turn off your brain and once complex mechanic comes in, clash with reality and uninstall. This is how new players that try the game, quit shortly after.

PoE will never be Diablo, thankfully. If learning is not fun for you, you are not a target audience, period.

[bloodwulf]

What a load of crap. Yeah, indeed, great idea to tell new player to skip the story, skip learning process just braindeadly follow guide so you can turn off your brain and once complex mechanic comes in, clash with reality and uninstall. This is how new players that try the game, quit shortly after.

PoE will never be Diablo, thankfully. If learning is not fun for you, you are not a target audience, period.

Never did i say skip the story. The guides i am referencing tell you do to do the story and side quests, and explain what rewards to take from them as they pertain to your build. Literally the guide explains every step of the campaign and leveling process to you. You realize GGG has said there is outrageously large percentage of players that don't make it past Act 5. Is that healthy for the game? Or you going to gatekeep players harder because they don't learn the way you do, which is evidently smashing your own skull against a brick wall until it finally clicks.

Question, when you were in school, did you have text books? Or instead did you throw them out and do your Calculus by learning by doing. People learn different ways but there are loads of people that learn by being given explanations and examples of how to accomplish something. A good guide explains the mechanics, and gives reasoning behind its choices. Hell even Ziz has started doing this with his 40+ minute long guide videos. He knows this game is next to impossible for new people to pick up without some sort of aid. And that guy has infinitely more influence on this game than you or i will ever have.

[Gorsameth]

Never did i say skip the story. The guides i am referencing tell you do to do the story and side quests, and explain what rewards to take from them as they pertain to your build. Literally the guide explains every step of the campaign and leveling process to you. You realize GGG has said there is outrageously large percentage of players that don't make it past Act 5. Is that healthy for the game? Or you going to gatekeep players harder because they don't learn the way you do, which is evidently smashing your own skull against a brick wall until it finally clicks.

Question, when you were in school, did you have text books? Or instead did you throw them out and do your Calculus by learning by doing. People learn different ways but there are loads of people that learn by being given explanations and examples of how to accomplish something. A good guide explains the mechanics, and gives reasoning behind its choices. Hell even Ziz has started doing this with his 40+ minute long guide videos. He knows this game is next to impossible for new people to pick up without some sort of aid. And that guy has infinitely more influence on this game than you or i will ever have.

Oh he is 100% gatekeeping hard. He doesn't want filthy 'casuals' who learned by copying someone else in his hardcore game. And no, he doesn't care if that means he would be the only one playing it.

[bloodwulf]

Oh he is 100% gatekeeping hard. He doesn't want filthy 'casuals' who learned by copying someone else in his hardcore game. And no, he doesn't care if that means he would be the only one playing it.

People like him is why this game is hard to get players to join. Its not cause of "game is hard, git gud", its because the community is full of toxic elitist that get their rocks off of by telling people they are bad. First thing i tell a new player to do is, avoid certain streamers, avoid the POE Main Subreddit and find a build that interests them. The problem is, Chris Wilson does nothing to deter this way of thinking with his chest pounding of "i play HCSFF and there are leagues i don't finish endgame and that is great". If people want to play HCSFF or build blind, fine they are welcome to, but don't fucking dare tell others how to enjoy the game.

Thankfully, people like him are a vocal minority. As much as i did not like the guy at the start, people like Ziz are really helping open this game up for new players with his University videos, his from 0 build playthroughs and his willingness to explain mechanics. There is a reason why certain streamers have way more views than the hardcore bros like Alkaiser, they actually give a fuck about growing the community.

[kaminaris]

Never did i say skip the story. The guides i am referencing tell you do to do the story and side quests, and explain what rewards to take from them as they pertain to your build. Literally the guide explains every step of the campaign and leveling process to you. You realize GGG has said there is outrageously large percentage of players that don't make it past Act 5. Is that healthy for the game? Or you going to gatekeep players harder because they don't learn the way you do, which is evidently smashing your own skull against a brick wall until it finally clicks.

Its absolutely insane to even think that there is even some kind of gate here. Nobody is gatekeeping anyone. Quite literally. People quit because they realize game is not for them and its pretty healthy considering each new season is getting more and more players with retention being highest ever.

It's fairly simple concept, gaining knowledge is how you progress the game.

Question, when you were in school, did you have text books? Or instead did you throw them out and do your Calculus by learning by doing. People learn different ways but there are loads of people that learn by being given explanations and examples of how to accomplish something. A good guide explains the mechanics, and gives reasoning behind its choices. Hell even Ziz has started doing this with his 40+ minute long guide videos. He knows this game is next to impossible for new people to pick up without some sort of aid. And that guy has infinitely more influence on this game than you or i will ever have.

When you were in school, teacher came to at test and resolved it for you?

[bloodwulf]

Its absolutely insane to even think that there is even some kind of gate here. Nobody is gatekeeping anyone. Quite literally. People quit because they realize game is not for them and its pretty healthy considering each new season is getting more and more players with retention being highest ever.

It's fairly simple concept, gaining knowledge is how you progress the game.



When you were in school, teacher came to at test and resolved it for you?

No. A good teacher gave you the tools the learn the subject matter. Gave you examples and taught you how to do the subject, and when the test came and you failed, they explained why you failed and how to fix it. Tell me, which seems closer to that example, a well written guide with an active creator on the forums that responds to questions, or going blind at the game?

[kaminaris]

Oh he is 100% gatekeeping hard. He doesn't want filthy 'casuals' who learned by copying someone else in his hardcore game. And no, he doesn't care if that means he would be the only one playing it.

Bullshit, you are trying to push your agenda that casual = dumb player. I have casual friends that plays PoE basically hour a day, managed to kill sirus after 3 leagues.

Casual means plays little, so obviously his learning path will be longer. Its just that simple.

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No. A good teacher gave you the tools the learn the subject matter. Gave you examples and taught you how to do the subject, and when the test came and you failed, they explained why you failed and how to fix it. Tell me, which seems closer to that example, a well written guide with an active creator on the forums that responds to questions, or going blind at the game?

You have all the tools you need and you still complain about not being handheld thru every step. Following guide as first thing you ever do in game is not learning for test, its just using cheat sheet. Sure, you won but you cheated not only the game, but yourself. You didn't grow. You didn't improve. You took a shortcut and gained nothing. You experienced a hollow victory. It's sad that you don't know the difference.

[solinari6]

"Don't follow a guide the first time you play" is such a weird hill to die on. Basically, you are telling the person, that IF you make it through the 10 acts, your character will be worthless because you choose all the wrong nodes in the tree. So you can either figure out a way to buy enough orbs of regret to reset the whole damn thing (good luck) Or you can start over, and follow a guide! Fun!

There are plenty of things that GGG could do to make first time players have better luck without a guide (like not requiring orbs of regret until level 70 or so). But in its current state, only a glutton for punishment would recommend a new player skip a guide.

[kaminaris]

"Don't follow a guide the first time you play" is such a weird hill to die on. Basically, you are telling the person, that IF you make it through the 10 acts, your character will be worthless because you choose all the wrong nodes in the tree. So you can either figure out a way to buy enough orbs of regret to reset the whole damn thing (good luck) Or you can start over, and follow a guide! Fun!

There are plenty of things that GGG could do to make first time players have better luck without a guide (like not requiring orbs of regret until level 70 or so). But in its current state, only a glutton for punishment would recommend a new player skip a guide.

Oh please, you don't even need that tree to finish campaign. I always start league with minions even as duelist. And by the way I never said you should play blind.
That is ridiculous. I said you should prioritize on learning things by yourself and not blindly follow guide. Its absolutely fine to google stuff. Its absolutely fine to check how other players do their tree, its absolutely fine to ask questions.

[Clozer]

One shotting someone and then "OH TOO BAD START ALL OVER AGAIN" in the span of a few seconds is pretty unfair.

It's not like you don't get a big warning saying, that you will have to start over again when exactly this happens. It's exactly how it is supposed to be.

[Vespian]

Because you don't know a boss mechanic and die, it's bad game design? Sounds to me as working as intended.

Boss mechanic? It's just a regular elite monster, until it turns out he's more than that. It's not a boss.. jezus. He's just there in the middle of your adventures and will instafrag you if you don't get out. It's a pathetic mechanic that's solely meant to "surprise" you. Thanks, dicks.

The first time I killed him, I killed him so fast, I couldn't even look at his mods, let alone interpret them (which is a flaw of PoE to begin with) and the "explosion noise" is barely audible, so nice surprise that I got fragged completely beyond my own control. If I make a mistake and get punished, fine. This, is bs. Therefore, people should read guides before they start, absolutely.

It's not like you don't get a big warning saying, that you will have to start over again when exactly this happens. It's exactly how it is supposed to be.

Nobody is saying that all deaths are unfair. Some of the traps in this game are beyond unfair en he is one of them.

[solinari6]

Oh please, you don't even need that tree to finish campaign. I always start league with minions even as duelist. And by the way I never said you should play blind.
That is ridiculous. I said you should prioritize on learning things by yourself and not blindly follow guide. Its absolutely fine to google stuff. Its absolutely fine to check how other players do their tree, its absolutely fine to ask questions.

So we went from "don't follow a guide" to "well, yes, you need to LOOK at a guide, but don't blindly follow it". LOL. OK.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

It's not like you don't get a big warning saying, that you will have to start over again when exactly this happens. It's exactly how it is supposed to be.

Its still pretty shitty though.