Best f2p I've played. Terrific ARPG.

This game has potential to be absolutely amazing but there are several key design decisions made by the development team that completely and utterly destroy it's potential in my eyes.

Firstly, it is a free to play game where a lot of the in game visuals are purposely bland and boring. The art in the game is absolutely fantastic, I just think it is scummy as a company to create such crappy artwork for baseline characters and then charge what a normal full price game is worth to give your character an appearance that doesn't scream I am waiting in the welfare line for foodstamps. I love the idea of F2P games that focus on cosmetic microtransactions, but when a single set of armour costs me in excess of $50 you are straight up taking advantage. At certain point you are simply catering to rich fanboys who just want their epeens to bigger than everyone else. And this can be seen by the various mechanics in the game that force you to visit and see other players because the game certainly doesn't encourage group play at all.

Secondly, so much of the content contains surprises that cause you to instantly die. I am all for a challenge, but when you design the game to kill me without having a chance to avoid or conquer that challenge, it stops being challenging and starts being frustrating. The irony of the company being named Grinding Gears Games was not lost on me. I put several hundred hours into this game and some of them were even enjoyable. What isn't enjoyable is grinding through the same content repeatedly to aquire a key to the new content and then getting to experience the new and exciting content for 0.1% of your playtime with no reward because you don't subscribe to any of the GGG sponsored twitch streams and want to experience the game for yourself, it does not cater to this kind of playstyle and there are way too many situations where you instantly lose to unpredictable mechanics. These mechanics are either trivial and boring once you have experienced them or frustrating and unfun if you haven't. Very poor design decisions.

Lastly, RNG. Random Number Generation. The end game content for Path of Exile is all gated behind randomly dropped items that allow you to access newer and more exciting contrent. Namely the mapping system. I played initially when the game was launched and eventually wound up stopping due to the frustration of not being lucky enough to experience the end game content. They announced this patch with the Atlas of Worlds which was supposed to guide you through end game maps. It really didn't change anything, you still get to points where you go through unlucky streaks use up the maps you have and are forced to go back to lower level content that is trivial and spend hours on end repeating that until you can earn another roll of the dice to advance. Having progression so built around this chaotic system is a bad decision that will inevitably just cause everyone but the nolifest of fanboys to get burned out and fed up. But I guess those nolifers are the target audience of this game. Basically Path of Exile is designed around the concept of you finished level 12 for the 17th time, sorry you still aren't lucky enough to get to try level 13 and now you have to go back to level 11 and grind your way back up to even get a chance at trying for level 13 again.

The long and the short of this game is it is a tremendous accomplishment of art locked behind prohibitively expensive macrotransactions and engaging gameplay hidden behind repeatious boring content which is then compounded by bad luck, the most frustrating part of course being that they released the Atlas of Worlds expansion with a promise that this had been changed and redesigned and duped me into buying a $60 supporter pack which in the end really only allowed me to alter the appearance of one of my characters slightly. Unless you are the top tier of hardcore ARPGers this game isn't for you and should be avoided.

I've never left a review before...That being said, there's two key reasons I couldn't get into this game --
1. No character customization. If you decide you want to be a rogue, you have to play a male. If you decide to play a mage (witch), you have to play female.
2. The map. The map is awful, it doesn't even show where you are, it shows the zone you're in, and it's your job to blindly explore until you find the area you're supposed to end up in. There is no help, there is no pointing you in the right direction, you just blindly go until something happens.

Fun game for the unbeatable price of $0.

Great game been playing it off and on for a few years.

This game is not worth playing. its a Trap.
It makes super fun, but lategame its all about who use most exploids. Special in PVP.

PVP in path of exile. 50% Chance i onehit my openend with 1 Wave of Ice, 50% chance i get an exploiter who can facetank 3million dps. (and i cut 39%+29%max +20 Flat Cold resistence)

Game gets boring and boringer with time.
I played this game since 3 years now. Am level 90 run several Maps. beat Atziri and the Shaper, after that u "finished" this game , and it gives nothing more to do, sadly. Only PVP with is broken/bugged and full of exploiter.

I remember when we make 10 player PVP in the arena, it was funny. then the exploiter Joins, Sitting int he middle of the map and everyone died. This is how POE PVP is.

Reason for play this game:----------------------------

If u want a game for fun and playing with friends u can play Path of Exile and have fun through the story to level 90. (Level 100 is max, but only possible for the nolifers, exp penality up to 99%)

You can theoriecraft alot and make a casual fun build.


Reasons NOT to play this game:-------------------------------

If u want to make PVP for fun, never touch this game, many exploiters destroy u the fun.
If u want to communicate over the chat, dont doit, the community is ♥♥♥♥♥ier then the League of Legends one.
If u want to trade, go to trade chat, and see million of botters/players spamming their same messag
If u want to play Hardcore, 1 Lag, 1 DC, 1 Loadscreen can ripp u.
If u want to play a "meta" build u need TONS of Currency (not beginner friendly)

Like

Best Game :)

Diablo with the Materia junction system from Final Fantasy VII and the passive skill tree from FFX, Great game, and all micro transactions are purely cosmetic, probably the best F2P game out there.

Love playing this with the family