Man I want to love PoE but it seems like you can’t enjoy the game after a certain point (not even close to endgame) without following a build guide which I really dislike doing.
Well, until you start understanding the game mechanics, you can follow a build guide.
I do not, and I roll my own builds, and I will say they are generally quite successful. I can get ideas from guides, or other builds on poe.ninja, but then I still research and adjust to my liking, budget, and playstyle.
Rolling a build is more than half of the game for me, and I spend a lot of time tuning and testing.
So yeah I’d say there are several layers to playing PoE:
Playing the campaign and a few maps casually without looking something up. It is still a great experience to discover things and the complexity at your own pace. You won’t get to do the true endgame though, but it is an experience you can have only once, so I would personally recommend to go through it and see how you like it.
Go with a well described build by someone else. You can reach the endgame, learn how the game works, how the mechanics work, how the market works, how farming works, and lots more things.
Start rolling your own build. It’s like switching games at this point, theorycrafting a build is the true game, and POE is just a frontend for testing your build. And it feels awesome when you succeed and complete something you can call your own and see it do well. And it is iterative, you learn how building a character works so that you can do even cooler things next time.
And also do achievent/challenge hunting.
I’ve only followed a build once. And it was fun. Then I rolled my own, and it was more fun for different reasons.
But definitely needs a lot of time investment long term. It should probably take a couple of years for you to be able to claim you know what you are doing. But thankfully, the game respects you and does not demand your immediate time investment. You can play at you own pace. I have work and family, I play for a couple of hours every few days mostly. And it is fine. No one is pressuring me with daily quests and shit like that. I play because I feel like playing. I pause and play other games no problem, depending on my mood. It’s great.
I just finished A Plagues take and Before I Forget. So I’m between story games at the moment.
I’m going to be playing a heck of a lot of euro truck simulator 2 because it’s the holiday challenge and I find the portals to the snowy areas cool because I’ve always wanted snow in the northern countries. The physics are pretty cool.
I typical replay Earthbound this time of the year because it’s just a nostalgic time and it’s my favorite game, so I’ll probably play that by the light of the Christmas tree this week, either on my GBA, my pi zero 2 powered Gameboy, or my pitendo cart.
Eidolon. Nice little gem, very relaxing and I’m constantly wanting to find the next scrap of info. I’ve been compiling them into a timeline as best I can.
I feel like this gem of a game has pretty much been forgotten. Never expected to see someone mention it. Very atmospheric and one of my favorite walking simulator games.
Yeah and it’s almost impossible to find any info about it because of some stupid Warframe thing that uses ‘Eidolon’ in the title. Get out of here with that AAA microtransaction crap game. :-)
Gta online, v rising, planetside. Picked up atomicrops on my switch again and I’ve miraculously made it past year one given the face I have no idea what I’m doing
I got this too and honestly have to say it’s not my type of game. Feels a little repetitive with no goal besides salvaging enough scrap to meet the next quota.
Maybe I’m missing out on some hidden features, but the group plays a bigger role in enjoyment than the game for me.
Bg3 is great, super happy that they fixed some of the worst bugs in the last patch (like being shot at by enemies through the floor when you are on the 2nd floor of a building).
The Finals definitely needs some balancing changes made, but I'm still enjoying it. Excited to see how the game grows, it will probably replace Apex Legends for me if they keep fixing it.
The balance in the Finals is a weird one. I can absolutely understand feeling like it needs some balance changes, but honestly the more I play against things I consider BS the more I feel like it’s actually pretty balanced and every class has tools that make them feel powerful. I would absolutely give it another month of no balance changes to see if something is actually too powerful. I wouldn’t want a reactionary balance because IMO each class should have something that makes them feel powerful, it makes the game more fun.
The only thing I don’t like is the countdown not stopping when someone is stealing the cashout. At a certain point you just give up trying to steal it because you just know you don’t have time to make the steal. For instance I’ve wiped at a bad time and respawned just far enough to know I won’t make it to the cashout with enough time to steal, so I just sit there for half a minute waiting for the match to end because I already know I can’t win.
My brother got me Lethal Company and I’ve been enjoying being told what to do and how to survive by a random 13 year old through a walkie talkie while 2 other random 13 year olds try to hit me with shovels and ladders.
The music, the sounds, the visuals create a perfect mood. I’m not far into the story, but for now it’s very intriguing. One of the few games where I don’t mind the backtracking. Despite the retro look, the game is very immersive.
There is some clunkiness tho. Might be better on a PC.
If you like sci-fi with a bit horror, ambiguous storytelling, gloomy atmosphere, try it.
I wasn’t a big fan of the old RE games (could never get used to fixed cameras), but Signalis works for me. Still haven’t finished it, free time seems precious commodity these days, but come the next weekend I’ll hopefully definitely will have the time to continue the game.
It’s not game breaking. the clunkiness shows in combat situations, but you can just do ‘dark souls run past the enemies’ in most cases. I like this game for the atmosphere and story mostly.
I found the game very rough around the edges, and had to look at an internet guide to tell me where to go in the last level, but it’s a game really worth playing for the atmosphere and story alone.
There’s a great video essay on YT that takes a deep dive into the story and symbolism of the game, which I really recommend watching after finishing the game, if you’re into that form of content. A complete story breakdown of Signalis.
Still not finished Signalis… struggling a bit with free time for gaming. Just wanted to say, I do play games for story and/or atmosphere. Like watching a movie, and I do like my movies to have a story or atmosphere.
I hated the gameplay (for being very easy) and the story was meh on Death Stranding, but the mood and the feel of that game won me over, so I finished it and even went back to try 100%ing it.
My job makes me having social interactions for most of my day, so a game that gave me the feeling of isolation and loneliness like Death Stranding 2 or 3 hours before sleeping was kind of pensive at the time. Few weeks after finishing the game, Covid happened, and since then I had few instances of isolation IRL, and it wasn’t nearly as introspective as Death Stranding. So I look fondly on that game even tho all the gaming aspects of it were boring IMO. Just the atmosphere was great.
So yeah, I can consume any media if the atmosphere and/or story is enjoyable or challenging (in a positive way)
I can relate to that. These days I find myself gravitating more towards calm/introspective games that let me sit back, explore at my own pace and relax.
Wish you a good day, and I hope you are enjoying the holidays :)
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