Yea it's perfect that $30 will give you enough points to give you all the most important stash tabs to were you'll never really even feel the slight need to spend another dime in the game for a decade more it's perfect.
I been playing PoE blind in prep. No guides, no tips. Just me and the game like the good old days. Holy shit it took two full playthroughs of the story but I currently have a witch running maps on endgame, starting to push into t11 and beyond. The skill tree, the gems, the endless possibilities. "I wonder if this will work?' I keep asking myself and the rabbit hole spirals into one of the most rewarding experiences I have had in gaming! Can't wait to dig into PoE2 and beat the pinnacle bosses with my own scuffed builds.
Welcome to the club! Started 10 years ago, poured around 15k hours in the game, 2k euros, and I regret none of it. I can't wait to try PoE2 and vanish from the surface of earth for a few weeks on dec 6 :p
I've been doing the same, the first time I played POE1 I used a guide, watched so many videos and I didnt even make it past act 3... this time I'm hooked cause I'm just doing my own thing, figuring stuff out on my own. I will do the same with POE2 this Friday
I have about 1500 hours in PoE and last league I finally felt I had a grasp on the basics. I felt I went from noob blindly following guides to a new player who understands the choices of the guide.
Dude. Playing with no guide my self this time and for the first time I am having fun. Streamers saying you need a guide are being banned from my feed from now on :) It's bad advice if you want to have fun imo. :)=
People have acclimated to the IGN review, "This is the game. This mechanic is fun, but this mechanic is bad. The artstyle is nice. The game was made by [X big brand company], so the game is 8 out of 10." @OGBLACK
The first layer of understanding for the PoE skill tree is seeing that there are "highways" that go in a ring around the center and every little cluster is connected to one of the highways. The second layer of understanding for the PoE skill tree is that every cluster has a theme to it. Once you got those 2 ideas, you'll be able to quickly navigate the tree by searching for a cluster you want to skill into, then look for the highpay path to it and think about the usefull clusters on each possible route.
Looking for Energy Shield? there's a cluster for it! Looking for something to make you survive through fights? There's a cluster for it! Some Keynote even change how you play your character!
@@seandevlin4059 100% worth glazing if you enjoy hard games and don’t mind hitting your head until you think. 🤔 Let me change something up then you overcome that boss then push forward and it gets better. It’s going to be hard. I’m worried people won’t be ready for it. Lots of people quit act one due to the bosses of original
@@seandevlin4059 From what everything I've heard about POE2 so far, it seems to be a mechanically harder game than POE1 but an easier game to avoid bricking your character build than POE1. And it does it without sacrificing depth and complexity. For example, POE2 tends to be removing build choices that were deemed as "mandatory" by the hardcore playerbase in order to clear harder content (or even the campaign in some cases), such as removing all the max life nodes in the passive skill tree. Another example is POE2 moving the skill gems that give you your active abilities off of your gear and into a separate UI so that if you see a cool piece of gear that you looted, you can go ahead and wear it right away if you wanted and not break your skills that you were using. Another example is that in POE2, all player characters have a free dodge roll, so the developers can design boss encounters with more interesting mechanics knowing that players have the ability to dodge.
Everytime I see gameplay I just widen my eyes and shake my head in disbelief that we're getting PoE2 AND every single piece of information came straight from the developers with such consistent and thorough gameplay trailers
I've never played a Path of Exile game, but I might give this a shot because I've also noticed the "dumb down" problem. I think the depth has a chance to give purpose to my gaming time again.
@@jazzifizzleno16I think there's room for both games. They both appeal to two different groups of players and that's a good thing. I'm personally more into dynamic combat so will be picking PoE 2 but I respect PoE 1 for it starting the whole franchise off.
@@Corusame Yeh the combat skill requirement is promissing to see, and the changes to how you progress you power looks to be way more flexibile and forgiving, which are all great changes... now we will have to see how it all actually works, fingers crossed.
I think part of the problem is just how expensive AAA games are to make now, the only way they're viable is by aiming at the broadest possible audience
Not true, most if not all that money spent is MASSIVE BLOAT / The price of the locations they put their studios (cali ect~)!!!. These huge gaming corps are in their grandad years now, they have internal system's upon systems that's only jobs are to make more openings to create more jobs that don't need to exist inside the company's. They literally just waste money and then gasslight others into thinking it's normal.
I hate to say this but IGN has a great unedited compilation of three interviews with POE2 Game director Johnathon Rogers. He talks about how the AAA bloat in company size and inefficiencies cause games to go way over a reasonable budget.
This is part of the problem but another part of it is that a large number of the people who work in these studios are not even interested in gaming. They just do a job for a paycheck because they have a relevant skill but have no real interest in what they make or the audience they make it for. Even worse is that often they are project leads, not just a random artist or coder who's interest in the project is irrelevant as long as the job is done right.
This game is BG3 & Elden Ring Levels of Bad Assery.... This game will Revolutionize the ARPG games going forward and Im glad you are jumping on to check out the POE Train here lol. It will be a Complicated and Hard game, but its something that I feel that all RPG Lovers should play and get to know... And I hope that you can find a place for it as well! I put 1472 Hours into POE 1 and I've barely scratched the Surface of what that game had to offer over the years of playing it... I never once Fought Uber Shaper / Uber Elder because I just had so much fun Mapping, finding and crafting awesome loot, and Making builds lol. POE1 - A Mountain as tall as Mount Everest, few Dare Climb it, Let alone Make it back to Talk about it..... Diablo 4 - A Body of Water as Huge as the Ocean.... But as deep as Duck Quack Quack Pond (3 inches Deep - D4 Bad) POE2 - We will soon find out lol....
They said the bosses are harder… I’m so ready!! You remember when Sirius was first released. How hard fighting Sirius was getting the mechanics down but the loot was worthy ❤my heart can’t take it if these fights are as crazy as can be
@@beasthaven1571 IM SO HYPE. I love poe1 SOOO much but my ONE complaint is how easy it is. The hard part has always been learning the stuff you do in your hideout, like crafting, amassing wealth with trading, getting and setting up items/gems for your build. But once your build is online, assuming its a viable build, the game becomes immensely easy until T17. So, having this newfound difficulty jump is going to be SOOOO refreshing, and I think it'll be the one thing poe1 was always missing.
Regarding companions solving puzzles for you, there is an even simpler fix: Just have the companions stfu by default and give the players the dialogue option to ask them for their input. Now the player can try to solve the puzzle on his own and if he gets frustrated he can have the companion solve it and just move on.
Considering how so many game devs reacted to BG3's success by informing gamers that we "shouldn't expect that level of quality" I seriously doubt they'll react any better from POE2's example. They just don't wanna. They'd rather churn out half-bakes, half-assed, shallow games and get their dime. I thoroughly believe that Dragon Age The Veilguard was made to specifically target the 13-17 year old demographic. The narrative was solid as far as story goes, but the dialogue was middling at best. There are few roleplay opportunities, choices don't matter, limited interaction with companions, Rook feels like an outsider the whole time, and the game is un-immersive as a whole. It had potential that was squandered.
Veilguard is weird because choices very much matter but there's only like 5 or so quest choices with most being tied to whether you complete side quests or not. But from dialogue to dialogue... where's my RP Bioware?
@@D4C_LoveTrain1 I feel like choices don't matter at all. They have so little effect on the game- nothing you choose alters the ending of the game except for who survives. It's quite frustrating. I totally agree- there is little to no roleplay. *sigh* Oh, what could have been. The bones are there it just...falls utterly short.
That was one of the most pathetic takes from the devs when BG3 came out "dont expect the same quality".... well dont expect us to buy it then. Veilguard, Avowed, D4, Starfield.... the list goes on and on of these half assed games
That came from small CRPG devs, not AAA devs, you didnt see a GOW developer talking that. People keep repeating that like it was Santa Mônica or Naughty Dog devs that tweeted this
Shallow or deep. Complex or simple. Hand-holding or brutal... They can all be fine and some of my favorite games fit into each of those categories. The important thing is that the game needs to be... engaging. I almost said "fun", but there are games I love that would be hard to describe as "fun", but they are in fact, engaging.
Diablo 4 was my first Arpg and I loved it at first bit once I rushed through everything and there was no endgame I left very quickly. POE 2 looks amazing to me, especially after playing a few other arpgs now. The game looks complex yet inviting. I'm hyped as hell.
Lets face it, Diablo 4 was not even a Diablo game...... Diablo 3 was barley a Diablo game. While POE was made to be a spiritual successor to Diablo 2, the last real diablo game.
@@CoalCoalJames Tonally, visually & audibly D4 is a better Diablo game that D3, I think the lack of Diablo even being mentioned and the core narrative crawling along at a snails pace and becoming this personal story about your relationship with a young girl you are tasked to protect is where it just got things really wrong in my eyes. Gameplay wise I think it's similar to D3 moment to moment, smoother progression curve and better itemisation that D3 IMO, but it's super easy to blast through the content and for whatever reason though, D4 devs cant close bugs quickly and new content is slow to release despite making over 1 Billion USD so far.
I'm afraid that POE2 may still be too complex for my tastes. That's what I ran into with POE1. Even guide builds could only take you so far because the game was just that complex lol I am fine with it not being for me. It's like Baldur's Gate 3. I know that game isn't for me. It looks incredible but the sheer number of options would leave my executive dysfunction completely overwhelmed. People need to remember it's OK for not every game to be made for every gamer. That's where I think a lot of AAA studios fail is because they try to appeal to everyone and appeal to no one. GGG and Larian are OK with not appealing to absolutely everyone and it makes their games shine.
Would honestly recommend disconnect from the guides and such and just try to do a no rush PoE session, repeat zones, collect loot and stuff. Most thing have explanations in-game when you press alt by default if I remember correctly. It wasn't clicking with me for 2-3 times until it did, the tree became understandable and it snowballed into one of my all time favourite games. No rush approach probably would make PoE 2 much easier also, some stats on gear are way more buffed compared to the first game so overgearing is easier, plus it's morr guided experience so you would most probably understand much more by just checking tooltips
Don't try and build a fusion reactor before you can walk~ I have never used a guide and didn't even trade for the first 9 years of playing POE1 and it's been a blast.
😂holy shit someone that wants a grind your in for it. I also hope you’re ready for hard bosses that’s going to be key if you hate hard bosses that stomp you or make you have to go grind to come back this might not be for you. 😅but once ur past that point ur chasing a high, ur looking for the end game content you love and can even specialize in it without touching grinds you hate
I don’t think there is anyone on youtube i agree with more on their game selections than you. I enjoy skillup and many other youtube gaming channels but so many of them have atrocious taste when it comes to whats good and bad as well as their reasons for it. You are definitely my go to guy and I appreciate your candor on all things gaming.
As a point to this 10:23 there is also almost 0 logic or reason behind making puzzles as simple/easy as they are now. If you ever get stuck with any game whatsoever you just google the name of the mission and there are complete guides to pull you through. So why not make them challenging? *Edit* I should wait with commenting as Luke always makes the points I want to make. xD fml 14:10
I call these kind of puzzles God of War puzzles imagine you're out there exploring fighting things then the game forces you to stop because you need find the pixel to hit to progress they are just there to Bloat game time it's stupidly annoying.
By this game narrowing its focus and not trying to be a game for everyone I bet pays off huge. I bet this is where the majority of the market actually is
I agree with Luke, especially when it came to elden ring I remember that I went through the entire content without guides, apart from where to find RoB, malenia and rannis quest.
To be fair, the skill tree is pretty easy to understand once you realize that the skill tree is divided into 3 regions based on strength, intelligence, and dexterity. From there, you can pretty much piece together how it all works.
This and also a search function, want a 2h or physical? Just type it in on top, same with every single stat or mechanic which would make mapping the tree way easier having for example all minion or bleed nodes highlight to choose the path
That skill tree is wild. It's complexity is definitely going to scare away new players, but I'm sure the game will go really well and that those who do pick it up will love it
People into arpg’s tend to dump 100’s of hours into them and this keeps it fun. Your always learning something, d4 was mind numbing and after maxing out my first char the thought of doing it again sucks
Darthmicrotransactions had a video about POE 1 that explains how its not really that complex for beginners. Basically it looks daunting, but every step you make small decisions. And with respec if you find a node you like, you can change your previous path to go with your preferred route.
@@onabiv Nah guides are helpful, but you need to study the guide and ask the questions. "why did he take this node instead of this" "oh his tree gives him this damage, mine does this I wonder why" You start looking for these answers you are 1 step closer to learning how POE works.
Honestly a 1-2 screen tutorial would do wonders on full release, before showing it freely just zoom in on your class position and have two screens: one is about magica being on top, str being near health globe and dex around resource one, preferably visualising it as a pie chart. The second screen dissecting that pie into classes like for example shadow is a mag/dex starting point or duelist being a str/dex point, marauder is pure str etc where their archetypes often dictate what nodes you'll see around that points, like holy for templar or bow nodes for a ranger, armour and mace for a warrior
PoE skill tree really not that bad; the real issue for new players is figuring out the numerous crafting systems the original has that allows such excellent itemization. Even after a couple thousand hours some of its still confusing PoE2 solves all that being new but they do need to bring back things like cluster jewels or a good alternative.
I remember someone stating that cluster will be in the game at launch, sadly I can't remember the source. I think it's true since delirium will be on EA
Yeah skill tree become tricky when u make wacky out of the box build, but if u just wanna play traditional bow ranger or caster witch is kinda easy... Also biggest offender for new player experience is gems socket & link socket, thanks god this fixed in poe 2
@@matheusguerrascheffer6518No clusters on launch, just normal jewel sockets. Jonathan has said he's keen to reintroduce them back into the game later down the line once leagues start up.
In the 1000 hours I played in this game I only dabbled in crafting recently, before I would just use ghetto self crafted items and farm money to buy other player crafted gear 😂
The thing to remember about the skill tree is that while it is massive - for your first point you only have two options. Choose one of the two. To know which direction you are going to go when the time comes look for the bigger nodes, find one that is interesting and move towards it. Mistakes will be made but nothing that can't be fixed once realized.
Luke, great content. About this PoE 2: it reminds me Baldur's Gate 3 early accesss and the launch of v1.0 later on. Both games demostrates when a devs / company are honest, transparent to the player base and treat this players like so, mature players and not a "money machine" and one last thing, You make a GOOD GAME (the most obvious but the difficult one), there are no "niche games" or "niche genre" simply because the players WANT to play your game, WANT to support your awesome job and nothing else matters. PoE 2 has more content, have one of the best game directors of the industry, Jonathan, are honest with the players, put passion and, with Jonathan words: GGG are not going to stop until they make the best ARPG in history, and guess what? They are very very close. The 12/6 PoE 2 explode STEAM, Internet and probably, the servers (I hope no) but we need to stay in there, because, like BG3, this game feels like an a "anomaly" a "special one". Great job from GGG, I support buying the early and buying other packs when the release of 1.0 because they deserved it. It's simply (and complicated at the same time) to do this type of game, but if you put your soul, passion, talent and pro-players first the result are there. P.D: sorry my English but I'm from spain.
johnathan said in one of the many interviews that hes been doing. "the only person that i know what they want, is me." they make the game they want to play. "hopefully other people agree". 100% correct and EA is, again according to what theyve said, HALF of what the full release will be. and yeah. also f2p at that point. welcome to GGG and poe, we love it here.(ignore reddit)
Agreed. What put me off this game is the greedy online only requirements and the pay for basic convenience monetisation. I will wait for grim dawn 2 and play last epoch instead
@@Jinkypigs the 30 dollars is enough to buy the convenience once and you have it forever , I spent more on grim dawn 1 for all the dlc + game and dont play it till next dlc comes out and i have 0 regrets, i paid 30 dollars once in 2012for POE1 and played 6000 hours and never bought anything else since you have 4 expansions per year , the online only requirement i can see as negative for some but it is a free to play game ,no one makes money from offline free to play games , also all microtransactions are shared so you have everything on both games too
To be REAL HONEST, POE Passive tree have a lot of litle implements too, but it feels relevant because it feels like a deliberate path you are making and the little implements are like you polishing your skills in a way to achieve greater objectives. I'm playing a Duelist and the path from start to Life Leech and Mana Leech is full of +10Dex, so it fits my playstyle, BUT i could take another path and increment INT, landing in the same life and mana leechs, so it's another playstyle. Also, the giant passive skill tree is for every class, so you can also see what you can achieve with other starting point, and this to me is proof of how absurdly well made it is.
My biggest fear at seeing that tree, is that if I'm 4 branches deep, and I just want to change something early on I will have fully re-spec or undo every node one by one to backtrack to the early node I want to change, then re-select every node to get back to where I was. That was a real problem with the first games constellations and skill trees, where every step had to be valid instead of just the end result.
You are so uniquely and brutally honest..and why you've always been my favorite gaming youtuber. Man I would enjoy taking a drink with you and talk politics and religion. Mad respect you my friend. You will become one of the legends, with time.
I've been playing Path of Exile since the very first alpha and it's such a breath of fresh air in the gaming industry it's insane. They even gave me free beta access because I've spent over 500 bucks TOTAL on the game since launch, every supporter pack I've ever bought combined. That's absolutely nothing spread out over 12 years.
The Poe tree seems complex because of so many options, but if you patiently read things out, there are 2-3 options at any given point. Defense, dmg, utility. Wishing everyone a great launch!
IMO it depends on the audience of the game and how "deep" are the devs are going. There are games there like retail WoW where devs cater more on the top 1% of the players and alienate 99% hence the population drop, but a decade ago the sentiment was the opposite where everyone thinks wow is too ez. Its when you try to cater to everyone to the point where you cater to no one.
One important fact to mention is that poe 2 will be released in early access. It is not yet the full game. There are a lot of features that will be added over the next few months until full release
I think there are actually a wide variety of contributing factors, but I think it mostly comes down to how hard it actually is to make a game with a lot of depth: 1. It takes more iteration to design deep systems than shallow ones. As the depth increases, the number of actual game design work hours increases non-linearly. More time and more money. Suits do not like this. 2. It takes more skill to design deep systems than shallow ones. As the depth increases, the amount of designer skill required to come to a good overall design instead of a crappy cludgy one increases non-linearly. This means that deep games require game design expertise in that particular genre. 3. Most AAA publishers have been pushing third and first person action games - shooters or otherwise - for years and years now. This ties in with 2, but it means that the talent pool for game design of anything other than third and first person action games is MUCH thinner than it was 20 years ago. 4. AAA publishers are super risk averse because each game costs sooooo much money. This means that a major part of their financial calculations is: "What is the safest way to spend this money?" And when it's easier to make a shallow game than a deep game, that means it's more likely to be successful at achieving its goals. Fund 10 shallow games and 8 of them will be pretty good. Fund 10 deep games and 4 of them will be pretty good. I think it's very telling that the games which buck this trend are coming from dedicated specialty studios who have grown their designers for years and years in their specific genre. Larian, From, and GGG are all companies that have been honing their genre for a long ass time. Some longer than others, but a long time for all of them. The game designers at GGG are better at making deep action RPGs than the game designers at D4. Period. They literally have thousands more hours practiced working on design for a deep ARPG. The designers at Blizzard would have to be working on and practicing their design skills for deep ARPGs order to get the same level of mastery that GGG has. Even if Blizzard pivots D5 towards real depth, it's going to be highly derivative of PoE 2 because they don't have the skills necessary to build something of equal depth and quality with its own design voice. GGG *is* the Blizzard North of today. Absolutely 100%. Just like Larian is the Black Isle/early Bioware of today. Because games aren't made by companies, they're made by people. And because game design is an art, not a science. The executives at these companies can push things which look 'risky' because they trust their designers. They aren't blind, they can see that their company is literally better at this stuff than other companies are. They understand that with smaller budgets they're making shit that's better than games with much bigger budgets. And then when they can finally finagle together the funding for a big-ass project (and assuming they can absorb the growth without it fucking up their development process a la Bethesda) they can finally show the world what it means when real experts make a game. None of this namby-pamby 15 years of general industry experience bouncing between genres and copying proven designs from other studios, I'm talking a whole studio of designers with 1-15 years of straight dedicated work on a subgenre of a larger genre. Real fucking masters at their craft. In GGG's case one of the game directors of PoE 2 is literally one of the cofounders of the company (Jonathan). Dude is worth like 50 million dollars or something like that. Doing endless interviews with content creators because he just fucking loves his game so much. He made it big, and his 'retirement' is just to make the game he wants to play in the company he founded.
Path of Exile, Path of Exile 2, Grim Dawn, Victor Vran, Van Helsing, there are a few games out there that I gravitate to! And of course, MANY retro PC games from the 90s/00s!
Pedantry but note to all new Exiles coming in based on this excellent video: PoE2 doesn't release this weekend - the PoE2 Early Access does! The full game isn't even in yet (more class choice and more story content) - that's coming next year. That said, it's PLENTY to keep you hooked and already has an "early cut" of the endgame. We welcome you to the beaches, and always, always, ask any questions you want in global chat (Barrens chat). PoE thrives on knowledge sharing and everyone is happy to help in that regard.
See that's the thing; they want to make "less complex" games because they're easier to develop, end of story. Essentially AAA cash grab slop is easier to develop.
@@Giliver Yeah, sorry bud but PoE may not be for you. The skill system was NEVER a real problem. It's being able to understand how to SCALE your damage for a particular skill based on various factors. PoE is quite lenient regarding what skills you want to use; however, if the rest of your character isn't setup to use x skill then your damage will suck (obviously).
Only 20 mins into the endgame reveal video. Aside from the level design which looks amazing by the way, the classes and skills etc look absolutely phenomenal! I’ve never played one of these ARPGs before and I’m definitely up for trying this! Thank you for the recommendation Luke!
Game devs are making games designed for kids and young adults. The problem is they assume everyone is stupid and doesn't have critical thinking. While critical thinking is definitely lacking in the modern era, games shouldn't reinforce that. Make people think. It can be fun if done right. It always was.
Kids are pretty fast learners, young adults are super resourceful, it’s adults and older gamers who tend to not be able to figure it out or have the patience and time to. If you genuinely believe kids are the dumber ones in the age of technology in which they can learn anything then where have you been? It’s kids figuring out how to do all these complex and skilful things.
It's always what I am looking for. It's one of the main reasons I didn't get Outlaws (the AI was terribad also though) despite being a Star Wars fan (at least prior to Disney). It's why I didn't get D4, despite playing both betas (or because I played both betas), despite being an ARPG fan. It's one of the reasons I didn't get Veilguard (though the writing stood as even worse). It's why I am a fan of ARPGs, RPGs, hunting games like Monster Hunter and Souls and Soulslikes.
I want polish. Passion. Dedication. I played only PoE1 to like act 3. Never finished it, never played a league. But PoE 2 so far looks so damn smooth and well designed I feel how much the devs care about it.
to be fair to Veilguard i have the impression the game and studio were rescued from extreme turmoil after years of being all over the place and they managed to pull together a good game in the nick of time. my impression is they did what they could with the resources they had. i choose to give it that grace anyway. if they were in a good state, like i hope they'll be more mass effect, i think we'd get a lot of that depth we'd all love. and i did love the gender-based character choice innovation and interpersonal vibes. i really loved my Rook and the friendships they formed (even if yes i would have loved more conflict and drama and depth).
Love the intro "probably of the year, Is about to come out", it will be the best game of the decade in its early access state. For me at least, can't wait
I have been saying this since 2011, people called me an idiot and said simplification was good. Which I think some of the reason is those people just moving on from games. I think I know what happened to bring it back recently. Going off what I have seen with my younger brother and his friends (approximately 8 years younger) they were the ones that hated complex games and only played the vroom vroom Fortnites and other shooters or non-substance games. Now they are older and educated (kind of) and starting to understand the enjoyment of depth. My brother actually recently joined the Navy. So we just have more voices that agree with us old school gamers. The ones that still think that way or the super young kids are either playing the Fortnites or watching tik tok non stop.
It could be nice to have one of the companions that is a .. Scout (for example) that could identify the puzzles and you bring that companion if you want assistance. Or that almost every companion has a skill you can select that does that if you'll want that.
A recent game I loved for its puzzle solving and depth (or lack-there-of) is the revived DOOM series. Seriously fun for what it is, and you can get lost with secret finding, achievement hunting or even completing the story on the hardest difficulty. I cant wait for the new game to release
I'm half-convinced many game studios/publishers are trying to turn games into TV. I play games to keep my mind working instead of just drooling in front of the wall of colors.
oh and u can interact with it with certain item and..... with some other item u can put some of the skill tree's bigger node onto ur gear etc very cool ppl like to play with guide but the fact that its kinda(fresh start) im not even gonna look for guide would be like somebody opening the surprise box for me thats the only thing that hype me ..DISCOVERY
I seek out complex games. Paradox Grand Strategy, Path of Exile, Flight Simulators, all kinds of colony managers, ... Maybe because I started gaming in the 80s, in a small rural town where I'm pretty sure I had the only computer for about a decade. So I had to figure out games, and there was the fun for me. I noticed a lot of younger gamers are scared away by any hint of complexity, and if they're not they often rely on wiki's and youtube guides to get started, not understanding that these games are designed to be learned over time. Most of the time you can ignore 95% of the mechanics, and see how your game plays out. And then you try to fix where it went wrong, often learning new mechanic in the game. To be clear I'm fine with people using guides, but people shouldn't be scared to go in without guides.
I've been feeling this for years now, games back in the days were pretty simple, like diablo 2 but that doesn't mean the players don't enjoy more depth and customization in their games. POE knows this because its made by gamers. The problem is a lot of corpos don't understand that giving 2 meaningless choices for a branching fireball skill upgrade in D4 is insulting to players.
Fair enough. POE is new to me, I’ve never played it (the first one, nor have I ever played Diablo or anything like it). The character experience seems lost in these games, the world experience is lost, the escape or “sim” experience is lost (missing may be a better word than lost). The challenge will certainly be there, accomplishment, purpose (I guess). I’m going to jump in this one, but I fear I’m more of a Skyrim player… To your point, AAA games no longer check the boxes. Elden Ring was a blast, and definitely challenging…but it left so many boxes unchecked for me. I finished it, and probably won’t pick it up again. It did turn me on to Fromsoft, and I’m now playing Sekiro. Skyrim was a place (IS a place…a true fantasy world you could go do almost anything). Why have we gone 12 years with nothing even remotely comparable?? I remain interested, and moderately excited by POE2…thanks for the vid.
I feel like devs and publishers these days are too afraid of players potentially "missing" content as well. They are afraid to put a reward or story element behind something that not every player is able to complete, which I think is a big mistake. To this day, I still remember finally being able to get the secret ending in Kingdom Hearts 2 for the first time, after beating the game on the hardest difficulty, only for someone to ask just as soon as I mentioned it "oh, did you see the second secret ending too?" I couldn't wait to go back into the game and play more to try and unlock something that I didn't even know would be worth it. There are almost no games that I can remember recently that have made me feel something like that outside of BG3 and Elden Ring (except Tunic) and it's just...dissatisfying.
For all the talk of end game in POE and POE2, as a casual I never got there. BUT I had a lot of fun making new runs with builds I was figuring as I went. As they were not optimised they sucked at top level, but at least I could see how far I could get or not, and when it didn't work out just start again. Playing a game is not all about the best ultimate most efficient setup, I spend enough time in real life worrying about that. Sometimes its just about ...playing. And POE give you that freedom.
Agreed with Luke, 100%. I have myself gravitated to boomer shooters (where the twitch reflex and "getting lost for a while" are integral and expected parts of the game) and / or higher difficulty in modern AAA games (for some challenge). FromSoftware has actually been tapping into this yearning for challenge people have (albeit to a bit more of an extreme level, for some), and look at the success they've been having for a solid long while. To each their own, but I grew up with games that challenged you (I'm 44 now).
at 36 i find my self always picking up new games and realising that the challenge isnt enough to sustain my attention. soon as the game gets to easy i put it down and walk away. i fall back on older titles where the challenge is more consistent over the new flashy thing thats supposed to replace the old thing.
Gamers are not a monolith. SOME gamers want more depth, but very many do not, and that's cool. Fallout 4 represent a trend for many players, satisfied with simpler mechanics. I'd be happy if both were options.
You do realise new gamers also want depth too, it’s about the individual not the time. While in the old days the people who really played PC games the most were more the nerd and geek types who enjoyed depth. It’s a more general and wider audience now. Not to say it wasn’t back then with plenty adventure and story games kids grew up on and now the ones making games
@@1_underthesun And that clearly reflects people's buying habits. That said, maybe there's a trend towards deeper games (exemplified by Elden Ring) so maybe it will change now.
@@Bro-dot- I said nothing about how long people have been playing. I think you are overgeneralising about gamers in the past. Yes, people who played RPGs may have been nerds who came from tabletop backgrounds, but TBH, they played deeper games because that was what they were offered. They also played text adventures and you don't see a call for them any more. But as soon as we could move beyond that, many people did, leaving a subset who still craved that D&D-like experience.
One thing about these modern AAA is what someone described a Bethesda game to be. Width of an ocean, depth of a puddle. These games are big over produced spectacles but not much feels different. Bizly said this in one of his videos. "There is alot to look at, but not alot to touch."
the companion puzzle callout feature should really be based on the difficulty mode I'm playing on. If I'm playing a game on easy and only care about the story then yeah sure go ahead companion and solve the puzzle for me, if I'm playing on normal maybe callout if I've been stuck for 5 minutes, if I'm playing on hard then STFU
About the puzzles being solved by NPC, and even at a larger scale the whole "games are holding your hand" is mostly an inclusive feature. When you take in consideration disabilities and try to make a game that can be enjoyed by all, it often comes down to that. But it's really implemented badly most of the time. I remember that some game had this in the option menu to be turn on or off, and i think they should stick with that, so hardcore gamer, casual and disable people could enjoy the game how they desire. Anyway hope that helped
Not all gamers are the same... not every gamer wants complexity. I for instance want my easy to gulp games and sometimes I want to challenge myself. You compare the DAV games and the AC games. Let me give you my point of view and why I like the new simplified games compared to the old ones. The new ones are easy to learn, easy to master. The are easy to be left for months and come back to them and still have fun. I remember leaving AC unity for months, tried to get back to the game and the only thing I got was frustration because I didn't remember any of the mechanics lets say, the combat, the stealth. So there are benefits of the both type of games.
To be fair I don't think there was ever a question that this wasn't the case. BG3, Elden Ring, etc. We routinely reward developers who make deep and complex games.
Who is we? Because some simple games get rewarded more. Creatively successful games tend to make less money. So for studios who aren’t fromsoft, Larian and etc who care about money, then it’s better to simplify.
I dont really get hyped for games, but I'm incredibly hyped for POE 2. Its not just hype though. GGG has proven themselves and everyone who's played it already glazes it just as much.
I feel like... builds should also be discussed in the lore. Like this famous historical figure was this build and his strength was this but his weakness was this. Like BG3, I'm playing it, but I'm not that well verses with D&D, and I have no idea what I'm doing.
The $30 entry fee also comes with $30 worth (300) of in-game currency to spend in the store. I would use them for stash tabs.
THIS
Yeah Early access is basically free if you purchase 30$ worth of shop currency (not in game, those are different)
That’s the best use of points 🎉
I bought it when the price is 250K rupiah, like maybe 17 dollars, I consume path of exile without thinking, they still the good guy of gaming❤❤❤
Yea it's perfect that $30 will give you enough points to give you all the most important stash tabs to were you'll never really even feel the slight need to spend another dime in the game for a decade more it's perfect.
I been playing PoE blind in prep. No guides, no tips. Just me and the game like the good old days. Holy shit it took two full playthroughs of the story but I currently have a witch running maps on endgame, starting to push into t11 and beyond. The skill tree, the gems, the endless possibilities. "I wonder if this will work?' I keep asking myself and the rabbit hole spirals into one of the most rewarding experiences I have had in gaming! Can't wait to dig into PoE2 and beat the pinnacle bosses with my own scuffed builds.
Welcome to the club! Started 10 years ago, poured around 15k hours in the game, 2k euros, and I regret none of it. I can't wait to try PoE2 and vanish from the surface of earth for a few weeks on dec 6 :p
I've been doing the same, the first time I played POE1 I used a guide, watched so many videos and I didnt even make it past act 3... this time I'm hooked cause I'm just doing my own thing, figuring stuff out on my own. I will do the same with POE2 this Friday
I have about 1500 hours in PoE and last league I finally felt I had a grasp on the basics. I felt I went from noob blindly following guides to a new player who understands the choices of the guide.
Good luck buddy
Dude. Playing with no guide my self this time and for the first time I am having fun. Streamers saying you need a guide are being banned from my feed from now on :) It's bad advice if you want to have fun imo. :)=
That’s the best sponsored section. Genuine value for the audience, the studio and (possibly!) for you Luke. Game looks great
POE 2 looks like the perfect game to lose myself to this holiday season
Your holiday season lasts 10 years? I'm jealous 🤯
@@Micromationhahahaha
Only the Early Access guys, warts and all. I'll be there with you though. 🫡
You will lose urself to every season (POE2 season that is), mark my words~
It's joe biden from alternate account he has all the time he wants cause he is retiring now@@Micromation
If he’s skeptical, it’s too cynical, if he’s excited, it’s “glazing”. My dude cannot win with these comments man
Thats how people are these days sadly. You dont like something you a “hater” you like something then you’re a “simp” or “glazing” its wild.
Another reason why modern society is dying
He gets paid for spouting his opinion. You have to take the meat & potatoes
@@rockkiller124society is fine, the internet is just hyperbolic
People have acclimated to the IGN review, "This is the game. This mechanic is fun, but this mechanic is bad. The artstyle is nice. The game was made by [X big brand company], so the game is 8 out of 10." @OGBLACK
I have about 3500 hours in PoE 1, and I’ve never been more excited for a game release.
Ahhh so a relative newbie =P .
Do you recommend any content creators to learn the game as some1 who has never played be4
2k hours here. never played an elemental build xD.
So hyped to play sorc in POE2 !!
Just kidding, WARRIOR ALL THE WAY
@@loucas9608Zizaran has some really good and in depth beginner stuff as well as full level 1 to maps play throughs
13k hours here and still a rookie 😅
The first layer of understanding for the PoE skill tree is seeing that there are "highways" that go in a ring around the center and every little cluster is connected to one of the highways.
The second layer of understanding for the PoE skill tree is that every cluster has a theme to it.
Once you got those 2 ideas, you'll be able to quickly navigate the tree by searching for a cluster you want to skill into, then look for the highpay path to it and think about the usefull clusters on each possible route.
Looking for Energy Shield? there's a cluster for it! Looking for something to make you survive through fights? There's a cluster for it! Some Keynote even change how you play your character!
Exactly. I like to scout out where I want my build to go. In fact, it's a necessity.
This is some great advice, (I'm new to the series) and I can't wait to scour the tree, mapping out what I want.
Perfect Analogy!
Path of Exile 2 is a game made by gamers for the gamers. Its not made by a load of suits advised by their HR team.
Yes he’s glazing POE2. Yes it’s WORTHY of glazing.
Thanks. I was looking for a TLDR
Hi, you must be a Talkative Tri chatter. High five!
@@seandevlin4059 100% worth glazing if you enjoy hard games and don’t mind hitting your head until you think. 🤔 Let me change something up then you overcome that boss then push forward and it gets better.
It’s going to be hard. I’m worried people won’t be ready for it. Lots of people quit act one due to the bosses of original
Anybody trying to glaze these……
@@seandevlin4059 From what everything I've heard about POE2 so far, it seems to be a mechanically harder game than POE1 but an easier game to avoid bricking your character build than POE1. And it does it without sacrificing depth and complexity.
For example, POE2 tends to be removing build choices that were deemed as "mandatory" by the hardcore playerbase in order to clear harder content (or even the campaign in some cases), such as removing all the max life nodes in the passive skill tree.
Another example is POE2 moving the skill gems that give you your active abilities off of your gear and into a separate UI so that if you see a cool piece of gear that you looted, you can go ahead and wear it right away if you wanted and not break your skills that you were using.
Another example is that in POE2, all player characters have a free dodge roll, so the developers can design boss encounters with more interesting mechanics knowing that players have the ability to dodge.
Everytime I see gameplay I just widen my eyes and shake my head in disbelief that we're getting PoE2 AND every single piece of information came straight from the developers with such consistent and thorough gameplay trailers
They did crazy amounts of interviews it’s amazing
I've never played a Path of Exile game, but I might give this a shot because I've also noticed the "dumb down" problem. I think the depth has a chance to give purpose to my gaming time again.
Theres only one path of exile game. Its Path of Exile
On friday there will be 2@@jazzifizzleno16
@@khrishpu think he really needed to be told that?
@@jazzifizzleno16I think there's room for both games. They both appeal to two different groups of players and that's a good thing. I'm personally more into dynamic combat so will be picking PoE 2 but I respect PoE 1 for it starting the whole franchise off.
@@Corusame Yeh the combat skill requirement is promissing to see, and the changes to how you progress you power looks to be way more flexibile and forgiving, which are all great changes... now we will have to see how it all actually works, fingers crossed.
I think part of the problem is just how expensive AAA games are to make now, the only way they're viable is by aiming at the broadest possible audience
Not true, most if not all that money spent is MASSIVE BLOAT / The price of the locations they put their studios (cali ect~)!!!.
These huge gaming corps are in their grandad years now, they have internal system's upon systems that's only jobs are to make more openings to create more jobs that don't need to exist inside the company's.
They literally just waste money and then gasslight others into thinking it's normal.
I hate to say this but IGN has a great unedited compilation of three interviews with POE2 Game director Johnathon Rogers. He talks about how the AAA bloat in company size and inefficiencies cause games to go way over a reasonable budget.
@@williamschubert4819 that actually sounds interesting, i might watch that
@@wistfulwizard307 warning he does call it path 2 instead of poe2. Otherwise some very great questions and amswers
This is part of the problem but another part of it is that a large number of the people who work in these studios are not even interested in gaming. They just do a job for a paycheck because they have a relevant skill but have no real interest in what they make or the audience they make it for. Even worse is that often they are project leads, not just a random artist or coder who's interest in the project is irrelevant as long as the job is done right.
4:40 I almost skipped your ad part. Glad it took me a second to get to the remote. Looks very interesting to me.
This game is BG3 & Elden Ring Levels of Bad Assery.... This game will Revolutionize the ARPG games going forward and Im glad you are jumping on to check out the POE Train here lol. It will be a Complicated and Hard game, but its something that I feel that all RPG Lovers should play and get to know... And I hope that you can find a place for it as well!
I put 1472 Hours into POE 1 and I've barely scratched the Surface of what that game had to offer over the years of playing it... I never once Fought Uber Shaper / Uber Elder because I just had so much fun Mapping, finding and crafting awesome loot, and Making builds lol.
POE1 - A Mountain as tall as Mount Everest, few Dare Climb it, Let alone Make it back to Talk about it.....
Diablo 4 - A Body of Water as Huge as the Ocean.... But as deep as Duck Quack Quack Pond (3 inches Deep - D4 Bad)
POE2 - We will soon find out lol....
They said the bosses are harder… I’m so ready!! You remember when Sirius was first released. How hard fighting Sirius was getting the mechanics down but the loot was worthy ❤my heart can’t take it if these fights are as crazy as can be
@@beasthaven1571 IM SO HYPE. I love poe1 SOOO much but my ONE complaint is how easy it is. The hard part has always been learning the stuff you do in your hideout, like crafting, amassing wealth with trading, getting and setting up items/gems for your build. But once your build is online, assuming its a viable build, the game becomes immensely easy until T17. So, having this newfound difficulty jump is going to be SOOOO refreshing, and I think it'll be the one thing poe1 was always missing.
Regarding companions solving puzzles for you, there is an even simpler fix: Just have the companions stfu by default and give the players the dialogue option to ask them for their input. Now the player can try to solve the puzzle on his own and if he gets frustrated he can have the companion solve it and just move on.
Considering how so many game devs reacted to BG3's success by informing gamers that we "shouldn't expect that level of quality" I seriously doubt they'll react any better from POE2's example. They just don't wanna. They'd rather churn out half-bakes, half-assed, shallow games and get their dime.
I thoroughly believe that Dragon Age The Veilguard was made to specifically target the 13-17 year old demographic. The narrative was solid as far as story goes, but the dialogue was middling at best. There are few roleplay opportunities, choices don't matter, limited interaction with companions, Rook feels like an outsider the whole time, and the game is un-immersive as a whole. It had potential that was squandered.
Veilguard is weird because choices very much matter but there's only like 5 or so quest choices with most being tied to whether you complete side quests or not.
But from dialogue to dialogue... where's my RP Bioware?
@@D4C_LoveTrain1 I feel like choices don't matter at all. They have so little effect on the game- nothing you choose alters the ending of the game except for who survives. It's quite frustrating. I totally agree- there is little to no roleplay. *sigh* Oh, what could have been. The bones are there it just...falls utterly short.
That was one of the most pathetic takes from the devs when BG3 came out "dont expect the same quality".... well dont expect us to buy it then. Veilguard, Avowed, D4, Starfield.... the list goes on and on of these half assed games
That came from small CRPG devs, not AAA devs, you didnt see a GOW developer talking that.
People keep repeating that like it was Santa Mônica or Naughty Dog devs that tweeted this
@@FloripesTavares it doesnt matter, strive for the better, look at Owlcat, a small studio making amazing games.
Shallow or deep. Complex or simple. Hand-holding or brutal...
They can all be fine and some of my favorite games fit into each of those categories.
The important thing is that the game needs to be... engaging.
I almost said "fun", but there are games I love that would be hard to describe as "fun", but they are in fact, engaging.
For me it's all those grocery shops simulator, it's not that fun, but it's engaging
Tik tok brain rot + shortened attention span of our next generation of gamers = dumbed down games.
PoE 2 will be the BG3 of ARPGs. It will be a once in a generation experience for the genre.
4:20 Oh that's a cool idea for a world. Sailing around fjords as a world. That's great. I'll check this out.
1:44. I ask my cat if she's "hungy", at which point she always shouts "YEAHHHHHH!"
Diablo 4 was my first Arpg and I loved it at first bit once I rushed through everything and there was no endgame I left very quickly. POE 2 looks amazing to me, especially after playing a few other arpgs now. The game looks complex yet inviting. I'm hyped as hell.
Can confirm 5000+ hours Andy since 2013 in PoE. Ready to blast once again!
A year as just over 8k hours. You've burnt up almost an entire year on earth on a game. Imagine if you spent that learning a skill
Diablo 4 was never the king in town
Lets face it, Diablo 4 was not even a Diablo game...... Diablo 3 was barley a Diablo game.
While POE was made to be a spiritual successor to Diablo 2, the last real diablo game.
i mean its making more many than any of these things so they dont care.
@@CoalCoalJames Tonally, visually & audibly D4 is a better Diablo game that D3, I think the lack of Diablo even being mentioned and the core narrative crawling along at a snails pace and becoming this personal story about your relationship with a young girl you are tasked to protect is where it just got things really wrong in my eyes.
Gameplay wise I think it's similar to D3 moment to moment, smoother progression curve and better itemisation that D3 IMO, but it's super easy to blast through the content and for whatever reason though, D4 devs cant close bugs quickly and new content is slow to release despite making over 1 Billion USD so far.
I'm afraid that POE2 may still be too complex for my tastes. That's what I ran into with POE1. Even guide builds could only take you so far because the game was just that complex lol I am fine with it not being for me. It's like Baldur's Gate 3. I know that game isn't for me. It looks incredible but the sheer number of options would leave my executive dysfunction completely overwhelmed.
People need to remember it's OK for not every game to be made for every gamer. That's where I think a lot of AAA studios fail is because they try to appeal to everyone and appeal to no one. GGG and Larian are OK with not appealing to absolutely everyone and it makes their games shine.
Would honestly recommend disconnect from the guides and such and just try to do a no rush PoE session, repeat zones, collect loot and stuff. Most thing have explanations in-game when you press alt by default if I remember correctly. It wasn't clicking with me for 2-3 times until it did, the tree became understandable and it snowballed into one of my all time favourite games.
No rush approach probably would make PoE 2 much easier also, some stats on gear are way more buffed compared to the first game so overgearing is easier, plus it's morr guided experience so you would most probably understand much more by just checking tooltips
I think you'll easily be able to create a good build just by picking a general theme and then picking the skill clusters that match it.
You can just go blind and pick whatever looks good. No need to be perfection.
Don't try and build a fusion reactor before you can walk~
I have never used a guide and didn't even trade for the first 9 years of playing POE1 and it's been a blast.
Honestly I agree, games that are made for everyone are often times games for no one.
please i hope this game cures my itch for a extensive grind after leaving my 3000+ hours worth of grind on Destiny 2😭
When it comes to grinding, you will not be disappointed. :D
Oh you in for a hell of a grind here 😂
😂holy shit someone that wants a grind your in for it. I also hope you’re ready for hard bosses that’s going to be key if you hate hard bosses that stomp you or make you have to go grind to come back this might not be for you. 😅but once ur past that point ur chasing a high, ur looking for the end game content you love and can even specialize in it without touching grinds you hate
Oh boy you are in for a treat
I don’t think there is anyone on youtube i agree with more on their game selections than you. I enjoy skillup and many other youtube gaming channels but so many of them have atrocious taste when it comes to whats good and bad as well as their reasons for it.
You are definitely my go to guy and I appreciate your candor on all things gaming.
As a point to this 10:23 there is also almost 0 logic or reason behind making puzzles as simple/easy as they are now. If you ever get stuck with any game whatsoever you just google the name of the mission and there are complete guides to pull you through. So why not make them challenging?
*Edit* I should wait with commenting as Luke always makes the points I want to make. xD fml 14:10
I call these kind of puzzles God of War puzzles imagine you're out there exploring fighting things then the game forces you to stop because you need find the pixel to hit to progress they are just there to Bloat game time it's stupidly annoying.
I am so ready for POE 2
Sammmme!
Same buddy i will play day 1 and merk all the way
Me too comes out on my birthday! Can’t wait to play
POE 2 is already taken.
@@Boxxy456 Happy early birthday, brother!
By this game narrowing its focus and not trying to be a game for everyone I bet pays off huge. I bet this is where the majority of the market actually is
I agree with Luke, especially when it came to elden ring I remember that I went through the entire content without guides, apart from where to find RoB, malenia and rannis quest.
To be fair, the skill tree is pretty easy to understand once you realize that the skill tree is divided into 3 regions based on strength, intelligence, and dexterity. From there, you can pretty much piece together how it all works.
This and also a search function, want a 2h or physical? Just type it in on top, same with every single stat or mechanic which would make mapping the tree way easier having for example all minion or bleed nodes highlight to choose the path
PoE and Grim Dawn are the only ARPGs anywhere near this level of depth.
Amen to grim dawn
That skill tree is wild. It's complexity is definitely going to scare away new players, but I'm sure the game will go really well and that those who do pick it up will love it
I wish I could tell them to just dive in. It's not nearly as complex as it looks. We just need to silence all the "derp derp, you need a guide" guys
People into arpg’s tend to dump 100’s of hours into them and this keeps it fun. Your always learning something, d4 was mind numbing and after maxing out my first char the thought of doing it again sucks
Darthmicrotransactions had a video about POE 1 that explains how its not really that complex for beginners. Basically it looks daunting, but every step you make small decisions. And with respec if you find a node you like, you can change your previous path to go with your preferred route.
@@onabiv Nah guides are helpful, but you need to study the guide and ask the questions. "why did he take this node instead of this" "oh his tree gives him this damage, mine does this I wonder why" You start looking for these answers you are 1 step closer to learning how POE works.
Honestly a 1-2 screen tutorial would do wonders on full release, before showing it freely just zoom in on your class position and have two screens: one is about magica being on top, str being near health globe and dex around resource one, preferably visualising it as a pie chart. The second screen dissecting that pie into classes like for example shadow is a mag/dex starting point or duelist being a str/dex point, marauder is pure str etc where their archetypes often dictate what nodes you'll see around that points, like holy for templar or bow nodes for a ranger, armour and mace for a warrior
PoE skill tree really not that bad; the real issue for new players is figuring out the numerous crafting systems the original has that allows such excellent itemization. Even after a couple thousand hours some of its still confusing PoE2 solves all that being new but they do need to bring back things like cluster jewels or a good alternative.
I remember someone stating that cluster will be in the game at launch, sadly I can't remember the source. I think it's true since delirium will be on EA
Yeah skill tree become tricky when u make wacky out of the box build, but if u just wanna play traditional bow ranger or caster witch is kinda easy...
Also biggest offender for new player experience is gems socket & link socket, thanks god this fixed in poe 2
@@matheusguerrascheffer6518No clusters on launch, just normal jewel sockets. Jonathan has said he's keen to reintroduce them back into the game later down the line once leagues start up.
In the 1000 hours I played in this game I only dabbled in crafting recently, before I would just use ghetto self crafted items and farm money to buy other player crafted gear 😂
The thing to remember about the skill tree is that while it is massive - for your first point you only have two options. Choose one of the two. To know which direction you are going to go when the time comes look for the bigger nodes, find one that is interesting and move towards it.
Mistakes will be made but nothing that can't be fixed once realized.
Luke, great content. About this PoE 2: it reminds me Baldur's Gate 3 early accesss and the launch of v1.0 later on. Both games demostrates when a devs / company are honest, transparent to the player base and treat this players like so, mature players and not a "money machine" and one last thing, You make a GOOD GAME (the most obvious but the difficult one), there are no "niche games" or "niche genre" simply because the players WANT to play your game, WANT to support your awesome job and nothing else matters. PoE 2 has more content, have one of the best game directors of the industry, Jonathan, are honest with the players, put passion and, with Jonathan words: GGG are not going to stop until they make the best ARPG in history, and guess what? They are very very close. The 12/6 PoE 2 explode STEAM, Internet and probably, the servers (I hope no) but we need to stay in there, because, like BG3, this game feels like an a "anomaly" a "special one". Great job from GGG, I support buying the early and buying other packs when the release of 1.0 because they deserved it. It's simply (and complicated at the same time) to do this type of game, but if you put your soul, passion, talent and pro-players first the result are there. P.D: sorry my English but I'm from spain.
With over 6k hours in POE I can confidently say POE2 is going to be amazing for any ARPG fans.
johnathan said in one of the many interviews that hes been doing. "the only person that i know what they want, is me." they make the game they want to play. "hopefully other people agree". 100% correct
and EA is, again according to what theyve said, HALF of what the full release will be. and yeah. also f2p at that point.
welcome to GGG and poe, we love it here.(ignore reddit)
Very nice video. Keep it up, chief. And hopefully the OG devs like for PoE do that, too.
Gamers want variety. Sometimes I want to play something simple and follow a map marker. Sometimes I want something more complex.
Games can be simple with map markers and still have narrative depth. When there is zero depth anywhere in the game, thats where problems arise.
Agreed. What put me off this game is the greedy online only requirements and the pay for basic convenience monetisation. I will wait for grim dawn 2 and play last epoch instead
@@Jinkypigs the 30 dollars is enough to buy the convenience once and you have it forever , I spent more on grim dawn 1 for all the dlc + game and dont play it till next dlc comes out and i have 0 regrets, i paid 30 dollars once in 2012for POE1 and played 6000 hours and never bought anything else since you have 4 expansions per year , the online only requirement i can see as negative for some but it is a free to play game ,no one makes money from offline free to play games , also all microtransactions are shared so you have everything on both games too
To be REAL HONEST, POE Passive tree have a lot of litle implements too, but it feels relevant because it feels like a deliberate path you are making and the little implements are like you polishing your skills in a way to achieve greater objectives. I'm playing a Duelist and the path from start to Life Leech and Mana Leech is full of +10Dex, so it fits my playstyle, BUT i could take another path and increment INT, landing in the same life and mana leechs, so it's another playstyle.
Also, the giant passive skill tree is for every class, so you can also see what you can achieve with other starting point, and this to me is proof of how absurdly well made it is.
My biggest fear at seeing that tree, is that if I'm 4 branches deep, and I just want to change something early on I will have fully re-spec or undo every node one by one to backtrack to the early node I want to change, then re-select every node to get back to where I was.
That was a real problem with the first games constellations and skill trees, where every step had to be valid instead of just the end result.
If he's skeptical it's too cynical; if he's enthusiastic, it's "glazing". My guy cannot win with these comments
Stealing comments is so cringe
Cringe bruh
Making up haters in order to get likes is even more cringe
Gamers always wanted depth. Other people dont.
That's cool, they can always buy a Nintendo Switch. The people that think "all" games need to appeal to them are selfish, pathetic losers.
You are so uniquely and brutally honest..and why you've always been my favorite gaming youtuber. Man I would enjoy taking a drink with you and talk politics and religion. Mad respect you my friend. You will become one of the legends, with time.
I've been playing Path of Exile since the very first alpha and it's such a breath of fresh air in the gaming industry it's insane. They even gave me free beta access because I've spent over 500 bucks TOTAL on the game since launch, every supporter pack I've ever bought combined. That's absolutely nothing spread out over 12 years.
The Poe tree seems complex because of so many options, but if you patiently read things out, there are 2-3 options at any given point. Defense, dmg, utility. Wishing everyone a great launch!
IMO it depends on the audience of the game and how "deep" are the devs are going. There are games there like retail WoW where devs cater more on the top 1% of the players and alienate 99% hence the population drop, but a decade ago the sentiment was the opposite where everyone thinks wow is too ez. Its when you try to cater to everyone to the point where you cater to no one.
One important fact to mention is that poe 2 will be released in early access. It is not yet the full game. There are a lot of features that will be added over the next few months until full release
In order to truly appreciate something, it has to be difficult to obtain. This is why people find value in games with depth and complexity.
I think there are actually a wide variety of contributing factors, but I think it mostly comes down to how hard it actually is to make a game with a lot of depth:
1. It takes more iteration to design deep systems than shallow ones. As the depth increases, the number of actual game design work hours increases non-linearly. More time and more money. Suits do not like this.
2. It takes more skill to design deep systems than shallow ones. As the depth increases, the amount of designer skill required to come to a good overall design instead of a crappy cludgy one increases non-linearly. This means that deep games require game design expertise in that particular genre.
3. Most AAA publishers have been pushing third and first person action games - shooters or otherwise - for years and years now. This ties in with 2, but it means that the talent pool for game design of anything other than third and first person action games is MUCH thinner than it was 20 years ago.
4. AAA publishers are super risk averse because each game costs sooooo much money. This means that a major part of their financial calculations is: "What is the safest way to spend this money?" And when it's easier to make a shallow game than a deep game, that means it's more likely to be successful at achieving its goals. Fund 10 shallow games and 8 of them will be pretty good. Fund 10 deep games and 4 of them will be pretty good.
I think it's very telling that the games which buck this trend are coming from dedicated specialty studios who have grown their designers for years and years in their specific genre. Larian, From, and GGG are all companies that have been honing their genre for a long ass time. Some longer than others, but a long time for all of them. The game designers at GGG are better at making deep action RPGs than the game designers at D4. Period. They literally have thousands more hours practiced working on design for a deep ARPG. The designers at Blizzard would have to be working on and practicing their design skills for deep ARPGs order to get the same level of mastery that GGG has.
Even if Blizzard pivots D5 towards real depth, it's going to be highly derivative of PoE 2 because they don't have the skills necessary to build something of equal depth and quality with its own design voice.
GGG *is* the Blizzard North of today. Absolutely 100%. Just like Larian is the Black Isle/early Bioware of today. Because games aren't made by companies, they're made by people. And because game design is an art, not a science. The executives at these companies can push things which look 'risky' because they trust their designers. They aren't blind, they can see that their company is literally better at this stuff than other companies are. They understand that with smaller budgets they're making shit that's better than games with much bigger budgets. And then when they can finally finagle together the funding for a big-ass project (and assuming they can absorb the growth without it fucking up their development process a la Bethesda) they can finally show the world what it means when real experts make a game. None of this namby-pamby 15 years of general industry experience bouncing between genres and copying proven designs from other studios, I'm talking a whole studio of designers with 1-15 years of straight dedicated work on a subgenre of a larger genre. Real fucking masters at their craft.
In GGG's case one of the game directors of PoE 2 is literally one of the cofounders of the company (Jonathan). Dude is worth like 50 million dollars or something like that. Doing endless interviews with content creators because he just fucking loves his game so much. He made it big, and his 'retirement' is just to make the game he wants to play in the company he founded.
As a poe1 beginner with 3k hours, welcome to deep deep rabbit hole
Path of Exile, Path of Exile 2, Grim Dawn, Victor Vran, Van Helsing, there are a few games out there that I gravitate to! And of course, MANY retro PC games from the 90s/00s!
Pedantry but note to all new Exiles coming in based on this excellent video: PoE2 doesn't release this weekend - the PoE2 Early Access does! The full game isn't even in yet (more class choice and more story content) - that's coming next year. That said, it's PLENTY to keep you hooked and already has an "early cut" of the endgame. We welcome you to the beaches, and always, always, ask any questions you want in global chat (Barrens chat). PoE thrives on knowledge sharing and everyone is happy to help in that regard.
After a stunning success of BG3 there are still idiots who believe that gamers love plain and stupid games. These people are unteachable.
The want the player to love plain stupid game because they are make easy to make and iterate.
See that's the thing; they want to make "less complex" games because they're easier to develop, end of story. Essentially AAA cash grab slop is easier to develop.
I'd definitely prefer it if PoE didn't have such an unnecessarily punishing and large skill system.
@@Giliver Yeah, sorry bud but PoE may not be for you. The skill system was NEVER a real problem. It's being able to understand how to SCALE your damage for a particular skill based on various factors.
PoE is quite lenient regarding what skills you want to use; however, if the rest of your character isn't setup to use x skill then your damage will suck (obviously).
Only 20 mins into the endgame reveal video. Aside from the level design which looks amazing by the way, the classes and skills etc look absolutely phenomenal! I’ve never played one of these ARPGs before and I’m definitely up for trying this! Thank you for the recommendation Luke!
The poem was a snippet of "IF by Rudyard Kipling"
Game devs are making games designed for kids and young adults.
The problem is they assume everyone is stupid and doesn't have critical thinking.
While critical thinking is definitely lacking in the modern era, games shouldn't reinforce that. Make people think. It can be fun if done right. It always was.
Kids are pretty fast learners, young adults are super resourceful, it’s adults and older gamers who tend to not be able to figure it out or have the patience and time to. If you genuinely believe kids are the dumber ones in the age of technology in which they can learn anything then where have you been? It’s kids figuring out how to do all these complex and skilful things.
Can you do all your videos in 07:28 voice from now on? Thank you
There are amazing games out there , they just dont come out every single day . POE 2 will be one of those games
I love how the fun starts at 10:30 ! 😅
It's always what I am looking for. It's one of the main reasons I didn't get Outlaws (the AI was terribad also though) despite being a Star Wars fan (at least prior to Disney). It's why I didn't get D4, despite playing both betas (or because I played both betas), despite being an ARPG fan. It's one of the reasons I didn't get Veilguard (though the writing stood as even worse). It's why I am a fan of ARPGs, RPGs, hunting games like Monster Hunter and Souls and Soulslikes.
POE was my first ever ARPG.
I like jumping into the deep end.
For a game that looks insanely large and in-dept,path of exiles 2 being free is insane. Im definitely trying this out
I want polish. Passion. Dedication. I played only PoE1 to like act 3. Never finished it, never played a league. But PoE 2 so far looks so damn smooth and well designed I feel how much the devs care about it.
to be fair to Veilguard i have the impression the game and studio were rescued from extreme turmoil after years of being all over the place and they managed to pull together a good game in the nick of time. my impression is they did what they could with the resources they had. i choose to give it that grace anyway. if they were in a good state, like i hope they'll be more mass effect, i think we'd get a lot of that depth we'd all love. and i did love the gender-based character choice innovation and interpersonal vibes. i really loved my Rook and the friendships they formed (even if yes i would have loved more conflict and drama and depth).
Tons of depth, fantastic dev team, I can't wait to get into this game!
I just finished your live stream clip about it. Perfect timing
Love the intro "probably of the year, Is about to come out", it will be the best game of the decade in its early access state. For me at least, can't wait
Thank you for sharing Will: Follow the Light!!
I'm pumped for the PoE 2 EA ... can't wait for full classes and ascendancies for the full 36 options
I've barely made it through the campaign in POE 1, but I'm super hyped to play POE 2. I hope you do more vids on it.
0:24 If your hungry then try out Diablos new cookbook
Na. Even that cook book has no substance. AND ITS A COOK BOOK!!
I have been saying this since 2011, people called me an idiot and said simplification was good. Which I think some of the reason is those people just moving on from games. I think I know what happened to bring it back recently. Going off what I have seen with my younger brother and his friends (approximately 8 years younger) they were the ones that hated complex games and only played the vroom vroom Fortnites and other shooters or non-substance games. Now they are older and educated (kind of) and starting to understand the enjoyment of depth. My brother actually recently joined the Navy. So we just have more voices that agree with us old school gamers. The ones that still think that way or the super young kids are either playing the Fortnites or watching tik tok non stop.
It could be nice to have one of the companions that is a .. Scout (for example) that could identify the puzzles and you bring that companion if you want assistance. Or that almost every companion has a skill you can select that does that if you'll want that.
Gamers wanting depth is why Elden Ring sold so well and The Veilguard was a massive flop.
A recent game I loved for its puzzle solving and depth (or lack-there-of) is the revived DOOM series. Seriously fun for what it is, and you can get lost with secret finding, achievement hunting or even completing the story on the hardest difficulty. I cant wait for the new game to release
I'm half-convinced many game studios/publishers are trying to turn games into TV. I play games to keep my mind working instead of just drooling in front of the wall of colors.
Wow that skill tree looks like Final Fantasy 10's Sphere Grid on steroids lol
oh and u can interact with it with certain item and..... with some other item u can put some of the skill tree's bigger node onto ur gear etc very cool ppl like to play with guide but the fact that its kinda(fresh start) im not even gonna look for guide would be like somebody opening the surprise box for me thats the only thing that hype me ..DISCOVERY
I seek out complex games. Paradox Grand Strategy, Path of Exile, Flight Simulators, all kinds of colony managers, ... Maybe because I started gaming in the 80s, in a small rural town where I'm pretty sure I had the only computer for about a decade. So I had to figure out games, and there was the fun for me. I noticed a lot of younger gamers are scared away by any hint of complexity, and if they're not they often rely on wiki's and youtube guides to get started, not understanding that these games are designed to be learned over time. Most of the time you can ignore 95% of the mechanics, and see how your game plays out. And then you try to fix where it went wrong, often learning new mechanic in the game. To be clear I'm fine with people using guides, but people shouldn't be scared to go in without guides.
I've been feeling this for years now, games back in the days were pretty simple, like diablo 2 but that doesn't mean the players don't enjoy more depth and customization in their games. POE knows this because its made by gamers. The problem is a lot of corpos don't understand that giving 2 meaningless choices for a branching fireball skill upgrade in D4 is insulting to players.
Perfect present for the holiday or birthday in my case. Happy Hanukah everyone!
Fair enough. POE is new to me, I’ve never played it (the first one, nor have I ever played Diablo or anything like it). The character experience seems lost in these games, the world experience is lost, the escape or “sim” experience is lost (missing may be a better word than lost). The challenge will certainly be there, accomplishment, purpose (I guess). I’m going to jump in this one, but I fear I’m more of a Skyrim player… To your point, AAA games no longer check the boxes. Elden Ring was a blast, and definitely challenging…but it left so many boxes unchecked for me. I finished it, and probably won’t pick it up again. It did turn me on to Fromsoft, and I’m now playing Sekiro. Skyrim was a place (IS a place…a true fantasy world you could go do almost anything). Why have we gone 12 years with nothing even remotely comparable?? I remain interested, and moderately excited by POE2…thanks for the vid.
I feel like devs and publishers these days are too afraid of players potentially "missing" content as well. They are afraid to put a reward or story element behind something that not every player is able to complete, which I think is a big mistake. To this day, I still remember finally being able to get the secret ending in Kingdom Hearts 2 for the first time, after beating the game on the hardest difficulty, only for someone to ask just as soon as I mentioned it "oh, did you see the second secret ending too?" I couldn't wait to go back into the game and play more to try and unlock something that I didn't even know would be worth it. There are almost no games that I can remember recently that have made me feel something like that outside of BG3 and Elden Ring (except Tunic) and it's just...dissatisfying.
For all the talk of end game in POE and POE2, as a casual I never got there. BUT I had a lot of fun making new runs with builds I was figuring as I went. As they were not optimised they sucked at top level, but at least I could see how far I could get or not, and when it didn't work out just start again.
Playing a game is not all about the best ultimate most efficient setup, I spend enough time in real life worrying about that. Sometimes its just about ...playing. And POE give you that freedom.
Foxhole and Path of exile 1 and 2 are hidden gems in gaming industry
Yes ofc! Gamers want good games, made by gamers, for gamers, with an actual focus on the player with " A LOT OF MONEY" over "ALL THE MONEY"
Agreed with Luke, 100%. I have myself gravitated to boomer shooters (where the twitch reflex and "getting lost for a while" are integral and expected parts of the game) and / or higher difficulty in modern AAA games (for some challenge). FromSoftware has actually been tapping into this yearning for challenge people have (albeit to a bit more of an extreme level, for some), and look at the success they've been having for a solid long while. To each their own, but I grew up with games that challenged you (I'm 44 now).
at 36 i find my self always picking up new games and realising that the challenge isnt enough to sustain my attention. soon as the game gets to easy i put it down and walk away. i fall back on older titles where the challenge is more consistent over the new flashy thing thats supposed to replace the old thing.
Gamers are not a monolith. SOME gamers want more depth, but very many do not, and that's cool. Fallout 4 represent a trend for many players, satisfied with simpler mechanics.
I'd be happy if both were options.
The problem is there is very little of the former three days while there's plenty of "babies first video game"
You do realise new gamers also want depth too, it’s about the individual not the time. While in the old days the people who really played PC games the most were more the nerd and geek types who enjoyed depth. It’s a more general and wider audience now. Not to say it wasn’t back then with plenty adventure and story games kids grew up on and now the ones making games
@@Bro-dot- Then why reply to me rather than OP who's saying there needs to be both? I already agree people want depth and value....
@@1_underthesun And that clearly reflects people's buying habits.
That said, maybe there's a trend towards deeper games (exemplified by Elden Ring) so maybe it will change now.
@@Bro-dot- I said nothing about how long people have been playing.
I think you are overgeneralising about gamers in the past. Yes, people who played RPGs may have been nerds who came from tabletop backgrounds, but TBH, they played deeper games because that was what they were offered. They also played text adventures and you don't see a call for them any more. But as soon as we could move beyond that, many people did, leaving a subset who still craved that D&D-like experience.
I'm legit excited for this whole game.
But that skill tree? It gives me the tingles.
One thing about these modern AAA is what someone described a Bethesda game to be. Width of an ocean, depth of a puddle. These games are big over produced spectacles but not much feels different. Bizly said this in one of his videos. "There is alot to look at, but not alot to touch."
the companion puzzle callout feature should really be based on the difficulty mode I'm playing on. If I'm playing a game on easy and only care about the story then yeah sure go ahead companion and solve the puzzle for me, if I'm playing on normal maybe callout if I've been stuck for 5 minutes, if I'm playing on hard then STFU
Any change to controls should be an option in the menu. Street Fighter did this with their Modern vs Classic controls for example.
About the puzzles being solved by NPC, and even at a larger scale the whole "games are holding your hand" is mostly an inclusive feature. When you take in consideration disabilities and try to make a game that can be enjoyed by all, it often comes down to that. But it's really implemented badly most of the time.
I remember that some game had this in the option menu to be turn on or off, and i think they should stick with that, so hardcore gamer, casual and disable people could enjoy the game how they desire. Anyway hope that helped
diablo 4 skill tree was a joke. I was shocked there was no build variety and some of the skills didnt even work at all
Not all gamers are the same... not every gamer wants complexity. I for instance want my easy to gulp games and sometimes I want to challenge myself.
You compare the DAV games and the AC games. Let me give you my point of view and why I like the new simplified games compared to the old ones. The new ones are easy to learn, easy to master. The are easy to be left for months and come back to them and still have fun. I remember leaving AC unity for months, tried to get back to the game and the only thing I got was frustration because I didn't remember any of the mechanics lets say, the combat, the stealth. So there are benefits of the both type of games.
To be fair I don't think there was ever a question that this wasn't the case. BG3, Elden Ring, etc. We routinely reward developers who make deep and complex games.
Who is we? Because some simple games get rewarded more. Creatively successful games tend to make less money. So for studios who aren’t fromsoft, Larian and etc who care about money, then it’s better to simplify.
I dont really get hyped for games, but I'm incredibly hyped for POE 2. Its not just hype though. GGG has proven themselves and everyone who's played it already glazes it just as much.
I feel like... builds should also be discussed in the lore. Like this famous historical figure was this build and his strength was this but his weakness was this. Like BG3, I'm playing it, but I'm not that well verses with D&D, and I have no idea what I'm doing.