Top 8 Reasons to Play POE

1. Is A Top-Down Action Rpg

We're playing Path of Exile, which is a top-down action RPG, similar to games like Diablo. It's free to play. 100% free to play. Actually, we're talking about free to play. How exactly are there microtransactions in this game? How does Grinding Gear Games actually make money? So, there are microtransactions, but they are entire cosmetic. So, they don't sell any.

2. Using The Same Business Model In Both PC And Xbox One

The game is free, expansions are free, and you can buy microtransactions if you want to support it. This game came out in Xbox One just recently. They're looking into other options(Switch and the PS4), but for the time being, they've just got the Xbox One version. They've made some big changes to help the compact controls work, because it's using a controller. And they have redone the rest of the UI as well to be more appropriate for controller, for example, which you can see. So, this is how the inventory works. Nice items, you really get a sense of space and so on. And they kept that for the Xbox, rather than switching to a list of items.

3. We Are Playing Right Now Is The New Expansion(Path Of Exile 3.2)

Why would someone like me be interested in something like Path of Exile? Clearly, this is a genre that I absolutely love, and it's a game that I've dipped into, I think, once before. But it didn't grab me initially. But watching you play, I'm kind of like, "Man, I kind of want to do this." It seems pretty fun, I love these kinds of games. So, aside from the business model and the fact that they updated with expansions, or leagues, to get the content rolling in, the biggest point people love to compare is character customization. Path of Exile has some deep stuff going on with the amount of character options. So, let's have a look at support gems, for example. So, we have a skill here, I believe, eye shot, which by default, will fire an eye shot. In this case is fairly intuitive, because this character has learned the ability to fire a second arrow. But there are various support gems that we can put on to modify its behavior. So, for example, you add multiple projectiles, and that will fire more arrows at once. And we have dozens and dozens of these support gems. Chain means that when we hit an enemy, the shots will bounce to other enemies, which we can hopefully illustrate when we find some monsters.

4. Skill Train

All the character classes share the same tree, and you can travel from one to another part of it. Which is kind of like, imaginatively, how you can play a green deck, but you can put some blue spells in it, a blue splash. This is a pure dexterity ranger, but she's gone up to the North, near the witches, in an attempt to get some skills from up there. In this case, some critical strike damage ones, I believe. This reminds me a lot of the Final Fantasy fear grid. This evolved mostly by itself, but I absolutely see the comparison. Having played Final Fantasy myself, I look at that, and it functions a little bit differently in some key ways, like with this one, you don't personally have a location on the grid, you can expand in any direction, and there's certainly-- for example, can you zoom in on the ascendency skill thing? They've added many different customization options. Your characters get the ability to choose a subclass, that has a much smaller concentration tree of specific abilities. Kind of like, a talent tree, for example. As you complete certain difficult challenges, you get the ability to unlock some special points on there. With character customization, we have hundreds and hundreds of skill gems that can be combined with dozens and dozens of supports. There's six hundred unique items, I think, 650 soon with this expansion, which have specific pre-set properties done by the designers, as well as the rare and magic items, they're a lot like games like Diablo, where you get infinite permutations and stuff in there. Even the areas in the game can get properties on them. For example, Jonathan is running a map here. These items that you find, you can re-roll them to add mods, just like other actions. you can check classes builds skill tree here. So, everything is customizable with crafting tools within the game.

5. The New Expansion - Bestiary Challenge. Added The Bestiary League

So, the way that challenge leagues work, and the Bestiary is a challenge league, is every 13 to 16 weeks or so, we release-- it's like a new economy refresh server. You know, a bit like a Diablo season, for example. So people can start fresh characters on this league, it's a fresh economy, and everyone wants to race to the top. Now, we always apply a theme and special game play roles. And the Bestiary one is one where we've been careful not to shove too much of it, because you know, we're careful not to shove too much of the Bestiary League because it's a surprise for when the game comes out. Like, every fifteen minutes or so while you're playing in that particular league. So, it's like an additional property, which makes the game different while you're playing it. And we encourage people to play in these challenge leagues, because it's a fresh start in slightly different game roles. And honestly, there's been a bit of an inflation going on with the way we're running these challenge leagues, they're becoming basically their own mini expansion. Like, the Bestiary leagues has bosses, and areas, and all sorts of crazy itemization and stuff going on in that league.

6. Diablo III VS Path of Exile

In a game like Diablo III, I was really into the seasons for a long time, because it was like, a cool, fun thing to like, re-roll a character. Like, I'm going to be an ice mage, because that sounds like something fun to do. And talking about the skill trees and stuff, it seems like you get to do all that really cool customization stuff that I love in Diablo. In terms of rewards, if I'm rolling a new character every sixteen weeks, or during your seasons or whatever. They've got cosmetic microtransactions that you can earn in return for completing challenges. And this pre-dates Diablo III's seasons. They had this stuff in there a number of years ago, and it's been very popular at establishing a pattern where the players know that, reliably, they can play new Path of Exile stuff every three or so months.

7. Players Have Been Supporting As Well

They have a big team now, and players have been supporting as well, so they're able to put the money back into making sure that the game grows and grows. You can get skins for your weapons, for your armor, whole new armor sets, you can get effects to go on everything, you can get pets, you can get the ability to swap. If you find an item that you like the look of, you can pay like, 50 cents to swap it on to another item. And so, it's basically-- all the dress-up you get-- Grinding Gear Games also sell some long-term storage space. This isn't inventory space that affects you while you're actively playing, but it's additional stash tabs of various types, that let you organize your currency and that kind of stuff. And so, we see a decent amount of sales of storage space as well, because some players just don't know how to throw items away and they want to hold stuff.

8. Everyone Is On An Equal Playing Field

But coming from someone who hasn't played much Path of Exile, but played a lot of these other action RPG games, come up with expansions and patches every three months, how easy or difficult? We think that the challenge leagues are a great time to come in, because everyone is on an equal playing field. On day one, when it comes out and you install it, even if you're new, everyone else is a level one character, too. Sure, they know what they're doing to some degree, but we mix things up enough that they're also a bit confused with the new mechanics. And there's a really welcoming community and a good edition, a Wiki with resources. Part of the joy of the game is discovering stuff. Like, to some extent, having a friend show you how to work on the first day kind of ruins the experience, compared to the voyage of discovery or just installing it and playing. And while the game has a reputation for having some really complicated directions, it's also a game where you point, you collect, you move, and attack, right? The actual basic controls are pretty easy. And so, it's building on a heritage of many other RPGs that have taught people how to play this type of game.

Very cool. All right, thank you very much for reading. And for more on Path of Exile Currency/Items and other orbs, go to R4PG.