PoE: POE: The Best of Games and the Worst of Games

That said, it is one of the most enigmatic of titles I have ever played, being truly innovative and original in many areas while also at the same time having some systems and features that are among the worst I have experienced in a game of this type.

On the hand, you have the skill system and that transcendent skill tree. Just a picture of that skill tree was enough to get me interested in the game, and I remember spending long periods just looking at the closed beta lottery random picks hoping my name was picked.

The skill system and skill system are easily the best of any game I have played. Super deep and complex it allows for tremendous variations and interesting builds, and the layered interaction with skill and support gems is brilliant. I have no interest in copying other peoples builds, and have started many characters getting better and better each time at making a viable character. I play only hardcore, and the difficulty is well balanced

The flask system is inspired and adds depth to an otherwise throwaway mechanic. POE is truly a visionary leader in these two areas, and they are so good it allows you for quite a long while to ignore the really bad parts.

And the bad parts are as bad as the good parts are brilliant.

The "crafting" system is a complete abomination. Sorry but it is true. It adds literally nothing to the game other than annoyance and frustration and serves no strategic or skill value, rather simply a nested completely random slog through tons of orbs just to get features of an item to progress in the game. There may be underlying "economy" and grinding rationales behind the orb system but the reality is that is not fun on any level and really brings the enjoyment level of the game down significantly. There should be enough barriers in build, gear, monster AI, stat stacking etc...to make progression difficult and thought provoking not to need a gambling system on steroids to grind everything to a screeching halt. I am not convinced it does anything to make people play more, but it certainly will make people leave. It should be completely scrapped and overhauled to be honest. It is abysmal.

Then there is loot. POE does not really have loot, it has core items and orbs. Period. All you get as you play the game is an endless sea of white gear, occasional blues rares and uniques with random sockets that invariably need to be modified using incredibly low drop rate orbs and the terrible crafting system. There is very very rare joy in finding anything in POE. In fact drops are so bad, that it is actually more efficient to sit in town and "buy" items with the crafting orbs, because you are never going to find what you need, and the orbs you have because of the completely random nature are completely useless for trying to actually craft something. For a game that originally promised no currency and a barter system, POE is the most currency-concentric game I have ever played.

POE just needs more fun stuff to drop. Think about the fact that D2 had gens jewels, charms, set items, runes, class specific items, true crafted items and you realize that in D2 you always were finding something interesting even if it didn't make your character better, in POE you very rarely find anything that is interesting. Even the uniques are extremely limited.

Still, it is a very good game. And GGG are awesome in their bi-weekly content updates and additions. To be really sucessfull long term, I really think GGG needs to look at completely overhauling the orb and loot system because as it is, unless the skill system is a big enough hook (like it is for me) the other elements are bad enough to scare people away