So I've been playing video games quite a lot, and for a decent length of time. I got started back in 1998 with Ocarina of Time at 5 years old, with it helping me to learn how to read, my dad occasionally helping me sound out words when he was around. I've played games of all genres, of a variety of difficulties. Now, I am a PoE 1 vet, and though I have likely the fraction of hours many of you do, I still clocked in at over 2k hours of off and on play since initial release. I've played it at various stages, both when it was slower paced, and when the name of the game was speed and screen clearing like it is today.

I heard going into it that PoE 2 is a slower game. That you're not going to really breeze through the acts, that for a first playthrough you can expect maybe 40 or so hours to complete the campaign. Today, like many of you, I logged in, excited to play. Picked the mercenary, loaded into the game once the servers finally started to stabilize enough for people to play, and it was slow.

I had to learn how the new skill system worked, I didn't have a pre-planned build in front of me. I experimented with skills, and had a couple of early deaths because I got reckless, and wasn't able to get any decent items to drop. Then, it started to click. I was figuring out the skills I liked, the skills that were kinda meh to me. I found combos I enjoyed, such as freezing enemies and hitting them with the fragmentation bolts. I enjoyed the gas grenade, letting it stack up the armor shred because of a passive gem whose name i can't remember, then detonating it with my explosive grenades, all while laying down crossbow fire.

The first act took me over five hours to finish, not accounting for afk time. Sure, I searched every corner of every map, tried to find any secret troves or hidden bosses and events. I died a couple more times, four in total by the end of act 1. I had no idea what I was really doing, where I was going, and it didn't get much faster, and I was making my build up as I went along. And... ew. Having to use vendors and currency to roll gear while leveling just so I can survive? Weird, right?

But you know what? I had fun.