Howdy Exiles. You will find below, a mountain of text describing my take on being a new player. I describe what I liked, what I felt was a miss, and what just stinks.

So I finally bit the bullet, and committed to learning POE. It's been a journey. Maybe 30 hours to hit level 90 with a partially self built PCONCoB t16 map blaster this league. Last league, barely made it through the campaign so I consider it a practice run.

I also consider myself a blaster on other ARPG's. LE, GD, D4, ETC. Usually a HC player as well.

So, what was my take as a new player here? Probably no surprise, I'd say this game is highly inaccessible to a new player. Upon hitting maps I had no explanation of mechanics, no explanation on goals, and virtually no direction. But did I have fun? Oh yeah!

The Good:

The core experience is great. The hunt for currency and God drops is addicting af and the diy nature of endgame is great. At first I hated the skill tree, but now, I appreciate it. It's really not that difficult to build with it and inspires creativity if your plotting it yourself.

Mapping feels great, with tons of enemies and an amazing game loop. Love juicing maps and hitting the lottery on Div drops.

Curating the endgame as well!? If their is anything all other ARPGs should take away from POE, it's this. By far the most exciting aspect for me was choosing mechanics i enjoy, and making the game I wanna play. Kudos to whoever thought up this mechanic.

Lastly, currency. Gold in other games feels like a bloated, vestigial system thay solely exists because it's almost expected. It's useless past a certain point, and so hard to balance. Currency as crafting materials though, amazing. This solves so many problems by having a dynamic system that self sustains both a trading and crafting economy. Another thing POE has above everyone else.

The Bad:

Learning to play this game, felt like a chore at times.

I spent hours upon hours, reading, youtubing, and muddling around just to get where I'm at. While I love a good puzzle, this was very discouraging and I would imagine I'm and exception to have gotten this far. I imagine most new players would quit right around mapping.

It takes mountains to get their. While the journey was worth it for me, it was treacherous at times. And I mean that. As a mistake in a build, or commitment down a map strategy, could spell disaster. Having to reset after 30 hours of gaming would make me quit. Luckily, lessons learned from my practice run late last league kept me in the game.

Solutions:

For map mechanics, I think page on the atlas should display a quick breakdown of what the different mechanics do, and why you would want to run them.

Even a paragraph like "Heists are great for early game currency, and hunting specific end game equipment. Theirs 3 places to interact with it. Caches, heists, and blueprints blah blah". Early on, I would have loved this. What's a crafting mechanic, what's a bubblegum churner? Tell me these, and I can learn the rest.

As for the passive tree. New rare currency.

Orb of Nascency: Erase your passive tree. Upon use, adds a point to your passive tree (like refunds), and with a button there, erase. Max 2 points.

Give players one after killing Kitava the first and second time via a book like passive point books so no one can abuse the currency. Have it drop at mirror rate. If placed in a weak end game mechanic like delves (I think they are weak, but also have no clue), it would encourage players to hunt. Could balance it out by making orbs of regret rarer.

The Ugly:

My wrist hurts: 1. No inventory sorting 2. No bulk pick up on currency 3. No inventory to storage transfer shortcut

I might literally have carpaltunell from this game. I have never had a sore wrist like this. Years from now we talk about Exile wrist syndrome (EWS) and lament. These features are being implemented in new games for a reason. No amount of game feel or impact justifies putting your players physical health at risk. This is anti consumer, and should be considered. If your assassinating players wrists, who will be around to buy mtx?

Trading: 1. No offline trading 2. Clunky UI design 3. Too many waifus

This game is great, imo, due to trading. I have never played an arpg with trade as popular as an mmo. You can't deny its had a massive impact on player retention. Also, with crafting having such a high barrier for entry, I imagine most people just buy what they need. While I love people's creativity, I don't have any desire to see other players hideouts. Just please, add an auto buy delivery system for items. I would pay for another tab, just for this. Wink wink....

TLDR: Game good, hard to learn. Trading fun, user experience bad. Wrist hurt, now I know what Bengay is and I'm upset.