Recent reviews by Nepocrates

TLDR;

I love the game. I love how hard it can be at times and figuring out how to tweak my build to work. I love that I can take a item from common to magic to rare and adding quality to it.

long version;

I tried but failed so many times getting into the original Path of Exiles (POE). 1/2 through act 1 I started to feel board and by the time I made it to act 3 I was board. Couple that with the fear of making a fatal mistake in your build I just quit the game.

I played diablo and loved it until Diablo 3 where the mechanic felt dumb down and I was stuck just spamming one skill over and over. Diablo 4 I enjoyed the campaign and played through it twice. However the end game loop where I was just doing the same dungeon over and over and over got to me so I left that game as well.

Enter Path of Exiles 2 (POE2). I was cautious going into the game and avoided as much 3rd party data mined info. I went is mostly blind. I chose to play a warrior as I rarely ever play as one so I had little to no pre conceived notions on how to play other than hold shield and swing weapon. it took me 4 attempts to kill the Miller but I had fun. Most mini bosses and bosses killed me as I misread or did not fully understand their mechanics. As I learned them they eventually fell. Hell it took me 3 hours plus to finally defeat The Count at the end of act 1. during that time I tweaked my build 4 times trying to find the solution as I could often get that boss down to a 1/3 to 1/4 health before I would die. This part was so frustrating and enjoyable at the same time. We he fell I got a great sense of pride and accomplishment knowing I figured it out on my own.

Now this journey had me figuring out so many things to make my build work. I was allow to craft my rare hammer from a white common weapon to a gold rare. Most of what I wear were touched by me in some way or another. This was awesome. It allows me to really invest in my warrior and call him MINE. I am sure I will be frustrated in the next acts and cruel levels but I am looking forward to this challenge.

Because:
- Sometimes it is my knowledge of the mechanics
- Sometimes it is my gear
- Sometimes it is my skills
- Sometimes I need to "Git Gud"
- Sometime it is all of the above

But in the end it is up to me to make it and I am enjoy this journey greatly.

Thanks GGG

I really wish there was a maybe button. The game is good and the story, well the story is different. I played 2 1/2 games from the same faction. All of my event save a few were exactly the same. So the once you have found a way to win its time to move on another faction.

All that said the core game is fun and I see great potential. There are battle that you will win by the skin of your teeth or start an event only to be attack by the AI so you are dealing with all that and a bag chip.

there a few glaring things missing that I have not found. There is no full screen map or no list of all you unit. I had a level 7 hero that I play 1/3 of the game without because I accidentally garrisoned that unit in a town. There was no obvious icon that the town had a garrison. Also some of the information can be hard to find until you understand the way you get the information.

Here is an example: Lets take Accuracy. in the compendium it states "Each point of accuracy increases the hit chance by approximately 8.3%" but how do you find it since there is no section for those Items.

How you get there is click on you unit such as Millitants. The unit card appears in the lower left. Everything you mouse over will give you a tool tip. Some items like image or the weapon icon give you the option to right click to open the compendium. Hover over the weapon right click. This will open the compendium for the assault rifle. Then you mouse over the attributes and learn about them. This gun has a damage of 1, no armor penetration, 1 attack, accuracy of 6 which is about 50%, and a range of 2 but the gun also have a trait of close quarters. This will increase the attack to 2 if you are in range 1.

So this mean a basic unit of 6 Millitants in close quarters has 50% change to do up to 12 damage, 1 point of damage per attack.

As for level, once again if you bring up that unit card and hover over the level you find out each level give you 5% increase in damage and health and 10% moral. Its all there you may have to just slow down and look.

The game was worth the purchase for me but I cannot say it will be for you.

This game is not for everyone. That said I currently love it. The water mechanic is an issue but as the devs have said this is the first iteration and was never meant to be final. The have heard the criticism and it will be changed. to what we do not know but the devs are listening. All that said you the game is not for every one.

The good news is you do not have to take my word for it. In October there will be a demo. So you can try it out yourself.

one of the best 3rd person looter shooter out there. Also a very good story arc too

Tough game to learn for me but hell of a lot a fun. I will add more as I figure things out. When I decapitated two man in a row I was hooked

Never understood why it went away. it is very fun

Step learning curve and the tutorial sucks. So I revisit when i have time to watch enough youtube tutorial to understand what I am doing.

It was a great ride with many unexpected twist and many fun puzzles. I got my monies worth.

I will update this as I play more but my initial thoughts has me not able to recommend this game.

I am playing this game through virtual desktop on a occulus 2

I have not been able to get through the tutorial as the control scheme really sucks. instead of using the grip button to you know grip items you have to use the trigger. This just makes it cumbersome and awkward to use. This in itself is not a deal breaker but I start to think this was a design decision so if the devs could not use the grip button to grip items like the name of the button states what other strange and awkward game decision were made.

I tried to follow the tutorial but all I could do was pretty much skip each one as what was described to do would not work.

Also climbing ladders you get way to close to the ladder as you climb it is really annoying. So after trying to do the hang portion of the tutorial for the 8th time I finally quit the game as it was just getting frustrating with no signs of it ever getting enjoyable. I was so close to refunding this title but I will go back to the game at another time.

It is very raw and a janky mess but with all that going against it. I had a blast in this game especially when the game bugs kicked in. you can play in VR as well as out of VR. It is just a fun game