16:13 When you have a quest that tells you to go to an area, if you select that quest on the world map it will highlight a path to that area in orange through all areas that are in the way.

Fun Fact: The developers have stated that they found during play testing, if they hid sections of the skill tree or shaded it with a fog of war; players were more likely to be frustrated. It made players feel the game was hiding something from them if they couldn't see the entire skill tree. Or worse yet, that because the total tree wasn't visible, players felt they might make a mistake since they were unable to "look ahead." Chris Wilson, head of GGG, said they also found the type of player who was likely to be overwhelmed by the skill tree upon first opening, was unlikely to stick with the game regardless. The main appeal of Path of Exile is granularity and complexity. Showing players the width of what was possible was more likely to keep players who were intrigued or fascinated by the game. You can see these interviews with Chris and Johnathan on Ziggy D and Josh Strife Hayes' channels, where this is discussed specifically.

I always love when new people discover this game. It's epic. One thing that I found out very quickly was that a lot of PoE fans are in reality Diablo 2 fans. Me included. D2 was such an awesome game, and PoE feels like a natural progression from that. To me, as a D2 fan, PoE feels like unofficial sequel to D2 and the best modern Diablo game, even if it's not Diablo itself.

All the "side games" are actually the previous leagues PoE has had that were incorporated into the main game after that league ended. Not all previous leagues are in the main game now but most of the best ones that people enjoyed are.

custom loot filters is one of the best features ever, cause it's not just a filter - it's a stylizer. with sounds and lighting effects, and even marks the mini map when important items drop

The idea that developers thinks not adding an optional feature like a map overlay is good game design is insanity to me. The people that don't like it can use turn it off. Also Steelskin and Arcane Cloak doesn't work together. Guard skills shares a cooldown.

Found your channel recently after watching DM’s videos and I have to say between the two of you I was convinced to play POE finally and I LOVE it. What both of you said is the literal truth: it is everything I wanted out of D4. I love it so much I bought a supporter bundle because I want to reward a company for making a game so damn well. D4 was selling the name “Diablo,” and that’s about it. So disappointing.

I really wish you had shown the delve map, it's quite an interesting system to new players as it's an essentially infinite dungeon.

Chris was asked in an interview about this being overwhelming and that fog of war would help, it was with josh strife hayes, chris responded saying that they didnt wanted to lie to the players, it would be hiding them what the game actuallly is going to be and that it would be unfair if they later found out how deep the rabbithole actually goes. He said that maybe more players would stay but they dont want those kind of players to begin with. This game is deep, your decisions will matter , your planning, knowledge, and understanding will be rewarded. And your lack of preparation will cause you to hit a brick wall forcing you to start all over again many times. Fog of war on a tree, would be cheating the player not telling them there is Eldritch battery, chaos innoculation, Vaal pact, Blood magic. This nodes completely break or make a build and hiding them from you would be unfair.

11:55 I'm going to have to push back on you here; I very much like that the game doesn't coddle you by hiding its complexity from you. The passive tree in all its glory is what drew me to the game, and I would have felt stifled and lost if I couldn't see all the nodes in front of me to plan ahead; in fact, I very well might not have picked the game up. The tree already starts zoomed in on your starting location, and the tutorial tells you to just pick one of the two glowing passives to allocate. If the player then decides to grab the map and scroll or zoom out, that should be his/her perogative.

The campaign waypoint locations are randomized a small amount but they have the same general entrance/exit directions, eventually you remember them after a few leagues

Love seeing you try out POE! its been awesome!

I remember being blown away when I got near a cave and heard sounds coming OUT of it! Confirmed this by entering said cave and the sounds were everywhere. POE has amazing ambience and atmosphere 🤓

Just FYI, many of these QoL features have been added over time based on player feedback. The specific stash tabs, the affinities, the auto flask enchants, the atlas skill tree.. these all did not exist in the past and have been added to improve QoL based on player feedback. The dev team is really competent at listening and responding. Also there is/was a problem with content bloat - every season/league a new mechanic is introduced and often but not always, this is incorporated into the permanent game afterwards. This was good initially but these days there have been so many leagues, that there are so many different things that can spawn in maps and it feels bad if you want to ignore content that has spawned because it feels like you're giving up potential rewards. The solution has been the atlas tree, where you can pick and choose the content that you see, so that you can focus more on the content you enjoy and don't get overwhelmed with 50 different league mechanics. You can also outright block mechanics from spawning, in exchange for having the other mechanics spawn more frequently. You can also add variety, eg. focus on 2 or 3 mechanics on the atlas tree that you enjoy and suit your built this league, and then switch and try a few others next league. There have also been old league mechanics like prophecy which are culled and removed from the game if they're deemed to be not really relevant any more. They also removed daily master missions a while back because it was too grindy and people didn't like that it felt mandatory. The game is constantly evolving for the better - the 10 years of dev work really shows.

reached endgame? I see a level 73. BOY, I will slap you if you think you're in the endgame :D Since you're done with the campaign, I would recommend, get a list of ALL the different contents, and try out one type per stream, let chat choose to be interactive too! Love your content. Your hilarious flaming of D4 makes me chuckle a lot.

Great reminder to take a step back. now that I have finally jumped ship on Diablo, I’m definitely feeling a bit overwhelmed in POE ha ha.. the variants on items (mirrored ect.) currently has me unsure what’s what. But it keeps me coming back that’s for sure.

Regarding quests it’s actually much simpler. When you open a map you have a list of quests underneath and when you select it, it will show you the path where to go.

Hey glad you're loving POE. Regarding the passive tree and player retention. Chris Wilson one of the founders of POE has said in interviews, they don't want to hide the passive tree because they feel like they'd be lying to the players about the game. So that's why they don't do fog of war or reveal it a little at a time.

I never got the whole 'seeing the skill tree overwhelms new players' thing. When I saw it for the first time, I was HYPED as all hell.

good on ya for sticking with it Hawg! the real map system at end game is great because not only can you influence the type of content you want in your 'end game dungeon', but if you're on trade you can just buy a bunch of maps that have the layouts you like!

Just decided to finally take a proper stab at this game and have fallen in love with it this time. Loving your content man, some wholesome energy. Keep it up

Glad to see you enjoying it Hawg. A lot of the knowledge you learn will carry over to poe2. Take it slow and just have fun, learning poe fresh is a rare thing.

You can position the overlay map on your screen using the arrow keys. I shrink it a bit so it's off to the side on an ultrawide so it doesn't disturb gameplay.

I love how diablo4 was the perfect advertisement for path of exile

i took my time i played only 3 hours at leageuestart then a break, currently playing and i am act4. I want take my time right now because i alltimes felt rushed and so on. So far so good

The thing that is cool is that you said you did most of the content, but this isn't true. You may have done like 1/4th to half. The end game is just so reboust that the end of the campaign is just the start of the game. You still have the end-game bosses, mechanics, builds, unquies, etc. to look forward to.

So funny to see people wanting D4 to be something that was already in the works before D3 was even released. PoE has come a long way but the character customisation and builds has been it’s major appeal since it’s inception. The content and polish after 10 years has just made it a truely insane game that is hard to compete with by any other ARPG these days as it would take so much development to have comparable content. It truely is D2s spiritual successor and glad more people are finally noticing! Great you sharing the word! P.S. PoE2 is going to make it even better with the little nuances like gem sockets being much more stream lined, great for newer players 🤞

act 1-4 USED to lineup with the UI map directionally, but because the racing scene had figured out layouts so hard that they were never taking incorrect paths they completely reworked the map layout generation for those zones and now the exit will be more random

Poe is that one game I always like watching and hearing about but haven’t actually played. Glad you’re enjoying it

Hey brother, been playing PoE for about 3k hours. The quests and locations are 90% of the time based on the direction of the location within the area. If it shows it's going north, go to the north in the area and it's a good chance it'll be in that area. It's abused by speed runners when league starts - it just takes some getting used to. Plus all quests that say "optional" - you can always come back to it.

the maps don't really change for just leveling everything is always in the same general direction. once you get 2 or 3 play thrus in a season or in a few season leveling becomes so easy and quick. you figure skip the smalls rush the bigs and finish leveling

A few things that keep me coming back to this game: 1) The skill gem system. The near-infinite options for skills and how to modify them is endless fun. There's always a meta, but you can ignore that and play what you like. 2) Similar to the skill gems, just the build possibilities that come from unique items and things on the passive tree. In so many games, a unique item just has really good stats. There are very few unique items in PoE that are straightforward and better than rares (which makes rares valuable and worth crafting), but so many of them have some weird functionality that just gets the gears turning as to how you could use them to enable some insane build. I mean, Wardloop is an entire build meta that functions around some insane interactions between items that people theorycrafted. 3) The commitment of GGG to support the game and never do the sorts of predatory practices that ruin so many other games. I'm totally happy paying for supporter packs to get cool new cosmetics and more stash tabs to empower my hoarding, but I'm so glad I never feel like I have to pay money to empower my character or that other people have better characters because they paid more.

Clear map bonus to get Points for your atlas skill tree White maps Tier 1-5 make it a magic item (blue) normal white map + orb of transmutation Yellow maps Tier 6-10 make it a rare item (yellow) normal yellow map + orb of alchemy Red maps Tier 11 to 16 make it a rare + corrupted. Normal red map + orb of alchemy + vaal orb This way you will get passive points for your atlas tree! Hope that helps

glad you're enjoying POE, welcome to the community of us POE once per 4 months addicts

I do think and its been said a number of times by other people. If you are a new player there should be a "new player experience" options. That takes you from act 1 to act 10. The next time you player it once you reach maps. The option is gone but can be applied again in the options. Step by step of a build. As hand holdy as they can get. Even have bound items. It means the first time you do another run yes it will be scary as you dont have that safety net. But you have a understanding as to what is going on.

The music is epic and the whole things on KZfaq in one video.

Everything we wanted coming from a 10 year old game. They built all of d4 while POE had all these features... Yet they just ignored it all and gave us a half baked game... D4 needs to add paragon boards onto items based off skill buffs on the items. So this item has + to frozen orb. Then after level 5 it opens up a board that allows for further modifiers to frozen orb on the item. Bam... depth.

Always glad to see more POE content from you ^^

I just started my first SSF game with EA Champ. It's been much more challenging to get a six link bow and the gear but I think that's the real crux of this game. It's all about progression and problem solving. The campaign is really secondary to that.

For me it's unreal how Blizzard have had all this info from other games, all the quality of life features, all this content delivered to them on clean plate, all the feedback players gave to other developers, all the code and features developed for D3for the last decade and they decided - nope, won't use it. It's astonishing.

Re: Music, Path of Exile provides you the entire Digital Soundtrack in FLAC format for download if you purchase any supporter pack. It will appear on your profile

great to see new players coming to this game from D4, as a veteran of POE I was really disappointed with D4. one thing i will say about the issue you had with the campaign maps, the ruined square is one of the maps in POE that does not really change much (i think there is slight variation in some tiles but for the most part its a static map) but your point remains about looking at the world map and assuming that the next map connection is in the direction it is displayed on the world map, it would be nice if GGG made that be the case. you will get a feel for where the entrances and exits of maps are after running several characters through the campaign each league. like most things in POE experience is key.

I haven't played POE in years, always quit because i couldn't find my way around.. Fired up the ol 2013 account and started playing it again a few days ago, This game is awesome. There is so much to do i don't think im going to figure out half of it. But i've been having a blast.

This has become my new favorite game and diablo 4 was my first arpg style game lol

important to mention that the affinities ARE NOT A PREMIUM FEATURE! I want to highlight this to anyone watching who might think it is because it was showcased on a premium tab. Maps can be rerolled with currency. So if it's a bad map for, it doesn't have to be. (unless corrupted) Exposing the tree or not is a complicated issue. For people like me who want to look a big nodes and head towards them early it would be good. For someone who's new it can be beneficial not to see it. List of (non-exhaustive) events you may encounter which have been added since the start of the game. This will sound overwhelming, but you can completely ignore a lot of aspects of the game if you don't want to delve (pun) unto their mechanics. delve - infinite scaling, so you can really test how strong your build is. sanctum - big rewards, but it is a roguelike system. How much do you gamble on completion? heist labyrinth simulaacrum The current league mechanic Those are standalone activities. Now we add in the map activities that have their own harder versions with their own bosses. blight atzoatl temple syndicate beast hunting delirius maps expeditions breach beyond rituals maven invites Shaper Elder vaal side areas - collect fragments to face a gauntlet of bosses not to mention the pinnacle bosses and their uber versions. Minor events like strongboxes (monster boxes of loot) shrines surrounded by monsters which give you bonuses once you click on them tormented spirits

I think my favorite part of this whole review is Hawg's rendition of the POE music. :)

Spot on with the PoE take. Keep up the great content. Also, I look forward to TX being in the SEC to give those Dawgs of yours a chance to redeem themselves after that Sugar Bowl. ;)

btw you can use /dnd (do not disturb) in chat to not get messages, you can type "/dnd recording a video" so people who message you know why you are dnd other ones are : /afk [message] which will last till you move and /autoreply [message] which will autoreply to people who dm you while still leaving the dm go through. (useful if you sold a popular item at slightly under price and get like 10 DMs or if you're in somewhere you can't instantly leave for sales like the lab or heist.) also /help gives you a list of the commands.

For those who are still defending Blizzard. D4 had 7 years of development and 9000 employees. And with all the data from their amazing predecessors such as D2, they still managed to create one of the most shallow and bug-infested games ever. Stop defending D4 and just try poe. You’ll quickly find out how grossly incompetent Blizzard is.

Keep 'em coming, Hawg.. love the videos

I started playing when it came out and by then it was overwhelming until you really started playing. I remember dropping a few cash for a burning head and a familiar just so I can give some money to the game. I've been on and off but never really left. One of the best games of all time.

Ive been doing an Righteous Fire inquisitor and its been so good. I just beat the campaign yesterday and downed a few white maps. Got a very good unique belt that nearly doubled my shield and i legitimately cant die

It's kinda premature to say you experienced everything PoE has to offer at level 73. PS: PoE has a setting for ultrawide screens that allows you to squish the UI into the middle.

"Experiencing everything the game has to offer..." My brother, I have over 3,500 hours in PoE and I still haven't seen everything lol

I started a character a few days ago and plan on playing since tonight starts my weekend. One thing I don’t like which has nothing to do with gameplay is unique character names. I have never been a fan of it. We already have an account name. Unique names make me just choose something I don’t want. Some people might like that, but I hate it.

Another fun addition is that you actually get REWARDED to play the game. Every league you can complete challenges and earn permanent microtransactions that are exclusive to that league, but which will persist and be usable forever. They can never be obtained again or bought, and so it serves as a sort of trophy to show what you achieved that league. Over time you will accrue portal skins, armour sets, weapon effects, as a reward for playing the game. A lot of players will aim to complete a certain number of the challenges to consider their league "complete" before coming back next league.

Have you tried the Mayan temple (The Temple of Atzoatl) where you stack the rooms by what bosses you kill, and finally you can enter the finished temple?

I am playing ssf most of the time now ;) You have also each season challenges, they always give an exclusive set each season, everything will be in poe2 xD The cool stuff is when you have stuff that's like 5 years old, and there is stuff from way back, even I don't have ;)

The irony of POE being everything D4 was supposed to be, is that POE is so old that it was also everything D3 was supposed to be. It is the true spiritual successor to D2.

The crazy thing is that there are people who happily spent $1,000+ on this game… but feel like the D4 BattlePass is a ripoff. That’s what happens when you make a game that is actually great.

Hello, i am rly glad u like PoE its best arpg out there at the moment for sure. To the confusion about the waypoints, i understand it can be missleading, but the paths map shows dont interact with waypoints, but with entrance to the location. So for example if u enter new location and on the map the location you want to go to is top right, you should stick to right side of map and you will 100% arive to desired location as first, it works same in Aspirant trials (ascendacy labirint) Good luck and stay sane exile

Hope you stick with the end game, it's the best part of what makes PoE, PoE. The Atlas screen shows you the maps you have completed. You work your way up from the starting four Tier 1 maps and work up to T16. Along the way you'll also fight end game bosses and various cosmic horrors that try to control the atlas of worlds "maps" for their own power. The maven story line is pretty interesting IMO, especially the way it's delivered in bite size pieces as you work through the 100+ maps in the end game.

You mentioned the music .... it actually used to be even better but they changed it. Lookup the original Lioneye's Watch music. And there used to be really excellent credits (with 2 actual rock songs). I guess these were legally removed later but it was the 'good old days' to some of us.

I think that fog of war on skill of tree is brilliant idea, a lot of people get really scared when they see it when In reality you opened tree on lvl 2 and you have left or right option so far :D

One big difference about the mentality of the dev team is for example compared to Lost Ark, they said they didn't want to reduce the amount of things you have to do weekly because the players will play less, but GGG said they already know most players will not play the entire season, or they may want to try other games or whatever, so the design of the game is focused on that, to allow you to grow stronger fast so you can either min max your build, test other builds or try another game until the next season start. I didn't play more than a week on the last league when it was already ending, and still could beat most of the end game bosses with a build that i made in like i said, less than a week, also the ability to completely ignore mechanics that are not fun to you and just focus on what it is fun to you and still make profit is one of the best things about the game, some people love heist, some love delirium, some love delve, and they can pretty much ignore the rest of the games and don't interact with anything non related with the mechanic they enjoy, Blizzard and other companies have a lot to learn from GGG.

PoE is a beast of a game. I don't get into the Atlas, but there's a whole story in there with its own unique bosses. For me the campaign is more than enough to have fun, but there's so many options after it, and so many builds you can try when you restart a season that's impossible not to recommend.

Let's go! This will be a good one!

It's so awesome to see all the Diablo players coming around on Poe

I think the passive fog of war is a good idea. Maybe have it just as a toggle so that it only shows your class unless you press a button. Either way i think it would help new players

The cool thing is the campaign never changes. So you will learn it and can fly through it in 8 hours or under in future seasons.

About the zones in the act's (and maps too), they are all procedurally generated.......... so sometimes thing's may change, but their is a general pattern in the acts that people like racers use.

We don't need fog of war. If they quit just by seeing the passive tree, they aren't ready for the rest of the game. It's the first pleb filter.

As far as being confused about where to go on the map. The game will tell you exactly where to go, simply click on the golden exclamation point next to your quest and it will literally show you on the map with a golden line telling you exactly where to go

Love this game! I used to no life the game then I took the last 3 or 4 seasons off. Now it's almost a completely different game. So much fun

i wanted D4 to be a much less complicated version of path of exile. something more chill that i can play with others and do cool things. what we got was a $70 beta game. there r some small things that r not explained in poe that u will learn about while playing the game more but a little google search will fix that. cant wait to see more poe content from u

Ooof, went and checked and I have 787.2 hours in POE. No regrets.

tried getting into poe again today. even the builds guides are confusing and overwhelming. saw vids and saw the amount of diff things that drop, how do you even know what to pick up off the ground, lol. i quit before i even made a character. longtime d2/d3 player.

If you click on the quest - it will guide you better. by highlighting your path. Hope that helps.

Been playing it on and off for a few years, got a couple level 20s, and haven’t even gotten through the second act. D4 is only fun with the mrs. and i find myself actually playing when i play PoE

damn bro you reached endgame in a week in your first blind play through good job

the 10 acts is the intro of the game (~10-12h) near lvl68. The real game is the mapping, and bossing, and delve, and... stuffs

I think the key is that is is what D4 could have been. They had the resources, time, and knowledge to take PoE and distill it down to something more digestible.

I recently got into it somewhat. I've been digging it. Love the customization. There's freedom in your build..just not sure how yet I'm gonna do mine. I'm playing templar..diablo needs a holy class. Maybe cleric with some melee ability, but can use ranged holy damage and can heal/support maybe even buff also. One thing I'd like in POE is modifying the characters appearance at creation, instead of the same models.

I definitely plan to give it a try. Only so much time in the week

I started playing when I read that the game was modeled after D2 and FFX (the skill tree) in 2013. Have been impressed ever since.

So the only benefit of the doubt that I give to D4 is the fact that PoE has had a decade of additional feedback and development time to add content and refine the game to the community. I personally think that D4 has the capacity to be an enjoyable game given a year or two first. At this point in my life I'm not interested in staying in a single camp, I just want more games to be good so that when I get bored of one season of content I can just hop to the next game and keep blasting and getting loot. Thanks for the video, glad you're enjoying PoE!

The same happened to me when I quit WoW and started playing Guild Wars 2

Hey, quick question. The effects your character has on like the lightning around her and red energy and stuff like that, what are those exactly? Are they extra outfit things you buy or something?

Im just finishing up Act 4. No idea what the story is. No idea if my gear is even what i need. No idea what my stats are or what i need to do to increase anything. eg: guid says get 75% resistances... yeah i have no idea how to see that. Seems like no way to get the materials to even re-roll the gear since you have to spend materials to get materials

My toon uses the whole tree. It goes to the top left and cuts through to the furthests bottom right haha

I finally tried it out. Played a couple of hours. It’s a very VERY different game. Didn’t reel me in. To everyone out there how long should it take for me to get hooked? Didn’t buy anything.

I really feel bad for the diablo folks. Of course, as someone whos a poe veteran i enjoy seeing people experience the game for the first time and liking it, but i cant imagine being hyped for something like diablo immortal and diablo 4, borderlands 3 was the last game i was truly hyped for and it just crushed me with disappointment. Hope you get to enjoy poe some more dude, glad youre having a good time

Great video but I don't agree with the fog of war on the tree. There's certain areas of the tree I wanna seek out and I need to see the path to it and which way to go on the tree.

Buddy, I'm 4k hours into the game and even I haven't experienced everything the game has to offer. It would probably suit you better to call this your impressions of the game, because I don't see you having beaten the Uber pinnacle bosses and Uber Uber Elder, going past Delve 2500, or showing that you've even cleared The Feared.

I played this game since the first year it released and it's the only game I ever experienced a need to give them money. I bought multiple supporter packs only cheap ones cause im broke but I always felt like it was something deserved. I've been playing video games for 30 years and I can tell you that the developers of this game really love what they do and care a shit ton about the people who play the game. This new league came out and they patched the game like 4 times alreadsy trying to fix performance and small things to make the new league more fun for people based on feedback they've had. It honestly reminds me of Odschool Runescape and that games dev community relationship is rock solid also.

Tell me about it bro, I've been wondering if they are ever going to add a Clan stash, that would be so nice.

The only actual issue in POE in my opinion is gem sockets and gem colours and links. It makes it really hard to actually change your items in the late game as if you happen to have a 5/6 link and you find an item that you like, most likely it won't be the same colours, maybe not enough sockets, maybe no links. And the crafting its cool and whatever but many times in my playthroughs I will be out of currency in the middle of crafting something and it feels dire to have the item you want to equip and miss actual currency to finish it up. POE2 fixes that , so I will play then.

You should be on Red maps already. I love your videos and all that jaw jacking you been doing about how good PoE is. There's more endgame content in a Tier 1 map than all of D4...

If you just reached maps, you basically are starting the game now. :) The campaign was just the tutorial. Good luck on the beginning of your journey.

Glad you took some more time to explore the game before making another review ;)