Concluding Thoughts On 0.4

I am largely posting this thread for myself to help learn and deal with the issues I am having with the game. It is no way intended to piss anyone off.

For context.. I'm 37 and I've played video games my whole life. They give me something to focus on and engage with in a convenient time and space between life's responsibilities.

One of the reasons I spend time playing Path of Exile and then supported is because the layers of complexity which made me feel a sense of agency as well as getting to play with it in the many different arenas, maps the game offers.

Progression is a clear point of the game in the designer philosophy. It's what allures you to continue throughout the campaign, by which at the end I'm so unconsciously enthralled with I will take to the limits.

Much of the community interest is about what limit can you reach, how did you get there, how can I, yada yada... Players of the game seem to have fantastic egos about it.

Lately I'm noticing more so that when I am not really progressing the game starts to feel dull quite fast and is probably when I'm best to stop until updates because the real fun has been had.

However right now I'm having such a boggling issue with this.. as the game seems to constantly be leading me into the sense of progression.. then randomly taking it away in such a way that is literally making me question my own intelligence.

I went with the Druid this league of course.. and it's been good enough to play to the point I want to see the best I can make it. But engaging with the end game to me feels so unpredictable, while progression seems to have completely stopped.

I have 60 deaths now.. which for me at this point is quite high.. almost all of them completely unpredictable... and rather unlikely in the form of averages throughout my playtime...

In conclusion the rng the endgame has to randomly delete your character with damage is actually worse then the arch nemesis rares in PoE 1. At least you could see those coming. In this game.. I'm chilling 95% the time then all of the sudden I'm dead. My experience is gone, my map is gone, my tablets, etc..

The penalties of the game put a glaring eye on just how many design flaws there are in the game currently when it comes to this. I question if it's even considered an issue.

I'm not a developer and I'm sure there's many things I don't know but there's clearly a failure in the games development as far is this is concerned. I'm emphasizing it's literally going to make people stop wanting to play over and over again.