Path of Exile is considered a popular action RPG and has mostly received positive reviews on Steam so far. However, this has changed recently, and an expert explains why.
Who is it about? On the YouTube channel “ZiggyD Gaming,” a video was released in which the YouTuber explains why the community of the action RPG Path of Exile is currently so dissatisfied with the game (via. YouTube).
ZiggyD primarily focuses on action RPGs, loot-driven games, and RPGs on the channel, accumulating 224,000 subscribers on the platform. A large portion of his content is related to Path of Exile.
What has changed in the reviews?
- Path of Exile has 190,783 reviews on Steam (as of September 5, 2022, 12:00 PM)
- 87% of all reviews on Steam are positive, 13% are negative
- The turnaround: Bad reviews on Steam after the new update
- In the last 30 days, 6,386 reviews have been added on Steam
- Only 26% of ratings in the last days are positive, 74% are negative
The ‘Path of Exile’ player base is the most uniform I’ve ever seen, unfortunately, this is because they are very dissatisfied with the current state of the game and developer ‘Grinding Gear Games’ first response to their complaints.
ZiggyD on YouTube about community dissatisfaction
What reasons does ZiggyD give for player dissatisfaction? ZiggyD summarizes four reasons within the game that players are currently unhappy with Path of Exile in his video.
- The latest expansion Lake of Kalandra
- Archnemesis mechanic on all monsters
- Change of mechanics, example: the harvesting system
- Reduced loot
Numerous changes lead to player dissatisfaction
What did the expansion Lake of Kalandra bring?
- A new challenge league at the mirrored lake with 40 new challenges
- Allows crafting of rings or amulets with a crafting process to mirror and thus improve
- More lore about the character “Kalandra”
Lake of Kalandra
What is the problem with Lake of Kalandra? ZiggyD states in his video that players quickly regarded the new challenge league of the expansion as not worthwhile. The comparison to the state in which most new content is released is especially decisive.
ZiggyD himself says he likes the concept of Lake of Kalandra but wishes for more new content. In general, he concludes that an expansion league, released in an ungrateful state, is “not a big deal.”
Moreover, according to ZiggyD, the state of the expansion means that players currently cannot take advantage of the hype for a new expansion to forget about annoying things in the game.
[…] It means that at the current state of things, players cannot really rely on the hype for the new expansion when other things in the game are currently frustrating them.
If you need further impressions of Lake of Kalandra, we will embed the trailer for the new expansion league:
Archnemesis mechanic on all monsters
What is Archnemesis? The Archnemesis mechanic was originally an expansion mechanic that allowed players to redefine rare monsters with new modifiers. This way, players could create very strong and difficult-to-fight monsters and fight against them.
What is the problem with the Archnemesis mechanic? Many of the Archnemesis modifiers have, according to ZiggyD, distorted the gameplay and “largely frustrated the players.” Shortly thereafter, these frustrating Archnemesis modifiers were added to all rare monsters in the game, which, according to ZiggyD, was very surprising.
However, it was added that players cannot evade these rare monsters with the frustrating modifiers. Furthermore, the rewards that were associated with the modifiers in the Archnemesis expansion were removed. The monsters became more frustrating but dropped no more loot than before.
ZiggyD then points out that the problem of the modifiers has been improved with several patches, and there are now fewer rare monsters and decent rewards, yet the game has become worse for many players due to the reworking of the monsters compared to before.
Multiple patches have been released to eliminate some of the worst offenders of these Archnemesis modifiers, but many players still felt that the game as a whole had gotten worse with this new overhaul of the rare monsters.
ZiggyD on YouTube about the Archnemesis modifiers
In the comments below ZiggyD’s video, the YouTuber user Nathan Davis also addressed the problem and wrote:
“Archnemesis was fine as a standalone thing. When I died to an unbeatable rare monster with infinite damage, it was my fault because I created it intentionally. Now I have no choice.”
Nathan Davis about the Archnemesis monsters via YouTube
Change of mechanics, example: the harvesting system
What is harvesting? According to ZiggyD, harvesting is a powerful and rewarding system for crafting items. The problem with the system is that it was frustrating to handle, trading was based on trust, and this often had to be done through Discord groups by third parties.
In an announcement, according to ZiggyD, the developers promised to make the harvesting system more pleasant, to make it fully tradable, and to remove unnecessary crafting options.
What is the problem with the harvesting mechanic? As ZiggyD reports in his video, useful and powerful crafting options, for example for re-rolling or re-forging items, were completely removed during the overhaul of the harvesting system. Overall, the scope of crafting has been reduced to a tiny fraction compared to before after the overhaul.
Thus, according to ZiggyD, an adjustment that was touted as a “nice improvement of an older, beloved crafting system” turned out to be “very, very clunky.”
Reduced loot
What is the problem with the loot? As ZiggyD reports, there were initially isolated people who noticed they were getting less loot than usual. Then, the “evidence” piled up, and even top farmers or entire groups shared their miserable loot and showed comparisons to previous expansions, according to ZiggyD.
Overall, ZiggyD looked at the developers’ post and came to a devastating conclusion:
The difference between the extent of the proposed changes and the extent of the problems as seen by the community creates a strong sense of disconnection and helplessness, along with a loss of trust and dwindling optimism for the future.
ZiggyD on YouTube about the changes proposed by the developers
What do you think about the current state of Path of Exile? Do you believe the game is in a bad state or do you find that the negativity of the players is exaggerated? Feel free to let us know here on MeinMMO in the comments!
If you’re on the lookout for other action RPGs to take a break from Path of Exile or Diablo, check out our list of 11 that are like Diablo.
Games like Diablo – Who needs Diablo 4? Here are 11 current alternatives
In a “We are working on it” post by the developers, they stated that they adjusted the drop rate of items:
“We removed a massive historical bonus on the amount and/or rarity of items that applied to some league-specific monsters. We replaced it with a moderate (2-3 times) increase in item quantity to offset the fact that they often have more life than normal monsters and some cannot drop maps.”
Grinding Gear Games via pathofexile.com
ZiggyD explains the change in more detail and states that the amount of loot from some monsters on endgame maps has been reduced by approximately 50 to 80 percent. Furthermore, the bonuses on rarity that affect the dropping of rare and unique items have been completely removed.
Overall, ZiggyD looked at the developers’ post and came to a devastating conclusion:
The difference between the extent of the proposed changes and the extent of the problems as seen by the community creates a strong sense of disconnection and helplessness, along with a loss of trust and dwindling optimism for the future.
ZiggyD on YouTube about the changes proposed by the developers
What do you think about the current state of Path of Exile? Do you believe the game is in a bad state or do you find that the negativity of the players is exaggerated? Feel free to let us know here on MeinMMO in the comments!
If you’re on the lookout for other action RPGs to take a break from Path of Exile or Diablo, check out our list of 11 that are like Diablo.
Games like Diablo – Who needs Diablo 4? Here are 11 current alternatives
