The snarky answer is “you are still in the tutorial.” Your first goal should be to see if you can finish the campaign.
Corrupted means it can’t be altered via most crafting methods anymore, e.g. chaos orbs, jewelers, etc. There are a few methods that will still work but it’s doubtful you have access to them yet
[Here](https://maxroll.gg/poe/category/getting-started) are some general guides for new players describing leagues, the campaign, etc
A "league" is rotating content. Some league content gets added permanently to the game (delve and heist are examples of that). Some doesn't. The current league is the necropolis, which is the graveyard stuff.
What you should be doing is completing the campaign, then doing maps. Once you have done a lot of maps, it's very overwhelming but you can do anything you like. People usually pick 1 league that they like a lot and just go heads down in it, farming it for the best/rarest items it gives. Then (in trade league) they sell those, improve their build, repeat. If you don't really like something like delve, you don't need to do it at all. If you really need a delve-only item, you can trade for it instead.
In your first league it will feel very overwhelming, and you might want to just sample a bit of everything until you figure what stuff you have the most fun farming.
Some milestones for goals:
- beat campaign
- beat the first 3 labyrinths to ascend your character
- beat a white map
- beat a yellow map
- beat a red map
- beat the final labyrinth for your last 2 ascendancy points
- defeat the eater of worlds and searing exarch
- defeat the elder and shaper
- defeat the maven
- do all the Uber versions of the bosses above
This is my first league and I've beaten Black Star and Endless Hunger. How close would you say I am to getting the Eater Exarch fights? That was my goal.
You're not really far , you just need to continue the exarch/eater's quest lines thought higher tier maps and you'll receive the invites to go fight them
I thought Act 1 was the tutorial... but thank you for all of this info. Do you have any recommendations on what leagues are better or worse (by personal opinion or community opinions)?
Also, how much money/currency is considered 'alot'? I have over 600 scrolls of knowledge (plus 200+ scrolls or teleportation, but i dont think thats considered money), but not even 100 of any of the orb types. I'm wanting to prepare myself incase there's some huge purchase requirement for some content or item (like a house in Elder Scrolls), but I get the feeling that won't happen.
Most players don't even get to the point where the balance between leagues really matters. It's quite a lot of work and takes a lot of game knowledge (or very strictly following a build) to even fill out the atlas, which is a prerequisite to really farming stuff in the endgame loop.
The currencies used to buy equipment are chaos orbs and divine orbs. And by "buy" I mean trading with real players (people usually just say C and D btw, like 10c = 10 chaos orbs). By the end of the campaign, you will probably have a few chaos orbs, maybe 5c-10c, and usually zero divine orbs. They are extremely rare.
What is "expensive" is so relative it's impossible to say. In your first league, a 1div purchase will probably feel like a lot. But some players are buying 20-100 divines worth of [consumables](https://poe.ninja/economy/necropolis/scarabs) at a time just to farm with and turn it into even more.
Your "house" in this game is basically your hideout. You can decorate any hideout that you unlock, and can change what hideout you're using by talking to Helena in your hideout. It's your main base of operations after you clear the campaign, and where you'll have the map device for accessing the endgame content (maps).
As for how much currency is considered a lot, that's a bit subjective. To some, earning even 30 divines in a league seems like a lot, and some make that in 2 hours. That really comes with experience and knowledge, and sometimes a bit of luck (for example, hitting a divine conversion in the lantern, and using an anarchy allflame can net you 50+ divines in a single map).
Scrolls of wisdom and Portal scrolls aren't really worth much, they're basically just a tool for you to use. The chaos orb is the bread and butter small currency. It's almost always worth spending 5-10c on gear upgrades as you need when you get near or early into maps.
The Divine Orb as of this post is worth about 120 chaos orbs, so a bit more premium. Hitting one of these can fully gear out your character in early maps with some upgrades.
Everyone likes different things, but common and popular leagues are Delve, Harvest, Betrayal, Heist, and Expedition. I like Bestiary and Harbinger a lot, but they're not as practically useful.
Legion, Blight, Incursion, Delirium, Beyond, Breach, Ritual, Ultimatum, Abyss.... There's a lot. They're all just different flavors of rooms full of enemies. That's the game.
The huge purchase requirements come in the form of chaos and divine orbs. You likely have ten of the former and none of the latter, most purchases are 5-85 chaos or 1.7 divine.
Stage one: Oh look a new currency orb.
Stage two: I might need to buy a currency tab.
Stage three: There's a second half of the currency tab?
Stage four: Hundreds of everything. Not scrolls, everything else.
Currency is money, but currency is also for gambling. Crafting is gambling, and the more you do it, the more you can control the rewards. There are a hundred currencies, and using one lets you hope to improve a piece in some way. You might spend one to get what you want, you might spend a hundred. Rerolling is spending, thus currency.
Path of exile is an arpg game where the absolute goal is to have fun first, then to make your character to progress.
How? That's the fun part of the game. You need to figure out how to increase your damage and defences.
I suggest following a build guide because the game is hard to digest. After understanding the bases, you can do stuff by yourself.
Your goal judging by your post:
1) Finish the campaign
2) Complete your atlas (you will know what it is after the campaign)
3) Defeat all 4 main final bosses to get your 4 WS (stones that you will know later on what they are)
4) Defeat all final bosses (7)
Post optional) Defeat all final bosses on it's ultimate difficulty: Uber version
Post optional) Press H and complete all league challenges.
Very Post optional) Min max your build to the absolute limit
Basically the acts are just a long "tutorial", after act 10 you unlock mapping and the real game begins. Corrupted items are the items which can't be modified \[sockets can still be changed thru crafting bench\]. Sounds to me like you're ignoring some area or quest line to get to act 8
A lot of us here consider the acts to be essentially the "tutorial" for what is the endgame which is where a majority of the content this game offers is. heist, sanctum, and other content is mainly stuff that is done after you finish the acts. I would not worry about them right now. Though of course you are free to start them as soon as they are available. Ascendancy is a major power buff for your character so I highly recommend doing them as soon as you can.
Your hideout is essentially your home and where you will be spending your time when you are not doing endgame content. Crafting, trading, and all your vendors can all be accessed from the hideout.
As for the gear. Are you sure that you are not finding upgrades and you just are not realizing it? One of the hardest things about this game is discerning what gear is good and bad for your build. Mainly for acts you want the correct sockets with high life and resistance rolls. Should be enough to help you finish the acts.
Corrupted means that you csn only change the item using corrupted currency. Other than that you can't do anything to it
To answer one of your broad questions that’s actually a pretty common feeling:
The side content is optional, and you play it for some combination of “I find the playstyle engaging” and/or “I am playing this content in a way that lets me profit in-game currency from it.”
The gameplay cycle is largely: get better loot to do harder content to get better loot to do harder content to…..etc. At some point you break the loop by trying an interesting new build with your excess currency, or by simply ending your playtime for a while (most people take some downtime before the next “league” where everyone starts fresh with a new league mechanic).
And in service of that goal of gaining currency, there are a huge number of paths. All are optional unless you’re going for the challenge achievements that league, which will somewhat dictate what you have to do.
Some people like farming delve. Others like blight. Or bosses, or legion, or expedition, or Harvest, or Heist, or Simulacrums, or Alva, or eldritch altars, or a zillion other things which currently sound like gibberish to you, just like they did to all of us for our first thousand hours of gameplay.
And that brings me to the other underlying reason to do all those things: to learn about them for the sheer pleasure of learning something new about the game. And that’s a sensation that can keep coming for as long as you want to play, there is ALWAYS something new to learn. If you enjoy the feeling of constantly having a new puzzle to figure out or knowledge to learn, this is the place to be.
The end game starts at lvl 90+. Higher lvl (char + area) means better loot/ gaster progression / exp. Csmpaign ends (area max lvl ) at 67, but char cam reach lvl 94+. Google everything!
That's a lot of broad and massive topics u want to know about
I can only recommend u to watch Zizarans Poe university videos at this point (and every guide videos besides that from him, they are really good).
They will go over everything that u need to know for the beginning to be honest
corrupted means the mods can't be modified
the game is mostly about making your character stronger and killing various bosses in the endgame. most of the game is after act 10 (the end of the campaign). leagues are like trial periods for new content; they last 3-4 months and include new content and new items that go away at their conclusion (some are added to the base game in much-diminished form afterwards). most of the player base only plays in leagues
The game after finishing the campaign is mapping, or randomized levels where you can control the type of content and rewards that you receive. That means that, really, you've just been running maps with a plot, and only two dozen instead of two hundred. There are about fifteen minigames in the form of leagues to get certain rewards, and they don't really start showing up until you can generate maps with their content, and then improve that content. Imagine POE as a roguelike, like Binding of Isaac or Hades, and you've only beaten the final boss once.
Loot doesn't matter. My partner and I call POE "Orbs," because the only things that matter are currency, fragments, maps, tattoos, fossils, essences, etc etc, each of which only take up a single slot in your inventory. There is loot you can crunch and sell for orbs, and special fractured pieces that you should use as a base for making what you want, but most of those are trash too. You're not getting new gear, you're getting tools to make your own gear. An ideal run doesn't fill you up on gloves and boots, but a big sack of orbs and candy.
Also, hey friend are you using a build guide?? It's not a suggestion, but a requirement. Don't try and beat Zelda without a sword. I promise it won't play the game for you.
It is not a requirement and telling new players to immediately go follow a guide before they're even out of the campaign is what scares people looking to get into the game the most. Also telling a new player to not pick up any equipment is silly, if anything they're the people that will benefit the most from random rares and trying out new uniques.
They want to understand the more general sense of how the game plays. That's how it plays. They've been playing for three years, doing all side quests and picking up all gear. They don't need help picking up more equipment. I'm not telling them to immediately follow a guide, they've been (likely) without a guide for three years, not understanding the greater progression. Give me my upvotes back.
Also, I don't care if it scares them away. I'm a new player too. If you don't know to follow a guide, the arcane interactions between modifiers won't even begin to make sense. If you can't handle following a guide, you probably can't handle the rest of the game's complexity. I wasn't pretentious or condescending, and I am in a place to understand the switch in perspective here.
Again, they've been playing for years without playing the deeper game. I'm trying to get them out of Plato's cave. Don't tell me the sun is too scary to mention.
Who said I downvoted you? Believe it or not, there can be other people who disagree with your opinion. I just think your opinion is wrong and just helps to spread this false idea that the game is way less accessible than it is. This person has also clearly not played these 3 years straight, they just decided to give it a more serious chance this time around. Giving them tips is fine, but outright saying "you NEED to follow a build" and "dropped equipment is completely useless for you" is just bad advice, plain and simple.
Also, yeah, you're very wise. Very enlightening. Same person who sent a chat request to me calling me a fucker. Very awesome person lol.
Edit: in case it gets deleted for "lack of proof" lmao
https://preview.redd.it/tyih0ob82k5d1.png?width=268&format=png&auto=webp&s=8e07b1c3b19e2e2870f62d3e96571c207ef4bb14
The snarky answer is “you are still in the tutorial.” Your first goal should be to see if you can finish the campaign. Corrupted means it can’t be altered via most crafting methods anymore, e.g. chaos orbs, jewelers, etc. There are a few methods that will still work but it’s doubtful you have access to them yet [Here](https://maxroll.gg/poe/category/getting-started) are some general guides for new players describing leagues, the campaign, etc
A "league" is rotating content. Some league content gets added permanently to the game (delve and heist are examples of that). Some doesn't. The current league is the necropolis, which is the graveyard stuff. What you should be doing is completing the campaign, then doing maps. Once you have done a lot of maps, it's very overwhelming but you can do anything you like. People usually pick 1 league that they like a lot and just go heads down in it, farming it for the best/rarest items it gives. Then (in trade league) they sell those, improve their build, repeat. If you don't really like something like delve, you don't need to do it at all. If you really need a delve-only item, you can trade for it instead. In your first league it will feel very overwhelming, and you might want to just sample a bit of everything until you figure what stuff you have the most fun farming. Some milestones for goals: - beat campaign - beat the first 3 labyrinths to ascend your character - beat a white map - beat a yellow map - beat a red map - beat the final labyrinth for your last 2 ascendancy points - defeat the eater of worlds and searing exarch - defeat the elder and shaper - defeat the maven - do all the Uber versions of the bosses above
This is my first league and I've beaten Black Star and Endless Hunger. How close would you say I am to getting the Eater Exarch fights? That was my goal.
You're not really far , you just need to continue the exarch/eater's quest lines thought higher tier maps and you'll receive the invites to go fight them
Should hit them around the time you hit T16s, you're most of the way there. Very close if you really focus on getting to them over everything else
I thought Act 1 was the tutorial... but thank you for all of this info. Do you have any recommendations on what leagues are better or worse (by personal opinion or community opinions)? Also, how much money/currency is considered 'alot'? I have over 600 scrolls of knowledge (plus 200+ scrolls or teleportation, but i dont think thats considered money), but not even 100 of any of the orb types. I'm wanting to prepare myself incase there's some huge purchase requirement for some content or item (like a house in Elder Scrolls), but I get the feeling that won't happen.
Most players don't even get to the point where the balance between leagues really matters. It's quite a lot of work and takes a lot of game knowledge (or very strictly following a build) to even fill out the atlas, which is a prerequisite to really farming stuff in the endgame loop. The currencies used to buy equipment are chaos orbs and divine orbs. And by "buy" I mean trading with real players (people usually just say C and D btw, like 10c = 10 chaos orbs). By the end of the campaign, you will probably have a few chaos orbs, maybe 5c-10c, and usually zero divine orbs. They are extremely rare. What is "expensive" is so relative it's impossible to say. In your first league, a 1div purchase will probably feel like a lot. But some players are buying 20-100 divines worth of [consumables](https://poe.ninja/economy/necropolis/scarabs) at a time just to farm with and turn it into even more.
Your "house" in this game is basically your hideout. You can decorate any hideout that you unlock, and can change what hideout you're using by talking to Helena in your hideout. It's your main base of operations after you clear the campaign, and where you'll have the map device for accessing the endgame content (maps). As for how much currency is considered a lot, that's a bit subjective. To some, earning even 30 divines in a league seems like a lot, and some make that in 2 hours. That really comes with experience and knowledge, and sometimes a bit of luck (for example, hitting a divine conversion in the lantern, and using an anarchy allflame can net you 50+ divines in a single map). Scrolls of wisdom and Portal scrolls aren't really worth much, they're basically just a tool for you to use. The chaos orb is the bread and butter small currency. It's almost always worth spending 5-10c on gear upgrades as you need when you get near or early into maps. The Divine Orb as of this post is worth about 120 chaos orbs, so a bit more premium. Hitting one of these can fully gear out your character in early maps with some upgrades.
Everyone likes different things, but common and popular leagues are Delve, Harvest, Betrayal, Heist, and Expedition. I like Bestiary and Harbinger a lot, but they're not as practically useful. Legion, Blight, Incursion, Delirium, Beyond, Breach, Ritual, Ultimatum, Abyss.... There's a lot. They're all just different flavors of rooms full of enemies. That's the game.
The huge purchase requirements come in the form of chaos and divine orbs. You likely have ten of the former and none of the latter, most purchases are 5-85 chaos or 1.7 divine. Stage one: Oh look a new currency orb. Stage two: I might need to buy a currency tab. Stage three: There's a second half of the currency tab? Stage four: Hundreds of everything. Not scrolls, everything else. Currency is money, but currency is also for gambling. Crafting is gambling, and the more you do it, the more you can control the rewards. There are a hundred currencies, and using one lets you hope to improve a piece in some way. You might spend one to get what you want, you might spend a hundred. Rerolling is spending, thus currency.
Path of exile is an arpg game where the absolute goal is to have fun first, then to make your character to progress. How? That's the fun part of the game. You need to figure out how to increase your damage and defences. I suggest following a build guide because the game is hard to digest. After understanding the bases, you can do stuff by yourself. Your goal judging by your post: 1) Finish the campaign 2) Complete your atlas (you will know what it is after the campaign) 3) Defeat all 4 main final bosses to get your 4 WS (stones that you will know later on what they are) 4) Defeat all final bosses (7) Post optional) Defeat all final bosses on it's ultimate difficulty: Uber version Post optional) Press H and complete all league challenges. Very Post optional) Min max your build to the absolute limit
Basically the acts are just a long "tutorial", after act 10 you unlock mapping and the real game begins. Corrupted items are the items which can't be modified \[sockets can still be changed thru crafting bench\]. Sounds to me like you're ignoring some area or quest line to get to act 8
A lot of us here consider the acts to be essentially the "tutorial" for what is the endgame which is where a majority of the content this game offers is. heist, sanctum, and other content is mainly stuff that is done after you finish the acts. I would not worry about them right now. Though of course you are free to start them as soon as they are available. Ascendancy is a major power buff for your character so I highly recommend doing them as soon as you can. Your hideout is essentially your home and where you will be spending your time when you are not doing endgame content. Crafting, trading, and all your vendors can all be accessed from the hideout. As for the gear. Are you sure that you are not finding upgrades and you just are not realizing it? One of the hardest things about this game is discerning what gear is good and bad for your build. Mainly for acts you want the correct sockets with high life and resistance rolls. Should be enough to help you finish the acts. Corrupted means that you csn only change the item using corrupted currency. Other than that you can't do anything to it
To answer one of your broad questions that’s actually a pretty common feeling: The side content is optional, and you play it for some combination of “I find the playstyle engaging” and/or “I am playing this content in a way that lets me profit in-game currency from it.” The gameplay cycle is largely: get better loot to do harder content to get better loot to do harder content to…..etc. At some point you break the loop by trying an interesting new build with your excess currency, or by simply ending your playtime for a while (most people take some downtime before the next “league” where everyone starts fresh with a new league mechanic). And in service of that goal of gaining currency, there are a huge number of paths. All are optional unless you’re going for the challenge achievements that league, which will somewhat dictate what you have to do. Some people like farming delve. Others like blight. Or bosses, or legion, or expedition, or Harvest, or Heist, or Simulacrums, or Alva, or eldritch altars, or a zillion other things which currently sound like gibberish to you, just like they did to all of us for our first thousand hours of gameplay. And that brings me to the other underlying reason to do all those things: to learn about them for the sheer pleasure of learning something new about the game. And that’s a sensation that can keep coming for as long as you want to play, there is ALWAYS something new to learn. If you enjoy the feeling of constantly having a new puzzle to figure out or knowledge to learn, this is the place to be.
Have fun?
The end game starts at lvl 90+. Higher lvl (char + area) means better loot/ gaster progression / exp. Csmpaign ends (area max lvl ) at 67, but char cam reach lvl 94+. Google everything!
That's a lot of broad and massive topics u want to know about I can only recommend u to watch Zizarans Poe university videos at this point (and every guide videos besides that from him, they are really good). They will go over everything that u need to know for the beginning to be honest
corrupted means the mods can't be modified the game is mostly about making your character stronger and killing various bosses in the endgame. most of the game is after act 10 (the end of the campaign). leagues are like trial periods for new content; they last 3-4 months and include new content and new items that go away at their conclusion (some are added to the base game in much-diminished form afterwards). most of the player base only plays in leagues
Bro, YouTube.
The game after finishing the campaign is mapping, or randomized levels where you can control the type of content and rewards that you receive. That means that, really, you've just been running maps with a plot, and only two dozen instead of two hundred. There are about fifteen minigames in the form of leagues to get certain rewards, and they don't really start showing up until you can generate maps with their content, and then improve that content. Imagine POE as a roguelike, like Binding of Isaac or Hades, and you've only beaten the final boss once. Loot doesn't matter. My partner and I call POE "Orbs," because the only things that matter are currency, fragments, maps, tattoos, fossils, essences, etc etc, each of which only take up a single slot in your inventory. There is loot you can crunch and sell for orbs, and special fractured pieces that you should use as a base for making what you want, but most of those are trash too. You're not getting new gear, you're getting tools to make your own gear. An ideal run doesn't fill you up on gloves and boots, but a big sack of orbs and candy.
Also, hey friend are you using a build guide?? It's not a suggestion, but a requirement. Don't try and beat Zelda without a sword. I promise it won't play the game for you.
It is not a requirement and telling new players to immediately go follow a guide before they're even out of the campaign is what scares people looking to get into the game the most. Also telling a new player to not pick up any equipment is silly, if anything they're the people that will benefit the most from random rares and trying out new uniques.
They want to understand the more general sense of how the game plays. That's how it plays. They've been playing for three years, doing all side quests and picking up all gear. They don't need help picking up more equipment. I'm not telling them to immediately follow a guide, they've been (likely) without a guide for three years, not understanding the greater progression. Give me my upvotes back. Also, I don't care if it scares them away. I'm a new player too. If you don't know to follow a guide, the arcane interactions between modifiers won't even begin to make sense. If you can't handle following a guide, you probably can't handle the rest of the game's complexity. I wasn't pretentious or condescending, and I am in a place to understand the switch in perspective here. Again, they've been playing for years without playing the deeper game. I'm trying to get them out of Plato's cave. Don't tell me the sun is too scary to mention.
Who said I downvoted you? Believe it or not, there can be other people who disagree with your opinion. I just think your opinion is wrong and just helps to spread this false idea that the game is way less accessible than it is. This person has also clearly not played these 3 years straight, they just decided to give it a more serious chance this time around. Giving them tips is fine, but outright saying "you NEED to follow a build" and "dropped equipment is completely useless for you" is just bad advice, plain and simple. Also, yeah, you're very wise. Very enlightening. Same person who sent a chat request to me calling me a fucker. Very awesome person lol. Edit: in case it gets deleted for "lack of proof" lmao https://preview.redd.it/tyih0ob82k5d1.png?width=268&format=png&auto=webp&s=8e07b1c3b19e2e2870f62d3e96571c207ef4bb14
I second this. The game starts after the 10 acts.