Dungeon-crawler games have always been well-known for having the most brutal difficulties and Path of Exile is no exception. You could say that they’ve crafted that aspect down to a tee. Grinding Gear Games’ latest expansion, the Expedition League, is looking to capture those types of challenges once again. However, in just a month or so after the latest League was released, players already have some concerns for the updates to comes and even the entire future of the ARPG. Make no mistake, there are always underlying problems in every expansion there is in Path of Exile. Whether that be not having enough ways to farm PoE currency such as Exalted Orbs or items to PoE trade for, no expansion’s 100% perfect. If Grinding Gear Games decides to just look away from this, the Expedition League could be branded as the worst League that’s ever been released.
The Promises of the Expedition Expansion
Path of Exile has always been known as one of the most popular ARPGs in the video game community. With a gameplay loop that feels similar to other famous titles such as Diablo, there are times where fans are craving content that embraces old-school design concepts. The newest expansion, Expedition, promises to deliver content that’s sure to reach out to incoming players and veterans alike. There was a lot of excitement concerning the Expedition League during the pre-screening where the expansion was first announced. During that time, Grinding Gear Games has promised that they’ll be shaking things up this time around as well as for the future of the ARPG. To begin with, the Expedition expansion promises to have some balance changes. Now, players need to know that it is vital that Grinding Gear Games ought to balance out the beginning learning curve of Path of Exile. After all, PoE features a multiplayer and online component. Imagine being plopped off into a difficult dungeon at your first playthrough with no PoE currency or Exalted Orbs to your name.
High difficulty isn’t something new, but it can be regarded as something that dissuades some players from diving into the game. Of course, that doesn’t mean that all players could be scared off. Some titles that rely on players having to develop their skills at an intense level include Bloodborne and Demon Souls, both of which are considered to be hits in the gaming community. Path of Exile isn’t exactly a bloody difficult game where every experience feels like the players are only getting by with the skin of their teeth, but it could do better by having a couple of changes. Luckily, Path of Exile is in a position where it’s able to make alterations such as rebalancing key elements. These include the core movement speed, introducing new defensive mechanics, and making quality-of-life changes to nuances such as resource management.
The Criticism
The response to the Expedition League has been mixed so far, but one of the main criticisms of it is that there’s too much currency in the game. There are a total of twenty different currency items in Expedition that are spread across the four new merchants. Path of Exile has always avoided the use of gold systems, so having these item currencies is to encourage players to spend more time strategizing their decisions around their purchases. But then again, too much is just too much, and twenty types of currencies are not the right answer.
Grinding Gear Games has made a statement to this by saying that the variety of currency types doesn’t really become much of an inconvenience since players have the option to stash them into the Expedition Locker, but the community isn’t totally convinced. Their complaint is due to most players already having their stash cluttered with all sorts of items in their inventory, and to even add even more currencies along with those other types of items is, to put it simply, annoying.
Closing Remarks
The Expedition expansion hasn’t been fun for a lot of players. While the introduction of the four new NPC merchants was pleasant at first, it quickly became their annoyance thanks to the addition of too many items of PoE currency which are similar to Exalted Orbs. This results in the League being one of the least impactful expansions so far, and to some, has made Path of Exile quite boring. Hopefully, Grinding Gear Games manages to come up with a plan to redeem themselves and turn things around. What do you think of the Expedition in PoE so far? Let us know down below.
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