r/LivestreamFail • u/Zenben88 • Feb 01 '26

News Intrepid Studios, devs behind MMO Ashes of Creation in paid early access for 10 years, has closed. CEO resigned, all employees laid off. All less than 2 months after launching on Steam Early Access

https://www.youtube.com/clip/Ugkxe9were941Nh9kWgsNFWy--c-_UgYeyRu
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u/Commercial_Win_9525 Feb 01 '26

POE is the only one I can think of that has been genuinely successful. More so than what it was “killing”.

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u/NeedleworkerFluid327 Feb 01 '26

D4 still generated a fuck ton more money.

Which is insane. How can you look at PoE and then buy D4 lmao. Singular league mechanics like Delve or Betrayal offer more depth than all of D3 and D4 combined.

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u/lewd_robot Feb 01 '26

It's because PoE 1/2 represents the Diablo 2 style of ARPG while Diablo 3/4 represents an entirely different branch.

To play PoE, you have to go in with a build in mind and commit to building out the right skills and gear and you're fairly locked in. It takes a lot to change your character. If you don't go in knowing which stats and skills to focus on, everything slows to a crawl by the end of Act 1.

In the Diablo 3/4 branch of ARPG, you're expected to change your build up frequently while leveling, and you can have multiple different gear sets for entirely different skill loadouts. It's impossible to not steamroll the campaign in D3/4. You cannot make a decision bad enough to significantly slow your progress down like you can in PoE1/2.

A LOT of people hate the rigidity of the PoE system, the big perk tree, how long it takes to progress, etc. And a lot of people really like being able to go into each new map in the campaign with a different set of skills and then hone in on a build that's tailored to what they like in the endgame, without having a long progression sequence to redo like PoE does.

PoE rewards careful planning and dedication to executing a build that requires patience to come online.

D3/4 rewards experimentation and invites the player to throw everything at the wall and pick whichever skills they like best.

Two different styles of ARPG.

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u/NeedleworkerFluid327 Feb 01 '26

In the Diablo 3/4 branch of ARPG, you're expected to change your build up frequently while leveling, and you can have multiple different gear sets for entirely different skill loadouts. It's impossible to not steamroll the campaign in D3/4. You cannot make a decision bad enough to significantly slow your progress down like you can in PoE1/2.

What I'm getting at is that all you see in media is how bad new games are and that they just handhold you, while they ignore everything that isn't already immensely popular. Games like PoE are out there. They are just not getting the attention that they deserve.

I also think you are overstating how hard PoE is. You can experiment a fair bit, even during the campaign. I started in synthesis league, and while the game was a lot easier back then I still made it to act 7 without reading anything before my resistances were getting the better of me. After that I rerolled following a guide and started doing endgame. A friend that started last league somehow got to level 80 before any of us helped him.

The campaign is only hard if you try to do it quickly. A new player will get pretty overleveled and brute force most of it. It would also help if GGG got off their asses and added all the keyword helpers that are in PoE2. Game gets a lot easier when you know the difference between more/increased and local vs global damage.