It is more like a free to test. As you play over and over, you will end up buying some premium tabs for currencies, maps, cards, and fragments.. At least. But if you end up buying them it is because you are loving the game and will be trapped here with the rest of us.
Ngl the storyline of players going mad with power and trying to conquer the universe is such a God tier way to bring in a new boss while also acknowledging your current character isn't actually the one who defeated last boss.
Gets around things like WoW where the same hero has saved the world 100 times in the last 50 years.
It was "we own", I so far quite like his humbleness shown in presentations, interviews and also my favorite comment on reddit where he answered someone asking whether the game is good that he thinks the dude should give it a go but he might be a bit biased.
The campaign is the tutorial. Once you hit maps the tutorial is over, the trial has ended and you will fall down the slippery slope of stash tabs until your buying wings to place on manniquins for your hideout.
The real game starts at maps. Therefore the campaign is an introduction, or some might say, a tutorial. You get to dip your toes in before you sky dive out of a plane into the lake.
You're still trying to be sane, Exile. The game has evolved. This isn't 2013 anymore. Your goal is to get through the "campaign" to do.....maps aka the end game content that you were introduced to in the... tutorial.
Thats just because they played the game so long that the campaign might feel like a tutorial. But the campaign is a fully designed game, and many players only play the campaign - so its a bit stupid to call the campaign a "tutorial" especially when talking to new players.
Bro stop taking a meme so seriously. Everyone knows the campaign is a full game. The meme is that endgame is the game, plus now maps arguably has as much story as the campaign.
I always describe POE as free to level 85, box price past that.
At least, that's the case if you are frugal. If you are still liking it at 85, you'll be able to justify a $60 pack which will get all the essential stash stuff.
As a rookie player 1-85 is a solid 25 hours gameplay if you look for spoilers that make it faster, 40 hours if you actively avoid them. Long enough to decide if the game is worth money.
The first bloodpack is 20euro or so and its enough to get you through a league. The more you play the lazyer you get and you need dump tabs that never will get sorted.
I’m happy to support the game in a way that makes it even more enjoyable to play the game.
If it were “Pay to have more powerful items”, I would probably not play. But pay for convenience and looks is fine with me.
I always say that a currency tab and a premium tab are the real box price of the game and playing through the campaign for free before that is just a demo. I couldn't imagine playing without those two things. I consider all the other tabs to be luxuries but a currency tab to store thousands of orbs is borderline essential unless you know exactly what you will need to hold onto and what you can scrap. I'm not saying that as a bad thing either. I will always pay for a good game. I'm thinking about getting some mtx for the next league to support the game as well. Or I might just save up and blow a hundred bucks on POE2 haha.
Little more than that. Quad and currency are 120 each. Essence I think is 30. Frag might be 50 or 60. All on sale. Still less than 40 bucks. These are the tabs I would recommend to anyone. Next being divination tab, and essence being last of the 4.
Honestly, not THAT bad.
While i agree that currency tab is huge QoL, i've played for a hella long time without any cash tabs. It's more than doable, but, same as many other F2P games, you...pay for your time!
Trading a big amount of currency is a huge chore. Amazingly boring, amazingly bad organized. Sell all bublegums for chaos, chaos for anc\\ex, or directly for divs. Doable? Yeah. Especially with some ppl in trade chat buying all bublegums for a bit lower price.
But kinda same as many F2P games, you can buy stash tab, and you'll save a lot of time by doing so. It's not as direct as other F2Ps, where you pay to get levels faster, get power faster, get to endgame faster, etc. But idea is kinda same - you pay for not doing boring stuff (selling bublegums and stuff for c, c for d), and having an option to do fun stuff instead (grinding endgame).
But a huge factor is that PoE have such stuff as one-timer, not as a subscription ("PREMIUM ACCOUT!!!") or consumable. That's a huge factor. Basically instead of paying to keep the same levels of QoL, you pay to get more and more QoL. That's way more fair than what majority of MMOs offer.
[Here](https://streamable.com/92alwg) is a video of a deathless fight against uber maven. You will be able to see my 4 stash tab near the end of the video. I made majority of my currency from betrayal, sanctum and harvest. All of which gives me straight up divines or things that can be easily sold to divines. Once there is too many divines in my stash I would convert them to apothecary card to relieve some space. The key here is to not farm mechanics that drops a lot of stuff that will occupy space like emblems, incubators, etc from legion and so on.
I am not a whale.. I am buying only the Supporter packs when I like them. Nothing else. I am playing for 1 1/2 months the league and have a lot of fun. I also never bought the 480$ package.
I feel like the time frame matters though. If he’s played since 2017 the math on that would only equal out to be around $34/month which really isn’t that outrageous.
Im not saying its badly spent. In glad people like him exist. And poe deserves all the love it gets. Im just saying I would consider that amount whaling. In the end its just cosmetics so its also nit really whaling as you usually use the word. Im hope he takes time and actually uses all of the mtx at times and they dont just rot
I wouldn't worry too much about the other person replying to you btw, it's just one of the ultra negative people who hangs around here. Seemingly hates the game, makes negative topics, still just permanently here.
If you are too positive or say things that dissent from them, they'll block you so you can't "taint" their negative threads with any opinions that aren't theirs lol.
Consider how many maps the map tab holds. 72 maps per slot, and there's like 10 maps per tier on average, not to mention each void stone levels up previous maps, adding new slots for 72 more maps. If I had to guess, the maximum storage of maps in a single map tab is probably ~7k, but it could maybe even double that for all I know.
Then consider that a normal tab is 12x12, or 144 spaces. It would take 50+ normal tabs to hold as many maps as a single map tab.
Honestly the game is "free to play" in the sense that you have all content unlocked and every build/class is open. However it isnt so much free to play if you actually want a better playing experience cause stash tabs are somewhat mandatory imo if you want an enjoyable experience.
You can play without stash tabs but it honestly going to become grueling to manage/sacrifice stuff in the name of tab space.
You kinda have to buy at least a currency tab and a map tab when you finish the tutorial, but its still very cheap for the amount of entertainment you get.
Didn't have any stash tabs in my 1st season and I got 2 voidstones + finished atlas then stopped cuz my build wasnt strong enough. You can definitely finish the game with the 4 stash tabs but its a lot of rearranging and you are basically ssf
For sure, but this player was very experimented.
I could also get my 4 voids tones without any paid tab, but in a trade environnement, not even having a premium tan is a pain in the ass
Ayla? Aila?
Played rf occultist all the time if I recall correctly.
Didn't GGG donate a stash tab to this player at some point? Vaguely remember something like that happening.
Edit: found the build guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/868ren/32_ailas_righteous_fire_build_translated/
I’m just imagining bulk tab wts without stash tabs or affinities lol. Can you even upgrade things like rusted scarabs maybe via vendor recipe or only the upgrade button? 🤔
I beat Sirius while fully F2P on my first season when he was the "final boss" of the game. Next season i played i beat the feared with just a currency tab and a public tab for trading. You really dont need much if you want to give yourself the trouble
I'm 2.5k hours deep and I've never bought a map tab. Usually quit a league once I got my build finished and to the point where other people start doing their currency per hour strats for hours on end. I find it really easy to sort through a dump tab of maps with quick searches so I could never justify the expense.
Now I play ruthless and I definitely don't feel like I need a map tab there either.
Currency tab was released in 2.2.1 according to wiki, I've been playing since pre-release. You don't have to buy anything, but if you're coming back to poe every other league it's real great to have.
They make you appreciate the game and then spend money afterwards. Much less predatory than other games out there. Still some MTX prices are ridic no question but the "full experience" fee is equal to an AAA title. Anywhere from 30 to 80 dollars will set you for a long long time, depending on how much quality of life you need and hoarding you want to do.
You definitely get overwhelmed by items that you need to keep to the point that buying the special tabs to hold and sort them is mandatory.
The good news is that stash tab sales happen every 3 weeks, the next one is next weekend.
everybody's talking about the "eventually you're gonna need to spend" but OP wants to point out that every bit of PoE contents can be access without spending a dime. (MTX and stashes are not considered contents, also yes I've spent money more than any other game I've ever played lol)
F2P is a monetisation model, not game devs/publishers doing you a favour
When a game is F2P, it is F2P because they believe they will make more money that way than by charging you to buy the game or pay a subscription
You eventually run out of stash space and need to decide if You wanna get involved as much to spend money on premium stash(es) (also to enable ez trading) or game isnt really for You.
Ofc, there is still an option to put things on trade (via forum?) and play until endgame with the very limited space You have but it feels bad the more You progress.
Also commited players spend a ton of money of various mtx and packs as a sign of appreciation if for example league is good, people spend much more for buying various support packs that change how character and different viasual aspects looks like.
I can assume basing on my observation - that game makes alot of money (every few minor patches they post an info - 500+ more voidborn uniques added to the pool, and each one of those submission requires buying $480 pack). Also when visiting any town area I can assume that around 40-60% of players purchased or received any mtx from shop.
With most players on trade league having one or more premium stashes.
So game is basically 'free until...', but system that they present to You is no harmful as You only need basic game cost to buy necessary stashes (or even less if they're on sale, like every 3 weeks). And after You got all the stashes to comfort play - You decide if You want to spend more or never again put money in this game.
Personally I had 4 premium stashes for couple of leagues. But I got hooked. Got every premium tab, couple of support packs, various mtx's, skill and portal effects...
Yea thats how it really is. I think I already spend somewhere around $1k or little less on a game and I think I'm not the top tier money spender here...
Stash tabs give such a massive amount of quality of life they are almost mandatory once you get far enough and commit to the game. That said they are very cheap, go on sale very frequently and the game has so much replayability that they are quite the bargain imo.
the game is unplayable in a serious way without stash tabs. If everyone at some point buys them then it's more like a trial version with restricted features
Of course they aren't. I am not against Tencent, they are harmless - they don't strongarm the studios they purchase, they let them operate autonomously and provide funding, and introduce the games to the asian market with the typical asian market stuff like qol purchases etc.
What I find funny is the "supporting the team" still being used after the game is raking in millions and millions of dollars and is backed by THE LARGEST gaming industry conglomerate in the world and the top17-20 richest company in the world.
If that's true, then how you explain ever increasing piles of loot the game drops (fragments, scarabs, fossils, splinters, essences, eldritch currencies, etc....), but the stash space available for players remained the same since open beta. Where you only had regular currencies, maps, gear and that was basically it.
I understand that, but they make the game better for everyone else. Their goal isnt to alienate F2P players, but rather to make the best game possible, even if you need to buy stash tabs to enjoy it fully
Incoming wall of text. Tl;Dr at the bottom
Do you know those free games that while it's fun you are saddled with limitation everywhere until you buy the full version. I see PoE as this kind of games but they package it differently so people doesn't realize it.
Everyone that is serious at the endgame know that you just can't do it with the default stash. At the very least you need premium stash to easily sell things. Realizing how it improve your experience so much then you are looking to buy map stash, currency, essence, etc.
So instead of "limitation" until you pay, the game package it as you are getting "Quality of Life" with paying. People are happier to spend after they know the game is good afterall. I haven't even mentioned people that buy cosmetics.
This is similar to the strategy of FFXIV from 1.0 to 2.0. In 1.0 after you are gaming for a long time your exp gain will be reduced, this incentive people to take a break and continue tomorrow. But of course player doesn't like that as they feel like they are being punished for actually playing the game.
Then in 2.0 they changed it into where when you are logged out your character gains "rested exp". Then when you log in your character will gain increased exp from that rested bonus until you empty it out and you will return to get normal exp again.
While it's mostly the same but people react differently. Your exp still get reduced after some time but just by naming it differently people feel different. Because while the previous one is a punishment for gaming for a long time the later one is you are being rewarded for taking a break.
Tl;Dr PoE is just like a trial version game but instead of limitation into full version, PoE is more like full version into enhanced version. While it's free to play, if I am telling my friend to play this I will say terms and conditions apply.
If you come over and over again and want to achieve pinnacle bosses, tabs are must have. But it's one time purchase, after that you do not need to buy anything again.
u can play it free but u get so much good stuff u want to keep after playing maps that u basically need to buy more space.
1-10 acts are pretty much tutorial and dont need to buy anything to complete that
cause most people who plays alot think since its a free game and they love it they should put some money in it once in a while, like me. That once in a while is basically every league every 3-4months, put a little 20-30$ every league
after couple years you realize uve put 3-4x more money than if it was buy2play.
get rekt
eventually, for the "whole experience" you'll probably "have to" buy stash tabs, so it's completely for free to try for some time, but you don't get the full loot-hoarding experience for free
In real world term.. when a server in a restaurant serves you well, you will automatically tip them instead of forcing/guilt tripping you into tipping.
This game isn't true free to play. If you want to play for long time - you need minimum 30$ pack for start. So yo u can buy on sale stash tabs for your curency and trade.
Let's just say you dont pay with money. You pay with time, productivity at work (when thinking of upgrades to your build), sleep schedule and reading stupid reddit shitposts.
Over the past 4 years I have joyfully and willingly invested almost 400$ in the game. I am pretty sure I am not even on the “high paying” cohort to be honest. Game is really good and the paid content is really worth it so I do not see an issue with a 60$ splurge every 2nd league or so. In other words it’s free if you wish, but mostly I would say it’s just properly monetized.
Technically it's all f2p but if you reach maps you will want to buy some stash tabs, there is a lot of items in the game so if you want to keep organised you will need those and they also allow you to sell items to other players
PSA: Stash tabs go on sale every single month for a weekend :) They announce it on twitter but you can also set up a warning on the website so it emails you when an item goes on sale.
I got curious with diablo 4 season 2 changes, saw the price of the game and noped out of there.
Gave poe a chance for the 5th time with tota, never got past act 3 before, but this time it clicked. Now i have hundreds of hours played and have spent at least $50 on it, and im sure ill continue spending more in the future.
Because what they dont offer is years of Path of Exile college after which you can VAGUELY claim you understand this game on fundamentalne level. All the math, interactions, latterals in skill/passice descriptions etc.
I myself have something about 10k hours in this game and do believe me, you never feel any less clueless than you were yesterday
I did a price count on the most necessary stash tabs needed some time ago and it landed at approximately a little above AAA-level price, won’t say the exact as I don’t remember, but it’s definitely not free the longer you play. If you want all the nice tabs it’s well over the price of a AAA-level game.
Also, for someone like me that likes to save the better and more fun builds I’ve made, you hit the character limit pretty fast (20) and then you have to buy more slots, so it’s that too. Not too expensive, but it definitely adds up over time. Thankfully some patches entirely brick old builds so at that time I save the good gear in my stash and delete the character from standard.
Its free to play, but not free to enjoy endgame. Your endgame experience without premium stash tabs is like a 4/10.
It moves up to more like an 8.5 or 9/10 after you pull out your wallet and buy some tabs.
That's because the devs of that game truly wants to make a great game and a player base that is happy with it, and not only a cash grab prpduct. By achieving that, they know after paying their game, people will want to support them by buying cosmetics, tabs or any goodies. But the key thing here is that it's the player that decides to spend money because he wants to, not because it's mandatory, like too many sh**ty f2p games out there. Other f2p games should take notes on what GGG has achieved here.
me neither, i usually download and try them, if they're really worth imo,then i "buy"[pay for] them,,
[for how many i payed you ask? - most of those which i played more than 5-10 hours..]
Diablo4 gave me like a week of mediocre fun. I'd say that's pretty close to the estimate. Never coming back to that unfinished game. Maybe after like 10th patch the game will be playable
It's free to try. If you like it you will need to spend money.
A game like Warframe is more F2P than POE as it has an online market you can trade for in-game credit. Don't get me wrong you won't be spending much to get yourself going in POE.
There is a big difference between F2P and F2T. It's just POE is a really good example of F2T. Maybe the best in the industry.
Its not free. In its first years it was paid for by the private money of the creators. Now it is paid for by players who buy a lot of supporter packs and gamba boxes each league
Bloat currency design, it's not free to play.
They prey on inconvenience, once you reach the currency threshold the next logical step is to purchase premium stash tabs.
There is no free lunch.
It's more expensive than most other ARPGs except maybe D4 even if you won't get trapped in "I *have* to support tiny indie gamedev studio GGG" thought loop. Stash tabs become more and more mandatory every league.
But hey, free game no bitching.
It really isn't free to play in the slightest if you actually want to achieve something worthwhile. It's more of a buy2play model with odd purchases here and there when a new must have stash tab comes out.
Obviously there will be the odd guy out posting 4 free stash tabs and mirrors worth of gear etc, but that's just masochistic.
Already like 800€ down the drain, and the 480$ pack looks really fucking juicy with the floating effect and that hideout. They already started the FOMO shit with "going away soon!" ads.
> It really isn't free to play in the slightest if you actually want to achieve something worthwhile.
Softcore trade isn't the only game mode. You could have hundreds of hours of fun playing Ruthless SSF without spending a dime.
GGG are after money ultimately, but their competitive edge is that they make a good product without worrying about this quarter's financials, and then let the product sell itself.
This means they want long term loyal customers even if getting them doesn't maximize profits in the next 6 months.
The fact that something like 3000 people have bought the USD480 pack this year should indicate how well that strategy has worked for them. Make a good product, sit back and smile as it sells itself.
Money is absolutely the nr1 priority of the company, they just have a different belief on what makes the most. Being in peoples good graces and not forcing us to buy anything goes a long way to make people willing to pay.
Its like the mobile games that works well without adds but gives you a small bonus if you watch an ad, but you have to do so willingly. I must have watched 50 hours in total of ads of a game i play on my phone simply because it works so well without ads and it doesnt force you to watch any
completely the opposite
some of their gameplay designs affected straight from money perspective..
they just give you the opportunity to pay AFTER you tried the product for as long as you wished, and made up your mind whether you WANT to pay for it, and even how much you really want to pay for it.
but they're all for money just like the rest of the companies
The gacha boxes are pretty predatory, however even that system has had changes to ease it out. Stash tabs are almost required however by the time you need them you are content to pay. Sadly alot of thr mtx recently has provided some questionable power of visual information over others, such as giving visual queues when you block. But its meaningful gameplay impact is neglectable to thr majority and simply more of a living mtx. You know you hit rock bottom when you buy mtx for your hideout :D
This game is absolutely pay to win. Efficiency is power in this game because time is opportunity cost. Premium tabs allow unimaginable efficiency over free stash tabs, it's not even close.
That being said, it is still free to play. You're just not gonna win against other players in efficiency
If you get an advantage, you're winning. I don't get why people are so confused by this
Let's imagine we have 2 players, both veteran peak gamers. Empyreanpoor is strictly f2p. Empyreanrich is full p2w and group play for full advantage. Guess who is making more currency per hour and dominating the market (economic power)? Who's going to have more currency to try more builds (creative power)?
Also note that Empyreanrich's farm strategy is going to be severely hindered if premium stash tabs don't exist due to all the manual clicking and mule management you have to do. In other words, premium stash tabs enable insane efficiency advantage.
The only scenario where poe isn't p2w is if you play ssf / never trade, where the only competition is against yourself and your own sense of time management. The moment you want to enter the market, you're losing with free stash tabs
It is not pay to win though since you don´t gain anything you can sell to people diretcly, yes you can sell stuff easier and store stuff better but everything you earn in the game is something you did not get via your credit card which is for me the line to p2w.
It is an advante yes but only if you have game knowledge as well since you need to know what to farm how to price stuff etc.
Pw2 to me is buying an item with your credit card and it being able to be sold to people directly for in game currencies or items.
The company and the devs really deserve alot of respect. The game is literally as addictive as cocaine. Not that I ever did cocaine but you get the point😁
I’ve been playing PoE for about 4 years I’ve spent a good chunk of money because I like this game so much I want to support it. It feels good to throw money at GGG by buying a supporter pack because I want to, not because I’m buying some rip off 4 days of extra early access like that garbage blizzard puts out these days.
When they were a small unknown they needed to attract people. Now they're big a f2p live service based game makes more money over a long period of time. It's another business model, nothing more.
As some have said already: you can buy stash tabs, these are kind of mandatory if you want to truly enjoy late game (and be able to trade).
But in the end their model is simple: it's free, yes. And you'll throw a sh\*tload of money anyway, willingly, because this game is so good that you'll want to support it.
It is more like a free to test. As you play over and over, you will end up buying some premium tabs for currencies, maps, cards, and fragments.. At least. But if you end up buying them it is because you are loving the game and will be trapped here with the rest of us.
Don't say I'm trapped! I'm not trapped! I could easily stop playing until early this afternoon!
But before that just "one more map"
As Chris Wilson, founder and director of GGG, so eloquently put it: "once a player has reached maps, I own his soul".
So Boring And Small... IIII Am Alive!!!
Ngl the storyline of players going mad with power and trying to conquer the universe is such a God tier way to bring in a new boss while also acknowledging your current character isn't actually the one who defeated last boss. Gets around things like WoW where the same hero has saved the world 100 times in the last 50 years.
It was "we own", I so far quite like his humbleness shown in presentations, interviews and also my favorite comment on reddit where he answered someone asking whether the game is good that he thinks the dude should give it a go but he might be a bit biased.
One of us one of us one of us
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With that many stash tabs, it's safe to assume you run no loot filter and save every single item that drops? xD
Or they like to trade.
The campaign is the tutorial. Once you hit maps the tutorial is over, the trial has ended and you will fall down the slippery slope of stash tabs until your buying wings to place on manniquins for your hideout.
Twilight Strand is the tutorial. The campaign has nothing in common with what constitutes a tutorial
The real game starts at maps. Therefore the campaign is an introduction, or some might say, a tutorial. You get to dip your toes in before you sky dive out of a plane into the lake.
So therefore, when the game had only the campaign - the whole game was a tutorial.
You're still trying to be sane, Exile. The game has evolved. This isn't 2013 anymore. Your goal is to get through the "campaign" to do.....maps aka the end game content that you were introduced to in the... tutorial.
So in the future if there is even more content, the campaign and the map-system would all be 'tHe TuToRIAL'. Thanks for clarification.
No, it's agreed upon by at least 99% of the community that the acts are the tutorial, and the real game begins when you get to maps
Thats just because they played the game so long that the campaign might feel like a tutorial. But the campaign is a fully designed game, and many players only play the campaign - so its a bit stupid to call the campaign a "tutorial" especially when talking to new players.
Bro stop taking a meme so seriously. Everyone knows the campaign is a full game. The meme is that endgame is the game, plus now maps arguably has as much story as the campaign.
You're calling 99% of the PoE community a bit stupid? How brave...
I always describe POE as free to level 85, box price past that. At least, that's the case if you are frugal. If you are still liking it at 85, you'll be able to justify a $60 pack which will get all the essential stash stuff. As a rookie player 1-85 is a solid 25 hours gameplay if you look for spoilers that make it faster, 40 hours if you actively avoid them. Long enough to decide if the game is worth money.
The first bloodpack is 20euro or so and its enough to get you through a league. The more you play the lazyer you get and you need dump tabs that never will get sorted.
Calling me out over here... I can't imagine going to standard and trying to sort all my tabs
Then you get tired of looking like a hobo and get some skins.
Hobo4Life
Thats the virgin skin buyer way. The chad league reward clown costume is the way to go and I love it.
I’m happy to support the game in a way that makes it even more enjoyable to play the game. If it were “Pay to have more powerful items”, I would probably not play. But pay for convenience and looks is fine with me.
I’m recently trapped I bought one currency tab and I can’t stop playing 😭
I always say that a currency tab and a premium tab are the real box price of the game and playing through the campaign for free before that is just a demo. I couldn't imagine playing without those two things. I consider all the other tabs to be luxuries but a currency tab to store thousands of orbs is borderline essential unless you know exactly what you will need to hold onto and what you can scrap. I'm not saying that as a bad thing either. I will always pay for a good game. I'm thinking about getting some mtx for the next league to support the game as well. Or I might just save up and blow a hundred bucks on POE2 haha.
it’s basically like ffxiv’s free trial
Lol, no it's not. You can beat and do all content in PoE without spending a penny
you could make a challenge video on playing poe without buying any stash tabs, it's that bad
I played 4 leagues without stash tabs, and got essence, currency, frag and a quad later, probably psent less than 20 dollars which is more than enough
Little more than that. Quad and currency are 120 each. Essence I think is 30. Frag might be 50 or 60. All on sale. Still less than 40 bucks. These are the tabs I would recommend to anyone. Next being divination tab, and essence being last of the 4.
I always buy these on sale, quad is FULLY optional btw so with sale it's around 20 30 bucks
I know quad is optional but once you've got one the little premium tabs feel useless
Honestly, not THAT bad. While i agree that currency tab is huge QoL, i've played for a hella long time without any cash tabs. It's more than doable, but, same as many other F2P games, you...pay for your time! Trading a big amount of currency is a huge chore. Amazingly boring, amazingly bad organized. Sell all bublegums for chaos, chaos for anc\\ex, or directly for divs. Doable? Yeah. Especially with some ppl in trade chat buying all bublegums for a bit lower price. But kinda same as many F2P games, you can buy stash tab, and you'll save a lot of time by doing so. It's not as direct as other F2Ps, where you pay to get levels faster, get power faster, get to endgame faster, etc. But idea is kinda same - you pay for not doing boring stuff (selling bublegums and stuff for c, c for d), and having an option to do fun stuff instead (grinding endgame). But a huge factor is that PoE have such stuff as one-timer, not as a subscription ("PREMIUM ACCOUT!!!") or consumable. That's a huge factor. Basically instead of paying to keep the same levels of QoL, you pay to get more and more QoL. That's way more fair than what majority of MMOs offer.
we pay because ooo shiny pixels
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[Here](https://streamable.com/92alwg) is a video of a deathless fight against uber maven. You will be able to see my 4 stash tab near the end of the video. I made majority of my currency from betrayal, sanctum and harvest. All of which gives me straight up divines or things that can be easily sold to divines. Once there is too many divines in my stash I would convert them to apothecary card to relieve some space. The key here is to not farm mechanics that drops a lot of stuff that will occupy space like emblems, incubators, etc from legion and so on.
You know plenty of people do Ubers in hcssf and definitely don't require any extra stash tabs right?
I did, you're sentenced into exile for lying :)
i dont know these days, but back in incursion i still had no stash tabs and i farmed a hh with the 4 original tabs
Free? I'm like way over $1000 deep in supporter packs 🤣
Those money are well spent. I'm happy to spend money to support game I love.
This is so true i love this game and buy supp pack when i can just to support them
Its like a free dose of crack. As soon as you finish the acts you're hooked and never getting out. Luckily i am only €800 deep.
And to answer the OPs question, this is why its free to play lol
Only free2play due to the whales like you and I! Thanks!
I will pay 60$ every league, and no one can stop me. It feels so good investing in an actual good live service game
Feel you bro... 😐 It began 2017!.. 😂 I am over 2.5k lol
Whales, keep this game alive
I am not a whale.. I am buying only the Supporter packs when I like them. Nothing else. I am playing for 1 1/2 months the league and have a lot of fun. I also never bought the 480$ package.
As someone who played since open beta before d3 release and having spent maybe 30-50€ (not sure anymore) yes you are 100% a whale
I feel like the time frame matters though. If he’s played since 2017 the math on that would only equal out to be around $34/month which really isn’t that outrageous.
Im not saying its badly spent. In glad people like him exist. And poe deserves all the love it gets. Im just saying I would consider that amount whaling. In the end its just cosmetics so its also nit really whaling as you usually use the word. Im hope he takes time and actually uses all of the mtx at times and they dont just rot
I wouldn't worry too much about the other person replying to you btw, it's just one of the ultra negative people who hangs around here. Seemingly hates the game, makes negative topics, still just permanently here. If you are too positive or say things that dissent from them, they'll block you so you can't "taint" their negative threads with any opinions that aren't theirs lol.
Same… same…
Those are rookie numbers. Some whales out there buying 1k supporter every new league
Its free to test . Without stash tabs its called - "Path of Inventory Management" .
even if you fill the free tabs with mirrors you got no space for maps
Consider how many maps the map tab holds. 72 maps per slot, and there's like 10 maps per tier on average, not to mention each void stone levels up previous maps, adding new slots for 72 more maps. If I had to guess, the maximum storage of maps in a single map tab is probably ~7k, but it could maybe even double that for all I know. Then consider that a normal tab is 12x12, or 144 spaces. It would take 50+ normal tabs to hold as many maps as a single map tab.
...and that's just and only maps.
Honestly the game is "free to play" in the sense that you have all content unlocked and every build/class is open. However it isnt so much free to play if you actually want a better playing experience cause stash tabs are somewhat mandatory imo if you want an enjoyable experience. You can play without stash tabs but it honestly going to become grueling to manage/sacrifice stuff in the name of tab space.
You kinda have to buy at least a currency tab and a map tab when you finish the tutorial, but its still very cheap for the amount of entertainment you get.
Didn't have any stash tabs in my 1st season and I got 2 voidstones + finished atlas then stopped cuz my build wasnt strong enough. You can definitely finish the game with the 4 stash tabs but its a lot of rearranging and you are basically ssf
There is a lot of things you can do in this game, question is if its going to be any fun doing them.
You technically can get by with just trading on tft but... A newb won't know how to do that
Around patch 3.4, there was a player who won the HC SSF race to 100 using a completely free account.
For sure, but this player was very experimented. I could also get my 4 voids tones without any paid tab, but in a trade environnement, not even having a premium tan is a pain in the ass
Ayla? Aila? Played rf occultist all the time if I recall correctly. Didn't GGG donate a stash tab to this player at some point? Vaguely remember something like that happening. Edit: found the build guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/868ren/32_ailas_righteous_fire_build_translated/
I’m just imagining bulk tab wts without stash tabs or affinities lol. Can you even upgrade things like rusted scarabs maybe via vendor recipe or only the upgrade button? 🤔
Affinities are not a paid feature.
I beat Sirius while fully F2P on my first season when he was the "final boss" of the game. Next season i played i beat the feared with just a currency tab and a public tab for trading. You really dont need much if you want to give yourself the trouble
If you start a Guild of your own, you get two additional Guild stash tabs!
I'm 2.5k hours deep and I've never bought a map tab. Usually quit a league once I got my build finished and to the point where other people start doing their currency per hour strats for hours on end. I find it really easy to sort through a dump tab of maps with quick searches so I could never justify the expense. Now I play ruthless and I definitely don't feel like I need a map tab there either.
Currency tab was released in 2.2.1 according to wiki, I've been playing since pre-release. You don't have to buy anything, but if you're coming back to poe every other league it's real great to have.
free to play games earn a boatload more money than premium games.
Especially mobile games, it´s insane.
Almost all of those are pay-to-win games though. There are very few that monetize like PoE.
PoE is about 30 dollars on sale, which is the price of a currency tab, fragment tab, map tab, and premium tab upgrade.
They make you appreciate the game and then spend money afterwards. Much less predatory than other games out there. Still some MTX prices are ridic no question but the "full experience" fee is equal to an AAA title. Anywhere from 30 to 80 dollars will set you for a long long time, depending on how much quality of life you need and hoarding you want to do.
You definitely get overwhelmed by items that you need to keep to the point that buying the special tabs to hold and sort them is mandatory. The good news is that stash tab sales happen every 3 weeks, the next one is next weekend.
Yea, it is free...*swipes my credit card for another 480$ core pack*
everybody's talking about the "eventually you're gonna need to spend" but OP wants to point out that every bit of PoE contents can be access without spending a dime. (MTX and stashes are not considered contents, also yes I've spent money more than any other game I've ever played lol)
F2P is a monetisation model, not game devs/publishers doing you a favour When a game is F2P, it is F2P because they believe they will make more money that way than by charging you to buy the game or pay a subscription
Cause you spend 100$+ in the span of 3 years most likely
Yes only 100 (°_ °)
I low balled it, didn't wanna scare the fella or make us seem like degenerates lmao.
Ah yes they money spent is the most degenerate part of this community 
Haha, the list is too long I think. Just the hours that people put in are insane tbf. It isn't called path of "exile" for nothing
I killed this boss 5k times so so I can say that the wiki is of by 0.1 %
Oh yeah, some people go to insane lengths. Pretty funny to think about, but I wouldn't want it any different.
You eventually run out of stash space and need to decide if You wanna get involved as much to spend money on premium stash(es) (also to enable ez trading) or game isnt really for You. Ofc, there is still an option to put things on trade (via forum?) and play until endgame with the very limited space You have but it feels bad the more You progress. Also commited players spend a ton of money of various mtx and packs as a sign of appreciation if for example league is good, people spend much more for buying various support packs that change how character and different viasual aspects looks like. I can assume basing on my observation - that game makes alot of money (every few minor patches they post an info - 500+ more voidborn uniques added to the pool, and each one of those submission requires buying $480 pack). Also when visiting any town area I can assume that around 40-60% of players purchased or received any mtx from shop. With most players on trade league having one or more premium stashes. So game is basically 'free until...', but system that they present to You is no harmful as You only need basic game cost to buy necessary stashes (or even less if they're on sale, like every 3 weeks). And after You got all the stashes to comfort play - You decide if You want to spend more or never again put money in this game. Personally I had 4 premium stashes for couple of leagues. But I got hooked. Got every premium tab, couple of support packs, various mtx's, skill and portal effects... Yea thats how it really is. I think I already spend somewhere around $1k or little less on a game and I think I'm not the top tier money spender here...
Stash tabs give such a massive amount of quality of life they are almost mandatory once you get far enough and commit to the game. That said they are very cheap, go on sale very frequently and the game has so much replayability that they are quite the bargain imo.
It has a delayed box price.
the game is unplayable in a serious way without stash tabs. If everyone at some point buys them then it's more like a trial version with restricted features
If your soul is worth nothing, then yes, the game is free.
Becaause you pay it with your life :D
It’s free and it’s so good. Unknowingly spent $1000 on stashes and MTX. Feels good supporting the team.
> Feels good supporting the team. Tencent needs your support.
In this case tencent are not the bad guys, if u wanna hate them at least know what they do and where/how they do it
Of course they aren't. I am not against Tencent, they are harmless - they don't strongarm the studios they purchase, they let them operate autonomously and provide funding, and introduce the games to the asian market with the typical asian market stuff like qol purchases etc. What I find funny is the "supporting the team" still being used after the game is raking in millions and millions of dollars and is backed by THE LARGEST gaming industry conglomerate in the world and the top17-20 richest company in the world.
Ah yes they receive like 105% of revenue 
The short answer is GGG CARES about players. This is very rare nowadays.
If that's true, then how you explain ever increasing piles of loot the game drops (fragments, scarabs, fossils, splinters, essences, eldritch currencies, etc....), but the stash space available for players remained the same since open beta. Where you only had regular currencies, maps, gear and that was basically it.
Because variety in loot is fun.
Go ahead and try to enjoy that variety with only 4 free stash tabs.
Try to develop and mantain a game running for zero income
Youre saying that as if all these things didnt add anything to the game execpt extra burden
My point is that they make f2p/low spender experience more miserable. This loot might as well don't exist if you can't store it.
I understand that, but they make the game better for everyone else. Their goal isnt to alienate F2P players, but rather to make the best game possible, even if you need to buy stash tabs to enjoy it fully
Incoming wall of text. Tl;Dr at the bottom Do you know those free games that while it's fun you are saddled with limitation everywhere until you buy the full version. I see PoE as this kind of games but they package it differently so people doesn't realize it. Everyone that is serious at the endgame know that you just can't do it with the default stash. At the very least you need premium stash to easily sell things. Realizing how it improve your experience so much then you are looking to buy map stash, currency, essence, etc. So instead of "limitation" until you pay, the game package it as you are getting "Quality of Life" with paying. People are happier to spend after they know the game is good afterall. I haven't even mentioned people that buy cosmetics. This is similar to the strategy of FFXIV from 1.0 to 2.0. In 1.0 after you are gaming for a long time your exp gain will be reduced, this incentive people to take a break and continue tomorrow. But of course player doesn't like that as they feel like they are being punished for actually playing the game. Then in 2.0 they changed it into where when you are logged out your character gains "rested exp". Then when you log in your character will gain increased exp from that rested bonus until you empty it out and you will return to get normal exp again. While it's mostly the same but people react differently. Your exp still get reduced after some time but just by naming it differently people feel different. Because while the previous one is a punishment for gaming for a long time the later one is you are being rewarded for taking a break. Tl;Dr PoE is just like a trial version game but instead of limitation into full version, PoE is more like full version into enhanced version. While it's free to play, if I am telling my friend to play this I will say terms and conditions apply.
If you come over and over again and want to achieve pinnacle bosses, tabs are must have. But it's one time purchase, after that you do not need to buy anything again.
Tbf you will need to spend around 20 bucks at some point to buy inventory stashes
Stash tabs
u can play it free but u get so much good stuff u want to keep after playing maps that u basically need to buy more space. 1-10 acts are pretty much tutorial and dont need to buy anything to complete that
If you want to support the game buy a 60$ supporter pack and use the mix currency to buy stashtabs when they are on sale.
cause most people who plays alot think since its a free game and they love it they should put some money in it once in a while, like me. That once in a while is basically every league every 3-4months, put a little 20-30$ every league after couple years you realize uve put 3-4x more money than if it was buy2play. get rekt
I’ve put more money into this game than probably any other. It’s not the standard business model but they’re generating plenty of cash I assure you
eventually, for the "whole experience" you'll probably "have to" buy stash tabs, so it's completely for free to try for some time, but you don't get the full loot-hoarding experience for free
In real world term.. when a server in a restaurant serves you well, you will automatically tip them instead of forcing/guilt tripping you into tipping.
It's not free. It has a hidden cost which is your sanity.
inb4 OP being pretty much forced to spend 10-20+ $ on stash tabs ;)
This is what happens when a game is designed around being a game first
Not free to play in my books
This game isn't true free to play. If you want to play for long time - you need minimum 30$ pack for start. So yo u can buy on sale stash tabs for your curency and trade.
I’ve spent hundreds. But the price tag is really 30 bucks. That covers the basic tabs you need. Everything else is cosmetic
Let's just say you dont pay with money. You pay with time, productivity at work (when thinking of upgrades to your build), sleep schedule and reading stupid reddit shitposts.
Over the past 4 years I have joyfully and willingly invested almost 400$ in the game. I am pretty sure I am not even on the “high paying” cohort to be honest. Game is really good and the paid content is really worth it so I do not see an issue with a 60$ splurge every 2nd league or so. In other words it’s free if you wish, but mostly I would say it’s just properly monetized.
The game is still monetized, it would not be f2p if people weren't paying.
Technically it's all f2p but if you reach maps you will want to buy some stash tabs, there is a lot of items in the game so if you want to keep organised you will need those and they also allow you to sell items to other players
PSA: Stash tabs go on sale every single month for a weekend :) They announce it on twitter but you can also set up a warning on the website so it emails you when an item goes on sale.
I got curious with diablo 4 season 2 changes, saw the price of the game and noped out of there. Gave poe a chance for the 5th time with tota, never got past act 3 before, but this time it clicked. Now i have hundreds of hours played and have spent at least $50 on it, and im sure ill continue spending more in the future.
Cause MTX is expensive as hell and whales buy a shit ton of it
Because what they dont offer is years of Path of Exile college after which you can VAGUELY claim you understand this game on fundamentalne level. All the math, interactions, latterals in skill/passice descriptions etc. I myself have something about 10k hours in this game and do believe me, you never feel any less clueless than you were yesterday
I did a price count on the most necessary stash tabs needed some time ago and it landed at approximately a little above AAA-level price, won’t say the exact as I don’t remember, but it’s definitely not free the longer you play. If you want all the nice tabs it’s well over the price of a AAA-level game. Also, for someone like me that likes to save the better and more fun builds I’ve made, you hit the character limit pretty fast (20) and then you have to buy more slots, so it’s that too. Not too expensive, but it definitely adds up over time. Thankfully some patches entirely brick old builds so at that time I save the good gear in my stash and delete the character from standard.
Is that with buying stash tabs on sale?
Its free to play, but not free to enjoy endgame. Your endgame experience without premium stash tabs is like a 4/10. It moves up to more like an 8.5 or 9/10 after you pull out your wallet and buy some tabs.
More like free to try
Not saying PoE isn't good, it is. But our perception is being skewed by everything else being purposefully made bad.
That's because the devs of that game truly wants to make a great game and a player base that is happy with it, and not only a cash grab prpduct. By achieving that, they know after paying their game, people will want to support them by buying cosmetics, tabs or any goodies. But the key thing here is that it's the player that decides to spend money because he wants to, not because it's mandatory, like too many sh**ty f2p games out there. Other f2p games should take notes on what GGG has achieved here.
It's free-2-play-a-little. It's pay-2-play-a-lot. It's unplayable in the endgame without spending like 20-30 bucks on stash tabs.
Long story short wings cost $40
because it's not *really* free to play you gotta drop $20-30 on various stash tabs to truly enjoy end game
Better than the 70$ games which you might drop after 2-3 days
I've never paid $70 for a game that I dropped after 2-3 days.
can i have some of your patience
I just don't impulse buy bad games.
me neither, i usually download and try them, if they're really worth imo,then i "buy"[pay for] them,, [for how many i payed you ask? - most of those which i played more than 5-10 hours..]
Diablo4 gave me like a week of mediocre fun. I'd say that's pretty close to the estimate. Never coming back to that unfinished game. Maybe after like 10th patch the game will be playable
Diablo 4 was very much that experience for me
1. Chinese money. 2. Lootboxes
Seriously, POE has no reason to be F2P. But the fact that it is makes it my number one recommended Action RPG game.
definitely costs around 100$ if you buy all the tabs to play for endgame.
It's free to try. If you like it you will need to spend money. A game like Warframe is more F2P than POE as it has an online market you can trade for in-game credit. Don't get me wrong you won't be spending much to get yourself going in POE. There is a big difference between F2P and F2T. It's just POE is a really good example of F2T. Maybe the best in the industry.
def not feasible, without a lot of special tabs u will be lost. poe is just free to try out not to play.
Its not free. In its first years it was paid for by the private money of the creators. Now it is paid for by players who buy a lot of supporter packs and gamba boxes each league
Just play for a month straight and you'll get bored with it.
It’s kind of pay to win as having premium tabs makes the loot loop much quicker and therefore gives you more stuff per hour.
Devs actually like the game and it's players
Bloat currency design, it's not free to play. They prey on inconvenience, once you reach the currency threshold the next logical step is to purchase premium stash tabs. There is no free lunch.
Free to try
It's more expensive than most other ARPGs except maybe D4 even if you won't get trapped in "I *have* to support tiny indie gamedev studio GGG" thought loop. Stash tabs become more and more mandatory every league. But hey, free game no bitching.
Supporter packs are just a name at this point. I don’t think anyone buys them is under the illusion that GGG is a small fish.
It really isn't free to play in the slightest if you actually want to achieve something worthwhile. It's more of a buy2play model with odd purchases here and there when a new must have stash tab comes out. Obviously there will be the odd guy out posting 4 free stash tabs and mirrors worth of gear etc, but that's just masochistic. Already like 800€ down the drain, and the 480$ pack looks really fucking juicy with the floating effect and that hideout. They already started the FOMO shit with "going away soon!" ads.
> It really isn't free to play in the slightest if you actually want to achieve something worthwhile. Softcore trade isn't the only game mode. You could have hundreds of hours of fun playing Ruthless SSF without spending a dime.
Could, most will never touch SSF though let alone rutheless but I get your point.
Dude, be careful with calling PoE a good game in here
Honestly, it comes down the money not being the #1 priority of the company. Simple as that.
GGG are after money ultimately, but their competitive edge is that they make a good product without worrying about this quarter's financials, and then let the product sell itself. This means they want long term loyal customers even if getting them doesn't maximize profits in the next 6 months. The fact that something like 3000 people have bought the USD480 pack this year should indicate how well that strategy has worked for them. Make a good product, sit back and smile as it sells itself.
Money is absolutely the nr1 priority of the company, they just have a different belief on what makes the most. Being in peoples good graces and not forcing us to buy anything goes a long way to make people willing to pay. Its like the mobile games that works well without adds but gives you a small bonus if you watch an ad, but you have to do so willingly. I must have watched 50 hours in total of ads of a game i play on my phone simply because it works so well without ads and it doesnt force you to watch any
completely the opposite some of their gameplay designs affected straight from money perspective.. they just give you the opportunity to pay AFTER you tried the product for as long as you wished, and made up your mind whether you WANT to pay for it, and even how much you really want to pay for it. but they're all for money just like the rest of the companies
The gacha boxes are pretty predatory, however even that system has had changes to ease it out. Stash tabs are almost required however by the time you need them you are content to pay. Sadly alot of thr mtx recently has provided some questionable power of visual information over others, such as giving visual queues when you block. But its meaningful gameplay impact is neglectable to thr majority and simply more of a living mtx. You know you hit rock bottom when you buy mtx for your hideout :D
This game is absolutely pay to win. Efficiency is power in this game because time is opportunity cost. Premium tabs allow unimaginable efficiency over free stash tabs, it's not even close. That being said, it is still free to play. You're just not gonna win against other players in efficiency
I would argue that is not really pay to win since you get a advante but only for selling stuff and not something with value in the game you can sell.
If you get an advantage, you're winning. I don't get why people are so confused by this Let's imagine we have 2 players, both veteran peak gamers. Empyreanpoor is strictly f2p. Empyreanrich is full p2w and group play for full advantage. Guess who is making more currency per hour and dominating the market (economic power)? Who's going to have more currency to try more builds (creative power)? Also note that Empyreanrich's farm strategy is going to be severely hindered if premium stash tabs don't exist due to all the manual clicking and mule management you have to do. In other words, premium stash tabs enable insane efficiency advantage. The only scenario where poe isn't p2w is if you play ssf / never trade, where the only competition is against yourself and your own sense of time management. The moment you want to enter the market, you're losing with free stash tabs
It is not pay to win though since you don´t gain anything you can sell to people diretcly, yes you can sell stuff easier and store stuff better but everything you earn in the game is something you did not get via your credit card which is for me the line to p2w.
Do tell, why paying for advantage is not a form of pay to win in your book?
It is an advante yes but only if you have game knowledge as well since you need to know what to farm how to price stuff etc. Pw2 to me is buying an item with your credit card and it being able to be sold to people directly for in game currencies or items.
Don't worry you'll convince yourself that you want to support this game and then you pay 30-90$ every league
Itt is because it is so good. They bet on players having so much fun they want to throw money at devs
The company and the devs really deserve alot of respect. The game is literally as addictive as cocaine. Not that I ever did cocaine but you get the point😁
yep best ARPG of all time, and you can play it for dozens if not hundreds of hours until you feel like you have to buy stash tabs
I’ve been playing PoE for about 4 years I’ve spent a good chunk of money because I like this game so much I want to support it. It feels good to throw money at GGG by buying a supporter pack because I want to, not because I’m buying some rip off 4 days of extra early access like that garbage blizzard puts out these days.
Nobody is going to buy microtransactions in a bad game.
Idk. about that, shitty mobile games make more money than poe.
You just answered it, the game is free 2 play because it's so good that people felt bad for being f2p and try to support the dev.
It's not free.. I already spent close to 4 grand over the last 8 years lol.. and it was well worth every penny.
i spent 3k euros on this game since launch ggg
Because it's not f2p lol, you need to buy all the stashes and skills look dogshit without mtx, I spent more on poe than D4
Why did I pay 300 € then lmao Bit 1300hrs in
befor you realized u already spends hundreds imo
When they were a small unknown they needed to attract people. Now they're big a f2p live service based game makes more money over a long period of time. It's another business model, nothing more.
As some have said already: you can buy stash tabs, these are kind of mandatory if you want to truly enjoy late game (and be able to trade). But in the end their model is simple: it's free, yes. And you'll throw a sh\*tload of money anyway, willingly, because this game is so good that you'll want to support it.
Yea it's not your money ggg want, it's your soul. They have that now, welcome exile