Its a stupid comparison in the first place, overlap between playerbase must be really small. I only know 1 D4 player around me (not even friend but discords I follow) who enjoys PoE2 more than D4.
PoE1 is very specific game (horrible graphics, no story, long campaign with no soul... only focused on endgame), that built community of people who dont care about graphics, story and dont mind 50h of souless compaign to get to endgame. And PoE2 caters to that community.
D4 is much better game overall, with graphics, cutscenes, cinematics, story, compaign, more accesible and friendly to new players (this doesnt mean simpler endgame, just overall from 1st minute)... So much so that you will have many times more players willing to pay 70 euro just for compaign than players even bothered to download PoE for free.
Does PoE have better endgame? Yes. Does it make sense to say that its better game based solely on that when it sucks dick so hard in literally everything else? Thats insane.
I have no problem with market specialization and there is no problem with PoE catering to players who dont care about story or graphics and dont mind long tedious and souless compaign or even enjoy it.
But it is insane how elitist and toxic PoE community is. Its the most toxic game community I have ever seen, extremely tribal, fanatical and insane. PoE community is basically fanatical cult.
I lost all expectation of sanity from PoE community or even content creators after last PoE1 season which was basically just fishing quest, hiring NPC to farm corn or wheat or pumpkin for you, and all losers and simps in PoE cult were pretending that was somehow revolutionary and "so many new way of playing game". Just imagine if Blizzard did that, we would be hearing nothing else for next 10 years from all these toxic players who spend more time attacking D4 than even playing PoE meming about D4 bad: Farm Simulator. But because of tribal and cult-like nature of PoE community they will just eat any shit GGG throws at them. Its insane.
ive been playing poe for a couple of years. and well, im not even gonna argue with these. but still, it competes against d4 and the entire thing is like racing a turtle against a snail. sure the turtle will win, but you cant by any means call it fast
for example! no story, true. poe has one of the worst stories ive ever seen in an arpg. but is d4 story much better? with that "angels bad, lilith good, demons are just misunderstood" talmud bullshit for example. so i hate that story also. actually i hate d4 story more because its intentionally misleading while poes story is just retarded and boring. no soul again true for both games. graphics is okayish, i dont care about it as you said, but i dont see that as a bad thing. campaign thing d4 > poe (poe uses freemium model and they go hard on forcing players to waste time). poe2 is for edgy bois and is even worse than poe atm imo. poe is probably the least beginner friendly game so d4 > poe. endgame matters a lot to me so poe wins there but its endgame is boring as well (basically get better gear to do maps to get better gear etc etc) so this isnt a big deal
now the community, to quote you "
elitist, toxic game community, extremely tribal, fanatical and insane. PoE community is basically fanatical cult, will just eat any shit GGG throws at them". yes. all true
for those who arent poe players, this happened because ggg basically groomed the community into being like this by abusing the sunken cost fallacy, forcing people to subconsciously defend ggg's actions because they had invested extreme amounts of money into it. disgusting strategy, compounded by the fact that the whole model is based on lies and saying how "you can play poe without paying" is pretty much the same as shackling someones legs and telling him "you can walk without taking these off"
the problem is that d4 is somehow STILL way worse. on the positive note, d4 is more casual friendly and (i cant believe im going to say this but) blizzard is a less manipulative company than ggg
d4 also has better meme potential. but if i had to make a list of some similar arpgs, this is how it would look like:
d2 > titan quest (immortal throne, not anniversary/atlantis/whatever) > grim dawn > torchlight 2 > dungeon siege 2 (expansion not as good) > d1 > ... > d2r > poe > poe2 > d4
so this entire debate is some bottom of the barrel games for me
i would rather not play anything than play those last few, but imo poe is "lots and lots of boring content" while d4 is "boring with no content"
would recommend grim dawn to both groups!
This post was edited by Snyft2 on Dec 21 2024 12:58pm