Its 100% free, so you can play it like a demo until you are either fully in or bored.
It gets a season refresh every 3ish months with an entirely new mechanic, so most experienced players restart it 4 times a year, play a new build, and then stop playing when bored and return at the new season so its always got reasons to peek back in and see if you want to rejoin.
The leveling system is a little daunting at first, but the base game is completely playable newbie blind even if you pick “suboptimally” from the skill tree. If youre too worried about FoMo, there are tons of guides online for builds, both top level and newbie friendly.
The attack/skill system is very interesting and completely moddable, tons of replayablility.
PoE is the best arpg since Diablo 2, and imo the best implementation of an ethical microtransaction funding model in place of a subscription or flat fee. The first season or so I played completely free and then started buying supporter packs because it’s such a well-made and frequently updated game. Except for the convenience of specialty/additional stash tabs and character slots, which imo are completely worth purchasing and often go on sale, every other mtx is pretty much just aesthetics. I haven’t actually felt the need to buy any new character slots in 10 years. I skip seasons here and there, but there’s always some shake up that keeps me wanting to come back to play at least a season or two a year. PoE 2 looks even more skill based and I’ll be interested in playing that one too.
Path of Exile.
Its 100% free, so you can play it like a demo until you are either fully in or bored.
It gets a season refresh every 3ish months with an entirely new mechanic, so most experienced players restart it 4 times a year, play a new build, and then stop playing when bored and return at the new season so its always got reasons to peek back in and see if you want to rejoin.
The leveling system is a little daunting at first, but the base game is completely playable newbie blind even if you pick “suboptimally” from the skill tree. If youre too worried about FoMo, there are tons of guides online for builds, both top level and newbie friendly.
The attack/skill system is very interesting and completely moddable, tons of replayablility.
If you like diablo, try PoE.
Looking forward to PoE2
PoE is the best arpg since Diablo 2, and imo the best implementation of an ethical microtransaction funding model in place of a subscription or flat fee. The first season or so I played completely free and then started buying supporter packs because it’s such a well-made and frequently updated game. Except for the convenience of specialty/additional stash tabs and character slots, which imo are completely worth purchasing and often go on sale, every other mtx is pretty much just aesthetics. I haven’t actually felt the need to buy any new character slots in 10 years. I skip seasons here and there, but there’s always some shake up that keeps me wanting to come back to play at least a season or two a year. PoE 2 looks even more skill based and I’ll be interested in playing that one too.