This game caught my attention as a combat-less

[taoaxue123]

The latest Path of Exile expansion is nearing the end of its cycle, and I did pour a good amount of time into it. I leveled three characters to levels 82, 84, and 87. This is probably the first league in a while that I didn't hit 90 on at least one character. This was the so-called nerfs league, and boy did some of them hit hard. The mana struggles are real, people! I played a Pathfinder to start the league and so I didn't feel the flask nerfs until I started playing other characters, and those were pretty rough too. Some of the mana changes were altered after the league was underway, and Grinding Gear Games stated that they went a bit too hard on both flask and mana nerfs, so hopefully 3.16 brings some welcome buffs.

The actual league content of Expedition has been great, though. The new NPCs are exciting to play around with (except the gambling Gwennen, she's boring) and I hope Tujen and Rog stay around in some permanent fashion moving forward. The Expedition maps are also exciting, and I love the ability to choose the mods I'm up against. This league has also been super profitable while doing the league-specific content, which has allowed me to POE currency trade experiment with some of the new skills. My quick rundown of the skills I was able to play around with:

Summon Reaper: Desperately needs to be better. Super cool idea to have one awesome minion, but she falls flat when entering upper yellow/red maps. Explosive Concoction: Also needs a buff. I love this as a league-starter; I did it this league and I'll probably do it again next league. It's a cheap way to get into maps but falls off quickly as maps ramp up towards the higher tiers. Needs a ton of investment, including flask slots, and doesn't get the same efficiency as other skills with the same investment. Boneshatter: This skill was a ton of fun to play, but I tried to go into a strength-stacking build to play it and just couldn't keep up with the finances of such a build. Strike skills in general are kind of clunky, but I've gotten used to them enough to stomach it. We'll see if it gets any changes, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's mostly untouched in 3.16. Behead: I think this is a super cool skill, but I used it as a Slayer and once I got my ascendency-given culling strike I dropped it because it was useless. Plus, it doesn't tell you what buff you get when you steal one which is absolutely ridiculous.
I'm looking forward to 3.16 later this month, especially since the new teaser just dropped and got my juices flowing again!


Gamedec
This game caught my attention as a combat-less detective isometric RPG. Maybe this is the game to really nail the cyberpunk feel that many were left wanting after Cyberpunk 2077 flopped?

Based on my time with the game so fareh, not really.

I enjoy the story-focused gameplay but only having done the first area, I'm just not digging it. I already find myself speed-reading lots of the dialogue because it hasn't really grabbed me. The attempts at humor have fallen flat and there's not much enticing me to POE buy currency come back and continue to boot the game up, especially given the quality of other games in this post alone. It just feelsincomplete — like it needed more time to push it into a higher level of quality. The world doesn't really feel alive, and as a result, I don't feel like living in it. I'm not sure how much more time I'll spend in Gamedec, but I do think something great can be done here with some patches and more TLC.