Every time PoE 2 trends again, someone asks if it's "too late" to jump into Path of Exile 1. It isn't. If anything, it's the better pick when you want speed, noise, and that slightly unhinged feeling of your build snowballing out of control. You'll go from poking crabs on a beach to deleting whole packs before your brain even registers what spawned. And yeah, if you already know you'll be trading and tinkering, Buy Divine Orbs can be part of that routine without derailing the actual playtime.

That "Build Click" Feeling

The passive tree still looks like a conspiracy board the first time you open it. You'll stare, you'll panic, you'll click a node and wonder if you just ruined your character. That's normal. The weird part is how good it feels when you finally stop copying a guide line by line and start making choices on purpose. You swap one support gem, change a flask, roll a different implicit, and suddenly the build wakes up. The game doesn't just hand you power. It makes you earn it, then rewards you with that clean "oh, this works" moment that other ARPGs struggle to match.

Endgame That Doesn't Run Out

Once you hit maps, PoE 1 turns into a long-term project. The Atlas isn't a single checklist; it's a playground with levers everywhere. One week you're blasting fast layouts for currency, the next you're chasing invitations, then you're down a rabbit hole learning why one scarab setup prints more than another. Delve, Heist, league mechanics—there's always another system you haven't fully cracked yet. You're never really finished, you just get pickier about what you spend your time on.

Hard Learning Curve, Real Payoff

New players get humbled, quickly. You'll probably brick a character or three, and you'll die to something you didn't even see. It can feel unfair until you realise the game's teaching you to pay attention: resist caps, ailment immunity, recovery, movement, damage layers. The upside is that improvement is obvious. Your next character feels smoother, your maps feel safer, and you stop wasting hours on fixes you could've planned around. It's not "relaxing," but it's satisfying in a way that sticks.

Trading, Time, and Keeping It Fun

The economy is its own mini-game, and it can be a pain if you're short on time or just hate whispering ten people for one item. Lots of players solve that by setting a budget, getting their core pieces sorted, and then actually playing the content they enjoy. If you'd rather skip the slowest part of the grind and focus on mapping, bossing, or experimenting with new builds, eznpc is commonly used to pick up currency and items so you can spend your sessions in-game instead of stuck in trade limbo.