Is Path of Exile Better Than Lost Ark in 2024?
As a long-time ARPG fan and player of both Path of Exile (PoE) and Lost Ark, I get asked this question a lot. After hundreds of collective hours across multiple characters in each game, I believe PoE currently provides the richer and more rewarding overall experience. However, Lost Ark is fantastic in its own right and continues improving with exciting content updates from Smilegate RPG.
The verdict largely depends on what aspects of ARPGs appeal to you the most. For those who enjoy deeply customizing builds, pursuing the never-ending gear hunt, and preferring fair free-to-play models, Path of Exile shines brightest. Lost Ark features more interactive combat, quality-of-life conveniences, and regular content updates catering to a more casual social audience.
Character Progression and Build Diversity
This category goes decisively in PoE‘s favor. The intimidating Passive Skill Tree seems daunting at first, but offers nearly unlimited build possibilities once you understand it. With over 300 skills modifying how your abilities function, and unique item combinations enabling exotic interactions, you can create essentially any playstyle imaginable.
Just browse the PoE builds forums and you‘ll find comprehensively detailed guides for summoners, trappers, totem users, wand attackers, and many more esoteric archetypes. The theorycrafting complexity attracts hardcore number crunchers. I‘ve played for years and still experiment with new ideas every league.
Meanwhile in Lost Ark, your class and specialty determines 80-90% of what skills you‘ll use. There are only marginal choices involved in tripods and rune selections. It simply can‘t match Path of Exile‘s breadth when designing your perfect character. Even alts of the same class will play largely identically, just swapping elemental damage types perhaps.
Build Diversity Comparison
| Game | Viable Endgame Builds | New Skills Per Expansion |
|---|---|---|
| Path of Exile | 100+ | 20-30 |
| Lost Ark | 10-15 per class | 3-5 |
Satisfying Character Progression
Both ARPGs deliver excellent progression satisfaction. We all love gaining more power and shred through enemies that once challenged us.
PoE‘s unique item hunt drives long-term goals. With over 230 item base types and thousands of potential magical/rare modifiers, the odds of perfectly min-maxing every slot seem impossibly low. This infinitely repeatable gear hunt keeps players chasing incremental improvements. The difficulty adjusting Map system scales nicely as your build reaches mapping strength. It‘s a steady journey that never truly ends.
Lost Ark utilizes the popular item level grind. Upgrading gear score gates access to harder bosses and content tiers. I find this progression more bite-sized, allowing smaller dopamine hits as you meet each benchmark to enter new raids. The downside is that eventually, you‘ll reach the current endgame ceiling until more Legion Raids release.
Overall I prefer PoE‘s open-ended advancement, but Lost Ark‘s gear score climb offers satisfying measurable goals. Different folks will lean one way or another on this category.
Combat Feel and Presentation
On the surface, Lost Ark unquestionably provides flashier combat with more visual/audio feedback. The animations and effects really amplify that your character wields epic power. Cleaving through hordes of enemies feels meaty thanks to the isometric camera perspective highlighting each ability‘s area of effect.
Path of Exile possesses a certain weighty methodical appeal by comparison, but undoubtedly plays second fiddle regarding satisfying combat. The killing speed meta emphasized in recent leagues offers lots of screen-wide explosions, although the zoomed-out camera makes your character feel detached from the action at times. Mouse clicking for every basic attack also feels outdated.
Outside of combat, Lost Ark‘s vivid scenery, detailed character models, and cinematic cutscenes win out easily. PoE focuses more development resources on expanding systems and content rather than graphical polish. This gives Lost Ark a noticeable edge in moment-to-moment enjoyment based on presentation alone.
Endgame Content and Support Expectations
Smilegate RPG has set a breakneck pace for major updates since Lost Ark‘s western launch. With new Legion Raids, events, and classes releasing every 1-2 months, there‘s always fresh experiences to tackle. The structured tier progression guides players to appropriate challenges. I appreciate Lost Ark continually giving me milestone targets to hit.
Grinding Gear Games has spoiled Path of Exile fans with massive content expansions every 3 months for years now. Like clockwork, new skills, gear, league mechanics, and balance changes warrant rerolling new characters and diving back in. I generally play 2-4 builds per league spanning 2-3 months per character, keeping me thoroughly engaged each launch.
Comparing the two studios, Lost Ark‘s update speed impresses given the game only launched in February 2022 outside Korea. However, Grinding Gear consistently delivers for PoE too, and has sustained this rapid iteration for far longer. Overall, both titles satisfactorily produce enough new experiences not to collect dust.
As the older game, PoE suffers occasional technical issues after layers of added mechanics and spaghetti code. Server stability remains an annoyance each launch. Lost Ark runs incredibly smooth by comparison minus the odd bug. This better polish comes at the cost of more invasive microtransactions discussed next.
Business Models and Microtransactions
This section favors Path of Exile most according to my personal preferences. I play ARPGs under a single player mindset typically, preferring self-found journeys not impacted by other real world players. PoE happily supports solo self-found mode for those like myself who want to fully control our advancement.
Lost Ark presents abundant daily/weekly tasks rewarding useful progression items. I feel psychological pressure keeping multiple checklist bars filled. Missing daily login rewards also discourages taking days off. The game messes with my OCD tendencies basically! I suspect the structure better suits more casual players with limited play time though.
Most importantly, PoE retains purely cosmetic microtransactions without selling player power. Lost Ark offers plenty convenience items like skill point potions and honing boosters that meaningfully speed gear advancement. I‘m too stubborn for P2W shortcuts personally, but don‘t begrudge those with more income than free time. Just know that spending money definitely propels character progression.
If you plan on playing Lost Ark mostly solo like myself, the gear honing system feels quite punishing. Failing upgrades destroys resources and the rates feel balanced around party play. Take suitable warnings upgrading gear alongside pressure to benefit from time-gated rewards.
Verdict: They Both Excel But At Different Things
In closing, Path of Exile and Lost Ark both provide thousands of hours of ARPG enjoyment. It comes down to deciding the style of progression and content updates that best matches your play patterns. Casual players should investigate Lost Ark first to see if the combat clicks. Challenge seekers who enjoy theorycrafting will probably settle into PoE for the long haul.
I plan to play each game on and off depending when new content releases. PoE better scratches my character building itch, while I dabble in Lost Ark‘s Legions Raids between leagues. There‘s room to enjoy both titles! Let me know which one sounds most appealing to you from my experiences shared above.
