Recent reviews by ash91

BitCraft Online is a sandbox MMORPG that takes place in a single massive procedurally generated world. It revolves around interacting with the environment in ways such as gathering resources, sailing the ocean fishing and looting lost shipments, hunting animals, slaying monsters, crafting materials, building settlements, and creating empires. It is very grindy which is one of the main reasons I love it. I love long journeys of progression and goals that require patience to reach. Characters have 12 professions and 6 skills to level up. Each one of the skills has an NPC that provides recurring tasks to fill for rewards. You will use professions and/or interact with the environment in order to obtain the items needed to fulfill those tasks. That's how the main game loop works on the character level. You also have a Quest Log filled with quests with different rewards such as different mounts, different boats, different personal portable storages, pets, and much more. The next and more broader level of gameplay is settlements. They are built and upgraded from the ground up and have 10 tiers of progression. They contain crafting stations, farming fields, player houses, market place, storage, etc. They appear on the map with their name, tier, slots available, market, and more available details to check. Building a settlement and growing it is where group play and community effort shines. The last and the broadest level of gameplay is Empires. They can contain many settlements and players and can occupy territories across the whole map. They are shown on the map with borders defining their claimed territories. Empires can challenge each other for territory. This is the only PvP aspect in the game, and it doesn’t involve combat. It’s about controlling watchtowers via supplying it with resources. However, one of the skills, Slayer, is all about combat (PvE only). There exists dungeons with different tiers in the game. The visuals and the ambient in BitCraft are lovely and cozy. The environment, with its different biomes, is beautiful. The map is huge. The game is semi-idle. Some aspects of it require active gameplay while others give you the chance to go AFK for a few minutes if you'd like. Usually the ones that require active gameplay are more rewarding. Another competitive aspect in the game, other than Empire Vs. Empire, is the leaderboard. It exists on a 3rd party site (Bitjita) that’s pulling APIs from the game and is offering a lot of resources and data. Bitjita is honestly another main reason why I love this game. It provides a great variety of resources and live data which help track progress in the game and makes it more fun.

Some of what I love and appreciate in the game:

1. The game has a slow pace to it and I absolutely love it. Everything needs patience to attain and acquire. You will rarely find instant gratification here. Please, keep that vibe to the game. Never change it.
   
2. You can join many settlements and are free to use stations and banks in any settlement you pass by without even joining it.
   
3. Crafting can be shared to the public! Friends, settlement members, or even complete strangers can all work on the same crafting project. This is a win-win scenario, as those who help with the craft gain XP as well! Multiple projects can be started on different stations and be worked on at the same time by different players.
   
4. The empire sieging system requires capsules which consist of generic game resources plus a special resource (Hexite Energy) that can only be gained via active game-play. This is awesome as it rewards active game play and also puts some unique friction into the process of sieging and defending. I also love how there's a board that's showing how much Hexite Energy each member is contributing to the empire. This makes everyone feel appreciated for their efforts, and motivates everyone to participate as well.

Suggestions:

1. Add a toggle on map to show biome names, or show the current biome's name under the minimap.
   
2. Many items in the game could use a different art in higher tiers, not just the same with different colours. This would make the game more beautiful and vibrant.
   
3. Add an option to see our own name/title/empire_title tags.
   
4. Just like the board in the empire that shows how much Hexite Energy has been donated per player, add more similar concepts to settlements that show, with details, players' contribution to it. Such features highly encourages contribution as it guarantees everyone efforts to be validated and also encourages healthy competition.
   
5. Add a log or a similar feature in the character menu where it shows statistics such as: total wood trunks gathered per each tier, total ore chunks collected per each tier, total planks crafted per each tier, total ingots crafted per each tier, total dungeon runs per each tier, total hunted creatures per each tier, total slayed creatures per each tier, etc..
   
6. Add an iron-man mode or something similar to it, where trading, selling/buying items on the market, and sharing storage is prohibited. Self-sufficient, solo players would highly appreciate that. Such players must be distinguished from normal players with an icon/title or something similar. It would also be great if special titles/capes/similar bragging rights would be available to them. Implementing this will also help with the FOMO some players get watching others play with one or more alt accounts.
   
7. The only thing I despise about this game so far is that you could sell stuff bought from the IRL shop for coins in the game. Even tho all what is being sold are only cosmetics, and I respect that, it doesn't change the fact that this indirectly introduces pay-to-win to the game and takes merit away from actually playing and progressing in it. That is something that will ruin even the best of games. Please, change that. Yes, make the IRL shop only have cosmetics as it is now, but don't make it tradeable for in-game currency.

The 2026 roadmap looks promising (can be seen in a video, on their official Youtube, discussing it in detail) and they already started implementing what is promised in Jan thro March and up to now. The game honestly has great potential. Carter Minshull, the Game Director, is an intelligent and chill guy. He usually streams on twitch and interacts with the community. I like how he thinks and how he has decent knowledge of a variety of MMOs, and seems to know a good deal on what’s good and what’s bad on the long term. I just hope he continues to lead the game in the future and doesn’t end up selling out to a board of execs who care about nothing but money lol.

Is this game perfect? No.
Is it almost the greatest game that I have ever played in my life? Yes.


The main reason Path of Exile (PoE) is such a great game is because it is the product of 15+ years of work. Work that has been, and still is, done by lovers and players of the genre. It wasn't designed, released, and then disregarded for all those years. In fact, every ~4 months a big update to the game is implemented. That has been, and still is, true since the game was released. That update introduces new content/mechanics to the game and upgrades &/or polishes up some of the already existing ones.

The new content that is introduced in said update, is in the formula of leagues (seasons). Each new league is separate from the core game (which is called standard and exists in a separate game world/domain by itself). Each new league is a fresh start that lasts for a duration, usually ~4 months. Most players play in league and not in standard. Mainly, because it's a fresh start which offers a competitive environment for players to race for milestones (there are rank ladders and sometimes events/races with objectives) while experiencing the new content introduced to the game. Another advantage is a fresh economy for those interested in a trade environment. After the league ends, all progress (characters made, items gained, etc..) in the league is migrated to standard. Therefore, players don't really lose anything. A decision is made as to will the new mechanics/content be added to core game or not. Then a new cycle begins. This whole formula and how it works, is the main factor as to why this game is always fresh and is always playable. Fun fact; some players/streamers in the community even organize events during the league in the form of private leagues! That's a story for another time, tho.

Path of Exile (as a whole) has somewhat of a barrier of entry. Mainly because there is so much content and knowledge that exists in it. The more players learn about the game, the more they will enjoy it. I can't emphasis that enough. To be honest, the continuous process of learning about the game is enjoyment in and of itself. For myself, at least that is.

There are a variety of variables as to why I absolutely love & enjoy Path of Exile way more than any other game. Some of those variables can be found in other games. However, to find them all present in one game is truly a work of art. Here are most of them:

1- There is a stupendous amount of game knowledge that exists in Path of Exile. I'm almost always learning something new about the game and/or recalling or polishing up some information that I had learned before. This one is the main reason I LOVE this game. For myself, once I comprehend and digest all the knowledge that exists in a game, it gets boring. That's the case even if I don't experience all the practical aspects of said game. In Path of Exile, however, that's never the case and I'm guessing it will never be! Which is freakin' awesome!

2- The only thing that impacts game play, that players can buy with real money, is to pay for more stash tabs (storage). A player will only start wanting that, for convenience, around hundreds of hours into the game. Every other thing in the game's IRL shop is purely cosmetic.

3- Those who learn more about the game will enjoy it more and reap more benefits.

4- The game requires HEAVY grinding. In endgame, at least.

5- There is so much content in the game. You will never run out of content to run. You will never get bored, because by the time you have tried everything, you will have forgotten about the first thing that you tried and you can start over. lmao However, players are not even required to play all the content in the game! In end game, players invest in content that they enjoy or in content that's more profitable, if trading for profit is the goal. Basically, in end game players are designing their own dungeons (maps), which in turn lead them to even more game content. What content these maps contain and how difficult they are, are all under control. The end game is customizable in such a great way. The higher the difficulty, the better the rewards, of course.

6- The design of the skill tree is phenomenal. Instead of having a single fixed tree for each class, it’s one enormous skill tree for all the classes. The only unique factors about classes are A- Where they start on the tree, but then players can travel anywhere on it! B- The ascendancy (sub-class) tree. Therefore, don’t let the magnitude of the skill tree be daunting. All the skills in the tree are passives that affect a player's character. Some simply add stats, and some completely alternate how the character functions! It’s really amazing once players understand how dynamic and flexible this model allows build designing to be.

7- The design of abilities/skills and how they function in the game is riveting. In short, abilities are not fixed into classes. Abilities are items (gems) that players get to slot into gear. Those gems are either an active gem (the ability itself) or a support gem which is a passive that affects the skill connected to it in various ways; extra power, changing how the ability functions, etc. There are around five hundred+ active skill gems and around two hundred+ support gems that exist in the game!

8- Itemization is incredible. Basically, each item has a pool of modifiers (stats) that players can later roll from using different types of currency and crafting methods. In short, players can create/craft their own items, down to each single stat on the item in end endgame. There are also unique items, which are unique in the literal sense. Their stats are fixed. They are used in specific scenarios. Some unique items became obsolete over the years as result of power creep. Some of those are still usable in niche scenarios. Other unique items are build defining and/or absolutely OP. Those ones are usually chased by playing specific content or killing specific game bosses.

9- Crafting in the game is simply the best crafting system that I've ever come across. It puts any other to shame. It is complex, diverse, flexible, and exciting. Honestly, to even describe it in a few words here won't do it justice. If anyone is interested in knowing a fair bit about crafting in PoE, I recommend watching 'Crafting Crash Course 1 & 2' by Subtractem on Youtube.

10- There's a HUGE flexibility in build creation. Basically, a build is a synergy between the last four points. As a result, a plethora of archetypes & build ideas can exist.

11- The currency/economy system is amazing. Gold is not the main currency in Path of Exile! Instead, a barter system is used. I urge players to read an article titled ‘Dev Diary: Rethinking Gold as a Currency’. Just type that in google and you'll will find it.

Finally, I'll mention the one and only thing that I genuinely despise about this game. It's the fact that it's balanced around a trade environment. Personally, I like when I can play the game and get everything I want to get by me playing the game. I don't like to depend on others to find stuff and me to then buy it from them. There exists a solo mode (SSF) but good luck doing what you want to do in that mode before the season ends. Also, no matter how long you play in SSF, you will never reach the ceiling of the normal trade league. To add to what I said, this model of balancing around trade highly encourages RMT in the game. I won't get into that rabbit hole here cuz the space won't be enough. I'll just say that discovering the scale of the RMT going on in the game is the number one reason my passion for PoE has degraded over time. My suggestion for a solution to that is to give some love for SSF. Do something similar to the Circle of Fortune in Last Epoch. Also make League Challenges show if they are completed in normal league or SSF league.