You can easily get through PoE1’s main campaign without paying a dime
Someone also posted a video of them essentially getting through the “midgame” of path of exile in 24 hours without paying as well https://youtu.be/JeIDCxQhZM4
However, during that midgame he shows that he really starts having trouble with the lack of stash tabs for trading. It’s doable, but that’s kind of where you start hitting your limits
All in all, if you play for the main campaign it’s essentially just a free game, and if you play without trading the game is still designed to be somewhat doable. Really the only thing you miss out on is trading
But Solo Self Found is quite popular and surely that’s entirely without trading?
Or are you also talking about Vendor trading/crafting like the Chaos recipe?
and if you play without trading the game is still designed to be somewhat doable. Really the only thing you miss out on is trading
I don’t agree with this at all. Even if you don’t want to trade (which only really requires a single premium stash tab anyway) you’ll struggle in the endgame if you don’t have at least a currency, fragment and map tab. I actually think you need even more tabs in SSF (solo self-found) than in trade league. Because you can’t just buy something if you need it you’ll probably want to keep way more items. And with the four default tabs you pretty quickly run out of space (in the endgame).
But yes, for the campaign it’s not really an issue and I would definitely consider that as perfectly playable for free. And by the time you’re done with it you’ll probably know whether you want to buy some tabs and keep playing or not.
Tip for people who do want to buy stash tabs: there’s a sale every three weeks where all tabs are around 20-25% off.
