I feel like neither of you have played Path of Exile enough to know how you are meant to actually play it. And that is entirely the fault of the way Path of Exile is designed, it's a game that i personally play but would never recommend to a new player because of how incredibly obfuscated everything is.
You ARE meant to completely plan out nearly every aspect of your character before you make a build in that game. The game is all about trading. You have to overcome things like RNG by trading. Same goes for the vast majority of your gear. Using currency to actually craft your items will screw you over unless you know EXACTLY what you are looking for and know you can get it within relatively few orbs, or you are rich. You must hoard your currency.
Another thing, you're both wrong about how many gems are drop only in PoE. There are VERY few skill and support gems that are not obtained from quests, and gem quest rewards are not randomized whatsoever. Out of the 172 (soon to be 174) standard skill gems in the game, 6 of them are drop-only.
PoE is a game that requires you to do a ton of research on to play effectively or to even begin to know what you're doing. I honestly would say to avoid using it as a comparison unless you have a VERY large amount of experience with the game, because things in that game are usually not what they seem on the surface.
I said this exact same thing. And considering I tested flicker strike when it was still a ridiculously broken skill with no cooldown that made you invincible and had a fully planned out build then I'm well aware how the game works (It also almost gave me epilepsy from the constant repositioning). Which is why I refuted him bringing the game up at all; it's simply not comparable in any way.
As a numbers based gear oriented story lite experience the game hook IS the power gaming and character planning. It's simply not comparable to a game which is focusing on emergent narrative and interactivity in an immersive world.
And I even cited your exact point: You can quest for all of the gems on alts if you need them.
Weird that you didn't read that but still wanted to include me in your point though...
EDIT: Oh I see what happened. That got cut off when I was posting it. Looks pretty sloppy, let me go fix that.
