Recently, Teacher Lian Po has felt that the gaming atmosphere is a bit strange. Occasionally, someone pops up in public chat with phrases like "Mom is awesome" or "Love you, Mom," leaving him confused. Later, this phenomenon of "looking for moms" gradually spread across the entire internet. Gamers, beauty bloggers, and even cat owners might suddenly receive a comment saying, "I want to be your puppy, Mom."
It must be said that the development of the internet always opens people's eyes.
However, if we set aside the very abstract manifestation of "looking for moms," this "cyber mom-seeking trend" is actually easy to understand. It's just another emerging player identity perception.
As the saying goes, "Your status is what you make of it." As player groups expand, players of different games will develop memes that anchor their respective identities.
However, using such an abstract meme has two downsides: it can easily offend other player groups, and automatically placing oneself in a subordinate position can easily trigger the "simp gets nothing" law—in the later stages, you might not get mom's love, but instead get a worn-out mouse sold to you by mom.
Moreover, internet pop culture is prone to reverse phenomena. After looking for "moms" for so long, people obviously prefer more equal relationships, such as the recently trending—"PoE Seniors."
The so-called "PoE Seniors" refer to veteran players in the Path of Exile 2 (Chinese server: Path of Exile: Arrival) player base. They are often experienced, have a deeper understanding of the game, and actively help new players. Compared to "Moms," "PoE Seniors" are more approachable, enthusiastic, and patient, truly embodying the phrase, "What Mom can't give you, your Senior will."
Speaking of "PoE Seniors," one must mention "PoE Studies."
Just as studying "Soulslike games" is called "Souls Studies," and studying White Album is called "White Studies," "PoE Studies" refers to the "discipline" of studying Path of Exile: Arrival, a new field that has recently swept the gaming circle.
The towering status of Path of Exile in modern loot-based games needs no introduction. As the sequel to this classic game, Path of Exile: Arrival naturally sparked a热潮 (wave of enthusiasm). Upon its international release late last year, it reached nearly 600,000 concurrent players and dominated the Steam best-seller chart for over a month.
This wave of enthusiasm continued to rise with game updates. Elon Musk, arguably the game's promotional ambassador and a prime example of "bad skills but big addiction," cares more about his character who just died in Path of Exile 2's Expert Mode than stepping down from his position as the world's richest man, despite his messy gameplay and hiring boosters to climb the ranks. Besides Musk, a host of top overseas streamers like Shroud, GhazzyTV, and Kanae are also addicted to it. Livestreams about Path of Exile 2 frequently reach the top of platforms, making "PoE Studies" completely synonymous with the current meta.
This trend has not diminished in China either. Before the Chinese server of Path of Exile: Arrival even launched, countless players overcame various obstacles and endured high latency to spontaneously start researching the game's version and builds. After the Chinese server began testing on September 11, not only did these players lead the charge, but many celebrities from the esports and entertainment industries, as well as famous game streamers, also joined in. From Xu Jingyu to actor Chen He, and from Guan Zeyuan to "Principal Wang," if you randomly throw an item into the celebrity circle, you might hit six players addicted to Path of Exile: Arrival.
Will that man be number one on the ladder?
And "PoE Seniors" are a group that must be mentioned in the dissemination of "PoE Studies." Typically, people who study "XX-ology" are called "X-ologists," but what makes "PoE Seniors" different is their willingness to carry "junior students" to victory. You may not have actually heard the term "PoE Senior," but legends of "PoE Seniors" are already widespread.
Path of Exile: Arrival has always been a game with considerable depth. The logical chains formed by the various gameplay mechanics and progression systems can sometimes leave newcomers in a state of "confusion" for a while.
However, the frustration of being stuck was greatly alleviated thanks to the strong support from "PoE Seniors." The community for Path of Exile: Arrival is quite remarkable; it seems like people are always discussing, chatting, and keeping an eye out for "distress signals" from newbies. Just shout in the world channel, and a passing "PoE Senior" will surely offer you step-by-step guidance.
In the Path of Exile: Arrival community, countless questions from new players about various game details frequently appear, such as how to allocate passive skills, whether dropped gear is valuable, and how to defeat bosses. Beneath these posts, "PoE Seniors" always emerge, making their "heroic entrance" to rescue the newcomers.
Veterans guiding newcomers has always been an unavoidable activity in game communities. Under different atmospheres in different games, this activity often exhibits different characteristics. The most common approach is usually having a veteran answer questions in the community, solving problems in an "Ask Me Anything" style.
But for "PoE Seniors," this kind of answer is just the most basic operation in their activities to carry newcomers. They understand very well that answering questions in this way is not considerate or thorough enough for newcomers. Therefore, "PoE Seniors" have developed various advanced methods for guiding newcomers, targeting their pain points.
If reading text isn't clear enough, "PoE Seniors" will teach you step-by-step how to configure your build, how to adjust details with that build, and how to deal damage... Starting from every detail, they help newcomers achieve a skyrocketing increase in damage output.
Some "PoE Seniors" feel that even if they provide a build, newcomers still need to spend a long time grinding to assemble it, so they prefer to go all the way and offer some advanced "little helps." Recently, popular game streamer Xu Jingyu received high-level gear generously gifted by a "PoE Senior" while grinding dungeons. This level of enthusiasm was so rare that it practically crashed Xu Jingyu's server. He said, "Although your intentions are good, I don't want items I didn't farm myself," but then added, "But let me take a look at this bow," and declared that he would play Path of Exile: Arrival for a year.
In other games, leveling up alternate characters is either something experts do when they're bored out of their minds, or it's a paid service. But in Path of Exile: Arrival, guiding alts seems to be one of the main gameplay modes for "PoE Seniors."
In the eyes of "PoE Seniors," these actions are nothing special—because this is the tradition of players in the "Path of Exile" community. Each one of them gradually became the new generation of "old timers" under the enthusiastic care of "PoE Seniors" back in the day. Now, they are simply continuing the practices from the past.
But their approach is clearly not as ordinary as they claim. At the very least, in other player communities, you'd be surprised to see veteran players fiercely competing over "how to quickly guide newcomers," marveling that Chinese can even form such combinations.
Even more ridiculously, in other games, the "newcomers" you guide at least need to have the game and an account created to be considered "newcomers." But in the eyes of "PoE Seniors," as long as you have even a slight interest in playing the game, you are a "newcomer." What if the "newcomer" doesn't have the game yet? "PoE Seniors" will handle it for you—in the Path of Exile: Arrival game community, many veteran players who purchased premium packages directly give away activation codes for free, just begging for a new player to join.
During the recent National Day holiday, Path of Exile: Arrival held a "Cyber Tasting" event, where veteran players could directly gift new players eight hours of free playtime, causing a surge in the number of new players. Many newcomers originally just came to check it out, but with the support of "PoE Seniors," they played silently and intently—Brothers, your attentiveness really reminds me of my mom.
This makes one curious: why are "PoE Seniors" such an enthusiastic player group? I believe the core reason is nothing more than the most fundamental gaming need of players: sharing joy with fellow enthusiasts. Participating in discussions and continuously validating one's game experience and new ideas during the process can drive the spread of a game far more than we imagine. Many examples in recent years have proven this point.
The explosive popularity of Elden Ring, besides the golden brand of FromSoftware, had another key element: the game's content itself supported dense exchanges and discussions among players in the community for a long time after release. This experience of everyone digging for fresh fun in the game multiplied the exploration feedback for players.
In recent years, more and more games have started to value the potential of player communities, with some development teams even incorporating community participation into the gameplay loop. For example, Animal Well, which became one of the hottest indie games of the year through word-of-mouth despite little promotional exposure, features one of its ultimate puzzles involving drawing on a canvas. However, in each individual's game, the hint for this painting is only a single pixel. Players must rely on the community's summarization to finally piece together the answer to this puzzle. This process of players jointly searching, summarizing, and concluding is precisely what elevates the gaming experience when multiple people participate together.
This logic is basically replicated in "PoE Studies."
Even within the broad category of loot-based games, the "Path of Exile" series can be considered among the richest in content. The game's excellent passive skill tree system, along with various equipment and skill systems... The researchability brought by this breadth of game content is the foundation of "PoE Studies."
And this researchability has actually always been the most needed mid-to-late game content characteristic for loot-based games. This is because the positive feedback loop in loot-based games is usually very simple and straightforward: kill monsters, get loot, build a BD (Build), then kill new monsters. Continuously increasing strength and validating your ideas within this loop is the greatest source of achievement for this type of game. But if the progression is merely "hitting mutated crayfish with a high-level stick," the game can easily become boring and repetitive.
The establishment of a Build is meant to increase player strength, offering millions of different ways and paths. Any skill or piece of equipment can potentially form a viable path under various combinations, such as a Build for faster clearing speed, a safer and more brainless Build, or a Build with cooler skill effects... and so on. As you can see, the more paths and choices available, the happier players are. Path of Exile: Arrival is exactly such a game that delights players.
This superb quality gives players ample space to research, discuss, and share. Build construction, boss mechanics, damage rotation techniques, and strategy guides all become content for players to study. This researchability naturally fuels enthusiasm for discussion, exchange, and learning within the game community. Because it's not exclusively for expert players, many can find joy in having their ideas validated during this process. Players of Path of Exile: Arrival, gathered by this joy, naturally possess an egalitarian mindset for communication, which means they don't exhibit much of the toxicity common in other popular game communities.
Similarly, discussion is a process where collective opinion holds weight. With one more player, there might be one more understanding of a build and one more person to share with. Therefore, veteran players of Path of Exile: Arrival are naturally driven by their passion to support new players through the newbie phase. Because each of these newbies will become fellow enthusiasts with whom they can communicate and improve together in the future.
This shift in experience hits upon the most fundamental desire players have in multiplayer games. Such experiences often evoke fond memories of shared life, such as dormitory life in college, group gaming sessions at internet cafes, or the various game groups on social media apps. A few close friends banter with each other, pointing out every Dog.exe they pass in the game, while also showing off their game understanding during tough boss fights. Whether learning from each other or trolling each other, it's all part of the precious gaming experience called "friendship." Just as Chen He said when recommending Path of Exile: Arrival during his livestream—
"Few games allow you to explore and discuss together like this."
However, regarding the explosive popularity of "PoE Studies" in China, one must mention the new localization features added to Path of Exile: Arrival. While a good community atmosphere is a huge advantage, if all game content requires community assistance for learning, then there is a problem with the game's design itself. Addressing this, Path of Exile: Arrival has introduced many user-friendly features, such as the in-game AI Assistant and Build Assistant. Players can use these features to understand many detailed settings in the game and receive recommendations for passive skills, gear, and skill combinations. The Build Assistant directly highlights recommended passive skill paths and gear modifiers in-game, while also providing replacement suggestions based on the player's current data and progress.
In addition, players can understand their own build data and compare it with others through their personal data pages, learn the value of equipment obtained in previous games, and even access accurate, clear, and easy-to-use checklists for key side quests—a feature of unparalleled importance to Path of Exile: Arrival players.
For veteran players, another noteworthy new feature in Path of Exile: Arrival is the Official Filter Assistant. The official team has integrated mainstream domestic filter solutions into this filter and supports automatic updates. Players no longer need to search for posts to update their filter options periodically; they can save time and effort directly through the official filter.
Through this content, even without a community, players can gradually understand the rationality of builds and the value of drops. If combined with the community, the improvement in "PoE Studies" will be super accelerated.
In addition to these localization features that enhance the gaming experience, Path of Exile: Arrival places great emphasis on the onboarding experience for new players, regularly launching new events to lower the entry barrier. For instance, the previously launched "Cyber Tasting" event perfectly leveraged the excellent atmosphere of the Path of Exile: Arrival player community, providing "PoE Seniors" with more convenience in guiding newcomers.
Many new players, driven by the enthusiastic recommendations of veterans—mainly begging them to use their build codes—enter the game to try it out, and are then delighted by the dedicated service provided by "PoE Seniors."
Besides "Cyber Tasting," Path of Exile: Arrival also has a "Golden Autumn Celebration" event.
This event focuses on rewards just for clicking and benefits for veterans guiding newcomers. During the event, players can log in and sign in to claim multiple rewards, including coupons, cosmetics, and character effects.
In addition, players can form mentor-apprentice relationships with high-level players, enjoy advanced services from "PoE Seniors," and collect character cards together to claim exclusive "Wanderer's Cloak" cosmetic rewards.
In the past, we typically considered loot-based games to be a niche genre. The core enjoyment of these games usually requires players to invest significant time and effort into learning and verification before they can truly appreciate it. However, from the explosive popularity of "PoE Studies" to "PoE Seniors" once again becoming a hot topic of discussion, we can see what makes Path of Exile: Arrival different.
Judging solely by the game's content, Path of Exile: Arrival is already an outstanding loot-based game, possessing both depth and breadth. But what it brings is far more than that.
From this wave of holiday events to the many localization features introduced by the official team, it's clear that Path of Exile: Arrival supports its player community, fostering a positive community atmosphere under this support—every passing "PoE Senior" offers enthusiastic help, allowing newcomers to seamlessly jump into the joy of efficient loot grinding.
This might be the breakthrough point that makes Path of Exile: Arrival unique. They are meeting the diverse needs of both core and new players with a more sincere attitude, allowing more players to enjoy the core fun of the game without having to endure a grueling "entrance exam."
If you are interested in loot-based games, then Path of Exile: Arrival might be your best choice right now.