The game I chose is Path of Exile, released in 2013 by Australian indie game company Grinding Gear Games (or GGG for short). It’s a top-down ARPG that revolves around your character becoming stronger and stronger (think Diablo but wacked out on cocaine).
Goals
Above is definitely not the only goal, but certainly the first goal that you would aim for. Filling out the “Atlas” is sort of like completing a racing game with 1 star on each map: “Congrats, now you’ve made it to the real game!” It is the easiest way to maximize the rewards that you can gain from the game, while also securing an easy inflow of ‘map sustain’ (which are what you use to actually play in the late game).
Rewards
Also not the only rewards, but these two are the main rewards you get IN the game itself. ABOVE, the spider web skill tree is the simplest age old “you leveled up, get a small/large buff.” Levels get harder to increase, and they cap at 100, but if you put the points in the right places you can be insanely strong. And BELOW are the items that drop from monsters, which is the main reward in the game for most players. Along with different appearances, different sounds will play depending on how rare/expensive the item is. This can itself be a reason to play the game more, think carrot on a stick.
Obstacles
That video sums it up better than words ever could. Good luck, Exile.
And another bonus clip to show Goal: making your character as strong as possible, Obstacles: building a computer strong enough to not freeze with the sheer amount of bs enemies, and Rewards: the items dropping on the ground, with sounds included to hear different rarities, AND also the rewarding feeling of being able to do what is recorded in the clip.
