PoE is definitely a complicated game (probably too complicated for its own good) but there are some community programs that are almost necessary to play. Path of Building (the community fork) is essentially a required tool if you want to actually make anything resembling a build. I started playing in 3.21(I think, whenever crucible league was) and have more than 1000 hours of play time. A lot of that was spent in my hideout looking at PoB. And I think I’m just now getting a moderate understanding of the game.
Also the easiest way to understand some of the mechanics like heist, Jun, or any other mechanics you don’t like is to simply not. I just ignore heist and Jun stuff completely.
Of course if you want a simpler game Last Epoch is really good as well and I’m excited to see what they do with it in the future. Also, it might be an unpopular opinion but I think Diablo 4 is in a pretty good place right now. I definitely don’t get the longevity out of this season like I do with PoE but I did enjoy it.
Yeah I had one of these in the late 2000’s. Had to wear a fanny pack to receive the data from it.