Get off my lawn ya dagnabbin zoomsters!!
What you say here is true, but I don’t feel you give the devil his due. The lack of credible competitors (great choice of words, actually) was not because attempts weren’t made. It’s just that they didn’t work. It’s perfectly reasonable to get into the weeds and details to compare/contrast all of these games, but I find it unnecessary. Simply stepping back and looking at the general picture of what each of these games represent and try to offer paints the picture.
This is why I believe the key differences come down to a willingness to take risks and be accountable for mistakes. Keep in mind that these aren’t foolish risks either. They are carefully managed risks.
The “play it safe” types stagnated while PoE innovated. Those that couldn’t admit fault tried blaming the players (looking at you, Blizzard) and fell out of favor while PoE openly stated that they recognized the issues with some of their leagues and either adjusted them accordingly or withdrew them for further refinement later down the road. While the devs can be stubborn about certain issues that most of the player base would agree with, they mostly listen to the community on a huge array of issues in general.
As for some people not liking it, I have no issue with that. My enjoyment of that game is not wrapped up in thinking everyone does, and there’s plenty I don’t enjoy about it, so it’s easy to see where others may not. Besides, there are plenty of games I can objectively say are good, but not for me–Souls series in particular comes to mind. Some 4X strategy games too. It’s totally cool.
PoE’s success has a lot to do with the things it took inspiration from. The passive tree is like the sphere grid from Final Fantasy 10. The gem/skill systems take from the socket system in Final Fantasy 7. The amount of customization from the skills and passive tree alone drew a ton of people to the game, including me. The ability to mix and match skill gems is crazy interesting and fun. PoE even innovated on the campaign aspect by going to a single 10 act playthrough instead of the 3/4 act normal/medium/hard playthrough that forced you to play the same campaign 3 times.
The next innovation with campaign isn’t even an innovation. It is a port over from MMO’s. It will be disconnecting the story from a campaign. Having a story that suggests and interests people to seek the next steps. Giving the player the choice of where to go. Story will be broken into segmented parts that are all happening at the same time so you can do them in any order. They all converge on the same finale.
I really see the main distinction between aRPGs and MMOs being the number of players required for content. aRPGs should be soloable for all of the required story content (there can always be some small party exclusive content). MMOs have most\all of the end game content require large numbers of players together.
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I agree those factors are part of PoE’s success, but even those were risks they considered and took on. Conventional wisdom told that if you make a game that’s too complex you won’t attract players to it. PoE proved this wrong. Some of its longest retained players confess to never having beaten Shaper while still enjoying the complexity and depth the game offers. If they were risk averse in the way that D3 was, we wouldn’t have such a strong title on the market.
As for party vs solo, I mostly agree, but don’t see it as particularly important to the topic. What I will add is that MMOs usually make the bulk of the game’s content soloable for leveling purposes, then add group content for chase gear and social reasons. ARPGs tend to hide the chase gear behind high ilvl and high RNG.
Yeah i know but i played HoN way more so that popped up first 
From an inspirational point i hope EHG will take notes of those type of Moba characters since some of them are really cool and unique and would fit this genre in my opinion.
I agree that it would be more complicating at a larger scale, but it doesnt hurt to scout them for fresh ideas
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