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Path of Exile


WhenKittensATK

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I also played the original Diablo, both on the first Playstation and again on PC. So don't act like you're the grandfather of gaming. As for D2, yes I did enjoy the skill trees and the stats when you level up, but I also didn't like it because it could prevent you from content everyone should enjoy. Just because someone didn't do the correct build, now they can't go and fight bosses and stand a chance? That doesn't seem fair, especially for newer players.

Again, as I said, it's all a matter of preference. I like there being repercussions for your decisions in an RPG. My first D2 character was a Spearazon, which sucked when it came time to play Hell. My second character was a Summonmancer...I had a massive zoo that would get wiped out by Hell Diablo in seconds, which meant beating him took 30mins at least. Then I created a Bowazon, which was pretty OP - multi-shot to kill mobs before they were even on screen (at least before some later patch) and guided arrow to quickly DPS down bosses/elites. If D2 was handled like D3, I never would have had to re-roll an amazon because I simply could have swapped my spear skills for bow skills. Again, some people would think that would be cool, but I like the somewhat-forced replayability that comes with completely effing up your character.

 

In regards to D3, who can tell what is going to happen with future patches? I mean, isn't this the point of the beta, to see what works and what doesn't? You seem to forget that participating in a beta is so you can find bugs and give your opinion of the game and what should be changed to the creators of said game. Though, I do think you will be in the minority that does not like the game, and I doubt Blizzard would change the game to what the minority wants. If it works and a majority enjoys it, then that's it.
I never laid claim to being in the majority. I do know there are a lot of people that feel the way I do, but it doesn't matter whether I'm in the majority or not - I'm not playing the game. Future patches can obviously change things up, but it's highly unlikely they'll patch out auto-acquisition of skills and make it into a tree; that would just be too drastic of a change. Adding an option to turn off auto-distribution of attribute points is more likely, though it's not enough to change my opinion of it. IMO, RPGs are about giving players as much control as possible, not taking it away.

 

Did you have any disconnection issues at all?

They actually had JUST barely launched that class on Friday, not even in the closed beta had it been played yet!

The client crashed once on me, but other than that, no issues. I've been using Dual Strike and Double Strike, mostly the former, though it seems that skill may be bugged since it doesn't seem to do any more damage than my normal attack, and the DPS listed is just fractionally more than the DPS of my normal attack, which doesn't make sense since the skill says it strikes with both weapons simultaneously. I also picked up Raise Zombie to have a minion.

 

That's good to know. Only got to level 3 so did not do that much. It is a very fun game and does remind me of D2. I will def. be purchasing a beta key. $25 Kiwi here I come!

I'm leaning toward buying the $25 pack as well. $25 for this plus $20 (or $15) for Torchlight 2 is still cheaper than D3 :)

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The only thing I do not like so far is the currency system. It is very confusing and difficult to navigate. They need a standard for shops such as gold. Why have Scrolls of Wisdom, then later on charge Orb of Augmentation, etc? Just makes buying upgrades a hassle.

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Like I said before:

"I don't think it's necessarily a bad system, but I think they need to do a better job in-game of explaining it, maybe having a breakdown table of it all."

 

I think it's interesting to use something other than gold. In any post-apocalyptic setting, regular items are going to turn into currency for trading purposes, so I think it's more realistic this way. And besides, I think anyone who played D2 early on remembers SoJs as the de facto currency in player-to-player trading.

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Yeah, I think I'm going to pay to get one of the closed beta keys. Fun game. Different approach to it, but can definitely see a lot of time being spent in it.

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Like I said before:

"I don't think it's necessarily a bad system, but I think they need to do a better job in-game of explaining it, maybe having a breakdown table of it all."

 

I think it's interesting to use something other than gold. In any post-apocalyptic setting, regular items are going to turn into currency for trading purposes, so I think it's more realistic this way. And besides, I think anyone who played D2 early on remembers SoJs as the de facto currency in player-to-player trading.

 

Yea it's not a bad system, just takes too much time trying to get everything organized and playing with the system to just buy one item. If they could just tweak it to where JUST one item is the currency, that would be good. Scrolls of Wisdom are something that is used, so valuable.

 

And SoJs are still used as player currency, but merchant currency is still gold.

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So I pre-purchased the $25 "Kiwi Pack" :)

 

Here is my extensive list of pros, cons, and mixed bag. Each bullet point will be highlighted so you can just peruse them if you don't want to read my explanations for each one. As large as this list is, I'm sure I'm leaving out something...

 

Pros:

 

Amazing visuals. The atmosphere is dark and gritty with excellent lighting, especially in caves and interiors where it's excessively dark. The environments are highly detailed and look great when zoomed in. Haven't played long enough to see late-game items, but items do impact the player's character model, so that's good. Items that drop also look like they're supposed to, which means you can discern item drops even before displaying them or hovering over them. Spell effects seem great as well. I don't have any steller spells/skills for my character, but enemy spell animations are highly detailed and provide straightforward visual feedback - I've encountered enemies that rain down poison arrows, throw fireballs, etc.

 

Passive Skill Tree. Highly extensive and seemingly complex, but easy enough to understand. Every class has the same passive skill tree, but each class has a different starting position in the tree. This means you can focus on the ideal skills for your class, but you're perfectly free to experiment and do so weird combinations, like focusing on strength as a Witch. You also earn re-spec points along the way, so you can correct mistakes to a degree.

 

Active Skill Gems. A unique system somewhat reminiscent of the (original) Diablo and Torchlight spell-scroll-drops. Any class can use any skill gem, though some gems require certain weapons to be equipped, so those gems obviously cater toward some classes more than others - but like the passive skill tree, you're free to do what you want. Equipped gems earn 10% of the experience you earn (does not take away from your character experience and each gem earns 10%, they don't compete), which means that early on you should equip as many gems are you find (and are able to), even if you don't use them, just in case. The gem system also makes equipment selection more complex, because aside from stats, you need to worry about having the proper sockets to equip all the skills you desire. Later in the game there are "support gems" to augment skills, but I haven't gotten to that point, so can't comment on that. Last I read, there are currently 50 skill gems in the game, with 100 planned at launch.

 

Enemies Hurt! This may seem odd for me to list as a pro, but let me explain. Even in early levels, if you're not careful, you can take massive amounts of damage. Not only that, but all spell effects that can be used against enemies can be used against you. The most prime example of this is freezing. Certain enemies can actually freeze you, making it so you can't move or perform any actions for a short period of time. If other that enemy is a boss or there are a lot of other enemies around you, you can kiss your sorry little arse goodbye. There are also poisoning, burning, curses, etc.

 

Rechargeable Health and Mana Pots. To somewhat combat the above point, the health and mana pots in this game are highly unique compared to other games. when you click to use one (#1-5, by default), you don't actually use up the pot, but rather a certain number of charges. Every time you get a kill, your pots gain one charge. If that isn't cool enough for you, pots can also have magical attributes like items can. For example, I have one pot that not only gains one charge per kill, but also any time I crit. I have another pot that has extra charges. I don't know how expansive the magical attributes get since I'm only level 14, but still pretty cool. Not all of them are so rainbows and unicorns though - I found one mana pot that sacrificed 15% health any time I used it, but had bonus mana gain to compensate.

 

No Death Penalty (in Normal Difficulty). The game contains four difficulty levels. In the first difficulty level, there is no penalty for death (unless you're in Hardcore mode, obviously). I think it's a pretty fair system to get one used to the game.

 

Large Shared Account Stash. At the first town hub, which you encounter early on, you'll find a "Stash". This stash allows you not only store items, but also share them amongst accounts. By default, it seems you get four very large stash tabs and it's already known that more tabs can be purchased through micro-transactions if you desire.

 

Free-to-Play! Despite me spending $25, if you want to wait for the game to enter Open Beta and ultimately go live, you don't have to spend a dime. The devs promise it won't be "pay-to-win" and every example of micro-transaction thus far has backed that up. Micro-transactions will be for extra character slots or stash tabs, cosmetic changes, armour dyes, alternate spell effects, etc. However, spending a minimum of $10 right now, grants you immediate access into the Closed Beta, along with 10 Points per Dollar to spend on micro-transactions.

 

Cons:

 

No Item Comparison on Hover. This is a major negative right now, as it's cumbersome to compare newly acquired items to currently equipped items. However, it has been stated by the devs that this WILL be implemented in the future. Phew.

 

Minions are Dumb. I have Raise Zombie and Summon Skeletons. The Skeletons don't follow me at all and die quickly. The zombie will follow me, but only if I move slowly. The devs say they'll improve Minion AI, but we'll see.

 

Small Player Inventory. Your personal inventory is very small compared to the number of spaces items take up (helms, gloves, boots and some shields, 2x2; armor, some weapons, some shields, 2x3; some weapons as large as 2x4). This means that very early on, you'll quickly start ignoring white items and only pick up blue and higher. However, because of the trading system and white items providing one Scroll of Wisdom scrap (5 = Scroll of Wisdom), you'll want to bring some of those back with you to sell as well occasionally.

 

No Torchlight Pet System. The pet system in Torchlight was great, allowing you to send it back to town to sell unwanted items for you, making it so you never have to stop dungeon crawling. It was an awesome convenience. PoE doesn't have that and the previous con of a small player inventory makes you wish it did. We do know that pets will be in the game, as you can currently acquire a Kiwi Pet through certain pre-purchase tiers, but as of now, they're simply cosmetic. It will likely stay that way.

 

No Gender Selection or Character Customization. Like D2 and Torchlight, your gender is determined by the class you choose - Witch and Ranger are female, everyone else is male. In addition, there is no customization for body type, skin color, hair style or color, etc. It's likely at least some of those options will be available for micro-transaction purchase.

 

 

Mixed Bag:

 

Weird In-game Economy, No Gold. I've mentioned this before, but there is no in-game gold in PoE. Instead, merchants trade you various materials in exchange for your items, and vice versa. It's a highly confusing system and it's difficult to know the true worth of anything. I'm listing it as a mixed bag because I think the idea of the system is an interesting one, I just think the implementation has to be a little better - namely, explaining it to players in better terms, such as providing a breakdown chart.

 

Large, Cumbersome UI. Most of the UI isn't bad and is what you'd expect in an Action-RPG. However, item info "windows", for example, are extremely large - almost like they were designed for the blind. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but once item comparison is implemented, the current size of those windows may make it very convoluted. In addition, from what I've heard, the game's UI doesn't handle three-monitor setups well, putting the health and mana globes at the very ends of your visual area (health at left of monitor one, mana at right of monitor three), instead of keeping them at the ends of your middle monitor.

 

No Attribute Points on Level-Up. Instead of giving the player attribute points to spend (like Torchlight) or auto-distributing attribute points (like D3), PoE doesn't give you any. Instead, the only way to increase your attribute points permanently is through (some) passive skills. It makes things interesting and really makes you think about what passive skills you'll take, as you'll obviously want certain attribute levels to equip items later in the game. It's important to note that your starting attributes differ depending on the class you choose.

 

Extensive Character Stats. I'm listing this as a mixed bag, though many of you will probably find this as a huge positive. The game provides you with a lot of stats. Hit "C" to bring up your character sheet and you're greeted with various tabs full of information, from offensive stats to defensive stats. What's even more unique is that icons for each of your equipped active skills are present and clicking on one changes the stats to reflect that skill (eg. displaying the appropriate DPS).

 

Online Only. Listing this as a mixed bag because for some people this is a huge negative and for some people, it's a non-issue. You can play this entirely alone, but there is no offline mode. Seeing as it's going to be a F2P game though, it's hard to really be bothered by it - if you can't connect at some point, o well, it's not like you're paying for it.

 

Global Chat (But Can Be Turned Off). To go along with its onlin nature, there is a global chat, which is on by default and takes up a large portion of your screen (though thankfully with a transparent background). If it begins to annoy you, which it ultimately will, you can easily turn it off by simply hitting ENTER (like you're going to type) and then checking "Hide Global Chat". Simply repeat the process if you want to turn it back on.

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