Path of Exile: Partially What I Hoped Diablo 3 Would Become

Path of Exile is a free MMORPG developed by Grinding Gear Games. It is an Action RPG/Dungeon Crawling game with heavy emphasis on loot, with a 2.5D graphic style similar to the Diablo series.

This game was explained to me to be the sequel to Diablo 2 that we never got in Diablo 3. Some brief personal history, I played Diablo 2 extensively (binge playing over many years) and I had pre-ordered/played the crap out of Diablo 3 the first few months. However, I was sorely disappointed in many aspects of Diablo 3, which made me uninstall to never look back.

In come Path of Exile. I hate playing games with a hyped mindset, so I waited a bit before going through. Is it Diablo 2.5? Or did it create it's own place in gaming?

Story

My friend described the stories to loot-driven games best when he said "I know the story; get better stuff". I'm sure there's an interesting and deep lore, but let's be honest, that's not the main reason why we play these games.

Gameplay

In terms of basic gameplay, there's nothing too new here. Point, click, spam skills, spam pots, kill stuff, loot, repeat. You go through a campaign, beat the last boss, start in the beginning of the story of a higher difficulty.

So what makes this game from being a complete washout?

One of the first things I noticed was the skills system.

Let's start with the skill tree.

Aggresive with the Passives

Has FFX influence written all over.

So every time you level up (or finish certain quests) you gain skill points. These are to go into a tree (shown above). They are all passive skills that range from raising your strength, to granting extra health, or even some special skills like making your zombies explode.

It is very similar to the Final Fantasy X and the sphere grid. There are six playable classes in PoE, but the only real difference between them is where they start on the passive tree. This provides a guideline of how the characters can turn out, but you're not confined to a traditional class. So in turn, you end up with some fun builds or some funky hybrids (a bow wielding tank or an axe-wielding mage? yes please).

Make a mistake? No don't need to start all over. The game is pretty generous in granting you refund points in case you mess up slightly. There is a cap to how many skill points you can get (whatever the max level currently is), so half the battle is sitting in front of the tree to decide what path you want to take.

But that's not the only thing that's Final Fantasy-esque...

Smells Like Materia

The materia system in FFVII was one of the best skill systems implemented in any RPG game. PoE borrows the concept and takes it a little further.

That mallet would be better if it had skills.

As shown in the screenshot above, your weapons and armor (minus the belt) have sockets. Throughout the game, you will find different skill gems to put into those slots of different colors.

The red Glacial Hammer skill can only go into a red slot

Each of these skills are either blue, green, or red (usually corresponding with the magic, agility, or strength stat respectively).

Not all skill gems are active skills. Some are support, such as Leech Life or Add Fire Damage. If you look closely at the screenshots, the slots have links between them. This is necessary for these support gems to work.

This synergizes well with the skill tree, in that every class has access to every skill. Every character can be completely different.

UGH. I found a superior quality 19% yellow circlet. I needed 20%!

For anyone who is familiar with loot farming games, the above statement is a joke and a reality. Your idea of perfect loot is usually off by 1% of some obscure stat. But because of that, the value of your loot dropped by about 75%.

PoE makes it slightly less frustrating (albeit still frustrating) with orbs.

The first time I saw one, I felt like a king.

There are many different types of orbs like the one pictured above, each with a different property and rarity. So if you find a 5 slotted armor with no links? An orb of fusing gives you a chance to link them all together. Found a high level white armor? Use an orb of alchemy to make it rare. Don't like the stats? Use an orb of chaos to reroll the item. There's even an orb (or mirror) to duplicate the exact same item.

But even with this concept, it's not like your ideal equipment is easy to obtain. The odds are excruciatingly low for certain mods. Still, it might keep you from throwing away every single "almost awesome" piece of equipment you find.

And because there is no "gold" currency in this game, the orbs have naturally become the currency of the PoE economy. So in one sense, it's hard to quantify exactly what things are worth, but on the other end, you're one orb drop away from being extremely rich.

Microtransactions Done Right

As far as I know, minus some aesthetic items and like, 2 or 3 skills, non-spending players have access to everything in the game as cash spenders. Unlike most f2p games currently which force the cash shop upon you, I don't think I've even seen the cash shop itself the entire time I played the game. The microtransactions are put on the players if they want to support the game, not if they want to win faster.

Closing Thoughts

Overall, PoE is a solid addition to the clouded MMO market. It implements some unique systems to an otherwise overplayed genre, and the developers are committed to add content for years to come, which makes current endgamers hopeful of an endgame beyond endless loot farming.

But a lot of things that Diablo 3 did wrong, Path of Exile is doing right. I'm aware both series have their respective fans, but in my opinion, listening to your players is a good idea in game developing. Diablo 3 started that a little too late for me. But PpE seems to be going on the right path.

Level 100. Huzzah!

I finally hit level 100 today on War of the Immortals. I think this is the second time I hit triple digits in any game (the other being Atlantica).

Compared to other games, it seemed rather quick. Although it literally takes 5 hours to get to level 60, the rest of the levels took a couple months, which 90-100 taking a week per level. According to the game, I've been logged in for 15,480 minutes, which translates to about 258 hours.

Honestly, it feels like such an empty accomplishment currently. The next gear upgrades are at levels 103, 105, and 107. So while I get a new Instance to explore, I actually don't get any stronger. So...that kinda stinks....

Anyhoo. Level 100!

War of the Immortals (Quick Review)

Through the last 6 years, I have been searching for the "perfect" MMO.

This is far from it, but it sure is fun.

Initial Thoughts

War of the Immortals is the sequel to Battle of the Immortals (I've never played, but so I've heard). Being a Perfect World title, one can expect some decent customization of characters, along with some auto-walking and built in botting.

The first thing I noticed was the fast paced leveling. Questing is the way to go, and I literally got a level per quest up to level 35ish while not really paying attention to what was going on. After bouncing around, auto-walking and turning in some quests, you bump into your first Instance/Scenario at level 45, Magnetos, where you SHOULD find a party to steamroll your way through some monsters and some boss.

Sounds pretty cookie-cutter to the saturated MMO market. Well, it is. But the quick leveling sure got me hooked, and the amount of things to do kept me occupied. The quick leveling also allows you to test out different characters (War of the Immortals offers NINE classes) without too much of a time investment until you realize it sucks (or get bored).

Do your Dailies!

There are many instances and events that can be done once per day. Those are what take the bulk of your time, and quite frankly, is the most efficient way to level your character. So you don't have to spend a huge amount of time to be successful in the game, but have the option to go above and beyond if you'd like to. Monster killing is kept to a minimum, as the EXP gains from that are very, very low.

Social Activity
For me, the thing that sets games apart is the community. Guilds in this game are called Legions, and multiple legions can come together to become an Alliance. With this said, it is pretty easy to find parties or people to help you with whatever you need. They even reward higher level players who help out the lowbies, so it's not that huge of a hassle to find help either.

Soon enough, you'll find yourself being one of those higher level players who are helping the nubs getting to the upper echelon.

There are territory wars and occupation, as well as legion houses to broaden the interest level.


The player population, however, is quite small on the US servers. Ideally, there are three factions, and all would be filled up to compete for supremacy of Atlantis. The reality, there is only one that just dominates everyone.

End Game Stuff

While it may take about a total of 6 hours to get to level 70, from 70-80 would take about two levels per day, then 80-90, one level per day, then 90-100, about half or one third a level per day, so don't be fooled by the initial easy grind.

With that said, there is plenty to do in the meantime. There are several types of gears; one which is better for PvP, one better for PvE (and one that just destroys everything). Within that, there are enchantment and gems to insert to occupy your time, and suck away your money dry.

The PvP in this game is split between either PvP areas; maps where you're free to kill other players, and then there's also King of Combat, where it becomes a MOBA-type gameplay with vehicles and stuff like that. However, PvP doesn't really start until you hit level 100+, which would take a couple months to reach for a casual gamer.

You can pretty much buy anything with Zen (cash shop), which makes it unevenly balanced towards those who spend real money, but that's inevitable in any f2p title.

Overall

Honestly, if i didn't get lucky and find myself in a legion with some cool people, I would've quit this game at level 40. However, I've put 150+ hours already, and find myself having two level 90+ characters, an 80+, and some more random assortment of nubs waiting to be leveled.

There was nothing new about this game I haven't seen before, but if you're into games with quick levels, auto-combat/auto-walking, random assortment of vehicles, some end game depth, and bloodthirst for PvP, War of the Immortals might be a title to look into to entertain you for the time being.

Grilling the Devil

I know this isn't a ranking, but rather, this is a review of Diablo 3.
My credentials? I've played Diablo 1 and 2 for years. I think I've played Diablo 2 more than any other game...and that's a big statement, considering I spent most of my undergrad years trying to find the "perfect MMO" (which doesn't exist btw).

So after putting in 150 + hours in,  how did Diablo 3 fare? Let's find out

Initial Reaction

I wasn't gonna buy the game. At least until a few weeks later...to see how the reactions of people were. However, I folded to peer pressure and bought it the day before (sigh. my first paycheck), installed it, and was ready to go at 3:00am release time.

I was in my friend's living room, all four of us...all ready to start and get ahead of the rest of the world...only to find out about Error 3007 (or whatever the number was). Copy/pasting my password and hitting enter for an hour, I finally gave up. Turns out, the game went live an hour later...4:00am EST.

Anyhoo. I woke up the next morning and started playing as a monk, figuring the bruiser-type character was always my playstyle. Harold and I were blasting through and saving Tristram.

It was more or less like any game; start in a low leveled area, get a quest, kill some low level monsters, learn some skills, kill stuff faster, get more quests, etc.

Leveling Stats and Skills

The first disappointing thing came when I found out that you have no control over the allocation of stat points. They are "random" and automatically distributed when you level. This took out the need in Diablo 2 to calculate the nooks and crannies (how much STR do I need for end game equips...DEX for max block. etc) , thus there went the unique building of characters. Essentially, every level 60 Monk would look exactly like me, outside of equipment.

The skill system...I'm still up in the air. No more saving skill points at level 1 in order to max out a level 30 skill. No synergies to make successive skills stronger. Just you had access to every skill. In one sense, you don't need to create new characters for every build (although, I hear they patched that in D2 where you get free respecs). You had access to every skill and you could build accordingly, which was kinda cool. Only having 6 hotkeys made it challenging and thought provoking, because every slot was important. The runes to add an effect to each skill were hit or miss. You got them automatically by leveling, but the problem is, more than half of the runes are useless (after gaining two more level 60s, this further backs it up).

Story

To be honest, I knew i wasn't playing this game for story. I'm not even sure exactly what happened in the first two Diablo titles. But this was no excuse for the third one to churn out such a lame and textbook story. The difference between the first two titles and this one is that Diablo 3 forces you to remotely pay attention to the terrible plot line by making you complete every quest there is. Checking the forums, there were some players who came up with much better alternatives than what was released.

Leveling Itself 

The inevitable thing about MMOs; grinding. Grinding is normal in any game, whether it was just beat on the same group of penguins for hours or talking to the same NPC over and over for quest EXP. At first, D3 did a seamless job of just "naturally" leveling up your characters, where there was no need to grind. Just progress normally through the game.

And while this remains true, the grind is just too easy. I don't think I've ever hit max level this fast in any game. Within the first week, me and most of my friends got to level 60 (although we used a loophole in the game to repeat getting quest exp, but still). Getting to level 70 in D2 was a joke. Getting to level 99 took months. Now I understand this isn't the "endgame", where there will probably be a raise in level cap when they come out with expansions (dirty money grabbing adsfjaar), but still. My initial thought was "yay. I got to level 60. now I can focus on getting 1337 equips. Until...

Difficulty

I mean, it would've been a shame if Inferno was a breeze (hah). Props to Blizzard for trying to make the game difficult to extend our gameplay, but...this was just ridiculous. Now, leading up to Inferno, it was no problem. The new skills, the item/level gap were fine between nightmare and hell (although difficult at first, both those became a breeze), but then when you hit inferno, it was just ridiculous. I could only survive for four seconds, since that was how long my invulnerability skill held up.

Item Farming

This was what made Diablo 2 so fun. Killing monsters to try to get some nice loot.  Uniques were jaw dropping and to find one made life so much better.

There's no "set" end game items. This is fine, but for perfectionists, to know that "there's something better than yours", it's just unsettling. However, this allows more playability to find better stuff.

Now, it'd be fine if I just needed to farm equips to get to the higher act, but there was a 0% droprate in Act 1 for equips that can get you through Act 2. This forced people (my friends included) to do retarded chest runs, only to die one after another until someone opens the Resplendent Chest, and hope to obtain something worthwhile. For me, I find satisfaction in killing monsters to collect the spoils. Spoils I can possibly use to progress in the game. However, after act 1, there just wasn't anything worth picking up.

On top of that, now they implemented an "input limit", which prevents you from creating/joining games too quickly, thus eliminating doing any sort of "run".

Which paved the way for...

Auction House

Auction House is pretty standard in every game now. It established a currency and a market within the game, which is much better than the SOJ or 20/20 markets, because everyone can participate. The problem is when the game becomes dependent on the Auction House. In the other games I've played, Auction House existed to make the game easier. In Diablo 3, it was a necessity. In almost all games, you fight in your current area, get equips that allow you to progress through the next area and repeat the process. In Diablo 3, in order to progress to Act 2, one must farm enough gold in Act 1 (or below) in order to buy Act 4 equipment to beat Act 2. On top of that, the Real Money Auction House makes no sense to me. Now I understand there's a black market of gold farmers in the world, but this is clearly just Blizzard's attempt to try to get a cut into that profit. Now, for a free-to-play game, it's understandable; servers need money to stay open. Especially on a game where no one has no monetary investment, rather just time commitment. However, many..many people paid for Diablo 3, so you figure that all the game's features would be available with that one time purchase. With the implementation of a RMAH, those with more money shall get ahead. The price of gold itself is ridiculous; 1M for $10? I guess it'd only take me about 5 days to make back my money in the game. That logic doesn't make any sense to me. It just made the 1% (or the lucky ones who found insanely nice drops) stronger, and made the 99% more desperate to find loopholes, which essentially exploited the broken game.

Loop holes

I think everyone realizes by now Diablo 3 is a far from finished game. Why did they not release it later boggles my mind. However, with the frustration, there were a number of loopholes/bug/glitches that were exploited in order to progress. The frustrating thing was that Diablo 3 devs were quick to patch them, but didn't offer any alternatives only to drive it's gamers even more frustrated.

Example: The Monk had a skill (bugged skill) that allowed automatic regeneration of their Spirit (or mana). This made it possible to spam heal in order to survive any situation. Now yes, that's rigged, but it made Monks relevant. Once they patched it, Monks just became fodder, with no real way to defend itself. In a sense, they penalized you for being a tank/melee class, rather than allow you to be able to tank.

There were leveling loopholes that people discovered, which I mastered to a T. I got so many friends to level 60 so they could share the pain that made us realize "this game just isn't fun".

End Notes

And I think that's the end thought. This game just isn't fun. There's no replayability. The end game is more frustrating than challenging, and with the implementation of a RMAH, inflation is an inevitability, with the higher tier equipments only making their way to the money market rendering the regular gold market useless, making the game for non-money spenders impossible to keep up. There's not even PvP implemented in this game.

This game does show a lot of promise which could easily be fixed by a series of patches, but considering the game has been out for little over a month with millions of players, but no significant changes, it doesn't seem worth it to try and weather the storm to hope the you land in the a more favorable area.

Time to abandon ship.