Path of Exile

[Taem]

I have an invite for the Path of Exile closed beta available. Anyone want it? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

Sent a PM.

[lemekim]

I have an invite for the Path of Exile closed beta available. Anyone want it? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

Sent a PM.

So what does it look like now? Has the game changed much since August? I would love to check it out, as it sounds pretty good on paper, but after signing up for beta, I doubt I will get in any time soon. So I will have to rely on you guys to tell us whether we should it get it on day 1 or to not even touch it with a 10 foot pole!

[LochnarITB]

I have an invite for the Path of Exile closed beta available. Anyone want it? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

Sent a PM.

So what does it look like now? Has the game changed much since August? I would love to check it out, as it sounds pretty good on paper, but after signing up for beta, I doubt I will get in any time soon. So I will have to rely on you guys to tell us whether we should it get it on day 1 or to not even touch it with a 10 foot pole!

I haven't been playing it all that much lately but I don't think there has been a lot of change since then. They've worked on some of the item type graphics. They've changed the skills tree enough that they refunded all points. It's gotten a little easier to navigate, but anyone wanting to really fine tune their toons is still gonna have to really plan well on how to assign their points. The currency system is the hardest for me to really get OK with. They are still not allowing sales of loot to vendors so orbs and scrolls are used to buy gear from vendors and the various ones are taking on relative values for trade purposes - general chat is full of stuff like 3 xxx orbs for [linked item]. I don't think D3 has anything to worry about, but PoE will offer cheap(free?) entertainment for lots of folks.

[eppie]

[quote='lemekim' pid='192356' dateline='1323738675']
I don't think D3 has anything to worry about, but PoE will offer cheap(free?) entertainment for lots of folks.

I like the game, even though I have just seen 2 acts. I hope that the real version has more acts because these 2 acts are too little I think.
For the rest it is so much like playing D2.

I hear many folks complain about d3 saying it is too cartoonish. Anyway, I will wait and check d3 out for sure, but untill then PoE is a fun game.

[Roland]

I hear many folks complain about d3 saying it is too cartoonish. Anyway, I will wait and check d3 out for sure, but untill then PoE is a fun game.

Torchlight is cartoonish. Dungeon Defenders is cartoonish. Diablo III is much more akin to Diablo II than either of those. I personally feel they could have pushed the graphics envelope much further than they have, but the game can hardly be said to be cartoonish. Yes, it does show influence from the WC3 / WoW side of Blizzard, but it's not so heavy as to make D3 unrecognizable from D2. Honestly, it's just more whining from ignorant people. Although the style may not suit everyone, it's not nearly as bad as most have made it out to be. What little content the beta has is just as drab as any other Diablo game - perhaps too much so - so every splash of color from the lighting, spell effects, etc. is a welcome change. It may stand out in sharp contrast to past games in screenshots, but in fluid gameplay it's quite natural, IMHO.

Just my 2 cents worth.

[Frag]

Anyone have a beta invite left over? Kinda have a taste for it now that I've had a trial.

[eppie]

Anyone have a beta invite left over? Kinda have a taste for it now that I've had a trial.

I think I have (send it to a few people who didn't use it because of various reasons).
Hmmmm....I can't seem to find the key anymore. On the webpage it says they are doing an open test this weekend.
I will let you know if I find it.

[RTM]

I played a bit during the free weekend. My thoughts:

-Some of the design decisions are pretty cool - I like socketing skills and the flexibility that allows.
-The talent tree is bonkers. As the type of person who hoards skill points and gets nervous in case I put a point in the wrong spot (I've restarted high-level D2 characters because of this) it just makes me jittery. There are some cool tradeoff abilities in there though (no crits but no misses, etc), and I can see how you could craft a very unique type of character.
-I don't like having to decide between identifying an item or saving the scroll to buy some gear. I guess the currency system makes sense in terms of the game world, but that doesn't mean I have to like it!
-Speaking of the game world, I found it depressing. This is totally a personal preference thing (much like the rest of my thoughts) but the game world just didn't float my boat.

All of these complaints may be addressed by playing more. Maybe I'll check it out further after release, assuming I'm not absorbed by D3.

[Frag]

I found the ambiance and starting story very reminiscent of Age of Conan. Very visceral. More like Diablo 1 than any other game to come after it. With skills being socketable, and everyone sharing the same passive tree, I'm rather concerned about the cookie-cutter effect, and eventually everyone using the same skills and passives. The economy is decent, and I promise you after level 10 or so, RTM, you never have to worry about purchasing or using an item again, even with trying to stay in tip-top gear in HC, the drops become plentiful enough, it's only an issue if you're playing too cautious the first levels. I think they have a good product, and I'd like to test it more. What they have here is a very decent middle ground between D1/D2, where there are a LOT of traps. It's very easy to make a sub-optimal play experience for yourself, and things are not obvious at all.

I think in the end, the heavier action of D3, as well as the community, is more appealing. We shall see.

[lemekim]

I found the ambiance and starting story very reminiscent of Age of Conan. Very visceral. More like Diablo 1 than any other game to come after it. With skills being socketable, and everyone sharing the same passive tree, I'm rather concerned about the cookie-cutter effect, and eventually everyone using the same skills and passives. The economy is decent, and I promise you after level 10 or so, RTM, you never have to worry about purchasing or using an item again, even with trying to stay in tip-top gear in HC, the drops become plentiful enough, it's only an issue if you're playing too cautious the first levels. I think they have a good product, and I'd like to test it more. What they have here is a very decent middle ground between D1/D2, where there are a LOT of traps. It's very easy to make a sub-optimal play experience for yourself, and things are not obvious at all.

I think in the end, the heavier action of D3, as well as the community, is more appealing. We shall see.

I have played this game quite a bit since I am still apparently not cool enough to be in the D3 Beta, and I think I have to agree with most of your points. Before I mention some of my thoughts, I should yell out a disclaimer that this is a beta and there are a lot of other things coming. The company also seems to be willing to listen to user feedback, so I am pretty optimistic there.

That out of the way, I think the beginning of the game is decently balanced - you can sort of muddle through the passive skill tree with any class even without a clear goal and pick whatever skills seem coolest to you, and still beat the story part. The drops are decent enough to provide you with gear along the way, and for things that you don't find, there are Orbs that allow you to roll some rare items to fit in that particular slot. The skills are fun to play around with once you start getting support gems, and the game play is pretty fluid and entertaining, with the flask mechanic to keep your health/mana up rather than having to hunt for potions.

If you choose to play through to the end-game, which currently consists of series of randomly-generated zones a la Shadow Vault in Torchlight, things get much tougher - and this is where some of the weaknesses come through. Because this is one giant skill tree, and because by the end game, most characters can easily spec in a completely different portion of the skill tree, instead of having 1-2 cookie cutter builds for each class, instead you get maybe 2-3 cookie cutter builds that EVERYONE would spec into (Avatar of Fire/Weapon Elemental Damage builds, Ice caster builds and probably Summoner builds). Essentially, you decide on the build first, and then pick a class that would give you the best choice of passive skill points. There needs to be either more significant passives that really make a difference in a build to add more viable builds (which I believe is planned), or the classes need to be a bit more distinct. As an example, a Templar currently is probably a better bow user than a Ranger, which doesn't make much sense to a first time user.

I think another issue that I am not too happy about is that getting even a decent end-game gear can be frustrating - the most common way is to craft the gear yourself, but because the difficulty of getting higher quality gear (more sockets, more links between sockets, better damage prefixes) is pretty much exponential, you may need to spend a lot of currency to get the gear that you want - or sometimes run out completely of currency without getting what you need. I don't think there are any plans to change that; but rather than hooking you in much like farming for that desired unique can do, this seems to frustrate instead.

Well, those are probably my main two gripes with the game right now. I think the base is very solid, and the game should give people a pretty good way to fill that Diablo void for a bit, but I think Diablo 3 will have it beat in the longevity department, which is troublesome for Path of Exile, since it's supposed to be free and make money in the micro-transactions.

P.S. Check your PM.

[ClamsAreHot]

I've been playing Diablo 1 again for the past few days, but I'm not impressed by what I see of Diablo 3 via videos & reviews. Can anyone lend me a PoE beta key? Thanks.

[MonTy]

ClamsAreHot,

There's an open stress test this weekend- meaning everyone can play. However, I don't have any extra keys.

Another option is to support them by paying $10, which grants you a beta key and 100 of their microtransaction store credits.

-MonTy

I've been playing Diablo 1 again for the past few days, but I'm not impressed by what I see of Diablo 3 via videos & reviews. Can anyone lend me a PoE beta key? Thanks.

[ClamsAreHot]

ClamsAreHot,

There's an open stress test this weekend- meaning everyone can play. However, I don't have any extra keys.

Another option is to support them by paying $10, which grants you a beta key and 100 of their microtransaction store credits.

-MonTy

I've been playing Diablo 1 again for the past few days, but I'm not impressed by what I see of Diablo 3 via videos & reviews. Can anyone lend me a PoE beta key? Thanks.

Yeah I see the stress test starts in 12 hours. I'm downloading the game now and should be done by then. I wasn't sure if the stress test was open but you've confirmed it, so thanks. Looking forward to it. I don't want to pay anything until I experiment with the game myself. I'm very picky. We'll see.

[MonTy]

I completely understand. It's a fun game but certainly not for everyone. I wouldn't pay money until there's more content. In June it's scheduled to go into Open Beta, which will introduce the third act.

Let me know what you think about the game during the stress test.

-MonTy

Yeah I see the stress test starts in 12 hours. I'm downloading the game now and should be done by then. I wasn't sure if the stress test was open but you've confirmed it, so thanks. Looking forward to it. I don't want to pay anything until I experiment with the game myself. I'm very picky. We'll see.

[MonTy]

ClamsAreHot,

1,000 Beta Keys going out here: http://www.incgamers.com/Giveaway/37/pat...y-giveaway

Just need to click a button to get your code, if they don't run out.

[ClamsAreHot]

ClamsAreHot,

1,000 Beta Keys going out here: http://www.incgamers.com/Giveaway/37/pat...y-giveaway

Just need to click a button to get your code, if they don't run out.

I was fast asleep, thanks though. If you see another and it's not much hassle maybe you can grab me one and PM it? Anyway no big deal, it's 4 hours till the stress test so hopefully I can get in then. Either way I'll get in at some point. Hopefully I can run it decently, because I'm stuck right now with a low-end gfx laptop. Thanks.

edit: I'm in for the stress test now. Only played a few minutes so far, not loving the targeting. I'll play through some more and see how it goes.

[ClamsAreHot]

This game is quite fun, I do like the customization options with the skill gems. I didn't really like the targeting with melee characters, kept walking past mobs. I do like the witch quite a bit, though I wish it were a dude instead of a chick like the sorceress in D2. Why does ever caster have to be a girl?

[Taem]

This game is quite fun, I do like the customization options with the skill gems. I didn't really like the targeting with melee characters, kept walking past mobs. I do like the witch quite a bit, though I wish it were a dude instead of a chick like the sorceress in D2. Why does ever caster have to be a girl?

I got fed up with telling ggg about the melee thing and between that and a skill system that leaves much to be desired, I can't really endorse this game anymore. I deleted all my links to the game. Unfortunatly, this is just not a game I can get into.

[ClamsAreHot]

Yeah, I'm not impressed with that crazy skill tree. I would rather have it simplified and more cohesive. It's pretty fun as a caster so far, but not amazing. I think I will play it for free until I get frustrated if there are any issues. I was not happy at all today when I went to town to sell items and the instance reset, so I had to go all the way through it again, several times. And then it happened again later when I died (burst damage, yikes), the previous instance reset. Not good at all. Hopefully they will improve it, but you'd think they would've done it right in the first place.

PoE isn't as amazing as some have said. I won't be getting D3 regardless, so this will be fun. I'll spend the weekend on it and see what happens.

---

Let me also say that despite these flaws, I *really* enjoy the itemization in this game. Skill gems grant a lot of customization, and you can easily reforge items to suit your needs. In D2 I was so tired of the utterly useless drops almost all the time; in this game, every drop is useful in some way, and upgrades aren't hard to come by.

For reference, I just got into Act 2 at level 16 after a night of playing, so I don't know if this applies to later levels, though I'd hazard a guess it does.

[ClamsAreHot]

This game is quite fun, I do like the customization options with the skill gems. I didn't really like the targeting with melee characters, kept walking past mobs. I do like the witch quite a bit, though I wish it were a dude instead of a chick like the sorceress in D2. Why does ever caster have to be a girl?

I got fed up with telling ggg about the melee thing and between that and a skill system that leaves much to be desired, I can't really endorse this game anymore. I deleted all my links to the game. Unfortunatly, this is just not a game I can get into.

By the way, what di dyou tell ggg exactly about the melee thing? Do you have a link in the forums? Were they unresponsive?