Is it finally over??

"

ghamadvar wrote:

The "real" Versus is: There is no versus. Two different target-groups. That's it. Neither is one game "dead", "better" or "more real". And both lose compared to D2. Just because D2 was the right game at the right time for the right people. It defined a genre and set the standards. That's something D3 and POE did not. Will never do. And i am fine with it. There will also never be a Barry Sanders again.

Of course there is a "versus". The similarities are overwhelming:

- Both are action games
- Both are top down
- Both are always online
- Both can be played in a party
- Both have several classes to choose from
- Both have skill trees
- both use xp, life, and mana
- Both are more about loot hunting than anything else
- Both are gear-dependent
- Both have randomized itemization
- Both have uniques
- Both have crafting
- Both have a fantasy setting


Then there are the non-genre specific things like grpahics, sound, performance, gameplay, etc.
Based on that you can compare the two, e.g. D3 is better than PoE when it comes to view distance: You can zoom out more. PoE is better when it comes to the skill tree: There are way too few viable builds in D3. And so on.
Of course there are things that are a matter of preference, like the loot system or the drop rate, but that does not mean that you cannot compare the two.

@charan: i will read it, as you know ;)

@Jojas: There are two different approaches. And that's the thing. Is a more complicated, diverse and open skilltree "better"? If you have one to two hours a day or week to play something, would you like to spend those hours with planning a skilltree that still might go wrong? Or would you just love to click, click, boom?

And about the other points:

Similarities are good. But they not necessarily demand a comparison. Let us see:

Lionel Messi vs. Manuel Neuer (sorry, i am no soccer-dude, but i thought football-players would be too special)

- Both are soccer-players
- Both are playing in the champions league
- Both are sponsored by large companies
- Both have received the highest awards for soccer-players
- Both have won the champions league
- Both play in their national teams
- Both need stamina, foot-eye-coordination, power and stuff
- Both are important for their teams.
- Both have unique skills
- Both are training every day

But: One is a goalkeeper, the other is playing as middle-fielder or forward.
How the heck can we compare them?

As Messi and Neuer, D3 and POE have different "roles" to play. And both are pretty good in what they do.

Of course there are SOME things that you can compare. But even then it is most of the times a question of preferences and not of rational arguments ;)

Short: I don't think that comparisons are needed. Because both games fulfill different tasks. And that's awesome!

"

Jojas wrote:

- Both have skill trees

I must correct you because you're clearly confused.

Diablo 3 has no skill tree, it has a bunch of skills you can choose from, which don't interact with each other, for example, perks from a mages mirror image won't affect the mirror images created by teleport. In short, skills in diablo 3 are insular.

The skill options in Diablo 3 are very wide and shallow, while in POE they are narrow and deep.

In PoE you use ONE skill to do things, maybe one other active skill for movement/support. Everything else is passive, most of the time. The reason being the lack of actual sockets. If PoE had pants with up to 6 sockets, then yea, it wouldn't be so unbearably narrow.

"

MegaDeth666 wrote:

"

Jojas wrote:

- Both have skill trees

I must correct you because you're clearly confused.

Diablo 3 has no skill tree, it has a bunch of skills you can choose from, which don't interact with each other, for example, perks from a mages mirror image won't affect the mirror images created by teleport. In short, skills in diablo 3 are insular.

The skill options in Diablo 3 are very wide and shallow, while in POE they are narrow and deep.

In PoE you use ONE skill to do things, maybe one other active skill for movement/support. Everything else is passive, most of the time. The reason being the lack of actual sockets. If PoE had pants with up to 6 sockets, then yea, it wouldn't be so unbearably narrow.

Good point.

"

ghamadvar wrote:

@charan: i will read it, as you know ;)

@Jojas: There are two different approaches. And that's the thing. Is a more complicated, diverse and open skilltree "better"? If you have one to two hours a day or week to play something, would you like to spend those hours with planning a skilltree that still might go wrong? Or would you just love to click, click, boom?

And about the other points:

Similarities are good. But they not necessarily demand a comparison. Let us see:

Lionel Messi vs. Manuel Neuer (sorry, i am no soccer-dude, but i thought football-players would be too special)

- Both are soccer-players
- Both are playing in the champions league
- Both are sponsored by large companies
- Both have received the highest awards for soccer-players
- Both have won the champions league
- Both play in their national teams
- Both need stamina, foot-eye-coordination, power and stuff
- Both are important for their teams.
- Both have unique skills
- Both are training every day

But: One is a goalkeeper, the other is playing as middle-fielder or forward.
How the heck can we compare them?

As Messi and Neuer, D3 and POE have different "roles" to play. And both are pretty good in what they do.

Of course there are SOME things that you can compare. But even then it is most of the times a question of preferences and not of rational arguments ;)

Short: I don't think that comparisons are needed. Because both games fulfill different tasks. And that's awesome!

Messi and Neuer have a dividing element that makes a comparison pointless, whereas no such element exists with D3 and PoE. Both games work on the same principles: top-down action, levelling, loot, skills, etc.

I agree with you, comparisons are not needed, but they are far from pointless and they could be really very interesting if done in a proper way.

I repeat myself: D3 and POE are like goalkeeper and forward. Same team and sport, different tasks. The dividing element of D3 and POE are the target-groups this games are made for. D3 does not want to make POE-players happy or is not made for them. Therefore, comparisons made, especially here, are quite pointless. It is no surprise to me, that D3-fans don't really get into POE and vice versa. Or that people who love both games play them situationally. D3 is for the rush. POE is for the grind.

You simply cannot say that D3's simplicity is better or worse than POE's complexity. You cannot say that the graphics in D3 are better or worse than those in POE. And so on. Even arguments like "adding content", "community management" and stuff don't fit. The companies behind this games are too different. Comparing GGG's community-management to Blizzard's is just unfair. And this works in both ways. GGG simply cannot do stuff Blizzard does. And Blizzard cannot do stuff GGG does. GGG just made one game. So even the bullshit argument "blizz killed the d3-vanilla-version" does not count. GGG did not have the opportunity yet to kill POE2 ;)
So: What can we compare? Nothing. In my opinion. Both are awesome games made by awesome companies. True gaming companies that brought us so much joy and fun. That's it. All this elitarism, trolling, black-and-white-thinking is just a joke.

Short: There is no proper way to do a comparison.

So: It's like comparing Messi and Neuer. Sorry if i sound like a broken record. But i really see it this way.

But i am really looking forward to the day when somebody convinces me that i am wrong ;)

To a certain extent you're right, of course. D3's simplicity does not have to mean it's worse than PoE, and so on. But it's a mistake to assume that, just because some elements of a game come down to personal preference, they cannot ever be compared.

How many dissatisfied players of D3 do you think have tried out PoE? How many D3 players who are just being curious of the genre have tried it? Or watched some videos of it?
And vice versa? And how many have returned to their original game? How many have stayed?
Probably lots, for all questions.
And the reason for that is that the games are so alike, and the differences so few. Most people here have played D3, and most of them probably extensively. And most likely most D3 players have at least watched some videos of PoE. It's not like you're comparing them to text adventures.
And taking your example of Messi and Neuer, you cannot really say the same thing about forwards and goal keepers. Goalies and forwards dabbing into one thing, then the other, then back again is almost unheard of. Your analogy really does not hold up.

So if there are two games where the similarities by far outweigh the differences, why not compare them? Like, "If you don't like comic-book style graphics, you probably won't like the graphics of D3, but maybe PoE's.", or, "If you don't like trading and/or grinding, PoE is probably not the game for you, but maybe D3." And so on.

A comparison doesn't necessarily have to come to the conclusion that one game is better than the other, all it has to do is what the word says: Take the singular elements of both games and compare them.

The Diablo franchise died for me when Deckard Cain died.

Beyond that, i have nothing more to add to the discussion.

I play D3 and I find it appealing enough, though I got burned out in current season after getting pretty decent items. But I will return once patch 2.3 comes out (not PTR).

And I will also play PoE once Awakening is out because I crave for some bow & arrow grind. Heck, I would buy a pack, but that's sadly out of the question until I get a new phone.

It's sad to see so much hate from both sides when comparing these two games. I know that other people's opinions shouldn't affect me but that's kinda inevitable whenever I come on these forums, just to find topics in which people undermine D3 players and the other way around.

"

ghamadvar wrote:

I repeat myself: D3 and POE are like goalkeeper and forward. Same team and sport, different tasks. The dividing element of D3 and POE are the target-groups this games are made for. D3 does not want to make POE-players happy or is not made for them. Therefore, comparisons made, especially here, are quite pointless. It is no surprise to me, that D3-fans don't really get into POE and vice versa. Or that people who love both games play them situationally. D3 is for the rush. POE is for the grind.

You simply cannot say that D3's simplicity is better or worse than POE's complexity. You cannot say that the graphics in D3 are better or worse than those in POE. And so on. Even arguments like "adding content", "community management" and stuff don't fit. The companies behind this games are too different. Comparing GGG's community-management to Blizzard's is just unfair. And this works in both ways. GGG simply cannot do stuff Blizzard does. And Blizzard cannot do stuff GGG does. GGG just made one game. So even the bullshit argument "blizz killed the d3-vanilla-version" does not count. GGG did not have the opportunity yet to kill POE2 ;)
So: What can we compare? Nothing. In my opinion. Both are awesome games made by awesome companies. True gaming companies that brought us so much joy and fun. That's it. All this elitarism, trolling, black-and-white-thinking is just a joke.

Short: There is no proper way to do a comparison.

So: It's like comparing Messi and Neuer. Sorry if i sound like a broken record. But i really see it this way.

But i am really looking forward to the day when somebody convinces me that i am wrong ;)

No, they're not like "same sport, same team." Not at all. Comparing the individual classes within PoE would classify as "same sport, same team, different player". Comparing the modes, even

But PoE / D3 are like the same sport, DIFFERENT TEAMS. they're the same type of game (sport) with different teams (developers) that do things differently (game concepts).

"You cannot say that d3's simplicity is better or worse than PoE's complexity." This, obviously is more subjective than objective, but I don't play action RPGS for simplicity. If I wanted simplicity I would play an action game that's actually good at the action, like Dishonored, DotA 2, or an FPS game. However, even ACTION games have complexity. If you look at fighting games, some CLEARLY have more complexity than others. Some take ages to learn. But an Action RPG shouldn't be LESS complex than the game that PRECEDED it.

"You cannot say that d3's graphics are better or worse than PoE's graphics." Yes, you can. It's very, very easy to compare graphics objectively. D3 has better graphics. That's a fact. Now is the ART STYLE better? That's debatable, because that's based on taste.

You want to know why people hate it? Because they ruined a perfectly good franchise by dumbing it down for lowest common denominator. It's the same reason that fans of Dragon Age: Origins hated Dragon Age: 2. It's the same reason that Final Fantasy XIII is considered the worst game in the franchise. It's the same reason that many WoW players who loved vanilla / TBC hate the later expansions. Because they're becoming more simple and easy to play. Fans of the series want ADVANCEMENT, MORE mechanics, MORE complexity, yet these gaming companies are basically becoming famous off of early games, then attempting to milk the later ones for money by dumbing them down for the masses.

I enjoyed D2, didn't play much of it. I played torchlight for a while. I was never big on action games because they tend to be very repetitive, I much prefer turn-based strategy, RPGs, and MOBAs. I played D3 and it was awful. The game servers didn't even work for the first couple of weeks. it had a TON of stuff missing from previews of the game. Melee were completely unviable in inferno for the first few months. I had friends that played demon hunters farming act 3/4 inferno while I had 3x as much gear and couldn't progress because I had to put myself in danger to damage anything.

There's no customization. The story is the worst piece of trash I've ever witnessed.

D3 and POE do, indeed, have different strategies, but much like teams in REAL sports, they're DEFINITELY comparable.