Drakk the ARPG-ist's PoE Review: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

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Devonor wrote:

Drakken

To be completely honest from the bottom of my heart , poe is the most unbalanced and has worst balanceteam i have ever seen ever in any game i have played in my whole life.

Actually, most ARPGs are even far more unbalanced, than PoE. Take D2, Titan Quest, Sacred 1/2, Torchlight 1/2, GD, and so on - all of them show ridiculous level of imbalance between various characters, skills, items and playstyles.
IDK why all ARPG developers allow that to happen. Why no one can make better balance, that others have?


Sure, if compared to other genre games, like DoTA2 or Starcraft2, PoE's "balance" looks like a joke.

The thing is, the more customization you allow the less likely it is to achieve a decent balance. Just look at WoW. They managed to kinda balance their classes, but they sacrificed so many unique things in the process that the question is if it is actually worth it.

PoE is similar for balance you would have to sacrifice a lot of the freedom players have and thats not necessarily good. And if you just look at some of the insane things that popout every once in a while there is a lot of really strong stuff in PoE. People seem to look at Bladevortex and ignore all the other strong things in the game.

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btw in d3 the barbarian got + 50% damage reduction or something , dont remember the exact number . That helped a little bit , something like this could be a solution for poe too .
Melee characters could maybe get their own skilltree . It can be fixed , its always a way if there's a will .

There is a huge issue with melee, but again PoE doesn't have the easy fix like D3 to give melee chars more defense because there are no melee chars by definition just chars eventually using melee skills.

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No graphic problem with this game just that chars appearance are either dull or ugly.
Its like follow the concept of Diablo.
You wanna play this class? Then you gotta bear with its ugliness.
It be great if their character design like Korean MMOs.
It be fine if you are playing duelist, try play Templar...
That old bald senile beardie dude... XD

Seriously O.o.

Korean MMOs are pretty much the worst example of character design. If you wear armor in PoE it atleast looks as if it would protect you. The most terrible example is Tera... how is it heavy and protective armor if it only covers maybe 5% of your body.

PoE is one of the few games without overly sexualized characters (well except for the Templer who doesn't wear pants). Grim Dawn also does a decent job but D3 doesnt and Korean MMOs are even worse.

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Emphasy wrote:

The thing is, the more customization you allow the less likely it is to achieve a decent balance. Just look at WoW. They managed to kinda balance their classes, but they sacrificed so many unique things in the process that the question is if it is actually worth it.

PoE is similar for balance you would have to sacrifice a lot of the freedom players have and thats not necessarily good. And if you just look at some of the insane things that popout every once in a while there is a lot of really strong stuff in PoE. People seem to look at Bladevortex and ignore all the other strong things in the game.

It's true, but still.... DoTA2 also has very high diversion between characters and items (and there is 100+ characters in it!), yet it still remains balanced, and many different playstyles may lead you to victory.
Same could be said about Starcraft2. Units arent homogenized like it was in earlier RTS like Warcraft2.

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btw in d3 the barbarian got + 50% damage reduction or something , dont remember the exact number . That helped a little bit , something like this could be a solution for poe too .
Melee characters could maybe get their own skilltree . It can be fixed , its always a way if there's a will .

It's 30%, and it isnt the decisive feature for balance, actually. Extra tankiness should come to tanky builds naturally, through items/passives, not with sime hidden "your class takes 30% reduced damage" feature. It wont even work in PoE (as Fortify abuse proven).

BTW, Barbarian in D3 can also be a ranged character (if built properly). He will still be tanky, but his DPS will be lower than other ranged classes can have.

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It's true, but still.... DoTA2 also has very high diversion between characters and items (and there is 100+ characters in it!), yet it still remains balanced, and many different playstyles may lead you to victory.
Same could be said about Starcraft2. Units arent homogenized like it was in earlier RTS like Warcraft2.

Don't compare a moba like LoL or Dota2 with PoE. Not only is the complexity in those games lightyears away from what PoE offers it is also very much questionable that those games are properly balanced. I don't know Dota2 enough, but from what I heard it is fairly similar to LoL in that it has Metachamps as much as PoE has its meta build. And like PoE Meta doesn't mean that everything else can't be used it is just the most optimal solution in the current balance environment. The issue for Dota2 and LoL however are not that they are so hard to balance, they need much more balance. In PoE is PvE, while those mobas are PvP which is entirely different.

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Emphasy wrote:

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It's true, but still.... DoTA2 also has very high diversion between characters and items (and there is 100+ characters in it!), yet it still remains balanced, and many different playstyles may lead you to victory.
Same could be said about Starcraft2. Units arent homogenized like it was in earlier RTS like Warcraft2.

Don't compare a moba like LoL or Dota2 with PoE. Not only is the complexity in those games lightyears away from what PoE offers it is also very much questionable that those games are properly balanced. I don't know Dota2 enough, but from what I heard it is fairly similar to LoL in that it has Metachamps as much as PoE has its meta build. And like PoE Meta doesn't mean that everything else can't be used it is just the most optimal solution in the current balance environment. The issue for Dota2 and LoL however are not that they are so hard to balance, they need much more balance. In PoE is PvE, while those mobas are PvP which is entirely different.

Well, there always will be "meta" if you given the choice. You may "like" one playstyle/hero/..., or just get used to it, etc.
The question is - what's the "power" difference between "meta" and "non-meta" playstyle. In DoTA2, it's something like 5-10% (so given how skill matters there, "non-meta" can easily defeat "meta"), while in PoE, it's rather 100%-500% (and non-meta barely has any chances VS meta).
And in fact, you need higher degree of balance in PvP game, especially in competive one like DoTA2.

Drakk, you might want to hop back into PoE when they release the DX11 update sometime this month. It should improve graphics and some other things, so the FPS hiccups should be reduced.

"Should" being the keyword of course. With any update they do, they'll get a certain percentage of people who will get better performance, but there's also a number of people who get worse performance. Finding those who get worse performance and figuring out why is a bit of an issue but thankfully GGG does gather PC spec data now so they have better ability to fix those issues.


I haven't played other RPGs recently (mostly due to lack of funds) to know where you're coming from on some of your points, so I'll go over some of them from the point of view of someone who has only played PoE recently (with a bit of Torchlight).


The endgame content is deceptively large, though it has gotten a boost recently. You mentioned how repetitive it can get, and compared to Torchlight 2 it's definitely larger and better, but is it really so much better than other RPGs that you're giving it this much praise? If that's the case then it's more a case that I feel sorry for those other games rather than excited for PoE. But you're certainly right that there are almost always little ways you can improve your character.


Trading... As has been mentioned, it's more a barter system than a trade system. As such the currencies can have significant price fluctuations which makes the economy awkward to use. I can certainly see the appeal of someone who likes more of a dynamic economy, but as far as actually trying to find items and then trade with people there are such significant shortcomings with PoE that I'd be hesitant to call it a "good" aspect of the game.

In terms of in game support for trading, premium stash tabs and their ability to be turned public do effectively cut out non-paying players from selling their items. Trying to sell something through the Trade channels is nothing but a sad experience. If there was an efficient in-game way to filter through the trade channels and search for items you're interested in then that would really help people.

The ideal case would be some sort of window where you can list things you want to buy -and- sell. As it stands the only way to get something you want to buy is either find that person/item online and available through poe.trade and then see if they're even willing to do the trade instead of going through maps. If I have something to sell I'd like to be able to reach out to a player who wants to buy it and say "I noticed you're looking for Derp Unique 3 and are willing to pay X chaos. I have one that I'd like to sell for that price. Are you interested?" And then some sort of filter system to make sure that doesn't get exploited by people trying to spam you with fake offers.

To give a personal experience, the only time I have ever managed to sell something through trade chat is when I had a near-perfect Varunastra and sold it after about half an hour of going through trade channels. An item like that should sell in less than 10 minutes.


Melee vs ranged/caster survivability is certainly in a bad spot like with most other ARPGs. PoE's skill and passive tree system makes this harder to work on than in other games because you can't directly tweak the character class since all classes can be any archetype.

However, the passive tree MIGHT give them some tuning in this regard by adding survival stats to melee-only nodes. They can't buff weapon-specific nodes this way due to some ranged attacks working with melee weapons, so the nodes will have to specify melee damage only. But even then, there are some melee damage skills that significantly outrange other melee skills or otherwise offer much better survival traits based on how they're used, so GGG would have to nerf the effectiveness of those better survival skills in order to compensate for the increased survival on the tree.


Flasks are in an odd spot right now because some of them are way too powerful in terms of offense, defense, or even utility. Right now it almost feels like GGG is trying the "overload them with choices" approach to some of the flasks, but at the end of the day there will always be "the best" set of flasks for a particular character.

At the very least, the flask system prevents needing/wanting an inventory full of potions like some other games have done. However, in cases where the game has dedicated slots and on-character storage for potions that do not interfere with other items means potions can drop instead of crapping up loot tables with garbage normal or even magic items. I suppose that's one of the reasons GGG has opted for the unique currency system so currency can drop instead of items.


I agree that instant death and the EXP loss on death are a potentially bad combination. Intentional and telegraphed one-shots like Malachai's slam should still stay in the game, but mechanics where you cannot see them and react to them are BS. Offscreen reflect comes to mind on that, and even though a case can be made that any character who can offscreen should be wary of reflect it is still very draining to always be on edge worrying about that. Though there are hardcore players who get more of a thrill from that, so more power to them I guess.

As far as ways to fix that, maybe if there was some system where monsters outside a certain range of you take less damage (and thus do less reflect damage), but considering the issues GGG has with updating auras on minions and other such things I doubt that system would work out.


The servers are indeed better than before, but others have mentioned it's more than just the servers that can impact performance. There are ISP and other third-party issues that pop up, along with the infrastructure connections. We can only blame GGG for part of the problems. Come to think of it, there ought to be some sort of post and/or video where GGG explicitly calls out what they do have control over, what they can't, and how to tell the difference.


Uniques, as mentioned, are supposed to have some sort of drawback in PoE. Or at least, that's how they were originally designed. Even if the unique doesn't look like it has a drawback, using a unique comes with the opportunity cost of not being able to use a good rare there or another unique that might have more useful stats for you character.

Alas, one of the problems is some uniques are too generic or otherwise don't have a drawback/benefit that actually makes you consider them. An example of that is Geofri's Sanctuary. What makes it "unique" are granting the Zealot's Oath keystone and Energy Shield from strength. Zealot's Oath is often one or two nodes away considering the area of the passive tree that would usually make use of the mod. As far as Energy Shield from strength, even if you have 1000 strength that's only 200 ES, which puts the chestpiece at only 540 ES at absolute best. If we ignore the armour on it (and we absolutely can because that amount of armour is not worthwhile) and look at comparable chestpieces on poe.trade, those being: at least 500 ES; 60 life; and 50% combined resists; we see many online results that are less than 10 chaos. Compared to the investment of getting 1000 strength, that's dirt cheap, so Geofri's Sanctuary is basically considered useless since there are cheap and more powerful rare items that can even be used at a lower level.

That said, there are some uniques that are meant to be used together. For example, The Taming and Emberwake have "good" synergy with ignites on enemies, if you can make use of that. "Good" is in quotation marks because sadly those two uniques are basically only worthwhile together. Combining them with Eye of Innocence and Razor of the Seventh Sun has yielded some rather interesting results though.

I suppose what it might come down to is some uniques considered crap might end up being useful, but only if they have an actual unique effect that synergizes well with another unique later on. Even then though, some combinations that look like they have synergy probably won't pan out well. Going back to Geofri's Sanctuary, you could use it with Shaper's Touch and Doon Cuebiyari or Pillar of the Caged God and scale strength to absurd levels for both offense and defense, but how good will it actually be compared to the investment needed on getting enough strength to make it worthwhile? And keep in mind the Shaper's Touch gloves prevent you from using the Repentance gloves instead to gain Iron Will on all spells, so you'll have to use the Iron Will gem if you want the strength bonus to spells on a 6 link and the Shaper's touch ES/mana bonuses.

It kinda feels like uniques that are actually all of unique (meaning not just a pile of regular stats), reasonably powerful, and interesting are few and far between.

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Jackalope_Gaming wrote:

Drakk, you might want to hop back into PoE when they release the DX11 update sometime this month. It should improve graphics and some other things, so the FPS hiccups should be reduced.

Uniques, as mentioned, are supposed to have some sort of drawback in PoE. Or at least, that's how they were originally designed. Even if the unique doesn't look like it has a drawback, using a unique comes with the opportunity cost of not being able to use a good rare there or another unique that might have more useful stats for you character.

Alas, one of the problems is some uniques are too generic or otherwise don't have a drawback/benefit that actually makes you consider them. An example of that is Geofri's Sanctuary. What makes it "unique" are granting the Zealot's Oath keystone and Energy Shield from strength. Zealot's Oath is often one or two nodes away considering the area of the passive tree that would usually make use of the mod. As far as Energy Shield from strength, even if you have 1000 strength that's only 200 ES, which puts the chestpiece at only 540 ES at absolute best. If we ignore the armour on it (and we absolutely can because that amount of armour is not worthwhile) and look at comparable chestpieces on poe.trade, those being: at least 500 ES; 60 life; and 50% combined resists; we see many online results that are less than 10 chaos. Compared to the investment of getting 1000 strength, that's dirt cheap, so Geofri's Sanctuary is basically considered useless since there are cheap and more powerful rare items that can even be used at a lower level.

It kinda feels like uniques that are actually all of unique (meaning not just a pile of regular stats), reasonably powerful, and interesting are few and far between.

Thanks for your reply -- I wanted to highlight your example on uniques for everyone else because I agree with your points and I think you demonstrated the issue more thoroughly than I did in my original post.

Drakk

Decent review. Would have liked some more information on your lab thoughts.

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FixLabPLSGGG wrote:

Decent review. Would have liked some more information on your lab thoughts.

Thanks for your reply!

To be honest, I do not think the lab is either good, bad, or necessarily ugly, with the exception of the uber tier: having the first 6 points come from difficulties even poorly conceived builds can solo (or get carried by even mediocre builds through), it is a novel system that I do not have much of a basis to compare/critique from.

That said, the barrier created by the uber level for the last 2 of the 8 points is likely preventing more varied builds from entering endgamge content since 1. Many builds need all 8 to function in endgame at all and 2. This content is not strictly solo-able even by strong builds at the stage one reaches the uber firewall.

Most importantly on labs I think however is the networking/server issue: getting help or handling traps in the often unideal latency environment on uber, let alone the other difficulties, appears to me to be an artificial firewall to progress that is at odds with some of the core tenets of PoE. It's probably locking out more people than it actually challenges from my limited experience.

Drakk

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Ðrakken wrote:

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FixLabPLSGGG wrote:

Decent review. Would have liked some more information on your lab thoughts.

Thanks for your reply!

To be honest, I do not think the lab is either good, bad, or necessarily ugly, with the exception of the uber tier: having the first 6 points come from difficulties even poorly conceived builds can solo (or get carried by even mediocre builds through), it is a novel system that I do not have much of a basis to compare/critique from.

That said, the barrier created by the uber level for the last 2 of the 8 points is likely preventing more varied builds from entering endgamge content since 1. Many builds need all 8 to function in endgame at all and 2. This content is not strictly solo-able even by strong builds at the stage one reaches the uber firewall.

Most importantly on labs I think however is the networking/server issue: getting help or handling traps in the often unideal latency environment on uber, let alone the other difficulties, appears to me to be an artificial firewall to progress that is at odds with some of the core tenets of PoE. It's probably locking out more people than it actually challenges from my limited experience.

Drakk

What basis is your assumption that any build "requires" all 8 AC points to participate in end game?

Has anything in the game related to mob health or damage, or map mods, and so on occured with or since the release of Ascendancy. Nothing has changed. The game is exactly the same as it was before Ascendancy. Only now we have atlas, and thus the mapping system now has a goal. The difficulty of the game hiwever has gotten easier with AC not harder to the point where AC is mandatory for progression.

AC is pure power creep. There has been no balance for these changes. As such AC is not mandatory at all. The fact that it exists makes you want to obtain them. They are not mandatory, they are simply free power upgrades.

anyone playing any other good games? possibly any other arpgs even?