How is this different from Diablo 3?

A better way is to ask how it is the same.

-It's the same perspective
-It's got skills and is generally controlled the same way
-Both threw out health potions
-Both focus on trading and cool drops
-Multiple difficulties for replayability

And that's about it. Everything else is fundamentally different in design and goal.

"

Caiada wrote:

A better way is to ask how it is the same.

-It's the same perspective
-It's got skills and is generally controlled the same way
-Both threw out health potions
-Both focus on trading and cool drops
-Multiple difficulties for replayability

And that's about it. Everything else is fundamentally different in design and goal.

Threw out health potions? What games are you playing >.<

Threw out health potions in their classic sense, where they were one-shot items that you had to purchase/find and stockpile.

In PoE, they're perpetual items that refill on their own and provide bonuses when used.

"

brgillespie wrote:

Threw out health potions in their classic sense, where they were one-shot items that you had to purchase/find and stockpile.

In PoE, they're perpetual items that refill on their own and provide bonuses when used.

They work a bit differently, but they're still health potions...

Also, D3 still has health potions, there is just a significant cooldown to keep you from slamming em down during combat one after another.

"Potions"-
In POE You get flasks, which heal, or restore mana, or do some other utility such as resists, or armour, or crits. They can have random magic affixes like other items, and are permanent. They use charges when you drink them, and regain charges when you kill enemies.

In D3 You have more traditional health potions, but with a long cooldown(30 seconds I think?). Mana potions have been eliminated, and there were some sort of utility type ones listed in the past, but they might be gone.

"Stats/Passive Skills"-
In POE There is the giant passive skill tree/web/constellation. As you move along it some of the nodes give you attribute points, and some give you special bonuses of many different sorts.(Increased spell damage, increased life, axe accuracy, many, many more) Some of the passives known as "keystones" give you very special unique bonuses, but often with an accompanying drawback.(i.e. Blood Magic removes your mana, and takes from life when casting spells)

In D3 stats/attributes are given automatically when you level up. You get to select 3 passive skills total that are unlocked at various levels from a list of 14-16 passives per class.

"Active Skills"-
In POE Any character class can use any skill. It's all a matter of meeting requirements to use it, and fitting into your master plan for your character. All active skills are on gems,(red, blue, or green) and to use one you put it into a socket of the appropriate colour in your armour or weapons. If other sockets have links between them you can attach support gems which alter skills. You can have up to 5 different support gems attached to one skill, if you have 6 sockets all linked together.(i.e. Ice Nova with Cold To Fire, Iron Will, Chance To Flee, Concentrated Effect, and Life Leech) There are many viable ways to play any given character class based on passive tree layout, skill gems, and what supports are connected to them. Skill gems gain experience and can level up when you have them equipped. Skill gems are recieved as random drops, or quest rewards.

In D3 Each class has 22-25 skills that are specific to that class. They are unlocked and made available at various levels, and you can have have up to 6 total at any given time. Each of these skills can be augmented by one, of five rune effects, which are also unlocked by leveling up.

"Currency And Trading"-
POE uses a variety of different items each with a functional use, hence an inherent value.(i.e. Scrolls of Wisdom ID items, Orbs of Alchemy turn non-magic items into rares, Mirror of Kalandra duplicates an item) Right now people use the forums, or in game chat to arrange trades, and then just drop items on the ground in an instance together to make the exchange. In the future GGG has talked about a much easier way of trading, perhaps directly integrating the website into the trades. I'm thinking it might be something along the lines of linking items in the forums, with what you want in exchange, or people making offers, and then confirming it(so both people don't have to be online and ingame at the same time to trade) but I am speculating here, and nothing has been confirmed that I know of.

D3 uses the traditional gold currency, as well as a traditional gold auction house, and a real money auction house where people can buy or sell in game items for Real world currency, like dollars, or euros.

"Skill Builds"-
In POE Your passive skill choices are permanent unless/until you complete special quests to get passives refund points or use a currency item called Orb Of Regret to exchange one point at a time. Skill gems can be removed or switched around freely, but they take a good deal of investment to level up.

In D3 You can freely switch between all available active and passive skills, as well as rune effects at any time. I believe there is a 5-15 second cooldown between switches(It has changed around) to prevent people from abusing the free respecs in the middle of combat. The difference between 2 Barbarians, for example, at level 60 will be their equipment, since any level 60 barbarian is free to spec into the same things as another level 60 barbarian.

"Level Cap"-
POE is 100.

D3 is 60.

"Cost"
POE will be free to play with optional "ethical micro transactions". These will be things that do not give you any gameplay advantage over others, like aesthetic pets, alternate spell graphics, stash tabs, etc. that you can pay money for. If the game does well GGG has a ten year plan for continued content updates.

D3 will cost 60 dollars, and if you want to you can spend money in the real money auction house. I would expect that if it is successful they will release expansions at around 40 dollars, raising the level cap and adding content, but this is only speculation based on the way Blizzard has done things with World of Warcraft in the past.

"Charcter Classes"-
POE has 6 Character classes. They are made to be very versatile in what their role can be. The difference between them aside from appearance is where they start on the passive skill tree, so there are many paths that can be taken by one class that cannot be replicated by any others which distinguishes them.

D3 has 5 character classes. It has more of a distinction of roles with their character classes, with certain weapons/armours only usable by certain classes, and each class having their own, unshared skills.

So, I guess that's about all I can think of right now. Hope it helps.

It's better

really good post Raxlea, you pretty much covered all the major points =)

What Raxlea said, but also we got to note that this game is way less polished than D3. People play this game due to its feature list being fairly unique, people play D3 because it is a high quality game. It is like having 2 items, one is higher quality than the other but that doesn't necessarily mean that you want the higher quality item since it might not fit your style/build.

Here are a few differences for you, from someone who hasn't donated a thousand dollars to this game and thus has a hint of objectivity in his thoughts:

- PoE has much less variety in its gameplay compared to Diablo 3. It doesn't have classes, it has different starting spots on the passive tree. Every "class" can use every skill in the game, which was a poor design decision that won't ever be fixed without a massive overhaul of the game. Diablo 3 has five completely different classes with their own gameplay, skills and skill runes -- a far more impressive achievement that adds a ton of variety to play and makes you want to actually level up new characters, rather than like in PoE where simply altering the base stats a little and putting the class on a different node in passive skill tree is their definition of a "class".

- The gameplay boils down to spamming 1-2 skills over and over compared to D3's wide variety of viable skills and builds (something Blizzard put a massive focus on during development, so that we wouldn't be spamming the same skill for ages like in Diablo 2). The amount of build possibilities for D3 are insane thanks to each skill having multiple skill runes that can alter the skill greatly -- even more possibilities than Diablo 2.

- PoE is also very unbalanced -- one quick example is the viability of melee builds in merciless difficulty. You're basically required to use a very hard to get and expensive +1000 HP unique armor that only drops at the very end of the game to survive due to how unbalanced melee is compared to range. This is also something that won't be fixed easily as it would require another massive overhaul to item stats, skills, and other variables.

- There's also no trade system in place yet. You have to drop your item on the ground and hope the other person is nice enough not to steal it.

- There's next to no story whatsoever in the game. No voice-acting, no plot, nothing. They're saying these things will be added eventually but that's irrelevant as we're discussing the current state of both games.

- Half the skills in the game are useless due to balance issues and other similar skills being much more powerful. Rain of Arrows, Puncture, Viper Strike, Glacial Hammer, Tempest Shield, Spark, Poison Arrow in groups, just to name a few. Rather than addressing these skills, they're adding new ones with every major patch.

- The amount of uniques in the game is very disappointing. Again, they're saying they will add more but we're discussing the current state of the two games. Not only are uniques sorely lacking in their numbers but half of them also suck, and they're also incredibly rare drops. My first character didn't get one till level 65 and there are countless other stories of a similar nature.

- The game's combat not only has much less variety than D3 (since you just spam 1-2 skills non-stop) but it's also much less fluid and smooth. It's hard to elaborate on this in text form but it's a bit clunky and nowhere near as fluid as D3's.

- The environment interaction in PoE is non-existent, while Diablo 3 has a full physics system with lots of interactions with the environment + enemies.

- The massive passive skill tree feels daunting at first. The first time you look at it you're like "wow, the possibilities, this is amazing!", then after you've played for a while you realize that 75% of the nodes are +10 to str/dex/int, that all the classes are the same, and that it's basically a facade.


Positives about PoE? I've put a ton of time into the game so I obviously did enjoy it.

- The graphics, specifically the textures/shadows/lighting, are very nice. The textures are very sharp and detailed -- very shiny and bump-mapped, which I love.

- The global chat system is great. It helps add some sense of community to the game as you get to know the other players and their personalities. Problem with implementing a similar system in Diablo 3 is that, well, it would be impossible with there being millions of people purchasing the game, so I can't fault D3 for not having this feature. They would have to open like hundreds of global chat channels, which I imagine would be a nightmare.

- The skill gem system is really good and adds to the customization. You can link support gems to your main skill gems and change the way the skill works a bit. Only a couple of these really change the look of the skill, though, so it's nothing as extensive as Diablo 3's skill runes which can completely change the skill to feel like a new one. Multiple projectiles is probably the most visual satisfaction you can get from a support gem... the others mostly add to fire rate, size of the AoE, piercing, that type of background thing -- certainly not as extensive as D3's skill runes but at least it's something.

- The updates and patches to the game come at a quick pace, which is a good sign for things to come. The developers seem to genuinely care about our input, both positive and negative criticisms.

- It's free. And it's not "League of Legends Free" where you still have to grind for countless hours to purchase a full assortment of runes and champions, PoE is really free. This is a double-edged sword because some of us, including me, feel as if they're giving away too much of the game for free. The cash shop is going to be for cosmetic items only, and probably some functional stuff like respecs and XP boosts. We are skeptical that this will be enough of a revenue stream to keep the game afloat for a long time to come. I can't think of another F2P game like this, that's giving away so much of the content... well ALL of the content, for free. You could easily just skip on buying whatever cosmetic items for your character and just play the game regularly and not miss a beat. To add to this: the game is instanced. It's not an MMO where lots of other players get to see your cool new armor dye or pet or whatever, it's instanced, which gives potential cash shop customers even less incentive to purchase these cosmetic items.

I've typed enough for now.