So I've played Diablo 2 Resurrected open beta

The first two acts on normal difficulty were opened during this beta test. So I can compare. Path of Exile's "reworked" 1 act is complete GARBAGE compared to Diablo 2.

You know how many times I was one-shotted or killed with sense that it was unfair in D2? Zero. You can actually take many hits even if you are surrounded/having a big problems, and monsted don't have any abilities to kill you in few hits.

How many times I was stunlocked into death? Zero. There are no mobs like Rhoas to do that, that are unnaturaly fast and can stun players easilly.

How many times I was frozen in place into death? Zero. There are no such mobs.

Altho there were some monsters with big HP, there were no monsters like Oak that constantly heal so the fight takes like 10 minutes (don't tell me about frost bomb trick).

When fightning act 1 boss, I was not killed if I stand in place for 2-3 seconds like during Merveil fight. Seems like damage of monsters in Path of Exile (all monsters) is heavily overtuned.

More acts (2,3) will be made more "challenging" in 3.16, and I'm predicting it will be a terrible gameplay. And there is no logic in this decision to be honest, ggg, why would you show the new players how garbage and unfair this game is just from beginning? Altho thanks for this level of transparency.

Chris Wilson always compares PoE with Diablo 2, and says it is some "golden standard", but if we compare first two acts between these games, I had totally different experience. So what the hell are you doing ggg?

I'm still confused why (or disturbed that) GGG thinks Super Mario stage 1-1 is supposed to be stage 8-1 amounts of difficulty.

+1 a veeery big difference

I found act 1 to be easy this go around in beta league... how are people having problems with this...

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angelobiancofaithpride wrote:

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Your statement make sense a bit, but keep in mind that PoE is not tending to be D2 clone disregarding the ideological copy of it which it care on it's core.
So - there is a justified, and not justified parts in the "acts" play experience, which is more or less overlooked, and practically ignored trough the years.
Anyway this is the unjustified part, but yet - while D2 trade is quite hard, and rare, the amount of good items which could be served by some others high characters is town is astonishing, and while D2 have practically microscopic and rather nowdays dumb crafting system - PoE will offer you an universe for expansion into this area, which is well - rather rarely explored by the new peoples. Therefore it is justified.

To conclude it: PoE does not offers a meaningful way for the new players to get a jumpstart with the stuff during the "acts" play, which is a serious obstacle, but it is a rather in better ties with the old and rich players.

none of those things happened to me in act 1 or 2 of path of exile either, so not sure where you were going wrong tbh.


i played the d2 beta. its ok for a 20 year old game but its crap by modern standards. i remember it fondly from the time but its unfit for 2021 outside of nostalgia.

Honestly, I'm excited about D2R even though I have no intention of playing it. Because here's the thing a lot of people seem to have deliberately forgotten about Diablo 2:

IT WAS REALLY, REALLY, REALLY EASY.

I played D2 for multiple years, from release up through the 1.11 patch, and I don't think I ever died to monsters, literally not once, before Act 3 of Hell difficulty. I'm discounting Iron Maiden suicides for this, just talking strictly about the ability of the game to kill me with enemies and bosses here. And even in Hell, deaths were incredibly rare... like, maybe once or twice per build, if I was being extremely sloppy and zoning out.

That balance does not seem to have been altered in any way for D2R, which is good news! It means there's finally a viable alternative to POE for people who don't want to be constantly mentally engaged by the game. Some people don't want to read or plan strategies around mechanics or take the time to actually craft a unique build on their own capable of toppling endgame bosses. And there's nothing at all wrong with wanting some mindless hack and slash action! But that's not the game Path of Exile was ever intended to be, and I think a lot of the frustrations being felt by the community is coming from people who seem unwilling or unable to realize that fact.

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ARealLifeCaribbeanPirate wrote:

Some people don't want to read or plan strategies around mechanics or take the time to actually craft a unique build on their own capable of toppling endgame bosses.

well, d2 would definitely be the game for them because it doesnt even have endgame bosses. LoD on the hardest difficulty is basically act10, with the end boss being kitava. it doesnt rly take much to topple act 10 kitava with ur own build tbh, but maybe it takes more than beating d2.

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ARealLifeCaribbeanPirate wrote:

But that's not the game Path of Exile was ever intended to be, and I think a lot of the frustrations being felt by the community is coming from people who seem unwilling or unable to realize that fact.

It's the two sided coin that is ignored by people who seem unwilling or unable to realize that players pay for the game.

I find it unlikely to be a good GM decision(Game master or General Manager) to change the game difficulty to such an extent. For me personally it's been a straight downhill since Abyss league, and it took Harvest and Ritual (not Hesit) for it to feel good again.

The 3.15 patch just brought a sledgehammer to an already borked system and ground it to dust. All it did was to bring out all the imbalances in the game to the forefront, imbalances that were usually covered by higher damage, now became apparent as the damage thresholds were hard to reach.

So yeah, people leaving won't make poe "better" or more in tune with "how it was intended to be" it will be more of a case of the game stagnating should enough players leave.

IMO the gameplay from Essence league to Legion league is as different as the gameplay from Anarchy to Prophecy and Synthesis to Expedition, and the biggest problem for GGG is that it's biggest growth was from the 2nd era of Essence to Legion, and THOSE players won't play the game in it's state.

The grind for the atlas is totally different and not fun, Conquerors vs Elder is such a different gameplay that it's like a different game. Elder ring and sextant blocking was a gameplay choice, Conqueror grinding is just a chore.

The uniques are different too, in the sense that 2nd era was targeted farming for unique, Breachlords drop certain uniques, Beachheads drop certain uniques, Elder drops certain unqiues, Shaper drops certain uniques, Abyss, Betrayal, Bestiary etc drops their own targetable uniques. Post Abyss it's just parasitic design, each league Post abyss, drops prior unique/league specific items.

I was in the origin D2 beta... closed. We barely even had internet back then. Remember quite well giving feedback by email and at a campground that a lot of Blizzard people hung out in.

I have zero interest in D2R. Bet it pisses off every single D2 developer that their work is being used this way.