So I've played Diablo 2 Resurrected open beta

Yeah, tried it in last beta, just enough to realize I feel exactly zero drive to play D2 again. It's kinda like that 30y old big mac that the grandma from the clip found in her closet, it's amazing that some aspects of it kinda hold up after all that time, but I still wouldn't eat it.

That aside, I can appreciate what chris and his merry band did in this patch, instead of having to slog until god knows when until the game starts putting up a fight you now have that as soon as you hit maps, like in the good old times. The game presents you with problems and you find the solutions in order to make your hunk of junk work like you envisioned it to. That's what PoE is about for me, so new problems are a good thing and that loop doesn't really change much depending on area level, so who cares which level that is.
If you think about it, might be even better that the elbow grease can gets opened earlier, everyone likes the game to 'respect their time', and there it is.

Hardest content in Diablo 2 is Lilith. Everything else is pretty easy. Even pandemonium event. I still play Diablo 2, and enjoy it - but a lot has been learned since then.

In a lot of ways, PoE is every single QoL feature we always asked for back on the old Blizzard forums. Even the pie-in-the-sky stuff we used to fantasize about, like customizable hideouts, account stashes with multiple tabs, cosmetic customization, constant content additions, craftable gear, new skills...

Almost everything that Path of Exile does is stuff us old goats used to day-dream about having back in 2004 in Diablo II: LoD.

In fact, to the best of my memory, the ONLY two things I can think of that were on those big "make a wish" lists that PoE lacks are:

- Guild Halls
- Pets that pick up your loot and sell it in town.

Pretty much everything else - even the really crazy stuff - is in Path of Exile right now.

Pretty insane to think about how far we've come in 20 years.

"

Sabranic_SilverDeth wrote:

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

It certainly isn't as hard as some are making it out to be, especially for players that have been here a while.

I hardly noticed a difference in Act 1 past the strand.

It didn't even take much longer compared to later Acts because of the heavily diminished value on Support gems. There's hardly a difference between a 4-link and 5-link while leveling.

I honestly dont think D2R is worth it, unless they change certain things like adding personal loot, new league items every season ...

The game is just a 1:1 copy of the version from 20 years ago, if I were interested in playing this, I would, but truth is, since more than 10 years, this game was not played by me.


That being said, Diablo does have a significant difference to POE and that is the fact that you dont lose all your progress if you die, that you actually find your gear and not have to buy it at third party trade websites.

I notice this a lot at D3 right now, after 7 years I am playing again and it is such a better feeling, having the chance to actually find items yourself and progress like that. At POE, it has become impossible to find items of value, impossible to progress, as the drops are 99,9% useless.

The endgame is not as good as at POE, but that you can just change skills easily, dont get 1 shot all the time and that each time you play, you find items that have a use, is a big positive in my list.

Besides that, auto pick up, a crafting stash where things go to automatically, Blizzard just did things rigt there and GGG should take a look, as POE could be so much better.

Needless to say, the performance is smoother. This was not the case on D3 release, it was laggy and crashed alot. Now its running very good, POE seems to get worse always.

I dont see D2R as a big challanger for POE, but D4 can and will be, if GGG does not listen more to their community.


Please GGG, there are some very urgent things that you do wrong with POE, in the interest of your playerbase, please listen to the feedback. You can not finance a game with streamers alone, you need the casual jooe too.

Please note that poe's campaign as a whole is considered "hell". And in sp hell, with untwinked gear, players 8 (cause you NEED drops and xp) it is all too easy to get chilled, stunlocked, blocklocked, insta killed by fire/frost enchanted, loled by lightning enchanted with multiple proj and many more exciting experiences. When you already have a reasonable level of gear d2 gets easy and stays that way until ubers. And yes there are mods that change nothing but let you have ladder stuff in sp so you can taste the rainbow without a convenient pally or necro.

Otherwise, no i don't like CW's vision but I get the ingame explanation for it. Remember what Piety said about Malachai? :D

To carry on the D2 and D3 comparison a little bit more.

During braeclast wisdom scrolls were brought up, asking if we could do away with them.

I don't remember the exact precise words, but basically Chris said they could do away with them easily, but it would ruin the game.

Diablo 3 has no wisdom scrolls, that game is perfectly fun to play. You can right click on items to identify them, or wait till you go into town, click a single book, and identify everything in your inventory.

Last Epoch is fun to play even in beta, and they have no wisdom scrolls, heck, the stuff is even identified as it drops so you can program loot filters with an in game interface to just show you upgrades.

But according to chris, those quality of life improvements would totally ruin poe.

The moral of the story is GGG has absolutely no interest in quality of life upgrades for players, in fact, they consider them detrimental to the game, so don't expect any. That is the message I got loud and clear from braeclast.

For me they are making POE to hardcore players who have few hour a day everyday. It is not a place for "sundey player".
GGG you are killing this game with this changes.

*pauses Druid run to note*

Any difficulty bump in Poe act 1 was in my brief experience more than offset by how quickly expedition power leveled me. Sure I died a few times in The Coast but once I got my head around expedition it was as easy as ever. Level 10 by the Ledge is just broken.

On a broader note, d2r and PoE are impossible to compare. You might as well argue that a restored classic car is somehow better or worse than a budget modern day sedan with all the standard features. It is imo that different. And good. They essentially have different target audiences.

For me and I imagine a lot of veterans the restored ride is unique and inimitable. For others the sheer lack of modern features would be intolerable. So be it. Thankfully no one is forcing anyone to play either.

*Back to FireAndFurry*

"

ARealLifeCaribbeanPirate wrote:

But that's not the game Path of Exile was ever intended to be

Open ANY of their sales pitches.

This one.
Or this one.
Or this one.
Whichever is closer to you.

Pour some tea or coffee or whatever drink you like.

Try to think if the game have ANY feature listed at their store page / in their sales pitch while drinking whatever you prepared calmly.

Ask yourself a question: 'If it's not how it was fucking intended - why the fuck the shit is written all over their store pages?'

Pray for right answer, if common sense fails.