My Big Reddit Post on Diablo 3, Torchlight 2 and Path of Exile

Linky Here (Currently Having the Shit Downvoted Out of It by Diablo 3 Fanboys)

One of the major issues I've seen with these games is that they're all being developed within the same window of opportunity, but they don't seem very well examined compare to each other. I figured I could do it and educate people on what features each of them has in comparison.

I'll be offering comparisons on several different key points.

Amount of Content - The amount of acts and the time it takes to finish each act (not 100% accurate for obvious reasons, but you get the basic idea).

Graphics / Art Style - I examine the art style, the graphics and the inspirations for the aforementioned.

Combat Flow - How modern the gameplay feels / how much it feels like D2.

Character Customisation - How much customisation can go into your character. How you can decide what to do.

Singleplayer - Whether the game is capable of being played offline, online singleplayer etc.

Multiplayer - How many people per party etc.

Customisability of Gameplay - How you can choose difficulty etc.

Other Features - Other things to do with the game in question.

My Personal Opinion - My personal opinion on the game.

Diablo 3

The big boy of the genre, if you haven't heard of Diablo or Blizzard or Diablo 3, I have no idea how you've came to this subreddit or, in fact, how you got on the internet at all. I'm offering this first because it'll be the game that the vast majority of people coming here will have played, and will therefore offer a better counterpoint for the later games.

Features

Amount of Content - It's been stated there'll be 4 acts, with the 4th act being shorter than the first three. There's conflicting information on how long the acts are, but the beta is between a third to half of the first act and that took 1-2 hours to complete depending on how well the player played and whether or not they were rushing through it. Extrapolating this out, we can assume 2-6 hours of gameplay within the first act and then, presumably, the same through the other three acts giving 6-18 hours of gameplay. Put an extra two hours for the fourth act and we get 8-20 hours of gameplay per full game run, not including higher difficulties and the like.

Between 8-20 hours of gameplay per full game run on normal mode. Add onto that higher difficulties and there's quite a bit of game here.

Graphics / Art Style - Diablo 3's art style is very Warcraft / WoW / Torchlight with a darker cooler palette. Greys and similar dark colours predominate, but the colours are still highly saturated and stick through greatly. In comparison to Diablo 2, the characters are far less realistically designed in proportions. Characters seem rather low polygon in their base models, but armour sets seem to have a nice bit of detail on them and the environment and monsters are rather nice looking.

Character models can be low res, but other stuff is good. Very heavy Warcraft-influenced artstyle.

Combat Flow - Combat in D3 is very slick. It has a definite flow to it and you can see an influence from MOBA-style games in how it works, especially League of Legends. Flip through enemies as a demonhunter, smash through them as a barbarian etc etc, your class definitely tremendously alters your playstyle. It does not, however, play anything like D2, which may be a good or bad thing depending on your point of view. Another issue I see is health orbs, which seem to disrupt the flow of combat by requiring you to dive into the thick of things.

Slick and fast flowing combat lends itself to the gameplay of D3, and the distancing between it and D2.

Character Customisation - We didn't see much (or, in fact, close to any) character customisation in the beta. The most you can do was change your skills around in a way closer to Call of Duty's/Battlefield's multiplayer. Supposedly, this is going to change later on in gameplay with stat gems, but why they didn't show us this in the beta or ask us to evaluate it I don't know.

Not very much character customisation, can make "builds" that you can switch out at the drop of a hat. From info we have, it seems customisation will come into gameplay later.

Singleplayer - Only playable online in singleplayer mode. You lose your connection on your hardcore character and he's pretty much dead. Not a massive change from Diablo 2 in reality for a lot of people, but I certainly had a few crazy singleplayer characters and I don't doubt others did too.

No offline singleplayer, entire gameplay is online.

Multiplayer - Only four people per party, with optional PvP post-release which will be 4v4. Multiplayer is always on one of the Battle.net regions and you cannot transfer characters between regions. Unlike Starcraft 2, however, one Diablo 3 license will give you access to all game regions. Other things such as the RMAH etc will be covered below.

Max of 4 people per game, with 4v4 PvP post-release. Characters not transferable between battle.net regions.

Customisability of Gameplay - The starting choice in Diablo 3 is whether or not to go hardcore. Difficulty ramps up later on, but that's about it.

Softcore / Hardcore included.

Other Features - The major thing that a lot of people will dislike about Diablo 3 is the Real Money Auction House (RMAH). This allows people to exchange gold and items for real life cash. Supposedly this was to curb the out of game sale of items, but instead it legitimises it - in my eyes at least.

Real Money Auction House is a game breaker for a lot of people.

My Personal Opinion - Diablo 3 can be fun. It can be fast paced. It could be a good game. However, it is not a Diablo game, in a lot of ways it's barely a hack'n'slash RPG. There're a lot of bad design decisions that I lament (removal of the skill tree and adding in stat customisation via gems, health potions vs health orbs which break up the flow of combat and remove choice from the player).

The game seems a lot like the hack'n'slash RPG of the newest generation of CoD gamers and the like. It's very fast paced, you don't have to put much into it, especially cerebral thought, and it's designed for drop in and out gameplay. If that is Blizzard's design goal, then they have achieved it.

Not a Diablo game, game is fun but significantly flawed in some design decisions.

Path of Exile

An up and comer from a completely unknown studio, Path of Exile is considered by many (including myself) to be the true successor to the Diablo crown. It's grim, it's dark and it's character customisation is through the roof.

Amount of Content - At the moment, in the beta, there're two acts in game and there's a third act being developed. Whether they'll go beyond that or not, I'm not too certain. There's about 10 hours, give or take, per act, although this obviously depends on how you're playing it or what character you're playing. So, let's say a minimum of about 25 hours total. Add onto that the ability to, again, go onto a higher difficulty level, and you have a great deal of content.

A minimum of 25 hours per game run through on normal. Can restart to go onto higher difficulty settings.

Graphics / Art Style - Path of Exile's art style is Diablo 1&2 through and through. Imagine D2 in a 3D graphics engine with a seriously high resolution and you're pretty much spot on. Also, you shoot arrows into enemies and they get stuck there. It's glorious.

D2's artstyle in a 3D graphics engine, for all intents and purposes.

Combat Flow - This game is D2 in terms of combat flow. It is an absolutely beautifully designed combat engine that captures D2's combat. It can be awkward sometimes when you're trying to hit something, but it's excusable. Casting is very similar to D2 as well, but you have several quickcast keys for your abilities. It's a great deal more slower paced than D3, however, if you're looking for quick actiony combat.

D2's combat perfected.

Character Customisation - To start off with, any of the classes are capable of doing anything. A witch, with enough strength, can wield a two handed sword, a marauder can use a bow, a ranger can cast magic. It's class flexibility akin to Diablo in design, especially with regards to skills etc.

Take a look at this baby. That is the passive skill tree. That determines your minor bonuses (things like +10% to accuracy whilst dual wielding or +30% crit chance whilst using ice spells) and can also give you some complete game changers (Blood Magic removes your mana and makes you cast spells from your life bar, Iron Grip makes it so you gain your strength bonus to ranged attacks). This is where you'll be dumping the stat points you get every level. It pretty effectively replaces the stat system from Diablo and Torchlight.

And then you've got the skill gems. These are gems that you slot into your items and which allow you to cast those skills. These gems can be altered by other gems in "connected" slots, which mean you can turn them into totems (pulses instead of just casting once) or make them do more damage or make them cause enemies to flee. These gems are altered by the passive skill tree and allow for a lot of customisation in builds. You can switch out skills without changing your passive skill tree around, too.

A GREAT deal of customisation. Diablo 1's class flexibility combined with a ridiculously sizeable skill tree combined with skills that you can pretty freely switch in and out.

Singleplayer - Online singleplayer only.

Online singleplayer only, no offline mode.

Multiplayer - 6-8 people per party, non-aggressive zones are shared by all players within that league, similar to Guild Wars' towns.

6-8 people per party, town zones shared by all players.

Customisability of Gameplay - At the moment, there's only hardcore and softcore leagues, but they've suggested they want to branch out and allow players a vast variety of different gameplay modes for people to play in. They've also said they want to allow people to pay for their own rulesets to play with their friends on in their own leagues.

Softcore/Hardcore at the minute, but a variety on their way and the ability to pay to make your own ruleset for you and your friends.

Other Features - This game is free-to-play and has a microtransaction store, which may seriously put some people off, although the microtransaction store seems to be interested in mainly specialising in minipets, different characters looks etc. The game's developers are very open and often just chat in global chat, especially on hardcore.

As a bonus addendum, there's a very interesting barter system which replaces gold with stuff like scrolls of identify etc.

Free-to-play, (seemingly reasonable) microtransaction store, open and friendly game developers.

My Personal Opinion - Definitely the true sequel to Diablo 2. This game is grim, dark and grimdark. The character customisation is downright crazy and the gameplay is very, very hard. If you want a game that challenges your theorycrafting abilities and your Diablo 2 combat skills, this is the one for you. Best of all, it's going to be completely free upon release! The slow / awkwardishness of the combat may put some off, though, especially in comparison to D3.

The TRUE successor to Diablo 2 in terms of gameplay. A real mix of Diablo 1&2.

Torchlight 2

A successor to the original Torchlight, I've recently got into this game's beta and, I have to say, it completely blew me away with it's polish, attention to detail and fun gameplay. It's a definite contender for D3's crown.

Amount of Content - Not entirely certain on this. There's at least three acts, but there's quite a bit of misinformation on the 'net including suggesting a fourth act and an act with just bosses. For complete completion of the first act, however, you're looking at between 6-10 hours of gameplay. I've just hit about 9 hours doing everything including random side dungeons etc and I'm not finished with the first act yet. There's also a New Game Plus option which allows you to start over again with, I assume, increased level monsters.

Between 6-10 hours on the first act and between 3-5 acts in the entire game for a total of at least 30 hours of gameplay. New Game Plus allows you to play it over again.

Graphics / Art Style - Torchlight 2's art style is primarily inspired by Torchlight 1, which seemed very heavily inspired by both Warcraft and Team Fortress 2. Very disproportionately sized characters with big swords and big guns and big shoulderpads in a very brightly coloured and heavily saturated world.

Bright and colourful, similar to D3 in terms of art style.

Combat Flow - Definitely a contender for modernity of gameplay with D3. After playing both, I'd say that D3 wins out marginally but I was quite happily playing a melee outlander in Torchlight 2 and doing backflips away from my enemies to blind them before running in and beating them up with a spear.

Contender with D3 for smoothness of combat flow.

Character Customisation - With both stat points and skill points, you're pretty heavily capable of influencing your character's role and how they do damage. All stat points are required for all character classes, obviously dependent on build etc. Strength affects physical damage and critical hit +% damage, dexterity affects critical hit chance as well as fumble recovery, focus affects mana as well as execute chance (the chance to hit with both weapons whilst dual wielding) and the amount of elemental (magical) damage you do, vitality finally affects the amount of health you have.

There're three different skill trees per class and there's absolutely no crossover between them.

Whilst you have different skill trees, it's not at the minute required to put skill points in one of the skill trees to unlock higher skills. It seems like they're just generally grouped together skills that're thematically similar or work well together.

Add that to the ability to change your pet's species and the ability to make your character look different to other characters, and the game's managed pretty well.

Good deal of character customisation close to D2 in design. Not as much as Path of Exile, however.

Singleplayer - Yes! Entirely. You can play singleplayer online, offline, logged in, not logged in. Basically, play the game entirely how you want.

Offline or online singleplayer, your choice.

Multiplayer - Up to eight people per party. Also, completely moddable multiplayer (see below).

Up to eight people per party.

Customisability of Gameplay - The first decision you have after picking your class and your pet is what difficulty you want to play on and whether you want to be softcore or hardcore. The difficulty seems to mainly change the amount of damage enemies do, and not so much their health. Elite (the highest difficulty) is basically a mistake meaning your death. If you don't make mistakes, you will not die. It's very harsh, but very fair.

However, the VERY key point of Torchlight 2's customisation is modding. Torchlight came with some pretty damn good modding tools, and Torchlight 2 will be the same. Play with whatever you want. If you have a friend with the same mods, you can both play in multiplayer together WITH those mods, which is something I have yet to see a hack'n'slash game do.

Pretty much play the game how you want to play it.

Other Features - Brilliant, friendly developer that talks on it's forums to it's customers and non-customers alike.

Try getting a Blizzard employee to talk to you like you're a person!

My Personal Opinion - Torchlight 2 is easily the biggest contender for the crown of "Best Hack&Slash of 2012". It's amazingly polished, the gameplay is slick and fun and it's closest comparison is "Diablo 3 without all the icky bits that people are getting upset about (RMAH etc)". I did not nearly have as much fun in D3's beta as I am having in Torchlight 2's, but that might've been because I have a weird fascination with skill and stat points and little else, or it might be because I have a love of blowing away stupid skeletons with giant fiery cannonballs that send them launching off cliffs.

Easily the contender for King of Killing with Diablo 3.

Summing Up

It's hard to compare Path of Exile with the other two. It's trying to do something completely different and clinging to it's Diablo 1&2 roots as hard as it can, whilst the other two are trying to mess around with things and make the games a lot more actiony in playstyle.

Path of Exile will be the game for those who want to play a gorgeous mishmash of Diablo 1&2, fully embodying the themes, artstyle and gameplay of those two games. It's character customisation is through the roof and the ability to choose how to play it is amazing.

Torchlight 2 and Diablo 3, however, are very much competing against each other in terms of themes, artstyle and gameplay. I'd say these two are about as close as two completely franchises can come. In my personal opinion, Torchlight 2 wins out due to the sheer amount of support it has with modding, offline singleplayer and it's interesting setting.

That's all for now folks. Comments, criticisms, corrections?

so because they don't agree with your obviously biased review, they are fanboys?

"

(Currently Having the Shit Downvoted Out of It by Diablo 3 Fanboys)

It has 4 downvotes.....

You're absolutely delusional if you think it takes 25 hours MINIMUM to beat the two acts of PoE right now. I'm loving my experience, but 25 hours? Lolwut? It took me 8 hours and I had never played the game before.

It boggles my mind why you would write such a lengthy overview / comparison just a couple of days before diablo 3's release. Seriously, what's the point.

Also, the Bias is dripping all over.

im sure i read somewhere the towns have a limit of 32 players.

I think his analysis of D3 is pretty accurate but the review for PoE comes off as a promotion for PoE instead of an unbiased review, amount of content available in PoE is also indeed greatly overstated.

Torchlight 2... well I couldn't say. I played the demo for the XBLA version last year and it bored the crap out of me so I haven't paid any attention to this series since.

From my own D3 experience I will say that is about correct. A major letdown in all areas except they at lest added a shared stash. You know something TL1 had. I have not gotten TL2 beta yet but have preordered it already. As for POE well I do believe some bias there but so far found a lot of what you said correct or close. I haven't rushed through all the acts like some people do to get to end content. I have instead made 3 different chars and working them all about the same. Trying out different things. The gameplay is definately D1/D2 reminiscent. I like the darker graphics also which TL1 was missing and I will assume TL2 will. The makers of TL is PWI and they like cartoonish anime type graphics if you play any of their other MMOs.

And unlike most people who hate on one and love another I will play all 3. I just won't be picking up D3 till its like $20-30.

Thank you OP for the post. I liked it allot , some nice points and i think it will give ppl allot to talk about haha ^^


It is a great time for us hack & slash lovers out there ! SO much joy to us this year =)

Your biased analysis deserves those downvotes. And his impressions about D3 aren't accurate at all. It IS Diablo. It does not look anything like Warcraft. Please take off your nostalgia glasses and play Diablo 2 again and see how colorful it is. What an absolute joke. I'm glad the redditors were keen enough to see through this biased, inaccurate, ill-informed analysis. Complete waste of time.