Am I the only one who thinks that Path of Exile 2 is better than Diablo 4?

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esostaks wrote:

Non of them is released yet so there' no telling. BUT since Blizzard is a bunch of clowns I'll bet on PoE 2 any day.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

There is no realistic way a decades old game, with a shotty engine and performance issues galore competes with a next-gen Diablo and all the polish with it.

In terms of graphics, animations and stuff like that? Of course not. Diablo 4 will crush PoE on those metrics. Does that make Cyberpunk 2077 a better game than Diablo 2? Well, following your logic, it does - but I will disagree to the day I die.

To me, there are FAR more important things in an ARPG than graphics, animations and polish, so I will never take for granted that Diablo 4 is/will be better than PoE/PoE 2. Only time will show. There are PLENTY of action games out there better than PoE, and Diablo 4 will UNDOUBTEDLY be a better action game. Will it be a better ARPG? Time will show.

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Phrazz wrote:

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DarthSki44 wrote:

There is no realistic way a decades old game, with a shotty engine and performance issues galore competes with a next-gen Diablo and all the polish with it.

In terms of graphics, animations and stuff like that? Of course not. Diablo 4 will crush PoE on those metrics. Does that make Cyberpunk 2077 a better game than Diablo 2? Well, following your logic, it does - but I will disagree to the day I die.

To me, there are FAR more important things in an ARPG than graphics, animations and polish, so I will never take for granted that Diablo 4 is/will be better than PoE/PoE 2. Only time will show. There are PLENTY of action games out there better than PoE, and Diablo 4 will UNDOUBTEDLY be a better action game. Will it be a better ARPG? Time will show.

I think it's pretty reductive, and dishonest imo, to say that gameplay, combat, and performance dont really matter in an arpg. If that's your actual opinion fine, I guess we will continue to disagree.

I actually expect both to be disappointing.

PoE 2 because they are keeping it shackled to something they shouldn't

D4 because its purpose is to make money not provide entertainment

Can't really tell until they are out though just my base feeling from years of side eyeing projects.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

I think it's pretty reductive, and dishonest imo, to say that gameplay, combat, and performance dont really matter in an arpg. If that's your actual opinion fine, I guess we will continue to disagree.

I think it's VERY dishonest to imply that I said that it "didn't matter". First of, I said "to me". Second, I never said it didn't matter, I said there are far more important stuff - again, "to me".

You didn't answer my question, though - which is also pretty dishonest, no?

Graphics and animations matter - and I very much look forward to improved/new graphics and animations in PoE 2. But as I said; deep customization and itemizations are far more important to me. Id Diablo 4 goes the same route as Diablo 3, where they have "dumbed" down build variety to "defense" and "offense", and the combination of skills is more or less decided for you, it will - again, in my eyes, based on my metric of "good" in the ARPG landscape - be a worse game than PoE, despite the graphics and animations.

Will it have better graphics and animations? Sure. Will that make it a better game? Of course not. I'm playing a game, I'm not watching a movie. Gameplay, with all that offers, will ALWAYS trump graphics.

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Phrazz wrote:

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DarthSki44 wrote:

I think it's pretty reductive, and dishonest imo, to say that gameplay, combat, and performance dont really matter in an arpg. If that's your actual opinion fine, I guess we will continue to disagree.

I think it's VERY dishonest to imply that I said that it "didn't matter". First of, I said "to me". Second, I never said it didn't matter, I said there are far more important stuff - again, "to me".

You didn't answer my question, though - which is also pretty dishonest, no?

Graphics and animations matter - and I very much look forward to improved/new graphics and animations in PoE 2. But as I said; deep customization and itemizations are far more important to me. Id Diablo 4 goes the same route as Diablo 3, where they have "dumbed" down build variety to "defense" and "offense", and the combination of skills is more or less decided for you, it will - again, in my eyes, based on my metric of "good" in the ARPG landscape - be a worse game than PoE, despite the graphics and animations.

Will it have better graphics and animations? Sure. Will that make it a better game? Of course not. I'm playing a game, I'm not watching a movie. Gameplay, with all that offers, will ALWAYS trump graphics.

I'm sorry, but if the game has great lore, great itemization, great balance, but the combat is clunky, the performance sutters, the UI sucks, there is tearing, desync, rubberbanding, and a host of other things that apparently are "FAR" less important, then we are at an intellectual impasse.

Granted other things are very important, no disagreement there, but if the game plays and looks like shit, it's massively overshadowed imo. I guess we dont see eye to eye on this, but I think you are minimizing those aspects of overall game feel tbh.

Why are we talking about POE 2 and Diablo 4? Shouldn't we be talking about POE 3 and Diablo 11?

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DarthSki44 wrote:

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Phrazz wrote:

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DarthSki44 wrote:

I think it's pretty reductive, and dishonest imo, to say that gameplay, combat, and performance dont really matter in an arpg. If that's your actual opinion fine, I guess we will continue to disagree.

I think it's VERY dishonest to imply that I said that it "didn't matter". First of, I said "to me". Second, I never said it didn't matter, I said there are far more important stuff - again, "to me".

You didn't answer my question, though - which is also pretty dishonest, no?

Graphics and animations matter - and I very much look forward to improved/new graphics and animations in PoE 2. But as I said; deep customization and itemizations are far more important to me. Id Diablo 4 goes the same route as Diablo 3, where they have "dumbed" down build variety to "defense" and "offense", and the combination of skills is more or less decided for you, it will - again, in my eyes, based on my metric of "good" in the ARPG landscape - be a worse game than PoE, despite the graphics and animations.

Will it have better graphics and animations? Sure. Will that make it a better game? Of course not. I'm playing a game, I'm not watching a movie. Gameplay, with all that offers, will ALWAYS trump graphics.

I'm sorry, but if the game has great lore, great itemization, great balance, but the combat is clunky, the performance sutters, the UI sucks, there is tearing, desync, rubberbanding, and a host of other things that apparently are "FAR" less important, then we are at an intellectual impasse.

Granted other things are very important, no disagreement there, but if the game plays and looks like shit, it's massively overshadowed imo. I guess we dont see eye to eye on this, but I think you are minimizing those aspects of overall game feel tbh.

PoE doesn´t look like shit, also since I upgraded my PC there is no studdering, no rubberbanding, no clunky bossfights and very few performance issues. Maybe you should upgrade your hardware as well, maybe it is the problem that your review the technical aspects as so bad. That´s also why I think your argument of an intellectual impass is quite ridiculous; assuming that everyone has exactly the same performance issues that you have. Nice self-centered projection u got there going on...

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DarthSki44 wrote:

I'm sorry, but if the game has great lore, great itemization, great balance, but the combat is clunky, the performance sutters, the UI sucks, there is tearing, desync, rubberbanding, and a host of other things that apparently are "FAR" less important, then we are at an intellectual impasse.

Granted other things are very important, no disagreement there, but if the game plays and looks like shit, it's massively overshadowed imo. I guess we dont see eye to eye on this, but I think you are minimizing those aspects of overall game feel tbh.

Sure, I don't disagree with you here. Though, at my end, PoE doesn't "play" or "look" like shit, nor does it stutter. I also don't find the UI "bad".

But to sum it up: I can enjoy a deep, ugly game with great gameplay. I can NOT enjoy a beautiful, shallow game with bad gameplay. ESPECIALLY in the (A)RPG landscape. That's just me. I understand perfectly well there are people out there that value graphics as the most important thing, and to me, those people are a danger to the industry - and the direction a lot of games are taking, pushing graphics as far as they can, while the gameplay and depth suffers - just to reach as many people as they can.

Bottom line: Diablo 4 can have the best aesthetics in the world, but that does not make it a good game - and it does not make it a better game than PoE. The gameplay, endgame loop, itemization, customization, builds and so on count just as much, and we don't know everything about that yet.

That's why I say "we don't know yet", and you say "There is no realistic way a decades old game, with a shotty engine and performance issues galore competes with a next-gen Diablo and all the polish with it", which of course is true in pure numbers, but not when it comes to the overall quality.

I'm not worried that Diablo 4 will be ugly, because it won't be. I'm worried it will be bad, which it very well might be.

@Vennto

PoE doesn't look great either, doesnt play great on top of it. The engine and coding was done when GGG was at an amateur level and they will/have admitted to it. Its aging poorly.

The textures are definitely old (mtx saving their ass), and there are a number of QoL things that I personally think could be done.

My rig handles the game fine, but it should handle a 10 year old game fucking flawlessly. Hell even Shroud made a joke about his monster PC struggling at times, which is lunacy.

Let's not sugar coat PoE here folks. Everyone reading this knows what I'm talking about.

Edit: For the record GGG has made many improvements to the game performance wise. My point was these were vital changes, not secondary concerns that vastly impacts how the game is consumed.