I tried the D4 Beta. I think PoE is going to be just fine.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

And when I think of it that way, I delight in how snobbish Exiles come across. Of course PoE has nothing to fear from DIV --

"

KZA wrote:

The more I played D4, the more its flaws became apparent. But first, the pros:

Graphics are pretty.

The animations, sound effects and feel of combat are nice.

You can see what's going on during the fights.

The pace of combat makes it feel tactical.

No instant logout means you do or die, but the damage is less spikey, letting you react. And if you logout, it puts you back where you were when you log back in (with a couple exceptions of me finding myself in town, but i don't know why).

In fact, the less-spikey damage allowed for big CC effects that bring excitement/terror without instantly meaning death. Example, the big bad boss picked up my character and strangled it for like 3 whole seconds while monsters whaled on me. My health went down to about half (you can't drink potions while cc'd) and my heart was pounding. In PoE, if you get stunned/frozen for more than a half a second, you're basically dead.

Those are the pros. Now the cons:

One huge issue is that just like in D3, monsters scale with your level. It completely screws any sense of progression. Traveling through starting zones is just as deadly as far away dungeons, no matter my level. It also kills the joy of leveling up, because (without gear upgrades) you actually get weaker.

Dungeons all have the same formula: Kill something on the left side, kill something on the right side, now that gives you the key to open the path in the middle to fight the boss. Gets repetitive fast.

Lots of backtracking in the layouts. Last Epoch fixes this with monsters respawning after a short time so theres always stuff to kill. PoE fixes this (with a few exceptions, looking at you Museum map) with level design negating the need for backtracking.

The dialogue/narrative was fine at first, but it got lame and boring fast because it's the same formula over and over. I get it, demons are killing everyone and they're evil and must be stopped.

Lots of waiting around for NPCs to say their lines before the monsters spawn.

Shallow crafting/salvage system. Like d3, you just pick up EVERYTHING and break it down. I prefer Last Epoch's salvage system were you can break down only a limited amount of items (due to cost), and so you pick and choose which items are best to break down based on what affixes they have that you want. Meaningful. PoE too needs help in this department because loot just stays on the floor 99.9% of the time.

Shallow itemization. It's a step up from D3's "green = equip, red = salvage" complexity, but not by a lot. At least in the beta, the affixes on items are all meaningless. 2% fire resist? Who cares. Nothing is noticable except the DPS on weapons and armor on equipment. Maybe the endgame will change that?

Build choice (at least early on) is an illusion. I can make my tele-kick have a 3 second faster cooldown (normally 9 seconds) or i can give it a 1.5 second stun. Both don't make much of a difference, and those are the only two options. Compare that with the many support gems of path of exile, of which you can choose 5 (or more when you get into crafting insane endgame gear). Maybe this expands in the endgame, but the above is all I saw in beta.

You choose your difficulty. This removes the challenge and instead makes it a question of efficiency. Yeah, I could make the monsters twice as tanky and damaging for 20% more loot and XP, but bonus XP actually just makes monsters even harder. And since it takes longer to kill them, it makes more sense to choose the easier difficulty until you are so strong that you spend more time walking from pack to pack instead of fighting. I suspect it will turn into d3 with literally over 180 meaningless difficulty levels to choose from. PoE and Last Epoch have one difficulty for everything, as it should be.

Party-to-win. You get XP and Loot bonuses for playing alongside other players (mmo style), and the bonus doubles if you formally party with them. Not only does synergistic party power out-scale monster power making the game so much easier, the bonus XP and loot make playing solo feel punishing. And when you know the whole reason for the system is to turn players into salesmen for their friends, it feels predatory.


TLDR:

Good stuff = graphics, no instant logout, combat, readability, non-spikey damage

Bad stuff = Items, skill augments, narrative, waiting around, repetitive, monsters scaling with your level, crafting/salvaging, choosing your own difficulty

D4 is a nice game for people new to the genre or casual players, but I think PoE (despite it's flaws that will hopefully be fixed in PoE 2) has a monopoly on the people who want depth/challenge in their ARPG.

"

AmpegV4 wrote:

Diablo 1 & 2, the work the original Blizz North team did guarantee's this franchise will sell well for many many iterations off the brand alone.

Diablo:
- Taking what was originally planned as polished nethack clone and going real-time.
- Going with religious / real-world symbolism (you wouldn't do that in 2020, now it's gotta be nephalim / some made up stuff as someone will be offended).
- Matt Uelman iconic music arguably one the greatest composers of video games.
- Impeccable art design, gothic style the poems, the side quests just great world building.

A team with original idea's and lots of creativity. Then with the sequel just expanding on everything that was great about the first game and making it bigger and better.

---
Then Nu-Diablo
- Remove stats, remove skill choices, smart loot, 1 number itemization to focus on.
- Embedded trade system that made item drops boring.
- health globes and unique mechanic per class made it more like a Guantlet clone / action orientated.
- removal of heavy procedural generation, D4 has none apparently.
- Recycle leoric, butcher, adria, izual -> did no-one have any ideas after 12 years?! oh yeah killing off Cain.

D4.. all the same classes.. the same spells from D2, lost ark and 50 other Korean MMO features zzZZZZ


---
Pretty excited for POE2. Actiblizz for the first time will be contending with a game I think will exceed their production quality. Coupled with deeper mechanics and 12+ years of "balancing". If Tencent/GGG market this thing right they could really solidify themselves as king of ARPG.

I reckon the ages old POE2 reveal already looks on par or better than D4.

"

How do you know they removed stats...did you play the end game and we didn't ?
There are no health globes in d4...unless I played a different beta, there are only potions.
No procedural generation ? Why POE has something that generates procedural ? Cuz from what I remember d2 didn't have procedural generation, only same patterns in a N/S/W/E generation. Poe has none, the story is the same go left to progress go right for side quest...The maps are not procedural generated, they are the same layouts that we got used to for the past 8 years with different mobs that you my friend can actually state on the map ( kitava cultists bla bla), nothing is procedural generated only static manually implemented, no boss is procedural generated with different abilities, you know them beforehand. Now how do you know that D4 has none of that since you haven't seen the end game ? Just some static dungeouns in the starting area.
Same classes ? Please point me out the paladin and the assasin in d4. From what I see rogue is a new addition.
Recycle leoric, butcher, adria, izual: Do agree with this though...But I guess lore wise you cannot really kill a demon...You can only banish him back to whatever hell hole he came from, so it makes sense. Also there is a disagree part were I do not see Diablo anymore...Right now seems to be focused around Lilith...So I guess the story shift is not important for you to just get over Leoric and Butcher being still a thing.

People will keep on dreaming that POE puts the crown on their head as the rulers of ARPG in an era were it doesn't even matter. This is the exact definition of a fanboy...

Let me explain you this...Even if POE becomes the ruler of ARPGS, it doesn't really matter...People have started to look to different gaming patterns that were once the only things we knew in D2 or dungeons and dragons ...Even if GGG wins the battle for ARPGS against Blizzard ( which technically is not even a battle since Blizzards get's the full bag always), it will still end up with 300k players in peak launch....And even if some of us are still stuck in the era were ARPGS were like D2 , some other people have evolved to see different things as exciting and fresh.

There is one saying that will describe what I said bellow hope I quote it right : 'uneasy is the head that wears a crown'

Instead of being constructive in both ways you just dream that POE will rule ARPGS like your life depends on it....Instead of your fear about losing the 30 minutes you spend in POE how about trying to be really constructive and point out the goods and the bads in both ways so gaming can improve and not be a competition of who get's the more players.

P.S you remember bad about POE2 being on par with anything, as what we saw in 2 trailers are just copy pasted stuff from POE1 made somehow better to form new mechanics...And I hope I do remember this correctly but I think POE2 was revelead before d4 and between the scandal with the "do you have phones" thingy

"

Pabulon wrote:

I just refunded. It felt so dull and tedious with literally zero feeling of making any improvement with next levels. And this itemisation - green = good. I would give it a chance but seeing skill tree and lack of any meaningful mechanics - I just don't believe I would spend in this game more like 80 hours, enforcing myself constantly that I'm on the edge of finally achieving satisfaction and miracolosuly discovering any complexity in this game. I'm not a fool, been playing D3. D4 for me is D3.5.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

"

Nubatron wrote:

Outside of me feeling sad about the Diablo franchise dying for me at D2, it's a good thing D4 is following in the footsteps of D3 in terms of relatively easy itemization and character customization. The genre needs a game to step up into that market space to pull that player base.

When POE started getting D3 refugees, it was obvious in the tone and people pushing to make POE more like D3. This gives that group a place to go to enjoy the type of game they enjoy.

The game does look like it is moving a bit toward MMO rather than ARPG, but it still seems to maintain some ARPG elements -- at least enough to claim the ARPG genre flag. I hope it's closer to D3 than Diablo Immortal in the monetization department as well for that group that might head back.

Weird how much this resonates with me and yet how unfazed I am to be counted among "that group" despite once seeing it as everything blasphemous and heretical to ARPGs. You speak rightfully of D3 refugees in Wraeclast and for a long time we joked about how this was a sanctuary from Sanctuary...but what I think Exiles of today have somehow missed is that after ten years of gruelling Exile, there is absolutely an opposite effect. You can hit up any arpg reddit and see people searching for a game that is not as mentally exhausting as PoE. Naturally Exiles might look down at that -- "too simple" is the mock du jour of these Exile impressions of DIV -- but it would be sheer folly not to acknowledge the demand for it.

Equally, it was sheer folly to think any long time Exile would be swayed by what DIV has been declaring itself from the start but it is amusing to watch nonetheless. Bit like hardcore scientists being unable to enjoy a popcorn movie because, well, it's all superficial bullshit in service of shallow action and spectacle.

But there is a reason we keep making vapid blockbusters and it's got almost nothing to do with the populace just having bad taste.

And when I think of it that way, I delight in how snobbish Exiles come across. Of course PoE has nothing to fear from DIV -- no complicated indie movie ever had much to fear from a blockbuster. Even really successful ones like say, Chronicle or the current (relatively) low budget darling EEAAO. And that is me ignoring the usual metaphors for PoE's appeal, you're welcome.

I hope Crucible gives you guys something else to do, something a little more worthy of your time and intellect than...whatever is happening in these weirdly obsessive threads about a game not even made for you or with you in mind.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

Weird how much this resonates with me and yet how unfazed I am to be counted among "that group" despite once seeing it as everything blasphemous and heretical to ARPGs. You speak rightfully of D3 refugees in Wraeclast and for a long time we joked about how this was a sanctuary from Sanctuary...but what I think Exiles of today have somehow missed is that after ten years of gruelling Exile, there is absolutely an opposite effect. You can hit up any arpg reddit and see people searching for a game that is not as mentally exhausting as PoE. Naturally Exiles might look down at that -- "too simple" is the mock du jour of these Exile impressions of DIV -- but it would be sheer folly not to acknowledge the demand for it.

Equally, it was sheer folly to think any long time Exile would be swayed by what DIV has been declaring itself from the start but it is amusing to watch nonetheless. Bit like hardcore scientists being unable to enjoy a popcorn movie because, well, it's all superficial bullshit in service of shallow action and spectacle.

But there is a reason we keep making vapid blockbusters and it's got almost nothing to do with the populace just having bad taste.

And when I think of it that way, I delight in how snobbish Exiles come across. Of course PoE has nothing to fear from DIV -- no complicated indie movie ever had much to fear from a blockbuster. Even really successful ones like say, Chronicle or the current (relatively) low budget darling EEAAO. And that is me ignoring the usual metaphors for PoE's appeal, you're welcome.

I hope Crucible gives you guys something else to do, something a little more worthy of your time and intellect than...whatever is happening in these weirdly obsessive threads about a game not even made for you or with you in mind.