PoE is better than D2...

it's fitting Path of Exile is in perpetual beta. diablo 2 was a complete game, you could mod it, LAN with your friends, whatever you wanted to do. PoE will never leave beta. once you see past that, then accept the game's illusion of depth is actually a mish-mash of cumbersome and unfriendly game designs, that's where the game's appeal starts to evaporate. D3 was the dissapointment of a lifetime, but ultimately PoE doesn't fare better. it just had less expectations and instead succumbs to it's own wasted potential.

Given the option, right now I would choose to play D3 over PoE, and I got a refund on D3 2 weeks after it came out. I've been watching PoE's development with puzzlement, it was such a better game when I first started playing it then how I perceive it to be now I have difficultly even rationalizing to myself as to the reasons. Once you learn the game's mechanics, it feels like the boundaries of the game are more like a electric-fenced in playground than an open range to explore and experiment in.

i really just hope I never play another game where I say 'I can't afford to wear my equipment' ever again, lol.

until there is a boss in PoE that has a better line than Diablo's in the chaos sanctuary D2 will always be superior in terms of atmosphere.

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WickedSausage wrote:

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On top of that you had a non-rng based endgame

D2 had alot of great stuff, cool story, cool atmosphere, cool items etc etc...
But compared to PoEs end game it wasn't that impressive. There was just so much boss grinding over and over...Atleast PoE gives you some variation when you play different maps with different modifications. Also the map system will probably get even better in time.

POE's endgame "variation" is only because you have to pay for them, and even then you're at the mercy of the RNG. And for the record, D2x's endgame Worldstone/Throne did have random mobs and could indeed be very hard. Players who turned the corner only to walk into a pack of champion Gloams will know what I'm talking about.

The thing about D2 is that even with no endgame, it still feels superior to POE's endgame roulette. Everything you do in POE, especially past a certain level, is at the mercy of the random number generator. You're basically playing a very grindy slot machine.

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TheBuudah wrote:

d2 was a real arpg

This game is made buy a bunch of Fanbois that just stolen every good idea in a game and attempted to feed it to us. Thanks for a materia system, thanks for a sphere grid. Even your bosses are rip offs of all the games.


Now they are stealing diablo 3's idea and making uniques = builds rather then rare = customization. (and i hate d3) (THANKS KOAMS You fucking stupid item)

I been playing this game since it looked like a monkey's ass.

I remember logging on diablo 2 for couple of hours, able to do some runs, get a few items and experience. Good luck doing that in Path of unviable builds

Original designers come up with purely their own things. Good designers steal elements from other games. It's similar to how learning from the mistakes of others is much smarter than learning from your own mistakes.

Having some uniques enable builds isn't bad. Currently we have: uniques that are good for a variety of builds in general, uniques that support a specific set of builds and uniques that enable specific builds.

The main problems right now are a lack of uniques and the game being tuned slightly too high.

Why D2 is better than PoE would take a fricking essay, but I'll mention one thing: Build Diversity.

PoE does not have it. Compulsory life nodes R' us means that most of the skilldrasil is a trap. You cannot use most theoretical builds and complete the content (even ignoring maps). The space of functional builds is excessively tiny.

D2 had functional builds for virtually everything. Pure strength barbarian? Yeah, there's a build for that. Spearazon focused on lightning strike? There's a build for that which even manages to solve the nextdelay problem of lightning strike. Melee necromancer? There's several builds for that, some of which use *polearms*! There are pure-passive tree builds for amazons for every single weapon type imaginable, sword and sorceresses, more flavors of paladin than you can count, bow wielding druids and barbarians, and more! There's a family of builds focused solely on commitment to using the Immortal King maul, including virtually every class. Name a skill in D2 or a weapon/class combination and there's a build for it. At least one. And they can all beat the entirety of the content.

Heck, someone beat normal naked and without assigning statpoints or skills (Irene the Infirm, it's a d2 classic). Someone beat hardcore nightmare naked. Several someones. It's not even a terribly rare or unique feat, and has been done solo and *full party of 8*.

That's actual build diversity. PoE isn't even close.

I'm not so sure about the build issue.
In more than 10 years of playing D2 I only once or twice finished a character on hell. You could terribly screw up the skills on your character. You were not that dependent on life, though, since it was quite easy to put a few stat points into vitality.
But if you look at some character guides for D2, you'll very often find the line "you only die because of lack of hp, so put some more points into vita." And it was all about min/maxing, too. You'll find "Str.: Put in just enough to wear your desired gear. If you have item xy, 34 will be enough; Dex.: Since we're using item yx, you'll only need 45, because we use blessed aim aura; Mana: nothing; Vita: all the rest" in many character guides.

On a side note:
Diablo was better than Diablo II, especially in terms of atmosphere. I think GGG did a great job in that respect. The atmosphere is not as good as Diablo's (IMO - I'm a fan of the occult, whereas PoE is rather splatter horror; which might also be the cause why I like Diablo better than Diablo II am quite disappointed by Diablo III (as far as atmosphere is concerned. "Quite disappointed" does not even begin to address my feelings about the gameplay); In Diablo II they went from a theme based on Christian occultism to a more fantasyish theme, which might be more appealing to cultures not based on Christianity.
Please not that this is not a praise for Christianity per se. It's just that for me Diablo set an atmosphere and surrounding that I really loved and which was, IMO, based on Christianity.

Honest opinion comparing PoE OB to D2 on release....

D2: Too many skills became outdated and it was extremely boring pumping one skill over and over hoping that it would become good and the character wasn't wasted. No respec made the game stressful and frustrating.

PoE: Much better skill system. Very very good respec system. Which results in a much better experience creating builds. For these reasons alone is PoE better in my book.

I still like Diablos story and atmosphere better. I also enjoy how D1 and D2 handled unique drops. The games felt pretty rewarding. PoE needs a self found league where the economy doesn't need to be balanced around no lifes/multiboxers/botters.

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iamstryker wrote:

Honest opinion comparing PoE OB to D2 on release....

D2: Too many skills became outdated and it was extremely boring pumping one skill over and over hoping that it would become good and the character wasn't wasted. No respec made the game stressful and frustrating.

PoE: Much better skill system. Very very good respec system. Which results in a much better experience creating builds. For these reasons alone is PoE better in my book.

Why would you compare to D2 on release? D2 LoD happened. Patches 1.10 and 1.11 happened. There were definite improvements made, and all that was prior art when PoE *started*. That's the benchmark of comparison.

It would be like comparing a new platformer to Super Mario Brothers - yes the original one! - because that was the first release. No no no, absolutely not. You compare to the most recent release because that's the actual point of comparison.

I also fail to see how pumping one skill repeatedly is much different than hunting down similar passives on the tree to maximize one thing. (Life nodes, yawn).

I mean, yes, there are definite improvements that could be made over the D2 model, but PoE is *not making them*. Why? I have no idea.

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Mikrotherion wrote:

I'm not so sure about the build issue.
In more than 10 years of playing D2 I only once or twice finished a character on hell.

... Seriously?

You don't have a clue about D2. I (1) Completed the game with all 5 classes (sorceress twice, different builds) before LoD *and* played a mod to completion with several characters (Eastern Sun iirc) *and* did a little light modding of my own, (2) Completed LoD with every class several times, different build every time, and played several mods (including Return to Hellfire, MedianXL, and more), and did some more extensive modding of my own.

Those included some challenge builds, including the Fearazon with Poor Man's Challenge (complete the game using nothing higher than normal tier gear, although it could be any rarity, and no runes higher than... Io? Something like that).

And by completed the game I mean Hell, because *that was the game*, normal/nightmare didn't really count.

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You could terribly screw up the skills on your character. You were not that dependent on life, though, since it was quite easy to put a few stat points into vitality.

Could, but didn't have to. All strength barbarian is exactly what it says on the tin - every statpoint goes into strength. (Played, beat hell, bought the t-shirt, wore out the soundtrack, and choreographed the legions of the damned).

It's also worth pointing out that the difference in life between almost full investment (+400 vit) and no investment in vitality for most classes was a mere 800 life (and no more than 1600 life - barbarian). That's a lot smaller than the difference in PoE.

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But if you look at some character guides for D2, you'll very often find the line "you only die because of lack of hp, so put some more points into vita."

Yeah, if you look at the copypasta guides that are all about being general advice. Generally your odds are better if you increase your life. But it was perfectly possible to beat the game without a single point invested in vitality.

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And it was all about min/maxing, too. You'll find "Str.: Put in just enough to wear your desired gear. If you have item xy, 34 will be enough; Dex.: Since we're using item yx, you'll only need 45, because we use blessed aim aura; Mana: nothing; Vita: all the rest" in many character guides.

It all depends on what you're min/maxing though. If one of the restrictions of your build idea is 'all attribute points go to strength', then that's a restriction under which you're min/maxing. If your build goal is 'beats the game with the IK maul as a sorceress', that's going to generate a rather different min/max profile than 'be a barbarian and invest all your attribute points in strength'.

Don't confuse general advice for the non-hardcore or boring character builds as being the same as prohibiting a wide swath of other builds which *didn't* follow those guidelines. Those other builds were perfectly playable.

Further, the interesting part of D2 builds was generally skills, while the interesting part of PoE builds is generally passive skills, so those are the two things that need to be compared in terms of build diversity.

Basically, you're totally wrong, don't have enough experience with D2 to really talk about it, and comparing the wrong things anyway.

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Squirrelloid wrote:

Why would you compare to D2 on release? D2 LoD happened. Patches 1.10 and 1.11 happened. There were definite improvements made, and all that was prior art when PoE *started*. That's the benchmark of comparison.

Because PoE is still in beta so I don't really see how its fair to compare it to a game that was fully released with an expansion. But really even if I did my comparison would still be the same.

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Squirrelloid wrote:

I also fail to see how pumping one skill repeatedly is much different than hunting down similar passives on the tree to maximize one thing. (Life nodes, yawn).

I find picking a path on a huge skill tree to be a lot more interesting than choosing a skill to click on over and over and over, and then you can't back out of it. It either works or it doesn't.