PoE vs Diablo 2 - Why D2 is still better

Ive been around since closed beta and i havent lvled a char past 50, abilities are too lame and boring along with the lvling. Flicker strike is the only thing i find interesting, just saiyan...

Every time i play i feel like a professional widdeling champion.

I agree with OP, the arpg-ness was lost somewhere.

I played cold ele druid in d2, got to lvl 80-something in hardcore with my RL buddy. fun times...

One thing is straying too far from classical symbolism and magical fantasy, no human is able to reinvent what has taken mankind thousands of years to shape.

I feel not so much in a magical world, and i do not feel my purpose as an exile. In other words, story is not used well thus far in this game.

There is also a heavyness to the theorycrafting side that will scare away players, not me, but it will many, because it is not as simple and straightforward as it could be.

Greatest music, art, etc is always simple. Complexity is not the pinnacle of art.

This is just my preliminary assault, but i still love PoE, by far the best hack n slash since D2, and a really good game i will continue playing.

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Xavderion wrote:

I think the main thing that is 'limiting' in PoE is its difficulty. GGG could nerf everything and you'd have your D2 balance. Imo that'd be boring though. It's also quite fun to try non-cookie cutter builds and make them viable :)

It's hard for me to know what you mean by "difficulty."

If you mean a map boss who has hard mods like a multishot Piety, then yes. That's some serious difficulty to overcome, or an "extra fast" set of mobs that are scary as fuck and chase you down and rape you if you aren't prepared...

If you mean arbitrary mechanics like reflect and thorns then no. There's a pretty big list of things going on in this game that serve no real purpose but to prevent you from killing monsters that are already "easy" by any estimation.

Fighting against easy monsters but with random mechanics added that instantly kill me unless I build a character optimized against these certain mechanics...thereby limiting build choices...is not my definition of "difficulty."

That's just pigeonholing. People will just build in whatever way they can to avoid said mechanics.

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Xavderion wrote:

P.S: D2 also had its pigeonhole builds, Hammerdin anyone?

That's not really a pigeonhole, just very effective cookie cutter. I have never heard of any ARPG/MMO/etc that did not have cookie cutter builds.

D2 was indeed a better game overall than POE is currently; HOWEVER, I believe POE has the potential to surpass it one day. That being said, the OP's reasons are pretty stupid...

Bananas and grapefruit

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CharanJaydemyr wrote:

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fr0st2k wrote:

1. In D2, you could 'rush' a char from 1 to 70 in just a few hours and start MFing

If that makes a game better, then I'm very glad PoE is 'worse'.

+1

I just dowloaded diablo 2 again and am enjoying myself quite alot. I am just a plain arpg fan in general. I don't hate on games for their cons, rather I love them for their pros. I can't wait for d3 to come out for xbox

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fr0st2k wrote:

1. In D2, you could 'rush' a char from 1 to 70 in just a few hours and start MFing

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fr0st2k wrote:

Starting with 1. With respec points, and the general statement suggesting you often would be better off rerolling if you screwed up your build, PoE strolls down the same path as D2. I like it, because you 'collect' characters and its much more tied to your build.

So on the one hand you think it was a good idea to not have respecs, but on the other hand you think being able to reach lvl70 in close to no time is a good thing. I don't see the difference, really. If you rush your character to lvl70 you are not tied to your build at all since all you do is waiting for someone to rush you to lvl70. You don't even need to spend a single skillpoint. That's basically the same as having a lvl70 character that you can respec to me.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

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CharanJaydemyr wrote:

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fr0st2k wrote:

1. In D2, you could 'rush' a char from 1 to 70 in just a few hours and start MFing

If that makes a game better, then I'm very glad PoE is 'worse'.

+1

+2

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fr0st2k wrote:

First up. I really like the currency system implemented in PoE. Throughout D3's development I was extremely AVID about why going with GOLD as currency was a horrible idea (my forum name was Rickymm3/fr0st2k on the new/old forums).

I fought with 'bashiok' for literally ... years.

Anyway, i just wanted to point out how much time i've spent thinking about what would make a great ARPG. Currency is number 1, and I think PoE does it well.

However, as my title clearly states, I still think D2 is better: Why?

1. In D2, you could 'rush' a char from 1 to 70 in just a few hours and start MFing

2. The uniques are more 'unique.'

Starting with 1. With respec points, and the general statement suggesting you often would be better off rerolling if you screwed up your build, PoE strolls down the same path as D2. I like it, because you 'collect' characters and its much more tied to your build. No need to go into it further, as I'm sure there are plenty enough debates against both D2/PoE and D3's decision.

The main difference is that in PoE it takes a LOT longer to level up your character. To the point where it gets tedious, annoying, and frustrating.

The main focus of an ARPG isn't leveling, its FINDING ITEMS...so why have I been playing this game for the last month and SOLELY been leveling. I'm about 10 deaths in merciless from quitting. I'm just sick and tired of it.

Get me to 65-70 FAST and let me start finding items. There is absolutely NO REASON that it should take more than 5-10 hours to level up to 70. Thats number one.

The second reason D2 is still better is because their unique items are better. I personally don't even think the D2 team understands why their uniques were so great.

Uniques should have two main purposes. If item quality and its rarity was mapped out on a chart from not rare -> rare...uniques would fill the early point of the exponential rise, and then litter the rest.

That is, the non-rare ones should help outfit a new character with the right stats to let them MF in early mf zones. Then, as you find new items, you replace them slowly with better rares, or even better uniques.

Uniques are the glue of the economy. But in PoE, even the same unique varies so wildly in terms of usefulness that they just make things even more confusing. Let me state that as clearly as I can. The uniques in Path need to be completely overhauled.

They need to have static linked sockets (at least on some of the better ones). Then, there needs to be less variation in terms of specific uniques. That way, players know to look for some of the better early uniques, and actually feel good that they found one.

You parse out the good and bad unique items by static and dynamic stats, not by ilvl. That way, when youre building a unique, you can put a static stat like, "IIQ" and another useful stat that is random.

Please think about this. I assure you, despite what the fanboys who will inevitably litter this thread and disagree, that this is the best way to complete your game.

Thanks!

Not everyone has the same preconception of what an ARPG is supposed to be. I have friends that were avid D2 players that play PoE and are not concerned at all with item/loot finding. They derive entertainment from ARPGs by min-maxing their character, theory crafting and leveling.

I on the other hand enjoy both item hunting and creating a viable character. I have a character specifically made for item hunting with high IIR/IIQ and several builds for experimenting and for playing through content/maps.

Regarding Uniques, they are pretty much perfect the way they are implemented in PoE. Most Uniques have some form of drawback which allows you to create an interesting build around that items pros and cons. This also allows for Rare items to be as good or better than some Uniques which in turn allows for more items to be useful.

Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. I don't think there is a right or wrong. Something you like someone else will likely loathe.

However, this does raise a few points of interest in terms of what people like and what they dislike.

I love character development. Something that has drawn me from ARPGs to MMOs are more in-depth character development systems. I'd love an ARPG where you could literally play one character for years and years and never be done with it. But, PoE isn't really designed for that.

I would kill for a more in-depth character development system. I want to play a character that will never be complete. These people that want to be finished in 20 hours, seriously, wtf. I want to kill stuff, I want to level, I want to make the character stronger, I want to go on to tougher content. I think ARPGs in general have very limited mechanics. PoE is interesting in it's diversity but still lacks a lot of depth, if they didn't make it a pita to find higher level mobs then the character development phase would be pretty short.

I have to be honest that I do not like the currency system. It is an interesting take but I find it is too random, if you are going to rely on just drops you are going to bone your ability to craft. People resort to lotteries because trying to turn a good item stat-wise into a 6S/6L item is a cluster fuck of a crap shoot. One dude can do it with a handful of currency, another needs thousands. I don't mind random but that random is shit on people who have bad luck.

The rarity of some the currency is at times comical, I haven't found that many exalts in my time and all that scarcity to add another affix to a rare item. Really? It really only has value it does because of it's rarity, it should not be that rare for the function it actually does.

I feel crafting is extremely wasteful and it really only has any real point to it at the higher tier of items, because the base item is valuable. If you get boned with random drops it makes it really tough because it is a waste of currency blowing them on lower level gear. What are you going to do, blow a stack of chaos orbs trying to get a life prefix on some shitty lower level item that dropped, going to sink an exalt because you only got 4 affixes. I feel the whole randomness is punishing just to be currency sink.

That warps wealth towards those who invariably are lucky with drops and that is going to favour those who run MF builds.

I don't mind loot being a crap shoot, but the currency drop system and the crafting system is just too much randomness for my liking. If I didn't fleece currency from other players via trading I would have even less than what I have now, which isn't a lot. :P Gold drop was at least fairly constant for everyone.

I loathe MF. Seriously, the system is a complete crock of shit. You are massively penalised if you don't deck your character in useless shit. It massively benefits builds that can get away with wearing garbage. I don't want to play a sporker to compete with the IQ/IR horde of MF whores running around.

I will eventually get a really shitful streak of luck where eventually I will say fuck it, I can't really be fucked any longer. If i have to run my marauder around wearing a dress and tighte and wield a giant flower because all that shit has MF on it then I will impale myself on his semi-useless 2h weapon. :P