PoE Vs. D3 College Compare & Contrast Essay (Spoiler Alert: got a %100 on it ;D)

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Protector Of Faith

Instructor Blah Blah

ENG-1101-572

October 17, 2012

Path of Exile or Diablo 3? Which Will You Choose?


Entertainment means many different things to many different people. People can entertain themselves through their hobbies, whether it’s anything from model cars to the real thing, but video games are on the rise to be a very popular and acceptable form of entertainment for many of people. Two games in particular appeal to people who like to lead the life of an adventurer, whether it’s to save the world from evil or to just to stay alive in a world they have been exiled to; Diablo 3 and Path of Exile. Diablo 3 and Path of Exile are two online action role-playing games (RPGs) that are extremely different in several ways, some of which being their skill mechanics, in-game economy, and the quality of the customer service given by the companies of each game.


Action RPG’s are basically video games that put a player in the shoes of a hero/villain/etc. viewing from any number of camera views, in the case of these games it is from a third-person hawk-eye view with a point-and-click control system. Diablo 3 is a hack and slash RPG based a world called Sanctuary where your hero must yet again fight an ancient evil after it has risen after thirty years of peace. There are five classes of characters you can choose from to create, with different skill sets that you can level up and acquire gear for; the monk, demon hunter, barbarian, wizard, and witch doctor. The game to its core is grind-for-gear type of game where you play the entire campaign of the game for times, each scaling up in difficulty: normal, nightmare, hell, and inferno. Path of Exile is based around the story that your character has been exiled to the island of Wraeclast for crimes you have committed and you fight your way deeper into the ruined continent to unveil the secret to the evil that has taken over Wraeclast. There are six classes to choose from in Path of Exile; the marauder, duelist, shadow, witch, templar, and ranger. This game is also a grind for gear based game where you level up and improve you gear continuously by playing the same campaign content in four difficulties: normal, cruel, ruthless, and merciless.


One of the most notable differences between Diablo 3 and Path of Exile is the way their skill mechanics work in each game. In Diablo 3, passive stats/skills (these are skills learned by characters that are active all the time) are increased automatically every time you level-up your character by a small portion but then also have to have these passive stats increased through gear and only can acquire passive skills through gear as well as having a max of three personalized passive skills to choose from in your skill tab. Skills themselves that you use to attack monsters with are different from character to character but are all unlocked at level sixty for your character to hotkey to your attack bar (the line of skills bound to the number keys 1-4 and the left and right click). Along with the skills themselves, they also have skill runes that let you manipulate how a skill works entirely. Diablo 3 may have a decent personalization system, but it is nothing compared to Path of Exile’s. Path of Exile uses a system where skills themselves are items you find on the ground as skill gems that can be socketed into items your character wears and can be linked with other skill gems to change how the skill works. Passive stats are increased through gear and through your passive skill tree (Picture of the tree on page 5), this tree is as complex as it is large and every character has the same tree but start at different places in the tree. There are special passives called keystone passives in the tree that make your character behave completely different (like increasing chance to dodge but making armor stats useless). The ridiculous amount of customization available in Path of Exile makes Diablo 3’s skill mechanics setup seem very restrictive in what you character can and cannot do.


However, overall the biggest difference between Diablo 3 and Path of Exile is the in-game economy in each game. Most notably, Diablo 3’s system is based on characters acquiring gold that they find from slain monsters and opened chests and destroyable debris, this gold is then used in an auction house system where players can use this gold to buy items other players have posted up for auction. The auction house is setup into two different houses, the gold and real-money auction house, where people can use money linked through their PayPal accounts to purchase items as well. Path of Exile has taken a different approach entirely; they have no gold in their game system and instead use a barter system where only items are traded for items and there is no gold. All “currency items” (items used in place of gold) have functions in the in-game gameplay. Some of the currency items can change the properties of items your character is wearing and others can remove passive points from your skill tree. The barter system used in Path of Exile has been taken very positive by ex-Diablo 3 players as a breath of fresh air from the grind-for-gold feel of Diablo 3 to having more control of making your own gear and not relying on an auction house or players for the perfect item.


Custom service in any online game is the key to its success, and the quality at which the companies that own Diablo 3 (Blizzard Entertainment) and Path of Exile (Grinding Gear Games) give out this customer service is vastly different. Diablo 3 in of itself has gotten numerous complaints about how long it takes for Blizzard to implement patches for the game, in most cases the game is down for more than ten to twelve hours. An example of these is when I was playing the game a few months ago; the game said that a patch needed to implemented, and it downloaded fine, but the servers for the game itself were down for almost the whole entire day. Path of Exile has definitely outshined Diablo 3 in this regard. In terms of wait times for servers to be back up for the game after a patch has been implemented, no matter how big the patch is, the wait time is one minute…That is an astounding response time on the part of a company as small as Grinding Gear Games. Another example of their responsiveness is when they had made a mistake in their patching and the game couldn’t be loaded after the patch, after hours and in record time, the developers found the problem, fixed it and patched it in a matter of twenty minutes!


Path of Exile comes out in open beta in December of 2012, and from all of the vast differences from Diablo 3, whether it is the skill mechanics, in-game economy, or the quality of the customer service given by the companies of each game, it’s obvious to this player it’s a change for the better.


Path of Exile Passive Skill Tree

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%100

Protector (Real name subbed out), good job! your paper is clearly structured, + you manage to explain your points of contrast very well.

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Charan wrote:

I would have marked you down for several errors, such as incorrect semi-colon usage and the greengrocers' apostrophe in 'Action RPGs.' Then again I have seen third year English papers with it's and its confusion, and it seems you have that mastered, so that's awesome.


Congrats on the full marks though. :) content wise it....eh, choir, preaching, form a circle, jerk happily, etc.

For a real judgement, post it on the D3 board and see how many times you called names before the thread is deleted and your account exterminated. Hehe.

PS Swyping this on my phone; apologies for any hypocritical mistakes.

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Charan wrote:

For a real judgement, post it on the D3 board and see how many times you called names before the thread is deleted and your account exterminated. Hehe.

PS Swyping this on my phone; apologies for any hypocritical mistakes.

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Charan wrote:

Don't know if you remember what happened when someone c/ped my old poe vs D3 post into the D3 boards claiming to be me, but it was quite the fuck of clusterness. Thread got deleted four days after it went up.

Four. Days.

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ProtectorOfFaith wrote:

Entertainment means many different things to many different people. People can entertain themselves through their hobbies, whether it’s anything from model cars to the real thing, but video games are on the rise to be a very popular and acceptable form of entertainment for many of people.

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that are extremely different in several ways,

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Action RPG’s are basically video games

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that put a player in the shoes of a hero/villain/etc. viewing from any number of camera views,

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in the case of these games it is from a third-person hawk-eye view with a point-and-click control system.

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caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaps wrote:

In my defense, I'd like to say YOU HAD IT COMING WHEN YOU POSTED AN ESSAY >:(

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ProtectorOfFaith wrote:

Entertainment means many different things to many different people. People can entertain themselves through their hobbies, whether it’s anything from model cars to the real thing, but video games are on the rise to be a very popular and acceptable form of entertainment for many of people.

'many of people'?

Also, you could probably fit more in a few pages if you trimmed some of these superfluous words -- is it necessary for different people to be many?

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that are extremely different in several ways,

Similarly, what distinction is made by noting the differences are extreme and several?

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Action RPG’s are basically video games

Basically.

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that put a player in the shoes of a hero/villain/etc. viewing from any number of camera views,

what

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in the case of these games it is from a third-person hawk-eye view with a point-and-click control system.

yeah ok im done

This sentence begins describing a genre of games, notes that players control characters that are 'viewing from any number of camera views' (?), and then splices in what kind of view and controls are used by D3/PoE (without explaining the jargon either ;|).


I get that 1101 is probably an introductory composition class and all but you've got room to polish this AND I EXPECT BETTER FROM YOUR NEXT ESSAY >:(

ps dont see me after class im not an english teacher
pps is it fair to compare 'custom service' from a company that has millions of customers and one with thousands? is 20 minutes really the record? is it actually good service to release patches after hours if there's a risk it might bring the service down?

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ProtectorOfFaith wrote:

EDIT:BTW tell me what you guys think! It was limited to be only a certain number of pages so I could only say soo much, but as far as the info goes how'd I do? :D