A somewhat new player's review of Path of VexOhmIstDol

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RagnarokChu wrote:

Your point was you cannot progress normally like in D2 and you found most of your end game items like in D2.

You did not in fact find most of your end-game items in D2, in which they were duped to hell and many people have a hard time getting them without many hours of trading and playing.

You continue to miss the point.

I made 50+ Guardians during my play time of D2 and never traded for anything (except for some leveling gear with my friends who also didn't take any part in the so called economy of D2). So yes, I did in fact find my "end-game gear" (multiple times in fact). Sure it wasn't enigmas and such but non of those duped/traded only runewords or uniques were ever required to make really powerfull end game character because the game wasn't balanced around having those.

Most people complaining about Poe's loot are not complaining about not finding bis items. What we are complaining is that you constantly go 10-15 levels (and quite often much more than that) without finding an uppgrade to your not-that-great-to-begin-with gear when playing self-found.

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Zaarkz wrote:

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RagnarokChu wrote:

Your point was you cannot progress normally like in D2 and you found most of your end game items like in D2.

You did not in fact find most of your end-game items in D2, in which they were duped to hell and many people have a hard time getting them without many hours of trading and playing.

You continue to miss the point.

I made 50+ Guardians during my play time of D2 and never traded for anything (except for some leveling gear with my friends who also didn't take any part in the so called economy of D2). So yes, I did in fact find my "end-game gear" (multiple times in fact). Sure it wasn't enigmas and such but non of those duped/traded only runewords or uniques were ever required to make really powerfull end game character because the game wasn't balanced around having those.

Most people complaining about Poe's loot are not complaining about not finding bis items. What we are complaining is that you constantly go 10-15 levels (and quite often much more than that) without finding an uppgrade to your not-that-great-to-begin-with gear when playing self-found.

Okay this is the rose tinted glasses I was talking about that apparently people do not remember D2 that well and just remember all of the good times.

First off "guardian's is not a class in d2 (you somehow made 50 paladins or something and still think they are called guardians", you can trade for cheap leveling gear in PoE just as well in D2. Ask the billions of mappers who complain about how millions of leveling uniques drop for them and buy them for 1chaos or find friends in PoE to trade with.

PoE is not balanced around having those either, how do you think people get to merc/maps in one entire day at the start of leagues? You need thoses to do the highest level maps just like ubers, which is what >end game< diablo 2 was.

You will constantly find upgrades until you hit the wall of beating act 3 merc, which is around level 60 which is around the same time you start doing maps. Which is almost the same as doing ubers in d2.

I listed like 20 different end game gears and runewords, if you did not find them then you did not find any "end game gears" yourself.

That's like saying I found something good as bringer of rain, but it wasn't as good and I didn't. You do not need the bringer of rain to be able to do 74 maps, but it requires extremely good rares or an overpowered build that GGG will constantly nerf.

You can beat the game very easily, there are a ton of leveling items for super cheap, this game is meant to take longer and be harder then D2. If cannot run through the game with almost nothing like the many other people do at the start of the ladders and get to merciless + beat it less then a week, either obtain more skill/trade or spend some more time.

If you actually want path of exile to become a better game as oppose to being this perfect imaginary clone of D2 that never really ever going to exist. Start suggesting good ideas from D2 such as the amazing amounts of progression in gear that doesn't involve actually finding gear. Such as charms, jewels, hellfire torches, finding the more rare end game items (like a kaom's heart) but make it roll in a big range with higher end harder to get so even though you found one and you can use it, you can still find a "better" one to use or trade for one.

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RagnarokChu wrote:

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Zaarkz wrote:

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RagnarokChu wrote:

Your point was you cannot progress normally like in D2 and you found most of your end game items like in D2.

You did not in fact find most of your end-game items in D2, in which they were duped to hell and many people have a hard time getting them without many hours of trading and playing.

You continue to miss the point.

I made 50+ Guardians during my play time of D2 and never traded for anything (except for some leveling gear with my friends who also didn't take any part in the so called economy of D2). So yes, I did in fact find my "end-game gear" (multiple times in fact). Sure it wasn't enigmas and such but non of those duped/traded only runewords or uniques were ever required to make really powerfull end game character because the game wasn't balanced around having those.

Most people complaining about Poe's loot are not complaining about not finding bis items. What we are complaining is that you constantly go 10-15 levels (and quite often much more than that) without finding an uppgrade to your not-that-great-to-begin-with gear when playing self-found.

Okay this is the rose tinted glasses I was talking about that apparently people do not remember D2 that well and just remember all of the good times.

First off "guardian's is not a class in d2 (you somehow made 50 paladins or something and still think they are called guardians", you can trade for cheap leveling gear in PoE just as well in D2. Ask the billions of mappers who complain about how millions of leveling uniques drop for them and buy them for 1chaos or find friends in PoE to trade with.

PoE is not balanced around having those either, how do you think people get to merc/maps in one entire day at the start of leagues? You need thoses to do the highest level maps just like ubers, which is what >end game< diablo 2 was.

You will constantly find upgrades until you hit the wall of beating act 3 merc, which is around level 60 which is around the same time you start doing maps. Which is almost the same as doing ubers in d2.

I listed like 20 different end game gears and runewords, if you did not find them then you did not find any "end game gears" yourself.

That's like saying I found something good as bringer of rain, but it wasn't as good and I didn't. You do not need the bringer of rain to be able to do 74 maps, but it requires extremely good rares or an overpowered build that GGG will constantly nerf.

You can beat the game very easily, there are a ton of leveling items for super cheap, this game is meant to take longer and be harder then D2. If cannot run through the game with almost nothing like the many other people do at the start of the ladders and get to merciless + beat it less then a week, either obtain more skill/trade or spend some more time.

If you actually want path of exile to become a better game as oppose to being this perfect imaginary clone of D2 that never really ever going to exist. Start suggesting good ideas from D2 such as the amazing amounts of progression in gear that doesn't involve actually finding gear. Such as charms, jewels, hellfire torches, finding the more rare end game items (like a kaom's heart) but make it roll in a big range with higher end harder to get so even though you found one and you can use it, you can still find a "better" one to use or trade for one.

A Guardian in Diablo 2 was someone who beat Hell on hardcore mode.

As for self-found, I've stated before and stated again--it is possible to self-find Tal Rasha's set. NM and Hell Meph can drop everything but the armor, and the armor can be found in the houses by Blood Raven, the Pit, the Ancient Tunnels, and the majority of act 5.

Once you've self-found Tal Rasha's set, socketed it with perfect topazes, picked up a spirit shield, put an ist into the orb, got your travs and magefists/chanceguards, it's completely possible to find any other item in the game that was affected by MF, and you can *start* with MF with 7 perfect topazes distributed between helmet and armor.

Furthermore, because of the way mercs worked in D2, you didn't even need to worry about tanking as a ranged class.

PoE has none of that yet.

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RagnarokChu wrote:

Okay this is the rose tinted glasses I was talking about that apparently people do not remember D2 that well and just remember all of the good times.

No rose tinted glasses here and I remember D2 as it was quite accurately since it's not that many years since I stopped playing it.

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First off "guardian's is not a class in d2 (you somehow made 50 paladins or something and still think they are called guardians",

First of it would be nice if you know what you are talking about. Obviously guardian wasn't a class nor did it mean paladin. It was the title you got when you beat hell baal hc. Fact that you didn't know this makes me seriously doubt that you have any significant experience with the game.

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you can trade for cheap leveling gear in PoE just as well in D2. Ask the billions of mappers who complain about how millions of leveling uniques drop for them and buy them for 1chaos or find friends in PoE to trade with.

Yes you can but it wasn't the point. I just wanted to be honest about the amount of gear I got from other people. My wording was a bit poor since it wasn't really trading. Early into ladders we sometimes gave away items more suitable to characters friends were playing. There was never bartering or trading for currency involved.

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PoE is not balanced around having those either, how do you think people get to merc/maps in one entire day at the start of leagues? You need thoses to do the highest level maps just like ubers, which is what >end game< diablo 2 was.

No it's not balanced around bis items but it most certainly is balanced around having very very hard to find items like high double resists and high life and armor/es/ev as well as the currency to get right sockets and links on them (and most end content need tri resists at least on some of the gear) and 5links. All these are extremely hard to find self-found. You might wanna try sometime.

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You will constantly find upgrades until you hit the wall of beating act 3 merc, which is around level 60 which is around the same time you start doing maps. Which is almost the same as doing ubers in d2.

No you don't constantly find uppgrades. Like I said it is very common to go 10-15 levels without finding uppgrade to weapon for example. Obviously sometimes you get lucky but usually I have around 30-40 lvl weapon at 3x parts of cruel (at least on first characters into the ladder).

Also I didn't include ubers in my post for several reasons; they were added in late 2005 four years after the expansion, it wasn't that of a big addon in terms of amount of the post hell baal content, it had some pretty pointless grind associated with it (since I didn't trade for keys) so I usually just rerolled and made some fun/niche build instead but since you brought it up I did beat them several times (around 10 I think) and couple of times solo. Never traded anything to kill them either (obviously I played only hc).

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I listed like 20 different end game gears and runewords, if you did not find them then you did not find any "end game gears" yourself.

End game gear is gear that enables you to beat all the content. That I did find all the time in D2 and yes I had several of those runewords/uniques (for example I found at least 5+ soj, had chains at least a couple of times, all self-found) you have listed, just not the very very high end like enigma.

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You can beat the game very easily, there are a ton of leveling items for super cheap, this game is meant to take longer and be harder then D2. If cannot run through the game with almost nothing like the many other people do at the start of the ladders and get to merciless + beat it less then a week, either obtain more skill/trade or spend some more time.

Point regarding loot in Poe was that you don't actually find most of the stuff you need and are more or less forced to trade if you want to get to the end game and here you go suggesting to go trade. That's funny. Also I don't see people beating merc Domi in a week solo self-found that often. What I see is a lot of trading and partying (as well a some skill higher than mine). As far as I'm aware Anuhart is only one who has played all the content solo self-found and he did it in sc with insane amounts of play time.

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If you actually want path of exile to become a better game as oppose to being this perfect imaginary clone of D2 that never really ever going to exist.

Nothing imaginary about my D2 examples, just a lot of experience with the game.

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Start suggesting good ideas from D2 such as the amazing amounts of progression in gear that doesn't involve actually finding gear. Such as charms, jewels, hellfire torches, finding the more rare end game items (like a kaom's heart) but make it roll in a big range with higher end harder to get so even though you found one and you can use it, you can still find a "better" one to use or trade for one.

There are several ways to improve Poe's loot/item system but all the suggestions are in vain if GGG doesn't first acknowledge that there is a problem.

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IlyaK1986 wrote:

It's epic elevator music. The whole excuse of "it's supposed to be atmosphere-setting music" is a cop-out to me. Years after I've last played The Last Remnant, I can still distinctly remember its opening theme, the epic music of Nagapur, some of the kicking battle themes, the theme of Athlum and Melphina, the music of Elysion, and some of the boss battles (press to victory is an aural orgasm waiting to happen).

The Last Remnant is among top 3 of most underrated games of all time on my list (PC version of course, xbox one was an awful, rushed product... pun not intended).

And the music was truly awesome, they rarely produce such good soundtracks anymore, brings me back to PS1 days. Athlum and Melphina tracks were great but also Crookfen, Ghor, Ramparts... it's a lasting impression.

As for your thread, all points are valid but I can still close one eye on the game's shortcomings and find something to do even after two years of playing. I can't really make myself grind much anymore and I never did much trading except buying an occasional gem or a build enabler, but there's usually some new idea to try out, that keeps me coming back. You could say I enjoy the apple because I mostly avoid the rotten parts.

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Septile wrote:

You claim that the difficulty isn't from the monster AI or different clumps of monsters with differing abilities, and then call out lightning thorns/reflect/chaos damage/physical spells as "edge-cases." What. Are those not different skills involving different AI that is making the game difficult?

???

How is reflect a part of any AI? What's "intelligent" about Chaos damage, or physical spells being unevadable unlike attacks? You sure you understand what he wrote at all? What you quoted him call out has no more AI than randomly placed totems with some x or y "you need to take this damage in this amount" effects.

I'll show a couple examples. Enemies moving out of projectile range when separated by a chasm is AI. Enemies scattering to avoid AoE damage is AI. This is what PoE already has; it's good but not nearly enough, because these AI elements are annoying but not really skill-taxing.

What it doesn't have yet is (not limited to):
— enemies using their skills more efficiently depending on the difficulty;
— enemies having more skills to use compared to lower difficulties;
— different enemies using their skills in synergies (such as being able to tell whether the player character is under a status ailment/beartrapped/etc) when deciding which of them to use. Currently only a couple bosses do this.

See the difference now? There's such insane room yet to improve it's just ridiculous, but not seeing that in the first place might be even more so.

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Septile wrote:

Based off of the way you wrote this, I'm thinking that really, you just don't like having to adapt to the difficulty of the game, and choose to blame the game instead of yourself. Don't worry, it's common.

Doesn't this sound pretentious now, in the light of the above. Doesn't it sound like you're putting valid criticism down because its author has the need for higher standards and recognizes them elsewhere.

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Septile wrote:

There are plenty of safely farmable areas in PoE, you refer to D2 item progression and totally ignore the fact that there were massive amounts of dupes significantly lowering the gear ceiling for everybody, you do the same to crafting and trading what you did with your criticism of difficulty, "I don't like it therefore it's not the correct execution." You refer to the spirit of Diablo games being killing monsters and getting loot, which isn't wrong, but at the same time, closer to the spirit of Diablo is making a ton of dupes of imbalanced items and making them cost not even a tenth of what they should. That was how D1 was done, and the same for D2.

I'm impressed you're going on invalidating perfectly valid feedback with something that doesn't have anything to do with it. Your argument holds no water if you remove any mention of dupes from it, and I'm pretty sure the original feedback wasn't based on that either.

I've played all three of these self-found (D1 and D2 exclusively self-found; PoE obviously less so, but more than enough to form an informed opinion). Let's put it like this: acquiring insane endgame items was never quick nor easy, and in this sense these games do not significantly differ. But the headstart D1 and D2 have on PoE with loot that's merely good enough for a steady progress through the game is borderline unbelievable. If I ever felt gated by gear in either of the former two games I would just rerun a couple areas (or buy/gamble a few items from a vendor), and it was typically enough. Whereas in PoE it's not only mandatory, but also much less rewarding because of the oppressive influence of global economy, and vendors never sell anything remotely useful past act 2 Normal, except the occasional currency boost in the form of a chrome item or a 6S. Considering how bad magic items in PoE generally are, vendors could have at least sold more of them. Instead, they're selling white items for the price of making a white item magic.

The only redeeming quality PoE has in this respect is that in most cases the process of grinding for gear is in itself more involving, and thus fun. It's the only reason to tolerate it at all, because it's much more grind-heavy than any other ARPG I've played (except Ragnarok Online I guess, but I haven't gone far in that).

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Septile wrote:

You don't need anything more than a 4-link to play the vast majority of builds at endgame

Oh wow, that's such a bold statement it demands at least some kind of proof. Exactly what are you calling endgame anyway? Act 3X, early maps, hellishly difficult quantity-centered 76-78 maps?

Well, doesn't matter, let's make it simple. Please name me any three identifiable builds that can fight Merciless Dominus at level, say, 68-72 on a Hardcore league without a single 5-link nor a multi-exalt unique, and survive. You can have any time you need to do your research, just answer it at all. And no, don't give me level 80+ characters as an example—leveled gems and that extra life do make a huge difference even aside the decked gear. And don't give me Softcore examples either because we all know any single non-map fight can be won there with Portal + Cast on Death and enough spare time.

I don't really care if you're having troubles with the constraints I put forth because the level of the area is 68, and every other boss in the game can be fought at around its area level on any league with a great multitude of builds as long as the relevant resists are high enough. I know because I've done that in Nemesis with a melee character just recently, with garbage gear (worn Tabula Rasa to Merciless, had both my ST and AoE skills in there, used 1 defensive aura and 6 endurance charges to bring my resists to between 50-65). Carried a party while at it. If Dom was intended for higher-level toons, I would expect him to reside in a higher-level area to begin with.

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Septile wrote:

A crit spell build using ice spear or ethereal knives for example.

Greeeeat advice. What are the chances you've tried it past early Cruel or so yourself upon release?

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RagnarokChu wrote:

PoE is not balanced around having those either, how do you think people get to merc/maps in one entire day at the start of leagues?

Several things wrong with this argument.

1. They party and trade with each other heavily in the vast majority of the cases, taking advantage of both the quantity bonus, hassle-free item distribution, and general ease of tackling hard situations in a party. I don't think anybody has reached maps in a day solo self-found because everything starting with Merc Vaal is an insane gear/build check.

2. When people die at the start of leagues, they're losing a little bit of economy headstart and garbage gear they've found on the way. When people die in the race, they're losing a few reward points. They aren't losing anything really valuable in either case, because they don't have anything really valuable at that point to begin with, at least not something they can preserve.

3. The opportunity cost of aggressive play at the start of a league/in a race is insane compared to the drawbacks. Aside the egotistic perks such as "I was here first" there's economy to take advantage of. In the middle of a league people play a lot safer, and have decent twink gear to compensate for the lack of aggressiveness.

4. 99% of the time it's the same few dozen people reaching that shit in a day, out of dozens of thousands. These same few people are obviously as skilled and experienced as you can reasonably expect from a player of this game, and they're spending a lot more time with the game than most of us ever could. Referring to their achievements as any kind of the norm is ridiculous. A less experienced player with less free time would need at least 3-4 decent days to reach maps without twink gear, and I don't expect anything short of a week to fight Merc Dominus on Hardcore.

5. Most of the time it's the same 5-6 early bloom builds that respec and/or expand upon reaching the actually hard content, or upon finding items for their proper build and grinding farm areas until then.

Just wanted to say a few things...

Firstly, I think the feedback was good and some of the comparisons are fair. I don't agree with some of it but then we all have our own ideas don't we :)
Either way, I'm sure the post will serve some use to GGG.

I've played PoE since Open Beta and have had a couple of breaks during that time (the longest lasting around 5 weeks).

The first thing I want to confirm is that once you have an indepth knowledge of the game (which was the same with D2) then self-found gear is absolutely fine to reach Merciless with.
The idea you need really good gear is simply not true. Ofcourse it helps but you really don't. Knowledge of which resistance needs to be high at which point in the game is an example of where game knowledge helps permit your progression whilst not necessarily having anything other than mediocre gear.

Secondly, you seem to have completely ruled out the possibility of progression through making your own gear. There is an assumption that because you can't dictate what stats your gear will have, crafting is out of the question. Well, its not.
I craft constantly and sure, there are many, many, MANY time I just sell the rare i made with my latest alchemy but every now and then you get something awesome. Its gives me that warm fuzzy feeling that we all crave. A rush of blood and the excitement of checking your tooltips for stat improvements. Thats why we all play right?

A lot of players save all their orbs. They save and save and save and then they trade. They get their 15 alc orbs and buy an awesome tri-res chest. Thats cool. That player now feels more comfortable and safe running round Wraeclast.
Question: What is the likelyhood they will upgrade that chest from a find? Minimal... clearly. Therefore, trading is now an integral part of this characters progression. It becomes a daily ritual to check the sites and forums for that golden purchase.

Personally, I would rather craft and fail and get lucky once a day or whatever than enter the loop of permanent trading. I find it really irritating when people say all the drops suck etc and I really believe a lot of it is down to the above.

From my extensive self-found play, between the currency collected, the items crafted and the items found, the pace of the game is absolutely spot on.

@ OP - you are absolutely correct regarding the Act3x. The tuning is so OTT it really should be changed.
2 days ago i was levelling in normal. I grinded docks until 38 to be sure I wouldn't fall to Dominus. Urghhhhh.
You then get to Cruel and breeze through to Act 3 Docks again. Thats a pretty zzzz way to play.

It is nice to see such a well thought out post. While I respect your opinions and am glad you posted them, I disagree with some of your points.


I agree with you that Act 3 is a sudden jump in difficulty. Experience with the area and the right gear equipped can make the act much more playable, but for a first time player with no gear buffs to fall back on, it is a rather harsh awakening.

I don't think GGG needs to "nerf" these monsters, so much as they need some plot points and foreshadowing by the NPCs on just how horrid and dangerous Sarn really is.

In so many RPGs you wander around and kill monsters for loot and experience. They are basically a travelogue with puzzles or some combat challenges. The only real difficulty most of them offer is at end game or with bosses. The rest is usually a stroll through fantasy scenery populated by unusual creatures.

That whole notion comes to a screeching halt in Sarn. Sarn is their city and they intend to keep it that way. You may go hunting monsters in act 1 and act 2, but in act 3 the monsters quickly and unceremoniously dispatch you. You are the prey here, not the predator.

Monsters a thousand years old don't survive that long by being weak.

It is completely unexpected, which is why GGG needs to elaborate and explain why Sarn is so horrific.


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I would agree with your item drop assessment when you are talking about a higher level character who has some semi-decent gear.

Until act 3 normal, the game is easily playable with the drops you get along the way. You may need to run through a couple zones a few times for the added life, passive points and items, but if you are playing near the level of your character the drops are good enough.

Act 3 normal is where basic training ends and you get dropped in the combat zone. It's gear check time.

Fortunately, GGG lets you buy Alchs. A few of these on those worthless white items can transform them into the item you need. Also - some of those blue weapons and armor are good enough to use for quite awhile.

If you've built a glass cannon/killing machine with little to no defense, you will need some serious gear to avoid dying often. If you've built a defensive tank with little killing ability, you will also struggle, moving slowly and having problems with fast regenerators or spawners.

Later game does require some grinding for your gear. Not much of a surprise from a company named Grinding Gear Games is it? :-)

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Crafting still needs some love, but it isn't tough to get a four linked item, and for most purposes that will carry your character a long way. If a mediocre player such as myself can do level 75+ maps without a single 5 link, just about anyone can play most of the game without the top notch gear.

Having said that, if you play long enough in challenging areas, you will start to see some very nice items drop. Things that you could never afford to trade for unless you spent a lot of time "flipping" items.

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You mention rune words like Insight. Insight is a third generation rune word in a very well developed game that was on its second iteration (LOD). Charms, Torches and many of the character boosting gear weren't around to start out with.

The right combination of D2 boosters made the character so overpowered that there wasn't any challenge at all, with few exceptions. Bosses became speed bumps, and the end game was how fast can I reach and kill Baal, Andariel, Mephisto, Nihlathak (or clear the pit etc)


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As for sets, GGG has stated that they don't like sets because they lock characters into particular gear combos for too long.

One thing I have found in PoE, is that when my character is hitting a wall, I can change out a few rings or the helmet or boots and sacrifice something to gain something else. At times, this proves to be a huge boon and the character moves on with ease. Other times, it turns out that was a bad gear change and I go back to the drawing board. Changing out one or two gear pieces is much easier when there are no sets to break up.

As for the idea of sets themselves, I recall that when I first suggested for Diablo (in A.G.D.) that collections of items with the same suffix or prefix should receive a bonus. Blizzard's take on the idea much later in D2 was fun and interesting, but it lacked the gist of the set idea which was that the prefix or suffix itself had some mystical powers. Items of the "Sky" for instance, were weak, but a full set of them might bestow some serious power when the wearer was connected to the full power of the Sky.

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As for the safely farmable zones:

Act 1 - the Ledge
Act 2 - Fellshrine
Act 3 - Docks.
Maps - Dried Lake, Tropical Island then Dunes.

Run those enough, and you will have the gear to be able to farm tougher maps,

On this point, I do think you missed one of Path of Exile's major bonuses. The closer you are to the level of the zone (basically -not over leveled, and not being rushed through) the better the quantity and frequency of drops.

Playing and pushing through the game where your character is staying close to the zone levels will net some very nice items. This doesn't guarantee you will find 2-3 uniques by the time you hit act 3, but the potential for very nice drops is much higher when you aren't farming or over leveled.

IMO - GGG has this one nailed down perfectly. All other games should emulate this particular aspect.

For the end game - more dangerous areas = better gear potential. For example, the level 71 Colonnade maps suck in terms of the odds of having your character get whacked, but I've seen some very nice items drop there. The Bogs, Pier, and Graveyard maps are only one level lower at 70, but in my experience the number of jaw dropping gear drops in those maps is nowhere close to Colonnade maps.

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As for Diablo 2 having runewords .... Lord of Destruction introduced runes and runewords, D2 classic didn't have them until 1.09.

The early runewords were occasionally semi-useful (Steel anyone?), or occasionally overpowered (hard to beat Ancient's Pledge on a shield for quite some time with a new character). The later runewords ended up defining the game. Enigma or Chains of Honor? Heart of the Oak or Grief/Last Wish? Spirit or Exile? The over powering way the runewords were implemented generated too much cookie cutting IMO.


As for uniques, in Diablo they originally didn't have any level requirements - nor did gems, so you could socket a couple perfect sapphires into an armor and give your new sorceress an overpowering mana boost, or your weapon and get game breaking cold damage. Your level one character could also start out with some Frostburns, Hot Spurs, Tarnhelm, Twitchthroes or many other uniques. They had to patch that fairly quickly. Many of the more used and useful uniques came later.

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The D2 crafting system? Imbue was OK for a brand new character, but otherwise almost always an item to be vendored. The various "recipes" for crafting in D2 were basically a handful of almost useful mods (low numbers of leech, crushing blow etc) and the chance to basically randomly roll a rare item.

GGG's answer to that is - an Alchemy shard. Or you can make or reroll a blue with transmutes or alts to get the first 2 mods you want. Getting what you want later with regals and exalts is a trial by nuclear fire.

Not easy by any means, but you can semi-control it, if you have enough crafting wealth. D2/LOD had nothing like this.

I have seen players go from a 1 socket item to a 6 socket with 1-3 orbs. I have seen some link those to 5 or 6 links with very few orbs. I have seen some alch an item and turn a blank canvas into something that would make Rembrandt envious. In almost every case though - the near final product was just that. It needed one more link, or one last perfect affix. Getting that last link or that 6th awesome affix on an item that has everything else seems to be Hell on Steroids - As It Should Be.

This doesn't make it easy. RNG is no one's b***ch.

Should GGG add some more recipes to allow some more controlled crafting? Sure they can, and probably will over time.

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As for the "pacing" for non-ultra-hardcore players to get to top notch items...

I consider myself a casual player. If I wasn't I wouldn't bother taking the time to respond here in length when I could be playing. I have personally seen drop in games: 5 Lioneye's Glaresp, a Shavronne's Wrappings (and know a player who chanced one), several Bringers of Rain, lots of Rainbow Strides (got one myself after open release), a couple Voltaxic Rifts, a Death's Oath, three Abyssus (one was mine), a couple Alpha's Howl, a Devoto's Devotion, two Dyadus, a couple Rise of the Phoenix, a Saffel's frame, an Auxium, a couple Dream Fragments, 2 Le Heup of Alls, a Thief's Torment, a Death Rush, a Ming's Heart and countless other uniques.

I've seen some rares drop in game that were mind boggling in terms of how good they were.

The path to these drops....? Be a contributing player in a decent map group. Keep playing despite the ups and downs. Save up some chisels and chaos to contribute to rolling a good map. Then when you are in a nice group in a couple 97% or 104% quantity Dry Woods maps, make sure you have enough ID scrolls, because there will be dozens and dozens of potentially nice rare items left behind unidentified otherwise. Now let's say you find a super item, but one of the players you have been mapping with the last few hours or days needs it more than you. Give it to them or trade it to them cheaply. Now you have a friend or friends that will invite you along on the Unique mountain ledge map, or their level 76+ map runs.

If you run (and survive all the way through most of the time) a couple dozen 75+ maps, I would be surprised if you didn't have one or two items that would make most players drool.

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I haven't read anywhere (please correct me if I am wrong) where GGG intentionally manipulates the drops to affect trading. They have stated the ability to basically turn off drops for players they believe are botting/hacking.

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For all the bad press Diablo 3 wasn't all bad. It had its fun moments, it just wasn't what it could have or should have been. IMO - the problem isn't any particular game mechanic or combination. The problem lies with overall approach of the team making it.

For instance, take the legendary Cluckeye Bow. It fires chickens. Silly? Yes. Fun? Yes. Meme worthy? No. Why not? Blizzard should have required a bizarre Easter egg type quest to acquire the weapon, and then made it powerful enough that it would be used often enough for players to laugh at and enjoy. D3 vs D2 was Whimsyshire vs Cow Level. One has an initial amusement value that quickly fades, the other holds players' interest.

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GGG has an improved trading system already planned, so I will wait to see it before I comment on it. The point here is they know it needs some fixing and are trying to make the fix works correctly before they release it. e

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Math is optional in PoE, unless you want to flip items or min/max your playing time.

A chaos, for instance, used to be 2 alchemy orbs. Fusings could only be found and were valued much higher than a chaos was. When they added act 3 and vendors sold Alchs and Fusings, the fusings were much much cheaper than the Alchs, yet fusings rapidly attained the same value due to demand.

I'll quote you here since summarizing this would be messy:

"That is--if 2 fusings is a chaos, and 25 chaos is an exalt, and it takes 100 fusings (on average) to get a 5-L, well, basic math says that just to use and sustain a basic freaking lightning arrow and an aura, you'd need to throw 2 exalts worth of fusings just so you can run lightning arrow-lmp-pierce/chain-blood magic-LGoH/lifeleech. "


It isn't that hard to get 100 fusings, (a dozen hours of Cruel Merveil runs should do it if you aren't wasting time) but on average I think it would take more than that to get a 5 link. A six link is icing on the cake, but rarely needed. For the lightning arrow example above - chain dilutes your damage too much, pierce is rarely necessary due to passive nodes and the way lightning arrow inherently spreads. You could run blood magic, or just throw a mana leech gem in instead of the life gain/steal. You won't do enough leeching to sustain big hits anyways, so a small amount of leech (3-5%) that you can get from other gear will keep your life ball topped off.

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Desync - It is a known problem. For some players, it is a deal breaker. GGG has a slight improvement coming soon in a patch. What sort of long term fixes there will be are unknown.

Diablo 2 had its own desync issues, though people just called it "Lag" back then. The Lag Monster was well known. The game might "hurry up" everything when it resynced (and kill you off with the damage done) or it might undo some previous actions. An example would be finding a Ber rune. Hooray, a great find. Wait.... lag... Never happened. Whole game dumps.

Desync is somewhat different in cause, but playing around it is possible. Trying to run through areas as you mentioned is dangerous, especially if there are lots of monsters there. Chances are probably very very high that one or more of them is blocking your path and you will bounce back and possibly take a hit. Fight your way through and you will live a lot more often.

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Re: the Plot or rather the lack thereof.

I agree somewhat. PoE could use more lore, and GGG is parsing out the plot a few molecules at a time. For many players, this is just fine as they want to play, not participate in an online story book.

Others, like the lore or want it there to give the world more immersion. Personally, I love lore so long as it isn't forced on the player. Exploring the world and optionally learning the lore is fun. Diablo 3 was more of a Linda Lovelace experience with so much lore shoved down the character's throat that it bordered on being abusive.

Witness the Scion. Her gameplay is fun, but her mouth just never seems to stop working. Yak, yak, yak. She has some interesting lore in there somewhere, but I'll be damned if I'm going to keep paying attention to the incessant jabbering to discover it.

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Music:

You mentioned the Last Remnant in a very positive light.

First off, I recognize that musical tastes can be different, and I don't mean to offend anyone's taste in music.

I would never hold the Last Remnant up as an example of how game music should be done. It isn't original, clever, catchy, awe inspiring, moody or any of the other things that make a soundtrack worthwhile.

That isn't to say it is bad. It's alright. At times it is formulaic and other times bombastic. It isn't epic by any measure.

Seiken Densetsu 3 is ok as well. Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana are better in terms of being a game soundtrack.

The Tristram theme is awesome, but only has 2 memorable sections, (45 seconds in to a minute and a half, and from 3 minutes in to the 4 minute mark) the rest is just wonderfully melodic.

Matt Uelmen is a great game composer. He didn't try to make catchy songs and paste them on top of the game scenes. He made music that added to the atmosphere of the game.

Atmospheric music is by nature without the same rhythmic and tonal forms that make popular music and old favorite songs so catchy. Think Jingle Bells, or Row Row Row your boat. Breaking the structure so that you focus more on the actual harmonic whole is what a well crafted atmospheric piece will do.

Making one catchy at the same time is very difficult, particularly as more and more songs are written and there are less original possibilities left.

Loki - Heroes of Mythology - had very few catchy pieces, but was probably the closest a game has come to Diablo 1 in music that viscerally adds to the feel of the game.

Scott Morton & Michael Verrette's work on Titan Quest was also phenomenal. Some of it is catchy, but not all of it.

If you wanted real genius in soundtracks, you'd have to look further to the likes of

Zbigniew Preisner, Maurice Jarre or Ennnio Morricone.

Hiring the likes of these and their accompanying orchestra might be something for GGG to shoot for when they work on Path of Exile 2 after having fabulous success with PoE.

Adgio Hutching's work is well suited to Path of Exile.

Lioneye's Watch (the original version is much better) is a fantastic rendition of the relentless waves lapping at a slowly dying coastal outpost.

Solaris Temple is brilliant. The wordless aria is a lament for the lost grandeur of Sarn, underscored by the yearning accompaniment of the strings. The falling tear drop piano notes give way to restrained fanfares that conjure up the empire that proved to be as relentless as it was hollow. Hutching comes back to the simple theme a few times, each time bringing forth a different emotion, anger and then finally reconciliation.

The Forest theme and many of others are nicely done as well.

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As to the straw man argument used to try and deflect legitimate commentary...

Many of the players that like the difficulty in PoE are neither misguided nor paranoid. The world is full of waltz through the content games. PoE is not one of them.

GGG recognizes that they don't have a perfect game, and some aspects need a little balancing and tweaking. What they don't need, IMO, is a wholesale nerfing of difficulty and challenge.

I do agree with you that there are changes to be made. Crafting and the Act 3 difficulty gap need some tweaking. I agree that it would be better if the extra difficulty came from monster AI rather than just an enemies lethal attack speed or brute force - at least some of the time.

When you face a hungry lion, it isn't the lion's cunning technique that will get you killed. Raw savage killing power is right there staring you eyeball to eyeball, and sometimes Path of Exile is that way.

Your task is to not end up in the lion's belly. Running won't save you here, but praticed killing techniques ... might...

Once again, I do respect your opinion, but I think if you stick with Path of Exile a bit longer, you will find a method through the madness and began carving out chunks of Wraeclast as your own personal fief.

OP has very good points. PoE is a rose covered in thorns.

And I think it's telling that the only refutations people give are "take off your nostalgia glasses."

"

Nyraeus wrote:

OP has very good points. PoE is a rose covered in thorns.

And I think it's telling that the only refutations people give are "take off your nostalgia glasses."

I suggest you put your reading glasses on. While some points had merit, quite a few did not. And were pointed out in this thread.