Learn From Diablo 2

I played Diablo 2 (hardcore) for a very long time. I liked it very much. And the main reasons why I stopped playing had surprisingly nothing to do with me getting bored with the content. It had more to do with the following:

1. Bots. Programs that "play" the game for you (farming bosses for items, leveling, etc.) while you're sleeping or doing whatever. This type of thing ruins the in-game economy, especially for those who play the game legitimately. It also gives players who use such programs an unfair advantage in PVE and PVP. However, this type of thing doesn't seem like it's going to be going away anytime soon. Not even Blizzard with all of resources could stop botting in their cash cow, World of Warcraft; and they've had 7 years. That doesn't mean something shouldn't be done though, because if nothing is done, then the effect of bots will be much worse.

2. Duping. There were and are still many glitches, oversights, and flaws in the code of Diablo II that allow players to duplicate items. This had the same effect on the game as (1). I just hope that you (Grinding Gear Games) create a solid game that won't be as susceptible to the same kind of exploitation; and I also hope that you will be vigilant in looking for and fixing these sorts of loopholes.

3. Other cheats. By other cheats I mean hacks like TMC's breakpoint mod for Diablo II: a program that allows you to alter things like your character's attack speed and cast speed. I'm not a programmer or anything, but I think it'd be a good idea for your development team to check out these sorts of hacks and figure out how they work, so that they'll be better equipped at dealing with them.

4. Ridiculously powerful items or skills that leave game play balance in ruins. In Diablo II there is an item (specifically a runeword) called Enigma that allows its wearer to use the skill Teleport, which is a Sorceress skill. The problem is most of the other skills aren't balanced around teleportion: that's because originally only one class could teleport, the Sorceress. So, after Enigma was introduced, high-damaging skills like Blessed Hammers, which is normally more difficult to use against both monsters and other players, became very easy to use. All you have to do now is teleport on your target and spam Blessed Hammers! No positioning required. This (along with some other things) ruined PVP in Diablo II.

5. Small number of item/experience hotspots. In Diablo 2, leveling and item hunting primarily consists of creating a game and rushing to a certain area as quick as possible (Meph runs, Baal runs, etc.), and then creating a town portal so that everyone else can come join you (if you're there for experience that is). And after killing off the monsters and the boss in this one particular area, all of you leave the game and repeat the process ad nauseum. This leads to boredom, and makes the game extremely predicable and thus easy.

6. Gold seller spam. I think everyone knows what this is.




And there you go... I hope Path of Exile is an awesome game.

Yeah most of these are pretty important things to be concerned about. For me the main one is actually probably the one about repetition at the end of the game. I think there should be a range of options that are worthwile.

Nice thread Matt1128Y, I am sure PoE developers know these things, but I dunno what could be done against bots, the other points are solvable.

Bots and Other cheats exist and that's nothing we can really do bout it. But I hope GGG is going to have many so-called "gamemasters" who will at least try to stop such a destructive behaviors.

Personally I really enjoyed Baal runs. They were fun and just good to get some cool loot. But I enjoyed them because I had already experienced everything there was to experience in Diablo 2. With a new game, I wouldn't want this sought of thing to occur until I have experienced everything there would be to experience... but then again, who knows how long this game will last for me, could be for a year or 8+ like Diablo 2.

Really great post mate with some very good topics to consider.
I too agree with and have had to exact some experience in D2...for both the good and bad.

PoE has been built with bots and hacking in mind. So they are taking extra precaution. Also since it is a item based economy gold isn't an issue. Also they are able to see if some is duping items. Still it'll be interesting to see how this translates to the full release of the game.

Knowing that GGG founders played D2 for years, you can be sure they know about all the problems of the game (= Hopefully they can do better than Blizzard (tbh I think its been many many many years since Blizzard really cared about D2).

P.S. D2 Single Player rocks (5 of the 6 problems eliminated by starting a single player character^^) ;P

Developing a compelling end game experience is something GGG has been putting a lot of effort into. That's as far as I can go on that topic.

I agree with everything you said... And I hope they(the dev team) will offer a great experience with their game.

But as they are listening to us, asking for our opinions, and seems really passionned by this kind of games... I'm really excited and confident :)