A critical look at Path of Exile [be constructive no trolls]

Hi gents,

TL;DR:

Needs more polishing and to fix a couple of loopholes but so far clearly in the right direction.

This thread intends to provide a constructive feedback taking into consideration that this is just an open beta experience. The fact I might use comparison to the Diablo series or Baldur’s gate is not to open the door to trolls but merely because I feel that the community input is well considered from GGG.
I would consider myself as a casual but ex-hardcore player and a good sample of the male 28-38 age bracket: so started with Arcade gaming then pc with some gems like Diablo 1 or command & conquer.
Only regret so far is that I missed the opportunity to participate to this amazing project funding.

So let’s break the A-RPG PoE experience so far:

1. The lore:
Clearly a weak point of PoE: I can see the classical references (and some Magic the gathering influences even) but the world lacks cohesion, and I am missing the storyline. Even for a game still in beta I would expect more. Comparing it to Diablo 3 at the same beta-stage: where are the old books lying in the dungeons or the old scriptures half buried in the forest? You want bigger non-combat areas (Act 1 & 2) with more NPCs even if 75% of them would be useless (aka “Farnham the drunk” character). Point is: the player shouldn’t ask himself why he is slaying random humans on a beach?

In short: not enough RPG elements.

2. Combat:

Slaying is your daily business in an A-RPG. I like the low-level combat experience: very classic, very diablo 1, especially thanks to the close up camera and light-radius. However I think that beyond the very first level on the beach kitting should be that easy. The other problem is the complexity of the combat. At the moment it feels a little bit too repetitive: two reasons for it. First, in RPG you have three types of monsters in general: Slow & heavy damage / Fast & low damage / Support - champion being a combination of those with one or two buff. In PoE at the moment, I am feeling in Act 1 almost all monsters are Slow & Low damage, the first fast one was encountered in Act 2 Vaal path (forgot the name but looked like a viper’s tomb from Diablo 2).
The other problem is linked to the interface: for champions it is hard to read what buff & resistances they have (too much text written too small) so sometimes it ends up like a dumb fight spending 10 ice spear on something immune to cold. Other little thing: curses affecting you, you want an icon above your xp bar (e.g. Diablo 3 style) telling you what is happening to you. I am seeing nice 3d bubbles around my character but I have no idea of what is going on.
Last thing: one design that Blizzard didn’t mess up in Diablo 3 was the champion system with innovative affixes: molten / plague / fire chains – you could easily steal a couple of ideas there to bring more variety in combat by forcing repositioning of the payer.

So in short: more balancing needed on Slow / Fast monsters to break the monotony, improve interface a bit.

3. Items and economy:

Love the barter economy – bring back memories of the SoJ great days. I think with this and the ladder resets you could easily get things under control: that’s a very elegant solution and would hopefully limit boting as well. Same to be said of the inventory size, would probably even reduce the stash size to 2-3 tabs only to promote some income stream by selling extra tabs (but that s me looking at the profitability).
All in all I think the itemization is excellent, maybe I would reduce a little bit the overall drop rate from monsters as the screen feels sometime a little bit cluttered and it would enhance the amazing feel of seeing a rare (please don’t go the Diablo 3 routes where legendaries now feel like blue items)

So in short: clear strong point would maybe lower a tiny bit the drop rates.

4. Areas & visuals:

Visual aspects of the game are pretty good overall, need polishing of course but we are in beta (White entrance, water border lacking textures, need fog effects in the dark forests….). Areas-wise you want to add more high quality non-random pieces while randomising an area this would help some places to feel less generic. Also from a gameplay standpoint you want to have useless cave/tomb instances along the way (e.g. Diablo 2 style) within the open-areas. Also: timers on instances between waypoint are too short.

So in short: pretty nice, inside areas better and less monotonous than outside areas.

5. Sounds:

Key for the immersion. It is a little bit weak at the moment and could be improved very easily: more character & zone specific first time quotes, more dying monster sounds, more environment sounds (waves, winds, birds, forest animals – especially in open areas). Also you want one dark but catchy music in one of your town / intro theme that would be buried deep into the player’s brain.

So in short: probably the weaker area could easily be fixed.

My only fear is that to get pass the polishing phase and launch this you are probably at minimum 6 months off.

What you should try: ask the community to come up with original sounds/musics/textures/3d objects/animations. Look at the mods done for Diablo 1 and 2, you could leverage this easily in an open context (Blizzard did that for monster’s mechanic, treasure goblins probably even came from that).

EDIT: Multiplayer: after 15 mins couldn't get into one of the act 2 vaal run nor create a working party were people could join my instance :(

"

ddd_ wrote:

Hi gents,
1. The lore:
Clearly a weak point of PoE: I can see the classical references (and some Magic the gathering influences even) but the world lacks cohesion, and I am missing the storyline. Even for a game still in beta I would expect more. Comparing it to Diablo 3 at the same beta-stage: where are the old books lying in the dungeons or the old scriptures half buried in the forest? You want bigger non-combat areas (Act 1 & 2) with more NPCs even if 75% of them would be useless (aka “Farnham the drunk” character). Point is: the player shouldn’t ask himself why he is slaying random humans on a beach?

I agree the game's 'narrative' can do with some polish and sprucing, but I just wanted to say that I am ABSOLUTELY AND UTTERLY sick of books. Skyrim, Dishonored, Mass Effect - fuck every game these days has useless trinkets or books lying around with paragraph upon paragraph of WORDS in them. We cannot expect 99.978% of players to SIT THERE and read a novel when they're in a game world. It's a ham-fisted way to deliver story.

VERY, VERY short textual interactive things like Shavronne's journal in the prison are a nice touch and we should see more of these things ---- but I want to caution that I do NOT want pages upon pages of literature stuffed around every corner. Put the important stuff into words and leave it there.

Path of Exile has a very sublime narrative as it stands -- most of it is visual. From the winding roads through the bleak prison, fellshrine graveyard and chamber of sins, to the strange symbols/graffiti in the Sarn slums. There is clearly a history to Wraeclast that is of some note, though it can be further deepened with polish, I would rather see the story of POE expanded in a less direct way. Players DO NOT need to know why they're slaying things, it's for survival and profit, that much is obvious. There need not be some convoluted reason for doing the things we do. We should expect every player to have his or her own reason, after a little suggestion.

"

Players DO NOT need to know why they're slaying things, it's for survival and profit, that much is obvious. There need not be some convoluted reason for doing the things we do

Well it seems we would have to agree to disagree then. Or let's meet halfway: you do not open the books (but I will).

I like books in RPG f they are written well,for example witcher, but PoE doesn't really game where you make players to stop and read lorem or books.

I haven't felt compelled to listen to dialogue from the NPCs after the first few minutes in act 1's camp. I have no idea what's going on in the story and I don't care that I don't.

So yeah, lore is a problem. Maybe cut scenes could help. One general one after launch (that you can disable if you want), unique one for each character after picking, and ones at key moments in the story.

"

I haven't felt compelled to listen to dialogue from the NPCs after the first few minutes in act 1's camp. I have no idea what's going on in the story and I don't care that I don't.

You must be playing as a barb :)

i agree with the sound...quite boring...can't remember any of the the themes played in any instance...

"

ddd_ wrote:

"

Players DO NOT need to know why they're slaying things, it's for survival and profit, that much is obvious. There need not be some convoluted reason for doing the things we do

Well it seems we would have to agree to disagree then. Or let's meet halfway: you do not open the books (but I will).

The development time making books is trivial, so I wouldn't mind I guess if they added them -- but I think it is a terrible way to deliver story because 99% of the player base is not going to read them. It's basically throwing up your hands and saying, "I have no idea how to deliver a story in a video game!!!!"

GGG has delivered quite an interesting story. You can understand most of it without even listening to the NPCs chatter. Note how Piety is visiting places where executions are held? I wonder why she is experimenting with torture devices? Why has she been sent from Theopolis to Wraeclast, why is she investigating prisons and execution slaughterhouses? ...Oh right! That makes sense. It also explains why you have to fight her. There you go, story executed. Granted, it's not a gripping story, but maybe it doesn't have to be. This isn't the type of game that goes well with a story, since it's supposed to be highly replayable.

Also, cutscenes are fine if you can skip them, but the cost:benefit analysis of them I think reveals they are wasteful. It costs a lot of developer time and money to make a cutscene and adds no gameplay value whatsoever. Whatever narrative you deliver with a cutscene CAN be integrated into the gameplay without screwing up anything at all, without making people wait or sit around.

I don't want to watch a movie or read a book when I'm playing a video game, that's what those activities themselves are for. I would strongly recommend GGG think of more creative ways to deliver story, but they have already demonstrated they can do this, they just haven't emphasized it enough or done it in enough places, it's more or less a polish thing.

I agree with Anubite, at least partly. I think the game has a great story, and while the storytelling isn't the most polished, I don't think "polished" was the way developers wanted it in the first place. There's a lot of hidden details, and it's certainly fun to find them. About the only thing I'm confused about are Vaal, not many NPCs give any details about their origin, culture, society or downfall. The way they are linked to Virtue Gems (skill gems) and seeing how pivotal these gems are to the act 3 storyline, I think we'll get more info when we see act 3x.

I'm not against books though, but only if they're well done. I can wholeheartedly say I'd read every one of them.