Path of Exile - Review @ Gamespot

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Gamespot posted a new review for Path of Exile, and gave the game a final score of 9/10.

Considering that Path of Exile costs you nothing beyond some Internet bandwidth, it provides an embarrassment of pleasures. If you like standing out in a crowd, you could toss Grinding Gear Games some cash by purchasing a cosmetic accessory, like a nature aura to surround your wand, or a pet ferret to tail you. I'm so fully committed to Path of Exile that I've spent a bit of coin myself, and my witch is only one of many wayfarers I intend to guide through Wraeclast. Many mysteries still await me, even in the savage regions I've already charted.
More information.
 
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I do love PoE. I also give it a 9/10. It is amazing and immersive once you reach level 30 or so.

However…Gamespot's review is pretty egregious in how it doesn't even mention desync. Desync happens constantly to all players. It is much worse than Diablo II ever was for those who remember that.

Desync should lower the score significantly, I'm sad to say. Always online combined with horrible desync is a severe hit to PoE. I REALLY hope they fix the desync…but they haven't fixed it for years now…

I just wish PoE could be purchased as an offline product…because it truly is the true spiritual successor to Diablo II. It's that good. But yet another game that will become unplayable in the future, unable to be enjoyed for decades to come due to foolish always online nonsense. The future...it ain't what it used to be.
 
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I went back to PoE recently to test out the new class. I only had 1 short section of desync in 20 some odd levels of play. For me at least, desync is a million times better now than it was.
 
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I finally got around to giving this a play with a buddy on the weekend.

We started about lunch time, I got takeaway for dinner and finally had to force myself to stop playing at about 3AM!

I had 25-40ms ping, never desync. Ran awesome, played awesome. It did crash 2 times - both while I was quickly moving items over to barter.

I was constantly thinking how much better than Diablo3 it is. At one point I said something like "Diablo3 is more like WoW in an ARPG. This is like Diablo2 evolved!"

Best ARPG I've played in ages. 90% for sure, I reckon.
 
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Desync mostly happen when fighting around doors or when using lot of like jump.It wasn't big problem on my melee characters, but on my ranger it's really annoying, it even killed me couple of times.Problem is there since I started playing play in beginning of open beta, they should have fix it by now.
 
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I went back to PoE recently to test out the new class. I only had 1 short section of desync in 20 some odd levels of play. For me at least, desync is a million times better now than it was.

Glad to hear you didn't suffer much desync. However...the bad news is desync gets MUCH worse as you start using more skills, like around level 40 and up. Plus playing on Cruel and Merciless means 1 second of desync can easily kill you, easily.

I use a Duelist with Spectral Throw, Frenzy, Cleave, Dual Strike, and more. If you try to play tactically and quickly move from enemy to enemy you get major desync. At least I do...and from reports on the PoE forums, it sounds like the game just isn't programmed properly and desync will never be fixed...very unfortunate.

And for what it's worth, I'm playing D3 on PS3 right now and although it is much more simplistic, I do love D3 on PS3 too, giving it a 9/10 as well. D3 on console is so much better than on PC. So this is good. We have PoE for PC and D3 for console.
 
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I jumped on a pair of my 70s to test it out for awhile and I still have far less desync than I did during closed & open beta. I don't mess around in parties much so maybe that's why the improvement is easily noticeable for me (no annoying witch totem spamming).
 
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I played for ~15-20 hours recently, and it's a good game. I did suffer some annoying lag and impact delay, though.

Also, I don't think 3 acts is enough - as they're relatively small. The game is in serious need of 1-2 more acts.

But other than that, it's quite fantastic for what it is - but it's very much a game made with the Diablo 2 mindset.

I'd still prefer Diablo 3 with loot 2.0 and the expansion.
 
Also, I don't think 3 acts is enough - as they're relatively small. The game is in serious need of 1-2 more acts.

But other than that, it's quite fantastic for what it is - but it's very much a game made with the Diablo 2 mindset.

I'd still prefer Diablo 3 with loot 2.0 and the expansion.
Yeah, I agree and many others do as well. PoE does suffer from not enough content, even though I initially thought it had a fair amount. Part of the problem is the areas are randomized to a fault, resulting in totally illogical and "maze-like" areas. Ironically D2 had this issue too...I do prefer the Torchlight 2 method, which was random but with larger prefabs resulting in logical layouts.

And yes...PoE copies D2 to a fault I say. The XP penalty, the forced grinding at higher levels...the annoying searching for waypoints...a lot of annoyances.

Hence, I have to agree that Blizzard's more player-friendly D3 with loot 2.0 is a lot more fun. PoE is fun at lower levels but then becomes pretty obnoxious, much like an MMO.
 
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