Path of Exile - The Story of The Undying
 

The Path of Exile blog has a story from development about the Undying.

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I find the story presentation rather weak in PoE. I guess I should pay more attention to it, though.

But it's the sort of thing Diablo does much better.

problem is not the story, POE is not an arpg anymore it turned in some mindless grinding thing.

I think you just defined the genre right there :)

a proper arpg indeed has some grinding (or a lot of grinding) but big part of the fun comes from theorycrafting and trying everything that comes into your mind to eventually make it work. POE is just a flat , unbalanced grindfest where endgame is hunting gear with +hp on big numbers.

About balance, being POE a free to play game it has to costantly attract new player (so they will likely buy inventory slots or cosmetic stuff or whatever) and every single season there is 1 or 2 builds that are plain OP so mr.newguy can jump in and be cool.

Sounds like you had a bad experience with the game :)

I never played it that much, because I found the story and atmosphere dreadfully dull.

It does seem extremely varied when it comes to builds - and I would be very cautious talking about overall balance in a game with that many possibilities.

That said, I don't believe I've ever played a game rich in diversity that was balanced.

on the contrary i had an easy time with it, i used to play in its early days (and it was quite alright) and came back after year and noticed it just went worse : all i did was searching on the forum about the OP build of that season and it was poison arrow ranger, i rolled it and just trivialized content, downloaded all those silly 3rd party programs to trade and made lot of orbs of you name it.

I don't play anymore but people who still tell me since they removed difficulties is even worse.

Want a arpg with some real balance and you love rolling lot of characters and trying different builds? Try Grim Dawn.

I didn't say hard - I said bad ;)

Grim Dawn is even more dreadfully dull and boring to me, sorry. Finished that once, and I'm never going back. I think I used all of two skills to complete the entire game on Veteran (or whatever it was called) - because more was never necessary.

That said, if I was looking for a challenge - I probably wouldn't go searching for the most OP build and then act surprised after finding it was, indeed, OP :)

So far, in my experience - there will always be OP builds in these games. I tend to enjoy coming up with my own builds and see if they actually work.

But that's me.

Diablo 1 had less story presentation than PoE. Diablo 2 had cool cutscenes and the rest was basically like PoE or worse (but it had a memorable Deckard Cain).
Diablo 3 story and presentation was made for 6 year olds, just terrible. PoE is 10x better in both story and presentation (cool cutscenes of D3 mean little when it is all completely nonsensical).

PoE story is actually pretty cool, but it is not in your face like D3. You have to talk to NPCs and read the notes and stuff lying around. The world and lore is way more expansive and interesting than Diablo lore (at least if you only follow what is shown and said in the games). It is also full of tragic characters that tried to do good and failed. It also has surprising twists and such. At least in Acts 1 to 5.
Acts 6 to 10 are noticeably worse, but it is still better than doing acts 1 to 4 x3 like before.

There are builds that make content much easier yes. But there are many builds that are not as strong but fun. I have made 30 different characters in years of playing PoE and some worked in end game and some didn't but all of them were able to finish the story part of the game.

Game has its faults, but build diversity is not one of them. I have also 400+ hours in Grim Dawn and some builds there also trivialize content and it is even easier to get them completed as GD does not have the crazy loot hunt in the end game.
Also Grim Dawn is way more boring to get to end game.

It'd becoming sa thing between me and you and maybe other people on the forum isn't interested in this dispute so i'll drop the ball.

On GD i got 2600+hrs on it and i play since EA and i have to say it is a gem. You are right the fun comes from crafting your own thing and GD actively encourage you to do so (and offers real alternatives).

I found all Diablo games a lot more compelling in terms of presentation. Then again, Blizzard are masters of presentation - especially their cutscenes were always of high quality.

I never said anything about PoE story - as I don't know it. I said presentation. Diablo stories never did that much for me - but their presentation meant that I paid attention and cared enough to bother experiencing the story.

Hearing dry voice overs from cheap voice actors doesn't do it for me, sadly.

But story isn't the only problem in PoE. The environments are dull and oppressive in the wrong way. It might have worked back in 2000 - where I didn't expect as much.

Also, the moment-to-moment gameplay doesn't match Diablo 3 or something like Division - where actually playing the game is exciting as hell.

PoE is great for min-max'ing and grinding endlessly for gear.

That's cool, but it takes more for me to engage these days.

Fair enough :)

We all have favorites, though I don't think I've had 2600 hours in any game - ever. Except perhaps WoW.

These days, if we're talking about loot-driven games - I still prefer Diablo 3 or Division.

Diablo 3 is lacking in several areas - but the gameplay is pure fun and the production values are through the roof. Progression and set item focus isn't the greatest - but there's enough variety to satisfy.

Division is on an entirely different level when it comes to gameplay and immersion, but it's different enough to not be of the same genre.

But we definitely agree that the fun part of these games is coming up with your own builds and experimenting with the playstyles you enjoy.

I would say you put a lot of time into GD and you were able to master it and you didn't put enough time into PoE to master that. That is why you think as you think.

I have been playing both GD and PoE since they were both in beta. For a while when PoE had serious desync problems I was praising GD over it.

But now in my opinion PoE is overall a better game that offers more options. It is also a harder game to master and many of the mechanics are hidden from players. I have been crafting my own builds for years and it has allowed me to learn all the little details about how the game works.

@They Live

Don't mind Archangel. He likes to believe he knows what's right for everyone :)

He doesn't quite understand that his preferences are his and not yours.

Funny, it does not feel so long ago that I played PoE, yet I never knew that the number of acts more than doubled. And no different difficulty settings any more? Huh.

Anyways, Grim Dawn and PoE are definitely the best of the diablo genre (at least for me). Both allow to generate a large variety of quite different builds.
But in the end, I like Grim Dawn better. For ARPGs I usually prefer solo, and Grim Dawn is clearly designed more for solo players.
That is, Grim Dawn has better drop rates, no necessity to use an (awful!) trade system, no necessity to do repetitive master quests in multi-player (are those still a thing in PoE?)…
PoE really seemed to force the multi-player thing on me. Other people, damn, if I liked those would I sit in front of a computer all day? :biggrin:
Also, PoE forces you to be online, which used to be an issue (lag/disconnects/server crashes.). I get that this enables them to enforce fairness, but, again, this makes little sense for pure single-play.

With that said, I think the build diversity is better in PoE. Not enough for me to change my preference, but noticeably.

PS: With regards to story, both do reasonably well (for this genre). Presentation could sometimes be improved, but the lore was interesting to follow. I'd like to note that Grim Dawn seems to have more choices that actually have consequences.

I wouldn't define POE as an hard to master game, once you grasp the basics (as it happens with every other arpg) things are pretty easy to handle. Other the above gripes one thing i disliked was the overemphasis on trade to the point that you need 3rd party programs to handle it. But that's me.

Another personal opinion : i think the very concept of "endgame" is something that screw (to my taste) an arpg, GD is singleplayer centric and there is no endgame : you try builds, drop loot and use that loot for other builds.
Online games usually need some form of "endgame" to give people a timesink, games like poe and d3 (i wouldn't even start to talk about d3) have this "infinite farming environments" -aka fake content- they call endgame where you can just farm forever with 1 character.

D3 has a singleplayer campaign AND "infinite content" - GD just has a singleplayer campaign.

These games were, at least traditionally, always about farming for loot using the same content over and over.

The fact that D3 offers an alternative to playing the campaign over and over, is hardly a detriment.

But I agree it's not that compelling. I never cared much for "Adventure Mode" - but it's definitely better than not having it at all.

As for an "endgame" - that's something each individual will have to define for himself.

Is completing the campaign just once enough? Is completing it on the hardest setting enough? Is optimising your character enough? Is perfecting your character enough?

I think a quality ARPG of this subgenre MUST provide ways to achieve all of those, so that all players can be happy.

That just means you didn't really go beyond understanding the basics. You said you found a build guide and played that one build.
Do you know how point blank works?
Do you know how damage conversion works?
Do you know how leech works with Damage over time effects?
Do you know the difference between regeneration and recovery?
How does Intimidate work? Does it work on everyone?
Are curses of same effect on everyone? How many curses can affect enemies? How many can affect you?
How does skill duration passive work in combination with Lightning warp? How with Firestorm? How with Endurance Charges?
What is the bonus Power Charges gives? Does it also give any other bonus in combination with some ascendancy?
Is there a benefit for being a fast Lab runner?
Do you know how to run only shaped maps of your choice?
Did you ever acquire really rare unique items like Kaom's armor? Without wiking it, do you know what it does? What about Headhunter?
Do you know how many poison stacks can be on one target? And how many Ignites?
I got 1001 more questions like these. PoE is a super complicated game that asks its players to master it before they can truly understand how to make 1001 different good builds.

Those are things you learn by putting gametime under your belt as i said trade and "endgame maps" kept me away from poe. I never said it had bland mechanics or something.
Same thing happen with GD, dmg transmuting mechanics, res reduction mechanics (which stacks and which don't), dmg absorption, DA/OA reduction etc… if you don't spend time in the game you obviously miss some of that stuff.

edit : i think ascendancy wasn't even a thing when i used to play.

But all those things are about mastering the game. And as I said, you cannot really claim making characters is bad if you don't understand the intricate details about the game.
I am only here arguing about objective things you claimed. Maps, trade and all that is subjective and I cannot argue vs that. You either like that part or not.
But if PoE is master of one thing, that is making builds.

Whether you like trading in general is subjective. But I think most critics will usually not attack trading itself, but rather a) being forced to do it and b) the lack proper tools to do it. And that is not subjective. Those are valid concerns.

PoE today is a completely different game today than it was 3 or 4 years ago. COMPLETELY.

Any discussion involving that version of the game is pretty much moot. Ie., it's pointless to go back and forth with you on a version of the game that no longer exists.

yeah that is what they told me. Unfortunately i don't play it anymore so i don't know what's going on except what i hear.

Both those points are subjective. Some people don't mind that the game leans towards trading and others do mind a lot. Also some people want trading to be harder to do and some want it easier.

Personally I would not mind less focus on trading and as a compensation better drop rates for those rarer items.

Only objective thing here is if you measure how much time you spend using the existing trade tools vs playing the game itself and comparing that to D2 where trading tools were even worse or D3 AH where trading was made much easier.

So you haven't played it for a long time yet you have harsh critisism for its current state (looking back at your first posts in this thread). Okey then.

I've played PoE since the beta also and the game has gotten better and better. I'd say you haven't completed the game yet if you haven't killed both the Elder in red maps and the Shaper.

To be fair my criticism was about the "old" version, the one that i played. I hear bad things about newer stuff but i didn't say anything about it cause i lack direct experience of it.

Path of Exile - The Comment Section of the Undying.

I thought this kind of games are heavy about the loot and your character looks, but in PoE all the cool looking gear (compared to Diablo 3) comes from cash shop!
I ran hours and hours and still my character looked like low level bum at max lvl.
I understand they must make some money, but I lose enthusiasm to continue to play when I know there is nothing cool I can get from next bosses and levels, except just numbers on my gear.

And as far as I remember the gameplay mostly looked like some magic ball (your character) jumps and blasts everything in his way, pressing just one button/skill for whole game - I hardly find it entertaining, so in the end Diablo 3 did it all better for me.

I think Diablo 3 has the best graphics….and that's it. It is a pretty awful, boring slogfest of a game. I liked D2 so much I went to 2 Blizzcons just to play it, and D3 is maybe the only game ever that got worse and worse and had LESS features as development went on.

Unlike many here I like ARPGs as much if not more than traditional RPGs- (as an example voice acting and incessant dialogue bores me to tears) while I really enjoy the interaction of loot with different builds,the development of characters and progression, the spontaneous feel of ARPGs, the mystery and excitement of cool drops. I also only play hardcore, I cannot stand dying through content repeatedly in any game but much less in an ARPG.

I would rank D3 among the very worst. It essentially has no skill system, the loot is hellishly boring since the Loot 2.0 update, the main story is unplayable, rifts are boring and despite great graphics the levels themselves are uninteresting.

Both Grim Dawn and POE are far more interesting and fun to play. The skill and gem system in POE is just brilliant, and the skill system in GD (basically Titan Quest) is great. Part of the fun for me is trying and discovering new builds and approaches to the game. I do NOT and have never understood people just copying other peoples builds. Why even play the game?

If I were to rank the ARPGs it would look something like this

1. Divine Divinity
2. Diablo 2
3. Sacred
4. Titan Quest
5. Grim Dawn
6. Path of Exile
7. Torchlight 2
8. Van Helsing
9. Torchlight 1
10. Chronicon

I also like Hellgate London, Victor Vran, Silverfall, Sacred 2, and others. D3 would likely be around the 15 spot or less for me. D3 in its original state with the RMAH was maybe one of the worst major release games ever. It was a far better game 4 years earlier in its development at Blizzcon. They had a lot of interesting systems planned and just gutted them all.

To those who like ARPGs: Wolcen development is very slow, but in its current state it is showing real promise to be an exceptional ARPG when all is said and down. The improvement in the last 5 months or so had been dramatic.

Fair enough.

I think it has the best moment-to-moment gameplay by FAR - and also the most satisfying skill variety of all of them. Every single skill and skill combination just feels great.

PoE is ok - but a bit early 2000s in that way. GD is just boring as hell when it comes to combat. I mean, it's servicable and passable - but it can't hold a candle to games that's so clearly on another level of craftsmanship.

Then again, I actually care a lot about the experience of playing the game - and I can't enjoy the spreadsheet aspect of a game if the game itself is missing.

Diablo 3 isn't perfect, for sure, but it has a visceral gameplay that's completely unmatched by PoE and GD.

Which isn't a great surprise. Blizzard tend to have the best craftsmen - and their budgets are much, much larger.

Small indie teams can hardly compete when it comes to production values, polish or quality of aesthetics.

I'm sure people can tell themselves that, but I find that too unrealistic to take seriously.

I would agree that the combat presentation combing graphics, effects, and feel is by far the best of all the games. And the paper doll element of how your characters look in different equipment is unparalleled, However to me the entire experience is completely empty. Every skill is pretty much exactly as effective as every one else, so the only skill choice really comes down to which skill effect you most like seeing. Also as good as the visceral combat is the mechanics of the fights and the skills they use are incredibly repetitive and boring. They probably spent a $100 million dollars on D3 development and they came up with this. It SHOULD have the best graphics. D3 was ruined by a lead developer that fundamentally not only did not understand, but did not actually like ARPGs and the greed of Kotick who forced the whole RMAH thing.

Maybe its just its own thing- and Action Combat isometric game. It really is not an ARPG

You sound like someone who hasn't played D3 since its release :) They put another guy in charge and fixed a ton of flaws with the game.

Kotick had absolutely nothing to do with the RMAH or D3 - that was purely the design team.

Blizzard makes more money than God for Activision - and Kotick is smart enough to understand that you should never interfere with a cash cow that good.

Personally, I think RMAH was the best thing about D3 and I hated to see it go, but that was for legal reasons. They made it sound like it was for the fans - but if you do a little research, it was obvious why they did it.

As for skills being the same - I very much disagree. As I said, I think D3 has the best skill variety of all the game in this genre.

They feel different and they have different effects and synergies. That said, D3 doesn't have useless skills like so many other RPGs, if that's what you mean. They actually wanted all skills to have their uses.

But that's a Blizzard thing - it's the same in all their games. They keep balancing until all choices can be viable - but they're never equally viable. That's bullshit.

But if you want to compete on the highest difficulty levels - you can't just pick random skill setups. You have to gear properly and pick the right combinations.

But I agree that PoE and GD both have much more complicated and interesting progression systems.

They're just boring as hell to actually play and look at - compared to D3.

All good and I played as recently as the expansion. I think it is a crappy game and pretty much disagree with everything you have said, but to each their own.