Niyeaux

Path of Exile: It's pretty much a Diablo 2 sequel, but it's not Diablo 3!

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I played it but for some reason it doesn't attract me. I did in fact love Diablo 2, played mostly as a necromancer making skellies do my bidding, but this game... I just don't like it, also if they could make a male / female version of each class that would be nice.

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I found playing a summoner to be a lot more fun in this game than in D2, but obviously I can't speak for everyone.

The game is very replayable for me because I love creating stupid builds and trying them out, also meaningful gear can drop at all levels to some extent.

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Yeah, once you're in the first town, you can invite whoever into your party. There's also a noticeboard with publically acessible parties posted.

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I'm gonna try some partyin and hard difficultyin, because as of right now I just cruised through my second playthrough to level 7 on auto mode while listening to GiantBomb's GOTY podcasts without any trouble whatsoever. Click click click click, dead dead dead dead.

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They are if you play on hardcore!

 

Which is the only way I'll play these games anymore, as they're boring and mindless otherwise.

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The first act is basically a tutorial, difficulty starts to spike at the bosses there (Merveil is especially notorious). Then early Act 2 isn't too hard again but you start running into nastier stuff. Eventually the game is hard enough that if you don't have a good enough character build you're better off starting over with a new character applying the lessons you learned.

That's also where the replayability comes from.

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They are if you play on hardcore!

 

Which is the only way I'll play these games anymore, as they're boring and mindless otherwise.

If your HC character dies in PoE it becomes an SC character though, which bothers me.

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I'm not sure if it's a lack of... atmosphere or any sort of connected story, no matter how thin. Or if the weird socket system kind of hampers the joy of loot. Or if the minute skill system makes it so leveling up uneventful because you get "+5% damage to..." whatever, rather than "ultra cool war stomp what crushes things!" But, there we are. Maybe I'll give it another go sometime, maybe.

I thought the way the items and the economy worked did a great job of conveying an atmosphere of desperation and improvisation.

Instead of the vendors having a ubiquitous and infinite supply of coins, you get fragments of identify scrolls and materials to enchant the rusty crap you pulled off of soggy zombies. I'm not sure how much of a time sink this ends up being, but it was neat in the first couple of hours.

The way the gear appears on your chatacter is also pretty evocative. It lacks the character specific flair that appears on a Diablo 3 chatacter, but again, it conveys the sense that your toon is making do with found materials (and raises the question of why a random goatman would have a sash tailored to pair perfectly with the greaves you pulled out of a quill beast two farms over).

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If your HC character dies in PoE it becomes an SC character though, which bothers me.

That is a weird choice, but it doesn't really bother me. I have definitely seen a lot of people asking for that feature in D3 and TL2. Kinda defeats the purpose for me, but whatever. I'll just make another HC character. 

 

(Assuming I ever play this.)

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I played 5 hours of this, a few months back, then grew fatigued at the idea of how much time I'd have to put in to get anywhere and stopped completely. I quite admire the graphics and sound design, and appreciated the loot/trading system they have, but it seemed a very shallow experience. I might try a hardcore character; sounds like that'd be a good way to grow more invested in the game, and my character.

 

Although, there's no respec is there? I could pour hours into one build only to completely hit a wall and have to start over. No. No, I don't think so. 

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Although, there's no respec is there? I could pour hours into one build only to completely hit a wall and have to start over. No. No, I don't think so. 

 

There are Orbs of Regret that let you respec one skill point, but they're quite rare. You really need to plan ahead.

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Yeah lack of respeccing is kind of a big turn off. The only way to "plan ahead" when you haven't played a game like this before is to go read a bunch of people analyzing different builds. The last thing I want to do when I make a mistake in building my character just because it once seemed like a good idea is have to restart.

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That's assuming that having a perfectly optimized character is all you care about. I actually enjoy trying to live with my mistakes and work around the idiotic choices I made twenty levels ago, but I guess I'm in the minority.

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That's assuming the game allows you to work around those choices if they later prove to be a horrible mistake. Also, you could do what you want to do even if respeccing existed.

 

Besides, you originally said, "You really need to plan ahead." That's different from living with your mistakes.

 

An even worse situation: you spec for one playstyle, because you think it sounds really cool, and it later turns out to be something you don't enjoy at all. Doesn't matter if it's optimal or not, if you're not finding it FUN, then it's a problem. Having to restart from the beginning hampers experimentation and, in many cases, enjoyment.

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True and true. I've "only" played the game four about 15 hours, and while I'm currently having a great time with my less than optimized ranger it could get unplayable later on. I hope not. I could always accumulate enough loot to trade a few dozen orbs of regret, but spending a fortune on respeccing instead of new gear is definitely not fun. Now that you got me thinking about it, I have to agree that it's a poor design decision.

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On the other hand, I do appreciate the irony that I, as someone who only plays hardcore mode in these kinds of games, would complain about being punished by lack of respeccing. I ain't perfect!

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I don't understand the complaining about "having to start over" because to me enjoying the power curve growth of a character is one of the main things that's enjoyable about this genre of games. Characters are disposable once they reach their peak. And because gear isn't souldbound, you will do even better next time.

The alternative to starting over is farming endgame. Fuck that.

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I'm around 30 hours in and the only respeccing I chose to do was easily covered by the respeccing points I got from Orbs of Regret and Quest rewards.  I like how the game makes you think about your decisions before you make them.  It's like when you use items to customize an already enchanted item.  You take a gamble and see how it pays off.  I don't think it's a flawed design decision as most games when you think about it work this way.  We're just used to being able to respec in Diablo clones.  You can't respec in Demons Souls, Dark Souls or Dragon Age (I believe, it's been a while).  I appreciate that my choices matter and I spend more time making my decision because of it.  That's just how I play games though.  I think mindless respeccing leads to system fatigue faster.  Then again, endlessly grinding to respec might also lead to fatigue...

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So, you can either:

 

Live with your decisions, whether they turn out to be good decisions or bad, and see how far you can get. 

 

Or, restart the game and make different choices, and then either live with those or not, depending again on whether or not they work.

 

(There's a hidden third choice which involves reading about builds that work and just copying them exactly, but that sounds like it would be really boring)

 

I've not played enough to know, but what's the likelihood of getting completely stumped in PoE because you've made poor choices? Bearing in mind, it is possible to take your time making choices to deal with the situation at hand, and then later on encounter something radically different which stops you dead in your tracks.

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It's very unlikely that you'll get stumped before getting near the end of NG+ unless your build is truly horrendous. Some specific bosses might give you issues but that is usually more a sign of bad gear than spec (no cold resist on Merveil, for example).

Put differently, all the actual content except maps are available to pretty much any build as long as the player is somewhat competent. And maps are mainly there for people who'd otherwise get bored doing NG++ boss runs anyway.

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treat builds like learning any other skill. You imitate experts until you've built up a solid enough foundation of knowledge to start experimenting on your own. The fact that poe's mechanics have enough depth to support this is an unequivocal positive, dudes!

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I played for a few hours a few days ago and I think what I learned is that I'm past the phase in my life where these games are something I want to spend time on. I feel like Chris Remo.

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