Is Path of Exile as addictive as Diablo 2?

i think D2's itemization found its peak after the runewords. Uniques and Runewords had a very good design and often forced you to mix and match because of lacking stats or drawbacks. So changing one item could force you to change a lot of them.

I think poe has even better unique design but lacks the variety and some more powerfull uniques that can straight up compete with rares (even though the perfect rare should still be superior). Drop rates for higher uniques should also be higher.

Many players have a blast leveling new characters and i also like using the loads of uniques that i have in my stash. But the higher you get into the difficulty the more you have to switch to generic rare items. And then the higher uniques wich are actualy usefull dont drop that much. So you are switching from an interesting full unique equipment with rares to compensate the drawbacks/lack of stats to a full rare equipment... wich feels like a downgrade.

I think items like bringer of rain, koams heart, tabula rasa etc are among the best i have seen in any arpg. Some may say these are almost alway BIS items but i disagree. They have significant downsides but the system isnt used to its full potential. Where is the Base 400 Damage unique bow without sockets that lets u think twice about using it together with koams heart. Where is the generic High armor life Triple Resi unique Chest that makes you cry when u have a bringer of rain. Where is the +3 to all gems weapon with significant drawback.

Where is the 500% spelldamage on low life wand that removes your energy shield too.

Latest unique designs seemed to be a bit too "safe" in my oppinion. Together with Unique "tiering", nerfs to actual powerfull uniques like thunderfist, and lockdown of some uniques in high level maps, the most fun aspect of gearing (wich has a lot of potential in poe) has been locked away for a big group of players.

I think adding more high level usable uniques (that are still as awesome designed like most of the low level ones) and higher droprates would bring a whole new level to gearing. i dont say drop them like candys. But more relevant high level uniques would increase the chance to drop a sweet one. I would say for every low level unique there should also be a high level one. So the allocation is 50/50. Not 10 high level ones to 180 low level ones.

More so.

Namely because D2 revolved around flat roll rares and uniques.

Here, we have an interesting and ever evolving crafting landscape that also drives economy.

To be completely honest about it, Diablo 1/2 was completely dunked by duping. I mean absolutely and rampantly destroyed by it.

Why people cling to it is beyond me. It was 3-5 builds that everyone used for PvP and the top characters used back hacked and imported items that were duped beyond repair. Simply, those games were broken in so many ways it hurts. And I mean in the core gameplay aspects of it.

Bot fest, dupe fest, in game economy was trash, PvP was who had more duped "perm" items trash nonsense.

The only redeeming aspect of it was the ladder resets, but even then you had dudes that would just dupe an el rune up to Jah Ith Ber in a days time, effectively ruining it.

Looking back on it, what a complete travesty.

Path of Exile has none of these problems and the only things I see people complain about is that it isn't as "friendly" as Diablo games were. But honestly, that's because they didn't design it to be a "2 hour rush to hell and be level 80 with full set up cheap as shit wow!".

It adds a lot more to the game when you actually have to invest time and the items you own are worth something to the in game community.

"

piddywiffle wrote:

More so.

Namely because D2 revolved around flat roll rares and uniques.

Here, we have an interesting and ever evolving crafting landscape that also drives economy.

To be completely honest about it, Diablo 1/2 was completely dunked by duping. I mean absolutely and rampantly destroyed by it.

Why people cling to it is beyond me. It was 3-5 builds that everyone used for PvP and the top characters used back hacked and imported items that were duped beyond repair. Simply, those games were broken in so many ways it hurts. And I mean in the core gameplay aspects of it.

Bot fest, dupe fest, in game economy was trash, PvP was who had more duped "perm" items trash nonsense.

The only redeeming aspect of it was the ladder resets, but even then you had dudes that would just dupe an el rune up to Jah Ith Ber in a days time, effectively ruining it.

Looking back on it, what a complete travesty.

Path of Exile has none of these problems and the only things I see people complain about is that it isn't as "friendly" as Diablo games were. But honestly, that's because they didn't design it to be a "2 hour rush to hell and be level 80 with full set up cheap as shit wow!".

It adds a lot more to the game when you actually have to invest time and the items you own are worth something to the in game community.

You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what PVP means. PVP means player vs player.

The fact that there were very few select 'best-in-slot' PVP builds actually make PVP more enjoyable. You didn't lose because of some esoteric combination of gear/mods that you can't predict. You didn't lose because your gear is inferior to theirs. You didn't lose because you had much fewer skill points (unless you were an idiot and dueled characters who significantly outleveled you).

PVP in D2 was all about actual player interaction and player-based skill. It's the same reason why PVP in PoE is a complete non-existent nightmare. Too many broken skills/interactions that make it nearly impossible to balance.

As for how it's not a "2 hour rush to hell and be level 80", there are already plenty of HC players that rush through the content of the game in 2 days or less and then do maps for the remainder of the life of the character.

You'll never prevent ARPG players from playing the content which demands the majority of their time: endgame.

Definitely not, IMO. Simply because PoE masks a dearth of content with a logarithmic learning->mastery curve, i.e. the skill tree/gem system is absurdly daunting at first, but once you go through the game with a cookie cutter character or so, the veneer vanishes and it reduces down to pretty much the same exact thing as Diablo 2--enough stats so you don't get overrun and then sink the rest into your choice of life or energy shield, with your "non-numeric" defense (armor/eva) coming from your gear.

Furthermore, PoE's loot system is trash. Getting anywhere at high level completely revolves around the auction house that is the poe.xyz.is forum tracker. Furthermore, the best items are completely vanilla. For instance, the godliest armor you can get in PoE is something that simply has a metric crapton of life (80+), 120 total resists, and over 2,000 armor/eva (not sure what the ES scaling is), with 5-6L.

Compare this to Diablo 2's Runewords, uniques and runewords with off-class skills (oh right, no such thing in PoE), unique set bonuses, craft items with guaranteed mods, aura-on-equip effects, "white" items with +set skills (sorc staves/necro wands), low-end runewords that did absolutely amazing things for the materials required, and so on.

Make no mistake--a lack of solutions to duping, the infestation of bots, non-unique charms (3/20/20 duping!), deliberate desyncing, and so on basically ended D2's life, but make no mistake--if Blizzard (or some other company) simply remade Diablo 2 with a newer graphical veneer, it would do better than D3/PoE/TL2--by a freaking mile. Kind of like the argument of "if FFVII got remade with newer graphics, it'd kick the ass of any other FF made since" (debatable with VIII and X, absolutely true for XI, XII, XIII, and XIV. Here's hoping XV will restore FF's glory).

Here's the thing--what got me hooked on PoE was the theorycrafting of its skill tree and the depth I thought the game had--but once that veneer of newness wears off, what you're left with is a very bare-bones Skinner Box with little in the way of plot, fewer than five memorable tracks (Lioneye's Watch being the only one that sticks), and just a feeling of a company going

"Oh my god! We're really making a video game and we're being mentioned in the same breath as Diablo 3 and and and...", and for anyone looking at the game from a game design perspective, GGG is essentially trying to lay down tracks in front of the speeding train that is the expectation of the idea that someone will finally make the rightful heir to Diablo 2. Well, once I hit maps, I pretty much came to the end of that track. Repetitive gameplay, edge-case difficulty (no matter what type of build you play, we have a mechanic to screw over just your particular character! And if that doesn't do it, half the endgame content can one-shot you unless you're following a cookie-cutter guide with high-end equipment anyway! And if that's not enough, we have crummy servers just in case!).

But make no mistake...

While D3 and TL2 aren't D2's spiritual sequels...

This game definitely isn't it either.

"

UnderOmerta wrote:

"

piddywiffle wrote:

More so.

Namely because D2 revolved around flat roll rares and uniques.

Here, we have an interesting and ever evolving crafting landscape that also drives economy.

To be completely honest about it, Diablo 1/2 was completely dunked by duping. I mean absolutely and rampantly destroyed by it.

Why people cling to it is beyond me. It was 3-5 builds that everyone used for PvP and the top characters used back hacked and imported items that were duped beyond repair. Simply, those games were broken in so many ways it hurts. And I mean in the core gameplay aspects of it.

Bot fest, dupe fest, in game economy was trash, PvP was who had more duped "perm" items trash nonsense.

The only redeeming aspect of it was the ladder resets, but even then you had dudes that would just dupe an el rune up to Jah Ith Ber in a days time, effectively ruining it.

Looking back on it, what a complete travesty.

Path of Exile has none of these problems and the only things I see people complain about is that it isn't as "friendly" as Diablo games were. But honestly, that's because they didn't design it to be a "2 hour rush to hell and be level 80 with full set up cheap as shit wow!".

It adds a lot more to the game when you actually have to invest time and the items you own are worth something to the in game community.

You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what PVP means. PVP means player vs player.

The fact that there were very few select 'best-in-slot' PVP builds actually make PVP more enjoyable. You didn't lose because of some esoteric combination of gear/mods that you can't predict. You didn't lose because your gear is inferior to theirs. You didn't lose because you had much fewer skill points (unless you were an idiot and dueled characters who significantly outleveled you).

PVP in D2 was all about actual player interaction and player-based skill. It's the same reason why PVP in PoE is a complete non-existent nightmare. Too many broken skills/interactions that make it nearly impossible to balance.

As for how it's not a "2 hour rush to hell and be level 80", there are already plenty of HC players that rush through the content of the game in 2 days or less and then do maps for the remainder of the life of the character.

You'll never prevent ARPG players from playing the content which demands the majority of their time: endgame.

Uh... No?

D2 PvP was 90% 3rd party downloads and 10% super strict dueling leagues. No running, no stacking res, restricted gear and so on.

And if your argument is about balance and skill, then surely not knowing what you're walking into is the epitome of playing based on skill as opposed to "this build was constructed from these exact same unique items that will never change and 100% slams your build. LoL I'm gud at PvP cuz balance means one outfit completely outclasses the other LoL".

This totally includes people willing to spend way more than it's worth on duped Btals, old bugged ethereals, duped to piss rares, duped 08s and so on and so forth.

It was a mess of any PvP system I've ever seen in my life.


EDIT:

Also, 2 hours of "rush me to hell and let me follow a bot for an hour" in no way equates to 2 days worth of grinding.

"

piddywiffle wrote:

Uh... No?

D2 PvP was 90% 3rd party downloads and 10% super strict dueling leagues. No running, no stacking res, restricted gear and so on.

And if your argument is about balance and skill, then surely not knowing what you're walking into is the epitome of playing based on skill as opposed to "this build was constructed from these exact same unique items that will never change and 100% slams your build. LoL I'm gud at PvP cuz balance means one outfit completely outclasses the other LoL".

This totally includes people willing to spend way more than it's worth on duped Btals, old bugged ethereals, duped to piss rares, duped 08s and so on and so forth.

It was a mess of any PvP system I've ever seen in my life.

Yeah, except NOBODY who played PVP seriously was not in one of those 'strict dueling leagues.' There were a long list of BM things to do, and at high level PVP, it mostly went without saying. Saying that D2 PVP was about 3rd party downloads just showed how little you played PVP in the actual PVP guilds.

No, not knowing what you are playing is not about skill precisely because things are not properly balanced. "Fending the unknown" is not skill because it's not a sustainable tactic. In an actual duel series, if you sneak a victory over an unprepared but superior skileld opponent, all it would take is a minor adjustment and said superior opponent would roll you. In other words that one win you snuck was an aberration in the overall skill trend. A true skilled game is one where the more skilled player would win just about every time (take for example, chess).

What you don't seem to understand is that games cannot be balanced around hugely variable build sets. There are simply too many variables that are introduced when you run an extreme number of items. Why do you think competitive CS versions cut down on the number of usable weapons, usually to mirror that of 1.6? Why do you think older versions of Tribes games were more competitively balanced when they had fewer classes (3, light, medium, and heavy) than Tribes Ascend with 9? Why do you think DOTA restricts their heroes into more defined roles? Why do you think Magic tries to achieve as much color balance as possible?

Why do you think people generally hold the mirror match (e.g. in Magic, Starcraft, D2) as the most true test of skill? Because if you were actually serious about PVP, you would try to eliminate as many cases of rock-paper-scissors bullshit as possible and get down to out-executing opposite players. It's much, much easier to accomplish this when people's gear sets are as close to identical as possible.

Also, if D2's PVP system was as big a mess as any you've seen in your life, you've never looked at PoE's PVP system.

"

piddywiffle wrote:

Also, 2 hours of "rush me to hell and let me follow a bot for an hour" in no way equates to 2 days worth of grinding.

Only because there's a greater number of 'quest state required' zones. There's plenty of players that rush through much faster.

The point is that you'll find lots of players in either game that don't care about 99% of the game's content and only want to play endgame. That's neither an advantage here or there.

"

UnderOmerta wrote:

No, not knowing what you are playing is not about skill precisely because things are not properly balanced. "Fending the unknown" is not skill because it's not a sustainable tactic. In an actual duel series, if you sneak a victory over an unprepared but superior skileld opponent, all it would take is a minor adjustment and said superior opponent would roll you. In other words that one win you snuck was an aberration in the overall skill trend. A true skilled game is one where the more skilled player would win just about every time (e.g. take for example, chess).

That's about it. When PvP first appeared here I had a char in low-level PvP that reflected around 150 damage on every enemy hit which is pretty huge at that level. Combine it with old reflect mechanics and the fact nobody was using armor in low-level PvP and you got yourself a perfect surprise build. And it could surprise almost anybody, especially fast attackers, and nobody even suspected item reflect, most thought it was my tempest shield with some insane amount of spell damage and block chance and tried to stack lightning res.

But then everyone and his grandmother started laying traps around like it's Vietnam jungle, I can't even imagine what will PvP look like now that we have multiple traps support. Can't imagine, but I know it will be hella annoying in any case. You just can't balance PvP with this amount of variables, impossible.

And, I might have mentioned Elsword somewhere, the game isn't terribly good overall, a classic money-grubbing, grindy korean MMO. But, in PvP you may have an opponent outgeared, outlevelled and outbuilt, but if he plays better he will win 99 out of 100.

"

UnderOmerta wrote:

Yeah, except NOBODY who played PVP seriously was not in one of those 'strict dueling leagues.' There were a long list of BM things to do, and at high level PVP, it mostly went without saying. Saying that D2 PVP was about 3rd party downloads just showed how little you played PVP in the actual PVP guilds.

No, not knowing what you are playing is not about skill precisely because things are not properly balanced. "Fending the unknown" is not skill because it's not a sustainable tactic. In an actual duel series, if you sneak a victory over an unprepared but superior skileld opponent, all it would take is a minor adjustment and said superior opponent would roll you. In other words that one win you snuck was an aberration in the overall skill trend. A true skilled game is one where the more skilled player would win just about every time (take for example, chess).

What you don't seem to understand is that games cannot be balanced around hugely variable build sets. There are simply too many variables that are introduced when you run an extreme number of items. Why do you think competitive CS versions cut down on the number of usable weapons, usually to mirror that of 1.6? Why do you think older versions of Tribes games were more competitively balanced when they had fewer classes (3, light, medium, and heavy) than Tribes Ascend with 9? Why do you think DOTA restricts their heroes into more defined roles? Why do you think Magic tries to achieve as much color balance as possible?

Why do you think people generally hold the mirror match (e.g. in Magic, Starcraft, D2) as the most true test of skill? Because if you were actually serious about PVP, you would try to eliminate as many cases of rock-paper-scissors bullshit as possible and get down to out-executing opposite players. It's much, much easier to accomplish this when people's gear sets are as close to identical as possible.

Also, if D2's PVP system was as big a mess as any you've seen in your life, you've never looked at PoE's PVP system.

What you're not seeming to get is my point.

Which is if you have to sit someone down and explain concise rules to them about how they have to conduct themselves in a PvP arena, then it's not balanced at all.

Diablo 2 was not balanced and that's primarily because of all of the 3rd party and dupes that ooze off of it like honey from a hive. Variability has nothing to do with it. It just means you have more to consider and learn about the system. Just because it's not as simplified as D2, doesn't make it the worst thing out there.

But here's the thing; if PoE players really wanted they could create a PvP league and self-regulate it (just like Diablo 2), thus evening the landscape.

"

piddywiffle wrote:

What you're not seeming to get is my point.

Which is if you have to sit someone down and explain concise rules to them about how they have to conduct themselves in a PvP arena, then it's not balanced at all.

Diablo 2 was not balanced and that's primarily because of all of the 3rd party and dupes that ooze off of it like honey from a hive. Variability has nothing to do with it. It just means you have more to consider and learn about the system. Just because it's not as simplified as D2, doesn't make it the worst thing out there.

But here's the thing; if PoE players really wanted they could create a PvP league and self-regulate it (just like Diablo 2), thus evening the landscape.

I get what you're saying. D2 was not balanced out of the box for PVP. This is true because it was a primarily PvE game. However, D2 was STILL balanced better for PVP than POE has ever been. The fact that every skill-based engagement has rules does not really detract from this.

Secondly, you argument that dupes and bots ruined Diablo 2 is debatable. Is an ARPG ruined if it becomes trivial to get items? I suppose if you're only interested in the long, arduous process of finding items yourself, it is. But for players like me, who enjoyed having multiple high level PVP builds, the dupes and bots didn't bother me. It actually allowed me to make a couple of high level PVP builds within the span of a single ladder season, while still dabbling in hardcore for PVE gameplay.

This would be completely impossible in POE. The amount of resources and time it takes to simply get even ONE high level PVP-level (e.g. the same amount of gear/BiS items as your D2 PVP char) in POE is weeks/months of grinding + hardcore trading/selling and POEXYZ sniping. Trying to get multiple characters to high levels in both XP and gear is pretty much impossible for all but the most arduous of no lifers.

"

UnderOmerta wrote:

This would be completely impossible in POE. The amount of resources and time it takes to simply get even ONE high level PVP-level (e.g. the same amount of gear/BiS items as your D2 PVP char) in POE is weeks/months of grinding + hardcore trading/selling and POEXYZ sniping. Trying to get multiple characters to high levels in both XP and gear is pretty much impossible for all but the most arduous of no lifers.

And that's one of the main obstacles to successful PvP, probably close second to lack of meaningful building restrictions. Temp leagues are too short and in permanent leagues there's that thingy called legacy gear.