Is Path of Exile as addictive as Diablo 2?

Good read. Certainly learned a lot from it. I think I semi-knew the answer all along, but OP actually put it into words. Thanks!

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Like PoE's orbs, D2's rune/runeword system created a multi-currency economy which led to far more interesting trading than a single-currency economy ever could, far superior to the previous Stone of Jordan and gold systems; unlike PoE's orbs, the rune/runeword system did a better job of making individual currencies more build-dependent, since individual builds cared about specific runewords (sometimes, about specific runes) more than others, which in turn led to more interesting exchange ratios between currencies. Like PoE's orb, D2's runewords created a market for high-quality white items, an economy which wouldn't exist otherwise. However, with this new economy came an incentive for rune-hoarding, wanting to save your runes for the absolute best base to craft on, because wasting all of that wealth on just any item would be a loss of value. D2 tried to tackle this problem by simply making runewords very, very powerful, so that the player would be tempted to grab this power as quickly as possible and hoard as little as possible; this pushed designers to make runewords overpowered enough to have the proper economic effect, while having some negative consequences in the gear diversity department. PoE, in contrast, does not even attempt a mechanic to discourage its own very similar currency-hoarding problem.

Totally wrong.
1.09 had ith items which were nothing but runewords sold socketed runes via exploit(silence, fury, lionheart and honor). In those ith items either Highrunes or 40/15 juwels were inserted(duped ofc). Those exploited items have the same power as 1.10 HR runewords.
Runewords didn't create a market for white items. It created a market for itemshops and a site named D2jsp where idiots sold duped itemshop runes for fools gold.
The Highrunes were that rare you barely found them till 1.13 when blizzard decided to raise the chance of a Zod rune to the chance of a Lo Rune of 1.09-1.12

1.10 Runewords were the worst idea for D2 ever. In 1.09 you use circlets, spellsteel,naijs weapon or amulets to teleport as another class. It's not like Enigma was something innovative. Blizzard just failed to make teleport an escape spell similar to phasing like in Diablo1.

1.09 CCB/CS OQ, GF, Doom, blood axe and ITH/imports as cheated items for example on a barb.
1.10 BOTD maybe eternity in an eth weapon period!

Runewords totally destroyed trading and opened the door for RMT far wider than in 1.09.

Several exploits were public and it took forever till Blizzard fixed them, meaning itemshops could acquire some money which was later used to pay coders to find exploits in other games, so they are always up to date.

If something ruined the RPG Genre then it's 1.10!

i think there are 3 factors for the fun that a game like POE provides for you

1) Leveling

i already liked the system alot before and i'm also looking foward to the new improved endgame changes! i hope it will still keep as time intensive as it was to get 100 because after you reached the max level there's only item progression left and this takes away 1/3 of our fun factors




2) Pvp

this shouldn't be the focus for an ARPG but still it's very important to exist, also the patch provides lots of new stuff that looks good - it will be hard to balance, but i don't think that it needs to be perfectly balanced - pvp can basically provide fun for an infinte ammount of time, as long as you have opponent it never gets boring!




3) Item Farming

i think this is the biggest factor for a game like poe, also it was the big difference to D3 but im a bit concerned here
since we have eternal orbs, only the very rich "elite" of players can afford crafting, also with eternals it became easier (for wealthy people) to craft "perfect" best in slot items
-> this devalues mid-high tier items!

another thing that i dont like that much anymore is the itemization

1. the gap between a garbage and a decent lategame item is too high, it comes to a point where you have to farm currency and buy items with it
what do i mean in detail?
- especially to get a good weapon (or es armor) you need to have not only the right damage rolls which i like, but also the highest brackets
- to get a 300 dps weapon is already really hard - but you can also get weapon with 2x more dps !!!
what i'd like to have changed?
- increase the base damage of weapons and lower the % rolls (same goes with energy shield armors)
- this still leaves room for perfection on items, but doesnt make it impossible to get a good item

2. regarding unique item's as we all know there are some op ones which i dont want to talk about now, but i rather would like to mention those who have cool idea's but are just too bad to be used stat wise and get vendored most of the time for this reason (e.g. Darkscorn, Chin Sol -> low dps; Hyrri's Ire , Bronn's Lithe -> no life)

i think a big reason for this is that we have many of these items implemented a long time ago and it wasn't that clear what a good unique needs
don't get me wrong it's important to me we dont have a situation where a unique is best in slot for every build but i think many of the existing ones could be buffed / rebalanced
also i think the new ones are way better balanced

all in all i think GGG is doing a really good job but i think the itemization just leaves a too large gap between good and trash items, which requires a bit more balancing

I believe that POE has this camouflage down. Sure, if you have studied every possible build there is (which is in itself hard), you have a general idea of what is a good item for those builds.

However, an item might be great for a build which is not yours, and still worth a lot. Which means you can trade it for something usable. This increases the amount of items you look for exponentially with game knowledge. Far beyond the few "best items for the slot".

Also up until very late in the game, you still need to balance resists, health, damage and mitigation. Which means you can not just look at one stat and go: Yes, this is better, (because it has more ES f.ex.).

These choices are also modified in case you know one item you build around doesn't have a particular stat type, which will increase that stat's value when you contemplate item replacement.

Sure, this does fall off once you hit the 80's. By then you have mostly what you'd like. Replacing it is a grind, and/or a gamble fest. By then the game is done for me, and I'd always start someone new. This does not mean I think this later part should be changed. Some people really like that, and the main reason I stop by then is the immense time investment required to level. But from 40-80 this game really shines. And you'll always have new exiting items to find. ^^

It's one thing if items with different properties have trade value. It's another if items with different properties, as opposed to bigger numbers, are upgrades and sidegrades. In any case, I share your sentiment. I enjoy the game most at lvl 40-80.

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Hilbert wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Spoiler

Like PoE's orbs, D2's rune/runeword system created a multi-currency economy which led to far more interesting trading than a single-currency economy ever could, far superior to the previous Stone of Jordan and gold systems; unlike PoE's orbs, the rune/runeword system did a better job of making individual currencies more build-dependent, since individual builds cared about specific runewords (sometimes, about specific runes) more than others, which in turn led to more interesting exchange ratios between currencies. Like PoE's orb, D2's runewords created a market for high-quality white items, an economy which wouldn't exist otherwise. However, with this new economy came an incentive for rune-hoarding, wanting to save your runes for the absolute best base to craft on, because wasting all of that wealth on just any item would be a loss of value. D2 tried to tackle this problem by simply making runewords very, very powerful, so that the player would be tempted to grab this power as quickly as possible and hoard as little as possible; this pushed designers to make runewords overpowered enough to have the proper economic effect, while having some negative consequences in the gear diversity department. PoE, in contrast, does not even attempt a mechanic to discourage its own very similar currency-hoarding problem.

Totally wrong.

Spoiler

1.09 had ith items which were nothing but runewords sold socketed runes via exploit(silence, fury, lionheart and honor). In those ith items either Highrunes or 40/15 juwels were inserted(duped ofc). Those exploited items have the same power as 1.10 HR runewords.
Runewords didn't create a market for white items. It created a market for itemshops and a site named D2jsp where idiots sold duped itemshop runes for fools gold.
The Highrunes were that rare you barely found them till 1.13 when blizzard decided to raise the chance of a Zod rune to the chance of a Lo Rune of 1.09-1.12

1.10 Runewords were the worst idea for D2 ever. In 1.09 you use circlets, spellsteel,naijs weapon or amulets to teleport as another class. It's not like Enigma was something innovative. Blizzard just failed to make teleport an escape spell similar to phasing like in Diablo1.

1.09 CCB/CS OQ, GF, Doom, blood axe and ITH/imports as cheated items for example on a barb.
1.10 BOTD maybe eternity in an eth weapon period!

Runewords totally destroyed trading and opened the door for RMT far wider than in 1.09.

Several exploits were public and it took forever till Blizzard fixed them, meaning itemshops could acquire some money which was later used to pay coders to find exploits in other games, so they are always up to date.

If something ruined the RPG Genre then it's 1.10!

Not totally.

First, it's a little backhanded to refer to outright exploits like itemshop runes as part of the baseline economy. While I understand that may have been the practical reality, it was obviously not Blizzard's intent and definitely not something they balanced the game around, nor should they have balanced the game around it. Game designers design the core mechanics for players who do not cheat; as far as cheaters go, the developers might put in some security measures, but those aren't really a part of gameplay.

Second, I never said that runewords were set at the proper power level and good for the game's overall balance; instead, I was explaining what motivated the decision to make them very powerful. I personally hated Enigma (despite using it) and I agree that it wasn't innovative. That, however, is beside the point.

Third, they did create a market for white items. Period. You can look at price guides to this day and see the values of 4os, 5os, etc. items.

Diablo 2 (the official version) is way overrated by the nostalgia brigade. If you wanted to get the best items, the grind for them was as tedious as in any of these games: make an overpowered character (most likely a Sorceress), slap on a bunch of MF gear and hit the same boss over and over again. Actually getting Hell-viable gear by just playing the game normally was a near-impossibility for most builds.


What keeps me playing PoE isn't so much the hunt for top items as the endless permutations permitted by its skill system. The range of viable builds in this game (at least in SC as far as Merciless) is immense, far more than was possible in Diablo 2 where most concepts started to run out of steam by the end of Normal difficulty (either because the skills were underpowered, or because the combos you needed simply weren't possible without extremely rare items). I don't really care if I never make it to maps and so on, as long as I can keep trying something new.

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Incompetent wrote:

Diablo 2 (the official version) is way overrated by the nostalgia brigade. If you wanted to get the best items, the grind for them was as tedious as in any of these games: make an overpowered character (most likely a Sorceress), slap on a bunch of MF gear and hit the same boss over and over again. Actually getting Hell-viable gear by just playing the game normally was a near-impossibility for most builds.


What keeps me playing PoE isn't so much the hunt for top items as the endless permutations permitted by its skill system. The range of viable builds in this game (at least in SC as far as Merciless) is immense, far more than was possible in Diablo 2 where most concepts started to run out of steam by the end of Normal difficulty (either because the skills were underpowered, or because the combos you needed simply weren't possible without extremely rare items). I don't really care if I never make it to maps and so on, as long as I can keep trying something new.

Gotta say I do agree about nostalgia, though the gear floor was much easier to reach than PoE.

I remember my first ever character. A paladin. No idea about skills, what works, etc. Ended up going into zeal, and then getting demolished in act 1 nightmare. Almost threw me off the game completely, but then I rerolled a barbarian and went frenzy and had immense fun, after which I joined the online community which made the game better

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Game designers design the core mechanics for players who do not cheat; as far as cheaters go, the developers might put in some security measures, but those aren't really a part of gameplay.

It's really questionable if Blizzard didn't run some shops themselves.

Some shops were D2 specific shops(several rares) and with the Release of D3 they closed, while exploitshops expanded their reach.

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Third, they did create a market for white items. Period. You can look at price guides to this day and see the values of 4os, 5os, etc. items.

Price guides in what? Fools Gold? 15ed/15dura 3 soc elite armor or MP? For people who acquired High Runes via Fools Gold or other RMT?
6 15ed eth BA/CB/WP/TM?

The needed items were only a few:
BOTD 6 soc eth
Enigma 3 soc armor
Chains of Honor 4 soc armor
Doom 5 soc axe/polexe
Eternity 5 soc
Beast 5 soc axe

Hoto and CTA were too common to be traded.
Even if you go the extended RWs which were released 1 year after 1.10 there are barely any new needed types.

The raise of the botter board came with 1.10 even the site existed for early 1.09 but nobody gaves a rats ass about it because trading small currency items such as chips, pgs, lowrunes or um/ist was effective enough.

The Duped and exploited items were only traded against other duped and exploited items. They stayed out of the normal market.

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I remember my first ever character. A paladin. No idea about skills, what works, etc. Ended up going into zeal, and then getting demolished in act 1 nightmare. Almost threw me off the game completely, but then I rerolled a barbarian and went frenzy and had immense fun, after which I joined the online community which made the game better

Leveled Zeal was the worst leveled up skill and detested by players in D2 Pre Lod.
It was hits = Skill level +1 no damage bonus at all or something really low.
Meaning heaving Skilllevel 21 made you hit mobs 21 times and your weapon broke really fast.
Not to mention Iron Maiden in the CS was suicide like Whirlwind.

The Paladin was the most hated class in Pre Lod, because it didn't have a single good combat ability.
A level 7 Zeal was the best attack spell of the Paladin, followed by Smite.
So a Prelod Paladin put 7 Points into Zeal, 20 into Holyshield,20 into smite 20 into Foh and the remaining Points into Auras.

It was Blizzards fault for creating a class with 2 passive skill pages, which made the paladin a horrible class.
The only other class having only 1 active skill page was the barbarian but 6 of 10 skills were really useful.

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Diablo 2 (the official version) is way overrated by the nostalgia brigade. If you wanted to get the best items, the grind for them was as tedious as in any of these games: make an overpowered character (most likely a Sorceress), slap on a bunch of MF gear and hit the same boss over and over again. Actually getting Hell-viable gear by just playing the game normally was a near-impossibility for most builds.

It heavily depends when certain players started D2.
The pre 1.08 D2 was a really good game.
Most players only know LoD and its changes. For example Realm Down to prevent Pindle Botting. Huge durance of hate level 2 to prevent meph botting.
Before those changes. Durance of Hate level 2 was a area with entrance, fork to WP and fork to exit.
Everybody would do fast meph runs.

Sorc and Engima were a must after 1.10, because 1.10 increased the durance of hate size even more besides reducing the TC of pindle and mephisto.

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Hilbert wrote:

It heavily depends when certain players started D2.
The pre 1.08 D2 was a really good game.

I got it when it first came out, and played intermittently until LoD 1.10. It was always a bit disappointing, for the kind of reasons you described: far too many of the skills were underpowered, and the item mod pool was even worse, with finding a good rare (especially a rare weapon) turning into a game of hitting the handful of good mods among a sea of pointless ones. The introduction of overpowered uniques and runewords was a bad move, but it wasn't like the situation beforehand was all that great. What really brought Blizzard's failings into relief for me was seeing how superior some of the mods are to the original game (especially when you consider the extremely limited resources D2 modders have to work with) - all it takes is some rebalancing and more creativity in the crafting system.