Time Capsule from PoE Closed Beta -- a classic PoE vs D3 thread circa 2012

April 20th, 2012

EDIT: So, looks like quite a few people have read this, and maybe a few more will in the future. I want to clarify, straight-off, that I wrote this only a few days into my Path of Exile experience. I didn't become a supporter of the company financially until a few weeks later. Not to put too fine a point on it, I did indeed put my money where my mouth is. Thank you, and enjoy.

This is a long post, so please bear with me. I'm from an internet before 'tl;dr', and any inclinations you might have to say 'tl;dr', please save them and just don't read it. All other feedback welcome. Thanks in advance. :)

The only reason I'm posting this and not playing is because I'm technically meant to be doing something else (snicker). I'm going to say a lot of things I've felt as Diablo 3 loomed closer, from the perspective of someone who played the Diablo 1 shareware demo endlessly, who took a week off *life* the day Diablo 1 came out, and who spent so long on Battle.net I actually met my future (and now past, heh) wife there.

I played the older D3 Beta (before the controversial patch 13) for quite a while and while I really did enjoy it, I was holding out for one thing: the skill rune system that promised millions of builds per class. In almost every game that allows it (usually rpgs), I've been deliberately sub-optimal just to see what could be done. Not ridiculously underpowered, just different and experimental.

It wasn't always this way. Diablo 1 didn't allow for much creativity as a player. It was all about the compulsion of loot. For a while, that was enough. It was, after all, the first of its kind. Diablo isn't a game, it's a genre. Were it not, we likely wouldn't (affectionately or otherwise) refer to games as 'Diablo clones'. So there's that out of the way: Blizzard started this party and will always get the credit for it.

Diablo 2 raised the stakes by introducing skill trees to the 'genre'; suddenly you had the potential for alternate builds. I was possibly one of the first Meleemancers on D2; my guide (silly thing it was, in hindsight) was hosted on what was I think the biggest D2 fansite at the time. I think it was even translated into other languages. I was really proud of it, although with LoD, far better guides and Meleemancers came to the fore. From there I started to try similar things in other games. Doesn't always work but it's always fun. Games such as Guild Wars really amped things up in that regard: two classes, absolute freedom in terms of skill allocation and load-out. While GW2 doesn't quite have the same level, it's still very much in tune with the initial idea.

Diablo 3 promised the ultimate in skill freedom, with its skill rune system. The potential for themed builds was mind-blowing. I ignored the other problems with the game (RMAH concerns, the visuals being less gritty and more stylised, the simplified stat system) and embraced this idea. Acquiring skills by leveling up is traditional, but finding items that modify the skills dramatically? Brilliant. Utterly brilliant. A little like Sacred 2's system, only with added dimensions.

And then they killed it. Now skill runes are given to you as you level. I don't need to explain the difference between that and the previously promised skill rune system. You've suddenly gone from a world of freedom to a conveyor belt.

They also killed ID scrolls, which to me is about as contra-Diabloesque as removing the 'ding' sound for when a ring drops. It was blasphemy to a Diablo veteran.

All hopes for a true successor to Diablo 1/2 were dashed against the rocks of Activision and Blizzard's drive towards the lowest common denominator. And let's be honest, Diablo never had a particularly high lowest common denominator in the first place. You click stuff, stuff dies, goodies drop, you get goodies and can now kill tougher stuff. That's the heart of Diablo and we love it.

Then I saw someone refer to a 'PoE beta' in one of the many threads on a D3 forum expressing discontent over these changes. I was expecting an MMO, actually, since I tend to equate 'beta' with 'MMO' these days. Naturally, what I found was this. You've seen the videos, read the site, all that. I don't need to tell you why (or even if) you like what PoE offers.

Sheer luck or maybe a little honesty saw me get a key rather quickly so I got to try it out. I was *immediately* thrown back, not to Diablo 2, but Diablo 1. People sometimes wonder if Diablo 2 managed to sufficiently capture the claustrophobia and panic found under Tristram last millennium, or if the 'baal runs' and 'uber diablo' stuff had overruled the basic aesthetic of what is traditionally a horrifying, disturbing setting.

Path of Exile achieves what even Diablo 2 couldn't. Suddenly I am dying again, something that just didn't happen in the D3 beta and not all that much in Diablo 2 (I played Hardcore mostly, and I'm not even very good at these games, honestly). Path of Exile leaves you in the dark. Monsters I have a little trouble seeing are coming at me, swarming. I know I have to drink a potion the moment I get hit because two or three more hits might end it. That's exactly how I felt the first time I ventured into Tristram's Cathedral. I can't express enough how incredible it feels to experience that again. No Diablo 'clone' has managed it.

And of course, there's the skill system. It's far from perfectly balanced (hey, it's a beta) but GGG deserve all the praise in the world for making it work where even the mighty Blizzard threw their hands in the air and opted instead for a linear 'here, have a new skill for leveling up' approach. There's no denying the similarities with FFX's Sphere Grid or FFVII's materia system, but the genius lies in combining the two. I haven't even scratched the surface and I'm already compelled by the passive skill 'tree' -- which should only be called a tree in the same way that Yggdrasil is a 'tree'. Between the skill tree and the very clever skill gem system, I can feel my sub-optimal urges tingling with glee. I might not be able to handle the high-end brilliantly, but I'm going to have an absolute riot of a time nonetheless.

Oh, and ID scrolls as early game currency? Spectacular idea. Suddenly your buying power is much more convoluted: do you burn a scroll IDing this new item or do you sell the item unIDed and buy something with the same scroll? What a wonderful way to eliminate gold! This 'currency' gives way to various orbs that modify items in interesting ways but the principle remains: instead of a civilised, agreed-upon unit of barter, what rules Wraeclast is the function of an item, and the more potent the function, the higher its value. Not only does this perfectly fit with the setting, it's refreshing after so many ARPGs in which gold is the almost boring standard of trade with NPCs but rarely other players. At last, we have a barter system that is used by both.

The fact that this game is by a relatively unknown group of people from New Zealand is almost irrelevant. I don't feel any sort of desire to 'support the underdog' so much as 'support the game that a Diablo veteran would want to play'. I threw twenty bucks at Torchlight the moment I saw it, and it doesn't hold half a candle to Path of Exile in terms of carrying on the Diablo tradition.

This isn't the game for newcomers to the Diablo genre, and it doesn't try to be. More importantly, it doesn't have to be. If there is a niche for newcomers, there is surely a niche for veterans. I'll be doing my best to ensure that those veterans I know, who have formed groups on Facebook anticipating Diablo 3 (and are now not so sure about that decision), give this game a look. It's rough, rugged, gritty, cruel and full of things that want to kill you. And none of this will stop you from trying anyway.

And I couldn't say that about any other game than Diablo 1.

February 6th, 2013

Well, it's been almost a year since I wrote that and after over 6,000 posts, I still don't think I've managed to write anything better.

We're in Open Beta now. I've become a multi-diamond supporter, was asked to be a moderator around about August last year, have donated $5000 to a kiwi conservation society as part of a possibly misguided attempt to drum up publicity for PoE and I continue to do what little I can to help make this community worthy of its game. Whatever I may have felt when I wrote this post has endured, despite the hiccups, the bumps, the vicissitudes of very slowly but surely becoming more and more involved in the game's development and the community's well-being.

What I don't often get to talk about is my Diablo 3 experience. I actually had one, near the end of last year as Path of Exile pushed towards the excitement and terror of Open Beta. A very kind soul threw a D3 key at me and told me 'play and learn'. I got the message: you can't be a zealot for something if you haven't given the competition a fair go.

Contrary to my feelings above, it wasn't the skill system that struck me as problematic with D3 when I started playing. It was the itemisation resulting from the Auction House design choice. Going back to truly 'trash' drops after playing a game where any drop has the potential, through upgrades, to become amazing was very difficult. I was filling my inventory with things I'd have to cart back to town to sell; I knew they had no function beyond that. Well, this is okay -- I enjoyed stockpiling my gold in D1 to go gamble at Wirt or afford that sweet 'Warrior's Short Sword of the Bat' Griswold was selling.

But when I checked the merchants in 'New Tristram', they were selling...virtually nothing. I upgraded my blacksmith and had him craft me a few handy things but never enough, really. I knew what was going on but I didn't want to admit it. So I kept trudging on.

I think I made it about halfway through Act 1 when I realised that if I wanted to play my style (a true melee wizard or Demon Hunter, supported by the few skills granted that augmented such a style), I'd have to hit up the AH. I was getting destroyed and I knew it was an item situation.

When I finally opened the AH (not the RMAH, just the AH), my heart sank when I saw I could afford some really, really badass stuff for my level. Easily.

That isn't why I play an ARPG. But it truly explained why the npc merchants had a true dearth of worthy items. You weren't meant to buy from them, and what they had for sale was just there to show that Blizzard still paid lip service to the idea of npc merchants.

That plus the lag was just too much. I live in Australia, so I was having flashbacks to Black Walls of Death circa D2 every time I'd be attacking in D3 and the mobs wouldn't react for ten seconds before I am suddenly dead. That's not my idea of fun.

The final straw was, of course, the chat. I saw what happens when you have no moderation in your chat and it was a nightmare. Bots advertising and real people abusing each other -- well, real people if you were lucky. As a moderator for PoE, I felt like I was looking at the future of the game once Open Beta hit and resolved, then and there, to do whatever I could to prevent that from ever happening.

...So there you go. I finally did give D3 a shot, and although I didn't get very far, what I encountered were systemic problems so deep that I knew no amount of leveling or exposure would change how I felt.

Every word of this post holds to this day. More than ever, now that Open Beta has landed and the game is 'real' and 'out there', I am so glad I chose Path of Exile over Diablo 3.

I think I've just one-upped my praise to GGG made back in April last year.

December 29th, 2013

It's almost 1pm of a Sunday and I'm waiting to hear back from my friend in Japan if we're playing D3 on PS3 while skyping today or not. I'm really, really hoping he says yes.

Diablo 3 on console gets it right.

Remember how everyone rightfully scorned the dumbing-down of D3's UI and controls because it was obvious it was made for multi-platform? Well, that somehow finally paid off. It works really well. The radial menus take a bit of getting used to, but they're superior to trying to control a cursor with the controller's stick. The six skills each get a button (no holding down of a second button or toggling), so that's quite a lot of on-the-go skill diversity for a console game.

The new 'evade' feature (simple enough: move right stick in direction, char evades in that direction) sort of confirms what I'd suspected Blizzard were going for with the PC version but couldn't quite nail: this game isn't a simplified/for-dummies/by the numbers ARPG, it's an advanced brawler/hack and slash game. To be perfectly honest, I think Dragon's Crown probably had just as much customisation, if not more, and there's no way you'd call that an ARPG. It's a brawler, and so is Diablo 3.

And as a brawler, Diablo 3 a lot of fun.

There was an early hiccup: the Demon Hunter can't equip anything but bows and crossbows, so my early hopes of BSing a melee Demon Hunter went out the window. I had to try. One last ditch attempt at finding the skeleton of an ARPG under all the brawler costuming.

Nope. You pick a class and you play it the way you're meant to.

I'm fairly content with the Wizard, because now that I've accepted that Diablo 3 is a brawler and not an ARPG, he has some nifty tricks.

Obviously the AH is gone, in both cash and gold formats. You could ignore it on PC but it was still there, taunting you, reminding you that people willing to sell their soul would reap the power. There is no such 'grander' connection between all the players with console D3: you either play with friends or use the 'quick match' feature. It's delightfully simple.

I never played party on pc D3 so I don't know if all the happy-sharing features were in it, but I have to appreciate the fact that health globes heal the party entire -- nothing crapped me out more with my brief solo D3 gaming than being really low on life, healing potion on cooldown, and the only health globe surrounded by enemies. What drudge.

So if the PC version had group healing like that, I'll admit it might have changed my view of the game a bit. A bit.

Overall, though, it had to lose the AH, the pretences of being an ARPG and my hunger for a true narrative continuation of Sanctuary to suck me in. The railroad storytelling that so crippled the PC version (compared to the much more open-ended nature of D1 and D2) fits nicely on a console game where you're just happy to zip from massacre to massacre. Identifying items is integral to a good ARPG, that moment of anticipation regarding a drop. On a console, it'd just be an unnecessary pause between killing things. That floaty feeling I still get from the PC version just seems 'fast and frantic' on console. I've played and enjoyed dozens of games like that before on my consoles over the years.

Everything that struck me as crap blah about Diablo 3 on PC shines on console.

It's a much purer beat-em-up experience on console, sort of like a super advanced Gauntlet, or as my friend puts it, 'X-Men!' I'm a Wizard with ice beams; he's a monk with teleporty-punchy attacks, so of course we might as well be Iceman and Nightcrawler...

We didn't get very far -- my friend hasn't played a Diablo since 1996, so there was a lot for him to absorb -- but I very much look forward to our next session. Oh, the fact that I play with a headset on means the game itself is very low volume, so...what voice-acting? Nice perk.

I'm glad that I can finally uninstall the game from my computer, and give the person who gave me that copy belated not-entirely-negative feedback on the experience.

___

Second 4 hour session done. Level 15, just hit act 2.

I still skip the cutscenes and ignore the npc dialogue. It's obviously just as bad as before. the lore is cool though -- none of that clashes too much with the foundations set by D1.

There is a LOT of rubber-banding, folks. I think what makes it less annoying than PoE's desync is that it feels familiar. It feels like D2 again. You thought you'd moved forward, but actually hadn't. I don't die to rubber-banding much.

Desync, on the other hand, is all about monsters not being where they should be, and your character sometimes being where he or she has never actually gone. This kills you, a lot. And in cruel or merciless, that translates directly into time wasted.

I hate to say it, but the death system is much more convenient in D3 than in PoE. Sure, not as pure as PoE's in terms of the ARPG, but just resurrecting at the corpse after a slight countdown? Excellent for a brawler.

There are some weird difficulty spikes. We got decimated by champions with knockback or vortex, but then upon leveling and changing gear, bam, easy as. It's an interesting little set of steps.

I find the idea of white items as vendor trash no matter what still quite wasteful, but that's the way it goes. Blues are salvage trash, so at least they're consistent.

I was surprised to see the npc vendor stocking rares. I definitely never saw that in the PC version.

The quest structure so far has been abysmal. So many of them feel arbitrary -- you cannot enter here to collect THAT until you collect THESE items. That kind of thing is just bullshit. Legacy of the WoW mentality.

But again, since it's a brawler now, who cares?

I had a revelation about D3 on PS3/Xbox last night.

Diablo 3 terrified of throwing numbers at its players. It knows that numbers scare the brawler player.

An ARPG, on the other hand, is nothing without the same numbers.

This was an important realisation. Where games like PoE revel in their hardcore (relatively speaking) math demands upfront, D3 conceals it. We all know that the original D3 wouldn't let you allocate your attribute points as you level, which was of course a point of contention among the more ardent ARPG players, and rightfully so.

But if console D3 had the same level of number-crunching forced onto the player as PoE does, it would be absolutely tiresome.

Consider this: the floating damage numbers are 'off' by default on console. Maybe they were on PC as well, but I found that very telling.

Anyway, this fear of numbers deal, this concealment of the mechanics so to speak, became apparent to me when I asked my monk-playing friend what his hp were. He actually didn't know. He didn't know the numerical value of his character's hp after 8 hours of play.

So I just 'inspected' him and saw it for myself, but man, isn't that an interesting fact?!

Further, he had no idea the impact 'vitality' had on said hp, and was amazed that I'd chosen +30 or so vitality blue pants over higher armour yellow ones, but then wondered where I got all that health from.

Another example is the fact that when you browse/assign your skills in D3 on PS3, you don't see any sort of damage numbers listed. It's not until you actually try a skill that you can assess how it's interacting with your 'weapon damage' -- a concept I actually like on console, btw, because a wizard 'channeling' through a sword is very cool. Stupid for an ARPG, but very cool for a brawler.

Finally, when you find new gear in D3 on pS3, there are handy little 'up and down arrows' for attack, defence and health that you can see at a glance upon picking the item up. The game does the math for you, pretty much. And that's good for a brawler!

The numbers are still there if you dig, but really, you don't need to know the minutiae if your only goal is blasting the crap out of everything. All you need to know is if you start to lag damage wise, upgrade. Simple.

This is exactly how a 'complicated' brawler should be.

The so-called 'consolification' of Diablo 3, its very successful transition from ARPG failure to brawler triumph, has removed my need to choose, but still:

Here's the question I've slowly been working towards, given that I've always compared Diablo-esque games to 'Gauntlet', which was essentially a primitive brawler:

Which would I rather be playing?

Between a sophisticated but mathematically automated brawler and a highly complex, do-it-yourself ARPG, which would I personally consider a more fun gaming experience?

Right now, I'd say 'with friends', the brawler, and 'by myself or with strangers', the ARPG.

Diablo 3 with a controller and some friends is insanely good fun for hours on end.

Path of Exile with keyboard+mouse, the wiki open and people to chat with, theorise at...that'll be my home for years yet.