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

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Charan wrote:

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. -- CJ

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.

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Charan wrote:

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.

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Charan wrote:

...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.

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Vakirauta wrote:

Is this the 3rd necro or what?