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

"Brown nosing has its own merit, but who would stoop so low just for a beta key? (of this finely crafted game)"

Totally with you there. I saw the silliness going on in the beta forum regarding acquisition of keys and really, really felt like I'd never get in. I don't 'do' forums much anymore, unless I find one that won't troll what I have to say thoughtlessly.

I was just very lucky and very honest in this regard.

I wish you the best of luck as well.

"

Wega52 wrote:

Great post OP.

I must say I really enjoy the small part of poE that i've encountered up until now, and I do get a very nice D2-feel when I play it. Yes they need to work on how the quests are presented, and try to add more "mood" to the game to get to D2 heights. But they have a great foundation to build on, especially the music is doing really good things for the "mood" in this game. And there are bugs, but it's only closed Beta, I'm sure they are gonna fix them.

I'm not in the D3 Beta, but I'm really starting to get concerned, as I've seen soo many people make the same complains about the game is the OP did here, and I really dont like how the game has evolved if this is true. I'm getting really close to canceling my Pre-order of D3, because I'm starting to have serious doubts that it's the game I expect it to be. And I dont want to pay pull price for a game thats now what it's suppose to be (IMO).

Anyway, I just wanted to thank to op for taking the time to writhe this down, and share it with us thats in doubt :)

Now I'm gonna jump back to PoE and continue testing this game, and prepare my feedback to the devs :)

Have fun all!

I formed my impressions of D3 by watching YouTube gameplay footage, as well as reading a variety of forum posts about it. If you're on the fence about D3, watch ForceSC2strategy's D3 vids:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5C2F514ECED855CA&feature=plcp

Force is generally a booster for D3, but he doesn't hesitate to call Blizzard out on their screw-ups, and his criticism seems to have grown as the Beta moves along.

As for PoE, I've found that I do a lot more skill switching as I play than in D1 or D2. Each of my characters has a nice range of skills, and I find myself cycling through them quite a bit during play, rather than simply button-mashing one attack all the time. That, alone, exemplifies PoE's excellent game design. Add in the in-game economy, the passive skill tree, and all the other parts which make up the whole, and PoE is a very satisfying game in the tradition of the first two iterations of Diablo. =^[.]^=

Although I agree on OP's post being good, I don't really agree with some his points.

For example: '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.'

What exactly is the difference between finding them and just getting them? Sure, you'd need to get them, but after a bit of trading every played would still end up with all the skillrunes. This just makes it less tedious as getting all of them would be nothing more than a chore in the first place.

Another thing he brings up is difficulty.
He says that in POE he is 'dying again'
However, it's not different at all from diablo 2.
In diablo 2 it was very common to die on nightmare and especially HELL difficulty. Sure, once your gear became great it wasn't always a huge issue anymore (given that you were paying attention) but the same goes for POE.

Good post. I feel pretty much the same about Diablo 3 at the moment. I am devastated that Diablo 3 is shaping up to be one big disappointment, because of the reasons you listed here. I had never anticipated a game before as much as I anticipated Diablo 3, and it is so sad to see my favorite series get turned into an isometric World of Warcraft.

Thankfully, Path of Exile is an amazing game so far. An excellent spiritual successor to Diablo 2, in my opinion. This game is what Diablo 3 should have been.

Hi Tagek! I have noticed your prolific presence on this forum and am only marginally surprised that you'd read and respond to my contribution. Your queries allow me to elaborate on a few things I felt did not belong in my original post, so thank you for that. Let's see...



"What exactly is the difference between finding them and just getting them? Sure, you'd need to get them, but after a bit of trading every played would still end up with all the skillrunes. This just makes it less tedious as getting all of them would be nothing more than a chore in the first place."

This is a common counter-argument and one usually given by those who play for end-game content. I may have made clear that I am not such a player; I try weird builds and occasionally even make them work. I never made it past level 80 in Diablo 2 -- by then, it all felt sort of grindy and boring. New character please! And in starting a new character, I could try a different style within any of the given classes. You may recall each class had three distinct trees, each of which was accessible at level 1.

Had Diablo 3 done this with its various skills, I wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Instead, it acknowledged that it wouldn't have the traditional trees and presented a great alternative: items that anyone could find even at low level (since they had ranks, much like D2's gems) that dramatically modified each skill. If you wanted to be a fire-based wizard, all you had to do was throw a crimson rune into magic missile, and wham, fire! Ice? Same deal. The runes were, as far as we knew, all the same level (again, just like gems: you were just as likely to get a chipped ruby as you were a chipped sapphire, for example). So on and so forth. The current Blizzard discarded the antiquated tree system skill-wise for something far more nebulous. It was really, really interesting.

Now that these modifications have been integrated into the progression, the player simply does not have such a range of variation at any given level. Instead, unlocking spell X at level 2, spell X's first rune variation at say 22, variation 2 at 25, and so on, Blizzard has created a hierarchy where one did not formerly exist. This is the very antithesis of the build potential their earlier rune system promised. Players are going to naturally feel that skill variations unlocked later will somehow be better. Higher level skills as better, this we can understand. But variations? Might as well just admit it's no longer the same system and rename the variations as new skills.


With this change, the journey has been (further) neglected for the destination.

I honestly think anyone who games just for the destination is missing the point of gaming itself. The end-game has its own 'journey' but it's something of a meta-game experience: it's outside of levels, outside of the story. It's simply not something that I feel a game developer should make paramount in their design. Blizzard certainly can't help it; they've been dealing with demanding end-gamers for as long as WoW's been out, and you could probably argue all the post-LoD additions to D2 were something similar. Fair enough -- but it's an insult to gamers to insist that their build will not be possible until the end-game.

So yes, if they'd just unlocked all five rune types per level (say, you get spell X at level 2 AND all five rune variations with it) then the difference between having them as item drops and having them as part of the leveling up process wouldn't be that great. But taking what was initially a new form of gem that altered your skills without necessarily making them statistically 'better' and shoe-horning it into a linear level progression unlock is really quite pathetic.

Diablo has always been about the allure and compulsion of loot acquisition. I think saying that gaining runes would be a 'chore' is probably right from the perspective of anyone who hasn't played sufficient Diablo to know it was and always has been a chore: hunting for months for that ring that had a sliver more resistance, or this sword that miraculously drained 7% life rather than your current 6%...it's ALL a chore. But another word for 'chore' is 'labour', and who hasn't heard of 'labour of love'?

"Another thing he brings up is difficulty.
He says that in POE he is 'dying again'
However, it's not different at all from diablo 2.
In diablo 2 it was very common to die on nightmare and especially HELL difficulty. Sure, once your gear became great it wasn't always a huge issue anymore (given that you were paying attention) but the same goes for POE."

Again, you're speaking from a point of destination rather than journey. In Diablo 1, you died. A lot. Especially at first. If you weren't quick with potions, careful of the environment, doorways,etc...you died. If you opened the door to the Butcher without knowing what was behind that door, you died.

The only thing that came even close to taking me out in Act 1 Diablo 2 was Rakanishu with his constant lightning-enchantment, and even then only if I were melee-spec. The rest of the act was pretty easy, and like I said, I'm not that good at these games. By the time you hit Nightmare level, you were pretty prepared for it -- the worst critters in normal were still tougher than the weakest critters in NM act 1. Hell is definitely another story with its crazy immunities and the like, but I can't speak about that in relation to PoE because I've only started PoE. So high-end PoE may well be just as 'easy' as D2's in regards to gear, or it might be will-crushingly hard. Can't say, won't say. I was talking about that initial experience that Diablo 1 presented of ohmygodI'mgonnadie that Diablo 2 in normal just didn't. Diablo 3 beta *definitely* didn't -- in hindsight, it was actually boring. And as I said, so few games since Diablo 1 have given me that same feeling of urgency from the start. PoE does, although now that I'm getting a feel for it, it's not quite as threatening but I still find myself backing away from a horde to try to manage things. Again, not something D2 forced me to do very often at all, and not something Diablo 3 beta ever forced me to do.

You'll note I'm not talking about Diablo 3 a a completed product; for all I know, Blizzard might suddenly up the difficulty from the start to be more on-par with that Diablo 1 experience...but given the consistent simplification of D3 since conception, I wouldn't bet on it. High-end D3 ('Inferno') will probably be very hard indeed, but reserving reasonable challenge for the end-game, again, is an act worthy of a gamer's scorn.

I hope my reply has sufficiently addressed some of your contentions.

I prefer PoE more than D3 - because it somehow reminds me of Dark Souls ))) so i will play PoE moar than D3 i think xD

@CharanJaydemyr
Agree with some of your points in your last post. I feel like D3 made some steps back compared to D2 when it comes to the mid-game, although I must say that all these points don't matter for end-game, so I actually do expect the end-game to be better.

The way you presented yourself in your posts I can understand why you like PoE more, +1 to you for making a post with valid points and not talking some unninformed/fanboy crap that I read in 99% of the posts here concerning a PoE vs D3 discussion.

Going by forum posting response time, POE is great, far superior to the forum refresh time on Blizz.

Well what I don't understand is if you don't care about endgame content, wouldn't that make diablo 3 even more fun?

You get a lot of abilities to experiment with through leveling up, as well as gaining new forms of your old ones.
And if you saw blizzard's recent announcement, there's a huge encouragement for sticking to one particular build during a playsession, but there's complete freedom in skill choice if you desire to have it.

Not to mension the fact that diablo 3 will have a well crafted epic storyline that adds tons of atmosphere to the game, which is a big selling point for me personally.

And as for this:
'Diablo has always been about the allure and compulsion of loot acquisition. I think saying that gaining runes would be a 'chore' is probably right from the perspective of anyone who hasn't played sufficient Diablo to know it was and always has been a chore: hunting for months for that ring that had a sliver more resistance, or this sword that miraculously drained 7% life rather than your current 6%...it's ALL a chore. But another word for 'chore' is 'labour', and who hasn't heard of 'labour of love'?'

Although I understand your point, I'm referring indeed to the relative endgame here. Runes will not be a cool thing to have, but they will be mandatory. Meaning that having them all will be normal, and not having them will be a huge disadvantage. Sure, you, as a player who doesn't play for the endgame might dislike this new system, but they can't cater the game to a select few who like it better that way.


Then about the difficulty,

You are basically saying that the first acts / difficulties in diablo are pretty easy. Well sure, but that's how almost every game works, that's called progression. If they didn't have this, again, just to appeal to a select few players like you, then they would be potentially scaring off or frustrating a lot of casual players.
Also, I'm sure nightmare will start off to be a significant challenge (at least for your first few playthroughs) and they've already said that from hell and onwards it gets really tough. If you don't like playing the end game then that's fine, but it really is a large part of this game as well as of it's predecessor.

I don't see a recipe for a good game, its the whole experience and how that impacts those you like to play with. I could find the greatest game in the world, but if I can't get my friends to play it stinks, and vice versa a really poor game that has good interaction with your friends can work really well.

Yuck, reminded myself of Evony on Facebook, game stinks with endless huge time demands of clicking your mouse to death, but it was great for chatting with friends and making joint actions. Downside is that you have no life, fail all your classes at school, and still get pounded in game by paid players.