Posted on February 7, 2013, in Episodes and tagged chaosd1, diablo, diablo clone, grinding gear games, mmo, mmo grinder, path of exile, review. Bookmark the permalink. 30 Comments.
-
Follow
Following
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
MMO Grinder 
One pet peeve I have with the F2P dungeon crawlers in particular is how often they call themselves MMOs, they’re not. Massively multiplayer is when the game in general allows you to go out and fight with/against a huge number of people, these games tend to limit you to, four, not very massive that number. The guys behind this game thankfully refer to it as an online action RPG which seems a much more fitting label.
I find “MMO” is getting slapped on to far too many games. I mean, I saw one MMO site that had FarmVille and other such Facebook games listed as an MMO. It’s just gotten to be too much of a catch-all to me.
I wouldn’t bother with hardcore mode until they have stabilized their servers. You will most likely eventually die from lag. And by lag I mean you are standing there 10 meters away from mobs and your hp drop like a rock suddenly when they’re not even doing anything.
That’s odd. The only time I’ve ever had lag was while playing on the Singapore server with my boyfriend (He lives in Australia–I live in the US–and the Singapore one is much better for him) and even then, it was really only 200 or so latency. Never had a problem with the American server though. In towns it’s a little laggy at times, but it’s rare.
Well the lag is there and everyone is talking about it on their forums. The lag is there as I’m writing this. It is almost unplayable. It is more obvious when you play a ranger.
Sounds like good advice to me.
I like that party system ^_^
I loves me some drop down RPGs.
Why pay people to design weapons when they can pay you?
Was it Arcanum or Pool of Radiance that had a really repetitive grey & brown environment?
I’m getting this one ^o^
Without the Diablo-style DRM? It’s the exact same case – you can’t play the game unless you’re online at all times. If you lose network connection to the server, you get kicked back to the login screen. In fact, the day Open Beta hit, it had an identical problem to that of Diablo 3, with the login servers hammered so hard you couldn’t connect, and the day before seeing download servers so loaded you couldn’t get more than 50KB/s on a 3GB client.
The only difference is Diablo 3 tried to pretend it wasn’t an MMO and this one is upfront about it.
You don’t pay 60 dollars for Path of Exile.
When Blizzard bans your account because they think you might have thought about hacking one time, you’re shelling out another 60 dollars to get to play again. All PoE wants is an e-mail address. I have a hard time considering it DRM if the game is free to begin with. D3 has NO logical reason to be “online only”.
Review Spoiler!
In my restless plays, I see that game, Tera. You promised me to review that game in your next review, but you never did. Well, I’m playing it, waiting for your review.
Ok, bad joke aside, great work here as always. Man, and you thought that your timing was odd; as soon as I asked your opinion about Tera going F2P, you were about to post this video. Also I was playing this game a couple of days ago, and was quite good. Except for a few problems with targeting(attacks and skills) and the poor respawn rate of enemies or quest items, I can say is a solid game, but I think I’ll first finish with Hellgate London first. That CD haven’t been touched since 2009.
Good review. I’ve been wondering when the next episode would be up. :)
I’d been trying to get into the closed beta for quite some time, but never got the code for it. As soon as it went open beta, I started playing and found I liked it quite a bit right off the bat.
PoE is what I feel Diablo 3 should have been. Now, there were some things I liked about Diablo 3. I actually did like the art style, the wizard and demon hunter classes were pretty fun, the spells were neat, most of the areas and dungeons you go through were interesting, and killing things was satisfying most of the time, but that’s about all the things I can say I liked. Torchlight 2 was a bit closer to the classic Diablo formula especially in skills and combat, but it still didn’t feel the same. I enjoy it by far more than D3, and I feel it’s much more rewarding to play through, but it still doesn’t bring that Diablo-esque form of nostalgia. Then I played PoE, and, there it was. This was Diablo! The art style is nitty and gritty, but that’s how Diablo should be. It still looks amazing graphics-wise anyway. The skill tree is phenomenal. I love being able to plan out exactly what I’m going to do and have so many options. The game is challenging without ever being frustrating (The exact opposite of D3), and the concepts the development team have used like, using a barter system, skill gems, and the expansive skill tree really shine through.
My only problem with it is that it seems a little too easy to make things perfect. Like, how you can tweak a piece of gear to be exactly how you want it by changing slot colors, number of slots, even the properties themselves, with just using orbs you pick up off the ground. It is randomized, but there’s no way to get something bad if you do this, as there aren’t any negative properties. I just think there should be more of a consequence to completely altering something. I mean, you can even change a normal white item into a magic/rare item with no effort at all. Right now, it feels slanted way too much in your favor and kinda defeats the purpose of trying to loot that one amazing piece of gear from an enemy. That’s one thing TL did a great job with, which I don’t think added any unfair disadvantage or difficulty, and instead made loot drops all the more rewarding and satisfying.
Overall, it’s pretty good. Out of the three games mentioned here, PoE definitely feels like the true successor to Diablo 2, and I’ve been hooked on it all this time without getting pissed off once, which is waaaaay more than I can say for D3.
Sorry, long post is long. Haha
The review was spot on for anyone wanting to delve into PoE. Will this be a game you’ll be playing from time to time or not?
While you didn’t mention it in the review and I’m not sure how nit-picky this is… but there’s a bit of depth/research needed to progress farther in the game without dying left/right and not feeling overwhelmed with the barter system.
For example, any build can pretty much solo though normal difficulty with minimal hassle and same can be said for cruel difficulty (esp if you have a couple of buddies playing with you), but once you reach merciless difficulty you hit the wall hard in terms of being able to even level your character. Which may discourage people to try continuing the game by either respecing a ton of points (expensive) or rolling a new character to be better than the previous build (grinding). The only way to get around this would be researching up a solid build someone else put together that you feel you can work with or spending time with the passive point planner figuring out what to do better. Although, this could call be lumped under the con of “it’s in beta and there’s balance issues”.
With regards to the barter system, simply knowing to reference poeex.info should help with relative values of currencies.
I’ll take a wild guess, and say TERA is next? I mean it did just launch its F2P/Expansion thing and your previous sidequest was only about the 7-day free trial. Also was good to see PoE get some love, I certainly enjoyed the concept of being tossed on an island to survive, and the island used scavenged items as currency as opposed to somehow finding a stable source of gold.
Skill web? That looks familiar. http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Sphere_Grid
I’m happy to see someone playing around with that idea. Now if only someone would steal that condition based battle system with the act bar I’d be a happy happy creature.
No, we need more automated battles XD
Nah, just kidding. I must say, a Diablo-esque game with board-based skill system looks VERY interesting.
The quiet community doesn’t surprise me. The gameplay’s a bit too hectic for text-communication.
A thousand dollars to design your own item and have it put in the game?
……ten bucks says some rich guy spends the money to design a penis sword and then throws a fit when the company says “No”.
This is why I hate the internet sometimes. This IS going to happen, and I bet there’s going to be a ton of news sites taking his side, and leaving out the fact that he was trying to make a dick sword.
Yikes, I thought I’d be in for a completely different game full of unknown stuff, but seems like the PvP is the biggest change from the closed beta a year + ago.
Really have to agree with the summary at the end, it does get really repetitive even if you enjoy it. A problem with all of this style, but you really plowed through act 1 way to fast and easily, then act 2 was just longer before going through the “time portal” and starting all over again in another difficulty.
Wasn’t much to keep you coming back after you had played it enough sadly.
That’s exactly what I was afraid of when I started seeing the tweets of “OMG Path of exile OMG OMG” and nothing about it a mere week later. There’s still so little that’s changed from CB, it still felt like I was playing the exact same game I played in my Sidequest. The only thing receiving any major tweaks was the skill tree. Everything else was exactly as I remembered. I can partially see why, conidering how ofter Grinding Gear talks about being a rather small development team, but it is shocking to see a game in Closed Beta for so long barely change from its original design, and it’s pretty easy to get burnt out on.
And I agree. While that frustration makes sense for many people. The repetition..is at some level part of the point. People get sucked into the loot grind and the customizability of items, and skill trees.
Essentially its the same traits that suck people into diablo..and keep people playing through normal and nightmare, and hell mode. Its the same stuff over and over again..but they are hooked on the gear and character build option.
And this game has two entirely different aspects of character building..both the passive skill trees…and the skill gems, which continue to evolve, and get more creative and interesting.
This just like diablo..is one of those things that hooks you..or it doesn’t.
Having been playing since the open beta…i also feel like part of this is that the hardcore fans of this game, dont want to be like diablo fans..constantly selling their game to everyone and annoying the hell out of people.
..but yeah..if people could stop bitching about diablo 3 in the chat I would be hella greatful. I have blocked alot of people just because thats all they did.
It was an excellent review and you definately caught all of the things people will notice right off the bat. and while their are lots of more intricate fiddly bit things you didnt go into..thats also not quite your style of video so its not suprising.
Very enjoyable review. They have definately prompted me to try some free to play mmos out that i wouldnt have already.
I am LOVING this game. The only bad thing I can mention is the community which is actually pretty good. It can be helpful, friendly and just cool to chat with, though I’m wondering if Diablo 3 will ever stop being mentioned in the chat. I mean, I think some peple just mention it to troll, like going to a convention and shouting “SUPERMAN 64 IS TEH BEST GAME EVER!” or going to a comic book store and asking who’s the best super hero.
Honorable mention to the soundtrack. Especially the song playing during the Butcher area in Act 1. It’s pretty awesome.
So..yeah. Loved the review. Those 21 minutes just flew by.
Really good review man. Been playing Path of Exile since it went open beta, and have to say I’m enjoying it. It’s not something I can play for great stretches of time, but it’s not a bad way to spend an hour or two.
One thing I wish to add though, that I don’t believe was mentioned in the review (and this is not me nitpicking, just mentioning a small thing that is easy to miss, but I think will be useful to people who wish to play this) is that the stash in town is not only for one character, but is attached to every character on your account. Meaning, if you are playing one character, and you come across a loot drop that is entirely useless to it, but you just so happen to have another character that it would be perfect for, just put it in the stash. Then, when you next log in with that second character, just go back into the stash, and you’ll find the item there. It’s a really useful function if you are playing with multiple characters.
Anywho, great job as always, and can’t wait for the next review. (and if it’s what I think it is, hope you have plenty of asprin)
It’s also worth to know that the stash attached to the league, so if your hardcore character die, he will no longer have access to his stash in hardcore.
Been having fun with this game, but I’m still not a big fan of point and click to move. I’d like this kind of game with keyboard movement, like in Spiral Knights. It’s just harder to aim while moving and avoiding stuff and not accidentally loot or attack a mob when you wanted to move.
I find I have the exact opposite problem, with all forms of click to move, where I intend to attack a target, and end up running toward them, but then again, it’s my favoritism toward ranged classes that makes this an issue. Most annoying are those crab creatures that get a short window of invincibility when you remove their shell, making me almost ALWAYS run to them once they lose the shell, or breaking up my attack pattern.
I played the ranger too, focusing on bow skills. It can be a pain. Though there is a button that will make you stand still and only attack, allowing you to fire while stationary. A good way to snipe enemies from far away.
I think you can use the same feature as in Diablo 3, where you hold down Shift while you left mouseclick to attack. This will have you attacking in the path of where the mouse is, while you hold your ground.
Yup, that feature has been in every Diablo game in fact in the first of the series the Rouge could clear out entire rooms and not even move because the arrows would continue multiple screens (so blind fire massacre); why back in the day……
But what if I don’t want to play face makeup? what if I want to play a Rogue?
I’m just funning you. To speak on the subject though, having played Diablo 1, 2 and 3 extensively (as in I used to farm Inferno for profit back in 1.0.3), it’s been my experience that the games progressively got -less- challenging as they went on.
Take Diablo I for example, you very much felt like you were alone and in over your head. It was a game where, even on normal difficulty, if you were not careful and didn’t engage the enemies intelligently, You’d get creamed. Diablo I was about using the mechanics of the game, and intelligent engagement to overcome a challenge that was intended to kill you.
Diablo II, by comparison, was a lighter game, Yes, large swaths of the world are getting overtaken by hell, but your character can fight back against that, on a FAR more even keel than the characters of diablo 1. through the whole game, there was hope.
Diablo III, well, it isn’t a matter of if you can beat normal, The first time you play through the game, you’ll either feel like a god with the way you’re tossing enemies around like they’re nothing, or you’ll be bored with how easy it is. Granted, the game’s storyline essentially says you’re a Godling, as you fight diablo in a straight fight, with no weakened host form, no soul stone to bind him, and you outright kill him dead, something it’s been demonstrated the angels themselves could not do.
While III does go a long way to make you feel the part of something vastly more than human, it lost a lot of the feel of dread and challenge of the earlier installments. especially the first game.
I’d say, Path of Exile captures a lot of the feeling of you being some poor schmuck in over their head and has a lot of the challenge, but it’s not quite up to the feel of the first diablo
That can happen too. Sometimes there are mobs everywhere and you don’t know or have time to click between mobs to move and not attack or loot something. We should have a button to hold so that we can move and not attack or loot anything, like shift hold your position.
You know, I thought that stash thing was the case but I didn’t mention it, because oddly enough the gear I stored for one character didn’t show up for another. Maybe there’s some sort of level limit for that, or I got myself a bug.
Pingback: Tell us how you really feel (Episodes 35, 36, and 37) | MMO Grinder