Path of Exile

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

I played a few hours of this finally on PC. I must say its quite good so far. Its definitely heavily inspired by Diablo 2. Its like if Diablo 3 had D2's intricate character build system 10x. I'm actually pretty lost in the skill tree, its absolutely insane. What is interesting about this game is that your builds mostly rely on your socketed gems, and armor drops are more than just Common-Unique, you want a good socket placement. I've read that you'll get a NPC later that can change socket arrangements which will save a lot of headache. You get skill gems that enhance your attacks, gives you spells, and other gems that support these attacks by enhancing them even further. And on top of all of that the gems are divided into 3 colors Green/Blue/Red and these grant Dexterity/Intelligence/Strength. The huge skill tree grants passive buffs and life/mana increases/regens.

The interesting thing is how potions work. You get 5 potion slots. each slot can hold a vial for HP, MP, and a temp movement speed buff. These never run out but you can only use them 2-3 maybe 4 times until hey drain out and you have to let them recharge. Of course these have small-large sizes, and I got a drop for one that regenerates 50% faster. So I guess there must be rare vials you can get eventually. You can customize the set up in whatever way you want. You can have 5 HP potions, 5 MP potions, 4HP/1MP, 3/2, 5 speed potions? ETC you get the point.

The game is F2P, so its def worth checking out on PC. You get a 10 arc story without having to pay a dime. I looked through their microtransaction tab and its 90% cosmetics and 10% storage upgrades. Without paying anything, you get a very generous 4 tab stash, and a pretty shitty personal inventory, thats on par with Diablo. You can't upgrade this from what I saw, you can just upgrade the stash, and I think you can get another stash that you can open anywhere in the game, but its not sharable between characters. I've been making it a long just fine with the basic. The only thing they do to tempt you into buying the personal stash is that the NPCs give you wisdom scrolls for selling them junk. These ID items, but also act as currency to buy things from vendors. So if you play like diablo and skip all the common drops, you'll never get a lot of wisdom scrolls. Selling blue and higher give you a different item altogether. So if you need some, you'll have to go around and pick up 5-9 items, use the WP or portal scroll to go back to town and sell and repeat.

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

Honestly I'm not all that impressed with Path of Exile. I downloaded it yesterday since I was out of work sick and played for about two hours. While the systems they have in place are interesting and I do like the in-depth skill tree I'm honestly not sold on everything else and that inventory system is atrocious (and don't get me started on the whole Scrolls of Wisdom thing (used as currency and to identify items, wth?)). I wouldn't go so far as saying it's D3 with D2's character build system x10. There's obviously some correlations between them but quite frankly I wouldn't even consider this a poor mans D2 or D3. Again just my opinion (and I understand why others like the game I just can't bring myself to. If I want to play a D2 inspired game I'll stick with Torchlight 2, it not only captures the intricate character build system from D2 but it also plays a lot like it (not to mention it was developed by the guys who developed D2 for Blizzard)).

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

Now that I've played it for several hours and I'm into act 3. Some of the initial issues with the game are subsiding. The tombs of wisdom and portals drop abundantly. The major drawback to the game for me now is that loot is absolute shit. I mean there is way too much junk. Maybe thats because I'm playing standard and not league. Getting a good tier drop with shit amounts of sockets and wrong colors makes me hold on to my old armor a lot longer. I finally got to the point where I can obtain things that randomly change the colors, fuses, and amounts, but these items are RNG and can go either way. You basically have to either have a lot of these items, have enough alternate currency to trade for them, or only use it on new things you haven't grown attached to hoping for the best. I do like the skill gem system, its my favorite part of this game. Now that i have a good 40-50 of them, I have a lot of options and flexibility for new armor drops.

For me the Skill Tree/Skill Gem system is better than D3's system, which only let you alter your same set of attacks. I haven't played D3 in years so I don't know what if any kind of alterations they've made to it. Plus the classes aren't as limited to a single weapon set... even though a ranger using a wand or bladed mace is weird, you can do it, and work your way through the skill tree to support it. Its probably not end game worthy, but hey you can do whatever you want.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

I completed all 10 acts today. I haven't dived into the end game and I'll probably start a new character for the expac tomorrow. But here is what I think.

For a free game, its outstanding... its hands down the best F2P game in existence. I'm not judging this by the actual game, but just the sheer amount of content that isn't bullshit. If you want to just casually play 10 acts for the story. Its way more bang for your buck or lack of buck. You get everything for free.

If you want to play this game a little bit more seriously, like endgame content or or multiple characters, you're going to have to spend about $15-30 depending on your convenience preference and if there is a sale going on. As both me and Strider pointed out, inventory is a joke. Your on hand character inventory is pretty limited and fills up quickly. The stash seems fine at first, but if you horde flasks and attack/support gems, by act 4 or 5, you're going to be running out of space. The game has normal extra stashes and more detailed stashes that organize your currency, maps, and other specific items. For the short time I've been playing, Stashes have been 50% off twice.

The currency system is utterly bizarre at first, but when you get use to it, its less of a hassle and kind of a non factor. The scrolls of wisdom thing was annoying at first, but then they started dropping more than I needed them too... as it stands now I have 780 in my stash.. I never found myself needing them too often. Other currencies like jeweler's orbs and fuse orbs that are actually useful but frustrating to come by are a bigger issue.

Drops are trash all the way til the end. Its probably the most disappointing aspect of this game. Loot never really feels rewarding outside of trials of ascendancy. Since jewelers and fuse orbs are hard to come by, its hard to get a max socketed item all fused for your gems. By the end of act 10 I never had a fully socketed item outside of my helmet and gloves. I only changes Bows less than 4 times because the one I had used more sockets. By the end I had one less than the max sockets for my bow. All the unique items that drop are pure garbage, and the good ones come from grind.

I appreciate the detail the game has in dialogue, but it definitely isn't a game you can plan to play for just 1 hour. You can spend it all listening to characters talk. When you find a document in a map, you can click on it and walk away so the dialogue continues to play, but interacting with NPCs is annoying because you have to sit there and listen without doing anything if you want to hear the dialogue... sometimes checking your inventory, or fiddling with anything will cancel the conversation.

I plan on playing league when it starts tomorrow because the drops seem way better... but for standard the death penalty is just losing XP for that level. I hear once you get past 80 (max is 120), these penalties are brutal because XP is more scarce and dying can wipe 2-3 hours of progress. Overall it seemed kind lame and super casual, but at the same time, the only thing that really kills you in this game is one shots from bosses and strong enemies. Playing ranger, you cant move and attack at the same time, which is an adjustment. So its a bit easier to die than it should be.

The amount of different attack and support gems is insane. I eventually had to divide my gems into 3 stashes for red, green, and blue. I now have half a full stash of each. This game shines in the fact that there is no class specific items... only melee and ranged specific. I haven't encountered any armor or weapons that said I couldn't use it.

Its worth checking out on PS4. It may not be as refined as a Diablo game, but its a great dungeon crawler to pass the time. I just hope we get a western release for Lost Ark, because that game looks really sexy.