Mystickskye wrote on 2013-01-29 15:25
I tried it out, noted it was extremely similar to DII and other such games (Titan's Quest comes to mind) but I appreciate the differences. The gems and the skill tree are really neat as is the item/equipment system. I've been running all over the maps and carting loads of stuff back to base to trade in for frags and shards and rolling and rerolling on my equipment hoping for good lines.
Lie wrote on 2013-01-30 01:00
It's a good game, and I do feel like it's better at the Diablo atmosphere and Diablo's weight of combat. Well, generally better at quite a few things. The microtransaction shop impresses me a whole lot, and I want to see that more often in more F2P games. PoE's own endgame, from what I've seen in the videos, is well-rounded for this kind of genre looking for a F2P space.
That said, there are things that I don't like or were disappointed in.
Namely, the item barter system. I haven't played all the way up to endgame, but the item barter system to me feels like the devs met it halfway. I expected more of a trading system similar to player market trades, rather than using scrolls or orbs as a method of payment. As it is, the way PoE does its economy feels less like a true bartering system and more like "coins that happen to have one other purpose to each of them". Suffice to say, this was a disappointment to me, and I honestly don't expect this system to stop botting as much as they think it will.
Is it something I'd like to see in other games? Only if it was more uniform instead of broken into so many tiers. Currently, the only benefit I see to PoE's currency system is that it has a money sink option attached to it.
The passive skill tree didn't impress me as much as I would have thought either. Maybe I was expecting something larger and more complex, or maybe I was expecting something more exciting than "+10 Dex, +10 Dex, +10 Dex, +4 Increased Attack Speed and +30 Dex, +10 Dex, +10 Dex". Either way, it was underwhelming when I looked at everything and then looked at player-made builds. Perhaps I was looking for something that would has Notable and Keystone skills more of the majority instead of the minority.
At least the passive skill tree disappointment was made by up the skill gem system. That blew me away in how controlled but varied that idea is. Sure, I liked it in FF7, but didn't really think to apply it in more in-depth RPG progression systems. If the passive skill tree was as interesting as the skill gem system, I would have called PoE's character building a brilliant piece of work.
That doesn't mean I don't want to see more of the passive skill tree in other RPGs. It's a good idea, but the current implementation as it is now doesn't make for outstanding characters with the level of depth I want. But both the passive skill tree and skill gem system definitely should be considered in more RPGs.
I have one other minor complaint, and that is there's less variety in equipment drops than I'd like (I'm more used to Torchlight's variation in equipment drops), but that's fine, as sometimes I tend to favor equipment based on gem slots composition rather than stats. Which, again, shows much I'm amazed by the gem system.
TLCBonaparte wrote on 2013-01-30 01:34
I find the resource system interesting. Not saying it's better than gold coins though, but it's a new idea and I like the realistic feel to the trading. Like in metro you trade military grade ammunitions, bad environments often promote less currency exchange and more direct item trading. Something with no intrinsic value like cash probably won't be used for trade.
I think the main problem with the system is, no one asked for it. It's a needless change. No one is complaining the gold coins can no longer fill their looting hoarding needs, so the change is unnecessary, but still I like it.
Mystickskye wrote on 2013-01-30 03:34
My attempt at an elementalist nuker build.
I'm going to assume that this is going to be a fairly typical build, I'm pretty sure it's similar if not identical to what Sapphireoath made. I've left four points unused, two of these can be used to swap ice for lightning (I'm going out on a limb here and assuming that branching into three elements isn't going to be as beneficial). Other things that could be done for one point each (no points needed to bridge):
- +8% max mana (multiple nodes)
- +20% mana regen (multiple nodes)
- +8/16% Chaos resistance (might be important seeing as Chaos bypasses the energy shield, DII had heavy emphasis on a need for resistance in the lategame)
- +6% all Elemental resistance(this doesn't include Chaos resist sadly)
- +3% cast speed 3% (multiple nodes)
- +10% burning damage (four nodes)
- +8% projectile damage (Some spells count as projectiles! Three nodes)
- 3/7% reduced mana cost
- +10 int
- +8% life (not my pick but it's there)
There's loads more and that's just in the immediately apparent options. You could remove some nodes that aren't integral to leading to other portions (eg, if AoE isn't for you a lot of skill points could be freed up there, dunno how important mana regen is but you could potentially remove one or two of the 40% regen nodes) of the skill tree and then branch out further. You could spend more than one point and get Chaos Inoculation (no energy shield, immune to Chaos), Elemental Equilibrium (an enemy hit with elemental damage gets +25% to that element and -50% to other elements), Eldritch battery (converts all energy shield to mana, don't get this AND Chaos Inoculation ಠ_ಠ), go further south off the "southeast" crit area to get more crit multipliers/aoe radius/cast speed, there is so much you can do, so many ways to further specialise and that's just based off this basic build. Even this build I'll probably probe and tweak further. I love it.
EDIT: Oh wow, how did I miss Doomcast?
TLCBonaparte wrote on 2013-01-30 03:56
Witch seems underpowered right now. I am current;y playing crit ranger (critical chance and crit damage increase). I should probably throw some fire speed in there as well.
Mystickskye wrote on 2013-01-30 04:22
Tentative typical archer build
As far as I can see it has every single bow passive in the game (or at least it should have, that was the intention!) which alone gives :
- 174% Increased Physical Damage,
- 120% Increased Critical Strike Chance
- 85% Increased Critical Strike Multiplie
- 80% Increased Accuracy Rating
- 32% Increased Attack Speed
- 30% Increased Arrows Speed
- 16% Increased Stun Duration
- 35% Chance of Arrows Piercing and "Knock Back Enemies if you get a Critical Strike with a Bow".
According to the PoE wiki anyway! This was supposed to be an all out offensive build but Fitness (+10% life, +20 str which equates to another +10 life) and Crystal Skin seem too good to pass up. Four points leftover, for offense you can get +9% attack speed and +20% crit chance or +60% crit chance (well, and +20 int but pfft). Not sure if the difference of 9% attack speed is worth +40% crit chance or not. Honestly I'm not happy with the build and I'm sure someone could suggest better.
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/19723
This can even download all your equipment if you login so you can see how things really would affect your character. I'm probably gonna spend all day messing with builds.