Diablo III Finally

[Stofsk]

The guys who are making Path of Exile have hit the nail on the head as far as looks and aesthetics go, looking at it makes me think of Diablo 1's atmosphere.

But from what I can tell and from what I've heard it seems to be basically another grindquest where if the right loot doesn't drop, suck shit. That and the biggest turn off for me has been 'lol no respec'. They literally want you to start another character and reroll if you make a mistake or spend a point when you don't know what the fuck you're doing (and their skill tree is fuck-off huge, so huge it's ridiculous).

Basically the game's art looks terrific, but the actual game looks terrible.

[Soontir C'boath]

I am playing the beta of 'Path of Exile' and I love it. I've only been at it for three days but it feels like what D3 should've been in terms of atmosphere and artistic style. Its skill and item format is pretty nifty too in how one would try to level up.

I tried out the beta when they opened it up for a weekend a while back. I think the passive skill system and "materia" system as everyone calls it (I am not a fan of FF, so I can't comment on the similarity) are nifty, but the economy is annoying. Yeah yeah, it adds depth by making you think about whether you want to trade that identify scroll or use it, but I never found a single whetstone, nor ever saw one for sale. Considering I had multiple Orbs of Whatchamacallit, something as mundane as a whetstone should be dirt common.

It is, I've been using them all up to upgrade my weapon quality. I don't know how far you played in, but items like identify scrolls get increasingly easy to get.

And, unless I missed something, are you really going to make me play Inventory Tetris when I sell stuff too?

This I can understand. Though I pick up items if I need them or if I want to upgrade with an orb. I haven't really bothered picking up items for the sake of selling them to the NPC and what not.

But from what I can tell and from what I've heard it seems to be basically another grindquest where if the right loot doesn't drop, suck shit.

Wasn't D2 basically the same? It's not like awesome stuff were dropping on the floor giving you a good edge most of the time unless you had a crapload of MF. Anyway, the right loot doesn't have to drop. There are items called orbs that can randomly change the properties of the item for better (or worse), turning normal items into magic or rare, adding properties, and so on. So far I'm doing quite well. I managed to roll a crappy rare stone mace with new properties that suits me very well for my marauder (basically a barbarian).

Even then, the real power comes from skill and support gems and they are obtainable by quest rewards or loot. I'm actually annoyed right now because the gems I've chosen as quest rewards have dropped as loot making me wish I had chosen something different.

That and the biggest turn off for me has been 'lol no respec'. They literally want you to start another character and reroll if you make a mistake or spend a point when you don't know what the fuck you're doing (and their skill tree is fuck-off huge, so huge it's ridiculous).

Basically the game's art looks terrific, but the actual game looks terrible.

There are items and quest rewards that allows you to refund points if you regret choosing a skill. The size of the passive skill tree looks huge but it clearly divides where you want to take your character in terms of what weapon and what skill gems you want to use as it divides by strength/dexterity/intelligence. I'm playing a marauder right now using mace weapons and skill gems requiring strength so I'm mainly going through the strength part of the tree and traveling a path that will lead me to mace improvements. It looks daunting but it's really not.
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It is in beta after all.