Preview Path of Exile Beta Preview

What I always wonder about - and that's not just because of this article, although it does it too - is it really that hard to spend 5 minutes to put a screenshot of the current game into your article and not one from some obscure alpha version many moons ago?

I've signed up for this game last weekend and finished Act I with the Witch (level 18 atm). My thoughts:

* The passive skill tree is awesome and complicated as fuck. I haven't felt that overwhelmed since starting to play EVE back in 2006. This is a good thing BTW. It is not nearly as flexible as skill gems so the choices you make there kind of limit what skill gems you will want to use.

* The graphics are cool. They look reasonably realistic, there is no cartoony feeling as in D3. No fireworks fest as in D3, magic has cool effects though.

* Skill gems are interesting idea and will probably one of the most desired items for trading.

* Items are fun. I haven't found any uniques so far but the items are varied enough. Slots are important consideration.

* Enemies are pretty varied, although I did run into some assholes that had regenerating health and resists against all elemental damage types (Awetrap). And since my witch can't do any noteworthy physical damage I couldn't kill the fucker. Fix for this is to either call in friends or exit the level, wait 20 minutes for the area to reset, then come back hoping for not so annoying enemy.

* Sound and music are pretty much unnoticeable. I don't remember a single music track, but don't remember being annoyed either. That's ok in my book. Sound effect for spells etc are ok, and allow you to tell what's going on around.

* Story feels rather absent. I don't know if it's due to beta or if it will be like this in final game, but so far I really didn't notice any worthwhile story. You are an exile, you got dumped on a beach by some assholes. You kill monsters to get to safety of beach camp. Why would you be motivated to proceed further is not explained convincingly (or at all). Not that it matters much though. However, story of Diablo (the first one) really did add much to the game.

In summary, this is a pretty cool game and I'm glad I've shelved some money on it. More fun than Torchlight and looks better too. More fun than D3 and looks waaaaay better than it.

The gist is that it wasn't always like it is now (overrun with monsters) and you have to battle them in epic combat to make them go away and escape the island, gothic style.

Looks promising but I'll just wait until it comes out. They're smart to make it free considering the competition.

You can also just leave the instance, and ctrl+click on the entrance to it (or the waypoint - might be shift or ctrl, can't remember it on the spot) to recreate the area immediately. But there will always be some enemies you can't kill. Had 2 necromancer rares last time, one with regenerating health aura, one with energy shield aura. The room was filled with 10 skeletons and these 2 mobs. After about two minutes of fighting there were like 50 skeletons that simply raped the shit out of me.


Also, the areas look great. These might not be highdef textures and graphics, but since they changed the zones a bit, each and every area feels unique, and dungeons actually look and feel like dungeons. They're dark, with some disturbing sound (I fucking hate that blowing wind in the submerged passage) and sometimes it is easier to navigate in them without the map showing at all, simply because you can't see shit.

Trading will be a huge part of the game, as it was back in D2, which I liked alot. Both skillgems and orbs are varied and for forging a supreme item you will need alot of them. The only thing I found a little bit disappointing is the fact that there is less active skills than passive gems or aura gems. For most playstyles you have 2-4 spells you use in rotation, and one or two curses. On the other hand, with the limited amount of skills that can be hotkeyed, this isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Last but not least: "The cut-throat leagues appeal to the niche of players who demand the most hardcore gaming experience possible. In this mode, all world areas are public, with full PvP enabled by default. Slain characters drop all their items upon death. This game mode can also be combined with Hardcore to create an even more unforgiving world." This is absolutely great.

Saark, thanks for the tip! You are absolutely right about area design. I was very impressed by the prison having shit load of cells one next to another. Looked rather realistic and didn't invoke the feeling that it exists just so I can kill monsters in it.

I presume it was mentioned somewhere else around here but here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcpbOUvXCEE&hd=1
Looks like he's been doing PoE a lot in the last week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DM5fgbHkio

Best h'n's I've played, item shop will make or break this gem.

I wish they would announce when the open beta starts. It was supposed to be this month, but a little while ago they said they cancelled that and it's now "to be announced."

Open beta basically = full game, since there are no wipes after that.

Why in God's name do people use picture-in-picture video cameras for game footage videos? I really don't care what you look like sitting in front of your computer as you play the game.

Because they have an unwarranted sense of self-importance.

Codex should have its own detailed preview of PoE, there's enough mechanical depth in the game to allow for that. Would cleanse us after the Diablo 3 hysteria.

How much potion spamming is there?

You have 5 bottles only, each one has several "gulps" in it. "Gulps" recharge when killing enemies. Potions take time to replenish your orbs (unless you have magical flasks that apply part or whole of the effect instantaneously). There is also some cooldown on each potion activation. All in all, I would say that there is almost no potion spam.

And there is an interesting mechanic connected with potions. Basically, flasks can be magical ("blue") meaning they can get up to two additional properties on them. It may be instant recovery of health/mana at the cost of lowered amount of resource recovered. It can be additional armor/evasion ration during the recovery, or buffed speed of movement. There also exist different types of flask, ones that give additional elemental resistances for a short period of time, or ones that make all your strikes into criticals. All in all, flasks in PoE are something more than meaningless consumables. And, you dont have to get back to town to buy new ones, praised be the God of your choice.

I have one medium flask that dispells freeze/stun. I love the little piece of glass!

I'll admit this game looks good. It also looks like it's not Diablo 3. Which is a synonym. Get it

Any indications on the timeframe for this game? Like, open beta in the next couple months? 6 months? Year?

They are going to have two major patches before open beta, the next one adding PvP and the last one adding secure trading between players. Chris said that open beta will definitly be before the end of the year, and I would say it may come somewhere around October/November.

they said middle of august.

The potion system is the best I've seen. I'm pretty sure PoE will do quite well and it'll be interesting to see how far they can take it over the next several years. I'd love to see a game like this end up with ten or more acts and hundreds of active skills. That's probably just a pipe dream, of course, but one can always hope.

Impressions of the game:

-interesting skill tree, but all skills are passive. Not really that exciting to build towards specific skills in the tree when all you get is an additional +10% dicksucking efficiency.

-reasonably slow combat, but this isn't a bad thing. Involves a lot of movement. Enemies are actually threatening. Going toe to toe with a mob of low-level scum on even your tank character will result in you being in pain and having to chug potions quicker than you can regen it. Good part of the game.

-all active skills are found in gems which need to be slotted in your equipment. I fucking hate this shit and it can die. I prefer the D2 system of having the skills be inherent in my character. Also, many of the skills are vaguely useless, and the skill system just is not fun for me to tinker with at all.

-annoying and fucked up economy. No money exists, everything is traded via barter, including vendor items, meaning your inventory gets cluttered with trash really quickly

-bad animations, particularly attack animations

-very bland locations. Diablo 2 had many exotic locales with excellent ambience, from the jungles of Kurast to the arcane sanctuary to the deserts of Auranoch. PoE's environments are just.....not exciting. Bland jungle, bland wasteland, bland dungeons. None of it captivates.

-Many of the critters are also blandly animated or just play silly, like the giant bird/crab hybrids. The critters have nicely varied abilities, though, and often surprise you. Just got tired of fighting boring old zombies when I met some zombies that turned into tar patches after death, leaving me easy prey for ranged skeletons. Another time I met a group of skeletons with my ranged fireball witch expecting an easy kill, instead I got chopped to pieces as they could teleport right next to me and hit me at the same time.

-The game is not afraid to whip your ass. Very early on, it will throw necromancers at you that raise undead faster than you can kill them, water demons with comically overpowered cold blast powers and exploding squid mutants that bumrush and kill you. Most bosses actually require a bit of thought to beat as they're often much tougher than you when you first run into them. Sadly a lot of this thought revolves around exploiting their shit AI, but hey, this is a major plus for the game. Game is far harder than D2, IMO, excepting some of D2's downright unfair encounters like Duriel.

-game has no story. Doesn't need it either.

-the people on the global chat are retarded faggots, but that's par for the course for semi-MMOs

-I play it as a single player game. Server lags, I die, start over. Fucking bullshit internet age.


Overall, I would rate the game perhaps a 6.5 or a 7. It's decent, but bland, and the economy pisses me off. More copying of D2 would have benefited them, and they already ripped off 85% of their ideas from D2. Worth 10 dollars for a beta key, though.