Character Identity: Path of Exile & Diablo II + III

[4RM3D]

Lets talk about character identity, more specifically creating a character identity through skill customization.

How important is it for you?

Diablo III (D3) got a lot of heat from gamers. I'll focus on just one aspect: the skill system. People seem to like the skill system of Diablo II (D2) more. They say it gives more freedom to choose and more ways to screw up your character. You want to create an intellect barbarian? No problem; go for it. When you reached the final character level, you had build a character that is personalized and different from the rest (up to a certain degree).

I understand and I agree with the above. BUT... I still like the D3 skill system more. The D3 skill system might make things too easy. But it does give something D2 and Path of Exile don't give: experimentation. When I start a character I have no idea which skills I like and which skills I can use in certain scenarios. I like to experiment and if the skills don't mix, I would like to try again; meaning respec.

Path of Exile offers limited respec possibilities. So what am I to do? First read a dozen pages on the different skills and how they work/combine. I can't experiment myself. I can't respec. So I have to roll another character, again and again, till I get things right? Incidentally griding dozen of hours just to level up with the same class again?

No, no, no! Experimentation > Personalization (character identity)

What are your thoughts?

 

[Comocat]

I'm not sure why we cant ever have both, like the Taco girl from the commercials. I got Diablo III for Xmas and once I got a few skills I have never bothered to change them. So for me, leveling up in Diablo is more of a hassle then fun, because I dont have any skill points to spend and I'm not getting any new skills worth using.

 

[endtherapture]

My thoughts is that PoE is F2P with microtransactions to that's the cost of playing a game which is free.

 

[Weaver]

I really like Path of Exile. I like it MUCH more than Diablo 3 to be honest. I generally prefer building up skill points and skill trees myself.

However, I still PoE's passive skill tree to be overwhelming, and I probably have 50 hours in the game (which I guess isn't that much).

The problem with PoE is it SEEMS like you can do whatever you want but you really can't. You need a massive health pool, defense and elemental resistance no matter what character you're making if you want to play into the hardest difficulties. That, or you make a build around very specific pieces of gear, which you won't be able to do if you can't get a character who has that gear.

 

[Angelblaze]

My thoughts is that PoE is F2P with microtransactions to that's the cost of playing a game which is free.

.....wut?

PoE's microtransactions are, quite literally, visual skill changes that don't direct affect gameplay and...what are you trying to say? I mean I just can't with your comment >>

 

[endtherapture]

My thoughts is that PoE is F2P with microtransactions to that's the cost of playing a game which is free.

.....wut?

PoE's microtransactions are, quite literally, visual skill changes that don't direct affect gameplay and...what are you trying to say? I mean I just can't with your comment >>

I thought you had to grind the game to get respec stones because it's a F2P game so they keep you playing by grinding for respec stones instead of just building your character normally.

 

[4RM3D]

I thought you had to grind the game to get respec stones because it's a F2P game so they keep you playing by grinding for respec stones instead of just building your character normally.

You can find a few respec stones, but those are limited. After you have used them all, you're stuck. You would think the devs would give you an option to respec for real money. I would have accepted that you needed to pay for a respec. It would still be fair in the F2P realm. But the devs really don't like the idea of respeccing. They rather have you rerolling your character.

 

[Smooth Operator]

I prefer the limited build direction because it also carries weight, you pick a certain direction and you learn to play and equip accordingly, you actually have to work around your strengths and weaknesses to get the best out of your character.
And in a day and age where the "no child left behind" mentality just washes over every damn class system and makes them almost indistinguishable that set path feels more and more welcome to get some sort of taste out of things at all.

And I actually wouldn't count PoE under the Personalization banner because only passives are set and they have so such minor bonuses my lvl 30 most distinctly crafted bowman I could make can equip two swords at any point and be on almost equal footing... that to me just feels like cheap floppy nonsense.

 

[Auron]

Diablo II gave you freedom... And then you went online to check the 3 to 5 viable builds per character and went with one of those. Fun huh?

 

[Artaneius]

Diablo 2 didn't have much freedom. Most if not all of your stat points went into vitality. Too many people are looking through rose tinted glasses when it comes to Diablo. Diablo 3 is just getting rid of excess baggage that Diablo 2 had. I think probably the biggest reason why Diablo 3 didn't do so well is because our taste in RPG's have changed. Diablo 3 is basically a more streamlined Diablo 2. RPG's have changed, it's more about exploring and making choices that affect the game then it is about just mindless killing demons. If I wanted to just kill demons and lots of em I would just play Onimusha.

 

[DoPo]

Diablo II gave you freedom... And then you went online to check the 3 to 5 viable builds per character and went with one of those. Fun huh?

Yeah. Fun. This is exactly why I stopped playing after 1.10 - it constrained it to 3-5 builds per class, up to that point there were WAY more builds that were viable. Heck, my 1.09 Firewall Sorc was doing mighty fine and that was one skill she was mostly using - you've got a total of 30 of them. Well, OK - you have some passives you wouldn't really specialise in, and other utility ones you also wouldn't use much, if we also factor out the dupli(tripli-)cates you still have 18 good skills. You can now mix and match them. The combinations are simply a lot. Then 1.10 came and you got, like 4 necromancers in total (golemancer, summonmancer, bone, poison). Maybe 5, if we count the mega support curse build that is mostly shit when you play alone. And all the other classes were compressed in a similar way.

So yes, it was fun up to a point.

My thoughts is that PoE is F2P with microtransactions to that's the cost of playing a game which is free.

.....wut?

PoE's microtransactions are, quite literally, visual skill changes that don't direct affect gameplay and...what are you trying to say? I mean I just can't with your comment >>

I thought you had to grind the game to get respec stones because it's a F2P game so they keep you playing by grinding for respec stones instead of just building your character normally.

If you want respec stones (orb of regret) you certainly could try to grind for them. And you'll fail, but you can. Thing is, even if your first character fails, you can roll another. You may fail that one but at that point you will have enough skills and knowledge to do it right. You will even have the currency to try riskier builds, as in the beginning you don't have much and it's better to go with a safe build (HP/survivability + common early skill) which minimises your risks. After one playthrough, you will have quite simply "more stuff" - more skills, more support gems, more gear, more currency. More options. Once you cross that threshold, it's not a matter of "I must play to get an arbitrary number of an arbitrary currency" but "Ooh, I want to try this now that I know about it" or "Wow, I got that - I simply must make a build out of it".

The orbs of regret are, perhaps unintuitively, for higher tier players. Those that have already invested countless hours in the game. The regrets are, in fact, almost useless to a noob. You don't have many, that's for start. You might not even get a single one in your first play through normal, or about 1 otherwise. After playing for a while, you may stockpile 10 or something (which still takes long), but it's simply better value to trade them for other currencies and items - more bang for your buck. You could move one skillpoint elsewhere (by the way - you do get 6 respec points per difficulty) but you could also buy a skill gem or two for that one regret, other stuff you can buy is uniques - a large number of the non-high level unique equipment costs that much. Stuff that is good for characters 10-50 level. You can even buy Facebreakers [http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Facebreaker] with that amount and that is a friggin good item - makes for really powerful, really easy, really fun builds. If you want a different build in mind, but it's higher level, you could just use them for levelling as they are just generally a good item to have. Or, you know, you can shift that 1 skill point and get +3% attack speed and +15% crit chance instead of +15% damage or whatever. The absolute biggest thing you can get for 1 skill point is a Keystone node and they tend to come with a drawback. So, perhaps the other best thing is to get a Notable node which give the biggest bonuses: +18% life as opposed to +8, for example. At any rate, you need to lose something to gain it.

For starting players it's simply easier to amend their build than switch over to a new one wasting a bajillion regrets in the process. Not to mention they can simply invest the regrets elsewhere for way more actual value. The players who have level 80-90+ characters, loads of playtime, loads of currency and want to try a build that was introduced in the latest patch would be the actual ones using the regrets. They can actually afford it. And yes, they won't really be "grinding" for regrets either - they'll just go and fucking buy them [http://exilestats.com/ex/].

Still, with that explanation of how things aside, I'd like to return to the main point - no, you are not motivated by grinding for currency. Mostly, it's just fun to play. It was the same thing in Diablo 2 (pre-1.10 for me), it was the same thing in Morrowind (with light to moderate modding), it was the same thing in Might & Magic, in was the same thing in Heroes, it's the same thing in loads and loads of games. All these feature the same kind of "grind". The "grind" of playing the game for the sake of playing the game. Truly, the greatest greatest sin PoE has brought on this world - it even went as far as breaking the space time continuum in order to make games desirable to replay/keep playing.

 

[barbzilla]

I agree with you about experimentation. I really liked the skill system in D3, but there were so many other things that I hated about the game that I no longer pre-order games. PoE on the other hand, I love the whole game (including the skill system). The thing about PoE is that only your passives are on that tree, the rest of the skills, spells, feats, ect are all on gems allowing you to switch them around at will and experiment. Heck, even D2 finally put in a respec potion. So I think ARPGs are finally getting the idea that many of us don't want to have to recreate the same character over and over again to get them right.

 

[DoPo]

Diablo 2 didn't have much freedom. Most if not all of your stat points went into vitality.

Seriously, that is your argument. The entire argument? Fuck it, man, I've seen people play it without spending a single fucking stat point. So what does that mean? There are exactly two builds for the game - one without stats and one with?

OK, honestly - yes, most of your stat points do go into Vit. It goes Energy: nothing (yes, even for a sorceress), Strength: enough to wear your armour (slightly lower, for you will have charms), Dexterity: 0 or if you are using a shield and want to block, then just enough to give you max block rate (I forget the numbers - you can look them up) and every other stat point into Vitality. That is pretty much the best and the most wide spread stat distribution. And yet this is not the build. The skills you use are your build. You have 30 of them. Per character. Feel free to calculate the permutations. Erm, I'd go with pre-1.10, since as I said, that one severely dropped the number of viable builds. Want a tank Amazon? Well, it's there. Want a melee Sorceress? Yeah. Ranged Barbarian? Sure. Or a Barbarian tank. Or a DPS barbarian. Or an AOE Barbarian. Or a support Barbarian. Or a glass cannon Barbarian. You've got general bulds, like a bowazon, you've got very narrow and specialised builds like the burizon (Amazon using the unique Buriza Do Kyanon [http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Buriza-Do_Kyanon_%28Diablo_II%29]) to builds that are of sucha narrow focus that when they level up and everything, you play them for a minute at a time. Or, there are the troll builds that are specifically made to harass and even kill whoever you play with, without explicitly challenging them to a duel.

The way I see it, there are many, many skill builds. Despite the state with the stats. Which, by the way, while not correct to be sort of useless at providing variety is completely the fault of Blizzard. If they put something that's mathematically solvable to have one way of going about it, then...people would go about it in one way. If you want to provide room for tinkering then...you put room for tinkering by making the stats useful on their own right. Torchlight 2 had the right idea - the stats are useful. To any character. Well, probably aside from vitality but the others are good.

 

[Nymi]

What is free has no value. Or very little.

In other words, there's not really much investment in a Diablo 3 character compared to a Diablo 2 character. This is the main problem with it, for me. It's the same reason why I haven't cared for World of Warcraft raiding for ages, too. The easier you make something, the less worth it's going to have. Believe it or not, there's a sizable segment of gamers out there who want their effort represented in some way that not everyone else can get with virtually no effort. D2 catered to this due to the inability to change up skillpoints and stats once spent. It was also much more customizable. (No, not talking transmogrification or whatever, that shit's irrelevant.)

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I did miss the idea of skill points in Diablo III. Pouring them all into a few skills was always fun, and debating whether you wanted that point to keep going into a certain skill, or risk it on a new one had a certain charm to it. And deciding what stats to increase was agonizing, but in a good way.

On the flip side, I did like that I didn't have to worry about my character becoming completely ineffective once I started playing on higher difficulties because I didn't level correctly. That happened to me and my friend when we were playing Diablo II because we started Nightmare and our characters just couldn't stand up to the enemies because we hadn't built them right. Kill the game for us.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Diablo 2, to me, did it 1000x better than D3 did. What made D2's character creation system so great is that your character was, well, YOUR character. They were the build you created. In D3, your level 30 Monk was exactly the same as my level 30 Monk (except for what equipment they were wearing) because I could simply go in and change my skills whenever I felt like it, and since they took attributes out of your hands it really hamstrung you. I loved the idea of people coming up with crazy and unique builds (a Necromancer who used entirely poison, a Paladin Archer, a cold spell only using Sorceress, etc.). D3 basically took all that away from you.

However, to me the Diablo-esque ARPG with the best character creation is still 'Titan Quest' (and likely soon "Grim Dawn" as well). In TQ, there are no character classes, you simply choose a Mastery at Level 2, and then another one (if you want) at level 8, so you can basically design whatever the hell character you want. Want an Assassin who uses Necromancy? Rogue+Spirit. A Tank who uses fire and earth magic? Defense+Earth. An Archer who has Druidic powers as well? Hunting+Nature. A psychic Warrior? Warfare+Dream. There was something like 80 different possible "character classes" in the game, it was awesome.

 

[4RM3D]

And yes, they won't really be "grinding" for regrets either - they'll just go and fucking buy them [http://exilestats.com/ex/].

I am not that far into PoE yet. But it was my understanding the amount of respec stones you can find is capped at 18 or so. Did that change (recently)?

...Titan Quest have a relatively easy to understand skilltree(even the most green newbie can figure out you need to give a guy using a gun, skills that complement shooting stuff) while still allowing multiple routes to victory

However, to me the Diablo-esque ARPG with the best character creation is still 'Titan Quest' (and likely soon "Grim Dawn" as well).

Interesting you guys mentioned Titan Quest. I used to play the game a lot. The skill tree system is indeed original and interesting; the execution not so much. It has been a while so I can exactly recall the details. I think the biggest issue was the lack of transparency. There are so many different hidden modifiers, you had no idea what effected what. For example, there was lightning damange, burning damage, lightning burn damage. There were all these rules and calculations and it was all a black box. I had to go to the forums a lot and read up on how certain things work. If you make a game (overly) complex, at least make it transparent. The skill system was also somewhat unbalanced (made worse by the hidden modifiers as described).

I am also wondering about the viability of the TQ builds. Certain specialization combinations are just near impossible to work with in new game++. This part is not critism on the game. It's just because you can combine everything doesn't mean you should.

In the end I still like TQ even with it flaws.

 

[DoPo]

And yes, they won't really be "grinding" for regrets either - they'll just go and fucking buy them [http://exilestats.com/ex/].

I am not that far into PoE yet. But it was my understanding the amount of respec stones you can find is capped at 18 or so. Did that change (recently)?

More like "this have never been the case". Unless it was so at some point during the closed beta, that is. You get respec points from quests (a total of 6 per difficulty, to a grand total of 18 for finishing the game) but orbs of regret just drop - there is no cap. They don't drop terribly often, but they drop. You can always buy them, too - it's 2 scouring orbs in the in-game merchant, and they go for 1 chaos orb on the player market.

 

[4RM3D]

More like "this have never been the case". Unless it was so at some point during the closed beta, that is. You get respec points from quests (a total of 6 per difficulty, to a grand total of 18 for finishing the game) but orbs of regret just drop - there is no cap. They don't drop terribly often, but they drop. You can always buy them, too - it's 2 scouring orbs in the in-game merchant, and they go for 1 chaos orb on the player market.

Ah, so you have respec quest rewards AND respec stones. I thought the respec stones were the quest rewards. But they are 2 separate things. That explains it. Now I feel a little less worried when choosing my (passive) skills in PoE.