Path of Exile: wrap-up and screenshots

Today, as I was planning to wrap up this review of Path of Exile, I also reached the end of the beta abruptly. I'm only referring to the end of current content in Normal mode, because the game goes on in higher difficulties.

Now I know for certain that the beta only contains the first two acts. A commenter informed me that they will release Act 3 in a few months and Act 4 will be available at launch. The devs are also planning to release additional acts and content with time.

While the story feels thin to the point of nonexistence, the commenter also tells me that they are going to greatly expand on it, but for now, it's entirely acceptably the way it is, considering that the game is still in beta.

The currency system is also being worked on and the devs are planning a trading system where people can exchange items and currency without logging in, directly on the website. If that happens, it would be really neat.

Path of Exile felt really awesome. I took my Marauder through Act 2 and, while exploring the insides of a temple, I walked through a portal and found myself back to the the shore where I first started the game. For a second I wondered what was going on but they I realized that this was actually the next difficulty level called Cruel. I don't know how many difficulty levels there are. If my commenter sees this, I would be grateful if he could clear it up for me. I've seen talk in chat of something called Chaos so that might be the equivalent to Diablo's Hell. Either way, there's a lot of replay-ability in this game.

One other thing that I forgot to mention is that Path of Exile does feature randomly generated levels.

Just to give you an idea of progression, I finished Act 1 at around level 18 and Act 2 at level 30. My plan is to switch to a ranged class, most likely the Ranger and take her through both acts to get a feel for the class. I might also run her in parallel with the Witch.

I played a bit through Cruel difficulty and the monsters are a lot tougher than on Normal. While regular monsters in Normal could be dispatched by a Heavy Strike with my 2-handed axe, those in Cruel require 2-3 hits and they also hit harder in return. On the other hand, the item drops are slated to be of higher quality. I've also noticed a higher incidence of Champion and Rare monsters.

My presentation of Path of Exile's beta ends here, not before presenting you with some more random screenshots from both acts.

Act 1 Normal

Act 2 Normal

 

Act 1 Cruel

Path of Exile: monsters

The monsters in Path of Exile are what you might expect from most fantasy RPGs. I'm only in Act 2 but I've encountered the usual smattering of crabs, spiders, wolves, bandits, zombies, skeletons and so on. There are melee, ranged and caster mobs.

Some of the monsters are more scary than others. For example there are some caves in Act 1 which are very dark, gloomy and claustrophobic. They are inhabited primarily by some sort of slimy squids which are pretty disgusting the first time you encounter them. After a while you get used to them but sometimes you still get the creeps when you see them slithering towards you from the darkness.

The AI for these monsters is nothing out of the ordinary. I did notice that a lot of ranged mobs (such as humanoids or skeletons firing bows, or giant cobras shooting poison) would attempt to run away out of melee range when wounded. This did create a bit of a problem for my melee character who had to run around to catch them, often failing to hit until they decided to stop.

From my experience so far, it looks like Path of Exile follows Diablo 2's mob system very faithfully.

The majority of monsters are normal, with white nameplates.

Occasionally, just like in Diablo 2, there are groups of champion monsters, with blue nameplates. Almost without exception, you will encounter groups of these monsters. What differs from Diablo 2 is that if the game happens to generate several different types of monster in close proximity, and then makes some of them champions, you will get champions of mixed types. For example you might get a group of champions consisting of spiders, bandits and skeletons, accompanied by normal mobs of those types.

Champions differ from normal monsters first by the larger health pool, about 2x-3x as much as a normal monster, and second by an extra attribute. The screenshot below shows a champion with the "Moves Quickly" attribute. Champions always drop an item and quite often that item is blue (magic).

The third type of monster, once again like in Diablo 2, is the rare boss. These have, you've guessed it, yellow nameplates. They differ from normal monsters by the much larger health pool (at least 3x larger) and by the extra random abilities and attributes they may have. The one below has 3 extra attributes.

Rare bosses most often have auras that they share with their minions. The aura for the one in the screenshot below gives the effect "Allies Have Increased Accuracy and Critical Strike Chance".

Here's another rare boss. Notice how dark and dreary that dungeon is.

Finally, there are unique bosses whose nameplates are dark gold. These are always the objects of a quest. They are vastly more powerful than a normal mob (both in health and damage) and they also have a variety of abilities which are not listed under their names. Some of them are accompanied by minions. Here's a couple of unique bosses.

 

As you can see, Path of Exile's monsters are very Diabloesque in spirit but also much better looking, as well as some of them being downright scary. If you've been following Diablo 3's development, you might notice a difference between these two games. Path of Exile looks more serious and grim, while Diablo 3 has lightened up on the atmosphere as to appeal a lot more to casuals. Either way, both games are fun in their own way!

Path of Exile: currency

Path of Exile's innovation continues with the game's currency system. It is entirely possible that other games have used a similar system but personally I don't remember playing any RPG which didn't have a form of fiat currency such as gold or credits.

Path of Exile uses a variety of consumable items instead of currency. Since all magic items (and up) are unidentified when they drop, an identify scroll is required. Thus, Scrolls of Wisdom. These are one of the first items of currency that you will find in the game. In fact, your character starts with a couple in their inventory.

At the beginning, these scrolls are fairly rare drops and you'll find yourself incapable of identifying every magic item that drops. You will soon learn to simply sell most items without identifying them and save your scrolls for those items which might be good for you.

Apart from identifying items, Scrolls of Wisdom are also used to purchase certain items from vendors. You will also receive scraps from these scrolls by selling items to vendors. Once a certain number of scraps stack, they convert automatically into a Scroll of Wisdom. Similarly, there are other items of currency. Notice the example below. I sold the piece or armor, wand and flask for 2x Alteration Shards and 2x Transmutation Shards. Each of them stack to 20, meaning that once I have accumulated 20 of each, they will convert into an Orb of Alteration and an Orb of Transmutation, respectively.
 

As shown above, there are a lot more currency items which drop, or which can be combined from "scraps" and "shards" that are obtained from vendoring items. Currently I have discovered 14 other such items. To give some examples, there are Armorer's Scraps (which can be applied to armor for additional armor value), Orbs of Transmutation (which can turn a normal item into a blue, magic item), Orbs of Chance (which upgrade a magic item's quality randomly, and this is a cool one because you can convert a blue item into a yellow one), Orbs of Alchemy (which turn white items into yellow ones), Orbs of Regret (which allow you to recover a passive skill point previously assigned) and so on. There are items which re-roll the stats (prefixes and suffixes) on an item, or those which allow you to re-roll the sockets on items, or those which allow you to re-roll the color of those sockets.

From what I can tell, this system's biggest advantage should be that it keeps inflation in check. The in-game currency is also a consumable. Whether you like it or not, you're gonna have to use these currency items at some point, if you want to improve your character. This means that the currency is pulled out of the system, without being hoarded. The currency itself is the "gold" sink.

As mentioned, a lot of these Scrolls and Orbs and such drop from monsters so they are quite random. Certain ones are much more scarce while others (like the aforementioned Scrolls of Wisdom) are more abundant.

If you check out a vendor's inventory you'll notice that items have various costs, and an example is shown below, where the weapon can be bought with 1x Orb of Transmutation.

While the system is very unique, there are a few big problems that I can see. It's hard to engage in trade with other people. The chat channels are brimming with items for sale but for the life of me I have no idea how these people trade. I mean, there are at least 15 currencies that you can trade stuff for. What are the chances you'll find someone who has the exact currencies that you need?

The game also doesn't seem to have an auction house but even then, I can't imagine how it would work. I guess you would have a choice of currencies for which to sell your items. In any case, personally I feel intimidated to trade anything. I don't even know at this stage which currency is more valuable in the long run. I just vendor off all my stuff instead of wasting time on the chat channel but this is not at all profitable.

I will probably try my hand at some trading later on because I'm curious as to how exactly this is accomplished. Right now, though, I'm too busy having fun playing the game.

Path of Exile: items and inventory

Continuing my series on Path of Exile, I'm now going to say a few words about the items that drop in the game and the inventory used by your character(s).

The character inventory is similar to Diablo 2's. It's made up of a grid of squares and different items occupy different number of squares, from 1x1 for rings and amulets to 2x4 for large 2-handed weapons.

In addition, there's a shared stash with 4 tabs, which gives a huge amount of space to all your characters. Anything deposited in it can be accessed by all your characters. That's very convenient, especially since I can organize my items depending on what type of class they are meant for. For example, I can keep magic stuff in one tab, archery stuff in another and melee stuff in another.

The items follow Diablo 2/3's paradigm closely. White items are the most abundant, obviously, but they don't have any stats on them. Then there are blue (magic) items with prefix and suffix, yellow (rare) items with a lot of random stats on them and brown (unique) items which I have yet to discover.

At this point I'm not sure if there are any sets or other item qualities because the ones outlined above are the only ones that I've seen so far.

A character has slots for helmet, amulet, 2x rings, gloves, belt, boots, chest and 2x weapon slots which can be filled either with one 2-handed weapon, 2x 1-handed weapons, bow and quiver, wand and off-hand, weapon and shield.

Drop rates for blue (magic) items are really good but many attributes on them are rubbish. Depending on how inclined I am to teleport back to town, I won't even pick some of these up from the ground. I have also gotten plenty of yellow (rare) items, many of which I have transferred to other characters. I have yet to get a brown (unique) drop.

There are potions in the game but with a twist. You can put 5 potions on your belt, namely mana, health or a potion which restores both. These are called flasks or vials. Well, here's the deal. Potion bottles are of various sizes, starting from Minor and all the way up to... Ridonculous. I made that last one up. Each flask has a number of charges. You can use the flask to restore health/mana and a number of charges is deducted. The higher the potion quantity, the more charges it has and the more it restores.

So what happens when you deplete all charges? The potion slowly recharges back to full, but for that to happen you will need to kill some monsters. Kill monsters - gain potion charges. It's a self-sustainable thing. You take damage or use mana to destroy monsters, then you use your flasks, then you kill more monsters by which your flasks recharge, rinse and repeat.

The flask system is pretty cool and original. You don't need to collect dozens of potions or keep buying them from vendors and you don't have to worry about running out. The only downside I've noticed from this system is that sometimes, when fighting tough bosses, you might run out of charges because you are using your potions to stay alive and to keep using your skills but at the same time you aren't killing any monsters, so there's no way for them to recharge until you kill the boss.

Items (including flasks) also have an additional property which is called Quality. This is something random that even normal (white) items can have. It's independent of any prefixes or suffixes. What this means is that the higher quality an item has, the stronger it becomes. A piece of armor with 100 base armor and 20% quality will actually have 120 armor. Same for weapon damage and even flask charges. The maximum quality that an item can have is 20%, incidentally.

There are special currency items that can be used to enhance the quality of your items but I will talk about currency in a future post.

Here's a shot which shows both the shared stash and a white flask (flasks can be magic, rare and I believe even unique) which shows a quality of 7%.

Also notice the flasks on my belt: I have equipped 2x health flasks, 1x vial (heals both health and mana) and 2x mana flasks.

Path of Exile: skill system

Path of Exile uses, in my opinion, a very original skill system. I've heard mentions of similarities with one of the Final Fantasy games but to me this is brand new. I have never seen something like this before.

Essentially, skills are broken down into two big categories: active and passive. Active skills appear only on skill gems, while passive skills can be assigned in the skill interface after the character is given a skill point. This happens when leveling or as a reward from quests.

Almost every item that can be equipped contains a random number of sockets (up to 6 for certain weapons, for example). These sockets can be colored red, blue or green, corresponding to the three attributes in the game: strength, intelligence and dexterity. Throughout the game you obtain skill gems (as drops or quest rewards) that you place in the corresponding socket. This allows you to use the skill.

Another innovative thing is that not only can skill gems be moved around to other sockets at will, without penalty, but each gem actually gains experience and levels up, becoming more powerful in the process (notice in the shot above where the Freezing Pulse gem shows Experience... and Level 4). Equipped skill gems acquire 10% of the character's experience so they basically level up with your character.

Since items are not soulbound, not only can you trade armor and weapons but you can also trade high level skill gems if you so desire.

The passive skills are located in a huge and initially scary-looking interface which radiates like a massive spiderweb from a central hub which contains the three basic attributes: strength, intelligence and dexterity. As of now there are 750 passive skills and the character gets a total of 111 skill points that she can distribute.

Passive skills include stuff such as +10 Strength (there are many of these), +x% extra damage, +x% mana recharge rate, +% block and on and on. From place to place there are mini-hubs which branch out but also give a higher bonus when picked (like +10 Strength and +10 Dexterity).

I like this system because it really improves your character with every level. Adding an extra 6% to melee damage, for example, or 10% additional crit, does make a difference.

Hybrid classes will be able to pick skills from both main attributes, mix and match. A strength-based class, for example, won't have reasons to pick, say, intelligence passives.

Going back to active skills, they are also split into 2 sub-categories: actual skills and helpers. Certain items have sockets that are linked to each other by a line. Placing an active skill gem in one of the sockets and a helper gem in the linked socked will apply the helper gem's effect to the active skill. To give an example, if your main skill fires a frozen arrow and a helper skill gives multiple projectiles, then the main skill will fire multiple projectiles. As the helper gem gains levels, you might get even more projectiles fired.

Further, if instead of 2 linked sockets you have 3 or more, you can place additional helper gems (of the appropriate color) in those sockets, giving your main skill even more powerful abilities, like for example multiple explosive arrows.

If you take a look at the screenshot below, you'll see a white item on the ground which has 2 squares next to its name: a red one and a green one. Those are the item's sockets and you can always see them when items drop on the ground. You might also notice that someone is asking a socket-related question in general chat (just ignore the profanity on the next line haha).
 

Currently I have not advanced far enough to be able to play with these intriguing combinations. I have just got my first helper skill gem recently but unfortunately I don't have a good weapon with linked sockets yet.

The whole system feels very exciting and unique to me and I can't wait to see what deadly skill combinations I can create farther down the road.

Path of Exile: story and questing

In yesterday's post, I enthused about getting access to the Path of Exile beta. I run a Diablo blog but that doesn't mean I won't discuss other games, especially when they belong to the same genre: the Action RPG. Path of Exile is one of those rare games that deserve a deeper analysis, because it's just that good.

As I already mentioned, Path of Exile feels like a spiritual successor to the original Diablo. If you are looking for a deep and intriguing story, I'm not sure you'll find it here. Either due to my short attention span or because the game doesn't do a great job of telling the story, I can't say that I was sucked into a plot of any kind.

The beta (and I assume the full game) starts with your character on a beach where he wakes up after the ship he was transported on as a prisoner, sinks. At least that's what I gathered. The character selection/creation takes place inside the hold of a slave ship. From there on, your character runs up the beach, battling a bunch of drowned zombies and Alien-crabs until he reaches the first quest hub. Just before entering the hub he faces the first quest boss, whom he must defeat.

One thing that I didn't mention in my intro article from yesterday is that the character/monster animations are very good. This becomes evident quickly as you battle the first boss. He's an imposing humanoid hulk that towers over your character and he's in the process of assaulting the little beach settlement when you stumble across him.

This hulk is studded with arrows and there's also a sword buried in him. Once you've whittled his life down to about half, he pauses, pulls the sword out of himself and commences attacking you with this new weapon. Pretty neat.

I'm still in Act I at the moment, although my Witch is about to finish it. The beach settlement is the only quest hub I have found so far and a tiny one at that. Having said that, it feels pretty reminiscent of the Rogue Encampment from Diablo 2, except on a smaller scale.

Quests aren't extremely involving and mostly center around the concepts of "find this boss monster and kill it" or "find this boss monster, kill it and bring some item he drops". Which is perfectly fine with me. If you are expecting an involving story and complex quests, perhaps you're not really into the A-RPG genre. Hell, I just want to kill stuff!

One of the bigger quests in Act I involves killing another humanoid monster called Brutus and this quest feels like a combination between Diablo 2's Jail zones (because it takes place in a jail, only much darker and gorier) and The Butcher in Diablo 1.

Zone progression is pretty linear, with the main zones linked directly, with occasional sub-zones where you can take a short detour. Major zones have a waypoint stone which is linked to the quest hub so this is how quick travel is accomplished. In addition, there are also Portal Scrolls which are essentially same as Diablo's Town Portal scrolls.

So far, quest rewards have been of 2 kinds: either a skill gemstone or a skill point, which are both excellent rewards if you ask me. If you are puzzled about skill gemstones, don't worry, I'll explain those in a future post.

A final mention is that the zones, as well as using waypoints and portals, all load very quickly, with the minimum of delay.

So there you have it, Path of Exile's story doesn't stand out at this point and the quests are generally what you would expect of the genre, but it's all good because I wasn't expecting much more than that.

Path of Exile beta

I feel my luck has turned. I'm still not in the Diablo 3 beta but yesterday I had the good fortune to win a beta key for Path of Exile, an upcoming action RPG with a punch. This game, from a small New Zealand company, has been in the making for 5 years if what I hear is true. I signed up for a beta a year ago but never got an invite and promptly forgot about the game. And then yesterday, I stumbled across a batch of 1000 beta invites to which I immediately applied and got my key.

I've been playing Path of Exile since then and I can't get enough of it. This game seems to be the true spiritual successor to the original Diablo. It's gritty, dark and gory. It has me hooked.

The beta seems incredibly stable so far. I run the game at maximum resolution, slightly less than 1920x1200 because I run it in a window, and there are no hiccups or stutters. In the roughly 10 hours I have played it, it hasn't crashed or become unstable and I haven't even found the slightest issue with it. It feels rock-solid.

Path of Exile has a character level limit of 60 as far as I can determine at this point. There are only 3 attributes in the game: Strength, Intelligence and Dexterity. This keeps things simple but it also helps to clearly define the available classes. Each primary class is associated with an attribute and in addition there are 3 hybrid classes. A pure Strength class is called a Marauder, the Witch is associated with Intelligence while the Ranger uses Dexterity. The 3 hybrids are Strength-Dexterity (Duelist), Strength-Intelligence (Templar) and Dexterity-Intelligence (as of yet unannounced).

I started the game with a Marauder which was fun up to level 13 or so, fighting with a massive 1H weapon, after which I switched briefly to a Ranger which primarily uses bows and finally tried a Witch. Witches, of course, use magic to great effect and here's where I got even more hooked. I couldn't stop playing the Witch, it's so much fun.

Right off the bat I noticed that Path of Exile, while created by a small team with limited resources, has introduced a whole bunch of innovations to the genre. It's quite ironic if you think about it. In contrast, Diablo 3 which is run by a huge company with practically limitless resources has produced a game which, while still awesome, fails to innovate, unless you consider the Real Money Auction House and perhaps the skill/rune system. Path of Exile has several tricks up its sleeve that make it stand out of the crowd. I will talk about these features in future posts because right now I'm very excited about going back to play it.

One of the best things about Path of Exile, and something that I should have probably stated at the beginning, is that it is free to play. Yep, it's an online Action RPG which will be completely free to play. The devs are relying on micro-transaction to cover their expenses. But don't think that they will sell items to players. Nope, they have emphatically stated that they will only sell cosmetic stuff which doesn't influence the game one bit. You know what? After playing the beta, I would have no problems paying for it, it's that good.

Path of Exile is also broken up into Acts and at this point I assume that it probably has 4 Acts, similar to Diablo 2.

It is a lobby game, in the sense that you can see other players only around hubs, while the zones are all instanced. You can obviously group with others but I haven't tried that yet because I'm still getting the hang of things.

In all, the game seems very solid and well-made and the grittiness is quite refreshing considering that developers are playing it safe these days, without showing a lot of blood and gore. There are a few things here and there that need to be improved, especially around the interface which is a bit bland and doesn't show character information to the best effect. At this point the biggest nit I have to pick is the lack of a "compare" feature, like many games have, where you can see the equivalent equipped item when hovering your pointer over a piece of equipment in your inventory.

If you are a fan of the Diablo series then I seriously recommend Path of Exile. Go to the site and sign up for the beta. You probably won't get in immediately but when you do, you won't regret it.