Indeed, and perhaps other people will not find it so important. I find the D3 movement and character physics much better than any other arpg out there.
The all seem to be some wooden dolls walking around.
But also must say the Maps system and the atlas beats D3 rifts by miles.
Only the acquiring of maps is terrible.
I think Blizzard are well aware of the things PoE team did right. Sadly, the MTX model is not one of these and if it is applied to D4 then expect the design of D4 to break, because of these, just as PoE design (their Atlas specifically) suffers because of the desire to sell stash tabs (maps tab).
So, I really hope D4 team can see that MTX are fine as long as they do NOT influence the design of the game itself.
Maps system is biggest innovation PoE brought to the genre (kudos for that one Chris!), however their Atlas implementation is terrible.
Kind of a side rant, but I like how the atlas is engaging to me at the beginning of the league(in the sense I’m always thinking about what map I need at the back of my mind to grind out more completion, or what map I need to advance the story mode next…it’s just a generic 1 time a league progression I get to see on my first character).
On the other hand, I think a flaw that’s been apparently since like the dawn of mapping in PoE is that I don’t think the relative map level has ever really “tested” my characters abilities like it should do in a perfect arpg. I don’t know if this is merely an issue with power creep…but it doesn’t feel like there’s a difference in difficulty between white maps(low tier), yellow maps(mid tier), and red tier(most difficult) tier. Yeah, the map affixes roll higher(and are more deadly)…but it would sure be interesting if an ARPG could actually ramp up difficulty properly in a more linear fashion.
You don’t feel held back on atlas progression by your power level(but you do by your map supplies and need to trade more or less). In D3 on the other hand, your gear makes you take gigantic leaps in difficulty levels(though maybe it becomes more gradual if you’re one of the people who grind the game for months as opposed to more than a week). Would be nice if D4 tunes it in more linear fashion.
There is, compared to D3 that would be like 1 GR level (per PoE map tier) around 100s.
The biggest problem with the Atlas is that depending on the current patch you grind specific maps. Sure, you can upgrade tiers of certain maps, but that should have been made much more elegant - the player should be able to farm whatever map he wants on whatever tier.
And I totally agree on that. The drops of maps have always been terrible for me, and I do not mind to find maps, I think it is terrible gameplay if the only tier you can find on a map is just a few higher than your current one, or just mostly similar ones. Just drop the all the maps in the atlas and let me have fun instead.
Yep, this is the right design. They already have cards in the game so they can soft force the players into specific maps by using the cards mechanic. No need to hard force them with the patch notes.
All of this is of course dependent on the MTX model, which sells a maps tab - if you could play any map this wouldn’t be necessary, which means less $ for GGG. This was the design influenced by MTX I spoke of in previous posts.
That’s about the weakest P2W argument I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard it a hundred times now… Next.
Their map tab product sucks. In its second season you had to repurchase the map tab because the new generation maps weren’t compatible with it. Hopefully they straightened this out later on, but it was a deal breaker for me. I haven’t played the game since the 2nd map tab season because of it.
either way wont be getting my coin unless theres some cast iron guarantees about them adding micro transactions a couple of week post launch like activision did with crash team racing.
after the past few years and bizarre decisions and lacklustre replies from anyone i want to see independent 3rd party (not one of the youtube guys fawning over d3 still) to see if its worth the investment of time and money any more.
i own all 3 diablo games and the only expansion i never got was diablo’s hellfire, still got all my cd’s and manuals 
so not just a angry gamer here ranting at blizz because its fashionable, id love them to knock it out of the park with D4 but im not expecting it.
Actually, Delves (the mines) were meant to mimic the feel of a dungeon crawler. They failed horribly at that. I despise the Delve league mechanics and I hate Niko (the NPC for that mechanic) even more. It just isn’t fun. But it wasn’t designed to be greater rifts by any means. That would be the map system. But instead of power creep to the extreme, PoE uses affixes to modify map and monster behaviours.
And I hate to break it to you, but PoE 1-upped D3 with the monster affixes, especially with the Nemesis and Bloodline monster affixes (Cursed Blood says hello). What sucks about the map system is that outside of the current Legion mechanics where maps drop a lot more than they used to (great for SSF, overwhelming for group play), they’re far more limited than rifts are and unlike rifts, you have to initially progress in a certain order in the Atlas to unlock the ability to get certain maps at all. I’m sitting on a prophecy that requires a mud geyser map, but can’t get that particular map until I progress further into the Atlas. But at least there’s a sense of progression that isn’t in the form of 1000000% multipliers, which is refreshing.
If you want to compare PoE’s maps to something, the best comparison is actually going to be WoW’s Mythic+ dungeons with the rotating affixes. The two systems are fairly similar, though PoE gives players at least some agency over what mods they get on a map.
This is where D3 shines above all else. Combat fluidity. PoE’s combat mechanics are fluid, as is the combat itself. It’s their netcode that makes things feel off. D3’s netcode is so good that desyncs are a very infrequent occurrence, even on a super fast perma-vault DH type character. In PoE I can desync myself quite frequently with the new Dash/Flame Dash/Lightning Dash type abilities. I’ve put up with it though because those abilities offer something D3’s movement abilities seldom do: the ability to actually ignore z-axis limitations in many areas, making travel much nicer. Instead of having to run around to find a ramp, I can just dash up a wall or cliff so long as it’s not too tall. It can even be used to cross small gaps that normally can’t be crossed (a certain map affix and unique map requires one of those abilities to even get anywhere).
There’s pros and cons to both games’ combat. D3’s got fluidity down pat. PoE’s got way better mechanics (though it has some really craptastic ones too like point blank bubbles that force ranged to go right up to a mob’s face to do damage).
Map pros: Can reroll affixes until you get ones you like outside of unique maps, can somewhat control difficulty in doing so, and can alter combat mechanics with the affix system and the map fragment system.
Map cons: limited quantity outside of Legion mechanics means you farm. A lot. Way way worse than rift key farming in D3. Major pain in the derriére for SSF modes. You get six entries to a given map. Portals are consumed on entry even if all you did was exit to put loot in the stash or vendor for currencies. They should only be consumed if you actually die. I’ve lost tons of loot because of that.
Also, I want to shove a flaming machete down Alva’s throat. I. Hate. That. NPC. Always in my way in maps, and she’s got three locations if she spawns, so three times the annoyance there. Einhar though, I love. Once I get one beast down to half life, he appears and is then added to my firepower. Free damage is awesome.
Again, you get the entire game for free. You’re only really paying for quality of life items there. The expansions that keep coming are free. You can play the game without ever buying a thing, though you’re going to go bonkers trying to store items if you don’t get at least the currency, fragments, and essences tabs. The QoL items aren’t prices insanely like their cosmetics are (seriously, $30 on average for a single weapon skin or a portal effect…WTH?). I’ve spent roughly $75 on PoE for my QoL. Zero on cosmetics. $75 is what RoS’ original cost and the Necromancer DLC would have cost put together, and it’s less than what I paid for both D3v and RoS alone.
I got lucky with the Frontier mystery box promo though. You got one for free during the promo week if you spent any points at all. So I bought a crappy 30 point Incinerate gem skill MTX since I had the leftover points anyway. I got super lucky and landed the one item everyone wanted from the Frontier box: The awesome looking portal effect. But I’m unlikely to buy other cosmetics. None of the armors really pique my interest and the weapon skins and effects cost too much to be a value to me, especially since you can only equip them on one character at a time (a royally stupid limitation given what you pay for the cosmetics).
Remember though, the core MTX are QoL items, not power items. They don’t give you more combat power or anything like that. Just quality of life. You know, what we’ve been asking for in D3 since…forever. 
I wouldn’t call it terrible, just really unintuitive for the newbie. It’s designed fairly decently given all of the items you can put into it, but it’s barely explained and you can fall into the trap of using up valuable currencies on worthless maps if you don’t do some research first. But the player agency it provides more than makes up for that once you get the hang of it.
The special maps (Pale Court, Council, Elder/Shaper, Uber Elder/Shaper) and unique maps are the main ones that will test you. Also, I dare you to corrupt a map into having at least ten affixes and run it. That’ll definitely test your powers.
But yes, they aren’t really linear in difficulty. Even going from Tier 1 to Tier 2 can be a death knell if you get the wrong affixes. Thankfully certain affix combinations can’t spawn at lower tiers. Getting a No Regen + No Leech map to start with would demoralize just about anyone.
You’ll get no argument from me here. Not being able to target specific maps, especially until you’ve reached certain other maps, sucks. Doubly so if you have prophecies sitting in your queue that you’d like to get rid of. Also, those portals…I hate hate hate hate hate hate the limited number of portals per map being consumed merely by me having to put loot in my stash or vendor it. They should only be depleted by deaths, not stashing loot.
Also, Alva. /stabbitystabstabstabSTAB
My problem with the divination cards is the drop penalty for outleveling a zone when in SSF mode. SSF can’t trade, and thus has no access to a large pool of cards to buy with currency. That pretty much leaves SSF players with only maps to farm cards from for the most part, which sucks, especially if you run out of the map you need for specific card(s). The drop penalty needs to go in SSF.
That’s been fixed for some time now and affected players were refunded as well AFAIK. The bigger problem now is there are more currencies than there are available slots. Even with the “universal” slots on the various tabs, I still have to store splinters and fossils in my regular stash tabs because they have no place in any other tab and I’m out of universal slots. PoE could use a currency squish like D3 got with its gems in RoS. I don’t mind currency systems, but it is getting a bit nutso.
You can get D1 + Hellfire from GOG.com now. Worth it for players that never got to try the original Diablo. Just wish they’d updated the controls to be more like D2 with the recode on GOG.
Of course it was. Delve has infinite progression like GRs (before people hit 150). Delve was EXACTLY implemented to be an alternative of D3’s GRs, but it ended up as advanced D3 trials.
I mean I do that of course. That 30/30 8 mod map challenge isn’t going to unlock itself. I get what you mean. It’s more deadly for sure. I just mean moreso the map affixes are dictating my challenge more than that map tier in general…which makes sense all things considered. Would be cool if I had a genuine gradual curve though(and if anything 40% quality would basically be a suicide mission BEFORE it rolls reflect).
yeah im a bit over going back to diablo now played it enough the first time around 
Man, when PoE’s servers die, they die. Was in mid-dash and turned invisible and the timers were stuck. Couldn’t move. Force quit to the PS4 dashboard and…can’t login.
There went that twinned map…hope I didn’t die. EXP penalty with such craptacular stability is getting on my nerves… 
It can even be the Diablo Immortal release date, since they have 2 spokeperson for Diablo this year; Allen Adham and our CM, Nevalistis.
I believe you know their roles before the whole D:I debacle. Especially Allen was pretty open about D:I’s target audience. We expected some news but Nev was rather silent on this whole ordeal after that video 'till now which she shared that they plan some content for D3. I think cards are pretty open.
If there’s a new Diablo title announcement or tease, I’d be more surprised than you are, that’s for sure.
One more post making me think it’s nice I didn’t waste my time on POE. The game seems to disagree with my opinion in all aspects…
One important thing that POE does a lot better than Diablo is actually engaging and listening to the player base. Many of the changes in POE happened because of the players saying something.
I would play POE but it’s a bit too hardcore for me. It takes a lot of time to learn everything and figure out how to be even somewhat efficient. There are so many items and currency, it just takes time to figure it all out and get anywhere.
Diablo is much more plug and play. I would argue that Diablo is a bit too easy, but Blizzard makes games for casual players. We all know this.
If POE was made just a bit more casual, smoothed out the gameplay, and updated the art style I would definitely play POE over D3. I just don’t have the time nor do I want to invest in POE as much as is required to get good and know what to do.
Last season I played of POE was the Delve season and made about a 20 exalt build. I was recommend to run a certain map 200 times, but it took time and money from grinding the map to buy more maps. It didn’t feel efficient to me and thus I stopped playing.
20 exalt to a veteran player of POE is nothing. Some of these guys are buying one item for 200 exalt and their “tips” of how to earn currency are complete garbage. Veteran players hold onto their secrets of what to do very well.
Trust me this usually, if not always, makes things worse. Many people confuses “listening to players” with “listening to me”. If POE makes good changes, it’s because of the insights and capability of designers/devs, not they listening to players.
Blizzard may be a (bad) example of almost not listening to plays at all, but it won’t make things any better if they just implement what people cry most loudly for.
Designer should be open to suggestions but stand their ground. This doesn’t guarantee a good game but not doing so guarantee a bad one.
This actually can be a problem of “listening to players”. The loudest players are usually the most hardcore ones. A game will become more in their flavor and scare away casual players if designers keep listening to them.
Nah, thats more applicable to a AAA dev team than a team like GGG. They have a pretty good rapport with their fans, and Chris Wilson regularly joins podcasts about the game.
Sure, they can’t cater to everyone, but they are very much in touch with what their fans want, and that relationship has been the driving force in PoE for some time. Lots of positive changes have came from it.
We could see this change as they become more bigger and more succesful. In this industry, the bigger you become, the slower you adapt and react it seems, and the relationship you have with your customers can change.
SSF doesn’t get exalts like candy even for vets. They’re still rare as can be, sadly. 
The only thing I really wish the PoE devs would do right now is give us full control over the visuals for the loot filters. I can’t read the Neversink filters because they make text either too tiny or the background for the item too opaque and I have no way to change that. Even with my nose up to my TV and squinting I can’t read a lot of them. I just want those to be more accessible so I can move off the default filters. The text resizing and opacity issues really hurt visually impaired players.