Unfortunately (for me!) I read the bios of your first two characters. I cannot tell you how mad I get, and how often I die, to traps in the Labyrinth on normal. I usually psych myself up by thinking “it’s normal it can’t be that bad” and then I run alongside a roomba or stick myself on a rotating spike log and die. I have to say without a doubt the Labyrinth is my least favorite part of the game.
Well that didn’t last long. My HC SSF Summoner died doing a Tora quest to a mob that had Arsonist’s Grip. I’m not too upset since I hadn’t really found much in the way of decent gear. When it started doing those Fire Novas I shoulda run, but I kept thinking “I can do this” and then all of a sudden I died. RIP!
That’s a great line, the PoE HC experience in a nutshell!
Yah my problem with hardcore in PoE is how spiky the damage is, but that’s not the worst of it. It’s the (&)(*& reflect mobs that can one shot you from offscreen. Horrible game design.
After revisiting Pillars of Eternity recently, I seem to be continuing a spree with “RPG-related games I should have played earlier in which one looks down upon little characters moving around in lush environments.” (Grim Dawn is probably going to be next down the pipe.)
This one’s pretty darned addictive, isn’t it? Fascinating build system with the gems and the passive tree and all that, quite a clever system. Also the economy is interesting in its RMT-avoiding cleverness too.
I’m following an established Ranger build and I just can’t seem to stop playing the bloody thing atm. Somebody peel me off, I can feel my life ebbing away!
Just remind yourself that the whole game is getting a huge improvement across the board in a few months ;)
Well lookie here, someone must have listened to all the bitching about the Labyrinth! (For the record, I count myself among those complainers.)
[quote]Much of the feedback we’ve received since the Labyrinth was added focused on the length and difficulty of the Labyrinth itself, so for the first Labyrinth we are removing some of the areas in the leadup to each fight with Izaro. You will still fight Izaro three times, but the time between each fight will be significantly shorter. This also means that a failed run will generally feel less bad, since you’ll be able to regain lost ground more quickly. We will also be looking at ways to simplify certain mechanics in the earliest Labyrinth.
…
To summarise: though the moment-to-moment Labyrinth gameplay will be much the same in 3.0.0, the amount of time you spend accessing and running through the early labyrinths will be significantly shorter, simpler, and you’ll be able to access all versions of the Labyrinth from the Aspirants’ Plaza.[/quote]
Another thing to look forward to in 3.0.0!
Yay! I’m not really a labyrinth hater per se, but those changes all sound great to me.
I played this game for a few weeks. It felt kind of “mindless” and hectic to me. I guess I’d rather play cool, relaxed games that make me stop and consider while I’m drinking iced tea.
It’s no more or less hectic than say, Diablo 3.
As far as labyrinth changes go I’m for it. I really dislike the labyrinth.
HEYOUGUISE!
So the Oriath beta has been out for two weeks now and, as far as I can tell, the game is still on track for a July release.
They just put up a video about the Pantheon system, which somehow I had failed to hear anything about until now, and looks pretty awesome.
- Kill gods, collect their souls
- Equip souls for buffs
- Get “divine vessel” items
- Use Divine Vessels in Map Device
- Capture soul of upgraded boss fight on that map
- Upgrade your previously collected souls with captured souls
Can you dig it? I can dig it.
There is some really nice stuff in the beta. The map/minimap - OMG, it’s so much better. Runs smoothly, looks gorgeous.
Of course, I am only level 17, so long way to go to view the new act content.
Oh, that’s great to hear. I didn’t realize they were doing additional engine work for 3.0.
Would love to hear any more impressions you feel like typing up :)
New minimap:
Full map:
Already come across new mobs. A few areas so far seem tweaked, either in some or all combinations of modelling, palette and effects. Running very smoothly too, though I have not compared it to the non-beta since I dropped in a second GTX970 and upgraded to a 1440p 21:9 gsync monitor.
I’ve always thought PoE was a damn nice looking game when you took the time and looked at the artwork and design.
Acts 6 and 7 are fairly revamped forms of acts 1 and 2, with mostly traditional tilesets with tweaks as mentioned but some new monsters and entirely new quests and story, but a few zones also use new tilesets (introduced in endgame maps recently in Atlas of Worlds.) Act 5 is almost entirely new except for where some newer endgame maps share some art.
I’m liking the new boss fights in general especially as I run through them a second time, they can be fairly interesting. Pretty difficult if you aren’t using a tough build, though. The new pantheon powers do help defensively, but it really helps to have hefty defenses and/or be very good at maneuvering.
They did this with act 4 when that came out too, where some of the new bosses hit VERY hard early on and builds have to be more defensive. In the past, they ended up balancing down to somewhat lower damage values, so I’m guessing they’ll do the same in some places here once they have enough testing on it.
Regarding the new bosses: I saw somewhere… maybe in a ZiggyD video… that they’ve done something like triple the HP of the bosses (and I would hope, make them hit that much softer). Something to do with making the fights feel more epic by making them last longer. Does that seem true to you or was that just some early unbalanced stuff happening?
It’s a little hard to tell. My first beta character was a Righteous Fire + Scorching Ray Guardian and burned down almost all bosses very quickly from mid-act 5 (when I could kinda sustain RF) onward. RF turns out to be rather overpowered early on right now. They’re revamping all DoT skills in the beta right now, so it should get rebalanced.
It seemed like they might have had more HP relative to my damage on my second time through (Ball Lightning Elementalist), though tripled seems high just by feel. Their damage output feels like it needs more balance than their HP overall to me so far.
I don’t know if that works with PoE’s combat model. With survivability being so focused around a large HP pool and leech, difficulty becomes a very binary thing. You either have a large enough HP pool to survive the hit (and enough leech/regen to refill it before the next hit) or you splat. There’s really nothing in between at the high end, until they decide to completely rebalance leech/regen/defenses.
I’ve only had two characters who had binary health (full or dead because one-shotted), because Vaal Pact is silly. And didn’t they just change that anyway?
They’re smoothing out the rough edges of that defensive model a bit in 3.0 (see ES revamp, Vaal Pact changes, and life implicits on armor), though the basics are the same. I’d say pure regen on my first beta character and flasks + Warlord’s Mark Blasphemy on my second allowed me to survive through those boss fights. You’re right that regardless of the length of the fights or boss HP, much of that sustain can keep going (except flasks on long fights without adds.) Come to think of it, I have noticed an increase in the number of fights where I ran out of key flask charges.