I think I'm going to give up on D3 for now. Not going to play it unless Luke or some friends want to play it. In that case I'll hop in and mess around. That is the one cool part about D3. I can ignore it for a month and come back and not be behind at all. That's why I quit WoW this year. I couldn't ever get away from it. So I've given up on it entirely. I might pick it up again some day next year. I have Mists of Pandaria, I just don't think I'm going to play it any time soon.
Anyway, back to Path of Exile. I played in the beta earlier this year and was overwhelmed by the plethora of information in the game. I set to reading a ton of the nodes on the Sphere Grid -- er -- Passive Skill Tree. I learned pretty much fucking nothing.
Problems with the game that I have are easy to get over, I guess. As long as I'm diligent in my research outside of the game, I should be fine. But that's a major beef I have with APRG's. I don't want to learn the game outside of it. I want to learn while I play the gorram game!
But no. Games like this are just too complex to learn on your own. So you have to go read forums and find the specs that are tried and true and follow a build that's been tested. And they know it works. I guess, for the game play I'm looking for, I can get past that. Because you definitely don't need to do that shit for D3 and D3 has gotten boring as shit (NOT because the classes or leveling is inherently boring. The loot/item hunt is nonexistent. And it's because the game is too simple. So all the gear except for a tiny .01% of it is shit).
That's the thing about doing something repetitive The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Who the shit would continuously farm an area over and over again for loot if they don't get rewarded?
It's like a monkey staring at a screen. The monkey has been trained to pull a lever when the screen displays a specific shape. When the monkey sees the shape and pulls the lever, he gets a drop of blackberry juice. Happy monkey! He eventually starts associating the shape on the screen with the reward prior to him even pulling the lever. He associates the shape with reward, not the lever.
It's the exact same thing with humans. The human sees a bunch of monsters on the screen and clicks a bunch of buttons to kill them in an effort to get a good item to drop. They problem is that the monsters (shape) are being displayed on the screen and we're clicking buttons (pulling the lever) BUT NOT GETTING ANY ITEMS (drop of blackberry juice).
The reinforcement just isn't there. It was while leveling and every once in a while you get a pretty shiny but it's SO infrequent now, that I've regressed in to not even caring about the reward anymore. I've done the action so many times when prompted and NOT gotten a reward that I've been trained that I WON'T get a reward now.
Blizzard will need to fix D3 to prevent it from bleeding more players. Eventually, nobody will be playing that game unless they change itemization, and the only way to change itemization is if they fix the stat system. And the skills need to not be based on percent of weapon damage.
Gah, D3 is distracting me. Path of Exile, back in March this year, was pretty raw. The Sphere Grid ... Passive Skill Tree ... you know what, I'll just explain why I confuse the two right now.
Seriously, who came up with this fucking idea? I'd like to know so I can kill them.
That's the Sphere Grid (sort of) from Final Fantasy X. It's not an image straight out of the game, but it's a good representation of it. I actually like how detailed it is and kind of wish I'd had it when I was playing that game.
Anyway, here's the Passive Skill Tree from Path of Exile.
I tried reading every single one of those little nodes. Failed.
Essentially, it's a Sphere Grid on crack. It's twice as big as the Sphere Grid from FFX and twice as complex. There's so much shit in there. It's daunting.
But the idea is the same. So I'm just going to call it the Sphere Grid from now one because Passive Skill Tree contains more letters and spaces and is cumbersome to type.
From what I remember of PoE back in March, I sort of enjoyed it. I had a Templar that eventually became worthless because I wanted to play within the game and learn it myself. I didn't want to go to the forums and read a buncha shit. Well, with this game, you have to it. It's fucking necessary.
Alright, fine, I'll get past that. The only other thing that scares me is the possibility of microtransactions. Apparently the game will be free to download and play. But they're going to supplement the game with microtransactions. Currently, they only have two items to purchase in the microtransaction shop: extended stash space, and extended character spots. As long as you don't need microstransactions to play well in the game, or they don't give other players a stupidly unfair advantage, I don't care about them.
I'm actually going to donate to the kickstarter to gain unlimited beta access. I'm thinking of playing a Ranger (since I've played it before) and their ranged damage seems capable. They can be super high damage and not be forced into a glass cannon build to accomplish it. I'm also thinking about the Templar. The thought of Mortifas (my Zeal Pally from D2) making a triumphant return to an ARPG is undeniably exciting.
The other game I'm keeping a steady eye on is Grim Dawn. Unfortunately, it's like 3 guys working on this game by themselves. My team lead has nothing but awesome things to say about it, and from the videos they do have on the game play (that is in wicked early pre-pre-pre-pre-alpha stage) looks pretty excellent. I can only hope the game is a bit simpler than PoE. But only a bit! I don't like the Sphere Grid! At all!
Anyway, there's my rant on D3 and why I'm picking up PoE early for unlimited beta access. Hopefully, it will be worth it. All the reviews look pretty excellent, and from my play time in March, it should be decent. I just hope there's an actual end game. Something that keeps me playing. Unlike D3.
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