Sacred 2 vs Path of Exile: Similarities, Differences, and Why You Should Play

[Ryanrocker 200]

Grr lost my Shadow (RIP) last night, whilst I like the idea that a HC toon simply moves from the HC league to the SC league (so you can still play them), I'm not sure I can bring myself to play in SC lol....

That's always the worst feeling for me. After playing a hardcore character, playing them in softcore just doesn't give the same experience imo

[podgie_bear 184]

Well you certainly make this game look interesting. I am currently downloading the game as I am typing this. Maybe I will see you ingame later if it is as good as it looks. And yes, after playing HC Sacred (original) nothing has ever seemed as good in SC, so I play all my games permadeath, which gets me called insane by virtually every other player, lol, but then after a character has been killed if I continue playing it, I never get that same thrill of still having something to lose!

Edited July 16, 2013 by podgie_bear

[Ysne58 236]

I was in for a couple of minutes last night, it took quite awhile to download. I need a new laptop, this one is constantly overheating. I think I can wait until next month when Windows 8.1 will be the flavor that comes on one. I would like to avoid 8.0 if at all possible.

 

I'm starting with a shadow and not sure I really understand how anything works, so this will be interesting.

[podgie_bear 184]

Got to admit the game is being a bit of a PITA at the moment, it keeps locking me out because it thinks I am signing in from different locations. Despite the fact I am playing on a desktop computer that never moves!

[Ryanrocker 200]

Got to admit the game is being a bit of a PITA at the moment, it keeps locking me out because it thinks I am signing in from different locations. Despite the fact I am playing on a desktop computer that never moves!

Hmm, I heard about similar problems about a month ago on the official forums. It appears that over in Europe/UK the IP addresses change everytime you boot up? If you don't find a solution soon, I'd send a quick little email over to support@grindinggear.com. The last time I asked them a question they got back in about 3 hours, and their support one of the nicest I've dealt with in a long time. Hoping to see you in game

[podgie_bear 184]

I put the problem on the forums and got a ice reply (and an idiot fanboi one as well). I only just started actually playing last night and so far have 2 characters up to level 3. Hardly great I know, but I am still testing how things work and more importantly trying each class to see which I fancy playing most.

[Chrona 82]

Got to admit the game is being a bit of a PITA at the moment, it keeps locking me out because it thinks I am signing in from different locations. Despite the fact I am playing on a desktop computer that never moves!

 

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/410680

You have a dynamic IP, if you check your email for the unlock code it will usually give you a location fairly close to where you are.

It automatically kicks in when the IP address is changed as a security feature and can't be turned off as yet(the are working on it), so you'll just need to deal with it for now.

 

 

Hi there,

 

If you get an unlock code that says someone has tried to log in from a location that is not close to you (most likely a different country) then this should be taken as a red flag and you should change the password of your Path of Exile account and your associated email address as soon as possible.

 

Posted by Bex_GGG

on 9. Juni 2013 20:34

Grinding Gear Games

 

we need more Darkies in Onslaught / HC

[Spritzen69 1]

I should have read the league selections more closely, there's me playing in normal HC when Onslaught is HC too lol.

I think they could borrow the idea of guilds from MMOs, even be able to gain xp and level up the guild. Would be very nice if they look into that down the line (or maybe they are already?). Obviously this is beta and I'm not expecting all the bells and whistles but I'd like to see more chat functionality at the very least be able to open your own chat channels.

[Ryanrocker 200]

I should have read the league selections more closely, there's me playing in normal HC when Onslaught is HC too lol.

I think they could borrow the idea of guilds from MMOs, even be able to gain xp and level up the guild. Would be very nice if they look into that down the line (or maybe they are already?). Obviously this is beta and I'm not expecting all the bells and whistles but I'd like to see more chat functionality at the very least be able to open your own chat channels.

Guild support and chat reworking are coming down the road, it's been something people have been asking for awhile

[podgie_bear 184]

This looks like a really nice game, and I particularly enjoy playing a Shadow. However it seems to have its fair share of problems still. Not only the lockout isue because it thinks I am moving location every time I login, but I am getting a high frequency of random disconnects. I think the longest I have been able to play without being dumped back to the login screen is about 15-20 minutes. I realise the game is still being worked on and I hope they get things sorted out as I would realy like to play this game.

[Ryanrocker 200]

This looks like a really nice game, and I particularly enjoy playing a Shadow. However it seems to have its fair share of problems still. Not only the lockout isue because it thinks I am moving location every time I login, but I am getting a high frequency of random disconnects. I think the longest I have been able to play without being dumped back to the login screen is about 15-20 minutes. I realise the game is still being worked on and I hope they get things sorted out as I would realy like to play this game.

Oh no! Have you tried using one of the other gateways on the login screen?

[podgie_bear 184]

 

This looks like a really nice game, and I particularly enjoy playing a Shadow. However it seems to have its fair share of problems still. Not only the lockout isue because it thinks I am moving location every time I login, but I am getting a high frequency of random disconnects. I think the longest I have been able to play without being dumped back to the login screen is about 15-20 minutes. I realise the game is still being worked on and I hope they get things sorted out as I would realy like to play this game.

Oh no! Have you tried using one of the other gateways on the login screen?

 

No, just the one it automatically puts me in. I don't know whether it is a Europe problem, a Gateway problem, a Server problem or if someone just doesn't like me (lol). But it is ruining what looks like a good game. I will investigate more fully when I have more time, but have been a bit short of playing time the last few days.

[Chrona 82]

THATS HC!!

Willywonka died @level 94

[Chrona 82]

Some notes on balance - part 1.

Posted by Qarl

on 18. Juli 2013 05:33 Grinding Gear Games

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/468826

I was asked in this thread to comment on our balance decisions and how we approach balance in Path of Exile. I started writing up a reply, which turned out quite long before I even covered my first point, so I will make my comment in a multi-part post.

 

This first part covers the general balance philosophies of the game. In the next part I will talk about the passive tree. After that, I’d be keen to talk about progression, and balance for specific playstyles. Later on, I’d like to get into the specific numbers, and balance of specific game stats.

 

The free to play games that have been successful (like League of Legends orMapleStory, for example) and the games with online persistent economies (for example Eve Online or World of Warcraft), have been ones that have evolved over time. They have regular updates, additional content, and an evolving metagame. These changes keeps players involved in the game.

 

This is the kind of success we are interested in, so we do intend to add more content, more skills, and more keystones. We also expect the balance to change, with different elements of the game waxing and waning in strength over time.

 

We want decisions about your character build to really matter. Part of this stems from the game being, to a very strong extent, about items. For them to be important, the items your character wears need to matter. We don't want items to be strictly tiered and transitive in nature. In many games, you want the gear for your class, and then you want to keep upgrading the tier of those items, until you get the maximum tier item for your character. While this does work for those very character-centred games, in Path of Exile we want the items to take more of the limelight. Items are not just supporting pieces to a class progression you walk through.

 

We want items to have intransitive relationships, as well as transitive ones. Intransitive means that the items are not comparable by strictly looking for bigger numbers. Rock-paper-scissors is a game with intransitive relationships between the moves, as opposed to a game where a bigger number always wins. So, for intransitive relationships between gear, sometimes we will want an item with smaller numbers for specific purposes. The answer I most like to see to the question “Which of these two items should I wear?” is “It depends.”

 

If the gear your character uses matters, then how you build your character matters. We also want character build decisions to matter, because it fits the style of game we like to play.

 

This leads to few things that impact how we handle balance:

 

(1) Decisions matter. You can make your character better by making better decisions about its build. As this is possible, you make your character worse by the decisions you make. So, in this case, balance isn't about making everything equal. Having decisions matter means that randomly built characters tend to be much weaker than ones that are well thought out. (Although, it should be noted that we want to make it easy for people to see what they need for their character, and have early paths of strength obvious).

 

(2) Synergistic options. These create a great deal of potential for making a good character by choice. The game system has to allow for different things to work together in positive ways. This makes balance more difficult, as things cannot be balanced in a vacuum.

 

(3) Build versatility and emergence. We want players to have lots of tools available to them, and we want them to be able to be combined in different ways. A player has access to gear stats, skills, supports, keystones and flasks, all with interacting elements. This gives a lot of flexibility, and leads to players being able to discover emergent things that had not been considered. We design to make this possible. We try to make things in a way that allows for interesting things to happen. Things would be much easier to balance if we restricted players’ options.

 

As the game has this kind of emergence, many of our balance decisions have to be reactive. We have to react to balance problems that crop up due to how the game is played. This is not the only way we balance, but it has to be a factor. If something becomes too dominant, it has to be addressed.

 

An example of an emergent thing we didn’t expect making the game better would something like Ruby Flasks being used as a moderator for Righteous Fire characters. An example of something that needed to be balanced after being introduced would be the first versions of multistrike (and multicast), that dominated the game immediately after being added.

 

On the flipside of this, we sometimes balance things based on their perceivedweakness, even though we know they are actually much stronger. We have to be careful with this, though, as it can come back to hurt us (and lead to reactive nerfs as the power gets discovered).

 

An example of us not buffing something "known to be weak" is Eldritch Battery. We had players demanding this be strengthened for a long time, but we did not change it, as we had seen it being used well. In the last few months, the community view of the power of this Keystone has basically reversed with no change to it. Burn damage also fits this; we were told for a long time that it was the worst status ailment, and that it needed to be buffed. We knew it was strong, and did not change it. Over time, it has gone from being considered very weak to very strong without us changing it. All that changed was the discovery of its usefulness.

 

(4) Build-based characters, not class-based. The synergistic options and versatility and decisions mattering are things we value. They don't make things that easy. The freedom players have in making their characters makes it very easy for players to converge on imbalances in the game. Very slight imbalances between options can result in characters gravitating to very similar builds very quickly. We work to avoid that, but our players are very canny. We are sometimes told that there are only a very few builds that work in high-level play, but when we look at high-level characters, there are more builds represented here than in many similar games. However, when players do converge on similar options, we need to make changes that can be less than popular.

 

Our players usually start our game thinking in terms of the class they choose first, and then work out what builds they can do. After playing for a while, they start to think in terms of build, and then work out which class best supports the build they want to make. Because of these two styles of play, it changes how we approach balance changes to the passive tree.

 

I’ll talk more about passive tree balance and development in a followup post.

[podgie_bear 184]

THATS HC!

Willywonka died @level 94

Hells Bells that was nasty! Deepest sympathies and fear for the future. I am only just starting out in this game and I have that sort of thing in my future? .........

[Ryanrocker 200]

THATS HC!

Willywonka died @level 94

Hehe, I always listen to Kripp's stream while I play so I heard about this yesterday. A sad death, but I'm glad it really shows that dual totem builds are not the safest thing of all time. What's up with the Crematorium boss too? Everytime one of the top 25 RIP lately I feel like it's been to this guy

 

EDIT: He made a video about why you can always die in PoE

Edited July 19, 2013 by Ryanrocker

[Chrona 82]

I'll make a new ZombieBuild(Onslaught->no Spectres=no lags!)...looking for %remote mine gem

Edited July 20, 2013 by Chrona

[Chrona 82]

some good vids for starting PoE

cu ingame

 

[Ryanrocker 200]

some good vids for starting PoE

cu ingame

I highly recommend the Freeze Pulse one if you like melee range spells, it's great fun

[Chrona 82]

highly recommend the Freeze Pulse one if you like melee range spells, it's great fun

 

I use the Freeze Pulse too (for all my Summnoners), respeccing after Docks-Cruel (level 40)

Edited July 21, 2013 by Chrona

[Ryanrocker 200]

I use the Freeze Pulse too (for all my Summnoners), respeccing after Docks-Cruel (level 40)

Do you find it hard to use that from behind the minions? I feel like all the unit collision would make FP hard to get off right

[Chrona 82]

o you find it hard to use that from behind the minions? I feel like all the unit collision would make FP hard to get off right

 

 

I use only Freeze Pulse+Ice Nova till level 40-> no Minions

->Freeze Pulse+Faster Projectiles= better range

 

YEAH-got it Deal of the day! Raise Mummy skin 55pts

 

 

another great video

Edited July 22, 2013 by Chrona

[Spritzen69 1]

Useful Link: Currency Exchange Rates

Found it helpful to give a rough guide to currency values.

[Chrona 82]

Useful Link: Currency Exchange Rates

Found it helpful to give a rough guide to currency values.

 

 

Its a RMT-site, Last Updated on: July 6, 2013 and don't show rates for different leagues.

Better look in some shops and check ratio/prices:

Standard: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-forum/306

HC: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-forum/305

Anarchy: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-forum/427

Onslaught: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-forum/430

 

New Vendor Recipe level 20 gem + 1 GCP = level 1 20% Quality Gem

http://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/1irr27/new_vendor_recipe_lvl_20_gem_1_gcp_lvl_1_20/

 

Kripps about the new recipe...

[Spritzen69 1]

You know I didn't even notice it was an RMT site lol... Thanks, will use the main forums for values.

I think this is the biggest thing with me and this game, I get a bit lost with value of everything. That in itself hasn't been such an issue as I've been just soloing up and getting a feel for everything but it's now getting to a point where I'm thinking should I really be using all this stuff or should I be saving it for trading later on.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Spritzen69