Game News Path of Exile Public Stress Test Weekend Has Begun

[Crooked Bee]

Tags: Grinding Gear Games; Path of Exile

Another public stress test weekend has begun for indie action RPG Path of Exile. This time you can try out the new Shadow class.

Play Indie Action RPG Path of Exile’s latest Class the Shadow this Weekend

AUCKLAND, New Zealand - 9 May 2012 - Indie Action RPG Path of Exile has announced its latest character class, the hit-and-run trap-laying Shadow. Although currently in closed beta, Path of Exile is opening its doors to everyone for two days with a public test this coming weekend. Supporters can also pre-purchase credit for the game’s ‘ethical microtransactions’ and receive a permanent beta key.

The Shadow is a hybrid dexterity and intelligence class, a professional assassin exiled after getting on the wrong side of a former client. He employs deadly traps and spells against opponents, finishing off survivors with quick dagger strikes while darting in and out of combat.

In Path of Exile, any class can use any skill, weapon or trap, allowing for a huge variety of possible character builds. The Shadow is particularly well suited to traps and fast weapons like claws and daggers.

Using Path of Exile’s support gem system, the Shadow can turn any spell into a trap or remotely detonated mine. For instance, the Shadow can link a Frost Wall skill gem with a Remote Mine support gem to create a Frost Wall Mine which they can place to strategically trap enemies.

The first chance to play the Shadow character will be in this weekend’s public stress test. The Path of Exile Beta servers will open for public access at 5pm PDT on Friday, May 11. Public access will end at 11:59pm PDT Sunday night, May 13. A full FAQ about the public weekend is available at http://www.pathofexile.com/publicweekend/.

A previous public weekend in March attracted 47,000 players.

Grinding Gear Games’ producer Chris Wilson says the Shadow is one of the more difficult classes to play due to his fragility. “He more than makes up for it if handled with skill. His hit-and-run style of combat makes the most of his natural Evasion and Energy Shield, and rewards strategic coordination of attacks, spells, and traps.”

His signature tactic is to lay hidden traps and to lure his opponents in. When they step too close, the trap springs and his foes find themselves caught in place, missing a leg or blown to pieces in a fiery explosion. Alternatively, he can place remote mines which are manually detonated, ideally in the middle of clusters of enemies.

As an indie game developed by a team of hardcore action RPG fans, Path of Exile has several unique takes on the genre. It features a unique skill gem system, a huge passive skill tree, extensive character customisation and PvP combat in a persistent online world. The game is free to play, but does not feature ‘pay-to-win’ microtransactions. Path of Exile will enter Open Beta in late June.

Key features of ‘Path of Exile’:

• Completely free to download and play, but never ‘pay-to-win’
• A persistent online world capable of supporting hundreds of thousands of players
• A dark and gritty game world rendered from a fixed 3D perspective
• Randomly generated levels and items for extreme replayability
• Online ranking and ladders for every game mode
• Visceral combat with dozens of combinable skills
• Battle in PVP tournaments for worldwide recognition
• Dynamic skill system

From what I've heard, monsters have also been updated for the current version of Path of Exile, and people are mostly saying good things about the game, so be sure to try it out if ARPGs of this kind are your thing.

 

[Excidium]

This game is p. cool as far as diablo clones go.

 

[sea]

Tried it out. I like it, and it has a lot of smart design ideas and mechanics. For instance, it has a heavy focus on upgrading loot, rather than replacing it, and the character system is very open. At the same time, it's also kind of slow, boring and even a bit gimmicky. It feels specifically built to be a nostalgia trip for Diablo 2 fans, and other bits like the ridiculous skill tree are there more for shock value (oh my god, so many icons to click!) rather than because it really helps gameplay in any way (could have just done the same thing far more efficiently using a traditional UI).

I really get the sense Path of Exile isn't sure what it wants to be... it attracts fans of Diablo by looking and playing just like it, but mechanically the character building and loot side are very different. It has great visuals and decent audio but then the levels are just boring copy-pasta stuff (and not even randomly generated too, from what I understand). There are a lot of classes that look different, but have zero personality and don't even really play that differently because everyone can learn the same sorts of spells and use the same items. The world design and setup are done fairly well but the motivations for doing anything and the story are basically nonexistent and there's no sense of any lore once you're actually playing. Even though it does a lot of stuff right, it also feels very, very sloppy in some really weird ways, and I think it mostly boils down to that lack of consistency and focus.

 

[Grunker]

the ridiculous skill tree are there more for shock value (oh my god, so many icons to click!) rather than because it really helps gameplay in any way (could have just done the same thing far more efficiently using a traditional UI).

Besides the obvious shock-value it is my estimation that the skill tree actually has many ways for a character to go - i.e. the skill tree will help differantiate characters. It's a also a fuckton more deep and meaningful that TL2 and certainly D3 when combined with Skill-gems. But it's going to be revamped anyway.

Besides that I mostly agree with you, but I think TL2 suffers from most of those mistakes. It just seems to have less innovations and stuff to keep me interested (character building, trading, PVP, innovations on loot, and so on). And this one is free.

As far as the differences in classes go, this game is more akin to D1 in this manner. Classes vary little from each other - the customization is in character-building, skill choice and gear-selection. I think that's just as fine as the differences between classes in TL2 and it is CERTAINLY better than D3's way of only having class-difference and next to no customization-difference.

 

[nihil]

It has great visuals and decent audio but then the levels are just boring copy-pasta stuff (and not even randomly generated too, from what I understand).

I actually find the first act very varied and well-paced. There's always something new going on in terms of environments (shore, tunnels, mountains/coast, prison, full circle to creepier shore). And they are randomized, but some areas look very alike each time. Things like these are improved all the time.

The world design and setup are done fairly well but the motivations for doing anything and the story are basically nonexistent and there's no sense of any lore once you're actually playing. Even though it does a lot of stuff right, it also feels very, very sloppy in some really weird ways, and I think it mostly boils down to that lack of consistency and focus.

I think these things will get better. There are indications that there's a story going on that's not really told at this point (guy in prison, what happened there?). Maybe these things will be the final touches when the game goes live, along with the promised voice acting.

 

[Notorious]

I hate to be a cynical bastard but why should I play this instead of D2?

 

[nihil]

It has a completely different set of systems, and especially the skill gem system is really fun to play around with once you start to get support gems.

And if you're the grinding type, it looks like the crafting system of PoE will give you more to do than D2 ever did.

 

[Darkforge]

I like it and found it far more compelling than the D3 beta.

I agree with most of the sentiments in this thread. However I would suggest looking at the classes as actual races instead, sure you can create just about any type of character you want but because of the Passive tree some "classes" are better at certain things than others, there is a huge scope for experimentation here.

The different leagues have me interested for instance the group based one where your resources don't return when going back to town sounds interesting and very mmo like.

 

[Heechee]

Sometimes the game felt more like D 1.5 rather than D2, which is a good thing. I liked the mechanics, atmosphere and pacing, especially in the first act. Lets hope they increase the randomness in map generation, otherwise it may severely reduce the replay value. Overall, the best hack&slash experience I had in years.

 

[Bulba]

It was definately fun through the game is way too easy and this makes it boring after a while.

 

[nihil]

Sometimes the game felt more like D 1.5 rather than D2, which is a good thing.

Actually, yeah. The fact that abilities/spells are found as items rather than being tied to your class/skill tree is quite similar to the spell books in Diablo 1. The gameplay and progression is pretty much carbon copied from D2, though?

 

[Heechee]

Sometimes the game felt more like D 1.5 rather than D2, which is a good thing.

Actually, yeah. The fact that abilities/spells are found as items rather than being tied to your class/skill tree is quite similar to the spell books in Diablo 1. The gameplay and progression is pretty much carbon copied from D2, though?

The sinister atmosphere of the rotten coast in the first act also reminded me of D1. That disappeared completely in the second act, unfortunately. Although it was still done better than Act III of D2.

 

[Grunker]

Sometimes the game felt more like D 1.5 rather than D2, which is a good thing.

Actually, yeah. The fact that abilities/spells are found as items rather than being tied to your class/skill tree is quite similar to the spell books in Diablo 1. The gameplay and progression is pretty much carbon copied from D2, though?

The progression? The passive skill tree and stats being crammed into it as well as no active skills in the skill tree (on gems instead) have nothing to do with D2 progression. It's sort of a mix between D1 and D2 with some of its own ideas thrown in.

 

[nihil]

The progression? The passive skill tree and stats being crammed into it as well as no active skills in the skill tree (on gems instead) have nothing to do with D2 progression. It's sort of a mix between D1 and D2 with some of its own ideas thrown in.

I was unclear. By progression I didn't mean character progression, but actual game progression. The "open areas with side dungeons" as well as the act structure with one "village" in every act is much more D2 than D1 "levels". As I said, the active skills found as items is very D1.

 

[Grunker]

Oh. My bad

 

[Pika-Cthulhu]

I enjoyed the parts of the game that I got to see during this weekend, between entertaining family most of the weekend I still managed to get to Act 2 with the time I had to play.

Started a Ranger on basic/normal/easymode and it was quite the cakewalk through the early parts (tutorial I guess) it wasnt until the Ships graveyard that I hit a wall. My first rare bow that I had upgraded with Blacksmith Whetstones just didnt cut the mustard well enough, I upgraded to a measly magical long bow and was able to press on. The skill forest is a bit of a nightmare and I derped a bit and just started clicking 'oh this looks good' and eventually found that my decisions were fantastically poor and redundant. Managed to solo the last boss of Act 1 by finding a decent bow and gear and abusing pots, a well placed Teleport (Just outside the entrance the floor above) and died twice trying to tank the damage, spamming flasks and dots as you play popamole from cover seems to work.

Some parts I enjoyed.
Skill Gems, gave that Diablo feeling, even if they do level up as opposed to shrinehunting
Ranged class cheese, probably why I didnt have many problems
Passive Skill page requires me to have a good long hard look at it
Keybinds, less clicky more punchy

Things I didnt like so much
Global chat, thankfully there was a mute button
Lag spikes, wasnt in much danger more of an annoyance
Loot runs, my god my obsessive compulsion had me ferrying EVERYTHING back to town for the measly rewards
No shift click to sell/fast sell ability

Unsure about the lack of global currency, while it is nice that there isnt a standard price of x Gold for everything, can get a bit annoying when you want to get an orb of whatsits, which needs 3 orbs of widgets, which needs 7 scrolls of pissingabout, which need 3 Scrolls of wankingaboutwithyourinventory to get (which need 5 scraps of OHMYFUCKINGGODWHY).

Those problems are probably already solved with checking an option that I didnt check because im lazy and didnt RTFM or read much about this game before this open beta weekend other than a random video link I followed a while back. Other than that, I like it, I did miss out on the Diablo 3 Beta due to lack of giving a fuck at the time, TL2 has my ears perked and interest piqued as I did have quite a bit of fun with TL but ill need to look more into it.

All in all I liked it, will play with a bro when its released, probably hardcore so we can both die to lagspikes and laugh, or ironman to help me get over my lootwhore/packrat affliction.