What is Path Of Exile
Path of Exile is a top down, action role playing game from Milling Gears Games, a little independent company within New Zealand, creating in secret on the space of 3 years, players finally obtained their hands on the overall game in early 2011 in the closed beta prior to a full release within October, the plan was simple at the time.
To release a faithful diablo like experience for the modern age, there had been numerous attempts from other companies to try and understand this but they ultimately in no way succeeded in re-creating the wonderment of Diablo 2, Milling Gears took a different approach, instead of attempting to copy Diablo, these people created their own video game with their own Path Of Exile items vision in mind whilst sticking with the principles of their hardcore approach.
Therefore instead of just having a course based grinding simulator, they instead focused on making a classless skill based system therefore in-depth people are nevertheless figuring out combinations to this day and providing actually thousands of hours really worth of content not only in the actual video game but in creating distinctive and amazing characters from what's provided, recently with the new expansion and patches the classes really feel a little bit more "authentic" but they're still ultimately up to how the player creates it.
Within the game play side although the game currently offers 10 unique chapters, 6 of which were added in the incredible Fall Of Oriath expansion, for comparison, Diablo 3 offers only managed five acts in the same amount of time, the game can be quite straight forward, you becoming your journey within the shores of Wraeclast as an exile banned to a prison ship for your supposed criminal offenses, after the ship sinks you wash up on the beach and find the shores to become completely infested using the undead in a forsaken land where there is very little refuge.
From the start you'll be asked along with picking your character, while it's correct class doesn't matter that much it will set you up on the right path for the type of character you want, you will journey into Lionseye Watch, a small shanty town that will give you your first quests and introduce you into the world of Path Of Exile all though it's very short as you learn to play by really playing the game.
The game starts off in Regular mode which is pretty easy where you trip through the acts, i'm not quite caught up within the story so i cannot account for the veracity of the story collection, but i'm informed it has some pretty involved lore inside it, it's not until the more difficult difficulties, merciless and cruel that the video game really takes off as numerous mechanics begin to spin out of control out of your control and even the starting enemies become an obstacle.
The game also has no gold, instead several currencies are used to update, trade and improvement as well as a very greatly player invested market with items, this game has a large number of items and even the standard items can be useful to the right gamers such as 6 socket connected items that can be upgraded and utilized by specific character specifications, but more upon that later.
Allows take a look at the character development and progression.
Progression Driven Characters
The leveling and update system in Route of Exile is actually vast, there are entire sites dedicated to going through hundreds of talents, products and progression strats to make their characters the best possible with optimum damage while also being able to survive, while some characters are built to aid or soak up harm in the traditional feeling, but again they are only some really individual specs within a sea of hundreds, it's easier basically just show you along with pictures what to expect.
Here we have the talent tree and yes that is for every character, even with that image that's not even the whole of the talent woods you'll find in the game for the character, these possess numerous different paths that can completely rewrite your character and just how you play it, there are numerous different ways to try out one specific character and you usually have to decide on it before you decide to even make the character as a badly created character may cost more in order to respec than to create a new one entirely.
You also have to take into account the harder difficulties and acts, resistances perform a huge part upon harder difficulties, a lot so that just possessing a lot of damage and health can still result in you being wiped out in one hit and some monsters may be immune to your specific type of attack damage, therefore understanding that you will need to create your character for later game, rather than just leveling and occasionally leveling becomes the hardest part, it's truly strange occasionally.
On the other hand though you possess Skill Gems, they're used for all your abilities in game and will be tied in directly to the talent system as they will require a certain level of attribute in order to equip but also to keep leveling up as your skill gems are based entirely on attribute factors you may even have to go out of your way to degree up a certain jewel that can take you to weird places within your talent tree.
It's also important to note that some gems will not be readily available to your class so you may need to either farm to them or buy them using the currencies which leads me personally into the next component, the overwhelming amount of currencies and how to get them.
Since there is gold in Route of Exile, every thing is bought and paid for with currencies, there are about 10-15 different currencies you will regularly use in the overall game, some small and common others extremely rare and difficult to obtain that will need to be worked on for extended periods or just getting lucky with falls.
The most common upgrades and currencies are tied together, you can sell items to the vendor to get parts of the foreign currency then create it or you can go socket shopping, which is essentially just looking for items which have linked sockets in them that sell very well to the merchant in terms of currency generation.
These currencies perform most of the things in the game, changing sockets, adding different attributes, changing socket colours, totally changing it into a new item, corrupting it or purifying them, there's a foreign currency for basically everything you need and there's always a way to obtain it that isn't too time consuming unless of course you're looking for extremely later game currencies to maximize your gear.
As with Diablo, PoE is actually loot based, your own character can provide numerous items along with almost no restrictions through classes, as with every thing the gear is based mostly on attributes which means you can be a caster running around in full plate armor if you have enough within strength to provide the pieces, but that very seldom happens as using points away from buy poe items your main build is a great way to fall short at later game.
Path Associated with Exile has several inter-connected systems which only grow the longer you perform it, the more difficult the game becomes the more critical your itemization and build turn out to be as some points at the end game can be down right ridiculous to try and complete which can be do everything properly but it also pays handsomely to explore when you first enter into the game, since there is numerous different acts and a vast multitude of classes/talents to create you never know what the right assortment of gear or talents might be right for your own play style.
I will say though, get chaos damage resistance asap(trust me on that).
Destroying the Leader
Route of Exile is actually, by many objective view points the vastly superior video game to Diablo 3, given the resources GGG had to focus on Path of Exile and the resources Blizzard had to work on Diablo 3 it's not a close call, you might ask why We are comparing the two video games though, well it's because it serves a purpose in the review of the overall game and it's scope in the ARPG genre.
This particular game has been named the spiritual successor to Diablo 2, even though Diablo 3 exists it never really came close to Diablo 2, Path of Exile feels and plays like the next logical step through Diablo 2 which sadly D3 in no way was, it's also the developers unending commitment to the game which makes it the best in the industry at the moment, even 6 many years after release they're consistently adding new content each month and releasing massive expansion packs and person content.
It's also their own Free2Play model that is done so great, the genesis of the video game was from down and dirty PvE experience and also the cash shop does not interfere with that by any means, you can pay to get some quality of life points or to catch up on certain things but the best.... well every thing is still only accessible in the game, it's much more there so that the gamers can support the developers to continue making the game that they love.
It's also important to note that level of detail that has gone into Path of Exile, now standing at a staggering 10 acts long the overall game is that perfect balance of procedural generation and static atmosphere so that the game in no way gets boring, each and every patch they launch they figure out new ways to let the gamers play and progress with the game, such as I said over there's numerous sites dedicated to PoE builds and guides and that gets increased along with every patch because they continually balance the classes and offerup more ways to perform.
All of this is a stark contrast to Diablo 3 which required 3 years to release the followup act along with one new act and one new character and has been regularly dumbed down the longer the game is out whereas PoE has done the exact opposite and became harder the longer the game is out all of this combined with GGG's commitment to the video game is what makes it the market leader in the (western) ARPG front.
Absolutely no signs of slowing down
Last month saw the release of the Fall Of Oriath expansion that was also totally free, that added six whole chapters to the game, most companies would possibly do 3 at a maximum but GGG are on a roll, the one thing that stings the most about a great game is when companies either give up the project or move at a snails pace on content and patches, GGG doesn't have that problem and every 2 or 3 a few months Path of Exile feels like a new and refreshed game.
However on the other hand it's the dedication of the team in order to keeping the game moving at a fast pace, you very seldom see gold farmers in the game selling points because it requires you to actually play the overall game to progress, and if you're left with very little spare currency if you wish to keep progressing, GGG have done an amazing job at curbing which in the game with their style.
But it also has a built-in meta game using the currencies as it's used to control long-term inflation of the market in Path of Exile, anyone who has played a long standing multi-player game knows simply how much a market can inflate if left stagnate for a few years, the prime example is actually World of Warcraft, when released the tokens offered for around 14k gold, now they're breaking 200k, so it's nice to play a game to know people cannot out hoard your own progress or hold you ransom.
Right after their release of Fall Of Oriath, GGG confirmed they might continue to update the overall game and are working on an additional expansion that will take place in the future, with no real talk of Route Of Exile 2 just yet it seems the games life cycle still has a few years ahead of it in terms of content and a completed game cycle.
All the aforementioned things are a reason to give Route Of Exile a try, but in a game as big as Path of Exile, no review will truly do it justice and being that it's free the best way to experience it is just to download it and give a try, it's a game of immense content, interesting design and has the development team that is solely dedicated to making it the the best these people possibly can.
Just one thing to mention, it is a bit of a time sink if you get sucked in it like I did therefore don't be surprised if you end up spending hundreds of hours on it such as I did.
