Hands-on With Path of Exile [General News]

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It's been almost 12 years since Diablo II's release and, as Blizzard tries to finish Diablo III, we still have no release date to hold onto. It was for reasons like this that a small group of Action RPG enthusiasts, fed up with the lack of new releases in the genre, decided to make their own video game. 

The game was developed under the radar for 3 years and on September 1st, 2010 Grinding Gear Games officially announced Path of Exile. The game is currently in a closed beta, with players being selected to play periodically at set intervals on the game's website. 

Path of Exile is going to be a free-to-play game financed only by micro-transactions, but what sets this game apart is that the developers have stressed that one of their core goals is to keep the micro-transactions "ethical". While most games' micro-transactions provide significant game advantages, Path of Exile plans to provide cosmetic changes or vanity items through its item shop. Players will also be able to pay for the right to create private or invite-only "leagues" that each have their own separate economy. 

Leagues are the game's approach to offer several alternate play modes for Path of Exile. With game types like Hardcore, Ironman, Attrition, as well as a few others, these game types offer options like allowing other players into your instances to try and kill one another to steal each other's items.

Upon getting into the beta I took a look at what classes the game had to offer. There were three distinct play styles that use the three common base stats that come with most any fantasy RPG; Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence. The interesting part to the game is that there is a class to accompany every combination of play style. Marauder = Strength, Ranger = Dexterity, Witch = Intelligence, but it doesn't stop there. There are three more classes that combine the idea of two of these play styles and make a new class out of it entirely. Duelist, Templar, and a yet to be announced class, allow for a hybrid play style that fits to the exact way you want to play.

This is important because the game's ability system does not impose a fixed skill tree on each class. Instead, you will be awarded with skill gems from quests and slaying monsters that can be socketed into gear and be used for combat. As the character advances and gains experience, the skill gems also level up becoming more potent with each level. This means that potentially every class can use every ability; however, it is kept in check by class restrictions on equipment as well as the fact that without unlocking specific passive stats, some abilities won't scale as well as others.  

All classes share 750 passive skills that you can advance in once per level. These skills improve the core attributes for a character and grant increased mana, health, or damage. Because of this any character has access to every passive bonus; however, the skill placement layout is different for every class making it much easier to access the proper way to build a character, and more difficult for the reverse. 

Continue to Page 2 for Gameplay Impressions >

When I first jumped into the beta I thought the idea of a Templar (a warrior/caster) was an interesting change from the normal. I started out shipwrecked and on the coast of Wraeclast with a quest waiting for me right at the start. It read cryptically, but from what I could gather I was supposed to "kill something". With no real idea which way to go, I turned on my map and proceeded to explore every nook and cranny to make sure nothing was missed. 

This was a good percent of what I spent my time doing while playing this game. Path of Exile is split up into two Acts. Act One is an incredibly linear move from one map to the next, fighting everything on the way, while completing fairly meaningless quests. Act Two is where the game opens up and allows you to explore a fair amount of different zones at your leisure.

This sounds like a good idea, but wasn't executed properly. This is due to the vague and often unclear quest descriptions given. To make matters worse, you can only read the detailed quest description the first time you accept it. After that it goes into an abbreviated quest log that does a better job simply telling you what zone you need to kill a specific enemy in. 

This has led to an overabundance of players using the global chat for quest clarification, and a disgruntled number of people who scream at them to go read the walkthrough on the forums. Now, while I don't feel the game needs as detailed a quest tracker as we see in modern MMOs, I must admit the game became much clearer when I simply knew what direction I needed to go in. The fact that the game doesn't deliver a clear narrative or quest direction makes it hard to emotionally invest into the dungeon crawl and continue playing from map to map.

But, as the community will also state, this type of game is about the gear and the grind. Its payoff is about customizing your character and endlessly grinding waves of monsters for that perfect item to drop for your class and this game has plenty of it. I spent around 20-30 hours on my first play through before the game hit its virtual reset and I started back at the beginning on a harder difficulty. By this time I began to really hit a groove for my character's play style and now equipped with incredible gear and the knowledge of quest progression, additional playthroughs became much more enjoyable. 

In the end Path of Exile is shaping up to be a game worth playing. Its robust and diverse combat styles make it enjoyable to experiment with not only with different classes, but different skills and spells on each class. The biggest complaint is how difficult it can be, without leaving the game, to know which direction you're supposed to go to complete a quest on the first play through. It's because of this, that people may end up getting frustrated and stop playing, but with the free-to-play model Grinding Gear Games is adopting there is no reason to not try this game out for yourself.

Mike "Krelumian" Schaffnit, Staff Writer.

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