Path of Exile Initial Impressions

Path of Exile is coming into open beta, and the action RPG has garnered quite a following even during the release of Diablo 3 and Torchlight 2. While I have not spent a lot of time with the title, here are some of my thoughts about the game.

First off, the game is free to play, and that means there will be micro-transactions. Things you can buy are more character slots, stash, vanity pets, a personal server, or leagues as they call it, and dyes. Most of these, we can do without, and the devs even say that if players need more stash or character slots, they can just get another account since it's free, so the business model is pretty fair.

Graphics wise, the devs have decided to take a more gloomy, dark tone. This is in contrast to the cartoony look of recent action RPGs. In fact, the art style reminds me very much of Diablo 2, right down to the map overlay. Character animation and the environments are pretty good, but with the little time I spent with the game, I feel that my characters don't feel powerful enough. Perhaps it's the way they swing their weapons, or perhaps it's the stun reaction of the enemies that make it seem like your hits are pretty weak, but it may change as you level up and get more powerful skills.

The skill system is pretty interesting, combining Final Fantasy VII's Material system and Final Fantasy X's Sphere Grid. Weapons and armor have gem slots for slotting active skill gems and gems that modify your skills, like adding elemental effects, increasing area of effect, and so on. Passive skills and character stats are handled mainly by the sphere grid and like FFX, you can learn the skills meant for other classes by equipping the gems or working your way over to their area on the sphere grid. This is an interesting choice that sets it apart from the skill trees and stat allocation of other aRPGs.

Path of Exile uses items like scrolls and orbs as a currency. Basically, scrolls that identify your stuff and orbs that improve your equipment are the things you get when you sell items you don't want. This is an effort to curb inflation that plagues games of this genre. As long as the 'currency' is useful in some sense, it is always being removed from the economy through identification or upgrading, and hopefully minimize the effects of inflation. Gold selling might end up as less of an issue, or it might not since it'll become scroll selling, but we shall see.

Free to play games want to keep you interested, and so devs will generally add content, or have some sort of end game content. Besides the different difficulty levels, Path of Exile's end game consists of 'maps' that modify the enemies, making them resistant to elements, having extra stats or powerful unique monsters in exchange for extra loot drops. This reminds me of Disgaea's Item World random map generating system which can add a lot of replayability.

Path of Exile is worth checking out, especially when it's free. Open beta starts on 23rd Jan 2013.