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S2 Ep62: Path of Exile
66 Plays6 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they willing exile themselves on the loot infested shores of Wraeclast!
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Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
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Transcript
Exile to Reclast: Setting the Scene
00:00:04
Speaker
By the divine authority of the Templar, you are hereby exiled to the forsaken shores of Reclast. You have transgressed against God and consorted with sin. Find your redemption, exile. You will die in the attempt.
Introduction to Soapstone Podcast
00:00:36
Speaker
Three, two, one, record. How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave?
Why Are Eyebrows Important?
00:00:47
Speaker
It's going good. How you doing, Jake? Doing pretty good. You know, just having that small talk, that banter, that pre-podcast lead up that nobody ever hears. A little bit of that social making out, I got you.
00:01:01
Speaker
Yeah, that stuff. A little bit of them linguistics. You can't see Dave's eyebrows right now, but they are all the way up. They were fully aroused, I guess would be the word. I would say raised before I'd say aroused. Just differences of opinion, I guess.
00:01:21
Speaker
Do you like an eyebrow, Jake? Or do you prefer people without eyebrows? It's really weird, actually, not to discriminate against people who don't have eyebrows, especially like, you know, if you don't have a choice in the matter, you don't have a choice. But I've always found the human face without eyebrows to be very disconcerting.
Facial Features and Video Games
00:01:41
Speaker
It's like a body without nipples. It's like certain features of the human body, like accent the other parts of the body and you expect them to be there. Yeah.
00:01:52
Speaker
Like, if I see a bald person, they don't have hair, I'm like, okay, but they still have eyebrows. Right. Yeah. If they don't, if they, if they're bald without eyebrows, what are they? They seem less mammal like. Okay. Yeah. In that way. And like you're expecting something to be above the mustache area kind of in some capacity. It was like a primal identification thing. That's the facial identification.
00:02:18
Speaker
Um, which is like, that's really interesting in itself, not to, not to go into the, um, uh, cognitive recognition of human facial structure, but it's, uh, it's, it's fascinating on some, like there's, um, uh, disorders that like cause you to lose the ability to kind of recognize faces, recognize human faces. Um, and it's, it's just interesting research that once you're done listening to this podcast.
00:02:48
Speaker
Which is not about any of that. It's about a video game this time.
Path of Exile vs. Diablo: A Darker Theme
00:02:54
Speaker
Oh, shit, would you have video games again? Yeah, back to video games. Bringing it back. This time it is a path of exile. AKA, walking to Diablo 3, but not shit. I mean, I would contest that point for Diablo 3 in the modern era. But there were periods of time where I feel like you could make that claim for Diablo.
00:03:14
Speaker
So before I started getting into my, uh, comparison and tangent of rants and such. Yeah. So obviously, uh, path of exile is a, as we would call a Diablo two clone, action RPG, action RPG, uh, Ludi Tutti things, sometimes shooting. Yeah.
00:03:35
Speaker
But like you go around From like a isometric view and like you're killing mobs. You're killing magic Magic my groups. Yeah elites. Yeah, what are they? What are the blue ones called elite packs or your special monsters? Yeah, I don't know what they're called in and fruity tooty, but in diablo three of their elite packs
00:03:55
Speaker
Yeah killing stuff you're trying to get loot and drops to make your character better to kill things more efficiently to level up etc, etc, right? So it's still in that space, but it does a lot of things I would say differently
00:04:09
Speaker
So like this is more if we were to go back to the the family tree of action RPGs like so many of split off of Diablo including Diablo but where From Diablo 2 Blizzard went to Diablo 3. Maybe that was kind of like directly up bright sunshiney pastel colors all of that
The Depth of Path of Exile's Skill Tree
00:04:34
Speaker
Path of Exile was just like, oh no, we're digging, we're digging down. And they just went into the ground. They're like grim crypts and blood and all of that stuff that Diablo II had. Well yeah, Blizzard, for a lot of the things, has gone to the rounded edges approach to things where it's like, hey, if you want to appeal to a wider audience, things will be more, like, newbie friendly. And that's fine. Like, I honestly do enjoy Diablo III. I've played a season or two at very low tier, whatever things.
00:05:02
Speaker
Yeah, but like it's fun and it's a good model But I really appreciate as you're saying how in-depth path of exile gets for like hey This is how this shit works. Yeah, like my biggest difference. I appreciate is the skill tree. Mm-hmm
00:05:21
Speaker
So in Diablo 2, you have your classes. If you're a sorceress, you can level fire, ice, or lighting. As everyone knows, there are the only three elements. Yeah, there's nothing else. Unless you're a druid, in which case there are more. Yeah, earth, wind, and... Again, fire. Fire, yeah. It's the only overlap. You never fucking see earth druid. It's because it's shit.
00:05:43
Speaker
But the classes in Path of Exile Everybody has the same skill tree. Yeah, kind of like passive skill tree. Yeah in Final Fantasy 10. You had the sphere grid. Oh Everyone's nostalgia is tingling It was really cool. She's like, well, I feel like I need a little bit more mana or a little bit more dexterity or strength or damage, etc, etc. I
00:06:04
Speaker
But you can build into these different things. So if you pick a giving character, it does not necessarily influence how you're going to play. Right. So like Jake was a fire sorceress we played over the past two weeks or so.
Character Classes and Skill Tree Specialization
00:06:19
Speaker
I prefer the term witch actually.
00:06:23
Speaker
Usually I'd say burn the witch and he's like, but I have the fire. Burn them, comma, witch. Got it. Dear witch, please burn them. Gotcha.
00:06:39
Speaker
But yeah, I, so I started like with an, on the Northern section of the skill tree. Um, that was largely it's in the center of all of the, of the, uh, the blue magic section, essentially intelligence. Um, so the three stats are intelligence, dexterity and strength.
00:06:57
Speaker
I mean, if you've never played RPGs before this might come as a surprise to you, right? But yeah And if you pick like a different class, you may start like in a hybrid tree. You might start between intelligence and death, right? I played a duelist. So it was pretty much the even split between strength and dexterity. Yeah strong but swift like a coursing river
00:07:22
Speaker
And you're just filling out this constellation of skills. So if proximity wasn't an issue, if you could just pick from whatever skills you wanted on a list, there would be fewer choices to make, but now distance matters.
00:07:38
Speaker
There may be a skill so they they not only have stats in the tree. So you mentioned like you can get some more health You can get intelligence or decks but they also have Health nodes so you can get healthier if you like pick this particular branch off of the tree Yeah, or they may have minor or major traits and sometimes they're very significant and how they can apply to your character and
00:08:03
Speaker
Yeah. Like, um, one of the little sections that was kind of off of one of the main branches that I put points into was for channeling abilities because my character was going around the skill cyclone, which is a channeled ability. So the points in that little cluster were like, Oh, you do more damage wall channeling and other bonuses to channeled abilities. I'm like, okay, this is going to help the build and play style I want. So I'm going to invest in that. Right.
00:08:33
Speaker
Whereas jape would be like This would be a waste of points. Yeah, I mean I did use a skill early scorching ray, which is channeled But I like a beam. Yeah, that was the beam But I eventually switched that out for fireballs
00:08:49
Speaker
And some of those major skill trees have significant trade-offs, like there's one in the intelligence section where it's like, you no longer have health regeneration, but your health regeneration applies to your energy shield.
00:09:07
Speaker
So your energy shield is just like a halo over shield, essentially. Like, that regenerates over time. There's another one that makes it so like, if your shield starts regenerating, your energy shield, if you take damage, it doesn't interrupt it for like a few seconds. So you get guaranteed regeneration if you can have shorter bursts of downtime between getting hit.
00:09:27
Speaker
And just like a lot of kind of mechanics things like that and some of them like I mentioned our trade-offs One of them removes your ability to summon a totem at all, which is just kind of like usually a stationary Summon that does some magical effect
Challenges and Freedom in Character Builds
00:09:43
Speaker
You know, totems. Yeah, totems. But in exchange, you gain one more mark of a brand, which is this kind of damaging spell you can drop and it'll attach to an enemy and hurt them or do something over time. So you can kind of like focus your character by expanding out in these trees. And if something's really far, like there could be things down in the strength or dexterity trees.
00:10:04
Speaker
that would be really cool for my character. They'd be awesome, especially for some of the synergies with the gems, where gems, which we'll get into, I suppose. I was like, what are gems, Jacob? They may require multiple stats, but it would be too expensive for my build to go all the way down that tree. I would lose too many points in transit, and it would weaken the build overall.
00:10:34
Speaker
And I think that's the passive skill tree. That's the trick. This is probably like the people who love Path of Exile the most, I feel like, embrace it. And the people who aren't really willing to give Path of Exile a try are probably pushed away by it because it is one of the most extreme things the game does as far as character development.
00:10:58
Speaker
I mean that kind of is the path of exile is actually navigating the passive skill tree. Yeah, you will be alone You will be forced to make hard decisions And you'll screw up your hair But then you'll make a new one by copying a meta build online. Yeah, and that's like you basically cut to the heart of it. I think is um for me I
00:11:19
Speaker
Cause I've tried, I played Path of Exile a couple of times in the past, but I've never gotten as far as my most recent character. Um, and I've always the, the stress of going over the build has gotten to me or I'm just like, I think I made a mistake. I don't have any refund points or I'm afraid to use my refund points. Cause maybe it wasn't really a mistake and it just wears me down until I'm just like too much stress. I'm not going to play.
00:11:42
Speaker
Um, so you do what you mentioned, you just follow a build online, but that kind of defeats the point of having that much freedom anyways.
00:11:51
Speaker
I mean, to a degree, yeah. I know you're much more of a, you like to optimize in games and like find those, like when we play Monster Hunter world, you're like, these are the routes I'm going to go kill this monster and then mine these nodes. Yeah. And just, you do that. Um, for me though, I definitely do want to have an optimized build, uh, at the same time. I also do kind of enjoy.
00:12:18
Speaker
Hopping into that to be like my mindless. I'm gonna murder like a hundred mobs at a time Yeah thing and I get enjoyment enough from that. Yeah, but at the same time there will be a point later on where I will want to Create my own thing and figure it out on my own and be like, oh, but what if I did this instead? Yeah, and then upload my own build right be like check this out guys
00:12:40
Speaker
Once you've done your playthrough, you've played with the skills, you have more of an understanding of what's in the tree, then you could sit down and plan a lot of it out. If you like theory crafting, you're probably already playing Path of Exile if you like action RPGs, because the diversity in Path of Exile is absolutely absurd. And it accomplishes that while for the most part minimizing the number of active skills you have, which is kind of interesting.
Diablo vs. Path of Exile: Skill Systems
00:13:10
Speaker
Well, again, I want to make the distinction between like somebody Diablo three, you're capped at, I think it's like four or five skills. Yeah. It's like going to have, and they're all active. Correct. Um, this sort of, some of them are toggles.
00:13:26
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. But you usually interact with four
Gem Socketing and Player Stats in Path of Exile
00:13:29
Speaker
or five things. Yeah. And you can have modifiers on those. Like, oh, my dash ability might leave a trail of fire behind me or something fairly simple. But everything in Path of Exile, you can kind of build whatever because the skills are based off of
00:13:48
Speaker
gems that you socket into items that you have. Right. Or you'd have to put a matching color gem in that socket. Mm-hmm. So like initial one you might get as the duelist is like double strike. Right. And that's your active skill. You're like, oh, I'm gonna hit them twice quickly. Cool. Mm-hmm. But then you also get these support gems to give modifiers.
00:14:11
Speaker
So that again for dualist it was like a chance to bleed support Yeah, so every time I'm hitting somebody I have a chance to inflict a bleed damage upon them as well Yeah, but it can also be poison it could be Anything yeah, the support system is very very open-ended and like the gyms need to be linked together and
00:14:31
Speaker
The sockets have to be linked together in the item so you're kind of like in Diablo to like make that comparison You're usually concerned with affixes or the modifiers on each item like maybe it makes you stronger Maybe it gives you health. Maybe there's a special effect. Maybe it modifies an ability whatever
00:14:47
Speaker
In Path of Exile, it's equally important in a lot of ways that the sockets are set up in such a way that you can kind of build around it, especially since each gem has stat affinity.
00:15:05
Speaker
So some gems are just intelligence. And as you continue to level up the gem, it gets experience while you get experience. Yeah, exactly. It's like materia, actually. Yeah. But like, as somebody who wasn't playing int, if I had like a blue gem, I would kind of cap out a certain point because I'm not putting extra points into intelligence. Right.
00:15:28
Speaker
So I'd be like, wow, my clarity is pretty good. Meanwhile, Jake's like rocking like a level 20 clarity. Like here's all the fucking mana. And I'm like, I would like mana, but instead I'm punching people in the face a lot type thing. Yeah. Cause I don't think the game lets you level up gems if you can't use them anymore. I think it grazed it out. I'm not sure if you can force override that or not. I don't think you can get enough experience to like, I would be able to level it if I had enough of that stat.
00:15:56
Speaker
Exactly. So like I'm in the opposite position. Like my fireball has a support skill, a greater multiple projectiles, which modifies my fireball. Um, so that it fires like files. Yeah, it fires like five at once. It's a cone of firing a ball. It fires.
00:16:12
Speaker
Yes, but that skill is actually a dexterity skill and there are some dexterity like there are some stat nodes that will be like exiled from their own specific section if you will to borrow a term and so you can pick up like little stat increases even if that's not your primary stat and
00:16:34
Speaker
And so you get some potential to upgrade things like greater multiple projectiles, which I have. But if Dave was using that skill, say he was like an archer or something like that, his dexterity is so much higher than me, he would continually be able to level that gem up and make it better and better.
00:16:51
Speaker
Yeah. And that's where so much of this comes in because you have support skills for every one of the three colors. You have many skills that require multiple attributes. So like one example of that is I summon two golems to fight with me and basically tank for me. And those golems, they're different elements. There's like ice, which I believe scales off of intelligence and decks.
00:17:21
Speaker
And then there's like fire, which is like intelligence and strength. And then there's chaos, which is intelligence and intelligence. So I was like, chaos. I'm going to have chaos. Uh, cause that's, that's really high for me. It's like 366 versus 50. Yeah.
00:17:40
Speaker
There's a surprising amount of trade-off like you still get points throughout the tree Whereas you're not gonna be a weakest boy. You're gonna have some strength index here and there Yeah, because it'll be like littered through and you might be forced to go through it in the same way I'm a slightly literate character Yeah where I have to have some intelligence because otherwise it'd be kind of kneecapping yourself and be forced to be like
00:18:04
Speaker
And this is my forced intelligence branch. And then you can actually have end level gear, which goes across three stats. Yeah, it's a really diverse system that encourages a lot of experimentation. They also encourage you to dip a little bit into stats. So up in the intelligence tree, there's a little node off from my
00:18:23
Speaker
primary branch and it's just, it doesn't connect anything. It's just off on the side entirely optional, but it's a medium dexterity node. I picked that up. I immediately get 20 dexterity instead of the usual like 10. Yeah. So it's like, Hmm, this is tempting. This is tempting because this is a significant stat advancement for relatively low skill cost.
00:18:44
Speaker
You just have to put like one level point into it and then you're good for the next 10 levels or so as far as requirements are concerned. Yeah, which is really nice And you won't like max out the gems like I thought I will probably stop leveling greater multiple projectiles It's already at that point actually on my character. I
00:19:05
Speaker
but I've gotten what I need to out of it. That plus like other support skills so you can tie a lot of things together. You can just make like a custom creation of an ability essentially. And that's really where Path of Exile shines is how customizable the skills and characters are.
00:19:22
Speaker
And you can have up to six linked sockets in gear. Yeah. I think usually like two handed weapons and armors can go up to six. Other things you use a cap at around four, but it's fucking nuts. Yeah. Cause like the build I'm running right now is the ever popular cyclone build for duelist for 3.7 in Legion. But basically I have the ability cyclone, which means I spin around with my weapons. Spin to win.
00:19:51
Speaker
Exactly. I don't deal as much damage But I hit a lot faster and I'm obviously hitting in a fucking circle around me so I can hit more enemies at once but then that gets boosted by a bunch of support things like More physical damage more physical damage bigger area of effect you take less damage while doing a channeling ability Yeah, and other things like that. So I'm this giant tanky cyclones I just kind of
00:20:16
Speaker
Like I'm just cleaning up the screen a little bit from left to right This is like the erase tool and and paint across the canvas of enemies But like that is just that would be It could be my weapon or it could be my armor piece which can have up to six sockets It doesn't matter where you put it. It's not tied to Attack or defense based on where it's placed. It's just you have access to these abilities and here's how they're modified and
Unique Builds and Item Modifiers
00:20:45
Speaker
Yeah sockets or sockets. Yeah. Yeah the holes a hole There are like it's it's kind of like the magic the gathering rule unless otherwise Specified like there are exceptions to all of this. Like I have an amulet that has one I think it's an amulet could be ring one It's an amulet because um, is it on your neck or on your fingers? I can't remember but it has a white socket. Mm-hmm, which is wild card Wild card wild card bitches
00:21:15
Speaker
And whatever gym I put in there has a ridiculously high elemental resistance for the type of gym. So if I put like a blue gym in there, the socket temporarily becomes blue and it gives me like almost 100% cold resist. I put a red gym in there, it's almost 100% fire resist. And then there's- Which item is this? It sounds like a unique- It's unique, yeah. It's unique, which is the equivalent of Diablo III's, legendaries. Yes.
00:21:43
Speaker
So one thing about Path of Exile's uniques compared to Diablo's legendaries, they obviously do a lot of cool shit. But at the same time, it's not uncommon for them to have a
00:21:54
Speaker
Hey, this really cool thing. Hey, but also, it'll have some type of significant trade-off. For a while, I had this helmet which gave me some other cool effects, but also 20% boost to global physical damage. So any physical damage I did, an extra 20%. I was like, dear God, my DPS has skyrocketed. So cool. But there's this little tagline at the bottom which says, you can't evade attacks.
00:22:19
Speaker
Yeah, so any type of points you put into evasion throughout your passive skill tree or any other type of effect Yeah, negated full fucking kneecap. Yeah, because you can't evade attacks Like right now my current helmet is a bunch of other cool shit crazy good for my DPS But as I'm telling Jake I take 50% increased physical damage So if somebody slaps me I'm like through the fucking wall straight across the room
00:22:47
Speaker
And like my whole build is built around I can't regen life Because I put a point in the val Life steal like a corrupt. Yeah. Yeah, but that's something in the passive skill tree where it says like hey You'll never regen life again But any type of life you would get from life steal aka like getting damn health back when you damage somebody Yeah is doubled
00:23:11
Speaker
So as long as I'm hitting somebody it's fucking great. I'm very sustainable, but if I get stunned Things get bad clear and this is where I just disappear. Yeah Actually thought of as an example where we're talking about the kind of diverse Skill sets that can arrive from that. There is a few items I was looking at for a build. There's an effect I Think it's it's not incinerate
00:23:38
Speaker
But it causes you it causes it's the flame dot. It's a fire dot so do fire damage or ignite there Yeah, thank you does fire damage over time and this build was based around unique items That had like big upsides for like ignite and things like that and then a downside you can ignite yourself like randomly you'll just catch fire and you'll just start taking all this damage and
00:24:02
Speaker
This entire build was based around procs of you being on fire. It did all of its damage to everything else in some way whenever you were on fire. It just amplified your damage like crazy. I thought that was hilarious. It's a negative effect that the entire build was based around. Yeah, it's very unique.
00:24:28
Speaker
I've also seen something about uh, i've not looked into it too deeply But there are certain things which might trigger Like cast on death. Yes. Yeah, and apparently it's a semi-sustainable or semi-viable build Where you like you run into a thing you get nuked, but then all these effects happen and you just clear Everything yeah, that's imagine like walk them to a boss like naked It slaps you and then explodes you come back and you loot it
00:24:58
Speaker
But you forgot to drop a portal so you have to run back right?
Trading and Currency in Path of Exile
00:25:02
Speaker
That's what happened with me. I wouldn't I wouldn't try that one, but No, it's it's crazy and thing is portals mm-hmm and Scrolls of identification right in Diablo days these were things that like You could buy from a car for like 20 cents, and you're like these are my transactions Actually 20
00:25:27
Speaker
Oh, yeah. They were pretty cheap back in the, in Diablo days. Yeah. And they removed them in Diablo three. Yeah. But like they were just meant to be like minor utility items before you had Deckard cane or way points, right? Yeah. Just minded a little conveniences. Um, but in path of exile, they're more useful and they became a form of currency. Yeah. The game has no fixed gold, like tender.
00:25:53
Speaker
Yeah, you don't get gold from enemies at all. You get drops. You can sell, but when you sell them, they give you fragments of other things. Yeah. So you're always going into like these different.
00:26:08
Speaker
pieces or orbs or things. But all of the orbs and things to keep it super vague are all modifiers for items. So you might be able to take a common item, which has no magical properties, and imbue it in magical properties. You might be able to turn a magic into a rare. You might be able to resocket an item. You might be able to
00:26:31
Speaker
reroll the modifiers of an item and all these other cool things. Yeah. So it has a lot of control RNG, which early on you're like.
00:26:40
Speaker
That's kind of cool. Yeah, like I'm gonna grab the legendary picked up but when you get to late game You're like I have this perfect weapon. Yeah, but it's missing this So that's when you care about that controlled RNG. Yeah It's it's really interesting because it has the currency itself has intrinsic value. Yes, like it directly impacts gameplay and the the drive to get better loot and
00:27:05
Speaker
The items that are commonly traded are ones that will always be valuable. You mentioned the orbs. The only one I'll bother mentioning is the Chaos orb, which randomizes the affixes on a rare item.
00:27:24
Speaker
And you're like, that seems like that would commonly be really useful given that rare items are like used in so many builds and things like that. And that is correct. Literally everyone wants them. So this became the common currency. This became the bottle caps or the gold replacement or whatever.
00:27:42
Speaker
stone of Jordan yeah stone of Jordan and All of the other trades are largely based off of this this value. It's it's the the buds from TF2 For it's like it's it's what the conversion metric is or scrap
00:27:59
Speaker
It's like how many chaos orbs is this? Yeah, exactly. And you either get like some decimal value of like you need to trade this many to get a chaos orb or you could sell this and get this many chaos orbs. Yeah. And it's not the most valuable thing. There's like there's many valuable currencies above it.
00:28:18
Speaker
There's a lot below it, but it is the most commonly accessible valuable thing. So it's This intermediary currency. Yeah, so like you can find yourself Like you mentioned in the early game you may trade these off for Unique items or like major upgrades for your character. Yeah, you just want any type of increase you don't
00:28:41
Speaker
If you have a thing you're not using and someone's obviously something that you would use and good benefit from you're like that seems like an easy trade for me I'm obviously getting a benefit. You can have this if it benefits you great. It's like the net power Basically, right like this person who's off farming this late late level map found an item that's garbage to him, but it's decent and
00:29:02
Speaker
And to you, it's amazing. So he's just like, I'll throw it to the peasants if they give me their least whatever currency is. So like Chaos Orb or something like that. So you're like, sweet. Here's my Chaos Orb I just got. I'll take that 500% DPS increase item and place that on my body. Whereas if you just use the orb, maybe you get better stats or whatever, but it's not going to be 500%.
00:29:31
Speaker
Yeah. So it's kind of this give and take. It's much more valuable to him and his hands to have the orb. And that's really cool. It's actually kind of like an economics lesson in itself because it's a society that doesn't have currency that lacks. It doesn't have currency that lacks intrinsic value, like US dollars. It's the barger system. Yeah. You don't have something that represents value. You just have, I have a thing. It's like, I also have a thing.
00:30:01
Speaker
But I want your thing. Yeah, can I can we swap these? Yeah, and it's Crazy how fucking nuts the whole trade system is because again back to diablo 2 if I was looking for a specific item that I did not have and a friend of mine did not have After I would send several whispers right or make a facebook post my sorry myspace post about it's like hey you got that
00:30:25
Speaker
I'm good Jimmy. It's so good to see your Thanksgiving. Do you have the I make my coat? Can I get that for me? But like I would just kind of make messages in like the literal Server chat. Yeah, and you just wait for somebody to bite. You're like, oh, thank god. I can get that thing Because otherwise it's up to pure RNG like am I gonna get it? No, I'm not running magic find so you're just gonna get Statistically shitty drops compared to somebody else who's trying to farm it
00:30:55
Speaker
But in Path of Exile, Jake showed me the light. There is a trade site where I can filter to find like people who are listing certain items. I can find and like filter by any stat on it, how much it costs, what the item level is, what the DEX requirement is, what the DPS is and all, everything. And then I can just copy that message and whisper that person in game and be like,
00:31:20
Speaker
I want you to think, I will give you this price that you have fixed. And they will usually either not respond at all because they're not online or they're a Chinese bot. Just kidding. Chinese bots always respond within like 10 or 30 seconds. They send you an invite to a private room, which is your hideout. It's way less creepy than in real life.
00:31:42
Speaker
I'll explain how it's more than a second But you just go and then you make the swap and then you each say ty to each other Unless you're the Chinese bot and then you leave and that's it Yeah, they got what they wanted. You got what you wanted. The exchange is done and it's it's honestly like it's a remarkably efficient system for not just implementing a trade system and
00:32:06
Speaker
Like in the game. That's the funny thing is it's like, it's like the most streamlined duct tape solution to not actually having a trade system in the game. And you mentioned the site. It's a first party site. It's run by the company. Like that makes the game. There's bindings between, um, like if you put items in your stash, you can be like, Oh, they're this price. And while you're online, like they'll show up on this search. So like it prioritizes people who are online.
00:32:33
Speaker
Yeah. So if you're looking for something, the person will probably be online to complete the trade. And it's hilarious because this is all like first party support. The message you send them is like it tells them where in their stash the item is. Seriously. It's like third row down. The guy's waiting to buy my item and it's just like it's here. Yes, exactly.
00:32:56
Speaker
Like when I saw that I almost I kind of thought about it I was like I know someone's tried to use this to scam somebody just like manually change it be like oh, yeah, it's the Third item and off of this thing, but they're like my divine orb. That's that seems odd Yeah, one alchemy or for now. It's fine Well if it's what I listed The other beautiful thing is like I joked about with the Chinese bots. Mm-hmm
00:33:22
Speaker
I'll copy a message from somebody who has a seemingly whatever username, and it will paste it in whatever language they are running the game in. So I've sent some what I hope or trait deals to people, but it just shows up at these Chinese characters that I don't know how to read or translate, but they get the message, they know what's up.
00:33:44
Speaker
And then we just do the deal it's hilarious because like I posted a picture of this to uh to discord because I had I had one of those occur and it's just like To me indecipherable symbols the words like the name of the item And then like one chaos and then more indecipherable symbols. I'm just like Yeah, I trust the system It worked yeah
00:34:11
Speaker
I sent him a thank you anyways. I was like, I, they'll, maybe they'll understand. I feel like nine percent of the time I still feel obligated to say thank you because.
00:34:21
Speaker
I don't know. I'm not an asshole all the time. It happens fast too. Yeah. Like if people are online, they're like, I've been waiting to trade off this item. Done. That's it. Like maybe 15 seconds for the fastest one. Just sent message. They immediately invite me there. They're in their hideout or whatever. They get the item from the chest. I jumped to them. I load in. They open a trade. We traded off. I leave. We're done. It's just like,
00:34:45
Speaker
Don it's it's crazy how efficient the system is and Like how efficient it is without implementing a market board, which would literally just do this for people.
Hideouts and Player Interactions
00:34:59
Speaker
Yes
00:35:01
Speaker
The other thing I really love are the hideouts. So as you go through the game, you can unlock these little hideouts, which are like these personal rooms. So typically, in games, you'd have your, oh, we're on the same server. We're in the same main town together. Here are the NPCs. Here's the waypoint. Here's the way out, whatever. But I can go to and customize my own personal hideout based off different themes of the acts throughout the game. And I can just put whatever there.
00:35:30
Speaker
And then it's like, hey, I don't want to have all these like pubs running around type thing. You can just go to the hideout. You can invite somebody at your party in the hideout. So if like Jake and I are playing together, we can do that. Or if I'm trying to do a trade deal with somebody, just come to my thing. You're my party. It's cool. Yeah. And that way you don't have like these old trade scams of like,
00:35:49
Speaker
Drop the item here, and I'll drop the item here, and then we'll go exchange it. I would trade it with you. But there's some glitch with my character where I can't for some reason. It's really weird. Blinks. Yeah. And they do have a nice little safety on the trades, too. In order to accept the trade, you have to mouse over all of the items being offered from the opposite side. You can't just click the accept. Yeah. And then, oop, I didn't see what it was. I accidentally got traded some piece of shit that looked like the same item. Yeah.
00:36:18
Speaker
Which again, like every scam that existed in the days of Diablo 2, I feel I experienced and learned for science. Yes, it was definitely intentional when it happened.
00:36:32
Speaker
No, it's it's really cool. I like the hideouts. I also like that you can customize them to such an extent You're just like oh the rocks the rocks will go over here next to the stream and the tree will rotate the tree a bit So the right and that will be here like so there's like a little button for edit. I'm like, oh sure Let me edit and then it's like there's a clear all button like oh sure like I'll clear all and then so much that I didn't realize was That were things that I could modify. Uh-huh
00:36:58
Speaker
all disappeared i'm like i thought it was kind of cool how it was and i want to spend the time to design it at that point just let blink awaken the void is a reality plant the seasons do exist it's just a white room there i am in my padded suit eyes i mean my arms tied behind my back
00:37:17
Speaker
The other cool thing is there's some NPCs that serve functions to systems throughout the game, or mini games, things like that, incorporated in the game. Kind of unique mechanics and whatnot. And you can go to the NPC and be like,
00:37:32
Speaker
You live at my place now and they're like, what what are you talking about? And you're like, no, no, you live at my place and they're like Get pulled there now now they're at your hideout and you can move them around put them in the bond Yeah, and it's nice because you don't have to go to oh, I think this one NPC is in act three this town and you have to go talk to them you just be like
00:37:56
Speaker
I'll put you here. Right? Oh, no, I had ducted him. He's in my place You just have these like rows of NPCs like we're so hungry It's actually hilarious because I was like, okay pragmatic I'm gonna take the NPCs. I'm gonna put them all around the portal. Oh
00:38:12
Speaker
at my hideout. So they're just literally utilitarian, sitting there, no, like, a decorative function or anything like that. They're just waiting on my beck and call for me to arrive through the portal, utilize their services and leave. That's their sole existence. They've been demoted to this. Or promoted. They're just waiting there in T-Pose. Masters pose!
00:38:37
Speaker
No, it's it is pretty great though. And the hideouts are visually distinct.
Visual and Sound Design Praise
00:38:43
Speaker
You were mentioning the different acts and some of them look pretty cool.
00:38:48
Speaker
I would say throughout just the game in general, as far as everything they've done is far with visual design alone. Oh, yeah. Very nice and crisp. They have great models for everything. Like I've zoomed in and not been like, oh, I see where they kind of just if you look at a quick glance, it's fine. But if you look at it close up, it's kind of shitty. Yeah.
00:39:08
Speaker
It's all good. It's really fucking good. And the sound design of all the character voices throughout the game. Yeah, super nice. I really wish I would have listened to any of the lore. You know, little news articles you can read the journal entries.
00:39:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's technically there. They do have really good voice acting for a lot of those lines, too. You find the note, and then you're like, the note is before you. You look at it, and then you just hear a disembodied voice. It's like, and King Ulrich stepped down from his throne after all of this. And you're like, I left. I'm not even in front of the parchment anymore. And it's like, yes, but King Ulrich. You can cancel out of those. But I always like when games are like, they respect your time.
Ascendancy Challenges in Character Development
00:39:54
Speaker
And so they don't expect you to sit there in front of the chat box waiting for it to scroll like Star Wars before you leave, right? Yes. This one does let you walk away and continue to hear it.
00:40:10
Speaker
Like both I think one of the voice actors forum Who's the ascendancy guy? Do you remember his name? It's like a Zara or something like that. That actually sounds exactly correct. Mm-hmm. So I think a Zara is also the voice of This is a great time to you know, not have this planned out and think that I would remember it randomly We don't plan things here at the soapstone It's unethical
00:40:38
Speaker
In fact, we don't even buy time. Jake, quick. I think it's the same voice as Elohim or somebody else. It was like a slightly different filter, but I'm like, I know this person. I'd have to hear it again to be able to deduce who.
00:40:57
Speaker
But to jump into Izara's thing as one of those kind of NPCs was a cool thing. Yeah. There's an ascendancy challenge that you can do throughout the game. Yeah. And there's like little puzzles like get to here, click the stone. That's it. But there might be like some mobs in the way and there might be some traps where we have to like navigate a character around. A to B don't die.
00:41:16
Speaker
Yeah. And they're pretty simple to start, but then when you get to the actual sentence, the challenge, you have to go through like a series of these rooms. You're killing lots of monsters, evading lots of traps. And then it's always end cap with a boss fight. Yeah. And if you successfully do that, like three or four times, you get these ascendancy points. So you can actually put extra passives points into your character to further narrow it down. Yeah. And I think each character class has, I think three options for specification.
00:41:45
Speaker
That sounds right. So like duelist was gladiator and two other ones I didn't fucking pick. Right. But then in each of those, you can get up to eight or seven C points total and kind of cash those into, as I said, further narrow down your character as far as what they're specializing in.
00:42:03
Speaker
They're also kind of hidden unless you are like looking at a guide and you saw them in advance. I didn't really notice them. They actually did exist in the guide I was following or looking at for my character, but I didn't notice their place in the constellation. So it kind of caught me off guard when my character ascended. Because it is like, here's your super class. Here's your focus. So I picked like elementalist.
00:42:24
Speaker
And some of the bonuses are just extraordinarily built defining. They're just really really good So all damage you lose fire damage. Okay. Yeah so it really it really helps to
00:42:40
Speaker
to solidify that and push you forward. And you revisit this labyrinth several times I saw. You can unlock, complete more puzzles, come back, do the labyrinth later, do the labyrinth later. And then ultimately, it requires some currency to do the last level or something. But it's really cool. And it's randomly generated. And the loot in the labyrinth is, it can be pretty good, especially at the end. So it's a nice kind of,
00:43:09
Speaker
Uh, kind of like focused activity, which this game has a lot of, um, because it's been out, uh, since the dawn of time. Actually, there was, we talk about how Diablo one path of exit. Yeah. Diablo two. Yeah. I was going to say, we talk about how it's like spiritual successor to Diablo two in many ways. It's interesting because it came before the, uh,
Path of Exile's Evolution and Gameplay Appeal
00:43:33
Speaker
not really though. It has been around for quite a bit of time though. Quite a bit.
00:43:38
Speaker
And the activities are cool. Like Dave and I were doing the delving mine cart, like subtasker activity where it's like, hey, the host has this much fuel resource and you have to tell the mine cart where to go and you can get more loot. And it has a little light on it.
00:43:55
Speaker
And it projects a light aura around it. And if you get outside of that aura into the darkness of the mind, you immediately start dying. Your health just collapses. It goes down pretty quick, yeah. So you kind of have to fight through all these monsters, get to the end, get the loot.
00:44:12
Speaker
But the further down you go, the better loot you get. And the more difficult it is, because it's high level monsters. Yeah. And some of the loot that you can get is more currency. You can feed into upgrades for your mine cart, or sticks at dynamite, or lights, and all this stuff. And it's really just a cool set of systems that's just injected into the game. And since Path of Exile is free to play, which we did not mention until 44 minutes into the podcast,
00:44:41
Speaker
You kind of have access to all of that. Well, we wanted from the game build up You're like, how much money do I
Monetization and Microtransactions
00:44:46
Speaker
have my wallet? How as I'm listening to the podcast? What would I value this game? Yeah, it's free. Yeah, so value it in nothing It is 100% Free you won't have to spend any money in this game whatsoever It's like but if you wanted to bold and italicize an asterisk have to spend free Yeah
00:45:09
Speaker
It's like yeah, go ahead So like Whenever I take notice like we always put it like bullet points. I'm like a Google Docs I'm gonna go through some things. Mm-hmm, but well, I wasn't looking Jake fully fleshed out the microtransactions section. Yeah, because This is a free-to-play game and they make a lot of their money from microtransactions Yeah, I'm gonna say all of their money. They give you a well-played
00:45:38
Speaker
They give you a fuck ton of options to spend money on the game, whether it's buying more item tabs or having in-game cosmetics or other things of that ilk. Yeah. I got drunk and bought a couple in-game cosmetics and it was fine. I value the game at probably like 30 to 40 on its own. Since it was free, I just want to spend like 20 bucks on it. We kind of talked about this before. Yeah. For like throwing some money at free games.
00:46:07
Speaker
But the level of detail they go into for cosmetics and for how many options you have is insane. Right. One would think that their entire livelihood may depend upon the nature of the cosmetics that they add to this game. They have a really good team of people who are making those and a lot of them look pretty badass and edgy. Yeah. But at the same time, it's hard to get a really cool cosmetic
00:46:33
Speaker
For a couple bucks like yes. Mm-hmm. The cheapest thing I think you can get is around three dollars and that's one inventory tab for your stash not a premium one just a standard inventory tab no bells or whistles
00:46:50
Speaker
A premium one is $4 the other inventory tab is loud as fuck Well, you say that you say that jokingly, but you can literally choose the color So you could make it like pink or like break a red. Oh, I didn't make it loud as f I was saying that because of the bells and whistles Be like you're like in top five We're going back But yeah, I mean like if those sounds
00:47:16
Speaker
Like you can get a discount kind of, if you like buy them in bulk, so you can buy like six tabs at once and then it's cheaper. Um, but it's still like $2 and 50 cents for normal tabs, $3, 33 cents for premium tabs. Um, and these are, I would argue, like.
00:47:33
Speaker
Sometimes there's cosmetics that don't impact gameplay and it's just contribute money to the developers, make your character look cool, feel good about yourself, make your wallet smaller. And that's fine. But this is kind of more the gray area because this is gameplay impacting. If you don't buy any extra tabs, I think you're stuck at like two or three as far as your overall character storage.
00:47:58
Speaker
So I have five by default in my stash. And then I have whatever inventory I have on my character. So let's call it six. Yeah. So more generous than what I was portraying. But some of the stash tabs are very, very convenient. One of them allows you to place all of your currency items in this tab, and it removes the stack limits on your currency. So it's just there.
00:48:25
Speaker
It's really nice. How much is that? It's really nice. So that was currency tab is $7.50. Get one of those. Or say like you like collecting the unique items. You're like a legendary collector from Diablo. You can get a unique tab.
00:48:40
Speaker
Which I also purchased and I must not have really thought about how much it was because they do use an intermediary currency Yeah, that was $14 to get that but it allows you to store one of each unique item in the game and then track your Collection of all of them and then percentage like this is you have five percent of the unique belts or whatever and they
00:49:03
Speaker
Add to the the gameplay options the other thing about the premium tabs That's where you can choose if you want to list your items on that market board If you have premium tabs you can say oh, yeah, everything in this tab should be for sale Yeah for one chaos orb and then just by putting it in the tab. It is now for sale
00:49:21
Speaker
So you are getting gameplay out of out of some of these these pickups The most I think pretty much everything else for the most part except guild rewards or like guild purchases are cosmetic And people are generally more willing to spend money on cosmetics Yeah, if you go into any
00:49:44
Speaker
Just load it in the game. Yeah in town. There'd be other players there with you and you're like, holy shit Yes, like each person next to me is worth at least sixty dollars at least the one guy I saw I think yesterday evening Was like just fucking a glitched out terror blade. Yeah in metamorphosis. I'm like, what is this?
00:50:09
Speaker
But here's the thing, it's not like he bought one single skin. There's essentially a cosmetic slot for each section. So it's like your main hand weapon, your offhand, your face, your body, your... The ambient effect, your portal. Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes.
00:50:31
Speaker
You can have a pet You can have wings and much of it's a part of body or separate. Mm-hmm. There's just so much Yeah, I think there's a wings and cloak Slot and I was looking at the prices and if you if you were if you're walking up to the market and you're like Hey, you know just got a minimum wage job. Don't really have that much money to spend Give me something you would give to the pores you can get like a plane like mono color cloak or something like that and
00:50:57
Speaker
Or you can be, and that's like 15 bucks actually is where that starts. Or you can, you know, step it up a little bit, join the important echelons of society and get a $64 set of like full demonic wings that are like dripping blood or whatever. Similar effects for like souls continually encircling your body, which was $42.
00:51:22
Speaker
Like these add up rapidly and they're not priced at Consumer level your average player these are for people who have a lot of money to spend and They do
00:51:38
Speaker
Like the game is good and I enjoy it. Very cool. Very fun. Very nice. But for me personally, I don't get that much enjoyment for spending, let's say $300 to make my character look the coolest.
Cosmetics: Cost and Appeal
00:51:52
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. And then, you know, see that another cosmetic that somebody else doesn't be like.
00:51:57
Speaker
I kind of wish I had glowy hands. Yeah, and they have some for skills in particular, too. Like someone golem you can replace with a clockwork. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, I kind of like that. Not like $15 or whatever. Yeah, it's not that price point. It's a cool idea, though. Yeah, I could understand why people would buy it. Or there's a short-range teleport ability, and it changes it so it's like a vortex of souls instead of just a fire sprite.
00:52:26
Speaker
And there's like there's the really cool effects a lot of them are really cool They're just I wouldn't spend ten plus dollars for I would have to be making money out my ass from streaming Mm-hmm and like people paying that money bathwater basically. Yeah. Yeah Like I fucking take that Well, you'd be able to we stopped selling all the water
00:52:55
Speaker
My showers make this noise. Yeah, there was two other things. I know we move on here, but dance animations for each class, $15 each. I did not even know about that. So if you wanted to play different characters, mainly characters, start in a different spot in the passive skill tree.
00:53:14
Speaker
$15 per class that you want to buy the dance for and then the last functional change that I saw it was Guild upgrades so buying guild stash Space is $5 each and adding 10 member slots so you can have more people in your guild is $10 each Yeah, can we do a quick Google on how much it would cost to buy? everything Path of Exile because I know somebody has done this search for sure and
00:53:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think we can probably figure that out. So I've got a calculator here. Let me just punch a couple keys.
00:53:49
Speaker
Yeah, so that's around 6,000 bucks, give or take, a year ago. Probably a lot more since then. Wow, Jake, what a math guy. Very impressive.
Free vs. Paid Content Balance
00:54:06
Speaker
It's not even a TI-30, it's just one of those dollar store calculators.
00:54:11
Speaker
Thank you David. You've given my abacus a lot of credit right now. How do you spell boobs on an abacus? Real question, asking for a friend. Yeah, you have to be a seventh level mathematician to actually get the answer to that one.
00:54:28
Speaker
Yeah, all that being said, I mean, it's designed to get money from people who have a lot of money and it's also the way that they're funding development. So like they had the numbers, maybe if they didn't sell stash tabs, maybe if the cosmetics were all a 10th of the price that they were, I mean, I'd be way more inclined to buy them, but maybe that wouldn't sustain their business. And they still provide,
00:54:56
Speaker
All of the content in the game for free. Yeah, which is big. Like they could sell an expansion pack, something like that. People would buy it, but they don't do that. So they need some way to bring home the pigs for slaughter as the saying goes.
00:55:14
Speaker
I just do the little come hither fingers. Come here pigs. I usually equip wheat in my hot hand. Just walk backwards. Be careful if you give it to one pig and there's another pig nearby.
00:55:30
Speaker
Actually should be oink, oink, oink, oink. Take sex. This is the reason I always tag explicit on these episodes, Dave, because I never know when pick sex is going to come back up. Initially it's because I swear and Jake doesn't, but now it's because Jake's just a pervert.
00:55:52
Speaker
I don't actually remember how we got on that particular topic the path of Excel Well, we're talking about just like the pricing model. Oh, yeah in the previous episode. We're talking about how Usually free-to-play games are making a lot more money. Mm-hmm then fixed price games because people are more Likely to like investment. Oh, it's free. I'm on like I said earlier willing to throw some money at it and like $20 here $20 there $20 there not that much but you've now spent the price of what would be a full-price game and
00:56:21
Speaker
Yeah, but it all depends on like What you're comfortable with for your price point of how much enjoyment you're getting from a thing. Mm-hmm Because uh, I could also play this game without spending anything Have a great fucking time. Yeah, but I'm also fine and willing to like spend 20 bucks, right? But other people might not be that's fine. Mm-hmm
00:56:45
Speaker
helps the developers have some oatmeal the next morning, you know, keeps them, keeps the developer calories up so they can get back in there.
Is Path of Exile the True Diablo Successor?
00:56:55
Speaker
And they do have like a supporter bundles. I think we both ended up picking up like the $20 one. I think it was.
00:57:02
Speaker
that gives you some items, some cosmetics, I should say, and then the equivalent currency or very close to it for the money you spent. So you kind of get to double dip a little bit. And yes, that is just taking you to spend more money, but I get more value and I evaluated it to be true, like to be worth it. So suck at capitalism.
00:57:24
Speaker
Yeah, Path of Exile. It's a very solid game if the passive skill tree is not too overly daunting. I believe it is controversial statement. Dave's going to argue with me on this one, but the true successor to Diablo 2 in the vein of Diablo 2 and the way it feels. Agreed.
00:57:51
Speaker
That was a strong argument there, Dan. Point for point, pound for pound, dollar for dollar. I feel it just does it right because when I go into a game like this, I want to get cool drops.
00:58:06
Speaker
And I want to kill monsters and that's what the excitement is because you kill all monsters got a lot of fun drops Yeah, you get to change your build and get better doing both. Mm-hmm. And on top of that the game is gorgeous actually has a really interesting story and arc and the bosses are unique and have mechanics they're not just
00:58:28
Speaker
I kill you with this weapon damage type yeah or this magical ability type thing yeah and it's a it's a unique experience they brought their own ideas to the to the the marketplace of ideas to use a completely worn out term
00:58:45
Speaker
And they did things Diablo 2 didn't do which I think are really cool. So props on them for their original ideas and Hopefully it continues to be successful and supported for many years to come so that when I come back to the game Ten years from now whenever whenever I do I can be like oh man. I have all of these a stash tabs Awesome, probably spend another 60 bucks and have a good time with it
00:59:12
Speaker
I feel it's probably important to note at this point, our sponsor for this week's episode is Blizzard North. Thanks, Blizzard North. Friend of the show. Yeah, friend of the show. Yeah, so that's Path of Exile. As always, Dave will buy you stuff for it. I think he says things like that.
00:59:33
Speaker
I will definitely link you to the Steam page.
Wrapping Up: Final Thoughts
00:59:38
Speaker
You can install this for free. Until next time, we'll see you in the next one. Have a good night. Do you think people care about how to contact us? No. Historically, no. That's fair. Text me.
01:00:37
Speaker
you
01:01:05
Speaker
Oh,