Do you like Diablo 3?

[keith.lamothe]

Well, a quick google of "path of exile turn off the lightning flashes" turned up a bunch of threads with people pleading that the twilight strand flashes be optional, and one mentioned that the devs had explicitly stated they would not add such an option.  Torchlight 2 also has an opening zone with a lot of ambient lightning, and it has such an option (disable weather effects, or something like that) that worked great for me.

I guess I could just play Torchlight 2, but I'd really like to see POE's design in action.  I also don't want headaches, and had to turn off POE after less than 3 minutes of playing that zone (I figure past that zone it's not so bad).  Apparently there's some kind of POE "particle control app" out there to help in a 3rd party kind of way, so I'll look into that.  If that doesn't work the next step is probably "uninstall POE".

[keith.lamothe]

Ok, turns out that there's apparently a policy of banning for any 3rd party program, including just cosmetics.  And I can understand the logic as removing fog or whatever could give advantages, etc.

So looks like it's not the game for me, regrettably.

[keith.lamothe]

Ok, going for epic triple-post.

Took one guy's suggestion and just made the window as small as I could and turned down all the effects (though I don't think that last did much) and just tried to push through the first zone to the town.  Thankfully I happened to pick a path which led directly to the boss and the gate into town, so I'm out of migraines-ville for now.

Fireball gem levelled up during the first zone, that was interesting.  Looking forward to seeing what else is going on   The "skill sea" is not news to me but actually playing it is.

[Hearteater]

Most players after several characters just skip straight to the town. Run through ignoring mobs, kill Hillock, your in town. Sometimes you might need to get to level 2, but that's just a handful of mobs. That's pretty much how all my character's start now.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, it seems workable.

It just was a very worrisome set of first impressions.


"Hi, I'd like to play a single-player ARPG, with this character."

"Sorry, that name is taken"


"Single player!"

We Don't Care


"How about this one?"

Taken


(repeat a few times)


"A ha, I'm in the gam- Aghhhh my eyes burn!  Can I turn off the lightning flashes?"

No


"But Torchlight 2 (a contemporary game in precisely the same genre) let me do exactly that, in exactly the same situation!"

We Don't Care


"Ah, there's this third party tool that I could use to crank it down..."

We would Ban you


"Single player!"

We Don't Care


"I can tell this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

[Pepisolo]

Yeah, fortunately the first area with the lightning flashes is super short, so you shouldn't have to put up with it for long. I can't recall any other such headache inducing weather effects further on in the game (although I'm not particularly sensitive to this stuff). For me, POE started a little slow, but once I started getting used to the skill system and really began tweaking my char build, things started to get interesting. There are so many different combinations of skills gems with support gems with passives that make it the perfect game for theorycrafters.

For example, if you were to link a spell totem, incinerate, blind, and multiple projectiles gem you've now created a triple blinding flamethrower totem skill. There are many combinations that would just be terrible in practice, but nevertheless it's still fun experimenting. This depth to the character building process is probably the aspect of the game I like the most.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, I'm only level 8 and I'm already seriously digging the skill sea.  Building up my minion army and incineration powers, step by step... where's the "Enclave Starship" keystone?  It's so much easier to lob fireballs with meatshields deployed.

What they did with flasks is also a stroke of genius.

And I really like the coinless economy.

The socketing of abilities into items is also an improvement, adding interdepencies that make decisions about both things more interesting.

[Hearteater]

What they did with flasks is also a stroke of genius.

Yeah, Flasks are an amazing design. They only get deeper as magical flasks and other special flasks appear.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, I saw one of those for movement speed.  In general, the idea of potions:

1) That I actually use when I see a need.
2) That aren't fiddly (I don't have to keep rebuying them, etc)
3) That aren't overly spammable.
4) That motivate me to kill things rather than wait around.

... genius.

[Hearteater]

I don't know if you've been messing with the shop recipes at all, but basically the shop works like the herodric cube from Diablo. Two early-game valuable receipes are:

Portal Scrolls -> Identify Scrolls 1:1 (the reverse does NOT work)
3 Flasks of the same size and type -> 1 Flask of the next size up (if you use 3 magic (blue) flasks, the new flask will be a random magic (blue) as well)

Also note that selling identified vs unidentified stuff gets you different things. Identified stuff gets you Alteration Shards and sometimes other stuff depending on the properties of the item you sell. Unidentified stuff gets you Transmutation Shards. Both are good and used for different things. Technically selling identified is better because you sometimes get extra stuff too, but I don't sweat identifying every blue before selling. Yellows should generally always be identified before selling (at low level).

[Pepisolo]

Yeah, the flask system is great. Not only does it do the basic job beautifully, but as Hearteater says there is also a fair bit of depth to the system, too. For example, you could roll a healing flask with an additional armour bonus during flask effect. Or a movement flask with an anti-curse effect. Tweaking your flask setup to suit your char and playstyle adds that little extra bit of customizability.

Also, regarding shop recipes. A good one, although probably for a little later in the game, is a red/green/blue linked weapon or piece of armour, which trades for a chromatic orb.

[eRe4s3r]

To mention migraine inducing flashes.. you ever played WD with 7+ minions and a spammy main attack in Diablo 3 hitting on a big target that's blocking half the screen (happens most seriously with the siege worms in act 3)?

I can't even look at the screen without going blind when that happens. I am not epileptic, but giant white flashing enemies (1 flash for each hit) right in my face is not my idea of a good time. I actually avoid those enemies entirely now.

The only reason I never got far in PoE is that combat feels so dry and soul less you might as well be hitting a sand castle with a paper towel.

[Aklyon]

Also, regarding shop recipes. A good one, although probably for a little later in the game, is a red/green/blue linked weapon or piece of armour, which trades for a chromatic orb.

I've had one of those drop in the first area before. Not particularly helpful (I'd prefer the wisdom scrolls from random other gear unless I'm in standard where I have too many scrolls), but nifty.

And alteration shards tend to be more useful later than transmutation shards for what they turn into (both for vendor traded currency, or trading with other people), but not hugely important like hearteater mentioned.

[Pepisolo]

The only reason I never got far in PoE is that combat feels so dry and soul less you might as well be hitting a sand castle with a paper towel.

Interesting. For me, the combat has been quite satisfying. Indeed, on my latest character I've just added Infernal Blow as an alternate weapon slot ability so that my enemies explode upon death, which seems like a very chunky and satisfying attack. My previous char also used a two handed axe with the Heavy Strike ability, which felt pretty nice and weighty to use. Maybe the combat felt poor because you picked a more "slappy" build. Barrage on a wand, perhaps... in any case, combat seems very solid to me.

[eRe4s3r]

The only reason I never got far in PoE is that combat feels so dry and soul less you might as well be hitting a sand castle with a paper towel.

Interesting. For me, the combat has been quite satisfying. Indeed, on my latest character I've just added Infernal Blow as an alternate weapon slot ability so that my enemies explode upon death, which seems like a very chunky and satisfying attack. My previous char also used a two handed axe with the Heavy Strike ability, which felt pretty nice and weighty to use. Maybe the combat felt poor because you picked a more "slappy" build. Barrage on a wand, perhaps... in any case, combat seems very solid to me.

I played necromancer or whatever I thought would lead to it ;p Didn't feel very visceral or satisfying, the sounds aren't delivering oohmph, the visuals don't feed back into my brain properly, and tada, I think "what the hell am I doing with my life playing this?" that's the moment I uninstall games ;P Maybe it was just the lag... POE never ran very smooth for me for some reason.