PoE Awakening: initial thoughts

Path of Exile’s first expansion has been in development for a while now with access to the beta to those who wished to do so, but its retail release has just come up prompting me to go in and see what’s what.  Over the past couple years, PoE has been a game that has garnered a lot of enjoyment from me and being able to experience new maps, bosses and skills allows me to continue to find fresh pieces of content that keep me interested in the game’s overall lifespan.  Today I want to talk about my experiences; first as a player and secondly from a design perspective. 

Playtime Experience

To get the most out of this I decided to make a new character in the soft-core “Warbands” league which features randomly generated enemy groups designed via a particular element e.g. a flame war band using flame/ searing totems, fireballs and other similar skills.  I made a Scion with the old spectral throw with elemental damage (somewhat similar to buzzsaw to those playing) with some room for new gems to experiment with and quickly got back into playing a class that I enjoy right behind the Templar.  Right from act1, I was able to experience the great additions that were on offer as Nessa (the potion and misc vendor) has a second page that features a nice range of low-level skill / passive gems at a price that a newly made character can easily acquire.  Moving into the act itself, I very much appreciate the changes to the waypoints as I have found myself doing less of the ‘running around finding it’ this time around which in turn has speed up my interim gameplay and made my playtime feel much more streamlined.

When talking about the experience being streamlined, one cannot talk about it without mentioning the shift of maps as a whole through the acts.  Each act has had a map removed (Coves, Forest and connecting Sewer) where they didn’t suit any purpose but to get the player to an ‘active’ map (inactive meaning no quests or significant event) as well as significantly changing Act 2 in regards to Bandits / Vaal.  In this version, you can clear the bandit quest before you interact with the Vaal vessel as the Vaal ruins that featured before the Wetlands now go after it.  To me it feels a lot better to get the bandit quest done and then focus on the Vaal because sometimes I would get to the Wetlands and feel like I’m going backwards and forwards to achieve my goal.  In Act 3 not much has changed but having 1 less floor in the Lunaris temple makes it feel a lot better as floor 2 could drag a bit. 

The flaming lava-falls of Kaom's realm fit alongside the monsters that follow a similar characteristic.  Screenshot taken 20/7/2015

Act 4 is of course the new act and as of writing I am at the Harvest collecting the organs to meet the game’s new end-boss; Malachai, The Nightmare and hopefully succeed in a relativity short amount of time as I’m only on normal with this new Scion.  Leading up to this moment, act 4 has been very enjoyable as the enemies have made me more aware of my positioning and take more time to move out of the way of attacks and telegraphs.  Even in the first map (Aqueduct) the named ‘boss’ of the area is a large bird-like creature that body slams after a short period of flight constantly so it requires you to move around to use the available space to your advantage.  As you continue to progress through the acts, the bosses ramp this up with enemies like Kaom and Corrupted Piety engulfing large amounts of the ground in negative space (such as flames / poison / etc) giving me the feeling of being back in wow raiding with things such as the famous Helgen Dance in Naxx.  Throughout all of this I’ve had one death due to my own mistake but overall I feel like the difficultly is appropriate for the content and I look forward to trying these fights on the higher difficultly. 

The Aesthetics / Design

The corridors between arenas balance the frantic battles against its small stature.  Screenshot taken 20/7/2015

Act 4 has a brilliant mix of map design and monster design that are able to do a lot with spaces that on their own aren’t too interesting.  I say this because a number of the maps (Dried Lake, Daresso’s Dream, etc) are a collection of channels and arenas but are able to instill life into the space within the context of its setting (see this post for my thoughts on the subject).  The Dried Lake may not be much to look at, but the mix of enemies’ present give the narrative of a battlefield of time long passed all the more presence with a somewhat washed-out, grey beach alongside a couple huts.  The large monsters that are a collection of many skeletal archers are particularly great as you can see individual archers acting on their own to attack you, while being a part of a larger monster that is intent on killing you.  On top of this, the way it splinters when you kill it offloading a couple of the archers to act on their own is a nice little touch which turns an enemy that fits a basic ranged combat role into something with a bit more detail.

The Darkness of the mines hide a mass of monsters awaiting your arrival.  Screenshot taken 20/7/2015

 

On the subject of enemies, there are some great interactions throughout the act which make the maps feel more alive and combative.  To give an example, the stone men in the mines throw pieces of themselves at the player with the potential to be stunned / knocked back in a darkened environment that can make it difficult to distinguish type add to the aesthetic of a mine that has sealed to the world for a long time where corruption has taken its time to manifest in the inhabitants.  Another example can be found in Kaom’s realm, where a number of enemies attack underneath the ground through lava channels leaving a burning path for the player to either dodge or experience the effect of burning.  It fits into the background of lava flowing like water as well as getting the player ready for the later battle with Kaom which requires a lot of dodging lava fields and fireballs to get through alive.  Although these are great examples, what I feel encapsulates great design is through Daresso’s dream and the two maps that feature within it. 

Daresso's Dream and the pits make a small square space into something special.  Screenshot taken 20/7/2015

Daresso’s story of being this young lad brought into the world of battle is setup in a great way through these two maps because of the way the character narrates while you progress.  Daresso talks about his time becoming a fighter, entering the fighting pits and making his way up to the gladiatorial arenas while you progress through the same areas has allowed me to learn about his story where previously I may of quickly skipped it through dialogue.  His story is one that feels the most prominent in my mind when it comes to Path of Exile because I was able to play it and when a story can marry itself to gameplay in such a way I believe they can truly work wonders together.  The maps themselves maybe a couple arenas with connecting paths, but the arenas have character that makes it a great place to interact with.  The ‘dream’ map has these small, muddied pits that have wooden-spiked gates that trickle enemies into the space giving me the impression of a skirmish/ brawl whereas the gladiatorial arena has crowds, side entrances and trapdoors that all throw enemies into the battle as you make a name for yourself.  There are a few pillars dotted around to punctuate the arena floor, but that’s all it needs because the fight does all the talking.  Even with all this going on, the final battle with Daresso fits into his own battle for the King of Swords; having a much more intimate space as two combatants wait to see the first show doubt and strike hard. 

The gladiatorial arena is just a larger square but does a lot with the space provided.  Screenshot taken 20/7/2015 

Overall, the Awakening expansion for Path of Exile has been a great deal of fun to play which has allowed me to interact with parts of the game that I haven’t done so in the past.  The overall flow of the game feels better and the new act 4 has a great mixture of monsters, maps and boss fights to keep many a player interested up to the end credits and beyond.  I hope you give it a try and see how much is going on beyond the genre title of an Action RPG that is free without you feeling like you’re missing out if you choose not to purchase its micro transactions. 

Couple more weeks and I may try hardcore again….

Low-Performance PC Gaming

As I mentioned recently, my new job has open opportunities to be involved in new things and have a suitable level of disposable income.  The conventional side of my thoughts have expressed interest in things such as suitable accommodation, learning to drive or a potential holiday; but naturally the ever-present idea of a new PC build has made itself known.  It’s been 8 or so years since the last PC build (with a GFX card change and RAM stick addition) but the box’s age is definitely showing with many modern titles either not working or having very poor performance.  A title like The Witcher 3 is something I would love to be playing but with my old AMD dual-core CPU and ATI 4850HD the more likely result is a machine that gives up and explodes.  With all that being said, I would say that my time gaming on a low-performance PC has been an enjoyable experience has taught me a lot about the customisability that a platform like PC has to offer. 

To roughly break this down into three factors, I would say that they are “New games are still available”,  “Cost factors” and “Configure for performance”.

New games are still playable

The City of Novigrad in Witcher 3 looks great and I hope to play it in the future.  Image from Witcher.wikia.com accessed 13/07/2015

When you have new games like The Witcher 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition or Batman: Arkham Knight; it can difficult to stay positive when they all pass you buy with a Canyourunit Fail result very clearly showing your machine’s inferiority.  However, in this same time-frame we’ve also had such titles like Hotline Miami 2, This War of Mine, Shovel Knight and the wide selection of Tell-tale narrative games that continue to improve as time goes on.  These games are not without their interesting game mechanics, diverse aesthetics and narratives that look to discuss themes that aren’t always talked about in general media.  For example, This War of Mine is a game set during war time that puts you in the shoes of a civilian trying to survive the conflict; tasked with collecting supplies to sustain a small bombed settlement while dealing with the moral implications of survival in such an environment with a dark aesthetic to match. 

This War of Mine showcasing the other side of war.  Image from thiswarofmine.com accessed 13/07/2015

As well as games, game engines such as Unity have done a great of work to give developers a means to create games on a relativity slow budget and have available players from a similar column.  One of the most popular games (if one would use Twitch numbers) over the past year or so is Hearthstone which is a well-produced Unity-engine card game that even runs well on a phone; giving players an enjoyable, free to play experience that continues to create new content for people to enjoy. 

Cost factors

Hearthstone gives a great deal of enjoyable for no upfront cost and minimal performance requirements.  Image from us.battle.net accessed 13/07/2015

Continuing on from my Hearthstone example, the prevalence of free to play titles has greatly helped those on a small budget experience more games than ever before.  It is understandable that there are those who dislike the model citing games like Hearthstone, Dota2 or LoL where A player may spend over the amount of a AAA title and then some for a questionable amount of content (quantity and quality of course), but the model has seen great improvements over its short lifespan.  All the above examples, as well as Path of Exile and Warframe are free to play games I enjoy even on an old PC and with significant updates such as PoEs recent Awakening expansion (which introduced a new act, skill updates, item additions and more all for free) shows there are still great times to be had on a low spec machine.  To this day, my PC and its part replacements have cost a total of ~£300 and its current lifespan of ~8 years puts a rough annual cost of £37.50 which is on par with a console. 

Configure for performance

config files and registry tinkering allows for games old and new to run tailored to your needs.  Screenshot taken 13/07/2015

This I believe is the most prevalent factor in my time on a low-performance PC as it has allowed me to learn more about the finer details when it comes to playing games.  To many, configuring .ini files is extremely easy but if like me you never had to use them and stick with an in-game options menu it may seem like a daunting task to accomplish.  Over these past few years, I do take time to configure and tailor a game to my liking so that I get the right balance of performance (frame rate of at least 30 stable) and graphical quality which has meant that a game like Guild Wars 2 where I didn’t feel confident pvp’ing due to performance drops is now suitable for me as competitive game modes naturally need smoothness in performance.  This factor in my gaming life revolves around one particular example that I would like to discuss now:

The natural mod-ability of a game like Skyrim helped me play it when it seemed unlikely.  Screenshot accessed 13/07/2015

In November 2011, I was sitting in my bedroom at university late one night when Steam popped up saying that “The Elder Scroll 5: Skyrim was now available”.  At this time, I was using my laptop (the one I’m typing with now which overheats and its PSU is held with tape) and was well aware that it wouldn't do well with such a title, but reflectively clicked purchased anyway and awaited its download.  Upon entering the initial scene in the cart, I noticed a terrible frame rate of around 10 as well as input lag which quickly got me demoralised with the prospect I wouldn’t be able to play it for over a month until I had access to my PC (the one that was still kind of old at the time but not as bad as today).  At this point, it was 1 am and I decided that “no, I’m going to see what I can do with this” and trawled the internet for some solutions.  With the help of some forums and the PCgamingwiki page on Skyrim, I spent the next couple hour’s fine tuning my settings and testing that initial scene to see what performance I could grasp at with the modification of effects such as shadows and LOD; eventually finding a mod that looked to reduced graphical quality below the in-game minimal parameter.  By 3am, I had done my testing and now I was sitting at around 28fps which was as far as I could feasibly go without breaking things and found myself engrossed in a world right through to 10am when I decided it was time to go get breakfast.  Yes, I could have just waited until the Christmas holiday period and enjoy this game without all the hassle, but due to my perseverance /stubbornness to play this game, I was able to enjoy Skyrim in that initial period of exploration when something new is available and we’re all trying to figure out what’s over the next hilltop. 

So that’s what gaming on a rather old PC means to me.  Of course there are games that I would love to play now that aren’t available to me, but with the great selection on offer I don’t feel like I’m missing out or that I’m a second-class citizen.  When I do end up getting a new PC, I will of course love having the great looking graphics, quick load times and the likes but I know that if I’m not able to upgrade again for a while I can keep enjoying this medium of gaming and the experiences it provides. 

P.S. pcgamingwiki.com has been very useful over the last couple years.

Returning to Path of Exile: Hardcore League, Knowledge and Architecture

So my last couple weeks have been a bit all over the place….

I originally planned to continue my Building in Starbound mini-series but I’ve come up against a couple things that I feel are important.  First of all, I don’t have that many resources available to me, especially with the recent update I’ve had to get back to my Homebase to work from my foundations.  It’s been a bit all over the place so I felt that I couldn’t really do something to the quality I was looking for with it.  I did look into using my older Terraria save, but there are a couple functions that I much prefer in Starbound such as augmenting existing blocks into something else e.g. glass block with frame for a window. 

There has also been the factor of some things I’ve found quite interesting recently and of course it’s much easier to write about something you’re enjoying rather than half-arsing it.  I do want to return to it in the future but I think I should spend some time re-educating myself about the practice of drawing building features before trying to replicate it in a virtual world.  In the mean-time, I have topics outline for the next couple weeks so should get back on schedule quickly. 

Without further to do, let’s talk about Path of Exile….

My first character from PoE.  Rather under-powered in comparison to my current play-through.  Screenshot taken 17/5/2015

I originally played PoE early 2013 coming off of playing Torchlight and getting a lot of enjoyment out of it.  ARPG’s had never been a genre I had played in the past, but by this point it was becoming a genre I could see myself playing for years to come.  I played a Templar which is a character that can naturally fit between the physical strength and magical caster to which I took a tanky ‘sword and board’ approach with elemental melee attacks.  I got a lot of enjoyment out of it, but it lost my interest in the later levels as it started to take a decent amount of time to clear mobs and I kinda wasn’t as tanky as I once thought.  Since then, I have become more aware of the game’s mechanics and with the announcement of the expansion the game has perked my interest once again.  This time however, I wanted to take a different approach. 

My current Templar with much higher dps while still keeping similar hp.  Screenshot taken 17/5/2015

I watched videos on the game from YouTubers such as ZiggyD, trawled the wiki and used the PoEBuilder to see how one can tailor a character and after playing through a couple new characters in ‘softcore’ I decided to go for it and make a character in the ongoing (or previous depending when you read this) Hardcore 1 month league.  I made a Templar again, but this time I looked to use projectile magic with buffs and totem summon with a nice mixture of stats for both defence and offense.  I was aware of the resistance reduction during the difficulties so planned accordingly, focused strongly on a core set of skills rather than lots of different ones and built regeneration to make sure that I wouldn’t be held back too often in terms of efficiency.  At the time of writing this, I’m half way into act 2 on Cruel difficulty and although I’ve had a couple close calls (~5% hp or less) I’m still holding on.  To the well versed PoE player, this isn’t anything special, but for me this means a lot as it took something to want to play in a mode where everything’s on the line.  Being cautious in the hardcore league has made my take on certain situations a bit slower, but as a by-product of this I have been able to take in the surroundings and see how much is going on as you traverse the landscape.  One such place was the Lunaris Temple with particular mention of level 3. 

Gold detail, smooth decor and sewers of blood throughout the lower Lunaris Temple.  Screenshot taken 17/5/2015

Lunaris is a place of contrast at heart within the bleakness of Wraeclast.  With grand walkways and golden motifs wrapped in quality cloths accenting the bold colours it gives the impression of a once powerful empire holding residence.  As you descend thou, you see Piety’s work (the boss of this location) created from a swarm of bodies and the blood runs dark red throughout its sewer system that perfectly back-up the array of miscreated beings that look to attack you as you progress through the area.  The gold and cloth are still there, it’s just being saturated by the blood creating a contrast that makes a piece of architecture seem so bleak and disgraceful have its own beauty.  This contrast is a narrative of architecture that has taken the building materials, the cladding and the décor and made something new of it.  Darkness, grit and grey can seem boring in many games but in the right hands (like with architecture) so much can still be done with its aesthetic.

Finer things in life within the Lunaris Temple.  Screenshot taken 17/5/2015

Being someone who finds Brutalism a fascinating time of architectural design, I very much hold this opinion that this bleakness can inspire and morph into something special.  Brutalism is often regarded as concrete monstrosities due to their concrete construction and greyish look, but through human interaction it has its own appeal.  Places like the Barbican Centre in London encapsulate this by being grey and concrete while adding different levels of high-rise, gardens, water and larger form walkways than your average tower block. 

Barbican Centre, London.  Photograph taken 14/02/2010

That being said, I wanted to find a piece of real-world architecture that encapsulates the Lunaris level 3 map and I feel that this does it…

A bone chandelier at the Sedlec Ossuary.  Image from Wikipedia 18/5/2015

The Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic is a piece of architecture that makes bleakness and morbidity beautiful as it creates art through its bone collection.  Its chandelier, candelabra’s fixtures and various other items are all made from bones of the dead to around 40,000 remains (if Wikipedia is to be believed, unfortunately I’m not sure on the number myself I thought it was closer to 20,000).  On the surface, this place may seem outrageous or morbid, but its architecture has gone beyond its walls and created a narrative from it, much like Lunaris.  It’s in the nature of the ARPG to focus on the mob pulls and skill affects, but if you find yourself running through PoE anytime soon, take a second to look at the environment and think about what it portrays about what you’re doing and where you may be going.  I hope you found this interesting and good luck to those who choose to take the jump into a hardcore mode for the first time.

Let’s hope my Templar stays alive up to the end of Cruel at least.  -60% resistances is gonna be a bit of a bastard to deal with….