Good Morning Friends! Last night I had a wild ride of bouncing around in several ARPGs before finally settling into the grind in Diablo III. This season there is an item that drops called an Angelic Crucible that can turn any item into a Primal Ancient, but it also gives the item a special ability. The problem with this system however is that you get one of three random enchants each time you use it. I think I have gotten somewhere in the neighborhood of a dozen of these items so far and out of those I have gotten 1 Wrath of the Berserker power, 1 Whirlwind power, and all of the others have been for Hammer of the Ancients. However last night on my final run before going to bed I finally pulled the Whirlwind power I was hunting for.
I’ve been contemplating stockpiling them and running up a Demon Hunter so I can play with those powers as well. I am hoping that the items persist after the season for non-seasonal play, and if so… then I have the desire to build out a set for each of the powers on Barbarian and maybe Demon Hunter. I’ve heard the Crusader abilities are not that great, so I might take a pass on those. Essentially those are the three classes that I spend more time playing than any others. It would have been awesome if one of the Crusader sets buffed my favorite thorns build, but alas it is not to be. The whirlwind power is really nice because it is a much stronger pull than we have ever had in the game before, and you can just sorta drag things along with you as you spin to win.
In other news, Torchlight Infinite is now up on Steam, and you can request access to the playtest. I’ve had access to the android version of the game for some time now, and it was pretty solid. Unfortunately, the PC version seems to be the most “mobile port” game I have seen. There are very few configuration options and you are stuck to using the default keybindings which are Left Click to move, Right Click to attack, Q to heal, and WERF for special attacks. My default setup for ARPGs is to set Force Move to W, and then steer with my mouse. I find it so much easier than the constant repetitive clicking required for click to move and I am hoping given time that they add in some keybindings.
The main reason why I did not play more on Android is the fact that it currently does not have controller support. I attempted to use a controller through steam last night and this appears to still be the case. I am very interested in this game, but only if either the controller support is solid or they add some keybinding options. Until then it might as well not exist. Your mileage may vary however and if you are interested in checking the game out, it appears that they are just letting people into the playtest immediately. I clicked the “Request Access” button and got instant access to download the game and try it out.
I’m starting to fall into a funk with Path of Exile. Have you ever played a game where it feels like you missed the golden era when it was amazing? That is how I am feeling about Path of Exile. I’ve seen so many videos of people flying through maps and getting explosions of loot left and right, and I can’t seem to ever reach that level. I am in the doldrums of red maps which vacillate wildly between extremely easy to clear to being painful deathfests. I ran into a boss last night in one of the Vaal Corruption Rifts, that had 8 ArchNemesis modifiers on it… and it legitimately took me over twenty deaths before I finally downed it. The only thing that I could do was kite the mob while dropping Storm Brand behind me. I eventually drug it to the start of the Rift so that I could at least resurrect and get back into the action quickly.
I could roll something else and try another build… but there is no guarantee that will work any differently. At this point, I have tried Explosive Arrow and Wintertide Brand last league, and went with a supposedly tried and true Storm Brand build this league… and found both lacking. Maybe lacking is the wrong word, but would require so much currency investment to bring them to the level that would allow me to run content in a carefree manner. I just don’t think that Path of Exile is ever going to be that game for me, and as a result may never replace Diablo III. I love chain-running content over and over in Diablo and picking up loot, then resetting things and going again. In Path… everything feels like it has a cost associated with it… either opportunity cost or a very real cost. I don’t love that feeling.
Then there is the problem that I have to effectively make a decision if I care about progress on the atlas or if I care about making levels. I sacrifice levels for the sake of grinding out progress, or I sacrifice any forward momentum for the sake of farming experience. Then there is the hope that I will gain enough currency and map drops through doing the content that I can sustain continuing to do the content. I am always teetering on the edge of not having enough Alchemy or Scouring orbs, with the latter pretty easy to buy from vendors… but the conversion rate is somewhat painful and I feel like I don’t get enough of the feeder currency to make up for it. Then there are chisels… which have a fixed Chaos cost on the vendor and I don’t feel like I get near enough drops.
Essentially while mapping I always feel like I am on the verge of not having enough of something to keep sustaining that activity. In Diablo III it is not very far into the season that I feel like I have either more resources than I could ever spend or easy access to acquire those resources. I am not sure I will ever reach that point with Path of Exile. There will always be subtle friction of not quite having whatever it is that you need, in order to do the things you want to do. The answer is to engage with the trade economy… but I don’t find ANY of that fun. Accumulation of wealth has never been a key goal in my life and once my bills were paid in real life, I stopped caring about making more money. I just think mentally I am not wired to succeed in Path of Exile, and I am concerned that I will keep trying to make it into Diablo III.
I am rapidly losing hope after getting engaged with Path of Exile, that the “sequel” is going to really be a game for me in the long run. With the Torchlight Infinite PC test having its own levels of frustration, I guess I now pin my hopes on Diablo IV giving me a happy medium between the type of gameplay that I do enjoy in Path of Exile, and the virtuous cycle of fun grinding that I have in Diablo III. I am hoping that luck shines upon me and that I get into the Diablo IV testing process. I am not holding my breath, as the person who threw their thumb on the scale and apparently got me into Dragonflight Alpha/Beta is no longer with the company.