Posts from The Exile's Path

Preface
Since the well-known Diablo series finally went downhill with the third part, which overall left a more negative impression than its predecessors, and there was no desire to return to those "classic" games, Heroist urgently needed to find a new creation capable of properly killing time. Moreover, he had already completed the task he set for himself—reaching the top 10% of the rating in the last three seasonal updates—which meant nothing else held him back; emboldened by this success, he slammed the door shut and turned for help to a sage named Google.
Diablo 3 (Action role-playing games) read the infamous query, and from the drop-down list tumbled beautiful pictures of brand new (and not so much) games, as if screaming "please, someone play us, please!". Fortunately, Heroist was too lazy and not in the right mood to go through them all, read reviews by authoritative people of this world and all that sort of thing, so he simply stopped at the very first result, which happened to be PoE.
It was a pleasant surprise that from the very start, the developers bravely declared that their masterpiece is not some magnificent innovation capturing the breath with incredible ideas and technological developments, but merely an attempt to recreate a modernized copy of the beloved D2, which could only be pleasing. It's immediately clear that these guys can be trusted.
Furthermore, the game actually had quite good reviews, both as a pseudo-clone of the one-and-only and as a standalone project. Since this miracle of miracles was released as free-to-play, there was nothing to lose or fear, so Heroist bravely put it up for download and went to watch some anime.

VERY interesting things
The game is set in a dark fantasy world. We begin the game on the shores of the continent of Wraeclast, which once served as the lands of the great and invincible Atarakasian empire, then declined after an event called the cataclysm in the rest of the world. Since then, the lands of the continent have fallen under the power of corruption, people turned into living dead, you-know-who crawled to the surface from demonic rifts, mysterious sorcerers and fanatical cultists rushed to turn to ancient beliefs, resurrecting old gods and other not-so-pleasant creatures; in short, what business does a civilized and well-groomed adventurer like us have here?
Yeah, right! We are to play as a "real" (heh, yeah) criminal, convicted of various crimes on the southwestern island of Oriath, which is so developed that they don't even practice torture or capital punishment, and probably don't even need prisons. Therefore, all unnecessary members of society are simply put on little ships and sent straight to hell to the remains of Wraeclast; and rightly so, no one should waste precious time on such thugs.

The game features as many as seven character classes, each specializing in one or two of the three main attributes.

• Marauder (Strength)
• Ranger (Dexterity)
• Witch (Intelligence)
• Duelist (Strength/Dexterity)
• Templar (Strength/Intelligence)
• Shadow (Dexterity/Intelligence)
• Scion (Strength/Dexterity/Intelligence)

In general, the game encourages non-standard character development, and the skill tree, although ~ common to all classes, gives the impression of a true baobab.
Thus, characters have access to more than 1000 different passives, which can be leveled up using points granted for reaching new levels and completing certain quests.
It is also quite interesting that a distinguishing feature here is the impossibility of redistributing skills IF YOU ACCIDENTALLY SCREW UP, which forces the player to develop their specialization more carefully. On one hand, this is an obvious minus, not forgiving possible mistakes and not allowing one to adapt, if necessary, to inconvenient locations and corresponding enemies; on the other hand, however, it adds an element of interest and excitement—for example, if a powerful elemental mage accidentally runs into elementals with strong immunity to fire magic, etc.

Items play a very large role, most of which possess a unique set of possible parameters depending on the type, as well as the fact that they contain special sockets in which gems can be inserted. These precious stones are the active abilities for our characters and are leveled up separately from the character level while they are in equipped gear. Various gems drop from monsters, are given for quests, and bought from vendors after certain successes in the Walkthrough of the game. Unlike passives, these can be easily changed by extracting them and adding them to clothing.There are also support gems that can be combined with active ones for maximum profit. There are thus quite a lot of skills and abilities, and most importantly, with proper build-up, a character is fully capable of using skills not of their own class, which in some situations can positively affect their power.
Game currency does not exist as such, and trade happens on the principle of barter: little gems, spheres, things, various ancient relics, and other junk are exchanged for necessary items, such as new gear, armor or weapon upgrades, redistributing parameters of a chosen item, changing the number of sockets for gems, their color, and combining links, and so on. Sounds quite good, doesn't it?

Conclusion
Well, in general, I won't tell anything more interesting; whoever wants to can read it themselves, I'm not writing a review. Yes, yes, otherwise I would have posted this in the special thread.
Just as with Diablo before this, I was interested in PoE's rating tables and what they were based on. As it turned out, here they were sorted by the amount of farmed exp and, accordingly, the maximum level. It turned out that getting a hundredth (limit) level in the spreadsheet is a very, very difficult task, and over all three years of the game's existence, this proved possible for only half a thousand souls. A trial worthy of a TrueSuccessfulPerson, isn't it?

---

Thus, my small Haven will be located here, where I will post screenshots, report on my successes, and describe various interesting moments and thoughts encountered along the way. All for motivation (and out of boredom, yeah).


*Yes, I started playing on the 25th, so I'll cover the first three days today.

Day 1 (25.04.16)
Day 2 (26.04.16)
Day 3-4 (27-28.04.16)
Day 5 (29.04.16)
Day 6 (30.04.16)
Day 7 (01.05.16)
Day 8-9 (02-03.05.16)
Day 10-11 (04-05.05.16)
Day 12-13 (06-07.05.16)

Day 1 (25.04.2016)

The Beginning
I started, where would you think? - with the choice of game class. At first, I thought this process would take some time since I couldn't quite decide who to build, but after this

They burned her home

the choice became very obvious. What could be better than hunting house-burners? We'll answer fire with fire, ha-ha-ha! Blazing hell everywhere, same explosions, fireballs, what could be better?! I had to choose normal mode since the others weren't unlocked yet. And so my little adventure through the corruption-ravaged lands of Recklast began.


isn't she a cutie?

I initially played with an acquaintance who chose the hunter; quite a lot of time was spent on interface setup and synchronization, but eventually everything worked as it should.
We ran around the beach - farmed crabs and undead, reached the first town, where we started the quests.
Only three days have passed, but I don't remember all the events anymore, and I have no desire to describe the plot in detail, so here is a brief summary of the main points.


Interface
At first it evokes mixed feelings - on one hand, everything seems (ha!) copied from Diablo, starting from the health and mana bars and ending with the character menu and similar things. Nevertheless, for modern games, everything is implemented quite inconveniently: item descriptions are cluttered with various fonts and almost overlap each other, putting items into chests and taking them out is cumbersome, and the vendor interaction menu is a total nightmare. Still, you get used to it very quickly, and the initial effect of repulsion fades, especially since some improvement work has been done and continues to be done, which leaves a pleasant hope for something better in the future.



The question involuntarily arises - what is this blur in the middle of the screen? That, ahem, is the minimap.
Perhaps the only thing that still irritates me quite a bit. It would seem that making a decent map isn't such a difficult task; at the very least, coming up with textures for different types of terrain underfoot would have significantly improved the situation, but for some reason, this wasn't done. Of course, after a couple of hours of gameplay you get more or less used to it, but anyway, such an approach is not right.


Graphics, atmosphere, rendering
Now here the situation is more interesting. As I understand it, the original game developers handled the design of the first game locations, who for obvious reasons were unfamiliar with this business and didn't bother much, which is why we got absolutely terrible game locations ~through half of the first act. Most of them consist of stretched textures of sand and water with a few jarring bushes or stones thrown in, and I won't even mention the swamps. In this regard, there is a very funny divergence from Diablo 3, where (for obvious reasons) everything is done exactly the opposite - from the very start of the game, maximum work is put in to attract potential players (and force them to purchase the full version, naturally) - everything is polished to a shine, ooh, scary atmosphere, ooh, zombie-undead-Tristram, let's go!
In "Excel" however it's different - the further you go, the more pleasant the reward for your eyes, although this lasts until the last act added in the latest update, but about that a bit later.

For comparison - left [the coast in act one]; right - [solaris temple in three]:Perhaps I didn't choose the best pics, especially since the second one is a bit blurred, and the coast has already been reworked, but the difference in the game itself was felt very strongly. By the way, dark and sinister locations like hells, prisons, and various dungeons turn out much better for the developers than open ones - and thanks to them for that; you immerse yourself in the atmosphere and even remember the first and second parts of "Diablo".


Adventure Time
From the very first steps, the difficulty and at the same time the interest of the game were clearly felt - here, strictly speaking, the balance is not polished even at early levels, but that's also cool, and you really feel the differences between classes, specs, and builds during the walkthrough. The Witch, having effectively the highest magic damage in the game, suffers greatly without proper equipment and dies everywhere possible, while the hunter is quite fine with a decent bow and high evasion rating to normally farm everything living with auto-attacks.
It's worth mentioning separately that trying to get even remotely ownworthy gear at the start of the game is a pointless endeavor, so you have to make do with any junk you find along the way. Reagents also drop very rarely, so you can forget about improving or crafting items. Town portal scrolls again need to be saved - they may come in very handy later. However, there are pluses - levels increase quickly and effortlessly, passive points rain down, which means you need to quickly put them into key skills that will be very difficult to obtain later. In other words - I hurried to level up elemental damage and fire magic, while leaving the abilities available almost from the start for later - and I didn't actually miss out!
At this pace we reached the first serious opponent encountered on the underground levels of the prison (I had a good laugh here, since the continent itself is essentially a prison, but these seem to be abandoned structures of the ancient imperials, so everything is fine). And what was our surprise (not), when in the depths of the catacombs we discovered fresh remains and a bloody trail leading to the far hall of the dungeon.


really now, this reduced visibility radius, this retro texture rendering, we already know who is waiting for us there!


This reincarnation of the butcher doesn't actually present any particular difficulties, although the video was taken from the highest difficulty on hardcore, which really makes your nerves tingle.
Among special abilities in the new version, Brutus has gained spikes appearing under the player; melee damage is very high, hook pulling with a stun, a rapid charging dash, and summoning skeletons in the final stages make up his entire arsenal. Skillful kiting and a properly chosen strategy with trips back to town allow you to take him down without particular problems.
In a party, victory over him is much easier; since I had no way to deal damage through slow fire spells, I used the ability to summon these cuties, who can both tank excellently and deal consistently high damage. This brought up pleasant associations with this thing from Castlevania.

It's worth adding, by the way, that I really liked the soundtrack in this location, and throughout the whole game in general, which is worth mentioning separately.


Results: day 1
Playtime: ~4 hours (4h total)
Character level: 25
Experience gained: ~2.000.000
Number of deaths: 1
I couldn't play much, but it was enough to get into the atmosphere of "Excel", more or less figure out the mechanics and complete the first act. No decent gear or legendaries were found, nor good gems. The only death was at the final boss - Merveil.

kind of a mermaid

Of course, my fire sorceress, charging headlong into a water mage, shattered to pieces after a deep freeze and a machine-gun cast of ice spears to the face, which somehow reminded me of Hanelion's death. Overall, the boss is very simple, having two phases, the second of which occurs after death - with this, the mechanics are almost identical, except for the minions summoned in the final stage.
With this, the witch's adventure moved to the impassable jungles gripped by war between savage tribes, and the first day came to an end.

Day 2 (26.04.2016)

Continuing the Adventures
The next day, I played more like a retard than I have in months—ranging from confusion with the quest chain to wasting reagents pointlessly and accidentally selling good gear. It's also worth mentioning that all locations in the game have a random reset time of 8-15 minutes after exiting; consequently, any unnecessary idling in town means you have to travel back to the location again.
This stagnation led to my character level significantly exceeding the level of enemies in quest locations, and exp gain practically ground to a halt. I lost a lot of precious time on this, but somehow I managed to grind through the second act. For the reasons mentioned, there were no difficulties there, but I did find two very useful abilities.


Here we have a sort of manual AoE shotgun that liberally supplies enemies in melee range with fire shot. The trick is that skill damage is significantly increased against ignited targets, sometimes allowing me to one-shot elite packs. I immediately realized that with proper leveling, this thing could not only finally ensure safety in close combat but also take down some bosses—but more on that later.
The second ability was a standard meteor shower, which helped, ahem, basically everywhere it was possible. The downsides: you can't cast while moving; the advantages: high damage, low mana cost, and a large area of effect. With this set, there were no problems completing the second act.
Oh, and I also liked the abandoned pyramid location and this death machine. However, the boss seemed quite weak for a final one; in reality, I was just too much overpowered.

A video of the softcore walkthrough on the highest difficulty level (note the number of random deaths):

And the soundtrack is totally awesome.


Third Act
Now this is where the real action started. Again, in one place I managed to get lost and spent another hour autistically clearing abandoned city blocks (which, by the way, are very well made):


However, I remember this act for its much more extensive amount of content, rewarding loot, finally a decent number of reagents, and a few other things worth mentioning.


PvP
Yes, yes, starting from this act, daily quests become available to the character, encouraging various online skirmishes. I can't say I was very surprised by this "innovation," but for obvious reasons, I was worried about its successful implementation in games like this—and unfortunately, my worries were justified.


In short, it's done poorly. Firstly, standard PvP zones (and the general arena) for low levels are capped at level 28, while others (29-100) are forced to stew in one big mixed pot. After running into a few 70+ duelists, I almost gave up hope, but I managed to "reach an agreement" with one who allowed me to complete the PvP kill quest. As for class balance—as expected, everything works on the principle of first strike/stun/freeze; whoever is faster wins. Therefore, hunters shooting homing arrows across the map dominate most, Wizards are next in line, and brutal frenzied warriors, ahem, well, yeah.


Health and Mana Potions
I forgot to mention this important point at the beginning; I'll write it now. To put it simply—potions and elixirs also need to be collected, but they have a distinctive feature: they gradually restore after killing enemies. This is done, naturally, for one purpose only—to allow heroes to withstand long fights while limiting their heals during boss encounters. However, the ability to use teleport scrolls in battles still doesn't appeal to me much—you can't heal yourself, but nothing stops you from bailing back to town and hiding there. Overall, these items play a decisive role at the start of the game when the character constantly lacks both HP and mana, but they don't help mages much on medium and high difficulties—mana regens itself, and HP drops to zero anyway, so restoring it is pointless.


Labyrinth
I must devote a separate couple of paragraphs to this—I won't hesitate to say—magnificent invention of the latest update.
The essence here is very simple: during the game walkthrough, the character somehow manages to enter various hidden locations, usually located in different dungeons or caves. The task is simple: solve various puzzles, bypass clever traps, and complete all six trials on the way to the main labyrinth. Having played plenty of Prince of Persia back in the day, jumping over traps and playing with levers wasn't a serious obstacle for me, so I successfully completed all trials by the third act. And that's where my LABYRINTH happened.
This trial is an analogue to the top difficulty level in this game, and honestly, I have no idea how to adequately complete it on Hardcore or Ruthless difficulty.
The Labyrinth is a huge location, in size equivalent to one and a half acts, divided into several randomly generated dungeons packed to the brim with the strongest monsters and clever traps. Moreover, some rooms are artificially populated with own-outright unbeatable opponents, and the monsters perfectly match the obstacles located near them—earthworms between flying hedgehogs and darts that trigger when the hero runs past—it's at least amusing.
The next important point: you cannot leave the labyrinth. AT ALL. Until death. After dying, the character returns to town, and the location resets. Given its size, this is equivalent to losing several hours of painstaking work, which sometimes makes blood boil in the veins and the chair seat burn with a hot flame.

1) First attempt.
Successfully smashed the first part of the labyrinth, but in the second, I entered some strange catacombs where I met a gloomy masked demon whose name, unfortunately, I didn't find. This monstrosity successfully passed through narrow doorways despite its build, moved at a speed equal to the hero, and guaranteed 90% HP loss per hit. After jumping away from it across the entire dungeon and aggroing every mob pack I encountered, I shamefully wiped after running out of health potions.

2) Second attempt.
Put movement speed boots in my inventory, took a 40% movement speed potion, changed abilities to fast fireballs, added cast speed stones to the meteor shower, and added teleport to my abilities—it became much easier to progress. I didn't meet the masked monstrosity again, although I burned with desire for revenge for my wipe, but overall I stopped having problems with strong monsters. And teleportation is just a great thing—I can't imagine how I would have passed millions of spikes popping out of the ground without it.
Everything was going well, and I even defeated the first stage of the final boss (who appears twice during the labyrinth run to "push" the player forward, heh), but like any self-respecting adventurer, simple greed ruined me.

Taks-taks-taks, what do we have here? Mmm, behind this door there are surely countless treasures and great legendaries—let's go find the key! -> didn't notice a spike platform in front of the wall -> frantically pressed teleport and flew into a flying hedgehog that ripped my little witch to atoms, heh, well. Meanwhile, this was ~2/3 of the labyrinth, and I was properly tilted.

3) Third attempt.
Considering that there are time-based rating tables for completing the labyrinth, I was absolutely dissatisfied with my run, even though I successfully completed such a challenge on only the third try.
I leveled up teleport, stood for ten minutes before every trap to understand the pattern, skipped difficult monsters, and missed all possible goodies and hidden locations just to reach the finish. The only achievement can be considered completing the quite difficult boss waiting for me at the end of the labyrinth on the first try.

I specifically picked a video from Normal; only, for some reason, I still had spike platforms in the middle of the map (and HP three times lower), but anyway, for beginners, the boss looks quite difficult. However, he seemed beatable to me, if not for the fact that there was a long labyrinth behind my back, which really got on my nerves.
Music.

Anyway, after defeating the boss, I was given a key to a chest with yellow-blue gear, lol, what a reward; on the other hand, it's absolutely deserved for my run. I will definitely try to conquer the labyrinth on the last difficulty when it becomes available—that's where the real fun will be.
Among interesting things, I got the ability to choose a secondary specialization (like a subclass), for which I chose Elementalist (for obvious reasons). Having received a very powerful boost to fire damage, now I can burn everything around even more!


Results: Day 2
Playtime: ~20 hours (24h total)
Character Level: 40
Experience Gained: ~18.000.000
Number of Deaths: 3
Overall, the day was spent in vain; although I completed the second and third acts, including the labyrinth, geared my character fully in rare equipment, and farmed reagents, this could have been done twice as fast for sure. But at least I truly realized the power of hardcore players—those guys are made of steel.
The last death, as expected, was on the final boss.
And everything would be fine, the fight isn't hard and the opponent is weak—but a nasty debuff that fills the whole map with radioactive waste and guaranteed kills any player got me. Essentially, you could hide from it in a small zone before the boss, but he also one-shots me up close, so not an option. Either way, the second day is behind me.

Day 3-4 (27-28.04.2016)

Flameblast
Now this is what I call the best spell in this game. Here is the tooltip:



And here is the result with proper scaling:


At first, I thought this spell was far too cheesy, however, as it turned out later, that is exactly how it should be for a fire mage at high levels — either you blow them up, or they blow you up.
I also scaled up my fire shotgun — decreased the area of effect in exchange for increased damage, added duplication upon casting, and maxed out the speed — the result was a sort of flamethrower for close combat. I filled the remaining slots with buffing auras and set off to storm the fourth act.


Inferno
I finally solved all the inventory problems and could afford to collect only yellow gear and above. There were more than enough various scrolls and other junk, and I also obtained several legendaries, yahoo!


An ideal amulet for a mage, which also reduces the cost of gems requiring other attributes, allowing me to use an additional stone to blind monsters upon attack.


A funny ring that significantly strengthens the mage if they are on fire. Overall, a very useful item in the fourth act, and generally against many groups of enemies; considering my fire resistance was already around 80%, there were no problems with the damage taken, but the advantages are quite noticeable. And in general, a great addition to my explosive build.

That's how I set off to conquer the gloomy dungeons of the final act, and I was somewhat disappointed. Added in the penultimate update, the act was incredibly boring and short, and it didn't take much time to complete. Among the interesting enemies, I'll only mention two — the final boss and, of course, the general of the lava worms.

Malachai

An excellent opponent for a final boss — moderately difficult, but quite manageable. Among the dangerous abilities are randomly spawning blood spheres and tentacles that prevent entering the melee zone. I died to him once (can't go without that, well), and out of absolute stupidity — I got carried away breaking his protective barriers and didn't notice I was stuck in a poisonous swamp — as usual, well.

light version of the fight; I won't be uploading the hour-long walkthrough video on merciless.

The nastiest creature in the world™
Nothing foreshadowed trouble. Another platform towering over a lake of glowing boiling magma, the quiet whistling of hissing elementals around — and then IT appears. And although the pic is from D3, overall there weren't many specific differences between them.
The trick was that this worm appeared in a glade, the path to which was only possible via a narrow pass between charred mountains. When this creature noticed a bravely running mage ahead, it immediately summoned four immortal copies that blanketed the passage with needle-like spikes at absolute machine-gun speed. The first time I kicked the bucket without understanding anything; the second time I died already realizing what was happening; the third time I tried to jump to the cursed worm using a portal, managed to blast a third of its HP with a shotgun shot, and headed back to the afterlife again.
The fourth and fifth times I tried to pelt it with meteor rain from beyond visibility, but the pest burrowed underground and healed. From the sixth attempt, I finally managed to hit all possible crits and procs and destroy the abomination in one shot, and the summoned needle copies dissolved right before my eyes, though the feeling remained unpleasant. To encounter such an ambush on hardcore — a guaranteed character rip is ensured.


Final
One way or another, I finished the game and successfully unlocked access to the second of the three difficulty levels, where I'll be heading soon.
I forgot to mention — the game has occasional server lag problems (which are definitely not local glitches), because of which today, for example, there was almost no possibility to play. However, as reliable sources say, such cases are quite rare.
Either way, the easy half of the journey is overcome, and stopping now would be like turning back!


Results: day 3-4
Playtime: ~5 hours (29h total)
Character Level: 51
Experience Gained: ~66.000.000
Death Count: 7
Game Modes: Normal ✓

You travel well, sir anime knight.
I also started playing Patch of the Outcast, but I couldn't get past the first third of the first act. I didn't play the game, but I'll read about it, it's quite interesting.

Malachai

I look out the window. It's dark outside. Tea is floating in my stomach. Euphorbia grows in the field.

Day 5 (29.04.2016)

Came to my senses, looked around; it seems it's still dark outside the window, but for some reason the date on the calendar has changed. Things happen.

Cruelty
Completely conquered all four acts on the second of three difficulty levels. Overall, this took far less time because I already knew where to run and who to kill, and generally didn't waste time anywhere.
Distinguishing features of Cruel versus Normal:

• Increased level and stats for enemies;
• Expanded locations, high enemy density;
• Greater number of elite packs and mini-bosses;
• New abilities and general access to unique skills even for every own shabby skeleton;
• New locations, new quests (secondary), new rewards, faster exp boost;
• Deadly experience penalty (sigh, can't just die normally now);
• New little monsters, like these, these cuties or even these;
• Bosses and their minions have also leveled up like Dariuses and are well-prepared for battles with outcasts;

I won't talk about interesting locations and special (un)friends today; I'll save them for Merciless to be completely objective regarding the ease or difficulty of individual subjects.


Explosions, death, flame, death, incineration, death: heat, stir, repeat until a noticeable result is achieved
Perhaps if I suddenly decided to play on hardcore, the Sorceress would be the last character I'd do it with (unless in the Necromancer specialization, which doesn't carry well at high levels, mde). Nevertheless, in terms of the speed of exterminating everything living (and not so much) on the map, this class probably beats all others by a long shot. Shotgun DPS on a single target goes over twenty-five thousand units, and the handheld Armageddon splits all victims within sight into atoms. As it turns out, even bosses cannot withstand several direct hits from nuclear warheads, but in battles with them, unfortunately, you can't cast them normally—the wind-up time is just too long, but anyway. On the other hand, I treated myself by defeating all final bosses without rips, which left me very satisfied.
And now about the downsides and flaws that affect specifically the Sorceress and none of the other classes. And if you barely feel them on Normal, here everything is much more serious, and it's even scary to imagine what awaits me on Merciless.
1) The need for direct interaction with object-characters—entering the line of sight of act bosses to activate corresponding events. The main and primary source of 90% of my deaths. Let me explain. In such difficult and heavy times, neither magical armor nor health pools save slender little Sorceresses from one-shots by own evil demonic abominations, so it's best to keep a safe distance from such nastiness. Here, however, we are specifically forced to approach another chest—trigger a dialogue with another boss—etc. It would seem that such a situation could be elegantly bypassed by adding even a second's delay before activating the combat event, but no, not so. Most often your future opponent simply chops/bites off your head a moment after it starts, while I have no way to respond to this, only frantically trying to use teleport. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, bad luck. But still unpleasant.
2) "Very well-chosen battlefields." In Diablo 3, this problem was eliminated by expanding combat zones with various fast-moving melee bosses; here we often have toilet-sized rooms where you have to huddle up with some not-so-pleasant unhygienic personalities. And maybe this adds its own difficulty, but essentially it just removes the possibility of kiting and encourages frantic teleports to town during especially dangerous combat phases. Anti-fun, as for me. Conversely, with enemies shooting bows or standing still, the far edges of the map are lost in the fog, heh, mda.
3) Enemies outside the hero's line of sight take no damage. A serious problem that surfaced during labyrinth walkthroughs, which, again, was easily solved in D3. Enemies that the player character doesn't see aren't displayed until the door opens/you turn a corner; here they are visible but protected from any damage, including AoE. Moreover, there is a serious flaw in the programmed AI behavior, which can simply lose sight of the hero hiding behind a small tree or post. Of course, such glitches aren't everywhere, but generally they clearly stand out.
4) Unfinished enemies. It's no secret that for us as ranged fighters, map visibility is a very important part of combat; however, there are guys who see further and better than we do. Due to the great 3D, it's clear that the bottom part of the map is always lit worse and visibility there is below average, which allows some snipers to land a headshot on the hero before they have even the slightest chance to react. The second most frequent cause of my deaths at this difficulty level.
5) Flaws of magical shields. This is probably more whining than a flaw, but the fact is that in the game there are too many creatures and abilities that destroy or ignore our main source of survival. In this regard, evasion rating or armor adds much more survivability; for us, it's essentially a second health bar that doesn't work against poison or piercing weapons, and generally for a mage with any health pool, it doesn't matter—it's still one-shots.


Break
Well anyway, let's not talk about boring things. I want to tell you about our dear questgivers, specifically those responsible for giving us various same-old side quests, appearing randomly in game locations at the most convenient moment. By completing their requests, we improve reputation (and get no exp, ha, why are they even needed) and feel like more authoritative and respected people. Okay, actually they open access to some mediocre weapons and materials for building your own country estate farm, but I had enough of that interesting activity in WoW Pandaria, no thanks.

Vagan, Weaponmaster

A bully, a carouser, a duelist, and someone who loves to measure weapons with everyone, even cute little witches like us. Quests usually involve friendly duels "not to the death, come on, don't be afraid—I won't kill ya, oh sorry," sometimes he gets offended and brings in his homies from the neighborhood. One of my least favorite masters, not only because I'm not interested in his weapon knowledge and crude humor, but mainly due to the need for manual duel activation, after which he instantly and joyfully skewers you on his rapier, which, agree, is hurtful and unpleasant.

Vorici, Master Assassin

A not-like-everyone-else assassin who is too old to kill and therefore sends us on errands. It would seem that nothing could be better, but as reputation grows, the guy's quests become even more wonderful: kill this one so you don't hit the guards; steal that right behind the guard's back; keep that one at low HP for ten seconds; feed this one your chest, kiss it on the forehead and put it to sleep. His quests are no more useful than those of the first master, but completing them as an AoE mage is quite a hassle. Oh, and he can "create" an assassination target right next to you, after which fifteen bodyguards charge into your carcass with joyful screams, turning you into bloody mince.

Tora, Master of the Hunt

The leader among local Greenpeace members and the society for environmental protection and preserving nature's purity in an unchanged form. Therefore she only hunts sick, infected, demonic, and just strange beasts—ah wait, everyone here is like that, so you can kill them all indiscriminately. The quests are appropriate. She is revered among archers; some even found cults in her honor. For a witch burning forests along with their inhabitants, she provides no benefit.

Haku, Armourmaster

Doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, leads a healthy lifestyle—an athlete, a Komsomol member, and just a handsome guy. He only suffers from excessive absent-mindedness, because of which he manages to lose his own spirit in the most dangerous places of the underworld with extraordinary frequency. We, as simple and kind people, have to rescue the unlucky Armourmaster every time, who thanks us with unliftable armor and other iron junk. Judging by how often I stumbled upon the lost little man in almost every game location, there's a suspicion that he's just mocking us. By the way, there is a possibility that this spirit isn't even his—not for nothing does it always try to run away and summon all sorts of filth to its aid, and apparently is somehow connected to his criminal past. The quest dungeons themselves shine with their unpredictability: it could be an easy location filled with weak monsters, or something like this.

Elreon, Loremaster

Loves to summon totems and tell interesting stories by the campfire. In his free time from work, he trades library books, magical rings, and amulets of various usefulness. The quests are not difficult, involving the protection or destruction of a corresponding number of totems, but I encountered him very rarely—a pity, too modest and quiet. The most sane of all eight masters.

Catarina, Master of the Dead

My little witch's best friend: smart, cheerful, a mad beauty, and an equally interesting conversationalist. Lived a long and full life; spends her immortality exterminating living beings, attacking human towns, and raiding for greedy civilized island residents. There is always something to learn from her, both in magic and in summoning various pets. Similar quests—find lost doggies created from the bodies of various creatures before they eat some savage settlement, feed demonic kitties with human hearts, help finish building a monument. It's also amusing to see her reaction (or rather lack thereof) to key plot events, while others start screaming and rush to share their feelings. The right approach to the matter.

Leo, Master of the Arena

Also a giver of dailies and an encourager of player enmity. Earns money from bets at arenas, where he specifically puts players of level 70 and above against novices. Gives various bonuses for items. A successful man who has achieved everything in life. A businessman of the demonic continent. Passes himself off as exceptional and special, and also, according to rumors, the strongest person in Ertenia. However, he doesn't enter the arena himself because there are no worthy opponents for him there. He takes great care of his hairstyle and looks after his fancy armor polished to a shine—just try staining it!

(The last master is only for end-game content, for which I haven't yet collected all necessary map pieces, so I will find and describe him later.)


Results: day 5
Playtime: ~14 hours (43h total)
Character level: 61
Experience gained: ~170.000.000
Number of deaths: ~15
Game modes: Cruel ✓


couldn't resist, I just love the local chat too much

Day 6 (04/30/2016)

Relentless Reflectors
Completed the first act on the highest difficulty level. The differences are approximately the same as on "Cruel," only everything is even bigger, faster, more durable, and stronger. Oh, and there are also doubled experience penalties upon death, which forces you to pay closer attention to the map.
The only significant difference: monsters have been added that reflect damage back to the hero. I heroically died against one of these creatures, casting Flame Blast with ten stacks and annihilating myself. In general, the ability is more than fully copied from Diablo, so you just have to be more careful when clearing locations, although for many who haven't encountered this feature before, it causes terrible lower back discomfort. I defeated all the bosses without dying; the battles with them have become slightly more spectacular and longer, but there's more excitement. Leveling up became much more difficult, but there's an abundance of reagents, as well as great level 60 and higher items; legendary items have also ceased to be rare, and, as it turns out, most of them are quite useless, as they give too specific bonuses. However, I tried on some fashionable boots made of crocodile leather:

Thanks to numerous passive movement bonuses + these boots are ideal for quickly clearing maps of minions of evil and, if necessary, for an emergency retreat from the battlefield. The mage rarely has his health between full and zero, so it's better to change shoes before battles with bosses that inflict various poisonous debuffs; otherwise, they have no drawbacks.


#1
Now is the time to complete the review of the first act, based on my own conclusions and playthrough on all difficulty levels.
In general, a very simple (as an introductory) area; the main bosses are the butcher and the mermaid, both of whom are quite mediocre in strength. The locations are mostly populated by undead, sometimes there are barbarians and forest creatures.


Best location: The ship graveyard

A very atmospheric and beautifully designed place, populated by various walking dead, ghost sailors, and giant crabs. The enemy density is high, but all of them have no resistance to fire or elemental magic, and they are also very slow, which makes them an ideal target for easy experience gain and enjoyable pastime. And you can also meet the ghost of Captain Davy Jones near the wrecked Flying Dutchman and give him a fiery hell on earth.


Worst location: The mud flats

Obviously, one of the first areas of the game, created from awkwardly glued-together textures of various types of terrain, populated by incomprehensible, fast-moving creatures that deal high damage, very inconvenient for clearing, and generally filled with an atmosphere of gloom and hopelessness. I died there for the second time, once again failing to jump away after activating the chest summoning monsters. The situation is further worsened by the fact that the location is key for visiting; it has passages to two quests, one secondary, and a task located in the area itself, which further increases the desire to go through it once and forget it forever like a terrible dream.


Summary: Day 6
Playtime: ~5 hours (48 hours total)
Character level: 64
Experience gained: ~230,000,000
Number of deaths: 2

Day 7 (01.05.2016)

#2
The second act doesn't present significant problems on any difficulty level, but it stands out for being dragged out and tedious, featuring only one boss and a sea of tasks involving running between territories, searching for various quest items, and more running. The locations themselves are primarily situated in forest lands and populated by creatures of the most diverse kinds, meaning it's impossible to pick a clear build or set of talents for a convenient playthrough. I died once at Baal because he added a one-shotting laser here that reaches the player from any distance. At first, I thought this weapon targeted randomly, but as it turned out, during this phase the character simply needed to run around the boss at maximum possible speed without stopping under any circumstances. The battle itself wasn't that long; Armageddon solves things here (as always).


Best location: The crypt

As I already mentioned, the PoE developers are great at creating various grim dungeons, and this is no exception. The hero, lighting the way with the dim light of a torch, cautiously makes their way through the gloomy tunnels of the crypt; the clinking of heels of jackboots on a stone floor riddled with shallow cracks makes one's blood run cold; human skulls hang from rusty chains on gray walls, hidden under a centuries-old layer of ancient dust, and ahead behind heavy steel grates, approaching footsteps and the loud clang of metal can be heard. In short, the atmosphere is spot on. Also, this is the only one of two locations completely filled with undead of all colors and shades and devoid of plague zombies that apply a stacking poison debuff that ignores magic shields. Thus, it's an excellent place for easy exp farming, and you can also complete a labyrinth in the meantime, find a hidden quest, and with some probability additional instances, which serves as a pleasant bonus for travelers daring to visit this wonderful land.


Worst location: The Vaal ruins

The only location of all the rest that I evaluate solely based on the local inhabitants from a mage's perspective, while the atmosphere and art there are actually quite good. But those creatures that have taken a liking to these wonderful places... Now these oversized centipede-snake-worms possess simply unthinkable speed, take away three quarters of hp with a combo, move in large groups, and every other one is protected from magic damage. Moreover, the ruins are simply swarming with these loathsome creatures jumping out at the poor Sorceress from the darkness, causing aversion even in the person behind the monitor. And these jokers are exactly those because of whom you often have to frantically jump into the nearest trench, injecting all possible heals and screaming "Sniper! Sniper! Where are they firing from? Requesting reinforcements! Need fire support!". The vision radius exceeds the hero's visibility by about a third; add to this the reduced player visibility in the dungeon, the number of poisoned needle shots increasing with difficulty level, multiply by the number of such enemies and the impossibility of dodging their attacks due to the large number of straight corridors where they love to set ambushes — as a result, a trip to Venus's orbit is guaranteed.
By the way, it amused me that while searching for pictures of monsters, I accidentally stumbled upon several similar "diaries" where guys seriously and with screenshots describe their excel adventures; eh, and here I thought I was such an exception.


Be that as it may, the second act is also finished forever, screenshot attached:



#3
And then I quickly ran through the third act to finally prepare for the final slaughter awaiting me ahead. At first, very pleasant locations that don't cause serious problems; toward the end, a total hell, including the worst territory I've encountered in the entire game. Deaths were all the same — chests, questgivers you have to approach closely to activate combat, reflectors, and finally my excessive haste in wanting to hit level 70 as soon as possible, because of which I kept stupidly hitting penalties literally a few percent before leveling up, which was somewhat unpleasant; however, that's entirely my fault here. There are only two bosses worth mentioning (one of whom is the final one), both specialize mainly in ranged combat and are easily kited by hiding behind pillars, except for the last boss's final phase which had to be survived by jumping under his nose, but the priest burned before he could cast a divine curse on my witch. Among the local inhabitants, reptiles, amphibians, and various insects stand out.


Best location: The Library

So what do we have here? Mmm, undead, excellent, add to favorites, take note! And indeed, this territory, which I somehow missed during the normal playthrough — because of which I long considered it a hidden location — is a true ray of light in the dark kingdom of tropical jungles that one must push through to reach the final boss. A very exciting and interesting location, ancient imperial archives full of most curious stories of old times, also containing a sub-zone "The archives" and with some probability "Restricted gallery". In general, not the hardest enemies (the main thing is not to enter the melee zone of freezing skeletons) and a convenient room layout that allows for fast and efficient exp farming, as well as fun battles with huge skeletons, bone demons, and guys like these.


Worst location: The Imperial gardens

Castle gardens that, after the fall of the Empire, turned into impassable jungles where the character can't even cast properly, let alone find a place to walk. At the same time, trees blocking the view and labyrinthine paths (with some obstacles not even appearing on the minimap) are only half the trouble — the location is populated by all types of reptiles, such as nimble snakes spitting poison that corrodes magic armor, lizards releasing a million stunning and paralyzing spikes per second, and also terrorist dinosaurs exploding into sharp needles after death; in short, the local contingent forced me to clear this wonderful area with slow steps and sigh with joy when it was finally left behind.

I'd love a walk in the garden right now


The Solaris|Lunaris temple
Lastly, I would like to separately mention these palaces. In general, the locations are not the most attractive in terms of interior or enemies, but some of their elements really appealed to me.

These flying ribbons, curtains, hangers with candelabras instead of hands actually look very funny and cool. It's even more noteworthy to observe how they cold-bloodedly chop up the soldiers who decided to storm the palace, and unsurprisingly, always emerge victorious in such clashes.

And second — Catherine's quests open quite often here, which sometimes allows for a result like this:

and enjoying the destruction of everything around while peacefully strolling on the sidelines.

However, in the following "Lunaris Temple" everything is much sadder and more dismal — for example, rooms with archers that test the player's reaction: one extra step and your bloody remains can no longer be scraped off the nearest wall.



Results: day 7
Playtime: ~10 hours (58h total)
Character level: 70
Experience gained: ~390.000.000
Number of deaths: ~10 (six of them when I was rushing to hit seventy, jeez)

Day 8-9 (02-03.05.2016)

#4
Well, that disgusting final act is finally over. To put it briefly, as the more advanced members of the community confirm—this plot conclusion on the highest difficulty level, which was vomited out in one of the updates following players' pleas, showcases itself in the "best" possible light. I've already talked about the atmosphere and the development of the fourth act, so I won't repeat myself; I'll just say one thing—it's so half-baked, so unbalanced and uninteresting, that I have absolutely no desire to ever return to it. Fortunately, they added end-game content maps, but more on that later.


Best location: The Dried Lake

Definitely the only worthwhile location in this act (ha-ha, and the first in the quest chain and the most detailed, let's not even talk about the others!), where you can level up properly. It is populated by various monsters from previous acts, not counting the giant eagles. Overall, the enemies aren't the weakest, but at least here there is room to kite, you can use different tactics for fast clearing, and find an efficient path through. I think I'll be farming levels exactly here in the future, because there are basically no other options (aside from card dungeons).


Worst location: The Belly of the Beast

Oh, wait a minute, how could I have called the last act biological waste, ai-ai-ai, why am I complaining, let's instead sneak through the back door like spies into the intestines of some unknown ****** and travel around there. Well, this is just lol, I don't even know. Well, whatever. Living there are worms that one-shot the character from across the map, cute spiders, little worms, spermatozoa spitting something very interesting, slug-bugs—eh, fun times, dig in! And most importantly, there are no opportunities for any comfortable gameplay in this location; either way, you'll be digested sooner or later. And that's also where you have to fight the final boss, but that's a separate conversation.


***
The bosses in this act are a whole separate topic. At this difficulty, their health, power, and number of abilities have increased tenfold compared to the previous one. And, more sadly, while before you could develop a specific tactic for each, learn to avoid attacks, and change abilities and gear to win comfortably, here they are either initially designed for party completion (which would be fine, it's not even bad), or they are so overleveled with one-shotting abilities that defeating them normally seems impossible. As a result, as I've posted excerpts from the game chat before, there aren't that many tactics for them:
a) hit-portal to town-hit-portal to town (repeat for an hour);
b) gather a large party, activate bursts, and keep dying against the enemies until the end (preferably level up first so as not to be penalized too heavily on experience);
c) arrive at level 90+ and fight the boss comfortably as equals;
And while it previously seemed to me that such "fun" mechanics were intended by the engine, but the focus was mainly on player skill, here we have the opposite situation.
Well, as it turns out—as was explained to me—I was playing completely wrong and came to this act too early, because "normal" guys first farm decent gear and raise their level, and only then go to battle with the intestinal evil. And I, naive as I am, thought that the monster and hero levels should correspond to each other and honestly never once returned to completed locations, heh.
Either way, my build focused on Armageddons and fully upgraded offensive passives turned out to be quite useful here: despite random deaths from a monster sneezing nearby, I defeated all the bosses very quickly using the first tactic, simply launching a nuclear missile at them and running back to town. But the feeling was still mediocre.


Card Dungeons
Or that very end-game content. In general, it's set up quite simply: on the highest difficulty level, while clearing any locations, the character has a small chance to drop fragments (or even whole parts) of maps. By activating these in a special hidden location in the third act, you can gain access to randomly generated dungeons with different enemy levels and randomly created "obstacles" (for example, monsters deal additional fire damage/are protected from magic/always crit/aggro from across the map and call helpers), but the quantity and quality of dropped items are many times higher than in Campaign levels. Overall, the system is interesting (=copied from Diablo), and might even provide some fun without becoming tedious due to monotony, as well as add an element of excitement and interest, since the player has only eight attempts (eight permitted deaths) to complete the dungeon, although considering experience penalties, this is unacceptable anyway. Unfortunately, my little witch isn't ready for such mighty trials awaiting ahead, so I'll farm level 80 first, and then we'll see.
And so, my story journey has come to an end, and I also found out that the seasonal server closes on May 30th, so there's very little time left to reach level 100 and get into the top rankings!


Results: day 8-9
Playtime: ~5 hours (63h total)
Character level: 72
Experience gained: ~435.000.000
Number of deaths: ~10-15
Game modes: Merciless ✓

Day 10-11 (04-05.2016)

Dembinishing
Oh, if I had known that this annoying thing scales with high-level experience, I wouldn't have been so surprised by the small number of level 100 characters in the game. As it turns out, to overcome the last few dozen levels, you don't just need to farm three or four times more experience than before – considering the scaling, it becomes tens or hundreds of times more difficult and unimaginable than I even thought.
The only way out, as I mentioned before, is to play with card dungeons. As it turns out, there are a total of fifteen difficulty levels for them, ranging from 68 to 82. Even then, at levels 90+, you'll get an incredibly small amount of experience, and a single death penalty will negate hundreds of hours of gameplay. Another problem is that a character, no matter what level, cannot instantly unlock high-level cards, but only level 68, and then there is some chance of getting level 69, then 70 in the next one, and so on, with a decreasing probability. My record for these one and a half days is the fourth (i.e., level 71), and I haven't made any further progress. However, there is a positive side: when in a group, only one person needs to have a card for all allies to be able to enter the same dungeon, so I will most likely switch to party farming completely; it seems that soloing this challenge will be difficult even with 24 hours of free time per day.
But completely by chance, I got this very rare treasure map, which even veterans don't often find:

And indeed – two huge rooms, packed to the brim with rare and legendary items. This is cheating!, I thought, filling my inventory with items. Here, for example, is a top-tier armor for a warrior (and I got two of them):

There were all sorts of items, and of course, not a single one for my class. It's so obvious that I wasn't even surprised. I'll just keep running around in outdated level 60 gear.


***
By the way, I had to redo some skills and abilities. I found out that passive skills in the game can still be changed for special spheres, which are given for main quests (which no longer exist) and sometimes drop during gameplay. I spent almost all of them, boosted my damage, and maxed out my shield, including the ability to reset HP to increase resistance to all damage and immunity to chaos and poison. Now I really have only one heal point, lol, but at least I finally have an impenetrable magic shield, which I'm very happy about. Now I mainly face a lack of reagents, good items, and the right skills, mainly because I rushed to the end-game too quickly; I should have spent a couple of months getting used to it like normal people, oh well.
Anyway, I reached level 80, which was VERY difficult. If these nasty high-level cards dropped, it wouldn't have been so hard; otherwise, it's hopeless, as all the locations are too weak for my Sorceress, oh well. If the RNG continues to be against me, I'll look for a good party for twenty-hour runs, hmm....


Summary: Day 10-11
Playtime: ~30 hours (93 hours total)
Character level: 80
Experience gained: ~860,000,000
Highest dungeon: Tier 4 (71)

GO GO TEAM HEROIST!!!

Desperation
It's getting harder and harder. It all started well – I farmed the lake for the ruins of Baal, where the skills I need sometimes drop. Unfortunately, I didn't find any useful skills. Then it turned out that it's not that easy to get to the high levels of the card dungeons. They don't let just anyone in there, or rather, they don't let you in for free. Just like in a free-to-play game, everything here is measured in ultra-rare spheres, which I don't have at the moment, or, as an option, you can look for guilds, which is also quite problematic two weeks before the server closes. But anyway, if I wanted to, I could have continued to beg, but I got lazy to spend time on it and decided to just run around solo. At first, it was so-so – first-level maps didn't give any experience, new ones didn't drop, I died a couple of times due to stupidity on the reflectors, and I was completely discouraged – and then, the long-awaited smile of randomness! Finally, new cards started to drop, some good items (although not legendary), reagents. As it turned out, normal battles start at about level five, where both the weaklings level up quickly, and there are many open zones. It's a pity that by that time, eight hours of uselessly spent time had flown away to Venus, but at least now I have an inventory full of dungeons of tier 2-3, as well as a couple of fourth, fifth, and sixth tiers. The main thing is not to die anywhere by accident! And here is a new top legendary treasure:

I will prepare thoroughly for this event, and in the coming days I will try to complete it, although there will only be six attempts to complete it, so the test will not be easy.


ESBS
* One of my favorite soundtracks straight from the palace-solarium.

* And this one I listened to a thousand times while leveling up on the lake.

* This one is also pretty good, it goes well with the atmosphere of the semi-ruined great imperial Temple.

* And of course, in the first inhabited town, they tried their best.


Summary: day 12-13
Playtime: ~10 hours (103 hours total)
Character level: 82
Experience gained: ~1,020,000,000
Highest dungeon: Tier 6 (73)