It has been 8 months since Path of Exile entered the open beta phase, enough time for the Grinding Gear Games project to have accumulated more than 2 million users. This figure will surely be increased with its recent launch on the
Steam platform , as part of the extensive range of free titles that adorn its catalog. That a game of these characteristics -private debut of a, until now, unknown New Zealand studio- immediately comes to rub shoulders with some of the existing alternatives in the market, is not the result of chance or excessive investment in advertising.
Fed up of waiting for an heir to Diablo II or, simply, a role-playing game worth replacing the classicBlizzard , the managers of the company began to develop a title that could pick up the essence of the genre. The result, after more than 6 years of development, has managed to dazzle virtually all users who have been dropped by their servers. But …
What is the formula used by Grinding Gear Games for Path of Exile to have achieved such recognition? Let’s review the different mechanics and novelties offered by this interesting game, recently finished its open beta and willing to become one of the most attractive alternatives of its kind.
Wraeclast , this is the name of the world where Path of Exile will let us move. A new environment of dark fantasy, with apocalyptic tints, full of all kinds of nightmare creatures and terrible opponents. Our character, regardless of the chosen archetype, will begin his wanderings Wraeclast after a shipwreck that will leave us on the shores of Twilight Strand , plagued by
Drowned and Spitters of the Sand . Little by little, we will make our way to the village of Lioneye’s Watch, where our adventures will really begin. For this reason, the first part of the map can be considered as a tutorial and a contact with the different types of
characters available. But it will not be until we arrive in town when we really start our adventure in Path of Exile . This initial phase is perfect to test each of the 7 different classes offered by
Path of Exile , and begin to familiarize ourselves with some of its unique characteristics. The first, the one that serves as the basis for all the mechanics of
the game, is the way in which the characteristics are divided. The Grinding Gear Games game has reduced them to a fairly low number, and only 3 attributes will be taken into account for all the characters:Strength, intelligence and agility . It’s that simple, but not necessarily simple.
Each of these attributes is related to a color: Red – Strength, Blue – Intelligence and Green – Agility. In addition, each of these characteristics has other properties and related attributes, such as physical damage or spells, blocking or evasion, attack speed, life or mana, … These characteristics are not user-friendly, but they increase automatically with each level of experience.
This means that we will not have points to increase our Agility or Strength, since this will be developed according to the character class chosen by the user at the beginning of the game. The 7 existing archetypes are divided into pure and hybrid. The first 3 are specialists in some of the 3 characteristics, but leave the rest a little aside. Beginning with the class’ Witch‘, which focuses on
Intelligence to cast powerful spells and critical hits. A ‘ Marauder ‘ is a powerful and bestial warrior capable of causing tremendous damage in the body to body, and endure the worst part of almost all blows, due to its specialization in Force. Finally,
if we want to opt for speed accompanied by a high probability of dodging enemy blows, we will have to choose a ‘ Ranger ‘ that dominates the Agility.
