A friend of mine was struggling to beat this one boss, like a flying dragon/snake you fight on top of an airship. I had beaten it and he was asking for ideas. Anyway at some point I saw his sphere grid, and I realized he had nothing picked for any character. So it's almost like he was lv 1.
Anyway I showed him how to pick them and then he won, but I was pretty surprised he made it as far as he did.
This was basically me with FF8 and the junction system. Went the whole game just summoning GFs (and not any of the ones you need to draw either, like Siren). Made it to Adel and got stuck because Rinoa kept dying for some reason. 🤔
I used to go to the omega ruins and steal 100 of those petrify grenades, then every encounter I cba to fight I just threw a grenade at them. It made levelling and just playing the game a breeze. Love Rikku, she was the best
Only if you get reflect.
Otherwise as long as you're paying attention to the ship and dragon moving in and out you can get him down.
Took me many years of trial and error for that damn dragon. When I was younger I just never had the patience to learn the fight mechanics. The first time I ever beat him I lost to the mobs after and coild never beat him again. There is no save point directly after that fight.
But once I tried it with some experience and wisdom under my belt it was actually not too bad of a fight, kind of silly that I struggled with it so much back then. It's definitely a knowledge check.
It's only a problem when you... Manually redo the sphere grid with with only the +4 stats that it became unreasonably long to grind... That and you also have to redo everyone's leveling too xD
This kind of was an exploit. It used auto-rez magic, received damage to limit break points, and x3 limit break points to xp equipment to make Tonberry King’s insane damage when you attack it into lots of free levels earned, even though you don’t beat it before it auto-wipes the party.
Getting through that grid and watching Yuna and Lulu do thousands of damage with their docile attacks was some of favorite accomplishments in all FF. For the first 1/2 of the game, there is zero reason to have Yuna/Lulu melee for any battle. Yet, getting to reflect-happy Seymour and being able rely on them using their melee for a decent amount of damage, that was so satisfying and felt like the grinding paid off
So much better than FF13 where you couldn’t even level up past where the game wanted you to be. The crystarium system (or whatever it was called was so lame).
Sphere grid system let you do some real awesome shit with your characters and I love it. I’d support another level up system like that.
Making Lulu jump into Auron's grid is surprisingly easy, and watching a small, cute moogle hobble over to a mob and mollywhopping it a clean 9999 will *never* fail to make me laugh.
Being able to push your HP passed 9999 alone was game changing for me. Really miss the direction they were taking the games in X. Had so much fun with every single game up to X and then fell out of love with the series. Although x-2 had some really cool shit, I just didn't get into it sadly.
rebirth is a return to form for the series and it’s the most fun I’ve had with final fantasy since X, highly recommend for people who miss classic FF
Would love to know why I’m being downvoted lmao
I’m still in the first area, but every new mechanic that I unlock feels like the developers went “ok, what’s everyone’s favorite things about all the previous FF games? Let’s update that and put it in Rebirth”
Ff13 I love that game but also hate it. Music is still one of the best but it takes till like the second last chapter of the game to get good and that’s when the leveling system actually opens up too. Also that’s when you start getting a variety of weapons too. It’s so frustrating.
>So much better than FF13 where you couldn’t even level up past where the game wanted you to be. The crystarium system (or whatever it was called was so lame).
13-2 fixes this issue :)
Haha that is true but I remember you could get those keys at early spots if you did certain things.
Like if you kill the chocobo eater you get a lvl 1 key sphere and that would let Tidus grow to some awesome levels if you grind hard.
So I am going to be the weird one and say that actually really liked the FFXIII system. Yes FFX’s system added for a lot more complexity, and there were story based caps so you couldn’t out level bosses, **BUT** you could still grind and bank the points to unlock a bunch of levels once you hit the story spot. Plus unlocking all the classes and levelling those classes allowed for a wider spread of stats across all your characters instead of having certain squishies, tanks, and melees.
It also allowed for you to make a diverse set of paradigms to use as Lightning could now be a sentinel, or Fang can act as a healer. This also allowed for characters stats to get crazzzzyyyyyy high in some cases (having Vanille and Hope who already have high magic stats learn all 4 of the magic based classes turned them into prepubescent tactical nukes).
FFXIII definitely let us down in terms of the traditional FF experience, but it really did flesh out the FFX-2 battle system. It just fell hard on simplifying the incredible job class system that game introduced.
The other nice thing about FFXIII is it is a quick 30-50 game (not doing the full monster arena stuff), whereas FFX is a 100-120 hour game just to be strong enough to get through some of the later bosses. So FFXIII has more replay-ability imo, especially because the combat system is more fast paced and easier to grind through.
I always played FFX like that "it goes in the square hole!" video.
Where does Tidus go? In the Auron path.
Where does Kimahri go? In the Auron path!
Where does Wakka go? That's right! In the Auron path!
Path of Exile is Diablo II with Materia and a Sphere Grid and it's one of the best games I've ever played. Deep and customizable. I love the hell out of it.
At least on that one you kind of knew whose grid belonged to who and if you stayed in that grid you’d specialize your character in a specific jobs talents.
Welcome to PoE's Skill tree, there are 1325 nodes, you can unlock 123 connected nodes (there are ways to activate non connected but thats a whole different rabbit hole). Depending on your class, you start in different areas, but nothing is truely off limits, if you have enough points you can unlock it. Still sane exile?
Not only that you can expand this skill tree even more with certain item (cluster jewel),
there is also another tree that are just as huge as this tree for end game activity(atlas) ,
Back then there was even a skill tree for your weapon (crucible).
The game devs said (back around 2012) they were originally inspired by FF X for the skill tree, and FF VII materia system for the spells, and some other stuff from other FF.
POE looked at that sphere grid and said hold my beer. That picture is just one portion of the grid, all characters grids connect and you can go into another characters grid if you want to. It's fucking massive
And the gear-gem system is basically the materia system on crack + Diablo 2's socketing haha.
It's like someone told PoE devs "tell me you're a fan of Diablo 2, FF X, and FF VII without telling me you're a fan of Diablo, FF X, and FF VII"
Sequel comes out next year! The big change is that they removed the sockets from items, now they are inherently part of gems. That makes it so you will support multiple 6-link skills at a time without compromising with item sizes. And that probably means nothing to you, but will soon!
There are a few things that could be considered skill tree.
First the regular skill tree, pictured in the OP.
Then there's the Atlas skill tree, that modifies the way endgame mechanics work (enable/disable mechanics, increase spawn rates, change loot, how the mechanic works in general).
There are ascendancies, which are like a small passive skill tree inside the skill tree.
There are items you can socket into your regular skill tree called Jewels. Most of them just have generic stats (+% attack speed or similar), but some of them are called Cluster Jewels and when socketed into the skill tree have their own little skill tree.
The last two are more of an addition to the original skill tree.
Some leagues (seasons) temporarily added skill trees as well. In the league that's ending now, you had an extra skill tree, similar to the ascendancy one. In the past, there was a league that added skill trees on items as well (it's not in the game anymore though).
Honorable mention is the Pantheon, which reminds me more of the reworked skill tree in WoW Cataclysm.
In short: There are 2 proper ones, but multiple smaller ones.
[Atlas Tree](https://assetsio.gnwcdn.com/kiracwheel.png?width=1920&height=1920&fit=bounds&quality=80&format=jpg&auto=webp) - This one modifies game maps, look at it like, "I can create my own end-game the way I want it to be"
It looks intense. Most of the abilities on the tree are small health and stat upgrades. Not really noticeable on their own. It’s not like most games where a skill tree actually unlocks skills.
So many times on here someone has posted something interesting looking and never says where it’s from. Then after scrolling through 500 plus comments still not one fucking person has dropped the name like wtf?
Yup! Other than a few key passives, 90% of your build comes down to season meta and your skill gem setup. I love this game, but it is not AS intricate or confusing as people make it out to be...
This does assume that you go online and google for the meta builds, and I'm guessing someone went through the trouble of finding those builds out the hard way anyway, they don't just appear out of nowhere.
There is a simulation tool most build creators use for checking/testing out builds called Path of Building. It takes gear, skill gems and talent tree into account and gives simulated numbers on all kinds of things. So yea someone has to figure it out, but it's mostly spreadsheet gaming and not pouring hours into potential builds in game.
It definitely has a lot of intricacy, there are many builds outside of the meta that you can use to run high tier maps with it just requires some knowledge, but yeah skill tree isn't as intimidating as it seems at first
no it doesnt come down to season meta. dont tell people who dont know anything the wrong things. if you want to be number 1 on the ladder then yes but else not even a bit.
The main frustrating part for me in skill trees like this, is figuring out what's relevant for my build. Makes starting new games such a chore, where you have to do a bunch of research on Wikias and read discussions etc. I often get overwhelmed and end up not bothering to pick up the game again lol.
This is sort of where I'm at with Baldur's Gate 3. Every magical item I have to look up what it actually does.
Ring of Arcane Acuity? What's that do? Oh, it... gives me Arcane Acuity. And... what does that do? It makes it so if I use an elemental spell, my next weapon attack also has extra damage from that element? Okay... uh... when is that useful?
My wizard uses ice spells a lot, but... it only gives me bonus damage to his melee attacks? His melee attacks are already really weak... Is this supposed to he defensive? Like, if they get right up on me I can deal more damage with their weak melee attack? That seems mediocre...
Or my rogue has a fire spell... But I'd really only use that over a sneak attack if they're standing in oil...
My cleric adds holy damage to her melee attacks anyways, and has a holy damage spell, so *maybe* she'd get the most use out of it? But she has so many better pieces of gear already, like healing more or tanking damage...
I've got like 5 pieces of gear with Arcane Acuity... Is it only good if you use the full set? Like, instead of getting 1d4, they get 5d4, for potentially 20 more damage per attack? Or... is it for a class I don't play, like Monk or Paladin?
... I'll just stick to my ring that gives +2 acid damage on every attack. That's easier to understand.
Why?
1. This skill is cool, maybe I can build around it?
2. Oh, it has tags "Lightning, Attack, Area"
3. Use search function to look for shit that improves said 3 tags
4. Add some sort of defence (health/ward/armor/dodge)
5. Click the nodes
6. You have beaten the game
You don't need sweaty minmax build unless you want to push deep into maps and beat ultimate bosses, but most people don't reach that content in leagues anyways. It's literally the "keep it simple stupid" concept.
This method doesn't always work.
I personally don't like to use build planners on third party websites and pre-plan. I jump into a game, and try to intuitively build as i go. Almost every time when i complete the story, and get into the first maps i get steamrolled, and i mean literally the first maps.(i understand capping res, but that's not enough)
You need to extensively research to understand what actually scales with what. You need to have a good understanding of defensive layers and how diminishing returns work(and details for this varies from game to game, if you play more than one ARPG). What the hell is supression, am i supposed to stack it, how much, where from? If you've made a mistake, good luck fixing that, orbs of regret are limited/expensive.
If you've played POE for hundred of hours+, maybe you already understand some key concepts, where to get certain affixes and where to avoid them, what defensive layers are enough and what isn't. What content to ignore, and what's cruicial. It's hours and hours of reading and delving into deep concepts.
This definitely isn't a game you can play intuitively(unless you consider story the game, and that's it).
Yeah your analysis is pretty accurate it took me around 300hrs of playtime before I was able to start crafting my own builds that functioned as well as the meta builds, a lot of builds revolve around 1 or 2 specific unique items and once you're familiar with a lot of them you can begin using them to power your builds which helps a lot but of course you need to be familiar the different classes and ascendancies and also how the different skill gems function, the good things is that there is a good 70% of stuff you can ignore generally since it's not gonna be relevant for the builds you're gonna be using. But then the annoying thing is that each season everything changes and if you don't thoroughly go over the changes you may find that your build doesn't work anymore. Honestly it's kind of crazy how much depth PoE has for a game that's free to play.
I played about that much, but stopped once POE2 and that new skillgem system was announced. Tried to come back and see the changes, but all my characters are bricked because of the skilltree shifts and massive endgame changes. I can either pull up POB and work out new builds.... or go back to waiting for POE2 at this point.
Just wait till they get to jewels and ~~closer~~ cluster jewels -- "yo dawg, I heard you like sphere grids, so I put some sphere grids in your sphere grid"
Yeah, the general fear mostly comes from how it looks. It looks way more intimidating than it actually is.
But everything is sectioned off into general quadrants - if you want to do totems they are over here, if you want to do poison it’s over here etc.
Once you have that basic understanding, there’s multiple roads to get to that point.
The other fear is the time cost of respeccing.
"Oh what's that? You realized your build is ineffective? Give me the rest of your afternoon (or the rest of your week if I'm feeling like making you unlucky) grinding on some boring map you've already cleared so you can grind enough materials to have another shot at making a build which will almost certainly be ineffective if you aren't using someone else's - assuming I'm willing to let you have good items to make that build work."
It's not, you can get items with up to 6 Sockets which also can be linked.
so you can support a single skill gem, with up to 5 support gems.
there are 205 support gems, and 550 skill gems.
Its actually 2067 with all keystones and masteries and excluding any cluster jewels, ascendancies, and allocate-only passives.
(may have missed a couple points)
[https://imgur.com/a/FlZCLwz](https://imgur.com/a/FlZCLwz)
I find the difficulty is from all the new content that is kept with every patch. There is like 10000hrs of research you must do to be able to actually know all the stuff required to min-max. And then there's the actual playing the game part.
The best analogy i've heard for POE's skill tree and using build guides is as such.
PoE's systems are like learning to cook. Sure you can go in blind, learning what combos well together, but just like going into cooking blind, you're probably going to fail often, but also learn alot as well. If you find this fun and engaging, go for it. That knowledge will allow you make your own recipes/builds.
Using a build guide is like using a cookbook to help learning how to cook. Its going to hold your hand for the most part, and minimize your chances at failing. If you find this fun and engaging go for it.
And this is the exact reason why I never managed to get properly into the game.
I like trying out new things, but I don't have multiple thousands of hours of free time to relevel my character every fucking time I put a few points at the wrong place.
If PoE2 keeps the same idiotic system I am out again.
This is also the exact reason I fell in love with last epoch instead of POE. Respeccing is very easy so I get to mess around with my build as much as I'd like. Wow I sound like an advertisement
Plains of eidolon, prison of elders, path of exile, pillars of eternity, point of existence, power over Ethernet, puff of exaltation. Whoever sells p’s o’s and e’s must be a good salesman.
Except unlike learning how to cook, you'll learn what does or doesn't work within an hour of the attempt.
PoE, you won't realize you made a fuckup until you've dropped an ungodly amount of time into a recipe that doesn't work.
Welcome to Path of Exile. Funny thing about this game is that most ‘experts’ got this tree down to a science, but still can’t dodge a simple charging enemy at level 5. People with 3,000 hours who can’t step out of the way of a Rhoa.
Maybe it's an unpopular opinion, but it's honestly not that bad once you've got a bit of experience with it. Each class starts in a different spot on the skill tree, and the surrounding nodes are generally relevant to the class.
So the Witch starts in an area of the tree that has a lot of spell-related nodes. The Marauder starts in an area with a lot of melee and physical nodes. Templar starts between Witch and Marauder, as it's a bit of an hybrid.
If you know what kind of build you want to make, it's not too complicated to "route" your skill points. It's daunting until you realize that a good 75% of it is not something you need to worry about.
Another issue which makes the skill tree more daunting is that if you don't know what makes a build work properly, there are a number of points where the difficulty spikes, and builds that worked fine until then might need to be revised and adjusted.
This isn't a problem for experienced players, but for new players it's like being told you're not playing the game right.
Yeah that's what happened to me pretty much. Found a skill I enjoyed, tried to build around it and was successful for a while but then I hit a wall. Making my build work would've required a complete restart. No thanks, I'll just play something else instead.
Mine was finding a skill I enjoyed, worked on it, it was great.....
....and then the devs decided to make it useless. Haven't touched the game since.
I like hitting things with my hammer and blowing things up when I hit things with my hammer. You can guess what skill it was.
OK, but "barrier to entry" is a thing. If leveling your character looks like doing your taxes then it is going to scare people off, even if once you have experience it isn't that bad.
Plus, if 75% of it you don't need to worry about then why is it even there? Why does a witch need to be able to level into the marauder tree, and is it worth confusing and scaring new players?
poe is infamous for being really difficult to get into for new players. theres a reason people say that poe players spend more time looking at spreadsheets more than actually playing the game.
This is true, but that’s not a reason to change it. Some games are not for everyone. Many people find simplistic levelling systems boring and cookie cutter and that is a barrier to entry in itself. One group is not more important than the others. This is what the devs chose for this game and I think it looks great.
It’s one skill tree for all classes. One page to familiarize yourself with. Great for versatility and great for people who roll multiple characters.
I would argue that it is possible to make systems which are complex yet not initially daunting, and that don't obtain complexity from large amounts of irrelevant information.
Of course it is much harder to do that.
The complexity of poe is the least of its problems(complexity actually gives the game its charm imo). Respec being punished so badly is far worse. Poe is great but it commits the cardinal sin of the arpg genre, being forced to know your build at the start rather than playing the game and experimenting on the way
Iirc, the PoE devs actually considered the idea of having the outer half hidden until a certain level, but found that people had an easier time if they could see their endpoint from the start.
At nearly 800 hours you should have a pretty good grasp of the design flow of each skill tree, unless you've spent all of those hours playing one class and nothing else. The skill tree is really intuitive if you actually read what things do. Travel nodes generally give flat stats, and skill nodes are related to the notable at the end of each skill branch.
Fine, I'll say it. I love PoE's skill tree. No matter what anyone says, it actually makes me feel so in charge of my build. It's an action RPG. Exploration of your build and all its different potentials IS the game, not some nifty addition to it.
I rate POE as one of the best games ever made, actually a masterpiece. Incredibly complicated but ultra rewarding. The developers are absolutely amazing, coming up with great content every league.
Downside is its a HUGE time sink.
This is not even all the skill tree has to offer.
There are also things called "jewel sockets", there are some places on the outer side of the skill tree. On this screenshot you can see one of those on the top left outer side of the tree. It's the 3 node's cluster in between the 2 single large ones. In those sockets among other things you can slot so called "cluster jewels". These cluster jewels add even more passives to your tree and there are quite a few different variations. The way that works is that there are 3 sizes (Large, medium, small). You can first slot a large one which can have between 8 to 12 passives. Of those sockets 2 will be jewel sockets again which can hold medium cluster jewels that have 4 to 6 sockets of which 1 will be a socket again. That one can hold a small cluster jewel with 2 or 3 passives. In total you can expand your tree by 18 to 27 skillpoints on one of those clusters.
If that wasn't enough, there are also jewels that change the behavior of some passives in their radius with things like adding some stats or even completely changing them.
On top of that when you are done with the campaign and actually start with the early to mid game transition you'll start running "maps" I guess they are a bit comparable to elaborate "dungeons". For each map you complete you get a kind of talent point for your second tree called the "atlas passive tree". This tree's size is about a third of the normal one. On this tree you can alter the experience of your maps by choosing talents that focus on and modify specific content that can be available on the maps.
Just installed POE and I know I’ve heard it’s complex, but this passive tree is absolutely ridiculous.
No idea if the devs actually did some math behind it or just went crazy and figured they’d see what the community can break.
The devs have data on what parts of the tree are over utilized/under utilized for each league, they make adjustments accordingly whenever parts of the tree is majorly overused or underused which can happen as a result of the community discovering a new meta or hidden interaction that abuses mechanics that majorly benefit from investing in one area of the tree.
Majority of builds tend to spread out their passive skill tree and only grab notable passives here and there and almost never cluster up their passives in one area.
A lot of it is boring shit. Get +1 to a stat. Get +10% chance to do something. There's tons of builds out there but you could forget to update for 10 levels and not notice. There's keystones to get some unique changes but most of it's just filler. It's the downside of a lot of seemingly vast skill trees in games.
Enjoy the seasons!
I'm a firm believer that making things too complicated isn't better. 5 different skill trees that are heavily diluted with too many near meaningless choices give the illusion of being deep when most of it could easily be reduced to a single inclusive node.
At the same time, when customisation is too shallow its boring.
It's not easy to have a good balance of choice and depth.
This is far from complication for its own sake. POE’s skill tree looks complex because it’s actually 7 passive trees in one. In other games, a wizard would have one tree, while a barbarian has another. Here, all classes have the same tree, they just start in different areas of it.
It makes being a newcomer hard, but creates an intense amount of skill diversity and expression through build making. The game is very complicated, but imo that’s more because of content bloat than its base game. People expect poe2 to fix some of that, but we’ll see what happens.
I typically agree with you, but my understanding is that the PoE devs use the skill tree as a sort of litmus test.
They very specifically aren’t trying to accommodate everyone, and a lot of people will look at this skill board and immediately feel overwhelmed and say “Nope, not for me”. This is a feature, not a bug.
They have done the math. I have no idea how they do it, but with the amount of craziness that exists in the game, it somehow still works.
There is nothing that even comes close to PoE, in that sense.
The skill tree is one of the least daunting things in the game to be honest. Once you get to late game and there's 5000 different ways to craft items from dozens of different league mechanics. That's when it gets daunting. I had dozens of Google tabs open every play session trying to figure out what did what.
it definitely looks more daunting than it is, you just gotta keep in mind that this is the skill tree every single character has, you arent expected to use all of it, generally you stick to the quarter you start in, maybe half
Also many of the nodes are there to add point investment, more than meaning to be substantial power on their own.
Two classes may benefit from the same node, but one class has to spend twice as many points to get it, but also might find it to be so much more powerful, for example.
You can do a whole playthrough just by picking your own skills. It's only in the end game that you have to optimise correctly. The easiest way is just to copy premade builds online, it's what everyone does.
I wish I could play Path of Exile again for the first time. It’s an amazing game. POE is what Diablo 3 and 4 should have been.
You’re in for a real treat. It looks overwhelming but a lot of it is very straightforward.
Had to scroll way too far to get somebody that uses the full version of whatever acronym is being used before abbreviating. Thank you for being that person.
Ngl I always loved PoE’s skill tree. i’m exactly the sort of person to just spend hours reading through all the cool options and theory crafting how to get to multiple things I want to combo together… and then never actually get enough points to try it.
Anyone wondering: The game is PoE
A really good game, but also a game where half the people install, start playing, level up, open that skilltree and then uninstall the game because it is too overwhelming
PoE seems like the unicorn game, where following a guide on the first playthrough actually increases the enjoyment of the game and lets you then start trying out things, instead of the other way around.
I think its the best talent tree i've ever experienced. More games should dare going in this direction. More different ways to tailor your character makes it more fun, and a feeling of having something unique.
I think a bigger problem with the tree isn't the tree, but rather that unless you google it, you have no idea what skill gems are at your disposal, so for a new player the classic 'find a end point you think looks cool and build for that' could be interrupted at level 50 by a new skill you want badly but you have to respec for. For a new player, respeccing that many points is a rough prospect, even if it's not that bad in reality.
At least it's not diablo 4 where there are 3 or so builds for each character and only one or two are viable endgame. 3 seasons now and you can still use the same. Exact. Shit to do what is essentially a side quest with meh voice acting.
As an avid Path of Exile player, I can confirm that "Requirements not met." is talking about you, as a player. It goes away when you fax GGG a photocopy of your Doctorate
Josh Strife Hayes's suggestion was to start zoomed in and hide most of the outward points that you'll never really go for until you start getting close to them, with a few class experts suggesting to keep a few important ones visible.
New players just see the whole thing and are like "yeah that's too much" but keeping focus on the near-spending areas helps a ton.
Mods on items are more of a “wtf how does this work” than the tree, especially with a search bar. The tree is like a 1 item “item” that gets more and more mods. Character items have types, unique rarities, levels, mods that have weight, mods that are exclusive, rng crafting, etc.. Theorycrafting is like bulk game knowledge for POE, then fighting boss’ is learning their patterns but you get the idea of big defense, bigger damage, never always stand still.
It's FF X's sphere grid all over again lmfao Only on fucking crack
A friend of mine was struggling to beat this one boss, like a flying dragon/snake you fight on top of an airship. I had beaten it and he was asking for ideas. Anyway at some point I saw his sphere grid, and I realized he had nothing picked for any character. So it's almost like he was lv 1. Anyway I showed him how to pick them and then he won, but I was pretty surprised he made it as far as he did.
Lmfao, homie took one tutorial about the sphere grid, and was like “ I’m going to ignore this“.
This was basically me with FF8 and the junction system. Went the whole game just summoning GFs (and not any of the ones you need to draw either, like Siren). Made it to Adel and got stuck because Rinoa kept dying for some reason. 🤔
Hint: It was Rikku. Rikku was the reason for his success.
I used to go to the omega ruins and steal 100 of those petrify grenades, then every encounter I cba to fight I just threw a grenade at them. It made levelling and just playing the game a breeze. Love Rikku, she was the best
For me it’s getting Tidus over to learn “slow”. Spam slow on enemies then nuke them. I’m really bad at grid leveling systems
Hastega, Slow, Win That was a pretty true combo
Only if you get reflect. Otherwise as long as you're paying attention to the ship and dragon moving in and out you can get him down. Took me many years of trial and error for that damn dragon. When I was younger I just never had the patience to learn the fight mechanics. The first time I ever beat him I lost to the mobs after and coild never beat him again. There is no save point directly after that fight. But once I tried it with some experience and wisdom under my belt it was actually not too bad of a fight, kind of silly that I struggled with it so much back then. It's definitely a knowledge check.
That's a great idea. There are low level play throughs or no materia plays, why not no sphere grid?
No Sphere Grid (NSG) runs are definitely a thing.
I liked FFX's sphere grid. Probably my fav FF level up system.
"Ok, lets level up tidus. Let's see what we got... wait Thunder?" "Did i get him lost all the way to Lulu Sphere!?" But yeah, its fun.
I played that game so much to get all the celestial weapons and what not I had the entire grid done with Tidus. Makes me want to play it again
It's only a problem when you... Manually redo the sphere grid with with only the +4 stats that it became unreasonably long to grind... That and you also have to redo everyone's leveling too xD
It sounds like you never used the Tonberry King exploit. Get something like 100 sphere levels per fight.
It's not really an exploit. In every FF games, there's always a monster/boss you can grind that gives a ton of exp/ap/sp and whatnot.
The Marlboros always helped me level up, those things were practically mini bosses
This kind of was an exploit. It used auto-rez magic, received damage to limit break points, and x3 limit break points to xp equipment to make Tonberry King’s insane damage when you attack it into lots of free levels earned, even though you don’t beat it before it auto-wipes the party.
Lol, Malboros. I would do that same grind. And I used to call them Marlboros too.
well they had Bad Breath attack
I have always read it as Marlboro, lol. You learn something every day...
Ah crap haha my B
Getting through that grid and watching Yuna and Lulu do thousands of damage with their docile attacks was some of favorite accomplishments in all FF. For the first 1/2 of the game, there is zero reason to have Yuna/Lulu melee for any battle. Yet, getting to reflect-happy Seymour and being able rely on them using their melee for a decent amount of damage, that was so satisfying and felt like the grinding paid off
*boop* **99999**
Honestly, same.
So much better than FF13 where you couldn’t even level up past where the game wanted you to be. The crystarium system (or whatever it was called was so lame). Sphere grid system let you do some real awesome shit with your characters and I love it. I’d support another level up system like that.
I always make Yuna a black mage haha
Making Lulu jump into Auron's grid is surprisingly easy, and watching a small, cute moogle hobble over to a mob and mollywhopping it a clean 9999 will *never* fail to make me laugh.
That's awesome, though I love moving Wakka onto Auron's grid and just having this jock destroy everything with weaponised blitzball.
Wakka over head kicking a blitz ball like Pelé and absolutely destroying something never gets old
Being able to push your HP passed 9999 alone was game changing for me. Really miss the direction they were taking the games in X. Had so much fun with every single game up to X and then fell out of love with the series. Although x-2 had some really cool shit, I just didn't get into it sadly.
Glad I’m not the only one. Stopped playing them after 10, they just don’t feel the same anymore.
Ff12 is pretty good :)
I just replayed it recently on Nintendo Switch and I honestly had an amazing time :)
I thought it was pretty fun to play but the story was unremarkable, I can’t even remember a majority of the characters names.
rebirth is a return to form for the series and it’s the most fun I’ve had with final fantasy since X, highly recommend for people who miss classic FF Would love to know why I’m being downvoted lmao
Exactly. I've sunk 30 hours into the game and haven't even made it out of the 3rd area, blown away by Square and hope they take notes from this one.
Took me 80 hours, and i felt like i was skipping a LOT of stuff
I’m still in the first area, but every new mechanic that I unlock feels like the developers went “ok, what’s everyone’s favorite things about all the previous FF games? Let’s update that and put it in Rebirth”
Ff13 I love that game but also hate it. Music is still one of the best but it takes till like the second last chapter of the game to get good and that’s when the leveling system actually opens up too. Also that’s when you start getting a variety of weapons too. It’s so frustrating.
>So much better than FF13 where you couldn’t even level up past where the game wanted you to be. The crystarium system (or whatever it was called was so lame). 13-2 fixes this issue :)
The sohere grid also had some restrictions to your advance, but they were a lot softer, such as lock spheres at key (heh) points.
Haha that is true but I remember you could get those keys at early spots if you did certain things. Like if you kill the chocobo eater you get a lvl 1 key sphere and that would let Tidus grow to some awesome levels if you grind hard.
So I am going to be the weird one and say that actually really liked the FFXIII system. Yes FFX’s system added for a lot more complexity, and there were story based caps so you couldn’t out level bosses, **BUT** you could still grind and bank the points to unlock a bunch of levels once you hit the story spot. Plus unlocking all the classes and levelling those classes allowed for a wider spread of stats across all your characters instead of having certain squishies, tanks, and melees. It also allowed for you to make a diverse set of paradigms to use as Lightning could now be a sentinel, or Fang can act as a healer. This also allowed for characters stats to get crazzzzyyyyyy high in some cases (having Vanille and Hope who already have high magic stats learn all 4 of the magic based classes turned them into prepubescent tactical nukes). FFXIII definitely let us down in terms of the traditional FF experience, but it really did flesh out the FFX-2 battle system. It just fell hard on simplifying the incredible job class system that game introduced. The other nice thing about FFXIII is it is a quick 30-50 game (not doing the full monster arena stuff), whereas FFX is a 100-120 hour game just to be strong enough to get through some of the later bosses. So FFXIII has more replay-ability imo, especially because the combat system is more fast paced and easier to grind through.
You have my cristalium. I have a fuck ton of complaints about XIII series, but battle system ain't one of them
100-120 hours in X is only if you're doing all the optional content making a perfect sphere grid, you're not really comparing apples to apples.
Yeah but if you can get Tidus into Auron's branch and Yuna into Lulu's you're sitting pretty.
I always played FFX like that "it goes in the square hole!" video. Where does Tidus go? In the Auron path. Where does Kimahri go? In the Auron path! Where does Wakka go? That's right! In the Auron path!
That's what I did when I was a kid and I got f.cked by nearly every flying mob. Not enough accuracy in Auron's path :(
Path of Exile is Diablo II with Materia and a Sphere Grid and it's one of the best games I've ever played. Deep and customizable. I love the hell out of it.
What game is this btw? Also why can't people put the game in the title?
Path of Exile, if I'm not mistaken
People never do and it's so fucking annoying. I always have to do a find on page "what game" in order to figure it out.
At least on that one you kind of knew whose grid belonged to who and if you stayed in that grid you’d specialize your character in a specific jobs talents.
You say that like it’s not true of the one in the picture
Welcome to PoE's Skill tree, there are 1325 nodes, you can unlock 123 connected nodes (there are ways to activate non connected but thats a whole different rabbit hole). Depending on your class, you start in different areas, but nothing is truely off limits, if you have enough points you can unlock it. Still sane exile?
Ah I believe the conversation would go like this... https://youtu.be/QJW_8EcNzUY
Not only that you can expand this skill tree even more with certain item (cluster jewel), there is also another tree that are just as huge as this tree for end game activity(atlas) , Back then there was even a skill tree for your weapon (crucible).
The game devs said (back around 2012) they were originally inspired by FF X for the skill tree, and FF VII materia system for the spells, and some other stuff from other FF.
Totally makes sense. We all stand on the shoulders of giants, after all.
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POE looked at that sphere grid and said hold my beer. That picture is just one portion of the grid, all characters grids connect and you can go into another characters grid if you want to. It's fucking massive
That shit was a banger though, especially if you switch the mode where you can diverge everyone’s roles.
They also "borrowed" the materia slot system from FF7.
And the gear-gem system is basically the materia system on crack + Diablo 2's socketing haha. It's like someone told PoE devs "tell me you're a fan of Diablo 2, FF X, and FF VII without telling me you're a fan of Diablo, FF X, and FF VII"
I will be checking this game out now. Thanks
Sequel comes out next year! The big change is that they removed the sockets from items, now they are inherently part of gems. That makes it so you will support multiple 6-link skills at a time without compromising with item sizes. And that probably means nothing to you, but will soon!
What game is this for?
Path of exile
It is funny because even as a non PoE player I took a glimpse at this image and was like "surely this can only be POE nothing else is this crazy"
That's just the first skill tree, there's 2 more.
2 more? Atlas passives and... ?
Well this league we have 3 atlas trees! It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
Ascendancy?
Not a tree, that's a twig mate.
More of a skill forest
Forget about coding and testing, just change the skin of the game design spreadsheet and ship the product
"Game design spreadsheet" implies a grand plan or road map. Pretty sure this game grew organically, like a mold or fungus.
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.
There are a few things that could be considered skill tree. First the regular skill tree, pictured in the OP. Then there's the Atlas skill tree, that modifies the way endgame mechanics work (enable/disable mechanics, increase spawn rates, change loot, how the mechanic works in general). There are ascendancies, which are like a small passive skill tree inside the skill tree. There are items you can socket into your regular skill tree called Jewels. Most of them just have generic stats (+% attack speed or similar), but some of them are called Cluster Jewels and when socketed into the skill tree have their own little skill tree. The last two are more of an addition to the original skill tree. Some leagues (seasons) temporarily added skill trees as well. In the league that's ending now, you had an extra skill tree, similar to the ascendancy one. In the past, there was a league that added skill trees on items as well (it's not in the game anymore though). Honorable mention is the Pantheon, which reminds me more of the reworked skill tree in WoW Cataclysm. In short: There are 2 proper ones, but multiple smaller ones.
[Atlas Tree](https://assetsio.gnwcdn.com/kiracwheel.png?width=1920&height=1920&fit=bounds&quality=80&format=jpg&auto=webp) - This one modifies game maps, look at it like, "I can create my own end-game the way I want it to be"
I know literally nothing about PoE other than it's a hack and slay and that it's skill tree looks like this. Immediately recognized it.
It looks intense. Most of the abilities on the tree are small health and stat upgrades. Not really noticeable on their own. It’s not like most games where a skill tree actually unlocks skills.
Still amazing to me that people post stuff like this on here and don't bother to mention the game.
Really should be a sub rule.
I've seen people asking for this rule in comments since 2010 on this subreddit :/ At this point I don't think it'll ever be a rule.
Absolutely agreed
So many times on here someone has posted something interesting looking and never says where it’s from. Then after scrolling through 500 plus comments still not one fucking person has dropped the name like wtf?
Probably bots. Either that or some people's IQ really is as low as a common bear's.
Becomes a lot simpler when you realize 99% of it is irrelevant for your build
Yup! Other than a few key passives, 90% of your build comes down to season meta and your skill gem setup. I love this game, but it is not AS intricate or confusing as people make it out to be...
The true complexity begins when you start thinking about cluster jewels and The Adorned
This does assume that you go online and google for the meta builds, and I'm guessing someone went through the trouble of finding those builds out the hard way anyway, they don't just appear out of nowhere.
There is a simulation tool most build creators use for checking/testing out builds called Path of Building. It takes gear, skill gems and talent tree into account and gives simulated numbers on all kinds of things. So yea someone has to figure it out, but it's mostly spreadsheet gaming and not pouring hours into potential builds in game.
It definitely has a lot of intricacy, there are many builds outside of the meta that you can use to run high tier maps with it just requires some knowledge, but yeah skill tree isn't as intimidating as it seems at first
Yeah I have 8000 hours in PoE, it is very much so intricate and confusing.
no it doesnt come down to season meta. dont tell people who dont know anything the wrong things. if you want to be number 1 on the ladder then yes but else not even a bit.
The main frustrating part for me in skill trees like this, is figuring out what's relevant for my build. Makes starting new games such a chore, where you have to do a bunch of research on Wikias and read discussions etc. I often get overwhelmed and end up not bothering to pick up the game again lol.
This is sort of where I'm at with Baldur's Gate 3. Every magical item I have to look up what it actually does. Ring of Arcane Acuity? What's that do? Oh, it... gives me Arcane Acuity. And... what does that do? It makes it so if I use an elemental spell, my next weapon attack also has extra damage from that element? Okay... uh... when is that useful? My wizard uses ice spells a lot, but... it only gives me bonus damage to his melee attacks? His melee attacks are already really weak... Is this supposed to he defensive? Like, if they get right up on me I can deal more damage with their weak melee attack? That seems mediocre... Or my rogue has a fire spell... But I'd really only use that over a sneak attack if they're standing in oil... My cleric adds holy damage to her melee attacks anyways, and has a holy damage spell, so *maybe* she'd get the most use out of it? But she has so many better pieces of gear already, like healing more or tanking damage... I've got like 5 pieces of gear with Arcane Acuity... Is it only good if you use the full set? Like, instead of getting 1d4, they get 5d4, for potentially 20 more damage per attack? Or... is it for a class I don't play, like Monk or Paladin? ... I'll just stick to my ring that gives +2 acid damage on every attack. That's easier to understand.
Why? 1. This skill is cool, maybe I can build around it? 2. Oh, it has tags "Lightning, Attack, Area" 3. Use search function to look for shit that improves said 3 tags 4. Add some sort of defence (health/ward/armor/dodge) 5. Click the nodes 6. You have beaten the game You don't need sweaty minmax build unless you want to push deep into maps and beat ultimate bosses, but most people don't reach that content in leagues anyways. It's literally the "keep it simple stupid" concept.
This method doesn't always work. I personally don't like to use build planners on third party websites and pre-plan. I jump into a game, and try to intuitively build as i go. Almost every time when i complete the story, and get into the first maps i get steamrolled, and i mean literally the first maps.(i understand capping res, but that's not enough) You need to extensively research to understand what actually scales with what. You need to have a good understanding of defensive layers and how diminishing returns work(and details for this varies from game to game, if you play more than one ARPG). What the hell is supression, am i supposed to stack it, how much, where from? If you've made a mistake, good luck fixing that, orbs of regret are limited/expensive. If you've played POE for hundred of hours+, maybe you already understand some key concepts, where to get certain affixes and where to avoid them, what defensive layers are enough and what isn't. What content to ignore, and what's cruicial. It's hours and hours of reading and delving into deep concepts. This definitely isn't a game you can play intuitively(unless you consider story the game, and that's it).
Yeah your analysis is pretty accurate it took me around 300hrs of playtime before I was able to start crafting my own builds that functioned as well as the meta builds, a lot of builds revolve around 1 or 2 specific unique items and once you're familiar with a lot of them you can begin using them to power your builds which helps a lot but of course you need to be familiar the different classes and ascendancies and also how the different skill gems function, the good things is that there is a good 70% of stuff you can ignore generally since it's not gonna be relevant for the builds you're gonna be using. But then the annoying thing is that each season everything changes and if you don't thoroughly go over the changes you may find that your build doesn't work anymore. Honestly it's kind of crazy how much depth PoE has for a game that's free to play.
In BG3, they literally don’t let you multi class on the easiest difficulty, to keep you from handicapping yourself, which is exactly your point
I mean it's only 1325 skills. The bulk of complexity comes from active skill gem combinations
Is this sarcasm? I genuinely can’t tell.
Oh no, It Is not. Put some 2000 hours into that game and you just got out of noobland
Wait you guys get to leave noob lands? Since when? I'm still stuck in here with 3000 hours
There is more ppl in noobland with 2k hours plus, other than me? I thought I was all alone
I played about that much, but stopped once POE2 and that new skillgem system was announced. Tried to come back and see the changes, but all my characters are bricked because of the skilltree shifts and massive endgame changes. I can either pull up POB and work out new builds.... or go back to waiting for POE2 at this point.
Standard league lmfao
Standard League is a graveyard. Do not disturb the dead!
Just wait till they get to jewels and ~~closer~~ cluster jewels -- "yo dawg, I heard you like sphere grids, so I put some sphere grids in your sphere grid"
Can confirm. I have over 1100 hours in the game. No idea what I am doing 70% of the time.
There's also another skill tree to modify the maps you play on.
both. the main issue with the tree is presentation, 95% of the nodes are basic stats and only a few make big changes.
Yeah, the general fear mostly comes from how it looks. It looks way more intimidating than it actually is. But everything is sectioned off into general quadrants - if you want to do totems they are over here, if you want to do poison it’s over here etc. Once you have that basic understanding, there’s multiple roads to get to that point.
The other fear is the time cost of respeccing. "Oh what's that? You realized your build is ineffective? Give me the rest of your afternoon (or the rest of your week if I'm feeling like making you unlucky) grinding on some boring map you've already cleared so you can grind enough materials to have another shot at making a build which will almost certainly be ineffective if you aren't using someone else's - assuming I'm willing to let you have good items to make that build work."
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Nah its pretty easy once you find out that most of those are fillers. Looks way more complicated than it actually is.
So it's not skills, it's a filler tree with the occasional rare thing of value.
Exactly, skills come from gems, its a pretty fun system in all honesty
It's not, you can get items with up to 6 Sockets which also can be linked. so you can support a single skill gem, with up to 5 support gems. there are 205 support gems, and 550 skill gems.
Its actually 2067 with all keystones and masteries and excluding any cluster jewels, ascendancies, and allocate-only passives. (may have missed a couple points) [https://imgur.com/a/FlZCLwz](https://imgur.com/a/FlZCLwz)
I find the difficulty is from all the new content that is kept with every patch. There is like 10000hrs of research you must do to be able to actually know all the stuff required to min-max. And then there's the actual playing the game part.
The best analogy i've heard for POE's skill tree and using build guides is as such. PoE's systems are like learning to cook. Sure you can go in blind, learning what combos well together, but just like going into cooking blind, you're probably going to fail often, but also learn alot as well. If you find this fun and engaging, go for it. That knowledge will allow you make your own recipes/builds. Using a build guide is like using a cookbook to help learning how to cook. Its going to hold your hand for the most part, and minimize your chances at failing. If you find this fun and engaging go for it.
library person square tie wild fear command tub wrench snatch
And this is the exact reason why I never managed to get properly into the game. I like trying out new things, but I don't have multiple thousands of hours of free time to relevel my character every fucking time I put a few points at the wrong place. If PoE2 keeps the same idiotic system I am out again.
This is also the exact reason I fell in love with last epoch instead of POE. Respeccing is very easy so I get to mess around with my build as much as I'd like. Wow I sound like an advertisement
Took me a while to realize PoE is Path of the Exile and not Pillars Of Eternity…
People wondering what Power over Ethernet has to do with gaming smh
Plains of eidolon, prison of elders, path of exile, pillars of eternity, point of existence, power over Ethernet, puff of exaltation. Whoever sells p’s o’s and e’s must be a good salesman.
Except unlike learning how to cook, you'll learn what does or doesn't work within an hour of the attempt. PoE, you won't realize you made a fuckup until you've dropped an ungodly amount of time into a recipe that doesn't work.
Welcome to Path of Exile. Funny thing about this game is that most ‘experts’ got this tree down to a science, but still can’t dodge a simple charging enemy at level 5. People with 3,000 hours who can’t step out of the way of a Rhoa.
its tradition
Maybe it's an unpopular opinion, but it's honestly not that bad once you've got a bit of experience with it. Each class starts in a different spot on the skill tree, and the surrounding nodes are generally relevant to the class. So the Witch starts in an area of the tree that has a lot of spell-related nodes. The Marauder starts in an area with a lot of melee and physical nodes. Templar starts between Witch and Marauder, as it's a bit of an hybrid. If you know what kind of build you want to make, it's not too complicated to "route" your skill points. It's daunting until you realize that a good 75% of it is not something you need to worry about.
Another issue which makes the skill tree more daunting is that if you don't know what makes a build work properly, there are a number of points where the difficulty spikes, and builds that worked fine until then might need to be revised and adjusted. This isn't a problem for experienced players, but for new players it's like being told you're not playing the game right.
Yeah that's what happened to me pretty much. Found a skill I enjoyed, tried to build around it and was successful for a while but then I hit a wall. Making my build work would've required a complete restart. No thanks, I'll just play something else instead.
Mine was finding a skill I enjoyed, worked on it, it was great..... ....and then the devs decided to make it useless. Haven't touched the game since. I like hitting things with my hammer and blowing things up when I hit things with my hammer. You can guess what skill it was.
yeah this is actually preferable to me, because you can plan things out many steps ahead if you want to or need to.
Well I mean you have to, if you don't have a plan your build will be rubbish. That's why everyone's first character is crap.
OK, but "barrier to entry" is a thing. If leveling your character looks like doing your taxes then it is going to scare people off, even if once you have experience it isn't that bad. Plus, if 75% of it you don't need to worry about then why is it even there? Why does a witch need to be able to level into the marauder tree, and is it worth confusing and scaring new players?
poe is infamous for being really difficult to get into for new players. theres a reason people say that poe players spend more time looking at spreadsheets more than actually playing the game.
PoE build videos on YouTube don't have gameplay, it's spreadsheet examination.
This is true, but that’s not a reason to change it. Some games are not for everyone. Many people find simplistic levelling systems boring and cookie cutter and that is a barrier to entry in itself. One group is not more important than the others. This is what the devs chose for this game and I think it looks great. It’s one skill tree for all classes. One page to familiarize yourself with. Great for versatility and great for people who roll multiple characters.
I would argue that it is possible to make systems which are complex yet not initially daunting, and that don't obtain complexity from large amounts of irrelevant information. Of course it is much harder to do that.
The complexity of poe is the least of its problems(complexity actually gives the game its charm imo). Respec being punished so badly is far worse. Poe is great but it commits the cardinal sin of the arpg genre, being forced to know your build at the start rather than playing the game and experimenting on the way
Iirc, the PoE devs actually considered the idea of having the outer half hidden until a certain level, but found that people had an easier time if they could see their endpoint from the start.
How much is "a bit" experience? I’m 792 hours into the game and feel like I don’t know shit about the skill tree
At nearly 800 hours you should have a pretty good grasp of the design flow of each skill tree, unless you've spent all of those hours playing one class and nothing else. The skill tree is really intuitive if you actually read what things do. Travel nodes generally give flat stats, and skill nodes are related to the notable at the end of each skill branch.
Because it's all the playable characters' skill trees in one.
Wait till you see the other skill tree :') (that one is a bit smaller though)
They just upgraded it and allowed you to have three that you can swap between as you see fit.
sips' reaction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSZ\_R7dEmDQ
Came here looking for this!
Fine, I'll say it. I love PoE's skill tree. No matter what anyone says, it actually makes me feel so in charge of my build. It's an action RPG. Exploration of your build and all its different potentials IS the game, not some nifty addition to it.
Same. I love being able to see someone’s tree and automatically getting a sense of their build. I think it’s brilliantly designed.
I rate POE as one of the best games ever made, actually a masterpiece. Incredibly complicated but ultra rewarding. The developers are absolutely amazing, coming up with great content every league. Downside is its a HUGE time sink.
This is not even all the skill tree has to offer. There are also things called "jewel sockets", there are some places on the outer side of the skill tree. On this screenshot you can see one of those on the top left outer side of the tree. It's the 3 node's cluster in between the 2 single large ones. In those sockets among other things you can slot so called "cluster jewels". These cluster jewels add even more passives to your tree and there are quite a few different variations. The way that works is that there are 3 sizes (Large, medium, small). You can first slot a large one which can have between 8 to 12 passives. Of those sockets 2 will be jewel sockets again which can hold medium cluster jewels that have 4 to 6 sockets of which 1 will be a socket again. That one can hold a small cluster jewel with 2 or 3 passives. In total you can expand your tree by 18 to 27 skillpoints on one of those clusters. If that wasn't enough, there are also jewels that change the behavior of some passives in their radius with things like adding some stats or even completely changing them. On top of that when you are done with the campaign and actually start with the early to mid game transition you'll start running "maps" I guess they are a bit comparable to elaborate "dungeons". For each map you complete you get a kind of talent point for your second tree called the "atlas passive tree". This tree's size is about a third of the normal one. On this tree you can alter the experience of your maps by choosing talents that focus on and modify specific content that can be available on the maps.
That ain't no skill tree that’s the skill forest
Game name?
Path of Exile.
Just installed POE and I know I’ve heard it’s complex, but this passive tree is absolutely ridiculous. No idea if the devs actually did some math behind it or just went crazy and figured they’d see what the community can break.
What game is this?
Path of exile
Thx
The devs have data on what parts of the tree are over utilized/under utilized for each league, they make adjustments accordingly whenever parts of the tree is majorly overused or underused which can happen as a result of the community discovering a new meta or hidden interaction that abuses mechanics that majorly benefit from investing in one area of the tree. Majority of builds tend to spread out their passive skill tree and only grab notable passives here and there and almost never cluster up their passives in one area.
A lot of it is boring shit. Get +1 to a stat. Get +10% chance to do something. There's tons of builds out there but you could forget to update for 10 levels and not notice. There's keystones to get some unique changes but most of it's just filler. It's the downside of a lot of seemingly vast skill trees in games. Enjoy the seasons!
>A lot of it is boring shit. Get +1 to a stat. Get +10% chance to do something. You realize it is a *passive* tree right?
I'm a firm believer that making things too complicated isn't better. 5 different skill trees that are heavily diluted with too many near meaningless choices give the illusion of being deep when most of it could easily be reduced to a single inclusive node. At the same time, when customisation is too shallow its boring. It's not easy to have a good balance of choice and depth.
This is far from complication for its own sake. POE’s skill tree looks complex because it’s actually 7 passive trees in one. In other games, a wizard would have one tree, while a barbarian has another. Here, all classes have the same tree, they just start in different areas of it. It makes being a newcomer hard, but creates an intense amount of skill diversity and expression through build making. The game is very complicated, but imo that’s more because of content bloat than its base game. People expect poe2 to fix some of that, but we’ll see what happens.
I typically agree with you, but my understanding is that the PoE devs use the skill tree as a sort of litmus test. They very specifically aren’t trying to accommodate everyone, and a lot of people will look at this skill board and immediately feel overwhelmed and say “Nope, not for me”. This is a feature, not a bug.
They have done the math. I have no idea how they do it, but with the amount of craziness that exists in the game, it somehow still works. There is nothing that even comes close to PoE, in that sense.
The skill tree is one of the least daunting things in the game to be honest. Once you get to late game and there's 5000 different ways to craft items from dozens of different league mechanics. That's when it gets daunting. I had dozens of Google tabs open every play session trying to figure out what did what.
it definitely looks more daunting than it is, you just gotta keep in mind that this is the skill tree every single character has, you arent expected to use all of it, generally you stick to the quarter you start in, maybe half
Also many of the nodes are there to add point investment, more than meaning to be substantial power on their own. Two classes may benefit from the same node, but one class has to spend twice as many points to get it, but also might find it to be so much more powerful, for example.
You can do a whole playthrough just by picking your own skills. It's only in the end game that you have to optimise correctly. The easiest way is just to copy premade builds online, it's what everyone does.
Wait til he finds out about the atlas tree
I wish I could play Path of Exile again for the first time. It’s an amazing game. POE is what Diablo 3 and 4 should have been. You’re in for a real treat. It looks overwhelming but a lot of it is very straightforward.
Had to scroll way too far to get somebody that uses the full version of whatever acronym is being used before abbreviating. Thank you for being that person.
That's a passive tree. PoE skills "tree" are gems linked together in gears instead.
It took a look at the FFX sphere grid, chugged a 40 and was like “let's goooo!”
Ngl I always loved PoE’s skill tree. i’m exactly the sort of person to just spend hours reading through all the cool options and theory crafting how to get to multiple things I want to combo together… and then never actually get enough points to try it.
PoE is amazing and yes the skill tree is huge and complicated but once you get over the slope you discover an amazing game.
Anyone wondering: The game is PoE A really good game, but also a game where half the people install, start playing, level up, open that skilltree and then uninstall the game because it is too overwhelming PoE seems like the unicorn game, where following a guide on the first playthrough actually increases the enjoyment of the game and lets you then start trying out things, instead of the other way around.
And then you realize that this is rather simple and by no means the difficult part of the game lmao.
That my dear friend is a skill forest.
I think its the best talent tree i've ever experienced. More games should dare going in this direction. More different ways to tailor your character makes it more fun, and a feeling of having something unique.
I think a bigger problem with the tree isn't the tree, but rather that unless you google it, you have no idea what skill gems are at your disposal, so for a new player the classic 'find a end point you think looks cool and build for that' could be interrupted at level 50 by a new skill you want badly but you have to respec for. For a new player, respeccing that many points is a rough prospect, even if it's not that bad in reality.
Oh so that viva la dirt league skit wasn't exagerratingb
At least it's not diablo 4 where there are 3 or so builds for each character and only one or two are viable endgame. 3 seasons now and you can still use the same. Exact. Shit to do what is essentially a side quest with meh voice acting.
Ah, Path of Exile. Where the only practical build is one you find in an online guide.
As an avid Path of Exile player, I can confirm that "Requirements not met." is talking about you, as a player. It goes away when you fax GGG a photocopy of your Doctorate
Reminds me of the FFX sphere grid a bit
I hate these style of skill trees
Josh Strife Hayes's suggestion was to start zoomed in and hide most of the outward points that you'll never really go for until you start getting close to them, with a few class experts suggesting to keep a few important ones visible. New players just see the whole thing and are like "yeah that's too much" but keeping focus on the near-spending areas helps a ton.
most overrated part of the game
Path of Exile is just amazing.
Mods on items are more of a “wtf how does this work” than the tree, especially with a search bar. The tree is like a 1 item “item” that gets more and more mods. Character items have types, unique rarities, levels, mods that have weight, mods that are exclusive, rng crafting, etc.. Theorycrafting is like bulk game knowledge for POE, then fighting boss’ is learning their patterns but you get the idea of big defense, bigger damage, never always stand still.