Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - We Played Path of Exile 2 - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

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What's up and welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Friday, November 22nd, 2024. Of course, I am your host, Tim Getty's. I'm joined today by it's Christmas in November, Joey Noel. Happy Friday, everybody. The Master of Hype, Snow Bike, Mike. Happy Friday, Tim, you made it to the end of the week. And from the Diablo podcast on Pure Diablo.com, but more importantly, Kind of Funnies Diablo guy, it's Zanth.

Yay! Happy Friday, everybody. And I think after today, we may just have to switch it to, Kind of Funnies ARPG guy. I like that. Yeah, because you're about to teach us some shit today. You're going to talk all about a game called A Path of Exile 2, which I'm incredibly unfamiliar with.

So I'm very excited to hear what you have to say about that. Because remember, this is kind of funny games cast. Each and every weekday, we get together to talk about video games, reviews, previews, big topics. We do it all here live on Twitch and YouTube and then later on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, please get the kind of funny membership. You get the shows ad-free. You can watch live as we record them,

and you get a daily exclusive Greg Way. You could also be a super cool Patreon producer like Carl Jacobs and Delaney Twining. We appreciate you so very, very much. You already got Games Daily that was Blessing and Gary Whittah continuing the conversations about the game awards. And later today, you're going to get Mike and Nick

dropping back into the war zone, baby. Just a couple of Gironi boys flying high. We're having a good time. Gotta fly high, everyone. Today we're brought to you by Sonny. at Top Golf, Aura Frames, and the visual triangle merch, but we'll tell you all about that later. Let's get into it, the topic of the show.

Tats, Tots, Tots, Tots, Tots, Tats, Tats, Tats. Path of Exile 2, Zant, you have played it. Path of Exile 2 is an upcoming free-to-play, action, role-playing video game developed and published by Grinding Gear Games. It's a sequel to Path of Exile from 2013. The game is set to be released for Windows, PS5, Xbox Series X and S on December 6th

as an early access title. Zanth, what is your history with Pacts of Exile? What is Path of Exile? And what did you get to do with Paxal, too? Okay, so at top of show, we just briefly touched on, you know, Diablo podcast. And as a franchise, I've put more hours into Diablo than anything. It's a game. I've put more hours into Path of Exile than anything.

We're talking thousands of hours. That's crazy. It's been out for a long time. Barrett, I sent you an asset. It says CW email. Do you want to drop that? Oh, I need to go find that. Hold on, sorry.

I'll chat. You find it. Yeah. So years ago, I wasn't in the media space. I wasn't putting myself out on camera or on Mike, but I was writing articles. And I was talking about Diablo, I was talking about Diablo 3 and Diablo 2. And the head of GigiG, grinding gear games, reached out to me and said, hey, I like your writing.

You may want to come and try our game. That was in 2011. So I've been in that Path of Exile's Fear for 13 years, which feels wrong. Wow. Yeah, I set this in because I wanted the date. I want people to be like, okay, yeah, he's got, you know, Diablo tattoos, and he does this Diablo podcast, but I've been here since the start, people. I'm not, you know, just jumping ship or anything like that.

So it started way back then with this little game from a small group of people out in New Zealand who loved Diablo but were tired of waiting. They were tired of waiting for what Diablo 3 was going to be and eventually become. So they started their own thing. and it very much has its roots in Diablo 2. And it's still up and running and is getting updates to this day. That's wild. But a few years ago, they were like, hey, we want to make this a little bit better.

We want to go in and we want to update some of our systems. And that evolved into this sequel that is Path of Exile, too. It becomes its own beast. It becomes its own thing. And man, as we talk about finally, getting hands on having heard about this for years having played path of exile one four years we're going early access december six i don't know when it officially releases but i'm going to say the year it doesn't maybe early access will count for this it will be in the game of the year intention oh wow that is

i will make a pizza bet on that so i mean let's let's be clear about this you're saying game of the your contention in terms of quality, but are you talking about like the game awards, one of the six game of the year nominees? That's wild. Ooh, I love this. That's tough. Spicy. I don't care what year it is.

If it's next year in 2026 or if it pushes to 2027, when this game comes out, it's in that conversation. So when Pathfxile 1 came out, is that game that good too? Like, would you say that that is like a game of the year contender? no um i think path of exile one is great but it's dated um it's always lacks that fluidity and that like shine of what like a diablo three or a diablo four has where it's really excelled is the complexity that it provides in the player choice and options but so much of that is is obfuscated by

like the ugliness of it, the age of it. So then when you take all the things that are working really well in Path of Exile 1, and you add in these new systems and two, you're taking what really worked

in an old one and combining it with something much better looking and now you have this perfect recipe for success. So what was what did you get to do with this game? How long did you get to play? I got eight hours

Which is a lot for a preview event But probably not a lot for this game It wasn't enough And to compare why it wasn't When I got done at the event I went back to the hotel And

Played Path of Exile 1 I was just so I think I just wanted more of them And that's That's okay that's that's just me being a glutton for for more you we got about eight hours we started with a presentation from jonathan one of the lead developers and co-founders of ggg going through the various systems that are going to be implemented what early access will actually look like and then we got

to get hands on for eight hours during that time i was just kind of watching around the room I skipped lunch. Lunch was 20 feet away from me. At any point, I could have walked back there. But I couldn't pull myself away. Wow. I couldn't put myself away to eat. I wanted to just keep playing.

I did eventually go and sit down for dinner. It was like, I'm not. You know, the whole bottle of needs thing. Yeah. I needed fuel to play more paths. Good to get back. Exactly. So, all right.

So you're saying, that Path of Exxal 1, very inspired by Diablo 2, and you're saying that this is a bit more modern, has that Diablo 3 and 4 kind of sheen to it. How similar is this to Diablo 4? I would say it's very night and day. Diablo 4 is about giving you as much power early as possible. Path of Exile 2 is going to slow drip that.

If you're going to get to Diablo 4 level, of power, it's going to take a significant investment. And it's not going to be guaranteed. Whereas you know in Diablo 4 that your character is eventually going to be kicking demon ass all over the place. In Path of Exile, too, it's going to be a little bit slower at the start. You're going to have to think a little bit more carefully. You're going to have to plan things out.

But then the reward of being pretty powerful will feel more earned. And it's really about like how are you going to gauge that down the road? With PadaV or with Diablo 4, can I do it? Can I, like, kill a whole bunch of stuff, the highest difficulty really quickly? Whereas in Path of Exile, at the highest difficulty, can I just beat this boss? It's just a different measure of success between the two games. And they're kind of on these, like, very, very different pathways. But now Path of Exile 2 just looks so much better and plays so much better.

I spent my whole time playing on a PS5 controller. I would never play Path of Exile 1 on a controller. It's just not fit for it. This just plugged in and worked perfectly. When you play Diablo, do you use mouse and keyboard or controller? I was originally a mouse and keyboard diehard, but with Diablo 4 controller all the way. I think it just feels so right. I have a question.

You know, we've played Diablo before. I love Diablo. I don't get into the weeds of Diablo. I'm not doing like Thorn builds and. bleed builds. Like, I am like such a kind of like top level Diablo player. Can you play Path of Exile like as a casual player or do you have to like commit? Because it sounds like you have to commit. Yes, you can. I think I've been lucky enough to talk to Jonathan a couple of times. And that has always been the big question. And like I think the biggest barrier for like path

of exile one is the complexity that's kind of baked in. What they've gone and done this time around is from the start, the tutorials are very intuitive. They're going to guide you through all of the processes. And then they're also going to make sure, like once you do finish the campaign, they're going to guide you through what is the end game as well. Every single skill has like a little video explaining it, explaining how it works and what would actually work with, which is another more complicated thing. The skill system in Path of Exile is not as.

intuitive as a as diablo uh the skill tree is a little bit more complex so they baked in so many of those pieces to make sure that they don't lose people along the way and for my experience like you didn't need to be an expert to kind of clear through uh this is the skill tree so uh wow just watch this for a second uh for you audio listeners uh there's no way for me to actually describe what the skill tree is it is it looks it looks like the solar system. 100% You look up at the stars and there's

thousands of them. This is taken from Path of Exile 1. I did, I grabbed this footage off of one of my characters just because I didn't grab one from POE 2. The skill tree will be a little different, but the heart of it is very much that. The way

it works in Path of Exiles, every class has the same skill tree. All those nodes that you just saw are accessible by every class. you just start somewhere different depending on what you choose. Like the sphere grid in Final Fantasy

10 Mike, we all know. Come back. Blitzball. Yeah. It is a little daunting. But if you want to just be the character I opted for for the day was a witch,

you start there. You can just kind of path up your node, up your different nodes, grabbing whatever. And it's not going to hinder you. You can get to the end. game have a build that maybe is a little wonky and still be fine. So be able to do everything that you kind of want.

And then you can go back and respect it. They made that a lot easier as well. For Pathfaxal 1, you used to have to go and find a specific currency item to undo your changes. And it was hard. At this point, gold is integrated into the game. You can use gold to respect your tree and then go about, you know, dotting it up, however you feel so inclined.

You talked about playing as a witch. Tell me about the classes. That's always what we want to know. Yeah, I saw there's 12 classes in this. Is that too many, Zanth? What's up with that? How many are Diablo? Six?

What do we have now? So it's double Diablo. So there are six in Diablo. Wow. Well, you guys want to have some fun. Yes, I do. There's actually going to be 36 classes. Okay.

What does that be? I the scope of this game is very different than what I expected I've always known that path of exile is like for the hardcore but I didn't realize like how deep it got that's a lot it is but it isn't let's let's cover this so there are they're going to be 12 classes that's the goal every class as you level has the ability to kind of go and specialize so you can become uh you can go into an ascendancy class So you start as a witch and then you become a necromancer or something like that or an occultist or something different. And then they're they're shifting things up a little bit with their different classes. In the early access, you'll have six classes. And each of those will only have two ascendancies. So we are still technically getting 12 classes per se. But it is, it does seem like a little daunting at first.

You just make your choice based on what you want to play. Do you want to be a spellcaster? Do you want to be a ranged shooter? Do you want to be a melee fighter? Then, yeah, choose something like that. Choose the warrior if you want to be a melee fighter. Choose the mercenary if you want to, you know, shoot things with crossbows or the ranger if you want to be using a bow from distance.

No wrong choice. The other fun part is you can also kind of switch it up. if you want to be a witch who carries around a gigantic sword and fights things with two-handed weapons, you can do that. You just have to speck on the tree for that. I kind of equate it. So like Diablo 4 is kind of like playing D&D from a regular rulebook, right? It's a little bit more guided.

You have a DM who will just kind of push you along and they'll keep things within boundaries. I was kind of like playing D&D, but your DM just lets you do whatever you want. Like you can come up with the craziest combination and maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. But it's up to you to kind of figure out if that's what you want to try. So what are their active abilities?

Do they all shine? Like you talk about kind of having this blend in 36 characters. Does each character, though, have its own, like, unique, oh wow, those are that, that class's ability. and those are wowing me or that doesn't really speak to me? Or is it all going to be kind of like, hey, they're very similar, but you could have smaller differences here? So like each class kind of has a tendency to speak to different people.

Like I really like shape shifting and druids and stuff like that, which is unfortunately not available in early access at the moment, but that is a class that's coming. So with that, that's where I'm going to be a little bit more drawn to. that's going to have more of affinity for shape-shifting. If you want minions and you want to have like a skeletal army, then yeah, the witch is a great place to start. That's what I went for for the point of,

you know, kind of trying out for the, for our playtest was just to have some minions and then cast some spells and play it safe because I didn't feel like trying out anything I was completely unfamiliar with. But yeah, every single class does feel, different. And then when you start specializing into it, it starts to really even become more of your own. And that's when you start to branch out from the rest of the crowd.

Do you, are the classes in Path of Exile 2 the same as one? Are we rotating kind of through different ones? Do we retire? Most are coming back and then they've added a bunch more. There's only one that isn't officially returning and that is the cyan. The sion was, as you look at the skill tree, the middle of the skill tree and would just branch out into different directions. Because they moved it into 12 classes now, they didn't feel like they needed somebody who was in the middle because they kind of have hit on every archetype that they thought

players would want to kind of go and play as. So what's the story of the game? Oh, that's a great question. Oh, well, Barrett, did you grab that cinematic? Whoa, this is not what I'd expect. audio listeners, I apologize, but this is amazing. We were shown this

pulled at first that they weren't going to be releasing it and then they surprised dropped it yesterday. They've never done a cinematic before. Oh, okay. This looks good. The FXL1 had none.

So this was the first time that GGG had put out a cinematic. They did. They're a smaller team, so this was not done in-house, but it was still of an amazing quality and really great to see. Essentially, what you're witnessing is kind of the return of evil to the land within Path of Exile called Ray Classed. It's been 20 years since the events of Path of Exile won,

and we're going to have a character. who's going to be trying to return this strange Eldridge being back to the land of Rayclass. And it's our journey to kind of go and stop him and kind of figure out all the different things that are happening behind the scenes. Are you invested? I'm more invested in the story of two than I was in one. Because the way Path of Exile One's story kind of came to be is Path of Exile 1 started as a, react story. Then they added the fourth act.

And then several years later, they added acts six through ten all at the same time. So Path of Exile has always tried to go kind of above and beyond. When they added six through 10, the general expectation was they were just going to add a fifth act. And suddenly, nope, we didn't give you one. We gave you six.

So the story itself was a little bit harder because it was written essentially in these different phases. So there was a lack of cohesion. And then there's different endgame things that kind of get added in. It's not to say it's not, it doesn't have its great elements. But when we think of like the storytelling of a Diablo, like if you look at like the way Diablo 2 did it or if we were going to like Diablo 4, there's just more cohesiveness. This seems like since it's all going to be coming out at the exact same time, we're going to get acts 1 through 6. Plus we're going to have more of this kind of storytelling.

it should then, you know, kind of do two things. One, it's going to make the story stand out for most people. I think it also is a much better bridge for new players. People can see this and understand what Path of Exile is going to be and be a little bit more excited about what it actually is. You bring up new players and that's what gets me as I have the question of, can I jump into this as a new player? Will I be excited?

I like the 20-year time jump. I like the reintroduction of evil into the land. So you kind of like, hey, we're on a new, starting ground here. You can probably pick that up. Also, this cutscene that you're showing us, did they say that there will be more cutscenes throughout at the end of every chapter or act, do you think? Is this

the one and done to intro the game? And that's the only one we're going to get. What do you think is going to happen here? They did hint at there will be more than this, whether they're going to be at the same scope. I don't know. But they were also, like, when we did get to see it, they were like, oh, we're not going to talk about this.

So we didn't grill them as much when we were given the opportunity to kind of meet and talk because it was just like, well, if they're not going to talk about it, should we be asking questions? I did sneak one or two in. Yeah, Tesla Waters. It was just so exciting. It was so exciting to see this knowing the growth of the franchise and seeing that they were finally able to kind of do this level of visual storytelling. Of course. And then with early access, what do you think we will get?

in this early access period story-wise? Is this a full story? Is it an act one and two? How deep will we really get before the release? Okay. So early access, first and foremost is a interesting deal. If you've spent at least $480 over Path of Exile's life, you will get early access granted to you that way.

Whoa. Check that out. So specific. I love that. Okay, that's cool. Yeah, that's wild. Because Path of Exile 1 is free to play, correct? It is.

So it is a free to play game. I have spent enough. But the way Path of Exile generally works is they announce a new league. They announce a major addition, and then they release what are called supporter packs. You pay 30, 60, 100, 160, 240, 480 in different levels. and you get, you know, your typical micro-transactions, you get a nice suit of armor, you get points to spend on the shop, what have you. For early access, if you've spent your money, you're good to go.

If you haven't, it's about $30. So it's $30, and that also includes 300 of their in-game currency for microtransactions as well. So it's not just paying for early access, but now you can make your character look real pretty. you can go to the shop and figure out what you might actually want to purchase. The other nice thing is if you've played Path of Exile 1 before and you've made a purchase, everything that you've bought in Path of Exile 1

transfers to Path of Exile 1. Shut up. What? That's crazy. So every single thing, which is so beyond what you would expect. Yeah. I kind of thought when I bought those things,

that's what they would stay. But they've decided to go above and beyond. And in fact, that's why early access has been delayed as they want to iron out all the kinks to make sure that everything does transfer over. That's very, very cool. That's amazing. Yeah, that is a special one of,

we have these conversations about micro transactions and the legacy of all these in-games cosmetics coming with you, a game like that, the years that Zanth has put in, the idea that those are carrying over after all those years, I'm blown away by that. Yeah, that's great. I want to keep talking about this game, but I want to do that after.

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We will not be lied to for the first time in this long, bloody war. The full power of the visual triangle is ours. On sale now at kindof funny.com slash store. Now that we're back, I want to ask you, you're saying that you think this is going to be a game of the year contender whenever it does drop. And it reminds me a bit of Baldersgate 3, where, you know, obviously third in a franchise,

a more niche franchise, but a very popular niche franchise. and Ballard's Gate 3 kind of became this massive success, right? I feel like that is such an example of hearing you say, oh, you think it's going to be a game of the year contender. I'm like, I don't know about that. But then thinking about Ballard's Gate 3, I'm like, that's possible. What makes this that much better?

Do you think this is going to be that the Balders Gate 3 style breakout for this genre? I love that you made that comparison, Tim, because I was thinking about that in the car as I was coming home today. It definitely feels like that. You know, Baldersgate 3 kind of swept the world by storm because it, I mean, one, it was an amazingly beautiful game. It was very accessible. It had good word of mouth. And then, you know, it's just just a very good game.

I had never played a Balders Gate prior to that. I got drawn in by the good word of mouth and it was beside the genre, right? I like action. I like role playing games, but it had enough going for it that I was open to trying something new. I think Path of Exile is Path of Exile 2 is very much like that.

It's taken all those good foundations of POE 1. It's added in that polish and that sheen. And then it has those elements of Baldersgate too where you have so much open creativity for how you want to craft your experience. My character that I was playing was a contagion witch with minions. I could have made that witch a hundred other ways.

And I could log in today and make a witch that would have the same spells, but maybe just varied gear, and it would all feel very different. I think that's going to appeal to a lot of players. I think that's going to appeal to a lot of people to be able to go in and truly craft this journey through the story and then into the end game. And that's something we haven't talked about is the end game. Oh, man.

So you have the campaign, which will be six acts. In early access, it's going to be acts one, two, and three. And then you will do one, two, and three again under a harder difficulty, because they're holding acts four through six to kind of get some polish. and it's kind of nice maybe we don't spoil the story for ourselves and then you'll get endgame end game

the tagline in Path of Exile has always been that if you can get players to end game you'll own their soul right you have got that that's what we want that's all you got to do they've changed it a little bit but the end game system

is an infinite map it is an infinite map going all directions that you can socket in different things to add in difficulty it's bind blowing it is absolutely insane the level of detail that they've gone and added to this and that you can constantly be chasing new things in all directions literally and figuratively sounds overwhelming but in the best way possible

I this is all so hard for me to like wrap my mind around because it seems like such a scale difference from Diablo that it's like a little bit daunting obviously yeah mike where do you fall on this like obviously joey's sounding a bit more on the casual side like are you like oh i want diablo to be a little like way more complex uh no i like diablo where it's at i think for me as a diablo fan it's the push hearing zanth hype me up about this game to to get me excited to jump into. And I think it's hitting at the right moment for casual fans like Joey, where we've just come off of year of great Diablo for success, where new and old players alike have come back and really enjoyed the genre and are dipping their toes. And I think with people like Zanth who are spreading a good word of like, hey, this game is actually really good.

Put it on your radars. And if you can nail that with free to play, right? We haven't really spoke of like, this game is free to play. It has early access, money tied to it. But you're going to be able to jump into this when it's fully released, free to play. I think it has a good head of steam here to get me involved and more. But yeah, I'm in this weird, like, I'm a casual player, but I'm also a little more on the hardcore side. So I can jump into that and get lost in the systems and dive deep. It does seem a little

overwhelming when Zanth brings up the skill tree of all these passives and you kind of, your mind blows up a little bit. But for me, it's always been simple. Does the world design look cool? Are the enemies and the bosses fun and engaging? Are they wowing characters on the screen for me? and are the characters unique with their own cool abilities that flash and pop on the screen to keep that dopamine going, right? As Gary Widow always says, when you play World of Warcraft or Diablo, it's about the ding. It's about the satisfactory of, I got a new item.

Oh my God, what does it do? 2.5 damage speed, a little bit fast. Okay, I got to put it on. These are the things I'm looking for in an ARPG. And, like, Xanthal will probably hype it up of like, yes, Mike, the world is beautiful. You're going to like this. because Diablo for me,

three and four haven't hit the same as Diablo two back in the day. Maybe that was, because it was my first Diablo. I liked the world's personally better in Diablo too, so I'm still chasing that high of, I want this. Can that give me that? You mentioned bosses.

You want to talk about the bosses in this little Zanth? Oh, yes, I do. Barrett, you want to pull up the boss footage that I sent you? This is a boss, Ruggia, of the dread engineer. Dread engineer. Hell yeah. This is not an end-of-act boss.

This is not a boss that particularly stands out. It is just a boss that's kind of in your way. And it has complicated mechanics. I'm going to lose

in this. I'm going to die. I hate to spoil it for you. I'm going to die during this. I thought that was important to show. I think it's kind of, I have a footage of me defeating it eventually, but that's not how it's always going to be, and that's not how it's going to be for most players as they kind of go through. What was really exciting in this campaign was this is an act two.

I struggled with some bosses in Act 1 as well. In fact, there was one I just right up skipped, which was nice. It was a nice option. but what I loved was figuring out how I could go about tackling this fight. You'll notice he's got these wild swings and it's very soulslike in that regard where I'm like, okay, I have a dodge. I have a dodge roll, right? Can I time this so I can kind of get out of the way?

I can keep moving backwards. And then when I'm doing that, I'm staying at range. I'm watching where he's planting his bombs. I'm watching where that fire, that flamethrower is going and really just trying to feel out the fight. and I'm going to make a mistake eventually, and that's what's going to kill me. There are going to be an early access about 50 different bosses. By the time full release, there's going to be about 100. These bosses will make their appearance, as I talked about in that endgame mapping system,

these bosses are going to get recycled and used during maps. Not all maps are even going to have bosses. If bosses aren't your thing, you're going to be able in the end game to kind of go and avoid them. But every boss will be associated with more treasure and different. different items and overcoming that guy. That was when I left to go and have dinner was after I was like, okay, you know, maybe, you know, get some chicken and potatoes and let's see how that powers me

through the rest of the time here. Also, just a small little detail when it says you have died and there's that angel playing a little violin. Beautiful. That's all I need. You're going to get that angel a lot. Oh, a lot. We're going to be real good friends with the angel.

What do you think looking at that boss, Mike? Oh, very cool, right? I think for the audio listeners, you probably couldn't see how cool looking that boss was, right? Like, seeing the screen go from all of the, the flamethrower with the whip just following your character to the lights of the fire that were left on the battlefield. I really loved seeing all of that, right? And I can imagine me and my friends, because this game is also playable up to six players. I definitely want to talk about that. I was like, what does that look like with six players jammed up in that small arena?

Is it too much? Because that was a tighter arena to fight in. I didn't get a chance to play with anybody else. They had the option to do like two players. And I didn't want to elbow the guy next to me and be like, hey, you want to come in and join? Because we're all kind of just in our own sense. But there are great synergies that you can go and do. Like you can end up, you know, casting spells that are caused.

causing somebody to be more prone to fire damage and then your character specializing fire. So you can play off of each other. You can work with friends. Co-op is highly encouraged. You're going to have the option to do couch co-op in Path of Exile 2. A person who picks up the controller next to you doesn't even need an account. If they have a Path of Exile account, they can obviously log into it and, you know, kind of move forward with that. But it's not going to be a requirement.

If you just want to show up with your friends and blast through some campaign or blast through some bosses, you can just grab a controller and go. And I thought that was such a different change of pace. Playing in a group in PUE one is a little bit harder, whereas this is very much pick up and go. Cool. That's amazing. Yeah, I want to let's touch on that really quick. So the couch co-op experience, which we don't get to see many games do still, right?

And the idea of playing this is awesome. You said they don't need an account. So what does that look like? Say Joey comes over to my house. she clicks on player two and she doesn't have an account is she making her own character is she pulling from one of my characters

is this a character that you can just pick up never see and play again what does that look like from a player two perspective that was something I did ask about when we were given our little group interview and the if you have an account obviously that's the easiest so you log into your account

you grab your character you just play if you don't it does seem like you would be able to just create a character essentially in this, you know, guest profile that I believe is going to just sit there and that you could pick up again if you needed to. Then Tim could come over, pick up my character and you guys get boogie. Hell yeah. Spot, baby. I want to know about cosmetics because I feel like I always want to spend money in Diablo,

but I'm not necessarily motivated by a lot of the skins and I want to spend more money. but clearly there is an economy in this game to spend real dollars. So tell me about what I can spend money on. You could buy just about anything. What I love is most of the sets are reasonably priced, and you can buy them in pieces. So if I just want a helmet from a set that I like, I could buy the helmet.

And I'm going to pay a little bit more than bundling it, but I'm going to get it at a reasonable price and I can buy that. The other nicety of it is that helmet, that body armor, that wing effect, that character effect, whatever it is,

is usable on every single class. It's not class specific. It's class agnostic. So you really do get that value because, like, Diablo's, Diablo's skins are beautiful, but they're locked to a particular class.

And it's like, I really need to love something to want to buy it for that class. because now I'm going to be beholden to it because I paid this money as opposed to in Path of Exile. Like, hey, I can use it on my mercenary. I could use it on my huntress. I could use it on my druid. Everything's going to translate. But Joey, here's where it gets better.

I'm so excited. Let's say you're playing. I don't know, Joey, what kind of class do you want to play? What's a spell you would like to cast? I'm usually like an archer range kind of girl. Give me a bow and arrow Maybe you're shooting some lightning arrows You're like I really don't like

Blue lightning arrows I wish they were I wish they were rainbow I wish they were celestial I wish they were abyssal Give me all the sparkly things Yes Oh

Are they They have a There's a spell It's like Cast on Crit That they turned into cast on cats Where essentially You have cats

That will come out In place of different things. They're willing to go a little wild. But you have the, we go back to that concept of freedom. You can start tailoring your character

to look and feel the way you want it. You want that different colored fireball. Go for it. You want the gigantic wings on your back. Go for it. You can also then purchase other conveniences. You can

buy more stash tabs. You can buy tabs that will organize your currency. You can buy tabs that will organize your endgame materials. I'm not a person for like my Diablo stash is horribly mismanaged. I have an image in my mind every time I start of like, this is the year. This is the year I get my shit together. And it never happens. Whereas these Pathfaxel ones that you can purchase, they just organize it for you. So like all my. my currency for crafting is there. I can just go and grab it as opposed to searching around a billion different things trying to find what I'm looking for.

Yeah, I'm down to pay for that. Having to organize my own stuff is just kind of a disaster. It's very exciting. I feel like my biggest issue with Diablo cosmetics is that I always want skins from other classes because I don't necessarily think that I always love. I guess I'm playing sorcerer right now for my seasonal character. I'm like, I like a little bit more of your skins, but there's some other ones that I always want. But if I don't like playing that class, then I kind of get locked out of it.

And this is very exciting. I want pink sparkle spells and maybe some like blue fire. I don't know. Yeah. This is going to be really fun. That's very cool. This is bad news for Mike and I for sure. I love that.

Suzanne, with your time with it, was there anything that you didn't love? No. I think that's awesome. I think I was messaging Greg like this is very much the ARPG I've always wanted in like in everything and I've seen some complaints so the campaign is going to run if you've never done it they're estimating to go from acts one through six should take a person around 50 hours if you're just kind of meandering and some people are complaining like that's something we have to do all the time because it still follows like a Diablo seasonal model. Like I'm going to have to do a 50 hour campaign every time just to get to the end. I can see where there's some frustration in that. Every time you do this, though, you get better at it.

You learn those bosses. It becomes a little bit easier. The time goes down. And the nicety of doing a campaign like this is the way items work in Path of Exile is you're not trying to chase just to the end game to get the best things. you can get really good stuff that makes your character powerful, starting at level one. In fact, in Path of Exile 1, there was a, and still is, an amazing sword that you can get off the first boss within about 10 minutes. It's not a guaranteed drop, and you have to farm for it, but it's there. And that's something that's attainable by a level one character.

So even this journey from 1 to 65 is essentially where they're expecting end game to start for you has merit. and you can try to rush through it, but you're still rewarded for doing it. So I can hear some of those complaints from people about not liking what that campaign might provide, but because there's still value to it, going back to my initial complaint, I just wanted more time.

I just wanted, I wanted this to be like a three-day event or something like that. They just let you leave with a little goody bag with the whole game that you can keep playing. I just take it, enjoy. I think like I was also really hard, from the time-wise because, you know, I was staring. I had six classes to choose from. I wanted to play all of them.

I wanted to just, but it's like, hey, what's a better, what's a better experience? I need to get as far as I can to have at least as much scope to talk about as opposed to like, oh, I played an hour of each class and I got, I didn't even get through the first act or anything like that. So that would be the only complaint, but it's, it's really good, guys. It's just so good. Is there anything you haven't talked about yet, any mechanic or aspect of the game that you want to touch on?

Let's see here. I got to go through my notes. I got the ascendancies. We talked about the mapping. We talked about early access. We've talked about a lot. I guess the better question is, what do you guys want to know?

Mike's got a list. I have the quick run. down list. So of course, this is kind of like your end of show. If you've missed anything that we had, kind of the wrap up and things that I'm interested in. So Zanth, we'll go through the quick bullet points here. This is a free to play title. 2999 to jump into early access, which comes out when? December 6th. Is that on PC console and consoles, or is that PC only for early access? Do you know? I think it might just be PC only, but kind of funny, you're wrong, right? Wikipedia says the game set to be released for PC,

PS5 and Xbox series on December 6th. Great, so early access will be for all of that. People in the chat. Yeah, go Zanth. I got my complaint. I got my complaint. Okay, here we go. We need to talk to PlayStation.

We got to talk to PlayStation real quick. And obviously, you just got that amazing PS5 Pro. Listen, Greg's gone. If we need to destroy it in the parking lot, we'll do it. So we were talking cosmetics before And, you know, let's talk about Fortnite real quick. I know it's a tangent. Let's talk about Fortnite.

When you buy a skin in Fortnite on PC, can you use it on PlayStation? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And if you bought that on Xbox and then logged in on your PlayStation, can you use that skin too? Yes. Right? Yes, you can. It's been a long time

to simply in Fortnite. I'm just using what I think everybody knows. Right now, when it comes to cosmetics, if you are on PC, you're good to go. If you're on Xbox,

you're good to go. Those will work freely between one another. If you're on PlayStation, however, fiber to purchase a cosmetic, it's not going to work backwards. And if I buy one on PC,

it's not going to work on PlayStation. There's something going behind the scenes. I don't know if PlayStation wants their cuts or whatever it might be, but if that's fixed, that would be ideal. I love both platforms. I like to play on PC. I love to play on my PlayStation.

I like to use remote play. You know, it's seeing the portal get that cloud access. I was like, oh, this might be the thing that pushes me. And then to find out, like, hey, the game I'm more than likely going to be playing the most on this system, I'm going to be kind of blocked out from using the cosmetics. And as we were saying before, that, you know,

the $500 plus dollars that has been spent in POE one that's transferring over. I can't touch that if I'm on PlayStation. That's not good. That's bad. Yeah, that's odd. Does this, do you think they're going to change this or does it seem like it's a Sony decision

and they're not going to budge? I don't know, but maybe if we just keep the conversation going. Yes. You know, we bring that up. I just think it is kind of odd to, obviously works well with Xbox and PC.

PlayStation is the odd man out. And why is that? And why are other games? Is that okay that I can have cosmetics that cross-transfer, but not in this one? Yeah, that's weird. That is interesting. You also mentioned playing on the portal.

How do you think that this would work on a handheld? Obviously, we don't know if this is going to be like Steam Deck compatible. Is this the kind of game that's going to be worth it to play handheld? I think if we use Diablo 4 as kind of like the bar there, I think it'll work just fine. Like a general combat and flow of it. There is even a nicety. One of the good bonuses of playing this is when you drop into your menus on solo, it pauses the game. I'm not dying into some random one-off.

You're not going to get jumped the whole time. So I think that lends real well to that handheld play If we're going on cloud and maybe it's being a little Jumpy courtesy of your Wi-Fi or whatever it is You're in pause, you don't have to worry You're not going to lose your progress or whatever it might be So yeah, I was really looking forward to this and like doing remote play Because I like to play video games when I run on the treadmill

It's getting into winter guys I'm inside way more And remote play was going to be my main course for that and that's PlayStation and it is bummer to not be able to kind of access that. Yeah. Nice. Okay. Some more questions

for you of course. We talked about up to six players grouping up together. You said it's much easier than in POE1 to be able to group up with people. Diablo, of course, introduced this kind of shared world where we were seeing players that weren't in my group running around. Will I see something similar here where it feels

almost like a Diablo MMO situation or is it strictly this is my world, no one else is in it. We'll see players in the town hubs. So every act has its town hub. You'll see some other players kind of going back and forth to merchants. But the second you step outside those doors, that's your world unless you've invited somebody else to it.

So once you've grouped up, then you'll go out there. But it's not like Diablo's more open world where everybody's kind of out there doing their own thing. You're much more akin to Diablo too, right? you know, the second you stepped out of town, they were gone and you're on your own individual journey. Paint me a picture, Zanth, what do these worlds look like? So, of course, you know, I'm a Diablo two kid, right?

All of those worlds were procedurally generated. Every single dungeon I went into, felt fresh and new every single time, even though it was the same beginner dungeon I was jumping in. Is that what I'm seeing here? Are they connected similar to Diablo where I'd go from one area to the next and keep moving? Or what does this really look like moment to moment on the, world design. There are still those connected areas, but you are correct.

It is procedurally generated like when you jump in. This was the gameplay from my run back after I had died at the boss. And you'll notice the map itself is kind of filled out, but there's a lot of gaps in it because it had been so long they recreated the map for getting back to that boss. So you do get a different adventure kind of along the way. similar enemies and what have you, but you're not always going to know every twist and turn, which, again, harks back to that Diablo II element

where you just didn't know what was around every corner. And that adds that level of excitement as well. Do they have that sweet overview map where it goes on top of my screen while I'm still running around and it shows me on because that's the best, man. That's Chim's Kiss. Just hit tab. I love that.

Are there mounts in this? Of course, Diablo 4 introduced mounts. People really loved those. Is that world big enough to justify a mount? I would have to go back and check. Now, there was like a year ago. They did show one of the classes getting a mount, one of the ascendancy classes getting a mount.

But in terms of availability for all classes, no. No mounts, just general. You're going to use the power of your feet to walk and slay all through Rayclass. Okay. When I think of these worlds, I always think of like, you know, medieval times, you have castles. you got the jagged mountains. You got kind of like the foothills.

But what I always loved about Diablo 2 was when we had the expansion and we went to the jungle and it brought a lot of bright, vibrant colors. Do I have that in this or is it more of the medieval dark fantasy worlds that we think of? It's a great blend. Obviously, we've only seen like Acts 1 and 2 is what I got hands on with. Act 1 was much more traditional, very akin to like what Diablo 1, Diablo 2 had to kind of shoot forward. in terms of like a general, you know, there's a graveyard, there's a castle, what have you. And then in Act II, much like Diablo, you end up going to a desert, but it's like a red sand

desert and you're on a movable town like a big caravan. And it's absolutely gorgeous while retaining that desert aesthetic. So it's going to stay within the parameters of what we would expect, but also defy some of those expectations and it's just the general beauty of the landscapes that they end up painting. That's great. You know, we talked about not having a shared world, but are there world events when I run through these maps? Will there be a random encounter that pops up that's not a dungeon or a, you know,

pre-made, you know, boss encounter? Yes and no. So what GigiG likes to do is integrate their leagues into the campaign. So over the course of the campaign, you get. introduced to different league mechanics that had been prevalent and then are now integrated into the game. And then once the game goes live, when you go through the campaign, you'll encounter those kind of things where whatever the mechanic might be for that league, you'll start seeing early on. So you can start to get familiar with whatever new thing they're starting to introduce to the game.

That's where Path of Exel does add in these layers of complexity. when you miss a league, when you miss a league or two, there's a couple things that get added in that are going to change your play style or are going to change things up. They're much better now about explaining how those things used to work, whereas I think of five, six years ago, taking a league or two off and feeling like I was 10 leagues behind

because I'm like, I have no idea what any of this is anymore. I have to go and watch a few YouTube videos. to get caught up. But for the most part, yeah, that's what you're going to see as a league mechanic will start to be introduced early on. And for the course of this campaign,

you're at least getting introduced to the end game mechanics pretty early so that you'll have a better idea when you make your way at level 65 or whatever it is. Very exciting stuff for me. I'll wrap it up with just two quick ones. You brought up controller support

and how good it did feel. I'm excited about that. Full crossplay, cross progression. I know Sony's kind of putting itself on an island, but if I was to jump from my Xbox to my PC like I like to do, will there be that shared? Hey, this is Mike's account. It's moving with him all the time.

Everything. Like, everything will be. If we're talking Xbox and PC, everything's going to be there. All of your cosmetics are going to be there. Your character's going to look absolutely perfect. It's just the PlayStation of it all that is not like that. But if you are a dedicated Xbox user, hey, you win. if we're looking for consolation prizes in the console war

this is it for you but ideally I hope PlayStation kind of comes around and it's like yeah we should have that full integration there a metal baby Mario superchats in and says does the combat feel more frenetic with the inclusion of a dodge roll mechanic it feels alive I think like

Path of Exile 1 It got to the point of just like, I go into a room, I cast my skill, I hope everything's dead, I move to the next room, or I maybe get hit, I die, rinse and repeat. It feels so alive because you're watching, it's a little bit slower. It will speed up towards the end, but it's a little bit slower. You're watching the way enemies are reacting. You're seeing what you can do. You're using your dodge roll as you would to much akin to a Dark Souls, right? I'm thinking strategically of how I can use it because it is a limited resource.

I can't just spam it. It feels very natural. I would argue because Diablo 4 has a Dodgerl 2, this one feels more needed. It feels like not using it would be hindering my character, whereas I can go days in Diablo 4 with ever feeling the need to dodge anything. Is there like a cool down on it or? Yeah, it's like a, just a small cool down. But enough that, again, you can't just spam it.

Yeah. Well, wrapping things up, Zanthany, final things you want to say about Path of Exile, too? I would say, I'm not, early access is weird. I think GigiG is doing right by themselves by putting money in front of everybody. being able to kind of come in and try it what they are giving you for 30 dollars feels like a steal you're getting while you're not getting the full campaign you're getting acts one two and three and then a cruel difficulty to go back and play them you're getting access to the end game

six classes two ascendancies apiece and then they're going to slow drip in all of the other classes the other ascendancies. This, if we're looking at comparisons, Vessel of Hatred was $40 for Diablo, and that was one class, additional campaign. This is more for less. And then all of the stuff that you may purchase

with the gold that they give you can be used right away when you you jump into the free version of the actual game. So if you're worried, you know, like is it worth it? I would argue, 100% it is worth your time and definitely worth your cash.

Well, hell yeah. My final one. Go for Mike. I drafted Path of Exile 2 a couple weeks back on my fantasy now it is early access but like it does have an upfront cost. Do you think I'm scoring big on this thing?

It was so like being at this press event, one, it was the first press event I had ever been at. Yeah. It felt really kind of surreal to be like, this is Zanth from kind of funny about my reporter hat on.

It was interesting to kind of watch there were content creators there. So I already kind of knew where they were going to fall, but to watch the rest of the press play the game. And they were hooked, like they were sucked

in. I would think this is going to score pretty well. I think you may have drafted really well with that. Barrett. My rebuttal to that. I'm not saying that the game isn't great,

and it sounds like once it gets reviews, it'll review well. This game is coming in December 6th, same week as Indiana Jones that outlets are definitely going to be way more focused on. I could see maybe a review in progress for an early access game.

They're not being very many. and when they do come, it's probably going to be January. We'll see what happens. I'm like Roger. He's rolling the dice there. I'm betting on the ARPG sickos out there. Those websites, like Pure Diablo podcast and they're dedicated to this stuff that are coming in. They're like, you know what, Mike?

We fucking love this game. And I'm going to put me above the rafters, Tim, because I'm winning this thing. Well, if it does get reviews and you do get points off of it, you'll definitely be in the top four. I don't think you have a shot before. This is the rafters by it. I love it. Zandt, thank you so much. Excellent preview. Thank you for having fun at the event. And also, this was an amazing episode. I think you did a great job explaining why this game

is so special to you and why people should pay attention to it. So thank you for that. And where can people find you? Well, you can find me over on the Twitter, H.C. Zanz. I did create one of the Blue Sky accounts, which here's the deal, guys. I get more followers on Blue Sky.

I'll just delete Twitter right out. Everyone go follow him on Blue Sky. I also said I would shave my mustache at a thousand. So. Stakes, everyone. You know what? You get a thousand. I get 3,000.

I'll shave my mustache too, Sam. Let's get weird together. Let's do it. Let's go crazy. I don't, everybody drop everything you're doing right now and go. follow us both. I want to see what's the handle again?

Yeah. It's just damp on Blue Sky. Hell yeah. Yeah, go check that out. And yeah, let us know in the comments below. If you're hyped for Path of Exile 2, if you're going to jump into the early access, and yeah, until next time,

I love you all. Goodbye. Follow him. Follow him. Follow him. Follow him. See him as his mustache. Hi, everyone.