A long time ago, a friend fanatically listed to me the advantages of POE: how free the talents and genres are, how diverse the equipment is matched and built, how amazing the poe currency exchange market is, and so on. I was a little big head, so I euphemistically suggested that he summarize the content in one sentence. He was silent for a while and sent me these words: "It's very dark."

This is the first time I have come into contact with "Path of Exile", a Diablo-Like game produced by a group of loyal fans of the "Dark" series that can be called the "most outstanding" Diablo-Like game on all levels. Word of mouth, various annual game awards are softened. However, in contrast, it is almost unknown to mainland players, even if Tencent announced a high-profile acquisition of its national service agency and recruited players for internal testing a year and a half ago, the situation was still the same at that time.

But if it is said that "Path of Exile" was only "an urban legend circulating in the mouths of "Dark" fans" in the hearts of most mainland players not long ago, then after the open beta of the national server at the end of August, this This game can be said to have been pushed to the forefront of the tide-players who have played the "Dark" series, have not played, like the game, do not like, hardcore, ordinary and "fast food" players, gather In this game.

When such a large number of players with vastly different preferences flood into a game that has been telling you "core to only" almost since the first chapter, the feedback from players, the interaction between players, and the continuous changes of the agents themselves The operating strategy of the company together constitutes an "ecology" with full characteristics.



The plight of medicine chest and bound currency

"Healer's Heart" is likely to be the first quest that players actively receive. It requires players to cross two maps, find a legendary boss to kill him, and then retrieve the quest item-the medicine chest and return it to the NPC.

Perhaps it is to pay tribute to the divine work "Diablo 2" in my heart. The developer of "Path of Exile" and international service operator Grinding Gear Games (hereinafter referred to as GGG) almost copied the mission mode of "Diablo 2" to its own game. Coming in: In the normal interface, only brief task information can be seen. Most of the task prompts are included in the character dialogue, and there is no separate task interface. The task interface is actually integrated into the world map page.

This is actually an undisputed setting made to please the old players, not to mention that GGG has also optimized it-click the corresponding task box on the map page, and a line will be automatically generated to tell you that the task needs. Which maps to pass and where to end? Unfortunately, this quest system, or simply this quest line, does not work for some players.

To complete this task, you simply need to walk through a map, clear all the monsters in the new map, and pick up the task items specially marked with eye-catching colors, but until I have reached the end of the first chapter, I still noticed that six out of seven on the World Channel talk about medicine kits. There is no lack of guidance from well-meaning people, but their text was quickly pushed out of the chat box-I also joined it, and soon I received many private chats. Some players said that they could not find the branch map. Players of said that they could not find the legendary leader, and some even said that he had cleared all the monsters, but did not drop the medicine cabinet at all.

Soon after, there was a special guide on "How to find a medicine cabinet" on the Internet. Just like the doubts I have always cherished in my mind, many replies to the strategy have also expressed their confusion: "Why would anyone find this poe items?"-I know there must be something wrong with it, but for a while Can't clarify it. The popularity of the "medicine box" continued for several days, but with the increase in the level of the army and the decrease in the number of players, this topic gradually disappeared from the public frequency.

In the past time, "Path of Exile" proved that it is an extremely complicated game, even for some "equipment game lovers", it is difficult to get started. Regardless of the starry talent board, there are probably more than 10 damage mechanisms in the entire game, which overlap each other but are independent of each other. In addition, the current version will deal with each other after the fifth and tenth chapters. The resistance of the player is greatly and permanently attenuated. At this time, the player does not have enough reset points to adjust the previous talents, thus creating "the first number of newcomers in the international server will definitely be abandoned." s legend. These two node chapters are therefore hailed as the "Big Filter of BD".

"Many BDs can only be formed at level 60 or 70, so after we finish Chapter 5, we usually buy some transition equipment with the currency we accumulated before, so as not to die as a dog." When teaming up to play the maze. , An old player who switched from the Taiwan server to the Zeng Guo server explained to me like this.

The same BD and skyrocketing prices

"Path of Exile" is undoubtedly not a popular online game, but it also has enough character development appeal, which allows it-at least during the period when the freshness has not faded-to retain a considerable part Players who are not its core audience. But as mentioned above, to understand the operating mechanism of the talent plate of this game and make reasonable fine-tuning of your own genre, it can only be the "privilege" of a few experienced players, let alone creating a "big filter" that can pass twice. The new genre with sufficient strength can be maintained even in the later alien maps.

Therefore, most players have chosen an easier way: copy the established genres on the Internet. This is a very normal thing, and it is also very common in international servers. But what is not normal is that the number of players in the national server is too large, and the introduction of various genres in the country is too small at the beginning, coupled with the national server’s strategy of "binding all pre-currency and equipment", in the end As a result, everyone's genre is like a mold carved out, so the core equipment of a limited number of popular genres is seriously in short supply.

This situation has allowed studios and "black businessmen" who should have been suppressed to see business opportunities.

"Brother, what a BD you are, you are so handsome, much better than the trash whirlwind on the bad street." After the genre is formed, I occasionally go to bring newcomers to clear the maze for free, and some outgoing players will take the initiative to me Talk to me, and this is a person who impressed me especially.

The price soaring along with equipment is currency. GGG has designed an excellent currency system for "Path of Exile": the game itself does not have gold coins, but instead sets dozens of consumables with specific functions as path of exile currency, which is carried out in the form of "bartering" Market transactions-because these currencies not only serve as currency, they are also a "rigid demand" that consumes a lot of money in the game process, so the recovery of poe currency and the self-regulation of the market are not a problem.

But it is precisely because the building of equipment requires a large amount of poe currency support, so the connected goods itself has become a part of the cash transaction. In order to create a "6-hole, 6-connected" equipment that is necessary for almost all popular genres, the consensus expectation of players is about 1,000 link stones.

Churn

There are old players who complain about the poor localization, poor optimization, and poor network of the national server. There are also newbies who have lost their complaints about the lack of guidance; there are players who can't stand the chaos of the public channel, and there are players who point out the inadequacy of the currency binding strategy. , But in the end it was such a reply that got the support of most people. Although I dare not assert that this post is really an official release, I do know that Tencent has made great efforts to maintain the popularity of this game. There are good measures, such as early publicity and various uninterrupted activities; there are also actions that were good in the original intention, but eventually caused damage to the game environment, such as the chaotic "equipment building competition", such as Formed an official master group that requires "discovering a new genre every week"; there are also nonsense, such as crazy mobilization of anchors to live broadcast such a game that is not interesting-this gives me a feeling that Tencent is I want to make the "Path of Exile" of the national service a popular game with long-term stable income.

But "Path of Exile" is indeed not, and it is destined not to be such a game.