Highlights
- Diablo 4 players praised Path of Exile's design philosophy, stating that it represented an ideal version of what Diablo should be, especially in terms of skill usage.
- Path of Exile developers criticized the use of cooldowns as a solution to encourage players to use different skills, describing it as "rotational behavior" that lacks strategic gameplay.
- The developers also condemned the reliance on skills that consistently gain resources to use other more powerful skills, whicn is basically how the Sorcerer class works in Diablo 4.
Rarely do posts on gaming subreddits stray from discussing the game the subreddit is dedicated to. However, Diablo 4 players recently made an exception for Path of Exile, as they felt that its design philosophy closely resembled an ideal version of what Diablo should be (especially in terms of skill usage).
The out-of-place Path of Exile post found on the Diablo 4 subreddit (now removed by moderators) was taken from the recent ExileCon, and it does read like someone is throwing shade at Diablo and its gameplay mechanics. One notable point raised by the Path of Exile developers is their disapproval of "putting cooldowns on everything" as a solution to encouraging players to use different skills on their characters.
Path of Exile developers describe this as rotational behavior. What this means, as the developers put it, is that whenever players encounter a boss, they will press 1,1,3,4 for example to use all of their skills and repeat after cooldowns until the boss is defeated, rather than using skills strategically or in a way that is appropriate for the situation. "This is too big brain for Diablo devs," sarcastically quips Responsible-War-9389.
Additionally, the developers condemn the idea of "relying entirely on skills that reliably gain resources to use other expensive skills" as another flawed solution to encouraging players to use more skills and abilities in the game, which is how the Sorcerer class works with its mana-charging skills in Diablo 4.
"LMFAO THE SHADE," says Kfnslayer on Twitch. It's not just limited to Reddit, the "Bad Solutions" bit from ExileCon has been making the rounds on Twitch. You can find many instances of the same video being taken out of context and reuploaded, with some even calling the video 'D4 in a nutshell' when uploading it.
Of course, we keep in mind that this is the design philosophy for the upcoming Path of Exile 2, not the current Path of Exile. That means it's a vision that hasn't been realized yet, but it still feels reletable to Diablo players or the genre it belongs to all the same.
At the same ExileCon, it was announced that Path of Exile 2 will be a completely separate game with its own campaign and endgame. The closed beta is expected on June 7, 2024 at the latest.