So yesterday my good friend Ammo decided to take up residence on Gamepad.Club with so many of us that have moved there. This is particularly relevant to me because I have so many different profiles spread throughout so many different platforms that I have given her credit for the Avatar that I use most often. The thing is over the course of the last decade, Ammo has crafted for me a plethora of hand-drawn versions of “Belghast” from different games. There are so many of these that we have finally come to the point where I am retiring one. Above is the “Destiny Bel” that she crafted in 2017, prior to the launch of the game officially. It was assembled out of a set of armor that was at my time the favorite from what was available in the alpha and beta tests. Given that I mostly played a Bubble Titan in Destiny 1… I assumed that I would spend all of my time playing the sexy new Captain-America-style shield-throwing Void Titan. So I had her create a version of that with a simulacrum of my head… charging in motion.
Issue number one… I never spent any significant amount of time playing Void Titan. Mostly I never really liked the way the grenade options felt and the super was really bad for burn phases. Given that I never really did much in the way of proper group play in Destiny 2 apart from being carried through exactly one raid… I didn’t have much reason to run Void for Weapons of Light. Sunbreaker had both my favorite grenade and favorite super… so I largely spent most of my time playing that subclass. Then there was also the problem that after they started sunsetting content… and removing some of my favorite places from the game… I stopped playing Destiny altogether. It has felt weird to me that the character occupied such a prominent place in my blog banner, while I had zero plans to return to Destiny at any point in the future. Now watch that actually TALKING about it… will manifest a desire to start playing it again.
The thing is… I really still liked the motion of that character and how it rounded out the end of my string of characters. So it got me thinking about what I could use to replace it. For anyone who has not been around for all of the commissions, what you see in my masthead is my Lalafell from Final Fantasy XIV, my Hunter from Monster Hunter, and more importantly my Palico that is based on Kenzie… a cat that is sadly no longer with us but will always remain close to my heart. Then you have a version of my character from New World wearing the level 40-ish set of faction armor followed by my Necromancer in Reaper form from Guild Wars 2. Next up you have the only commission that I did not make… a version of my World of Warcraft warrior meets Twitter persona that my friend Tam Commissioned, with my PSO2 RaCAST looming behind. Lastly, before you get to Destiny, you have my Elder Scroll Online Imperial character wearing the armor set I almost always have on transmog. Then there are moogles sprinkled in throughout who stole my stuff.
It was around this time that I realized two things. Firstly… none of the characters that Ammo has drawn represent my constant addition to the ARPG genre. That part of my love for games is completely missing from my banner. Part of this is due to the fact that MOST ARPGs don’t exactly have a robust character creation system. A Diablo III Barbarian for example… looks like an old man with a diaper or a young woman with a diaper, and not much past that. Path of Exile while not giving you any control over your character model, does offer a bunch of cosmetic options that allow you to decorate them how you like. In that game, I also have a “zoomy” character in the form of my Righteous Fire Juggernaut I have now played for the last two leagues as my main. I spend most of my time ignited and shield charging through packs of mobs, and quite honestly… I feel like I love that design so much that I will probably create a version of it in every league from this point forward.
So I did what I always do and gathered up a bunch of screenshots and thrust them in Ammo’s direction and said “Here make this!”. This was a weird case because so much of this appearance is tied to one specific microtransaction pack in Path of Exile. Thankfully there is still a video showing off this pack in detail that I was able to supply to her as well. As she always does… she takes my inane ramblings and turns them into something functional. Over the last few weeks, she has been supplying me with sketches and updates… but honestly, she was on the right track with this one from the start. The only regret I have is that the scaled-down version that now resides as part of the masthead of the website does not necessarily do justice to all of the detail she put into this one.
So last night officially, I replaced “Destiny Bel” with “RF Bel” in the masthead. I think the placement works nicely. The only thing I wish I had now were some more small characters like the Moogles to patch over the transition of the left foot. At some point, I know for certain that I want her to draw me a Choya Pinata on a similar scale to the Moogles and maybe a Quaggan… but more specifically the one with a Turtle Shell for a hat. Huge thanks to Ammo for continuing to translate my madness into picture form. I think what I dig so much is that while there are stylistic differences throughout the years, they all feel like they belong together because they were all crafted by the same person. While I absolutely love my new Molten Lad, I do sorta think that the best of these will always be Necro Bel from GW2. It is the feathers that really go above and beyond with that one. I absolutely have the best-looking blog on the internet that very few people actually care about.
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Friends… I am starting to get so overwhelmingly pumped about Path of Exile II. With Not-E3 going on right now, we’ve got two new teaser trailers kicking around after a few years of relative silence. I talked about the first one last week(Ngamakanui), and then we got another one during the PC gaming show (Aggorat). I’m expecting ExileCon on the 28th of July to be a massive deal and essentially outline not only the full feature set of this mega-expansion as well as a general release schedule. It would be truly wild if they just shadow-dropped the game at the show… but I sort of doubt that will be the case. We do know that the Crucible league that is wrapping up was a bit smaller than normal because we are expected to get a really massive league launching with ExileCon, and I wonder if it will be directly tied to Path of Exile II.
One of the things that have been a bit hard to wrap our heads around has been the fact that we keep referring to it as a new game… but in reality, it is just a continuance of the original game. The idea is that everything about Path of Exile 1 continues trucking along, and all of the expansion league content applies to both games going forward. This solves one of the problems that I had when Destiny 2 was released because it felt like we gave up too much of the good stuff that was in Year 3 of Destiny 1… to end up getting a crude shell of a game that wasn’t fully fleshed out and lacked a lot of the quality of life features we had gotten used to. So I will not only get a brand new campaign, and a whole slew of new abilities to play with… but also get to keep access to the leagues that I love like Delve and Heist.
One of the things that I find interesting is that in the two latest trailers that we have seen so far… I feel like we are seeing brand-new classes on display. For example in the Ngamakanui trailer, I just assumed I was seeing the Witch on display because it was a female caster… but Aggorat pictured above has made me reassess those assumptions. The “Monk” class that we see on display in that trailer does not really match the visual signature of any of the starter characters that we currently have in the game. This makes me think one of two things is happening. The first idea is that we are getting several new starter classes and both of these trailers have showcased a different one.
The other more intriguing idea is that maybe we are getting a detailed character creation system similar to the one that we just go with Diablo IV. I don’t want to get my hopes up too much, but it would be so freaking amazing to be able to craft my starter character to look however I want it to look. Not that I mind playing a feeble old man, a girl in rags, or a beefcake in a diaper… but the entire ARPG experience is so much richer if you get to pick your own appearance. This would also solve the problem of not being able to play the gender you would prefer to play. That doesn’t necessarily impact me directly given that I pretty regularly flip back and forth between gendered options just to mix things up when a game gives me that ability. However, I know this is a big deal to a lot of players and it would be amazing to see these character models trickle out into the rest of the game.
<img data-attachment-id="24191" data-permalink="https://aggronaut.com/2023/06/16/path-of-exile-ii-hype-intensifies/path-of-exile-2-aggorat-teaser-pc-gaming-show-youtube-0-59/#main" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/aggronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Path-of-Exile-2-Aggorat-Teaser-PC-Gaming-Show-YouTube-0-59.jpg?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1280,720" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Path of Exile 2 Aggorat Teaser [PC Gaming Show] – YouTube – 0-59" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/aggronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Path-of-Exile-2-Aggorat-Teaser-PC-Gaming-Show-YouTube-0-59.jpg?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/aggronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Path-of-Exile-2-Aggorat-Teaser-PC-Gaming-Show-YouTube-0-59.jpg?fit=880%2C495&ssl=1" decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="880" height="495" src="https://i0.wp.com/aggronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Path-of-Exile-2-Aggorat-Teaser-PC-Gaming-Show-YouTube-0-59.jpg?resize=880%2C495&ssl=1" alt="Screenshot from recent Path of Exile II Teaser trailers showing the text
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July 28
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Suffice it to say I am pumped for July 28th… but am trying really hard to reign in my expectations. I have considered taking the day off from work just so I can watch the presentation uninterrupted. A lot of the reason why I have been so engaged with Diablo IV right now… is that I am in somewhat of a holding pattern until the next Path of Exile league. The only negative I can see about the “two campaigns one game” thing, is that for players who were maybe hoping POE2 would be a fresh start and wildly different. I expect a lot of new toys to play with, and a lot of changes to the game engine to make it feel a bit more responsive and have much better visuals, but I also sort of expect POE2 will feel a lot like the original release in the way that the end-game works. It took me over a thousand hours in this game to really come to a place of loving it wholeheartedly, but that is sort of a big ask for most players.
I do think the relatively shallow nature of Diablo IV, is ultimately going to make a lot of players feed into Path of Exile. There were a lot of folks holding out hope that D4 would be the next best ARPG and I am not sure that is the case. It has a lot of great moments, and yesterday I released a video talking about some of my favorite things. However even in a video where I tried my best to stay positive… a number of complaints still made it into the recording. I am almost vibrating with hype for what I am seeing for Path of Exile II though, so the future still seems exceptionally bright. I’m also extremely pumped about the release of Last Epoch 1.0 later this year. We are truly living in the golden age of the ARPG, and the loot will flow!
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Good Morning Friends! Yesterday was the beginning of the Geoff Keighley replacement for E3 called the Summer Games Fest. Quite honestly I think I like this construct better as it is something that sort of meanders its way through the summer connecting a number of disparate events and looping in Gamescom as part of it. I am going to talk about a few games that piqued my interest, but really… you are going to have to listen to me gush about the new Path of Exile II Teaser that we got as part of it. All in all, I think the show was well worth your time, so if you are interested you can check out the official video here.
Path of Exile II
It would not be Path of Exile if we did not start on a beach somewhere. The challenge with this teaser is that it is very much the definition of a “sizzle reel”. In the gameplay trailer from two years ago, the game did not feel that fundamentally different from POE1. This however feels way more story driven as combat unfolds as you are clearly investigating a location. I also find it deeply interesting that just a very short way into the fight the character seems to do a dodge roll, which makes me wonder if this means that like D4 and D3 on the console… POE2 is adding some sort of an evade button. This does worry me a bit because the way movement abilities work in Path of Exile generally negates the need for an evasion button. However Ruthless mode lacks movement abilities of the same caliber as the base game, so it does make me a bit concerned that they are leaning into that more sluggish gameplay style that bugs me with Diablo IV.
The other thing that is interesting in the trailer is that the character seems to be using a lot of abilities. Like in Path of Exile, you tend to build around one main ability and I guess in part this is due to the lack of access to multiple six links. However with Gems working completely differently in Path of Exile and them socketing support gems into ability gems… does that mean we will have access to a six link for every ability? Again this sort of concerns me in a different way because it makes me wonder if we are going to be forced to use a ton of different abilities due to cooldowns on each individual one. Again the cooldowns and the sluggish pace of combat in Diablo IV drive me up a wall, so it does concern me a bit that what I am scrying from this teaser might be heralding a slower-paced Path of Exile experience. Slower-paced does not equate to a more enjoyable experience for me at least. I guess we will have to wait until ExileCon at the end of July to see more details.
Alan Wake 2
I was happy to see more discussion about Alan Wake 2. The more I see of this the more I am interested. It seems like you will be shifting between Alan and a new character called Saga. It sounds like essentially Saga will be playing through the story that Alan is telling, with the ability to shift back and forth between the characters at various points. My biggest hope is that we also get a crossover with either Director Faden herself or at least some Federal Bureau of Control agents. I am here for Alan Wake, but what I am even more here for is the expansion of this nonsense shared “Remedyverse”.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden
Another game that we are getting to see a bit more of is Banishers, which feels like a gaslight-era game where you play a medium of a sort that can banish restless spirits. What is interesting about this specific trailer is it adds a bit of the hook of the game. It seems like you have lost your partner and have to make a Bioshock-like decision do you spare the inflicted humans, or do you steal their life essence in a vague attempt to resurrect your love? The combat looks interesting and the visuals are most excellent. I want to play through this whenever it lands but given my affinity for “forever games”, it will likely have to wait until a holiday break when I seem to grind through a bunch of single-player stories at once.
John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando
I feel like this game is calling me out directly. I still love Zombie movies and games. I am not tired of them. I was a fan of the Zombie genre long before it blew up with Walking Dead, and I am still a fan all these years later after that same series more or less ruined it for the masses. This seems like a Bulletstorm-style nonsense shooter with lots of zombies and an 80s soundtrack. Putting “John Carpenter” in front of it is also a siren song for those of us who grew up idolizing Snake Pliskin. Will I actually play it? Who the fuck knows. It is going to have to compete with all the other games that seem to look just interesting enough to buy, but never critical enough for me to actually devote the time to finishing them.
Space Marine 2
There are a lot of Warhammer games out there. At some point Games Workshop went from carefully curating their licenses to the maximalist approach of letting anyone use their licenses… which resulted in a ton of shovelware. Space Marine is maybe the single best game that ties into the Warhammer franchise and it is good enough to stand alone as an amazing experience even if you do not care one iota about Adeptus Astartes. I’ve been playing Boltgun lately which apparently sits in between the story of the first and second game, and I am highly looking forward to ripping into things with my chain sword again in non-retro glory. Well worth checking out the first game if you have never played it as well.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
The Prince of Persia reboot… got rebooted again. Do I have any faith that this one will actually make it to market? Absolutely not. However, I do have to say that this looks much better than the previous attempt at rebooting this franchise. I like the focus on a more 2.5D feeling harkening back to the original games a bit at times. The Sands of Time remake may at some point make its way out of development hell, but this definitely looks way more interesting.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
They closed out the show with a powerhouse and gave us footage of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. I am here for this game and unlike many single-player outings, this really probably will be a day-one play for me. I loved the Remake and the Yuffie expansion, and quite honestly dig the action reboot of this series way more than a turn-based option. I get that this is a divisive thing, but it works for me personally. I honestly even liked the tweaks and changes to the setting that this alternate version of the world has presented. The open world looks gorgeous and apparently, on consoles this is going to be a two-disc game, which seems like nonsense. I feel like you are either into this with all of your heart, or you have long since checked out of everything Final Fantasy VII related and just do not care in the least. FFVII is not my favorite of the series by any means, but I greatly enjoyed the first bits of this reboot universe so I am here for the continuation.
I think the next show that I am looking forward to as part of Summer Games Fest would be the Xbox/Bethesda showcase at 10 AM PDT on the 11th. It apparently also has a follow-up “Starfield Direct” with a further deep dive into that game since we are getting closer to its launch. I often watch the PC Gaming Show as well since it occasionally has some weird PC-only gems in it. That takes place on the 11th but a bit later in the day at 1 PM PDT. The Capcom and Ubisoft show on the 12th are definitely going to be “look at any relative trailers later” shows because I am not that deeply connected to either publisher. Quite honestly I think I am bored with the Ubisoft formula at this point, and I am not into a return to stealth gameplay with the Assassin’s Creed franchise either. It may not be E3… but it certainly feels like the same sort of experience that I used to have watching the streams leading up to the official trade show that none of us had access to anyways. As much as Geoff Keighley claims that he didn’t kill E3… he certainly helped prove that the companies no longer actually needed a costly in-person show.
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Hey Folks! I spent some more time yesterday tweaking and leveling my Wintertide Brand Occultist. I’ve dialed up the defensive layers a bit and I have a Watcher’s Eye that should also help whenever I can get the free passive points to allocate a jewel socket for it. This is never going to be a bossing character for me, so with that in mind, I am largely leaning into comfortable mapping clears while upping the survival. Essentially I think my next play is to pick up another strength travel node, which should allow me to drop a +30 strength node and then use that point to allocate the socket for the Watcher’s Eye.
I had a Dawnbreaker laying around in my vault that I picked up off Searing Exarch, and I decided to give it a spin. Sure I lost some damage by dropping the caster shield with +1 to cold gems, but I also gained a number of defensive layers baked into the shield alone. Essentially what this is doing is splitting some portion of the damage I am taking and then making it resolve against my Fire Resistance. Sure my Fire Resistance is not amazing and nothing like the 90% that I have on my Juggernaut… but it is enough to sort of blunt the blow for all other attacks a bit. The shield alone is worth almost 2000 armor by itself and has a small amount of life baked into it along with a 46% block chance. While it doesn’t make a ton of sense thematically… so far I am thinking the Dawnbreaker is helping.
I recorded another video yesterday afternoon of me playing the class and talking through some of the decisions that I am making. Now this video was recorded before I made a number of tweaks like the Dawnbreaker last night but still shows the general state of the build. If you want to look at the state of my tree here is a POB, but note that I currently am muling a new wand with my Juggernaut to level it because I can handle crucible progress so much faster with that character. In the grand scheme of things, I am pretty happy with where things are so far. Sure it is weaker than most of my other builds but I am actually enjoying running around with Wintertide Brand again. Would I start that build in another league over RF Jugg? Probably not. That does not mean however I am not enjoying myself.
Now that the weather is warmer, my wife has been spending a lot of time out in the backyard in the evenings reading. Around 8 pm I decided to go out and check on her, since often she comes in way earlier than that, and found that Greybie had decided to hang out as well. He’s been coming around to the backyard more often lately and it is pretty great. So I spent about an hour out there petting him and trying to coax him up onto my lap. He is still a little too skittish for me to actually lift him up and place him there… and expect him to do anything other than run away. When not actively getting attention he would set up shop underneath one of our chairs and just lay there.
All the while we were back there Tripod was over on the concrete patio off our kitchen… some 15 feet away. Greybie and Tripod seem to tolerate each other, but I am not certain they are actually friends yet. She kept coming closer to us… like she wanted to come over and get attention as well and then would retreat back under the patio table rubbing up against the chairs. I feel like she is on the brink of being more sociable, but I am not entirely sure how to tip her over. Our thought is maybe if she watches us petting Greybie… and him being seemingly happy about it… that she might realize that she too can get love and attention. I would honestly love it if Greybie set up shop in our backyard as well because at least knowing those two cats are relatively safe and happy would be a load off my mind. He lives somewhere down the cul de sac but given that he spends MOST of us time in the orbit of our house… I don’t think he has another family.
I really need to start taking my Steam Deck out into the backyard with me and playing something while just chilling with the feral cats. Last night was delightful but other than when I was actively playing with Greybie I was somewhat bored. You can only screw around on your phone so much before it is no longer interesting.
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