How can an ARPG fit a vision of more deliberate combat? A discussion thread

TL;DR: This topic is to leave opinions and discuss what mechanical changes people can think of that the game needs that would let PoE2 be an ARPG with more meaningful, deliberate combat, as is the devs' design intention. I urge anyone reading to ignore all posts that might start saying the game is trash or whatever, as well as those talking about just wanting it to be more like PoE1. That's not what we're here for. This is for constructive criticism.

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Hello. I'm a casual PoE1 player. I've done only the last couple leagues "seriously", doing T16 stuff and some pinnacle content, but not having completed all of it, so I'm neither an absolute newbie, nor very seasoned about the game.

THE PROBLEM: As we all know, the intent of the game is to be a more "deliberate, challenging" version of PoE. Souls-like, as we all know, is even one of its descriptors in Steam. However, this description stands opposed to what ARPGs are usually like.

In Souls games, challenge is created by having a handful of enemies, all of which can be dangerous, even if weak, as long as the combination of factors in a fight is right (other enemies, terrain, traps, etc.). Because everything is dangerous to you in the correct setup, one of the main concerns is visual clarity. For the game to be fair, the information has to be clear. You must know what the dangers are, so failing to react to them is a matter of player skill. This is why bosses feel so good in PoE2, and why people want them more. We can all agree I think that GGG has nailed boss design down pretty well.

ARPGs, on the contrary, mostly tend to involve gameplay and a power fantasy where you mow through screens of much, much weaker monsters, only occasionally having to pay attention to a few stronger foes. Risk of dying occurs for one of two reasons: (1) A large mob of small monsters get their tiny attacks on you and they're too fast for you to clear them before they can attack, or (2) you succumb to a single REALLY large effect, which is usually hard to see due to the mob. This creates an ideal gameplay that is binary: The player is incentivized to build extremely explosive damage that goes out hard and fast, clearing the screen before the enemy can interact with you, and with defenses that are capable of protecting you against damage that you otherwise cannot react to (armour/ES/evasion, passive block, etc), which is also why the dodge roll becomes less useful as you go further up in maps. For all intents and purposes, white and blue mobs, usually, are something you just ignore, only being there as loot and EXP piñatas, as they will usually get culled quickly and efficiently by any half-decent build.

A problem that exacerbates this division is also gem skills having a wide range of player skill requirement. For example, I've been playing with a friend running a Spark build, which at its core has no place in the vision of a more deliberate, Souls-like PoE. Spark represents all that is wrong about trying to marry both things: It has zero player skill requirement, not even needing to be aimed, and its main use philosophy is to throw it ahead of you without rhyme or reason, flooding the screen with cluttered visual effects, so that it culls monsters before they are even visible to you, ideally. Compare this to any other skill that, at a bare minimum, requires you to at least aim. Personally, I'm playing a mace build using Stampede and Perfect Strike, and at least those two require me to think a little about how and when I'm going to use them.

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So, what do you think can be done to change combat in a way that would still feel like a satisfying ARPG experience, while also changing some of the elements that tend to lead to zoom meta stuff design? Or do you think the game should remain the same in mapping, but just have more bosses to compensate this?. I, for one, cannot see these two things working together for mapping unless normal monsters become a lot more meaningful in the upper tiers of play.

(Of course, this is a broad question, as more deliberate combat means longer combat times which means slower maps, thus leading to smaller map requirements, loot drop rate alterations, etc. Those can be discussed later)

It's impossible to do. There is too many factors, simple like that.

Fair opinion, even if it doesn't help push anything forward.

As an addendum of my opening post, another main problem I see is that in complex soulslike games, defense is Active, where in PoE defense is Reactive. They took a step forward with rolling and active block, but those mechanics become meaningless later on in the game compared to high armour/ES/evasion and resistances.

Perhaps a step in the right direction would be for defenses to improve some sort of aspect of your roll, that you have to actively manage (ex: armor giving you reduced damage for a while after you dodge or while using skills, evasion improving your dodge, etc.) and things being less dependent on passive damage reduction/avoidance formulas.

Sorry, that my response is so poor, but combining these genres just doesn't make sense. In the first acts, it might still make sense, but the game doesn't stop there. And remember, this is just the beginning, because the power creep will only increase.

Imo mixing these 2 genres is an impossible dream. It will never work because of the nature of ARPGS: getting loot, getting more power. And every new seasonal reset can potentially add even more power creep into the game. This game is already getting broken in half by meta build makers.

In the campaign it kind of works because your character is still weak, this is also why they recorded all their gameplay showcase videos intentionally on underleveled characters wearing white items,using gems that were lower level than the zone they were in with 0 support gems socketed inside them. They were trying to show off all these boss mechanics and "slow and methodical" gameplay so hard. But it all just falls apart because of the very DNA of this game. It's still PoE, meta gamers will still gravitate towards the strongest builds made by a few people.

I think GGG trying to make this work will be a colossal waste of time,money and resources.

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Toforto#2372 wrote:

Imo mixing these 2 genres is an impossible dream. It will never work because of the nature of ARPGS: getting loot, getting more power. And every new seasonal reset can potentially add even more power creep into the game. This game is already getting broken in half by meta build makers.

In the campaign it kind of works because your character is still weak, this is also why they recorded all their gameplay showcase videos intentionally on underleveled characters wearing white items,using gems that were lower level than the zone they were in with 0 support gems socketed inside them. They were trying to show off all these boss mechanics and "slow and methodical" gameplay so hard. But it all just falls apart because of the very DNA of this game. It's still PoE, meta gamers will still gravitate towards the strongest builds made by a few people.

I think GGG trying to make this work will be a colossal waste of time,money and resources.

+

It involves proper tuning for both incoming and outgoing damage, and an extremely deep understanding of how mechanics work and what would be super over powered.

How to prevent players from getting 100mil dps, how to prevent players from being nearly unkillable, and how to properly mix it all together into a smooth experience from level 1 to 100.

They can't do it, but it is possible.

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sephrinx#7591 wrote:

They can't do it, but it is possible.

Possible in the way, that's not ARPG anymore.

There is a reason why poe2 is being expected to be the next gen of ARPG that actually focus on action rather than number piling like other hack and slash slops. It’s ironic hack and slash is currently being considered a sub-genre of ARPG despite it has 0 emphasis on action.

NWN managed it. 90% of D2 (don't play sorc or RMT enigma runes) as well.

TBH some of POE's issue is a self inflicted wound; attracting an amount of 1 button cookie clicker gamers with the clear speed meta. Those players can't or wont adapt and are offended that the game isn't designed for them.

its all a matter of slower pacing, making fights less trivial and making the rewards happen often enough to fit that slower pacing.

How do people enjoy D&D? Same answer.

There's a reason you can watch a clear speed guy like Cute_Dog play Divinity or BG3 or Lost Arc and despite the fact that the screen is not instant exploding endlessly he's still having fun. The rewards fit the slower pace. The slower pace is made engaging the same way that POE2 has managed to make the campaign so damn good.