How can an ARPG fit a vision of more deliberate combat? A discussion thread
" I mean Diablo 3 still has like 3 million active players so... |
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" I'm not saying it's a particularly bad thing, I enjoyed D3 quite a bit outside of server issues and whatever it was Inferno on release; I should've expanded on my point. However, it's one that's been shared a number of times here and elsewhere in that I think in order to do that significant changes would be required to make it happen. |
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to those that says its impossible to make a deliberate combat arpg, i do simply disagree.
GGG has laid down the foundation for that to happen with poe2. they just need to polish it and TRIM the over performers. many people wonder why did ggg remove life % nodes from poe2? the reason is balance. without the existence of the nodes, the devs can force and expect players to have a certain amount of life in the end game. this allows for very careful balance/tweaking. for example in poe1, players can have 3k hp or 10-20k hp at end game. how do you balance that? if a monster hits for 3k, it a hko to the weaker player but to the stronger one, they laugh it off. but if in poe2 players have an expected hp range of 2 to 5k hp, then the devs can balance the harder attacks to do around 1.9k damage. if the devs are unhappy that players can get to 5k hp, they can analyze why its happening and rebalance/nerf whatever is the outlier. one problem that we are seeing right now is ggg made an imbalanced decision to remove life from tree BUT NOT ES. like wadafak. so we can see the foundation is there, just that they didnt make it balanced. this is also apparent with our limited movespeed. we're expected to have a difficult time to get more than 40% ms. but on the flipside ggg doesnt need to make monsters have huge ass attacks that require players to dash to the other side of the map in a second. we dont have shaper slams where we have 1 second to run from a huge ass slam. we DO have slams but you have time to react, and move out of the way, except of course that crazy monkey with a huge ass pillar. or the bird summoning a huge ass cyclone, there are outliers that ggg has to address. nerfs and reworks need to happen if ggg wants this game to be deliberate. this would include REMOVING or HEAVILY NERFING skills. one thing people have mentioned is spark/arc lightning sort of skills. if a skill requires you to spam without needing to aim deliberately, that skill is bad. thematically and historically i like spark. its a staple since diablo times. but if we're going to be deliberate. it takes away any notion of deliberation. similarly in settlers, so many people are just using LS, spamming the skill hitting everything on screen without much need for any deliberation AT ALL. these skills need to go or have some limitations. cooldowns are a way. another is to make them channeling skills with increasing costs. along this line, automation takes away from deliberation. a lot of people will disagree with me on this, but this includes totems and pet builds. these builds have MINIMAL deliberation. especially now since things auto reanimate. ggg really needs to decide and be firm with the direction of the game. either they want it deliberate OR not. i really like how melee feels in poe2. even tho the best way to play melee is actually by warcrying/totems, i still love "trumelee". but with the existence of all these automation and "skills that hit the entire screen without using any deliberation", it invalidates trumelee. this extends to 2 other areas 1. map mods. damage mods are deadly but if dodging them is enough, we have a way to counterplay. monster speed FUCKS with any semblence of balance. the best way is to solve it via poe1's solutions. kill em before they become a problem or become so tanky they do not become a problem. using poe1 solutions in poe2.... why bother playing poe2 then? might as well play poe1. 2. impact of MF. drops are shit to balance out the existence of MF. if there is no MF on gear, players can get better drops and are not "forced" to go meta. many weak ass builds actually CAN do mapping. BUT if we dont juice up we cant sustain. hence juicing becomes a requirement. when juicing becomes a requirement, all the hardwork GGG put into homogenizing the passive tree which allows us to do many interesting builds gets thrown out the window as we're being funneled back into use metas/efficient builds/skills. thus i say ggg really needs to rebalance things a huge bunch IF they want deliberate play as a focus. but by doing so they will be alienating the playerbase that many already do feel alienated. i have friends who prefer the passive playstyle of being a summoner. i dont blame them. they are getting old and prefer not to press too many buttons to play the game. but on the flipside, i as a trumelee lover feel that i am not being rewarded for all my efforts, going face first into combat, while a necro can just hang back and focus on defense. asmongold even mentioned how he hasnt died in ages as all he did is walk around with his minion horde and just keep his shield raised whenever any danger appears. he does it because ggg allows it. if ggg cant find the right balance and passive playstyle is more rewarded than active playstyle. i ll be sad but i d might "end" my arpg "career". i CANT go back to any arpgs anymore. poe2 is the pinnacle of all arpgs in my subjective opinion. i love the deliberation. the game is still in EA, it is not the end. it is still very early in fact. i honestly believe that once GGG is back from the holidays, heavy nerfs and reworks are inbound. 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" Its lovely to see this was the first response lmao but also it does cover it. Souls games are about limits, arpgs are about breaking limits (no climhazard jokes please) In game terms control allows you to specific conditions to engage players and you cannot simultaneously allow players to set their own limits while still engaging with your content in the way you as a designer want them to. if you take DMC for example allowing Dante to equip a +17 mirror tier sword just means your fight pacing has to be thrown in the bin and your game design of stylish combat thrilling the player has turned into players overgearing your fight to one shot it. Extreme combat games as they were briefly called are about execution of control, ARPGs are fundamentally about stats. They cannot co-exist, as soon as you add one to the other the genre changes as do the design goals. As a result to get a slower and deliberate ARPG you limit the player and make skill choice, positioning and terrain matter. At which point you are no longer an arpg you are an isometric souls game. The closest games to marrying the two are roguelike/lites like isaac or enter the gungeon etc but they achieve limits by preventing the player from choosing. If the player could choose they would be an absolute joke. So again to my eyes it can't be done and i've thought about it for many years, Would be happy to be wrong about this as sometimes it takes somebody truly visionary to show everyone else what is possible. |
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" Path of Exile is known for its great possibilities, which only deepens the problem of how these two genres cannot coexist simultaneously. On Probation Any%
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It's possible to get a game based around both. Just will take some time to tweak the numbers. And that's if they do it.
People seem to think "soulslike" means it's exactly like A Darksouls games gameplay That's not what's going to happen. Stop overthinking it. It's actually rediculous how subjects like this get so heated and so emotional over people over-thinking. Take a break guys, git off the internet for a bit. Last edited by Akedomo#3573 on Dec 27, 2024, 3:21:15 AM
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Very good post OP, I wish most people would reply with ideas on how to lead PoE2 towards what it intends to be instead of discussing or saying how it's impossible and "this is that" and "that is this" and whatnot nonsense. ARPG's aren't meant to be whatever they have been so far in every respect, just like MMORPGs shouldn't just stick to tab targeting because that's how it was in the past. Ridiculous notions.
In that respect, let me share what I personally think is essential to change/rework for starters: 1) First and foremost monster density, monster speed, monster health. You've practically addressed this yourself in your post but I will reiterate myself as well. First of all, monster density should be much lower to promote deliberate combat, secondly... I strongly believe it must not be up to the players to decide the density of said monsters in most cases unless we're talking about specific challenges such as a trialmaster run or something similar. Something as wide as "monster pack size" needs to go away. Large pack sizes are pretty much in antithesis with deliberate combat so they need to be much smaller and carefully controlled. The rest of the points (monster speed/ monster health) essentially play into this as lower density monsters would have to mean they are more durable and harder to deal with and more complex fights mechanically speaking (a fairly broad move set for each enemy). As for speed, it's essentially again one of those stats that shouldn't be tempered with too much as it may completely go against skill design itself. I've made a post about this before talking about these points in relation to pure melee skills but it does apply to everything in the end really: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3662303 2) Base game defensive mechanics need to be heavily reworked. Which ones I am talking about? Evasion, Dodge and Passive Block chance mainly. Essentially, what needs to happen to these 3 mechanics is that they need to become ACTIVE mechanics instead of PASSIVE mechanics. They've practically already done that with active block but the same needs to happen for both of the other two. Now, I can't give a lot of opinions on Active block itself as I haven't tried it yet but I assume it might need some more work as well aside from just removing passive block in it's entirety. My idea for the rest? The Evasion stat for example could be a stat that builds up towards getting limited instances of "evade the next attack" that can be accessed actively through different means and skills. Not only could this be a method to make evade an active and deliberate mechanic but it could also prove extremely useful in making melee class characters much more desirable/versatile to play. Here's a direct example: Let's say you have 2 stacks of "evade the next attack" available, and you have a really slow skill to charge up such as Perfect Strike but perhaps you haven't built your character around stunning/freezing or electrocuting enemies. You could instead activate this stack during your channel to evade 1 incoming attack and thus successfully hitting that enemy without dying in the process. Obviously these stacks should have cooldowns and how many you have would be determined by how much evasion you managed to get on your gear. Alternatively or in conjunction with this mechanic, Dodge could provide limited instances of "invincibility frames" for dodge roll with a cooldown and possibly accessed on demand and not automatically on every dodge roll so you have precise control when you use them. One of these stats could also simply increase the distance of dodge roll as well if specced into. Some type of characters might not automatically want a longer distance roll and as such it might need to be an option through the talent tree or otherwise. 3) A lot of skill rework, especially those that promote passive playstyles. The skills that I can think of the most when it comes to these are, of course, minion skills. Inherently minions are hard to tackle in that respect but there are ways to do it. Many ways to do it, in fact. Thankfully, the correct direction for that has been mildly tackled by GGG already, which is command skills. But they need to heavily expand on that concept and heavily retract on previous concepts such as passive damage and passive protection provided by the minion's existence. The power scaling between command skills and auto-attacks should be around roughly 90%-10% respectively. Auto-attacks could provide benefits to your active command skills or some of your own skills instead of being a source of direct damage. For example: Your X minions could stick arrows/needles or such into your enemies and you could use this as a resource for different active skill activation or command skills, similar to combo points. Most command skills you would still need to aim yourself respectively, like you need to do with Gas arrow. Generally, minions need more then one Command skill to give more options and more variety. In terms of defensive potency, this is a bit more complicated and I don't have a perfect suggestion for this as there are specific ideas that would conflict with each other, but in general, monsters need to largely ignore your minions and go for you instead, that way it would greatly limit the defensive potency of minions. Of course, there's a lot more to talk about other skills but this is, imo, one of the most important ones that needs to be done right first. Honorable mention for skills that need heavy rework are also trigger gems, but also in general all skills that result in a passive playstyle. There's also a lot more other topics to be talked about but at the end of the day I'm not hired by GGG to do so (wink wink). So this is as much as I can give right now as a passionate player :]. I would honestly love to see more stuff like this in the community rather then the endless conflict of why things can't be a certain way because that's how they've always been and they hate change. "Good luck on your naps Exile" Last edited by IonSugeRau1#1069 on Dec 27, 2024, 5:25:35 AM
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I think they can increase the monster density a bit, low monster density is not fun.
They just have to juggle the type of "monster squads" that come at you You can have both "fodder" monsters that just rush you with basic attacks mixed with more complex monsters that have mechanics to dodge etc After all not every monster has to be a mini-boss |
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" No one wants this game to become D3 People were just asking for something that helped them make builds that use many skills instead of spamming 1 or 2 Not to replace the spamming automatic playstyle Just like slams. Slams exist in PoE 1 but they aren't mandatory. Just another way of playing the game. People just want different playstyles(and not just stats) to actually be viable. Like the node that gives you attack dmg after casting a spell and cast speed after attacking. Those kinds of possibilities are good and help enable different ways to play Last edited by Gordyne#2944 on Dec 27, 2024, 8:47:02 AM
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Great topic, nice to see feedbacks on that.
I think it's almost impossible to make a game that fits both souls like and ARPG (most specificly the hack n slash subgenre) at any time. Both have some key points that are antagonist. But that does not mean we can't try to solve some of the issues to make both closer. First of all, my understanding is that PoE2 is meant to be an ARPG with souls elements, not the opposite. That means prioritizing some ARPG key points even if it means lessening the "souls like" aspect. That's of course something that can be debatable, but that's the premise I choose to reflect on how to improve the game. The key aspects for ARPG that need to stay I think are loot/RNG, power fantasy and freedom in building your characters. They all are issues to make fights more deliberate, that's why I'm thinking in splitting a bit more gameplays. The main driving idea is to basicly widen the gap between clearing and meaningfull encounters. - Reduce a bit more the potency of white and magic monsters while reducing the damage of players AoE abilities, and increase density. The point is to keep clearing not too hard and fun, while making players less strong. - Rework rares. Archnemesis mods is not a great design, especially here. Rare need to be closer to small bosses that we encounter trough the maps, so with more predictable but maybe more deadly abilities, to make fights more engaging. They also need to get longer to kill. - Remove on death mechanics from monsters. I don't even know why they are in the game, it's a bandaid to force you to interact with rares in poe1, poe2 is the opportunity to get rid of them and make rares more entertaining by themselves. - Bring back bosses at every map, and boost their health pool. They are the biggest strong point of the game so far, it's sad to not fight them more often. They also are the "souls like" experience, they need to be fought more often. - Widen the gap between single target and AoE abilities. AoE for clear but weak against rares and bosses, while single target and combos deals meaningful damage to them. - Bring back 6 portals. If the goal is to make rare and bosses stronger and meaningful to fight, players should be allowed to die, get knowlege from that, and use it to improve. Souls game are not punishing, they let you die and try again to let you learn. - All monsters still alive in map get back to full life on your death. Goal of bringing back 6 portals is to let you try again an encounter, not to cheese it. Thoses are some key points that may help to get closer to a good mix. There are still issues of course, the sole fact that ARPG relies a lot on RNG and freedom in character building makes character power very wide between players. Reducing that would make the game go a bit too much away from it's "diablo 2 roots" in my opinion, but keeping it makes the balance very hard to reach. |
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