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

The problem is that this is a goal that is incompatible with the very nature of this particular subgenre of ARPGs.

ARPGs that are in some way descended from Diablo 2 all have a relatively simple game loop:
kill monsters -> get better gear and level up -> kill bigger monsters -> get even better gear and level up -> ...

Naturally, every player quickly realizes that the faster they can execute this loop, the faster they can progress through the game, and experience content that they haven't previously seen.

The only way you'd get more deliberate combat is if you remove the incentive to increase the pace of this loop.

So, as a stupid example, you could say that during any 5 second interval only 1 monster can give you XP and drop items, thereby removing the incentive to build characters that can kill more than 1 monster every 5 seconds.

Or you could make it so that only the boss of an area gives you XP and drops items, but the boss arena only "unlocks" after you've been in the map for at least 2 minutes.

Every single thing I can think of sounds awful. If you want a slow ARPG, then I'm afraid that you'll have to throw 99% of this game in the bin and start over.

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GregoryAdams#7051 wrote:

The problem is that this is a goal that is incompatible with the very nature of this particular subgenre of ARPGs.

ARPGs that are in some way descended from Diablo 2 all have a relatively simple game loop:
kill monsters -> get better gear and level up -> kill bigger monsters -> get even better gear and level up -> ...

Naturally, every player quickly realizes that the faster they can execute this loop, the faster they can progress through the game, and experience content that they haven't previously seen.

The only way you'd get more deliberate combat is if you remove the incentive to increase the pace of this loop.

So, as a stupid example, you could say that during any 5 second interval only 1 monster can give you XP and drop items, thereby removing the incentive to build characters that can kill more than 1 monster every 5 seconds.

Or you could make it so that only the boss of an area gives you XP and drops items, but the boss arena only "unlocks" after you've been in the map for at least 2 minutes.

Every single thing I can think of sounds awful. If you want a slow ARPG, then I'm afraid that you'll have to throw 99% of this game in the bin and start over.

weird that you didn't suggest decreasing mob density. like one of the most glaring issues here.

Hire gameplay designers who don't liberally employ "wishful thinking". Will my post sink in... nope.

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GregoryAdams#7051 wrote:

ARPGs that are in some way descended from Diablo 2 all have a relatively simple game loop:
kill monsters -> get better gear and level up -> kill bigger monsters -> get even better gear and level up -> ...

Naturally, every player quickly realizes that the faster they can execute this loop, the faster they can progress through the game, and experience content that they haven't previously seen.

While this is absolutely true, I don't see why you can't just buff loot and exp accordingly to match longer encounters. Loot and EXP feel good not as a result of amount of enemies killed necessarily, but as amount gained over time. Killing If a pack gives 1 exp and it takes me 1 second to kill it, that's going to feel similar in terms of rewards to killing a pack that gives 5 exp but takes me 5 seconds, as long as both tasks feel equally rewarding to execute.

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Redfeather_1975#0068 wrote:

Hire gameplay designers who don't liberally employ "wishful thinking". Will my post sink in... nope.

If you don't have something actually constructive to contribute to the conversation, don't waste space in this thread, please and thank you. Have a nice day!

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GregoryAdams#7051 wrote:

The problem is that this is a goal that is incompatible with the very nature of this particular subgenre of ARPGs.

ARPGs that are in some way descended from Diablo 2 all have a relatively simple game loop:
kill monsters -> get better gear and level up -> kill bigger monsters -> get even better gear and level up -> ...

Naturally, every player quickly realizes that the faster they can execute this loop, the faster they can progress through the game, and experience content that they haven't previously seen.

The only way you'd get more deliberate combat is if you remove the incentive to increase the pace of this loop.

So, as a stupid example, you could say that during any 5 second interval only 1 monster can give you XP and drop items, thereby removing the incentive to build characters that can kill more than 1 monster every 5 seconds.

Or you could make it so that only the boss of an area gives you XP and drops items, but the boss arena only "unlocks" after you've been in the map for at least 2 minutes.

Every single thing I can think of sounds awful. If you want a slow ARPG, then I'm afraid that you'll have to throw 99% of this game in the bin and start over.

I think there is a different way to view this.

I see it like this:

There are people that like to roleplay
There are people that like to min-max

Role players will want to develop different kinds of builds: Specialised, Hybrid, Off meta, Thematic Builds.

These people will prefer slower pacing and don't care that much about killing very very fast, as long as their build makes it to the end after farming/trading.

They like to optimize as well but they won't kill the fun to optimize and will try to find a middle ground.

Then there are the min-max player that will simply "optimize the fun out of the game".

They will only play meta and complain that things are too easy while ignoring 95% of the rest of the builds the game has to offer because it can't live up to in efficiency.

The only way to kind of solve this dillema is by slowing the game down and make it more reaction/combo skill based which is what PoE 2 at least allegedly tried to do.
So even if you build meta and well, you can still die because gear/build isn't everything and spamming mindlessly doesn't cut it anymore, but at the same time you can overcome bosses even with a suboptimal build because you play well mechanically.

I'm personally an RPG type of player, so I always prefer when meta isn't strongly enforced encouraged, or else we only have to play the same shit over and over

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Gordyne#2944 wrote:

The only way to kind of solve this dillema is by slowing the game down and make it more reaction/combo skill based which is what PoE 2 at least allegedly tried to do.
So even if you build meta and well, you can still die because gear/build isn't everything and spamming mindlessly doesn't cut it anymore, but at the same time you can overcome bosses even with a suboptimal build because you play well mechanically.

I'm personally an RPG type of player, so I always prefer when meta isn't strongly enforced encouraged, or else we only have to play the same shit over and over

this is great on paper. but poe has so much variable (skills/mobs/maps) all with their own sets of mods that tailoring such system will be close to impossible to prevent min-maxers of completely bypassing it. and while you might play non-meta is all fine and dandy till the next change will destroy your character becuase patch changed some stuff around to prohibit min-maxers abuse. they can't balance the game around min-maxers and satisfy non-meta players. just look what happened with poe1, it arrived to the point where you can play meta build by 'accident'

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AintCare#6513 wrote:

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GregoryAdams#7051 wrote:

The problem is that this is a goal that is incompatible with the very nature of this particular subgenre of ARPGs.

ARPGs that are in some way descended from Diablo 2 all have a relatively simple game loop:
kill monsters -> get better gear and level up -> kill bigger monsters -> get even better gear and level up -> ...

Naturally, every player quickly realizes that the faster they can execute this loop, the faster they can progress through the game, and experience content that they haven't previously seen.

The only way you'd get more deliberate combat is if you remove the incentive to increase the pace of this loop.

So, as a stupid example, you could say that during any 5 second interval only 1 monster can give you XP and drop items, thereby removing the incentive to build characters that can kill more than 1 monster every 5 seconds.

Or you could make it so that only the boss of an area gives you XP and drops items, but the boss arena only "unlocks" after you've been in the map for at least 2 minutes.

Every single thing I can think of sounds awful. If you want a slow ARPG, then I'm afraid that you'll have to throw 99% of this game in the bin and start over.

weird that you didn't suggest decreasing mob density. like one of the most glaring issues here.

Because if you decrease mob density people will just optimize for movement speed.

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ClockworkShrew#7536 wrote:

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GregoryAdams#7051 wrote:

ARPGs that are in some way descended from Diablo 2 all have a relatively simple game loop:
kill monsters -> get better gear and level up -> kill bigger monsters -> get even better gear and level up -> ...

Naturally, every player quickly realizes that the faster they can execute this loop, the faster they can progress through the game, and experience content that they haven't previously seen.

While this is absolutely true, I don't see why you can't just buff loot and exp accordingly to match longer encounters. Loot and EXP feel good not as a result of amount of enemies killed necessarily, but as amount gained over time. Killing If a pack gives 1 exp and it takes me 1 second to kill it, that's going to feel similar in terms of rewards to killing a pack that gives 5 exp but takes me 5 seconds, as long as both tasks feel equally rewarding to execute.

Sure, but that doesn't really decrease the pace of the game overall. If you have 1/5 of the monsters in a zone, but each monster takes 5x longer to kill and gives 5x more XP, you're still clearing each zone at the same pace on average.

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GregoryAdams#7051 wrote:

Because if you decrease mob density people will just optimize for movement speed.

if you decrease mob density you can make each mob tougher and more dangerous. MS has nothing to do with it since it would function the same as it does now... weird take