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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.
That's the entire point though. Assuming the overall pace is fine, this change means there's less fights that take longer, but it also gives you the chance to make said fights more meaningful. You don't want to slow down the overall pace of EXP and loot acquisition, just the pace of an individual fight, because the slower the fight is, the more you have to engage with it (ie. can't build to oneshot packs every time).
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Well, in that case, wouldn't it make more sense to make the skill floor lower, i.e. make the base game easier overall? Then you enable all the less optimized builds to complete the game, too.
The reason I'm mentioning this is that I personally don't really like the focus on mechanical gameplay at all.
The problem is that you can't have a game that's both difficult AND doesn't invite hyper optimization. Because that's the logical "solution" to the difficulty.
this is very interesting. but how would you do this? we would have to start in maps and end up in handcrafted acts as 'end-game'? i still feel like the rng is way too great and the only reason normal 1-3 feels so good its because it has the least rng in it.
I think that there should simply be more viable ways to progress through the game.
For example, if you're mechanically skilled and play meta builds, you progress faster. And that's fine. That's your reward for playing the game "the right way", I guess.
If you're not mechanically skilled, you can over farm and over level, and out-gear the bosses. The trade-off here would be time.
And if you want to play a very off meta build, then maybe that would require you farm even longer, so that you have the very specific defenses for each specific fight, until your build comes together.
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Posted byGregoryAdams#7051on Dec 26, 2024, 3:58:20 PM
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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.
That's the entire point though. Assuming the overall pace is fine, this change means there's less fights that take longer, but it also gives you the chance to make said fights more meaningful. You don't want to slow down the overall pace of EXP and loot acquisition, just the pace of an individual fight, because the slower the fight is, the more you have to engage with it (ie. can't build to oneshot packs every time).
Yeah, that's reasonable. Basically, as an extreme example, you'd just have an area with 10 rares, spread out, so that they don't interact. Then you'd fight each one for a full minute, and then get a bunch of loot and XP. Sure.
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Posted byGregoryAdams#7051on Dec 26, 2024, 4:01:05 PM
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Only if the maps are fucking huge.
True. They kind of are at the moment, though.
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Posted byGregoryAdams#7051on Dec 26, 2024, 4:02:11 PM
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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
Well, in that case, wouldn't it make more sense to make the skill floor lower, i.e. make the base game easier overall? Then you enable all the less optimized builds to complete the game, too.
The reason I'm mentioning this is that I personally don't really like the focus on mechanical gameplay at all.
The problem is that you can't have a game that's both difficult AND doesn't invite hyper optimization. Because that's the logical "solution" to the difficulty.
Yes you make the game easier overall, so that the build diversity and experimentation advertised by GGG is actually there and not just a noob trap.
But at the same time you have to nerf things that are broken so that the min-maxxers are just 50-80% more effective than off-meta and not 1000% more effective than off meta.
Off meta players don't care if some other guy farms 80% faster than him. He cares if his build can't beat the map bosses because of overinflated HP and undodgeable mechanics that are made to kill min-max players
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Posted byGordyne#2944on Dec 26, 2024, 4:02:16 PM
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I think that there should simply be more viable ways to progress through the game.
For example, if you're mechanically skilled and play meta builds, you progress faster. And that's fine. That's your reward for playing the game "the right way", I guess.
If you're not mechanically skilled, you can over farm and over level, and out-gear the bosses. The trade-off here would be time.
And if you want to play a very off meta build, then maybe that would require you farm even longer, so that you have the very specific defenses for each specific fight, until your build comes together.
i agree, and this is why i brought up the 1-3 acts of normal diff in poe2. i don't play meta and i'm always under geared. i never once felt gated due to lack of dps. (till foundary mini boss). if they could balance the game like this i woud be very very happy, i just don't think its viable since it requires literally hand crafted encounters
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Posted byAintCare#6513on Dec 26, 2024, 4:05:16 PM
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Yes you make the game easier overall, so that the build diversity and experimentation advertised by GGG is actually there and not just a noob trap.
But at the same time you have to nerf things that are broken so that the min-maxxers are just 50-80% more effective than off-meta and not 1000% more effective than off meta.
Off meta players don't care if some other guy farms 80% faster than him. He cares if his build can't beat the map bosses because of overinflated HP and undodgeable mechanics that are made to kill min-max players
Exactly. Don't balance the game around trying to kill the outlier OP builds.
If they're really unhappy about these, they should just hard cap the DPS for the main skill these outliers are using, regardless of level, supports or passives, and leave the rest of the game alone.
This is only a problem because of how GGG are choosing to approach it.
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Posted byGregoryAdams#7051on Dec 26, 2024, 4:09:36 PM
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One way is somehow how PoE is doing it now, campaign with deliberate combat with endgame that allows you to ignore more and more mechanics as a reward, to a point of zoom. Sure beats braindead zero threat 8h tutorial of a campaign, an mmo/f2p/omg cancer idea that should die and never be ressurected, and then zoom boom endgame.
Also nothing should be able to let you ignore danger, resistances/ es/ healtth/ whatever, all should help you survive mechanics or handle them a bit better, but never let you walk stay in place or walk unscathed through mechanics like a derp king tanking it all. Otherwise it's numerical arpg and click to genocide combat.
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We're already seeing HUGE delays and minimal support for PoE 1, so the "just stick to PoE 1" argument is mute. At best.
I have sympathy for this. Tbh I can't wait for the die hard POE1 clear speed fans to go back to POE1 and let 2 be its own thing. I expect the main reason for completely ignoring POE1 outside of obvious manhours to POE2 into EA, is that they want to give everyone a fair shot to at least try to adapt to a slower pace and higher skill cap without an immediate POE1 league for everyone to rage quit into.
I feel like GGG is "starting to figure it out" they showed this when they forked POE2 off as a separate game because they finally realized the POE1 players were going to riot. They still got the Riot tbh. But they'll probably mollify that with a POE1 league announcement soon(TM)
Pandering to players who don't want consequences for their mistakes is a perfect description of what went fundamentally wrong with D3 and 4.
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Posted byalhazred70#2994on Dec 26, 2024, 4:11:16 PM
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No they just need better crafting.
Literally every other ARPG has figured it out.
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Posted byXenus_Paradox#7530on Dec 26, 2024, 4:11:52 PM
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