Making Combat "Meaningful" in POE2, a 10y POE1 Vet View

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Vyrelant#0538 написал:

Its an power fantasy ARPG, souls-like with a 20hr campaign and a Pseudo MMO balanced around a trade economy, all of these systems seem to detract from each other and result in a terrible experience because it forgets its just a game, and no that doesn't mean everything has to be 1 shot and you are spoon fed the best loot, it means balance.

Yeah you are right its a balance. But why the balance has to be "you can one shot every mob and some bosses, but ennemies cant one shot you".

To be honnest I have the feeling most of recent ARPG, except PoE2 so, forget that one of a base of an ARPG is to grind, to be afraid of any pack of ennemies cause they can kill you, and not just click on a single button, destroying everything and watching a movie at the same time !!!
The reward, even if I agree our reward is lacking in POE2, has a sense if you make an effort to have it imo.

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Vyrelant#0538 написал:

POE2 is played as a solo coop experience designed to be replayed every league, so why are we distributing loot around like its an MMO economy, why are most skills so weak and feel terrible to use 70% of the player base is funnelling into what ever is strongest, you want souls-like combat but make enemies 10x stronger and faster than a player where it feels like they are from a different game.

I agree on this point. It would be complicated for PoE2 to have a league system with new contents every 3-4 months, if nothing change about loot, time needed to finish campaign,... If it stays in the same state, a lot of players wont come back to play PoE2 every league.
But for me its not about difficulty, more about loots and a way to finish campaign faster.
For example about difficulty, I died > 150 times with my 1rst character during campaign, then with new class huntress, just 12 times. And Im sure I could die less in future try. Like in PoE1, with experience, game would be easier.

Well, i wanted to pop in and say i have a feeling this would get somewhat heated, but it seems i'm already 5 pages too late :P

Other than that, i do agree with the original poster. There has never been any meaningful combat in ARPG's outside of boss fights and i seriously doubt it's possible. Basic concepts required by each just don't mix and match.
But more importantly, most ARPG players don't want it, so stubbornly pushing this through anyway, especially in light of the non-stop avalanche of new bugs (multiple being severe and game-breaking) is just not what i would call a sane decision

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keppie#6373 написал:

Basic concepts required by each just don't mix and match.

Im sure if you asked people if a dark soul and an open world would match together, they would answer that.
But after 28 Millions sales of Elden Ring, you can easily say it was an amazing idea to help new players to play such game.

And when I see number of players that come to play PoE2 early access, I have hope thats a good idea personnaly.

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Right. Sure. You did a few weeks of game play supposedly 7 years ago and you are an expert on its status now? That would be assuming I believe you which, frankly, I don't. It doesn't matter though. Your opinion of POE1 doesn't matter

My opinion matters simply because I played this game long enough, saw how it plays and works and dropped it for good.

Anyway, the question was about meaningful combat. This simply doesn't exist in POE1.

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Legoury#0138 написал:

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keppie#6373 написал:

Basic concepts required by each just don't mix and match.

Im sure if you asked people if a dark soul and an open world would match together, they would answer that.
But after 28 Millions sales of Elden Ring, you can easily say it was an amazing idea to help new players to play such game.

Well, no idea what Elden Ring is. But i personally don't see any immediate issues in trying to mix Dark Souls with an open-world concept.
I do see some in mixing it with core ARPG concepts though.
I assume you're trying to state there should be credit for giving it a try, to which i can agree.
I'd give more credit though for realizing when a mistake is made.
EA is not halfway through yet, so they still may end up doing that when it comes to vision and design, but to be fair, the state we have now, in light of all the bugs, is not what i would call acceptable :s

100% + 1

poe 2 probably worst game ive ever played ..

I would agree on the bulk of your post.

I think the single greatest problem facing most of the difficulties in achieving balance and fun are that the game is primarily currency based.

Almost anyone who can acquire enough in game currency, can copy a build and follow the play style and easily defeat the bulk of the game. A few areas will require some practice.

Some areas where I differ on your take:

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Kraythax#2592 написал:

To make combat meaningful means that every fight should matter. Every fight should have some challenge, mechanics that have to be dodged

Half the problem of PoE 1 and especially PoE 2 is that it has become dodge ball in a box.

We don't need any more of this in Path of Exile:

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Kraythax#2592 написал:

you should need to combo your skills to empower them so that they actually do full damage in order to make the game mechanically interesting.

You shouldn't have to combo your skills any more than you should have to solo your skills to make the game more challenging. What made PoE 1 so great initially, is that your weren't pigeon holed into just a couple builds. Sure, there would always be some optimal builds, but those builds didn't mean players couldn't succeed with countless other builds - and not require over the top gear.

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Kraythax#2592 написал:

Go try to face tank Innocence in ACT 5

He's just kiting. That's not any special skill. Piety is tight kiting. The Brine King is standing next to him during the flood/storm phase, Dominus is just knowing when to run away. I'd agree that different tactics and strengths of various bosses and monsters make the game more interesting.

When every boss had a invulnerable phase, and a minion phase and a bullet hell phase, it is no longer interesting.

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Kraythax#2592 написал:

Meaningful combat at all encounters is incompatible with the A in ARPG.

It's unobtainable in any game for all players. What 12 people may find meaningful, 45 may not. GGG can find a balance of fun vs challenge vs action vs role playing. The latter would be achieved through allowing thematic builds to be viable and not just top gear builds.

The game shouldn't be currency based. GGG could allow in game account bound crafting currency and items worth using. There should be ways of obtaining it that are fun, challenging and take some time. Given those three elements there should be some determinism in finding useful currency and items that isn't exploitable. Account binding on some elements would do this. Epic/Quest type items would help. Having the top 1 or 2 tiers of item affixes be drop only (and allowing players to have a chance at crafting/fixing the broken affixes to make items useful would help).

I agree. Arpgs can have a good soulslike experience, but to accomplish that you have to design the entire game around this concept.
You need to design smaller zones around the low movespeed, need way less enemies for the combat to feel meaningful. Even loot and crafting has to be much more deterministic to support that type of combat, like soulslike games which have literally 0 rng.

The issue is that poe2 started off as poe 4.0, and if you look at earlier videos of that version of the game, it has poe style combat, very fast movespeed (like in that huntress video from 3 years ago), the combat feels more hack and slash like dmc than a soulslike, even the zones were designed around the high movespeed the characters previously had.
I assume Jonathan must have pivoted soon after Elden Ring's release and souls games becoming the mainstream, but they just slapped on that style of combat without designing the game for soulslike type of combat from the ground up. Thats probably why there is a lot of disconnect between the player and the rest of the game. The zones, the monsters, the loot were all designed for a poe1 style game, while players are slogging through having a weird half baked soulslike experience.

+100

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DalaiLama#6738 написал:

Some areas where I differ on your take:

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Kraythax#2592 написал:

To make combat meaningful means that every fight should matter. Every fight should have some challenge, mechanics that have to be dodged

Half the problem of PoE 1 and especially PoE 2 is that it has become dodge ball in a box.

We don't need any more of this in Path of Exile:

Not sure what "dodgeball in a box means" I was trying to channel what the "combat must be engaging" crowd were defining as engaging. If you see the rest of the post I dismantle that as compatible with an ARPG except in boss encounters.