>ARPGs by their nature devolve into almost musou-like mindless screen clearing which homogenizes build variety (AoE is king) and devalues anything else>Trying to combat this design will then devalue the AoE spam which some people genuinely enjoy>ImpasseGentlemen, how do we fix ARPGs?
>>730590754Why must it be fixed? If people enjoy that design then just let it be and try to improve the things surrounding it.
>>730590754There is nothing to fix, the genre reached its zenith and it's probably gonna go the way of the RTS genre.
>>730590754make them slow on purpose like diablo 1 but avoid roll/dodge mechanics.also avoid all the effects that basically blind you from seeing what is happening
Creating a musou with gear drops.
>>730590754Why do they both have to be the same game? Nioh 2 and PoE2 are both ARPGs with entirely different build philosophy. If you don't like AoE screen clearing, make a game where that isn't the best strategy. People who only like screen clearing will avoid it, people who like slower gameplay will play it, and people who like both will play both. If you try to make a game appeal to everyone it'll end up appealing to no one.
>>730590878It just seems a waste to have this entire genre with a lot of potential depth and then it just all boils down to figuring out how to make your abilities cover the most ground and deal the most damage at the endgame. Most of these games are actually at their best in the early to mid-game where you can get away with all kinds of cool builds that the endgame's number crunching won't allow.
>>730591108You are looking at it from the wrong perspective. Just create a new genre with that design philosophy and leave the old to be the old. If your new philosophy fails then that is proof that there was never a demand for it.A genre doesn't 'need' to have a lot of depth if the genre is already fun to play. RTS games have practically been stagnant for decades and there is really no point changing up that formula.
>>730591108>potential depthIs there though? Since Diablo 2 the genre has been about spamming one skill while rushing through the map to mindlessly grind for gear so you can mindlessly grind faster.
How about adaptive pack density and strength based on the player's build? If you have a lot of AoE capability, the game will spawn bigger, slightly weaker packs and if you have a lot of single target damage, the game will spawn smaller packs of stronger enemies.
>>730591505That's why I said potential depth. The systems and mechanics are there, but they stop being relevant once you hit a certain point in the game. It would be nice if all the game has to offer stayed relevant throughout.
>>730591006The problem is ARPG mean more kills = more rewards. And AoE screen clearing WILL give the most kills unless you make your game to have very, very few monsters at once...In which case maximum single target becomes the best strat, merely forcing players to the opposite end of the spectrum.
>>730590754You play and support NRFTW
>enemy type reduces damage by 80% if your attack hurts another enemy at the same time >sprinkle a few in each wavebye bye brainless DoT/AoE builds youll have to actually think now.
>>730590878You don't understand, that's not the real gameplay, people must roll roll roll around enemy ankles to be real gamers. It MUST be fixed!
>>730592661this, combat is so satisfying, I hate melee classes that just spamming aoe attacks
>>730591006For the purposes of this discussion, I'm pretty sure "ARPG" refers to games like Diablo exclusively.
>>730592965They really need to introduce forward facing riposte attacks so you don't have to do that silly ring around the rosie when you parry an enemy.
>>730590754Project Diablo 2 completely fixed that in-fact early PoE also fixed that but then went absolute full retardation with the nu-acts, exiles and their quadrants and subhumanistic league designs
You will NEVER solve this issue until you put an end to automation at least to some degree. But you won't, because your consumer base is full of autists, trannies and streamers who no-life the game.GGG's issues with PoE2 are entirely different however, in part due to them being spiteful retards who don't enjoy their own game and also because they've cultivated the star-citizen of arpgs as a playerbase.
poe is garbage
>>730593047Well those are diablo likes, not arpgs
>>730590754play Nioh
>>730590754>two flasks>TWO FLASKS
>>730590754they should be more 'rpg' than 'action'. lots of arpgs already are pretty stellar when it comes to character building and build diversity, you just have to make combat more tactical than just "spam your nuke skill while everything dies"
>>730590754No one forces you to use the strong aoe spam, do they? Just play your shitty build and enjoy the game the way you want and leave those who want to screenclear to screenclear
>>730593431Diablo's impact on the genre was so foundational that some people still use the two terms interchangeably.
as someone who always wanted to like ARPGs but always hated the journey and having to play for hours to get to the "real" endgame, I'm glad Vampire Survivors spawned a wave of games where you can become a screen clearing god in 20 minutes
>>73059362730s on YouTube is all it takes to debunk your retarded argument, sperglord.
>>730590754This isn't an ARPG thing, it's a PoE thing and basically any game where gameplay involves highly customizable build modifications. The pursuit of build optimization leads to breaking the game. There is no "fix" for it that doesn't destroy freedom of customization. You either like it or you can fuck off and play something more casual for your tastes.
>>730591645ok
>>730593627>try to do something without good aoe clear/meta ability or build>failed>failed>death>failed>map takes 50minnah im good
>>730591525This would unironically do it. I have no idea how hard it would be to implement something like that, though.
>>730594174that would lead to everyone having the exact same build or type to minmax the enemies for the best reward
>>730590754It's really easy, actuallyThe primary, most foundational commandment is to remove any sort of player economy. Dig it out of your fucking brain with a sharpened spoon. Take that idea, put it into a garbage can, and then drown the fucking thing in napalm until the very concept is erased, because it is actual anathema which makes the fundamental problem exponentially worse by introducing the concept of item fungibility and forcing builds to compete against each other. It has to go. I don't care that your monetization model needs you to act like you're an MMO, fuck you.
>>730594951What if the amount of rewards was also adaptive so that playing in any kind of way offered roughly the same amount of loot? ie. when pack density is lower, your effective magic find is higher (to a cap) and enemies would drop more loot to make up for the disparity in volume of loot sources
>>730593627Retard
Logical solution would be to have variety of enemy types, some are zergrushing crowd type, others are giganiggas that need to be taken down with directed attacks, support fuckers that do nothing by themselves but make your life very miserable when paired with others etc. But for this you have to actually design your encounters instead of just going "this enemy is weak to red but strong vs blue and that enemy is weak to blue but strong vs green". Game design is a lost technology.
>>730593047I consider myself an ARPG fan and I've barely ever played Diablo, I just love Fromslop, Nioh, Monster Hunter and other Jap ARPGs.
>>730593627retard
>>730596374They do design enemies like this, but it doesn't matter because an optimized endgame build is automatically clearing everything on the screen anyway. Incidentally that automatic part is the biggest problem.
>>730591525Grim Dawn endgame dungeons are based around a mechanic where you have to clear a certain amount of value per floor to progress and loot is given to you in chests at the end instead of drops. It's just a matter of fine tuning how much value each enemy gets so all builds can clear a floor in a similar amount of time. Bosses that take a while to burst down naturally give the most value compared to random packs. Of course for this to work you need enemies to actually take a certain amount of time to kill, so this can't be applied to a certain game where things that aren't even on the screen are passively exploding from a single molecule of breath approaching them from the player. Perhaps we should segment this certain game into its own sub-genre, or tard-pen if you will, and leave them to their own devices instead of comparing apples to Brazilians pizzas with 20 toppings.
>>730590754diablo like != arpg
>>730592965>roll roll roll on a floor but with isometric camera>WELL ACKSHULLY ITS GROUNDBREAKING INNOVATIVE GAMEPLAYFromshit and its consequences were a disaster for action games genres.
>>730597387still better than PoE and Diablo combat
>>730590878>all ARPG devs say they love diablo>yet diablo was 100x slower than their slopSurely something else broke, probably the endless chase for higher numbers, a number inflation.But having the same game but slowed down will be very dull compared to what used to be as shown in PoE 2. Diablo 3 released higher drop rates as an event and had to keep it as people complained they would stop playing if they changed it back>>730591006Honestly Wow vanilla hardcore is ARPG-like, and that game has you fight 1 normal mob for like 30 seconds straight
>>730593884>map takes 50minBut isn't that what the chilling slow burn M E T H O D I C A L gameplay like in the days of diablo 1 about? The game literally allows you to do that, what's the problem?
>>730590754you solve this by not creating opportunities to clear the screen of enemies
>>730595347Do you like Diablo 3? It has done exactly what you want.
>>730590754"Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game". -some game dev
>>730597474it's not because it gay and retarded.If you crave so much for your faggot iframe dodge, THE most retarded and cancerous game mechanic of 21st century so far, at least give a cool animation to it instead of rolling in a dirt like a dog, which is also a complete nonsense from realistic standpoint. You may throw yourself on the ground and roll away to dodge a train. Doing so to dodge a normal weapon swing just looks retarded.
>>730597649I don'tJust because a game does one thing right doesn't mean it can't be horrible for every other reason, and fuck you in particular for trying to erect such a fuckass strawman
isnt that what poe 2 is for? Single player is for those that don't want the musou experience, the autists who don't mind it will zip through maps playing cookie clicker.
>>730597831I don't need the iframe dodge, I need an arpg that is not balanced around aoe spam
>>730598141Grim Dawn should satisfy your demand perfectly then. But in likelihood you don't like it because it doesn't have fr*mshit mechanics.
>>730593449Poor example of a "diablo 2-like" because you really don't feel the impact of gear progression until way later in the new game+ modes. All you need to do in that game before said new game+ modes is to follow the main stat in your items, i.e. the worst kind of ARPG, devoid of any meaningful and interesting item choices. Don't get me wrong, Nioh 1 and 2 are great games but the itemization system in that game is piss poor. It doesn't ruin the game but it sure as hell doesn't add much value for 90% of the game.
>>730598238I played grim dawn quite a bit but I still prefer to be able to actively block attacks just left clicking and spamming hot keys is not engaging
>>730598238>Grim Dawn>Not balanced around aoe spam
>>730597587There's a middle road between "everything explodes forever" and "fighting a single mob for a minute"
>>730598629Now go clear at least sr30 with that shit, wont even talk about superboss encounters.Maybe you will be able to do so with optimal gear, but it will still be a shit build because consistent single target damage is much more important than aoe in GD.
genre's played out. it's not got long now.
>>730598795Why can't both exist? You might not like the screen clearing explosions but a lot of people evidently do, so why should their gameplay go away in favor of your taste?
we have to go back from rollslop to physicsslop
>>730598979I'm not saying it should go away, I am saying that the games shouldn't be designed with that as the intended endgame. Or if it is the intended endgame, don't cram the game full of different options and then go "Oops, that's not very viable now that you've played a 100 hours!"
i hate rollslop dance dance revolution so much its unreal
>>730599314Honestly sounds more like a live service game issue than a design issue. Diablo 2 was fine either way because it wasn't ever evolving with new content and power ups that just bloated the stats and enemies causing immense power creep.
>>730599492They did exactly that in Diablo 2 by adding increasingly powerful rune words and uber bosses and content. You think all these developers got these ideas on their own? Lmao.
>>730590754Unironically bring back D2 immunities. People always say they hate them, but some enemies being immune to your attacks either become an obstacle you have to navigate around, wait for your mercenary to deal with, or pushing you into a build that has a bit less obscene damage output but multiple damage types. Either solution makes the gameplay a bit slower.
>>730599653Please. You can't even compare the amount of power creep and content creep in D2 and for example PoE1.
>>730599982>Just bring back mechanics that will prevent players from playing your gameOkay mister developer, as you wish, I will not play your game then. Who's going to pay developer costs though, you selling your asshole to old men?
>>730599982That would only help if it was moderately difficult to diversify your damage types, but in newer ARPGs and especially PoE you can just shit out almost all damage types with the same doomsday cast.
Name your ONE major novel mechanic to the ARPG genre that does NOT change it into a different genre.
>>730592965rollsop now with a top-down view! A revolution in the genre
>>730599982>just kill themed buildsLame.
>>730600034You kinda can if you compare the state of the game in early vanilla D2 patches vs late LoD and D2R. Completely different games. Early on you couldn't even buy mana pots, casters were struggling, barb was the strongest class. Then by the end of LoD you wanted most builds to teleport around with Enigma and clear the screen quickly with the strongest AoE at your disposal (Lightning Fury, Multishot, Blizzard, Poison Nova, Corpse Explosion, Holy Fire/Shock, and in D2R Fist of the Heavens and whatever the fuck Mosaic Assassin ended up being)
>>730600391>actively dodging attacks is badfuck you
>>730600495>actively dodging attacks>this is a rollslop invulnerability buttonno u
ARPGs suffer from the same problem as MMOs: their playerbase is mindbroken retarded mush.All they want is to "build" (look up on youtube) some cookie cutter gear combo so they can mash one button and watch screens explode into shiny loot that they've been trained to crave in order to reach that point of mindlessness. It's just a broken genre.
>>730600369Destructible environments. And I don't mean the Diablo kind where you can break tables and other small things. I mean crashing through walls with charge abilities and freezing water to walk on it type of shit
>>730590754Like games such as Metroid Prime or classic Legend of Zelda, games like Diablo are fun because they make you feel powerful by the end of the game. If you play an ARPG ask yourself if you feel the progression of power the more you play. If you feel weak like in the case of nu-Dark Souls, then your ARPG has failed. If you have to beat your head against a wall to kill a boss, then you've made it too hard and have sucked the fun out of the experience. ARPGs need to feel like you're getting better gear that actually has weight at decent points in the game. I didn't get the sense of this in Last Epoch for instance. Diablo 4 also fails at this because weapon upgrades do more damage at different difficulties. Sorry, but Diablo 2 simply nails the feeling of being powerful.
I think PD2 achieved a pretty balanced speed. A lot of AoE and speedclear autism too, but I don't think it gets as ridiculous at the end as PoE.
>>730600826Yeah, this is what I've come to realize playing PoE2.
>>730600669rollslop critics never come up with a good alternative
>>730600495In fact it is. How much of actively dodging attacks have you observed in any type of realistic combat - martial arts, fencing, historical combat reconstruction, whatever? You are going to gas out in no time if you try that lmfao. Dodging should be a desperate measure to avoid some unstoppable force slamming into you. Your main defense should come from your own weapon.
>>730590754I thought ARPGs were stuff like Elden Ring?
>>730601012Honestly bro... Diablo 2 Resurrected is the best ARPG and probably nothing will ever beat it out. It's a dead genre. You can't really iterate on perfection
>>730600909The main problem with D4 is enemy scalling. If everything is always as strong as you, and you become weaker when you level up because you need to upgrade your gear first to catch up, your game fucked up. Same with being unable to just move from zone to zone to face stronger enemies, clear progression, instead you might as well stay in the starting zone where monsters just keep leveling up with you. Imagine leveling to 99 in Den of Evil.
>>730601181they wanted it to be open world. they made a clusterfuck of a numbers design. idk bro
>>730590754I like the journey of being a squishy little dude to a screen clearing God.
>>730601154I agree that the combat is still better than in the sequels, I still hate auto block
>>730601050i am fine with blocking and sidestepping just remove aoe spam and let me react to my enemy via movement
Lootclickers aren't ARPGs
>>730590754Make the main game an actual adventure where you go through dungeons and solve puzzles that require some thought, make loot important so you can feel good about exploring and killing tough enemies but don't revolve the entire fucking game around it. The retards that spend most of their gameplay setting up a build just so they can trick themselves into thinking the game is any different can deal with a couple games being actually different, they already spend thousands of hours doing the same shit over and over again.
Horizontal progression > vertical progressionYou should reach max level very fast like in GW1. It should be all about builds and itemization.No normal > elite > ultimate dogshit. One unified difficulty mode.Slow gameplay. No PoE1 trash. More like Grim Dawn.Grim Dawn's dual class system instead of PoE's "you can be everything". GD system is solid middle ground between class fantasy and freedom.Maybe GW1 skill system. Limited amount active skills to create MTG like card builder with skills.Game should take lessons from rogulikes for proper hardcore experience. It shouldn't take 8hours to reach max level. Take notes from TomE4 (part 1). Anyway horizontality is the most important thing.
>>730602092>You should reach max level very fast like in GW1. It should be all about builds and itemization.>No normal > elite > ultimate dogshit. One unified difficulty mode.So just like D3 and D4. Those ended up great!Slow leveling is fine, it's one form of visible progression, especially when you always have some new high level skills and equipment to unlock and look forward to. When you reach the max level in 2 hours you are missing out on that. And no, Paragon levels that go infinite are just a bandaid solution.
>>730602695>So just like D3 and D4. Those ended up great!Don't care about D3 or D4.Anyone who want vertical progression either didn't paly horizontal games (because no one make them) or natural enemy of arpg. Level grinding is just a mindless grind. Yes it is form of progression in RPG but it shouldn't be the core of the game. Can you imagine the game where you actually remember the name of the items your characters wear? How many of those items are low lvl? Back in ancient days we had it and we still have it in classic roguelikes. Your progression is gear your wear, the skills you use against enemies who are instead of getting +1000 stats and levels actually have unique skills to fight you.
>>730590754>how do we fix ARPGsby making them FPSARPGsbut seriously you cant because half of the fun and replayability of these games comes from combining different kinds of loot to make insane builds so you can form more drops.
>>730590754>my number go up simulator involves too much number going upThe one hit kill screen clearing is what sells these games. I think what you want is to play a CRPG, not an ARPG.
>>730604045>Can you imagine the game where you actually remember the name of the items your characters wear?>How many of those items are low lvl?Yes, D2. Many powerful items are low/mid level, and you have people going to Nightmare Andariel specifically to farm SoJ. Silkweave are lv36 req boots that are often used by endgame characters for +5 mana on kill and/or 10% max mana. Goblin Toe are only level 22 and used for crushing blow. Vipermagi is a mid level armor that can be used endgame because of 30% FCR. Herald of Zakarum is only level 42.Games that rush you to max level have a tendency of scalling the gear to be "max level" only, if anything it has even less use of low level stuff, because one way or another it expects you to farm for that max level gear. Everything is expected to be balanced because now you spend 2 hours leveling up and all the gear you find IS max level.
>>730604848Why can't there be a middle ground between the two genres?
>>730605487Requires too much work
>>730604848crpgs are too boring by more than half. fuck all the retarded dialog.
>>730591645>The systems and mechanics are thereLike what? The way I see it most systems and mechanics are just there to make the grinding and spamming more interesting.
>>730590878This.
>>730605202Yeah Diablo was pretty much inspired by roguelikes and D2 originally supposed to have permadeath only. It is a reason why it has a lot low level items you most likely not gonna use in LoD because of runes (or even in vanilla) but you would if death was more common and permanent.
>>730606187>Over a hundred different abilities>Ditto for augments for those abilities>A lot of unique items with build defining traits (though PoE is pretty bad with this due to uniques having a base item type that means they do not scale at all, rendering a lot of said uniques unusable in endgame content)There's all that, and most of it becomes background noise in the endgame, where about 10% of all that is actually useful.
>>730606306You don't wanna have all your level gear be useable because it devalues the stuff you find later. Low level items that are useful should always be the exceptions, not the general rule.
>>730606590That's seems more of a (PoE) balance issue than an actual counter to my initial point. Again, these games don't have really that much depth, it's all about mindlessly killing as many enemies as possible. Sure you can add a gorrilion skills and make them do the same dps but is that really going to fundamentally change how you play these games? Also, lets say the devs force the players to play skill piano builds, would that really change the endgame from looking like OPs image?
>>730606306I don't even see the point of having stupidly rare drops if permadeath is intended
>>730590754ignore the autistic retards who want the 1 button screen clear "gameplay". These people dont want actual gameplay they just want skinner box slot machine enemies to pop.
>>730602695>Those ended up great!this but unironically
>>730608469I still like D3, but D4 might be the worst game in the genre I have ever played.
>>730608194isnt that what they did with POE2 and everyone lost their shit.
>>730608016>Also, lets say the devs force the players to play skill piano builds, would that really change the endgame from looking like OPs image?I'm not arguing for anyone to be forced to play anything they do not want to play, in fact I am arguing for the exact opposite. If there are options in the game, make (or at the very least try to make) them all viable and don't pigeonhole players into certain builds based on what the minmaxers do.If someone breaks the game and then whines to the devs how the game is too easy, the correct way to deal with that is to ignore the retard, not adjust the game to make him happy again.
>>730598238>Grim Yawn
>>730590754Fromsoft already fixed the genre, Diablo-clones are obsolete.
>>730609753Not even close.
>>730609820Yea it is, innovations in gameplay moved the genre forward, Diablo and its contemporaries were left behind. They're nothing but nostalgia-bait for tired old boomers.
>>730590754What I always thought was "bad" about all isometric Diablo-like ARPGs is the fact that not a single one of them is a good RPG when it comes to world/level/quest design. Why can't you simply make a CRPG with ARPG combat? Nope, every ARPG has to be a linear game with maps just filled with random mobs and MMO quests that have no real effort to complete.> That's just RtwP. No.
>>730610159Because that's not the point of those games. You can have a good plot, but at the end of the day it should be only something that pushes you forward to new areas. Anything that distracts you from killing monsters and improving your character (long dialogues, cutscenes, puzzles and such) would be just things you want to skip after the first playthrough.
>>730610695I always enjoyed the campaigns finishing the campaigns in D2 on three difficulty levels was awesome
>>730590754Just play Torchlight 2 instead.
>>730597831https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhwRGyHMkvY
>>730590754I'm fixing it as we speak don't worry anon.
>>730590754Fewer, stronger enemies and shorter maps.The boss fights were the best part of PoE, anyway.
>>730596540These are not arpgs. Arpgs are only diablo likes.And nobody cares what you consider yourself.
>>730590935Nah, rts isn't gambling in disguise. PoE loot grinding is just a reskinned slot machine. Those never go out of style.
>>730611428Diablo wasn't even the first ARPG retard
>>730595347This is a fundamental thing to do for sure.Player economy and all that bullshit has no place in these kinds of games.
There once was a game that perfectly blended CRPG and ARPG, and not a single game has been like it since.
>>730590754If you look at megabonk you can see that making an addictive game with infinite scaling exploding your screen and lagging your shit is very easy. You simply have to not do this, shouldn't be hard
>>730612174>WestwoodRIP
>>730604848This. Screen clearing aoe skills is the reasons to play these games. Anyone who complains about that is retarded and missing the point, plus the game you want already exists and it is called no rest for the wicked and it sucks ass.This is the best example why rolllslop souls games and arpg diablo like, are two completely different things and should never be combined ever.The core problem with the diablo like formula is infinite scalability. Every fucking retarded company and studio from the lowest 5 guys indie team to the multi billion dollar Blizzard trannies, cannot accept the fact that you cannot have an infinite game. You cannot have seasons every 4 months forever, you cannot make new areas, bosses, items and classes forever, you cannot have infinite levels and you cannot see the numbers go up forever.There needs to be a limit to all these things and a the same time a good reason to keep playing despite that. The problem is that no one has managed to solve this issue yet and because they are too stupid and uncreative to ever solve it, they try to combine genres and trick players with ladder resets.That's it, this is the root of all your issues with the arpg diablo like genre. If you disagree, it means you do not understand the issue and thus any "solution" you will offer are pointless and misguided.
>>730611603Nice retort moron. How is that even relevant?
>>730612726>Screen clearing aoe skills is the reasons to play these gamesNo, buildcrafting is. Trying all kinds of different things you can do with the systems and gear is the salt of the genre, and if only a few of those possibilities are actually viable, that's bad.
>>730612726retard
>>730612726I mean, I don't disagree with the general idea in your post, but Diablo 2 is pretty much an infinite game.
>>730600369sex with succubi
Diablo-like ARPGs aren't fun. The core gameplay is an ouroboros loop that, much like MMOs (and even RPGs in general), doesn't improve as the player invests time, the game just gets easier because your numbers outpaced their numbers. Diablolikes are Gauntlet with extra steps.
