What happened to Engaging Combat? Video Feedback.

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SpellbreakTN#4609 schrieb:

What's with the AI voice?

Apologies, shitty mic and loud street. Living near a school as well. It was the easiest solution.. I'm not exactly a youtuber heh.

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IonSugeRau1#1069 schrieb:

His whole argument is that it's impossible, he's not trying to help with anything. Guys like him is the reason the game is in this state to begin with. He's already convinced that it's impossible and he's just trying to push back against it... with really bad arguments too. No, let me rephrase that... he most likely doesn't actually believe it's impossible, he just doesn't want it and tries to convince us that it's impossible so we give up on it and GGG as well.

If he would've said he just likes the power creep and that's his preference I wouldn't be as upset with that but he keeps trying to invalidate from the start the whole purpose of this thread.

It's as if he's basically saying "You guys are dumb, I know better then anyone including GGG, it's impossible!"

That is NOT what I am saying.....that is what YOUR response to me and to others. You are failing to digest anything I have written.

I said its impossible, and I gave actual reasons. Meanwhile you continue to compare PoE 2 to games that are of a completely different genre of game, with completely different game loops and goals. You can't suddenly turn side-scroller Mario into an rpg.....without fundamentally changing the foundation of what the game IS. It just doesn't work.

What I am trying to get you to open your mind to, desperately, is what makes the GAMEPLAY that is PoE 2......different from every single example you have currently provided in this thread. And why systems that work in things like V Rising or Dark Souls or <insert other title>, simply WILL NOT WORK in POE 2. Or that its all literally been tried and done before, in PoE 1....and failed for all the reasons I've already covered in previous posts.

I even acknowledged that they COULD do what you want them to do, but it would require a total overhaul of a game that has already been released. There isn't a company in the world that is going to take something they spent the last 5 years+ developing......and throw it all out the window because unfortunately some of the systems they wanted don't work the way they intended. It's THEIR mistake in how they created the game. They tried to blend incompatible aspects of different genres.

They have done this before, again in PoE 1. Sanctum, ToTA, Blight, etc. are all trying to take OTHER game genres and shoehorn them into a loot-based arpg. And all of these systems are exceptionally polarizing in the grand scheme of PoE, to the point of being awful to play except if they give a ton of loot to reward you for dealing with them. Sure, part of that statement is my own personal feelings on the matter, just as your feelings on "meaningful combat" are likely different from someone else's. GGG covers mistakes in design by showering you with loot, because ultimately the GAMEPLAY is about the loot and NOT the action. That's why, for multiple leagues, Sanctum was just pouring out currency left and right but now that it doesn't as much.....people don't play it. It doesn't "fit" in the game. Trial of Sekhemas (OG) shows this to an extensive degree in PoE 2.




And here's perfect examples: those that are trying to describe how to make combat more engaging within this thread have offered numerous "solutions" such as:
1) Multiply the monsters health
2) Slow everything down
3) Give the monsters unique or powerful abilities
4) Beef up all rare monsters
etc.

ALL OF THESE THINGS HAVE HAPPENED IN POE 1. Many many many times lol. Monster health NOW in PoE 1 is about 1000x what it used to be, perhaps even more. They have TRIED to slow things down. Rares got unique abilities thanks to AN, and got super beefy too. They nerfed skills and power. Over and over again. THESE AREN'T SOLUTIONS...and we see that from the history of PoE 1. Because the FOUNDATION of the game doesn't allow these to be solutions. They are, at best, temporary bandaids that do nothing to solve the actual problem. The problem being that we are in a loot-based arpg designed around farming at astronomical odds for so many customizable stats that getting items from drops is hard to the point of impossible.

Why would any of those work in PoE 2, when they repeatedly over the course of 13 years didn't work in PoE 1? What makes PoE 2 "different" in terms of gameplay, gameplay loot, player goals, etc.?

Here's what would need to be fixed for "meaingful combat" to work:
1) The stats on loot would need to be drastically cut back, both in type and tier
2) There would need to be some sort of "smart loot" system so that players don't have to drop a million items just to get ONE upgrade.....when each item drop happens like once every 5 minutes.
3) Every character ability and skill needs to be reworked, with NO INPUT from PoE 1 ideas.
4) In fact, get rid of monster rarity entirely: have all mobs be typed, with minibosses and bosses. The second monsters have categories such as "magic" or "rare", the slower game becomes about skipping every other monster EXCEPT the one that is going to give you a drop.
5) There needs to be special, required ways to use skills for certain encounters. For example, a boss could be completely and irreversibly immune to fire damage, until you use an ice skill. Things like that.

That's just to name a few. But what does all that do? It takes the PoE 2 game and CHANGES IT into Dark Souls. Or any of those other titles. It ceases to be the game that it currently is, from the ground up. And that will never, ever, happen now that the game has been released as-is. The grind in such a game would be like hunting for a mirror drop for each and every upgrade you'd ever make.

^This is not a post against any person or idea in this thread at all. It is a post against GGG's stated desire to have meaningful combat in PoE 2. I'm surprised I have to even explain that. If it is being taken personally, then slow down and read it and open your mind to the possibility of disagreement. And yet they delivered a copy/paste PoE 1 game. I have seen their attempts to slow down PoE 1, from 3.14 blanket nerfs to the removal of alt quality to the changes in item values to the ascendancy nerfs to the monster buffs to the newly designed and harder bosses to monster phases to AN........you name it.

When the game itself is fundamentally designed around a specific type of loop, that loop determines what can be implemented within the game. And that is ALWAYS what the majority of the playerbase will gravitate towards: maximizing the gameplay loop given to them. Or they will quit and play a completely different game that DOES do what they want, such as playing Dark Souls and the like. Their best bet with the current game is to just nerf everyone's power, or cut AoE anything by like 95%.....but all that accomplishes is a slow game. And a slow game, where everything feels like playing Act 1 in Diablo 2.....will not succeed.

Yes, all this is my OPINION and not hard solid FACT......but it is an opinion based on about 13+ years of experience playing and witnessing the development of PoE 1, and also playing PoE 2. AND playing many of those other games on the side too.

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cowmoo275#3095 schrieb:

That is NOT what I am saying.....that is what YOUR response to me and to others. You are failing to digest anything I have written.

I said its impossible, and I gave actual reasons. Meanwhile you continue to compare PoE 2 to games that are of a completely different genre of game, with completely different game loops and goals. You can't suddenly turn side-scroller Mario into an rpg.....without fundamentally changing the foundation of what the game IS. It just doesn't work.

What I am trying to get you to open your mind to, desperately, is what makes the GAMEPLAY that is PoE 2......different from every single example you have currently provided in this thread. And why systems that work in things like V Rising or Dark Souls or <insert other title>, simply WILL NOT WORK in POE 2. Or that its all literally been tried and done before, in PoE 1....and failed for all the reasons I've already covered in previous posts.

I even acknowledged that they COULD do what you want them to do, but it would require a total overhaul of a game that has already been released. There isn't a company in the world that is going to take something they spent the last 5 years+ developing......and throw it all out the window because unfortunately some of the systems they wanted don't work the way they intended. It's THEIR mistake in how they created the game. They tried to blend incompatible aspects of different genres.

They have done this before, again in PoE 1. Sanctum, ToTA, Blight, etc. are all trying to take OTHER game genres and shoehorn them into a loot-based arpg. And all of these systems are exceptionally polarizing in the grand scheme of PoE, to the point of being awful to play except if they give a ton of loot to reward you for dealing with them. Sure, part of that statement is my own personal feelings on the matter, just as your feelings on “meaningful combat” are likely different from someone else's. GGG covers mistakes in design by showering you with loot, because ultimately the GAMEPLAY is about the loot and NOT the action. That's why, for multiple leagues, Sanctum was just pouring out currency left and right but now that it doesn't as much.....people don't play it. It doesn't “fit” in the game. Trial of Sekhemas (OG) shows this to an extensive degree in PoE 2.




And here's perfect examples: those that are trying to describe how to make combat more engaging within this thread have offered numerous “solutions” such as:
1) Multiply the monsters health
2) Slow everything down
3) Give the monsters unique or powerful abilities
4) Beef up all rare monsters
etc.

ALL OF THESE THINGS HAVE HAPPENED IN POE 1. Many many many times lol. Monster health NOW in PoE 1 is about 1000x what it used to be, perhaps even more. They have TRIED to slow things down. Rares got unique abilities thanks to AN, and got super beefy too. They nerfed skills and power. Over and over again. THESE AREN'T SOLUTIONS...and we see that from the history of PoE 1. Because the FOUNDATION of the game doesn't allow these to be solutions. They are, at best, temporary bandaids that do nothing to solve the actual problem. The problem being that we are in a loot-based arpg designed around farming at astronomical odds for so many customizable stats that getting items from drops is hard to the point of impossible.

Here's what would need to be fixed for “meaingful combat” to work:
1) The stats on loot would need to be drastically cut back, both in type and tier
2) There would need to be some sort of “smart loot” system so that players don't have to drop a million items just to get ONE upgrade.....when each item drop happens like once every 5 minutes.
3) Every character ability and skill needs to be reworked, with NO INPUT from PoE 1 ideas.
4) In fact, get rid of monster rarity entirely: have all mobs be typed, with minibosses and bosses. The second monsters have categories such as “magic” or “rare”, the slower game becomes about skipping every other monster EXCEPT the one that is going to give you a drop.
5) There needs to be special, required ways to use skills for certain encounters. For example, a boss could be completely and irreversibly immune to fire damage, until you use an ice skill. Things like that.

That's just to name a few. But what does all that do? It takes the PoE 2 game and CHANGES IT into Dark Souls. Or any of those other titles. It ceases to be the game that it currently is, from the ground up. And that will never, ever, happen now that the game has been released as-is. The grind in such a game would be like hunting for a mirror drop for each and every upgrade you'd ever make.

I think it should be obvious, at least by now, that just throwing meaningful combat at PoE1 doesn't work. That was one of the reasons they made this a different game. It's not impossible to make, because from how I understood their vision for combat, it wouldn't have been just “PoE1 with meaningful combat”, but its own game.

As for your fixes (my opinion):
1) Yea
2) Why? With crafting useful crafting you can actually start doing in campaign, this should work without all that smart loot. And if you're really ** unlucky — you got to grind a map/boss a few times — not like you will do this in the endgame anyway…
3) No input is too much, but yea — it would need some fundamental changes. Not every skill needs to be a damage skill or be useless.
4) Don't have to do that — I'd say there are multiple ways to go about it. But yea — rares would end up more like some kind of mini-bosses, I guess. Pack size would have to be reduced for non-rares. You could still have white “explodeable” packs, or just not. You could ditch magic monsters entirely — or make them some kind of different challenge to rares — more dangerous than normal monsters, but much simpler than rares.
5) Yea, this and making setting up skills enticing by other things than if the mob is frozen ⇾ 200% more damage. This could also be as simple as the enemy moves a lot ⇾ you need to freeze cause you won't hit your ability any way else.

I also don't see why mindlessly slaughtering monsters is supposed to be the "fun endgame that's rewarding to grind" and actually fighting monsters is not.
Let's say you need 5x the time to clear a map with half the rares in it. Then just make it that much more rewarding? Noone wants a forced ruthless mode here, and engaging combat doesn't force bad drops…

Also, I think a goal to beat the pinnacle bosses is much better than beating them and afterwards farming 100h so you can finally beat them in under 2 seconds… I just don't enjoy it anymore and want something different after playing PoE1 for a long time. I hope they will still make big changes and make all of this possible, but I also kinda understand if they don't — it will be a lot of work, and they will get hate from some people no matter what they will decide on. Going down the PoE1 route will is surely the easy way out, maybe also the smarter one - but not the one of passion for games and their vision, or at least how I understood it.

Excellent points, and exactly what im trying to explain to IonSugeRau1#1069.
Perhaps I can simplify it.

Engaging combat demands very strict parameters for player power, and very small amounts complexity.
For game to have interesting crafting, loot and build diversity it demands, relatively, very loose parameters around player power.

This is the very core of the problem.

IonSugeRau1, a hypothetical, where do you think the cap/max should be when it comes to engaging combat from a average character? As a example, a boss have 1000 health and the average damage is 10, that means it would take 100 hits to kill the boss.
Lets say the cap is at 200% above the average, that means instead of 100 hits you need 33 hits to kill the boss.
The problem, is you have then to spread that 200% out on the entire passive tree, all the items that exists, all the rare unique jewels, all of the ascendancies, all rare runes, all the possible levers of power.

Let us say the passive tree with ascendancies at level 100 increase your power with 100% and items then stand for the rest of the allowed 100%.

That means you level up, you are now 0.3% stronger, you do the fourth ascendancy, congratulations, you are now 1.3% stronger, you find a super rare unique jewel, thats is 0.8% increased power, you find unique jewel, another 0.2% increased power... You spend 20 divines to upgrade a item, another 0.4% increased power...

Then after upgrading your items for, lets say 40 hours, a work week, you get to 50% of allowed item power, how much time would the average player spend grinding for loot to get to the damage ceiling, the max?

We are talking then about going from 40 hits to 33 hits to kill the average boss, 7 hits less. How much time would you personally invest to lower the time? 80 hours, two work weeks of grinding, to reduce the boss fighting time with 8.25%?

I think the majority would not even bother, and that is a problem. That explains why the average total time spent on dark souls III is 50~ hours, it is then done, you cant make any real improvements and there is no real complexity.

And the complexity will also have to suffer and be culled, there is a good reason why the games with the best PvE combat have very low character complexity.

And the loot grinding system in PoE 1 explains why so many users have thousands of hours spent gaming, because the damage ceiling is so high, you can almost always make improvements or another complex character.'

Made some edits because easy math is hard.

I specifically remember a long time ago in PoE1 when rares used to have mods that made them immune to certain elements and/or reflect. That was incredibly bad design.. I don't know of any game that does that without actually giving you the tools to deal with it easily available.

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Grayeye#1799 schrieb:

Excellent points, and exactly what im trying to explain to IonSugeRau1#1069.
Perhaps I can simplify it.

Engaging combat demands very strict parameters for player power, and very small amounts complexity.
For game to have interesting crafting, loot and build diversity it demands, relatively, very loose parameters around player power.

This is the very core of the problem.

IonSugeRau1, a hypothetical, where do you think the cap/max should be when it comes to engaging combat from a average character? As a example, a boss have 1000 health and the average damage is 10, that means it would take 100 hits to kill the boss.
Lets say the cap is at 200%, that means instead of 100 hits you need 33 hits to kill the boss.
The problem, is you have then to spread that 200% out on the entire passive tree, all the items that exists, all the rare unique jewels, all of the ascendancies, all rare runes, all the possible levers of power.

Let us say the passive tree with ascendancies at level 100 increase your power with 100% and items then stand for the rest of the allowed 100%.

That means you level up, you are now 0.3% stronger, you do the fourth ascendancy, congratulations, you are now 1.3% stronger, you find a super rare unique jewel, thats is 0.8% increased power, you find unique jewel, another 0.2% increased power... You spend 20 divines to upgrade a item, another 0.4% increased power...

Then after upgrading your items for, lets say 40 hours, a work week, you get to 50% of allowed item power, how much time would the average player spend grinding for loot to get to the damage ceiling, the max?

We are talking then about going from 40 hits to 33 hits to kill the average boss, 7 hits less. How much time would you personally invest to lower the time? 80 hours, two work weeks of grinding, to reduce the boss fighting time with 8.25%?

I think the majority would not even bother, and that is a problem. That explains why the average total time spent on dark souls III is 50~ hours, it is then done, you cant make any real improvements and there is no real complexity.

And the complexity will also have to suffer and be culled, there is a good reason why the games with the best PvE combat have very low complexity.

And the loot grinding system in PoE 1 explains why so many users have thousands of hours spent gaming, because the damage ceiling is so high, you can almost always make improvements or another complex character.'

Made some edits because easy math is hard.

Terrible take imo. The whole point of getting stronger is to be able to beat stronger content. At least that is what I want to do, rather than reducing the time I need for a boss from 2 seconds to 0.5

But back to the topic — of course if you don't scale the ** content you can't get stronger and expect the content to still be engaging. The trick is, you can also make the content harder. Then a player would have a need for better gear — since it is, or should be hard, to play a boss fight perfectly for 10 minutes, just cause your gear is just too weak. Yea, the disparity is too much for it to work rn — but it's just them creating that issue. Not too long ago they said something along the lines of “Support gems should not increase your damage — they should change skills so they fit for different purposes”. They saw that they don't need more damage scaling buckets, and in 0.3 made support gems that alone more than tripple your damage…

I don't think item progression would get tedious and unexciting in any way by making it restrictive enough to not scale that hard. Also, you can kind of force needed character strength by just increasing the monster toughness by enough for every map tier in the endgame. That again might create problems that might need a solution. But we can neither say it's impossible to make good, nor that there is a way to make it good — just because noone has done it yet.

Also, for your point about people not wanting to grind for 0.3% more damage — that's kinda obvious. I guess noone want to see this, and I don't think it's needed in any way. If monsters scale, you gotta scale as well. You should feel stronger by getting more abilities that can deal with different scenarios you need to deal with. Maybe at some point making normal mobs trivial — you still need to notice your progression to feel good. But that's not only seen by your character now one-shotting every rare that's on your level. It could come as better loot from the rares you kill, more ways to counter different mechanics, or just finally being able to do t15 maps.

Right now there is not even a need to get stronger at some point tho — you zoom through maps either way. There was no reason for me to keep playing because there was no content I would need more power for. Everything was doable a long time ago, and got easy at some point after that. It's just like everyone wants to beat the game as fast as possible, to finally play another game — zooming loot simulator 2

"

Grayeye#1799 schrieb:

Then after upgrading your items for, lets say 40 hours, a work week, you get to 50% of allowed item power, how much time would the average player spend grinding for loot to get to the damage ceiling, the max?

We are talking then about going from 40 hits to 33 hits to kill the average boss, 7 hits less. How much time would you personally invest to lower the time? 80 hours, two work weeks of grinding, to reduce the boss fighting time with 8.25%?

I think the majority would not even bother, and that is a problem. That explains why the average total time spent on dark souls III is 50~ hours, it is then done, you cant make any real improvements and there is no real complexity.

And the complexity will also have to suffer and be culled, there is a good reason why the games with the best PvE combat have very low complexity.

And the loot grinding system in PoE 1 explains why so many users have thousands of hours spent gaming, because the damage ceiling is so high, you can almost always make improvements or another complex character.'

Made some edits because easy math is hard.

Ok, so. I don't know if it was you or someone else I asked previously but... I've asked the question "What's the purpose of gear?" about two times. I'll just go ahead and answer that myself.

Ultimately, the purpose of gear is to aid you/increase your power so that you will be able to beat the next challenge. I'm sure we can all agree on that.

So then, what purpose does gear have anymore, when you can already beat that challenge with no issue and there's nothing further to challenge? What exactly are you farming for? Why would you even care to beat it in 7 hits less as you say? The whole purpose of farming is to get stronger so you can tackle on the next challenge.


And what you're saying about "I think the majority would not even bother". I must ask you, Why do you think I lost all interest in the game after I've finished the campaign? (and it would've happened even earlier if I didn't want to see the full story so far)

Aside from that, PoE1 is notoriously known for the steepest player drop-offs out there compared to most other games, each league. Which means that most people don't play it for that long per cycle in reality. Can you guess why?

Challenging goals, and challenging combat would absolutely prolong play time, without question... as long as it is fun to play. And good and engaging combat is what ties everything together.

"

KäsePizza#3007 schrieb:

Terrible take imo. The whole point of getting stronger is to be able to beat stronger content. At least that is what I want to do, rather than reducing the time I need for a boss from 2 seconds to 0.5

Well if the power ceiling is low then items can not give that much power. The difference between a best in slot item and a average item is set at max 100%. As in my example. Why would I spend weeks of grinding to get 100% stronger...? If the maximum is higher then it would break the engaging combat. The numbers are arbitrary, im trying to just explain the concept.

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KäsePizza#3007 schrieb:

Then a player would have a need for better gear — since it is, or should be hard, to play a boss fight perfectly for 10 minutes, just cause your gear is just too weak.

If the difference between average gear and "better gear" forces you to play perfect for ten minutes versus a average boss fight then alot of players would not even bother.

"

KäsePizza#3007 schrieb:

Yea, the disparity is too much for it to work rn — but it's just them creating that issue. Not too long ago they said something along the lines of “Support gems should not increase your damage — they should change skills so they fit for different purposes”.

The "different purposes" must increase your power, or else it is a waste of time. Making a spell blue instead of yellow without anything else is just cosmetic. Make a example of what you mean with that, I fail to understand.

"

IonSugeRau1#1069 schrieb:

Ok, so. I don't know if it was you or someone else I asked previously but... I've asked the question "What's the purpose of gear?" about two times. I'll just go ahead and answer that myself.

Ultimately, the purpose of gear is to aid you/increase your power so that you will be able to beat the next challenge. I'm sure we can all agree on that.

So then, what purpose does gear have anymore, when you can already beat that challenge with no issue and there's nothing further to challenge? What exactly are you farming for? Why would you even care to beat it in 7 hits less as you say?

And what you're saying about "I think the majority would not even bother". I must ask you, Why do you think I lost all interest in the game after I've finished the campaign? (and it would've happened even earlier if I didn't want to see the full story so far)

The real concept about loot in poe 1 is to stimulate your primal instincts to collect things that have a value, working towards a goal. Albeit it is not real, but neither is the modern currency system.

Just youtube "ziggy d mirror drop" and watch his reaction, the dopamine and adrenaline he gets from the loot that have dropped, his face turning from ghastly pale to a reddish, like a exalted maiden in love.

The gamers that enjoy poe 1 does it waste time under nice circumstances, a cup of coffee infront of the screen after a long day of work, to dream away, to reach goals that doesnt mean anything while you partly relax and get those dopamine kicks when a gamble or lucky chance comes your way. Mostly to relax.

My question is why do you wish for a endless hyper-focused near death battle simulator? And why dont you just play other twenty games that have a very good bar set in that regard?