What happened to Engaging Combat? Video Feedback.

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bloomhead#3858 schrieb:

Comparing a game where you can't build op shit, because there's is a very limited amount of upgrades and variations you can do, to a game where the passive tree alone has more nodes than V rising has items. Good job. Complexity understood -> no.

Like I've mentioned at the end of the video... this is something GGG should have worked on and be capable of doing with their experience and resources despite the difference in complexity. They have nearly 12 years of experience.

They should know by now what causes issues and how to solve a lot of the issues, and like you've seen in the video from their own mouths... they did figure out some of the issues I saw as well... yet they didn't quite act on them.

Stunlock (V rising studio) is a small studio by comparison with far less experience.

If they could achieve good combat with their little project... so can GGG achieve it with their much bigger project.

Complexity is a bad excuse.

I'd even argue they should've been able to make the game even MORE complex then what it is and still achieve good combat while doing so. Another thing that I've mentioned in the video is how monster design is too simple to provide engaging combat even with lower density and increased monster power.

The problem lies in balance, multipliers, monster design, and skill mechanics and their designs mainly.

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IonSugeRau1#1069 schrieb:

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bloomhead#3858 schrieb:

Comparing a game where you can't build op shit, because there's is a very limited amount of upgrades and variations you can do, to a game where the passive tree alone has more nodes than V rising has items. Good job. Complexity understood -> no.

Like I've mentioned at the end of the video... this is something GGG should have worked on and be capable of doing with their experience and resources despite the difference in complexity. They have nearly 12 years of experience.

They should know by now what causes issues and how to solve a lot of the issues, and like you've seen in the video from their own mouths... they did figure out some of the issues I saw as well... yet they didn't quite act on them.

Stunlock (V rising studio) is a small studio by comparison with far less experience.

If they could achieve good combat with their little project... so can GGG achieve it with their much bigger project.

Complexity is a bad excuse.

I'd even argue they should've been able to make the game even MORE complex then what it is and still achieve good combat while doing so. Another thing that I've mentioned in the video is how monster design is too simple to provide engaging combat even with lower density and increased monster power.

The problem lies in balance, multipliers, monster design, and skill mechanics and their designs mainly.

And stunlock has years of experience with exactly that type of game, that V Rising is. That's why they would struggle to build a game like poe.

You're comparing apples to oranges.

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bloomhead#3858 schrieb:

And stunlock has years of experience with exactly that type of game, that V Rising is. That's why they would struggle to build a game like poe.

You're comparing apples to oranges.

These games are extremely similar in what they wanted to achieve in terms of combat and gameplay feel, that's why I chose it for this comparison.

What you're essentially arguing is that GGG is incapable of matching the combat feel of a game with a much simpler design, despite having more resources and experience with a much more complex game.

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IonSugeRau1#1069 schrieb:

These games are extremely similar in what they wanted to achieve in terms of combat and gameplay feel

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IonSugeRau1#1069 schrieb:

What you're essentially arguing is that GGG is incapable of matching the combat feel of a game with a much simpler design, despite having more resources and experience with a much more complex game.

And you're arguing against yourself there. Congrats.

In case you don't understand (which very obviously you don't):

You can't break down a complex game into a simple one just like that. Too many variables.

If they had started with a simple system like V Rising, that would be much simpler to manage.

But yet again, I bet you'll argue with "GGG having more resources and experience with a much more complex game".

And again, in case you still don't understand (which you very, very likely don't):

A rocket scientist will have a hard time building a good bike, whilst a bike-mechanic won't.

But, yet again, you will find a super-dumb argument against that.

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bloomhead#3858 schrieb:

And you're arguing against yourself there. Congrats.

In case you don't understand (which very obviously you don't):

You can't break down a complex game into a simple one just like that. Too many variables.

If they had started with a simple system like V Rising, that would be much simpler to manage.

But yet again, I bet you'll argue with "GGG having more resources and experience with a much more complex game".

And again, in case you still don't understand (which you very, very likely don't):

A rocket scientist will have a hard time building a good bike, whilst a bike-mechanic won't.

But, yet again, you will find a super-dumb argument against that.

Let's pretend you are right, what's your angle here? Why are you arguing with me on this? What are you trying to say? Are you trying to say that it's impossible for a complex game to have good combat? Is that what you're trying to get at?

This is not a bike and scientist situation by the way.. It's more like a simple math equation and a scientist situation.

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IonSugeRau1#1069 schrieb:

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bloomhead#3858 schrieb:

And you're arguing against yourself there. Congrats.

In case you don't understand (which very obviously you don't):

You can't break down a complex game into a simple one just like that. Too many variables.

If they had started with a simple system like V Rising, that would be much simpler to manage.

But yet again, I bet you'll argue with "GGG having more resources and experience with a much more complex game".

And again, in case you still don't understand (which you very, very likely don't):

A rocket scientist will have a hard time building a good bike, whilst a bike-mechanic won't.

But, yet again, you will find a super-dumb argument against that.

Let's pretend you are right, what's your angle here? Why are you arguing with me on this? What are you trying to say? Are you trying to say that it's impossible for a complex game to have good combat? Is that what you're trying to get at?

ttps://www.pathofexile.com/forum/post-reply/3855273#p26365763

the problem is the concept, the game is a loot grinder.
its all about getting loot/currency as fast as possible. that means players will always find or try and find the fastest most efficient way to do that.

there is also no system like a GR where you can push as high as possible so there is no reason to have anything other than the build that clears fast.

meaningful combat is really at odds with the core concept of the game.
it will work in a scripted campaign but after that is is well "meaningless" and will not work

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tarloch#1873 schrieb:

the problem is the concept, the game is a loot grinder.
its all about getting loot/currency as fast as possible. that means players will always find or try and find the fastest most efficient way to do that.

there is also no system like a GR where you can push as high as possible so there is no reason to have anything other than the build that clears fast.

meaningful combat is really at odds with the core concept of the game.
it will work in a scripted campaign but after that is is well "meaningless" and will not work

Why would loot grinding be at odds with good combat? This doesn't make any sense to me. There are plenty of games out there where loot grinding is a major element but it doesn't result in trivializing the combat.

Take for example... New world or other MMORPGS's with action combat (not the best example of good combat but it was still more engaging then what PoE can do at the moment) ... did grinding for gear invalidate combat? Certainly not...

The real problem is the one I've mentioned in the video, which is the power of said loot/gear, not the fact that you grind for it. Combine that with more multipliers available haphazardly and other elements I've mentioned and you're sure to get a shitshow.

Such as this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PeZhvQl-qE

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tarloch#1873 schrieb:

the problem is the concept, the game is a loot grinder.
its all about getting loot/currency as fast as possible. that means players will always find or try and find the fastest most efficient way to do that.

there is also no system like a GR where you can push as high as possible so there is no reason to have anything other than the build that clears fast.

meaningful combat is really at odds with the core concept of the game.
it will work in a scripted campaign but after that is is well "meaningless" and will not work

That is the very core of the problem, you can not have both complex diversity and meaningful combat... The parameters will go wildly out of control without having extremely strict damage scales.

Imagine you want a skill to do between 70-130% damage, not below and not above, how do you consider things as shock to work? It makes enemies take 20% to the cap of 100% increased damage taken... so now your skill does 100% more damage then intended. Well, you either cap it at 2-4% increased damage taken or make hidden modifiers that states "damage from molten striken is not affected by shock".

That is one modifier, now there is only around 200-300 different ones... Attack speed, cast speed, critical damage multipliers, curses with a wild range... multipliers upon multipliers.

The criteria for meaningful combat is extreme limits on build diversity and upgrades in both the skill tree and on items... And there comes the problem with replayability and the longevity of the game.

For people to come back every 3-4 months you need to have more mechanics, more complexity and, most important, player goals. These goals manifest themselves often in the way of increased power, better items and harder content to overcome.

To have meaningful combat, whatever that means, you need to make everything more uniform, reign everything in hard.

Then we will have things like if you grind for 100 hours you will increase your characters power with 4-5%(a little to much), and then a new problem arises, why even bother? Why play for a hundred extra hours if the difference isnt even really noticeable?

And the campaign is only the tutorial, the real money comes from people that grind the endgame. Baldurs gate III had a great campaign, but even if they did add "leagues", it wouldnt draw in 300k paying customers each time, because there is not that much replayability... Or someone should mail bioware and tell them that you got a idea worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year for almost no work...
"just add leagues, bro".

i agree with your points but wanted to keep the post short so didnt elaborate.

the fact remains that POE2 is all about grinding loot as fast as possible. thats at odds with good slow combat. i havent played the other game mentioned so cannot comment on that. although the video appears to show a boss fight how would that work with 50 mobs on the screen

i think you are missing my point,in POE2 the player will try to negate that combat to get the loot faster. many love the campaign but endgame is totally different and is basically just farming
you have already highlighted some of those problems in the video with the tools available that add to that and help the player clear any threats.

however the endgame has major problems and needs fundamental changes for the combat you desire to work. loot aside there is the density and the speed of the mobs, visual clarity and on death effects. all of those force the player to clear the screen as fast as possible before they are swarmed and overwhelmed. it is literally kill or be killed.

you would also need to rework rewards and look at the economy if they managed to achieve slower paced gameplay. otherwise the players would feel like they are just wasting their time to get nothing.

i'm not really sure you can have this eldem ring like challange in a loot based game with the swarms of mobs you are expected to deal with. the comcepts arent compatible.