Engaging combat & loot
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After reading some threads about the subject and watching alot of forum-authors beeing unable to see the inner conflict with a game that has both engaging(meaningful)-combat and a loot(item)-system that I have decided to make this thread to once and for all to bury the idea of a unification.
I start with loot. What is loot in path of exiles business model?
Spoiler
" The key thing to take away from this is this "For items to matter, it's important that they can be traded to other players. It's important that you could give the item to the other player, if they were able to convince you into it. For this reason, almost nothing in Path of Exile is bound to your account." This is a pillar of their success, that items can be traded and therefor are given a value. A objectively given value. A soulbound item do not have that intrinsic value. Something that can not be traded do not have a value. If you have 10 kilos of gold at your home and it can not be traded, it has no personal value, or very close to zero. Second, loot, and with that I mean items, must have different levels of power, or else they have no value. If you spend alot of time investing into a grind and the reward does not exist, you will not do it. If the reward is to low, you will also not do it. Power Abundance is key. This is a fact. If your employer says that if you work 30% more each month you will get a 0.02% increase in payment you will say "no." if you are polite, something else if you are not. That demands a increase in power to keep the players engaged, that also explains why the average playtime in dark souls is 50~ hours and in path of exile 1 it is degenerate amounts. Now to engaging(meaningful) combat, as seen in dark souls, monster hunter, ghost of tsushima. They all demand extreme strict parameters around the players power in the form of movement speed, attack speed, cast speed, damage and health. If only one of these equations are to high the engaging combat will completly break down. Power starvation is key. Also, the games with engaging combat have a completly different business model, you buy the game, play it and then you are done until a DLC or a new entire new game. In PoE 2 you can still have engaging combat, you do the first two acts, reroll, and do it all again, forever. Sounds boring? Yes, it is. So boring that the majority will not do it, even if they love the engaging combat. That is because engaging combat doesnt really have the natural grind-factor built in that valued loot has. Now back to the current business model of PoE, loot-grind, and how it works. It works by giving pleasure to your primal instincts of gathering hunting, a artificial "oh a piece of candy, oh a piece of candy"-sequence that gives you a feeling of natural pleasure. And that is why it is one of the fundamental pillars of PoEs success in the gaming industry. You can not have a endless-power-grind simulator and combine that with a extreme-restriction-combat-simulator. To further illustrate it, here is a video when ziggyd loots a mirror of kalandra. https://youtu.be/EaxE0MEPeF4?si=cf9eb48tH--cBpo9&t=44 Look the exaltation, the happiness, the adrenaline and dopamine his brain order to be released. He dies later in the video on his HC character and says "it doesnt matter, we go again", still very happy. Replayability. Here is a dark souls player that thinks he won and defeated a boss and it goes into a second phase. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/N_96Ni1zGEE I have seen alot of youtube shorts of dark souls players, and they all almost say the same "finally, its over, never again, thank god its over!". It is two very different business models, one is a "natural" relaxing loot-grind reward system, the other is a overcome-a-challenge-and-thank-god-its-over model. One is going up a large ladder of complex rewards, the other is overcoming a hard obstacle and get the "natural" reward for doing it. But the key is replayability and longevity. One of these models have it, the other doesnt. Why do so many people that wishes for a engaging combat simulator not play dark souls on a endless repeat? I explained it above. I can give more practical examples on the importance of a trade-system and how it destroys a meaningful, engaging combat system, and the impossibility to unite these two very different structures, if anyone wants less abstraction. TLDR; No. Zuletzt angestoßen am 22.09.2025, 07:00:47
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" oooh another riddle! not too early for next league teaser? we might need the Lore guy for this one, he still around? |
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" Yes I know that reading is a bit of a riddle for you meaningful combat guys, but could you atleast try? If you actually try to read the words in a sequence they contain information, it becomes less of a riddle then. |
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i saw your points in the other thread and i totally agree with you.
the whole meaningful combat we see in the interviews is just marketting and PR bull. those interviews are very soft on the devs. its no accident that they are hosted by longterm fanboys who drool at the mouth with every answer while avoiding the hard questions (maybe one time Ziz actually pushed back abit iirc). not once can i remember someone asking "what happend to your earlier claims about the gameplay compared to what we actually have" even early on at a league start the only reason the combat feels meaningful is because of a lack of power. tell me how it feels on a second character with access to better items/trade to boost your power from the getgo? not very meaningful eh! i also see the devs whole attitude to trade as being an easy excuse to avoid any type of smart loot system that would make loot more relevant to the actual class you are playing i have said elsewhere that the game is a loot grinder and because of that meaningful combat cant really exist. not within that business model, and as you rightly point out there is the whole replayability aspect. the truth is skill and meaningful combat doesnt really matter in an arpg, it is all about the power fantasy, loot and those dopamine moments. even if they slowed the game dowm players would still try and find a way to speed it up as the gameplay loop demands a fast efficient playstyle to get the most out of it and feel rewarding for the time invested. if the game gets too slow and starts to feel unrewarding people will just stop playing. to get the meaninful combat you would have to fundamentally change the nature of the game. as you say if you want the meaningful skill based combat you should really play a game that is designed from the ground up with that in mind. Even so, guess what, even in a game like elden ring you can absolutely trivialize the combat by over leveling and one shot bosses. the exact same as you can with good gear in an arpg. I honestly feel that you either invent a new genre and all that entails or try to refine and improve the existing one. genres exist for a reason, trying to mix the two just results in an inferior product to what already exists. one example of a recent game that tried to change its core concept is Civilization 7. the original concept was designed from the ground up as "an empire to stand the test of time" and "one more turn". the devs saw that many players didnt actually finish games so in an attempt to solve this they introduced mechanics that forced civilization switching and resets at age switching. the result broke the original concept and is a complete disaster with people not even bothering to play the game the point is if you try and shoe horn meaningful combat into a loot grind arpg concept you would most likely end up with the same result. Zuletzt bearbeitet von tarloch#1873 um 21.09.2025, 11:25:26
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Spoiler
" Thank you for your comment, exactly what I am trying to say. But apparently this is a enigma for alot of players. PoE 2 will end up exactly the same as PoE 1 in the future, economical reasons will force them. PoE ended up as it did because of the same reasons, their wishes to create more dynamic combat with the whole arch-nemesis monster redesign made such a dent in their economical model that Chris Wilson said they couldnt afford one more of these leagues. And they backtracked hard. " And then they continued to nerf them, for economical reasons. In short, buffed effective-hp on rares and improved offense made 3.18 a disaster from a economical perspective. Something to think about. |
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Also adding here the poe 3.20 mirror of kalandra debacle. This was before they split path of exile 1 and path of exile 2 and the idea was just path of exile 4.0.
This was most likely the thing that made that a fact. What they tried was to buff monsters, both defence & offence, and reign in loot, currency drops & harvest crafting. The point was to get it in line with the poe 4.0 vision and create "engaging combat". It was a complete disaster. Here is thread posted by GGG from reddit.
Spoiler
https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/wuid4v/what_were_working_on/
-2.2k in votes. The players hated it. The thread is also a funny read. But also it should serve as a warning to the new GGG leadership about what would happen if you would try to create engaging combat in your current business model. Always nice with some historical parallels. " A comment with 2k upvotes. I know what they tried, to create engaging combat in a loot-grind game. There is also the question why they brought over the grind-loot concept and tried to enforce it in poe 2 and at the same time talking about meaningful combat. Did they not understand after all these years, and the tries, that you cant really blend the two? |
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" well i'm going to hazard an answer.. MONEY...they made the claims, people bought into them and it attracted alot of new players who never touched or were interested in POE1 (I am one of them) this may sound harsh but they also knew they would be pilloried if they admitted that they where making a POE1 clone. you would have had the situation where vets would call them out for lack of developement on the original, and potential new customers would not have even give POE2 a glance that's why the whole "meaningful combat" thing persists, is not being called out. it's actually becoming a meme now. they cannot course correct and i honestly think they never intended to. infact the more i hear from certain devs the more i think that they are just full of BS, the gaslighting will continue it seems. so is the game doomed? well no. not from an arpg standpoint, it could still be a shining example. personally I think all we can hope for is a more refined and polished version of 1. you know, like get rid of some of outdated ideas and bring it up to a modern standard with performance to match. in particular add more QoL and get rid of the notion that almost every aspect of the game has to have some sort of friction attached to it. I mean where does that idea even come from? arent games supposed to be entertainment? cant you still have an excellant game without the need for unnecesarry annoying bollox. they can keep that in POE1 and leave them out of 2, that would also help to seperate and differentiate the two games. get that base then tweak until they have the desired difficulty and progression curves. Zuletzt bearbeitet von tarloch#1873 um 21.09.2025, 12:48:16
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Wrong on nearly all accounts.
Spoiler
" It is IMPORTANT for items to be tradeable in order for them to matter. It is not ESSENTIAL. The reason it is important is because of the sheer amount of possible items (and various rarities) -- if not for trade then it would be significantly more difficult for a player to attain an item that they want for their build. It is NOT the tradeability that gives all items value. A player will find an item valuable because it adds power to the player's build or potential builds. The trade system is a way for players to acquire items that are important to them by in return trading away items they don't much care for or could afford to lose. So trade only adds value to items that the player would otherwise find not valuable.
Spoiler
" Sure, the grind must be rewarded by potential upgrades to the player character. To keep the grind going, there must ideally exist a long chain of potential upgrades, each sequentially attainable through play. But the upgrade must match the grind time. Point taken.
Spoiler
" Power starvation only applies to the CURRENT level of content that the player faces, i.e. once a player begins a set of content, the character must not be powerful to the extent that combat becomes nonexistent. Power starvation -> lvl 2 area feels fair to lvl 2 character. Power abundance, as per your earlier definition, refers to a character's upgrade potential. An upgrade makes your character better in the face of the content that was played in order to earn the upgrade. Power abundance -> lvl 2 character can blast lvl 1 content. Now you make the attempt to pit the two against eachother and claim that they are incompatible, when quite clearly there is nothing incompatible about the two.
Spoiler
" The business model is not that different between the two: one has DLCs, the other has leagues. People stop playing once they've tried out all the builds they wanted to try out that one league, so it's not like PoE is infinitely entertaining, just a lot more entertaining provided the character building is engaging enough. Once again, nobody has ever argued that meaningful combat needs to exist for levels of play that the player is already past (that is the player's most advanced character, since items are shared between all chars). It's totally fine if the player can finance a new campaign run with lots of leveling uniques and 6-links to effectively turn the gameplay into PoE 1. It would be nice if some meaningful combat could be retained during the campaign even for a well financed character, but that's besides the point. In short, it's fine if the player can blast past content.
Spoiler
" PoE is not "endless" as I explained above: it is only fun if there are builds that one wishes to put together or tune -- candy is only worth anything if one wants to eat it. Eventually you stop craving candy and you wait for the next league when something new comes out that opens new possibilities. And once again, as I explained above, meaningful combat should only apply to the player's current level of content. If you want to grind lower levels, then sure they should feel easy and you should make the fitting amount of profit. But if you want to make your daily grind more profitable, then you best get through the tough content that matches your character level, the completion of which will likely grant you upgrades that will in turn make that level of content easier. |
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I would like to start with saying excellent post. Let us begin.
Spoiler
" Well the lead designer of path of exile said, and I quote directly, "Items Matter. Trade is Important. When we started developing Path of Exile in 2006, we identified several key design pillars. These are fundamental philosophies chosen to guide our design decisions throughout development. One of these was that "items matter". He says that its a key design pillar, a fundamental philosophy of the game. And I must say I agree, if items were soulbound I doubt the game would have a fraction of its popularity. And I agree with the item variation and the need to trade to make it possible.
Spoiler
" Yes, and here we have the problem with trade. Engaging combat breaks down when a player can trade for items beyond his intended area level, and it also clashes with loot/currency, under free trade. If a player can get items and clear zones four times quicker that mean it is "smarter" to grind a lower area with a higher tier of items and find more divine orbs and with that buy more power. Speed is equal to x more currency / hour, and with a open-trade system the consequences are clear. You either have to create a equal amount of currency tiers as you have power areas, and that diminishes currency.
Spoiler
" Well, the open trade and visiting hideouts with the intent to freely market mtxs to players is the core of it, together with stash tabs(item abundance). If dark souls started to sell mtxs it wouldnt be as effective.
Spoiler
" But path of exile have a great amount of depth compared to dark souls when it comes to both character and itemization. You can see it in hours invested in the different games and the replayability. And trade fundamentally breaks that character power in relation to zone. And you say higher tiers most be more rewarding, but if your doing lower tiers 100% faster then the reward must be atleast 50% larger in the more dangerous zone. It is a conflict between trade with item power and engaging combat. Or else you would need, lets say if there is 16 tiers of maps, 8 different tiers which all have their unique currency and unique base items that gives player power, and it would all have to be soulbound or locked to -4/+4 character level to make the meaningful combat possible. I will diminish the value of loot under the philosphy of trading. Read their trading manifesto or listen to Chris Wilson on youtube. |
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The points you make are largely a matter of opinion and may or may not affect the game's popularity, but they by no means make it impossible for the game to progress towards meaningful combat.
Spoiler
" Of course items matter, nobody will debate the fact that items matter in an ARPG. Although I am mainly an SSF player, I have to agree that trade is indeed very important since that's how most people prefer to play, I suppose because it greatly simplifies character building and most people feel like the SSF way is too tedious.
Spoiler
" Indeed, trade is a big problem. And the solution to this is to somehow restrict the gear that a character may wear based on the character's content progress. We already have level and attribute requirements for items and gems, but they are not restrictive enough, especially considering that a character can always significantly over-level by running lower-tier content repeatedly. The whole levelling process must be re-thought at least partially. There should be some much more restrictive exp-gain limits when it comes to player vs area level. You shouldn't be able to ever level up to 80 by running level 70 maps. There need to be some breaking points: at some point it should be required of you to complete a certain challenge or pinnacle encounter to unlock further leveling. This is what makes the campaign so much more fun than the current endgame -- the player's inability to get significantly more powerful by repeating the same content forces the player to JUST DO IT. In the campaign you HAVE to defeat a boss before you can unlock content that will make your character a lot more powerful. In the endgame, I am completely comfortable running normal maps for all eternity as long as I have some rarity gear on. I don't need to face pinnacle bosses at all (provided that I can trade for their drops), and I continue to get richer and more powerful at a decent rate. This needs to be NERFED INTO THE GROUND. Defeat a boss -> become A LOT more powerful. Now, I don't think that overlevelling should always be restricted that hard. For the campaign for example, the current system works fine. This allows more casual players to progress through all of the campaign by sacrificing more time. The current state of the game does not reward player mechanical skill due to lingering PoE 1 features such as the total lack of meaningful combat, insane pack sizes, zooming and teleporting monsters which requires zooming player builds etc. If the content is made more difficult at every level, and made to reward mechanical skill, then the divines/hour metric becomes meaningless on its own. It is only an important metric in PoE 1 and the current state of PoE 2 because combat is non-existent. If the combat is made difficult, risky, slower, more meaningful, with a quality over quantity approach, then even lower level content becomes a significant challenge and therefore more speed also becomes more challenges which means more tiring gameplay. The difficulty of the game then encourages players to attempt to improve their own skills in order to run less but more rewarding higher level content as opposed to more of the less rewarding stuff, because as explained, more content would feel mentally exhausting due to posing a little challenge even if overlevelled. I would argue that the currency items are a lot more essential to PoE than trade is. The game should ideally aim to make players more comfortable and more capable of spending currency to craft their upgrades as opposed to trading for them. As of now, most players are awfully bad at crafting their own items and therefore resort to trade to purchase these instead. Maybe something can be done to make crafting more fun and accessible, and therefore slighly diminish the importance of trading. In any case, I am willing to forgive the lack of meaningful combat in softcore trade. It is, after all, the easiest way to play the game. I would at the very least wish for the combat to feel meaningful in HCSSF if nothing else, but it does not feel meaningful at all even there. I want this game to be good so bad, but in its current state it is VERY QUICKLY becoming PoE 1 all over again. I have total faith in the fact that this CAN be prevented. You make the case that the game's popularity is at stake due to PoE 2 aspirations that make it unlike PoE 1, yet I think that's what made it more popular than PoE 1 in the first place. The very vocal minority that wants this to be another PoE 1 is just doing us all a disservice. But they're winning. With every patch, the game becomes objectively less like the vision we were initially presented. I am still somewhat hopeful and eager to see patch 0.4, but if things keep going down the track they currently are then I'm getting off the train. It may still be a decent game, but it will be only a polished turd compared to what it could have been. Zuletzt bearbeitet von AssaultUnit#6080 um 22.09.2025, 11:13:13
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