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'm sorry but this whole reply is just a bad faith argument and it is incredibly obvious... from this statement alone:
"To have meaningful combat, whatever that means"
"Whatever that means"? Not this or anything like it, I'll tell you that much:
Not to mention the whole money argument, that is one of the most disgusting type of arguments one can make, in my opinion. And it's also just false.
Don't get me started on "campaign is just a tutorial" type crap...
By the way, if you want extreme examples there are those as well, No man's sky free updates.. I'm sure you've heard of it. People are literally asking those devs for ways to pay them.
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'm sorry but this whole reply is just a bad faith argument and it is incredibly obvious... from this statement alone:
"To have meaningful combat, whatever that means"
"Whatever that means"? Not this or anything like it, I'll tell you that much:
Not to mention the whole money argument, that is one of the most disgusting type of arguments one can make, in my opinion. And it's also just false.
Don't get me started on "campaign is just a tutorial" type crap...
By the way, if you want extreme examples there are those as well, No man's sky free updates.. I'm sure you've heard of it. People are literally asking those devs for ways to pay them.
Well, meaningful combat is different for everyone, it varies from vampire survivor to turn based strategy, from counter strike camping to more chaotic doom fps, it is in the eye of the beholder.
What you are asking for is a more strategic slow combat with combinations and dodge rolls, souls-alike, I guess.
And my point is that if you ask for that you also ask to remove those things that makes poe 1 have such a popularity and longevity, player agency and power.
You can not really combine a complex character building "path of building" game with such slow combat, because to make it possible you need to push all classes and skills into a very, very small box.
You are trying to combine two things that doesnt really mix. It is like asking for a shoot em up turn based strategy game.
You want combat that is hardlocked to deal, lets say 70-300% of "normal", damage.
Then you have to remove the "player agency", or else it is impossible to balance.
And also, as a example, if we take dark souls, how come they are making dark souls IV instead of just making leagues in dark soul III and make some serious money from mtx? I know why, but I wonder what your reasoning is about it is.
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.
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.
There is one thing here that I need to highlight that I don't agree with but I understand where this is coming from. More specifically the part where you mention "as fast as possible". And to that I ask, why? Why is it that people want to grind as fast as possible? Why wouldn't you be able to play at your own pace? There's no pvp in this game so there's no real reason to get to endgame first or whatnot.
Now I believe that is deeply ingrained in trade but also the volatility of the economy... and that is a deeper problem which I think has it's own roots.. more specifically in RMT. Though there might be more to it.
Made a post in the past where I've mentioned it over here:
Because if we compare this situation with SSF... there is no need to be as fast as possible there, is it?
That being said, people will still try to be as effective as they can even if that doesn't mean it's speed related... but they aren't the ones that decide the boundaries of that power, the developers should... otherwise you simply have a mess of a game where things will always be completely imbalanced all the time which also means bad combat and gameplay.
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.
Unfortunately this comment here invalidates all the arguments you have been trying to make.
The fact that "loot grind" is a core concept in this game completely changes how players approach the game. Speed becomes the single most important stat, and there currently doesn't exist a single game where this isn't true. That is the very nature of a loot-based rpg.
Without understanding this, you can't possibly compare/contrast or talk about "design" in any meaningful way. Because you are missing the point.
Nothing else matters if you fundamentally do not understand how loot changes the equation of the entire game loop, including combat.
As for the complex vs. simple argument, I agree with you: this is such a stupid back and forth. At its core....PoE 2 is EXTREMELY simple. All it is is a collection of 1-line mathematical equations, with different inputs. It doesn't get any simpler than that. PoE1 and PoE2 is "fake complexity": it makes you THINK its complex because there are a ton of choices. But those choices ultimately boil down to maybe 5 different mathematical equations at their core, with different fx. Plus...the developers created PoE from NOTHING: working THROUGH the "simple" to the "complex". They can and should absolutely be able to handle the simple interactions, in the same way those other games do. It absolutely IS as simple as "A complex game should be able to be stripped down into a simple one", because complexity comes from building on a pre-existing SIMPLE system lol.
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.
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.
There is one thing here that I need to highlight that I don't agree with but I understand where this is coming from. More specifically the part where you mention "as fast as possible". And to that I ask, why? Why is it that people want to grind as fast as possible? Why wouldn't you be able to play at your own pace? There's no pvp in this game so there's no real reason to get to endgame first or whatnot.
Now I believe that is deeply ingrained in trade but also the volatility of the economy... and that is a deeper problem which I think has it's own roots.. more specifically in RMT. Though there might be more to it.
Made a post in the past where I've mentioned it over here:
Because if we compare this situation with SSF... there is no need to be as fast as possible there, is it?
That being said, people will still try to be as effective as they can even if that doesn't mean it's speed related... but they aren't the ones that decide the boundaries of that power, the developers should... otherwise you simply have a mess of a game where things will always be completely imbalanced all the time which also means bad combat and gameplay.
its a complex issue but it stands to reason that "as fast as possible" means just that.
if you need drops/loot to progress and that comes from say clearing maps, then why would a player choose a build that clears 10 maps an hour when he can choose a build that clears 20 maps an hour
i would think that is even more evident/desirable in SSF as you have no trade to fall back on. you are relying solely on gear and currency drops for crafting.
why would you hamper yourself by clearing slower. yes you can choose to but why?
theres a reason why efficiency is the meta and why streamers promote those builds
what about my points about mob density, speed, ondeath effects and kill or be killed
how does clearing slower solve any of those problems.
yes the devs have the power, but as the game stands with the problems i mentioned above, how could they do that and make combat more engaging. i say they cant unless there are fundamental changes to address those.
that is why we have the mess we are in now. once they make those changes then balance/skills can be looked at properly
only then could we truly have POE2 and not this POE1.5 that we seem to have now
Well, meaningful combat is different for everyone, it varies from vampire survivor to turn based strategy, from counter strike camping to more chaotic doom fps, it is in the eye of the beholder.
What you are asking for is a more strategic slow combat with combinations and dodge rolls, souls-alike, I guess.
I loved playing Vampire Survivors, but it doesn't have meaningful combat and that's a fact... it also didn't keep me engaged for too long because of that fact as well. But that's fine for that specific type of game, it doesn't create the same level of expectations as PoE2. Turn based games, which I also like, are not really made to be about intense action... and yet even those can achieve a new level of combat engagement with ingenuity. I'm sure everyone's heard about Expedition 33.
PoE2 on the other hand.. is an ARPG.. Action in the name. So yes, the ideal goal for it is to have good and engaging combat.
Again I ask you, can you look at this and tell me that you honestly think that this is good combat?
And my point is that if you ask for that you also ask to remove those things that makes poe 1 have such a popularity and longevity, player agency and power.
You can not really combine a complex character building "path of building" game with such slow combat, because to make it possible you need to push all classes and skills into a very, very small box.
You are trying to combine two things that doesnt really mix. It is like asking for a shoot em up turn based strategy game.
You want combat that is hardlocked to deal, lets say 70-300% of "normal", damage.
Then you have to remove the complexity, or else it is impossible to balance.
You won't like what I'm going to tell you next but, player agency isn't truly real. No matter how much you believe it is, you are still confined to the boundaries the developers have created. But that's irrelevant, because what you're implying has nothing to do with this agency.
What you're actually saying is that the limits of power somehow have something to do with the complexity of the game, which isn't the case.
For your statement "combat that is hardlocked to deal, lets say 70-300% of "normal"" ... for example, you can have 300 different ways to get to that result even if the end result is hardlocked. That wouldn't limit diversity at all.. quite the contrary, in fact, when you don't have it "hardlocked", and we are seeing this with the current state of the game and how meta is shaping out to be favorable to only a few super specific builds and skills. This imbalance is quite literally gutting build diversity and player choice.
And also, as a example, if we take dark souls, how come they are making dark souls IV instead of just making leagues in dark soul III and make some serious money from mtx? I know why, but I wonder what your reasoning is about it is.
Because, it's not all about money like you make it out to be. If it were, they would be trying to make a mobile gacha game... that's where the real money is. Same for GGG.
You could compare this to real life "build diversity" hah.
what about my points about mob density, speed and ondeath effects and kill or be killed
how does clearing slower solve any of those problems.
What about them? I've also mentioned those exact things in the video. All of those need to be looked at.
ok i'm not going to rewatch your video to pick up every point when we can state them briefly here.
you can cherry pick a phrase in my posts all you like but i dont really see you addressing the issues i have raised.
it does seem that we appear to be in somewhat agreement just the finer points where there is some discrepancy, i suppose we could leave it there
PoE2 on the other hand.. is an ARPG.. Action in the name. So yes, the ideal goal for it is to have good and engaging combat.
I mean....this is just purely a false statement.
If the "ideal goal" were engaging combat, then EVERY grind-based arpg that has ever existed has failed in that goal. When every single one has failed, perhaps the data shows that engaging action ISN'T the goal.
The GOAL of a grind-based action rpg is the loop: not the individual interactions, but the overall picture that keeps you coming back for more. That leans heavily on gambling in various forms, and the illusions of choice. NOT the combat. Even arpgs from the 80s and 90s didn't focus on the COMBAT.
You are talking about a completely different genre of game. You are conflating games like Dragon Age or Dark Souls with this style of game.
***And for the record: the vast VAST majority of players prefer the non-engaging, explode everything end goal. Consider any of the most popular loot-based arpgs of the last two decades: they all share this in common.
PoE2 on the other hand.. is an ARPG.. Action in the name. So yes, the ideal goal for it is to have good and engaging combat.
I mean....this is just purely a false statement.
If the "ideal goal" were engaging combat, then EVERY grind-based arpg that has ever existed has failed in that goal. When every single one has failed, perhaps the data shows that engaging action ISN'T the goal.
The GOAL of a grind-based action rpg is the loop: not the individual interactions, but the overall picture that keeps you coming back for more. That leans heavily on gambling in various forms, and the illusions of choice. NOT the combat. Even arpgs from the 80s and 90s didn't focus on the COMBAT.
You are talking about a completely different genre of game. You are conflating games like Dragon Age or Dark Souls with this style of game.
***And for the record: the vast VAST majority of players prefer the non-engaging, explode everything end goal. Consider any of the most popular loot-based arpgs of the last two decades: they all share this in common.
indeed the gameplay loops are completely different, its very hard to have engaging combat when there are 50 mobs swarming you. that doesnt happen in dark souls or the like. makes you wonder why the combat is possible and works there and not in an arpg eh
