MoreLuckThanSkill wrote on Feb 7, 2025, 22:02:
He's not entirely wrong, but I don't see an easy fix. Every ARPG out recently, or even semi recently: Grim Dawn, Diablo 3 and 4, Torchlight 1 and 2, Victor Vran, Path of Exile, Last Epoch, Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, WH40k Inquisitor etc. all encourage speed killing to get loot.

Meanwhile Diablo 2 (even at launch) encouraged speedily farming bosses for a better chance at good drops. Sure, you didn't need to farm for the bestest item to beat Normal difficulty, but both Nightmare and Hell offered challenges that encouraged looking for the best drop (or gambled item) possible.

The ARPG genre, like most genres, was one thing that expanded into a lot of different things that a lot of different people play and enjoy. Instead of celebrating that and working on games that play like he wants them to play and letting them speak and sell for themselves, he shits on the rest of the genre. He talks about Diablo and Diablo 2 like a guy that peaked in high school does when they talk about their football days. Long term friends and former coworkers were working on projects at his former employer and he wished them to fail, publically and in the press because he was petty. Then he makes a game like Marvel Heroes? C'mon.

I don't disagree with most of what you all have said here in terms of your preferences or sentiments about gameplay. I too am would prefer more Titan Quest/Dungeon Siege then Diablo 4/Torchlight Infinite in my ARPG. One of my favorites is the Van Helsing games. I just think Brevik should make the games he wants to make, speak and stand on them, and stop shitting on other games in the industry because they do it differently. He got that Marvel money, he compromised on basically everything he says makes a good ARPG to lead that project....so go make the game you think is an ARPG should be and let's see how it does David. All he seems to be able to do is shit on other people.

So does he have some points? Sure. But how about he go make a game then that lives up to his own expectations? It's been awhile since he did that.

The Pyro wrote on Feb 8, 2025, 14:39:
I haven't played PoE 2 yet, but if PoE 1 is any guide - the difference between a good build and a mediocre build can be over 1000% dps. The scaling in that game is nuts.

That's kind of insane, and doesn't sound like great design to be honest. But I have no problem playing on "so easy that my grandma would call me a pussy" mode.

I haven't played PoE 2 yet, but if PoE 1 is any guide - the difference between a good build and a mediocre build can be over 1000% dps. The scaling in that game is nuts.

Prez wrote on Feb 8, 2025, 09:43:
Min-maxing is only one valid way of playing. There are other, far more enjoyable ways to play in my opinion. I care if a build is fun more than I care if it's the absolute most effective it could possibly be.

That's the problem with PoE2, Prez. You have a fun build and then, in the end, you will run into a wall and cannot progress unless you change your build to a "QA tested" community build which will then be able to kill off even tough bosses without too many problems. And this is a flawed design IMO because it makes so many talents and fun-builds redundant because they just don't work with those bosses.

It is a shame because I like the active fighting in PoE2 where you cannot just stand in front of the boss clicking some buttons until he goes down. If you do not evade his attacks, you're dead.

El Pit wrote on Feb 8, 2025, 09:10:
What I dislike about e.g. PoE2 is that there are a myriad of talents - but you need to stick to builds by "pro-gamers" and exactly follow their upgrade path or you're screwed in the end. I did not follow any build guide and actually had a great time until the last part of act III where my build simply didn't work anymore with some bosses. Yes, I can reassign talents for not much gold (which is good) but still I would have to either THEN read a build guide and reassign the talents or just try my luck again with a new own build that makes sense based on the talent descriptions (which are very often not really good and can give you a wrong idea on the efficiency of a talent) and if this doesn't work, I would again either have to read and follow a build guide or try again and again and again with my own builds... This can get a bit frustrating. If "QA checked builds" are necessary, then build them into the game so that people can follow them. Currently, you would either have to use mods or a website to check your talents and the build.

Summary: so many possibilities, so few effective builds.

Min-maxing is only one valid way of playing. There are other, far more enjoyable ways to play in my opinion. I care if a build is fun more than I care if it's the absolute most effective it could possibly be.

Put into a verbal description, your average ARPG sounds incredibly boring. Yet I have played 10's of thousands of hours of them. The gameplay loop is perfected, and the power fantasy really is unequalled. Diablo 2 was more deliberate where 3 and 4 were more visceral and nonstop. I don't think one is inferior to the other, though we will have our own preferences. Blizzard is ruining Diablo in a completely different way than just artistic or pacing choice.

What I dislike about e.g. PoE2 is that there are a myriad of talents - but you need to stick to builds by "pro-gamers" and exactly follow their upgrade path or you're screwed in the end. I did not follow any build guide and actually had a great time until the last part of act III where my build simply didn't work anymore with some bosses. Yes, I can reassign talents for not much gold (which is good) but still I would have to either THEN read a build guide and reassign the talents or just try my luck again with a new own build that makes sense based on the talent descriptions (which are very often not really good and can give you a wrong idea on the efficiency of a talent) and if this doesn't work, I would again either have to read and follow a build guide or try again and again and again with my own builds... This can get a bit frustrating. If "QA checked builds" are necessary, then build them into the game so that people can follow them. Currently, you would either have to use mods or a website to check your talents and the build.

Summary: so many possibilities, so few effective builds.

MoreLuckThanSkill wrote on Feb 7, 2025, 22:02:
He's not entirely wrong, but I don't see an easy fix. Every ARPG out recently, or even semi recently: Grim Dawn, Diablo 3 and 4, Torchlight 1 and 2, Victor Vran, Path of Exile, Last Epoch, Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, WH40k Inquisitor etc. all encourage speed killing to get loot.

I could think of a thing by looking back to the past.

This trend didn't get truly big before Diablo 2 1.10. And the big change there was that we now had skill synergies, so your lower level skills later became power feeders into your cornerstone abilities instead of dead points.

If we assume that an ARPG has:

* No respeccing without relevelling.
* Trees for abilities, so you necessarily have to buy some ability A to even later be able to buy B.
* A gives nothing to B if you want to focus on B entirely.

Then I can see a game where these one-button-room-clears are more easily curbed. Not everything works automatically with everything, and there's some inherent conflict between your abilities, plus the devs can safely nerf A without affecting B etc.

It was only after 1.10 that these single-skill-spam builds became big as between runeworks, gear and synergies you could feed obscene amounts of power into single skills.

Your list of ARPGs just reminded me of Dungeon Siege
that was a fun one I thought

I've never got to the grind end game part of any ARPG, but I know that's like the whole point these days.
Dungeon Siege never felt like that to me. Nor did Titan Quest.

He's not entirely wrong, but I don't see an easy fix. Every ARPG out recently, or even semi recently: Grim Dawn, Diablo 3 and 4, Torchlight 1 and 2, Victor Vran, Path of Exile, Last Epoch, Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing, WH40k Inquisitor etc. all encourage speed killing to get loot.

The genre is defined by it now: shitty drop rates, kill massive amounts of enemies for loot. Supposedly PoE2 has even worse drop rates, compounded by (currently) tougher monsters, but that's still EA/Beta, so who knows.

I don't think any ARPG actually ever had a different setup, aside from a few bosses in Titan Quest 1. Even Diablo 1 and 2 were the same way, eventually. Speed running various bosses known to drop X loot with a slightly higher chance, etc.

If he wants to make something slower, more power to him, but:
A) loot has to drop WAY more and;
B) the system has to be locked down so much to prevent high speed farming when players find out how to make broken builds.

I don't think this sort of problem is really solvable for ARPGs, unless they change it basically into more of an actual cRPG, with much slower combat. Which I would love, honestly. Way too many average ARPGs out recently, most of them very forgettable.

I have hopes for Titan Quest 2 be an actual game and not just whirling through thousand enemies within ten seconds.. Though I haven't followed its development so it may be going down the same path as well.

I agree with him as well. In Diablo 1, 2, and Titan Quest, I was playing a character that I recognized, fighting enemies and deciding how to handle each encounter. I could see my character and watch them pull of their attacks/spells/etc. Diablo 3 and 4 lost that. They're so hectic that it becomes mindless. Your character is the blob in the middle of the other blobs that flashing lights emanate from. It feels more like a bullet hell than anything.

And yeah, I always found the leveling in MMOs to be much more interesting than repeating the same four dungeons every day for a month, over and over.

I completely agree with David Brevik here.

Diablo 3 and also Diablo 4 after multiple patches feel like running the eraser tool in Microsoft Paint, just wiping everything off the screen with almost no challenge at all.

I like Diablo4 when it came out. Going through campaign was awesome and the sights, sounds, character progression 1-50 were all perfectly paced. But of course it didn't sit well with those who only play ARPGs as a slot machine, grinding for more powerful items in order to get more items and do that endlessly. For such gamers the campaign, character progression and most other gameplay elements are just roadblocks to reach the end level grinding. The game itself doesn't matter at all, its what's there after it ends which they find enjoyable.

Diablo4 as it was released was great to go through the campaign a few times with different characters but then all the complainers started whining ("I played this game for 200 hours and there is nothing to do now, I want a refund") amplified by the YouTube min-maxers ("I have played this game 18 hours a day for three days straight and it's over with this boring repetitive endgame"). They really ruined the game and its feel making it devoid of any challenge and atmosphere.

I lay a lot of blame on Blizzard too. They went into this season and battle pass model which needs constant user engagement, and it helped their cause to speed everything up to 11 and get quick season turnarounds all in the name of 'making the gamers feel powerful by mowing down literally hundreds of enemies in one game screen within 3-4 seconds if even that.

Hopefully David Brevik will make an actual ARPG that plays like a game and not a slot machine at hyper speed.

Brevik, took a bunch of money and made Marvel Heroes. He cheapened the entire experience. His whole career he has blamed other people for shit in the industry that he partipates in.