Thinking Outside the Box: Rethinking Melee and Ranged skills

Thinking Outside the Box is my article series for concepts unlikely (if not outright impossible) to include in this andgame, but are worth considering for potential PoE sequels and ARPGs in general. The previous article in this series, regarding human reaction speeds, can be found here.

One common myth I see perpetuated in ARPGs is that melee-based builds are often inferior because they lack enough survivability options.

However, the truth is that even if your melee character was literally invulnerable, chances are your build would still suck compared to a ranged build. You don't die, but he doesn't really die either. Oh, and he kills stuff faster than you. You still lose.

In most ARPGs you can eventually get an absurd amount of "paper" DPS for any build, but your clear speed can still suck; even with the highest DPS weapon ever, Heavy Strike is garbage. Meanwhile, other skills are great for multiple far-away hits.

For an illustration of how important this is, check out AimDeep's Supernova build. He uses Ice Nova, a skill with nice mechanics (30 radius) and crappy damage. However, by investing in damage he is able to clear rooms quickly. The DPS can always be increased; it's the skill mechanics which make the difference.

So here's how I think skills should be balanced:

Strength: AoE
Running around as Str-based melee should be a case of choosing between powerful AoEs. The ability to slaughter multiple enemies in a single action should come close to a melee exclusive, since melee has to waste time moving closer to get the right positioning, something ranged worries far less about. The AoE tag should be nearly omnipresent on red melee active gems, and the Witch AoE passive cluster should move to Marauder area. Increased AoE and Conc Effect support gems should become red gems.

Examples of melee skills:
1. Volcanic Strike (AoE, Attack, Fire, Melee): Channels to launch a powerful attack. The longer you channel, the larger the area of effect and damage of the attack. When you stop channeling, you slam the ground with great force, causing earth and magma to errupt in an area centered on you. Can only be used with a mace or staff. 50% of Physical Damage converted to Fire. [Replaces Flameblast]
2. Arcing Strike (Attack, Chaining, Lightning, Melee). Strikes an enemy with your weapon. An arc of elemental damage dealt by that strike then chains from that enemy onto additional targets. Converts 50% of Physical Damage to Lightning. [Replaces Arc.]
3. Abyssal Blow (AoE, Attack, Cold, Duration, Melee). Hits an enemy with a cold-enhanced strike. If a frozen enemy is killed soon after being hit, they shatter into iced shrapnel, dealing damage to nearby enemies. Frozen enemies killed by this shrapnel explode themselves, potentially causing a chain reaction. Requies an Axe, Mace or Staff. 50% of Physical Damage converted to Cold. x% chance to Freeze. Shrapnel deals cold damage equal to 25% of shattered enemy's maximum Life. [Replaces Glacial Hammer and Infernal Blow.]

The lame single-target Melee skills would mostly go the way of the dodo.

Intelligence: Duration and Damage-over-Time

Spellcasters would also have access to AoE, but unlike melee AoE the emphasis would be less on instant damage and more on creating an environment deadly to opponents. Increased Duration would become a blue support gem, and Increased Duration nodes would be relocated to Witch and Shadow areas. True and pseudo damage-over-time, combined with crowd control, would be the spellcaster theme.

Examples of spells:
1. Heat Wave (Fire, Projectile, Spell). A wave of burning air which ignites enemies it passes through. The wave fades quickly, reducing damage until it runs out of time and dissipates completely. Always ignites enemies. Ignites enemies as though dealing x% more Damage. Low base damage. [Replaces Freezing Pulse.]
2. Hailstorm (AoE, Cold, Duration, Spell). Hail rains down over the targeted area. It shatters into ice shrapnel when landing, dealing damage to nearby enemies. [Replaces Firestorm.]
3. Storm Call (AoE, Duration, Lightning, Spell). Creates shocking ground at a location. A duration after the first ground is created, lightning strikes all shocking ground, removing all of it and dealing lightning damage to enemies which were standing on it.
4. Telekinetic Pull (Spell). Pick up remote items, equipping such weapons if unarmed. Or, pull an enemy into your melee range, damaging and stunning them.
5. Fire Trap (with less initial explosion damage, but more burn), Frost Wall, Spark, and Summon Raging Spirit would remain as part of the caster arsenal.

The majority of projectile-based spells such as Fireball and Ice Spear would be moved from Intelligence to...

Dexterity Part 1: (single target) projectiles

Archers and wanders would rely heavily on LMP and GMP support for clearing large amounts of trash, and these supports would be nerfed to better encourage a single-target skill to be ran alongside a multi-target one. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, Projectile skills would almost always be Attacks.

Example Projectile Attack skills:
1. Exploding Shot (AoE, Attack, Bow, Fire). Unleashes a fire-enhanced projectile towards a target. It explodes on impact, damaging nearby foes. Only works with Bows and Wands. 50% of Physical Damage converted to Fire. [Replaces Burning Arrow, Exploding Arrow and Fireball.]
2. Ice Arrow (Attack, Bow, Cold). Enhances an arrow with the penetrating power of cold, granting it extra damage. When it strikes an enemy, the ice breaks off but the arrow continues, piercing the enemy. First form has 50% of Physical Damage added as Cold. First form has 100% chance to Pierce. [Replaces Ice Spear and Ice Shot.]

Skills like Split Arrow and Tornado Shot would be cut.

I could probably flesh this section out more, but you probably get the idea.

Dexterity Part 2: hot, nasty bad-ass (melee) speed

Differentiating itself from Strength-based melee's "no finesse needed, just cast a wide net" AoE approach, Dex-based melee should eschew AoE in favor of a different concept: speed. It should close faster, attack faster, and against single-targets most definitely kill faster than Strength-based characters, but at a cost of more manual control required from the player to control that speed. Multistrike should be a green support gem, as would a new "Faster Movement" support for Movement skills, and a +2 melee weapon range node should be added to the Ranger area. Also, rapier implicit would be changed to increased movement speed to allow these characters to close distances quicker.

Example Dex-based melee (green) gems:
1. Eviscerate. Attack a random nearby enemy. The longer you repititively use this attack from the same location, the longer your reach, and the more damaging your attacks become. Requires a claw, dagger or sword. 100% more Damage for each stage. +2 weapon range for each stage. [Replaces Incinerate.]
2. Illusory Vanguard (Duration, Minion, Movement, Spell). Create a duplicate of yourself which engages nearby enemies with attacks. After a brief duration, the duplicate vanishes, and you instantly teleport to where it was. This duration is based on your movement speed and on distance between yourself and the duplicate. [Replaces Lightning Warp and Blink Arrow.]
2b. Illusory Duplicate (Duration, Minion, Spell). Create a duplicate of yourself which engages nearby enemies with attacks. After a brief duration, the duplicate vanishes. This duration is based on your movement speed and on distance between yourself and the duplicate. [Replaces Mirror Arrow.]
3. Weapon Throw (Attack, Projectile). Throw your weapon at a target, turning it into a fast-moving, high-damage projectile. Once it stops traveling, the weapon drops to the ground, allocated to you. Cannot split into multiple projectiles. [Replaces Spectral Throw.]
4. Stuff like Flicker Strike and Cyclone would remain, although Cyclone will be reworked so that it attacks once per "step" of movement, and thus Faster Movement support would be encouraged.

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I know this all sounds kind of drastic, but this kind of dedicated design decision to allocate specific skill types to different weapon styles is what would keep melee vs ranged from having such a disparity. It is GGG's helter-skelter, whatever-seems-cool policy which has led to the current issues.

It's also worth noting that, even while cautioning against undue emphasis on spellcaster skill diversity, I designed more spells than other skill types.

all that is needed to fix ranged/melee-ranged disparity is:

leech/lgoh happens at point-blank range ONLY

done. it is impossible to tweak defensive values, it is very dangerous to mess with skills (most of them except few like tornado shot are ok and 'fit well together')

but it is the leech that keeps ranged classes (not only archers/casters) as top-dogs - they get hit rarely, have exact same defenses and due to same (or higher) damage cap can leech better

there is no risk-reward here. without leech (or with leech seriously nerfed for ranged classes) the 'risk' suddenly appears

but this - just like your PoE2-level ideas wont happen

Melee needs survivability / mechanics not available to other play-styles.

eg: why can arrows & spells stun? Stun should be melee skill / weapon exclusive built-in defensive functionality. Caster & ranged should get stun functionality only thorough using stun gem.

but whatev, its too late to correct these design mistakes done at start..

That (and some melee) is why I've quit so many games. Dexterity based melee classes get the short end of the stick so frequently that "rogues are crap, don't bother" has been an ongoing sentiment as far back as DAoC.

The rest of what you've said is amenable if not subject to finer amendments. It was unfortunately overshadowed by your hand waving dismissal of dex based melee.

I am going to have to agree with Charan on the dexterity thing. I mean, isn't dexterity more important to melee than strength? What good is all the power in the world if you have no finesse and can't HIT anyone?

Organizing skills mechanically is great, but tags already do that so it's not exactly new. What you're really proposing is to put mechanical organization in a hierarchically superior position compared to thematic organization. This tends to constrain design more than enable it, and it makes it harder to match player expectations.

Constraining Design
The first thing that jumps out at me is that strength is good for groups, intelligence is good for individuals (bosses), and dex is kinda in-between. It seems natural to expect there will be a pressure to use a strength skill for clearing packs (melee of some sort) then switch to an intelligence skill for the boss (keep away spell of some sort), or settle for a dex skill if you don't want to finagle 2 different things. There is already a cadence of play that likely pressures players into playstyles that don't make much thematic sense (charge into giant packs with vicious hammer, run away from boss while your spells gradually wear him down). Maybe you can break it apart better and design better static partitions, but you have to get it exactly right on launch because once it's out there you're kind of stuck. You've defined the roles of the various character types, and that's fine at first, but POE is not a game that sits still. If gameplay partitions are statically defined based on character attributes (things of finite number that cannot be increased, decreased, or even substantially altered without breaking changes), then the only tools to draw from outside that box will break consistency. If strength builds are having problems with bosses, then how do you solve that?

Thematic partitions are more versatile because they don't suffer these problems. Themes can certainly be linked to mechanics, but as long as they are hierarchically superior, the theme can jump outside it's mechanical link to increase variety or to address unforeseen problems.

Matching Expectations
One thing a lot of games have is a spell o' doom that you just throw out there and it deals a lot of death. Usually it's a fireball or some variation thereof. The way you've defined the partitions, this skill cannot exist. Fireball has to work differently, it ignites enemies slowly wearing them down, which is a completely different feel. Maybe some people will like the new feel, but there's going to be a lot of people that play wizards expecting some sort of fiery spell o' death and your system tells them they will never see this spell in this game. It fails to deliver on player expectations.

If you can't meet expectations, people are going to be unhappy with your game no matter how good it is. A game isn't just a problem to be solved, it's also a game to be enjoyed. Game design would be pretty easy if you only had to do one or the other, but it's not.

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sidtherat wrote:

all that is needed to fix ranged/melee-ranged disparity is:

leech/lgoh happens at point-blank range ONLY

This wouldn't be enough. Imagine if reflected damage mobs also had Proximity Shield, that's pretty close to what you're suggesting.

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morbo wrote:

Melee needs survivability / mechanics not available to other play-styles.

Although melee does need more survivability between combat start and their first melee attack, it does not necessarily follow that melee needs more survivability after that point (perhaps one or two melee AoEs clears a room) or that the survivability must be standard numerical (ex: sidestepping enemy attacks during initial approach).

At the end of the day, it is a clearspeed issue. Period. Trash mobs shouldn't be stunned by a melee character which spent time on approach, they should be outright slaughtered, rendering the point moot.

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CliveHowlitzer wrote:

What good is all the power in the world if you have no finesse and can't HIT anyone?

This is why AoE fits the Strength-based melee archetype so well. It's less about finesse and more about casting a wide net. :)

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Charan wrote:

Dexterity based melee classes get the short end of the stick so frequently that "rogues are crap, don't bother" has been an ongoing sentiment as far back as DAoC.

The rest of what you've said is amenable if not subject to finer amendments. It was unfortunately overshadowed by your hand waving dismissal of dex based melee.

I was hoping to keep things somewhat basic with one main archetype each for Str, Int and Dex, but this is still valid criticism - folks like making the rogues and I didn't give the topic the proper respect. I'm going to think about it a bit and add a new section to the OP eventually.

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PolarisOrbit wrote:

Matching Expectations
One thing a lot of games have is a spell o' doom that you just throw out there and it deals a lot of death. Usually it's a fireball or some variation thereof. The way you've defined the partitions, this skill cannot exist. Fireball has to work differently, it ignites enemies slowly wearing them down, which is a completely different feel. Maybe some people will like the new feel, but there's going to be a lot of people that play wizards expecting some sort of fiery spell o' death and your system tells them they will never see this spell in this game. It fails to deliver on player expectations.

I actually got the idea for adjusting spellcasters by playing Divinity: Original Sin. Not sure if you're familiar, but casters feel pretty awesome in that game, despite them be overshadowed in raw, instant DPS by attack-based classes, especially late-game. The reason is that they transform battlefields entirely, creating all sorts of environmental hazards for enemies. They're able to do this immediately and at range, so the very beginning of a combat is when their impact is best felt. It still feels very wizardly and impactful, even if there is usually some cleanup for your attackers to do later.

That said, D:OS has players controlling parties, while ARPGs typically don't. Minions, to some extent, could help with the cleanup function, but it would probably be wise to offer alternatives. Stuff like Flame Surge, for instance - does a lot of work if you've already ignited enemies, but designed to be meh if you haven't.

What I believe enthusiastically is that casters should be an archetype which thoroughly rejects the single-spell-spam system of Diablo, and instead embraces the spell combo system of games like Dragon Age and D:OS.

damn scrotie.. for a dude who wants the game to die you sure think about it ALOT.

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TheWretch wrote:

damn scrotie.. for a dude who wants the game to die you sure think about it ALOT.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Thinking Outside the Box is my article series for concepts unlikely (if not outright impossible) to include in this game, but are worth considering for potential PoE sequels and ARPGs in general.

At the very least, I'm enjoying these discussions as a way to pass the time until GGG decides to let us know which direction they're taking the game in next. If they bother you so much, there are other threads and boards that you can antagonize in, I'm sure.

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I like this ontology somewhat. It matches the standard accepted RPG tropes good and well, though I still feel like you've left in too many ways to run over the line in the sand.

I'm getting something like (paraphrased):
Str: AoE, slower attacks
Dex: Single, high damage, rapid attacks
Int: Combo skills, de/buffs

If dex is fast, then it should be possible for a dex skill to one-hit four different enemies in four usages in the time it takes the strength skill to one-hit the four enemies with one usage. LMP/GMP should not be in the game at all in this world, since it reduces the thematic meaning of both dex and strength.

Certainly dex should get all of the movement skills, since it's competing with massive AoE (no movement required) from strength or with enemy movement/terrain control (pulling enemies, boxing them in, etc) from int. That way the dextrous attacker can be a legit thing -- the fastest character in the game (and needs to be just to keep up clear speed with screen-wipers).

Int still feels to not be well defined and ripe for abuse. Like, how do you guarantee that Heat Wave isn't stronger than a strength AoE skill? If it is stronger, then strength is no longer the go-to for AoE, which is counter to strength's role. Or what if there's an int combo which is better at single targets than dex?

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This would also imply something like:
- Strength is best for farming lots of small dudes
- Dex is best at killing bosses
- Int is best at everything in between

... but that means enemy design would need to be entangled here. For Str/Int/Dex to be a valid choice, endgame challenges would need to feature each of these scenarios prominently and equally.

Atziri as the sole endgame would not work, since killing bosses is Dex's domain and shoehorning people into that is bad. There would need to be a different place like a high level Coward's Trial for strength to shine in, and then a place with puzzle-esque terrain (Oba's-ish?) for int to shine in. Loot from all of these would need to be competitive, which is also a mathematical hurdle.

He made a thread asking the players to abandon the game so it should die..but im the antagonizing one? Makes sense.

I can post where I choose, id like a sequel too but Charan pretty much just stated where I feel PoE is at in terms of an IP. Go on though, armchair develop away you seem to get off on it as much as he does. That's fine, don't let me stop you.

Just like you wont get me to stop posting my opinion.