Thinking Outside the Box: Rethinking Melee and Ranged skills

"

pneuma wrote:

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).

"

pneuma wrote:

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?

"

Charanjaydemyr wrote:

I agree with your overall approach to dex melee but we cannot return to the days of zero-cooldown flicker strike. I like where it is now.

"

pneuma wrote:

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.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

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.

"

Poutsos wrote:

Ranged should have better survivability and crowd control, and it does so inherently, while melee should have the damage and the clear speed. I have no idea how this can be achieved, or even if it possible, but IMO that's the solution.

"

pneuma wrote:

Increasing base melee weapon damage and taking "ranged melee" skills like ST and LS to the cleaners could put us on the right path with minimal changes.

"

Gobla wrote:

I think the disparity ties directly to the entire fact that it's at all possible to basically one-shot entire packs. And that with massive attack/cast speed.

...

To balance that that single second needs to be massively increased. PoE's combat needs to slow the hell down. When you reach the point where you spend more time fighting enemies than travelling then you'll see more balance between melee and ranged.

There's nothing inherent in melee that's causing the problem. The problem isn't between ranged and melee . The problem is between offense and defense. There's been simply way too much power creep on the offense side of things, both from players as well as monsters, leaving us into a situation where combat isn't long enough to justify the additional time melee spends getting into it.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

"

pneuma wrote:

Increasing base melee weapon damage and taking "ranged melee" skills like ST and LS to the cleaners could put us on the right path with minimal changes.

"

Gobla wrote:

I think the disparity ties directly to the entire fact that it's at all possible to basically one-shot entire packs. And that with massive attack/cast speed.

...

To balance that that single second needs to be massively increased. PoE's combat needs to slow the hell down. When you reach the point where you spend more time fighting enemies than travelling then you'll see more balance between melee and ranged.

There's nothing inherent in melee that's causing the problem. The problem isn't between ranged and melee . The problem is between offense and defense. There's been simply way too much power creep on the offense side of things, both from players as well as monsters, leaving us into a situation where combat isn't long enough to justify the additional time melee spends getting into it.

Noop.

In pretty much every ARPG ever, DPS is one of the most malleable player metrics. In PoE, a single extra linked socket or a weapon upgrade can boost your damage 50%, or double it if both happen at once. This kind of "damage rebalancing" would in fact create a QQ-worthy melee imbalance for the highest-level content, since melee would still be able to handle the content with less-than-perfect gear, and even with access to perfect gear there'd be no incentive to switch.

Also, even if you made that change, ranged would still be OP somewhere. They'd just abandon the highest-level content and farm some other spot where they can one-shot everything. They'd grind and grind and grind and eventually trade for the items they need to handle the highest content. But they'd do that for ego; the farming pattern wouldn't really change.

From an ARPG design perspective, one must accept that control over DPS is going to be tenuous at best, and a good rule of thumb is that, at the latest stages of character progression, every attack will always one-shot everything it touches (not true, but a damn fine assumption regardless). Which leaves increased multi-target ability as the sole means of further increasing combat efficiency.

Which is why firmer developer control over AoEs, multiple projectiles, and other multihit mechanics, as well as over movement speed and movement skills, is so important. Unlike DPS, these factors do not tend to spiral forever upwards during character progression, which allows then to be the limiters which bring balance between ranged and melee.