Thinking Outside the Box: Rethinking Melee and Ranged skills

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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.

My problem with that is that it makes the game dull. It's fun to have some interaction outside one shots in this game.

Charan has a huge discussion post somewhere discussing GGG's design decisions which have led to POE being very AOE skill focused which leads to making melee more inferior as well.


A good solution from Torchlight 2 is that mobs are about the same size as POE and good for AOE skills but the rare monsters have lots of hit points and you really need to use single target skills for them cause AOE spells kill them much too slowly. The rares in TL2 have more hit points like mini-bosses and invasion monsters in POE, like Kole, but they are much more common.

I think that GGG has a fair amount of room to change the hit points of the rare monsters so they take longer to kill with AOE in order to force single target skills for them.

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Basically I feel that the inferiority of melee in POE is related to the over-realiance on AOE skills in the game.

Yo. Just started reading your threads and I have one thing to say:

GGG, listen to this man.

I really dislike AOE as a melee solution. Single target melee should be viable as well, and so should slow big hit attacks.

I think the armor mitigating damage idea GGG currently uses is ok. I think it could be improved by allowing armor of various types to block various types of damage. It would take a certain amount of armor penetration before mitigation takes effect. Heavier armors would provide more of this multilayered defense, but they would also have a negative impact on evasion, dodge and dexterity based actions. Strength would help counter some of this, as would armor mobility nodes located near strength based characters. Armor should mitigate some non-physical damage.

By the same token, the type of weapon used should play a factor in penetrating a monsters armor type defenses. Some monsters would be soft, while others might take very little damage from light arrows (which could be fired rapidly with LMP and GMP) and some require slower single shot heavy arrows to penetrate.

The problem isn't ranged vs melee. It is extrafastsuperultrauberrangedspeed attacks vs ihavetoruntothetargetfirstextrafastsuper attacks.

If a ranged character had to D. . .R. . .A. . .W and aim a bow, instead of ThwipityThwippityThwip there would be some balance with the Swing..swing...swing melee and the S..M..A..S..H!!! melee style.

Dialing it all down and bringing certain aspects back up for particular weapons/skills will take care of melee/ranged/single target/AOE.

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DalaiLama wrote:

I really dislike AOE as a melee solution. Single target melee should be viable as well, and so should slow big hit attacks.

Maybe one or the other - I have a section on dex-based melee now. But the combination - that is, slow big hit singletarget melee - simply cannot be viable. All the wishing in the world wouldn't, couldn't make it so.

I'm going to change from chemistry to programming and game development in my studies to pursue my dreams, hopefully i can start this fall.

If all goes well, i will specialize in game systems, skills, and itemization and i will help create the wickedest ARPG experience since D2... That is what i want to do, but who knows what will happen.

I definitely feel like there is an enormous untapped potential for ARPG's, and a desire that has not been fulfilled for many years now.

I honestly feel like some of the best ideas from many games need to be taken, some improved and other ideas that haven't been seen before applied.

D1, D2, Early WoW, D3, Dungeon Siege, Path.

For example.

- Bound drops. Realistically the only way to combat bots, as well as make the game about the gameplay to optimize progress on your character, plus it allows the game to be more rewarding, but does not exclude trading of some item types. This one of the things i am working on atm, a hybrid system that allows trading of some items without breaking the game and making it p2w, but maintaining play 2 win, while still being things worth trading ingame that have a real purpose. I could be things such as treasure maps that will lead you to one of the many random things you can encounter, but in a way such that you are able to seek that thing out.

- Difficulty level of content scaling, allow all content to be used endgame.

- Drops that adjust to your character. Lets say you have 40 classes in a game, which results in a shitton of different loot to be found. On one hand there is the experience of finding an useful item for another class that makes you drool so hard you reroll, on the other hand if you hardly ever find anything useful it get's frustrating. Also, you need to be able to focus your loot. That means if you by the time you find gear for your character, you will have on average also found for all other characters, then 1 character is the longevity of the game(more or less). Now, these games are most fun when you are progressing decently well, that means its ideal that there are many classes so cool in game you wnt to play them all, so when you end with one, you may pick up another. Then comes a new season later and you can go nuts again without it being insanely hard to get good gear. So, in reality that could come down to something along the lines of 50% of your drops are drops that are flagged as useable for your class, the other 50% are full random can be all types.

- Distinguished classes. PoE class tree was a great experience but it is not practical. It is better to have distinguished classes which allows for such things such as specialized loot and specialized skills that only can be used by the class to offset such things as melee/ranged defense disparities and much more.

- A wealth of classes. I have no fear of the balance issues. I feel many, at least 20 distinguished classes will only be a good thing for the game, despite taking a lot of work, i still feel it is lifeblood of a game. This is too complex to get into here, but how many of us can't at least think of 15+ extremely cool classes they want to play? For one, goddamn i've been wanting to play a proper werewolf class since i cannot remember how long.

- Random generation. I feel this is the holy grail of ARPG's, and i feel that was what originally seperated Diablo from other games. Repeatable random generated content. I feel it didn't advance past D2 level, and industry focus shifted. Even maps are just another incarnation of D2 level random content. I feel this is the very thing that will carry an ARPG to the next level above all other things. This is pretty much what i spend more time to understand than any of the other things, to maintain a vision and create a model for random generation.

- Seasons that are attractive for all, including casuals and hardcore gamers. D2 had it about right depending on bots influence. Things are too easy in D3. You need a model where players can achieve a fairly high level of completion of their character in 2-3 months even if they are casuals, which means drops must be fairly good overall or assisted through hidden systems, while at the same time, it shouldn't be a scenario where in 1-2 weeks all the hardcore gamers pretty much can't advance much more. Basically it should not be PoE Starvation barren desert style season. It must be fun to get into and be a blast. Then there should be at the higher levels of progression room to either go ahead and blast through other characters, or keep perfecting the same one

- World PvP and PK. Essential. At the moment i am working with a system that says 30% increased drops if you enable possible pvp, which allows those who want to be left alone to play like that. There will be a honour system in the game i am working on, depending on what actions your group takes against those they encounter. The random generated world i am working on i hope to find a way to have basically an unending dungeon/outside content that just keeps generating and can weave groups into proximity so that in that way you can encounter other players in the wild.. There is even supposed to be a king, a player that will get a massive boost to damage/health so he will be like a boss, but player controlled, and players will be able to see on the map which area the king is currently in. Being a king alters many rules of the random generated content, also to allow players to hunt you down and for it to be PvP intensive being the king and give players a chance to group up and dethrone you. Simultaneously there will be an arena system where battles will take place in arenas in major cities, and players can come to spectate. The final winner will challenge the king and receive a challenger buff that will be somewhat weaker than the king buffs. The king and arena system is still in a very early state, but i just had a vision that it would be exceptionally cool to be the king in pvp and be like a boss for players to tackle.

But these ideas are just ideas until i learn to program and find people to work with to hopefully develop them into something real.. So yea. This is my dream.

Touch of God melee skill needs to happen.

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Kranyum wrote:

Touch of God melee skill needs to happen.

You mean "Volcanic Strike" from OP?

@Crack: maybe at some point I'll write an article on pros and cons of both account-bound and free-trade systems, but since the topic is derail I'll just summarize: free-trade is the correct choice in general for ladder-based competition, because trade-based progression is faster the more people have already passed certain content (large gear supply), making commodity-for-gear trading a valuable catch-up mechanic for those who start late or fall behind.