The REAL problem with melee vs. ranged
" Indeed... as it turns out, I'd invoked TL2 and its natural swing arcs as a response to another thread. Never did understand why GGG didn't go with this eminently logical approach. White Knight of the Order of Mihoshi Enthusiasts
"Destroyed overnight, or the next one's free." | |
" But truth also is, no game manages balance properly, people just complain more about it. In D3 people are permanently concerned that some classes can achieve higher GR levels, in WoW people complained so long about the different performance of certain classes that they basically removed anything that made certain classes unique and people still complain because some spec does a few percent more damage. The thing is if even a game like D3, which has a pretty narrow amount of decisions a player can make, doesn't manage to strike decent balance which a much more sizeable team, how should PoE manage to. Of course the current system widened the gap a bit too much for many different reasons, but I doubt that anything changes if this gap gets closer, actually I can proof that because the gap did close a lot. Melees were far worse some time ago and while they are not super hot right now they at least managed to catch up with bows, at least if you messure it on their ladder success. Of course hardly any of the skills used in HC ladder could be called melee, because the HC melees usually use Lacerate, Earthquake or Blade Flurry, but that is still an improvement. And when was the last time a melee skill that was actually melee was good? I think that was before elemental damage was reduced and you could make incredible powerful Ele Cleave builds, but that's it. Aside from this good melee skills always were ranged, like Groundslam. The closest we actually got to a melee meta was Blade Vortex, which is an actual melee skill despite not having the tag and we all knew why that happened. " Having native AoEs based on weapons would make a lot of sense, but it would make many skills obsolete. Because look at Double Strike and Lacerate. Lacerate is a double Strike with AoE. Cleave is a Dual Strike with AoE. The thing is all those single target skills might as well be scrapped and redesigned with some form of AoE. Why on earth should I ever use Double Strike when I can use Lacerate. | |
" When was that? | |
" A valid point. What I am wondering is 'why GGG didn't design melee with this mechanic from the start?' as opposed to 'why don't they retrofit it into the existing game?' (something which we agree would be a monumental task, especially with everything else on deck at present). That said, since you brought up a couple of other examples, I will speculate as to how they might be different under such a system... *double strike: two quick strikes with your main-hand weapon; each of them does increased damage compared to your base attack, but in return ignores the weapon's swing arc *lacerate: fairly unchanged *heavy strike: like double strike, this skill forsakes the weapon arc in return for its increased damage (more, of course, than DS) and knockback White Knight of the Order of Mihoshi Enthusiasts
"Destroyed overnight, or the next one's free." | |
|
Design naturally evolves, that is not an unusual thing. What I am surprised off is that they didn't just scrap some of the old skills or reworked them. At that point nobody would have complained if they would have reworked Heavy Strike into Earthquake, because the idea isn't that different.
But even now there would be options to rework some of the skills, but I think GGG isn't really happy on the foundation and they totally lack a clear idea how to approach melee. Because you either have to accept that there are worse skills or make more of the skills basically into at least partially ranged abilities. Because honestly if they try to give mechanics to help melee it just means that every non melee char will try to get access to them as well or if they are good enough actually give up fighting at range because fighting at melee range is just straight out better. | |
" Indeed, perfect balance is impossible, and there always will be rants about it. But that doesnt mean that game developers should give up and dont give a shit about balance at all. Sacred 2 is an example of game, where developers just "gave up" at balancing. In that game, for example, it's possible to build Seraphim as totally invincible character - i mean, 100% damage reduction 100% of the time. And at the same time, she will have the strongest single-target ranged DPS in the game as well... Or, if you can recall that a "bug" - Dryad (another ranged class, btw) can be build for HP regen at ~100-200% HP pool per second rate, without sacrificing DPS, obviously. Some time ago, PoE had same imbalances too - literally 100% invincible characters with huge DPS. At least, that was fixed (praise GGG!), though ranged chars still leech full HP in split-second without sacrificing DPS.... I dont find it fun to play such an imbalanced game. It becames boring too quickly. Also, it means that game designer's efforts in creating many skills, passives, items, playstyles, etc - all were in vain, cause they serve nothing more than noobtraps for less experienced players. While a more balanced and diverse game is more fun to played again and again, with different characters, playstyles, builds.... I played WoW from 3.0 to 4.2 patches, and during those, it was fairly balanced game. Yes, in some patches, certain classes/builds might have slight advantage, mostly because of boss designs favouring them more (remember - in WoW endgame content changes every major patch), or due to bit of overbuff/overnerf during balancing. And the main factor for your success in WoW always during those patches was your SKILL, not your build or even items. I wish only that PoE would ever reach WoW's level of "Hardcore game".... That would be great, really. IGN: MortalKombat Molten Strike build guide: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1346504 There is no knowledge That is not power Last edited by MortalKombat3 on Apr 30, 2017, 2:01:04 PM
|
|
" Titan Quest had similar issues with 100% arrow dodge chance or 100% reduced cooldown. But then again those games were more focused on single player were such stuff mattered much less. One of the big reasons why PoE or Diablo III show those issues that much is because they are both online only and even if the game gives you no reason to do so players compare what they can achieve automatically with other players, so those things are much more visible. In D3 you see that a Barb can do GR XYZ and you notice that your Crusader can only do XYZ -2 and you instantly see that your character is objectively worse, just by comparing which GRs the best players reach. And even though Path of Exile doesn't have such an easy metric you can look into the HC ladders and see which characters are there and while Melees do appear their again since a few patches (basically since Earthquake) they are still massively underrepresented, same for bows. " Well again there are two things to consider. First is melee in itself fine. Just imagine you could only play melee, would it be a good game? Because right now I feel melee has some issues that go beyond balance. Another thing to consider is that making new skills and ignoring the old ones is usually just a more fun thing to do. Compare it to infrastructure, nobody gives a damn shit about bridges that are falling apart, it is much more fun to open up new bridges and this is no different. And if you look at the new skills most of them are at least half decent. Earthquake, Lacerate, Scorching Ray and Blade Flurry all made some impact, Blight might be a bit weaker, but that is a good ratio. Of course it is odd to have that many unused skills that are simply not really comparable with the new ones, they are not only a lot weaker, they are also often a lot less fun to play. Because putting the power of Blade Flurry aside, it is a fun skill, as is cyclone and also lacerate. A single target skill just doesn't feel that impactful, if I want to hit someone with a hammer I could do that in real life (you shouldn't though), if I want to create a big earthquake or a wave of force I can't. " While that is true that the game had a fairly decent balance there were still insane amounts of complaints because a class dealt a small amount of damage more and they also sacrificed a lot during it. Many of the unique buffs some classes had were gone and many of the harder rotations were made simpler and most of the characters got more and more similar. But WoW showed that removing choices from players does help with balance, but considering that their numbers dropped since they did that (although their are likely other reasons for that as well) also showed that only a handful of players are actually interested in that. And this brings me back to the question before is balance the only issue melees have, or are their issues in the playstyle itself that make it less fun, even if it would be the only option. Because even if they would fix balance and make melee stronger, it wouldn't help if the playstyle is not fun. A good thing is that they seem to understand that. You can't blame them for doing nothing, they do improve melee on both ends. The cyclone change is a good example of a change focussed on playability for melees and not so much on balance. The 1h-weapon buffs are a good example for balance focussed changes. Of course you could argue that they could make more drastic changes with the risk of making melee too strong, but then they would have to take power away again, which might also be not so fun. We know that they didn't care that much before and often did exactly that, but having such a rollarcoaster might not be the best thing either. So afterall you cannot blame them for doing nothing, they try to address issues, but then again of course it is very obvious that they weren't that successful either. Because while some melee skills are pretty cabable and can keep up with many spells and ranged skills, they are usually not that ranged. Blade Flurry and Earthquake are good skills and Lacerate is decent. If that would be all of melee I would say melee is fine, but there are a whole lot of other melee skills that are still far from good. | |
|
You want balance so let's see what we got, all on a 0/10 scale:
Range - near/ far dps - low/ high mobility - slow/ fast direct dmg mitigation - low/ high Average Melee builds should be around: Range - 5/10 dps - 8/10 mobility - 6/10 direct dmg mitigation - 9/10 Total 28/40 pts. Average Ranged builds should be around: Range - 9/10 dps - 6/10 mobility - 7/10 direct dmg mitigation 6/10 Total 28/40 pts. Each has their strength and weaknesses, certain maps/mods can be cleared faster with melee, others with ranged. If this does not happen, then the problem is in the fundamental design of combat content, such as monster behaviour/ speed/ skills/ dps/ resistances etc., which should be changed to achieve the desired gameplay balance. "Players can now smack around players who are having trouble very early on."
-Bex | |
" If it is that easy. But lets look at all of those points: First the Range. How can you give Ranged builds a 9/10 if there are multiple situations in the game were this range simply doesn't exist because the arena is not big enough or the enemy forces you near him with a proximity shield or other mechanics. And this directly brings us to the next two points, damage and mitigation. How should a ranged char survive if he is forced into melee by the game? In those situations he needs the same mitigation a ranged char has. And even more important how should you give a char this mitigation if all that is different about a melee and a ranged char is if he uses Heavy Strike or Sunder? The issue path of exile has is that a simple support gem can make a ranged char melee and the other way around. If you add Increased AoE to a skill (although this is not that massive anymore than it used to be) it turns into a ranged skill, while conc. effect turns the same skill into a melee one. Or Spectral Throw and switching faster with slower projectiles. | |
|
Another thing for melee - core game visual style and pacing.
When serious shit hit the fan, like combined affects of beyond/messy boss fights + 2-3 party members (I play with friends mostly) I practicaly not even see my character when he in more or less melee engagment. Just some occational head or weapon of my dude blinking in sea of hypnotic lights under boss feet. Best thing I can do react on flasks (bulp them in time) and almost BLINDLY spam main attack in hopes that boss die faster than me. |
|
