The REAL problem with melee vs. ranged

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Emphasy wrote:

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.

They fail due to 2 major reasons.

First, they created gameplay style, that HEAVILY discourages melee. I meann that ultra-fast clearspeed meta with huge range/AoE skills and enemies dying before their AI can react, despite being able to deal very high damage if you allow them to. To make melee actually good, meta should slow down and players should actually fight enemies, not oneshot them screens away.

Second, GGG tends to be bad at balancing their game, probably because they dont fully understand the meta, created by them, not always, i'd say. So it happens that some skills/items/playstyles result into being much better than others, and changes intended to "fix" things, may have unexpected side effects or even reverse effects, just because GGG isnt that good at understanding and balancing their own game.

path of exile: the game where melee kites and ranged can face tank.

Melee, and more specifically, "True Melee" does have a lot of problems with viability in this game.

Due to numerous reasons, specified by others.

There's also many issues with trying to provide them with bonuses to alleviate their weaknesses, notably in the fact that there are a lot of ranged skills that piggy back off melee nodes and tags (Sunder/Frost Blades/Spectral Throw etc)

Outside of that, things rely on Melee Splash to be effective, not only costing a gem link, but also then just making them into AoE's anyway (Which then get directly compared to all the innate AoE skills and they come up short... Mostly due to needing a 0 damage increase gem link to get that AoE...)

I mean, even Ranged skills using Projectiles can often get decent AoE from spending a gem link on Pierce, which provides additional damage (In the form of "More" to boot), while the sucky melee skills get nothing from MS...

So yeah, generally, the main issues that "True Melee" face are:

- They're often stuck going Life, due to most of the melee nodes being over with the Life nodes. But Life sucks compared to ES.

- They are forced inherently to take more damage, because they have to get up close to do anything. Yet don't have anything specific to them in order to alleviate that (Given how easy it is to cheese Fortify on ranged builds)

- They don't have the damage output to justify themselves. In addition, they don't have AoE worth anything compared to ranged skills.

So, if I were to have a quick stab at suggesting how to at least start with making "True Melee" something notable, I'd probably look at the following:

- Make Life better. If Life could be comparable to ES, then it wouldn't be such a downside to be stuck as Life builds (Various ways have been suggested in other threads on how to close the gap between Life and ES. I won't rehash them here)

- Remove Fortify from the support gem. Instead, bundle it into "True Melee" skills inherently. Also, try and work the mechanics so Fortify becomes less effective for hits coming from a distance (So the meta won't be slapping Vigilant Strike onto ranged builds (Especially since spells can use it too due to the inherent "Can't be evaded")

- Boost the damage of "True Melee" skills so that they're not outperformed on single targets by AoE skills... Then give them some attention to make their clear not awful.

A suggestion I was thinking about, is if said skills had the inherent chance to be auto-cast on nearby targets similar to Vengeance/Riposte/Reckoning that increased with gem levels. Allowing you to hit multiple targets within a short time period, without needing Melee Splash or inherent AoE capabilities (Also, helps alleviate reliance on name-locking). Of course, the trigger for such an action and some of the mechanics surrounding it would need to be carefully considered (Since "When hit" would diminish Block/Evades worth... Maybe just being close to enemies provides ticks of chances to activate at regular time intervals much like how a CWC skill gets used? Also, might need to give a little cone on the procs to make them more reliable to actually connect with a target)

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

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Emphasy wrote:

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.

They fail due to 2 major reasons.

First, they created gameplay style, that HEAVILY discourages melee. I meann that ultra-fast clearspeed meta with huge range/AoE skills and enemies dying before their AI can react, despite being able to deal very high damage if you allow them to. To make melee actually good, meta should slow down and players should actually fight enemies, not oneshot them screens away.

Second, GGG tends to be bad at balancing their game, probably because they dont fully understand the meta, created by them, not always, i'd say. So it happens that some skills/items/playstyles result into being much better than others, and changes intended to "fix" things, may have unexpected side effects or even reverse effects, just because GGG isnt that good at understanding and balancing their own game.

Although that is true, this meta was partially created by popular demand. A fast paced game is just more fun. And their approach to fix melee in this meta is making melee more ranged. I don't mind that but they should be more honest about it. Of course having a few more tough guys in between the masses of trash mobs would likely still be a good addition but with maps only having one boss and even them mostly not being too tough, they would have to again do some major redesigns to maps. They kinda missed the opportunity to make trash mobs less important, because right now when you do maps your loot and your maps are usually coming from the trash mobs in the map and not the boss.

The other issue GGG has is that they underestimate what people value. When they made Fortify they wouldn't have assumed that basically every caster uses it. But that is not unusual, their design team is comparable small, which makes it very likely that they come up with different ideas than the community. They would need a more open design process which again would require quite some effort to filter out the bad ideas, because even if a majority wants something it isn't necessarily good (Every Country holding elections knows this^^).

I think they do understand their meta, but they don't really want to take it away from players because a lot of them feel that the meta is fun even though not healthy for melees.

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Emphasy wrote:

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

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Emphasy wrote:

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.

They fail due to 2 major reasons.

First, they created gameplay style, that HEAVILY discourages melee. I meann that ultra-fast clearspeed meta with huge range/AoE skills and enemies dying before their AI can react, despite being able to deal very high damage if you allow them to. To make melee actually good, meta should slow down and players should actually fight enemies, not oneshot them screens away.

Second, GGG tends to be bad at balancing their game, probably because they dont fully understand the meta, created by them, not always, i'd say. So it happens that some skills/items/playstyles result into being much better than others, and changes intended to "fix" things, may have unexpected side effects or even reverse effects, just because GGG isnt that good at understanding and balancing their own game.

Although that is true, this meta was partially created by popular demand. A fast paced game is just more fun. And their approach to fix melee in this meta is making melee more ranged. I don't mind that but they should be more honest about it. Of course having a few more tough guys in between the masses of trash mobs would likely still be a good addition but with maps only having one boss and even them mostly not being too tough, they would have to again do some major redesigns to maps. They kinda missed the opportunity to make trash mobs less important, because right now when you do maps your loot and your maps are usually coming from the trash mobs in the map and not the boss.

The other issue GGG has is that they underestimate what people value. When they made Fortify they wouldn't have assumed that basically every caster uses it. But that is not unusual, their design team is comparable small, which makes it very likely that they come up with different ideas than the community. They would need a more open design process which again would require quite some effort to filter out the bad ideas, because even if a majority wants something it isn't necessarily good (Every Country holding elections knows this^^).

I think they do understand their meta, but they don't really want to take it away from players because a lot of them feel that the meta is fun even though not healthy for melees.

So why not "throw some bones" towards melee single targeting players?

They should just increase the damage of melee singe targeting skills by at least 50% more and just keep Splash as it is => they will deal splash damage but forgo a multiplier gem.

They should also increase the damage of initial single targeting hits by a smaller amount for those skills that have already an AoE component included - Wildstrike, Static Strike or Molten Strike come to mind at a first glance.

Adjust marginally the damage of the AoE heavy "melee" skills.

And then test versus single monsters and various packs. When you hit an equilibrium, then you could say you reached your goal regarding "melee" balance...

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So why not "throw some bones" towards melee single targeting players?

They should just increase the damage of melee singe targeting skills by at least 50% more and just keep Splash as it is => they will deal splash damage but forgo a multiplier gem.

They should also increase the damage of initial single targeting hits by a smaller amount for those skills that have already an AoE component included - Wildstrike, Static Strike or Molten Strike come to mind at a first glance.

Adjust marginally the damage of the AoE heavy "melee" skills.

And then test versus single monsters and various packs. When you hit an equilibrium, then you could say you reached your goal regarding "melee" balance...

Actually I think they are not even sure what to do with those single target skills. They feel totally outdated and they should try to find a design goal for those skills. Because without a goal it is hard to think about the direction to put them in. Should they be turned into more utility focused support abilities like Frenzy is. Should they be turned into powerful single target skills that could work decently on a 4l. Should they be remade into AoE skills or just removed. Right now those skills are not only weak, they are also not very fun to play so balancing the isn't that meaningful if they are still a terrible experience to use.

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Emphasy wrote:

Although that is true, this meta was partially created by popular demand. A fast paced game is just more fun.

Maybe, but PoE goes to an extreme with that, it's way TOO fast to be fun. Most players dont understand, that "faster&bigger" isnt always better.

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Emphasy wrote:

And their approach to fix melee in this meta is making melee more ranged.

Well, it's viable approach, but GGG should ACCEPT is in open. They should remove most close-range skills (especially all those "glorified auto-attack" skills like Glacial Hammer or Dual Strike) and leave only ranged and semi-ranged skills. Also, Then, Fortify should be removed, or enabled for anyone. And of course, even in that ranged meta, should be a balance between skill's AoE and damage. Oh, and revert AoE nerfs - they're really awful for "clearspeed meta".

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Emphasy wrote:

The other issue GGG has is that they underestimate what people value. When they made Fortify they wouldn't have assumed that basically every caster uses it. But that is not unusual, their design team is comparable small, which makes it very likely that they come up with different ideas than the community. They would need a more open design process which again would require quite some effort to filter out the bad ideas, because even if a majority wants something it isn't necessarily good (Every Country holding elections knows this^^).

That's a clear example, that GGG's balancing team doesnt understand their own game properly. So, their balancing attempts have unexpected (for them) side effects.

Considering that GGG nerfed AoE so hard, maybe GGG even want to get rid of this ultra-fast meta, but they just dont know how to make that properly.

And i agree, even if majority of players want something, it's not neccesarily will be good for game.

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Considering that GGG nerfed AoE so hard, maybe GGG even want to get rid of this ultra-fast meta, but they just dont know how to make that properly.

Considering the negative impact they felt when nerfing CoC I think they are also a bit hesitant to make bigger changes. This basically means that they have to slowly reign in the power level instead of taking it with one big swoop. The issue you have as a game designer is that while a healthier game is better for long time success, fixing those unhealthy game mechanics might feel for most players as if you take fun away from them, which likely has a short term impact on player numbers and possibly income.

If we would just focus on balancing the game there would be a lot of easy solution, but the issue is that they also have to look at economic things as well and that might make things a lot more complicated. I'm not sure how much freedom they have in this regards, I don't think they have monetary issues, but they likely also don't have too much freedom in this regards, so this might explain a bit of their hesitation.

It would be really cool if you could put such considerations aside and just do balance. But since many players just like feeling powerful, taking power away is not too popular but at this point they basically have to do this, so I kinda understand that they are taking a rather slow approach to this. I don't think that it is them not knowing how to fix things, I think it is more the issue of them fearing that they upset players if they move away from the clearspeed meta too drastically.

So I see the issues they are facing here. So as long as they are not accepting the state as is, I'm fine. I might want some quicker and more impactful solution but I kinda get why they are not doing that. So overall I'm mostly happy with the direction or the path they have chosen for melee, but they could move that path a bit quicker, because while there are improvements I don't think those improvements to melee have to be so slow, while I agree that making quick changes to fix the fast clearspeed could be troublesome.

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Emphasy wrote:

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So why not "throw some bones" towards melee single targeting players?

They should just increase the damage of melee singe targeting skills by at least 50% more and just keep Splash as it is => they will deal splash damage but forgo a multiplier gem.

They should also increase the damage of initial single targeting hits by a smaller amount for those skills that have already an AoE component included - Wildstrike, Static Strike or Molten Strike come to mind at a first glance.

Adjust marginally the damage of the AoE heavy "melee" skills.

And then test versus single monsters and various packs. When you hit an equilibrium, then you could say you reached your goal regarding "melee" balance...

Actually I think they are not even sure what to do with those single target skills. They feel totally outdated and they should try to find a design goal for those skills. Because without a goal it is hard to think about the direction to put them in. Should they be turned into more utility focused support abilities like Frenzy is. Should they be turned into powerful single target skills that could work decently on a 4l. Should they be remade into AoE skills or just removed. Right now those skills are not only weak, they are also not very fun to play so balancing the isn't that meaningful if they are still a terrible experience to use.

Well, the second that my single targeting skills disappear, I will stop supporting as I enjoy playing "melee old school" more than AoE melee, spells or ranged only skills. I can tolerate a crazy amount of @#^&, but the second that what I enjoy in a game becomes nonexistent, so becomes my support to said game - and PoE goes borderline on my "fun/work" impression, as they placed "immunities" on certain bosses, they placed artificial EXP walls to "prolong" the journey to 100, etc. The last drop would be to remove single targeting skills instead of giving them a purpose.

I found it "fun" to use mainly single target skills (and I grant Ice Crash + CE the same distinction) to level to 97. Hopefully there are other players that find those skills "fun", disregarding the "speed clear meta" focus on efficiency. To hell with that. I play a game to relax, chill, test quirky stuff, not to race abusing everything broken - and we all know that PoE has heaps of broken stuff.

Using my main character's build I rely on Lightning Strike to get Onslaught via Innervate and I clear up to tier 15 "trash" mobs with it in what you could call a 3L - LS + MS + MP. What I find a bit underwhelming is the damage output with a single targeting namelocking skill versus a more healthy foe. That needs to change. The namelocking skills should be the way to go to overwhelm your target with damage. That's it.

You already are overexposed to enemy damage by having to be in a 16 radius to hit it so why not make them impactful? The other option would be to make them more defensive oriented, or heck even have utility as main goal - although Frenzy is no slouch regarding single target damage - but they should have a clear goddamn purpose.

Hopefully they'll address that in 3.0 or during the next 3 months post Fall of Oriath.

I'm sad that they have a way to resolve the problem, at least temporarily (buffing single targeting namelocking skills doesn't nerf in any way AoE melee, ranged or cast playstyles so they're not taking away "fun" from anyone else), but they prefer to focus on anything else.

the problem begins with the fact, there's no true "tank" style among melee.
even the tankiest, most hp-stacking "regular" build can and will get 1-shot, while doing zero damage due to their huge point/gear sacrifice.

melee should get an overall damage boost or a bonus to being at X-distance from the things they hit, together with a much larger capability to take hits while being at X-distance from the things hitting them.

it's something Path Of Exile never got right, sadly.
even crazy melee enthusiasts like myself just end up playing ranged or casters eventually.