Game Design Manifesto: Improving Melee Combat in Path of Exile 2
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Game Design Manifesto: Improving Melee Combat in Path of Exile 2
Let us try a little bit of constructive feedback as a change of pace. Introduction Melee combat in "Path of Exile 2" has been envisioned as a dynamic, skill-based gameplay experience that rewards precise timing, positioning, and strategic skill combinations. However, the current mechanics and systems fail to deliver on this vision, leading to an unsatisfying and frustrating gameplay loop for melee-focused characters. This manifesto aims to identify the primary issues plaguing melee combat in its current state and propose actionable changes to achieve a satisfying and methodical combat loop for melee characters. Vision for Melee Combat The goal of melee combat is to provide players with tactile and impactful gameplay that feels powerful and responsive. It should offer strategic depth, rewarding players for carefully combining skills and timing their actions. Combat should balance methodical skill execution with moments of high-intensity action, while also presenting meaningful risk-reward mechanics. Engaging in melee combat should feel rewarding, offsetting the inherent risks of close-quarters combat. Achieving these goals requires addressing the current shortcomings in the game's mechanics and systems to ensure the gameplay feels intentional, balanced, and fair. Primary Issues with Current Mechanics + to Total Attack Time on Melee Skills The "+ to total attack time" stat, present on many melee skills, significantly hampers the fluidity and responsiveness of melee combat. By extending the execution time of attacks, this mechanic diminishes the effectiveness of increased attack speed stats, which are otherwise the natural scaling vector for attack damage and responsiveness in ARPGs. This creates a counter-intuitive design where attack speed investment provides diminishing returns for slower melee skills, discouraging players from exploring builds reliant on these skills. Players are forced into prolonged vulnerability windows, reducing the viability of slower melee abilities in high-mobility, fast-paced encounters. This also contrasts sharply with ranged and spell-based abilities, which often allow quicker execution times or movement while casting/attacking, creating an imbalance in gameplay styles. Speed Disparity Between Enemies and Players Enemies frequently possess superior movement and attack speeds compared to players, making it difficult to engage effectively, especially when using slower melee skills. This disparity forces melee players into a reactive rather than proactive combat style, where they must constantly chase or dodge enemies, diminishing the sense of control and power. Melee players are often left in situations where their positioning is dictated by enemy speed rather than their own strategic decisions, further disrupting the pacing and flow of combat. The reliance on mobility mechanics, such as dodge rolls, exacerbates the issue by making melee combat feel overly dependent on quick reactions in small windows instead of careful planning of rotations to generate attack windows. Input Inconsistency from Auto-Aiming The auto-aiming system introduces significant input inconsistency for melee players, especially for slower attacks and those that reposition the player during execution. Skills often target unintended enemies, leading to wasted attacks and mistimed engagements. Players struggle to position themselves effectively when auto-aim prioritizes enemies outside their intended focus. This inconsistency undermines the precision and intentionality expected in melee combat. Additionally, it creates a disconnect between the player’s actions and their outcomes, leaving them feeling as though they lack control over the results of their skill use. This significantly diminishes the enjoyment and reliability of melee gameplay. Lack of Meaningful Skill Combination Value The current design does not encourage or reward meaningful skill combinations for melee characters. Melee skills often lack meaningful synergy, with limited opportunities to chain abilities effectively. Timings between skill usage feel limited and rigid, reducing the potential for creative or tactical play. Melee players are frequently forced into using repetitive patterns, as the lack of incentives for skill chaining leads to monotony. This rigidity contrasts with other playstyles, such as ranged or spell-based builds, which allow for more dynamic and engaging combat sequences. Furthermore, the absence of meaningful skill integration leaves melee players unable to adapt effectively to different combat scenarios, reducing their versatility. Immobility During Melee Skill Execution Most melee skills lock players in place or force them to advance toward enemies while in use. This design leaves players vulnerable to enemy attacks and crowd control in order to use their abilities. Compared to ranged abilities, which often allow players to move while casting or attacking, melee skills feel restrictive and frustrating. The inability to reposition during skill execution limits players’ ability to respond dynamically to the battlefield, forcing them into static and often disadvantageous positions. This lack of mobility not only impacts combat effectiveness but also detracts from the overall enjoyment of the melee combat experience. The Core Problem: An Unachievable Goal Slower, methodical skill combination combat is a laudable goal for an action RPG, but the current state of Path of Exile 2's mechanics actively prevents this vision from becoming a reality. The combination of extended attack times, input inconsistencies, lack of skill synergy, and mobility disparities ensures that melee combat remains frustrating and unsatisfying. Until these issues are addressed, the goal of creating engaging, methodical melee gameplay will remain unachievable, limiting the potential for the game to offer a balanced and rewarding experience for melee-focused players. Solution Proposals The detailed solution proposals will explore specific changes to mechanics, system design, and balance adjustments necessary to achieve these objectives. Revamping the "+ to total attack time" Mechanic Introducing dynamic scaling or alternate mechanics will ensure melee skills remain fluid and responsive. By addressing this, melee players will be able to invest in attack speed stats effectively, achieving both higher damage output and better responsiveness. For example, skills with higher base attack times could scale more dramatically with attack speed modifiers, ensuring that players who invest heavily in this stat are rewarded with meaningful improvements. Additionally, reworking slower skills to include interruptible animations or faster follow-up windows could provide a smoother and more satisfying combat experience. Rebalancing Speed Dynamics Enemy and player speed dynamics should be rebalanced to create fairer engagements. Adjusting this disparity will ensure melee players can engage effectively without being forced into reactive gameplay. Players should be given tools to close gaps more effectively, such as movement speed bonuses tied to skill usage or increased base movement speed during combat. Similarly, reducing the movement speed of certain enemy types or providing clear telegraphs for fast attacks would create a more balanced and strategic combat environment. These changes would allow melee players to control engagements more effectively and reduce the frustration associated with being outpaced by enemies. Encouraging Skill Combinations Introducing skill windows with reduced attack times for interrupting or chaining skills will reward strategic play. These windows will allow melee attack skills to integrate seamlessly with others, reducing rigid timing and enabling players to execute faster skill output through combinations than spamming a single skill. This will reward players for timing their abilities carefully and integrating multiple skills into their rotation. For instance, interrupting a heavy attack with a follow-up skill could reduce the front-loaded attack time of the follow-up skill, providing an overall reduction in total attack time when used in a specific window. This mechanic would encourage players to experiment with timing and chaining different abilities reactively, rewarding them with a smoother combat flow and potentially enhanced effects or bonus damage for well-timed skill combinations. Diversifying Defensive Options Hyper-armour, which provides large damage reduction and increased stun threshold during certain skill use windows, and parrying, a frontal 180-degree block-like mechanic exclusive to melee weapons with large damage reduction against melee hits, will give melee players more meaningful tactical defensive tools. This will reduce reliance on dodge rolling and enable more varied and tactical defensive strategies. Hyper-armour could be tied to specific high-risk, high-reward skills, while parrying could be implemented as a passive defensive mechanic with enhanced effectiveness during specific skill windows tied to the combination chaining system, rewarding players for integrating defensive and offensive strategies seamlessly. Together, these systems would provide melee players with greater control over their survivability and create a more engaging defensive dynamic. Implementing Movement While Attacking Adding WASD movement mechanics present in most ranged abilities to melee skills will provide players with greater control and agency. Skills should have variable movement speed reductions depending on their type. Heavier, slower attacks would have slower movement during use, while lighter attacks would permit movement at higher speed during execution. This change would grant melee players significantly more ability to actively avoid damage by positioning while executing their high-risk close combat abilities. For instance, allowing players to sidestep or circle enemies during skill animations would add a layer of strategic depth to melee combat, making it feel more dynamic and responsive. Conclusion These expanded solutions provide a more comprehensive approach to addressing the core issues with melee combat in Path of Exile 2. By implementing these changes, the game can move closer to achieving its vision of engaging, skill-based melee gameplay. Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk. Last bumped on Feb 6, 2025, 9:40:57 PM
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Knockback
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Don't forget about the lack of ways to deal with "mines" and slowing areas.
Also something that i seed that most of people don't talk is that any melee character need to do more. Autocasting? No any meta skills need to be used. Hitting hard? Some spellcasters just need to spam a skill to do a lot of damage, any of melee skills have that option, we need to have a skill for single target, multiple enemies and some times a skill to allow us to gain the stack to empower other skill or to stun or to remove amor from enemy. Also the fact that spellcaster have defence options that can be combined to become really tanky while any big node of the bottom side of the tree gain dont have(as far i know) a way to be combined to create a powerful defence. The only proposal of the resistance reduction is to keep in control these powerful combination but this make melee just weak as fuck because of the lack of combinations to get + slow attacks. |
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" Yeah, melee should not be affect by knockback... i can understand a squish range character getting moved by enemies, but when you have heavy armor, a two-hand weapon and a shield it should never happen. |
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Also remember that you lost damage while having double two-hand weapon from the giant's bloss node, i think the dev from this game just hate melee and don't care about making a game for these classes.
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Impressive and serious detailed feedback.The way it should be. Congratulations.
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" I will expand on these sections with an example to clarify what I envision the gameplay loop should look like when combining mace melee skills under this proposed paradigm. Rolling Slam: Identity: Defensive Combo Starter Total attack time change: from +1.5 seconds to +1 seconds with 60% base attack speed. On use: Gain hyperarmour while initial rolling until the first strike. Can WASD reposition while initial rolling. After first strike lands, hyperarmour is lost and momentum is gained until the second strike lands, empowering it with extra stun buildup. On using another melee skill while you have momentum the second strike does not activate and the new skill is preformed instead, total attack time of the new skill is reduced by the attack time associated with the first strike. Example: Let us say we have a mace with a base 0.83 second attack speed (1.2 attacks per second). With the base attack speed reduction we now have an attack time of 1.38 seconds + 1 second total = 2.38 seconds for total attack time over two strikes. Let us say the two strikes have equal attack time so 1.19 seconds each in this case. On first using the ability, half the mana cost is spent over 1.19 seconds and the player gains instant hyper armour (fortification) for that duration. Over the subsequent 1.19 seconds you lose the hyper armour, spend the remaining mana cost and finally slam for extra stun. If we instead use a basic attack (0.83 attack speed) after 1.19 seconds of rolling slam, the second half of the mana cost of rolling slam is spent, and the total attack time /2 is subtracted from the attack time of basic attack (down to a limit of 0 seconds) meaning the second slam is instantly cancelled for an instant basic attack. The way this scales with attack speed actually reduces the benefit of second strike cancelling on big windup attacks so you have multiple ways to use this combo starter into your builds and you can benefit from reduced attack speed to give follow up attacks a very large attack time reduction at the cost of a longer hyper armour wind up phase. You effectively pay the mana cost to gain hyper armour into an accelerated followup, giving you a defensive start to long attacks. This cannot combo with itself, so spamming rolling slam on its own will always take the full attack time. Armour Breaker: Identity: Combo chainer, parry empowering. on first use: Strikes target quickly with some knockback gaining empowered parry for 1.5 seconds on second use (within 1.5 seconds) follows up with a slightly slower attack which breaks armour in a small area. Using this skill in the timing window of another skill uses the second use profile. Example: using armour break directly will give you empowered parry uptime giving you significant melee damage reduction from the front followed by armour breaking in a small area. This skill is built around gaining advantage in melee combat and when used with the rolling slam above, you can combo directly into the armour break at the cost of the parry boost using the hyper-armour of rolling slam instead. From these two skills alone: We have multiple attack patterns and results available to us. Rolling slam: hyper armour into stunning hit Armour break -> Armour break: parry empower into armour break Rolling slam -> Armour break: combo, hyper armour into insta armour break, best dps Armour break -> Rolling Slam: parry empower, hyper armour, stunning hit. best defensive setup Armour break -> Rolling Slam ->Armour break: parry empower, hyper armour into insta armour break. best defence with offence. With similar design passes to the other skills to incorporate them into this type of combo gameplay to enable defence layer windows and empowered follow up attacks with different utility we can really start getting varied and interesting melee combat behaviour from relatively few skills. |
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There are lots of claims in this without any cited details or examples. They would be appreciated.
My perception of melee combat is not at all as described in the very carefully worded critique, and so I'd like to understand what examples you are drawing from to make these claims. For example, I have been able to interrupt and dodge-roll out of every single animation i've tried. I am not aware of an animation you can't dodgeroll out of. Which animation have you found which is not interruptable with dodge roll? My main is a level 80 monk. I have a 58 ranger, and a warrior in act 2. On the monk, I leveled ice-strike, bell, staggering palm, herald of ice, wave of frost, glacial cascade. I mostly used direct melee attacks, except parts of act 3/6 where I used wave/glacial aoe. I originally had a lightning monk, but disliked it, and when I rerolled freeze I breezed through the game, soloing every boss with very little trouble and few deaths. Presently in endgame maps, im 100% melee, using ice-strike, flicker, charged staff, herald of ice, herald of thunder, grim feast, ghost shroud. Melee combat has felt engaging and reactive though all my playtime. Certainly 100x more than POE1, and i would say substantally more than Diablo or other ARPGs. Melee has some incredible advantages with respect to CC (stun, freeze, pin, electrocute) in addition to dmg bonuses during heavy stun. My monk is far more capable of dispatching bosses than my ranger, both in speed and control. Wheras on the ranger I spent a good amount of time shooting and kiting back, the monk and warrior have both been able to hold their own and push into enemies much much more. Melee has some challenges, particularly around large packs of ranged enemies coming onscreen and shooting in-unison. However, the fact that they tend to shoot in unison also makes it practice to time a dodge or dodgeroll to avoid the incoming projectiles. My main ask would be for more projectiles to be brightly colored, as the ones that are harder to see are much harder to deal with. That said, i have pretty effective mechanics strategies for avoiding ranged fire and repositionoing to dunk them. In the endgame, this interaction is less an issue, because the herald AOEs reach quite far, but there are situations where handling ranged packs requires some careful action. I presently have fairly low ES, and I die once every 15 maps or so, sometimes to flicker landing me in a bad spot, sometimes to unexpectedly strong ranged fire. Rarely to a freeze or stun. I'm looking forward to getting better gear with much higher ES numbers. I personally enjoy my warrior early game (2h with mouse-guided mostly rolling slam, autos, boneshatter). I think they could better communicate that rolling slam is guidable with mouse-hold, and I have read the warriors have a harder time in endgame... partially because max-armor is not effective, partially because the armor mitgation tooltip is lying (aka its saying mitigation is linear when it's not), and the max available health is quite a bit shy of max ES. However, some warriors have not had this kind of trouble. I look forward to playing my warrior more in the future. The skill style I've enjoyed least so far is the crossbow, which feels not only clunky in the early game, but fairly low damage compared to other classes. I intend at some point to give it some more time, to see if I'm just missing some mechanics. Of course I think some things could be improved.. I really resonated with what you had to say about auto-targetting. I tend to hold melee swings, and so the auto-targetting and lock on occaionally does very horrible things - like locking onto a mob that then dashes offscreen, causing my character to seem unresponsive because it won't listen to my mouse until I let-go of the button and re-press. I wish I could disable lock-on, either entirely, or on a per-skill basis. As an alternative, any type of indicator showing that I was locked on would let me know when this happens, as it's really not clear when it does. Melee does feel more "dangerous" or "unsafe" than ranged. WHen a ranged character takes damage, they have room to move. When melee takes damage, it may be too late to back out, given the body blocking. When I had more trouble with this, I equipped a secondary bow and escape arrow, to give me a way out of body blocks, and it was fairly effective. I intend to experiment with secondary shield charge for a similar effect. I never used vaulting leap, but maybe it could also provide a similar capability. Hardcore quarterstaff would require some kind of non-bodyblocked exit like this for me, but my endgame build is using all the slots, so I'm not sure how i'd address that. Another issue with direct melee damage is the trouble of dealing with ground AOE, considering that we must move to the mob to deal our melee damage. THis is especially problematic on some tilesets (or with a flame-wall co-op partner!), where seeingn anything on the ground becomes very difficult. The green-health globe poision indication is pretty great, but the other effects are not so clear. I'd enjoy anything to improve this, including a set of debuff icons that could shw across the bottom to indicate standing in ground aoe. Last edited by KuroSF#6521 on Dec 26, 2024, 5:58:18 AM
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" Thank you for the thoughtful response. I know that the elemental monk melee skills are generally stronger and have less issues that physical monk and mace skills when it comes to the problems I outlined. I primarily have tested physical quarterstaff and mace skills so my feedback is based primarily on the issues those skills face living up to the GGG vision of more methodical gameplay. If you observe the Mace Meta it is currently just stampede and perfect strike. Physical monk is just whirling strike -> bell -> whirling strike -> bell forever or do zdps. I apologize if my wording gave you the impression that I believed that attacks cannot be dodge rolled out of, that isn't what I meant. I mean chaining different abilities feels clunky and being forced to dodge roll in order to cancel long attacks instead of being able to simple change your attack skill part way to get a different effect feels bad. Currently, if you are committed to an attack and need to change it part way you have to do an awkward roll to cancel and then go into your alternative attack. This is incredibly limiting and clunky. Your point about ground AoE is worth expanding on as dealing with that is a big reason I advocate for allowing more and less restricted WASD movement for melee skills in general to allow us to more easily manage avoiding them. Last edited by fouquet#0993 on Dec 26, 2024, 6:13:34 AM
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