Personally I’d like to see an action RPG that takes inspiration from MOBAs for its skills. I’ve been playing Heroes of the Storm and Grim Dawn all summer, with about 450 hours of GD and I don’t know how much HotS but about the same amount of time, I’ve been playing both games pretty much all day every day.
Comparing it to HotS, GD doesn’t have skill shots that are hard to land, there’s only one kind of mobility ability, and most of the skills are the same but they just do a different type of damage behind the scenes. A lot of the “skills” are even invisible. Upgrading a skill in GD means it does more damage, where in HotS, upgrading a skill (via a talent) means that the interactivity of it changes somehow, where damage just increases with level. Sometimes they’re just a damage increase but usually it’s a significant damage increase and the opportunity cost of the decision is usually high.
There IS some depth to GD’s action. But there could be a ton more. File it in GD2 suggestions (I’m not requesting any change to the current game or anything like that, this is meant more as action RPG big-picture feedback).
What do you guys think? Am I comparing apples and oranges? I’m playing GD despite playing a game side by side with it that’s more fun in the moment to moment action, because I like to sit and stare at gear and skill trees for hours. Should a game like that even have engaging action or would harder difficulties become too prohibitive to the people who don’t want it?
Yes, you are comparing apples to oranges, MOBAS and ARPGs have completely different design philosophies. Not to mention ARPGs aren’t very player skill based and are mostly based on numbers. There’s still maneuvering and positioning, but it doesn’t play that much of a role.
Also, glad GD isn’t like MOBAS or play very similarly to them because i honestly find them extremely boring.
Because increasing the difficulty will change nothing, the core of the game will still be the same. What you are asking is to change the core of the game and ARPGs were barely based on player skill.
Also trying to make every player happy is a big no-no because most of the time it just makes everyone not happy.
I would like to see more bullethell elements in ARPG battles. If that gets to make it through fights get more skill based instead of the gear mitigating so much you can facetank a lot of the stuff. In the case of more bullethell elements you need more accurate attacks from the player and MOBA like skills would be a nice way too approach it.
The way current design philosophy goes in regards to these type of ARPG’s… those moba skills have no place in it
so yes…oranges and apples at this point in time.
Thing is… people often make suggestions without understanding what this type of isometric hack and slash rpg’s are about. changing fundamental elements will impact other parts of the game as well. which then have to be changed. In due time you end up with a very different game genre…its own sub-genre in many cases. And people who play Grim Dawn…are of the old school variety who want more polish over too many new game elements.
You guys are all saying this word philosophy, I don’t know about plato or socrates, I took other electives in college. But I do know that HotS and GD play with the same input interface from the same camera angle. The only real difference seems to be the longer term goals you work toward with your inputs, moment to moment they’re pretty much the same to me.
I do wish there were more ways to move in Grim Dawn. Blink Strike being the only mobility option gets old very quickly and reduces the amount of tactical positioning that can occur during fights. I think it’s an engine limitation issue rather than a conscious design decision, but that’s just my guess.
I fully agree. I don’t understand why improved combat gameplay should necessarily change the fundamental feel of the game. An ARPG such as Grim Dawn has to have stale combat - by design? No way.
The main problem for Crate is that the engine is severely limited in terms of how spells work - there’s just not a lot of freedom to make distinctly different skills, which is a shame. For a potential GD2, I’d like to see some serious improvements.
What makes for engaging and fun gameplay? I’d say skills that reward you for perfect execution, higher emphasis on mobility, more varied skill templates and telegraphed enemy attacks that can really hurt. There’s probably more, but these three alone would raise the skill ceiling by a lot. When the skill ceiling is as low as it is currently, the manual gameplay is so easy as to not reward you very often for playing well. I’m not saying GD should be Dark Souls, and that skill should be the be-all-end-all, but the current situation is that character stats is just that, and skill is all but irrelevant.
Diablo 3, for all it’s faults, has a lot more active and engaging gameplay. Looking at the combat in Lost Ark you can see what kind of action could be possible in a ARPG. Different targeting vectors for skills, lots of movement skills to move you around, different channeling lengths for skills, targeting skills by holding in and releasing… There’s a lot of possibility to improve the combat immensely without sacrificing the core aspects of the game - gear. Incorporating some gameplay elements like these would make a possible GD2 a lot more engaging.
That’s philosophy. The essence, the identity. If you change that, you change the game. Thinks about D2 compared to D3. Different philosophy, different game.
Maybe you are asking for a game that doesn’t exist yet. Maybe you’re right, maybe you are asking for GD2.
I just posted over in POE a little while ago about how much repetition there is in boss fights in POE. Essentially, POE boss fights tend to have bullet hell visual shitstorms in small spaces, with many bosses having one-shot attacks (or near equivalents) that basically invalidate your defenses (ie: defensives often don’t matter in the fights that matter). That gets old as the go-to way of instilling a sense of difficulty and danger, for boss fights.
I agree that GD 2 could make boss fights more dynamic.
I disagree that “skill” = “twitch skills and the ability to see through visual shitstorms.” There’s a chess-like character to many battles in ARPGs that can be underappreciated if you’re running a nearly invulnerable character.
Figuring out how much your character can handle and staying within their limits is part experience, part good planning, part twitch skills, and a bit of luck now and then.
in an ARPG the focus is on build and gear, not player skill, whether you consider that stale combat is up to you
What makes for engaging and fun gameplay? I’d say skills that reward you for perfect execution, higher emphasis on mobility, more varied skill templates and telegraphed enemy attacks that can really hurt.
in general I agree, not sure what perfect execution here is other than timing and positioning of the skill (think Doom Bolt). I don’t think it should be more than these two.
the current situation is that character stats is just that, and skill is all but irrelevant.
not really, you have all the elements you listed above and cannot just facetank everything, which would be the consequence of your statement
There can be somewhat more emphasis on these elements, but it should remain mostly about the build, not the players ability to operate a mouse and keyboard
Diablo 3, for all it’s faults, has a lot more active and engaging gameplay.
it leans more heavily on the A of ARPG, yes, but at least for me it is not really a good ARPG
Didn’t watch the full Lost Ark trailer but from what I saw the difference is more in the skill animation than in the actual skill (e.g. ground stomp vs jumping in the air and triggering a shockwave on landing), plus more movement skills.
Not saying presentation is not important but to me it looked more like an illusion of gameplay difference than an actual difference in play.
The downside I see is only that the engine limitations constrain the types and look of spell/effects and prevent a bit more experimentation in mods for those that want to change the gameplay.
That’s like saying Metroid Prime and Call of Duty are basically the same because they use the same perspective. Same perspective, completely different design choices.
To me they are basically the same, sorry. I’m not trying to pick fights by saying this. I crave the same moment to moment engagement from a first person game whether it’s Elder Scrolls or Overwatch. I can play either of those games for different types of enjoyment but either one is capable of the enjoyment that the other is, the differences between them are exterior to the gameplay. For me that is, opinions may differ.
I’ll agree in regards to character models and animation. I think GD could use a lot of work in that area. The player model is very stiff and repeats weapon and spellcasting motions repeatedly no matter which skill is being used across the board. I would enjoy seeing some attacks that are much more melee oriented with naturally fluid motions (AKA the D3 Monk - say what you will about D3, but they have combat movements animation down pat).
to many people only the exterior of games are different. it also show how little you understand of game design and what is happening under the hood. and that is also why simply saying x game should do it like y just doesn’t work. 1 thing effects other things meaning drastic changes to core elements you don’t see or understand.
Same applies to that guy wanting movement speed increased. some changes might sound simple, but have further reaching impact than you can see. Game designers create mechanics for a reason and work together in a way only they can see.
Get used to it, the GD board has a small group of very active people that swoop into every thread with new ideas or discussion about change and vehemently argue against everything and basically tell you GD is perfect and should not change the slightest bit. Just ignore those and quote “Stagnation is regression”.
The core gameplay of GD is not that interesting and I think most people agree with that, but people stick with GD because of the deep character development aspect and the item choice puzzle.
Zantai said he has many ideas going beyond the scope of the current xpac already and he has a long queue of things he would like to do so something like this is probably almost impossible to realize.
I believe skill animations and effects and such are not easy to build, especially for a small studio so fancy skills were never an aspect GD could or even would compete in.