Irenicus' ARPG discussion of Theory and Mod plans.

[Heathen]

What is this thread?

-This thread is an attempt to discuss the system of ARPGs, what makes them fun, what features make it not fun (not every idea that adds depth/ complexity should be integrated at the cost of enjoyment.), and what you personally have been waiting for an ARPG to do, to rid the world of the cookiecutter standard, and breathe new life into the genre.

Note; TL:DR, just go ahead and read the first paragraph, then comment what comes to mind.

What I personally want in an ARPG, and what I plan on doing to Insanity to bring my vision to life;
I can only auto-attack so many times, can only use stat-damage and stat-tanking for so long, before the fun in having big numbers dies, and all i’m left is the gameplay itself.

This game does well. It has fun ragdoll physics, colliding effects, Decently designed boss fights, that do require your understanding of their script (at which point, stats mean nothing, you needn’t take but only a single hit from his Aetherzap.), and a wide diversity in monsters.

The feeling I can’t shake though, is we truly have done all of this before.
This game implements decent features like Devotion, Factions, Bounties etc, but i’m not talking about the features. I’m talking about the combat itself. I’ve leaped, charged, invoked, conjured, used, thrown, fired, created, and have done every quest this game has to offer in other games. The action is down to earth, mature, and very reasonable. But i’ve played reasonable. I’ve beat reasonable, and have done so many times before.

The reason I’m making insanity;
This is a fantasy setting. It’s supernatural, so why is the combat so down to earth? I want to be a god. I want to fight other gods.

I want Grim Dawn Michael Bay mod. I want to charge in at speeds only capable of a god. I want to use magic spells that only a god could reasonably acquire. And I don’t want to keep fighting the same auto-attacking chumps. I want to fight other powerful gods and their minions. I want to strike with speeds you really cant even see, but then dodged or blocked by someone of equal power. Then I want him to throw me on the ground and send a lightning bolt onto my toon to critically injure, but then my own skeleton king to charge him an throw him into a wall. I want climactic god battles.

[SIZE=“3”]But I absolutely LOATH the RNG in these games.[/SIZE]
It’s plain not enjoyable to kill hordes of monsters for hours, finding everything from the oven to the kitchen sink instead of the item I want. In an ARPG, I want there to be a clear goal on how to obtain more and more power. In insanity, I’m making a large number of Exclusive items that only certain enemies possess, and making the droprate relatively reasonable based on its power.

And with Insanity’s very very fast progression rate, I have made new NPC’s who will sell gem’s that grant procs, at lvl 15, 30, 40, 50, 60, 80, and 120 (raised level caps) respectively. Another merchant will sell a wide variety of cooldown skills that can be inserted into medals at lvl 30 and lvl 60. This means you will have a theorycrafting playground, so you will be covered in theorycraft building item procs and oskills. The goal is obvious (grind till you can buy and use the gem at the specific level), and you know how to work toward it.

This solves my frustration with the RNG being entirely out of the players hands.

what I feel endgame should look like;
So you’ve beaten the game, and have gotten max level. What now? I feel like there should be a level of endgame so so so very deep and difficult, you can stay engaged in looting up inferior uber monsters. But I want you to have access to all the tools necessary that will make him still very possible. Incredibly difficult? Yes. But very possible (and possible with most builds).

In insanity, i’ll do exactly that. Their will be a huge boss chain-of-command to sort work your way up to. It won’t be easy, but I will avoid instagibs.

For my last theory; early game.
Early game in most ARPG’s is like looking at an incredible mess that you have to clean up. It’s not fun. The prospect of spending hours on the grind sucks. Most games and modders give you an apple, 100hp, a stick and loincloth and tell you to make your way through similarly harmless monsters. I want to feel incredible from the beginning, and only improve from there.

In Insanity, once you get your first skill, you will BLAST your way through the game, fighting tougher and tougher monsters, and finding exponentially powerful loot along the way. I’m giving you The Force, a Lightsaber, and Gandalfs supply of magic spells from the beginning, so you needn’t trudge through the game with combat being the equivalent of two cats playing pattycake.

What have YOU personally wanted in a game. It can be ANY aspect of an arpg. Maybe us modders will learn a thing or two from all you others.

[AlienFromBeyond]

I think RNG to some extent is good for the “Oooh, what’s that?” feeling. Having an item be able to be dropped from anywhere, but with a higher chance (how much higher is up for discussion) from certain targets is what I prefer. You can still get a surprise to mix things up, maybe finding something you didn’t even know you wanted, while being able to have a better shot at what you actually want.

As someone who plays a lot of melee, large amounts of speed is pretty much the opposite of what I want. Without some kind of autotargeting like what you could do with right click melee attacks in Diablo 2 (I think it’s called right-click driving? When holding right click with something like Frenzy and trying to move through an enemy it would automatically attack without you needing to highlight or anything) or something like Flicker Strike in Path of Exile, the game interface starts to become the opponent as you struggle to move, attack, and dodge accurately. Not to mention how many people have physical health issues that don’t let them respond in a timely manner, or even people who experience vertigo or motion sickness from high speed in some games.

The early game being crap really all depends on the game. The mixture of early monsters/loot/skills available really dictates how it is. Doing quests does get tiresome after the first playthrough, but most are still worth doing because of reputation so you have to slog through.

[Heathen]

I think RNG to some extent is good for the “Oooh, what’s that?” feeling. Having an item be able to be dropped from anywhere, but with a higher chance (how much higher is up for discussion) from certain targets is what I prefer. You can still get a surprise to mix things up, maybe finding something you didn’t even know you wanted, while being able to have a better shot at what you actually want.

Yeah thats a good point. I Cant dispute that reasoning.

As someone who plays a lot of melee, large amounts of speed is pretty much the opposite of what I want. Without some kind of autotargeting like what you could do with right click melee attacks in Diablo 2 (I think it’s called right-click driving? When holding right click with something like Frenzy and trying to move through an enemy it would automatically attack without you needing to highlight or anything) or something like Flicker Strike in Path of Exile, the game interface starts to become the opponent as you struggle to move, attack, and dodge accurately. Not to mention how many people have physical health issues that don’t let them respond in a timely manner, or even people who experience vertigo or motion sickness from high speed in some games.

The early game being crap really all depends on the game. The mixture of early monsters/loot/skills available really dictates how it is. Doing quests does get tiresome after the first playthrough, but most are still worth doing because of reputation so you have to slog through.

Bro thats implemented. Check settings and change autotarget.

I can totally understand why someone would like a slightly slower pace, maybe not in terms of progression, but overall game speed. I mean, the fights can be studied, tactics implemented etc.

But speed allows you to avoid so much tedium, in terms of long paths between areas, kill speed etc. And for so many people, including myself, that’s exhilarating.

[AlienFromBeyond]

Bro thats implemented. Check settings and change autotarget.

I thought that’s just the bit that lets you hold down left click and and highlight instead of needing to click and hold on each enemy? I haven’t really looked at my settings in ages. Think the last time I even glanced at it was when they implemented the loot filter stuff.

But speed allows you to avoid so much tedium, in terms of long paths between areas, kill speed etc. And for so many people, including myself, that’s exhilarating.

Yes, it’s definitely a matter of taste. I loved my Frenzy Barb in D2, but I could only play it for so long before I found it irritating and difficult to keep up with. I mean I would outrun sorc teleport!

[DeMasked]

Slower combat is also something that appeals to me. Starting out with a new character and encountering the zombie soldier guys that rush at you or simply swing slowly is rather interesting to me in that you can easily dodge out of the way if you’re in melee range or you get chunked for some life if you take the hit or fail to dodge. Choreographed fights that aren’t some rushed charging kind of thing is something I want to see more of, slow attacks that you can react to and if you fail to react to them or think you can withstand the incoming hit the damage would reflect that decision.

End Game to me is usually just repetitive dungeons or challenges which can eventually get boring/grindy and leaves the desire for new content which to me is what people would most likely want to see but obviously for those making it would be hard to achieve quickly in producing it when people complete it so fast.

A difficult solution could be creating small environments/dungeons in which case the players would have access to a small number of them at a time and then after a week or two they are replaced with new small levels - you could then go back to the old levels that were played so much and expand/change/add to them so they can be released again in the future keeping them still a bit fresh and new for the players.

Obviously this would be difficult to start off with in making a bunch of dungeons but once you’re done one you can go back and use what is already there to more easily expand on what’s there while also possibly changing/adding more to the dungeon itself.

An endless dungeon that gets progressively more difficult to me is just a gear or build check in which case since not all builds will perform the same it won’t be as accessible as a result.

Quests to me is a combination of story and weight. If the narrative for the quest fits in with the environment and pacing of the game great - but if there isn’t any weight or threat felt by the actual player while playing the game then it kinda falls flat since dialogue can only do so much. So if you are told to kill some dangerous enemy that is invading the quest giver’s location you should encounter that invasion force itself - not just static enemies that sit around doing anything but invading.

A lot of those typical quests it’s more like you’re told to attack an enemy stronghold in which case enemies standing around waiting for you to make the first move makes sense. However ARPG’s and MMO’s I know do this a lot when it comes to static enemies that you come across - worse is when they magically respawn out of thin air.

I already know how to make patrols in the level editor but what I want to eventually figure out is if it’s possible to make a group of enemies keep together while moving. Like having a number of enemies follow 1 enemy who is patrolling - would look rather odd unless they aggro’d against your character off screen giving them a chance in separating a bit to attack.

[DeMasked]

I can totally understand why someone would like a slightly slower pace, maybe not in terms of progression, but overall game speed. I mean, the fights can be studied, tactics implemented etc.

But speed allows you to avoid so much tedium, in terms of long paths between areas, kill speed etc. And for so many people, including myself, that’s exhilarating.

Level design should be reflected on the pacing of the game. If you’re moving quickly or have the option to increase the speed of movement then having longer levels/dungeons makes sense.

Moving slower though you can have shorter levels/dungeons/distances so it isn’t as tedious.

I also think having fewer enemies (except low health swarm like enemies that easily get destroyed with bodies flying around) that are a bit more difficult and harder to deal with while also having a higher chance in dropping useful items would be good - more so if running past such enemies to a boss would make that boss fight more difficult.

edit: Also the reward for doing a run should also be reflected on the level design. Running too long a distance for a reward that doesn’t feel like much isn’t great to redo again.

[Heathen]

Slower combat is also something that appeals to me. Starting out with a new character and encountering the zombie soldier guys that rush at you or simply swing slowly is rather interesting to me in that you can easily dodge out of the way if you’re in melee range or you get chunked for some life if you take the hit or fail to dodge. Choreographed fights that aren’t some rushed charging kind of thing is something I want to see more of, slow attacks that you can react to and if you fail to react to them or think you can withstand the incoming hit the damage would reflect that decision.

Oh I would DEFINITELY love some choreographic looking fights. In fact, I spent days on trying to figure out a way to let the PC to get knocked down, so an enemy could charge me and bash me into oblivion.

If you find a happy middle ground, you could actually keep both speeds AND choreographed looking fights, and spell duels (e.g. a sort of rock paper scissors set of skills, which rng would allow some really cool rng luck, and let a minion or auto controlled human to sometimes pwn other creatures via lucky skill rolls.

End Game to me is usually just repetitive dungeons or challenges which can eventually get boring/grindy and leaves the desire for new content which to me is what people would most likely want to see but obviously for those making it would be hard to achieve quickly in producing it when people complete it so fast.

What I personally plan doing for endgame; boss gems can be fused into a mechanical and aesthetic mixture of them both, but with double healthpools then fusing to make a quad healthpool. Then a step further would be fusing fusions.

Also, I want to make random encounter bosses spawn allll over the map once a certain lvl is reached. That way, its a fun random surprise. If I learn mapping, I also want to make extra areas for bosses.

A difficult solution could be creating small environments/dungeons in which case the players would have access to a small number of them at a time and then after a week or two they are replaced with new small levels - you could then go back to the old levels that were played so much and expand/change/add to them so they can be released again in the future keeping them still a bit fresh and new for the players.

Obviously this would be difficult to start off with in making a bunch of dungeons but once you’re done one you can go back and use what is already there to more easily expand on what’s there while also possibly changing/adding more to the dungeon itself.

That would be awesome af.

An endless dungeon that gets progressively more difficult to me is just a gear or build check in which case since not all builds will perform the same it won’t be as accessible as a result.

Quests to me is a combination of story and weight. If the narrative for the quest fits in with the environment and pacing of the game great - but if there isn’t any weight or threat felt by the actual player while playing the game then it kinda falls flat since dialogue can only do so much. So if you are told to kill some dangerous enemy that is invading the quest giver’s location you should encounter that invasion force itself - not just static enemies that sit around doing anything but invading.

A lot of those typical quests it’s more like you’re told to attack an enemy stronghold in which case enemies standing around waiting for you to make the first move makes sense. However ARPG’s and MMO’s I know do this a lot when it comes to static enemies that you come across - worse is when they magically respawn out of thin air.

I already know how to make patrols in the level editor but what I want to eventually figure out is if it’s possible to make a group of enemies keep together while moving. Like having a number of enemies follow 1 enemy who is patrolling - would look rather odd unless they aggro’d against your character off screen giving them a chance in separating a bit to attack.

I agree, the general endgame standard is lame, and ive no intention of implementing it. I will think of something else, just gotta sit on it a while.

[Ceno]

Level design should be reflected on the pacing of the game. If you’re moving quickly or have the option to increase the speed of movement then having longer levels/dungeons makes sense.

Moving slower though you can have shorter levels/dungeons/distances so it isn’t as tedious.

I also think having fewer enemies (except low health swarm like enemies that easily get destroyed with bodies flying around) that are a bit more difficult and harder to deal with while also having a higher chance in dropping useful items would be good - more so if running past such enemies to a boss would make that boss fight more difficult.

This is very much the philosophy I’m taking in designing the world of Zenith. Here’s an excerpt from my design document detailing my theory for enemies (sans Nemeses, `cause I have a special plan for them):

[spoiler]

Trash would be your common Undead, for instance.

Infrequents would be somewhat stronger versions of the infrequents we have now.

Heroes are also essentially what we have now.

Unique heroes would be stuff like Ilgorr, the Eternal or Loxmere, the Nightmage, or the Shade of Elnadrin. Ilgorr is considered a boss in the main game but he doesn’t feel like it.

Bosses would be Kilrian, Salazar, or Gutworm sort of enemies.

‘Overlords’ would essentially be Alkamos or Shar’zul.[/spoiler]

I wanted to make the Overworld of Zenith sparsely populated but dotted with tougher, hand-designed enemies to make general quest progression feel like an investment, to make the journey hold greater weight behind it. Also because lore reasons; if I can populate the overworld primarily with named enemies and relate them to each other, I can tell a much greater story of the events that transpired in the area. On the other hand, I wanted to make side-dungeons speedy and quick, though nonetheless difficult, and thus be where the brunt of dense mobpacks are.

---

So you’ve beaten the game, and have gotten max level. What now?

I’ve more or less outlined my intended solution to endgame here:

Do you miss super-rare items?

Personally I’m of a convoluted opinion here. I dislike rarity being capped solely by RNG, that is to say, I don’t think a good implementation of rarity requires rolling dice several billion times.

I’d rather rarity be locked behind a multitude of objectives, all of which are marginally to very difficult for a player to complete. This is why I really, really enjoyed Dahlia’s Super Secret Quest. There were several steps to the quest making players go all across the world to acquire particular items required for the quest’s continuation. My only gripe with the quest was that these items had to be acquired sequentially, creating a sort of linearization of events that make it feel much less like a personal quest and much more like a developer-imposed questline.

In this vein, the crafting of Mythical Relics hit the nail on the head for me…although they’re all rather underwhelming and are more tedious than anything because they rely so much on loot drops.

I really like the way GW2 implemented the new-means to acquire Legendary gear. While there is a hefty amount of RNG involved (particular loot drops and spamming Zomoros to get Clovers), it is essentially a world-spanning quest that players can approach from any angle starting at any time. The main problem with this ‘quest’ is that it can only be completed some developer-defined number of times per character.

To answer OP’s question, yes, I do miss super-rare items. But I don’t miss the implementation of their rarity as we’ve seen so far in ARPGs.

I don’t think endgame should be perpetual, i.e., D3. Because then you never give players a sense of accomplishment and instead just have them continuously incrementing numbers that have absurdly minimal impact on a character. But I do think endgame should be as repeatable as players care to make it, and I would want the journey to endgame to be worth repeating as well.

It’s my philosophy that if there is any content that isn’t fun in a product, then that content may as well be struck from the product, as it serves no meaningful purpose.

[Heathen]

It’s my philosophy that if there is any content that isn’t fun in a product, then that content may as well be struck from the product, as it serves no meaningful purpose.

Same philosophy Entirely.

And I’ll admit, you guys are like Stanley Kubrick of mods, and i’m the Michael Bay for sure (no pride saying that). I just cant shake that shitty feeling of samey gameplay, like ive done it before, and that would mean the endgame wouldnt hold hype long enough to stay invested.

[DeMasked]

To me the one thing with ARPG’s is replay value whether it’s with one character, a few characters or a multitude of characters.

Elements of randomization is really important for this when it comes to approaching quests or level design. Handcrafted worlds are fine so long as there are still parts of randomization and one thing to alleviate the tedium of running across the same thing over and over would be making more use of the blockades that instead of just diverting your path would exclude entire paths themselves (which would mean a lot more work when it comes to world building). Also with riftgates/entrances and so on you could have randomization there when it comes to different tile sets that can be used (again more work).

Having multiple difficulties should bring more varieties when it comes to new/redone enemy types, different heroes, perhaps a new tier of heroes. Perhaps new drops that can lead to extra bits of content or something.

And again with End Game I would say it’s just more content which with my suggestion can be recycled over and over but with additions/changes/expansions on said levels/dungeons. Limiting the pool of what can be played limits the amount a player can go through and stopping them from being burnt out on all the content when - with a future change to the available levels/dungeons to the available pool you bring about something new and exciting.

Obviously the better the game the more work that has to be put into that game in order to retain it’s value while not becoming static or monotonous too soon when it comes the players being over familiar with everything the game has to offer.

[Heathen]

Yeah man, and as my mod developes further and further in complexity, i’m realizing more and more that what I originally thought I wanted really isnt what I want anymore.

For instance; I thought fun skills and fun skills alone was enough to keep a player happy. But it’s far more complex than that to get a player to stay. First patch, all skills are at lvl 1 (still are and always will be), there were no items, not really any threatening enemies, so after about a half hour, I found myself saying “what’s the point?”

I’ve since been implemented reward systems as you gain in levels. so far, at 15, 30, 40, 50, 60, 80 and 120 have benefits (Just like when you turn 21, you get to buy alcohol in the U.S.) and it’s helping, but I still feel as if it isn’t enough. So I changed all bosses, majority of weapons, enemies.

While the game lasts slightly longer, it fucking still ends up feeling pointless. So the tried and true goal of any arpg should be replayability, and the ideas you have mentioned would definitely help, but i’m really only exceptional in one area of the tools. They rest, I know little to nothing, and I fear of breaking the mod again (This is my THIRD attempt since modtool release)

But I like your views. And they’re correct.

Thanks for breakin open that mind for me man. I enjoy these kinds of discussions.

[adoomgod]

Check out cornucopia.

You’re learning what others may have tried to warn you: The things that make ARPG’s fun is a complex web of many factors. I think it’s one of the most complicated genres to do well.

[Heathen]

Check out cornucopia.

You’re learning what others may have tried to warn you: The things that make ARPG’s fun is a complex web of many factors. I think it’s one of the most complicated genres to do well.

This reeks of narcissism.

[Ceno]

This reeks of narcissism.

?

I mean, he isn’t wrong.

[Heathen]

?

I mean, he isn’t wrong.

Well sure, but that was an incredibly vague and superficial contribution to the discussion. I won’t make a scene, I guess it just rubbed me the wrong way.