Well put it that way: Imagine a realistic Swat Ego-Shooter)and they give you the Choice to not wear a Bulletproof Amor. However due they realistic approach it will drastically reduce your survivalbility, which means in later mission and even more in higher difficulity it’s almost impossible to win and you most likely will die.
Your Suggestion however is more the Call of Duty approach where it is less about immersion/realism or the key-core-mechanic of survivalbilty but more an approach to give with such things people the choice of different playstyles - like with armor you are remarkable slower than without, but you take less damage. So it’s a matter of a choice of your playstyle.
So to get to my point straight: while i understand where you come from, i would argue neither of the approaches (yours or crate) is per se better, but simply different, however i’d like to go as far and would say, crates approach fits better in its genre.
ARPGs or Hack’N’Slay like this are pretty straightforwarded in such mechanical RPG terms. Attribute itself aren’t about different playstyles in sense of: hey you spent in agility so you can avoid an fight and simply lockpick this house so you can solve the quest in an different way - or you spent your points into intteligence and charisma which makes it easier to talk your way out… <- like (proper) RPGs do, it’s main focus is to hack through hordes and grind for loot, and build your character… And a huge part of this is the Focus on Survivalbility.
So Grim Dawn’s resistance isn’t about giving you different playstyles for your characters, but moreover progress and build your character so much, that he has enough survivalbility to survive even on the hardest difficulty, so it’s kinda an requirement… like in most rpg you won’t win with an level 1 weapon against an level 60 boss, because if so, why have levels for weapons to begin with?
Also it still makes sense because it add another layer of complexity to the Game because you have to work with what you get and be creative with your builds because unlike an resistence is more gamestyle oriented so more like a side feature, here you have to focus on resistence and than be creative how you push the rest of your attributes and such…and if not, than try your look with the sacrifice of survivalbility…
And that’s why i and others enjoy GD Resistance Concept so much(and i’m quite happy they won’t change it…)
An interesting idea, though its complicated to communicate this to the player, because it just seems arbitrary that the normal damage is already reduced by some percentage. If I would implement such a system, I would definitely try to make it obvious to the player from the beginning, for this reduction to exist. Hidden stats and interactions are always the worst for me.
I agree with you that some of my suggestions may go too far for the genre, but I still think that many of the systems are improvable. I assume many times game designers just copy most of the systems from previously succesful games of the same genre, which is just natural, but doesnt mean those systems are already at their optimum.
I still think that the resistance system of GD is not what makes the game fun for you, but I cant look into your head, so if it is, so be it.
My question is, would you have less, more or the same fun with another system? I cant really answer that for myself though, as I am only theoretically assuming that I would have more fun with my ideas. We will really only know when new games with new and different mechanics are released.
Like I always say at the beginning of my threads, those suggestions are more like food for thought, and a way for me to see what other people think about these systems.
Exponential systems don’t work very well (see: the absolute mess that is UVHM in Borderlands 2. Gee, I wonder why Borderlands 1 didn’t have scaling problems…). On the flip side, diminishing returns would make resistances less desirable the more you invest.
If resistances scaled linearly instead, they would still be desirable but you wouldn’t NEED to have all resists at 80% just to be competent on Ultimate.
The complexity isn’t that you have to max out your resistance at all. The complexity is how you build your character, your devotions, your gear, your skills, your components, your relics and all other layers of character customization. And then still manage to come up with a great character. Making the decision, trying to make the puzzle pieces work together… that is complexity. That is important decision making. And that also impacts how your character performs and plays uniquely to the next one.
On top of that. Maxing your resistances is indeed mandatory. That is not where it stops however. You still need to manage it during fights against harder more threatening opponents. By using resistance potions to temperately boost your resistance. And/Or even overcap specific resistances against specific opponents. Depending on how the previous layers of character building fits together you’ll either have an easy or difficult time against opponents with x damage type. Even more so with massive debuffs opponents can do later on. Where even over capped resistances won’t be enough anymore and a semblance of player skill is involved as well. All those layers combined form the complexity. If you don’t see it…then you need to open your eyes.
Don’t like this type of complexity? Then you are playing the wrong genre of games. Theorycrafting and trying to make all those puzzle pieces work together, that complexity, is what makes a lot of us play games like Grim Dawn for 6-10k hours.
People who only play through the game once and don’t partake in actual theorycrafting and building multiple characters won’t see that. :rolleyes:
That is incorrect. The resistances do impact your characters different playstyles. Quite a bit actually. As mention above the character is build using many layers of customization. Puzzle pieces you have to try and make work together as best as possible. To get the resistances where they need to be you have to make sacrifices elsewhere. Impacting how your character plays and can handle some situations better than other situations. Same applies to any other layer of character customization that impacts the decisions you have to make.
As for Attributes they are indeed quite pointless. That said…it is the same case in any game of this genre. In D2 you put almost everything in Vitality with some in dex and such to be able to hit targets. In PoE you pick up every attribute node with only a little bit of passive extra’s, not to mention you even get gear that mainly boosts your main stat+hp. After playing PoE last month it is the epitome of fake complexity, but presenting it in a way as if it is complex. Torchlight, WAR, LOKI etc they all function the same way in that regard.
I never talked about Grim Dawn not having any complexity. I also never talked about devotions, gear, skills or anything else you listed. I simply stated that the resistance system doesnt add much (or any) complexity to the rest of the game because there is no choice involved in whether to max or not to max resistances. But lets go to the next paragraph.
Now I am confused. So you agree that maxing your resistances is no decision, but still argue that its increasing the decision making?
The concept of temporary buffs through items is not bound to any specific resistance system. Resistance potions could exist with any of my suggestions, dont know how that relates in any way.
Overcaping through items (over 75% maxing resistance is even more advisable due to the broken scaling) is a decision, Ill give you that. But those items can exist in similar form with other resistance systems too, so still not a relevant point.
You probably misunderstood me. I never suggested to remove the resistance system, I never suggested to lessen the complexity, I actually suggested to increase it by replacing it with another one (whether or not my suggestions would actually do that is another question).
Do you really argue that the resistance system, the way it is, is the most optimal one to increase the complexity of the game? Sincerely asking.
You dont make sacrifices, because maxing resistance is the top priority. Taking the best stats before taking the second best stats is no sacrifice. Even after maxing resistances, damage isnt that hard to come by. Having to max resistances is actually limiting your choices for equipping interesting items that do not increase resistances or with which you have hard times getting max res.
But attributes are such an interesting piece of the puzzle, you need to evaluate how much to spend on each attribute to build the optimal character … just joking. Again not a choice, same as with maxing resistances.
Except there are sacrifices when going for max resists. Sometimes you have to go for a different item than the one you are actually going for because it has better resists. Or you can go for an another item in another slot and now you can actually pick the item you wanted in the other slot.
It’s an huge puzzle where you have to pick different pieces to fit together.
I assume you wont skip your core items just because of max resistance, as there are several ways to increase missing resistances by changing your less important gear, not to forget augments or even devotions.
And again, I am not suggesting to remove the system. The puzzling remains with another system, probably just better.
50% resistance means you take only 1/2 damage, which means that yes 100 base hp = 200 effective hp, which means an increase of +100%. You take 1/2 of the damages = you are 2x more resistant.
The resistances in Grim Dawn are a mess. Like in most ARPGs.
The problem that is general is that every and any item in the game can give you resistances : your pants are going to give you resistance to lightning. Why ? There is no why, just take it or leave it. But since you need it anyway, you are going to take it and learn to no longer try to make any sense out of anything in the game. That is a problem.
The problem that is specific to Grim Dawn is that most classes won’t provide any option to get natural resistances, ie resistances that one can get out of skills points, and then plan by advance for his build. You can only do that, and to some extend, with the soldier, the occultist and that’s about it. If you go demo-necro for instance, you will have to look for ways to increase your resistances out of something else than your core build, ie items.
The other problem is that maxing the resistances are mandatory in this game. This is a problem in most ARPGs but this is particularly bad in Grim Dawn: you can’t go in advanced difficulty modes with anything below 50-60%, unless you have a build heavily oriented into health regeneration and life steal and damage absorption, and even with a good defensive build, it still would make little sense. Grim Dawn = go tank or die. There is no alternative. Relying on speed, reflexes, dodging etc won’t be enough, you will be hit and you will die if you are not 65%+ resistant to the attacks you receive. The game is a lot into action, and this is good, but kind of messy sometimes, a bit too much, too quick, too confusing, and too hard, and you will get one-shotted. BAM. “but my char has 20K HP wtf!”. Don’t care, I kill you, just because. That’s how it works. You can try to be careful, but soon or later the game will catch you.
That’s the point of the resistances in this game: get 80%+ into everything or just shup up and leave. The game rewards soft cheating aka item transfers and not accuracy, positioning, reflexes etc. For some reason the game aims more on bots than real players (able and willing to make a strategy, to try different tactics etc). Or maybe it’s just me that is too much into strategy games and FPS in the first place.