I have been playing ARPGs since I can remember. They’re my most played genre by miles! So I’ve tried and played to death pretty much every title out there and sometimes my hunger for a new ARPG gets so bad that I’ll resort to downloading obscure Asian titles that don’t make much sense!
A few years ago I stumbled across Van Helsing. At the time I was having a bit of a drought with ARPGs because I’d become a little bored of Diablo 3. Van Helsing was amazing and I played it all the way through. A year after that they released a second, and a year after that a third. Each time reviews were worse.
While the gameplay was good and I enjoyed the itemisation and character skills and stats, they decided to add in a survival mode where you had to place defences in a level. It literally turned the game into tower defence. Now I don’t know about you but Tower Defence and ARPG are two completely different games that don’t belong together. I thoroughly enjoy both genres but when they’re mixed it starts getting a bit much.
I know I’ll probably get shot down because many people already love what they see in the new DLC but I’m just wondering how far down the Tower Defence path are you going to go with the new DLC?
Survival yes I can see that completely. I guess I’m just worried that they’ll release something like Diablo does (rifts, survival modes etc) rather than an awesome expansion like Immortal Throne!
There are special “towers” you can construct which can attack enemies or buff players within the crucible, but that is the extent of it. You wont be defending them as enemies are far more interested in killing you.
rather than an awesome expansion like Immortal Throne!
An expansion is confirmed and is coming, but it is not the Survival Mode. So you have that to look forward to, too. The Survival mode was a Kickstarter stretch goal so it was going to be produced from Day 1 (as soon as the goal was met).
I can see your concern with ARPGs having a Tower Defense component but I’d invite you not to worry too much about it when it comes to the Crucible.
I’m not sure why so many ARPG devs go down that road. For me it’s an easy choice. Release a new expansion with bigger badder bosses, new graphics, new items, another Act and a new class. Easy. Immortal Throne got it spot on.
The tower defense game in Van Helsing is optional. It didn’t turn the game into anything else. It just added another type of gameplay you could engage in. You know, if you wanted to.
I think you missed the point of tower defense mode. It’s a side thing to do, it’s not a part of the story, its just something for a little bit of fun, and some people really enjoy it. Not everyone likes everything, you’re just gonna have to sit back, sit this one out and let others enjoy themselves.
Like Kobu said, you don’t have to do it. It’s just there for those who enjoy it. You don’t enjoy it? Don’t do it. Simple.
I don’t care much for tower defense modes either, and I haven’t done really looked much into it. I don’t care so much about them adding content I don’t care about but what I do care about is if they lock goodies I do like behind bonus content I don’t like. That is when I have an issue. I’m not sure if that’s what they’re going to do or not. I certainly hope not. PoE made that mistake with labs. The white knights @ poe forums claimed it was optional. The ascendancy classes were too good to be “optional”. If that’s optional, then leveling up is optional. Gear is optional.
