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Path of Exile is a MAJESTIC incline

Saark

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A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
I would strongly recommend watching the entire baeclast episode, its incredibly informative and indepth.
 

abija

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So fun and informative listening how they "realised something is wrong without animation cancelling" when it was one of the first things people asked in alpha and the reason they pushed attack/cast speeds into retardo territory.

At least this had a perfectly valid excuse of being costly to implement, unlike their freaking netcode bullshit.

I guess this sums up their melee combat vision: https://youtu.be/575M-LKz6zs?t=4258
 
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Sacibengala

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I so fucking love and hate this game. since 2013 it was great to play but a shame to never play without lag or low fps rate or whatever. today I play on console, and its laggier and stuttering than never before. But I love the stuff in this game. So much great things.
 

Perkel

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After watching baeclast i think those changes are much much much deeper than i thought at first trailer glance.
At least from what i watched there is actual change that they can fix melee. There are several reasons why:

1. Like in Grim Dawn you hold button and character will autoatack and move. This means no more clunky misses because you clicked at ground instead of monster or you missclick entirely. That alone is huge change in how game would be played. This fixes a lot slow melee skills and generally slower hits.

2. Every single target melee skill now has small AoE component. Which means that you will not be penalized by not having any AoE unlike spells which almost all have AoE. Obviously AoE is small but the point is that you can now actually deal with groups of enemies without using melee splash and wasting socket.

3. In response to above all animations changed so when you attack monster it feels like your character is trying to hit few monsters instead of one specific. IDK how it will work for rapiers etc but with swords you can see wider swings which explain now AoE. That changes a lot feeling of combat without making it "melee is now just casting".

4. Since animation have changed they reworked whole animation system.
Previously you couldn't cancel attack unless you used movement skill. Now you can both before and after attack. Though there is window between those where you can't. What it means for example is that if you use attack that has windup and you see boss attacking you can clickaway and move from attack before you hit. On other hand if you fight with group of monsters you no longer wait full animation for attack to end and player just morphs into another animation for another monster. This also fixes a lot slow attack speed gameplay. Effectively skills will be faster as you cancel later part of animation as you go through monsters.

5. Melee got significant damage buff to make it standout from AoE spells and stun system got huge rework.
Basically previously basic stun (not the extra one with swirly icon) was the same for elemental damage and melee. That basic stun now will work differently and will be based on physical damage. Elemental damage still can stun monsters but it will have reduced effectiveness. Physical damage now will effectively work like elemental damage where stun will be its effect. The point is that when you fight group of monsters Spells have the damage but they will have to kite around group because they won't be able to stunlock groups of monsters like before outside of freezing while in melee case melee characters will be much more safe in groups of monsters than before which was effectively death.

6. Player and monster defense rework. Armor will be more important for bosses now. Accuracy goes up to 100% and it is treated as problem to solve meaning it is with some investment achievable. Block on monsters will no longer block whole damage. It will block around i think half the damage. The point here is that white trash mobs should die quickly to melee which unlike melee felt bad as those mobs could evade or block attacks. That coupled with melee damage buff and skills rework (adding AoE, redesigning skills etc) means monsters packs should die similar to how casting anihilates groups. It just will be a bit slower with bonus to harder mobs like it should.

7. Skills rework. Like Glacial hammer now will have 3 strike combo where 3rd hit will have heavy cold damage with huge change to freeze that will be able to freeze even bosses. They say that they look at every melee skill and they want to make the viable options. So things like Infernal blow, Puncture, Heavy Strike so on and so on. Cyclone is now channeling skill and you can freely steer it changing speed direction etc at all times and if it hit pebble it won't stop. Some skills will get SLOWER but in response they will have much higher damage to compensate but thanks to changes in how mouse attack works and animation they shouldn't feel as clunky and today slow attacks. Riposte etc also will have at minimum rebalance.

8. New movement skills + movement skills are reworked to be way more responsive and they have now build in mechanic where they will feel bad for traversal as you use those skills in chain. So the first movement skills use will be nearly instant while each new move will have more and more delay. Most of movement skills now share this debuff on constant use so you won't be able to cheat the system by using two different movement skills and switching between them.

9. Early game rework on bosses to give them windup before attacks to teach players to dodge stuff also now bosses attacks will do damage according to animation played instead of random hits you could expect of them. So for example you can dodge Hillock swing from right side while dodging to left side will damage you. While they talk now only about early game i think they will redo rest in later expansions including end game bosses content.

10. Pathfinding improved. Players are no longer squares but octagonal same as monster and other, stuff like boxes and random pebbles shouldn't now stop your stuff.

11. All melee skills will have slight flat physical damage per level like double strike making it a bit less dependant on good weapon early game and mid game while not really changing much to end game where you can actually spend time to find such weapon.

--------------------------------------------------------

Overall there are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more changes under the hood than in whole PoE history since alpha.
I shit on melee non stop but those changes could really make a difference.
They kind of fix this problem from other end. Instead of lowering amount of monsters and increasing HP they make melee simply much stronger+native small AoE+ adding smoothness. So with some slight adjustement you will be able to have essentially something like tidal wave out of single target skills much like cyclone with fast enough attack speed and some slight AoE buff. GD style hold skill to attack and move is central part of this.

Those are only the changes covered in baeclast and dude from GGG said that there are more things under the hood than that that he either forgot about or he can't say about due to some reasons (probably nda toward press mags etc). He said that he doesn't talk about for example bugs which they fixed whole plethora of while doing rework on melee. Some monster skills outright didn't work, wrong attack cones who apply damage in mid swing instead of end of it. Weird calculations where for example hillock could damage you from any side as long as you were close enough, apparently there was plenty of it and they weer even embarrassed about some of them because it has shown how much they didn't actually care for melee and basic responsiveness that could be fixed easily.

They should name it Grim Dawn patch lol.
 
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abija

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Where did you get the part with "Melee got significant damage buff"? The guy underlined several times that balance numbers are not his job.

Block on monsters will no longer block whole damage. It will block around i think half the damage. The point here is that white trash mobs should die quickly to melee which unlike melee felt bad as those mobs could evade or block attacks. That coupled with melee damage buff and skills rework (adding AoE, redesigning skills etc) means monsters packs should die similar to how casting anihilates groups.
That's some serious mental gymnastics... The point is that it feels awkward to have some shitty mob survive your aoe fest (regardless if melee or ranged) just because it has a shield "flag".
 

Perkel

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There is flat damage added to every single melee skill. That alone will improve damage a lot.
There is severe rework of melee skill and he said that the point is to give them significant damage buff.

Don't have time where he said that exactly but 100% it was there.

His balancing comments where due to other stuff they asked like spellcasting etc. as he prepared only few things for stream and balance changes are still work in progress thus he did not provide exact numbers aside from saying damage is improved for melee.
 

abija

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There is flat damage added to every single melee skill. That alone will improve damage a lot.
And he said weapon dmg % is adjusted down, so it will be a nerf for top tier weapons. He made extremely sure to NOT promise any big melee dmg buff during the podcast.
 

Perkel

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And he said weapon dmg % is adjusted down, so it will be a nerf for top tier weapons. He made extremely sure to NOT promise any big melee dmg buff during the podcast.

Again i say what he said on stream and no he didn't say that they will adjust weapon damage down where did you heard that in stream ? Yes he talks that he can't say much about balance but that was mostly for everything else + stuff is not final but he clearly said that melee damage will be buffed first by getting extra flat dmg on skills themselves second with skill rework.

He gave then example of Glacial Hammer that now is 3 hit combo where 3rd hit will be big one with ability to freeze even bosses regularly. So Glacial hammer will get flat damage + skill itself will be reworked.


that alone improve ssf early game a lot. Shouldnt bows/wands get same treatment?

You mean buff weapons who already do higher damage than melee weapons without actual downside of getting close up to target ?
Fuck no mate. Ranged weapons should always have lower damage than melee weapons.
 

Jaedar

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You mean buff weapons who already do higher damage than melee weapons without actual downside of getting close up to target ?
Fuck no mate. Ranged weapons should always have lower damage than melee weapons.
Bow(and wand?) skills kinda suffer from few support gem choices (no multistrike variant fe). The good ones compensate by being able to scale damage through added projs, but eh. Also no proper movement skill.

Really not sure if it's true that ranged skills have better damage than melee now, probably won't be after melee rework.
 

made

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Accouncement sounds bloody awesome. Might even play the league for a change, though I'm happy to see they have a fix in store for the map stash problem on std so I can complete the Atlas at my own casual pace.

I've probably spent more money on POE than any other game by now. They get a lot of goodwill from me for community interaction such as this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/bjmndc/an_update_from_chris/
 

Perkel

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You mean buff weapons who already do higher damage than melee weapons without actual downside of getting close up to target ?
Fuck no mate. Ranged weapons should always have lower damage than melee weapons.

cant speak which is higher end game. Early game ssf, bows and wands were harder in my experience. Now melee get splash while bows will still need to waste support on pierce.

it feels like you are looking through lenses of barrage with threshold jewels and unique(probably fated) bows

Comeone mate, split arrow + pierce and you clear out whole groups early in game in no time. Nothing like this can happen for melee right now.
If you stack up melee splash and call you will have groups ground and pound but shit damage.

Ranged weapons in PoE are just slightly worse than Spells which is still a lot because Spells are just overpowered.
 

Saark

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A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
3.7 in general doesn't just seem like a melee rework, which is what a lot of people expected. It's a fundamental change to how the game is being played and the combat feel in general. It's no surprise that they mentioned rewards for "skilled players" a few times in the announcement itself, because GGG certainly seems to be pushing for a more skill-based environment. New movement/defensive skills allow good players to dodge out of harms way or mitigate big hits without having to invest in defensive as much as they used to, while racing is going to add an extra level of mechanical skill due to how chaining movement speed skills is no longer the way to go. Instead you will have to use a movement skill, then an attackskill, animation cancel out of that one to then use a movement skill again. Repeating that process will give you much faster movement than is currently possible, which is gonna be great for racing.

I'm seriously hoping that this is the start of a new "era" for PoE where they will slowly phase out stupid on-death effects or unavoidable instant-damage that you cannot dodge in any way, and instead make it more about players reacting to dangerous situations with the right tools. Basically shifting some of the strength of a character away from the gear/build itself, and instead have player-skill be a more important factor.
 

ArchAngel

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Fuck that, if I wanted to play dark souls lite I would be playing Dark Souls or one of many games inspired by it.
As I said before, as soon as Diablo 2 HD drops I am leaving poe.
 

abija

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due to how chaining movement speed skills is no longer the way to go. Instead you will have to use a movement skill, then an attackskill, animation cancel out of that one to then use a movement skill again. Repeating that process will give you much faster movement than is currently possible, which is gonna be great for racing.
That's your hope, but the dev said nothing of the sort. Just from what he said, chaining movement skills it's still the upper speed limit.

I'm seriously hoping that this is the start of a new "era" for PoE where they will slowly phase out stupid on-death effects or unavoidable instant-damage that you cannot dodge in any way, and instead make it more about players reacting to dangerous situations with the right tools. Basically shifting some of the strength of a character away from the gear/build itself, and instead have player-skill be a more important factor.

Fuck that, if I wanted to play dark souls lite I would be playing Dark Souls or one of many games inspired by it.
As I said before, as soon as Diablo 2 HD drops I am leaving poe.

Probably just early game window dressing to catch more flies. If they thought skill should influence progression more than grind maps wouldn't be a random drop.

Again i say what he said on stream and no he didn't say that they will adjust weapon damage down where did you heard that in stream ? Yes he talks that he can't say much about balance but that was mostly for everything else + stuff is not final but he clearly said that melee damage will be buffed first by getting extra flat dmg on skills themselves second with skill rework.
https://youtu.be/575M-LKz6zs?t=1065
- he talks about flat damage
- raizqt asks if weapons will be changed
- he says they'll adjust % weapon dmg on skills not the weapons and then mentions the top tier will end up slightly worse than before
 
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Saark

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Probably just early game window dressing to catch more flies. If they thought skill should influence progression more than grind maps wouldn't be a random drop.
One doesnt automatically exclude the other. There's already a significant amount of skill involved when it comes to early-league boss-killing, especially on hardcore. Being able to do UElder or Atziri day1 is both a matter of gear and skill, and I certainly don't mind if they wanna make it easier for highly skilled players to do hard content despite having shitty gear/incomplete builds. Some people need 2mil+ DPS to not die on shaper, others do it with 300k. Some people need 9endu charge rf juggs to kill UElder deathless, others do it with level 36.
 

Shadenuat

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so they just gave all melee free Multistrike?

94c.jpg

I feel like this is just admitting the arms race instead of slowing all the shit down though.

all the animation canceling and monster dancing looks very silly when you see that cyclone aoe though.

still waiting for less grindy and punishing gear upgrade and loot for solo people.

and less monsters on the screen, but I guess that never happens.
 
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abija

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in my experience ssf is fine. Past league ive gotten to guardians before I got bored again. What do you have in mind?
To be able to do content when my character is powerful enough to do it, not hundreds of hours later if I don't get bored and quit the league.

As for melee, it's not possible to be meaningful in a game based around 1shotting the whole screen. It could still be fun though, but for some weird reason they keep adding league mechanics that punish slow clear speed so you can't actually enjoy the league.
 
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Tacgnol

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It's difficult to balance melee in a game as horde focused as POE.

D3 (as shit as it was) had a slightly better handle on melee balance as the focus was on fewer, but stronger enemies. They also gave melee a flat 30% mitigation bonus to help balance the fact they would get hit more often.

Animation cancelling is a nice step towards making things better for melee builds though. I used to absolutely hate doing bosses like shaper on a melee character. Getting stuck in an attack animation when you needed to dodge something was frustration extreme.
 

abija

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D3 at launch you mean...

Animation cancelling is one of the few tools ranged lacked in PoE. Now here it comes as melee buff.

Don't get me wrong: I don't have a problem with animation cancelling, far from it. It's a great thing, one I never understood why it wasn't there from the start considering game was made by D2 fans. I certainly didn't expect it outside a major version change in PoE, so great surprise.
Just really irked me that one of the most abused ranged tools in gaming history is the posterchild for poe melee patch.

Seems they fixed bosses with invulnerability phases same way they're buffing melee :D
In Path of Exile: Legion we're making improvements to several existing map boss fights. Among the boss fights being improved are those that take place in the Lava Lake, Belfry, Sunken City and Basilica maps. Each of these fights have been improved by adding monster combat that improves item rewards and experience during Immunity Phases. Check out a preview video below!
 
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Diggfinger

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felipepepe wont stop going on about this on Twitter, guess I'll give it a try.

Wonder of the free Steam versions comes with all the expansions but seems to be the case.
 

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