Diablo IV

[abija]

They reproduced the D1 feel for first time you meet it (and it's a random encounter can't res and try again). Decent easter egg.

 

[ItsChon]

I'm surprised no one has posted this yet. Krip was one of the best D3 players, being the world first person to beat some boss on some difficulty level in D3 (IDFK I was twelve when the game came out). He has also played a ton of PoE.

Spoiler

He gave the game a 6/10 as it is now.

 

[Yosharian]

Wait, Blizzturd wants 100 bucks for this trite shite?

For full edition. 70 for standard. I think I'll just get Grim Dawn DLCs and reinstall that if I get an itch to play something like this again.

If only GD devs spent some time on combat feel it would be top tier arpg.

GD2 will fix this, probably will be released with Underrail infusion

Didn't the GD devs decide to go off and make some weird non-ARPG?

 

[Cyberarmy]

Didn't the GD devs decide to go off and make some weird non-ARPG?

Yeah they are making a city builder, it's on EA on Steam right now.

 

[Yosharian]

Didn't the GD devs decide to go off and make some weird non-ARPG?

Yeah they are making a city builder, it's on EA on Steam right now.

Right so surely GD2 is quite a ways off

 

[Angthoron]

I'm surprised no one has posted this yet. Krip was one of the best D3 players, being the world first person to beat some boss on some difficulty level in D3 (IDFK I was twelve when the game came out). He has also played a ton of PoE.

Spoiler

He gave the game a 6/10 as it is now.

Tried it, watched it, Kripp is pretty spot-on.

Melee is absolutely non-viable as it is at the moment.

Playing Rogue, I had a chance to witness this first-hand. Soloed an event, the boss kept killing my char over and over, the best I got was just below 50% of his health bar as melee. There's just too much undodgeable shit on the screen that will eventually wear you down, and there's not enough protection/burst/healing to survive that.

So instead of calling it a day, I switched to a ranged build, picking abilities that sounded like they'd be appropriate. Well, whaddya know - a minute later the boss was dead, and in the meantime I think I had to heal like twice, one of them simply to make sure the char's HP was above 90%.

Good balancing!

Then again, as others have pointed out, this type of games has been shit for melee builds for years.

 

[Tacgnol]

Then again, as others have pointed out, this type of games has been shit for melee builds for years.

Blizz sort of had the right idea in D3 by just giving all the melee classes a passive 30% damage reduction from the get-go.

Ranged classes still had better survivability even without the passive bonus, though in the case of D3 it ceased to be that relevant after they nerfed the difficulty.

Melee is pretty viable in Last Epoch right now, though the endgame is still too easy and hasn't had a proper balancing pass, so whether that remains true...

 

[Grunker]

Then again, as others have pointed out, this type of games has been shit for melee builds for years.

Blizz sort of had the right idea in D3 by just giving all the melee classes a passive 30% damage reduction from the get-go.

Ranged classes still had better survivability even without the passive bonus, though in the case of D3 it ceased to be that relevant after they nerfed the difficulty.

Melee is pretty viable in Last Epoch right now, though the endgame is still too easy and hasn't had a proper balancing pass, so whether that remains true...

I did a full playthrough of all Diablo games last year including endgame, all characters hardcore. It is honestly impossible to die in D3. The autoprotection passives that stops lethal blows are so powerful.

 

[Angthoron]

Then again, as others have pointed out, this type of games has been shit for melee builds for years.

Blizz sort of had the right idea in D3 by just giving all the melee classes a passive 30% damage reduction from the get-go.

Ranged classes still had better survivability even without the passive bonus, though in the case of D3 it ceased to be that relevant after they nerfed the difficulty.

Melee is pretty viable in Last Epoch right now, though the endgame is still too easy and hasn't had a proper balancing pass, so whether that remains true...

Oh right, Last Epoch. Haven't tried that in ages, thanks for reminding me it exists.

The 30% DR is actually one of the ways to do that. Another would be to reward aggressive play with Heal on Hit, or Heal Orb Proc on Hit, though the latter immediately kills the point of melee.

In my mind, the point of melee is being in something's face and reduce the amount of running around. Positioning is important, but to a lesser degree, where you can position close to the boss and avoid or mitigate next to them.

Actually, Lost Ark manages to do this with their safe zone designs, you rarely get a boss encounter with unavoidable "death zone" spam. And Blizz's older designs, like WotLK bosses, for example, also worked fine for melee. Generally, when they designed for sustain instead of for burst, melee was in a much better place than it is now. Sure, it was a little more braindead, but most people pick melee for the fact that it should be a little braindead.

 

[Dadd]

The only way to ameliorate the worthlessness of melee characters compared to ranged characters is to turn melee characters into low-range casters. But then why play melee instead of ranged? Might as well delete melee as a concept from ARPGs.

 

[Tacgnol]

I did a full playthrough of all Diablo games last year including endgame, all characters hardcore. It is honestly impossible to die in D3. The autoprotection passives that stops lethal blows are so powerful.

Yeah, I was thinking more of the original difficulty days. As you say it's irrelevant post-reaper expansion.

The 30% DR is actually one of the ways to do that. Another would be to reward aggressive play with Heal on Hit, or Heal Orb Proc on Hit, though the latter immediately kills the point of melee.

I agree, melee should always get some survivability perks. It always amazes me when ARPG devs don't give the playstyle that involves dangerously wading into hordes of enemies any extra tools for supporting the playstyle.

The only way to ameliorate the worthlessness of melee characters compared to ranged characters is to turn melee characters into low-range casters. But then why play melee instead of ranged? Might as well delete melee as a concept from ARPGs.

This is actually a present problem in Path of Exile. Most of the popular "melee builds" are pseudo-melee builds that involve dealing damage from as far a distance as possible to avoid being fucked by various mechanics.

 

[ArchAngel]

I did a full playthrough of all Diablo games last year including endgame, all characters hardcore. It is honestly impossible to die in D3. The autoprotection passives that stops lethal blows are so powerful.

Yeah, I was thinking more of the original difficulty days. As you say it's irrelevant post-reaper expansion.

The 30% DR is actually one of the ways to do that. Another would be to reward aggressive play with Heal on Hit, or Heal Orb Proc on Hit, though the latter immediately kills the point of melee.

I agree, melee should always get some survivability perks. It always amazes me when ARPG devs don't give the playstyle that involves dangerously wading into hordes of enemies any extra tools for supporting the playstyle.

The only way to ameliorate the worthlessness of melee characters compared to ranged characters is to turn melee characters into low-range casters. But then why play melee instead of ranged? Might as well delete melee as a concept from ARPGs.

This is actually a present problem in Path of Exile. Most of the popular "melee builds" are pseudo-melee builds that involve dealing damage from as far a distance as possible to avoid being fucked by various mechanics.

Path of exile is a whole different beast. That game is so badly balanced that it is not even enough to be ranged. Best builds are those where you do not even attack yourself unless you can kill stuff off screen. You use summons, totems or throw traps/mines that attack for you. Game has that whole meme of people wanting to play "self cast"..
My last build was Champion that throws down bow totems that fire explosive arrows that ignite. You just spam a few totems and run around like a headless chicken hoping you survive. And you stop for 0.5s just to resummon totems that died.

 

[Angthoron]

I did a full playthrough of all Diablo games last year including endgame, all characters hardcore. It is honestly impossible to die in D3. The autoprotection passives that stops lethal blows are so powerful.

Yeah, I was thinking more of the original difficulty days. As you say it's irrelevant post-reaper expansion.

The 30% DR is actually one of the ways to do that. Another would be to reward aggressive play with Heal on Hit, or Heal Orb Proc on Hit, though the latter immediately kills the point of melee.

I agree, melee should always get some survivability perks. It always amazes me when ARPG devs don't give the playstyle that involves dangerously wading into hordes of enemies any extra tools for supporting the playstyle.

The only way to ameliorate the worthlessness of melee characters compared to ranged characters is to turn melee characters into low-range casters. But then why play melee instead of ranged? Might as well delete melee as a concept from ARPGs.

This is actually a present problem in Path of Exile. Most of the popular "melee builds" are pseudo-melee builds that involve dealing damage from as far a distance as possible to avoid being fucked by various mechanics.

Path of exile is a whole different beast. That game is so badly balanced that it is not even enough to be ranged. Best builds are those where you do not even attack yourself unless you can kill stuff off screen. You use summons, totems or throw traps/mines that attack for you. Game has that whole meme of people wanting to play "self cast"..
My last build was Champion that throws down bow totems that fire explosive arrows that ignite. You just spam a few totems and run around like a headless chicken hoping you survive. And you stop for 0.5s just to resummon totems that died.

Yep, my last few leages in PoE were basically "Cover the next 2 screens with a billion piercing projectiles" via either BFBB or Steel [Skills], and this on a class that's, on paper, a melee class.

I guess it's the problem that comes with having to "perfectly balance" everything while also not spending too much time or other resources creating separate balancing for PvE and PvP

 

[Grunker]

Then again, as others have pointed out, this type of games has been shit for melee builds for years.

Blizz sort of had the right idea in D3 by just giving all the melee classes a passive 30% damage reduction from the get-go.

Ranged classes still had better survivability even without the passive bonus, though in the case of D3 it ceased to be that relevant after they nerfed the difficulty.

Melee is pretty viable in Last Epoch right now, though the endgame is still too easy and hasn't had a proper balancing pass, so whether that remains true...

Oh right, Last Epoch. Haven't tried that in ages, thanks for reminding me it exists.

Can't recommend it. I just played it, and while the crafting system is the best in any aRPG ever and the progression is quite decent, there's just too little content still.

 

[Grunker]

This is actually a present problem in Path of Exile. Most of the popular "melee builds" are pseudo-melee builds that involve dealing damage from as far a distance as possible to avoid being fucked by various mechanics.

I play almost exclusively Righteous Fire these days and I'm probably never or very rarely play another skill going forward, and builds like it feels like the closest you're gonna get to a melee experience.

Honestly I'm kind of okay with it; I feel like an aRPG would save itself a lot of unnecessary headaches if they made it clear from aesthetics that the games was about different types of mages or other categories of classes that didn't involve name-locking guys with swords. That's never been the most fun part of any class in any aRPG anyway (or very rarely, at least).

 

[Reinhardt]

This is actually a present problem in Path of Exile. Most of the popular "melee builds" are pseudo-melee builds that involve dealing damage from as far a distance as possible to avoid being fucked by various mechanics.

cleave duelist!

 

[Tacgnol]

This is actually a present problem in Path of Exile. Most of the popular "melee builds" are pseudo-melee builds that involve dealing damage from as far a distance as possible to avoid being fucked by various mechanics.

I play almost exclusively Righteous Fire these days and I'm probably never or very rarely play another skill going forward, and builds like it feels like the closest you're gonna get to a melee experience.

Honestly I'm kind of okay with it; I feel like an aRPG would save itself a lot of unnecessary headaches if they made it clear from aesthetics that the games was about different types of mages or other categories of classes that didn't involve name-locking guys with sorts. That's never been the most fun part of any class in any aRPG anyway (or very rarely, at least).

Cyclone was always a popular one, as although you generally still have to stay dangerously close to enemies, you are also constantly moving which frustrates a lot of the one-shot mechanics.

 

[Dadd]

One of the biggest problems with melee is that there are many more enemy abilities you need to be wary of compared to when you're playing ranged. Both from a balance perspective and world-building perspective, it would be better if enemies had more abilities against ranged characters like they do with melee characters.

 

[Grunker]

This is actually a present problem in Path of Exile. Most of the popular "melee builds" are pseudo-melee builds that involve dealing damage from as far a distance as possible to avoid being fucked by various mechanics.

cleave duelist!

see how Tacgnol already made room for that

One of the biggest problems with melee is that there are many more enemy abilities you need to be wary of compared to when you're playing ranged. Both from a balance perspective and world-building perspective, it would be better if enemies had more abilities against ranged characters like they do with melee characters.

Why even take on the design headache to begin with though? It's not like there's a rule saying that aRPGs must involve name-locking enemies with swords

 

[Tacgnol]

Nothing wrong if an ARPG designer does want to do a melee-free game, but at the same time it isn't impossible to create a challenging game where both melee and ranged are viable, it just requires more design effort and consideration of different play styles.

You can have abilities and mechanics change depending on the proximity of the PC for instance to create different dangers.

Separate but equal.

 

[Dadd]

Why even take on the design headache to begin with though? It's not like there's a rule saying that aRPGs must involve name-locking enemies with swords

Melee builds are enjoyable if you have high T

 

[Grunker]

Honestly Lost Ark might be a nod towards how to design melee in an aRPG. Their melee classes are distinctly melee, but instead of namelocking almost all of their skills have them move around as part of dealing damage, are AoE-based or similarly avoid name-locking. Lost Ark is obviously crap for a lot of reasons, but skill, class and boss design weren't any of those reasons.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Yeah, Lost Ark is where the fun at as melee, all the classes are fun to play and got all the tools to play as you like.
Too bad it quicky become a grindfest with nonsensical quests.

 

[Camel]

Melee builds are enjoyable if you have high T

 

[Dadd]

Melee builds are enjoyable if you have high T