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No Rest For The Wicked - Isometric Action RPG with Unprecedented Verticality from The Maker of Ori Games - now on Early Access

ArchAngel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
21,309
It seems for a proper Diablo Dark Souls mix we are still going to be waiting for PoE2.
What do you mean by "Diablo Dark Souls mix"? Diablo is obviously hack'n'slash and Dark Souls is an action game. How you want to mix them together in a way that Dark Souls doesn't do already?

Am I really the only one who gets exhausted with trekking back and forth across the same map and hearing the same NPC dialogue shouted over and over again?
I'd say it is normal/expected to come back to "base" in these games (no matter if we look at Diablo or Dark Souls). But it sounds like they should allow for some shortcuts/portals/whatever to cut down on the needless travel back and forth.
Watch some PoE2 gameplay videos.
 

Sòren

Arcane
Joined
Aug 18, 2009
Messages
2,556

It's a narrative-driven soulslike with beautiful painterly style graphics (if you're into that kind of thing).

is there anything special about the narrative? i still haven't heard anyone who says so (but it might all be buried by grinding and crafting and souls-like gameplay for players). and that was Moon Studios strongest asset in the Ori games; simple, condensed, effective.
 

luj1

You're all shills
Vatnik
Joined
Jan 2, 2016
Messages
15,170
Location
Eastern block
Another thing is that even though there's a lot of farming, it never seemed like the game was wasting your time.

It's a nuanced game I think. The last few times I played with running turned off. It resulted in a much slower, more methodical gameplay. You should try it, feels almost like Diablo I. Plus you sort of begin noticing all these intricate details you didn't see before. The game is quite atmospheric even today.

Ppxoemp.png
 

motherfucker

Educated
Joined
Aug 23, 2020
Messages
354
Torrented this shit and played for a bit, didn't even make it to town before deleting it. I stand by every word I've said before: it's a bad game. Having my fully charged claymore attack interrupted by a dagger strike was an epiphany in itself - what compels people who've yet to discover super armor to try their hand at "revolutionizing" ARPGs?
 

Hell Swarm

Learned
Joined
Jun 16, 2023
Messages
2,144
Trying to avoid spoilers so sorry if this has been answered before.

How "Souls like" is this? The stealth elements looked fun and I'm curious about it. But I don't want souls like rolling and high damage bosses. It makes stuff too grindy and I don't care to play any more games like that. Dodging is fine but it has to be reasonable damage if you mess it up, not wombo combo to death/instakilled by enemies on your level.
 

Hell Swarm

Learned
Joined
Jun 16, 2023
Messages
2,144

mediocrepoet

Philosoraptor in Residence
Patron
Joined
Sep 30, 2009
Messages
13,570
Location
Combatfag: Gold box / Pathfinder
Codex 2012 Codex+ Now Streaming! MCA Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
If I didn't know how many whiners there were around here, I'd say I was surprised that it wasn't better received.

I didn't play before hotfix patch 2, so I'm not sure how bad performance was, but except a few hitches, it was fine on patch 2. They also deployed patch 3 today which cites more performance fixes and such, so it should be even better now.

The art style is great and the only really odd thing about characters is that they have ridiculously long forearms (longer than their upper arms and their arms are basically longer than their legs) and the women have crazy wide hips. I suspect the forearms are in order to help emphasize combat movements and the rest is just an artistic choice.

The game is a Souls-like presented in isometric fashion. The movement, especially when platforming, feels a bit wonky on kb+m but otherwise it controls well on that. It's far more fluid with a controller and though the controller keys are a bit unusual, I got used to them fairly quickly.

I'm not sure why people were complaining about the parry timing. I'm shit at parrying in most games and can successfully parry something like 75% of the time off the hop. It's really forgiving so far.

The save points are more like jrpg checkpoints, they don't restore health or equipment durability, and enemies don't respawn.

I'm not sure how necessary ingredient nodes are (mining, digging, fishing, trees) but for the most part, they simply feel like another exploration reward. On that topic, there are a lot of great exploration rewards in various nooks and crannies and areas where it's not necessarily clear how you get to them or places you probably have to return to get to.

The level design so far is also great with a lot of cut off areas and unlockable shortcuts.

Pretty sure this thing is going to be great when it's ready. It's already cool.
 

mediocrepoet

Philosoraptor in Residence
Patron
Joined
Sep 30, 2009
Messages
13,570
Location
Combatfag: Gold box / Pathfinder
Codex 2012 Codex+ Now Streaming! MCA Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
Oh I meant to add, I tried playing with a regular sword and shield (you start with that in the prologue), a pair of daggers (first weapon in the game), and later on a claymore. They all felt different and had different emphasis on them.

With the claymore, you really had to commit to your movements, but your reach was very long. It also requires either dressing light or leaning in to raising your weight allowance as well as stamina because of the effort of swinging it around.

The movements and combat feel even more deliberate and measured than Dark Souls 1 which is actually one of the big reasons I'm surprised people don't like it more. The speed is likely about the same and there aren't any BS fake out wind ups or anything like that that I've seen, though there are some pretty nasty ambushes and such.
 

toro

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
14,805
I'm not sure why people were complaining about the parry timing. I'm shit at parrying in most games and can successfully parry something like 75% of the time off the hop. It's really forgiving so far.

Bullshit. Post a video.

I watched Ellajaz, luality, Lobos and others no-hit DaS speedrunners playing the game. All of them concluded that parry mechanics are unreliable and switched to rolling.

However, big dick codexers are claiming that parry is ok. Please don't post shit that you read on other forums. Post a video.
 

mediocrepoet

Philosoraptor in Residence
Patron
Joined
Sep 30, 2009
Messages
13,570
Location
Combatfag: Gold box / Pathfinder
Codex 2012 Codex+ Now Streaming! MCA Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
I'm not sure why people were complaining about the parry timing. I'm shit at parrying in most games and can successfully parry something like 75% of the time off the hop. It's really forgiving so far.

Bullshit. Post a video.

I watched Ellajaz, luality, Lobos and others no-hit DaS speedrunners playing the game. All of them concluded that parry mechanics are unreliable and switched to rolling.

However, big dick codexers are claiming that parry is ok. Please don't post shit that you read on other forums. Post a video.

If I do and you see I'm right, will you delete your account stop crying?
 

toro

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
14,805
I'm not sure why people were complaining about the parry timing. I'm shit at parrying in most games and can successfully parry something like 75% of the time off the hop. It's really forgiving so far.

Bullshit. Post a video.

I watched Ellajaz, luality, Lobos and others no-hit DaS speedrunners playing the game. All of them concluded that parry mechanics are unreliable and switched to rolling.

However, big dick codexers are claiming that parry is ok. Please don't post shit that you read on other forums. Post a video.

If I do and you see I'm right, will you delete your account stop crying?
Are you stalling?
 

mediocrepoet

Philosoraptor in Residence
Patron
Joined
Sep 30, 2009
Messages
13,570
Location
Combatfag: Gold box / Pathfinder
Codex 2012 Codex+ Now Streaming! MCA Project: Eternity Divinity: Original Sin 2
I'm not sure why people were complaining about the parry timing. I'm shit at parrying in most games and can successfully parry something like 75% of the time off the hop. It's really forgiving so far.

Bullshit. Post a video.

I watched Ellajaz, luality, Lobos and others no-hit DaS speedrunners playing the game. All of them concluded that parry mechanics are unreliable and switched to rolling.

However, big dick codexers are claiming that parry is ok. Please don't post shit that you read on other forums. Post a video.

If I do and you see I'm right, will you delete your account stop crying?
Are you stalling?

No, I haven't been at a gaming computer today and I don't have any video recording software installed on it right now either. I'm just trying to figure out why this is supposed to be worth my time since I tend to poke at EA games and then ditch them until release. So... ?
 

toro

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
14,805
I've reached the end of the EA. The game has potential but there are many flaws: enemies have 5 hits combos, homing attacks, keys reading, broken parry mechanics and so on.

The loot system is straight out of Diablo IV.

Anyway, I will put it back in inventory until the next big update.

08621AEE959BB3799FB49B2F0D78FA22E9E41716

927C8E7C544218DA3F211C144EBC3B3E309E131D
 

Grunker

RPG Codex Ghost
Patron
Joined
Oct 19, 2009
Messages
27,765
Location
Copenhagen
Ugh, those hypersituational modifiers is by far the worst part of diablo 4's already pretty shitty loot system. Does not bode well.
 

Abu Antar

Turn-based Poster
Patron
Joined
Jan 19, 2014
Messages
14,194
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Let's take one of the things that makes Diablo IV shit, and implement it in our own game. Revolutionizing the genre!
 
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toro

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
14,805
The enchantment system is cancer. It's basically a slot machine. The system rewards the players which grind the most.

Also for some reason, I got 2 unique greatswords but no good daggers.

This is MMORPG design where every aspect is designed to keep the player engaged for as much time as possible.

The same with the consumables. DaS's estus system is clearly superior.
 
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Zanzoken

Arcane
Joined
Dec 16, 2014
Messages
4,064
I came into it hoping it wouldn't be too much of a Dark Souls clone and turns out it's a Diablo clone which is even fucking worse. :decline:
 

Terenty

Liturgist
Joined
Nov 29, 2018
Messages
1,467
Did they really couple Dark Souls restrictive stat/loot progression with Diablo random itemization? So in theory you can spec into str, for example, and spend hours looking for a random drop that fits your build?
 

Spike

Educated
Joined
Apr 6, 2023
Messages
960
Did they really couple Dark Souls restrictive stat/loot progression with Diablo random itemization? So in theory you can spec into str, for example, and spend hours looking for a random drop that fits your build?
I mean Diablo 2 did the same.
 

motherfucker

Educated
Joined
Aug 23, 2020
Messages
354
Did they really couple Dark Souls restrictive stat/loot progression with Diablo random itemization? So in theory you can spec into str, for example, and spend hours looking for a random drop that fits your build?
Yeah there are no respecs, so if you spec one stat then find a kickass weapon that scales with another you're screwed. It never worked even in From games, it's super retarded in a game with random loot.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
7,055
Let's see why Diablo II is still the benchmark,

- Well done art direction that's hard to dislike. No oversized heads, big eyes, white teeth, but mature gothic horror. Back in the day everyone played Diablo, including your sister or grandma.
- Skills that feel good and crisp even after 20 years. Look at Zeal. It has no particle effects of other VFX. Just really well made foley effects and animation. It had a very satisfying CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK sound like you were really hacking into flesh and the monsters went ER AGH URGH with each hit, then a loud satisfying death scream when they die. Today, devs are obsessed with making skills *look* good, and that's all, none is trying to make them truly *feel* good.
- Good class identity and balance. None of them really felt samey or bland.
- The inventory is pretty to look at. We spent hours just sorting out stuff. Item icons are vivid and realistic. The inventory is like a minigame in itself. Celtic motifs on UI banners and other elements are never boring to see.
- Nearly every monster had a unique mechanic linked to it. Some monsters explode, the others have a "charging" type of attack, some multiply when you kill them, etc. We had fun without dodge rolls and Soulslike bosses, can you imagine.
- Lighting in interiors was really good. You always wondered what's in the next room. Color palette was grounded and supported this feeling of a doomed world with an uncertain future. It felt like you would get raped by monsters if you leave town. Can't do that if your game is full with wild, zany pink colors.
- Diablo revolutionised system design. Skill trees, the red and blue mana "blobs", item parameters. For better or worse, but it did revolutionise it. So no one is going to play the same thing over and over again. They need to come up with something new, but not in a politically deranged, SJW type of way.

To summarize, it's about creating a feeling. When you do that, everything and anything in your game will feel iconic. But there are so, so many things that go into that. Nowadays devs don't put as much thought into it as they used to. I'm probably forgetting some myself.

Benchmark of shit. It's one of the worst types of Action RPG, with real time FP/RPG dungeon crawlers lineage ("Immersive Sims") being way better, as well as Japans' lineage of aRPG (Souls, Brahma Force, Parasite Eve, Castlevania: SotN etc). It looks pretty...which is what much of what your list there consists of, but the game design is decline. It's really sad how much shit decline Diablo has spawned in the years after.
 

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