Why PoE Combat is boring and how to improve it

I can't really agree with that sentiment. Sure the actual combat actions, i.e. the clicking, spamming a skill, is kind of boring, but then again this is an ARPG.

But on a meta level, so to speak, I find it not boring at all, at least not with may characters:
- My melee ranger has to balance 5 different attacks, a trap, and a curse. I have to watch out for leaping enemies, strategically take out casters, etc. The gameplay isn't as fluid as it could be, but it's not standing there and spamming cleave (though that happens), because if I did that, I'd most likely be dead.
- My EE caster witch has to balance 3 elements, evade projectiles a lot, and strategically cast skeletons as a diversion. Again no mindless clicking, though it's not quite as fast paced as melee
- Even my summoner witch has to play tactically at times. It's probably the slowest gameplay of them all, but with 600 HP, 300 ES and about -50% all resist in Merciless, you have to be pretty damn carefull.

Sure there are probably builds that play by just running 5 auras and spamming one skill. But it's not like the game doesn't have options. I have a LA Bow char myself, but I don't play it a lot.

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Cronos988 a écrit :

I find it not boring at all

How to play POE:

1) Are you dead? Yes: Hit resurrect, try again. No: Go to 2
2) Are there loot and other people on your screen? Yes: PICK LOOT UP, REPEAT!! No: Go to 3
3) Are there monsters on your screen? Yes: Go to 4. No: Go to 6.
4) Are you being hit? Yes: Alt+F4. No: Go to 5.
5) Are monsters closer to you than to the edge of your screen? Yes: RUN, REPEAT!! No: Faceroll your keyboard while holding down the left or right mouse button, repeat.
6) Are there loot on the screen? Yes: Takes what you think would be useful. No: Randomly click on the screen.

Congratulation, you have mastered the strategically complex and infinitely hardcore game called Path of Exile.

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qjay a écrit :

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the main problem with this is because nearly every skill in PoE looks monotonic. there are no sign of real motion. every skill has only one designed movement that doesnt change.

The problem is how movement, collision, hit detection etc. works in this game (and that's also the reason why we have so much desync).

Unfortunately the way the game is coded is very limiting, I guess some decisions were taken on 'time', 'budget' and 'experience' basis. So yeah, without major changes to the game engine not much can change in this front, and I don't know at this point in time how viable is this. This prevents stuff like channelled skills and more interesting combat.

Also some of the mobs are pretty dull I agree, and more interesting mechanics should be added, where tactical positioning matters more. That's said this still is an ARPG, fairly limtied when it comes to combat.

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As much as D3 massively screwed up in some areas, the combat in that game (i.e. the actual gameplay) is 10x than it is in PoE. Classes have 6 active skills that they are forced to use in different combinations.

That's actually false. Endgame gameplay is pretty similar, in D3 you use couple skills that's it, in my plvl 100 I use just one mouse click and killed everything 8archon), or spammed a couple keys alas MMO macros. The difference is the smoothness of combat and that's because what I said above.

I know this will bring out the trolls, but whatever.

I think certain aspects of D3's skill system was designed better than POE's. Mainly referring to the active use of skills. In D3 you have 2 mouse skills and 4 keyboard skills. In all the chars I've played I'm constantly using all of them, and the game seems to have been designed and balanced around using all of them. Granted, 2 or 3 of the skills would be permanent or timed buffs, but it is still a tradeoff choosing to slot in a buff instead of another mobility or attack of debuff skill.

I think D3 succeeded better at designing the action part of "action rpg". The part of the game that challenges your reflexes and manual dexterity. In POE the optimal thing to do seems to be to link a single damage dealing skill to as many supports as you can while running as many auras as you can.

Also, by having such a relatively restricted class and skill system the D3 designers set themselves a far easier balancing task than POE's designers have. Of course, D3's designers were far less than successful at balancing the game on launch but given the restricted nature of the system it could've been balanced far better. POE, on the other hand has far more moving parts and possible combinations of components in it's skill system, what with numbers of sockets and links and the many possible combinations of skill and support gems. Now, POE is being far more extensively tested than D3 was so it might still end up being fairly well balanced, but I think the task of balancing POE is fundamentally far more difficult than balancing D3 was (or should have been).

Eh, I don't know about D3's gameplay. It was well executed, very fluid, satisfying abilities and all - but it ended up boring nonetheless.

D3 is actually a very good example of how ARPG Gameplay just isn't made to hold a game together by itself. The meta-gameplay is where the "fun" is. Blizzard focussed everything on a fun, quick, gameplay, and looting. The messed up the looting part by trying to keep an AH community stable, making 99,99% of all loot utter crap. And are people still playing it for the great gameplay? Mostly not.

You can only go so far with ARPG Gameplay. If you want the most engaging gameplay, there are better option (like, say, the Batman Arkham games).

Why the combat is bad...
Some monsters move so fast you simply have to tank them.
Even with a decoy totem that gets killed very fast and is a wasted effort versus tanking the damage.

The monsters are pretty lame, We got snakes monkeys giant rock guys and some other weird stuff, No evil looking demons.

Skills like firestorm are pretty much useless since the mobs move so fast...

LMP/CHAIN is turning out to be horrible since it is creating an imbalance for everything else.

Ideally if you were a witch a fire monsters weakness would
be a water spell if you were fighting a water monster it's weakness would be lightning and so forth...

We kind of have this since monsters have resistances but the tree does not properly take advantage of a good way to use this.

Perhaps rather then the Lightning,Fire,Ice nodes we need flat spell damage nodes and more unique effects for major spell nodes.

But then we still run into a problem since we can only run 3-5 4 linked skills and only 1-2 6 linked skills.(made up numbers didn't feel like figuring out the actual combo.)


Run into a large pack of jungle themed monsters use a spell like firestorm to burn them. Use a stronger spell like fire ball on bosses.


At the bare minimum jungle type monsters should have a high chance to burn,
Water type monsters should be easy to shock,
rock type monsters should be weak to water(not ice we need some water skills.)
and Ice should be weak against Earth(Yeah we need some earth skills too.)

To me the combat is boring because we do not have many situational skills that add depth to the gaming experience. D3's "slow time" skill is a great example, D2's thorns aura is a great example, TQ's aura that degraded the opponents armor is a great example... could go on. Right now the outcome is determined by 1 factor - 90% of the time - which is do you have enough health? that is a major issue and really hampers the amount of fun/interesting builds that could be viable if not for that fact and it is compounded by the lack of situational defensive skills like those I mentioned above.

Desync is certainly an issue but it's a code issue not a "working as intended" issue.

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Wittgenstein a écrit :

To me the combat is boring because we do not have many situational skills that add depth to the gaming experience. D3's "slow time" skill is a great example, D2's thorns aura is a great example, TQ's aura that degraded the opponents armor is a great example... could go on. Right now the outcome is determined by 1 factor - 90% of the time - which is do you have enough health? that is a major issue and really hampers the amount of fun/interesting builds that could be viable if not for that fact and it is compounded by the lack of situational defensive skills like those I mentioned above.

Desync is certainly an issue but it's a code issue not a "working as intended" issue.

Completely agree with situational skills. They keep it interesting and make you react. I will add the active Blinks and Dodges that I always mention in such topics, were also mentioned earlier here by deteego. And monsters should indeed have much more skills. Skills that you have to know, and learn how to counter (just make sure all build can do it in their own way, ffs, no more walls).

The trouble is that desync affects fast movement skills. So it needs to be fixed, before fast teleports/blinks/dodges and stuff are added (to replying people, please don't cling on the word desync, this is a topic about combat).

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GameQB11 a écrit :

i'd like to play an ARPG thats NOT like that. seriously.

so basically what you want is final fantasy 11