First thing that come to mind would be all the Souls series, paticularly Elden Ring.
(Edit: that’s what I would call an ActionRPG, but not an ARPG)
I realise my nomenclature might well be personal.
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The gamer community, really. And the publisher industry.
If you go to Steam and click on an “Action RPG” tag, it will list all of those, along with Elden Ring/souls games, Cyberpunk, etc.
Wiki likewise uses that definition.
Actually, the correct term for separating ARPGs and what we (in this community) consider an ARPG would be “Hack & slash”, or a more specific subdivision of that, which is a diablo-clone.
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That’s kinda what makes it so interesting though. We’re all playing the same games but using different terminology to describe them & sometimes even grouping them in different ways. Full disclosure - I did a physics degree so I view grouping games into genres in a similar way to grouping the various different particles into families (hadrons/bosons/leptons, mesons (2 quark particles), baryons (3 quark particles), etc).
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Fair enough, Steam is a good reference.
I shall stick to my view that the main difference is wether the gameplay focuses more on the action or on the story and characters, but I accept that it is just me standing out.
Agreed.
I never liked the term Hack&Slash for some reason, but I have always considered diablo-like a much better description than ARPGs for games like LE.
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To be fair, I’ve always considered ARPGs and diablo-clones as synonymous. It’s only been (fairly) recently that this same thing came to my attention and mostly because of Steam as well.
But in my mind a true ARPG has always been diablo-clones: diablo games, obviously, PoE, Grind Dawn, TQ, Torchlight, etc. And I realize that makes me sound like a “trve” (for those that don’t know, it’s what we jokingly call a Black Metal fan that only likes the really low-fi high-noise Black Metal of the early 80s and 90s, mostly scandinavian).
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And if you look in-game, you get:
“most ailments deal damage” & “damaging ailment, such as Bleed or Ignite”.
ARPG and action RPG, IARPG, ASiAARPG are all similar but not the same, and last epoch is neither of them, as last epoch is a IS/mmo-AAStN-RPG
ARPG: Regular games RPG. Blanket term (shooters, platformers, racing etc)
Action RPG: made up of Top down arpgs, (not isometric) Tactical arpgs, and hack and slash
IARPG: isometric view: blanket term for both of the above terms.
ASiAARPG: Asian Style, isometric Action, active RPG (mmos, hack and slash). These are confused with ASiARPGs and ASi Action RPGs and ASAARPG and ASiIARPGs
Last epoch; isometric Selfplayed/massively multiplayer online, action active, static numeric (aka numerical complexity not systematic complexity), RPG
Games like diablo and path of exile would also have this designation. The most important part for These games is the AAStN-RPG component.
Why I said this game is NOT a souls like and should not be designed like it. Hence the need for us to make the game entirely based around ability to counter various problems via stats and gear. LE will never be a game with systemic complexity- see my old videos as to why. Short answer game is badly programmed and enemy design would require to rework entire game from scratch.
Solution going forward is to embrace the grimdawn /TQ style of having a ton of different residences. I don’t care if they are ailments Or dot or channeled or some Symantec tag.
Yes, which is exactly the point.
If we talk about DoT damage reduction we only have 3 sources. Ailments can cause DoTs… but removing the source is a completely different topic. Viable to mention to survive but not a mechanical aspect - which was the whole topic, since the suggestion was to add more intricate mechanics for it - to reduce it.
So the original point stands that we have only those 3 sources to reduce it. Which is fine since we have a option for everyone to outright remove - not reduce - a large amount of them.
This is factually wrong. It comes from the times of Diablo 1, which had a grid-based combat but things weren’t turn-based but controlled in real time. This defined the ‘action’ aspect of the genre.
There’s a glossary of video-game terminology on Wikipedia even:
action role-playing game (ARPG)
A genre of role-playing video game where battle actions are performed in real-time instead of a turn-based mechanic.
This is the quote from there even.
No, it would’ve been a TBRPG then instead of ARPG.
For example the ‘CRPG’ term would’ve been a complete term for all role playing games ‘computer role playing game’. This includes both TBRPGs and ARPGs of all kinds. But it was washed away fairly quickly which left the term ‘CRPG’ back to be the terminology for turn-based rather then ‘TB’ which literally stands for that.
If we go further back and cause a bigger distinction we can go into terminologies like TTRPGs, VGRPGs, JRPGs and so on.
We could even argue that a large majority of ‘RPGs’ in games are no RPGs at all since they don’t focus on slipping into a role and shaping that this way, the terminology has changed for gaming to solely include character progression in terms of equipment or levels while the story is fixed and sometimes even without a singular personal character-based action happening.
A few ‘oddities’ happened over the course of time which make no sense, but at least we have a fairly decent glossary available on Wikipedia, not perfect and slightly faulty but generally good:
That’s because they all are ‘ARPGS’. Albeit you can play Dragon Age and Fallout also in turn-based mode, so they’re a hybrid actually.
What discerns diablo-clones is the ‘hack’n’slash’ part as well as the itemization system it has. A prime example of hybridisation of genres is ‘No Rest for the Wicked’ currently with the combination of Souls-likes with Diablo-clones. How would you describe it properly? Souls-like has a specific terminology on how mechanics are handled, meaning slower-paced tactical real-time combat and save-points, meaning every fight is tense. Diablo-clones usually work on killing more and more enemies at once, stuffing ever more stuff into the same place and throwing things at you to overwhelm you (hack’n’slash) while providing RNG-based loot with an affix-system that’s randomly rolled for those drops. But that game has both. Now… how to call it?
Only for diablo-clone players. Outside of that you generally don’t hear the very narrow explanation type of this genre. Usually those other types are another ‘sub-genre’ of ‘ARPG’ and it got adapted by the name. But… with ‘Diablo-clones’ that term has never been adapted, people stuck with ‘ARPG’ without changing anything… and over time they now think that term describes solely this type of genre. Which no… it never has and doesn’t still as it would remove the description for a whole myriad of other games.
Which is why terminology is so important.
They’re also called ARPGs by the community generally?
This is the important part there 
Not quite. It’s not a MMO, we don’t have the ‘massive’-multiplayer aspect. MO at best, and not even that since it’s a SP-game at heart with those features attached on top, not the other way around.
Also it’s a 3D-game, isometric is never 3D to be precise, we just call it that for the perspective, which most don’t know the name of. So it’s not ‘isometric’ but simply positions the camera to copy the ‘isometric look’.
Also the proclaimed difference between ‘ARPG’ and ‘Action RPG’ doesn’t hold up. The camer-position is a specific term for the most-used camera angle. The differentiation via camera angle hence isn’t a thing which is done in this way, those terms are the same.
Also ‘asian style’ is not ‘AS’ but has ‘only’ 2 styles represented, the first is japanese-style 'J’RPG and Korean-style, hence 'K’RPG. This is a style-descriptor for graphics design and lore-directions, Korean games are usually using aspects of ‘cultivation’ lore, which is derived from the old-school chinese-style medicine and the belief one can in an extreme become immortal through ‘going against the heavens’. While Japanese style games generally relate to either their own cultural aspects with yokais, the honor-based samurai-related things or aspects of mythological aspects on how the world is shaped. This also goes towards the graphical style often.
Please don’t.
I dismantled one of those once and a big part of what you talked about was utter bogus. Some aspects were fairly clear and understandable but overall it was fairly badly designed and going in circles.
Also if you take Grim Dawn… Grim Dawn also lacks the proclaimed ‘systemic complexity’ you’re talking about. It’s just a more polished game then LE is by far in terms of game mechanics. But the core aspects you mentioned back then aren’t in that game either, like reactional behavior of enemies.
Also, large reactional or even proactive behavior of enemies is what leads to more tactics, the extreme of that is a souls-like game. A further extreme of that would be the mirror-fight in Zelda 2 back in the times which took the mechanic vastly too far.
Hence:
Vast rework not playing into the strengths of Last Epoch. They would be fairly nonsensical in the current state, could be done when going forward. The game has other far more important aspects which need work… but that? That’s decently well handled actually.
What the game needs a lot more is more reactive boss-behavior based on range. A good example is the ‘Kitava’ fight in PoE. Get close and you have different mechanics then when you try to stand at a distance, which enforces positioning and forethought which can kill a character in a fight. LE’s bosses are ‘fixed’ completely though, they simply cycle through their skills willy-nilly without rhyme or reason.
Let’s agree to disagree.
Isometric is not referring to 3D it just means the camera shows 3/4th of a model, difference between top down (90*) where you only see one side. 3D or not is irrelevant
Action RPG has little to do with camera. It has to do with combat system. In ARPGs the gameplay is none specified as its a blanket term. Action RPG means your pressing buttons, something happens, you push button. Active system means your reacting as if to a player. None active means turn based. MMOs with tab target are action none-active
Asian means the combat is a mixture of real life and turn based as it was popularized by final fantasy, or it means gacha game, Or overly animated movement (anime).
On the topic of disproving what I said about LE lacking systematic complexity. Nothing to disprove. LE has no systematic complexity beyond the form and element changes of your hits. Why it feels good to level and bad at end game. The illusions of choice do nothing for how you deal with enemies, how you position or how you gear. All builds work same way. Scale a tag, reduce resistance on enemy, reduce damage taken. These are all NUMBERS. Systematic complexity is largely for games with bullet time mechanics
Gonna compare TQ (did it right), with grimdawn (still has some of it, much less so but still more then LE)
TQ enemies will try to avoid being hit, satyres and from my enemy tigers and some humanoids used to try to run to side occasionally if you shot then with a staff or bow (immortal throne Disk version anyway). Enemies try to run away at low hp. Enemies can’t use potions from my memory. Blue cat girls will throw a trap and try to run away and shoot at you. It ain’t much but it’s still there. A lot of TQ complexity also comes from rag dolls. Sending 10 enemies Seperated from their limbs is fun.
In grimdawn enemies don’t try to run away or avoid you in any way your correct. Grimdawn does systemic complexity in a different way, which involves rag dolls and how physics and different abilities react, which is a different component I mentioned in my video: you want both. TQ had a bit of complexity with how spells and abilities reacted together but it was minimal, that is what grimdawn built on.
Eg: prock builds (solder, grenadier, night-blade) these builds are all about using martial weapons to prock large explosions or waves around player that rag doll enemies and apply large amounts of various dots. Gear is used specifically to allow a A -B -C - D. These are systematic builds as they are about locking down enemies by using various mechanics. These can be anything from skeletons builds to full out pet builds.
These are the main ones I can think of from the top of my head. But to say none in it would be untrue. Grimdawn leans a lot more towards numerical then it’s precursor. LE has none. Fear is usually caped to 1 per enemy, stun just locks them in place with no unique feedback, freeze and shock are just reductions in movement speed. None of these actually change how enemies play or behave. Why pet AI is so bad in this game. They just run to enemy in a line (same problem in TQ, grimdawn, LE). We not seen a arpg with 100% systemic complexity.
On the topic of boss reactivity I agree. It feels really bad. Once I did it twice I got bored. Maybe if bosses had better tells or sound ques it would annoy me less how random they often are. Ideally I would prefer bosses that felt alive
I think this is an IdfcwSG-pIso-ActionARPG-wOF’n’fOLm.
Really, this sub-genrefication while arguing that therefore the game can’t do something different is rather funny, because if games would not shake up the formula of their genres, there would be no sub-genres.
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That’s factually incorrect.
Isometric was initially invented to depict 3D objects through a 2D drawing, that’s the distinct description what ‘isometric’ is. It’s not only a very important aspect in video games but also in any aspect of design, be it architecture, interior design, technical drawing or whatever else you want to name, it’s a greek invention which brought science forward by a massive amount.
The measly 50 years of video game history don’t hold a candle to that. Terminology is very… very important, especially for something like that.
Camera position is literally a main descriptor of games, even nowadays. FPS (First-person-shooter) for example. Third person shooter, isometric-style ARPG (which means it’s depicted after the isometric view, not that it is).
Hence if ARPG has nothing to do with isometric then it doesn’t need that description inside of it, you went along to implement it though which means it had just that much weight behind it… and to be fair, the majority of diablo-clones are distinct isometric-style games.
Action RPG description… wrong. That’s not even remotely the description. From there it goes on.
Please please work on the terminology, nobody understands what you’re talking about unless reading several posts from you and cobbling together the meaning. Also you’re stifling yourself as you can’t find related issues surrounding that topic and having already been talked about tens if not hundreds of times. You’re basically trying to invent the wheel from the ground up again… and while doing a fantastic job with it that still obviously puts you below the skill-level of someone with knowledge in the topic hence, you’re making it hard for yourself.
No, also wrong, utterly and entirely so. It’s ridiculously wrong even.
The first JRPGs were similar to modern RPG-Maker games, utterly turn-based combat. Those designed the first ‘asian’ RPGs.
A JRPG (which is a Asian RPG of one direction) is nowdays depicted by having a pre-determined story which several characters while you yourself control a full party and the emphasis is on narrative and storytelling.
Here, for a complete history of it.
Dunno, what’s the end-game for you? I thought the monolith was quite the enjoyable game-play in my book. Lacking mechanical depth still but a good start. The dev-focus for the end-game has been a bit lackluster but it works at least, better then many other games of the genre managed.
Bosses? The newer the boss the more refined they are, dungeon bosses are mechanically on a rather decent level. The older bosses are rather lackluster with some clearly seen mistakes and issues.
Your usage of the term is also rather… problematic.
Systematic complexity is how many aspects flow into a singular system to enhance the depth of said system.
Some ways cause that scale to raise more then others. What you’re describing is the pure numerical aspect and not the functional one.
The functional aspect of it is for example using black hole to pile several enemies together to then use another skill to finish them off since they’re now in reach.
I know what you’re going for… and yes, the game needs more mechanical synergies rather then numerical synergies, I agree with you there. It would be a good direction. It works without as well, proven by Path of Exile since they have very little of that in PoE 1, realized that and now they’re improving that aspect in PoE 2 as we can see on the design-focus.
And yes, Grim Dawn is also definitely better with that. The usefulness of synergistic complexity of such a manner though is inverse to the amount of enemies on the screen, the more enemies you have the less ‘active’ they’re allowed to be to uphold the inherent time needed to setup those, hence why more direct ways in diablo-clones often are preferred by players. They’re - for obvious reasons - mechanically superior as there’s less points of ‘fault’ possible to mess up stuff so everything goes down the drain.
Yes, absolutely agreed! Reduce the amount of enemies by 50-70% in LE and you can have the same.
But since it’s a screen-clear hack’n’slash that thing can’t happen, it would make the game nigh impossible to play.
Titan Quest had for a major reason nigh no enemy density after all.
Yes, and here I fully agree with you. Abilities causing knockdown or knockback (hence variety in CC skills) are a very enjoyable and sadly missing game mechanic in LE. It would be very good to have those implemented in a sensible way.
That’s called ‘skill chains’ and has come especially into the limelight with MMOs like World of Warcraft. A sort of ‘piano playstyle’ as some people call it. Which is a high personal investment play-style, a very rewarding one and one which should be available and rewarded to do so above simplistic one-button play-styles. Agreed.
Which doesn’t reduce the need for those more simplistic play-styles, quite the contrary. Having both is what makes a diablo-clone shine. At one day you wanna push… at another you just wanna sit down after a hard day of work and mindlessly explode enemies. If you focus only on one direction the other gets left behind and it reduces the overall time many people will enjoy the game as the mood for variety is there for a large portion of the people.
Agreed, labelling is important for the consumer though, which is why miss-labelling is causing issues.
But yes, bending or even breaking the limits of any genre is what a good dev should generally try to do when they try to be creative.
Here we can also discern between studios which focus on innovation and studios which focus on polishing.
For example… Stardew Valley is the same concept as Harvest Moon, nigh 1 to 1, not many actual ‘new’ things there. What it does ridiculously well though is polishing the existing concept to a ridiculously high level.
In comparison Terraria took a mish-mash of several genres, threw them together and they got so extremely creative with that that the end-result is something utterly unique and amazing.
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Yeah, I hear that a lot from the publisher I’m working for.
It just starts to annoy me if people use them with ever more complicated sub-classifications. It’s a tool for a publisher to tell the customer what to expect. Up to a point, there is some reason for it, I agree, but there is a thin red line where it becomes a farce.
Especially if said customers try to coin it much more complicated/narrow minded than the devs or publishers.
True, but it’s also a way for people to explain a product to other people.
I’m for example an avid fan of rogue-likes, the dungeon-crawling, the perma-death, every action matters.
So from a personal experience I got for example ‘FTL’ recommended by friends, saying it’s something very interesting for me since I’m well… a avid fan of the genre! So, trusting them I buy it and it turns out that it has literally ‘jack-shit’ to do with being a rogue-like. Sure, the game is nice… but as far away from the ‘core aspects’ which made the whole genre as one can imagine.
Now… imagine only 20% of the people which you simply describe a ‘customers’ miss-labelling those products because the whole gaming-segment can’t get their shit together with properly describing their product in favor of luring in more people by simple eye-candy… before long you got only chaos, nobody knows what means what and nobody can explain properly what sort of game anything is.
As we currently see here! What’s this? A ARPG? So like Dark Souls? No? Umhh… then like Terraria? Also no? Is it like Monster Hunter then? Not either? Huh? What is it actually? Has anyone a clue anymore?
Hybridization of genres is nice, it’s great, it creates new sub-genres, named specifically after the first game which went ‘off’. Metroidvania, diablo-clone, Souls-like, rogue-like… we need more of those descriptions for genres instead of the ‘generic’ ones which say basically nothing to the customer.
A label only has value as long at it has meaning, hence terminology is important, words have meaning. Pervert the meaning far enough until nobody knows it anymore and it looses any meaning… at which point… why use it?
If a label is very narrow on the other hand then someone can immediately work with that. ‘Hey, I heard a new Metroidvania is coming out!’ and everyone which has ever played one of those and has a modicum of interest in them knows the second the term is said what it means and will know ‘as long as the mechanics are good I’ll enjoy it with nigh guarantee’. Tell someone the same with a ‘rogue-like’ nowadays after it has been perverted to mean nothing and it’s a grasp into the dark.
Which with the things said above is exactly why you should be extremely happy if your customers are even more narrow-minded then the publisher or devs.
Positioning is one of the most important aspects in any industry which you can have. If you know your target audience you can create the game in mind to work with nearly a guarantee for it. Polish it and improve on the things people want to see… or be creative and give it a new twist and people will eat your product up no matter the graphics… just because it’s simply ‘good’ and you’ve gotten the right people dragged towards you. Your product can be fantastic as it can be, unless the right people find it it’ll stay as a ‘hidden gem’ and never become a hit.
Imagine it simply… if you’re a gamer searching for a new game and you… for example… see a game stating ‘We’re a mixture between Factorio and Minecraft, focusing on complex factory design with intricate logistics while providing a vast variety of decorative building elements you can adjust to your liking’… what will people do? They’ll go ahead and scream ‘shut up and take my money!’ if they like both genres and always wanted them combined in some way without becoming a 1 FPS disaster like Minecraft mods leaning in the direction or having ugly-as-ass factories like all the other ones provide, showcasing the complexity rather then allowing you to style them to your enjoyment.
Now try the same with a ARPG of some type… you first have to make clear ‘what type’ of ARPG you’re even, your positioning becomes 100 times harder already… nobody finds your product, nobody knows if it’ll be the right thing to buy into, being even disappointed when your game is fantastic simply because their initial choice to buy it wasn’t clear as the description of it itself stands in the way before the polished mechanics inside could even start to shine.
So yeah, no matter the area… miss-labelling is at best a waste and at worst destructive.
Oh, that’s what he meant, I thought he was referring to death animations.
That is not entirely true though. It is true for the vast majority, especially older bosses but some of the newer Bosses like Julra and Shade of Orobyss have conditional skill rotations.
Shade only uses certain abilities when you are far away.
Julra uses the Void Projectile Telegraph only when you used a melee ability recently.
I think there are 1 or 2 more examples I forgot right now.
But I agree that we should see more of that, hopefully with 1.1 in some of the new boss fights.
In the Last Epoch in-game Game Guide, when you press ‘G’ there is the following statement in the “Damage Over Time” section: " Damage over time cannot be mitigated by most defense mechanics, except for resistances"
This feature is already in the game OP…
That’s kinda the problem that the OP feels exists. That DoTs have fewer ways to mitigate their damage than hits (which is true), though he’s apparently decided to ignore the ability to cleanse all ailments (damaging & non) for reasons that I can only assume to be that he wants to out gear them rather than out “play” them. His proposed solution would be to massively increase the pressure on defensive affixes (because he’d want an additional resist per DoT), this would only be possible if there were an additional 2-4 suffix slots on each piece of gear.
There’s also Endurance that affects DoTs, though that’s less available to all classes, plus generic less damage taken effects (even more build or class-specific than Endurance) as well as ward, leech & any other form of sustain.
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I see … Seems like he should put 1 cleanse in his build, like everyone else …
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Resist currently works in a way where your resisting does not actually resist anything. At 75% resist i am taking 0 bonus damage. When enemies damage scales absurdly a 60% dmg from endurance reduction means nothing when my enemies can scale into the hundreds of %damage. So each stack of dot no longer does the measly damage. Add to that enemies can apply damned and marked for death (-20% resist ). Means your gettjng torn to shreds.
By adding a defensive layer that both reduced amount of stacks taken and reduced said damage further, the added resist layers would mitigate the absurd scaling enemies get. Result would as such be more fair. Spoiler: being forced to take ward aint a solution.
Resistances are still worth it.
With 3 to 4 defensive mechanics that can mitigate DoTs, I would not add another set of stats.
Again:
- resistances per damage type
- % of armour mitigation applies to dots
- reduced damage over time taken
- cleanse
Those who want to use what is available have quite some tools to make DoTs much less painful.
Strengthening the other options would be better at this point. I mean, your idea is not the worst I have read. It’s just redundant.