Bring Monster Infrequents from Titan Quest - only Homeless type of monster could drop Syringe off-hand with rarest version of it being HIV+ Syringe etc.
@@ZombgetsuMinecraft Dungeons was fun, until they locked most of the endgame content behind DLC. Which in itself, is fine, developers need to eat after all. But the problem arises when the game becomes *too* short. I am aware that the games' main strength lays in its' replayability. You're supposed to replay the levels at higher difficulties and get better gear over time. Here's the problem. You can beat the whole game without DLC Content, in under 4 hours. And with replaying it on every difficulty, you see around 12-16 hours of playtime. That's not a lot for a $20 game. If you get the DLCs, the game becomes a $40 game, and only adding two to three hours more to the gameplay. It's a great game held back by how horrendously short it is.
@@phantamanta4453tf you are talking about? The game is fun and has a lot of grindy content, gear, missions, activities, etc as an arpg. Game it's more fun than fking lame and overrated Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls.
@@RobertoSandoval-w1i a lot to grind? I've beaten the game in 6 hours and I 100% the game in 38 hours (including DLCs), that is painfully short for what the game is. Since you're putting in Diablo 3, Diablo 3 is 20 hours of playtime, and to 100% it, it can take up to 150 hours. The time it takes to beat Diablo 3, you already 100%'ed Minecraft Dungeons. I never argued that the game is bad, but that it's held back by how short it is, and there's barely replay value. If you check the user score from many sources (Not IGN, they suck), most of the user score is 4-5/10, with the exact reason, game is too short for what it is.
I really like the idea of a modern setting with wacky items and enemies It's the main reason I love the Mother series so much. Putting that into an aRPG sounds pretty fun
Your right, every RPG just tries to be diablo with its theming (grim dawn, torchlight, path of exile, titans quest broke the mold a little bit) Most ARPGs go for the gothic medieval themes but a more modern and comedic theme would be nice
Yeah, that's one of my primary influences actually! I always thought that the mother games were so well received because of their setting, and I wondered why more people don't try and do that kind of thing. It's even strange, because we've had other genres go back in time to where they don't make great sense, like fps's in medieval times etc., so why not a little modernity?
I'd like an Arpg setting similar to those popular Korean, Japanese and Chinese comics.. Modern day with Dungeons or Towers etc spawning throughout the planet with their own themes, rewards and difficulty.
Playing Diablo 2 for the first time ever, just beat Diablo on normal today. It was a blast, impossibly designed with both great, difficult mechanics, and a lore based evil character built up as the ultimate enemy. Now I'm onto ACT 5 and saw Baal pop a guy, and I'm stoked for whats to come. All the things you mentioned in this video, great points. I think the best thing you have though is atmosphere. Not heavy drawn out Story that you have to sit and listen to, just Atmosphere and background.
The thing about build defining items is that if you don't have them, then you limit how dynamic your character can be outside of the skill tree. Items that change the behavior of older sometimes stale moves are some of the mist exciting things to find in these games.
I want to play this game, you goddamn tease. Stupid modern arpg class idea: Karen, fights by throwing an infinite supply of purse chihuahuas and can later summon her kids from soccer practice and can run people over with her endgame SUV mount
Bro Darkstone was the shit back in the day, I remember playing that badboy back in the day and finding out how to dupe items after hours of grinding out legit and trying to beat the game with my undeveloped brain. Absolute banger, so glad someone finally brought it up during a ARPG video.
I definitely loved that game. I have even replayed it somewhat recently on my Steam Deck. Sure, it's graphics are dated, but it hits the nostalgia buttons well.
Yes! Seer my boi, my birthday was 2 days ago and Im gonna go ahead and consider this my present. Thank you very much for exactly what I wanted. I wish this could have been a two hour video but I'm still here for it 😂
From a like a long long years 30 year grown boy who like to play Diablo 2 for a like last 20 years i wish to say thank you for the work you put in this series.I enjoy em alot.
Great point about making different items actually DO different things. I’d love to also have every item (including armor) LOOK very different. It’s always an interesting conundrum to have to choose between fashion and functionality.
Hard disagree here. Transmog as a concept, splitting looks from stats on gear is absolutely superior to the alternative. Should there be tons of different looking stuff? Absolutely! But if it becomes 'look good or play well' the latter always wins.
I agree with pretty much everything you said here. In terms of character development I (naively) hoped that D4 would “go back to D1 and D2” in terms of character instead of mood. I think that blending the two could create the perfect system. Certain classes have special skills BUT there are skills that any class can use if they meet the stat requirements. And also bring back stat boosts at lvl up, you fucks! Also props on the Bayou Billy shoutout. I have friends who did not believe me when I told them about that game.
Great vid as always big man. Sounds to me like you'd want to make an item system where the base stats of items stay the same throughout and what really changes is the enchantments and skill mods on the item. This way you'll always know that your lawnmowers are great at AoE and don't accidentally craft an endgame lawnmower of world annihilation that sucks at AoE. Or have your plate mail be worse at defense than your cloth. Makes balancing easier and this way you know the growth of each class and how their stats will scale with items. On my side, I hope you'll consider skills that grow as you level them up. I've always loved stuff like how your Magic Missiles in vanilla WoW gained more missiles with talents or how as your character got better in a certain field, certain spells became near instant cast. Really hammers home your character growing as a "gardener" when he can accurately tell weeds and parasites without looking at a manual. Watching your magic missiles upgrade from the soap bar you throw at your mates after you're done in swim class into a AIM--9X your enemies wish they could dodge is always a treat. Anyway hope I'll get to see your game someday. Keep on trucking.
Very good writeup, you definitely contextualized my ramblings cohesively! And your thoughts about skills is great actually, I'd love to have the skill actually get better and more robust as you play, that could be really fun. Size and scale of attack is something that would be cool to play around with developing. I primarily just never want something like Diablo 2 where they have like 'double swing' and then 'frenzy'. I always found it so weird when you had basically the 'same attack, but better' design. I get you're supposed to progress into the better version, but I'd just have each base skill be valid and then progress that one into something better, much like you suggested.
@@seer6251 Yeah it gets tricky, especially when you have standard warrior classes that basically can Swing - Swing harder - Swing wider - Swing with an earthquake and those are 50% of their skills. I feel like there's a potential to look into other game's systems and just take that for certain classes. In a warrior case I'd say having a system like Guild Wars 2, where your skills are dependent on the weapons could be a viable. This way the "Warrior" could be the class that most benefits from gear enhancements. Since "dude that swings" is going to do just that, might as well limit the skillset and have him "swing with magical sword that summons 5 headed Pitbull hydra that catches on fire thanks to his magical trousers". The important is keeping the base idea fun and expanding on that. You mention D3 and for as much shit as that game gets going on a rampage feels crunchy and satisfying. Barbarian in that game is as dry as it can be but when you're lvl 1 and your half naked dude backhands the zombie so hard his skin sashimied so far away from this skeleton you know the class will keep you entertained for a while even if it is just "punching a zombie so hard he slams into two barrels and a bench so hard that the camera shook". Maybe it's a question of sitting down and just thinking "what's a "Heroic strike" supposed to be?" and going from there until it's absolutely ridiculous. Just remember that Mario 64 feels so great to play because they wanted to make the one thing the player is meant to do the most, traversing and parkouring, as fun as possible before making the levels (and boy it shows).
Victor Vran had an interesting take on the weapon variety issue. It's a Diablolike from 2015 and basically every weapon type had three unique attacks(one basic attack you could spam and two special attacks with cooldowns). After playing it I thought something like it would be interesting to see in a more traditional arpg(with class skills synergizing with the weapon skills etc.). You should check it out sometime.
I think in terms of weapon variety arpg devs could learn a lot from fromsofts games. Every weapon in those games function entirely differently and leveling your character to complement a playstyle you like is super important.
Hearing this list is like a reinforcement of why I don't like Diablo 4. You bring up a good point that some people just wanted like 70 hours out of the game and I can see how it would be good from their standpoint. Diablo 4 is like a sugary snack when D2, PoE, and so many other ARPGs are like a full course meal. I'm still lost in the sauce of D2R, making my first enigma in singleplayer
I feel like random bosses should scale to a precentage of character lvl/power so even when you outscale the content or want to go back to farm those big guys cant be ignored. Along the lines of "man that was easy but still a threat if i really wasnt paying attention." Like a one shot big wind up dodge would still hit you for a good chunk have some kind of meaty kerthwunk to it. Edit: if the old content doesnt scale having a "hard mode" for bosses could be fun. Especially if you really like the content and want to redo it at a higher power without it being trivial
I've always thought it'd be fun to make a Star Fox-like ARPG. Like you fly around through space shooting up hordes of enemy ships, scooping up the dropped loot and outfitting your ship with it. Shmups have always had great screen-clearing weapon design, and getting your build to that power level could be really fun. EVE Online had a lot of great ship fitting mechanics too, I'd just steal all those ideas and apply them to a fast pace fighter pilot/shooter type game.
Really enjoyed this, and I hope maybe one day we can get something that has most of what you want in one incredible game. Great editing, by the way, this video must have been a hell of a lot of work.
except when he says he doesn't give a fuck about the story. Diablo 2 story was 90% of my enjoyement. game difficulty was indeed the spice. but being good at the game with a shit character was only motivated by the sheer fact that i wanted to progress into the story. in the early 2000 and 90s we played RPGs. He fucking forgot that. role play you dumb fuck youtuber... And if diablo 4 is bad it s mainly because the voice actors have giant dicks in their mouths and the story writters have dicks in their skulls. you wanna make a game with enternaning gameplay and no story ? it fits more d4 than d2... i am very disapointd with this video. it made no sense.
The itemization, skill and attribute control of D2, the endgame maps similar to Poe with the the ultra endgame being Grifts that doesn’t reward you with items, but bragging rights. You farm to prove that your build/skill is better than everyone else’s and you prove it. Solo, duo, and up to 4-8 player teams. The slick combat visuals of D3 but slowed down a bit. The endgame maps/dungeons have their own unique challenges that force you to tweak your build if you wanna complete it, or build a toon with that goal in mind. Those maps/dungeons have a list of possible rewards that can be alternated within the loot table, but specific for those maps, so you can target farm. All this farming is for the ultimate challenge, to prove you’re build is best for the Grift that shows the top however many players.
one of the first games I ever played as a kid was Secret of Evermore on SNES which I fell in love with because unlike Final Fantasy I could walk around during combat. Also had a unique alchemy system for spells.
That's a based reference haha, I love discussing things like Secret of Evermore in 2023. Although I always was more fond of Secret of Mana personally, but more or less very similar games.
Amazing point about weapon variety. I like dark souls / elden ring where the movesets are different and the poise damage is different. I’d love to see that in an arpg
Very good points, I am adding a sandbox for item spawning so forth for our game Hero Siege's local game mode thanks to this video :) Lets make gaming fun again!
I know its not an ARPG in the sense that Diablo is an ARPG, but I just felt like sharing that Elden Ring and Dark Souls have scratched the itch I've had for years (which was only intensified even more after putting hundreds of hours into D4 but still left wanting) for a genuinely challenging action RPG that forced me to reassses my build/strategies multiple times throughout the game while offering incredibly satisfying progression, all centered around an incredibly satisfying combat system. I dont know what took me so long to give these games a proper try, but im so glad i did because its given me the most fun video game experiences I've had since I played pokemon silver on the GBA when i was like 5, or when I first tried Fallout 3 a couple years after it came out. I genuinely thought I was done having such experiences with games because of getting older or whatever, but Elden Ring/DS gave me that indescribable feeling of having no idea what is going on, bumbling across an interesting world, slowly figuring everything out, and having a blast every single second of it.
I think the saddest thing is that your video highlights a whole bunch of important things to take note of as an ARPG dev, but the odds of any of those devs seeing and implementing any of it are depressingly low.
even if they were to see this video it wouldnt matter, it costs too much money to properly fix all the shit wrong with their games. code debt/spaghetti code makes it even more impossible-er. and because of high turnover in the games industry all that shit is multiplied exponentially not to be a doomer but a new ARPG that is actually good wont happen
@@spookzer16yeah saying no new ARPG will be good is kind of crazy. The genre is actually popping off right now besides Last Epoch POE 2 is coming as well as several others with potential. You’ve probably never heard of Dragonkin cause nobody is talking about it that’s another one that’ll be a banger for sure.
Honestly from one non game designer to another this is pretty cool. As someone who actually enjoyed the final fantasy 2 approach to making a base spell powerful by use instead of earning new powerful versions of the same spell this shit sounds awesome
5:19 a game that does the whole "different weapons work differently" is Victor Vran, a VanHelsing-esque ARPG, you should check it out if you never tried it
Regarding items being used by all classes I think you would still need some type of debuff for wearing stuff not meant for your class, otherwise balancing gear is going to be even more of a clusterfuck. But it would also introduce another layer of fun complexity, yeah you can't just straight out use the 'warrior-immune-to-physical-damage' as sorcerer as the penality for it is to high but by picking nodes/gear x, y and z alongside it you still get a really great piece of gear for yourself.
You've almost described "exiled kingdom"... it's a mobile/steam arpg (not that gotcha crap, it's a full fat game developed by a single developer) with character dialog, open world, functional map, cities and towns, mild politics per town, hireable followers with different skills and stats, character progression, random events and side quests, loot and character customization... huge free trial with a full purchase price of like 3 bucks usd... this game felt like a passion project and I don't regret my decision to give it a go... I bought the full game and keep it on my phone for when I need to kill some time. Great game in an unlikely place
You touched on this, but I think it's worth elaborating on. Every game can be solved, every game will have a meta. A lot of (particularly modern) games know this and cut out the part where players get to solve it by funnelling players into a single path. And yes, while that does solve the issue of players having to undo bad decision-making, it takes such a huge chunk of fun gameplay from those players. Props for recognizing this. Allow me to make mistakes, allow me to make discoveries, allow me to learn and grow and optimize. If your game has any decent amount of mechanical depth, it's going to take thousands of hours for players to solve it. By then, you'll have patches or DLC that shake things up and cause players to rethink everything anyway.
Dream ARPG - Class Skills, tied to Class (Duh) and character level. Classic skill tree design. - Weapon Skills, tied to weapon mastery. Mastery increases as long you equipped it (ala skill gems in PoE) - Active Skills (aka loadout) , choose 4 from class skills. Primary and secondary skills is determined by equipped weapon. - skill type. Spell skill scale with attributes/player level. Attack skill scale with weapon damange
the most important part is itemization hands down. Actually enjoying hunting for items, reasons to farm different spots, actually making plans for your build and working towards it. Reason Diablo 2 is the best for items is there is reason to hunt for everything, different recipes need potions, runes, gems, white items, socketed items, ethereal items. So when you want to make something you know where to farm to get it
I'm quite new myself to the genre, only really dabbled in Path of Exile over the years and never really getting past act 4 as I just couldn't understand and refused to follow a build guide. Just wanted to play my own character. I found your video on Grim Dawn and from there I've finished Torchlight 2, Titan Quest, Grim Dawn, Path of Exile, Diablo 3, Diablo 4, and almost through Diablo 2. I'd always tell people I just wanted a game where I could make what I wanted from the ground up and really feel my character power increase as the game went on, but didn't click with me that this is the genre for it. I'm absolutely stoked for Titan Quest 2, Path of Exile 2 (I really hope I won't get burnt out from the technical side like I did from 1), and the updates coming to Grim Dawn. Thank you for doing these videos, you're easily the person I'm most excited to see new video notifications from!
I love to kick around the same ideas in my head. How would I do it stuff. Nice to see someone elses thoughts. Sounds like theres a good game in your head dude.
At the risk of eating crap for this reference lol…Marvel Ultimate Alliance had a unique take on character progression. You can change whenever you want so you’re not locked in…but each time you do you’re abandoning upgrade points you used to start fresh. The more you play a character the more you unlock their upgrades, but you also unlock new character choices.
Diablo 2 Items/Balance/Simplicity/Lobbies/Game Creation/Community Diablo 3 Style/Leaderboards/Loot Goblins/Cosmetics Diablo 4 Art/Feel/Open World Design/World Bosses Add in a Neutral Auction House or I always loved how Everyquest did it. You go /vendor and your character becomes an NPC and people can use the AH to search for the times. They get a pin on their map to where you are and they have to come visit you where you are at.
6:28 "Some people think [a modding environment is] a bad thing for your product, but I don't understand why..." I cannot fathom how anybody could think that, yeah. Like, of all the big names in gaming right now, the ones that last the longest are the ones with mod support. Doom 2 still has a huge community despite being almost as old as I am, Minecraft continues to have lasting power with tons of user-generated content, and every Call of Duty ever has lasted maybe two years before people start calling it ded gaem (except Blops3, solely because of Zombies). User-generated content is the goose that lays the golden eggs, why would you think that it's a _bad thing?_
I definitely agree with changing up the setting, even if I don't personally like the one you proposed, always having dark medieval fantasy in arpgs is getting a bit tiresome and they start to mesh together. I also agree with changing up the classes archetypes, like why is it always a summoner with skeletons/zombies, turrets, elementals or animals, why not get more creative with it, give me a fucking ancient pharaoh that summons sand soldiers and mythical Egyptian creatures, give me an alien overlord that summons an alien fleet and UFOs, idk there's so much you can do with only the summoner archetype. And with the items is exactly what I personally look for in these type of games, I want to chase for items that change my skills into cool stuff, not % or + to them and that's it. Actually maybe I was being really naive but that's what I was expecting from D4, specially since D3 kinda has some of that stuff with legendaries, it ended up being a bunch of items that give +3% crit chance if you attack a spider from the back but only on tuesdays. I really liked this video, it really helped to understand your reasoning in the other arpg videos, you were sucking on D2 too much for my liking in other videos but watching this it tells me you don't just want another Diablo 2, you want the genre to evolve and progress, not to get stuck in so many of this old ass problems and boring stuff that for some reason we still get in new games, almost like nobody is learning from these errors. Thank you for the video, good sir Seer.
The perfect ARPG sounds so hard to make! 😂 Even the idea of the skills being super "ballsack" to begin but then scale clear screens seems to be super rare among ARPGs. Most either have slow/bad skills at the start, but then even in endgame the "speed" of the game and clearing isn't screens. Then the flip side exists where the skills are strong at the start and you find yourself clearing screens really early on.
I just want arpgs to stop with the "scrolls of identity", that system only works when identity scrolls are somewhat rare, and when items can be cursed like in traditional roguelikes. otherwise its annoying to carry a bunch of scrolls to see if an item is worth anything. the only point is to delay. oh I ran out of scrolls, let me stop everything, throw up a portal, buy some more, oh cool the item is shit...
If we're looking at it as something that can improve over time (as in extended dev support, etc) i would like to see patching bring up the worst classes instead of the usual nerfing the best classes. When i played MH World that was kind of their philosophy for balancing and i think that's something that's completely reasonable in a pve game, and makes it more fun for everybody.
If ARPG actually had good gameplay, it'd be another genre. btw I think you and Chris Wilson would get along really well. POE2 sounds like something that you'd make if you actually own a studio.
sorry for the long rant, but this is something I've been thinking about for a long time :D My approach would be going back to the roots, but also incorporate the new action roleplaying concepts that are present in the new wave of roguelikes. Take Hades for example, you get some more primitive actions compared to the hit monster with key or cast spell with other key. Rolling is added to Diablo IV for this reason, but feels a bit gimmicky and unimportant after some point. And also build the game more into a full RPG for more stuff to do that amplifies the action side of the experience. Since most games have difficulty progressions either, and have no ideas about how to make it a richer experience, other than more loot and multiplicative strength for monsters, I have another idea: Diablo I used to have skill *tomes*, and stat *potions*. So any stat, spell, technique, recipe, or roleplaying skill could be picked up and used with certain class-based thresholds, if a character could make use of them. We could also bring true RPG elements like interactive abilities, which would make up for your interactions with the world. Strength would be required to bust down doors, Agility would be required to traverse places hard to cross, Instinct (I prefer this instead of Intelligence, because some dumb character could also have strong magic affinity) to have better awareness overall of nature and magic, Vitality for skillchecks against deadly traps and exhaustion, and so on. You'd gain points in these areas (diminishing returns depending on level) for *using* them in combat or interactions. Skill points would be placed in roleplaying abilities plus a limited pool of character specific combat or roleplaying abilities. Each class would have certain "trademarked" crafting paths - Barbarians would be good at blacksmithing, Druids would be good at punching sockets into items and crafting runes for such sockets, Sorcerers would be able to study hidden properties in items to reveal affixes, and so on. Each one of such crafting paths would also be available by NPCs for decent (or even better in varying types, depending on your world progression and paths) outcomes. Getting loot with insane stats right away would be impossible, making the Diablo 2-style bucket list moot. Create an in-game marketplace with trade listings so that people can immediately get in on the stuff other people have crafted for them. One catch is that such marketplaces are locked into your faction or their availability depends on your reputation/karma. Rotating these items among players would bring out perfected qualities in items without grinding for loot, and match player levels in quality as the crafting skill matches the player's level. The overall game would be in an "open" world (Diablo IV's idea about this isn't actually bad, if the map had stuff in it in the first place) - where different places have different kinds of loot and resources, and every faction has varying activities in each area. Dungeon crawling would require a set of RPG abilities, and take some time to accomplish, without checkpoints, and mobs of increasing strength. Some of these areas may then be transformed (if the player desires) to another variant which may be a peaceful resource farm, a new town, a new dungeon, or simply be exhausted to improve something else in another place. The path you take in each game session has to be unique, like Fallout. You can't get friendly with all factions, some outcomes are mutually exclusive. It should also have a great impact on your character's build. What stats, perks, skills are good for you? some factions or mobs may require X perk for their dungeon navigation, that works well with Y stat - but their resistances and immunities may force you to go for Z skills that work well with the A stat and B build, etc. Some characters may end up having a better time not fighting all the time (in Diablo 2, if you are broke that you can't get an Infinity, you need to target specific mobs to kill, think of that), and use their perks to navigate through areas to access rewards faster. In the endgame, you'd get a specific karma/affiliation score which affects the layout of the final dungeon. The final dungeon would always be fully accessible for any character, and also be available to explore from the beginning of the game. Once you get in, you'd only be able to get out earlier on, and be permanently stuck afterwards in a hardcore setting. You'd then lose certain attributes from your stats, perks, items, etc. along the way to gain certain permanent new game+ rewards (if you die, previous rewards are kept), fully randomized like Diablo I shrines. Your exit from that place or respawn chances also would depend on such a shrine. Challenges and rewards would intensify as you stay longer. The reputation system would use a checkpoint system that changes the cap for each faction, and follow Fallout-like world quest progression to be completed. These quests would require some reputation to receive, and be mutually exclusive with others. After completion, you'd unlock and/or lose new tiers of available reputation to get, which would then depend on your actions to fill up or empty. Depending on your reputation/karma, you could get aggressive towards, or do other bad things to another player. You could mark some dungeons for PvP, and then ambush another player, demanding ransom. You could then kill the player depending on the outcome. Bounty hunting against such actions could also be enforced. All of these things could be activities for in-game progress. As a concept, this kind of a game should keep you busy with the things you may enjoy doing instead of chores. Loot should be accessible, but challenging to get. You shouldn't grind an area for the millionth time so that you can have an inkling of a chance to get something that's only tradeable for the other impossible thing to get. You shouldn't walk for hours or have problems with organizing stash space. Weapon drops should be mostly insignificant, "white" items should be what you get 95% of the time, and good enough for you to take advantage of. Ladder as a concept would not be separate from regular play. The leaderboards would check the final dungeon survival duration, max leveling duration, overall ng+ reward scores, pvp progress, etc. for individual brackets and a total one.
I don't think many real ARPG heads will approve of Lost Ark as it's more of a korean mmo, but man that game fucking N A I L S the "impact of combat" stuff you were talking about. So many skills feel so fucking good to press, some have zoomins and zoomouts and shit. It's great at that and would be a good game to study for it.
my vote would be some kind of Modern Supernatural thing. Playing as monster hunters / mages / reformed monsters that go around hunting vampires and zombies and shit. Would fit the aesthetic of melee and ranged being equally common, whether you're some katana-swinging Wesley Snipes in a trenchcoat or dual-pistols Kate Beckinsale. Plus plenty of monstrous or magical abilities for people to learn. Fight necromancy with necromancy, use silver bullets and holy water or werewolf out yourself and make your friends paranoid that you're going to lose your shit one day and eat some school children
Another idea for endgame. You take maps. But. You also have a.. terror zone. A rotating story zone that players can keep farming until it rotates out again. I really like poe endgame. But it has tge ptoblem of theres 0 reason to farm any story or miniboss. And that justbkinda feels eh.
I like that! There's some good examples of devs trying stuff like that in other genres, almost more like mmo style. I feel like with good dev involvement, you could tailor make zones regularly enough to have that work.
@seer6251 it's especially cool if you give each story/miniboss a .1% drop or so that's an a unique/monster infrequent endgame item. Doesn't even have to be great could just be fun or a cool mixup.
Bring Monster Infrequents from Titan Quest - only Homeless type of monster could drop Syringe off-hand with rarest version of it being HIV+ Syringe etc.
Don't farm the homeless, some of those debuffs they deal are permanent
As an ARPG fan who's only played Minecraft Dungeons I definitely agree with and understand all these points
Mine craft dungeons is litt tho... for a kids game it's actually pretty hard 😂 working near endgame it was anyways idk if anymore.
@@ZombgetsuMinecraft Dungeons was fun, until they locked most of the endgame content behind DLC. Which in itself, is fine, developers need to eat after all.
But the problem arises when the game becomes *too* short. I am aware that the games' main strength lays in its' replayability. You're supposed to replay the levels at higher difficulties and get better gear over time. Here's the problem. You can beat the whole game without DLC Content, in under 4 hours. And with replaying it on every difficulty, you see around 12-16 hours of playtime. That's not a lot for a $20 game. If you get the DLCs, the game becomes a $40 game, and only adding two to three hours more to the gameplay.
It's a great game held back by how horrendously short it is.
MCD has probably my favorite loot and loot-rerolling system, the blacksmith is a stroke of genius
@@phantamanta4453tf you are talking about? The game is fun and has a lot of grindy content, gear, missions, activities, etc as an arpg. Game it's more fun than fking lame and overrated Diablo 3 Reaper of Souls.
@@RobertoSandoval-w1i a lot to grind? I've beaten the game in 6 hours and I 100% the game in 38 hours (including DLCs), that is painfully short for what the game is.
Since you're putting in Diablo 3, Diablo 3 is 20 hours of playtime, and to 100% it, it can take up to 150 hours.
The time it takes to beat Diablo 3, you already 100%'ed Minecraft Dungeons.
I never argued that the game is bad, but that it's held back by how short it is, and there's barely replay value.
If you check the user score from many sources (Not IGN, they suck), most of the user score is 4-5/10, with the exact reason, game is too short for what it is.
I really like the idea of a modern setting with wacky items and enemies
It's the main reason I love the Mother series so much. Putting that into an aRPG sounds pretty fun
Your right, every RPG just tries to be diablo with its theming (grim dawn, torchlight, path of exile, titans quest broke the mold a little bit)
Most ARPGs go for the gothic medieval themes but a more modern and comedic theme would be nice
Yeah, that's one of my primary influences actually! I always thought that the mother games were so well received because of their setting, and I wondered why more people don't try and do that kind of thing. It's even strange, because we've had other genres go back in time to where they don't make great sense, like fps's in medieval times etc., so why not a little modernity?
It's also what 7th Dragon did.
The Hacker/Agent and the Duelist (who fight with Elemental cards) in Code VFD where tons of fun to use, really.
@@seer6251so when will the kickstarter happen?
I'd like an Arpg setting similar to those popular Korean, Japanese and Chinese comics.. Modern day with Dungeons or Towers etc spawning throughout the planet with their own themes, rewards and difficulty.
Playing Diablo 2 for the first time ever, just beat Diablo on normal today. It was a blast, impossibly designed with both great, difficult mechanics, and a lore based evil character built up as the ultimate enemy. Now I'm onto ACT 5 and saw Baal pop a guy, and I'm stoked for whats to come. All the things you mentioned in this video, great points. I think the best thing you have though is atmosphere. Not heavy drawn out Story that you have to sit and listen to, just Atmosphere and background.
I’m so jealous. I wish I could play D2 for the first time again.
Dont forget the cow level after beating ball!
The thing about build defining items is that if you don't have them, then you limit how dynamic your character can be outside of the skill tree. Items that change the behavior of older sometimes stale moves are some of the mist exciting things to find in these games.
The combat in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning felt really unique and refreshing
@speluniarz-2045tell Curt Schilling to find another studio. Dude the game was good, make 👏a👏nother👏
It was going to be an MMO at one point, and you can feel that soul in it.
that game was super comforting. Its the perfect Saturday morning game.
The backtracking made me want to kms.
I want to play this game, you goddamn tease.
Stupid modern arpg class idea: Karen, fights by throwing an infinite supply of purse chihuahuas and can later summon her kids from soccer practice and can run people over with her endgame SUV mount
Bro Darkstone was the shit back in the day, I remember playing that badboy back in the day and finding out how to dupe items after hours of grinding out legit and trying to beat the game with my undeveloped brain. Absolute banger, so glad someone finally brought it up during a ARPG video.
Me brother showed me that game and i remember you could pay the townies to hear the theme song
Perhaps my favorite memory with my dad was watching him play Darkstone. I used to point out items on the floor he missed.
Cant wait for the Darkstone episode. That game was and still is fire.
I definitely loved that game. I have even replayed it somewhat recently on my Steam Deck. Sure, it's graphics are dated, but it hits the nostalgia buttons well.
@@JanJansen985 Wasn't there even a music video file on the disc itself you could watch?
Yes! Seer my boi, my birthday was 2 days ago and Im gonna go ahead and consider this my present. Thank you very much for exactly what I wanted. I wish this could have been a two hour video but I'm still here for it 😂
You're too kind, thank you! Happy birthday!
I find myself agreeing with everything you're saying.
Truly the greatest game designer of our time.
From a like a long long years 30 year grown boy who like to play Diablo 2 for a like last 20 years i wish to say thank you for the work you put in this series.I enjoy em alot.
A personal dream of mine is trying to build an ARPG that I enjoy playing. Thanks for making this video Seer I'll definitely be taking notes.
Waiting for Seer to Play Minecraft Dungeons just so I can listen to his god like voice say funny things about that game.
Great point about making different items actually DO different things. I’d love to also have every item (including armor) LOOK very different. It’s always an interesting conundrum to have to choose between fashion and functionality.
Hard disagree here. Transmog as a concept, splitting looks from stats on gear is absolutely superior to the alternative. Should there be tons of different looking stuff? Absolutely! But if it becomes 'look good or play well' the latter always wins.
love your vids. You're going to blow up next year 100%, I feel it. Keep the hits coming
Love your videos! They really SQUEEZE my brain with goodness.
I agree with pretty much everything you said here.
In terms of character development I (naively) hoped that D4 would “go back to D1 and D2” in terms of character instead of mood. I think that blending the two could create the perfect system. Certain classes have special skills BUT there are skills that any class can use if they meet the stat requirements. And also bring back stat boosts at lvl up, you fucks!
Also props on the Bayou Billy shoutout. I have friends who did not believe me when I told them about that game.
D4 is experimenting with this in Season 2 with Vampiric Powers
this is amazing. really great video. ty.
Great vid as always big man.
Sounds to me like you'd want to make an item system where the base stats of items stay the same throughout and what really changes is the enchantments and skill mods on the item. This way you'll always know that your lawnmowers are great at AoE and don't accidentally craft an endgame lawnmower of world annihilation that sucks at AoE. Or have your plate mail be worse at defense than your cloth. Makes balancing easier and this way you know the growth of each class and how their stats will scale with items.
On my side, I hope you'll consider skills that grow as you level them up. I've always loved stuff like how your Magic Missiles in vanilla WoW gained more missiles with talents or how as your character got better in a certain field, certain spells became near instant cast. Really hammers home your character growing as a "gardener" when he can accurately tell weeds and parasites without looking at a manual. Watching your magic missiles upgrade from the soap bar you throw at your mates after you're done in swim class into a AIM--9X your enemies wish they could dodge is always a treat.
Anyway hope I'll get to see your game someday. Keep on trucking.
Very good writeup, you definitely contextualized my ramblings cohesively! And your thoughts about skills is great actually, I'd love to have the skill actually get better and more robust as you play, that could be really fun. Size and scale of attack is something that would be cool to play around with developing. I primarily just never want something like Diablo 2 where they have like 'double swing' and then 'frenzy'. I always found it so weird when you had basically the 'same attack, but better' design. I get you're supposed to progress into the better version, but I'd just have each base skill be valid and then progress that one into something better, much like you suggested.
@@seer6251 Yeah it gets tricky, especially when you have standard warrior classes that basically can Swing - Swing harder - Swing wider - Swing with an earthquake and those are 50% of their skills.
I feel like there's a potential to look into other game's systems and just take that for certain classes.
In a warrior case I'd say having a system like Guild Wars 2, where your skills are dependent on the weapons could be a viable. This way the "Warrior" could be the class that most benefits from gear enhancements. Since "dude that swings" is going to do just that, might as well limit the skillset and have him "swing with magical sword that summons 5 headed Pitbull hydra that catches on fire thanks to his magical trousers".
The important is keeping the base idea fun and expanding on that. You mention D3 and for as much shit as that game gets going on a rampage feels crunchy and satisfying. Barbarian in that game is as dry as it can be but when you're lvl 1 and your half naked dude backhands the zombie so hard his skin sashimied so far away from this skeleton you know the class will keep you entertained for a while even if it is just "punching a zombie so hard he slams into two barrels and a bench so hard that the camera shook".
Maybe it's a question of sitting down and just thinking "what's a "Heroic strike" supposed to be?" and going from there until it's absolutely ridiculous.
Just remember that Mario 64 feels so great to play because they wanted to make the one thing the player is meant to do the most, traversing and parkouring, as fun as possible before making the levels (and boy it shows).
Hey man, i love your content, keep it up
Victor Vran had an interesting take on the weapon variety issue. It's a Diablolike from 2015 and basically every weapon type had three unique attacks(one basic attack you could spam and two special attacks with cooldowns). After playing it I thought something like it would be interesting to see in a more traditional arpg(with class skills synergizing with the weapon skills etc.). You should check it out sometime.
Victor vran was very fun as an arpg I've never beat it but I've gotten halfway through it about 8 times great game
Ahh Chronicon was so good, so glad you showed me that :D I want that, but multiplayer
I think in terms of weapon variety arpg devs could learn a lot from fromsofts games. Every weapon in those games function entirely differently and leveling your character to complement a playstyle you like is super important.
Def reminds me of Darth Microtransactions quick delivery and well explained points. Great vid!
The weekend has been saved!
Hearing this list is like a reinforcement of why I don't like Diablo 4. You bring up a good point that some people just wanted like 70 hours out of the game and I can see how it would be good from their standpoint. Diablo 4 is like a sugary snack when D2, PoE, and so many other ARPGs are like a full course meal. I'm still lost in the sauce of D2R, making my first enigma in singleplayer
I feel like random bosses should scale to a precentage of character lvl/power so even when you outscale the content or want to go back to farm those big guys cant be ignored. Along the lines of "man that was easy but still a threat if i really wasnt paying attention." Like a one shot big wind up dodge would still hit you for a good chunk have some kind of meaty kerthwunk to it.
Edit: if the old content doesnt scale having a "hard mode" for bosses could be fun. Especially if you really like the content and want to redo it at a higher power without it being trivial
Dark Souls 2’s bonfire ascetics were the best implementation of re-fighting bosses that I’ve ever seen
I've always thought it'd be fun to make a Star Fox-like ARPG. Like you fly around through space shooting up hordes of enemy ships, scooping up the dropped loot and outfitting your ship with it. Shmups have always had great screen-clearing weapon design, and getting your build to that power level could be really fun. EVE Online had a lot of great ship fitting mechanics too, I'd just steal all those ideas and apply them to a fast pace fighter pilot/shooter type game.
Really enjoyed this, and I hope maybe one day we can get something that has most of what you want in one incredible game. Great editing, by the way, this video must have been a hell of a lot of work.
Its always a good weekend when Seer drops a video
Indeed
except when he says he doesn't give a fuck about the story.
Diablo 2 story was 90% of my enjoyement.
game difficulty was indeed the spice. but being good at the game with a shit character was only motivated by the sheer fact that i wanted to progress into the story.
in the early 2000 and 90s we played RPGs. He fucking forgot that. role play you dumb fuck youtuber...
And if diablo 4 is bad it s mainly because the voice actors have giant dicks in their mouths and the story writters have dicks in their skulls.
you wanna make a game with enternaning gameplay and no story ? it fits more d4 than d2...
i am very disapointd with this video. it made no sense.
The itemization, skill and attribute control of D2, the endgame maps similar to Poe with the the ultra endgame being Grifts that doesn’t reward you with items, but bragging rights. You farm to prove that your build/skill is better than everyone else’s and you prove it. Solo, duo, and up to 4-8 player teams. The slick combat visuals of D3 but slowed down a bit. The endgame maps/dungeons have their own unique challenges that force you to tweak your build if you wanna complete it, or build a toon with that goal in mind. Those maps/dungeons have a list of possible rewards that can be alternated within the loot table, but specific for those maps, so you can target farm. All this farming is for the ultimate challenge, to prove you’re build is best for the Grift that shows the top however many players.
Thank you for sharing this!
one of the first games I ever played as a kid was Secret of Evermore on SNES which I fell in love with because unlike Final Fantasy I could walk around during combat. Also had a unique alchemy system for spells.
That's a based reference haha, I love discussing things like Secret of Evermore in 2023. Although I always was more fond of Secret of Mana personally, but more or less very similar games.
Amazing point about weapon variety. I like dark souls / elden ring where the movesets are different and the poise damage is different. I’d love to see that in an arpg
Seer!! Whats up brother? I hope you are well. Can't wait to watch the video.
My bro and I just spent all night playing Chronicon via steam remote play on our laptops and it was the most fun since LAN parties.
Very good points, I am adding a sandbox for item spawning so forth for our game Hero Siege's local game mode thanks to this video :) Lets make gaming fun again!
LMFAO that ending, really sealed the deal.
I know its not an ARPG in the sense that Diablo is an ARPG, but I just felt like sharing that Elden Ring and Dark Souls have scratched the itch I've had for years (which was only intensified even more after putting hundreds of hours into D4 but still left wanting) for a genuinely challenging action RPG that forced me to reassses my build/strategies multiple times throughout the game while offering incredibly satisfying progression, all centered around an incredibly satisfying combat system. I dont know what took me so long to give these games a proper try, but im so glad i did because its given me the most fun video game experiences I've had since I played pokemon silver on the GBA when i was like 5, or when I first tried Fallout 3 a couple years after it came out.
I genuinely thought I was done having such experiences with games because of getting older or whatever, but Elden Ring/DS gave me that indescribable feeling of having no idea what is going on, bumbling across an interesting world, slowly figuring everything out, and having a blast every single second of it.
I think the saddest thing is that your video highlights a whole bunch of important things to take note of as an ARPG dev, but the odds of any of those devs seeing and implementing any of it are depressingly low.
even if they were to see this video it wouldnt matter, it costs too much money to properly fix all the shit wrong with their games. code debt/spaghetti code makes it even more impossible-er. and because of high turnover in the games industry all that shit is multiplied exponentially
not to be a doomer but a new ARPG that is actually good wont happen
@@selectionnI mean Last Epoch is good. And that game will be new Feb 21st.
@@spookzer16yeah saying no new ARPG will be good is kind of crazy. The genre is actually popping off right now besides Last Epoch POE 2 is coming as well as several others with potential. You’ve probably never heard of Dragonkin cause nobody is talking about it that’s another one that’ll be a banger for sure.
I am actually developing an ARPG right now and this video was very useful.
I kinda expected the punchline but it still got me good
Honestly from one non game designer to another this is pretty cool. As someone who actually enjoyed the final fantasy 2 approach to making a base spell powerful by use instead of earning new powerful versions of the same spell this shit sounds awesome
What is the game showed at 2:20? Might be a dumb question but I'm curious
Love you Seer. You’re such a funny bastard but make amazing points while being so.
5:19 a game that does the whole "different weapons work differently" is Victor Vran, a VanHelsing-esque ARPG, you should check it out if you never tried it
Great video!
Well, discovering you channel was the highlight of the year. Insanely godlike content ! When is your game releasing huhu?
Seer's "Myball" plushie when? Thanks for the great vids!
@1:50 it's shocking how much it hurt to see the footage cut a split second before seeing if you could jump down there or not...
LOL that actually is a funny accident. To put you at ease, you cannot haha
@@seer6251 finally, i may rest (in peace).... thank you
Regarding items being used by all classes I think you would still need some type of debuff for wearing stuff not meant for your class, otherwise balancing gear is going to be even more of a clusterfuck. But it would also introduce another layer of fun complexity, yeah you can't just straight out use the 'warrior-immune-to-physical-damage' as sorcerer as the penality for it is to high but by picking nodes/gear x, y and z alongside it you still get a really great piece of gear for yourself.
Holy shit, you actually put Sacred in here. That takes me back.
D2 is Goat.
Based on this video I think you should play a monster hunter game
Had the exact thought. It's like everything he loves about ARPGs with substantially better loot loops, end grind, skill testing, and satisfying combat
wow it's a good weekend when my birthday is a present for a seer video
7:10 as a battle mage your health your health Your Health YOUR HEALTH YOUR HEALTH YOUR HEALTH!!!!
Number one rule for me for an absolutely Bangor action RPG 3D over the shoulder camera shot fuck top down
You've almost described "exiled kingdom"... it's a mobile/steam arpg (not that gotcha crap, it's a full fat game developed by a single developer) with character dialog, open world, functional map, cities and towns, mild politics per town, hireable followers with different skills and stats, character progression, random events and side quests, loot and character customization... huge free trial with a full purchase price of like 3 bucks usd... this game felt like a passion project and I don't regret my decision to give it a go... I bought the full game and keep it on my phone for when I need to kill some time. Great game in an unlikely place
What I would do:
Do all the good and cool stuff, and non of the bad and boring stuff.
You touched on this, but I think it's worth elaborating on. Every game can be solved, every game will have a meta. A lot of (particularly modern) games know this and cut out the part where players get to solve it by funnelling players into a single path. And yes, while that does solve the issue of players having to undo bad decision-making, it takes such a huge chunk of fun gameplay from those players. Props for recognizing this.
Allow me to make mistakes, allow me to make discoveries, allow me to learn and grow and optimize. If your game has any decent amount of mechanical depth, it's going to take thousands of hours for players to solve it. By then, you'll have patches or DLC that shake things up and cause players to rethink everything anyway.
Finally you said it! I've been waiting and watching all your best ARPG videos knowing that you came to this conclusion... LOL
Dream ARPG
- Class Skills, tied to Class (Duh) and character level. Classic skill tree design.
- Weapon Skills, tied to weapon mastery. Mastery increases as long you equipped it (ala skill gems in PoE)
- Active Skills (aka loadout) , choose 4 from class skills. Primary and secondary skills is determined by equipped weapon.
- skill type. Spell skill scale with attributes/player level. Attack skill scale with weapon damange
This hypothetical mother arpg sounds cool as hell
the most important part is itemization hands down. Actually enjoying hunting for items, reasons to farm different spots, actually making plans for your build and working towards it. Reason Diablo 2 is the best for items is there is reason to hunt for everything, different recipes need potions, runes, gems, white items, socketed items, ethereal items. So when you want to make something you know where to farm to get it
the effing sims 2 buy mode music in the background KILLED me
I'm quite new myself to the genre, only really dabbled in Path of Exile over the years and never really getting past act 4 as I just couldn't understand and refused to follow a build guide. Just wanted to play my own character. I found your video on Grim Dawn and from there I've finished Torchlight 2, Titan Quest, Grim Dawn, Path of Exile, Diablo 3, Diablo 4, and almost through Diablo 2. I'd always tell people I just wanted a game where I could make what I wanted from the ground up and really feel my character power increase as the game went on, but didn't click with me that this is the genre for it. I'm absolutely stoked for Titan Quest 2, Path of Exile 2 (I really hope I won't get burnt out from the technical side like I did from 1), and the updates coming to Grim Dawn. Thank you for doing these videos, you're easily the person I'm most excited to see new video notifications from!
chronicon is that game
I just got into work and saw Seer dropped a new video! Looks like my boss can go suck ass for the next 20 minutes while I watch it!
Man you have to work on a saturday? Godspeed man!!!
@@Cyberbully66stay in school kids and lol thank you!
@@bignov5173 I should go back to school
I love to kick around the same ideas in my head. How would I do it stuff. Nice to see someone elses thoughts. Sounds like theres a good game in your head dude.
The very ending was absolutely spot on lmao
Grimcock is now what I'm naming my grim-grin deck in mtg
To sum up seer's points in the video, just make a modern titan quest with an end game
At the risk of eating crap for this reference lol…Marvel Ultimate Alliance had a unique take on character progression. You can change whenever you want so you’re not locked in…but each time you do you’re abandoning upgrade points you used to start fresh. The more you play a character the more you unlock their upgrades, but you also unlock new character choices.
Diablo 2 Items/Balance/Simplicity/Lobbies/Game Creation/Community
Diablo 3 Style/Leaderboards/Loot Goblins/Cosmetics
Diablo 4 Art/Feel/Open World Design/World Bosses
Add in a Neutral Auction House or I always loved how Everyquest did it. You go /vendor and your character becomes an NPC and people can use the AH to search for the times. They get a pin on their map to where you are and they have to come visit you where you are at.
6:28
"Some people think [a modding environment is] a bad thing for your product, but I don't understand why..."
I cannot fathom how anybody could think that, yeah. Like, of all the big names in gaming right now, the ones that last the longest are the ones with mod support. Doom 2 still has a huge community despite being almost as old as I am, Minecraft continues to have lasting power with tons of user-generated content, and every Call of Duty ever has lasted maybe two years before people start calling it ded gaem (except Blops3, solely because of Zombies).
User-generated content is the goose that lays the golden eggs, why would you think that it's a _bad thing?_
Dang, fire hit my recommended today.
2:45 So Symphony of the Night but with a head overview
I definitely agree with changing up the setting, even if I don't personally like the one you proposed, always having dark medieval fantasy in arpgs is getting a bit tiresome and they start to mesh together. I also agree with changing up the classes archetypes, like why is it always a summoner with skeletons/zombies, turrets, elementals or animals, why not get more creative with it, give me a fucking ancient pharaoh that summons sand soldiers and mythical Egyptian creatures, give me an alien overlord that summons an alien fleet and UFOs, idk there's so much you can do with only the summoner archetype.
And with the items is exactly what I personally look for in these type of games, I want to chase for items that change my skills into cool stuff, not % or + to them and that's it. Actually maybe I was being really naive but that's what I was expecting from D4, specially since D3 kinda has some of that stuff with legendaries, it ended up being a bunch of items that give +3% crit chance if you attack a spider from the back but only on tuesdays.
I really liked this video, it really helped to understand your reasoning in the other arpg videos, you were sucking on D2 too much for my liking in other videos but watching this it tells me you don't just want another Diablo 2, you want the genre to evolve and progress, not to get stuck in so many of this old ass problems and boring stuff that for some reason we still get in new games, almost like nobody is learning from these errors. Thank you for the video, good sir Seer.
The perfect ARPG sounds so hard to make! 😂 Even the idea of the skills being super "ballsack" to begin but then scale clear screens seems to be super rare among ARPGs. Most either have slow/bad skills at the start, but then even in endgame the "speed" of the game and clearing isn't screens. Then the flip side exists where the skills are strong at the start and you find yourself clearing screens really early on.
Oh man, the OG DOOM E1M1 music right as you go to explain combat is perfect 🤘🤬🤘
Finding the best FPS in honor of DOOM's 30th anniversary???
I just want arpgs to stop with the "scrolls of identity", that system only works when identity scrolls are somewhat rare, and when items can be cursed like in traditional roguelikes. otherwise its annoying to carry a bunch of scrolls to see if an item is worth anything. the only point is to delay. oh I ran out of scrolls, let me stop everything, throw up a portal, buy some more, oh cool the item is shit...
If we're looking at it as something that can improve over time (as in extended dev support, etc) i would like to see patching bring up the worst classes instead of the usual nerfing the best classes. When i played MH World that was kind of their philosophy for balancing and i think that's something that's completely reasonable in a pve game, and makes it more fun for everybody.
Club attacks now shoot tornados
Diablo ll is one of the best ARPG
D2 is the king of ARPGS, the only game that matches the feelings that D2 gives is of course Starcraft 1
and c&c 2@@Rumblingbelly
Too bad it isn’t on steam
What's crazy is you basically described Wolcen
god damn, i'm in it with you ma man!
What is that game at 8:27 , the pixel one? Looks cool.
I unironically love Dark Stone.
If ARPG actually had good gameplay, it'd be another genre.
btw I think you and Chris Wilson would get along really well. POE2 sounds like something that you'd make if you actually own a studio.
Truly one of the games of all time.
The game your describing is certainly a cross between Grim Dawn and Last Epoch
sorry for the long rant, but this is something I've been thinking about for a long time :D
My approach would be going back to the roots, but also incorporate the new action roleplaying concepts that are present in the new wave of roguelikes. Take Hades for example, you get some more primitive actions compared to the hit monster with key or cast spell with other key. Rolling is added to Diablo IV for this reason, but feels a bit gimmicky and unimportant after some point. And also build the game more into a full RPG for more stuff to do that amplifies the action side of the experience.
Since most games have difficulty progressions either, and have no ideas about how to make it a richer experience, other than more loot and multiplicative strength for monsters, I have another idea:
Diablo I used to have skill *tomes*, and stat *potions*. So any stat, spell, technique, recipe, or roleplaying skill could be picked up and used with certain class-based thresholds, if a character could make use of them. We could also bring true RPG elements like interactive abilities, which would make up for your interactions with the world.
Strength would be required to bust down doors, Agility would be required to traverse places hard to cross, Instinct (I prefer this instead of Intelligence, because some dumb character could also have strong magic affinity) to have better awareness overall of nature and magic, Vitality for skillchecks against deadly traps and exhaustion, and so on.
You'd gain points in these areas (diminishing returns depending on level) for *using* them in combat or interactions. Skill points would be placed in roleplaying abilities plus a limited pool of character specific combat or roleplaying abilities.
Each class would have certain "trademarked" crafting paths - Barbarians would be good at blacksmithing, Druids would be good at punching sockets into items and crafting runes for such sockets, Sorcerers would be able to study hidden properties in items to reveal affixes, and so on. Each one of such crafting paths would also be available by NPCs for decent (or even better in varying types, depending on your world progression and paths) outcomes. Getting loot with insane stats right away would be impossible, making the Diablo 2-style bucket list moot. Create an in-game marketplace with trade listings so that people can immediately get in on the stuff other people have crafted for them. One catch is that such marketplaces are locked into your faction or their availability depends on your reputation/karma. Rotating these items among players would bring out perfected qualities in items without grinding for loot, and match player levels in quality as the crafting skill matches the player's level.
The overall game would be in an "open" world (Diablo IV's idea about this isn't actually bad, if the map had stuff in it in the first place) - where different places have different kinds of loot and resources, and every faction has varying activities in each area. Dungeon crawling would require a set of RPG abilities, and take some time to accomplish, without checkpoints, and mobs of increasing strength. Some of these areas may then be transformed (if the player desires) to another variant which may be a peaceful resource farm, a new town, a new dungeon, or simply be exhausted to improve something else in another place.
The path you take in each game session has to be unique, like Fallout. You can't get friendly with all factions, some outcomes are mutually exclusive. It should also have a great impact on your character's build. What stats, perks, skills are good for you? some factions or mobs may require X perk for their dungeon navigation, that works well with Y stat - but their resistances and immunities may force you to go for Z skills that work well with the A stat and B build, etc. Some characters may end up having a better time not fighting all the time (in Diablo 2, if you are broke that you can't get an Infinity, you need to target specific mobs to kill, think of that), and use their perks to navigate through areas to access rewards faster.
In the endgame, you'd get a specific karma/affiliation score which affects the layout of the final dungeon. The final dungeon would always be fully accessible for any character, and also be available to explore from the beginning of the game. Once you get in, you'd only be able to get out earlier on, and be permanently stuck afterwards in a hardcore setting. You'd then lose certain attributes from your stats, perks, items, etc. along the way to gain certain permanent new game+ rewards (if you die, previous rewards are kept), fully randomized like Diablo I shrines. Your exit from that place or respawn chances also would depend on such a shrine. Challenges and rewards would intensify as you stay longer.
The reputation system would use a checkpoint system that changes the cap for each faction, and follow Fallout-like world quest progression to be completed. These quests would require some reputation to receive, and be mutually exclusive with others. After completion, you'd unlock and/or lose new tiers of available reputation to get, which would then depend on your actions to fill up or empty. Depending on your reputation/karma, you could get aggressive towards, or do other bad things to another player. You could mark some dungeons for PvP, and then ambush another player, demanding ransom. You could then kill the player depending on the outcome. Bounty hunting against such actions could also be enforced. All of these things could be activities for in-game progress.
As a concept, this kind of a game should keep you busy with the things you may enjoy doing instead of chores. Loot should be accessible, but challenging to get. You shouldn't grind an area for the millionth time so that you can have an inkling of a chance to get something that's only tradeable for the other impossible thing to get. You shouldn't walk for hours or have problems with organizing stash space. Weapon drops should be mostly insignificant, "white" items should be what you get 95% of the time, and good enough for you to take advantage of.
Ladder as a concept would not be separate from regular play. The leaderboards would check the final dungeon survival duration, max leveling duration, overall ng+ reward scores, pvp progress, etc. for individual brackets and a total one.
The only thing id add is limiting the number of one shot mechanics a boss has, not every attack should be insta-kill (I’m looking at you Uber Lilith)
I love ya buddy. Keep at it
So you'd make offline PoE?
So basically seer developes the opposite game that D4 is. Love it
I don't think many real ARPG heads will approve of Lost Ark as it's more of a korean mmo, but man that game fucking N A I L S the "impact of combat" stuff you were talking about. So many skills feel so fucking good to press, some have zoomins and zoomouts and shit. It's great at that and would be a good game to study for it.
my vote would be some kind of Modern Supernatural thing. Playing as monster hunters / mages / reformed monsters that go around hunting vampires and zombies and shit. Would fit the aesthetic of melee and ranged being equally common, whether you're some katana-swinging Wesley Snipes in a trenchcoat or dual-pistols Kate Beckinsale. Plus plenty of monstrous or magical abilities for people to learn. Fight necromancy with necromancy, use silver bullets and holy water or werewolf out yourself and make your friends paranoid that you're going to lose your shit one day and eat some school children
Simply.... Perfection !
We got Dungeon Siege footage! One step closer to the review
I wish they was more colorful like a cell shade style less gritty but always adult oriented. Like top down borderlands would be dope
Another idea for endgame. You take maps. But. You also have a.. terror zone. A rotating story zone that players can keep farming until it rotates out again. I really like poe endgame. But it has tge ptoblem of theres 0 reason to farm any story or miniboss. And that justbkinda feels eh.
I like that! There's some good examples of devs trying stuff like that in other genres, almost more like mmo style. I feel like with good dev involvement, you could tailor make zones regularly enough to have that work.
@seer6251 it's especially cool if you give each story/miniboss a .1% drop or so that's an a unique/monster infrequent endgame item. Doesn't even have to be great could just be fun or a cool mixup.
Holy based video, 10/10 idk why blizzard, PoE, LE, GD, USA doesn't just fire their entire staff and hire you instead.
Probably because I can't program anything and can't draw, but my email is open!
You could at the very least be the project manager. Oversee the direction so it doesn't go into the toilet of D3/D4 direction. @@seer6251
@@seer6251you could be a game director tho