Hacking and Slashing

There is something about ARPGs and their design philosophies that resonate with me: massive loot potential, intuitive combat, fun skills & abilities, endless replayability, among plenty more.

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Cowrex wrote:

TL,DR: ARPGs are fun. I love them. I had a lovely history with them. I just wanted to share my story with them. How do you feel about them? How did you get into playing ARPGs? What other ARPGs do you play?

2006: DIABLO II

My first ARPG was Diablo II - I got it as a present from my dad when I begged him to get me that cool-looking battle chest box (I never heard of Diablo prior to seeing the box art - Aidan's visage was pretty badass to wow young me). It is an amazing game that really set the bar high for all the future ARPGs I get my hands on. Everything just works - from gameplay, to world building, to sound design, to music, and more.

I remember how terrified I was of moving through levels because of the death penalty (I was scared at the thought of losing all my hard-earned items), and I think it was the ambience and music that really made it hard for me to push through.

I also remember how fantastic the classes were - with my favorites being the Druid and Necromancer because of their summoning capabilities (I really disliked going alone in dungeons as a kid).

I also had fond memories with finally defeating Act bosses (Because wow were they a challenge), namely Duriel and Baal. (For real though, Duriel was on another level of terror).

Conclusion: Diablo II is a deeply engrossing, challenging, and rewarding experience. I personally feel like it could do with some QoL changes with regards to loot pickup but it's nothing really detracting.



2013: DIABLO III

Close to a decade later I picked up Diablo III. I had a ton of fun with it and I really enjoyed the storyline (I stayed awhile and listened through four complete campaign playthroughs). The inclusion of persistent companions and NPCs is personally my favorite addition to the Diablo franchise. Their backstories and dialogue really help me connect better with the world of Sanctuary. The soundtrack is epic.

It must also be pointed out that Diablo III did streamline a lot of systems which I found to be divisive. I personally didn't mind the streamlined classes and abilities back then as it made it easy for teenager me to develop my own build and have fun with it (I had a hard time of allocating skills back in DII). At the same time though, as I kept on playing, the need to create specialized and contrasting builds grew and Diablo III's current design doesn't cater to that need.

I also didn't like the online-only aspect of the game as the latency in the Middle East can be bad (I used to live there but moved over to South East Asia) so it can detract from the experience quite a bit when the ping goes high - doesn't happen often but it is frustrating when it does.

Conclusion: Diablo III is a fun game but there are plenty of things that stop it from being a game that I would love to come back to after playing other games (Sort of like a game to play to take a break from playing other games, if that makes sense). Also, cinematics are badass.



2015: DIABLO I

It is pretty weird that I played Diablo I only a decade after getting getting it alongside DII but I didn't have anything else to do at this time so I thought to try it.

It was an interesting experience, but I personally didn't enjoy playing it as much as the other two in the series. The soundtrack and world building in this game is phenomenal but I'm not a fan of movement controls or dungeon layouts. I guess it's because of my bias with playing its sequels first before this one.

Conclusion: The Butcher scares me. The Butcher from DIII is a far cry of DI's.



2019: GRIM DAWN

After four years of no ARPGs, I heard of a game called Grim Dawn which was said to be a spiritual successor to Diablo II (I know, very late to the party considering the release date of GD), so I went right ahead and picked it up.I have to say, after 1000 hours with it, it's amazing. I played the game for weeks on end, created so many characters with varying builds & specializations, and I convinced my friends and gf to play with me (I bought my gf the complete collection).

I really love the devs of this game as they listen to fan feedback really well (And I mean they can take constructive criticism well and apply it in a future patch). If I could buy more cosmetic packs from them, I would out of support.

Grim Dawn is a ton of fun when it comes to testing out new builds and I have only scratched the surface of 13 out of the 30+ available class combinations. As for QoL, I used to have reservations with the game as there was no component pickup system or health bars for allies and monsters. Fantastic thing is that the devs heard the players and they updated the game a month back to include said systems.

One criticism I can make is that I'm not too attached with the world and the characters as much as I have with the Diablo series. Sure, there are interesting lore bits here and there but that's just it. Texts. I would love to get to know more characters to lay me in on the world's current state. Also, the story is very minimal here (And not Dark Souls minimal, but quite literally taking the backseat) and I understand the direction they are going for, it's not just setting it in with me. The world building is amazing though, you could quite feel the grit and despair in the world. The soundtrack in this game is so sorrowful. It's not memorable but it fits the world of GD so much.

Conclusion: Grim Dawn holds a place in my heart next to Diablo II. I even downloaded a DII Conversion Mod for Grim Dawn for the sake of seeing it in thew lens.



2019: DIABLO III - REAPER OF SOULS

Soon after I spent 1000 hours in GD, my gf and I wanted to take a break from it for a while. I thought I could finally try out RoS and see how the story went. Much to my surprise, the story of RoS was short but good. It was much more focused than the base DIII had and the character relationships were explored further. And the soundtrack is on a whole other level!

The gameplay is largely the same with a few changes here and there with regards to class balances (As well as the inclusion of two new classes - with Crusader being my favored one). Adding to that, the endgame rifts was cool at first but I quickly grew tired of it.

Conclusion: Stayed and finished the entirety of Season 17 and that was it. It was fun while it lasted though! Again, cinematics are badass!!



2019: PATH OF EXILE

And so here comes Path of Exile. I've actually tried this game out back in 2013. I forgot the reasons why I didn't continue playing it since then but I just know that I stopped playing it after a week. It would be about 6 years since then that I have decided to give it another go.

One thing I can say is... why didn't I pick this game up sooner?

This is a really balanced blend of all the ARPGs I played before this. Gameplay is really fun (I really adore the skill gem system), world design is amazing with Roman and Aztec inspirations, voice acting all over with well-written characters (Petarus and Vanja, Sin, and Clarissa strike me the most), really fun and varied endgame (Delve, Maps, Temple, Leagues), beautifully composed soundtrack, and the story is bloody good!

I really love how the story in this game is so seamlessly designed as a way to divide difficulty levels and content. Seriously, it's genius! The story itself is very engaging and the bosses of each act gave me the same feeling I had when I played DII.

Conclusion: I've only recently started playing this game but I am enjoying a necromancer build so far. Can't wait to see what future leagues and expansions have in store for PoE. I have yet to find complaints with this game as I am still fairly new but when I do, I'll be sure to update this one.



What about you all? What's your take on ARPGs in general?

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鬼殺し wrote:

Cool perspective. I love that you tried d1 after 2 and 3. So grim dawn isn't d2's spiritual successor. It's Titan Quest's. Dame core team, same core mechanics.
To be continued.

Ohhhhhhh okay I see. My bad, my bad! Thanks for the correction!

I have heard of Titan Quest but I haven't seen a bit of its gameplay yet. But if GD carries over the same elements from TQ, I can only gues TQ is just as amazing!

Will give it a try!

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鬼殺し wrote:

I think I'm over isometric ARPGs for the most part. I've played them since 1996, and there are very few I haven't tried over the years. They were such a revolutionary thing back then, and it's interesting to note that Diablo 1 was developed originally as a turn-based game, since that's what all the other games of its ilk were doing. It took one of those eureka moments for Brevik to relent and try his test version in real-time, pressured by what was then Blizzard to go in that direction.

Gaming in general has come a long way since then, and I find the format something of a relic in comparison. But as with older movies and even tv shows, I crave that now and then. And we do not lack for choice when it comes to even recent offerings.

Thank you for the insight. I never thought of Hack'n'Slash games as becoming a relic given how many games there are available in the market today but it is an interesting perspective. I'll give it a lot of thought next time a conversation like this is brought up.

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鬼殺し wrote:

I urge you to keep your eye on two upcoming titles: Last Epoch by Eleventh Hour Games, and Wolcen by Wolcen Studios. Both are in early access, both will be buy-to-play (so I assume the price will go up over time, particularly with Wolcen), neither will have much in the way of mtx, and both are made with Diablo 3 and PoE in mind. I refer to them as post-PoE arpgs, in that they are conscious of the shortcomings of PoE as well as the more obvious failings of D3. Wolcen has incredibly satisfying melee combat and basic attack strings but more customisation than D3, while Last Epoch is less fluid but gives every single skill a large, diverse passive tree to build. I would say at this point that Last Epoch has a healthier development schedule by far, but Wolcen seems to have found its way as a story-driven, fixed camera experience after years of languishing in a strange open-world alpha with lots of potential. But of course, they're both early access and so this comes with the usual caveats.

I've heard of Last Epoch and I found the time travelling aspect pretty cool! I can't wait to get it when it's fully out. Something to add to my list of ARPGs. As for Wolcen, thank you. I'll check out the website and gameplay videos. I'm also keen with what you said that Wolcen is becoming story-driven. That I like!

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鬼殺し wrote:

As for PoE, I feel it's lost what little 'hack and slash' spirit it had, embracing fully its very fast gameplay pace. Ignoring the laughable 'cyclone' melee metagame, it's been spells, archery and other long-range projectile-based archetypes ruling Wraeclast for a long time now. I would not recommend it to anyone seeking a hack and slash experience. Run and gun? Sure. Fire and forget? That too. Hack and slash? Yeah, no.

I take it that this is from the perspective of a veteran player of PoE. I can only imagine that you must have went through so many changes with this game. I have only started going through with it seriously so I don't know much about its development cycle.

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鬼殺し wrote:

Although not an ARPG, For Honor remains my go-to for real hack and slash fun. It's not as physics-crazy as Chivalry and its spiritual successor Mordhau, but instead has a distinct sense of weight to each swing and parry; I also prefer the third person perspective over the former games' first. It had a super rocky start which I actively avoided, not in some small part because of the free to play mtx gouging (back then I was still championing the fairness of GGG's financial model). But these days it's fairly slick, quite generous with the currency and the bots are quite challenging for a casual player. The skill ceiling is very, very high (some of the duels on youtube are mind-bogglingly tricky, laden with feints and dodges and split-second timing) but the threshold for fun is, I think, quite low. I suppose it's odd that when you say 'hack and slash' I default to a weird mix of Unreal, Severance and Bushido Blade, but there you go.

Ohhh yea, I have For Honor in my Steam library but I have yet to give it a try. I'll check out more gameplay videos of the duels!

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鬼殺し wrote:

Getting back to Grim Dawn for a second, someone on here recently alerted me to a fairly comprehensive mod called Reign of Terror which, predictably enough, puts the game into Diablo 2 mode. I gave it a go and found it...aesthetically convincing, but still a bit shoe-horned. Still, might be worth a look.

Yea, just recently installed that mod and I'm liking it so far (Already at the Lut Gholein sewers). Pretty cool thing for a guy to convert DII to GD.

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鬼殺し wrote:

I very rarely do this, but since you've shared your initial 'where PoE stands for me as regards ARPGs' experience, here's mine, from my other PoE account. The thread is long-locked and the discussion long doen, but what I wrote there put me on GGG's radar back when we had probably fewer than a hundred people online at any given time. I was going to do a 3.0 vs RoS post but by then the two games were so divergent it seemed pointless.

It's been a year and a half since I updated it, and obviously my attitude has changed a lot. The company has since been bought out to a huge Chinese megacorp with very shady interests, which rendered the David (PoE) vs Goliath (Diablo 3) scenario redundant. Nowadays it's PoE that rules the roost and has enjoyed very little competition for years. I supported the indie NZ company Grinding Gear Games back when they really needed it, as did a lot of us still here. I think noawdays it's much less about supporting out of any moral or benevolent drive and more about simply acknowledging that support packs are good value.

This is why I'm much more interested in up-and-comings -- I wouldn't say PoE has had its day but it no longer needs (or I daresay really wants) my input, either in terms of finance or feedback. That and I've had a gutful of the free to play/mtx model, even though PoE's remains firmly non-pay-to-win. I yearn for buy-to-play and I think even some of the indie developers are realising this is a common sentiment. They know they don't stand to make as much money as GGG have over the years but between supporter fatigue and the restraints that f2p puts on their development intentions, I think it the wiser choice for the health of the game.

It is by a miracle alone that PoE has kept going this long under the f2p model. So many factors contributed to this, all the way back to Diablo 3's fumbled release and early issues. More importantly, I'd say GGG rode the moral high ground as long as they could, and by the time we realised they were just gouging us in a different way, it didn't seem that big a deal. The argument will always remain that no content is gated behind paywalls and none of the mtxes are blatantly pay to win. It is with that squeaky-clean reputation that they can then charge *ridiculous* amounts of money for mtxes that wouldn't pass muster in many other games. But if you add up all the 'appropriate' weapon effect mtxes price-wise (eg lightning for a lightning-imbued weapon), you almost certainly would have to pay far more for PoE than a buy-to-play game with said effects baked into the system. Which is all to say, if you're not that bothered by aesthetic quality and accuracy, PoE is still obviously the cheapest decent quality ARPG ever, but once you start caring about that stuff, oh, it adds up real quick.

Anyway, merely mentioning it reminded me that I haven't played the current build of Wolcen in a while, so I'll get back to that. I'm glad you decided to post, to join this community. I look forward to seeing what else you might contribute in the days ahead...because as far as ARPGs go, they're looking pretty exciting.

I see... never realized that PoE went through so much over the past few years. I guess I'll be going through the same thing you did as I spend more time here in this game.

On that note, I've seen Wolcen and I am interested! Thanks for the heads up!

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鬼殺し wrote:

I urge you to keep your eye on two upcoming titles: Last Epoch by Eleventh Hour Games, and Wolcen by Wolcen Studios. Both are in early access, both will be buy-to-play ...

I actually want to try out Last Epoch as soon as it is finished and it goes live. The initial price won't be too high I assume and I hope Steam will not be required to play it.

EDIT: Just created my account. Didn't know that was possible yet.

My first contact with ARPGs was a long time ago, an amazing game called Sacred (though I never really finished all difficulties and only really played it with the Underworld add-on. Not sure if it ever was a thing outside of Germany/Europe though, as it has a lot of difficult to translate jokes and references). It had a great sense of humour, a lot of hidden secrets and it was probably a lot more brutal than what most people thought was good for me back then. Still, I loved it. It had uniques, sets (with really awesome effects, for example permanently giving you a cool skill effect or leaving a damaging trail of fire where you walk).
I barely understood any game mechanics beyond "kill enemies, complete quests, get nice loot, rinse and repeat". The world was always the same, similar to Titan Quest and now Grim Dawn. Good times, lots and lots of hours went into that one.

A lot of time went by between actively playing Sacred and my next contact with the ARPG genre...

But then, one fateful day I briefly tried PoE for the first time, but I knew barely any english back then and got stuck in act 2 (back when you had to remove the tree roots to go to wetlands... I never managed to fight oak in the end). Stopped playing it for quite some time.

Diablo 3 was next. I loved that one so damn much... back when it still had the auction house and 4 difficulties. Then they added adventure mode, reworked the sets, difficulties and enemy behaviour, removed the auction house and increased the general item rarity by what feels like at least 100 times. It went downhill from there. Still didn't stop me from getting reaper of souls and the necromancer...

I went back to PoE for a bit when Talisman hit, but ended up quitting again. Joined y'all for good mid-perandus. I still occasionally play D3 and I should REALLY try to get into Sacred again, this time with some deeper understanding of the game mechanics.



PS: A little fun fact, the band Blind Guardian helped contributed some songs to the soundtrack of Sacred 2. They even have an ingame appearance as quest NPCs, you have to get back their instruments so they don't have to cancel their concert. After the completion you get a nice cutscene with them playing their song "Sacred Worlds" and are given their instruments as rewards. They are all unique weapons and look (and sound) pretty awesome. Sacred 2 is another game I should play again at some point... the one time I tried, I got a game breaking bug that prevented me from continuing the main quest :(

Yeah, hearing Sacred Worlds live on the boat was pretty awesome.

Related to that, Sabaton did a collaboration with another up-and-coming ARPG, Pagan Online from Croatia. This is due to their long-running association with Wargaming.net, who are publishing Pagan Online. I don't think they're contributing any songs (although "Swedish Pagans" is close enough) but they've lent their logo to some in-game gear. Kinda cool.

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The_Scourge wrote:

Yeah, hearing Sacred Worlds live on the boat was pretty awesome.

Related to that, Sabaton did a collaboration with another up-and-coming ARPG, Pagan Online from Croatia. This is due to their long-running association with Wargaming.net, who are publishing Pagan Online. I don't think they're contributing any songs (although "Swedish Pagans" is close enough) but they've lent their logo to some in-game gear. Kinda cool.

OH man the glut of Sabaton tank logos and decals we can't sell or abandon after the big Swedish tech tree update...

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crunkatog wrote:

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The_Scourge wrote:

Yeah, hearing Sacred Worlds live on the boat was pretty awesome.

Related to that, Sabaton did a collaboration with another up-and-coming ARPG, Pagan Online from Croatia. This is due to their long-running association with Wargaming.net, who are publishing Pagan Online. I don't think they're contributing any songs (although "Swedish Pagans" is close enough) but they've lent their logo to some in-game gear. Kinda cool.

OH man the glut of Sabaton tank logos and decals we can't sell or abandon after the big Swedish tech tree update...

Talking about World of Tanks? I avoided Wargaming.net like the plague until they actually 'sold' a game (albeit in early access).

Funny little story: my first encounter with wargaming.net in person was at Pax Australia, 2013. You had the LOUDEST booth/area, which was of course League of Legends (some of those booth babe costumes were very loud), and the World of Tanks one seemed almost subdued in comparison. These were serious wargaming enthusiasts!...then I found out later that the wargaming.net afterparty was notorious for things that can't be discussed here. Talk about cashed-up nerd cliches...

(As a fun aside, GGG didn't have an indie booth there; a few of the devs, including Chris, just sort of milled around with PoE shirts on handing out secret codes for an exclusive pet to fellow PoE players, of whom there were not that many. It was a nice sort of 'in-the-know' club. A few years later they'd be too big for an indie booth there.)

Anyway, when I saw the mighty Sabaton were performing in the wargaming.net at Gamescom this year I was like, geeze, and all we get is three hours lining up to try the latest overdeveloped triple A demo...

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BACK ON TOPIC!

'Hack and slash' is such a broad term. I think 'ARPG' can and should be applied to the Diablo clone, the isometric or even slightly more top-down perspective point and click loot-kill-loot type games. With the successful transition to console, this now includes 'driving' games where input directly moves the character (the aforementioned Pagan Online uses wasd; it's...interesting)....but when you say 'hack and slash', you could mean anything from Sekiro to Soul Calibur to The King of Dragons. If there's a sharp weapon and your character regularly swings it, it's technically hack and slash. For me, Borderlands 2 was hack and slash, since I played zer0. As was the pitiful Presequel, since I played Athena. So the term itself is problematic in that way.

But it's useful in that it can make genres otherwise sort of boring much more alluring. Take Dragon's Crown for example. Ignoring the over-the-top art, Dragon's Crown is 100% Dungeons and Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara 2.0...which was itself an attempt at meshing deeper combat and itemisation with what the Japanese call the 'belt' game: short for conveyor belt, because that's the essential design of a 'side scrolling beat-em-up'. I've played my share of those but they never really grabbed me and dragged me in. That is, until Capcom created an official Dungeons and Dragons game with that system. Suddenly it wasn't just a side-scrolling beat-em-up, it was a fully fledged fantasy epic with familiar spells, loot and bosses. Beholders and Displacer Beasts and Liches, oh my. Dragon's Crown builds on that extensively, and has an item system straight out of a 'proper' ARPG: randomised drops with a heap of item mods and strata of gear in terms of rarity and quality. Each class has unique moves/spells, and they even have a fairly basic but effective passive system you upgrade in town. After finishing the main story three times (sound familiar?) you open up an endless random dungeon...again, stop me if you've heard this before.

And yet I would never, ever call Dragon's Crown an ARPG. It's a hack and slash side-scroller...ugh, what a mouthful. I would, however, recommend it for ARPG fans because it tickles the same loot-fest bones that an ARPG does, with some much more engaging arcade action (and utterly gorgeous Frazetta-inspired sprites and music from a Final Fantasy veteran) driving it rather than mindless point-and-click destruction.