I’m so tired of indie games that substitute mystery for a plot

[Eldan]

Yeah, it's still mysterious in the beginning why the Knight wants to go down that dungeon, but at least you're told that there's a magical dungeon that somehow pulls people into it with mind control, and there's said to be a fantastical ruined city at the bottom that everyone speaks of in awe.

That's enough to get you started.

[Dame_Mechanus]

I've been watching someone playing through Hollow Knight and while it's definitely light and vague on story (which befits its genre and all), there's very clearly a motivating impulse and something driving you forward. You might not know what you're going to find there other than a whole lot of bugs, but it's struck me as hitting the right balance between intentionally minimalist and still being comprehensible.

[Anteros]

I don't think it's really restricted to indie games unfortunately. It's an issue with tons of modern stories whether they're movies, books, manga, whatever. That's not to say that a good mystery can't make for a good story, but it's a crutch for bad writers to use mystery to simulate depth when their actual stories and settings are shallow.

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, it's still mysterious in the beginning why the Knight wants to go down that dungeon, but at least you're told that there's a magical dungeon that somehow pulls people into it with mind control, and there's said to be a fantastical ruined city at the bottom that everyone speaks of in awe.

That's enough to get you started.

No mind to think, no will to break, no voice to cry suffering. Born of God and Void.

The Knight doesn't want anything. It *can't* want.

[Lord Raziere]

No mind to think, no will to break, no voice to cry suffering. Born of God and Void.

The Knight doesn't want anything. It *can't* want.

the king thought the same thing about the other Hollow Knight, and look what happened there. there is a reason the ending where the Knight does nothing but replace the Hollow Knight is considered the bad end: its because if the so-called perfect specimen can develop feelings and thoughts just from interacting with the king for who knows how short amount of time, then what hope does the Knight have, who has interacted with various people who are probably better people than that king all things considered? its just pushing back the inevitable for who-knows-how-long, the Knight and the HK were made from the same process there is no reason to think the Knight is any better than the HK in that regard. ego stroking a literal hollow shell for being played by the player would be really weird for the game to do, so I don't see the Knight being magically better or more immune than HK to be the case.

[Eldan]

I'm not sure if HK has a good ending at all, let's just say. In none of them the world is immediately destroyed, but it's all either a temporary retrieve before the big bad returns, or a pretty likely chance we're getting a bigger bad.

[Lord Raziere]

I'm not sure if HK has a good ending at all, let's just say. In none of them the world is immediately destroyed, but it's all either a temporary retrieve before the big bad returns, or a pretty likely chance we're getting a bigger bad.

No, a different big bad is progress. it means you have to deal with a different problem rather than the same problem and potentially the new problem at the same time which is both stasis and decay.

[MinimanMidget]

the king thought the same thing about the other Hollow Knight, and look what happened there. there is a reason the ending where the Knight does nothing but replace the Hollow Knight is considered the bad end: its because if the so-called perfect specimen can develop feelings and thoughts just from interacting with the king for who knows how short amount of time, then what hope does the Knight have, who has interacted with various people who are probably better people than that king all things considered? its just pushing back the inevitable for who-knows-how-long, the Knight and the HK were made from the same process there is no reason to think the Knight is any better than the HK in that regard. ego stroking a literal hollow shell for being played by the player would be really weird for the game to do, so I don't see the Knight being magically better or more immune than HK to be the case.

I implore you, usurp the Vessel. Its supposed strength was ill-judged. It was tarnished by an idea instilled. But you. You are free of such blemishes. You could contain that thing inside.

She could be wrong, of course, but there's no reason to assume she doesn't know what she's talking about.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I think part of the problem is that people misunderstand some fundamental concepts of the Dark Souls series with respect to lore, and attempt to emulate it without actually understanding it, thus it always falls flat.

Dark Souls is kind of the ultimate example of 'show, don't tell', and environmental storytelling at its finest. It doesn't *tell* you all that much about its lore directly, you have to go actively looking for it, digging into every cryptic clue, looking at the relevant item descriptions, and piece the thing together. It makes you work, it makes you think. Or at least it would if anyone gave a crap. See, that's the problem with Dark Souls style lore, no one is going to go digging for it but some few oddballs who like that sort of thing. Everyone else is just going to play the game, not really understanding or really caring what is going on so long as they can get this next boss's mechanics and tells down so they can beat them finally.

Unfortunately, most of these indie games you complain about played Dark Souls, but didn't put in the work to actually check out the lore, and was like "Okay, so this is what people want for 'lore', vague mumbling and indecipherable archaic mutterings? I can do that..." and proceed to do just as you blame them, entirely missing the point.

Hollow Knight also has environmental storytelling, but it isn't nearly as difficult to piece together as Dark Souls lore is. It also isn't as relevant either. Part of this is intentional, as a metroidvania it gives you the freedom to explore however you like, with multiple ways of getting nearly anywhere, and it does an amazing job of explicitly not telling you where to go next, but setting up the world in such a way as to give you many interesting places to go that have at least *something* in them plus the critical path.

For example, you're kind of on a rail until you beat Hornet. You have to get the blast to unlock greenpath, and while there are some side-paths, there aren't many. Once you beat Hornet, however, the map opens up a bit, in true Metroidvania fashion. Now, the next 'critical path juncture' is down in Mantis Village. However, there's several other places you can get to that either have charms, notches, or other useful things that you can access at this point. But eventually, you're going to end up going down into Fungal Grove, and thus eventually, by process of elimination if nothing else, end up in Mantis Village. And once you get the Mantis Claw, you have multiple directions to go that can get you things you'll eventually need. You can hit up Crystal Caverns, which nets you C-Dash and possible entry into the next Plot Relevant location which is your Dream Nail. You can end up in Deepnest by fighting the Mantis Lords, and get your tram ticket, which again will send you to the next Plot Relevant Location. Or you can go to City of Tears for all the plot tokens and skills found there. By being 'hands off', the developers let you explore their game the way YOU want to, rather than the 'intended path'.

The problem is that what is good for a Metroidvania is pretty bad for most other genres, and a 'hands off' approach to signposting can simply result in a confused and lost player who gets bored with the game and goes on to something else.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that these Indie developers are attempting to copy something without understanding what made it awesome in the first place, and ended up misusing or just flat out breaking what they were intending in the process.

[Eldan]

I mean, I'm exactly the kind of weirdo who loves putting together environmental storytelling, preferably with a notepad and perhaps a few self-drawn maps. I just can't dtand actually playing Dark Souls.

...I miss point and click adventures.

[Dame_Mechanus]

I mean, I'm exactly the kind of weirdo who loves putting together environmental storytelling, preferably with a notepad and perhaps a few self-drawn maps. I just can't dtand actually playing Dark Souls.

...I miss point and click adventures.

Good news, they're everywhere these days! Seriously, browse a bit on Steam.

Bad news is that, uh... quality varies wildly. But hey, that's always been the case.

(I do not care for point-and-click adventures myself, but I am also not a big fan of the Soulslike gameplay in general. A couple of games manage to get me over that hump, though.)

[Eldonauran]

I just prefer a certain level of lore being presented to you in the form of actual story telling, and letting those with the inclination to dig deeper, actually find those cryptic and fulfilling pieces of information where they are hidden. Being one of those that does dig into the lore quite a lot, I still require at least some bait on the hook before I will even consider taking a bite from it.

[Eldan]

Good news, they're everywhere these days! Seriously, browse a bit on Steam.

Bad news is that, uh... quality varies wildly. But hey, that's always been the case.

(I do not care for point-and-click adventures myself, but I am also not a big fan of the Soulslike gameplay in general. A couple of games manage to get me over that hump, though.)

I know, I actually buy one or two occasionally, I was being hyperbolic there. They just tend to be quite bad. But there's been a few gems in the last few years.

[warty goblin]

I think a lot of the dislike for this sort of storytelling is the sense that what's behind the curtain isn't worth the effort of figuring it out. It's not that mysteries are bad, or solving them is unrewarding, it's the sense that the answer isn't itself compelling or thought provoking or genuinely insightful enough to stand on its own. If you have to spend all those hours piecing things together, it seems pretty reasonable to be unsatisfied by finding out that a bunch of uncharacterized entities with names like The Rose Of Sorrow or whatever doing vague things to each other. I'm not against metaphor or symbols on storytelling - far from it - but there needs to be a there there. Otherwise it's just a fancy way of dressing up a story outline as an actual finished story

[Dame_Mechanus]

I think a lot of the dislike for this sort of storytelling is the sense that what's behind the curtain isn't worth the effort of figuring it out. It's not that mysteries are bad, or solving them is unrewarding, it's the sense that the answer isn't itself compelling or thought provoking or genuinely insightful enough to stand on its own. If you have to spend all those hours piecing things together, it seems pretty reasonable to be unsatisfied by finding out that a bunch of uncharacterized entities with names like The Rose Of Sorrow or whatever doing vague things to each other. I'm not against metaphor or symbols on storytelling - far from it - but there needs to be a there there. Otherwise it's just a fancy way of dressing up a story outline as an actual finished story

This is basically hitting the nail on the head. There are loads of reasons to be vague or abstract, lots of moments wherein a story feels good for forcing you to piece together fragments and vagueness and the like. A well-told story that's obscure and full of symbolism and the abstract and hidden meanings can be absolutely delightful. It's just that so often this happens because you're actually dealing with a game that's no more complicated than an old-school Gold Box game and then hiding behind it with the sense of "see, it's all vague and deep and meaningful and you just didn't get it!"

All stories have messages, as I've said elsewhere on this very forum, but that doesn't mean all messages are nuanced and/or complex. And it's perfectly all right to have a simple and straightforward message. Just don't act like your simple story has depth because you refuse to ever tell me what's going on in a comprehensible fashion.

[Rynjin]

Related to the topic, I just finished Resident Evil 8/Village and it was refreshing going back to a game that comes from the school of "subtlety is for COWARDS!" but still manages to tell a compelling story.

[Rodin]

I think a lot of the dislike for this sort of storytelling is the sense that what's behind the curtain isn't worth the effort of figuring it out. It's not that mysteries are bad, or solving them is unrewarding, it's the sense that the answer isn't itself compelling or thought provoking or genuinely insightful enough to stand on its own. If you have to spend all those hours piecing things together, it seems pretty reasonable to be unsatisfied by finding out that a bunch of uncharacterized entities with names like The Rose Of Sorrow or whatever doing vague things to each other. I'm not against metaphor or symbols on storytelling - far from it - but there needs to be a there there. Otherwise it's just a fancy way of dressing up a story outline as an actual finished story

This is how I've always felt about Bloodborne. There supposedly is a comprehensible plot there, but it's so buried under Lovecraftian mythos that it's impossible to tell why events happen as they do until about a dozen playthroughs in. It has some of the deepest lore of any Souls game, but it does a (deliberately) terrible job of explaining it.

Demon Souls and Dark Souls 1 did it right. You have a basic set of objectives that are clearly laid out, and the deeper meaning is left a bit hidden but is there if you want to dig. Dark Souls 2 and 3 have nonsense plots that don't make sense even when people try to explain it. Sekiro's more structured plot is fantastic. Elden Ring did a decent job up to a certain point, but then rushes through the final act because they ran out of content.

Hollow Knight I have no qualms about. There's a basic plot placed in front of the player - sealed evil, the seals are breaking, go sort it out. Beyond that there's a ton of atmospheric storytelling, and a deeper understanding of the plot is presented if you're a dedicated player going for the Golden Ending. It wonderfully balances minimalistic storytelling with a deeper hidden lore.

[Amechra]

This is how I've always felt about Bloodborne. There supposedly is a comprehensible plot there, but it's so buried under Lovecraftian mythos that it's impossible to tell why events happen as they do until about a dozen playthroughs in. It has some of the deepest lore of any Souls game, but it does a (deliberately) terrible job of explaining it.

Bloodborne also commits to the bit way harder than most games that try to pull this nonsense, because something like 60% of the base game is entirely optional. If you just want to reach the end of the dream and wake up, you only need to fight 7 of the 17 bosses (8 of the 17 if you don't want to let Gehrman behead you). There are huge areas of the game that you will only find if you're exploring the city in an attempt to piece together what's going on. Heck, the game has an entire third ending that you can only access if you've explored the game thoroughly.

As good games as they might be, I think the Souls series is really partly to blame here. And it really didn't help that people loved the game because of its gameplay, then, because they're playing it, got attracted to the tiny bits of alluded "lore" that it had, and then misconstrued that as the game having good lore.

The thing to keep in mind about the Souls series is that their lore is there to establish tone, rather than setting... which is honestly how "lore" should be used in a game. Using lore to convey setting is a really silly decision, since it's literally only an effective way to do so if your primary goal is to encourage people to get into lore-measuring contests online. Heck, while Dark Souls does have something interesting to say as a series, it conveys that information through the actual games, not the "lore".

That's a big part of the reason why games that try to trade on just having lore fail — they're basically trying to build a house out of wallpaper.

...

I honestly feel like part of this is that there's a surprisingly large portion of the media-consuming public who approach media from a perspective that details are the most important part of the media, for whom a Vague Sad Child Game is literal catnip. It's the Trivia Collector flaw that a lot of geek culture stuff falls into.

[Dame_Mechanus]

The thing to keep in mind about the Souls series is that their lore is there to establish tone, rather than setting... which is honestly how "lore" should be used in a game. Using lore to convey setting is a really silly decision, since it's literally only an effective way to do so if your primary goal is to encourage people to get into lore-measuring contests online. Heck, while Dark Souls does have something interesting to say as a series, it conveys that information through the actual games, not the "lore".

I would even go so far as to argue that in most Souls games the details of the setting are basically irrelevant to what you need to do. The game gives you enough information that if you're just like "what am I supposed to be doing" you can follow along pretty closely, and if you happen to glance at the lore here and there you get more information but it doesn't really change anything. Hollow Knight is a game with similar aspirations, and there's a lot of lore to dig into and a lot of details about who the Pale King was, what he tried to accomplish, why he failed, what happened to Hallownest and so forth... but if you're just trying to get from the start of the game to the end, the game gives you a pretty clear pattern and just lets all of those details form a backdrop. You don't need to understand the relationship between the Radiance and the Void to understand the themes of "trying to shelter a rot within your home leads to it consuming and destroying everything."

I honestly feel like part of this is that there's a surprisingly large portion of the media-consuming public who approach media from a perspective that details are the most important part of the media, for whom a Vague Sad Child Game is literal catnip. It's the Trivia Collector flaw that a lot of geek culture stuff falls into.

Blame it on years of telling people that memorizing facts is more important than memorizing meaning, and for a long time the fact that it was equally difficult to find both. Like, the part of my brain that remembered the date the Franco-Prussian war started has long since discarded that fact because its impact and the overall ways it changed global politics is way more important, and I can find the date with a quick search on Wikipedia.

[warty goblin]

Haven't played Dark Souls, but the portion of Elden Ring I plodded through made me very suspicious that it wasn't revealing world and story through tone and vibes. Instead i got the impression it was supremely uninterested in putting in the work required to do story or setting, was pretty bad at both, and was using vague vibes to cover this up.

And to be clear, I completely respect games not giving a crap about story. I just prefer if the story is some flavor of go kill the bad dude fantasy nonsense that it is upfront, straightforward, and above all concise about it. I do not enjoy listening to a vaguely creepy person intoning Gothic nonsense... very... very... slowly... if it actually means go kill Lord Bad Dude.

I worry I'm coming off as dismissive of games having story, games operating through metaphor and implication, or metaphor and implication being inherently bad, none of which are my intent. I like all these things, hell I frequently wish more games leaned into non-literal gameplay metaphor. One of the best parts of Spec Ops: the Line is that slowly demolishes the line between the literal and figurative. But it clearly has metaphorical parts, and those parts mean something. You choose which person to save but they're both dead because you're a psychologically broken waste of a man too cowardly to understand his only legacy is unnecessary death. I killed a sort of Grim Reaper in a boat miniboss in Elden Ring, there was no context for this either literal or figurative, it was just a creepy skeleton dude with a bunch of adds. Sure seems like killing an undead ferryman with a giant scythe should mean something, but it sure didn't feel like it did.

[Amechra]

Haven't played Dark Souls, but the portion of Elden Ring I plodded through made me very suspicious that it wasn't revealing world and story through tone and vibes. Instead i got the impression it was supremely uninterested in putting in the work required to do story or setting, was pretty bad at both, and was using vague vibes to cover this up.

Of course it wasn't... because that's not what tone or vibes are for. They're there to set a mood. And I'd argue that it's just as hard to build "vibes" effectively as it is to establish a hard-and-fast setting or story.

Take Dark Souls — there really isn't anything under all the lore, because that's not the point. The point is to give the impression that there's a wider world that has been wrecked and ruined — you aren't running through a fantasy setting, you're running through the shattered husk of a fantasy setting. And this is intentional — Miyazaki has mentioned in interviews that he's trying to recapture/convey his experience of reading fantasy novels in a language he barely understood back when he was a teenager.

Basically: approaching a Souls game like you'd approach, say, a normal RPG is kinda like approaching House of Leaves like you'd approach Lord of the Rings.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I picked up Grim Dawn on steam sale, and I feel it does this pretty well, despite being an ARPG.

There's a lot of lore notes, and the game encourages you to go looking for them and pick them up because they're worth xp, but they're less about providing background and more about providing atmosphere. But they tease at a larger and much more complex world before everything went sideways. The game doesn't lean on it to convey important information (usually, I think there's one exception in the Hidden Path quest which is deliberately obfuscated), they are just there to set the mood and tone of the crapsack post-apocalyptic world you're stuck in.

You can run through the whole game without ever picking up anything lore-wise, but there's an impressive depth to it if you go actively looking. The game encourages going off the beaten paths because unlike most ARPG's, the world map is a handcrafted set piece instead of procedurally generated, so they can stick secrets in all over the place, and regularly stick shrines (part of a passive skill tree progression system) in out of the way nooks and crannies. If you don't go looking, you'll probably miss about half of them on your first playthrough unless you use a guide or the grimtools website checklist to make sure you got them all.

It's been an interesting game. Complexity is somewhere in the neighborhood of Diablo 2. It's not the braindead simplicity of D3, but neither is it the PhD required PoE either. There is the Constellation mechanic, which is basically the game's passive skill tree and can certainly appear as intimidating as PoE's passive tree until you use the search function and discover that you can get most of what you want in a fairly straightforward manner and it's not so complex as it originally seems, which come to think of it also describes PoE's passive skill tree pretty well. Gearing is a heck of a lot easier than in PoE, though. You have a mechanic of 'Monster Infrequents' where a named mob or a set of mobs have specific rare quality drops with semi-deterministic affixes that can be target-farmed in a fairly straightforward manner. It might not get you the BIS uber dream gear, but it can at least get you 'good enough' gear until you are in a position to grind the high end content.

There's no real mystery to solve with the game, in fact the basic premise is pretty straightforward: Survive and thrive in a post-apocalyptic Victorian-era fantasy world (there are firearms, but they are at best revolvers or lever action), and get some payback on the individuals who got you into the position you started in. There is a lot of secrets to be uncovered in the world if that's your thing, but they're not mandatory for progression. You might want to go back and pick up the shrines you missed once you finish Normal difficulty before getting into Nightmare Elite, but none of the flavor is mandatory, which is where a lot of games fail.

[Rynjin]

Grim Dawn is a fun game, but I'm genuinely not sure why everyone who plays it starts throwing out "it's not as braindead as Diablo 3" after playing it for the first time.

It has roughly as much (viable) build diversity, with the main difference being that Grim Dawn FORCES multiple playthroughs from level 1 for different builds. It comes off as more tedious than fun when you're trying to make a new character, and the gameplay is overall less complex when you really break it down. Grim Dawn character building actively discourages (as the community puts it) "piano builds", instead encouraging you to truly hyperspecialize in a single attack and push it to the max, with everything else being dumped into passives and defenses.

I feel like the numbers being overall lower is deceptive to a lot of people, but you do become just as effortlessly invincible by endgame. The main upside to Grim Dawn is that the game does not BEGIN at endgame like with Diablo 3 (instead it...ends), but that's an entirely different complaint than one or the other being "braindead".

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Grim Dawn is a fun game, but I'm genuinely not sure why everyone who plays it starts throwing out "it's not as braindead as Diablo 3" after playing it for the first time.

It has roughly as much (viable) build diversity, with the main difference being that Grim Dawn FORCES multiple playthroughs from level 1 for different builds. It comes off as more tedious than fun when you're trying to make a new character, and the gameplay is overall less complex when you really break it down. Grim Dawn character building actively discourages (as the community puts it) "piano builds", instead encouraging you to truly hyperspecialize in a single attack and push it to the max, with everything else being dumped into passives and defenses.

I feel like the numbers being overall lower is deceptive to a lot of people, but you do become just as effortlessly invincible by endgame. The main upside to Grim Dawn is that the game does not BEGIN at endgame like with Diablo 3 (instead it...ends), but that's an entirely different complaint than one or the other being "braindead".

I would have to very strongly disagree.

D3 is entirely 'one button moxy' builds, completely and entirely. In fact, it is impossible to have more than six skills at any time, due to the controls being limited to RB/LB and 1-4. That includes auras and other always-on skills, but excluding the up to four passive skills. And if you look at the top of the tier list, you'll always see things like the 'spin to win' GoD DH or WhirlBarb or some equally cheesy build. Furthermore, gearing is extremely trivial, being able to gear for GR50+ content as simple as finishing a set, even if the items don't have 'BIS' affixes, because the set bonuses are so extremely powerful. Furthermore, these sets are pretty easy to put together due to either Cubing to upgrade items from rare to unique and thus only having a small pool of legendaries or set items it could possibly be (with some classes having a larger pool than others) or by gambling with Kadala for specific slot equips which, again, have a fixed number of possibilities. It is entirely possible in a new season to get your entire set without leaving town, given sufficient resources, and you can typically get your buddies to powerlevel you in a matter of minutes, and being able to farm GR70+ yourself in under an hour. Booooring.

Grim Dawn, on the other hand, combines two classes together, which inherently provides more complexity due to possible synergies between classes. Sure, you get to decide which ones you choose to focus on, and you probably don't want to spread yourself too thin to do so, but that just means more options, while D3 has maybe two or three viable builds per class. Furthermore, Grim Dawn has the Constellation system, something unknown to the simplistic D3. Granted, like the PoE passive skill tree, it's not actually as complex as it initially appears, but it is another mechanic adding complexity and requiring forethought into for creating a build.

Now, Grim Dawn does have the ability to target-farm MI's to flesh out builds or to get them started, however simply getting a set or getting an MI isn't going to 'complete' a build by itself like it does in D3. I do appreciate that one can target-farm MI's, it makes the game far less grindy than PoE, although admittedly more grindy than D3 since you aren't literally given a full max-level set for starting a new season.

Also, there is the SR mechanic and the Crucible, which function mostly like GR's in D3 for end-game content, so no the game doesn't end when you beat the campaign. However, unlike D3 or PoE, that's not where the community feels the game actually starts. The campaign's content is actually engaging, unlike either D3 or PoE.

[Rynjin]

I would have to very strongly disagree.

D3 is entirely 'one button moxy' builds, completely and entirely. In fact, it is impossible to have more than six skills at any time, due to the controls being limited to RB/LB and 1-4. That includes auras and other always-on skills, but excluding the up to four passive skills. And if you look at the top of the tier list, you'll always see things like the 'spin to win' GoD DH or WhirlBarb or some equally cheesy build.

I think your conception of the tier list might be VERY out of date. That was the case in like...2016 or so? The current top tier builds for each class are:

Barbarian: Raekor Support (zDPS crowd control), Boulder Toss Raekor (mostly a "one button Moxy" as you put it), Rend Barb (a "piano" build centered around Rend), Hamme rof the Ancients (another one-button build)

Crusader: Holy Shotgun, baby (requires strict management of cooldowns and uptimes)

Demon Hunter: Support Marauder (crowd control "piano"), Multishot (Generator build; default boring in both games, next)

Monk: Your choice of damage based or support based Inna's. Yay. Either a one button moxy (Support) or a build that can work if you get up to go make a sandwich (Damage). The absolute epitome of what you categorize the entire game as. it is inexcusable.

Necromancer: Support Pestilence (very complex actually, as most support/cc builds are), Legacy Corpse Explosion (not quite a "piano" build but uses several different abilities in concert and needs to heavily manage cooldowns. Also it's Legacy of Dreams so gearing it is extra hard)

Witch Doctor: Arachyr Spiders (hard "piano" build, requires every ability working in concert), Carnevil (hybrid generator/pet build which is pretty unique)

Wizard: Firebird's in two flavors. Explosive Blast (one button moxy), and Flame Blades (much more complex and interesting)

Compare/contrast the average Grim Dawn build.

Archon: The "Thor" build. Literally uses a generator and then Vire's Might (a charge skill) bolstered by multiple other, identically functioning charge skills from items.

Warder: Cadence or Primal Strike "one button moxy" that just attach a bunch of passives to their attack replacer of choice.

^Repeat Warder for basically any build that uses Demolitionist, Soldier, Nightblade, or Inquisitor because their basic attack replacers dominate, find/replace "Cadence" with Fire Strike etc. and you have your build.

Warlord: Forcewave spam is de wey.

Arcanist/Any subclass (chosen for passive defensive skills): Your choice of holding down the button for Albrecht's Aether Ray or mashing it for Trozan's Skyshard. Can become "piano-y" at the cost of some power though with utility effects like Olexra's Flash Freeze (a 1 point wonder) and Mirror of Ereoctes (ditto), but these are defensive skills.

And so on, and so on.

Grim Dawn is a surprisingly shallow game when you break it down because of how much it de-incentivizes splitting your points between multiple different attack skills. Defenses are MUCH harder to come by in Grim Dawn, so you simply don't have the points to spare on more than two attacks (a basic attack replacer and a spender skill you spam). EVERYTHING else needs to be pumped into defense because of how the higher difficulties work: lowering your Resistances by a flat 25% each time.

The fun of Grim Dawn comes, as I mentioned (and you agreed with) in GETTING to endgame, but once there there's not much incentive to keep playing in Crucibles because it's hella boring. Diablo 3 is a much different game in that regard. It is simply built different. And its builds are on the whole less complex to BUILD but actually more complex to PLAY due to there being very few passive skills in the game overall, unlike Grim Dawn where the average build will have 1-2 actives and 6-9 passive skills.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I think your conception of the tier list might be VERY out of date. That was the case in like...2016 or so? The current top tier builds for each class are:

Barbarian: Raekor Support (zDPS crowd control), Boulder Toss Raekor (mostly a "one button Moxy" as you put it), Rend Barb (a "piano" build centered around Rend), Hamme rof the Ancients (another one-button build)

Crusader: Holy Shotgun, baby (requires strict management of cooldowns and uptimes)

Demon Hunter: Support Marauder (crowd control "piano"), Multishot (Generator build; default boring in both games, next)

Monk: Your choice of damage based or support based Inna's. Yay. Either a one button moxy (Support) or a build that can work if you get up to go make a sandwich (Damage). The absolute epitome of what you categorize the entire game as. it is inexcusable.

Necromancer: Support Pestilence (very complex actually, as most support/cc builds are), Legacy Corpse Explosion (not quite a "piano" build but uses several different abilities in concert and needs to heavily manage cooldowns. Also it's Legacy of Dreams so gearing it is extra hard)

Witch Doctor: Arachyr Spiders (hard "piano" build, requires every ability working in concert), Carnevil (hybrid generator/pet build which is pretty unique)

Wizard: Firebird's in two flavors. Explosive Blast (one button moxy), and Flame Blades (much more complex and interesting)

Compare/contrast the average Grim Dawn build.

Archon: The "Thor" build. Literally uses a generator and then Vire's Might (a charge skill) bolstered by multiple other, identically functioning charge skills from items.

Warder: Cadence or Primal Strike "one button moxy" that just attach a bunch of passives to their attack replacer of choice.

^Repeat Warder for basically any build that uses Demolitionist, Soldier, Nightblade, or Inquisitor because their basic attack replacers dominate, find/replace "Cadence" with Fire Strike etc. and you have your build.

Warlord: Forcewave spam is de wey.

Arcanist/Any subclass (chosen for passive defensive skills): Your choice of holding down the button for Albrecht's Aether Ray or mashing it for Trozan's Skyshard. Can become "piano-y" at the cost of some power though with utility effects like Olexra's Flash Freeze (a 1 point wonder) and Mirror of Ereoctes (ditto), but these are defensive skills.

And so on, and so on.

Grim Dawn is a surprisingly shallow game when you break it down because of how much it de-incentivizes splitting your points between multiple different attack skills. Defenses are MUCH harder to come by in Grim Dawn, so you simply don't have the points to spare on more than two attacks (a basic attack replacer and a spender skill you spam). EVERYTHING else needs to be pumped into defense because of how the higher difficulties work: lowering your Resistances by a flat 25% each time.

I would rebut, but it's pretty clear that you have your opinion and aren't going to be swayed, and it is really incidental to the discussion of how a game handles worldbuilding. I'll just point out that in D3, you have ONE single build for each of those two or three viable builds per class, which everyone uses as a cookie-cutter character. Every GoD DH has the exact same skills, the exact same gear, with the only variance being the affixes, the levels of the gems socketed, and Ancient quality. Meanwhile, over on Grimtools, there's over four PAGES of builds related to using, say, EoR.

There's zero complexity in making or playing a character in D3. There's at least complexity in setting up a character in GD. And at least in GD you have to worry about Resistance Reducers and actually be concerned about positioning and not standing in the bad stuff, while virtually every D3 build can ignore whatever the boss is doing for the vast majority of the GR system.

The fun of Grim Dawn comes, as I mentioned (and you agreed with) in GETTING to endgame, but once there there's not much incentive to keep playing in Crucibles because it's hella boring. Diablo 3 is a much different game in that regard. It is simply built different. And its builds are on the whole less complex to BUILD but actually more complex to PLAY due to there being very few passive skills in the game overall, unlike Grim Dawn where the average build will have 1-2 actives and 6-9 passive skills.

Pressing 1-4 in order repeatedly is not complex, it is tedious.

Grinding GR's is hella boring too. So is grinding maps in PoE. What's your point? At least GD offers engaging content in their campaign, which is more than D3 or PoE can claim. Also, because it isn't an always online game, mods are a thing which exist which can change things up. Apparently there's even a player made and run season system done through modding.

[Rynjin]

I would rebut, but it's pretty clear that you have your opinion and aren't going to be swayed, and it is really incidental to the discussion of how a game handles worldbuilding. I'll just point out that in D3, you have ONE single build for each of those two or three viable builds per class, which everyone uses as a cookie-cutter character. Every GoD DH has the exact same skills, the exact same gear, with the only variance being the affixes, the levels of the gems socketed, and Ancient quality. Meanwhile, over on Grimtools, there's over four PAGES of builds related to using, say, EoR.

Sure, but all of the Eye of Reckoning builds play exactly the same...ironically the exact same way as the spin-to-win Barbarian builds you impugned. The only real difference are what KIND of damage it deals (you can pick your flavor of Fire, Lightning, Acid or...Cold I think with items?).

And at least in GD you have to worry about Resistance Reducers and actually be concerned about positioning and not standing in the bad stuff, while virtually every D3 build can ignore whatever the boss is doing for the vast majority of the GR system.

Sadly, no, otherwise I'd be on your side. Most "top tier" builds in Grim Dawn can facetank anything a boss throws at them. Retaliation builds, in particular, are (or were) notorious for being able to handle all content with literally no input; they could stand in place, hit no buttons, and kill the boss with Retal. Even Thorns Invoker (one of the most mindnumbingly boring optimal builds to ever exist) over in D3 has to hit Ironskin occasionally, but in Grim Dawn they're all passives and toggles.

I think they MIGHT have nerfed Retaliation enough in the last patch to make that not viable anymore? But I'm not sure.

Apparently there's even a player made and run season system done through modding.

Now modding...there's a reason why Grim Dawn is a superior game. I need to dig in and play with some of the mods that add additional classes and whatnot some time.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Sure, but all of the Eye of Reckoning builds play exactly the same...ironically the exact same way as the spin-to-win Barbarian builds you impugned. The only real difference are what KIND of damage it deals (you can pick your flavor of Fire, Lightning, Acid or...Cold I think with items?).

That was kind of my point. Even in one of the most boring build archetypes, there's a variety of ways to go about doing it rather than a single cookie cutter build.

Sadly, no, otherwise I'd be on your side. Most "top tier" builds in Grim Dawn can facetank anything a boss throws at them. Retaliation builds, in particular, are (or were) notorious for being able to handle all content with literally no input; they could stand in place, hit no buttons, and kill the boss with Retal. Even Thorns Invoker (one of the most mindnumbingly boring optimal builds to ever exist) over in D3 has to hit Ironskin occasionally, but in Grim Dawn they're all passives and toggles.

I think they MIGHT have nerfed Retaliation enough in the last patch to make that not viable anymore? But I'm not sure.

I've heard a lot of grumbling about ret builds getting nerfed into nonviability, and I haven't been able to get it to work just yet. However, even in the aforementioned EoR builds, you still have to pop your RR's if you want to actually affect elites and bosses, which also brings back into the discussion which class to pair that brings a useful RR to the table which is going to be based on which element you want to try to use and which constellations you have. But you are going to need to use RR's if you expect to actually damage something, and you DO need to be cognizant of your defenses, which is more than D3 can claim.

Now modding...there's a reason why Grim Dawn is a superior game. I need to dig in and play with some of the mods that add additional classes and whatnot some time.

Agreed. Right now I'm just playing the base game, although I'm still using the Rainbow Filter mod because it presents the information in a much more intelligible manner. Once I've beaten the campaign a few times, I'll start branching out.

[warty goblin]

I'm not generally super into Diablo-alikes. But I can say that Grim Dawn is fairly fun as these things go, particularly when sick or otherwise feeling low-key. What I played of Diablo 3 was as close to being in a catatonic stupor as I ever wish to come.

[Anteros]

I'm not generally super into Diablo-alikes. But I can say that Grim Dawn is fairly fun as these things go, particularly when sick or otherwise feeling low-key. What I played of Diablo 3 was as close to being in a catatonic stupor as I ever wish to come.

I keep trying and failing to get into Grim Dawn. On paper it's a game I should absolutely love, but in practice the gameplay feels too slow to me. Maybe it picks up after the early game but I've never made it that far. There's also the issue that for a hack and slash looter game none of the gear ever felt special or unique. I like looters, but only if there's a chance to find unique gameplay changing stuff, not just the same items with larger numbers.

I'm sure uniques do exist, but I certainly never found anything exciting in my limited play time.