Poll: Favourit ARPG?

Evilsausage

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I am very excited for the free expansion to Path of Exile.
But besides that and Diablo 3 I haven't other modern ARPGs. Which ones do you play?

(Sorry didn't list classics like D2 and Titan Quest. I wanted to focus on more modern games)
 

Lufia Erim

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Diablo 2... Oh . OH. FINE THEN ! I guess diablo 3 takes my vote by forfeit.

Seriously though. diablo 2 was a fine damn game. I'm pretty sure if they re-released it with diablo 3 graphics it would sell more than diablo 3 did in half the time.
 

ExDeath730

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No Diablo 2? Seriously?
Well, i had to vote other.
Really, i loved that game, still play it from time to time.
 

shrekfan246

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Diablo III.

Sorry guys, it just has better gameplay than Diablo II. And since they managed to actually make the loot drops decent, the only remaining problem I have with it is that the PC version still has that bloody stupid online requirement.

Otherwise, Grim Dawn and Nekro are looking extremely promising, assuming they ever come out of Early Access. With varied success I've been trying to get into Titan Quest and Diablo II again, and Marvel Heroes and Path of Exile are pretty fun. The Divinity games are pretty neat, too.

If we want to look outside of isometric ones, then I do have a certain fondness for Kingdoms of Amalur and Mass Effect.
 

Vendor-Lazarus

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I voted other.
Harbinger takes first place, quickly followed by Diablo II (which should be in the poll, *wink* *wink*).
After that comes Torchlight 2 and finally Titan Quest Immortal Throne.

Harbinger is one of the rare Sci-Fi Hack'n'slash games and seeing as I prefer Sci-Fi over Fantasy it's only to be expected.
It's a bit too short though. I would have loved a sequel but I'm not sure what happened. Too obscure perhaps.

Diablo II..What can I say, it's Diablo II!

Torchlight 2 improved greatly upon the first one and despite my initial misgivings (such as characters and other minor things) I've come to love it. Especially with mods.

Titan Quest Immortal Throne takes place NOT in a D&D fantasy setting but includes real-world lore, legends & myths.
Starting with the Greek pantheon and moving on to Egypt and finally Asia. Would have gotten higher rated but that final Original boss right before Hades kicks ass..My ass, and really hard, to boot!
 

Evilsausage

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Bad Jim said:
Change the poll to include Diablo 2. It's the best and you know it.
True D2 is without a doubt one of the best if not THE best for its time.
But Its such a obvious answer and I wanted to hear what modern ARPGs people enjoy.

shrekfan246 said:
Diablo III.

Sorry guys, it just has better gameplay than Diablo II. And since they managed to actually make the loot drops decent, the only remaining problem I have with it is that the PC version still has that bloody stupid online requirement.

Otherwise, Grim Dawn and Nekro are looking extremely promising, assuming they ever come out of Early Access. With varied success I've been trying to get into Titan Quest and Diablo II again, and Marvel Heroes and Path of Exile are pretty fun. The Divinity games are pretty neat, too.

If we want to look outside of isometric ones, then I do have a certain fondness for Kingdoms of Amalur and Mass Effect.
Sorry don't agree D3 feels so dumbed down. Its has some fun casual slaughter but thats not enough for me to back to it over and over like with Diablo 2 and Path of Exile.
 

shrekfan246

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Evilsausage said:
Sorry don't agree D3 feels so dumbed down. Its has some fun casual slaughter but thats not enough for me to back to it over and over like with Diablo 2 and Path of Exile.
Diablo II's big problems come from its interface. I wouldn't mind the boring skill progression that Blizzard reused for WoW if you had hotkeys that let you use multiple attacks without needing to manually swap between them on your primary attack buttons. It's inconvenient, it's clunky, and it significantly slows down the pacing of the game. Diablo III is a massive upgrade in that regard; it still doesn't give the freedom of some of its contemporaries, but the ability to have six skills available simultaneously is infinitely more fun than needing to juggle your keybindings on your proper attacks.

As for the skill tree itself, I disagree that it's "dumbed down". Diablo II is just a static increase of stats system. There's very little nuance, and very little incentive to spec as anything less than "optimal". Diablo III might give you all of your skills automatically as you level up, but the rune system makes it far more dynamic. Abilities actually change, and between the runes and equipment you pick up, you could end up completely overhauling your ability loadout in the middle of your game just because you suddenly got something entirely new and different. How is that less interesting than Diablo II's system? If you're a min-maxxer then okay, but that's not me so Diablo III's method is far more appealing. But maybe that's because I spent five years playing WoW and honestly didn't mind when they decided to completely redo the skill system in that and remove all of the superfluous "your [Ability] deals 3/6/9% more damage" skills.

And Path of Exile? A clear case of quantity over quality. That skill tree is Diablo taken to its logical extreme. Which, I suppose, is a good thing if you prefer the Diablo II way of doing things, but that's not my cup of tea.

Also, can we please just stop saying "dumbed down" in the first place? There is no more trite a criticism of a game that can be thrown out these days. Just say you don't like it because it doesn't make you click all of the upgrades yourself.
 

Aeshi

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Honestly I'm going to be a Hipster and vote for a little ARPG by the name of Spiral Knights. There's something about the Zelda Game + Dungeon Crawler design it has that I really like.

Diablo III was good up until the point it got turned into a glorified Slot Machine to sate the sour grapes who couldn't tolerate the idea of someone out there having better gear than them.

Diablo II is okay up until the point where you take off the Rose-tinted goggles and remember how those "deep and complex" skill trees were basically the same 3-4 skills copy pasted a few dozen times.

But if I had to pick one from your list, I'd say Path of Exile. It's a bit RNG-heavy for my liking, but I think the Skill Gem system works pretty well and does a good job of encouraging experimentation (hell, I built one ability out of spare gems I had that I liked so much I ended up keeping until the end of the game.)
 

kris40k

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I voted for Torchlight although I really mean Torchlight II.

Its more a successor to Diablo II than Diablo III was if you strip away the world/story and look at the base gameplay. With easy modding it continues to be a fun game as people add new content to it.
 

Tilly

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Oh we're spoilt for choices....

What actually counts as an ARPG anyway? What about Zelda? Or the Tales series?
 

Ihateregistering1

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This is actually a tough one. I'm tempted to say "Torchlight 2", and to me it's easily the most complete of all the ARPGs out there. My biggest issues with TL2 was that I wasn't a huge fan of the cheesy/lighthearted setting, and it needed an additional difficulty setting. If I remember correctly it had four (easy, medium, hard, insane), and the problem was that medium setting was WAY too easy, and hard was WAY too hard.

I'm also tempted to vote for Grim Dawn (and its spiritual predecessor, Titan Quest). As cool as having character classes is, having the ability to basically create any sort of character you want is really an amazing thing to do in those games.

But I'm going to have to go with Diablo 2. Best story, most well realized world, awesome character classes, and the fact that it basically set the standard for all ARPGs in the future gives it my vote.
 

SecondPrize

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Gotta vote for PoE because of the skill forest and because I only played Diablo 3 on release, when it was shit, and got a refund then so I've not played since before people started saying they fixed it and it's decent.
 

infohippie

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Diablo 1, the best of all the Diablo games. 2 just did not hit that same note. Though of the ones on offer in your list, I would go with Torchlight.
 

Evilsausage

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shrekfan246 said:
Evilsausage said:
Sorry don't agree D3 feels so dumbed down. Its has some fun casual slaughter but thats not enough for me to back to it over and over like with Diablo 2 and Path of Exile.
Diablo II's big problems come from its interface. I wouldn't mind the boring skill progression that Blizzard reused for WoW if you had hotkeys that let you use multiple attacks without needing to manually swap between them on your primary attack buttons. It's inconvenient, it's clunky, and it significantly slows down the pacing of the game. Diablo III is a massive upgrade in that regard; it still doesn't give the freedom of some of its contemporaries, but the ability to have six skills available simultaneously is infinitely more fun than needing to juggle your keybindings on your proper attacks.

As for the skill tree itself, I disagree that it's "dumbed down". Diablo II is just a static increase of stats system. There's very little nuance, and very little incentive to spec as anything less than "optimal". Diablo III might give you all of your skills automatically as you level up, but the rune system makes it far more dynamic. Abilities actually change, and between the runes and equipment you pick up, you could end up completely overhauling your ability loadout in the middle of your game just because you suddenly got something entirely new and different. How is that less interesting than Diablo II's system? If you're a min-maxxer then okay, but that's not me so Diablo III's method is far more appealing. But maybe that's because I spent five years playing WoW and honestly didn't mind when they decided to completely redo the skill system in that and remove all of the superfluous "your [Ability] deals 3/6/9% more damage" skills.

And Path of Exile? A clear case of quantity over quality. That skill tree is Diablo taken to its logical extreme. Which, I suppose, is a good thing if you prefer the Diablo II way of doing things, but that's not my cup of tea.

Also, can we please just stop saying "dumbed down" in the first place? There is no more trite a criticism of a game that can be thrown out these days. Just say you don't like it because it doesn't make you click all of the upgrades yourself.
Diablo 2 by today sure has its flaws, but concidering what it introduced to the ARPG genre its without a doubt for its time the best or one of the best ARPGs.
The talent tree wasn't perfect, but Diablo 3 could have improved upon the system. Instead things got more cookie cutter then ever, way to few options to experiment and few really useful skills to pick from. It was just skills getting unlocked at certain levels, which made the joy of getting that next level not as exciting as when you have freedom to choose.
What you dislike about Path of Exiles skill tree is what I love, its the bigger better version of D2s talent tree giving more freedom and choices.
But I guess its a matter of taste. Diablo 3 went another direction, sadly I thought it just got boring.



kris40k said:
I voted for Torchlight although I really mean Torchlight II.

Its more a successor to Diablo II than Diablo III was if you strip away the world/story and look at the base gameplay. With easy modding it continues to be a fun game as people add new content to it.

Ah yeah I ment Torchligt 2 for the poll.
 

schtingah

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Of these types of games, the one I've enjoyed the most has actually been Titan Quest. I really liked how the class system in it worked.
 

Blood Brain Barrier

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I assume A stands for action. Well then, I liked Dungeon Siege more than Diablo, which is the only thing off that list I've played, so I'll have to choose other. Not my favorite genre, though.
 

MysticSlayer

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It can fluctuate a little bit, but generally the two that change places as my favorite are The Witcher and the Mass Effect Trilogy. For me, The Witcher and Mass Effect are very similar in their appeal. They aren't exactly the most fun games (though I did find The Witcher's combat to be enjoyable enough), but they did such a tremendous job with their writing that the games have really stuck with me ever since I played them. ME2 and ME3, while not as strong in the writing, are a lot more fun, and I also think both are enhanced significantly by the game(s) that preceded them, which is why I like grouping all three together in these "favorites" threads now.

Overall, I love both and love going back to re-experience them when I get the chance.
 

shrekfan246

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Evilsausage said:
Instead things got more cookie cutter then ever, way to few options to experiment and few really useful skills to pick from. It was just skills getting unlocked at certain levels, which made the joy of getting that next level not as exciting as when you have freedom to choose.
I still disagree. But then I've already explained that; on the surface it might seem more limiting, but once you start actually unlocking runes for abilities, the freedom of choice explodes. Almost every ability has its use, and most of them combine fairly well with certain other abilities. There is far more freedom to experiment than Diablo II ever offered, and you don't get unfairly punished for trying either. Every character might end up with the same abilities and runes as they level up, but that by no means suggests that every player is going to go with the same skill loadout -- just as an example, one of my friends uses the Hydra pretty extensively on his Wizard character, and I find very little practical use for it. I also like the Spectral Blade ability, while some people seem to prefer Magic Missile as the primary attack for its greater range and higher base damage.

What you dislike about Path of Exiles skill tree is what I love, its the bigger better version of D2s talent tree giving more freedom and choices.
But I guess its a matter of taste. Diablo 3 went another direction, sadly I thought it just got boring.
But yeah, if you're a fan of what I consider to be a rather boring passive stat increase system, then it makes sense you'd prefer Diablo II or Path of Exile. For me, I find the number of abilities in Diablo III to offer far more variety than I've found in most other isometric ARPGs, particularly because of how easy it is to swap between them on the fly, and the rune system just adds on top of it because it can actually completely change how abilities work rather than just simply making their numbers larger. But hey, I've been defending Diablo III since before they made the loot any good.