Asmongold Vs Rhykker: Diablo IV, Path of Exile, Fun Factor, Difficulty and builds

Channel:

Ye Old Entertainment

Subscribers:

8,200

Published on August 28, 2023 1:50:10 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyILTOACg4E

Game:

Diablo IV (2023)

Duration: 17:52

1,675 views

92

This conversation between Asmongold and Rhykker touches upon a couple of subjects that I have a few things to say about: builds, difficulty, fun factor and even player archetypes to some extent.

Asmongold is taking difficulty and fun factor. Let’s take difficulty first…
Does the game challenge your eye-thumb coordination? Does it require you to have tactical skills? strategic skills maybe? Does it require you to be observant? Some people consider Tainted Grail: Conquest to be very extremely difficult. I think it is rather easy when compared to the best game in its class. When Phoenix Point first came out, a lot of people were shitting (amongst other things) about the game’s extreme difficulty… Which… I really couldn’t see anywhere. It was hard yes… but not extremely hard.
But some people breezed through the whole of Sekiro in two or three days… and… that’s probably the same time it took me to beat the last boss of the game.

And of course, the same thing goes for fun factor.
Also do consider that there is some correlation between these two factors. They’re not completely separate lines in every case. Challenge is a variable, but it’s also an indicator of the fun factor variable.
But how do builds factor in with these two variables? Builds are one the most important things in the RPG genre, and this is true of all sub genres: isometric hack n’ slash ARPGs like Diablo, CRPGS like Baldur’s Gate 2 or souls-like games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne.
For most people, builds factor in the “fun-factor” aspect of the game because they provide players with tools which allow them to play the game their way.
Buikds in RPGs encompass your choice of class + choice of talents/skills/perks + the gear you equip on your character.
Remember the Slayer, Seeker Survivor DLC for Pillars of Eternity? It presents brilliantly the three types of challenges you have in RPGs. The Slayer challenges for example are all about ending the fight as soon as you can. Glass cannon builds tend to be efficient for these types of challenges.
Survivor challenges are battles of attrition. These battles require you to use your resources wisely. Coming out all guns blazing in these fights will get you easy early victories, but such tactic will surely compromise your chances of winning the fight in the long run.

Glass cannon builds will have a lot of difficulties with this type of fight. But builds that focus on builds that regenerate resources will feel right at home with these types of encounters.

Seeker challenges are all about figuring out the enemy’s weakness. Baldur’s gate 3 has a ton of those. Like the toll collector who has insta-kill attacks and a large health pool. The secret here is to kill the Morte looking schools that accompany her before the fight starts and try to keep as far away from her as you possible can when the fight starts. But you don’t know this beforehand.

These challenges are less about your character’s and your party’s build and little bit more about figuring out what you have to do.
If you feel like the game offers you the possibility to create and build your character in a way that is consistent with your approach to the game, then you are probably going to have fun with your build and the game.
Now let’s talk about builds and difficulty. I think that is safe to say that both Dark Souls and Sekiro are in the difficult and fun tile of this matrix. At least by most people’s appreciation if the scores on Good Old Games and Steam are anything to go by.

In Sekiro for example you have some prosthetics that you can enhance and some techniques that you can learn, and then you have a few items with which to round your “build”. The notion of build, however, in Sekiro is rather simple, and that’s mainly because Sekiro isn’t an RPG. Dark souls on the other hand has classes, attributes and several items that you can equip and enhance.

Now, while some prosthetics and techniques might be more or less efficient in some situations, there’s nothing in that game that straight out allows you to brute force your way through its multiple challenges. This is a game that challenges your skill.
But Sekiro and Dark Sould aren’t hack and slash ARPGs that feature an isometric perspective, like Diablo IV, which is the main game that’s being discussed.

In Shadows Awakening, having the best gear equipped on all of your characters can make a significant difference. It allows you to make a few more mistakes before you figure out the right approach for your character during a boss battle, it buys you time to course correct and turn the tables in your favor and it can even save your ass from time to time. But not even the best gear in the game will get you all by itself through the game’s challenges. A tactic that fails with bad gears, is still a bad tactic with good gear. This is how I think builds should work in RPGs.

Other Statistics