[carlisle_]

This is a strange post to me. You can immediately see that you value soulslike as a superior genre, yet to me I see those games are just as grindy. Die to a boss a million times to learn the timings -> finally you beat it. Not that much different than ARPGs where you kill lots of stuff and die infrequently. It's just two sides of the same coin.

Really these posts that call one kind of game time wasting or drug-like but not another just miss the brutal irony.

[Panoramix]

It's the difference between spending a lot of time at the slot machine vs becoming good at chess. It's s massive difference. You don't "grind" chess, you learn from your failures and get better at it. Sure, you can get lucky sometimes if your opponent blunders but the strategy to wait for that to happen is a failing one.

[curiousmindz]

The analogy with Chess does not work: I can go on YouTube to watch how a pro player beats a specific boss, then use that to massively shorten how long I need to beat that boss.

Watching a lot of grandmasters play Chess will minimally help me beat a Chess AI that was better than me (excluding the beginner level).

I think that someone could have fun playing a Diablo-like RPG because they enjoy feeling powerful while they mow down a lot of enemies. And someone someone could enjoy a Soulslike game for the precision they need to apply to beat a boss.

Maybe it is somewhat similar to the difference between an arcade/fun racing game and a professional track racing game.

I wouldn't consider one to be "better" than the other. They simply have different objectives.

[zanellato19]

> You can immediately see that you value soulslike as a superior genre, yet to me I see those games are just as grindy. Die to a boss a million times to learn the timings -> finally you beat it. Not that much different than ARPGs where you kill lots of stuff and die infrequently. It's just two sides of the same coin.

That's not the same at all. The grind is built into Diablo, there is no way to avoid it. I regularly play souslike, it has been years since I needed to grind out a boss.

[ohwellhere]

> Really these posts that call one kind of game time wasting or drug-like but not another just miss the brutal irony.

I think you're spot on.

> > To me there is just "no there there" - and that's probably the point?

In some ways I've always felt Diablo is just more honest about what a video game is.

[kec]

In Diablo you click on things to increase your avatar power, eventually if you click on enough things your avatar power will have gone up enough you can complete the challenge of the day. There is skill in crafting a build, and some builds and abilities do require some thought to deploy well, but at the end of the day your personal skill level doesn’t matter, its not like you’ll need to hone your clicking ability.

In soulslike games there is typically some amount of avatar power and it is possible to grind up such that your avatar power trivializes the game but that isn’t actually necessary, its possible to beat the game with a naked level one avatar. The challenge is more about you the player getting better at the mechanics of the game, not your avatar.

Both styles of game design can be enjoyable, but many find the latter more fulfilling.

[shultays]

I guess the difference is grinding against a challenge and grinding against RNG

[aflag]

How is that material in any way?

[dmonitor]

Consistently defeating the Dark Souls boss requires skill. You have to learn how to beat it. The improvement comes from within yourself, and your ability to recognize what you are doing wrong. Knowing how to beat a boss is like a puzzle or a skill, even if it's a trivial skill less useful than a party trick. You have to analyze the boss, form a strategy, and adjust your strategy until you reach the desired outcome.

Diablo progression is just beating a pinata until it pops. You do the same thing over and over again until you get the outcome you want. It's about as intellectually engaging as cookie clicker.

[aflag]

That’s what superficially different about them. But in both cases you’re just killing time playing something fun. The difference is only whether you prefer rolling dice or learning some useless skill.

[nkjnlknlk]

Transferable skills. I don't die frequently to Souls or Monster Hunter bosses. I beat many of the Bloodborne bosses on the first try. Not because I'm a god gamer but because I played a LOT of Dark Souls and Monster Hunter as a kid.

Every new ARPG (or ARPG league) requires many hours of grinding regardless of skill.

[dividedbyzero]

It feels very different and appeals to different crowds. I hate grinding against a challenge because I have to do a lot of that in real life, whereas blazing through the hell levels with my Diablo 1 Sorcerer was more like a relaxing stroll than much of a grind, with the occasional little reward from the RNG. Other people get a kick out of dying 83 times in front of the same boss, but that has never been me.

[spywaregorilla]

In one of them you do a thing. In the other you just roll dice?

[aflag]

Rolling dice is doing something too.

[spywaregorilla]

seems purposefully pedantic or ignorant to fail to see the difference here imo

[aflag]

Maybe I just don't see the point. They are different in the sense that the actions are different. But they are the same in the sense that they are both useless activities you do for fun. Some people can have more fun playing diablo than they would ever have playing a dark souls game. I'd even dare to say that more people prefer diablo over dark souls by the sole fact that diablo is the more popular game.

Anyway, my point is that they can look different in the surface, but they are not truly very different. They are just a pastime.

[thefz]

> You can immediately see that you value soulslike as a superior genre, yet to me I see those games are just as grindy. Die to a boss a million times to learn the timings -> finally you beat it.

Elden ring is so grindy that it's almost worse than any ARPG. And the game is full with artificially deadly things that should not be there, just to keep up its own meme "lol game hard, player dead". It's comically bad in many aspects.

[themagician]

You can find a balance. Diablo 3 tried. You had a game that you could make significantly hard, and because respecs were essentially unlimited you could reroll your character for any particular fight that was too hard to try and find a new way to beat it. I enjoyed that part.