The ARPG Diablo-like Thread

[Enbyeon]

This is a genre that I used to not enjoy, but roughly around COVID, I sat down and played Grim Dawn and have been really into ARPGs since.

What's an ARPG? It stands for "Action RPG," but it's also not "Action RPG" because that's a completely different genre somehow (don't bother trying to understand). We'll just call them Diablo-likes, aka lots of clicking, lots of loot, lots of BIG NUMBERS.

Some personal recommendations:

• Grim Dawn - extremely good feeling combat and items. Honestly the gold standard for ARPGs to me.
• Last Epoch - One of the most interesting skill systems I've seen, where every skill has its own skill tree. Itemization is alright, although it gets a bit too random for my liking.
• Wayfinder - This doesn't have the usual isometric look, but don't sleep on it. It's an MMO for people who don't want to deal with MMO players (you can co-op with up to 2 other people).
• GhostLore - Recently started playing this one properly. It feels like a PS1/PSP ARPG, and it has a skill and passive system that allows an amount of min-maxing appropriate for real sickos. You can also turn into a weretiger.

Anyway here's my old Grim Dawn character breaking 100,000 DPS because of a god roll item.

[Trysdyn]

Chronicon changed my POV on diablolikes forever and I gush about it any time diablolikes come up.

It's not quite a pure diablolike. It's built for twinstick or WASD+Mouse. What sets it apart more though is it sets up the stage for diablolike game loop (grind for gear) and then gets out of the way.

Its systems are built from the ground up to respect your time. Runs are tight, you can upcycle gear and legendaries as you level rather than having to drop a replacement legendary item if you outgrow one you like, skill trees are resettable for free at any time. Every class has multiple neat builds for it. There's an infinite "Paragon" style tree if grinding your numbers ad infinitum is your bag. And, one of the biggest QoL things for me, once you finish the plot, you can begin postgame on any alt from level 1.

Postgame is vaguely Diablo III rifts, without the weird rune system that makes you start over if you fail a rift (They got rid of that though didn't they?).

You can also do this really weird thing where you bind multiple skills to the same hotkey, so you can put your 60 second cooldown buff you always want up on the same button as your basic attack and hold it down, and it just Does The Thing. More games need to do that.

I kind of call it a "Coffee break diablolike" but I love it so. Its a little rough; it was built by a dev house of... I think two people? But if you can click with the control scheme and aesthetics, it's just such a smooth dopamine rush of drops.

It's also "completely done", aka "dead game" according to the Steam forum monsters, so I love sharing it with people for that reason too. It's not dead, dangit, it's done!

They made a Vampire Survivor clone too called "Chronicon Survivors" but that one's a little weak as a garlic-like. Don't confuse the two if you go looking ;)

[Chaxinitus]

Came to throw out a Rec for Grim Dawn, happy to see that's right at the start!

So instead I'll bring up Titan Quest which Grim Dawn was the spiritual successor to.

These days it's owned/run by THQ Nordic, but they've done a really solid job with it IMO, they put out a cleaned up "Anniversary Edition" a while ago and now several new expansions for it. The original run for the game was by the same team that went on to make Grim Dawn. VERY similar in terms of gameplay (Masteries, multi-classing, etc), but set in Mythological Greece, Egypt, and China at least for the base game.

[Enbyeon]

Yeah, I've been debating starting a Titan Quest 1 run with my partner, but we've also been waiting for the Grim Dawn DLC/TQ2 to get released. We might just pull the trigger and do regular TQ1 anyway.

[redacted_cat]

What if I was to bring the glorious news of modded Diablo 2 in this thread ;P
Diablo in a Diablolike thread, but for real Project Diablo is imo a legit good mod

Feels like they kept best stuff of D2 so no one is confused in it, while adding their own stuff and expanding tons the endgame (lots of Path of Exile inspiration for the endgame contents, but much more simplified).

Classes are rebalanced, all builds are viable and it's a blast to go in it once in a while.
Community is also very active too in it

Link here, as said it's super worth it and I'd unironically start a new character to just hang out with people in it if some mod their D2
https://www.projectdiablo2.com/

[Moot]

everything I would recommend is in thread already so I’m going to drop in the ever so slightly clunkily named Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr

Skills are tied to weapons as opposed to a skill tree (apart from passives) so you’ll be trying a bunch of new stuff out in the initial level climb, and the various classes all get their own exclusive skills, like the heavy gunner can squash people with a jump pack, drop in turrets, or missile enemies out of cover. tech-adepts are your pet class and sisters of battle can go super saiyan I mean super saint mode to smash heretics

as far as stories go, there is one, and it’s all fine and voice acted fairly decently for what I assume is a lower budget game, but who cares, really. it gets the power fantasy correct and you’ll be cutting swathes through xenos filth with your multi-melta or power sword or incinerator fairly quick, which I enjoy

there’s a bunch of extra story dlc and procgen missions to carve through which all have their own rewards, as well as seasonal characters and modifiers which tbh I haven’t really touched yet. there’s even moral decisions you get to make which unlock their own skills but it does lock you into one style since it’s a meter that swings back and forth so you can’t really double dip

the grimdark 40K aesthetic is all present and accounted for and everything looks like it should, and you don’t really need any prior knowledge to know what’s going on. it’s also coop, which naturally I have never tried

[Mixi Blacksand]

Myself and a few friends went deep on The Slormancer when it hit version 1.0 recently. It appealed to me because it's a 'free respecs' type building game. No need for alts 'cause you can refund spent resources for their full value at any time.

Turns out, you really need that ability because after giving you a few static dungeons to build up some skills, it unleashes challenges on you that DEMAND you figure out how to minmax the skill and equipment systems just to survive. It's tuned way the heck up to rocket tag damage levels, but it does not penalize you harshly for dying and gives you the tools to tinker with your build in a number of ways, so it becomes a satisfying puzzle of working out a solution to each hurdle.

It's a game by a small team, so it does get a bit monotonous art-wise. There's only a handful of tilesets and monsters compared to some of the bigger games in this thread, but there's enough there to do the job. It also tries to be funny and... isn't, to the point they might not actually have been trying to be funny in the first place, but that doesn't get in the way too much for me.

And for what it's worth, after 600 hours of Grim Dawn, I'm very much looking forward to the new expansion. I always have a good time running characters through that one.