As I play Titan Quest, I get the strange sense that it is all pointless violence. That is not exactly a critique, so much as the point of the game. It is not quite the same feeling as “I have killed this goblin 10,000 times before,” more of wanting more from a central quest perhaps. It does not really matter what the story is; so long as I kill in the relatively straight line available to me and click on the NPCs with !s over their heads, I get loot and power and an official victory.
Some of that is the side quests, with the feeling of “I have saved this farmer 10,000 times before.” Someone in town wants me to go kill monster X because it killed his goats, stole his dowry, or kidnapped his daughter. Great, maybe I will see monster X along the way. It is all an excuse plot to give you a reason to go kill a few thousand things. I sometimes wonder if my presence in the world makes things worse, due to the common mechanic that certain enemies do not spawn unless you have the quest for them. The only reason the monsters exist is that I am there to kill them; had I never come to this town, the monsters would never have spawned and attacked it.
But the class listed on my character sheet is Assassin, so perhaps I am not worried about whether monster X deserves to die. Click, there it goes.
: Zubon
Aren’t all Diablo-style ARPGs just really a clicker game with level/gear progression and a skill tree attached?
Not criticising, just stating. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go destroy my mouse further summoning twenty flaming skulls, an orb of lightning, and several totem-like things per dense group of mobs in Path of Exile.
That’s fair. You know, an incremental game with an explicit skill tree doesn’t sound that bad, although perhaps not that far from Realm Grinder.
I had the same “meh, what’s the point” feeling the night I tried Path of Exile. I recall running along a beach killing some monsters for some reason. The real driving reason to play was the character advancement system, not whatever story justification existed for all the things to murder.