Poopfeast420

Bought Titan Quest 2 in Early Access and played through the current content (Prologue + Act 1) with two characters.

While the game is fun, the current masteries (classes) are kinda boring (except Storm). For some reason, only the Storm mastery gets different basic abilities (low cost, spammable attacks), and everyone else is stuck with the dinky basic weapon attack. I also wasn't too hot on the active abilities for the Rogue and Warfare mastery, so I basically just ran around with two passives and the default attack otherwise (which you can upgrade) on my Bowman. My first character, a Frost caster (Storm+Earth mastery) was a lot more fun, with better abilities.

I wouldn't recommend at its current non-sale price, but it's a good foundation, as long as the devs can keep updating the game with more stuff.

As I said, the video is about general types of SSDs, not specific games. It's also mixed between first load after launch, reload of a save and sometimes fast travel, no real methodology.

When the game uses DirectStorage, a PCIe SSD will be a lot faster than SATA or HDDs. Games like Last of Us Part 2, Spider-Man 2 or Ratchet & Clank were shown. Indiana Jones doesn't use DirectStorage, but still shows this kind of behavior.

Without DirectStorage, it mostly doesn't matter, as long as it's an SSD, although PCIe drives were almost always faster. If you reload a save, a lot of time, it often also doesn't matter if you use an HDD, although you might still get the glitches and pop-ins from slow asset streaming.

Here's a list of Steam games, that use DirectStorage. It's not a lot right now, so you definitely don't need to switch right this second, especially if you already have a SATA SSD, and you're not playing the latest AAA games constantly. It is something to keep in mind, when you're upgrading though.

The video even shows it makes a difference, although it only touches on that part, with no in-depth analysis. Some modern games don't work properly on HDDs and you get tons of glitches and pop-in.

In older games it probably won't affect much more than load times though.

Watch the video instead of talking nonsense.

This is not about specific SSDs, but a general comparison between SSD types (and some basic HDDs). It shows that some modern games actually take advantage of the increased speed, but once you're using PCIe SSDs, it basically doesn't matter if it's 3.0 or 5.0, so just get the cheapest drive you find.

I played on default Nightmare and then some custom turbo mode (150% game speed with lower damage taken and dealt, and a bit more).

As the OP said, after a few levels you can get upgrades that destroys shielded enemies quickly and for some reason the game starts spawning mostly superheated ones anyway, so you can just instantly blow those groups up.

variety of enemies that require different weapons

I had a totally different experience. In my first playthrough I just switched weapons, when I felt like it (and for level challenges), because there's just no reason otherwise. And the second playthrough was with only the SSG in the first half and Impaler in the second, and they just shredded everything.

With stuff like this, it's always possible that's just the slowest hardware the devs have on hand to test with. The Doom and Quake re-releases are the same, I think all of these use the Kex Engine.

I got an email from Bandcamp about the soundtrack from Andrew Hulshult and had to check if these games finally got a remaster/re-release/sourceport.

Pumped for this, and I don't have to pay anything extra for the update, since I owned the old games on Steam already.

Yes, same, been waiting for this one.

I played through Heretic on Steam (not on the Deck) a few years ago, but I definitely didn't use the Dosbox version, but some sourceport (probably Chocolate or Crispy Doom). Guess I have to re-play it.

I see that there has been a misunderstanding on my part. I agree with your last three points, but for some of the others, things you deem fine or good currently, I'd say they are rather mediocre (like your first point).

And in the end it basically all comes down to the combat, I think the most important part of these types of games, which you think isn't engaging enough (it's not, but that doesn't bother me). I think if you did change it, and "fix" points two and three at the same time, you'd lose too much of what makes these types of grindy, rng loot games work in my opinion.

Which is why I think you're wrong with saying

but not what most people want when they go to play a video game including in the ARPG genre

I think the mindless grinding, not having to pay attention, is exactly what most people want with this type of game. Of course, that isn't to say everyone wants that and that there isn't a market for something else.

However, I'd personally probably rather recommend the Niohs, the Khazans, the Wo Longs, the Remnants, the whatever of the world to those people (or try SSFHC or something, I dunno).

Most of them have barely innovated on Diablo 2’s core moment to moment loop and it’s something that seemingly everyone is aware of but no studio has yet to be able to fix.

That's what I'm saying, because for many people there is nothing to fix, because they feel it's not broken. That's why basically all the isometric ARPGs still go back to the D2 formula and maybe add some QoL changes.

Also, your examples and expectations feel extremely unrealistic and mostly not what ARPGs are known for, and frankly some are even incompatible with the genre in my opinion.

From your comments here, it seems like kinds of isometric ARPGs aren't for you. Last Epoch, PoE, TQ2, all don't have good enough combat, so what are you looking for?

If you still want the loot and grind aspect, maybe a shooter is more up your alley, like Borderlands or Destiny. Or maybe something like the Team Ninja third-person action games, like Nioh, Stranger of Paradise, Wo Long (and games like that).