That made a whole lot of sense to me, The dividing of numbers however does not 
But no worries if you dont want to explain thanks heaps for this 
Also any idea why the number is so high if this is what they are doing
They could be holdovers from before they stated they weren’t going to be like this and most of your stats will come from skill points.
Numbers go high cause they grow in an exponential fashion… If you add 10 ATK to 100 you’re increasing your damage ouput by 10%, but if you’re adding 10 to 500 you’re just adding 2% so in order to gain “linear” feeling damage increase have to go exponential (i.e. add 50 instead of 10 when 500), otherwise the “linear” growth will become much more insignificant as game goes on
HOWEVER, I’d strongly advice they do a “gauss” growth as opposed to “linear” i.e. exponential one, i.e. so what if the highest power “growth” between adjacent levels per level is at around level 28 or 30 or 33 or so… It should probably be better if the latest levels don’t differ too much in power i.e. will feel MUCH more balanced with much more viable options later on
In other words, hope they dont’ do the D3 thing where a lvl60 was 15-20% stronger than a lvl59 and a lvl70 was 20-30% stronger than a lvl69, i.e. they don’t “stack ultimate uncontestable power” exclusively on maxxed-out gear
As for the second part: the division as opposed to substraction use is very simple, to avoid negative numbers 
Though with some limitations that wouldn’t be a bad idea either, for example I’d like to see them try that as well cause there could be simple triggers that increase the ATK rating temporarily, thus giving window of opportunities to attack targets that have higher DEF but otherwise deal 1 damage per hit or whatever at that point is minimal 
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I agree with this so much! I shouldn’t be able to freely run through a group of monsters and only have my HP affected. If I’m briefly losing control of my character, I become very aware of the enemy and their threat.
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And YET everyone assembles Enigma or Stealth or whatever of the kind and simply skips 90% of the content and focuses on farming that one thing they want to farm… It’s like that even before that, first step is acquire the 30% FHR rune of 2 pieces (forgot the name) and farm until getting “uninterrupted” skip
The problem with FHR and Hitstun, or at least the way it was implemented in D2 is 3 things:
1 - RNG decides whether or not you get hit-stunned
2 - Increasing HP directly increases your hit-stun resistance
3 - The chain effect
Now sure, things have a “workaround” or at least way to deal with but I really hate the first one, sometimes you can have 75% hit-chance and hit 5 times in a row and another time you can have the same and miss like 4 times… And yes, Devs could’ve made taking X hits in second hit-stuns you (instead of every 12.5% of HP taken), so technically that would reduce the “coupling” between hitstun resistance and Vitality, BUT, don’t think there’s anything that can be done to deal with the 3rd problem
A group of lightning skeletons appear, one hits you with the first lightning projectile, got hitstun ?, GL living through the wave (if not top-notch at Resistances chances are you’ll be one-shot right there and then), and yes, FHR can mitigate some of this problem but then depends on how “close” to one another those skellies were, isn’t it ?
Now, IS a “prevent roam” mechanic needed in the game ?, absolutely, no doubt and no questions about it, but IS a RNG-based hitstun the solution ?, don’t think so tbh
Then the next step is to consider alternatives
Here are some of them:
1 - Make occasional mobs be super aggressive and move really fast
2 - Stagger bar mechanic as a “delayed” and less RNG hit-stun effect
3 - Slow bits of CC (preferably preventable or counterable)
1st mechanic may look a bit too unnatural, you know, wow that Wolf is really pissed at me followed me waay far from it’s pack , and yes, it’s also a way to “pull” those that are designed to “chunk-separate” content skipping individually at a safe/r place
2nd which I like the idea (and potential) of is a better/less-RNG (at least in my book) mechanic for hit-stun is a bit complicated… Namely now you have not 2 but 3 “character state” bars to look after… I can easily see why the Devs would be reluctant to such a mechanic, I personally LOVE it cause it brings the FHR in a less RNG and more skill-based/planned & predictive way, more than that brings potentially 3-4 defensive affixes to build upon (Natural stagger decay, Stagger capacity, Stagger reduction/deflection rate per hit/effect/spell/dodge/block/whatever, and last but not least could make it both ways, Stagger-rate increase on hit on target)
BUT, yes, may sound complicated quite a bit (and it is), so could see people/players not being fond of it
3rd mechanic (preventable/breakable CC) is slowly but surely becoming my most favourite, but it’s kinda hard to build/design such a large world and open spaces based upon this, what’s the implementation gonna be, every single “mob leader” in a group of mobs having some “long-range” cast CC that will cause you get dismounted and have to fight the group ?, so yes, it’s tricky
And yes, this actually is a sub-group/sub-topic of a “mob design” topic in a way, which I kinda plan to write a thing or two about soon-ish I hope 
Overall it’s true, it’s bad when you can just “skip” everything and maybe/occasionally an elite here & there “stops” your “browse-through” everything else :P… But again, think that having a hitstun (as daze, i.e. stun-per-hit-suffered) isn’t the best implementation overall (due to it being super tightly coupled to RNG), and some greater/thorough look/research, perhaps even “reinvention”, should be done there 
You are so right…
The topic starter has really brought many things across well… Blizz should not ignore this, because it is about crucial things, not about the fur color of a wolf companion.
I also like more a class system with limits, simply because thereby also very many RPG elements can be integrated, which one does not have otherwise, but the D1 system was still more interesting than the D3 skill system, which was not one, but a selection menu like in a coffee machine and still playfully customizable.
But all the explanations about HitStun and weapon boxes and the Atmo etc…
Even as a reasonably experienced player, you can feel that the man/woman is right.
And when I look at D4 in combat, yes it has good animations, it’s too colorful for me and too exaggerated, but it just glides along without giving you real feedback as a player.
You rather feast on the talents and numbers?
This is not the same as his time Diablo 2 implemented it and how it made nowmal real fun.
Diablo 3 without hit feedback alone, for example, just couldn’t come close to offering that.
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You expect me to read all that?
Right, extremely tight burst damage might kill you, but that shouldn’t be the norm anyhow. The problem of the hitstun chain effect is solved by letting the player use their escape skills even when hitstunned.
Suddenly skills that, (at the moment of writing), feature excessive movement as well as the escape skills gain depth of functionality.
gotta give credit to your post, its well put! but i dont agree with you, i think they are heading in a pretty good way. some things could change and some things prob are.
we are atleast 2 years away from a release and we have not seen much of end game yet.
IDK, I hope I’m not the only one disliking this part tbh… It feels like “it’s a mess designed for spam” (or more specifically - mess designed to be fixed mistakes from, by spam). The good part in it is to make the player feel like they’re the “swiss army knife” and deal with all kinds of threats as long as the right tool is used in the right way (that part is nice), but having mobility be a part of that isn’t something I think should be a core aspect
IDK, just something about that spam of teleport (or whatever) idea just makes me think the game isn’t designed in a serious manner but for an arcade machine from the 90s where the “one” who spams the most keys in a second wins". That’s why people in general dislike Street Fighter, the game becomes spam the one thing that gives you safe distance or spam the attack button and the very MILLISECOND the opponent “opens the guard” they eat like 10 shots or whatever… Think that’s really bad, MK for example went the EXACT opposite way, trying to spam sh*t ?, here’s it for you, run, 3d dodge, direct counter-attack from the other side of the screen, vertical teleport, whatever…
I just think that that “mesh buttons fast cause still can” but with delay is really bad concept full of flaws cause makes really bad frustration aspect of you not being able to “time” every cast every moment… In other words, the gameplay doesn’t become a series of decisions anymore but rather mastering timing of doing the one thing that has the highest “spam rate” and “safety rate”
IDK about others but to me feels bad, it’s like that fighting game (Super Smash bros was it ?) that there are 50 hit comboes or whatever but once you “misstime” a thing, a 50 hit combo comes your way. Is THAT you really want a RPG to look/function like ?, and a one that has 75% of control coming from a mouse instead of KB while at that ? 
Nah, don’t think any modern game should be revolved around “master frames per second” and spam. I mean sure, people will ab/use invuln frames to “live through” big damage bursts or whatever, but imagine having be able to do that every single time at every single moment (unless you mess up, again, the frame 17 to 20 at this cycle of 20 frames or whatever) ffs
I’s also cheap AF BS in gameplay/multiplayer, you either evaded or blocked the skillshot on time or didn’t. Not having that one millisecond before a followup comes “sorry guys, I was faster”, that’s just BS design (IMO at least) tbh
in fact would go the exact opposite, give more prevention shots/spells and have a deliberate delay on the mobility instead… Got stunned ?, no teleport for 0.5 seconds after, the right decision was to put a barrier or buff up to not get stunned in the first place but still have some “barrier/obstacle/decoy/block-path” whatever “tools” to “buy the time” to use your mobility safely (at some point soon but not right now) again
Ofc. I’m not advocating for a “fortnight” ffs where everyone puts thousands of bricks on the playfield and play a “bam bam” shoot from one window then move on another lol, but something that will simply buy you the time necessarily get back to safety if you mess up (unless messed up greatly that is)
So yes, to summarize again: the goal (IMO at least) should be:
- Make the gameplay/character feel like a “swiss army knife” and deal with all kinds of threats in relatively short timespan as long as the right tool is used in the right way but restrict mobility in a fair way
It should be achievable goal but a very, VERY tricky one to strike the right balance at tbh
wow you put your whole thought process out there didn’t you xp
Agreed. We know the characters will have extreme movement options so it looks and feels flashy at first glance. It’s all about balancing it.
Imo the problem of a hitstun chain is a separate one from the problem of extremely quick, high burst damage.
Where the first problem is solved by allowing the use of escape skills while hitstunned, as I said, and the second problem is solved by good game design and smart play.
Hell, the flashy attacks we’ve seen that take the player from one side of the screen to the next will help mitigate this second problem as well.
Another thing about those flashy movement attacks:
If you would like to use them to get right into a mob to do maximum damage, in a game with hitstun and the ability to escape it using escape skills, you would need to assess the positions of the monsters on screen to find a “safe” gap or make good use of a crowd control skill before you jump in.
If you mess up, you can use your escape skill.
Well I guess a good part (not all of it but a significant) actually comes from mob design… If mobs are slow/clunky/predictable then game will feel like too slow and CDs will feel like a “burden” rather than necessity, if mobs are nimble and strategic, all those “limitations” now would feel like “better plan this move for maximum impact” i.e. performance optimizer
I guess the more I think about it the more I like the 3rd option, it’s gonna be super hard to make it right though with a vast and open worlds however
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Just want to pop in and say I’m not really for things like this in Diablo.
Diablo is not an in-depth moment-to-moment RPG. We don’t need to be worrying about how the weather will affect us or if our character is hungry or whatever.
As as aside, I wasn’t particularly happy with Zelda beginning to have those elements (look, a pun!) either. I think it takes away from what ultimately makes Zelda games great by trying to mainstream the RPG aspects.
I sure hope this will be the case. But even so, if damage is the only thing threatening my character you will only need to dodge the pinball hazzards… At least unless you play naked (ie. die from three-four hits from the monsters).
Aside from the maxed out characters we’ve seen, (that zip trough enemy hords unapologetically, fearing only the pinball hazzards and bosses), the Rogue, in the gameplay we’ve been provided so far, is played as if the game has some sort of hitstun.
The Rogue on screen constantly repositions to evade attacks and to line up the best shots possible and the gameplay at that point looks lovely, but it’s fake!
If that Rogue would start playing like a mindless entity at any moment through the gamplay we’ve seen, (aside from where there is pinball hazards), and just rush onto the monsters, fearlessly spamming all the skills she got, she could!
And you know what, without being incentivized to be tactical at all, besides maximizing her damage, she would!
I would agree with this, but I think the larger takeaway from the weather effects OP is talking about, is that the world in D4 should be interactive and interconnected.
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Bravo!
Very well formulated and thought out arguments rooted in substance!
This entire post perfectly covers the sources of my frustration with the direction the latter Diablo games have been taking.
It seems to me that the current development team is clueless about what they are doing in terms of game mechanics. Take the demonic/angelic/ancestral powers, for instance. Although now removed due to community feedback, the very thought that they came up with those attributes to begin with worries me. What does even ancestral power mean? Jeez.
Sidenote: I especially liked how you touched upon stamina usage, something that D2 has been bashed for using by the community for a long time. However, stamina could force players into making decision about how they move across the battlefield. Running in combat is a bad idea in D2 because it affects your block rate, for example. Unfortunately, due to how players stack the Vitality stat, they more or less have infinite stamina, thus breaking the mechanic. Instead of removing stamina altogether, why not make it more tangible and have even greater consequences for the game. Take the elder scrolls series for instance, where your stamina directly affects the power of your melee blows.
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good topic op
i will be very short
what keep me aways from d4
is the gameplay bring to much bad game mechanics from d3
sadly the dev team look to dont understand and maybe d2re will draw more player there in the end . every feature d3 have , need to be delete in d4 not carry
thank you
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As mentioned before, don’t think things are that much “set in stone” and are mostly dynamic (i.e. core features largely depend on mob design)… Speaking of which: I’ll do a bit of “shameless” advertising
Namely, just created a topic about that issue “Mob design” (broader concepts) and think that could “heal” most of the “do this do that” type of approach and realize that actually a lot of that depends on what the mobs/creatures are like (or behave like)
Therefore I hope some of you guys hop briefly and see what “came up with” as an idea/concept (and maybe even provide some feedback) on it
That’s a great thread. I haven’t read the entire thing myself but it shows that OP cares about the game. Too bad that there’s no indication of anyone reading the feedback and it’s most likely going to be lost in the pages…
Yes, it is exactly these catchy game mechanics, rooted by something real, tangible real and thus comprehensible, that make up a good combat dynamic.
It’s just so shallow in Diablo 3 that you hardly experience any real feedback, except from monsters where suddenly your HP drops and the screen flashes red.
But that’s just weak and has no perceived return of the combat.
In D3, I steadily have the feeling of just gliding through the game world. I just have to pay attention to x effects ok… This overload is anyway an aspect of the game rather harm, especially the arbitrary effects that each mob can simply cross and so you build to the NPC’s no bond at all.
The topic starter has described this all very well.
A well-crafted explanation, there’s a lot of work that went into it.
Let’s hope that it has arrived.
The creators here should just play Diablo 2 for a while and then see what is meant and how much these mechanics etc. take you.
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I feel they are trying too hard with the combat as well.
Lets take the Rogue class. I personally dont care or want double resources to think about on top of combo points and flashy rotations. Its too “action-y” and not enough RPG combat.
Just give me “a simple Multishot”. But let me be able to build and scale that Multishot in a hundred different ways instead.