[a/RPGs] - Unpopular opinions about the genre

[Subtitle] And How D4 could profit from making a greater/more-fundamental set of change/s


Hi forum folks & fellas, perhaps this is a bit of “lazy writing” on my part and I’m just bored, BUT, think that did some “homework” lately that would rather discuss about:

Think I’ve found SOME issue/s with aRPGs (in general) that might be “getting old” at a relatively fast pace, therefore probably not be the best move to “follow the genre” quite as much in D4, so here are some of them:

Unpopular opinion #1: the less things a weapon affects the better the final effect

Although it’s surely true that noone wants the +800% damage of skill X as was the case in D3, it’s not really much of an interesting concept either if a weapon affects plethora of stuff at the same time either, IDK what some games (LE) have done wrong in this regard but having the following:

  • Wand: 8 + 5 Spell damage, +20% damage overtime, +22% Fire damage, 19% chance to burn
  • Sword: 12 + 4 Spell damage, +30% critical hit chance, 22% chance to stun
  • Magic branch: 3 + 4 spell damage, +65% Fire damage, 14% chance to slow

Kinda end up being/performing the same, in fact the sword overperforms to the other two most of the time even for a Mage (yes, even Meteor doesn’t seem to be affected by the Branch that much more than the others, perhaps slightly despite having that “huge” factor of 65%), and the only real difference is at 2-hands where outperform most of the time compared to other hand setups (as intended I guess :slight_smile: )

On the other hand, things like: 5% chance to cast everyone back to stone-age lol (i.e. things like GD’s Doom Bolt), make the game a “hunt the right type of secondary damage” often, i.e. clearly starts outperforming the one that’s “primary”/intended by your skills (or your own attacks)

So the issue is kinda clear:

  1. Weapons should not contain too many components cause they “blend in” on each other often
  2. Main damage should still be from the “intended” sources, not some 5% chance to Execute an Elite or whatever

i.e. the weapons should feel a bit more “specific for you” (not entirely D3 but you get the idea), something like:

  • Wand: 8 + 5 Spell damage, +1 to Fire skills, 15% chance to for burned minions to explode on death for 16% of their HP
  • Sword: 12 + 4 Spell damage, +2 to Sword Mastery, 33% chance to add additional stack of Rend
  • Magic branch: 3 + 4 spell damage, +4 to Fireball, +65% Overtime fire damage

These may feel “too narrow” or “too specific” (in a way), but also adds that bit of “context” of “I’m searching for X, Y and Z for my build” kind of thing, i.e. feels like you’ve been more rewarded the right way (i.e. +4 to Fireball and + 65% stackable fire damage feels more rewarding than +25% elemental damage, +35% damage overtime)

Unpopular opinion #2: Med/Long CDs can be good for the game

Well, both yes and no, the thing I’m gonna suggest here is the following

Let there be skills that have larger CDs (no ultimates), but allow us to be able to select the same skill at our skill bar multiple times

Have an 10 sec CD Meteor but have crazy good mana return (per kill or otherwise) ?, no prob, equip Meteor TWICE at your skill bar (heck put a Meteor on all of them if need be)

Think this allows for more of a “high risk high reward” approach on players, and think it’s a nice “change of pace” compared to the regular a/RPG games

The downside sure is there (or may be), just make most of the non-melee skills dodgeable (or at least have some sort of counterplay) :slight_smile:

Unpopular opinion #3: Don't add a summoner class (or at least don't cater the game towards it), treat it as an afterthought in a way

The problem of Summoner classes is that you either feel too vulnerable or too safe, i.e. there’s almost no middleground for it… If summons are part of an “assistance plan” (like say traps) then might work

And what usually ends up being almost always the case is either people just summon all the stuff, all the time (and struggle in places where there’s barely stuff to die), or just use one summon for the vast majority of frontline tanking of damage (which arguably gets boring after a while) and die the next millisecond after the “tank” dies (or at least can often feel like that :P)

Unpopular opinion #4: "Traditional" inventory doesn't impact the game, even if/when some tetris involved here & there

Have been thinking this for quite a while now but the more I think about it, the “right” it feels tbh

Make a separate inventory for each type of item (swords in a sword inventory, off-hands in an off-hand inv, potions in a potion inv, relics/amulets/dreamcatchers/whatever in a separate)

The main reason behind that idea is the following “hypothesys” IMO:

The main effect of an inventory should be HOW MUCH OF WHAT (and being ready to “swap” in the right moment), not just a “disk defragment arrangements”… It’s kinda boring if you’re able to carry all the same things all the time (i.e. have same capacity in total), therefore would rather have a “separate inventory” for each type of an item, and how w/could it work ?, well simple:

  • Want carry more weapons ?, equip a squire armor
  • Want carry “secondary offhands” ?, equip a templar armor
  • Want carry more relics/amulets/dreamcatchers ?, equip a Warlock Robe (or coif whatever)
  • Want carry more armor pieces ?, equip the mount with a secondary armor-rack (instead of a chest, which would make you being able to carry significantly less gold for ex.)
  • Want more quivers and throwables ?, equip a leather armor (some leather armors could have additional slot for quivers, i.e. the “chamber” at your chest area feel like a real rambo with all those arrows and throwables)
  • Want more potions and Scrolls ?, equip a Mage robe (some of them could even give you some extra abilities that otherwise wouldn’t have, say smoke bomb for example)
  • Want more belts ?, equip an “Imperial” armor (yeah I know the name is lame but will let your imagination work :D, where you can carry 2 or even 3 of them at the same time, or equip a small shield “inside” your Imperial armor’s belt)

Things like that, regardless of the class

What is gained by such a move is that your “inventory arrangement” focus is now taken away from Can I put this here into do I want to swap this for that at this very moment and pick it up tbh

The downside ?, probably would need to create a more advanced consumables and throwables system (i.e. have “recycleable or rechargeable but not always reliable” consumables/throwables that can feel like having a real impact in game, instead of just focus it all on gear piece/s)

The upside ?, wouldn’t you feel completely bad-a*s when you swap your weapon/armor right on the spot just to do that “extra thing” that you otherwise wouldn’t…

Long-story-short - the change should (at least on paper) make it for a dynamic inventory and a one where “rearrange stuff” may (or may not) become part of the combat ITSELF (should you choose to do that), and lo & behold, doesn’t this really go well paired with the #1 point above about weapons ? :slight_smile:

Unpopular opinion #5 - Resistances are way too effective for what they are (semi-permanent passive upgrades)

Been hit by a Lightning spear that deals 500 damage while having 300 HP ?, yeah, that can happen, only the difference between receiving 125 damage (75% res) and 250 damage (50% res) is wayy too big

Perhaps “swap” the Resistances into absorption (how much of which damage type can you absorb before getting hit by full damage), can work with somewhere between 25% and 50% absorption rates (and keep this as a separate affix to work with, similar to how X% damage taken goes to mana works)

Guess could work with some lesser amount of resistance rates as well (cap them at 50% and add a separate affix to give you the chance to go above that), but what is important is to not allow “hoarding” of resistances, it should probably be done/designed in a way to be intended and more “part of a character’s plan” rather than a “must have”

Also don’t think that having 8, 9, 10 types of Resistances is a good idea either, keep it simple, up to 4, 5, (6 is probably the highest cap), and swap the “all resist” affix into “spell damage taken reduced by X” (i.e. reduce linearly, not percentage-wise on the “all res”)

Unpopular opinion #6: WHY all this ?

Don’t think Blizz would need to make “yet another aRPG game”, they need to REINVENT an aRPG by providing something else, something different… NOT the same thing but with a different flavour but the “same” thing largerly reinvented

The market is kinda big, and gets bigger every month arguably, the “autopilot” becomes stronger and stronger, and think that people can strongly feel/dislike the similarities all over the place

Might be a bit of “overreaction” by my part, but think that people will get “bored” if D4 kinda “copies” to what already is out there, i.e. the release/impact should feel more like a '99 UT release (or Doom Eternal in 2020) that was the case for FPS…, So should (probably) be the feel/impact of “D4 release everybody” for the genre of aRPGs I’d say :thinking:

That’s it for my part, open for some discussion/s I guess :slight_smile:

  1. Imo, the more affixes on weapons (and armor) the better. Within reason. Sure, it makes them all a bit more general in their usage, but that is a good thing imo. 6-8 affixes (depending on item rarity) per item would be good. With each affix being fairly weak.

  2. Cooldowns can be great! It adds diversity in skill design.
    I kinda like the idea of being able to have multiple different versions of a skill on the skill bar. But I very much fear it would destroy build diversity, by “forcing” specialization into a single skill. So rather not. However, being able to change meteor to be a skill with no CD, or a skill with 10 sec CD, etc. should definitely be a thing.

  3. Add a summoner class! Dammit! :stuck_out_tongue:

  4. Separate inventories would be annoying to use imo.
    Also dont like the idea that armor types would affect inventory space. In the end I want inventory to have as little a gameplay role as possible. It should just be a convenient place to store items, nothing else. Having to use specific armors just so I can have more weapons in my inventory would go strongly against that.

  5. I agree that resistances are strong… but as long as the affix cost is high, it seems fine. As in, there should of course be no such thing as All Resist. You should need to get your resistances up one at a time., and cost you enough affixes that it is really felt on your dmg etc.
    And then yeah, have a resistance cap. I’d say, soft cap resistances at 60-70%. With the ability to break that cap from special sources (a few legendary/unique items etc.). Even with those cap breakers, the max hard cap should probably be around 75-85%.
    I agree that there shouldn’t be more than around 5-6 dmg type resistances. Then you can have other kinds of resistances of course, like CC resistances.
    Using resistance numbers D3-style avoids the issue of each point of resistance getting more and more valuable. So that is a possible solution too (though again, a cap is needed there too, big mistake in D3 imo). However, I think they should stick to % resistances, even with the issue they have.

  6. I’d be just fine with merely making another A-RPG. Just a good one this time. Those are pretty damn rare.
    Innovation is great. Doesn’t feel like Diablo 4 or A-RPGs need to bring the innovation though. I’ll leave that to other games. Although maybe we just dont understand the same when talking innovation. Doom Eternal seems extremely far from innovative when I look at it (haven’t played). Which is not a bad thing at all.

1 Like

Well, the topic is named as is for a reason :thinking:

IDK, to me this feels like a waste of potential tbh… “Convenient place for storage” is usually the stash, but that also implies/enforces “hoarding” in a way IMO, which doesn’t feel like things should be tbh

“permanent” storage of mats, reagents, runes, and sockets sounds about right, but “convenient storage” or gear (armor pieces in particular) just doesn’t feel right

One could argue one of the reasons for such a decision is trading and all that, but again, makes a greater problem of “hoarding” on the long run… Makes/implies like the whole game is envisioned/designed with trading as it’s key piece in mind whilest it usually isn’t (for the most part)

The idea simply sounds/feels kickass, or at least it has it’s potential (though arguably understandable why inconvenient at start)

This feels like OK to me, but under one condition and that’s = IF DONE RIGHT

I’ve yet to see a class which says “ability casted at place of summons” or “casted at both your and your summon’s location” kind of stuff, furthermore has to kinda “reinvent” the cohesion/synergy between abilities that you cast by your own, you cast from your summon (if such exist) and abilities that are casted at both (arguably more active summons = sort of multicast)

Having summons be passive “sponge” of damage or fragile “hedgehogs” and just “recycling” through them while there are corpses to summon from just doesn’t quite strike the right way to me tbh

Sure you can have multiple “sponges” and “hedgehogs” but the “key ingredient” which is keep them organized/synchronised for the not only best but sometimes even necessary for survival effect (and well-timed self-protection) simply isn’t there (or if it is, it’s usually too much “autopilot mode” with the “traditional” way it’s done

I guess might be a bit “overthinking” of stuff, but think the game should feel like having real risk/reward factors in real time (as opposed to design-time), time your “vial of health” the right way/time (or have a summon or couple of those die), time your “poison glands” at the right time/spot to stack as much as possible stacks of poison in order to prevent another of your summons die, those kinds of stuff

The way how those are done (for the most part) feel like do things “after”, not “time them right”, i.e. raise another skeleton/mage after previous one dies, raise another golem after current one dies, and feels kinda lame/additional, almost as if making a summon class for the sake of making a one… tbh don’t quite like that, would much rather have it “experimented with” until done right

If I were to guess a nice “start kit” for a summoner class would be to kind of like combine Dazzle with Rexxar/Misha abilities but focus on “ghouls” instead of one giant bear, and continue from thereon after… Not just the abilities themselves to be a thing of “the more the merrirer”, but also make the error margain of heal/survival low/er of those summons tbh :thinking:, but again, every “specification” of a class into a “gameplay type” results into less freedom for mob design/s which complicates things even further tbh

Actually, I take back the “add a summoner class”. Instead, add summons to all classes. All classes should be able to play as summoners to some degree, just as all classes should be able to play melee, ranged, tanks, glass cannon, etc.
That said, it is good if one class is more summoner focused than others. Similar to barb being more melee than range etc.

It should. But I dont see any reason a summoner can have that any less than any other build archetype.

You could say that for all archetypes though? Melee, ranged, caster etc.

If you dont want it to be too easy to get your summons back, the cooldowns could start only when they die. Leaving you that much more vulnerable in the meantime. Or for a necromancer style summoner, you could take dmg whenever one of your summons die (linking your lifeforce to them or whatever lore excuse). Making it more critical to keep them alive at the right moments (with more tools to help keeping them alive).
Though different summons should follow different rules of course.

I dont have any problems with hoarding. Just dont make it cumbersome to do it.
And yeah, the stash is the more permanent place for items, but other than that the inventory and stash should play more or less the same role. Just the area where you store items until your next time in town. Not everything needs to be gameplay imo.

This feels like a “solution” but kinda turns your character into “Dr Jekyll & Mr. Hide” :stuck_out_tongue: , i.e. almost like a day/night cycle of now I fight now I don’t fight…

This is actually not that bad of an idea (until a comet falls onto your small group of skeletons/archers/whatever and you die :smiley: )

Well, if one of your skills is a shield you can cast on your minions for example, that could save you there :slight_smile:

1 Like

Cooldowns NEED to be based on a reason, especially in a world where the first two games didn’t have cooldowns – and where the second game, at the advent of the internet, got cast delays only skills that caused server problems before the second expansion, as short at they absolutely needed to be to prevent servers from crashing.

Hydra: 2 seconds.
Frozen Orb: 1 second
Meteor: 1.2 seconds
Blizzard: 1.8 seconds

Diablo 3 cooldowns are an abomination to the genre and style in the Diablo universe:
Your character should rather take damage and die from the wounds they get from straining their bodies and minds past their limits, rather than them not being capable of casting a spell for 60 seconds because they got OCD and were taught they weren’t allowed to use a skill by their parents, when obviously any sane character wouldn’t hesitate to just use the skill again when nothing stops them.

And nothing stops them from using the same skill again, unless they’re tired, or lack the resources. If they’re tired, they’ve spent stamina, and can’t do something that requries a lot of stamina. If they can – they are not tired.
If they can’t cast a spell because it costs too much mana – their mana pool has better be empty.

…skipping D4 would be the easiest thing in the world;
There will inevitably come a decent D&D Action RPG to fill Diablo II’s parked shoes.

If Diablo IV has senseless cooldowns, if they can’t be bothered to balance skills and the world the skills exist in to prevent characters from using the same skill over and over and use nothing else, it can’t fill Diablo II’s shoes.

Here’s 5 quick ways to prevent skill spam that doesn’t require cooldowns, and makes cooldowns seem like childish and obsolete concepts from tabletop games:

Monsters that move and react to the player’s actions. Decent AI. Have smart AI that knows the player’s skills and boundaries. Have clever monsters that learn what skills the player uses after falling for them the first time. Have dumb monsters that do not learn.
You won’t use meteor again and again against monsters that “know” what a meteor is.

Diversity among monsters. Dodge, block, physical damage reduction, individual resistances. You shouldn’t spam a cold spell versus 90% cold resistant monsters or monsters that dodge or block your ice projectiles.

Maybe it isn’t so bad using that skill permanently without a cooldown. Like Archon, but without a cooldown.
It only needs to drain mana, and resource generation skills was a mistake. You would need insane mana regeneration to keep Archon active, and the skills in archon form can drain mana as well. It could even magically drain mana, so that it regenerates even slower than normal – forcing even more mana regeneration than you’d normally need. And it could grow worse with time, until you’re completely drained for mana and it regenerates at one third the rate untill you’ve regenerated a total of mana equal to your pool.

Monster formations and sizes, and point damage reduction: Make the damage system tight, and a monster can ignore 90% of the first 200 damage from physical attacks, forcing you to either just hit the monster a lot of times – or use skills with higher damage. Diverse skill selections with different strengths and weaknesses – against monsters that already have resistances and AI… and some skills are not good against large single targets. Some skills are not good against crowds of small monsters.
Some skills are not good against a pack of tough monsters.
Some skills are not good against a pack of resistant monsters.
Some skills are easy to dodge and best used against big monsters with low dodge.
Some skills are hard to dodge and best used against small nimble monsters that dodge and block.

Drawbacks that aren’t cooldowns, but reactions that actually make sense within the game world, examplified in a 2 second cooldown alternatives:
A spell that has to be manually charged before cast – a charge that can be held for some time, but requires a couple of seconds of a dedicated key press that requires the character’s full attentions; he or she can only stand still, walk or run when charging…
A skill that leaves you physically exhausted, causing exhaustion debuff, reducing speed, attack speed, dodge chance, block chance and melee attack damage by 20% after using it, for one second, before the effect dissipates over two more seconds.
Using an exhausting skill again adds to the total percentage and blocks recovery of the exhaustion. The skill and similar skills can’t be spammed one after the other.
Mana draining / binding. You can’t regenerate mana as quickly, or the mana is blocked from regenerating while a spell effect is active, for as long as you keep it active.
A summon that only lets you regenerate mana when it is unsummoned.
A skill that costs 50 mana – but at a 3x drain rate – causing the mana to regenerate far more slowly, at 33% of normal regeneration, forcing it’s user to actually use the skill carefully or not be able to cast the spell or any other spells for several seconds.
Casting time: It’s not charged. It’s not instant. It just takes some time to cast, like two seconds of full dedication before the spell is cast.
Unwinding time: The spell is simple, but dangerous and volatile, and you have to make sure the spell is properly ended, by not being able to cast another spell or use any other skill for a couple of seconds.
Out of breath: you can only defend yourself and use basic attacks, walk and jog after excerting inhuman strength, for a couple of seconds.

I get what you’re saying but can’t help but notice that “less is more” in this case, it’s fine if a strong skill has 10 sec CD, just let it be added multiple times on a skill-bar, you can end up “spamming” it, but the price will be greater, BY CHOICE, not by design, that’s the KEY difference

Besides, could make things stack faster, say Monk/Assassin’s 1-2-3 skills could have some “restrictions” that you want to get over and then just add the skill twice at your skill-bar so instead of “spamming” 1-1-1 but your character kinda does things at a slower rate, you could do a 1-2-1 combo and execute it faster (or 1-2-3 and execute it EVEN FASTER)

The possibilities are endless, how about a double frozen-orb for a semi/instant freeze effect ?, or maybe a double frost-bolt for an immediate penetrate ?

That’s kinda the point here, make things able to be capitalized upon better (if more invested into them)

As for the AI totally agreed, but as for the “mob X is good vs X and mob Y is good vs Y” think it’s overrated, and it sounds good on paper (usually) but what ends up really being is kinda “total mess”, i.e.:

If going standard “clean up” build, you “breeze through” one type of mobs whilest “get stuck” vs those that have more HP… The thing is that those “gargantuan class” mobs don’t really pose a threat (at least not by themselves) so what ends up happening is just a “sit here and hit this guy for 2 minutes until dies” kind of thing (sometimes dodge an attack for regen to catch-up, but that’s it)

And if you went for a “snipe one target” build what will happen is you kite through those packs of beetles/wasps/worms/whatever and instead in one AoE ability (or 1.25) to clean things up is that you wait for a “second round” and that’s it, but guess what, that “big ogre” that you end up fighting 1v1 alone in the majority of time is still a 50-second fight material (instead of like 3 minutes)


Therefore “my point”, the “mob diversity” of “large individual” vs “pack of smaller ones” is kiiinda overrated, it serves more of an “impression” purpose rather than combat-differential (for the most part) tbh

So the idea behind my “suggestion” is to add that potential for a “shotgun effect”, that makes you really progress the “right way”, synergizing/combining spells the right way for a more immediate effect…

In return could make the “big lone gargantuan” mobs more dangerous, just because of that ability that it’s required for you to kinda “combo it 3-4 times” the right way…, which also in return adds a nice high risk/reward factor and a more “standardized” (if playing right) pace

i.e. the following statement

The addition of opportunity/ies to combo/stack spells for greater/immediate effect and kill “hard to kill” individual mobs gives a greater design opportunity for them to be more dangerous “in the right way”

Therefore kinda like the ida of a “shotgun” effect more tbh (again, from FPS games), wanna fight an armored Ogre ?, swap to a “double-barrel” shotgun and kill it in 3-4 WELL-PLACED hits from up close (instead of wasting like double-ammo full of plasma/minigun stuff and fighting forever)

Therefore one of the KEY INGREDIENT/s of that suggestion of mine that I wanna sort-of “emphasize” here, is players being able to spec into a “shotgun build” by “investing” it more than once into their gameplay and ending up in a result of differential of gameplay (even arguably with greater diversity of playstyles) without having the “tedious progress” effect if you went for a “cleaner” build (or skill) for ex.

That’s kind of a “different take” that most are used to but think it’s for the better, and let’s be honest those kinds of “class gargantuan” mobs either one-shot you (in some games) or just slow down (severely) the game/s, people often end up treating them as an “part of environment” and just pass (if able to skip), otherwise if having at least some decent movement ability (or playing a slower move character) it becomes a “show stopper”, i.e. literally a “hey look, this one can’t even ‘penetrate’ through my regen/sustain rate but have to fight forever”… :thinking:

Therefore think the idea not only adds difference, but also the opportunity for a high/er/immediate impact, which I think people would end up appreciating some day (i.e. stucking 3 knives and then casting a roundhouse being much more dangerous than roundhouse, knife, roundhouse, knife kind of “alternate”/standard gameplay), and that’s kinda just one example of that :thinking:

Lots of really good examples of skill diversity in your post, all/most of which should definitely be considered for Diablo 4.
Still, cooldowns are just yet another way to differentiate skills, and should also be used, like many other methods.

Yeah, so much this. Monster diversity is at least as important as skill diversity, if not more. And monsters having resistances is a requirement imo.

Depends what is meant by strong skill. I think one issue in D3 was that if a dmg skill had a cooldown, then its dmg had to be higher. Which can lead to “wait around/gather mobs, until your CD nuke is ready”.
Imo cooldown dmg skills should not deal drastically more dmg than others, and the balance-point for the cooldown should be something other than dmg. Like a stun, debuff, etc.

All monsters should pose a threat by themselves, both the group of weak monsters, and the gargantuan class.

The third option is going for a build that can handle both though. It will be weaker at both, but that would be the build choice. Like with going fire only, or fire/frost, against resistant enemies.

In general, Blizzard should ensure that single-dmg skill builds are unviable outside of a few extremely specialized (and hard to gear) builds. Your typical build should have at least 2-3 attacks, helping you to counter different enemy types.

Monster diversity is one of the most important things to get right imo. And one of the things most A-RPGs fail at.
Cant really separate it from skill diversity though. If AoE is immensely overpowered, as it is in D3, even if you have monster diversity, people will keep forcing everything into an AoE massacre, since that is the only skills which are useful.

2 Likes

Sounds about correct, and that is true, easier said than done…

It’s just that think the idea of a “shotgun” effect has a nice potential to “capitalize upon” in return for a more riskier gameplay (kind of literally like a “player choice” thing), without having things more “buildwise” alternated

The bonuses/talents would probably be different but gearwise wouldn’t need for much of a change for things to feel more impactfully/immediately different… :thinking:

1.Less values on items (weapons/armor/jewelry) is better. It grounds the games, makes them easier to understand, more manageable and tangible and keeps more focus on the game, less on numbers and overitimization.
Items and values on them should serve as underpinnings to the game, they should not become the game itself, then the game is mostly bad and boring with wrong priorities populated.

2.Cd’s have to fit into the game concept.
An ARPG is fast it doesn’t make sense to have miserably long CDs, especially on the offensive. If a spell itself has 12 seconds runtime, like a volcanic eruption for example, then it can happily have a few seconds CD for the recast. But you are constantly going into a new battle and a CD of minutes is lousy. And no I think it’s wrong to make the game a kind of event battle every 1.5 minutes when a champion group pops up steadily. This distorts the whole game system to a rather checkpoint run and totally destroys the atmo and the sense of an RPG.

Long CD’s suit slow concepts where each battle itself plays a central role… So something for real MMORPGs. If I’m out of mana after 4 mobs and need to regenerate for 2 minutes, an ability that recharges my mana by 40% with 5 min CD is very handy and good. But a fight against a mob also takes 30-45 seconds

3.Summoner class is a mandatory thing. There should even be several, the possibilities to let off steam here is great. From raising the dead, binding demons through rituals, to creating elementals, having animals and forest creatures with you or calling them, creating illusions… There are enough classes that can do all this excellently.

4.Inventory should feel good but also have a certain value that does not impose itself and satisfies. I think it’s ok if certain item types also secure more or less space. A ring is small, a shield or breast armor can also take a few more places, that simply works better. The Inv should only have some space itself, but not be so huge that it has no meaning.
Chests and chambers and other storage places, can be here but gladly very spacious.

5.Resistances should not play an excessive role, but still include a share in the battle. I would set them to a maximum of 30-40 on a scale of 1-100. That should be quite enough. There are of course exceptions and certain natural regularities, but then they do not fall into this category, but are natural… Let’s say for example that a fire elemental is also immune to fire, or if I as a player build an ice barrier, frost spells can’t inflict at least cold damage, at most blast or cut damage.

But also with the resistances, it should be grounded. Too much is just too much numbers and clutter at some point and the focus must remain on adventure and world, as RPG. Otherwise the game is not a game but a spreadsheet with a lot of action… but we need real games again.

1 Like

I agree that 1+ minute cooldowns does not belong anywhere. But 1-30 sec for some attack skills, and up to 1-60 sec for some defensive/uility skills etc. can be quite fine imo.
As for buffs, D3s auras are good solution here; a passive effect and an active effect with cooldown, in the same skill. Then the active effect can have a somewhat longer CD, while you are still benefitting from a significant part of the skill.