Clarification/Thoughts about the ATK/DEF system in D4

General Discussion
1

(Spoilers ?), it’s both BETTER (and disheartening to D2 “die hard” fans) than people think IMO

First things first - the pattern I noticed how late-game attack is about 8000+, you know the thing makes people go “Why, Blizzard, why”, well, THAT number gets SUBSTRACTED by the amount of defense the target has

So mostly the late-game items seemed around 2.5k defense, and from what could be seen seems like there are 4 types of armor that can roll defense (2 major, 2 lesser), I’d guess the TOTAL aimed is around 500-1000 damage per hit in the very late game

So, if your weapon has attack of 9000 for ex. (quite a bit more than those numbers shown, cheating a bit), then your damage per hit might rise up to 2000 on average

This kind of “YuGiOh” linear/card-game face approach gives the following consequences:

  1. In PvP armor GREATLY matters, either get stacked on DEF or die in couple of hits lol
  2. In some “special” dungeons where mobs would gain bonus defense or whatever, you’ll HAVE TO search for “alternative” damage sources other than your auto. Might be skill damage, might be talents, might be hit-effect multipliers, might be (hopefully ?) traps, summons, curses, or even simpler - get a damn staff and equip a legendary gem in it with high “socket rate” multiplier
  3. Kiss goodbye to any mid-tier item (D2 style progression) cause it’s all about late game. There’s absolutely no point in wielding a 4k per hit weapon if there’s a high chance that each and every single mob has more defense than 4k, in that kind of scenario my guess would be you’d be “brushing off” 1 HP at a time from any single mob :stuck_out_tongue: :smiley:
  4. Each weapon had a “primary stat” that isn’t ATK only, maces and druid staff seemed to have Crushing blow, Staff (mage staff) had a gem socket and gem multiplier. So I GUESS that there might be a chance for a mid-tier item (on paper) COULD have a high primary stat number (for ex. a lvl25 mace with 4k damage having a 10-12% crushing blow damage as opposed to most what seemed to be around 5-6%) [speaking of 6% CB, that might be actually A WHOLE LOT, it’s %HP damage, hope that CB% can be further reduced somehow, either via melee-hit reduction or physical-reduction]
  5. What happens in PvP if someone has overstacked def ? :P, and is it possible so much that the opponent might have a “grand total” of 8k armor (basically ALL stacked on defense, his/her ATK would still be around, let’s say 8k instead of 9k, but the defense is overboard), in THAT case, that opponent will still deal like ~500 damage to you (say on average) but you’d do a whopping 1HP/hit damage to him/her lol

Must say kinda like and oppose the idea at the same time. Like it cause it potentially reduces the primary importance of physical attack per hit and kinda makes people “find other ways” to do the damage

The oppose part is OBVIOUSLY about scaling. BUT again, like the fact that weapons (per type it seems) have a “primary damage source” other than the obvious “absurdly high number” of ATK. So for ex. you might have a lvl15 staff which gives IDK 60% socket empower (as opposed to ~15-20% ?). The curiousity would be, what would Bows have (crit damage multiplier ?) or swords even

The part that I’m sort-of MOST concerned about is the “what if” scenario when your attack is equal or below target’s DEF rating, you gonna “chip” 1 HP at a time from an “obviously tank” PvP character or an overly defense-stacked late-game elite mob. BUT overall seems promising/different/good IMO

AGAIN, this is JUST my observation (haven’t seen a “leak” or anything, it’s just observation based upon the stats and some videos I saw)… So, whaddya think forum fellas, like it (or not ?) :slight_smile:

2

While I agree with your general hypothetis (Attack is negated by the same amount of Defence), I don’t think it works with a simple substraction. It would easily lead to unbalance since abilities do the base damage, a fundamental difference from D3. More likely, their is a formula behind it that determine a percentage of damage reduced by Defence, much like D3 armor if you are familiar with it. Probably something like :
Damage reduced = Defence / (Defence + (enemy level x 100))

And Weapon Attack would work in a reversed way to increase ability damage :
Damage increased = 1 / (1 - (Attack / (Attack + (enemy level x 100)))

As an example, the Attack/Defence values in the Blizzcon Demo revolved more or less around 2000 at level 20. With these formulas, that would mean a 50% Damage Reduction from Defense and a +100% Damage from Attack. So a 377 damage Fire Ball increased by 2000 Attack would inflict 377 damage to a same level monster with 2000 Defence. But even if that monster had 4500 Defence, it would still suffer 234 fire damage from that Fire Ball.

This makes for better balance, as well as avoiding Attack and Defence to have too much importance compared to other affixes.

3

I am personally not a fan of anything that reduces my ability to make a choice.

When it comes to simplifying stats so far that it removes choice, you lose me.

I’m not speaking for everyone, for sure, and I realize I might be in the minority, but simplifying stats so that it’s a very binary decision to equip a piece of gear removes that enjoyment for me, personally. I like expirementing with hard decisions and choices which may or may not work out.

1 Like
4

You’re probably right about the progression of ratio over levels, but don’t think it affects abilities tbh. They’re probably reduced by things like “X type of ability % reduction” or even resistances (if the skill/spell is of an elemental type)

That way, it’s both intuitive, and it’s not that hard to learn. If the abilities were affected by DEF of the target, then there would be “weird” outcomes, for example, OMG I can’t believe I casted execute on that mob with sub 1000hp and it didn’t die

To make things “safe” and intuitive, but yet interesting/dynamic, and even strategical (especially late game) think the skill/spell damage should be of a different source and not affected by the basic DEF stat of the target

Which I think (hope even) is already the case :thinking: :slight_smile:

This is exactly NOT the case. (well, provided if skill/spell damage is considered, again, different type of damage stat). And they also have those “hit effects” that are “each a source of damage on it’s own”, probably linked to the basic attack (i.e. ATK rating of your weapon) but not necessarily, some talents empower skills (by type) as well, and it’s kinda safe that Items would also do that

Either way, there was obviously a theme focused around hit-effects, so I guess it would be safe to say they might be at one point or another relatively necessary (especially/probably) in the late game

5

Well, since abilities are the main, if not only, way to deal damage, I don’t see how Attack could not affect them, or it would be useless.

However, it could also be something more simple than elaborated formulas like the ones I suggested. Maybe it is a Attack / Defence instead of the Attack - Defence you proposed.
That way, a 2000 Attack vs 2000 Defence would deal x1 ability damage, but 4000 Attack vs 2000 Defence would mean double damage. And 2000 Attack vs 4000 would reduce your damage by half.

That would be kind of similar to the old D2 Attack rating : I need to keep enough to hit/maintain my damage.
Certainly easier to understand, but more susceptible to imbalance, especially with the high numbers Blizzard showed us : you would be forced to change item more often to maintain enough Attack, thus making other affixes less impactful.

And I absolutely agree with you, Attack and Defence have nothing to do with any simplication. It is nothing more than the old “Damage and Armor” ratings you find on Weapon/Armor pieces in any Diablo game. It’s just the maths that change.

6

Sounds attractive at the first sight but what you’ll end up doing is still the same thing as D3 lol, no matter what you do = maximize ATK on your weapon regardless of what it is :stuck_out_tongue:

That’s why the separation/secularisation of skills and basic attack as sources of damage should be nurtured generally. You also punish people by doing certain builds

As for the ratio as opposed to the sheer number on basic attacks/reductions, sounds interesting, but then you REALLY need to question the big numbers of the weapon’s attack ratings :), plus, it’s kinda more insteresting to have “anomalies”, for ex:

You have a 8.4k atk weapon and deal 100 damage per hit to late game mobs, makes you wanna “punch your head” and then a 8.6k one drops, all out of a sudden you feel relieved. If the ratio was division as opposed to substraction, it would feel not impactful (unless the numbers grow up significantly like in D3) :stuck_out_tongue:

SO - although I see the point of division as opposed to substraction being more “safe” i.e. steadier, wish they tested the “chaos” that is substraction for a bit. Would create more interesting combat diversity with relatively-high/immediate impact on combat I think. So even if the division makes more sense, I’d actually prefer them try with substraction for the time being :thinking: :slight_smile:

7

On this particular point, I don’t how it’s different from what you propose. ^^
Anyway, both systems have nothing to do with D3 where the player had to look for +DPS on every single item. In D4, there is only one (or two when dual wielding) item to increase Attack : the weapon. Every single affix do something else, so no risk to fall into the same problem that plagued D3.

That’s because substraction is imbalanced to the extreme : what happens when I get from 8,3k Defence monsters to 8,5k ones in the next zone with my 8,4k Attack ? My damage would get from 100 to… 1. :confounded: All this for just a tiny +2.5% increase in the target’s Defence. I don’t see how the system could work that way.

Well, from the examples we have (2 000 Attack at level 20, 16 000 at level 40), that already seems to be the case… unfortunately. :frowning:
Moreover, increasing Attack doesn’t need to double damage to do what it is supposed to do : give the player an idea if this weapon is better. If Attack really feels impactful, then it means the other affixes doesn’t matter and that would be a very, very big problem !

8

If I ran into Maple (tank) in a PvP zone, I’d be on the lookout for her clanmates Mai and Yui (glass cannons).

9

What I propose is to have skills/spells have their own level of progress and not be related to the weapon’s ATK rating. And MORE IMPORTANTLY, not be affected by target’s DEF rating. (For obvious/intuitive purposes)

You might have a level 5 bludgeon with 10 damage but your “fireball” spell deal 500 damage, or vice versa, you might’ve gone into a “stat padding” route by going all for ancestral power and hit effects from your basic attacks (potentially sacrificing spell damage)

It’s also much more intuitive, your Meteor deals 500-1000 damage but against a target with 75% Fire Resist would do 125-250, but that target could have 1 or 10000 DEF rating, doesn’t really matter and the outcome would be the same cause you used spell/fire damage

It’s quite important to keep the basic atk and spell damage as separate sources. But there’s also a consequence of making people do a “rince-repeat” cycle of using “heavy hitters” only all the time

In order to avoid the “passive” fighting from afar outlast everything else, I’d encourage for the game to have a “reward bonus” with various consumables such as potions, scrolls, curse scrolls (more frequent globe drops even), e.t.c. when closer-combat fighting (it would probably be a balncing act for opting to not go with the extra “safety”)

I mean there’s a mechanic like that in DooM Ethernal recently. Don’t have to go overboard with it to make it essential (as is/was in DI) to endure throughout longer combat - BUT, would be a nice feature to add for people trying to preserve “ammo” (in the form of extra consumables and scrolls) for when the stakes for fighting a super strong monster would be relatively high to have more charges of these “bonuses” :slight_smile:

10

So if I launch a Fire Ball, I would make my 500 Fire AoE Damage PLUS 1-X single target physical (?) Damage from my weapon ? It’s a bit strange but why not. It’s very similar to D2 when you think about it.