Imo you can either make separate pvp balance like Lost Ark and FF14 do, or just not care at all about pvp balancing and let the pvpers fend for themselves like D2 and Dark Souls do. Usually when the second happens, it’s hit or miss with the PvP being successful, in some cases like PoE, it didn’t work at all (PvP is completely dead), in others, the players who were interested in it adapted and created their own rules or “good manners” although that’s more or less a “gentleman’s agreement” not actually enforced in any way.
With PvP not really being the priority in D4, I think either way is fine. Separate PvP balance is definitely extra effort.
They seemingly do sometimes balance PvE around PvP in Souls games, unfortunately. Not that it is necessarily bad, if something is overpowered in PvP it might also be so in PvE, in which case the balancing is of course justified. But it can be bad.
Separate balancing definitely seem like the best solution. But then you are also taking resources that could have ben spent elsewhere.
Completely taking out gear from PvP seems wrong for an A-RPG. Gear is too important an aspect of the game.
Of course, it doesn’t have to be either/or.
Open world PvP => Free for all, unfair, Bring-Your-Own-Gear.
“Arena” => Rule based, everyone are equalized.
Well, even without cheat deaths, you could make similar agreements like stop at 50% HP or let the losing side have a way to tap out or something. Ppl will come up with something depending on what mechanics will actually be in the game.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the balance for PvP vs PvM in big parts decided in the design of the skills?
I mean, Blizz can always do some number tweaking, but depending on how the skill is designed it can be overpowered in PvP, even if it’s ok in PvM.
Homing skills for example are never overpowered PvM merely because of being target seeking, while they are always a big problem in PvP precisely because of it.
Another example is stunning or slowing skills that are insta cast on target. No problem in PvM, but mayor bummer in PvP.
Maybe if the skills are designed with PvP in mind from the start, the later balancing for PvP is easier. To clarify I’m not suggesting the devs only allow skills that design wise would be safe in PvP, but that they keep to a rule of doing so and from there make exceptions.
Meh… For a sturdy class I think a cheat-death is okay.
For example, most Barbarians would have close combat builds and Sorceri would be long range casters; it only makes sense that Sorceress gets away with an instant cast town portal and Barbarian possessing a cheat-death passive for me.
A sturdy close combat character would never learn how to craft instant cast town portal scrolls and a fragile caster character never have the beefy endurance of a melee character. When commit into combat, melee character only could channel a town portal to get away and caster or ranged character dies when they get cornered.
That’s of course, only in my opinion, if they want to incorporate some nice elements from the previous installments.
I also really hope there is never going to be an instant cast town portal. For the same reasons there should be no cheat-death.
Cheat-death does not make a character sturdy. More like the opposite. That character should be sturdy because it takes less dmg.
Imo it is part of a larger topic. Nothing should ever be 100% effective in defense. It should not be possible to get 100% dmg immunity against any dmg type (so no more D3 amulets of that type), nor should it be possible to get 100% CC immune (so bye bye lots of D3 skill designs), nor should it be possible to be immune to death itself, even if it is only once every X minute.
Instead, allow players to be resistant against dmg types, lower CC duration (but not remove), and for cheat deaths replacements, you can have stuff like “takes 30% less dmg when below 10% HP”, “healing is 50% more efficient when below 10% HP”, etc.
Yeah, and if they nerf that homing skill in PvE just because it is strong in PvP that could suck.
Different designs for PvE and PvP would be to make the skill have less tracking for example, so it was easier to dodge. But it could also be much more simple stuff, like lowering the dmg, increasing the resource cost, adding a cast time, etc. As long as those things are only done when the skill is used in PvP, and does not affect the PvE version.
If you design your skills with PvP in mind, without making the skills different in PvE and PvP, then that is essentially the same as nerfing the PvE skill later on because of PvP. You just pre-nerf it instead. Limiting your skill diversity in PvE, because of PvP concerns. That would be tragic.
PvP should just be a mode. That is, it does not matter whether your character is HC or SC. Any player may battle any other in a free-for-all. Naturally, this would then mean the HC character does not permanently die on losing but your loss record is visible to all so… others seeing you with 10+ losses means you get stigmatized. In fact, make it a negative reputation achievement to lose in HC so your account is forever flagged as being a HC loser.
If you just die to a burst damage that surpass your effective health these abilities might as well not exist.
As combat goes hectic and damage monsters can deal increase, risks you take starts to bite hence why a player controlled break point or an automatically occuring safety net is the way to go in my opinion.
shrug
If a Barbarian stands up after being knocked down by being slashed from his chest you wouldn’t raise an eye brow; but if a Mage would have the endurance to get up after being knocked down like that, you would question it. Wouldn’t you?
Which is good.
That burst dmg probably should not exist in the first place. But if you decided to fight 50 enemies at once, and died because of that, not having a cheat-death would have accomplished exactly what it was meant to.
Which is exactly what they should.
Cheat-deaths destroys that. It just saves you no matter how bad you screwed up.
Would very much depend on their build. A mage should be able to get as sturdy as a barbarian. And vice versa.
And I would raise an eye if a dead barb stands up. Unless it is because they were raised as a corpse by a necromancer monster I guess.
After playing enough Diablo 2 which has no cheat death or some kind of safety net, to know your character is just a glass cannon that can die any moment in a blink, I pretty much prefer a cheat-death as a warning signal or at least a get out ticket like town portal.
A cheat-death no matter how lame, would give player a warning but keeps them commit to combat. A town portal is a valuable get out ticket when your character is fragile but you know you have to go out there again against waning stress to get it done. As being said, it has to be limited otherwise it’d have no meaning; there should be times where your character simply dies because you didn’t craft another town portal scroll or you took another risk which knocks you outta your boots.
I’m not sure if I’d like it. Classes must have their characteristics about commiting into combat and different ways of approaching punishment.
If you wanna go with decisive thresholds instead of cheat-death, then you better give some more passive defensive bonuses like natural damage mitigation. Look at Diablo 3 Barbarian and Relentless passive; it works because Barbarians are durable with natural 30% damage mitigation.
Indeed.
A Barbarian should be tough enough to take the hit and keep coming.
A Mage should not take the hit at all as their magic armor/protection should absorb it.
A Demon Hunter should not be anywhere long enough for the hit to land.
A Crusader should block the hit with shield.
A Necromancer would have it’s minions to take the hit.
Etc.
If characters can die in a split second, maybe something is really wrong with the dmg dealt, and that should be fixed.
This is exactly what makes stuff like cheat-death, endless healing etc. bad. That stuff is what caused the silly dmg.
Losing 10%, 20%, 30% etc. of your health, should be the warning.
That should be a build choice.
No, just drastically reduce the dmg monsters deal.
That would be horrible. That is not classes, it is MOBA heroes. With pre-determined builds.
Sturdy mages is a classic in fantasy. Some barbarian builds should be sturdy enough to take hits repeatedly, some mages should be unable to survive any hits, etc. But others should not.
MOBA heroes don’t really have pre-determined builds though. Take a look at new DotA 2 from Valve, there are more than one build at the face of overcoming odds. There’s no single one fit all build, and even if there is it requires some heavy investments. ARPG and MOBAs are that fall apart from the start afterall, especially when you allow it to be a social game.
Then difficulty scale will be pretty small and risk taking will have no meaning when you can out level or out gear the challenge once.
Landing the right amount for every build to enjoy the game will be tough as ARPGs are full of gear checks, no matter how you put it. There will be times that player enters an area full of dangerous monsters and get their character hurt badly.
They usually have a nearly fixed set of skills. And a pre-determined role you are good at. You have a little bit of wiggle room within that, but MOBA heroes are pretty much like D3 Sets.
In RPGs you might make a squishy mage, a tanky mage, a melee mage, a ranged mage etc., with wildly different skills used, different gear used etc.
Yeah, and if you try to do lvl 60 content with lvl 1 gear, you might of course get oneshotted.
But that doesn’t mean you need a cheat-death. You just needed better gear. That is not an issue that need to be fixed, it prety much is what the game is about.
If they pull too many enemies at once they should get hurt badly.
And if the developer made it so you couldn’t avoid pulling all those enemies, then the devs failed, and should fix that part, instead of adding a mechanism to survive their bad design.
If they add a band-aid to their bad design, it likely just results in them doubling down on their bad design.
Then you want accumulated gear to be more powerful than the character’s potential power or what? Because it sounds like it. Else you want all equipment at the same level (ie. level 60 armor pieces) to provide more or less the same amount of protection regardless of the character class?
This is a bit confusing. Different gear will provide different values and will bring different playstyles forcing player to pick between them. If you don’t prioritize survival on the equipment, then your skill choices will ought to have defensive options and each character will have different sustainability for this; regarding the cooldowns, animations and duration factors.
If player wants to be a glass cannon, then they will be a glass cannon, however sustainability of this model will always be questioned and character will get gear checked. Hard.
Cheat-death here, by my opinion at least, slightly gives you an edge before your character defines its own title. Town portal crafting must not be abundant either as it would make it so silly; it should be costly and shall require high grade material and hefty sum of gold. Compared to this; a decisive threshold can not be trusted and will not be reliable as a cheat death in a moment of being cornered to death else a connection stutter.
There are multiple for some MOBA heroes depending on the team they’re in. Some heroes may be built for main lane only but some are flexible between safe lane or jungle for example.
Trust me, even in Diablo 3 with all these crazy defense multipliers, it hurts when you pull more than you can chew. Pull 2 elite groups in a high pushing scenery and they put you down really fast even with cheat-death passives coming from your own and your Follower.
Also I believe they won’t repeat a model similar to Greater Rifts with the Keyed Dungeons so I believe we can all be relieved there.
Not really. If you are lvl 1 with lvl 60 gear (assuming there was no lvl requirement), you might of course also get oneshotted.
Both character and gear should matter. Those two in combination is pretty much a requirement for even being able to call it an A-RPG imo.
Yeah. Which is fine. They made the choice. Which again means they should not get a cheat-death, otherwise their glass cannon choice just got invalidated.
A glass cannon choices is also gear-based. Just different gear.
It should not be trustworthy. It should help you, not guarantee you immunity or immortality.
And they definitely should not design gear and skills around disconnects or lag That would be wild. We already know the optimal design solution to online lag; having an offline mode! But even without it, the gameplay should not be designed around lag. Add some real Disconnect/lag protection instead.
Being flexible is also a role. Similar to off-tanks or off-healers in MMOs.
If your character is created as an off-tank, the role was predetermined. If you can choose to become a main tank, an off-tank, a glass cannon dmg dealer, all from the same startring class, then the role is not pre-determined.
Well, it doesn’t really hurt, because you have a cheat-death. If you dont leave the area after the cheat-death procced you might risk death of course. But initially, literally nothing can hurt you.
And and yeah, it does hurt in D3 when you pull too much. Also when you dont. D3s dmg and healing is completely absurd. And likely what lead to the cheat-deaths in the first place. Which then lead to dmg and healing getting even more absurd. Never ending circle of bad design decisions.
Ensuring that any player would be able to play a glass cannon from the start would be hard as every class will have different sustainability and efficiency at different skills. I mean diablo 3 classic went that path and it was built upon the idea of player starting with mass crowd control builds to improve gear (hence being a glass cannon) piece by piece to upgrade then change skills accordingly along the way. Similar can be achieved in Diablo 4 for sure, but it will not offer you many different options at the path you’re taking at all. When you offer many different ways for being a glass cannon it will trivialize some challenges ahead for sure as it never can land the right ratio.
Then you’d be looking at some trustworthy crowd control effects when things go dire. When player gets cornered they should be able to answer with reflex checks. That can be taken as your ideal as well.
Eh. At least it has some practicality.
So you’re okay with zdps and RGK roles of Diablo 3 too?
You can always play a glass cannon from the start, you might just die a lot. And it might not be viable.
Which sounds fine, glass cannon builds should kinda be the weakest builds on average, due to requiring higher skill to play well. A pure glass cannon might only be something worth trying after having extensive experience with the game, and maybe some gear to help out.
In D3 glass cannons are way to overpowered, part of that is due to cheat-death, but not only. And part of what should be fixed; defensive stats should feel as viable as offensive stats. Which yeah, means that a glass cannon would likely struggle in most cases. Just like a pure tank would struggle. You would be better off finding a good balance between offense and defense in most cases.
Mobility skills are trustworthy, in a sense. As long as you didnt put it on cooldown before you really needed it of course.
zDPS should not exist. Tanks, offtanks, healers, offhealers, etc. are for holy trinity MMOs.
RGK should definitely exist (but of course, RGs themselves should not :D), that is just a single target vs. aoe build choice. Exactly the kind of choices an A-RPG should offer (AoE should just be nerfed a lot, but that would only make single-target builds like RGK better)
Then what about playing a very sturdy mage? There should be drawbacks to that, yes?
For a split second, yes. The crowd will still chase you if you fail to sustain your crowd control effects on the masses.
I suggest you to give a try to Hardcore mode and tell me if a glass cannon is overpowered or not. Thinking the latest upcoming season theme many players will be mad that they have lost their character to a small lag spike or being killed without getting overwhelmed completely now Shield Pylon is removed.
That would be wild. We already know the optimal design solution to online lag; having an offline mode! But even without it, the gameplay should not be designed around lag. Add some real Disconnect/lag protection instead.