I’m perfectly fine with unavoidable damage (taking hits is part of any RPG gameplay anyway), but like the majority of the census have stated, it shouldn’t one-shot you no matter how defensive (or the lackof) your character is.
That’d be cheap tactics that should be left to bosses only, and not something like an average mob should be capable of doing.
Unavoidable damage is fine. Oneshot mechanics are fine.
Unavoidable oneshot mechanics are never fine. They are not fine in general combat, not in boss fights, not anywhere. They should not exist.
Unavoidable damage is fine, it should just be used sparingly and never really do enough damage to 1 shot you from full HP unless you’re actively avoiding HP for some insane reason.
I think it’s fine if the high level endgame expects the player to have some kind of defenses and general survivability. Not every build is going to be viable, nor should they strive to make it that way.
One-shots are also fine but they should also be used sparingly and always be avoidable.
Most of the time, wen talking about enemie attacks, it’s not really anything that’s spammed. And honestly, outside of being undergeared or on the low end of resistances, I can’t think of any unavoidable damage that 1 shots you. All the off/far screen chargers and leapers can be avoided, as well as all projectiles.
I think there should be some legitimate one shot mechanics that can be avoided, either thru a use of a Cooldown or effect or can be moved out of it (dont stand in the fire type). I also am one to have some form of EHP checks (just to PREVENT the whole, always go glass cannon) as there needs to be a balance between damage and life. It shouldn’t be you can just go complete glass cannon and the game having you to be balanced around being glass cannon like.
Go play some endgame Path of Exile and then come back and try to ask that question with a straight face. Seriously, do it.
i guess we arent trying to copy PoE here
Do what exactly and why? Avoid dying in PoE?
No, no and no again. This is the most stupid mechanics in D3 combat (I mean ghosts, assassins, some elite affixes you simply can’t avoid at all no matter what you do). Good game design is when you can kill everything with 1 hp - if you have enough skills for that.
Unavoidable damage is fine, but if something like Raziel happens again, I’ll be pissed. My wiz mitigates 99.98% damage against elites and she still gets 1 shot by raz. Btw, thats more mitigation then most classes can get and still climb. I’d say on average, climbers have about half that amount, being 99.96%. Some even worse.
its not dark souls
its a math game and your sustain should be higher than their damage 
I generally agree besides isolated cases which are not mandatory for progression, but include some competitive aspect, in D4 case - Key Dungeons. We could have KDs with bosses making EHP check so that players that try to do 100% of the content in the game with a glass cannon build fail there.
A good aRPG is one that you can’t complete all the content in it with a single build.
No, you dont kill glass cannons. You just tell them to trade some offense for defense.
A build with 80 offense and 20 defense is still a glass cannon, even if a 100 offense and 0 defense glass cannon cant survive. Both can potentially use the very same builds, just with some differences in gear.
Besides, some glass cannons might simply accept that they will die sometimes.
Which is were a good death penalty/survival bonus comes in of course.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with the game demanding some defense.
You cant kill enemies if you have zero DPS. Why should you be able to kill enemies if you have zero defense?
I wouldnt necessarily be against such an item existing. Even then, avoidable dmg should not oneshot. Large avoidable hits would of course oneshot in such a case. But such a character is also not exactly fulfilling my criteria of being reasonably geard and not a glass cannon. Which is a fine choice to make, then they just risk oneshots, due to not being appropriately geared.
I’d say even those should not oneshot a reasonably geared character. They might take 50-90% of your HP. That, combined with all the unavoidable dmg might very likely kill you, but by not oneshotting, it allows us to fight for survival, however slim the chances might be. Making things more interesting.
Another good reason why the game should have different armor types. So picking armor pieces with high or low defense is a choice. Something the player can alter.
But no, if all armors come with X defense, and we cant choose more or less, then merely having that base Defense, should not be enough to survive.
For one, we should also have fairly high resistances. Likely some other defenses too. Plus some way to get HP back over time. If you fullfil those basic criteria, then avoidable dmg should not kill you on its own, unless you make other mistakes (avoidable hits, failing to heal at appropriate times, with whatever healing sources you have; life per hit, healing skills, potions etc.)
Requiring a capped 75% resistances in late end-game for example, is completely reasonable.
Nah. The idea that oneshotting is the only way to make a game feel dangerous is part of the reason why A-RPGs so often fail in balancing the combat.
Sure it is skill. It is the skill of making an appropriate build. Through your character skills, gear choices etc.
Both that type of skill, and the skill of making good combat decisions in a timely manner, should be represented in an A-RPG.
Indeed.
However, Dark souls is a pretty good example of not oneshotting players with reasonable gear and stats (yes, some builds literally play naked glass cannons, they can be ignored here). For the most part, Dark Souls enemies don’t oneshot. They take away some HP, often a lot of HP, leaving you weakened. Which works since healing is very limited. As in, killing you with a thousand cuts. Or in Souls, more like 10-30 cuts - with you running out of healing potions after that.
Now, where the similarities and lessons for A-RPGs end, is of course that most damage in Dark Souls is avoidable. But for avoidable dmg, it does dmg balancing really well.
You should always be able to complete a game. It doesn’t matter what character you play on. If you disappoint a person like that it is very likely they will ditch a game (not myself). I know many gamers.
I agree. Apart from where you say specific builds should not be able to do certain bosses. In D4 it will cost more and more to respec so i doubt you will do no damage to any boss. As long as every build/element plays a certain part in every boss is more of a suitable suggestion. I don’t think bosses nor players in D4 will be fully immune to skills.
I remember in D3 soloing a boss immune to fire. Only my healing skill did damage. I was on 2 mins and suddenly found myself completing it in 14 (and over 15…x2 xD).
A great build should definitely be able to kill all enemies in the game.
Diablo 4 should have enemy resistances. But no immunities. Would be anti-ARPG imo, if a single build could not do everything.
Some things should just be much much more difficult based on your build.
And of course, bad builds, or even mediocre builds, might not be able to do everything. Or anything at all. That would be working as intended. Unavoidable dmg is part of that. Telling players that their build just isn’t good enough, and need to improve, either through gear, or changes in skills, skill upgrades, passives, attributes etc.
I didn’t say “dark souls”. But the possibility to avoid any kind of damage must be there in the game, even if this will be extremely hard and take eternity to progress. D3 badly failed in that.
Yes, but completing the game isn’t doing 100% of the content in the game.
Yes, that’s good game design. Copy/pasting the meta to complete 100% of the content is outdated.
A good aRPG is one in which build diversity matters and every build has strengths and weaknesses, with enemies being able to effectively punish the weaknesses.
Definitely.
That does not mean enemies should become impossible to kill. Just more difficult depending on how weak the character is against it.
Like, a great build optimized against boss A might kill the boss in 1 minute. A similarly great build, with a big weakness against boss A might need 10 minutes and near-flawless play to do the same. That is fine. But making it impossible is bad design. Stuff like immunities is bad design.
Impossible to kill doesn’t mean immune however.
Monster AI and monster skills need to be designed in such a way to effectively neutralize certain builds. That promotes more build experimentation.
For example, certain bosses in the game could be Demonic Shapeshifters in a way, having the ability to use the right counter skills depending on what the player build is. If he’s a tank, they’d acquire life regeneration; if he’s a glass cannon, they’d acquire unavoidable attacks; if he’s balanced, they’d lock him out of what’s making him balanced.