I was hoping to never see another rotating laser beam again after D3.
Tell me. Do all the monsters get together and teach each other the rotating laser beam skill? Is there a giant conference they all go to? Who leads the class that teaches them all? How do all the elite monsters know all the exact same skills??
Please do better than this with D4. Please, for the love of Diablo.
Honestly, I don’t have a problem with the arcane beams, however I think that those elite traits should be only for mage-like foes. And not just arcane beams, but most of the other elite monster traits should be available to monsters that actually fit said traits.
So in short, I suppose I agree with the OP.
Now that you put it like this, everything about these lasers seem like a bad joke.
This is why we need a combination of hitstun balanced with well designed monsters.
If we don’t get hitstun, we WILL get the pinball hazards attached to, (yet disembodied from), giant health bars.
The two concepts are mutually exclusive and try to adress the same issue with gameplay.
So are mummies, tainted, finger mages, succubi etc. attacks. Some of them are quite “cartoony” too.
Now I agree many D3 affixes effects are way out of tune and D4 can do better than what we’ve seen, but they make sense for gameplay. D2’s affixes didn’t add much, they mostly made monsters stronger and more resistant.
Yup been saying this too about d3 for a long time.
They dont understand the dynamic between running fast, a horde or wall or group of melee-hitting monsters that hit recovery you, where you lose control, and can die.
They think its fine to movement skill into a mob pack or save it for escape, not get hit recoveried, and dodge affix casts, instead of not being able to dodge (unless an amazon of course) melee attacks from enemies and paying the loss of control price if you do get hit.
Its the core of the combat this system and they’re going D3’s route, go figure.
Blizzard is obsessed with D3 i think brevik should start talking more about his thoughts on what diablo game they’re molding after and if that’s cool.
Great news though.
Console gaming is finally getting like decent / really good depending on the game.
As in diablo 4’s in big trouble. I mean for every monster pack that sucks to fight bc it’s just affix dodging there’s a tv and switch right there to download some not affix dodging game.
D4’s devs love affix fighting.
When u interview for D4 jobs they go “affix dodge or hit recovery” and its def a politically loaded question.
They probably have a room when they start zoom calls an affix orb moves around the screen and each person has to duck on cam and see if they can dodge it while they discuss D4. “hold that thought the orb’s heading my way let me prepare and dodge it before it rotates to frozen orbs…ok…waiting…dodged!” “nice one nice dodge i dodged a good one earlier too it was nice waiting around too since nothing hit recovery checks us like a melee attack or spell” like 2 monsters in D3 have a melee attack at all.
I wish that was a joke.
Then they see hit recovery and are like omg no nobody would want that melee attacks and losing control over your char (until you outgear the content or have a tight monster pack that overgearing can’t overcome, example nilathek countess tower)
“sorry i was late for zoom today guys i had waller in front of the sink when i was trying to brush my teeth”
“its ok on my way to work i had a lightning storm in front of my lexus i had to dodge it it was really fun”
“you want to watch the boxing match?”
“no that’s melee that’s D2”
“well some of those boxers lose bc they get put in recovery and can’t like think right or control things well”
“i know that’s how D2 did things we prefer to have it where you dodge the affixes that are on rotation and always have full control and not be threatened by a loss of control”
“so you mean like make a waller affix that tries to resemble hit recovery visually?”
“yea but its not the same bc waller doesn’t stop you from doing everything like hit recovery does so it’s a nerfed version and on rotation so it’s not always going on”
“hold my iphone 12 i cant text right now, there’s a thunderstorm on rotation coming up i have to pull over and pull the e-brake brb” “dodge ok im back what were we group texting about again yea i dodged it it was sweet what a dodge is than an armani suit i went with brooks bro’s holler boi” LOL
D4’s combat is so affix dodge its needy.
Its like fine if they had hit recovery in the game as the primary threat, like d2 did.
Nobody over the last 20 years is like “d2 sucks it has hit recovery” lol.
Everyone over the last 9 years is like “d3 sucks it has no hit recovery” lol.
I wish this was mostly untrue.
“SOME monsters in D4 will have stun” I also wish this was totally untrue, and replaced with ALL and “no keyword needed” for hit recovery.
xD S**t, you’re gonna make me cry… :’(
Even if we get hitstun, I personally don’t need faster hit recovery to be in the game, since we will get escape skills to break hitstun chains.
Movement skills on cooldown that don’t cost a tradeoff like mana make me violently ill.
they are part of the reason combat lacks along w lack of hit recovery.
affix dodge, cooldown escape…no penalty for shoulder brushing an enemy…and this is blizzard.
Why not ? After all, character classes had masters too. How did Fallen shamans learn to resurrect their peers ? Easy to imagine that’s the same for elite monsters.
That would greatly reduce the variety of encounters. Gameplay must come first.
It should also match the fantasy as much as possible, of course. Maybe instead of powers monsters clearly use, it could be possession by entities that burst regularly from the host, creating those elemental effects.
Gameplay wouldn’t be any lesser for it. In fact, I’d even say it would improve, as the developers had stated that their intent for Diablo 4 is to breathe new and realistic life into the world of Sanctuary. A way to actually achieve that is to have enemies abilities actually matching their type, and that includes their elite monster traits as well. After all, just as you wouldn’t see molten fire monsters in an ice area or vice versa, you also shouldn’t see fire based monsters wielding ice powers or vice versa (not without some harm being done to the monster at least).
If they want, they could implement both monster elite and monster possession. That said if they’re bursting with this elemental power, then monsters who are of the weaker element should take damage from these effects as well, for example an ice-based monster bursting with fire explosions would take damage from these effects as well.
I agree with OP. The FX team could move away from size, shape and color as main criteria of readability for effects.
For example in d2, there are subtle changes in the graphics of runes or paladin’s auras. They animate with rotation, they boil, pulse or wave.
Very subtle changes that the eye can catch without bold exaggeration.
And it does not even need big processing and large images, code can animate effects from a simple repeated png file.
This quote is about the tone of the world, not gameplay.
I’m all for implementing the gameplay in a more realistic way, in fact I even think it’s necessary, but not sacrificing anything for the sake of “realism”. Including your example of an ice-based monster with a fire enchantment : that was a thing in D2 and I don’t think anyone complained.
Probably because it wasn’t as obvious
Not like pulling large fire trails behind them or exploding after dying, which visually just doesn’t fit the environment
Monster Families
To breathe new and realistic life into the world of Sanctuary, we’re taking a fundamentally new approach to how we create and design monsters. Each monster is now part of a Monster Family, which usually includes a handful of different enemies based around a theme and location.
Pretty sure that counts for gameplay as well.
Except no one’s asking to remove said traits, only that they should be used by monsters most suited for them. By your logic all skills should be equally available to all classses as it adds more variety, when in fact it lessens the classes unique identity, it’s the same with monster elite traits. So, yeah if it takes killing variety in order to create a world filled with monsters with unique identities, then I’m for it.
Probably because Diablo 2 wasn’t swarming with unique monsters, like Diablo 3 had with elite monsters. Also, most unique monster traits weren’t over the top effects like how Diablo 3 elite monster traits are. Lastly just because Diablo 2 had something done a certain way doesn’t mean it’s flawless. That’s just another factor that Diablo 4 can improve upon.
You’re right. So I guess in their eye a Fallen brute casting Mortar is “realistic”. ^^
I didn’t say you wanted to remove these affixes, just reduce the possible combinations.
And monsters are not playable characters that need balance and so on.
I’m playing D2 these days and I can tell you it’s pretty similar. Just so unremarkable that sometime you may not even notice it was a Unique.
That’s true, and it was pointless too. Gameplaywise, traits in D2 were not very interesting.
I agree and made a thread like this myself not long ago. I am happy to hear others voicing the same concern. This is one of my biggest gripes with D4 right now. It looks like they just ripped these out of Diablo 3 and made some minor visual tweaks.
I think these feel out of place, both in Diablo IV and on monsters in general. They don’t cast them, nothing procs them, they just happen when you are near the enemy and they feel so flashy and colorful, it really takes the focus off the monster, both visually and in terms of danger.
i think mana burn or immunities are way more impactful to the gameplay than “jump over the lazur”
If by “impactful” you mean “annoying as hell”, then yes, certainly. ^^
Immunities were a feature of every monster in Hell anyway, the added immunities from traits were either meaningless or gamebreaker.
Maybe in their eyes, but they’d be wrong imo, hence the point of this thread. Fallen brutes aren’t known for magic or any ability to manipulate fire and instead they’re known for their melee prowess. So realistically they should have elite traits that improve their melee damage, attack/movement speed, defense, and grant them knockback, crushing blow, stun on chance, etc. Most of these traits could be bestowed to them as either stats, unique auras, battlecries, etc.
The mortar elite trait would belong mostly to actual fire/earth based monsters. The only way I would consider it “realistic” for them to have mortar is if there’s a special variation of the Fallen Brute where he’s literally made of molten earth.
Add enough elite monster traits to make up for it then. Also, monsters do receive their own form of balance. You know how many monster skills or elite traits that were nerfed or remove over Diablo 3 time? Quite a number.
No, Diablo 3 has far more elite monsters than Diablo 2 has of unique monsters. For example, you can go through the field of miser in Diablo 3 and find more elite monsters than you would find in Diablo 2 going through let’s say the Dark Woods.
you started with gameplay
running in a circle while doing what you would be doing anyway is not gameplay