Diablo 4 Proposal Attack Lifecycle Trigger Before After

General Discussion
81

Agreed.
However, I’d also want any build that tries to rely on a single primary skill to be inherently weaker. It should be really, really hard to make a good build that focuses on a single skill (as in, need really specialized/rare gear, and come with heavy weaknesses for the build).
Frostbolt+Meteor build should inherently be stronger than Frostbolt or Meteor build.
Most builds should use at least 2-3 different attacks, each contributing significantly to your damage (and NOT just be a booster for your “main attack”). I hate what most builds have become in Diablo 3, and it isnt just D3, as most A-RPGs suffer from it.

Anyway yeah, all attack skills should be designed around being viable as one of your main attacks - which probably means designing them to be viable as your only attack, even if other gameplay elements mean that it actually wont be (stuff like monster resistances, monster behavior; like enraging/countering you when you use certain abilities etc.)

For the same reason, 6 skill slots is a bit too low imo. Having up to 7-8 skill slots could work better for getting many different, equally important, attacks in your toolbox.

Yeah, but endgame can have a low difficulty, as is the case in PoE and D3. That is a difficulty balance issue, more than a lack of build diversity. Those other builds very much exist, with tons of choices. The game supports diverse builds. The balancing don’t.
D3 differs here because even if we ignored the bad endgame balancing, the build options themselves are incredibly shallow. 30 skills where you can pick a single modification for each. A paragon system where you get everything.
If your game dont support lots of builds in the first place, nothing you do in endgame can help.
Maybe Blizzard should just focus a lot less on endgame. Make a good actual game first.
One where we want to create new characters/builds, to progress with. Endgame stuff is secondary to that.

Indeed.
Imo the best option is not to have those high difficulties, that narrows build diversity.
D2 did a lot wrong, but that it did right (if we ignore Teleport for a moment…, and uh, ignore most of what happened in patch 1.10+…).
Or rather, having those extra difficulties is fine, for a “challenge mode”, but they should come with zero increased droprates/xp etc.
If you go into Key Dungeon tier 10, it should be to challenge yourself, and not because it offers any better power-based rewards than Tier 8 (might still have cosmetics and what not).
The benefit of more power should be to do stuff a bit faster, rather than being able to do it at all. Like kill a boss at the highest rewarding difficulty (pre-challenge mode) in 60 seconds vs. kill it in 30 seconds. A meaningful difference, but not the silliness seen in D3 and PoE. Lots and lots of builds should be able to the fight in 60 sec (or whatever, the time is not important here), and while there will be meta builds, always, as long as the scaling is not stupid, these builds can still feel viable vs the meta builds that manage to cut clear time in half (and of course, different topic, but add one heck of a death penalty/survival bonus, so there is some actual risk/reward to going all-in on offense).
Not saying the game should be easy, quite the opposite. But the difficulty should come from requiring us to play well, rather than having our numbers scaled up enough (of course, getting numbers high enough also need to matter some; it is an A-RPG, gear should matter some!).
Overall; Dark Souls balancing. You can clear it at lvl 1 with nearly no gear (which again should not be possible here), or you can get lvls, gear etc. that helps somewhat. But in both cases, it does not become mindlessly easy.

Also, nerf AoE dmg by 90%. Then double down on the nerf.
Heck, screw what I said about all skills being theoretically viable on their own in super specialized builds. AoE should not be viable on its own.
Bosses and plenty of normal monsters should laugh at a build that tries to AoE them down. And then kill the pathetic character that tried.

82

That’s the funny thing - some people here think more is always more, when it isn’t. A balance regarding builds/skills is needed in order to have more gameplay diversity. And such balance for the easy content could be achieved ONLY by narrowing class options OR implementing variables shuffling per account.

Otherwise you’d have the same story in D4 too, namely:

Which shows why potions have to be removed and unique healing skills per class have to be introduced, as well as that fighting on the mount and fighting without a mount should be equal alternatives to dismount.

I think the D4 devs will hate us for this thread haha.

83

I’d argue it’s the opposite. The above video shows that. Without any actual challenge presented to the player, the player will seek efficiency: maximum kills (and loot)/time. To do this, you need to kill as fast as possible: 1-shot kills, applied to as many monsters as possible in 1 hit. Then you need to move as fast as possible so you can engage and 1-shot as many monsters as possible. And you need to do with without risking death which can be done with ultra-high survivability, like shields, or with AoE stuns that last longer than it takes to kill everything on the screen. The most efficient builds do all 3, and every player in the game will be playing these “god mode” builds because they’ll be the only “viable” (most efficient way to get rewards) builds. Game play will be reduced to: teleport, AoE to kill everything in 1 hit, teleport, AoE, teleport, etc.

We may see different color pixels on the screen, but it’s the exact opposite of build diversity. Every “viable” build plays exactly the same.

If you want other game play strategies to be viable, the difficulty has to be higher. Monsters have to live longer and hit harder. You can’t have god mode.

No one works for free. If I can get the same rewards speed farming at Dungeon tier 8 rapidly with minimal chance of dying, why would I do tier 10? I get the same rewards but have to work harder. My pride might get me to do it once or twice just to show that I can, but after that, I’m going right back to the efficient mode so I can get more loot. We have to understand human behavior and set the game’s incentives such that if you want better rewards, you must take more risk.

Agreed in principle, but just understanding some basic math, ultimately things like survivability and DPS checks are sometimes needed in games to prevent people going to extremes in their builds and not appropriately balancing power and survivability. D2 does this to an extent. You have to have high enough numbers to go up from Normal to Nightmare and from Nightmare to Hell. Sometimes, you run into that DPS or survivability check and your character’s just not there yet. The game should kill you a couple of times and force you to go back and re-evaluate your build or improve your gear before you take on the next challenge.

As I said though, I agree in principle. I don’t think the checks should be so stringent that we lock huge portions of potential builds out of viability. That’s a numbers game and one that the devs have to manage by keeping the power of the various spells in an appropriate balance. I want to see lots of potential options running around, rather than just: teleport/AoE or the WW-barb right click and hold to win.

I’ll settle for them bringing it into balance with single target skills. Let’s say my AoE skill is balanced around hitting 5 monsters at a time. It does 100 per target per cast (500 total on avg). My single-target skill needs to do 500 dmg to 1 target. This way if I run into a pack of 5 500hp monsters, I need to cast 5 times to kill all 5, but so does the guy with the single-target skill. 5 casts to clear the screen. My single-target build will benefit vs small packs where he needs fewer casts to clear the threat. My AoE build will benefit vs large packs where he needs fewer casts to clear the threat. If they can restore this type of balance, we’ll be in good shape.

84

this is how it gona work u encounter a monsters and start using yor skills some of them mabe dont work and u ask yor self why u retreat change skills go back and try again till u find solution thats how game supose to work mabe some monsters uber elites or just very geared and op

85

The problem there is overpowered AoE, overpowered mobility. If you increase difficulty in that environment you are not making more builds viable. Everything will stay the same. Or worse, you will have even fewer viable builds left.

It should simply be impossible to oneshot most enemies, even with perfect gear.

Definitely. But you dont get there by increasing difficulty. D3 “increased” difficulty. It only made things worse, and worse. Increasing the distance between builds until the difference was measured in billions of %
The problem in D3 never was that it “only” went to T6. T7 didn’t improve things, nor did T16, nor GRift 150.

You wouldn’t. Unless you wanted extra challenge. And that would be fine.
No different from HC mode.
If only 5% ever do Tier 10, and most players stay on Tier 8, that is quite okay. That allows for appropriate content for each type of player, without destroying build diversity/viability. If tier 10 has better rewards, it becomes the only choice, for all players.

Tier 1 to 8 still offers that. It doesn’t have to go on for all eternity.

Yeah. Exactly. That only happens with massive nerfs for AoE though. Reduced AoE scaling. Make AoE grow less from gear affixes, attributes etc. Basically no A-RPG has ever managed to balance AoE. It is not the place for small adjustments. At release, AoE should feel underpowered.
Even if your AoE needs 5+ enemies to be viable, we can still get the ridiculous gameplay of D3, where you just gather mobs from multiple screens, to have enough to AoE down.
Part of that goes back to each enemy offering a specific challenge. Some enemies should hurt you tremendously if you AoE them. or if you use fire against them, etc.
Fighting 10+ enemies at a time should be suicide against most enemy types.
That also strengthens single target skills; going from 10 to 9 enemies, by killing one enemy first, might be better than killing all 10 enemies at the same time, even if killing them one by one takes longer.

Still wouldnt want to see something as an “AoE build”, outside of extremely special late-endgame cases. Nor would I want to see “single target” build. Most viable builds should be required to have both single target and AoE to handle the diverse enemies. Using the right tools for the job. Builds can be more or less heavy into one or the other, just like a fire + cold build can be 90% fire, 10% cold, 50/50 or 10/90. While a pure fire build should be a bit weaker for most of the game. Specialization is power, if we dont balance the game with that in mind; making the specialization come with its own cost, we cant achieve balance.

86

You’ll always have the majority of players doing the easy content even if rewards are way lower there since D4 will be power capped at level 100.

Or they can implement variables shuffling per account killing global META combined with smarter monster AI so that AOE attempts are “spotted” by the mobs fast enough.

Note that I am not saying challenges have to go. I am saying people are to always play on lower difficulty even with less rewards and raising the difficulty alone won’t solve it.

It depends how much more better are these rewards. Overall, if you don’t lock 50% of gear behind T10, everyone will still do the lower tiers.

Main reason: Meme monster AI.

They’d corpse explosion you back with AoE. Why not just remove AoE skills then?

The truth is AoE is fine as long as it’s done fine.

87

Yes. Monsters should move out of your AoE, change their behavior, get buffs and so on, if you use AoE against them.
And same goes for all other types of attacks; single target, dmg types, CC etc. Make monsters react to what players do, instead of just running into the slaughter spot.

Because it should be a viable tool, sometimes. Players should learn when to use it, and when not to. Same for all skills.
No skill should be one size fits all.

88

My lady calls Diablo 3 monsters the nicest, most congenial, happy friendly critters in any game she’s ever played mostly because, at least for many of them, they stand in corners and wait for you to come get them. There are a few that realize you’re a threat to their existence and try to kill you first, but in places with tight crevices and many doors (like barracks), the monsters are often just idly standing about waiting to be butchered.

That’s funny, to me, but speaks to the very lack of diabolic AI. Monsters should be feared and, in many cases, you should be attacked without even knowing what got you. Ambush, stealth, range…

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89

AoE should be viable always, just to an extend, without overkilling stuff.

Having builds that rely on only one skill is fine as long as the other used by the player skills buff/evolve that one skill.

Not only that - monsters need to be proactive with setting traps and ambushing the player.

However there needs to be stupid monsters too that would exactly go into the slaughter spot set by the player. There need to be all kind of monsters with the player learning their behavior and adapting to their combat styles.

90

Bringing us back to D3 and PoE gameplay.
Those two do not get better if instead of banging your head into the AoE button all you do is banging your head into the single target button. If something is always viable, we get combat that is braindead, boring, easy. Monsters, environment, key dungeon modifiers etc. should all ask you (very nicely, but firm) to adapt.

In terms of having more build diversity, it pains me a bit to argue that one-attack builds should not be viable outside of obscure fringe cases, but as much as build diversity is extremely important, gameplay is too. Spamming the same one button for all eternity is bad gameplay. It should be discouraged. Not prevented, mind you, just made so difficult to pull off that we generally dont want to do it; as in only work in weird super gear-dependent builds you do because it is theoretically possible, and you have farmed these weird fringe items for hundreds of hours, more than because it is good or competitive to do it.

Yes and no. There has to be monsters that go into the slaughter spot. But then they need to have other strengths. Making useless monsters on purpose is silly. Each should challenge the player in different ways.

I mean, as said before, some monsters should enrage if you AoE them. Those should of course not try to avoid your AoE, they should try to be right where you want to AoE, unless you stop them. Through CC, or by killing them first.

91

There’s no such thing as bad gameplay. There’s fun and not fun gameplay which are subjective. For you spamming one button might never be a choice, for someone else exactly this might be fun.

No. It’s essential for the game to have ALL kinds of monsters so that the player can have ALL kinds of choices regarding engaging in a fight or not.

92

Sure there is. Everything is not equal.

I even somewhat recall you arguing that one cat was better than another cat a while ago.

I might not have much faith in Blizzard, for obvious reasons, but at least we know they agree on this. Since they sadly keep nerfing real summoner builds because they think it is bad gameplay. I think they are wrong about that part, they just lack the ability to make the summoner gameplay good. But they are completely right about some gameplay being bad. And it honestly is one of the main purposes of a developer to try and discourage bad gameplay behavior, and encourage good gameplay behavior. Unfortunately, also something lots of devs fail on. And maybe in particular Blizzard these days.

There is no choice involved if the monster is weak against everything.

93

This means weak on drops too aka a choice.

You do realize PoE is a one button click game and its players love it, right?

“Bad” gameplay is a very bad term. We can talk about gameplay that leads to lower player participation, for example: We make our own game (say a D2 mod), in which the first monsters in Act 1 are so hard to kill that 99% of players that try the mod can’t do it and leave. But we two have a lot of fun with the game. You see? Using the term “bad” isn’t appropriate at all.

I’d say there’s nothing wrong a game to offer any kind of gameplay as long as that stimulates the player to continue playing without hurting the online environment.

94

The proposal can lead to one-button builds for people who like this kind of gameplay, and even automatic build if you design a trigger gem “On enemy seen”.

If you dig deeper, you’ll ask yourself the following question:

What if one evolution of ARPG was to be 100% automatic, with the possibility to switch to manual mode when player thinks it is needed ?

That would instantaneously eliminate bots, as botting would be a core mechanic.

It would be just like watching a movie, but with the possibility to interact from time to time.

The main goal would be to improve the build to increase its performance, but individual “action” performance would not matter.

ARPG would now stand for “Automatic RPG”, just like Auto-chess.

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95

Not really no. We have had various people in this thread call it bad. I see plenty of active PoE players call it bad.
Are some people blind to it being bad? Sure.
My guess is most of those who like PoE, like it despite its braindead endgame combat balancing, and not because of it. Same for D3 too.

Devs should have a tiny bit of integrity and self-respect, and not offer people bad gameplay, even if they crave it.

Is it subjective? Yeah. Your subjective view that auto-chess is better than real chess (I know it isnt chess, not the point) can still be a bad opinion and you should feel bad (not you personally, but the people who hold that opinion).

Not even saying auto-chess is necessarily bad. If what the dev is aiming to make is an auto-chess game, then it might be very good at being an auto-chess game.
But if what you meant to make was an A-RPG, not so much.
If what you end up making is Magic Legends… well, you just made a really bad A-RPG. People are welcome to like it for all I care. But they have bad taste.

96

Yeah. And tower defense games where you literally watch towers just mow down an advancing army can be fun too. I’ve certainly played enough of those back in Warcraft 3 days.

But they don’t have much staying power. Eventually it gets stale. There’s no challenge in just clicking two buttons and wiping the screen clear. The D3 equivalent, like the WW barb, is just as mindless. You literally just hold down the right mouse button and lawn mower the screen clear. It gets stale really quick! Sometimes we want mindless play. Especially after a stressful day at work, sometimes I wanted to do as little thinking as possible. I’d never boot up a strategy game to play. I’d go farm WoW dailies or something. So I get the point that some players want that sometimes.

What I’d offer as a counter argument is that Diablo can and should offer more than that. It’s perfectly possible for D4 to give players farming opportunities that are just that, mindless adverturing. They can also give players a tactical challenge and a truly threatening interactive battlefield against the demons of Hell. I think ultimately, D4 will be a better game if it is balanced around giving players a more difficult challenge when they go out monster-slaying.

I want the demons to feel threatening so that it feels like we’ve accomplished something when we kill them. I miss the D2 Act 3 flayers. Vicious little buggers! You had to respect the things because they absolutely could and would kill you over and over. That’s a good thing! I also want the boss fights to be challenging. Wiping out the D3 bosses in 2-3 hits is just a joke. It’s not fun. You end up just getting annoyed waiting for the phase transition cutscenes to complete so you can deal your 2 hits and get your loot. That’s not fun. It’s a chore and D4 can do better. In fact, I’d say it darn well needs to find a way to distinguish itself because just about every new ARPG I’ve heard of has gone in the direction of creating a more extensive monster AI to give players a more tactical game play.

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97

It is this same type of horrible build diversity that is what is being asked for, for Diablo 4.

I would love to see it as well. I think that it would only be possible if they let Last Epoch’s skill system inspire them to make a skill system that is similar but better.

98

By some sure. Hence why those of us who want something different (aka. better) should not be silent.

Yeah, once upon a time Blizzard made copying others into an art form. Somehow they forgot it along the way. Honestly, just copy Last Epochs skill upgrade system (and try to make it better of course). I love innovative games, but no need to be different just to be different, when you are only capable of being worse anyway.

There is a lot to learn from other A-RPGs. Both Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 are honestly some of the last A-RPGs worth learning from at this point. Though they too have something to offer of course (if nothing else, to serve as a warning :P)

99

Say hi to D2. Its players love that type of bot efficiency optimization routes and don’t view this as something bad.

Yes, it will. And it will have its devoted player base.

Most players enjoy PoE not because of its gameplay mechanics, but they aren’t against that type of gameplay and would still resort to it at times if it was not the only type of gameplay aka they DO regard it as fun.

ARPGs are simple games. You click series of buttons, monsters die and drop loot. Even in their most primitive forms aRPGs will be fun for a lot of people. Heck, if it was the year Darkstone released and I played it, I’d had ton of fun with it. Is Darkstone a primitive aRPG with simple mechanics and combat? Yes, it is. But is it fun? Sure. So “bad” is kind of strange/inappropriate qualification.

True enough. Diablo 4 can be better than that. A lot better. The more opportunities (in forms of different zones and enemies) players have to throw their builds against the better. The player should be able to start in D4 from knowing nothing about aRPGs, learning the game and eventually conquering every dungeon out there if he is skillful enough.

100

Diablo 2 players dont see bots as something bad? :partying_face:

Doubtful.
They are not a monolith of course, but plenty PoE players seem to have criticized its current issues for ages.

They aren’t. They shouldn’t be.
“Easy to learn, hard to master” is not the same as simple. Simple is not the same as bad.
I dont know Darkstone, heck, not sure I have even heard the name before, so cant comment on whether it is bad.
Clicking 2 buttons can be simple. Clicking 5 buttons can also be simple.
The number of buttons is not that important, albeit also not completely unimportant.
Dark Souls can be finished by using only quick attack and dodge (well, and movement, if we count those as buttons), if you want. Not exactly complex. But also not facerolling PoE/D3 combat. What it does, and what more games should dare to do, is not to be difficult, because it isnt really difficult, but dare to ask players to learn to play. Instead of just letting them faceroll the way through the game, and hold their hand if the facerolling is not enough. Requiring players to learn, improve, progress, is not a bad thing, and Diablo 4 should not be afraid of it either. Including asking them to do more than press LMB a million times in a row, oblivious to what is happening on the screen.