Oh man, those lightning scarabs in D2 were hardcore. The cat people that tossed those poison potions were almost as bad too. The fetish shamans that spat the fire were intense as well.
Don’t get me started on the poison attack from Andarial (sp) and Duriel’s cold aura and massive melee attack.
That’s just to name a few w/in the first 3 acts. Oh yeah, you really needed to worry about monsters in D2, especially in the higher difficulties when they had immunities to damage.
I miss the challenge from D2. Since then, the only game that has come even remotely close is Grim Dawn. Not even WoW came close to monster importance like D2 did.
So… if D4 can do it, then I am all in. Even if it only accomplishes what Grim Dawn did, that’s good enough for me. I can’t wait for some D4.
Yes! So many monsters you think about and remember and like they say you “play the game in your head” but also with how to deal with monsters! They are one of the main ingredients to diablo when all we wanna do is slay monsters.
Let us remember them again and have an impact on how we approach combat unlike my Barb in D3 that whirlwinds through everything no problem
About Immunities someone mentioned they can actually limit gameplay in terms and in D2 force some items onto you in end game builds (If you want to kill everything) which i thought about and guess i agree with, But we could always have Fire Resistant monsters that take % less damage from fire it would be awesome for D4
Yeah, that is really what it is about. Different enemies shhould feel different to fight. Different tactics, different skills etc. to deal with them.
Definitely go for monster resistances instead of immuneties though. Some monsters might have very high resistance, but single dmg type builds should still be competitive, just have monsters where they struggle more (but then likely also be stronger against other enemies).
Hit Recovery has been replaced by Crowd Congrol in D3/4, a more strategic mechanics.
Monsters also stagger in D3 when you hit them hard enough, but I like your idea of a stagger affix on items.
There is actually, and they do quite a lot of damage if you stay in their blast zone. The Berserker is also a very dangerous monster that requires some attention.
But I agree overall, monsters in D3 are too weak. They were intentionally outshined by Elites, which are just bags of affixes (fortunately D4 will add affixes that improves basic monsters abilities).
D4 needs to improve drastically on monster damage but in return also make their attacks easier to avoid, especially ranged.
I think they should have replaced Hit Recovery with a Stagger Mechanic on your character.
Imagine that the XP Bar on your character now moves down to the bottom of the UI and on top of your Skill Bar there now is the Stagger Bar for your character.
Every hit you take from enemies adds a certain amount of Stagger, depending on the attack. Some attacks can add less Stagger to your char, others more.
Once the Stagger Bar is full, you get microstunned for x seconds and the Stagger Bar depletes.
While microstunned, you can not accumulate additional Stagger.
While microstunned, you eventually can take xx% more damage.
Stagger also decays on its own over time.
The ‘Faster Hit Recovery’ Affix would get replaced with “+x maximum Stagger” or “x% increased maximum Stagger”, which would make it so that your Stagger Bar increases and you can take more hits before staggered.
That is basically like Hit Recovery, but you can manage it better and you do not get stun-locked like in D2.
Maybe there can even be skills that remove a certain amount of Stagger, temporarily prevent Stagger from accumulating, etc.
Stagger is a better concept than hit recovery IMO. I’d rather use gameplay to try to avoid being stunned or unable to attack than stacking a stat that just takes away from other affixes. I can move and dodge attacks to avoid being staggered. Adds more to gameplay IMO.
In general I was okay with Faster Hit Recovery and Faster Block Rate in regards to them “taking away other affixes”, but what I did not like about the Hit Recovery mechanic was that all these constant microstuns just didn’t feel good.
A Stagger Mechanic would again be a perfect middle ground on having an interesting mechanic or resource to manage, while also one that is not really annoying like in Hit Recovery and Block Lock in D2.
I personally liked to have FHR on my chars (and FBR if I also used a shield) because it was something else to look for on items, but the issue was how the mechanic was executed in D2, which didn’t feel good.
Having to manage the Stagger Bar is something that I personally would find exiting.
Yeah, I feel like CC and good enemy design can replace Hit recovery.
A stagger mechanism like clueso described, could be a good way to measure whether you get CC’ed or not.
Rather than it always being “did you get hit with a CC ability? Then you are CC’ed”, some hits should only increase your stagger meter a little, while other large attacks might fill the meter in one hit.
Adding more differences between enemies and their attacks. Which should always be a goal. Against some enemies you might be just fine to stand in the middle and tank them. Others would result in certain death.
now you can have CC recovery or resistance on your items
but it makes more sense when a specific giant golem stuns you and not just every single enemy, including 2 feet tall puppets
At D3 classic your character would flinch and yell in pain if they receive very hard hits and not under the effects of their ultimate transformation. There was no other way of evading that stagger state.
I don’t know if it would fit to add D4 as in it would be “too complex” for new players by the terms of developers. That’s not my opinion however but I reckon that’s the answer you’ll get from D4 developers looking at how D3 devs answered such questions. They clearly told us that they ain’t gonna repeat D2 or D3, and I kinda wonder how this gonna play out in the long run.
CC Attacks would be easier avoidable and teased, like a Frost Explosion that charges up over ~1.5 seconds…
… while Stagger would be smaller, medium and heavy hits that accumulate Stagger on you over time that then microstun you for ~1 seconds when the bar is full.
Maybe some of the more heavy hits that accumulate Stagger could also be teased (like the Berserkers Heavy Attack from D3), but still not fall under the category of CC Attack.
Also, my thought was that the microstun duration could not be reduced with CC Resistance or Reduced CC Duration, since it would be a special kind of CC.
And in D2 you had both Hit Recovery and Block Rate.
Under my proposal, Faster Block Rate would merge with Faster Hit Recovery into Stagger.
Sure, but what about 10 small puppets that surround you and deal damage to you over a few seconds?
I did not play D3 classic, so I can’t remember that.
Or do you mean that this feature is no longer that much prevalent in D3 due to all these buffs that give CC Immunity like Vengeance, Wrath of the Berserker or Ignore Pain, that can have a 100% uptime?
Well, Stagger is neither D2 nor D3, but rather a middle ground between the two, so maybe they’ll implement it.
Another thing they also could do is to bring back Stamina, but now let that resource be spend for the Sidestep Ability or for Dodge Rolls, because then they could get rid of that annoying “Recovery Time” after having used a Sidestep, which imo does not feel good.
If they do, which would be very cool, it would most likely work the same way as Boss Stagger mechanics. That means a CC-gauge that results in your character getting disabled for X seconds, like Shadout described.
The only problem I see is what kind of CC would result from different sources ? In PvP, a Barbarian would apply Stun, but a Sorceress has Chill then Freeze : when fighting both of them, will you get stunned of frozen ? Even worse with Immobize which is far less punishing than the other two…
That’s still in the game I think. Special hits from large monsters like Grotesques or Sand Golem will knock you back and disable you for a second.
I don’t remember anything else in D3C.
i think that CC should be more defined and separated
just having HR actually seems cheap
while stun, slow, sleep (if you will), knockback, etc. is better design
I think other types of CC could exist just fine outside of a general CC stagger mechanism. Like slow and immobile does not prevent your char entirely from acting, they can exist as their own thing. Knockback as well. Maybe fear too, although it does take away control. Fear probably shouldnt be too common anyway, can be a fairly annoying CC in games.
But maybe all kinds of Stun CC could be added to that stagger system. Maybe the hit that fills the meter is the one that determines if you get frozen, stunned or whatever. The duration could depend on how much above 100% the last hit brings you. Most enemy attacks would just be the normal microstutter attacks, but some would be large stuns, freezes etc.
If you are at 95% and a small enemy stagger you into 105%, you get a 1 sec microstutter (min. duration would always be 1 sec I guess).
If you were at 80% and a big golem overhead smash increases your stagger meter to 150%, you get stun for 4 sec or whatever (With no direct way to reduce the duration. The indirect way would be to increase your max stagger, so the hit wouldnt bring you as far above 100%)
Could even add a tactical element, where you might want to get hit by some attacks, to reset your meter with a short stun duration, but avoid others.
Especially in PvP. Avoid the big stun from a barb, by trying to make him fill your stagger meter from his other attacks (or from other players attacks if group PvP) right before he uses his stun.
I agree, and Knockback can replace Fear entirely (a very stupid Control imo).
The problem I see with Freeze is that it works exactly the same as a Stagger/Stun in D4 : you get Chilled first then you get Frozen. So why would one have a gauge and not the other ?
But it could very well work as a combo where the last hit filling the bar determines if it ends up with a Stun or a Freeze.
Could work, especially if the bar keeps depleting itself : if I’m fighting a big ennemy with 90% filled, I should move back a little.
Very nice ideas here, guys. Like the stagger mechanic very much, They NEED to implement something like that. it adds meaning during the fights because you need to make choices.
It should probably deplete itself automatically when not getting hit for a while (like, more than 1 sec since you were last hit).
If you are getting hit regularly, maybe it should not deplete by default, but some ‘tank talents’ etc. could of course let it deplete at some speeed, even when being hit. So like if you are a barb who have taken a -5% stagger/sec talent, you might be able to facetank a few small enemies forever without getting staggered. Without that talent, you would get staggered eventually, unless you move away from them to make the stagger meter begin to deplete.
