If they are not unique to the mob, yeah, it’s extremely off putting to me. Those effects in D3 are repeated and can appear in any elite pack made of any type of monster, making the only difference between them be their appearance. There are a few exceptions like the mobs that rush towards you with a big attack, but those exceptions are pretty rare.
Which is what I said earlier.
I have no issue with elite enemies having access to a pool of affixes. The monsters are elite for a reason and you can easily assume that they learned how to use those abilities.
If the problem is the visuals, that can be adjusted (though they need to be kept easily visible to the player).
Affixes should 1) be somewhat random, set by “family” but variant enough to be different perhaps by strength or sheer number and 2) interesting enough that you do not always run into the same ones. If, for example, “cannibals” always cause bleeding… fine. But that does not mean they have to also slow, stun, freeze, and be resistant to monkeys. They should have a small number of fixed affixes with a greater number generated, some of which can even be unique to elites or unique critters, at least until higher difficulties.
I will still say that immunity to something should be possible. Anything that makes the player pause and reconsider how they approach the enemy rather than mindlessly repeating is healthy for a game. And, it makes bots harder because they have to change tactics, too.
The same problem occurs with all skeletons being the same. All giant spiders being the same. You cannot have a family where any are different. All because it would break immersion in a perfect world where everything is the way you would want it. Unless the families are made up of different types of enemies.
Also each area of the game will be allotted a certain amount of resources for development. If they have to change things in the game all for the sake of realism in a diablo game. Where there have been a lot of things that isn’t all that real anyway. You might see other things suffer all for the sake of realism which is what I want them to avoid.
Immunities are a cheesy mechanic. You either do one of the following.
1.) Forced to use a skill that breaks immunities. Which could mean that all classes would have to have an immunity breaker skill.
2.) Bring a piece of gear that breaks immunities.
3.) Join a team of other players. Forget playing solo at all.
4.) Make sure that you have skills that do a different type of damage. Don’t dare making a single damage type build.
5.) Skip the monster entirely. D3’s skipping monsters in GR comes to mind.
None of the above would be wanted Nor does it take any special tactics to pull off. All of the above is pretty obvious to anyone.
No, it wouldn’t change how bots handle the game. I am sure that there are a ton of bots in D2:LOD and they handle those immunities quite well. So that wouldn’t put a dent into botting.
Who said they had to be the same. Just have 2 sets of affixes pools that elite monsters can draw upon for their elite variations. A generic one that’s available to all monsters (like enhanced damage, speed, health, multishot, etc.), and then another pool that’s unique to that specific monster and/or monster family. Then of course, they could have certain generic elite affixes affect some monsters differently. For example a “muti” affix could have a shaman fire off 3 fireballs, while on a spider monsters, it could have it breed 3 spiderlings instead of one (I believe that they already plan for something similar to this actuall).
No.
Velveeta or not, it is an extremely classic trope of RPGs and needs to return. Removal is almost the worst thing D3 did.
And yes, it changes bots. Maybe not much but any way the game changes changes how bots react to it.
Or, in short:
In d2 you had skeleton mages, skeleton warriors, skeleton archers… How are they the same? As for spiders, it absolutely makes sense for all spiders to act the same way. That’s not a problem. You talk like this is some utopia when literally every other ARPG does it
Even more to the point, if we use this as a means to brainstorm and think through what we’d like to see, this could be excellent feedback.
I like this idea. It is somewhat immersion-breaking to see some of the weirdness the random affix generator produces. Just in terms of immersion, I think it would be better if they thought of skills that complemented the particular monster type/family. The topic of spiders came up. Within that context things like: poison strikes, ranged poison attacks, web AoE slows or directly-targeted slows, critical strikes with a big telegraph, leaping/charge attacks all make sense. We can generate some pretty good variety of challenges without breaking the concept of what a spider does. If we wanted to go further, we could think of spawners making little spiders, hardened carapace for increased defense, maybe some dodge from those 8 eyes. There’s some creative space there for sure.
We could do the same for the various types of casters while being true to a particular school of magic. We could create battlemage types that have more defense, get close, and use a lot of short range AoE attacks. Those are natural fits for whatever type of ice, fire, lightning, shadow/dark magic, arcane etc that you want. The big brutish monsters should be more like barbarians and less like sorcs.
I think there’s plenty enough creative space to give you some randomness while still keeping your monsters recognizably thematic.
Definitely some of those could be universal, but some of them really need to be monster type/family specific.
Reflects are tricky and need to be very visually distinct so you can know to avoid them. We don’t want to recreate D2’s obsidian knights Iron Maiden insta-kills. More to the point, reflects need to be designed to be a threat to ranged characters and casters as much as to melee characters.
With different resource systems this is a monster to try and balance. Consider in D3, the difference between a wizard with his fast recharging bubble vs a barb’s rage that only fills on attack. Mana steal on one is a few seconds’ annoyance. On the other, it’s crippling. Mana steal was ok in D2 because all classes used the same resource, which had a huge reserve, and which could be instantly refilled with potions. When those premises change, it becomes a much worse idea.
Any stun mechanic should probably be themed. Getting stunned by blunt force trauma is very different thematically than being frozen in ice or shocked with a lightning bolt. Even if the functional mechanic (ie stun for x seconds) is exactly identical, lightning from a yeti looks dumb while getting smacked with its big paws is exactly right. There’s plenty of creative space to make stuns present and threatening and still thematic.
I’m hopeful they get a little more creative with what “arcane” means if they’re going to use it as a monster theme. D3 opened a lot of creative space for them with the wizard’s spells, so that’s a good place to start going beyond the spinning Mario Bros laser beam.
Totally agreed, and I’d be happy never to see them again. Resistances are great mechanics. Even better is timed resistances/wards/shields so you can strategically choose when to attack and when to save your resources.
So Diablo 4 should be 95 metacritic game? If everything is done fabulously. Diablo 3 is at 88, sure some things lack alot.
I might sound like a hater now, but I hope Blizzard doesnt waste their time on something unnecessary, like monsters or level desing because the gears are the game. When your account is full of unique gears, full sets, perfect gems, players just doesnt care about level or monster design.
The way I see it because Diablo games have been about enemies that don’t always perfectly fit someone’s model of the perfectly thematic enemies that wouldn’t have abilities or possible even resistances that would make perfect sense then why should D4 be any different here.
Most of the Wendigo monsters in D2 are immune to cold. How can that be when you had only one or two at most that were in the cold areas of the game.
That is why there should be nothing wrong with having monsters that have abilities that no other member of their family has. They are elites and champions of their families that have been magically enchanted. Kind of like PoE when you go up against the Warden. One of the NPCs says you know how to handle big and slow opponents since you beat Hillock. But if magic is involved then Nessa should say a prayer for you. A magical enchanted enemy is more dangerous than a non magical enchanted one.
1.) How dare anyone even think about relying on a single damage type just because you said so. Immunity breaker skills would be in all builds unless a class doesn’t have such a skill.
2.) If a class or character doesn’t have the skill to break immunities then they must have a piece of gear that does it. Just like number one forcing a player to either have a skill slot dedicated to breaking immunities or a piece of gear is stupid.
3.) If you don’t have either and are a single damage type you are forced to join a team if you want to beat the enemies.
4.) Forced into having more than one type of damage. Whether it is by skills alone or gear. The whole point remains it is what you are forced to do.
5.) If you do none of the above and you are a single damage type build you have no choice but to skip it.
Forcing players to do any one of the above is not a good idea at all. It invalidates a player that wants to do a single type of damage or play solo if they do choose that route.
I can guarantee you that even if you have different types of damage or not. You will see all builds either have a skill that breaks immunities or a piece of gear that does it. Because it is still a debuff to resistances that will allow you to do more damage.
So there are no bots in D2:LOD mind telling that to the D2 and the D2R crowd who not only have been complaining for years about it as well as being concerned about D2R suffering the same thing. If immunities makes it harder for bots to do their thing then D2:LOD nor D2R would have any bots and that is no opinion it is fact.
The non elite and champion packs of enemies yes.
Well blizzard themselves had stated that they were attempting to “breathe new and realistic life into the world of Sanctuary” for Diablo 4, as such having monsters with abilities that thematically fits them is simply another way of doing so, hence the suggestions. Now if Blizzard decides to opt for Diablo 3’s approach of elite affixes, then so be it.
No idea. It’s not like anyone said that Diablo 2 immunities system was flawless.
Where has it been stated that elites have been magically enchanted? That’s a new one for me. If it’s actually been established in the lore that some third party have magically enchanted certain monsters with abilities that none of their peers possess (or can ever possess), then sure. I’d have no problem with Diablo 3 method of elite affixes. However as far as I know of, nothing of the sort has been established. Besides, just because their elite doesn’t mean that they can use abilities beyond their peers.
We talk a lot about build diversity. What that means is a certain amount of freedom to make the character which uses the skills you like. Some players want to specialize into one skill and make it as powerful as possible. That’s fun. It’s a “glass cannon” type of gamble. You give up versatility for power. Specialization is a good thing and a very important part of build diversity, every bit as much as hybrid builds.
If you include immunities, you invalidate the specialists. You force players to react by making builds that focus on at least two skills in two different damage types so you have a second form of damage for the rare immunes you run into. Everyone is forced to play a hybrid, or use cheesy tactics to kite and park immunes you can’t kill. We’re right back to D2. Resistances are fine. Immunities are not.
There’s been talk about “just give everyone an immune breaker.” This is a bandaid. It just becomes a mandatory skill you have to have to deal with the broken mechanic. If it’s not a choice, it’s not build diversity. It’s like trying to design a D3 build without the class’s designated defensive item. You have to use it or you die instantly. That’s the exact opposite of what we want in terms of game design.
If a function like this becomes mandatory, then we should do the logical thing and bake it in baseline so the choices you have are choices that matter. The real solution is to not include mechanics like this that necessitate going to great lengths to redesign every character specifically to deal with it. It’s not just designing challenge, but also thinking through how the players are supposed to deal with that challenge.
True enough. There was only a handful of trash mob that I can remember from Diablo 2 and Diablo 3, and the rests are forgettable.
Indeed. Also, what’s up with an obsession for the whole monster theme here? Who says that spider monsters should be limited to web-related skills? What kind of discrimination was that? Why is only the human type can use all elemental spells and dark/holy arts and monsters that have higher magic aptitude than humans have to stick to one theme or else, it will break the immersion.
If we actually want everything to stick faithful to their theme, then the human class should be about exploiting and using technologies and tools and numbers to overcome their adversary and shortcomings, not spamming magic abilities as good as monsters or demons and then solo every living being out there with magic.
Agreed. I guess some people just prefer having the leader goblin to be stronger (monster affix:Extra fast and Extra Strong) than your generic goblin in stats-wise only instead of throwing elemental affixes that will force the players to reposition themselves in the fight.
They need to bring back the elite Arcane Hydras. They were deadly & awesome.
Well then that means zero elite and champion enemies. Unless you make elites and champions where they are just a different color without special abilities. Although the video might tend to show otherwise.
It just shows that you can still have those enemies that have special abilities that don’t fit the theme. More so when you consider champion and elite.
Look that is the only logical reason why you have enemies in a diablo game that has abilities that none of their peers has or can have. I come to that conclusion from the viewpoint of actually living in the world of sanctuary. The only thing that makes sense is that someone had to enchant those enemies to have those abilities.
No it doesn’t. Elite and champion monsters with enhanced abilities can definitely exist.
And Diablo 2 didn’t do it right either, so that doesn’t show as much as you say imo.
Well until Blizzard makes a statement or shows through the lore that elite monsters were magically enchanted by some unknown force along which granted them their abilities, I’ll take that as speculations (one of which that I disagree with).
Keep discussing it, anything new and unique would be an improvement! I’ve already seen that mortar and frozen are back, too bad, I was hoping for complete originality. Was never a fan of the D3 monster affixes, D2 was not so grand either.
Wow, the gameplay makes it look like a D3 clone, just darker. I don’t think that’s a good sign.
That reminds me of tons of debates we had back in the day. Immunities actually help player to draw a strict line between debuffs and buffs to classify them depending on the situation at hand in its core afterall. If you debuff enemies, it can be about them incurring more damage yet that’s barely any different from buffing yourself.
In Diablo 2, even the itemization were built upon the regime of creating a multi-class talented character. Off-class auras at high grade runewords should’ve been a hint, so are charged skills. You can use almost any item but this created tons of mutual best-in-slot in return. Combat was slow and it required some adaptation to use the right debuff to initiate but after that it was rather repetitive. Potion spam and abuse of Town Portals like a cheat death option were flaws of the combat.
In Diablo 3 it was more about living the class fantasy to reduce mutual best-in-slot items; so game didn’t really care about making the gameplay more of a chore to restrict the player besides class related options they only had the choice for.
To a degree it did reduce mutual best-in-slots along the years; perhaps not everyone wearing a Mempo of Twilight now but we still have Convention of Elements and many more jewelry pieces. Even debuffs in Diablo 3 separated from buffs in a way still by limiting its range of influence against crowds or automated upon a skill cast, so it doesn’t break the combat flow.
Both games had mistakes, but it followed a narrative fitting design in the end; Diablo 2 had Nephalem candidate humans but they opened their potential with multi-class abilities while Diablo 3 revealed Nephalems like demi-gods that doesn’t need anything else but sharpening their skills.
Each jigsaw piece clasped onto each other and sit there like part of a bigger puzzle. If we’re talking about Diablo 4 development, I trust developers on that one to carry a fair balance and always follow up the intended design with related notions instead of creating something all over the place. So far, I can only tell, they’re not keen on repeating the mistakes they did on the previous games.
They can easily design a build up where you wouldn’t be punished for living a class fantasy or a multi-class talent. Yet you wouldn’t feel cast aside at the end game due a small problem like “efficiency” either.
Last quarter updates talked about items that inflict crowd control to increase damage; this immunity breaking can easily be reflected upon staggering or a control impairing effect of player’s choice easily if they were to choose it to be that way. Different monsters can pose different defense or resistance traits, some would have none. Still that doesn’t mean you’d be forced to skip anything.
Really. Resists and immunities nothing worth mentioning or worrying about. Developers will add or keep them out as they see fit. I’ll be fine with the result either way. A designer can snap their finger and find a solution to an imaginary problem. I believe all this discussion and feedback also helps them.
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To get back to the subject of the thread. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to be inspired by Diablo 3 elite affixes in Diablo 4. Without the said elite affixes you can forget about having dynamic combat you like so much in the next game afterall. Without position heavy combat, the dynamics will be gone.
I think the concern here is not elite affixes breaking immersion, when a pint sized Quillrat is capable of dropping a man sized halberd at the previous installment. The criticism here should be towarded to the choice of color palette and eye glaring contrast when game itself turned out to be pretty successful so far.