Virtually no one is posting about the combat in this game. There’s incessant writing about items and even some comments on lack of difficulty but everyone takes the quality of the combat as immutable and seemingly unproblematic. I’ve seen people describe this game, and even genre, as mindless monster slaying. How do so few people have a problem with that? Has it not occurred to anyone that maybe this is one of the critical reasons why there’s a relatively low ceiling on this game? What was exciting and sufficient 20 years ago isn’t necessarily so now.
Since some people have asked me if I have anything to suggest here are some albeit basic ideas:
Diablo hasn’t ever had “complex” fights and I don’t think I can think of an isometric ARPG that does have them?
Path of Exile dolls it up by making your character build complex, but it’s still super brainless.
I do actually like the combat in this game more than some others though. There are enemies with ambushes, special moves, etc? It’s one of the better parts of the game to me.
Comparatively, the itemization is an unmitigated disaster, so I feel like that’s why it’s easier to talk about.
Because that is the genre. You can have more difficult fights but part of the genre is also item/power scaling to the point where play can become more mindless either because your durability reaches such a high mark or you just delete screens of enemies. Part of the power fantasy of the ARPG genre, in general, is getting to the point where you just crush content.
It is also an entrenched “thing” in the genre. As soon as you see difficulty scaling introduced that extends the “toughness” of a game you see people complaining of it not being a “stompy” genre for the “hero”
That low ceiling still brought A LOT of people in. If the genre wasn’t attractive I don’t think you see the initial sales that happened
This game has a ton of more combat “stuff” going on than D2 did 20 years ago. The combat has progressed some in terms of having more things to pay attention to and track. This isn’t going to be insanely complicated mob packs constantly though and I doubt it ever would be in this genre because, simply, people want to kill packs and packs of mobs.
Bosses: These could be improved for the genre in general and especially in Diablo. I do think boss fights should be more difficult, have a lot more mechanics, and have just, in general, a lot more to them
General mobs: No, I think the horde idea works well and is engaging/fun in the same way watching large explosions can be.
Basically, using NMDs as an example, give me 10 minutes of killing mobs with some sections you need to pay attention (elites) but, in general, it is “kill, kill, kill” speed and then a difficult but high-reward boss fight. That I think would be ideal to me.
I would not mind playing a more complex and challenging ARPG but what would you do to make it like that, and would it be something people would want to play?
I feel like this is already locked in to being a really brain-dead game with things like 6 skills and no ability to do things like change elements or adapt to different situations built in, I’m just curious what it would look like to you if it was different?
Let me ask you the question. What type of combat were you hoping or wanting from an ARPG style game?
The game is literally loot finder to better improve your character and in doing so requires the vast amount of monsters / demons slaying which can seem endless.
There were some topics and discussions about this in june after release, most common response was something like “this is an arpg, if you want more engaging combat go play souls games”.
The skills limitation is the obvious thing, which can be tied into itemization and this pursuit people find to justify the whole experience. You can have items with active abilities and even easier to implement are items that take certain suitable skills from the tree and essentially auto-cast them (e.g. the Imbuements and Dark Shroud on Rogue) to open up slots for more engaging skills. This would in turn enable more interesting opponent design.
The game isn’t necessarily anything, and the genre stagnates when this is the prevailing attitude.
Did God hand this genre down to humanity with strict instructions not to develop it, or else? If He did, He must think we’re brainless ourselves.
What I hate is the enemy cheese. One elite who is described with possible powers in the dungeon affixes. Sure he shows me he has them. But then when losing out of nowhere he pees poison on the ground…not even a dungeon affix, then he throws out electricity obelisks ok now he has 7 powers? Above the ones I saw while he wasn’t losing.
The developer who thought this cheese up should put his tongue between his teeth and run head first into a wall.
You can tell who has actually played Diablo 1 and who hasn’t where so much of the combat is just kiting mobs through doors and around walls and corners. These people claiming Diablo games and ARPG have never been tactical have no idea what they’re talking about
Well the entire identity of a Diablo game is a dungeon crawler not an arcade racing game like D3. And kiting one mob through a door? Your ignorance is showing…
pillar/door cheesing is/was never tactical. It is just beating the coding of whatever game. D1’s combat was great for the time but the genre wasn’t defined by D1 now was it?
