Do people actually like the combat?

PC General Discussion
81

I think I actually just came up with a much better idea preserving the current precious number of buttons while involving much more complexity than would have been realistic otherwise that also scales much better into “loot” progression, difficulty, and endgame. If it’s feasible (it may not be in any short time frame, although there is partial implementation) it could be transformative, which is exactly what this title needs. I’ll write out something basic tomorrow.

The reality is the Diablo IV team in all likelihood can’t live up to such expectations, even though it needs to, without thinking out of the box, which is the last thing they have been doing.

82

Not I. I dislike the way the skill system operates, and the lack of interesting mechanics on bosses or even normal mobs themselves, and the lack of environmental things to engage with.

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83

I like the combat system other than the cooldowns. They are excessive and ruin the feel and flow of combat. It makes the game feel unresponsive. I would rather they nerf the attack power a bit than have cooldowns.

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84

Being able to spam things is also a problem. It takes decision making out of the game. Piano keying is bad in set patterns and so are long CDs.

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85

Most if not all are just mashing the keys on cooldown until they work again. There is no strategy in it. It’s a bad “feature” of D4 IMO.

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86

Depends on the class. As an example, I found every sorc build I tried to be painfully boring. No pop, no pizazz, possibly the most boring class I’ve played in any ARPG. Rogue OTOH was very fun, lots of dynamic movement, different ways to approach a fight, etc.

There’s good and bad in the combat system.

87

the combat is really good, and i really like it a lot. mindless monster slaying is what im here for and i dont want anything other than mindless monster slaying.

i played wow, combat was terrible, i played a lot of other rpgs, combat is always terrible. this combat is really good.

the only problem i have with anything combat related is that i really wish we didnt have more than 2 hotkeys.

all you need is left click and right click.

you either spam left click main skill, or you are in deep trouble and have to use right click skill.

thats all this game needs, but the extra buttons arent currently bad…we will see in the future.

88

This is something else my idea tomorrow could address.

Play it enough and even it is exceedingly basic.

:slight_smile:

89

People like hack and slash arcade games, D3 played on this as a arpg and popularised it.
I think it works for D3, it is too mindless for me in endgame.

Hence i actually hate the reduced scaling in D4, the future of the genre is how to get engaging combat and tactical while still being a arpg i think. POE2 looks like it will try it.

D1 did it imo, and it is somewhat more engaging laying that game 1-20 levels journey versus D4 1-20 is what more mindless. for example.

D4 beta felt more like a bit of both, now it feels more d3 for too long is my problem, i am okay with bursting monsters quickly at the end of the power journey, but we need a journey.

the only journey it offers now more or less is n/m for that difficulty climb, for veterans at least.

Love the combat less is more but not sparse mobs, and difficulty in all content needs to be better. to pit my skills and builds against.

It’s why i stopped D3, sets grant power only journey is perfecting power for a one mode ladder climb, not fun long term imo. I’ts a nice mode i like games with hoard “mode”
they dont need to make the whole game like this…

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90

Being one shot from off the screen without knowing its coming is not good.

91

Getting one shot is not good period, lol.

that being said, if i do, my DR and defense is usually weak or poorly tunned or i am pushing too hard.

i can also hear the corpse bow load its missile before hand as a audio flag for it, soon as i hear it a take that thing down lol

92

My personal opinion is that combat that devolves into being trivially easy like in most other ARPGs is not good either.

Something can have flaws and still be enjoyable. I think Suppressor is kind of bad game design while we are at it. Mechanics usually ask you to not get hit, suppressor + ground damage together basically means it’s a mechanic that asks you to get hit.

I kind of still like IV’s combat a lot more than other ARPGs I can think of. It just needs way more encounters (along with like 90000 other game fixes like items to keep you playing lol)

I do hope they work on stuff like corpse bows a bit. They’re supposed to actually miss their first shot I think, but sometimes just don’t lol.

93

The thing is that the game is super inconsistent. Most enemies, I basically run a 0 chance at dying even in high NMD. My EHP is about as high as you can get it and certain enemies or if damage just happens between an RNG conditional window, I can get one shot. It isn’t like there is a progression in difficulty. I go from being pretty much Immortal to randomly dying immediately.

Honestly, one of the worst things they could have done was increasing enemy density as it diminishes the threat. Difficulty tuning gets out of whack and you really lose any nuance to combat.

This is particularly why in game design, you have Bosses. A singular enemy provides you a lot of flexibility in game design. Blizzard oddly just treats Bosses like crappy Elites with more AoE and Ground Effects that you cannot CC and have to Stagger instead. That is the big mechanic.

Lost Ark puts Diablo to shame when it comes to innovation with Combat. It isn’t even in the same league. They should go the exact opposite route they took. Less enemies, but harder enemies with more mechanics. When you have a gazillion enemies on screen, it doesn’t even matter, you just spam buttons and collect loot.

If it wasn’t for pushing NMD, this loses its novelty in Diablo 4 REALLY quickly. I think at level 50ish I was blowing through WT4 and Hell Tides…

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94

True the whole feeling is backwards, i liked it better before, density is okay sometimes other times it is crazy ott.

but again the immortal thing goes against what n/m is about imo, Nightmare is the breaker of builds and shifting the playing field, giving you hurdles to cross, the current balance doesn’t work, its like a GR but not because it was never meant to be so it fails at both kind of rn.

Immortal feeling in overworld should be reached at 100 not 70 or whatever based on build etc, and yeah an alt more or less feels like a power fantasy the whole time with minimal peaks and valleys at least for veterans of arpgs.

Games okay for now with some many skills and passives being broken or weak, you cant properly balance it, so might as well have some OP fun, I have not reached 100 so that sounds like a separate issue, sounds like its the end basically which for me is fine.

I have been re-rolling after 70-80 sometimes just to have that early journey game. my current sorc is my first push to 100.

sounds like i am in for a shock lol

95

combat in D4 is the most enjoyable part of the game. Better than previous diablo and POE in my opinion. Its also the main reason why Im still palying the game now.

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96

NMD pushing just means you have to move what little Offense you can into Defense. Considering you are limited in what Gear Slots you place certain Aspects, you cannot really change your build a whole lot. It isn’t like I can really take more DR and less Vuln or Crit Damage. You get both. All NMD really showcases is what Classes/Builds are designed properly and what isn’t. I have the highest EHP you can pretty much get on my Barbarian and can get rolled. Meanwhile, Druids are running around facetankinh everything.

97

Lost ark Is and actual MMO tho not and arpg. And other then the combat wich i honestly have nothing to complain about becouse actually pushing bottons there feels great you can also Say that It has the opposite problem where’s fights since you can’t progress solo( you know actual MMO with raid and minimum party member required to get in and MAYBE do the clear🤣) required too much effort making It almost impossible to do It with pugs or people new in the game wich Is a huge downside. Can’t talk about grim down haven’t played that game in years

98

fair enough carrotfeets.

I play not to really compare to whats out there, i prefer to compare the game itself if that make sense.

Thats why i play half living under a rock, i know whats out there a little, but not much i want to look at the game itself, and most classes for 1-80 sorc being my 3rd with no meta builds, they all have different feels, but none feel worse off in that range.

100 plus idk, havent entered that world, Barbs fortify is fairly tanky for me at 80, sucks if it fails after 100, idk yet, but yeah idk my issue with barb is same as sorc some passives feel weak or broken.

Not much i can say if you are unwilling to try building without Vuln, what can i say, crits are fine all the games function as a important stat, I am working on a video to show what i mean, it has nothing to do with the math of it, just i cant explain in words.

and i dont use a mathematically theorycraft approach i choose to waste millions in gold re-specing instead lol, and test in game, and all i can say is how i feel based on that, and that is for me it’s nice to have if you can, but you can achieve the same or similar benefits elsewhere imo.

N/m have such a variety of conditionals, that static builds are going to face problems, what do you do when you are already glass and they break your armor for distant, you get one shot or you dont play that n/m right? lol

I think that’s the difference between rift running and n/m by a big mile. I wish they gave us stronger normal content that would be a different story and could climb the ranks with a build.

99

I am not saying you copy Lost Ark, but the Combat mechanics were innovative and fun. Until Blizzard puts in a Matchmaking and Group Finder Tool in Game, there is no point in them developing Raids, and I am not asking for that.

There are plenty of mechanics that could be borrowed from Guardian Raids that could be adapted to Bosses for Solo or Group Play. I soloed most of the Guardian “Raids” in LA on my Paladin even. Shock Scrapper was unforgiving for timing, but I could destroy Bosses solo. I even ran Buses for Valtan, Vykas, and Argos.

Lost Ark started to put wayyy to many cheesy mini-game wipe mechanics into the game. If you had Discord and wanted to play with a Static Group, it was not bad, but Brutal if not. Having to type out Orb colors and gef people lined up on a clock was horrible.

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100

No, God didn’t hand down the genre with strict instructions. But it’s not like people haven’t tried other stuff - It doesn’t work. Games have come and gone that tried to “refresh” the ARPG genre by adding more complexity only for those games to fail. PoE, Grim Dawn, D4, Torchlight all play pretty similar some because some of them have people who have worked on the genre and the rest see the history of the genre and attempts to be different that failed.

It’s like asking if MOBAs can have talent trees that persist from game to game. Sure, they can. League did this and a few other MOBAs. But guess what? They removed them because they realized it didn’t fit into the genre. There’s talent trees in dota, but it’s 2 talents a level and it’s only every 5 levels after 10 I think?

A great example of something that wasn’t in ARPGs but is now a cornerstone is Mapping - or as D4 calls them - Nightmare Dungeons. TL2 was the first game I played that had this concept and brought a whole new idea to the end game. I still farmed the same dungeons over and over, but now they had different affixes. Things could change in these maps.

PoE followed suit and so did Diablo 4. Torchlight Infinite’s endgame is pretty damn similar, though the bosses are more fun than any of those games IMO but that’s neither here nor there.

TL;DR - Attempts have been made. Some were successful, others were not. If you’re wondering why the ARGP genre is this way, it’s because there’s a lot of games that a lot of people didn’t play that failed due to these mechanics. Maybe it was done wrong, maybe it doesn’t work. Hard to tell but unless some indie company wants to give it a shot, it’s probably not going to change much until the next new idea.

EDIT: To reply to the original post - I love the combat in this game. It blows my mind when people say it doesn’t feel “satisfying.” Are you serious? Can you not see the blood gushing from the enemy has a split them in half? Can you not see things explode, flash, swirl, burn etc. as you do them? Maybe I play too much barbarian but every ability I have used feels pretty damn good - Even the shouts. I feel like I’m about to destroy some poor monster who was just trying to do his job and it feels freaking great.