There’s consensus that D4 combat is braindead, with some people caring more than others. Given the unsatisfactory state of the game you would think that improving the one ubiquitous braindead aspect is a bright idea. I have posted my idea for what to do, but I am curious what you would do.
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Not trying to be a smart butt… but what exactly are people meaning when they say “braindead” combat? I’m just making sure I’m understanding right.
My first assumption was easy and/or few buttons to press. I hope that’s not it. I seem to press just as many buttons as my D3 build and way more than my D2 build.
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Your ideas were too long too read, but D4’s combat is no more braindead than any other rt game with fighting in it. If you wan’t more substance in that respect arpg’s are not the game you’re looking for. I find D4’s combat rather satisfying personally as do many others I’m reasonably sure.
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Sadly, yes. Anyway, you are correct it’s a genre-wide… feature. Common sense would indicate that any game looking to separate may be wise to give this foremost aspect, which is more or less gameplay itself, a good hard look. Innovate, you know…
…Is it true D2 was even dumber than D4? How is that even possible?
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Is that what you mean by “braindead”?, few button presses?
I came back to this game after a few months and I’m trying to catch up on all the opinions and lingo.
Yeah, some builds in D2 had 2-3 buttons to press. Yet, some still think it’s the GOAT.
I mean, it was fun back then and I did buy D2R… which I played for a few and thought “I can’t bring myself to do this again”. And I say that as an avid retro-game collector/player lol
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Yes, few actions on an endless loop with most of the power being concentrated in one. This can be changed/multiplied on the same number of manageable and console compatible buttons in the manner I have described in the TL;DR screed I wrote.
There’s this massive issue of player expectations. Blizzard has already dramatically changed D4’s gameplay since launch to what we have right now. My question is not how to make combat less braindead, but how to make it work within the boundaries of D4. There are players expecting that braindead gameplay so getting rid of it completely seems impossible at this point. So, the real question is how do you keep both playstyles in the same game. Is it even possible? If yes, how?
Creative writing aside (I have tried the less creative writing route to the same effect), this idea delivers combat/gameplay expansion in the form of endgame items, progressively. Three new types of items are introduced - Things with Slots to contain the other items, Extra Abilities, and automatically activating bonuses. The change is not baked into the game beyond the player’s control or preference. I would expect extra or parallel world difficulty settings to accommodate both playstyles - the traditional and augmented one - but it’s all quite possible.
I enjoy barb combat (a regular build, not hota). The only thing that’s missing is overall lack of challenge. Yes, there’s NMD100, AoZ and some in between bosses (as long as you’re underleveled). But this is only a tiny fraction of the game world. Why do I have to bore myself to death (and have my campaign experience ruined) from lvl 1 onwards until I reach those tiny islands of hardship?
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Difficulty is certainly another key major aspect the D4 team struggles with that needs improvement. That should be underscored.
- Combat
- Difficulty
- Progression/itemization
Every arpg for the most part is pretty brain dead combat. Does it suck? Sure! But i also play arpgs when i want a simpler combat experience. To me these games are the loot chase and that’s what matters. If I want combat where i need to think about it I’ll go play an mmo where you actually have an opener and need to follow skill priority.
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You can have both so the game does better. Having a game that “sucks” sucks.
If there is one thing I think D4 does fine I think it’s combat. Sure having a better balance, more diversity, more choices, more challenge etc would be great. But the base combat is fine and feels good IMO.
You should get into team play games like Darktide or Deep Rock Galactic ~
Diablo would need a total rework in terms of everything from monster abilities and strategy to a rework in terms of moving away from stuff like Helltide timed content that encourages blasting away the screen as fast as possible as a central design element. It’s kind of not designed to be deep.
If you took your idea for example and applied it to the gameplay we have right now, you’d just be pressing more buttons to do the same thing ~ wiping screens of monsters on a 1 hour timer.
Team play games like those have a good mix of strategy and action.
Also just frustration when someone wants to try and rack up kills instead of getting on the elevator and they get you all killed once in a while, lol.
Make the enemies at least as hard as they were after the 1.1 patch. That would make it a lot better instantly. I can’t remember the last time I died in this game outside of AoZ, unless I was afk outside of town for some reason.
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At the heart of the issue is that you get more offensive power out of builds if you specialize into one skill and the rest are there for either defensive purposes or to only buff that one skill. There real reason why almost nobody makes a build that is interesting to play is because it’s just not powerful enough. Why would someone gimp themselves with a more complex play style that also does 1/4 of the damage or less.
Cycle through buffs and hold down one button. Thats the bread and butter of D4’s combat system and its bit very interesting or engaging. Skills need a rework if we are to ever have engaging combat with more synergies beyond “pressing x buffs y for 4 seconds. I would also like to see some kind of alternative use of skills like pressing a certain combination opens up a huge finisher or other cool ability to bring more variety to the gameplay.
I was doing that with a build this season using dash, ultimate, basic and core skill to get some huge hits on a shapeshifting pulverize Druid but was gear and vampire skill dependant to do so. Problem is the 35 million I was able to do paled in comparison to the 2 billion hits HoTA barbs are getting with only one button.
Something is off when builds just focus on one skill to spam all day. Something is missing.
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Like I said all arpgs have simple brain dead combat. However some mask simple brain dead combat behind complex systems and give the illusion the combat is harder or your actions require more thought. A prime example is PoE hiding basic combat behind complex systems.
So in reality complaints of combat being to easy aren’t actually about the combat because these are the same people you see praising PoE. The actual complaint is lack of systems masking other aspects of the game to give the player the illusion of hard combat.
It was better when it was slower and less dense but the exp was too slow so they made it super dense and now its just a newer D3 that is all about how fast u can plow. Really they should have just buffed exp instead of adding boatloads more mobs.
They mistakenly thought interest in the game waned because it was more thought out gameplay instead of realizing the real thing that killed interest was a poor loot system.
Try Elden Ring or Monster Hunter maybe?
The brain power, to the extent it’s needed, goes to build. Combat is more execution, like a fighting game.
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