Hello all,
Diablo player since Diablo 1 here. I’ve beaten every single challenge, in every single Diablo game (sorry but screw Immortal), but I’ve never been met w/ such a lazy, frustrating game mechanic as Encroaching Death.
I’ve 100% D3, had a brutal, anxiety ridden, hair raising, nearly game ending, hardcore duel to the death against an Uber Diablo, that -nearly- took me out, several, several times. However, due to genius in-game itemization, skill selections, merc skills & gear, and other items, I was able to power through, and persevere in that game fight.
Just yesterday however, I took finally my geared out Barbarian, to yet again try a level 200 Tormented boss, and discovered just how insidious this buff is. For starters, there is zero rhyme, or reason to why the buff begins in the first place. Get hit by a skill shot? No debuff. Get hit by melee attacks? No debuff. Time passes? NO DEBUFF. But, then it just out of nowhere, seems to start stacking up. Then no matter the fact my character has:
Max armor
Max resists
100k+ HP
The 1 shot mechanics come into play.
How in their right mind, does anyone working for Blizzard, think this is fun, enjoyable, fair, or in any way/shape/form something players want? I had been truly baffled, thinking that at first, the people making Diablo 4, were just under an extreme time crunch, cuz big game companies like to push employees far too much, and I’m so terribly sorry if anyone @ Blizzard experienced this. (You’re people NOT robots.) However, a change like this, more makes me feel like, the issue itself was not at all a time constraint, or even skill based, but more that the people that placed it legit, had not played video games before. As in, they had zero idea how to balance any kind of boss fight. So just slapped a sticker of, “FIGHT BOSS/BOSS DO MORE DAMAGE!”
I BEG of you, BESEECH YOU, to go play a game known as Vampire Survivors. Go play Path of Exile.
A good boss fight, should come in several stages. As it is now, the boss fight is for starters, making healing potions absolutely obsolete, as well as having max armor, max resists, and any kind of HP. Why do any of these things matter, if a 1 shot kill is what awaits you?!?
This is also not a “Don’t get hit by skillshots” issue. There should never, ever be a kind of bug, as I view it, as this encroaching death. Of a stacking, consecutive increase to damage, all because you can’t properly balance an end-game tier boss fight, and instead just slap on a debuff like this to try and band-aid the cancer that it is. I had made another post about how, I was compelled to help you out Blizzard, as you seem to -desperately- need it, so here we go.
Diablo 1. Diablo is an end game boss, who uses several kinds of attacks to take you down. If he’s able to land several on you, in a row, you will likely be looking @ a grisly death, even as a super geared Warrior class. Unless, you have a sort of life steal, to keep your HP’s up. Along with a full belt full of potions. We’ll use this big guy as our BBG example.
Enemy HP bars
For starters, the level 200 bosses need to be HP adjusted, based upon the # of players they are facing. From what I can tell, as it is right now, the scaling for their HP’s is absurd. No one, not casual fans, nor players like myself, are going to enjoy, sitting and beating on an HP beat stick like it was a target dummy for x10, 15, 20, or however long minutes. They have more HP than any world boss, and from any tier of The Pit I’ve so far climbed. Even just now testing, as many, many players have attested, the Neathiron tier of Pit enemies, just begin to hit, absurdly hard, and for really no reason at all. (Level x160 x1 shot my character, from full, Fortified life, with a single skill shot. Again, more ZeroFunTM mechanics.) HP’s need to be downscaled, pretty much across the board. Cutting a boss who has trillions of HP’s down by -30% still makes the fights feel far too long, and drawn out. You are disrespecting a player’s time by wanting them to sit and spend so much effort, and portion of their day, in just fighting a single boss, and for what? An extremely small % of getting a minor, extraordinarily minor increase to a single stat???
1 shot mechanics.
This is the least Diablo mechanic that has ever existed, no, scratch that. Least video game mechanic, ever. I will use Mike Tyson’s Punch Out here, as my BBG example. In the 1st round of the fight, if Iron Mike hits you with a punch, in the first minute-ish, you’re KO’d. This was because, as his namesake, Tyson had done so, in every one of his fights, where he connected a knockout blow. This however, equatable to Diablo terms, is something we can learn from, and benefit from. The issue being, that in Mike Tyson’s punch out, you can learn a pattern, you can through trial & error, notice what Mike will do, when he seems ready to throw one of his several kinds of punches, or punch combinations. The “fairness” here, is that you will need to, for possibly at least the first minute of Hell, that you simply need to dodge mechanics. If this game were made by modern day Blizzard employees, he would shoot fireballs randomly that x1 shot you, have parts of the ring that would collapse and fall away, as well as have punching attacks that freeze you, a poison pool that spawns underneath you, etc etc etc. There is just too much BS going on. Less is more, simpler is better. Don’t clutter player’s screens with laggy (yes lag is still a thing, and you’re to blame for it, Mr I Want to Make Forced MMO and not a true Diablo single player game experience) skill shots going off, quite literally, everywhere. There needs to be more, and clearer, stages of boss fights. Certain things, such as the shadows appearing, seem to take up larger amounts of eyesight & attention on screen, vs all of the other BS going on. Reduce the amount of laggy skill shots,
Enrcoaching Death.
Remove it from the game, shame on whoever thought of this idea, and resign your mind from ever thinking you know about balancing video games. Don’t just go back to school, go to school. Video game school - go play Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, Tetris, Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9 & 10, and any others post, Shining in the Darkness, Shining Force 1 & 2, Legend of Legaia, Dragon Age, and on, and on, and on. Go and learn about what -actual- game difficulty is. Now just putting the laziest “difficulty” debuff onto a boss fight, and calling it good.
What “I” want as a player, from fighting a Tormented Boss
For starters, this should always, always be optional content. Never should they be something that is required, even for the final tier, of seasonal content. As it is right now, I’m beyond frustrated, to the point I am legit refusing to do any more Tormented bosses, at all, until these demands are met. It is not just unfun game mechanics, (which honestly I’ve been dealing with since pre-beta), but are things that are making me truly not just hate, but revile Diablo, and by immediate association, Blizzard, Activision, and Microsoft, as well. I am now actively turning people away from purchasing or investing time in this game, as the experience has gotten so awfully bad, so toxic, for this “game.” The time sink that I believe you are thinking players should invest, is absolutely offensive. As it is, my character now, “only” my Barb, has 114 hours logged. That is nearly three weeks @ a full time job, doing work, doing -work-, to grind gear, kill thousands upon thousands of enemies, and do what feels like hundreds of Pit Runs (don’t worry, we’ll do that post another day.) IMO right now, I’d full on remove every Tormented tier boss from the game, absolutely including Echo of Lilith, until you can imagine some much better, more creative, and full on less lazy, heavy handed means to try and put added challenge into the game. I see potential that someone on your team, has an idea about what game mechanics are, how they interact, and maybe that some nuance needs to be added, but until that is coming through 100% in the game, it’s just too much to ask of any player, to even consider wasting their extremely valuable time, in doing these ridiculous boss battles.
But don’t worry gang, I’m here to help. Here’s some suggestions on ways I feel we could make these fights a much more enjoyable, entertaining, and actually fun experience.
Game environment mechanics to help players.
Such as, every single Tormented boss, should have per boss stage, some way to reduce the length of time you will be needing to battle this boss. Some players are doing these fights, what, I saw…20+ times? There aren’t World Bosses that are brought down in seconds, because of a group of well geared, varied and robust level 100’s that smoke them. These are optional bosses, that should be geared towards not just a group of players looking to bring them down, but maybe someone who does want to take a little break from The Pit/Helltides/PvP/whatever to unwind, and just have a rough & tumble fight. Customize every single Tormented boss, who does have lore, in Diablo, to get you through these battles. Such as possibly summoning a spirit of Rathma, who hits the enemy with a huge swathe of Army of the Dead. One of the Nephalem from D3, such as Nazeebo, who creates a Giant Toad to assist w/ CC or damage. Possibly getting to enter into some kind of shelter for a period of x10 seconds or so, in which the enemy will launch huge, extremely damaging attacks. (This is something players wouldn’t enjoy doing all battle, so it should be done very sparingly, I’d say 1-2 times, max.) Or even some sort of extra, “Boss Elixir”, that can exist on top of other elixirs, to act as a special Kryptonite to them individually. Such as, Duriel’s Bane, that will reverse his own poison damage dealt to him. These could be fun, simple items you could craft with small amounts of Murmuring Obols, since those seem to be a rather regular, late game tier currency. Or even, since you seem to be having difficulty with money sinks, what about a high gold cost? “Such a wondrous potion requires only the rarest reagants!” Having to drop say, x5 million gold, to reverse the tides of a Tormented fight, could be a good way to balance out these battles.
Boss levels (that are actual micro-dungeons)
Why not have the Tormented bosses actually have more than just a small, minimalist arena you’re forced to battle in? Why not have a wall collapse as they realize: This isn’t just any -ordinary- hero, this is a killer, and the demon lord fears for its own life! So the player chases them, in the stages, that result in battling it out, in a final Tormented section. The level design team makes great art, and I think they could hit a home run with some creative ways to showcase this.
Boss stages (that actually matter)
There are sure, already the checkmarks, for the tiers of the boss battles, but really let’s be honest gang: These are just the bosses adding more and more skill shots, not any kind of actual change to how a boss reacts. Here’s some ideas.
Chase mode: The boss deviates from its regular mode, to go into a frenzy, where it will attempt to chase you through the boss arena. There could also be different reasons why you might not want to just resume the boss fight as it. It begins to spawn more minions, certain “wind-up” attacks will cause lengthy CC’s, that don’t result in death, but are meant to whittle down your health bar, and thus, potion up after. Possibly a kind of vampiric effect, a minor one, but enough you don’t want to sit and just go toe to toe w/ them? Or this could be done as an AOE from when they hit you, the more you simply let them pound away on you during chase mode, the greater their vampiric gets. So you say, for possibly x10 seconds or so, want to dash away, leap away, whatever away, as they do their best Butcher impression. Speaking of…
Player helpful summons
I stated already having possibly in stages, gaining allies, to make you truly feel like you are in for an epic, challenging fight. But what if even other demons, sick of their place in Hell, come to try to usurp the Throne, so to speak? This could be a % chance for them to appear, and look to try to help topple Andarial, Duriel, etc, and gain their own place as a Minor Evil. Imagine the reaction videos the first time players hear, “AHHH FRESH MEAT!” But instead of a low, annoyed groan, they delight as they notice the boss is pulled in by a Meat Hook from afar, into the darkness of another room…they enter the next room to see…The Butcher now helping tank for you, as this boss battle has escalated!
For those wondering about my Barb, Engel, my build and my skill:
Level 100 (god do I miss Paragon levels…)
x23 stars/tiers worth of GA items, nearly all of which have a +HP GA.
Tested nearly every single skill/build for my Barb, from WW, to DD, to Bash, Death Blow, you name it. As it is right now, the last, and final build, will be my Weapon Swap Pirate Mate, but who also as of right now, I feel would be a waste to even create! As, I have no reason to do so, since I know what awaits at the end-game for me. My character has no problem solo’ing a Legion Event, any aspect of a Profane Mindcage’d Helltide, or other, roughly 100ish tier play. The only “challenge” comes, from the way overtuned level 160 Pit bosses, and these redonkulous Tormented bosses. I have a clear, distinct understanding of not only game mechanics, but Blizzard’s own internal game mechanics, had discussions w/ friends in HotS how armor impacts your Heroes, etc. There are people who go and read up guides on how to beat games. I’m the person who does that research, and writes those guides.
Personally, I’ve helped beta playtest many, many, MANY games, and am also myself a game tester for several companies. I’ve helped in my own small way, some major, major franchise games, I am sure you’ve heard of. I’m a lifetime gamer myself, and my pinned post on my own personal Twitter page is when I 100% Diablo 3, I’m a lifetime Diablo fan, and it’s my favorite game franchise of all time. Hence why you have all been so benevolently gifted with this absolute juggernaut wall of text today. I sincerely hope my rather extensive time I’ve spent here today doesn’t fall on deaf ears, and that what is right now for me, not a Diablo game, but an unfun time waster, can make a turnaround to be something that doesn’t deserve to have such low, atrocious ratings on MetaCritic, XBox, etc etc. Have a wonderful day everyone.