With all the minion changes, it’s as good a time as any to open a discussion on the challenges and possible solutions to incorporating a way to command summons (minions, companions, etc.) in order to have more control over them. My assumption is that the biggest hurdle would be a way to implement fairly for both keyboard & mouse and controller, with controller representing the primary limitation.
I had mentioned this in my Necro Minion post, but I think this topic deserves its own thread, especially since it applies to Druid and any other future pet-class (looking at you, Mysterious Unrevealed Expansion Class). I prefer the term minions, so I’m just going to use that to reference all summons of any class.
As the forums just suggested a ton of similar threads on this since last June, this is obviously a much requested feature that has yet to be implemented in the game.
CONCEPTS / PURPOSE
The funniest part to me is that previous Blizzard games are what taught me about these mechanics in the first place, many years ago. So this is certainly not a new concept to the company, but for the sake of discussion, I’ll just review some of the commands and reasoning.
There are many benefits for having more control over your minions, especially for builds using minions for their primary source of damage or defense.
- Gives power to the player, allowing much more active management over their army
- Engaging, satisfying combat (both pve and pvp).
- Removes the burden from AI to correctly assume a player’s intentions (which also removes the burden of programmers to design the perfect AI)
- Fulfill class fantasies
- Opens doors from a design standpoint for more advanced enemy and dungeon mechanics
In the simplest form, it would just be a directed Attack.
- Refocusing minions to prioritize auto-attacking a general direction or selected target
- Targeting time-sensitive enemies such as Blood Blisters
- Targeting high-threat or high-value targets, such as the Butcher or treasure goblins.
- Staying focused on targets at extended ranges to free up the player being able to move and dodge mechanics (especially in higher difficulties, i.e. Echo of Lilith)
- Could also be used to have minions dodge mechanics
- Splitting up focus to have minions cover an area, NPC, or party member, while the player attacks another.
additional minion commands may include -
Defend
- Dropping focus to return to the player’s side immediately, then defaulting to auto-attacking by proximity
- Does not require directional input
Follow
- Dropping focus to return to player’s side immediately to follow without attacking
- Does not require directional input
Hold Position
- Can be used for more advanced defensive tactics and control
- Keep minions from following you into danger / triggering traps.
Active Abilities
- These are already in the game, but additional UI options could allow for more than one active minion ability.
CONSIDERATIONS
Designed for both KBM & Controller
Adding minion commands on a keyboard would be simple with the surplus of available hotkeys and combinations, and targeting is equally considered to be more advanced/easier with a mouse. The main limitation, as mentioned, seems to be making this work for the controller.
Having played D4 almost exclusively with controller, I’m very familiar with the lack of hotkey mapping options, as all choices are already filled, and even adding a single additional control like Zoom would require sacrificing an essential control. In its current state, it’s hard to modify.
Integrating with Existing Parameters
Diablo 4 was setup that there are six skills available on your skillbar. Since even ultimates do not have their own separate skill slot and must exist within the six, and the game is fully balanced around this design, it’s safe to assume devs wouldn’t want to make an exception for this. And ideally, any solution would not introduce additional command skills that would compete with existing ones or challenge the structure already in place. This is complicated further by the fact that both Necromancers and Druids both have multiple summon skills.
Simplicity and Accessibility
Another consideration in design is going to be to keep everything ideally as simple, well-organized, and natural feeling as possible, so that the intent isn’t lost behind poor executive. You need to be able to access these commands quickly, in tense, fast-paced fights. Additionally, they need to be accessible to work for all players of varying skill level and ability.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
Multi-function Single-Button Skill
// Raise Skeleton
One of the simplest solutions is having it built-in to the Raise Skeleton Skill, similar to how they handled it in D3 with Command Skeleton. It should feel intuitive and natural given how the controller mapping and skill targeting works with controllers in the rest of the game.
I would rather have the ability to control where minions are focusing their attack even if it means switching corpse targeting to an auto-target (or, “smart” target).
- Primary Function - Target Attack (directional aiming)
If aiming on target or area on activation, minions charge and attack the target/area. If target dies/invulnerable or if no target was selected, minions would focus auto-attack in that area. Upon no enemies, minions default to Defend Player.- Primary Function - Defend Player (no aiming / mouse near player)
If not aiming on activation, minions drop current focus and select new targets within close range to the player. If no targets exist, minions would return to player, then default to auto-attacking based on proximity (similar to current minion AI auto-attack).- Secondary Function - Raise Skeleton (optional aiming, auto-selects corpse)
On activation, also summon skeleton from corpse based on aimed direction (or near player if not aiming). If no corpses are available, automatically defaults to any nearby corpse. This ensures both primary and secondary function can work simultaneously without conflict, but the shift to auto-selecting the corpse would prioritize the attack command when aiming.
// Golem
Since the active ability already is a targeting command function, there are a few ways this could work.
While it’s certainly a simpler approach to just choose one of these options for all players, removing any need for additional UI changes, there are pros and cons to each method. It could be preferred to present players the choice of how they want to command their minions.
This could be done by adding additional UI options via the Book of the Dead or the Skill Assignment tab (similar to Barbarian’s weapon select) to choose how to command the Golem:
- via the Raise Skeleton skill (paired with Skeleton command)
- via the Golem skill (paired with their own Active Ability cast)
- Neither (auto-targeting)
Binding Golem’s Attack/Defend command to Raise Skeleton
- For players with both skills equipped, could combine them together so the Golem would be controlled through the same button and commands as your Skeletons
- Pro - Only one command for full army control, simpler & faster
- Pro - Golem’s Active Ability’s activation not tied to commanding Golem
- Con - Requires both skills equipped to separate control
- Con - Apart from Golem’s Active, lose ability to split focus of minions
Binding Golem’s Attack/Defend command to Golem skill
- Would work by always casting the Active Ability when not on cooldown but also need to be usable even when the Active Ability was on cooldown.
- Pro - Player could command golem and skeletons separately
- Pro - Works for golem-only builds
- Con - Will always use the Active Ability even if just wanting to command Golem.
No Bind (how the Golem currently works)
- The Golem’s attack is controlled through AI auto-target
- (The same option could also be available for Raise Skeleton)
- Pro - presents players with more choice
- Pro - some players prefer the more passive playstyle of AI minions
Long-Holding Keybinds for Secondary Actions or Extended Menu
– This feature could be used for anything in-game, not just minions, and is worth considering even if no minion changes are made
Using holds to access additional actions could be added to greatly increase the available key bindings, which could be critical for success on a controller.
Currently, I don’t believe either are used in-game in either form. The closest is the emote wheel, which is a toggle menu and not ideal for fast combat.
// Hold Keybind for Secondary Command
This would be unique to each skill. Many skills may still only have quick-casts, but if the skill would have a secondary hold ability, then the skill would not quick-cast on press, but would wait until the key was released. If the key is held for a set amount of time, say, 0.5 seconds, then it would switch to a secondary ability. i.e.
- Could be just an alternate ability, such as Strong Attack
- Could be channeled, such as extending the range of an attack, reaching max range at 2.0 seconds holding
- Could be used to add “upgrades” to skills through aspects or Skill Tree, such as adding the ability to charge the skill to shoot additional projectiles or a larger AoE
Pertaining to minions, this could be used to separate the features mentioned above, such as -
Raise Skeleton
- Quick-release would handle the attack/defend command
- Holding >=0.5 seconds activates continuous auto-cast Raise Skeleton from corpse selection in aimed direction / mouse location
// Hold Keybind for Extended Skill Menu
– Essentially multi-button commands, like a controller’s version of holding “shift” or “control”
On holding a key/button down, the UI could visually either flip the skillbar to a secondary set of skills, or pop-up circle showing assigned skills with their keybind / controller buttons (i.e. X Square Triangle Circle or Up Down Left Right) – hopefully that makes sense without a picture.
This would allow you to have multiple actions assigned to the same buttons, adding potentially many more options. i.e.
Raise Skeleton
- Skill is assigned to L2, for example
- Quick-release L2 for Activity Ability (summon minion)
- Holding L2 rotates the skillbar to a secondary skillset -
- X is now “Command minions to attack”
- Square is now “Defend / Return to player”
- Triangle is now “Hold Position”
- Circle is “Follow player”
But this could be used for other classes too, to consolidate skills or abilities in ways that make more sense and free space for new skill options –
Rogue: Weapon Imbuement
- Skill is assigned to L2, for example
- Holding L2 rotates the skillbar to a secondary skillset -
- X is now “Cold Imbuement”
- Square is now “Poison Imbuement”
- Triangle is now “Shadow Imbuement”
- Circle is “Fire Imbuement” -
Closing
Ultimately, none of these are original ideas. I laid it out in detail to help just make it clear exactly how this could work, but every single one of these concepts are industry standards and used in other controller-based games for many years. This makes me feel even more convinced that any of these systems could be used effectively because players are already experienced using them in other games, for a long time, so they will feel natural and intuitive from a controller or keyboard standpoint.
Further, combinations of all the various options can be utilized – such as extended menu accessing secondary skillbars with skills that also have long-hold charged attacks. Altogether, this would bring the controller to life and give developers so much more ground to work with instead of keeping everything contained and limited with the current restrictions, and it can be used for many skills and any class, not just minion controls.
Thanks for reading! Please let me know what you guys think. Add your own feedback and suggestions too. Hopefully we can one day see a system added to gain more minion control.
