Monster Resilience to prevent crazy unintended spikes of damage / bugs etc

PTR Feedback
1

I believe a system that soft caps damage (monster resilience?) would ultimately be a good way to help balance the game and make encounters more fun / challenging. The following is a (mostly poorly thought out) way to do it, that another dev might appreciate / be able to iterate on…

Base 10 damage reduction formula: if (d >= x)

[ x + (log(d / x) * x) ]
where “x” is the cap and “d” is the original damage dealt

The idea is to give monsters/bosses soft caps (x) for damage. These caps could be added to monster families and/or specific types of damage (fire, cold, etc.) on individual monsters.

As an example, imagine a player attacking a monster that has “resilience” as a soft cap (x) of 100 million damage:

player hits mob for mob takes additional damage reduced by %
65 million 65,000,000 0 0 %
100 million 100,000,000 0 0 %
125 million 109,691,000 ~ 10 million more 12.24 %
250 million 139,794,000 ~ 40 million more 44.08 %
500 million 169,897,000 ~70 million more 66.02 %
1 billion 200,000,000 ~100 million more 80 %
5 billion 269,897,000 ~170 million more 94.6 %
100 billion 400,000,000 ~300 million more 99.6%
1 trillion 500,000,000 ~400 million more 99.95%
1 quadrillion 800,000,000 ~700 million more 99.99992 %

As the chart demonstrates, the most overturned damage gets pulled way down, but still hits much harder ( 8x vs 10,000,000x )

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Example Huge Numbers:

Monster cap of 500 million (M), player hits for 4 quadrillion (Qa):

500M + log( 4Qa / 500M) * 500M = ~3.95B

Instead of the player smacking the NPC for 4 quadrillion a far more modest hit of nearly 4 Billion (7.9 times the cap) is applied.

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Example (fire) Small numbers:

Fire resistant monster has fire cap of 10 thousand (K), player hits with fire skill for 4 quadrillion (Qa):

10K + log( 4Qa / 10K) * 10K = ~126,020 fire damage gets through

Instead of the player smacking the NPC for 4 quadrillion a far more modest hit of 126K (12.6x) is applied. This mob is fire resistant!

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I’m not saying this is perfect. Lots of good points about damage not being the only element of a build are valid and worth considering. Attack speed especially needs to be considered. However, I am saying this (or a formula akin to this) could be used as a tool to prevent top end damage from exploding the game.

I also like this kind of diminishing returns capping way better than hard caps on specific stats (armor, crit, etc.).

Slapped together a site where you can play around a bit with some examples:
https://bawzer.com/

1 Like
2

They exercised resilience now towards the world’s bosses. It must be something like that. I don’t think it’s interesting in other places in the world. It’s too complicated and that’s not good. If they put a ceiling on the armor because they didn’t know how to report it, imagine that damage. I think what could happen is if you cause very high damage, the enemy becomes enraged and immune for a few seconds and has 1 life or enemies with several lives or barriers. Logical would be some affixes for elites.

3

Sure, good idea. An enragement mechanic could work too. Something like that could work with or without a formula. If a player hits a monster for over a pre-determined amount (cap) the devs could come up with lots of interesting effects. I like the thinking!

I am a little stuck on the math, (I really like this for monster immunities), since I believe a modified version of this formula works for other areas of the game too. I think it would be far more interesting for diminishing return formulas like this to apply to resistances, armor, crit, vulnerable etc.

The cap still matters (9,230 / 70% etc.), but past the cap stacking whatever you want to really go after would still do something.

4

The enraged enemy could get faster. This would be fun in world bosses. Another idea would be in some group activities, the damage would be eliminated and count a percentage of hits. No one needs to know how much life the world boss has and no one knows who is hitting you. So just participate. In the end, that’s what happens.

5

Both can work

In fact I think having a universal cap that can specifically be increased (if player chooses to do so) wouldn’t be as bad of an idea either. I know the initial reaction wouldn’t be as enthusiastic but think people could kinda realize with time (having a cap on all buffs and overtime, then use gear or temper or even an aspect for extra stacks)

Regardless, point being, there are quite a few ways to increase/diversify monster impact, none of which are an “artificial bandaid” so to speak

1 - The “traditional” a/RPG way with armor and/or resistances
2 - The D4 “augment” way, the “Increased health” mobs and champions that exist, add more of the kind (increased cast frequency, increased aggressiveness, e.t.c.)
3 - A variation of “traditional” that fits D4 better (brutes resist overpower, bandits have chance to evade crits, succubi deny lucky hits, knights cannot be vulnerable, penitent knights cannot be CC-ed, e.t.c.)
4 - AI/behavior, spread out, formation, retreat, attack more organized/synched, e.t.c.
5 - Add an extra type of an elites that have a spell that give other mobs nearby a certain buff temporarily (to make game more fair these can be prevented or CC-ed out of impact)
6 - Add an extra spell to a certain individual elite/monster (meteor shower or firewall for example)
7 - Corrupted attacks (decent value but non-stackable), attacks that reduce a certain stat (armor, say 2000, res. to X, say 15%, Corrupt CDs or at least CDR rate), e.t.c.

There are even more ways, but, don’t think the game should be reduced to total and absolute rubble and then “post mortem” think of how to enrich the challenge, like, no offense but scaling is out of control and that “threshold” of 65 mil. should probably be 650k tbh

6

I think there are some fantastic ideas here. Only point I’m going to focus on is the last one (for now) though.

I completely agree that 65k (something in the thousands) is a much better cap. When D4 was introduced I (foolishly) believed we would not be dealing with trillions of damage again. The good news is that’s actually the beauty of the formula. If the cap is low, it still works.

There’s an example above that takes a cap of 10,000 throws 4 quadrillion at it, and returns only about 126,000 damage.

7

I applaud your effort OP and the discussion.

Bottom line though: This discussion is one that we shouldn’t even be having.
Characters should not even be remotely close to 500b let alone 500m after 1 year since launch.
Bosses and content should not have trillions and quadrillions of HP etc.

I’m not invalidating your efforts or the discussion: Everyone is working with the sour, boring and tasteless buffet we’ve been given to feast upon.

I think that more feedback and discussion on HOW TO bring numbers down, DEMANDING it, packaged in threads with solutions, ideas and proposals is the best way.
Acknowledging the problem is one thing - but trying to “Solve” the “Problem” without FIXING the glaring issues is not going to change or alter anything in the direction it should be.
Cheers and +1 for the efforts.

2 Likes
8

Good ideas too.

I’ve considered percentage based mechanics, but I do worry they might make attack speed way over powered. That’s actually a big concern for my original formula too.

Blizzard devs and people smarter than me in general hopefully can figure that out.

9

Yes, but the game should be simplified for the casual. If you take a calculator and multiply all your damage, it should be close to what you expect. And that won’t work with the damage cap. But for the pit above 100. It could have a warning that your damage from now on is capped. So it could be a solution. But I personally think the pit designer is terrible. And exactly the same from 1 to 200. Only the bosses are more difficult. Place special pits every 5 levels. Like meteors… blood seekers… Two maidens… 3 Butchers…I think it’s cool that you can change equipment to pass a level. Ah, here I need more damage reduction. Ah, in this pit I need to run more. Etc.

10

Thanks!

I whole heartedly agree with everything you said. I (foolishly) believed we wouldn’t be back in the trillions of damage / life a year in either :frowning: .

The cool thing is a formula like this can in theory work regardless of the original input. I really like it for monster immunities too.

If they never go back to reasonable numbers (it’s an extreme example), the fire resistance example above (10k cap, 4 quadrillion hit, 126k out) does in effect force the numbers back in line within reason without re-writing whatever “balance” exists now.

I think lol! I’m no mathematician.

I wrote this because of everything you said (again great, thank you!), with the hope that someone with a better formula comes along.

2 Likes
11

As I said and I mean it sincerely.
I applaud your efforts.
This is probably one of the best and most creative “Solutions” I’ve seen that deals with the existing problem(which is the Devs responsibility and their sin) from within said “Problem”.

You’re using the system itself to fix the system and promoting a checks and balances to keep things under control and moderated.

I’m at the point where I want to tear it down and start over…I have my ideas but that requires typing it out and it probably being a TLDR yadayada lesson in futility.
My apathy is preventing me from even making a simple QOL.
Glad you’re here and still willing to TRY. :+1:

2 Likes
12

Sure. I think it is okay to be transparent about it though. I hate the trillions of damage (why this post exists), but if it stays they can probably figure out a way to show the total damage vs reduced damage and tell you the monster is blocking/immune/resistant whatever to explain the far lower output.

Also, yep, they need some more variety for sure for pit and the end game. I’m sort of excited about Infernal Hordes because I see it as a (weak mind you) entry into mapping / juicing. Hopefully they juice the boon/bane choices way up, and figure out a way to incorporate juiced Bane / Boon like mechanics elsewhere too.

13

I don’t think this is a good idea for the simple reason that it means your damage stops effectively scaling. There are simpler ways to reduce damage: actually reduce damage.

1 Like
14

Yeah, reduced damage at the core of the game is kinda the dream. That said, I get the concern, but I think I prefer to think about this formula as a means of stopping scaling past a certain point rather then completely.

If they set the cap at 5 million for example, any attacks below that still has a huge range to work with. The formula wouldnt touch any damage below the cap.

On the other hand if a bug, some amazing combo, or unintended interaction slips past the cap, say for a trillion damage, this would super nerf it while still allowing it to be 5x to 10x stronger still.

1 Like
15

Just wanna clarify this:

I’m FINE with bigger numbers, as long as there’s some purpose and build-up to it

Like, hit 5 basic skills then cast some CD and then next skill is guaranteed to both Crit and Overpower and have some % bonus damage ?, that is totally fine

What I’m not fine with is “spamming” millions and billions of damage X times a second (“fart” and one-shot basically)

1 Like
16

So about that effort… went a little overboard.

This is a work in progress, but I started to build a damage resilience calculator to demonstrate the reduction of this thing:

https://bawzer.com

I’m not sure how far I’ll take this. Scope creep is creepin, and I have limited time. There are definitely bugs, and half thought out words and interactions on the page. For only a day or so of seat of the pants development, it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever started.

Depending on energy and time, maybe I’ll finish this someday. Will this website get fixed before D4? Challenge accepted @ Blizzard???