If you are melee need to nuke or die because proyectiles, or have eternal barrier (see S1 for example).
If you are range need speed more than AoE, or go melee and nuke (see S2 for example)
The “monster families” that were rich and complex, right now are unimportant, because no different patterns or abilities. You know if the monster have DOT damage, is strong perse; or if can shot missiles, is strong perse (see mosquitoes for example).
For me, the content need to differentiate objetives: open world with what? high density for EXP farm?; Dungeons with time consuming activities and low density for mats and resourses?; Quest with what focus? etc… etc.
if the problem is getting one shot , you should instead ask for a better balancing of monster (for ghosts / corpse bow that can one shot even tanky build sometime)
What I wanted to make a point about is - high density is also a ground for not being able to properly balance archers
10 Archers that don’t die from 1 hit and require 3 hits to die from AoE would probably release 20-30 arrows in a fight
70 archers that die from 1 shot but are spread so you can kill only 40-50 of them the first time you launch an AoE attack will probably end up doing the same
The diferrence however is it’s much more predictable and more manageable to balance things out properly in the first case cause if you increase damage by say 20% of each of them 5 levels later, the total doesn’t vary that much
In the second case that value cannot be controlled and makes the game much more of a “who pulls the trigger first” type of shootout
Hence another unhealthy (and might add unnecessary unhealthy) consequence by design
High density is the way to go. Even in Diablo 3 one of the biggest issues with the game design was too low density. It was terrible to get Grifts with low density. If you don’t want to fight monsters, play Harvest Moon.
Diablo is a game about killing waves and waves of monsters.
In Diablo 2 people modded the game to add 2x or 10x monster density. Because that’s what makes the game fun. If you’re getting smashed by archers or whatever in high density mobs that’s a L2P issue. If you are getting one shot you are playing a level too high for your character. Don’t go too high in difficulty, or just learn to build your character better.
I’m sorry but have to point this out, none of it is a build issue. Heck there are no build issues whatsoever with the way how the game’s done
Low density provides better balance AND better build diversity as well as more space for better gear and monster design
High density provides 99.99999% one-shot followed by being one-shot. THAT is the mathematically innevitable outcome, that one time when you won’t one shot by 0.000001% HP or that one time the “other side” will strike first will be the immediate death due to how increase in damage works with high numbers
The only problem with what you are saying is THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE ASKED FOR.
People whined and cried on here, streamers whined and cried that leveling was too slow and there were not enough mobs. So blizzard made this game into what it is. And now people are complaining the opposite way now.
People need to just shut up and adapt to the game. Play the game that is released instead of whining to make it into whatever they want.
Yeah the problem is that the playerbase is very large and diverse in the kind of game it wants. Large groups of players want different design.
And so what happens is that when the design is X, the large group of players who dislikes X dominates the forums with complaints, while the large group that likes X doesn’t say much because they like the game. So “everyone thinks X sucks”, because the forums look that way, but it isn’t that way, because the forums always reflect complainers much more than the contented.
And when the design is switched to Y, the same thing happens in reverse – the people who liked X but dislike Y are now all over the forums complaining about Y, and how Y sucks and the entire forum is saying how Y sucks, while the people who like Y and lobbied for Y on the prior patch era and were all over the forums complaining about X are more or less absent, because they like Y and are not motivated to come to the forums in numbers.
And on and on it goes with each major design change, in a game with a population as large and diverse as this one.
I agree with you that Blizzard needs to have its own vision and stick to that, adjusting based on data it sees in comparison to that vision, and not the complaints people have (other than bugs) in any given design – in a playerbase as big as this, no matter what design you have, you will have a LOT of people who dislike it, a LOT, and are very vocal about that here.
You realize that those 3 are separate problems each with it’s own set of solutions right ?
People whining slow & boring = one set of solutions
Streamers whining slow & inefficient = other set of solutions
Not enough mobs = 3rd set of solutions
Density increase didn’t address first problem, and addressed the other 2 but with relatively big downsides:
Build diversity into dumpster
Loot quality into dumpster
Repetitiveness incentivized even further
It was obvious that in order to decrease LENGTH of leveling process, increasing density was like throwing a sledgehammer to kill a fly
I’ll end this one with a relatively famous anecdote really well known for engineering practices that I’ve initially heard from Day9
Namely - back at the days when elevators came into public use, people constantly gave the negative feedback and complained in the following manner:
The process of climbing up is long and boring
Sounds familiar ? - you know what the solution turned out ? - installing mirrors inside. i.e. - addressing the BORING part of the equation was the solution, as opposed to focus on the “long” part
Think it’s about time that devs realize there’s something similar at stake here
totally agree with you mate, the game is too easy now. i hope they take measures to make it more challenging than the tedious farming of mats to summon bosses…
You mean like spamming one ability or two abilities over and over, and spam chugging mana potions in D2, while running the exact same boss hundreds of times? Lol… D3’s combat was harder than D2s… D4 is in a pretty decent spot and has a good mix of staying out of bad and actually having to time some abilities (obviously depending on the build, but who am I kidding, you’ll just run whatever maxroll FOTM build anyways)
The balance for AOE tilted meta isn’t nerf density but to make single targets such as bosses unkillabe. This forces players to trade AOE for single target damage mechanics or to find group synergy between builds so each role can lean towards extreme tweakings. Nerfing density is not good.
the one place I feel Mob density is too high is during some Nightmare Dungeons. You’ll enter a corridor and all of a sudden 30 monsters appear…with 10 having affixes etc…then another 20 appear and I will end up CC’d and unable to move/react.
This was the problem they fixed earlier on to reduce CC…but it seems as you go up in ND tier…they just throw more at you at once and it just brings back the old problem and becomes absolutely no fun to try and push Nightmare Dungeons.
I’m using a Rogue Barrage build with MaxRolls recommended stats etc. It’s not 100% perfect, but given I’m level 100 I don’t see why at Tier 60 the Nightmare Dungeons should just be mega-spawning mobs with affixes as a way to make it likely I die.
I am admittedly playing an AOE build but i have loved how dense some mobs are like the Vampires syphons or the blood harvest 3 pedestal summon or some NM dungeon densities are real thick. I like it.
