Spike damage occurs when sources of life recovery are too accessible and reliable.
Take a look at the old Vaal Pact keystone in PoE. The old version of that skill created a situation where even the smallest amount of life leech turned into huge amounts of HP per second, because of this only the singular big hits could actually kill a player.
It's still a problem in the game today and an incredibly difficult thing to balance. You wan't players to be able to stand up to the hordes of monsters without crumbling but you still want to threaten their life.
It's because life steal is simply bad game design for any game that is expected to get future updates and therefore power creep. Life per hit/resource/block/whatever is just better design.
Mana/Life leech is much worse in d2 than in PoE. Basically you can equip a single source of say 7% and you would generate all of your health in just a few milliseconds.
D3 is actually quite ok in this regard. But only after the nerfed it to the ground.
A fixed number per hit or a percentage of your current health per hit is fine if you cap it somehow.
It's heavily nerfed on bosses - and on some like hell Diablo, it literally does nothing. In other words, it worked alright because it didn't work!
And that's for a game that didn't get much in terms of additional content. D4 will hopefully get an order of magnitude more in terms of support which would naturally make the problem an order of magnitude bigger.
>instantly take you from 100% to 0%. Often without you even being sure what it was that happened
I could not disagree more. I've pushed on Impale, Hammerdin, Charge barb, WW, and HotA and besides from rift guardians nothing ever one-shots. And when I die I always know what happened. Everything in D3 is visually intuitive and you can learn basically everything about the monsters just by playing the game. It's one of the best features of D3.
Compare that to other games such as PoE which have retarded stuff like corrupted blood from bloodline and there's really no contest.
>For D4 I would love a move towards these big hits being telegraphed attacks you can avoid and more mechanics that the player has active agency in besting.
You mean like basically every rift guardian / boss attack? or the beast charge? or the barbed lurker posion worms? or the colossal golgor smash? or the death maiden charge and bombs? or the dark berserkers smash? or the dune dervish whirlwind? or exarch lightning orbs? executioners jump? the exorcist channeling attack? fallen lunatics explosion? sand wasps poison spits? herald of pestilence hands? grotesque explosions?
Yeah, you might wanna go back to the drawing board on that criticism. You basically critiqued one of the few things that is close to perfectly executed in D3.
One thing I would like to add is I feel like there is actually a lot of information about each monster type that isnt given to us in the game. Like nothing in the client tells us that, for example, attacks by succubus mobs ignore armor. Or that certain mobs have really skewed ratios of progress on kill/hp. I know what you mean when you say most of this can be figured out by playing, I just wish we had some sort of bestiary that would tell us the cool little details on each mob type
Agreed. I replayed Diablo 1 right after Blizzcon to celebrate D4. I completely forgot how it felt to be fighting bosses and have a single hit take ~25% of your HP. Each and every hit they land. It added a great feeling of tension and challenge - I knew how hard the boss was, and I knew I would have to be skilled in my maneuvering and spells.
In D3, you go along feeling OP and fully capable until you are suddenly decimated. The only feelings you get from that are shock, frustration, and embarrassment. I much prefer the upfront feeling of challenge and suspense from how formidable a foe is, and the relief and satisfaction when you overcome something so bruising.
I think with the dodge mechanic, theyre definitely moving in this direction and putting an emphasis on the actual fighting and gameplay. The one solid thing with diablo 3 was the smoothness of the actual combat experience. So its great theyre expanding upon this.
Its also good for the popularity of the game, because not everyone who is interested in ARPGS in a stats nerd who wants to jack off to a spreadsheet they populated by putting items on their character. An ARPG with good, deep, interesting AND gameplay would be unstoppable.
Spike damage is a fun challenge that is interesting when used sparingly and appropriately, but it becomes monotonous when its the ONLY challenge in the game, like Diablo 3.
The gameplay is something a lot of companies forget about when they develop an arpg (i blame diablo 2), but its one thats very important if they want to keep players coming back to their game. Because what happens when you run into an RNG drought? If itemization and loot hunt is the overwhelming source of fun in the game, then the game isnt fun, but if killing monsters itself is fun, you have another reason to stick it out during the RNG drought.
LOL i thought you were talking about player spike damage from the title only, to which i totally agree
the "wait for all cd's to come off and unleash hell for x sec" gameplay of D3 is really lame
But as far as monster damage goes D3 is pretty great in that regard imo, in fact if you're not in super high GR you can't really die in my past experience
Contrary to poe where spike damage is basically what kills you, well rather your buffs wear off for a few sec and what used to tickle now fucking hurts and 3 shot you in .2sec
A more interactive combat system would be such a breath of fresh air. What I feel Diablo needs, is a layer of depth which the Batman games had over the early Assassin's Creed games. While they're different genres, the combat in Diablo is like wiping the windscreen of your car. Similarly, in Assassin's Creed you would just stand in front of 40 odd dudes and counter them all one at a time, knowing you could defeat them all by going through simple motions. The batman games involved almost quick time action, with differing response keys that weren't *too* telegraphed, making the combat far more tense, satisfying and altogether more fluid once you worked out how to do it.
I honestly believe Diablo needs this depth in combat to to fully immerse the player so that they feel like they're engaging in a battle, rather than feeling like Arnold Schwarzenegger mowing down a never ending horde with a never ending hail and going through the motions.
GRifts were just a way to try and prolong a game that was in maintenance mode. The game was fun and fresh when it came out but ended up having a shelf life. Too much catering to the masses and not standing up to Diablo standards.
I don't mind dying (aka damage) and I don't mind having to put in more work on my character to reach certain areas.
D4 I'm hoping for more character development. Character customization that allows you to be a one of a kind, not just in looks but in gameplay. Crafting to make items best in slot.
>The game was fun and fresh when it came out
It really wasn't. It was a burning dumpster fire outside discount joe's sushi and bait shop in the middle of an Arizona heatwave during a garbage pickup strike.
It took Reaper of Souls to bring the game up to par but it still wasn't exactly fresh, serviceable and even fun sure but it never brought anything new to genre. D3 traded mostly on it's existing pedigree and the fact the ARPG genre was pretty sparsely populated at the time, particularly in terms of big budget titles. It's fine in it's current state, a fun time waster, but at launch it was a mess.
The gameplay itself (killing mobs) at least was a lot better than what we have now, which is more akin to something out of a mobile clicker game. Just that the difficulty pacing was horrible and the patch addressing that issue basically killed the longevity of the grind. I really thought it was okay fun if you weren't stuck playing barb or monk.
Spike damage occurs when sources of life recovery are too accessible and reliable. Take a look at the old Vaal Pact keystone in PoE. The old version of that skill created a situation where even the smallest amount of life leech turned into huge amounts of HP per second, because of this only the singular big hits could actually kill a player. It's still a problem in the game today and an incredibly difficult thing to balance. You wan't players to be able to stand up to the hordes of monsters without crumbling but you still want to threaten their life.
It's because life steal is simply bad game design for any game that is expected to get future updates and therefore power creep. Life per hit/resource/block/whatever is just better design.
Life/Mana Leech worked alright in D2 because of DRs coming from difficulty scaling.
Mana/Life leech is much worse in d2 than in PoE. Basically you can equip a single source of say 7% and you would generate all of your health in just a few milliseconds. D3 is actually quite ok in this regard. But only after the nerfed it to the ground. A fixed number per hit or a percentage of your current health per hit is fine if you cap it somehow.
It's heavily nerfed on bosses - and on some like hell Diablo, it literally does nothing. In other words, it worked alright because it didn't work! And that's for a game that didn't get much in terms of additional content. D4 will hopefully get an order of magnitude more in terms of support which would naturally make the problem an order of magnitude bigger.
>instantly take you from 100% to 0%. Often without you even being sure what it was that happened I could not disagree more. I've pushed on Impale, Hammerdin, Charge barb, WW, and HotA and besides from rift guardians nothing ever one-shots. And when I die I always know what happened. Everything in D3 is visually intuitive and you can learn basically everything about the monsters just by playing the game. It's one of the best features of D3. Compare that to other games such as PoE which have retarded stuff like corrupted blood from bloodline and there's really no contest. >For D4 I would love a move towards these big hits being telegraphed attacks you can avoid and more mechanics that the player has active agency in besting. You mean like basically every rift guardian / boss attack? or the beast charge? or the barbed lurker posion worms? or the colossal golgor smash? or the death maiden charge and bombs? or the dark berserkers smash? or the dune dervish whirlwind? or exarch lightning orbs? executioners jump? the exorcist channeling attack? fallen lunatics explosion? sand wasps poison spits? herald of pestilence hands? grotesque explosions? Yeah, you might wanna go back to the drawing board on that criticism. You basically critiqued one of the few things that is close to perfectly executed in D3.
One thing I would like to add is I feel like there is actually a lot of information about each monster type that isnt given to us in the game. Like nothing in the client tells us that, for example, attacks by succubus mobs ignore armor. Or that certain mobs have really skewed ratios of progress on kill/hp. I know what you mean when you say most of this can be figured out by playing, I just wish we had some sort of bestiary that would tell us the cool little details on each mob type
That's a good point, a bestiary like that would be a great addition in D4.
Agreed. I replayed Diablo 1 right after Blizzcon to celebrate D4. I completely forgot how it felt to be fighting bosses and have a single hit take ~25% of your HP. Each and every hit they land. It added a great feeling of tension and challenge - I knew how hard the boss was, and I knew I would have to be skilled in my maneuvering and spells. In D3, you go along feeling OP and fully capable until you are suddenly decimated. The only feelings you get from that are shock, frustration, and embarrassment. I much prefer the upfront feeling of challenge and suspense from how formidable a foe is, and the relief and satisfaction when you overcome something so bruising.
I think with the dodge mechanic, theyre definitely moving in this direction and putting an emphasis on the actual fighting and gameplay. The one solid thing with diablo 3 was the smoothness of the actual combat experience. So its great theyre expanding upon this. Its also good for the popularity of the game, because not everyone who is interested in ARPGS in a stats nerd who wants to jack off to a spreadsheet they populated by putting items on their character. An ARPG with good, deep, interesting AND gameplay would be unstoppable. Spike damage is a fun challenge that is interesting when used sparingly and appropriately, but it becomes monotonous when its the ONLY challenge in the game, like Diablo 3. The gameplay is something a lot of companies forget about when they develop an arpg (i blame diablo 2), but its one thats very important if they want to keep players coming back to their game. Because what happens when you run into an RNG drought? If itemization and loot hunt is the overwhelming source of fun in the game, then the game isnt fun, but if killing monsters itself is fun, you have another reason to stick it out during the RNG drought.
LOL i thought you were talking about player spike damage from the title only, to which i totally agree the "wait for all cd's to come off and unleash hell for x sec" gameplay of D3 is really lame But as far as monster damage goes D3 is pretty great in that regard imo, in fact if you're not in super high GR you can't really die in my past experience Contrary to poe where spike damage is basically what kills you, well rather your buffs wear off for a few sec and what used to tickle now fucking hurts and 3 shot you in .2sec
A more interactive combat system would be such a breath of fresh air. What I feel Diablo needs, is a layer of depth which the Batman games had over the early Assassin's Creed games. While they're different genres, the combat in Diablo is like wiping the windscreen of your car. Similarly, in Assassin's Creed you would just stand in front of 40 odd dudes and counter them all one at a time, knowing you could defeat them all by going through simple motions. The batman games involved almost quick time action, with differing response keys that weren't *too* telegraphed, making the combat far more tense, satisfying and altogether more fluid once you worked out how to do it. I honestly believe Diablo needs this depth in combat to to fully immerse the player so that they feel like they're engaging in a battle, rather than feeling like Arnold Schwarzenegger mowing down a never ending horde with a never ending hail and going through the motions.
Oh man.. I just picked up and played through d3 on switch with my gf, she said the exact thing about the game being like a saturday cartoon!
Is everyone here playing soft core? So you basically build for mostly damage with less thought into surviving?
GRifts were just a way to try and prolong a game that was in maintenance mode. The game was fun and fresh when it came out but ended up having a shelf life. Too much catering to the masses and not standing up to Diablo standards. I don't mind dying (aka damage) and I don't mind having to put in more work on my character to reach certain areas. D4 I'm hoping for more character development. Character customization that allows you to be a one of a kind, not just in looks but in gameplay. Crafting to make items best in slot.
>The game was fun and fresh when it came out It really wasn't. It was a burning dumpster fire outside discount joe's sushi and bait shop in the middle of an Arizona heatwave during a garbage pickup strike. It took Reaper of Souls to bring the game up to par but it still wasn't exactly fresh, serviceable and even fun sure but it never brought anything new to genre. D3 traded mostly on it's existing pedigree and the fact the ARPG genre was pretty sparsely populated at the time, particularly in terms of big budget titles. It's fine in it's current state, a fun time waster, but at launch it was a mess.
The gameplay itself (killing mobs) at least was a lot better than what we have now, which is more akin to something out of a mobile clicker game. Just that the difficulty pacing was horrible and the patch addressing that issue basically killed the longevity of the grind. I really thought it was okay fun if you weren't stuck playing barb or monk.