Instant deed monsters.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

Do allegedly bugged monsters improve on HC, or detract from it?
Things like tomb vipers, nm fele, old msle.

How about loading screen deaths from Durry back in the day?

Yeah they're buggy, and if coded correctly likely wouldn't be nearly as threating, but does that mean they're a bad thing? You can still build/play correctly to avoid dying to them, and without them what would there be left to worry about?


Do you want to see threats like these in D3?
Preferably without the buggyness, but still with the same danger level.

[prion]

no to the loading screen deaths. thats a technology issue and has no roleplaying element.

[5zigen]

I hope there are not these situations.

Here's why.

Games aren't fun when you aren't in control. See every gripe in wow about fear and stuns and CC. If you don't have control the game ceases to be fun.

In HC, that effect is multiplied many times. If you aren't in control of whether your character lives or dies, it's a bad thing.

Furthermore, let's take the example of Tomb Vipers. Enemies like this detract from the game experience. Why? Because for most people, it becomes insane to even approach nihilthak (even more insane than it was before tomb vipers). So essentially you are cutting a lot of the game out just so players can control if they live or die.

So, I think these things are bad and generally detract from the game. Yes there should be dangerous enemies, but things that can kill you virtually unaware that you can do nothing to protect against aren't fun and don't add to the game in SC or HC.

[Hcorp]

I totally agree with their decision to not fix Tomb Vipers. It makes running Nihlathak that much more of a challenge. All you need to do to circumvent it by getting pdr, and really, if you can't get pdr, you shouldn't be running Nihl. End of story.

What I don't agree with is the Nightmare FE bug, because it's utterly ridiculous. You can have 75 FR, 4k life, and still die to NM council.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

no to the loading screen deaths. thats a technology issue and has no roleplaying element.

Agreed there.

I was thinking something more like if durry's charge did enough damage to instantly kill anyone below gear level x when they enter, just without the loading screen.

Eg a level 12 with like 6 rubies in their gear, and reasonable stam/level could expect to live through it, a level 24 in gear a level 24 would likely find questing could expect to live through it, but a level 18 in gear a level 18 could expect to find questing could expect to die instantly and with no chance.

let's take the example of Tomb Vipers. Enemies like this detract from the game experience. Why? Because for most people, it becomes insane to even approach nihilthak (even more insane than it was before tomb vipers). So essentially you are cutting a lot of the game out just so players can control if they live or die.
The thing with Tomb Vipers is that they're quite tame so long as you have the knowledge about how they're bugged. If the way they did damage was more widely known, they wouldn't scare so many people away, it just happens that it's not at all intuitive that their clouds work as they do.

Say instead of their poison clouds being buggy, they just were set to a very high value over a short period of time... people without PR would be toast, but people with 75% would be sitting pretty, do you still think nihl runs would be intimidating?

Another example, conviction gloams.
I'm aware gloam damage is supposedly bugged higher than it should be, but it's not THAT high, it's still at a point where it could have conceivably been set there. But throw in conviction, make a lovely double or triple boss pack spawn, and it's instadeeds for anyone who isn't built with some stacked LR or absorb or both.

People are afraid of gloams because they are a very dangerous monster, but despite being almost as dangerous as tomb vipers, they don't really slow down baal runs, because negating their damage is intuitive.



Also - I would argue you are in control of your character.
You are in control of building it in such away as to avoid being taken out of control.

[YSM]

Do allegedly bugged monsters improve on HC, or detract from it?
Things like tomb vipers, nm fele, old msle.

How about loading screen deaths from Durry back in the day?

Yeah they're buggy, and if coded correctly likely wouldn't be nearly as threating, but does that mean they're a bad thing? You can still build/play correctly to avoid dying to them, and without them what would there be left to worry about?


Do you want to see threats like these in D3?
Preferably without the buggyness, but still with the same danger level.

I liked MSLE monsters because of the excitment and difficulty it brought to the table. You had to double-check every enchanted monster before whailing on them, or risk losing your character in an instant.

It'd be cool if Blizzard incorporated extremely rare, but powerful monsters in Diablo III like the old MSLEs, to keep Hardcore players on their toes.

[5zigen]

Also - I would argue you are in control of your character.
You are in control of building it in such away as to avoid being taken out of control.

Not really. a pack of extra strong fe le gloams with a convic boss near you can have you dead before you even see the mobs that will have killed you.

Sorry, but mobs killing you when you cant even see them isn't you being in control.

Same thing can happen with FELE mobs, or at least it could with the last patch but you didn't include them with your list of deadly mobs.

You can build your character in such a way that you can avoid dying in some situations situations, but you cant avoid having that control taken away from you.

Furthermore, requiring some gear to do parts of the game is really poor design, regardless of whether it's HC or SC. Why? Because again it is taking the control away from the player. You are no longer free to gear your character how you want, because now you're required to either use one of the two lit absorb items, or put sol in a bunch of sockets, or whatever the case may be.

See, there's a difference between optimizing for a situation, and having a situation that requires a certain gear set. And in the case of things like old MSLE's, ESFE's, Tomb Vipers etc. It isn't a matter of OPTIMIZING to kill them, it's a matter of if you're geared wrong (and generally in a counterintuitive way) you're dead.

It's simply poor design, and aside from that it really punishes people for being first to try something.

[jamesisbest]

I think instead of having bugged monsters that can one shot you the game should just occassionally have some really challenging areas/traps/scripted events so that when you are playing hardcore you will always be on edge and excited. Especially if you know a major challenge can pop out of nowhere at any time.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

Sorry, but mobs killing you when you cant even see them isn't you being in control.
Sure it is, you built poorly, and played poorly.

Same thing can happen with FELE mobs, or at least it could with the last patch but you didn't include them with your list of deadly mobs.
I did include FELE, actually. Just the NM ones which are still bugged, not the hell ones which were only bugged for a month or so. And even if I hadn't you can't expect me to list every dangerous circumstance.

And the thing with them is, they're even simpler than the vipers or gloams to avoid dying to. It doesn't take long to figure out "don't stand next to things that explode when they die". As YSM mentioned with MSLE, it's just a matter of reading the mods on the monster and responding appropriately.

Furthermore, requiring some gear to do parts of the game is really poor design, regardless of whether it's HC or SC. Why? Because again it is taking the control away from the player. You are no longer free to gear your character how you want, because now you're required to either use one of the two lit absorb items, or put sol in a bunch of sockets, or whatever the case may be.
You're not free to gear your character how you want ever. If you were you'd see a lot more naked pure curse necros trying to solo the game than just the one guy.

However to avoid death to gloams you have more than 1 option. Stacking LR works fine. GA will do the trick. As will Los in gear. Walking the throne with a necro spamming DV off the screen turns them into jokes. You're forgetting the existence of Lightsabre. Stacked MDR helps too... Tgods or Wisp are just the optimal ways to do it.

See, there's a difference between optimizing for a situation, and having a situation that requires a certain gear set. And in the case of things like old MSLE's, ESFE's, Tomb Vipers etc. It isn't a matter of OPTIMIZING to kill them, it's a matter of if you're geared wrong (and generally in a counterintuitive way) you're dead.
That's entirely untrue.
Tomb Viper poison clouds don't do damage to you if you don't walk in them, by the way. I learned that trick before I learned about PDR, and I was soloing Nihl with that knowledge in mind without any PDR gear.

Things that explode on death (or when they're hit) are 100% on the player to avoid.

it really punishes people for being first to try something.
It also really rewards people for being the first to figure it out.

[nicro tower]

There's a reason you have to beat softcore once to get to hardcore. You figure out the basics of what to avoid (eg. explodey thingys and things that take out half your life in 1 hit), and you use what you learned to stay alive in hardcore. :P

[Morannon]

I think the berserker in the game play video at least indicate that Blizz are considering such monsters. It's good as long as those monsters make up for it by some weakness.

Generally speaking I think it's pretty safe to say that the monsters in D3 will be a lot more diverse than before. Extremely hard hitting foes are surly a part of that.

[5zigen]

Things that explode on death (or when they're hit) are 100% on the player to avoid.


I'll just adress this, while I disagree with a lot of the other stuff you posted. This 'sentiment' essentially destroys melee characters and really gets back to the fact that it's poor design choices to have things like this.

Here's why it's bad design:

In D2, it's hard to die. Thus, the only way to have the game have any danger at all in HC is to have monsters that will instadeeds your character whether it is or isn't in your control. This is acceptable, because if you could essentially avoid death just by playing well the game would lose a lot of it's risk and HC would lose a lot of the prestige.

The thing is though, the only reason these mobs are needed are because it's so easy to avoid death for any character in any "normal" situation. Everyone has a skill on their skill bar at all times that can save them from all damage: It's called town portal and it casts nearly instantly.

There's another way to avoid death entirely. S&Q. This isn't even cheating unless you're having a macro do it for you. But save and quit isn't even really a GAME mechanic (it's more of a UI mechanic).

Why do these things work together? Because in D2 if you're always in control of your character and have a functioning brain you can avoid death in almost every 'normal situation' where you are in control. Thus, the only way to add any risk to the game is to take the control away from the player in the form of Dolls, Tomb Vipers FELE, ESFE (ancient), MSLE etc. The problem with these though are that they aren't garunteed deaths in most situations, and in particular they favor ranged characters greatly over melee characters.

And in fact, we see that. Every melee character skips CS, Almost every character skips Durance, and almost everyone skills Nihilthak and WSK. So what's the result of adding these instagib monsters? Fewer people taking part in the content. And while it's neat to have stuff for elitists, this is basic content. And if there's anything that screams design flaw its stuff (basic stuff) that people refuse to play.

Now, I have a feeling they're trying to amend the issues with melee characters simply not being able to deal with certain mobs, as it looked like in the demo there were several ranged barbarian skills.

Additionally, they have the ability to solve the aforementioned design flaw: Giving every character 2 unlimited get out of jail free cards. If they take these away, there will generally be no need for the instadeeds monsters. Why? Because you're putting back into the game the danger that Diablo 2 was missing without any instadeeds monsters.


P.S. The 'maulers'(?) seem cool. I hope they aren't plain old 1 hit kills if they are bosses in the hardest difficulty, but even if they were that type of thing is fine, because it's not excluding the game for any characters or builds and also wont require any specific items.

[TheDarkSide]

The question still begs to be answered ?? Will all the above mentioned Pally aura's even be in the game ? Will the Paladin and all his glorified methods of death even return ? Gloams without Conviction = meh , MSLE without Fanat = meh , the Paladin aura's made them all deadly one hit killers ..

I vote for NO Paladin Character in D3 ....

:whistling:

[coldsong]

hhmm new thread time

[MoUsE_WiZ]

portals/s&e is bad design
Don't disagree.
Maybe I'll make another thread about this seperately, but here's the thing, although the two mechanics change the way they game is played, they don't necessarily make it easier.
If, say, you couldn't exit outside of town, and portals took 7 seconds to cast (interruptable or not, whatever), you wouldn't be able to rush through everything and have a gaurenteed escape path for yourself.
Solution?
Just don't rush through everything quite as quickly, make sure it's still always clear behind you, you'll still be able to just turn and run. If they were suddenly to implement a change like that in D2 it'd take some getting used to, and I'm sure it'd get people killed, but if it had been there from the start, given how long the game's been out, we'd all have the concept down to a science and still nobody would die to regular boring monsters.

In other words - making the game slower is not making the game harder.

The problem with these though are that they aren't garunteed deaths in most situations, and in particular they favor ranged characters greatly over melee characters.
Vipers and gloams both favour melee over ranged, actually. Gloams have this habit of emptying mana pools very quickly, and melee has more room to keep res/hp up while stacking PDR to survive poison clouds. Without PDR then vipers favour ranged as ranged doesn't have to move in the clouds to kill them, with PDR, baba all the way.
Dolls are fast enough that they'll equally surround and kill anyone who pops a few at once.
FE (in NM, hell it's not so scary) does favour range, but the number of monsters that are going to make a large pop is small enough that mercs can tank them and you can play through with reasonable time.

And in fact, we see that. Every melee character skips CS, Almost every character skips Durance, and almost everyone skills Nihilthak and WSK. So what's the result of adding these instagib monsters? Fewer people taking part in the content.
There's a reason I haven't listed IM yet for a reason, it's terrible.
And it's the reason melee skips CS and sits in a corner in the throne.
It's not insurmountable, but it's much more limiting to melee in general than anything I've listed so far, which wouldn't be so bad except there's no equivalent for casters. They tried with blood mana, but even when it's cast it's a joke beside IM, and even if it weren't, it's too easy to ensure it's never cast.

As for content skipping? That's not so much because it's tough as because it's profitable.
Why does nobody run meph on anything that isn't a sorc? Because it takes a couple days to build a sorc, then you can run it 100xs faster. It's not because of dolls. People used to run it on anything back before they made durance 2 giant.
CS would be skipped by most people as well because it's less exp than baal runs unless you're 97-98 and most of your exp comes from Diablo/Baal.
People skip the WSK because it's the throne that gives exp/drops.

Gameplay flaw? Arguably. I hate having to kill things that don't drop loot and I'd argue against it. Fault of monsters? Not at all... just their drops.


Now, I have a feeling they're trying to amend the issues with melee characters simply not being able to deal with certain mobs, as it looked like in the demo there were several ranged barbarian skills.
I think that's more to add more variety to the gameplay than anything else, but I could be wrong.

If they take these away, there will generally be no need for the instadeeds monsters. Why? Because you're putting back into the game the danger that Diablo 2 was missing without any instadeeds monsters.
Disagree, as mentioned, making the game more dangerous to madly rushing through packs of monsters isn't making the game more dangerous, just changing the way it's played.

[Tai.]

Personally I'd argue that Dolls are worse for Ranged than melee. Javazons (my class of choice) tend to chuck javs and have them off 4 dolls right as they close in on yourself or another player, it's worse for Hammerdins. True Sorcs can Glacial Spike them or tele back, but often you have to tele multiple times to get enough space to be safe. Melee characters like, for example, a Conc Barb can tank their basic attack and only kill one at a time. On top of this they tend to have higher life/DR and I don't often see barbs go down to Dolls, rather FELE owns them.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

Personally I'd argue that Dolls are worse for Ranged than melee. Javazons (my class of choice) tend to chuck javs and have them off 4 dolls right as they close in on yourself or another player, it's worse for Hammerdins. True Sorcs can Glacial Spike them or tele back, but often you have to tele multiple times to get enough space to be safe. Melee characters like, for example, a Conc Barb can tank their basic attack and only kill one at a time. On top of this they tend to have higher life/DR and I don't often see barbs go down to Dolls, rather FELE owns them.
There's more melee out there than just barbies though, dolls are a bit trickier for, say, a zealot than a conc barb, as there's less survivability and less ability to kill one at a time.

[MYK]

As much as I'd like to agree that the Instant deeds monsters suck... They're not all that bad.

Gloams are mean because they do a TON of damage if you're used to wearing Thundergod's Vigor. If you haven't a proper skill to avoid/decrease the damage from these, then party up. I almost dislike TGod's because of how impervious it makes you to one of the scarier monsters in the game.

Bugged Vipers suck, but as MoUsE points out, the trick is standing still for a few seconds. PDR gear in this case is super powerful - You're, again, negating an attack that would normally wtfpwn your character.

Dolls are tough if you have low vitality and a powerful attack (Think Sorcs and Bowazons), but partying up solves that, or using your defensive abilities better. Obviously you might not want to zeal around them, or whirlwind/LF/Strafe while they're on your toes. Running Sanctuary, Concentrate, using decoy+Valk for distance.

Point is, almost every WTFpwnd monster can be defused. It's not always easy, but if we wanted easy we'd stick to normal mode for eternity...Most classes have abilities to defuse such situations, just a lot of people don't use them or don't know how.

The problem, I think, is that there aren't enough powerful monsters. There's way too many that just fold over when looked at, and that makes the ones that are tough really tough.

[5zigen]

Mouse, I think you made some good points there and we agree on some stuff. It seems you do think things like IM are over the edge, which I agree with.


I think that's more to add more variety to the gameplay than anything else, but I could be wrong.

I don't think this is the case. While it looks like it adds more variety to the game, it does more to inhibit the game than anything.

Let's imagine a world where characters couldn't be "rushed" through places (I know that situation requires it's own debate). In that case, there are several places where melee characters become useless, most notably in the CS and WSK.

Now, if there was no way to rush past them, you would have no choice but to leech while someone else does the work and you watch, or die repeatedly trying to go through it because your character only has melee skills and in HC with permanent death that means you can only watch someone else play the area for you.

Sure it adds variety, but in general it detracts from the experience of a player who is playing a pure melee character. It's fine if it's harder for melee characters, yes, that adds a good kind of variety as long as some areas are easier for them. But to make areas that are essentially impossible for melee detracts from the game experience.


Disagree, as mentioned, making the game more dangerous to madly rushing through packs of monsters isn't making the game more dangerous, just changing the way it's played.

While I agree with this sort of, there would still be the frantic feeling of the game. It would really make monsters who were Extra Fast, and Teleporting actually dangerous.

And admittedly, a change like this would also require a change in the mob AI, but this wouldnt be that bad, as D1 had great monster AI. If they cant even match the AI from D1 (where mobs try and surround you) then they should be sort of ashamed heh.


I'm glad you made the post MYK. I think you're right on things a bit.



Point is, almost every WTFpwnd monster can be defused. It's not always easy, but if we wanted easy we'd stick to normal mode for eternity...Most classes have abilities to defuse such situations, just a lot of people don't use them or don't know how.

If defusing the instadeeds monsters was doable for every class based on skills, not gear, then I would think it's a non issue. But having it based on gear almost entirely is what really bothers me.


The problem, I think, is that there aren't enough powerful monsters. There's way too many that just fold over when looked at, and that makes the ones that are tough really tough.

I agree with this too. The big problem with things like fele's msle's et al is that they slow the game down in a way that's not really intutitive. Everything else simply dies when you shoot it, it would make sense to do the same thing to these bosses, but they dont work the same way, which makes them more hazardous, simply because they catch people off guard and you have to be looking for something specific in a pack of monsters to catch it.

If all the monsters were a little more threatening I think it wouldn't be as necessary to have these randomly placed instant deaths.

The real trick is how do you make monsters more threatening without making them all instant kill you monsters.

[Arkansaw]

A lot of the instant death monsters pple are talking about here are actually unintended bugs that were deemed as not worthy of a complete fix

[MoUsE_WiZ]

A lot of the instant death monsters pple are talking about here are actually unintended bugs that were deemed as not worthy of a complete fix
Um... yeah.
The buggyness of the monsters has been brought up in multiple posts... including the first one.

[Arkansaw]

Well, that is not really reflective of the thread title, is it?

[MoUsE_WiZ]

Well, that is not really reflective of the thread title, is it?
How so?
Bugged monsters can cause 100-0 very quickly.
Most monsters that can cause 100-0 very quickly are bugged, so they are the ones being discussed in relation to D2.
The thread is about whether or not monsters causing 100-0 very quickly in D3 is a good thing, just preferably without the associated bugginess.

Did you read the thread, or did you just see the word "tomb viper" somewhere and decide to post?

[Arkansaw]

I see most of the discussion actually revolve around bugged monsters in some way, partly because you already set that tone with your first post? I don't see the point of discussing whether bugs should come back etc, since they were never intended features in the first place? Players actually able to find workarounds around those should not be taken as a given. Also, there are a whole lot of other things that can lead to instant deaths in D2, something as innocuous as stacked auras, are those good or bad?

The difficulty of dying depends very much on your play-style. Pple can play the same build with the same items but they don't die at the same rate, even if they play in the same areas. There are those who go to town after every amp.....and there are those who simply let their characters expire after beating hell baal and trying out new ones. The only 'problem' I see here, is that death is permanent on HC, so pple who die despite what they consider to be their best efforts, will have something to gripe about anyway.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

I see most of the discussion actually revolve around bugged monsters in some way, partly because you already set that tone with your first post?
Yes it is revolving around bugged monsters in "some way", and yes, that is because I set the tone for the discussion in my thread.

How does that make the topic in any way misleading?

I don't see the point of discussing whether bugs should come back etc, since they were never intended features in the first place?
There is very little discussion as to whether or not bugs should come back, just the danger associated with the bugs. I'm still unconvinced you've read the thread.

Also, there are a whole lot of other things that can lead to instant deaths in D2, something as innocuous as stacked auras, are those good or bad?
The discussion is more centered on bugged monsters than fluke boss packs because the bugged monsters are everywhere but the fluke boss packs are a rare occurence.

However you're right that we could be discussing whether or not Blizzard should take action to limit the 1-in-1000 triple boss pack all extra fast with fanat/might/conviction, one cursed, one extra strong, one manaburn. We see dangerous packs like that much less frequently than gloams or NM FE though, hence the discussion as to whether or not gloams ore NM FE have a positive or negative impact on game play.

[Arkansaw]

Okay, maybe I found your first post misleading about your title. I feel that talking about whether things associated with bugs should come back etc is pointless, simply because they are not intended in the first place. Monsters spawning way too close to entrances and waypoints, dolls and iron-maiden are much better examples (though I suspect the former may be considered a bug too). Personally, I have not been bothered by bugged monsters for a long time as they have become so 'well-documented'; everybody (who has played for some time and made a pt to find out) knows abt them, it's only how far you want to go just to avoid them. It is now really the bad spawns that you have not seen before and have no prior experience as to how bad they are.

If you want to talk about whether in normal gameplay situations, a character who is reasonably cautious can still be OHKO-ed from time to time by some monster, I would say while I don't like the idea of that happening, I don't often encounter such situations myself, particularly things like bugged monsters that are more or less predictable and no longer pose as a OHKO threat to me. What I can see though is that most of the OHKO threats are melee in nature (and perhaps that's only natural) and affect some classes more badly than others (and I don't feel they've been compensated enough). And I tend to believe that all of that OHKO-ness you find with some D2 monsters are purely unintended, simply because they can be so much more dangerous than boss monsters but so much less rewarding.

[IhatePindle]

Definitely add more fun... without them there would be no need for the different builds, or team play.
As long as they can be countered.

except for IM, that one is annoying.

[Shadowknife]

I hope instant killers are in the game by design, not by buggy-ness. As long as a person was given an option of avoiding certain death, power to em.

[Spero]

I think that Blizz should build the game similar to 1.09 DII. Yes you could get 1 hit in many areas if you were foolish or careless, but if you knew what you were doing it wouldn't happen... at least not too often!

I think the characters in the video got too close to the monster. If you know what you're doing you'll stay away! Of course it should be possible to get killed in 1 hit, what fun is the game otherwise! I think people forget what the game is like. Of course if you have optimum gear and a great character build it should be VERY unlikely that you would get 1 hit.. unless you do something stupid... :wink:

on edit: "Buggy" is not good, but I think instant deeds is good. I had at least one really well built character die to Duriel lag, and that stinks. I think bosses and the occasional monster should be able to 1 hit, but not everything you encounter in a certain area. Risky is fun but nearly impossible is too much of a grind.

[Gigashadow]

I don't have a problem with those as long as they are somehow killable, and they are.

[Jarath]

+1 everything 5zign said. Insta-deeds is a product of shoddy/buggy design and we're just lucky that we have other shoddy/buggy design elements that we can exploit in our favour to overcome these issues.

Difficult/challenging monsters - yes.

"woops you hesitated for a split second/didn't have specific item X or specific skill Y/LAG!" monsters - no.

[Starving_Poet]

The only one that really bothered me was the old FELE bug on Hell Ancients.

A maximum pdr iron barb with 10,000 life could still die to those in one hit. And short rerolling the ancients, he was practically impossible to kill.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

Insta-deeds is a product of shoddy/buggy design
That's just Blizzard's new line on the subject since it's mostly new people working in a mostly new direction.

If it was actually shoddy design (the buggy part is only half right) it wouldn't still have the userbase it does at this point in time. Attrition does not make for fast paced game play, nor does it add to the adrenalin factor of knowing you could die at any time if you slip up.

We'll have to see exactly how frequently the health globes come up though before I can have a real opinion on the topic. The S&E question is also fairly important.

[Rellika]

I'm all for certain monsters being able to one hit kill - it adds that x factor. Part of loving HC so much is dying - which only makes sense to true HC players.

[mithy]

If you need to know everything about every monster in order not to die, that would make you read all about them before you end up fighting them - or loosing your first few characters to them?

[Peli]

If you need to know everything about every monster in order not to die, that would make you read all about them before you end up fighting them - or loosing your first few characters to them?

Someone has to be the space monkey!

[MoUsE_WiZ]

If you need to know everything about every monster in order not to die, that would make you read all about them before you end up fighting them - or loosing your first few characters to them?

Pretty much. It's how I played Mythos&HG:L.

It makes being among the first high levels that much more satisfying =)

[Jack Carael]

Furthermore, requiring some gear to do parts of the game is really poor design, regardless of whether it's HC or SC. Why? Because again it is taking the control away from the player. You are no longer free to gear your character how you want, because now you're required to either use one of the two lit absorb items, or put sol in a bunch of sockets, or whatever the case may be.


But this is in every aspect of every game. I might prefer taking a Cracked Short Bow and Arctic Furs to Hell Council. If I die, is it because the game is poorly designed or just because I'm stupid? Exactly.
I know this is an extreme example, but you get my point.

Also, say there were no Tomb Vipers near Nila. You would still need Nature's Peace/Tyrael's Might, consistent freeze-kills, or a good Fishymancer to rush him safely.

Like I said before, gearing up for certain situations is part of the game, not poor designing.

[Damnatorius]

Also, say there were no Tomb Vipers near Nila. You would still need Nature's Peace/Tyrael's Might, consistent freeze-kills, or a good Fishymancer to rush him safely.

If you play single player, the chances of you having nature's peace/tyrael's might by the time you reach Nihlathak Hell are neglible though. Since there is single player, it should at least be reasonably doable to actually go there in single player.

There is nothing wrong with having to gear up for specific areas, but not if that means needing very specific items (especially as rare as Tyrael's Might... ) to do reasonably well.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

If you play single player, the chances of you having nature's peace/tyrael's might by the time you reach Nihlathak Hell are neglible though. Since there is single player, it should at least be reasonably doable to actually go there in single player.

There is nothing wrong with having to gear up for specific areas, but not if that means needing very specific items (especially as rare as Tyrael's Might... ) to do reasonably well.

So you're saying that you'd rather the tomb vipers remained in the game, while nihl's CE, which is a fundamental aspect of the nihl encounter, be taken out? Because PDR gear is fairly easy to come by compared to RIP.

Also you don't need RIP gear on nihl, it just serves to trivialize the run for some classes;
Sorcies; can kill 1 at a time and stay a ways away from the CE radius
Sins; virtually all have at least 1 point DS
Necros; have CE or summons to get rid of corpses
Pallies; redemption, depending on the build they can also kill nihl without touching any other monsters
Barbs; hork, and almost all of them can/do kill nihl without touching other monsters
Zons; Similar to sorcies
Druids; I don't play druids... I think their creepers can get rid of corpses, but I'm not sure if they do it fast enough, also hurricane is kind of a close range spell, so non-feral ones (who can go and just kill nihl) might be kind of sketchy to try nihl with.

[Gigashadow]

I never had an issue with Nihl. Just wait until he blows up everything around you and kill him, lol.

[Exarius]

the instakillers have never bothered me, but you seem to forget 1 thing when you say that no melee can do CS: barbs have something called berserker. and all melee can get it via passion word. I know it's itemdependant then with other melee, but it's a way to encounter IM. allthough I have to admit it sucks that no other melee class have something to encounter IM with a 1-pointwonder except barb :xxx: tried do hell with a 2h zealer, had to get a hammerdin to help me in CS because of the IM (died to it and couldn't get my cropse).

[stillman]

But, it's not safe to berserk your way through CS either. With the sheer number of bosses and so few random abilities, you're GOING to get one with mana burn. You're going to get hit and loose all you mana, then your next attack will be a normal attack. You might get IM just as you are clicking, so you'll loose your mana and then get IM and then do a normal attack (all so fast) and you'll die. This will eventually happen given the numbers of mobs. It may not happen often, but at high level you can't just get killed once in a while or you lose 20 hours of exp grinding. HC, even worse.

And it would be too annoying having to read every mod every time a boss comes around. Then, there's bosses just off the screen a bit so you can't read their mana burn mod.

So to do CS runs safely, your barb would have to switch to throwing, and I'm sure that's not what many players had in mind when they were building their melee barb.

[ICheatAtGolf]

I'll have to agree with Arkansaw and 5zigen on this. These "bugged" monsters indeed leave the player with lack of control especially if they haven't encountered that type of situation. And since these types of "instadeeds" were never intended in the first place, why would they continue onto D3? Its just a stupid idea, clearly they need to be removed.

[Master Zap]

I hope there is plenty of instant deed monsters and situations in d3.

IM , hope it stays, it requires one to plan for it and I think it makes a person a better d2 player. Fwiw , ive lost one character since I started hc to long ago. Made the mistake of dragon flightning my kicksin. I got cursed mid flight and it was all over.

Anytime your going after a high life fe monster in hell and nm especially, it requires you use some finesse or you will get popped. It's these things that keep you on your toes and the game interesting. I'd take it a step further and request a caster im too , meaning that your casted spells reflect the damage back to you like melee does with im.

I'm hoping that HC remains a challenging mode of play that takes skill and strategy to beat.

I dont think of the "fe bug" as a bug, it's existed for so long , it just "is" , With the multiple updates and patches that have been released I think this one falls under "working as intended".

If you think your going to take your whirl-till-your hurl 10K ww barb thru chaos and not die then I suggest you go back to sc mode to learn some work arounds.

Bezerking amply covers your im . You will "actually" have to keep an eye on your mana bulb, use howl/warcry and leap so your not getting swarmed.

[HanShotFirst]

Here’s one more vote for at least as many (if not more) instant deed monsters in DIII. My level 79 Necromancer (built for the Peasants Tournament) just died because I wasn’t careful enough around a group of Might enhanced Hell Temptresses, and I think it’s great. Something needs to separate the good players/characters from the bad ones . . .

[Silverkill]

As for me i don't want to see same instant deed monsters in D3, as they were in D2 (MSLE etc.). I think better idea is to make every monster have it's own pretty nasty abilities + new abilities with each type of difficulty.
For example:
In the gameplay trailer we saw Berserkers.
(Normal) The have pretty long time to make a swing, but if they hit they do great amount of damage
(Nightmare) They have a little shorter preparation to make a swing, but they do great amount of damage + chance to stun.
(Hell) They have more shorter preparation to make a swing, but they do great amount of damage + chance to stun + small splash area.

If they do a 70% of monsters with such kind of skills, spells... etc.. It will be really intresting do deal with it. And it will always keep you in shape. Cuz if you careless and didn't mention to leap off or teleport from hit, you get stunned, overcrowded and killed.

It's just imho

[Puckineh]

with enough experience and skill all of the insta-kill situations are avoidable with any character

but if they were never meant to be in the game or weren't meant to behave the way they do then i dont want to see them in diablo 3

i would rather they implement some of these challenges properly in a manner that isn't buggy. for instance make the vipers super dangerous but in a way were the damage isn't calculated the wrong way

[Knight_Wolf]

As for me i don't want to see same instant deed monsters in D3, as they were in D2 (MSLE etc.). I think better idea is to make every monster have it's own pretty nasty abilities + new abilities with each type of difficulty.
For example:
In the gameplay trailer we saw Berserkers.
(Normal) The have pretty long time to make a swing, but if they hit they do great amount of damage
(Nightmare) They have a little shorter preparation to make a swing, but they do great amount of damage + chance to stun.
(Hell) They have more shorter preparation to make a swing, but they do great amount of damage + chance to stun + small splash area.

If they do a 70% of monsters with such kind of skills, spells... etc.. It will be really intresting do deal with it. And it will always keep you in shape. Cuz if you careless and didn't mention to leap off or teleport from hit, you get stunned, overcrowded and killed.

It's just imho


That's indeed how it should be done ... many of the instant death threats in D2 were problematic because they leave little to no chance of reacting making the whole thing feel cheap .... but if it works like the berserkers (keeping you on your toes and moving so you don't get stunned and overwhelmed (you still have a chance to escape but it drops greatly) .. then that's just fine.

[Fruitvendor]

D2 was great. I've only played up to the 1.09 patch, not the 1.10. As far as my experience took me, I didn't think it was poorly designed, in fact I thought it was great !

I remember all those nights running Nilathak with my buddie CP with his barb, he ultilized "TAUNT" to isolate the mob and then "Find Potion" to get rid of the corpses so well that we've never had any problem with Nilathak.

Similar stories for the other "Instant Deed Monsters", we basically needed to play slow, read before you attack and do crowd control. I was surprised how few barbs uses Taunt as well as Howl to do some crowd control.

[5zigen]

I hope there is plenty of instant deed monsters and situations in d3.

IM , hope it stays, it requires one to plan for it and I think it makes a person a better d2 player. Fwiw , ive lost one character since I started hc to long ago. Made the mistake of dragon flightning my kicksin. I got cursed mid flight and it was all over.

Anytime your going after a high life fe monster in hell and nm especially, it requires you use some finesse or you will get popped. It's these things that keep you on your toes and the game interesting. I'd take it a step further and request a caster im too , meaning that your casted spells reflect the damage back to you like melee does with im.

I'm hoping that HC remains a challenging mode of play that takes skill and strategy to beat.

I dont think of the "fe bug" as a bug, it's existed for so long , it just "is" , With the multiple updates and patches that have been released I think this one falls under "working as intended".

If you think your going to take your whirl-till-your hurl 10K ww barb thru chaos and not die then I suggest you go back to sc mode to learn some work arounds.

Bezerking amply covers your im . You will "actually" have to keep an eye on your mana bulb, use howl/warcry and leap so your not getting swarmed.

The problem with the instadeeds you like is that they only focus on melee classes only, which is just another reason that 95% of all the characters you see in HC are ranged characters.

I would rather see a game that doesn't foreclose certain areas to characters based solely on the fact that you made the mistake to play a melee character.

constant difficulty and risk is much better than things you can't react to, or things that you can't plan for (which is the case generally when you are playing the game for the first time.)

When 1.10 came out I was the first person I knew who went to nihilthak because they nerfed his CE and I figured it would be fun to get the items named.

About my 3rd time killing him though pit vipers spawned and I was instagibbed on a very well built character, and I could not figure out what happened.

Yeah, you can deal with them now, but that's because people have reverse engineered the game so much that they were able to find out what the bug was regarding them. No game should REQUIRE that kind of planning, the kind that involves taking apart the game mechanics.

Planning to deal with different types of attacks sure. Planning to deal with things that are completely unintuitive that most people wouldn't be aware of the risk is just asking for frustration, not just from the hc community but from the SC community.

Additionally, damage reflection isn't bad per se, but when the game balance is such that players can only have around a thousand life, but need to deal several thousand damage per second to kill any enemies, it makes damage reflecting things beyond the realm of strategy and into the realm of "just don't play that type of character."

If damage reflection was more like 10% of the damage you do (instead of the 109% that is the case) then it gives players room to play the character they want, yet also punish those who are lazy / or not paying attention.

any instagibs they put in should be things that you can plan for and that are visible, not things that you don't have any time to react to and no reason to suspect in the first place.

[Knight_Wolf]

constant difficulty and risk is much better than things you can't react to, or things that you can't plan for (which is the case generally when you are playing the game for the first time.)



After seeing D3 gameplay till now i say they are going for that approach, constant danger that requires you changing your tactics and adapting (like the berserker's slow but powerful stun attack )... it is IMO way better that swift danger that falls out of nowhere on the player's head.

[5zigen]

After seeing D3 gameplay till now i say they are going for that approach, constant danger that requires you changing your tactics and adapting (like the berserker's slow but powerful stun attack )... it is IMO way better that swift danger that falls out of nowhere on the player's head.

I hope so too.

I guess my point coulda been more accurately summed up in "insta:deeds that you can see coming and plan for, good. Insta deeds that you can't plan for and punish one playstyle more than others (ex Melee) are bad."

[sneakytails]

I like the challenge of using items that I find along the way or gamble/craft in HC SP not avoiding stupid bugs.

I only have one true ranged character in HC, the rest are melee zons and a few assassins.

It took me over 7 years to finally make one high end rune word, in this type of personal SP economy melee is very tough.

All of my builds are defensive based damage reduction zons with high level passives and valk, and a defiance merc. Despite all of this there are certain mob packs that are untouchable, I have to go around them!

But its not due to the monsters abilities its due to a bug. Thats not a feature and its not fun.


I Agree with 5zigen.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

But its not due to the monsters abilities its due to a bug.
Or maybe it's due to you playing intentionally underpowered builds in a more difficult environment than most people play in...

[Runestar]

I am not even sure if instant-death monsters can be considered a form of strategy. To me, they were simply a means to an end - an attempt to fix a broken aspect of D2, which was that death was meaningless and rare (it had no penalties up to hell, and barring hardcore, it simply meant you wasted a few seconds retrieving your corpse). So how do you challenge a character who can instantly negate any amount of damage taken with the tap of a key? Have the foe deal damage to instantly kill him outright before he has a chance to quaff a healing potion?!?

Only problem I felt was that the cure was worse than the illness. I don't see what fun it can be to essentially be playing rocket tag. Basically, the side who goes first and lets off the 1st salvo wins. The other side loses without even getting to act. There is no strategy. Imagine playing PvP where the winner is the one who manages to left-click first. It is that crappy.

Nor do I feel it is challenging. It is just frustrating. It is not interesting. Just tedious. I don't see the skill aspect. I feel it is really all just luck.

With the introduction of potion cooldown, characters should be more fragile compared to D2. Since spamming full rejuv potions should no longer be viable, I really see no need for instant-kill monsters, nor do I wish to see their return in D3.

[HanShotFirst]

I am not even sure if instant-death monsters can be considered a form of strategy.

Huh? You're saying that there are monsters in D2 that no strategies can defeat? (Got an example?) :scratchhead: . . . perhaps I misunderstood you . . .

[MoUsE_WiZ]

Nor do I feel it is challenging. It is just frustrating. It is not interesting. Just tedious. I don't see the skill aspect. I feel it is really all just luck.
The Diablo franchise has never been about skill or strategy and never will be.
It always has been, and always will be, about time investment, knowledge, and luck.
The same is true of almost all RPGs. Go play Starcraft if you want skill and strategy.

That said, if you honestly think luck has something to do with avoiding being killed instantly in D2 you're pretty awful at the game. Or maybe I'm just really lucky for not having died in something like 4 years?

[KingOfKings]

The Diablo franchise has never been about skill or strategy and never will be.
It always has been, and always will be, about time investment, knowledge, and luck.
The same is true of almost all RPGs. Go play Starcraft if you want skill and strategy.

That said, if you honestly think luck has something to do with avoiding being killed instantly in D2 you're pretty awful at the game. Or maybe I'm just really lucky for not having died in something like 4 years?

what you said only applied for lod, and 100% true, there is no skill involved at all.

however, for classic hc, this is definately not the case.

[Knight_Wolf]

The Diablo franchise has never been about skill or strategy and never will be.
It always has been, and always will be, about time investment, knowledge, and luck.

That line of thought is generally outdated, we already have many RPGs that requires both skill, time investment and knowledge.

Also Diablo is more of an action game than it is a true RPG, so adding a skill element to it is important to make up for the lacking RPG elements that enrich other true RPGs.

Also D3 is already shaping up greatly and evidently the Devs want both normal fights and boss fights to involve more skill and tactics mixed up with the action so it doesn't end up being too shallow .. so saying it "will never be" is really a very far fetched statement.


The same is true of almost all RPGs. Go play Starcraft if you want skill and strategy.


Not true .. Mass Effect is an excellent RPG and requires both investment, knowledge and skill .. so are many other new RPGs out there.


That said, if you honestly think luck has something to do with avoiding being killed instantly in D2 you're pretty awful at the game.

Sorry, but regardless of your personal experience it is still very bad and extremely lazy monster design.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

Not true .. Mass Effect is an excellent RPG and requires both investment, knowledge and skill .. so are many other new RPGs out there.
Call me when Mass Effect players are making 7 figures annually to play their game. Then maybe I'll believe that it takes any significant amount of skill.

I'm going to giggle at your assertion that D3 will require any significant amount of skill too. Really they're reducing the amount of twitch required to play the game so far by putting potions on timers, removing TP, and making it so you don't have to fight for drops... and yes, they might make it so more tactics are required but that falls squarely under the knowledge category; any idiot can memorize a scripted boss encounter after enough attempts.

Sorry, but regardless of your personal experience it is still very bad and extremely lazy monster design.
Bad/lazy/whatever design? Perhaps. But then again it seems to be a design that has kept a rather huge chunk of people playing the game for 10 years now so sticks and stones...
Not to say I don't believe they could improve, but that's not really what I said the first time either: If you think LUCK has anything to do with not dying in D2, you are terrible at the game. Period. It's not that I've been extremely lucky either; most people I play with never die. If you do, you're doing it wrong and chalking it up to luck is silly.

[Knight_Wolf]

Call me when Mass Effect players are making 7 figures annually to play their game. Then maybe I'll believe that it takes any significant amount of skill.

There is no denying it requires skill and lots of it, i'm quite lost how you can't figure that, playing it from a Third Person view (being able to aim precisely, take cover, ..etc etc) and including squad tactics require lots of skill to use .. much more than an old RPG that you just simply spam some buttons on the keyboard to kill a monster in it depending on your maxed out skills .. or stand face to face with the monster for 10 mins exchanging blows like two kids having a fight in school (a.k.a "my gear beats your gear") .... the difference is so freaking obvious.



I'm going to giggle at your assertion that D3 will require any significant amount of skill too. Really they're reducing the amount of twitch required to play the game so far by putting potions on timers, removing TP, and making it so you don't have to fight for drops... and yes, they might make it so more tactics are required but that falls squarely under the knowledge category; any idiot can memorize a scripted boss encounter after enough attempts.

What !!! .. is that a joke !!? .. TP required skill to use !!! .... are you kidding me .. if anything removing it makes skilled players really stand out .. and limiting potions usage makes good players stand out (don't tell me you felt skilled by escaping danger whenever you feel like it using a TP, going back to town and buying 10 rejuv potions then spamming numbers on your keyboard while having 10 rejuv potions in your belt .. oh so much skill).

And i don't see how fighting for drops require any skill .. it was all about who has the best connection, who is closest to killed monster (ranged ones are screwed) and also those who use 3rd party hacks always got the upper hand .. it was unfair (aside from hacks .. someone who was just standing there watching could run in and snatch drops while those fighting are busy dealing with other tough monsters), very stupid and annoying if anything.

And above all completely destroys any chance of real Co-op play.

Apparently you got the "skill" part entirely wrong.

Surviving in D3 will require way more skills since there is no easy way out and spamming mindlessly will only get you killed, you have to plan your attacks within the few seconds between each mob and the next .. that requires both skill and knowledge .. knowledge alone won't do.

Actually skill in D3 is when you have your Barb surrounded by 10 berserkers in HC and they all ready their heavy attack and you only have 10% of HP, you leap around dodging their strikes and taking them out one by one using various strikes of cleave along with war cries to buff your defense, all while keeping an eye on the champion Fallen shamen shooting projectiles at you from a distance, and keeping track of the drops to snatch that precious rare Health globe (should be rare in HC) when it drops by making sure you can get to it when it does drop .. now that requires skill and keeps you on your toes all the times (specially in HC .. where if it is over it is over) .. not just open a portal go back to town load up 100 potions and come back spamming potions and killing everything by spamming your fav maxed out skill.

The difference between instant death monsters and a situation like that above is that you had the chance to react and fight back .. you actually got the chance to use your skills effectively .. there was actually a fight ... so when you die you know you died after you have done everything you could and maybe you need to train more on playing the game ... but dying by an instant death monster that hits you for 10,000 damage doesn't tell you anything (it can be pure bad luck, your bad skill, a bad connection, Mickey Mouse .. literally anything) which is extremely frustrating and too damn cheap.

All in all "skill" can be summed as a mix of reflexes, knowledge, efficiency in control and use of tactics .. it's all that together .. trying to say that skill is how quickly you twitch your fingers to open TPs and spam potions is a big joke really.

Bad/lazy/whatever design? Perhaps. But then again it seems to be a design that has kept a rather huge chunk of people playing the game for 10 years now so sticks and stones...
Not to say I don't believe they could improve, but that's not really what I said the first time either: If you think LUCK has anything to do with not dying in D2, you are terrible at the game. Period. It's not that I've been extremely lucky either; most people I play with never die. If you do, you're doing it wrong and chalking it up to luck is silly.

Just the notion that the monster design is the reason people kept playing the game is funny .. the game is popular becasue it is addictive and fun in general .. but many (including myself) were extremely frustrated by the lazy and bad monster designs .. it lowered our enjoyment of the game and always left a bad taste knowing it could have been much better.

And i don't care if you never died once in the game ... good for you ... but still has nothing to do with monster design being crappy and having tons of room for improvements .. vast improvements actually.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

All in all "skill" can be summed as a mix of reflexes, knowledge, efficiency in control and use of tactics .. it's all that together .. trying to say that skill is how quickly you twitch your fingers to open TPs and spam potions is a big joke really.
In general I'd agree, communication should be up on that list for most modern games too. In this context I'll never agree.

D2 is a game of time investment because once everybody has reached the point where there is nothing else about the game to learn (tactics in RPGs is just knowledge of the AI and your character's limits btw) the amount of time a player invests in it is what separates the 'good' from the 'bad'.

D3 will not be any different, I'll give you that it should take longer - for all the reasons you've mentioned - for the game to turn into a science, but eventually the game play will just be a very simple science and nothing but time investment will differentiate players.

This is why I say D3 takes no skill; not because it takes no skill in a literal sense (hell, even using a keyboard is technically a skill) but because something that clearly isn't a skill is what divides players into distinct 'ability' levels.

Contrast this with games that are traditionally considered skill based (eg FPS, RTS, chess, most sports) and maybe you'll see the difference.


Oh, and I wasn't claiming that anything in D2 takes any significant skill; I think I've been pretty clear that the franchise and skill do not mix. None of the things I mentioned are game breaking, they just happen to be a few of the places where there is more than just the number of MF runs you've done that will determine your success in the game once all knowledge is equal.



Just the notion that the monster design is the reason people kept playing the game is funny .. the game is popular becasue it is addictive and fun in general ..
Yeah, monster design has nothing at all to do with the popularity of a game about killing monsters...clearly it's not the only thing, but it seems pretty central from where I'm sitting.

And i don't care if you never died once in the game ... good for you ... but still has nothing to do with monster design being crappy and having tons of room for improvements .. vast improvements actually.
You're still just avoiding the point; I am contesting that LUCK has nothing to do with getting killed in one hit. If you've EVER chalked a death up to luck you are bad. You shouldn't be writing it off as bad luck, you should be learning what you can do to avoid getting into the situation that led to your unlucky death again.

Even with something beyond your control like a random disconnection I wouldn't agree that luck has much to do with it; the box I was using in S1 gave me constant fatal exception errors dropping me from games and I just learned to build&play safer to deal with it. But even if I did agree with the notion that a death to disconnect was nothing but bad luck I still wouldn't agree that this had anything to do with your statement that 1-hit kills in D2 involve luck... the thing is, a random disconnect is going to kill you regardless of if the monster kills in 1 hit or 10, it has nothing to do with 1 hit kills.

[Knight_Wolf]

D2 is a game of time investment because once everybody has reached the point where there is nothing else about the game to learn (tactics in RPGs is just knowledge of the AI and your character's limits btw) the amount of time a player invests in it is what separates the 'good' from the 'bad'.

D3 will not be any different, I'll give you that it should take longer - for all the reasons you've mentioned - for the game to turn into a science, but eventually the game play will just be a very simple science and nothing but time investment will differentiate players.

This is why I say D3 takes no skill; not because it takes no skill in a literal sense (hell, even using a keyboard is technically a skill) but because something that clearly isn't a skill is what divides players into distinct 'ability' levels.


I will slightly agree with you on that, but i will still point out two things.

1-Players with equal or close time investment will be differentiated by skill level (i.e control, understanding of the game, reflexes, tactics, ... etc etc) .. there is no denying that.

2-That's not true in all RPGs nowadays.



Contrast this with games that are traditionally considered skill based (eg FPS, RTS, chess, most sports) and maybe you'll see the difference.

Actually today there are many RPG hybrids that require skill as well as having many RPG elements in them .. FPS/RPG hybrids (i.e Deus Ex), TPS/RPG hybrids (i.e Mass Effect), RTS/RPG hybrids (i.e Warcraft 3) .... and if anything Diablo is a Hybrid between the RPG genre and Dungeon Crawlers (i.e Gauntlet) or even the side scrolling genre too (i.e Golden Axe) .. and those two genres require skill to play ... so i won't be surprised if D3 requires far more skill to play than any previous Diablo game .. specially when the Devs make that as a design goal .. the time investment will always be there but more skill will be added to the equation as well.



Yeah, monster design has nothing at all to do with the popularity of a game about killing monsters...clearly it's not the only thing, but it seems pretty central from where I'm sitting.

Diablo games were never praised for their monster design anywhere (when games get monster designs right they are praised for it .. i have seen several examples .. of which the best is "the Suffering" .. go read its reviews and play it for yourself to see how good monster design is done)

As for D2 popularity .. the monster killing is just mean to get to the items ... it is the game random addictive nature and random item drops that kept people coming back and playing over and over .. it isn't the monsters designs being good at all .. Diablo is an item game.


You're still just avoiding the point; I am contesting that LUCK has nothing to do with getting killed in one hit. If you've EVER chalked a death up to luck you are bad. You shouldn't be writing it off as bad luck, you should be learning what you can do to avoid getting into the situation that led to your unlucky death again.

I'm not avoiding anything .. i'm speaking away from the instant kill thing .. with it or without it the monster designs is still crappy and boring to a great degree (how they attack and their abilities not how they look) .. fighting them is interesting the first few times maybe .. but once you tried killing them with all your skills they get extremely boring very quickly .. only less than 10% of them are really interesting to fight (maybe something like the ancients or Nihilatak).


Even with something beyond your control like a random disconnection I wouldn't agree that luck has much to do with it; the box I was using in S1 gave me constant fatal exception errors dropping me from games and I just learned to build&play safer to deal with it. But even if I did agree with the notion that a death to disconnect was nothing but bad luck I still wouldn't agree that this had anything to do with your statement that 1-hit kills in D2 involve luck... the thing is, a random disconnect is going to kill you regardless of if the monster kills in 1 hit or 10, it has nothing to do with 1 hit kills.

I completely disagree .. from a gameplay point of view not giving the player time to react is extremely bad and cheap game design .. not only ext.bad but also very lazy .. instead of tiring yourself and actually thinking in an interesting smart way to challenge the player you just throw a cheap attack at him and that is that .. that's very pathetic, frustrating and boring .... and just becasue 10% or 20% of the player base can handle something like that doesn't mean it is any good.

I can make a system that drains your life all the time during one of the game acts and tell you "deal with it" ... maybe 10% or 15% of players will figure out how to deal with it and avoid dying too often but the rest will keep dying over and over and getting extremely frustrated at how cheap and badly designed the game is ... a crappy system is a crappy system even if some people can handle it .. that's in no way an excuse to keep it.

As for connections .. being disconnected is one thing .. but some people get something called "lag" all the time because of where they live and they can't do anything about it ... in a situation like i described in my previous post they will have time to react and keep their distance if a lag spike hits them .. but with 1 hit kill monsters they are screwed since if a lag spike hits them while one of those is close by it is bye bye character no matter what they do (in HC dying because of something like that is extremely stupid and irritating).

[MoUsE_WiZ]

1-Players with equal or close time investment will be differentiated by skill level (i.e control, understanding of the game, reflexes, tactics, ... etc etc) .. there is no denying that.
Sometimes sure. That's why I listed grabbing items as an example of where this sort of differentiation is being removed. Most of the time though I think where skill is almost equal, and time investment is equal, the randomness of the game starts to take over.

In a game like WoW I don't give dice rolls too much credence, in the long term most items except for a very small number of vanity ones are common enough that it should eventually even out.

In a game like D2, and likely D3, dice rolls become much more important. It's probably not possible to kill enough monsters to ensure you find the really godly drops, and even if it was, finding them sooner while they're rarer also provides huge advantage whereas in WoW it mostly just nets you bragging rights.

I disagree with most of what you say in point 2 too, but then we're arguing about genres that are pretty subjectively defined (eg I'd say WC3 is an RTS with some silly junk thrown in to annoy RTS players more than it is any sort of hybrid) so I won't bother. It's not really important anyways, what is important is the design of D3 in particular.

As for D2 popularity .. the monster killing is just mean to get to the items ... it is the game random addictive nature and random item drops that kept people coming back and playing over and over .. it isn't the monsters designs being good at all .. Diablo is an item game.
It's not just the items though, it's the way in which you get items.
Jay Wilson himself said in an earlier interview that Diablo players want to feel powerful and kill lots of monsters rather quickly. I know I'd rather kill 100 monsters in 10 minutes for a single item than 10 monsters in 10 minutes for the same item.

The thing is when monsters are designed to be slaughtered at a quick rate they also need to be able to do their damage quickly in order to get it in there. This is also why we get so many death explosions... it's an ability that you can give to a monster that will make you have to think about how/which monsters you're mowing down without really doing a lot to slow down the massacre.

Jay Wilson has focused so much on why potions make 1 hit kills necessary he's kind of ignored this... monsters don't only need to be able to out damage the healing, they need to do damage in general before they die. Even without the healing if the number of hits a player takes is very limited they won't die unless those hits count for somewhere close to the player's entire globe. From there the problem is if a ranged character is going to be able to mow down hordes of monsters, it's going to be from a range. And if the character is at a range forcing the character to take lots of small hits his rather challenging.

Of course there's room for improvement and more variation and other ways to achieve threat to ranged characters other than by hitting them for nearly their entire globe when they get hit, but introducing variations and improvements doesn't necessarily mean that the tried tested and true method of keeping gameplay fast has to be abolished.

I completely disagree .. from a gameplay point of view not giving the player time to react is extremely bad and cheap game design
Players have time to react though is the thing. That's how we manage to not die consistently.
Also if the designers had some clever unique interesting challenge that only 10-15% of the player base could handle then you'd still get the other ~85% of the population complaining about it being difficult and frustrating and just generally boring gameplay. Look at how many people in the world are fans of calculus if you want an example.

I will give you this though - I was going to say that if 80% of the people couldn't handle the 1 hit kills then that 80% of the people should go play SC instead, but I suppose that those people would still get killed in SC too and get frustrated with the design. When I stop to consider the SC player population I start to see where you're coming from, but this being the HC forum I don't really care too much about them ~_~

"lag"
Ah, well for lag I'd say that it isn't bad luck that a player got killed, I'd say it's bad luck that a player can't play a game that is designed for people with solid connections. This isn't "bad design" it's designing a game for a specific market... fast paced multiplayer games are inherently not really good for people with poor connections and D3 is hopefully (and probably from what I've read so far) going to be a fast paced multiplayer game.

And yes I'm aware that this kind of contradicts my inability to care about the SC player base which is much larger than our HC player base, but this being the HC forum I don't care about the existence of such contradictions and will continue to push for the most challenging game I can get ~_~

[AnimeCraze]

While I don't play HC much, here's my take.
1 hit kills? ok, maybe not the best thing to make in a game, but clearly telegraphed attacks which you know you will die from are ok. (though to be honest, even the dreaded bosses in DMC3's Dante Must Die mode takes ~3 hits, and they are absolutely sick)
1 hit kills because of bugs, that you need to look up why you die online, and/or reverse engineer the game? No, that's not how to make a game. It adds nothing to the fun factor, just frustrations. D2 has way too many of these. This among with lag is probably 2 of the main reasons I stayed away from HC.