Diablo 3 Melee Monster Range = Extensive
Posted 11 April 2012 by FluxSite regular MauriceBastard made a post in our forums, in which he pointed out that monsters in Diablo III have considerably more reach on their melee attacks than you might expect. If you run up near a slow enemy like a zombie or a skeleton, and then run away, you can be 10 or 15 (or more) yards away and still get hit by their slow swing.
MaBa made a video that showed it off repeatedly, so the effect was clear for even non-beta testrs. Less clear was the cause. Is this a bug, a sign of latency, or a feature? Feature, according to Bashiok.
Also think about just running past enemies to rush through an area and never being hit. Anyone looking to rush would love it! Which is why it’s not a good idea from a design perspective. 
It’s not something we’ll be changing.
I guess that answers that question, then. Do you guys approve? Not including this feature would mean that players with good connections would have a huge inherent advantage in play. It could be partially overcome by giving monsters a much faster swing, or by making them start to attack much sooner after contact, but that would look weird for slow enemies. Then again, getting hit by a zombie that’s half a screen away looks kind of weird too.
Click through to see this effect repeatedly demonstrated in a video.
10 or 15 yard melee range is moronic.
You not reading the explanation is rather more moronic.
Remember: one can’t criticize dumb design decisions if they’re done on purpose.
Minus the part where it’s not dumb?
I read it and its still moronic
it troubles me that so many people have so much trouble understanding such a simple concept. if you’re in melee range when a monster begins his attack animation, you will be hit. diablo 1 is the exact same way. whether it looks realistic or not is irrelevant because it’s a game. game mechanics exist so that the creators of the game can somewhat control how the game is played. they consider running out of melee range during every attack to be a form of griefing the system, and i pretty much agree with that
Although I respect the argument made here, I have to disagree. A better mechanic would not be to have melee ranges that are so wide (they should still be wide enough), but to have faster attack animations and have the hits register quicker. To me, it makes sense to have different monsters have different attack speeds that do different levels of damage. If you run into a slow hulking monster that does a ton of damage, why should you restrict a player from getting a few quick hits in before running away from an attack? isn’t that just skill and strategy? Conversely, it’s like saying that the only way to kill a slow, hulking monster that does a ton of damage is by using ranged attacks since any melee character would just get slaughtered trying to get close range.
I’m not sure what’s more sad. You never had the pleasure of experiencing a well made action rpg where monsters’ attack animation are not just for show but meaningful in the actual game play (for aiming and for dodging)… or that you’re actually buying that garbage explanation.
It SHOULD be easy to dodge a SLOW attacking enemy. If they want to make enemies harder to dodge, they should give them faster attack animations… gameplay and DEPTH opportunity are lost in this LAZY implementation.
such as ? … … … ?
yeah, i can’t think of any either
I’m curious as well. I’m sure there are many games with a smaller hit radius, but a chance to hit is often triggered by the attack event, or a frame of the attack animation.
The resource demand in having a chance to hit triggered depending on both the number of frames in the attack animation, as well as the proximity of the player, seems like too much to have running for every enemy. I guess you’d need something like
Fe:number of frames in specific attack animation
Fa:average number of frames per attack animation
C[1-x]: constant values for balance
D: distance to player
Opportunity to hit = ((Fa + C1) / Fe) * (C2 / D^C3)
if(Opportunity > C4){ hit() };
That’s a lot of superfluous math, compared to:
D: distance to player (yards)
if(D < 10){ hit() };
I don’t really care, on hardcore inferno you will need skill to dodge bosses. If 100% hit rate from half screen away kills your toon I bet you’ll just laugh it off like a sir.
those sounded rather like an excuse…not explanation.
If a monster’s reaction time (not its attack rate) is faster than its combat animations, that’s a dumb-looking mismatch between the display and the combat that should be easy to fix, it seems. If its reach is obviously longer than its limbs, that’s just dumb.
“easy to fix” and easy to balance are totally different things though.
Making a game that looks good is far simpler than making one that’s fun… it’s not an easy thing to figure out by any means, especially when you have both melee and ranged classes. Blizzard may have tried many possible alternatives, and found they were too unfair to certain classes.
I think the game already works the way it’s supposed to. I think the combat is exactly what it’s supposed to be. Isn’t it as simple as animation that looks goofy because it doesn’t reflect the actuality of combat? Aren’t the monsters just moving faster than they appear to be moving?
And isn’t that an easy fix?
You cant say that the Monsters Melee Range is 10-15 yards, you need to be like 1-2 yards away to make the monster start its attack, the monster stops attacking after you leave melee range. The dude in the video has to keep running next to the monster to make it swing again. If you get that close to a melee monster, then expect to get hit.
As far as I understand it, mobs you are out of melee range of won´t be able to attack you, when you vault or run by them, whereas if you run or vault within melee range, then a performed hit will be sent no matter how fast you run or vault by them. I really like this change, because this only means that skill comes into play.
Did some testing, and yes, if you move away from a monster as it begins its attack animation, you’re likely to get hit…
- But – If you hit it with a knockback attack or hard enough to force a recoil, the attack will never connect.
Likewise, if you get hit by a knockback, you won’t get hit by other monsters that have started their attack.
That’s so dumb. Honestly, just look at it. It makes no sense from any point of view to see an enemy swing, miss you, and still take damage from it. If it were a lag issue it would be one thing, but to be intentionally designed that way shows a lack of coherent design philosophy. If they don’t want people using tactics during combat, they should find a way to do so that doesn’t make it look like you’re playing over a dial-up connection.
So you’d be totally satisfied if they had a small particle of mud come from the zombie’s hand, so that you can say you took damage from the mud?
It’s not an issue of design philosophy at all. It’s an issue of art direction possibly. They could easily add minor graphics to give every enemy a ranged attack, but they wanted to have fun and include common monster archetypes.
It makes perfect sense from the point of view that only getting hit up close would create a tremendous class imbalance, and make it ridiculously easy to run through levels.
How about having a few monster types run faster than you?
I think it should be possible to run through a pack of zombies without getting hit.
moronic? it’s intended!
its intended to be moronic rather…-_-
i love how one of the games features is designed to remove skill as an option
This isn’t Mortal Combat. You can still kite perfectly fine, just don’t get in melee range. WoW doesn’t allow you to melee-dodge either, so what? That’s not where the devs want to focus “skill”. If that’s where YOU want to focus your skill, play Mortal Combat, simple enough.
Kombat
My bad, it’s been awhile
i only pointed it out because you did it twice lol
In Punch-Out you could hit select between rounds to restore Mac’s health.
so the ability to dodge attacks should only be used in mortal kombat type of games?
We’re talking about melee attacks here. You can still dodge many spell based/special attacks, as intended. Game balanced with a skill to dodge basic melee attacks is Mortal Kombat, not Diablo.
i still think in melee combat i would want to avoid being hit in the face if possible. to me the monk seems the type to jump in and out of combat, dodgeing all the enemy throws at him and striking when the opportunity presents itself.
anyway i understand how these games play, it also makes more sense now why they gave the barb and monk that 30% bonus, i just think 15 yards (or more) is a bit much. whats the point of escape spells if you can only escape everything after the first attack?
“WoW doesn’t allow you to melee-dodge either, so what?”
You don’t say. How about that.
the player is not in melee range
well, he kinda is, considering how they extended melee range to be so far
“Don’t get in melee range”? Have you ever played an ARPG?
why the hell do WOW features exist in D3 ??!!?!?!?? -_-
‘ just don’t get in melee range.’. Ohh, ok. I will call the Barb and the Monk and warn them to strike from a distance.
That’s a cheap excuse from a dev perspective. That’s why they increased dmg reduction for the barb and the monk by 30% or something like that because they couldn’t balance it in later difficulties and it was too late to go back to the drawing board. I agree with Apocalypse that they are taking SOME of the skill required to play and if I wanted to play WoW where position is almost never a factor i would but this is Diablo and I think that position of the character should be a major element.
Yea man, mmo balance = arpg balance. So close from it.
It’s very apparent in the Skeleton King fight. As a Demon Hunter vaulting away from his teleport->swipe you still get hit even if you’re half a screen away when the animation begins. It’s such bull****.
I’ll second that!
say THX to Naked 1lvl WD killers
Meh. Hitbox fatness/accuracy is a far bigger problem. You can still kite with this system, you just get less margin of error – i.e. it takes away a player skill option, but makes other player skill options far more important.
But I do think there should still be heavy melee attacks that are telegraphed so they can be manually dodged. Shouldn’t be hard to make either, just take a random telegraphable ranged attack code and assign it to a melee animation.
Fortunately, those do exist already. Dark Berzerkers (seen in the original gameplay video) have one, and likely other creatures as well.
Those are actually shown in some of the recent skill vids; the same hulking monsters taking huge swings and missing and then getting their clubs stuck in the ground. So it’s still in the game, in some form at least.
Then I am totally at peace with this change. Honestly, PoE beta really opened my eyes as to what the power of kiting truly is. I honestly never noticed how absurdly OP it was while playing other ARPGs until after I saw developers struggle with class balance changes as a direct result of “if you are a ranged player, you are invincible if you are not an idiot.”
Now, I do wish that instead of raging about this (it makes kiting harder and more important, in my book that means more skill required) the complaints would be directed to the actual player skill interfering problem of ridiculous hitboxes that kill attempts at precise aiming in packs.
i kinda agree, this actually means “don’t come so goddamn close” even when maneuvering around monsters;
one explanation of this is, I guess, the general speed advantage of player over monster, which is in my opinion an arguable feature unfortunately necessitated by the goal of making a game feel hectic and the player bad ass. i happen to play D1 and D1 right now after several years of absence, and I am just astound how hectic D2 is due to the character’s movement speed, u can basically run away from everything easily, whereas in D1, well.. you couldn’t run, which instantly gives combat more complexity and especially advanced planning and tactics development is a must…
ugh….. This is the first thing I’ve seen that actually gave me serious doubts about how much I’ll like it.
It looks like it’s going to always feel like you are lagging out on an mmo–that is not a good feeling at all. Melee is ruined if position doesn’t matter. Ranged is pretty spoiled too if staying at range doesn’t actually help you.
you have to be in melee range in the first place
Right, but a stock tactic for quick ranged vs slow melee is dance in, draw the slow attack, back of and counter safely.
If they don’t want that to work…fine. (well not ‘fine’ with me, but it’s their game) But the way to do that is make the attacks really fast. Or make the attack a crazy tentacle that reaches out an hits you, or give them ranged attacks—I mean VISIBLY ranged attacks.
A big part of why I dislike this clumsy solution is that it just looks like the game is glitching out. Aside from the buggy appearance, there is the fact that when you have lots of stuff on the screen (which it appears is going to be often) then it’s going to be hard to tell what’s going on–hard to notice that you are being damaged by things that don’t look like they are near you.
I’ll admit it’s not a huge thing–it’s just something that makes the game feel off. Well I’m guessing on D3 since I still haven’t got beta, but that’s sure what it did in WoW. But D3 faces a LOT more competition for gaming time than D2 did, so there’s less room for any ‘off notes’ than there used to be.
Under most circumstances i would agree with you that if it looks like it missed you, damage shouldn’t be counted. But from playing the beta it doesn’t feel odd or wrong to get hit, you know your going to get hit and you compensate and it feels good. It feels fair, and the reason behind it seems sound enough: They don’t want you to expect or even attempt to not ever get hit. I hope the game doesn’t feel TOO off for you, but i just wanted to say that for someone like me that agrees with you in theory that i’ve played the game a bit and in my opinion you need’nt be too worried.
if you don’t like not being able to kite, grow a pair and kill the damn monster like your supposed to
Possibly the dumbest response you could possibly have.
So they buffed barbs and monks with a 20% damage reduction to all damage because they’re in melee range. And according to you, a wizard and demon hunter should just stand in the front like an idiot and get slammed with full damage while plinking away with an arrow or a spell. Genius.
This isn’t about being able to kite and I still fail to believe that this is intentional. I don’t think that at all.
It looks, feels, and plays like lag, because it probably is. I honestly do not believe Bashiok on this one. It doesn’t make sense.
30%
Yeah, I think it’s a bit dumb too. With this, we can as well have that all the monsters visible on the screen can hit you this way whenever they please. Doesn’t make a difference really.
Wrong. You have to be in melee range when they begin their attack. Don’t want to get hit? Don’t be in melee range at any time. Pretty simple, really.
yeah, say that after dying in hard core
The second most ridiculous argument you could have for this.
I would like you to play even the beta and not get in melee range when you’re in a tight corridor surrounded by skeletal summoners who summon them right at your feet and you’re completely surrounded. Or a pack of teleporting unburied. Or any of the summoning pillars, like in the royal crypt. Or the, y’know, skeleton king.
“Don’t get in melee range derp!” doesn’t cut it. Go play the maggot lair or arcane sanc and tell me how that works out for you.
That is exactly what I meant. With the tight places, you can have the whole screen be the melee range
Wow, nobody else noticed this already and was frustrated by it? It’s incredible that Blizzard doesn’t talk about this stuff until its clamored about on the forums. I had practically made up my mind that the game wasn’t a buy. No offline mode and yet with a decent connection I thought the reason for getting hit by mobs all the time was because of lag (I’ve had GMs amazed at how different I’ve played due to lag, it can make the difference in if you enjoy the game at all).
Are they so obtuse that they don’t realize that very real people are making purchasing decisions on this game based on beta and a lot of it because 1) Blizzard isn’t listening to player feedback, 2) they keep making changes to the game that go unexplained (like the above for example of the issue with targeting)?
Wow – nobody else noticed this already because it isn’t actually frustrating. If this was actually a problem, don’t you think one of the beta testers pouring hours into the game would have pointed it out already?
I find it amazing that the majority of people writing comments on this site seem completely unable to actually read the original post and think about what it means for a second before raging. This feature just makes sense for the reasons Bash explained above. If you’re a ranged class, it is not a problem because monsters won’t start to melee you unless you get close enough to them – much closer than the radius you can still be hit in if you try to run once they start attacking. This means that you can still kite. If you’re a melee class, are you really going to be running in and out when your whole class is designed to take a beating close up and deal out tonnes of melee damage? No…
Sorry this is such a ranty post, it just makes me sad that people don’t think
I noticed it when i got beta access a couple months ago. It actually is very annoying, but since the beta is still difficult to die on and you don’t really “feel” the severity of getting hit by some really slow but powerful melee attack that you clearly dodged but still connects 10 yards out of its visible range it really doesn’t matter. Perhaps this was part of the reasoning behind damage reduction in monk and barb.
I think the design for this and hitboxes/targetting are pretty awful and annoying, BUT I don’t think any are going to be game-breaking or really ruin the experience alltogether. It’s design features like this that just make me shake my head and worry about what inferno is going to be like for any hardcore player.
it was pointed out a long time ago
and it really makes me sad that people think that just because they haven’t read it, it means it hasn’t been reported
We all assumed it was lag. I’ve even had discussions in pubs about this.
I reported on this the first time I played Beta and was fairly miffed about it. I think it was mainly put in so that people with slower connections could still be competitive in PvP. Luckily Torchlight 2 allows you to dodge as normal. It feels much more responsive overall than D3.
That being said, I can get over this, will buy D3 and will enjoy playing it.
I’d rather not spell it out but you missed my point.
Do I think the implementation and idea behind it is okay? Hells yeah. It makes sense that they would not like players to avoid damage. Do I think they could do it more neatly. Definitely so.
But that’s besides my point. Are you in the beta? Vesus the SK, when he teleports, you can literally have your char running across the room and still get hit! I was okay with it but I chalked it up to lag and poor netcode. What do you know, its a ****ing feature of the game. How can anyone else new to the game and unawares of this not think its lag or poor coding? If you looked at the game with a critical eye, after 6-7 years of development this is what they’ve produced?
Buts its actually intentional but look how close to the launch someone’s finally revealed that. That’s what’s irking me.