View Full Version : How do you feel about monster immunities?
Neltharion
30-06-2009, 21:09
Greetings,
how do you feel about monsters being completely immune to one type of damage?
Before the revamped Hell difficulty with Immunities in D2 I loved being a complete Cold Sorceress or Lightning Javazon. After 1.10 I really lost interest in the game because beating Hell, even on Single Player, was an exercise in frustration. Sure, there were synergies and with them more powerful skills but at the expense of those doing nothing against about 20% of normal and 40%+ of Unique monsters.
I recently started D2 again to get me in the mood for D3. Started up a Sorc, maxed Hydra, Frozen Orb and Thunderstorm along with having a Act2 Merc to have a fourth damage type. Guess what? Along come Frost/Fire Immune Uniques with Lightning Enchantment or Stone Skin. Can't do a thing about them. Even my Defiance Merc dies in 3-4 seconds. He didn't have bad equipement, no High Level Runewords, just some basic stuff.
Another example, the Cold Immune Flesh Hunters in the Ruined Temple under Kurast, who guard the Black Book. Went down into the temple, approached the main room with caution and then they came. Cold/Fire Immune boss, Extra Fast, Extra Strong. They chased me to the entrance and shred me and my merc into pieces with no chance of getting my corpse again. Frustrated me so much that I deleted the Sorc and uninstalled the game, as I really wasn't looking forward to Hell Ancients with one being Frost/Fire Immunie, the other Fire/Lightning and the third Frost/Physical with Lightning, ugh.
I hope D3 doesn't have those kinds of "fun killers" in it. I suppose Blizzard introduced the Immunities in D2 to cooperate group play on Hell Mode and to reduce the effect of synergies, but in turn made it next to impossible to complete the game for players who start up from scratch in single player or don't have access to ridiculous runewords.
I'd like to play a Wizard totally focussed on Arcane Spells in D3 and want him to be viable through every difficuly of the game, the same should be the case for every playstyle of other classes. Sure, there can be monsters resistant to Arcane Magic, that's no problem, but just not outright immune to it.
Starving_Poet
30-06-2009, 21:17
Bashiok, I believe, have stated that blanket immunities will no longer exist in D3. They have other ways of making the game more challenging.
It doesn't matter what they do. I will kill them nonetheless.
Kiroptus
30-06-2009, 22:17
Immunes are out of Diablo 3.
I agree, no monster should be completely immune to a certain element. Like fire golems who are immune to fire, it doesn't make sense. If I was to hit you with a big slab of meat, you would get hurt wouldn't you? Same should go for fire, or anything monsters tend to have that block out whole spell trees.
Nothing should ever block spells completely, rather it should reduce the damage potential by a lot. At least that way there is hope.
Imunities are so stupid. even if they were on only unique NPS it would make it incredibly hard. When you are a cold sorc and a unique monster is imune to you, it almost impossible to beat. If i run into cold/lightning imune thing all i can do is have my merc swing and that can take a long time when they have stone skin.
JonoLith
30-06-2009, 23:36
Ugh... Monster Immunities = Lazy Design. (Well, at least the way D2 Went about it.)
I think people can handle LIMITED immunity. Like... a monster goes immune to a certain type of damage if X happens, or if the enemy gets more powerful if encountering Y type of damage. But this whole idea of just saying "Nope, this type of monster can walk through a meteor shower and be totally fine" is sort of retarded.
D2 system sucks.. immunities on all monsters is not fun. Some special monsters should have logical immunities where you then have to use some other abilities to destroy the enemy.
Most other monsters should be dealt with resistances. (very high ones like Venom lords in act4 d2 are really hard to kill with Fire in earlier no immune patches.)
I agree with very limited, special-case, logical immunities, and not where the basic zombie is immune from all cold damage and can walk around in near absolute zero space to give you an idea.
PandadudeSP
01-07-2009, 10:53
Well IMO I think its sad that there will be NO immunities! Immunities force you to use different means of attack and adds a tactical element to both playing and skill planning. If you could just spam fireball for 2 hours and *poof* you've made a patriarch, where would the challenge in that be? Ofc in d3 they can come up with other ways to make you vary your skill use, but I don't think immunities are such a bad idea, especially if they limit it to one immunity per creature.
Immunities in D2 didn't cause any type of special problem, except perhaps the first time you enter Hell and didn't expect it. Any D2 char could prepare for it.
Immunities are a way around the 'one skill fits all'-problem (AKA Hammerdin), although there might be better solutions.
Knight_Wolf
01-07-2009, 12:23
It's indeed weak and bad design for a game like Diablo (it works fine for other games like JRPGs), glad they decided to remove 100% immunities ... but they could still use them in a more interesting way.
Like monsters using certain skills or buffs that only activate for a limited time (with cool down and all) that gives them immunity against certain elements for a short time or even to direct physical attacks .... or even make them absorb certain elements and heal from them ... this way skilled players who pay attention and know what they are doing will know when to use elemental attacks against those monsters and when not to ... And since those full immunity effects are very limited and timed it will be challenging without being frustrating (which IMO D2 failed over and over to achieve).
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Immunities are a way around the 'one skill fits all'-problem (AKA Hammerdin), although there might be better solutions.
I don't think it solved pretty much anything regarding "one-skill fits all" because they still infested the D2 servers ... it was part of D2 bad design problems and the dilemma of trying to solve bad design by making more bad design choices (like Engima) ... and like you said .. there are better smarter ways to solve those problems (both immunities and one-skill-fit-all builds).
Like monsters using certain skills or buffs that only activate for a limited time (with cool down and all) that gives them immunity against certain elements for a short time or even to direct physical attacks .... or even make them absorb certain elements and heal from them ... this way skilled players who pay attention and know what they are doing will know when to use elemental attacks against those monsters and when not to ... And since those full immunity effects are very limited and timed it will be challenging without being frustrating (which IMO D2 failed over and over to achieve).
I'm afraid in that way a single element player would just wait the time it takes for the immunity to wear of and then kill the monster. Which is perhaps a little less frustrating, but frustrating anyway.
I don't think it solved pretty much anything regarding "one-skill fits all" because they still infested the D2 servers ...
The problem with D2 BNet is that most people are simply skipping the game completely. Immunities could have encouraged party play or hybridizing, but not when you just can get to level 90 while not doing much more than idling. If you already "finished" the game, you can then specialize in any way you want without worrying about normal questing requirements.
Knight_Wolf
01-07-2009, 12:48
I'm afraid in that way a single element player would just wait the time it takes for the immunity to wear of and then kill the monster. Which is perhaps a little less frustrating, but frustrating anyway.
That's assuming you will be attacked by one monster at a time .. which isn't the case .... you will be attacked by several monsters of the same kind and also mosnters of other kinds .. the catch that at any given time few of those monster might activate their buff (or have someone activate it for them like Fallen shaman revive imps) but not all of them will activate it at the same time.
So a skilled player will be able to tell the difference and target those without the immunity buff .. or even better ... take out the caster that's casting it over them ... there is nothing frustrating about this .. it requires skill and tactics and is a fine challenge.
The problem with D2 BNet is that most people are simply skipping the game completely. Immunities could have encouraged party play or hybridizing, but not when you just can get to level 90 while not doing much more than idling. If you already finished the game, you can then specialize in any way you want without worrying about normal questing requirements.
I can agree with you .. but discussing it won't change much since D2 had a package of convoluted intertwined overlayed bad design problems.
Like fire golems who are immune to fire, it doesn't make sense.
How does that not make sense? If you are made out of fire, any fire that touches you would just make you stronger, and certainly not damage you.
Monster immunities are one of the things I like the most about D2. It makes you actually have to think a little about the skill-distribution for characters you are making rather than just maxing everything that synergizes the one skill you want to use.
That's assuming you will be attacked by one monster at a time .. which isn't the case .... you will be attacked by several monsters of the same kind and also mosnters of other kinds .. the catch that at any given time few of those monster might activate their buff (or have someone activate it for them like Fallen shaman revive imps) but not all of them will activate it at the same time.
So a skilled player will be able to tell the difference and target those without the immunity buff .. or even better ... take out the caster that's casting it over them ... there is nothing frustrating about this .. it requires skill and tactics and is a fine challenge.
That requires a system that makes such fine targeting possible and skills that require it. If targeting is anything like in D2 it *will* be frustrating and AoE skills (I can't imagine D3 without them) go around the issue altogether.
Knight_Wolf
01-07-2009, 13:39
That requires a system that makes such fine targeting possible and skills that require it. If targeting is anything like in D2 it *will* be frustrating and AoE skills (I can't imagine D3 without them) go around the issue altogether.
I really won't dare call it fine targeting .. this ain't an FPS ... i never had trouble aiming at Fallen shamen and taking them out effectively .. besides .. even the single target abilities in D3 seem to be far more explosive and destructive than in D2 .. just need to aim in the general direction of the monster and be close enough .. and that's were the challenge is specially if the monster is surrounded by many minions ... but again i see to trace of frustration at all.
How does that not make sense? If you are made out of fire, any fire that touches you would just make you stronger, and certainly not damage you.
I agree .. it does make sense indeed and in many RPGs that's the case .. but ... not all RPGs has to follow the same rules ... also some say "fight fire with fire" :crazyeyes:
A monster of fire or ice can be defeated if attacked by a stronger fire or ice that itself .. imagine an ice beast struck by a gigantic ice glacial ... it could certainly kill it.
Monster immunities are one of the things I like the most about D2. It makes you actually have to think a little about the skill-distribution for characters you are making rather than just maxing everything that synergizes the one skill you want to use.
It is ok as long as they aren't 100% immunities .... and are smartly designed.
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It always frustrated me so much when a game gives you a ton of abilities and skills to play with and when the time comes for the important fight (usually a boss fight) you couldn't simply use any of them for artificial reasons and forced restrictions ... that's just awful game design (which litters D2) cause it makes the player feel they wasted their time investing in skills that they never got to use when it really mattered ... the D2 case is quite similar.
I really won't dare call it fine targeting .. this ain't an FPS ... i never had trouble aiming at Fallen shamen and taking them out effectively ..
It's not an FPS is exactly my point, thank you. You must have never tried a melee build. There is no fun when your way is constantly blocked by fallens and with right-click you'll target anything but the thing you want anyway. Obviously when you use Blizzard or Lightning Sentry you won't have trouble targeting Shamans, but that
besides .. even the single target abilities in D3 seem to be far more explosive and destructive than in D2 .. just need to aim in the general direction of the monster and be close enough .. and that's were the challenge is specially if the monster is surrounded by many minions ... but again i see to trace of frustration at all.
just brings us to the other point I made where it won't require any player skill anyway so we could just do away with the whole thing.
Well IMO I think its sad that there will be NO immunities! Immunities force you to use different means of attack and adds a tactical element to both playing and skill planning. If you could just spam fireball for 2 hours and *poof* you've made a patriarch, where would the challenge in that be? Ofc in d3 they can come up with other ways to make you vary your skill use, but I don't think immunities are such a bad idea, especially if they limit it to one immunity per creature.
Yeah its so hard to spam fireball while blizzard is on cast-delay.. wow!
Diablo 3 will be many times more complicated to play than D2 even without immunities. Monsters have more complex abilities which you need to avoid or find another way to deal damage to them (like the blocking skeletons in the gameplay movie).
We will have other kind of obstacles where we need to use other skills than just plain boring immunity.
Monster immunities are one of the things I like the most about D2. It makes you actually have to think a little about the skill-distribution for characters you are making rather than just maxing everything that synergizes the one skill you want to use.
Or if you play LOD you can just maximize blizzard and let your overpowered merc deal with immunes and skip the rest. Or if you decide to max lightning you can get one of those overpowered runewords to break the immunes .. whoppii.
If you play classic you rarely bother to dual element because then you have 2 really weak skills instead of 1 average/good.
Am I the only one who read the "greetings" in Tyrael's voice? ><
And, some immunities did make sense. An ice monster immune to cold. Yeah, I can believe that one.
Skeletons immune to poison, plausible :P
etc.
Random immunes for the heck of filling the game to the brink with immunes of some kind? Not so good.
SlechtWeerBeer
01-07-2009, 15:05
A monster of fire or ice can be defeated if attacked by a stronger fire or ice that itself .. imagine an ice beast struck by a gigantic ice glacial ... it could certainly kill it.
Probably by the physical force of such a massive brick of ice being tossed around ;)
Shouldn't monsters of pure fire melt ice, giving them resistance rather than weakness to it?
Other than that; Immunities were quite bad. Sure, some made sense, but it just felt stupid to see a ten-foot-diameter fireball explode in a 10 yard radius... not doing anything.
Wolfgang Abenteuer
01-07-2009, 17:26
As someone who enjoys playing untwinked, and often even solo, immunities were just annoying. Luckily PI monsters were the second-rarest of the immunes and I prefer playing melee over ranged/caster chars, but when I did decide to play sorcie it was just annoying having to decide whether to make one kickarse spell or a pair of mediocre ones. The fire spells were a lot of fun to play with, especially inferno and fireball, but given the sheer amount of fire immunes in hell, a pure fire build wasn't exactly viable. Doing 3k per fireball was great, but not so much when it only worked on half the monsters. :ponder:
Glad to hear D3 decided not to go with a bunch of full immunes.
I never understood why they decided to make immune monsters instead of just making them like 75%+ resistant to a certain skill.
They'd be slow to kill, but would'nt make some skills worthless.
Funkopotamus
01-07-2009, 19:20
I agree, no monster should be completely immune to a certain element. Like fire golems who are immune to fire, it doesn't make sense. If I was to hit you with a big slab of meat, you would get hurt wouldn't you? Same should go for fire, or anything monsters tend to have that block out whole spell trees.
Nothing should ever block spells completely, rather it should reduce the damage potential by a lot. At least that way there is hope.
You get hurt by the slab of meat because you're not immune to physical damage... But I agree with the final statement.
A fire golem should be highly resistant to fire and heat, but if the Human Torch came along he could probably overpower it because he has higher control over fire.
A monster made of ice would probably be high resistant to cold but you could probably smash it to pieces with an ice club or something.
Etc.
GuardianHadriel
01-07-2009, 21:58
it ONE solution to making the game harder in Hell difficulty...i mean itīs called Hell...wimps!
Nimbostratus
01-07-2009, 22:26
Immunities as they were in D2 were a frustratingly artificial means of adding difficulty. Yes, they made people use multiple spells instead of just one, but:
Varying elements is not the same as varying gameplay. Forcing a sorceress to use fire ball instead of glacial spike accomplishes absolutely nothing in terms of varying the action. Neither does making your zealot switch to a weapon with elemental damage.
When you make a dual-element build, expect to find bosses immune to the exact two elements you decided to use. Congratulations, you've nerfed your main attack to pick up a second element, and you're still completely screwed.
It forced players to have certain skills. Even maxed-out defensive concentrate barbs wound up having to use berserk, simply because they have no other way to damage physical immunes.
And then of course is the whole "Why are fallen immune to freaking meteors?!" problem. I can understand skeletons immune to poison and things like that, but come on, a vast majority of the immunities were blatantly tacked on.
EDIT: Also add in the fact that in normal and nightmare, most monsters have zero resistance to what they become immune to in Hell. So unless you have prior knowledge, you could very well end up with only one attack type in Hell. Thanks for the brick wall, Blizzard!
red_beard_neo
01-07-2009, 23:07
I think the two bigger problems are such:
(1) 1.10+ have been end-game patches, focusing on giving a challenge to those wearing the best possible gear with no thought to how they'd get there. Even if they held off the everything-is-immune-to-something concept until Hell Act 4, it'd give people some chance to hit up Andy, the Countess and Meph for runes and gear to deal with such a thing.
(2) Synergies have had the unintended consequence of reducing build variety by requiring a 40-60+ point investment in a skill instead of 20. The idea may have been to encourage your orb-it-aller sorc to find a use for Firebolt, but instead it prevents her from using Lightning on dual immunes.
Funkopotamus
01-07-2009, 23:48
"Why are fallen immune to freaking meteors?!"
Because meteor had no physical component?
commonhumans
02-07-2009, 06:22
Like fire golems who are immune to fire, it doesn't make sense. If I was to hit you with a big slab of meat, you would get hurt wouldn't you?
Holy crap I laughed until I got a headache when I read that. Thank you.
I agree, keep immunities away from D3. I would be oay with monsters having very high resistances toward a field of magic but completely immune would just suck, especially for SP mode.
mjkittredge
02-07-2009, 09:35
I choose hammerdin as first character on new ladders specifically because of this - I want a hell viable character who can kill anything. Well, except magic absorbing ubers.
I think it should be like characters - max resist of 75. Maybe 95, in rare cases. It's just a whole balancing issue. D2 devs are trying to gild the lily with a skeleton crew and not mess up a winning formula (not immunities, I mean the game overall).
Sorcs were #1 before the immunities/synergies patch. Teleport without enigma, low need for performance gear, allowing tons of mf gear. They were the ideal character. Now they're good for running Meph in NM.
mjkittredge
02-07-2009, 09:38
Because meteor had no physical component?
I think Blizzard had discussions about this, because look at the skills they gave the Druid in the expansion - Moulten Boulder - fire + physical, Volcano - fire + physical.
Sorcs were #1 before the immunities/synergies patch. Teleport without enigma, low need for performance gear, allowing tons of mf gear. They were the ideal character. Now they're good for running Meph in NM.
Sorcs are still the best characters for untwinked (Ladder). It didn't change anything in that regard.
Kiroptus
02-07-2009, 10:07
Sorcs are still the best characters for untwinked (Ladder). It didn't change anything in that regard.
Because of teleport, not because how they can deal with immunes :P
Teleport is the skill everyone wants.
Oh I'm glad that complete immunities have been removed from D3!
Anyway, I think that some reasonable 75% resistances should be still present on few monsters: elementals --> element, spirits --> physical, skeletons --> poison (as Sass noticed).
For me switching weapon is still quite fun and varies a bit the gameplay, so I hope Blizzy will allow it in D3.
Now I just hope they'll change idea on that no-LAN decision..
dpastern
12-07-2009, 15:05
Agreed. I'm just doing Diablo 2 LOD again and I'm finding the same thing - my character dies in one hit (550 hit points or thereabouts). As an example, one single arrow from a boss skeletal archer in hell diff kills my character. One hit.
Earlier tonight, I did the pit in Act 1. Going from lvl 1 to lvl 2 and bang...I got hammered, died 5 times, lost a lot of gold and XP. Why? I got charged by cold immunity monsters (can't remember their names, females, move really fast). One of them sat on the actual stairs on the level - meaning that once I went down from lvl 1 to lvl 2, I could not go back up. Since they were ultra fast, and champions to boot, and my merc was dying in like 2 seconds (AC 2000+, hit points 1500, pretty good on resistances on hell diff, min. 37%), that left me with no way of going back up a level to grab a break. Worse, the shamans were uniques and were re-spawning anything I managed to kill - so I couldn't move forward, I couldn't move backwards, and didn't get a chance/have time to throw up a TP. Worse, said champion refused to move off the stairs, so this was repeated 3 times until I said screw this and teleported into the middle of the room, drawing all but the sucker on the stairs. Once I did this, I was able to firewall her and have my merc hammer her and I was OK.
But seriously, how retarded is this? This cost me 20 minutes, lots of frustration and anger, lots of gold, lots of XP. It wasn't fun. A game *should* be fun. Yes, a challenged, but also fun. When the game's challenge rating becomes difficult that it becomes *really* frustrating, then something is seriously wrong with the game.
For a long while I have said that the ordinary boss monsters in D2 were *far too powerful*. I stand by these comments. I can live with Andariel, Duriel, Mephisto, Diablo and Baal being powerful. That's cool. But these other boss monsters...
Now playing hell diff (been a long while since I played Diablo 2), it's annoying. It's not fun. It's the only way to get XP at higher levels, and that really sucks imho. Not even Nightmare Baal runs give me any XP anymore. That brings me to XP - ridiculously huge XP amounts between higher levels is simply annoying imho. It doesn't make the game a challenge, it makes it highly annoying. Most of the original Diablo players that I knew disliked Diablo 2 for this very reason, as well as the overly large areas. Big is good, seriously huge is just well...annoying. Finding items? Tell me why I can't buy orbs etc? It's just silly that vendors don't offer them because I'm playing a sorceror character.
Sorry to have wandered off topic, but I needed to vent. I'm playing single player, 1.12. Oh, and Blizzard has just patched the game to make it a *****. Sorry guys, but what Blizzard has done with latter patches just makes the game more and more unplayable imho, and less enjoyable. Blizzard - if you're going to force players to play hell diff because they can't get any XP on lower difficulty levels, then give them good enough chances of getting good enough equipment to do hell difficulty! Maybe I'm just unlucky, but I've found 2 decent items, the rest are average, and it makes it really difficult to play hell diff imho. I remember earlier patches (1.09b) and it wasn't this difficult and finding items was easier imho. I'm pretty sure that you used to be able to have Charsi imbue socketed and magical items with earlier patched versions of the game, not anymore.
I guess I was pretty stupid to not investigate what the latter patches did and probably should have stuck an older patch on...but - since I'm running Vista x64, I probably needed the latest patch to make it work on the system (it wouldn't launch unpatched, not even in compatibility mode).
Anyways, frustrations vented, it's good to see some others are seeing/feeling the same things...
Dave
Greetings,
how do you feel about monsters being completely immune to one type of damage?
Before the revamped Hell difficulty with Immunities in D2 I loved being a complete Cold Sorceress or Lightning Javazon. After 1.10 I really lost interest in the game because beating Hell, even on Single Player, was an exercise in frustration. Sure, there were synergies and with them more powerful skills but at the expense of those doing nothing against about 20% of normal and 40%+ of Unique monsters.
I recently started D2 again to get me in the mood for D3. Started up a Sorc, maxed Hydra, Frozen Orb and Thunderstorm along with having a Act2 Merc to have a fourth damage type. Guess what? Along come Frost/Fire Immune Uniques with Lightning Enchantment or Stone Skin. Can't do a thing about them. Even my Defiance Merc dies in 3-4 seconds. He didn't have bad equipement, no High Level Runewords, just some basic stuff.
Another example, the Cold Immune Flesh Hunters in the Ruined Temple under Kurast, who guard the Black Book. Went down into the temple, approached the main room with caution and then they came. Cold/Fire Immune boss, Extra Fast, Extra Strong. They chased me to the entrance and shred me and my merc into pieces with no chance of getting my corpse again. Frustrated me so much that I deleted the Sorc and uninstalled the game, as I really wasn't looking forward to Hell Ancients with one being Frost/Fire Immunie, the other Fire/Lightning and the third Frost/Physical with Lightning, ugh.
I hope D3 doesn't have those kinds of "fun killers" in it. I suppose Blizzard introduced the Immunities in D2 to cooperate group play on Hell Mode and to reduce the effect of synergies, but in turn made it next to impossible to complete the game for players who start up from scratch in single player or don't have access to ridiculous runewords.
I'd like to play a Wizard totally focussed on Arcane Spells in D3 and want him to be viable through every difficuly of the game, the same should be the case for every playstyle of other classes. Sure, there can be monsters resistant to Arcane Magic, that's no problem, but just not outright immune to it.
Steven Catogen
12-07-2009, 19:59
Immunities are one of the things that can either be executed decently or...
Immunities as they were in D2 were a frustratingly artificial means of adding difficulty.
He beat me to the alternative.
Consider D1.
Consider D2, 1.09 and earlier.
What was different then?
You could feasibly get multiple elements.
In D1, your ability to learn spells was tied to your wallet and your magic stat, possibly boosted by items just to read books. So if you didn't have some lightning for the fire immune, your fault. Even when triple immunes kicked in on the second half of hell, it still wasn't too annoying even though your options were limited to no damage petrifies, a minion for physical attacks, your own physical attacks, and a spell that could only be found on items. You could simply skip them, but you did have viable, if slower means to kill them.
1.09 and earlier, skills cost 20-40 points, at most. You could feasibly multi element and still kill things.
1.10 and on with synergies? Forget it. The secondary will in almost all cases be quite weak, and still get blocked fairly often.
If D3 is like Diablo pre 1.10 immunities won't be too big a deal. If it copies later material it is artificial difficulty.
There is still little to no functional difference between Fireball and Glacial Spike. It's primarily change for the sake of change. But if you can make both viable, you can at least deal with it. Therefore it is somewhat of an improvement.
Brother Laz
13-07-2009, 07:04
I've ranted about this in the past: the skill tree system discourages getting more than one attack. In theory, immunities force you to diversify. In practice you get the backup skill that does the most damage for the least points (ie. orb) because you can't afford anything else.
And god forbid you want to invest points into a skill that isn't universally applicable (ie. blaze). You won't have enough points for a backup skill at all then.
Runestar
13-07-2009, 09:18
I agree - give a monster arbitrarily high resistance (~80-90%) to certain elements if need be, but immunities just suck. It is like a giant sign saying "You need not bother with this part of the game if you happened to invest in said element".
Though I think that if used very sparingly, immunities may have a place in the game (the rare foe or boss to create a memorable encounter, certainly not tacking them onto every other enemy in the game).
Or maybe if immunities were designed so that there was some way of penetrating them (say if you deal enough fire damage within a time period, you might be able to temporarily suppress a monster's fire immunity)?
Zarniwoop
13-07-2009, 09:28
I loved immunities.
I loved the way you gave up something to be the best at something.
I loved the complexity of D2 when played at the highest levels.
I hate the idea of anything being too easy.
That said, I know that I've had my share of @#$@#$ moments from some immunes =D
D3 sounds worse and worse with each passing day. Guessing it's going to be Diablo 2 lite with pretty pictures.
SlechtWeerBeer
13-07-2009, 10:50
I loved immunities.
I loved the way you gave up something to be the best at something.
I loved the complexity of D2 when played at the highest levels.
Great spooning complexity you've got there. Run to Baal, blow his *** off with your crazy damage meteors. Rinse and repeat.
For a little variation, try using FOrb, which is about three times easier to use, but needs to be cast a couple times more.
For those that don't like Sorcs, there's the Hammerdin. Spam hammers and kill everything as if your Meteor spans the entire screen and has immunity break.
Oh, you want physical attacks? You can choose to toss around LFury and mow down large packs at an insane pace.
Complexity!
I also really liked the following:
I hate the idea of anything being too easy.
dpastern
13-07-2009, 13:46
Just a question - but how do some of the guys who boast mega damage actually get that much? I guess I just play the character as is, without any super tweaking for mega damage etc. I don't use runewords nor sets (too lazy to collect them). I simply use a combination of rares and uniques and magical items. Prolly explains why I'm doing it so tough lol...
Dave
LittleOldLady
13-07-2009, 13:53
I like the idea of "enraging" monsters with particular attack types (rather than immunities), forget whose idea it was (sorry!). So a "lightning enraged" monster might attack faster if a certain amount of damage was done with lightning. This encourages people to have different attack types, but without crippling completely those who don't (i.e. a trade-off between power most of the time, or safety; more tactics).
The only immunities should be to "-X% enemy resistance", so that some monsters always have 95% (or whatever) resistance to an element, but still aren't immune to the element itself.
This also can be taken further (like the Lightning Enchanted mod was intended, at least the way I see it) so that some monsters are more difficult for those who do smaller amounts of damage more frequently. Of course, packs of small-ish life monsters are (in theory) more dangerous to those who attack slowly but with more damage.
Whatever they do, it should focus on making things harder for particular characters/builds, but never impossible.
Pyrohemia
13-07-2009, 17:12
I dislike the entire additive percentage based resistance system.
I believe that if an item has 25% fire resist then you should take 25% less damage no matter what your other equipment is. Currently, if you wear nothing in hell and put on 25% fire resist you go from -100% to -75% resistance. This reduces the damage that you take by 12.5%. If you already had +50% resists then this item would in fact take you to 75% resistance or halve the damage that you take. This gives a dis-proportionate advantage to finishing off the last few percentage points of resistance.
For monsters this is even more unbalanced. Say that a monster has 50% lightning resistance as a base. This monster takes half damage from lightning attacks. If a unique version of this monster is lightning enchanted it gets +75% lightning resist and suddenly has 125% lightning resist. Now it takes no damage whatsoever from lightning attacks. If the monster originally had 0% lightning resistance then the lightning enchanted modifier would take it to 75% resistance which acts like you expect.
I propose that each different resistance modifier acts individually. For example, if you have two items with 50% resistance the first one makes you take half damage and the second makes you take half damage. In total you take one quarter of the original damage and this acts as if the modifiers multiplied together. With additive resistances you would have 100% resistance in theory but this would have to be capped somewhere like it is in Diablo 2 at 75%.
With multiplicative resistance there is no need for resistance caps and you cannot become truly immune to an element unless you have a piece of gear that adds 100% resistance.
Lastly I would like to remind those who may not remember of the commutative property of multiplication: it does not matter in what order the resistances are applied, the resulting damage is the same (assuming that the only rounding is done at the end).
Another point:
Having every monster being immune to some element does not make sense. Even ghost type monsters which historically take no damage from physical attacks should not be immune. They should, instead, be unable to be hit by weapons because they are spirits and weapons and objects should pass through them. This is very different from being immune to physical damage. It is hilarious to get a nice THWACK sound when you hit a physical immune ghost with a weapon in Diablo 2.
Steven Catogen
14-07-2009, 00:12
Just a question - but how do some of the guys who boast mega damage actually get that much? I guess I just play the character as is, without any super tweaking for mega damage etc. I don't use runewords nor sets (too lazy to collect them). I simply use a combination of rares and uniques and magical items. Prolly explains why I'm doing it so tough lol...
Dave
There are different tiers for skills in D2, which is what I assume you're talking about. At skill levels 29 and up, most caster type skills get the highest possible gains per level. So adding on skill boosting items gives quite large returns once you hit that point.
If an elemental sort of character, you can then multiply the final damage by 1.xx% by getting say... elemental facets.
If a physical sort of character, you start with some runeworded weapon like Grief, then multiply the damage it does by 10 or more due to various sources of enhanced damage adding together.
Good luck getting those setups, but that's how you do it.
Galtrovan
14-07-2009, 17:08
Just a question - but how do some of the guys who boast mega damage actually get that much?
Dave
They get mom/dad's credit card, buy a hundred duped high runes for $30 (or less), and then spam the trade channels for: perfect <Insert Class> Torch, perfect Anni, 9 * <Insert +1 Skill Tree>/40 life gc, 10 * 20 life/5 all resist sc, and the equipment they will wear.
Things are pretty darn easy to kill when you have +13 to your main attack, +40 all attributes, +90 all resists, and +560 life... when naked. Put your equipment on, you are a god.
D2: LOD is so broken.
CCCenturion
14-07-2009, 17:52
With multiplicative resistance there is no need for resistance caps and you cannot become truly immune to an element unless you have a piece of gear that adds 100% resistance.
This is the right answer. :thumbup:
Starving_Poet
14-07-2009, 18:06
This is the way it's done in EVE Online.
The first item works for the full value, the second works for the remaining difference and so forth. So, it gets to the point where having more than 3 items that cover a single resistance eats heavily into diminishing returns.
immunities should only exist where they narratively make sense. If immunities eexist, spells that would have a physical component should have a physical component. Since just about any spell you could name would have a physical component, there would be very few good justifications for immunities. The wiser course is to have logical resistances.
Funkopotamus
15-07-2009, 11:47
I think Blizzard had discussions about this, because look at the skills they gave the Druid in the expansion - Moulten Boulder - fire + physical, Volcano - fire + physical.
Yeah, I thought that was pretty cool.
My main character, Ailelya, has Frozen Orb whacked up to level 17, Cold Mastery lvl 6 (-45 cold resist). Recently got into Hell, first monster outside is a cold immune zombie. When I cast Chain Lightning, 1-400 damage, it HEALS??!! Why??
Would***********************--------------------------------------
sorry cat sat on keyboard
Would Cold Mastery reduce monster resistance, even if they are immune? othewise the passive spell makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE.
Ailelya
CCCenturion
15-07-2009, 23:03
My main character, Ailelya, has Frozen Orb whacked up to level 17, Cold Mastery lvl 6 (-45 cold resist). Recently got into Hell, first monster outside is a cold immune zombie. When I cast Chain Lightning, 1-400 damage, it HEALS??!! Why??
Would***********************--------------------------------------
sorry cat sat on keyboard
Would Cold Mastery reduce monster resistance, even if they are immune? othewise the passive spell makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE.
Ailelya
Are you saying that your Chain Lightning healed a Cold Immune zombie, or that you damaged it first with Chain Lightning, then switched to Frozen Orb and FO healed it? I don't think that Chain Lightning should heal a CI monster, but wouldn't be surprised if it's a bug of some sort. As for the Cold Mastery question; CM doesn't break immunities. The only skills that can do that are Lower Resist and Conviction.
You'll get a better answer if you ask this in the D2 Sorceress forum, but it is an interesting point to bring up here, since it's a great example of how monster immunities can really mess with the game.
Nimbostratus
16-07-2009, 01:25
I think what's going on with that is the monster simply out-regenerating the sorceress' damage.
Monsters constantly regenerating huge amounts of health is another thing I'd be glad to see go away.
Razor Spine
16-07-2009, 05:22
I think what's going on with that is the monster simply out-regenerating the sorceress' damage.
Monsters constantly regenerating huge amounts of health is another thing I'd be glad to see go away.
Pardon, but can't Prevent Monster Heal be useful in this case, or does it not work to stop regen altogether? I don't go too deep into mechanics, but I assume that this must be the case, correct? Must the weapon hit the monster before it stops the healing, or any targeted skill can suffice if you have such a weapon?
My two cents on MI:
They're not coming back in DIII except in some rare cases as mentioned by the Blizzard staff, but they were an extreme source of nuisance on Hell for a Sorceress. Personally, high resist is OK by me, but immune = nuh-uh, and even with a Sorc having an Infinity RW before they reach Hell on their Merc for a breaking attempt it's just frustrating like that with such difficult monsters. I'd guarantee infact that the lesser minions of the Prime Evils are more dangerous to a character than the Evils themselves, and they give out worse drops overall. :/
Nimbostratus
16-07-2009, 06:17
Pardon, but can't Prevent Monster Heal be useful in this case, or does it not work to stop regen altogether? I don't go too deep into mechanics, but I assume that this must be the case, correct? Must the weapon hit the monster before it stops the healing, or any targeted skill can suffice if you have such a weapon?
PMH has no effect on spells. It works for weapon attacks, but I hate the idea of "required" stats on your equipment. "Yeah, you have total customization, except you must have Cannot Be Frozen, a way of stopping regen, and at least some IAS/FRW/FHR/etc so it isn't painfully slow."
*another vote here to avoid the huge monster regenerating.
Maybe no regen at all, except on few monsters with special abilities.
Manmountain
17-07-2009, 18:35
The idea behind uber monsters regenerating is to make you figure out how to kill them without goin in, doin a little bit of damage then running out and repeating the process.
Manmountain
17-07-2009, 18:38
ZOMG DIABLO 3 NEEDS A WAY TO RELEARN YOUR SKILL POINTS! making a character, getting to level 50-80, and realising that ability is not compadable with your new item is a patence-testing waste of time. Anyway, this is a major case in handling immune monsters, in d2, the Hammadin avoided all immunities, which was why he was so popular (not to mention the damage).
SlechtWeerBeer
17-07-2009, 19:29
ZOMG DIABLO 3 NEEDS A WAY TO RELEARN YOUR SKILL POINTS! making a character, getting to level 50-80, and realising that ability is not compadable with your new item is a patence-testing waste of time. Anyway, this is a major case in handling immune monsters, in d2, the Hammadin avoided all immunities, which was why he was so popular (not to mention the damage).
The dev team is looking at respec already.
D3 won't feature full immunities, afaik.
dpastern
18-07-2009, 12:51
Basically, the zombies regenerate. A lot of monsters in hell diff seem to regenerate. And it's a right royal pain in the you know what. Wait till you get to monsters that are champions or minions and are immune to fire AND cold. Lightning and fire spells in D2 are **** weak imho. If the game was balanced right, there would be FO equivalent spells for both fire and lightning. There aren't. Thunderstorm? Throws a bold down every X amount of seconds. Most monters have regenerated the damage from the first strike by the time the 2nd one hits it. Considering many of the monsters are immune to lightning, it makes it worthless. My FO is lvl 20, and cold mastery is lvl 21 btw. IMHO - cold mastery etc should remove immunities from monsters, not just lower resistances.
D2 as is, is simply an incredibly unbalanced game imho. Period.
Dave
edit: Hydra is good, but does too little damage, doesn't last long enough imho, and the waiting period before you can recast is just well...crap. Ailelya, wait till you get to Act 2 and the Sarcophagus in the tombs. They spit out a zombie every ten seconds, non stop, have a crap load of hit points, regenerate very fast and are cold immune. Worse, your hireling is so goddamn dumb it isn't funny - he attacks the zombies instead of the damn well sarcophagus...AI of the hireling is very very very poor in D2.
My main character, Ailelya, has Frozen Orb whacked up to level 17, Cold Mastery lvl 6 (-45 cold resist). Recently got into Hell, first monster outside is a cold immune zombie. When I cast Chain Lightning, 1-400 damage, it HEALS??!! Why??
Would***********************--------------------------------------
sorry cat sat on keyboard
Would Cold Mastery reduce monster resistance, even if they are immune? othewise the passive spell makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE.
Ailelya
I am also of the opinion that full immunities is not an interesting concept. Like many have mentioned previously, random resistances that may vary from monsters to monsters would be a lot more interesting. There are ways around full immunity obviously but that doesn't make the game more interesting to me.
As they stand now in D2, I think that full immunities were meant to favour party play but it missed its objective. Nowadays, you see to ways of dealing with this aspect of the game. Some players planned for a backup skill but most simply avoid engaging monsters they can kill.
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