I'm glad to know that they at least understand what the issue is in the game, even if they cannot exactly pinpoint what causes it or rather how to solve it at the time. It's still Blizzard. If they are aware of an issue in the game, they are not going to be content until they solve it, which gives me hope that this absoluteness of the combat (either alive or dead, there is no middle ground like "nearly dead") will be resolved.
I will be the first to admit it that I have bugger all when it comes to experience with Inferno. I have been taking my damn time with the game so I'm only just finishing Hell with my 10th build before I delve into Inferno. However from what I've played, using MP etc. it feels like a large portion of the problem is specific to Inferno only. I play Hell on MP5 right from the start with each character and the skill is very much there. You can take some damage as long as you have decent armor/resist/HP pool, it's not all instant death. Nightmare MP10 was similar, the monsters just took long to die.
But suddenly inferno hits and I'm getting 2-3 shot by regular mobs on MP1-2. At that point I feel I could take on MP5 just as easily since I die fast anyway, at least I get bigger rewards. IMO Inferno is simply blown out of proportion. It's no longer about fair difficulty, it's about you going against hordes of mobs that each do way more damage than you and have more HP. The only thing you have is the hope that with better loot maybe it will get better (loot which you can only get by actually playing through Inferno where you're getting two shot since Act I BTW). Thus people have to rely on such massive burst heals simply because any other regular damage mitigation or heal over time simply doesn't cut it anymore. And god help you if you're playing without AH, since you'll have to push through Inferno without the loot you need to actually play Inferno (which is just fucked up).
When it comes to the lack of reward for skillful play, that again comes from the way the game was designed. Look back at Diablo 2. Yes you could chug health potions like a maniac but the only thing there was to prevent you from having control over what you do was Cold damage, Decrepify curse and Knockback. Other than that it was all you who's in control. And the game was challenging. However, look at Diablo 3. Slows...present. Knockback...present. Slow curses...present. But what more do we have? Chainfreezes, Jails, Walls into a corner of death, Vortex, Nightmarish...and that's just the Elites. Tongue monsters who won't leave you alone, teleporting/vanishing Terror Demons which prevent you from healing EVER(!!!), stunning Armodons, teleporting Phase Beasts, vanishing Snake Demons, burrowing and leaping Scavengers, burrowing Cave Worms. The game is absolutely full of monsters that will do anything in their power to take things out of your hands.
If you want to kite and avoid damage, you just can't. There are skills that you just actively cannot avoid and if you do want to survive, there is usually one and only one skill per class that you HAVE to have otherwise you're done. Must have skills to counter unfair affixes/monster abilities are not the way to promote skill. Anyone can put a Smoke Screen on and push the button. That is not skill rewarding. Skill rewarding is removing such abilities (unfun abilities I should say...who wants to have a skill that makes you vanish for 1.5 seconds? whoop de doo that was a fun skill to use) and removing affixes that take control away from you because otherwise 90% of the stories you can be telling your friends about D3 will be: "I was kiting him, only a few slivers of health left, it was really tense. I knew that one more hit and I was dead but if I could just survive a few seconds I could make it to that Healing Shrine and kill him. Then I got Vortexed and Chainfrozen. There was nothing I could do." No wonder skill is not rewarded when there are affixes that make skill irrelevant. If there is one thing I've learned from playing games over the years, it's that it's never fun or fair to take away control from the player. Yet Diablo 3 does it consistently, in a game that is entirely focused on a single hero/player battling his way through hordes of demons. Back before release of Diablo 3 the team was talking about gameplay decisions and some attention was given to kiting. They designed the monsters in such a way that they linger, they don't always attack immediately, they pause, they slow down etc. so that the player is rewarded for kiting and playing with skill. Then they inexplicably introduced affixes which negate all of it. They have a lot to learn yet and it's fairly obvious that this is the first time this team made an ARPG.
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I will be the first to admit it that I have bugger all when it comes to experience with Inferno. I have been taking my damn time with the game so I'm only just finishing Hell with my 10th build before I delve into Inferno. However from what I've played, using MP etc. it feels like a large portion of the problem is specific to Inferno only. I play Hell on MP5 right from the start with each character and the skill is very much there. You can take some damage as long as you have decent armor/resist/HP pool, it's not all instant death. Nightmare MP10 was similar, the monsters just took long to die.
But suddenly inferno hits and I'm getting 2-3 shot by regular mobs on MP1-2. At that point I feel I could take on MP5 just as easily since I die fast anyway, at least I get bigger rewards. IMO Inferno is simply blown out of proportion. It's no longer about fair difficulty, it's about you going against hordes of mobs that each do way more damage than you and have more HP. The only thing you have is the hope that with better loot maybe it will get better (loot which you can only get by actually playing through Inferno where you're getting two shot since Act I BTW). Thus people have to rely on such massive burst heals simply because any other regular damage mitigation or heal over time simply doesn't cut it anymore. And god help you if you're playing without AH, since you'll have to push through Inferno without the loot you need to actually play Inferno (which is just fucked up).
When it comes to the lack of reward for skillful play, that again comes from the way the game was designed. Look back at Diablo 2. Yes you could chug health potions like a maniac but the only thing there was to prevent you from having control over what you do was Cold damage, Decrepify curse and Knockback. Other than that it was all you who's in control. And the game was challenging. However, look at Diablo 3. Slows...present. Knockback...present. Slow curses...present. But what more do we have? Chainfreezes, Jails, Walls into a corner of death, Vortex, Nightmarish...and that's just the Elites. Tongue monsters who won't leave you alone, teleporting/vanishing Terror Demons which prevent you from healing EVER(!!!), stunning Armodons, teleporting Phase Beasts, vanishing Snake Demons, burrowing and leaping Scavengers, burrowing Cave Worms. The game is absolutely full of monsters that will do anything in their power to take things out of your hands.
If you want to kite and avoid damage, you just can't. There are skills that you just actively cannot avoid and if you do want to survive, there is usually one and only one skill per class that you HAVE to have otherwise you're done. Must have skills to counter unfair affixes/monster abilities are not the way to promote skill. Anyone can put a Smoke Screen on and push the button. That is not skill rewarding. Skill rewarding is removing such abilities (unfun abilities I should say...who wants to have a skill that makes you vanish for 1.5 seconds? whoop de doo that was a fun skill to use) and removing affixes that take control away from you because otherwise 90% of the stories you can be telling your friends about D3 will be: "I was kiting him, only a few slivers of health left, it was really tense. I knew that one more hit and I was dead but if I could just survive a few seconds I could make it to that Healing Shrine and kill him. Then I got Vortexed and Chainfrozen. There was nothing I could do." No wonder skill is not rewarded when there are affixes that make skill irrelevant. If there is one thing I've learned from playing games over the years, it's that it's never fun or fair to take away control from the player. Yet Diablo 3 does it consistently, in a game that is entirely focused on a single hero/player battling his way through hordes of demons. Back before release of Diablo 3 the team was talking about gameplay decisions and some attention was given to kiting. They designed the monsters in such a way that they linger, they don't always attack immediately, they pause, they slow down etc. so that the player is rewarded for kiting and playing with skill. Then they inexplicably introduced affixes which negate all of it. They have a lot to learn yet and it's fairly obvious that this is the first time this team made an ARPG.