Fixing the Aura Stacking + Pumping Single Skill Problem

such as?

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deteego a écrit :

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Lord_of_Error a écrit :

Just want to throw in that I hate cooldowns in APRGs, I definetly liked the combat as it was in D2 more as that of D3.

Is there any reason in particular, or do you just like spamming the same skill over and over?

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Lord_of_Error a écrit :

Looking at Titan Quest it was also a terrible "feature", with some skills that had ridicoulus cooldowns in exchange for high power, but that way you were vulnerable when running around with the skill on CD. Result was that people stacked "reduced cooldown"-items to 100% reduce...Apparently I'm not the only one who doesn't like cooldowns. :P

As I said before, TQ made their cooldowns way too high

I just don't like the change of gameplay that comes with it. Just look at Cold Snap, nobody uses it, although it only has a 4 seconds timer. If you couldn't use multiple trap gems to basically reduce the cooldown a bit, I wouldn't bother using them. What is wrong with spamming one skill over and over? Getting the last bit out of a skill is something I actually enjoy, yes. If I want sophisticated combat mechanics I wouldn't search them in Hack 'n Slays. For me the main motivation in H'n S games is the item hunt, not playing 5-finger-piano on the skill buttons.

I also don't like if a game forces you to a certain playstyle, in D3's concept you had to use crappy skills to have the resources for the more powerfull ones. I don't see how this improves combat compared to PoE. If I would want to use more skills in PoE I can, the only really limiting factor here is the amount of skill slots and sockets. On my main char for example, I'd like to use Molten Shell and Enduring Cry, but I can't because I neither have skill slots left, nor sockets in my gear. I could if I decided to drop my two Bear Traps, maybe I'll do that sometime.

But why do you want to change the game completly? If you want to alternate skills, do so.

@Immunities:
Really hated them in D2, there weren't that many skills for a barb to kill physical immune enemies. Looking at PoE that would just be another advantage for groups, as if there were not enough already. And with the skill system here you'd just take general elemental damage nodes and then switch the skills for each type of immune enemies...again, can't see how this improves anything, but it would make solo playing more annoying.

This is the worst thread I have read in a long time and i pray GGG dosent get influenced by this garbage. This isn't wow. Don't ruin the game by introducing cool downs. If someones makes a build around a single spam-able ability...let them spam away.

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Lord_of_Error a écrit :

I just don't like the change of gameplay that comes with it. Just look at Cold Snap, nobody uses it, although it only has a 4 seconds timer. If you couldn't use multiple trap gems to basically reduce the cooldown a bit, I wouldn't bother using them. What is wrong with spamming one skill over and over? Getting the last bit out of a skill is something I actually enjoy, yes. If I want sophisticated combat mechanics I wouldn't search them in Hack 'n Slays. For me the main motivation in H'n S games is the item hunt, not playing 5-finger-piano on the skill buttons.

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Greig20 a écrit :

This is the worst thread I have read in a long time and i pray GGG dosent get influenced by this garbage. This isn't wow. Don't ruin the game by introducing cool downs. If someones makes a build around a single spam-able ability...let them spam away.

Don't worry too much, guys. Here's an article written by Brother Laz, GGG's resident unique item designer, back in 2009 when D3 was still an unknown quantity. It's clear he understands the genre better than OP... although deteego should give this a read too (and perhaps parts 1 & 2 as well). If anything, he's too far on the other extreme.

Mad Prophecies #3: Respecs and Skill Use

Damn, don't link that article again, unless you want me to post more walls of text :P

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gonzaw a écrit :

Damn, don't link that article again, unless you want me to post more walls of text :P

I guess I should discuss the article's validity, or alleged lack thereof.

To borrow from the player demographics again...

I think the only problem with Laz's article that I keep quoting is it's Spike's viewpoint. It's not Johnny's, it's not Timmy's, and other people do play the game for motivations completely different from Spike's. It's not the full picture, but it is an intimate portrait.

Spike's goal really is to get as much profit out of the game as possible. Even though they're only getting digital swords, successful Spikes develop stashes of it; meanwhile, Magic the Gathering's Spike is concerned almost solely with winning tournaments, in large part because that's how you actually get prizes, and if you don't get a prize you're not winning. What Spike really wants at the end of the day is an impressive trophy room.

I'm not saying Timmy and Johnny's viewpoints don't matter, but Spike is the leader, the Athos to their Porthos and Aramis (or perhaps the Moe to their Larry and Curly). He has the most input into how exploits are exploited, how imbalances are capitalized upon, and on what builds are the top builds. He's at the forefront of both imbalance issues and economic manipulation. That's because, the more serious a player gets about the game, the more competitive they become, the more Spike they are. And those same deeply immersed players are the ones who collectively determine the best builds and set the trade ratio of Chaos to Exalts, the same way Magic the Gathering Spikes determine the best decks and set the trade value pretty much every Magic card printed, regardless of how the other two demographics felt about it.

If you design the game contrary to Spike's expectations of it -- which Laz lays out pretty clear -- you risk losing a large portion of a key demographic. Perhaps the key demographic; if you just count heads, the might be a minority, but if you count hours played, Johnnies and Timmies don't come close.

I don't really have any problems with spamming a single skill, and I don't think adding cooldowns to things is going to sit well with many people. I do however, agree that there should be something done about the cookie cutter, boring, near overpowered and mandatory nature of multiple aura stacking. What should be done about it? Don't ask me, lol.

The point is trying to discuss and figure out how to make every demographic enjoy the game

There is nothing inherent with the genre that tells you there should be an absolute tradeoff, with either only Spike enjoying the game, or only Johnny enjoying the game, etc (also meh, I think there may even be more types of demographic other than those, those seem kind of too restrictive).


He basically said "Fuck noobs and anybody that plays differently than Spikes, stop crying idiots"...so yeah

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gonzaw a écrit :

He basically said "Fuck noobs and anybody that plays differently than Spikes, stop crying idiots"...so yeah

You're missing the humor in it.

Spike delights in feelings of superiority over others. (Hence, trophy room.) Good, mature Spikes don't call people fucking noobs... but they hear it in their heads, and they smirk. Which is their general indicator of delicious pleasure.

Everything Laz says along those lines is at least partially ironic. The point isn't actually about demeaning people, it's about earning the right to think it, which is part of what Spike's all about. As Laz points out, sometimes earning that right is so easy it's almost ridiculous (Vitality>Energy), but every little bit of "hey I figured this out and that sets me apart" helps.

By the way, we both love debating on the internet for logical superiority. Do you think you're really not one yourself? Chances are, if you're reading this, and you read that article, then you probably are a Spike. A lot of Spikes aren't honest with themselves about what they are; that's what he's calling out with things like "it's about trading zeal for hammer, nothing more."

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deteego a écrit :

1. Auras are being treated as passives, not auras.

I don't see anything wrong with that. To me, the prototypical aura user is the D2 paladin. And he didn't care what the rest of the party was doing- he picked an aura that was good for him, party be damned. A zealot went with Frenzy, a hammerdin went with concentration, an elemental with shock or freeze auras. You wouldn't switch aura just because the rest of your party couldn't use your aura as effectively as you could.

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4. Auras give less stats to the user compared to allies.

If anything, that is the exact OPPOSITE of what I would propose. I would say auras should be half as effective on summons, and maybe other players as well (maybe). The reason is there are several auras that are pretty decent on summoners but useless for any other class, such as Vitality or Wrath. Auras that are too exploitable by summons could therefore be boosted to more reasonable levels for other players without making them overpowered on summons.

My objective is different from yours- instead of altering the basic purpose of auras, my change is just to increase diversity of auras which can be viable in a given situation.

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2. Mana regen is still based off max mana, not the usable mana you have.

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2. Mana regeneration is based off not your max mana (which includes max mana), but the mana that is available to use. To offset this, base mana regeneration can be buffed

I guess it would address some symptoms of aura stacking, but not very well. I would keep looking for something better than this. One obvious example is taxing aura stacks. Each aura after the first has an extra cost (a "tax"). The tax increases the more auras one stacks.

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3. A lot of the broken abilities are broken because they have no CD. One of the biggest issues in game design (in general) is not putting restrictions on things that should have restrictions.

The way you framed this it sounds like you made a conclusion then invented some arguments to support it. Lacking cooldown certainly amplifies the power of a skill, but when nothing has cooldowns how can you say that the thing which makes one skill overpowered compared to another is that the first one doesn't have a cooldown?

I may have been inclined to agree with some of your statements, but by posting something like this you make it unnecessarily difficult to agree with you.

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1. It would actually be better off, in terms of gameplay, if such abilities had a smallish cooldown (lets say ~3 seconds). The abilities can get a slight buff to compensate for cooldown,

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3. Abilities like EK/FP/LA would get a buff in raw numbers, but they would also get a cooldown (of something like ~2 seconds would be good). Generally speaking, if you can constantly spam an ability, it should either be weak (in terms of what it does) or be plain utility.

Purely in terms of increasing skill diversity, it's true that cooldowns would achieve this goal. Can't argue with that.