A post which contains every suggestion made in individual entries. This is the culmination of the entire blog. This post is under permanent construction.
Elite Categorization
My idea is quite simple, really, although it's sure to raise a hackle or two.
Currently, think of an elite as a player: They have elective mode, but no end to their skill slots (I'm looking at you, Morlu Incinerator).
Like a player, categorize an elite's available abilities: Defensive, Offensive, Crowd Control, Wildcard. Turn off elective mode, and let the client randomly select from each available category.
But wait! That's not random! Neither is the overworld for obvious purposes. It isn't always in the best interest of the player to have complete and total chaos by embracing randomness. D3, since release, has displayed this admirably in the form of elite combat. Another perspective is the lack of guest monsters in D3, like there was in Act V of LoD. There's a bit of randomness to the monsters that appear in any given area, but there's also boundaries of what composition any given group can be, what types of monsters, what their damage and attacks are like, how many there are. There's thresholds. This can be played with by simply creating new, more varied modifiers.
If the goal is to make every encounter feel interesting and different (even if it's just in "feeling"), then I honestly think this is a great leap towards that goal.
Break down some modifiers into their constituent parts, and make them new modifiers. Add wildcard modifiers (why aren't there any?). Add modifiers that offer tactics to the player.
An example is this, for breaking down a mod: Molten. Break it down into two.
A. Explosive - Upon death, the monster explodes for 250% weapon damage as fire in a 15 yard radius.
B. Firewalker - The monster leaves behind a trail of molten lava, dealing 25% weapon damage as fire to all in its radius.
Currently, Molten draws from multiple mod categories (offensive and crowd control). This isn't necessary.
Furthermore, imagine this: a "Chilling" modifier that lowers the attack speed and movement speed of the player when they hit the monster. The chill lasts for four seconds. However, if the monster also has firewalker, the player can take a hit from the fire to break the chill.
The modifiers, they really have to work together in order to be interesting. Otherwise it's just a damage/defense soup. But a crappy one, like those nasty cambell light soups that nobody actually wants to eat but they do because they're fat and think that will help.
(It doesn't help unless you count getting nauseous from eating, and thus lose your appetite. THEY DON'T EVEN LOOK LIKE THE PICTURE ON THE CAN AND THE PICTURE DIDN'T LOOK ALL THAT GREAT TO BEGIN WITH.)
Nerf nasty soup!
Wildcard Modifiers:
An example of a wildcard and tactical mod:
Hex: The monster hexes the player, turning them into a chicken for 5 seconds, but their movement speed is increased by 50%. They are unable to take offensive actions (but can still blow defensive cooldowns). This has a tinge of reality to it, too, because as Rocky taught us, chickens are super fuckin' fast, man.
Treasured: The monster is guaranteed to drop a rare. Can you read that and honestly tell me that isn't a good idea? Why does every mod have to inflict damage or snare you? Does every single elite fight have to be about nothing but a grudgingly slow battle of attrition or balls-out suicidal attempt to kill them?
Clown Car: The monster has the ability to summon up to ten very small skeletons who deal 10% weapon damage each. They cannot be targeted, they hit and run. These tiny skeletons are each equipped with Messerschmidt's Reaver (or the horadric hamburger) because that's just awesome. They do that hilarious skeleton laugh when they hit you and run.
Elemental: Each strike the monster makes will be imbued with random elemental damage. They had this mod in D2 and I very much enjoyed it, but the res system was different. This would probably fit better in an "offense" category. This mod, and cursed, how did they not make the cut?
Health Pools:
Currently, fighting an elite pack in Inferno isn't so much about what you're doing, as it is about how long you're doing it. Fights last way, way too long, and Hell/NM is included in that for a leveling character. They take too long. It's gratuitous and boring.
Difficulty spikes are rampant: an elite is either ridiculously dangerous, or else you're blocking it into a corner and wailing on it for a minute straight with little possibility of harm to the player. That's not interesting. That's not fun. Reduce the health pool. Categorize the modifiers, allow for a more narrow range of elites, but ones that offer a genuinely fun challenge.
Co-Op Only Modifiers:
It is quite clear from playing that the game was designed for co-op play. There is, inherently, no problem with this. That is, until you're playing solo and run into elite packs in Hell or Inferno. Then, yes, it becomes a problem.
So how about we cater to both groups at once? Have modifiers that only exist in multiplayer games. These are team-based modifiers that really push tactical team play and what sounds better than that? I am kind of shocked that there weren't any in the game at ship.
Optional:
I say "optional" because if this panned out, then the following suggestion likely wouldn't be necessary. Some monsters have native affixes. An example of this would be the large spiders who are plagued, but they're normal monsters. A better example is a Morlu Incinerator who has a just asinine amount of abilities that they spam constantly, while also teleporting out of range all the time.
If a monster has a native boss modifier, then that should count towards one of their affixes. So the monster with plagued would have three affixes in inferno, but the plagued aspect is increased in damage already due to the fact that the spider is an elite, and I'm assuming that this damage is based on weapon damage with a delta like the player.
What is the goal of this?
The goal is to make combat tactical and interesting. By tactical, I mean that a monster shouldn't just lock you in place and dps the shit out of you. I just summarized pretty much any elite encounter in inferno. In one simple sentence. There's something wrong there, amirite?
A modifier should give interesting options to combat. If you give the player interesting ways to game a pack, then you also open up interesting ways to gear, to spec, to choose stats, to have crazy cool builds that you thought would never work.
In a simplified form:
Currently, a monster does this. That's what it does. That's all it does. But with this system, a monster does this, which also does that, and that may help you if you know how to exploit it.
Items and Stats:
I feel it was a mistake to shuffle stats solely to items. Well, maybe not a mistake in totality, but I don't like how it was implemented. A lot of the issues with items is that you're looking for your main stat, and the main stat is so powerful.
Take, for instance, Tal Rasha's set. It increases fire damage by 3%. Who cares? That's 3 int. 3 int that only applies to fire spells and how many of those does the wizard even have?
Your main stats are absolutely killing the item game.
1. The main stat is too powerful.
2. It's too necessary on every single item you get. Even items with hot properties like crit damage or sockets are mostly worthless unless you roll a main stat on it.
So here's my suggestion: Take stats off of items. Yes. Take them off of items.
Put them onto gems. Have more gems if you have to. Have gems with hybrid bonuses, like Str/Dex gems.
Have more items able to be socketed, and let the player decide. Don't let socketing be an affix, put it back on the jeweler.
I realize this is a complex issue, and I only commented on the 10% of the iceberg, but think about it. The logic bleeds outwards.
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