Blizzard Dev Wyatt Cheng: "I'll say it again: melee vs. ranged disparity is not fine"

[Felya]

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/top...0647017?page=1

I'll state up front that I do think there's a disparity between melee and ranged, and I would like to see that closed. I feel like if I talk a lot about thought processes and design philosophy and don't state this up front people will lose the forest for the trees and conclude we think everything is fine. So I'll say it again: melee vs. ranged disparity is not fine, changes are being made, and even if you disagree with the approach outlined below we can hopefully have the common ground that the current situation needs improvement.

It may not look like it on the surface, but a large number of the changes in 1.0.3 are actually targeted at closing the melee/ranged gap. Let me go through some of them.

Hardcore
I'm going to use Hardcore as a starting point. In Hardcore, there's actually a reasonable distribution of classes, and I don't think the melee vs. ranged disparity is as large. There are a lot of Hardcore players of every class in Inferno without a huge disparity. Why is this important? It's because a significant portion of the melee/ranged disparity is related to a ranged character's ability to progress even while dying. A melee player can throw themselves at a monster and die, doing almost no damage to an elite enemy. A ranged player can do a huge amount of damage to an elite enemy, die, respawn, and basically attrition the enemy down with repeated deaths. In the Hardcore environment where a single bad Mortar, Vortex, Jailer, or Reflects Damage will kill a glass cannon-ranged character, the disparity between ranged and melee is an order of magnitude less.

Repair Costs
One of the more controversial changes in 1.0.3 is the increased repair costs. The design intent of these increased repair costs is to make death more meaningful. One of the top arguments we see against the increased repair costs is "I'm already dying dozens of times to make any progress in Inferno. Don't you see this is going to make this impossible?" This concern is most often brought up by ranged glass cannons. Many melee players respond "increased repair costs seem fine" because they haven't been using death-zerging as a tactic. Melee can't easily death-zerg an enemy down, but ranged can. I don't think the answer is to make death-zerging more attractive for melee; I'd rather make death-zerging a less profitable strategy for ranged.

Enemy Health and Damage
We're also looking to adjust the damage and health of enemies in Inferno Acts II, III, and IV. This is another change that is primarily for melee with secondary benefits for ranged. A lot of ranged are building glass cannon with the mentality "well, I'll just try not to get hit at all." So, reducing incoming damage when they weren't taking any before isn't significant for them, whereas reducing incoming damage for the melee is a big deal. For the ranged classes, I'm hoping that the incoming damage reduction will make some survival stats more appealing to ranged classes. While before the damage was so large it just felt pointless to try and mitigate any of it at all, after the change hopefully ranged classes will think "well, if I just put on a modest amount of survivability, I don't get 1-shot, so that's worth it." There are some ranged players who are already doing this -- stacking survivability so they don’t have to endlessly kite -- and it just feels like the minimum amount of survivability to avoid the 1-shot is so large it's unattainable. That's one of the things 1.0.3 seeks to address.

Damage Reduction in Co-op
Another change which is targeted at improving life for melee is the reduction in co-op damage. Again, since many ranged players just build glass cannon and avoid damage completely, they didn't really care if incoming damage went up as other players entered the game, but the melee characters really noticed. It was very easy for your life-on-hit to have you at a steady equilibrium, but as soon as another player entered the game your life-on-hit was no longer covering the incoming damage and death became imminent.

Additional Changes
And finally, there are always minor polish adjustments designed to help melee -- such as the AI on some monsters (BEES!!!) being tweaked to run away less often, which again helps melee more than ranged. I actually spent some extra time the other day to make sure if a Sand Wasp runs away from you, and you start chasing the wasp, it doesn't turn and shoot 4 bees in your face (hopefully that makes 1.0.3). I'm also working with one of our gameplay engineers to make it so if you sidestep the Dark Berserker’s power hit (where he brings his giant mace down), he doesn’t turn to track you as he swings (though that change probably won't make 1.0.3). These kind of AI adjustments are things ranged players don’t even notice, but are huge for melee.

Another adjustment being made is increasing both the maximum range and the dead zone of Mortar. Mortar was specifically designed to be an anti-range affix, but many ranged players would just stand even farther away, whereas melee would sometimes get caught in the cross-fire of two Mortars. Increasing the maximum range and the dead zone helps with both of these.

---------- Post added 2012-06-10 at 04:07 PM ----------

The Dark Berserker change will move the mob from one of the most annoying to easiest for me. It was annoying to not be able to Dash behind them to avoid the swing, which otherwise works on every mob, including bosses.

The bee change is sweet, but I had a great strat avoiding the bee darts with dash, so I wasn't as annoyed with them as I used to be. I killed a rare bee pack in inferno act 2 last night and was actually happy to see them. Dash, dash, kill!

[Vook]

So I'll actually be able to play my Monk in Act3 Inferno without spending 15 mil on gear? Yay!

[Duskmourne]

As a monk, I am pleased to hear this.

[Frozen Death Knight]

Read about them the other day. Really good changes, honestly.

[Resentful]

The melee needs it desperately, I can't imagine the frustrations you guys have lol

[Felya]

So I'll actually be able to play my Monk in Act3 Inferno without spending 15 mil on gear? Yay!

I saved 2.2 million and crossing fingers on a good weapon. Been camping the AH, but no luck yet.

[Frozen Death Knight]

The melee needs it desperately, I can't imagine the frustrations you guys have lol

It's funny that mortars are supposed to be anti-range, but when playing they always manage to get to me even when I am just a short distance away. XD

Also, snares and that immobilization spell some units have? Yeah, those are very unpleasant when playing my Monk. Especially when my build is based around mobility. =(

[Resentful]

It's funny that mortars are supposed to be anti-range, but when playing they always manage to get to me even when I am just a short distance away. XD

Also, snares and that immobilization spell some units have? Yeah, those are very unpleasant when playing my Monk. Especially when my build is based around mobility. =(

See I'm a DH and everything is face roll literlly haha, Such skill right? SMOKEEEEEEEEE screen glass cannon dead mobs

[Leonard McCoy]

The repair cost answer bugs me the most because it doesn't really address making life better for melee. It just makes life more punishing for ranged and somehow that helps barbs and monks out.

[Deleted]

The repair cost answer bugs me the most because it doesn't really address making life better for melee. It just makes life more punishing for ranged and somehow that helps barbs and monks out.

Because barbs/monks are where they should be, ranged classes are not. So it makes perfect sense to tinker with the ranged classes, instead of the melee

[Leonard McCoy]

Because barbs/monks are where they should be, ranged classes are not. So it makes perfect sense to tinker with the ranged classes, instead of the melee

Clearly barbs and monks are not where they should be as the rest of the buffs are aimed at tuning them up. I still don't see what punishing ranged has to do with making life better for melee. In fact if you go through and read that thread several users point out the flaws in Blizzards logic and boy they are many...

[Deleted]

When a dev comes out says the opposite in a very well constructed post that alot of people agree with im not sure what your saying here has any weight compared to that.

I think you misunderstood. my remark was only in contrast to the death zerging of mobs. Not a general assesment

Clearly barbs and monks are not where they should be as the rest of the buffs are aimed at tuning them up. I still don't see what punishing ranged has to do with making life better for melee. In fact if you go through and read that thread several users point out the flaws in Blizzards logic and boy they are many...

It is because death zerging is "cheesing" gameplay. and if that is what your relying on to succeed, then your not "in a good place"

[Fishyface]

I think you misunderstood. my remark was only in contrast to the death zerging of mobs. Not a general assesment

Ya i just caught that, deleted it. My apologies on that I just woke up lol

[Mouri Kogorou]

The repair cost answer bugs me the most because it doesn't really address making life better for melee. It just makes life more punishing for ranged and somehow that helps barbs and monks out.

he is just sugar coating his words, the main reason is that there is so much gold being farmed everyday and they dont want gold value to drop like Zimbabwe Dollar lol

[Leonard McCoy]

I think you misunderstood. my remark was only in contrast to the death zerging of mobs. Not a general assesment




It is because death zerging is "cheesing" gameplay. and if that is what your relying on to succeed, then your not "in a good place"

Right I agree. How does that make life better for melee? It doesn't. It just make life harder for ranged. Addressing the imbalance as they are just makes life more difficult for everyone (including melee who do occasionally die and will now pay the higher repair cost).

[Deleted]

Right I agree. How does that make life better for melee? It doesn't. It just make life harder for ranged. Addressing the imbalance as they are just makes life more difficult for everyone (including melee who do occasionally die and will now pay the higher repair cost).

It is just, the two things are not related, and a fix to either does not have to involve the other.

Fixing ranged classes should not be neglected because the same fix does not fix melee classes.

okay ?

[Leonard McCoy]

It is just, the two things are not related, and a fix to either does not have to involve the other.

Fixing ranged classes should not be neglected because the same fix does not fix melee classes.

okay ?

Okay sure. They have no idea how to fix melee so their answer is make life more painful for everyone in general. Gotcha.

[Resentful]

Okay sure. They have no idea how to fix melee so their answer is make life more painful for everyone in general. Gotcha.

A flawless logic in there eyes apparently.

[Deleted]

A flawless logic in there eyes apparently.

I don´t think it matters what they do or say, when people like the two of who are around.

what your basically saying is, they should not fix a damn thing, before they fix the one thing you want fixed first. Geez. Get over yourself.
Besides, they are working on solving both things at the moment.

[Darsithis]

I know it's not entirely targeted towards hardcore...but it should make the curve a little easier and help me out when I finally reach Inferno

Finally, a mortar nerf!