Hyper-giga density at an all time high

[Flinlock]

I don’t know if you’re exaggerating or I’m just lucky, because I never have issues as bad as you described. If I’m client and connected to a laggy host then there will be some weird laggy rubber banding and clipping, but if I host it’s generally fine with occasional manageable weirdness. Hyper density happens sometimes for sure especially where climbing up or down is involved but there’s a lot to be said for proactively preventing hyperdensity. Seeing the places it will form and thinning enemies out or just getting yourself somewhere else and all that.

I’d be curious to see how full unit collision would change the game. As frustrating as it is, hyperdensity serves the function of you getting overwhelmed by the massive horde… with unit collision, way less enemies could get at you at once, and as long as you weren’t mobbed completely out in the open the game would be ridiculously easy.
Similarly with the examples you mentioned of assassins and packmasters being able to just pounce or run through other enemies… if they couldn’t, they wouldn’t be threatening in the slightest. If a packmaster had to wait until you killed enough of the horde for it to have a turn, it would just be standing in line like an idiot and easy target. If it did manage to hook someone, it wouldn’t be able to take them away because it would be blocked in, so still easy target. Same goes for assassins.

Maybe some sort of soft collision for horde and elites would help. I haven’t played left4dead in awhile but it had similar mechanics with special enemies being able to pass through other mobs, and the hordes could form hyperdensity but it was less common - really only happened if you got yourself into a bad position. Of course in that game you had unlimited pushes so that was pretty effective at fending off the hyperdensity, plus the focus was on ranged combat so there wasn’t as much opportunity for it to form in the first place. Still, I think it says something that a big studio with endless resources still didn’t go the full unit collision route…

[Abysswalker]

Im not exaggerating, these things happened to me (even in the past few days, as host).

And of course implementing unit collision wouldnt be the end of the story. Also adding it would require some THOUGHT, and WORK put into the game regarding the combat system, which is missing in some cases even with the current system…

First of all, im not talking about full body collision. (THAT would be resource intensive) Instead imagine smaller invisible balls/cylinders that just a bit smaller in radius as the torso of the entity, clipped into them. You cant see them, barely resource intensive, and helps preventing hyperdensity.

At this point the slot system would fly into the trash faster than a bugged assassin. Hordes would swarm you, as they should, there could be more mobs around you, than with the slot system, but not with that absurd unfairness, that 30 fanatics are hitting you at the same time from the frontal slot… You would get hits only from those mobs what you can counter/react to… The horde is still challenging, but not because you need to play around the bugs… (HehE IM a LeGenD PlaYeR = I learned all the stpd bugs so im not killed by hordes and skaters finally)

With that spawning should be fixed too ->actual work put into maps, not just spawning 100 rats in one spot, and if you are lucky they disperse by the time you rush in to kill that ONE slaverat…

Weapon reaches also… Noone wants to get hit by a dagger from the third row of enemies… Along with skating, and 8m weapon reaches at certain mobs…

Specials… First of all they need SMARTER spawning… Im sure everyone seen packmasters walking up to the group, on the main streets, where even ambients are not present… or leeches chilling out somewhere in the swamp, only waiting to be shot at. They need to spawn at more dangerous times, at hordes, bosses etc. As for packmasters they would get more mass, so they can push aside the smaller mobs. Assassins are a buggy mess, they need a serious fix… Map design would also make them more dangerous (in a fair way, again…), map layout/ darkness in alleys / terrain height differences /breaking LOS more often / forcing the group to split up, plenty of possibilities, but definietly not my job to do this (yet).