Diablo III

[LoweGear]

More information on the Follower's system:

PC IGN - Diablo 3: Virtual Friends with Benefits

So unlike the run-of-the-mill mercs in D2, these Followers will be their own characters with dialogue and interactions. Interesting, I always was fond of my mercs in D2 even when they didn't speak XD

[Skane]

Originally Posted by LoweGear

More information on the Follower's system:

PC IGN - Diablo 3: Virtual Friends with Benefits

So unlike the run-of-the-mill mercs in D2, these Followers will be their own characters with dialogue and interactions. Interesting, I always was fond of my mercs in D2 even when they didn't speak XD

People wrote fanfiction about the Mercs in D2. Me myself had a soft spot for the Fire Rogues.

Natch.

[LoweGear]

Fire rogues doing what they do best: hot, sweaty, kinky three-way..... practice.

What?

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by LoweGear

More information on the Follower's system:

PC IGN - Diablo 3: Virtual Friends with Benefits

So unlike the run-of-the-mill mercs in D2, these Followers will be their own characters with dialogue and interactions. Interesting, I always was fond of my mercs in D2 even when they didn't speak XD

Can we date our own Mercs? Will they complain if we use them to bait a horde to AOE on?

[LoweGear]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Can we date our own Mercs? Will they complain if we use them to bait a horde to AOE on?

1. Doujins exist for that glorious purpose
2. Only if we... compensate for the pain they recieved through- *static*



As an aside, the above video actually shows us the male Demon Hunter and Wizard in action, plus a female Barbarian. Didn't notice the first time round

[Skane]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Can we date our own Mercs? Will they complain if we use them to bait a horde to AOE on?

If Bioware made D3, we would be able to have bisexual romances with our followers. Since this is Blizzard though... we'll just have to settle with loads and loads of UST.

Narf.

[Kurumix]

yay Diablo 3

it seems that they fix pretty much every problem with diablo 2 in this one =3

also reguardless of the 3 prime evils dieing
they still did accomplish their goal in the end

and diablo usually reincarnates anyway =3
also keep in mind that the prime evils arent even using their real bodies
they are basically possessing really strong humans and using them as hosts
but diablo, mephisto, and baal have to yet to fully revive themselves in any of the games =3

and the strongest of the lesser evils, Belial and Azmodan, are still on the lose
these are the 2 who originally killed alll 3 prime evils, so them being in a game would be awesome =3

and this is my breakdown on why diablo 3 is gonna be awesome xD

[Chaos2Frozen]

Wow, it felt like forever since I last heard of a Diablo news Actually just last week, I had even completely forgotten they already revealed the last class

Just one question; do we get both genders for the followers ?

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Can we date our own Mercs?

What?! That would take another two years of development !!

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by LoweGear

More information on the Follower's system:

PC IGN - Diablo 3: Virtual Friends with Benefits

So unlike the run-of-the-mill mercs in D2, these Followers will be their own characters with dialogue and interactions. Interesting, I always was fond of my mercs in D2 even when they didn't speak XD

Bad news.
http://forums.battle.net/thread.html...=3000&pageNo=2

Mercs are designed to be entirely useless past normal difficulty. They stop levelling up past level 25. The intention was to "ease" Single-player gamers into playing Multiplayer by giving them someone to play with, then take it all away so they would have to play online with other people instead.

Frankly I am insulted by this. And DIII has been bumped off my buy-list until further notice.

[Xacual]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Bad news.
http://forums.battle.net/thread.html...=3000&pageNo=2

Mercs are designed to be entirely useless past normal difficulty. They stop levelling up past level 25. The intention was to "ease" Single-player gamers into playing Multiplayer by giving them someone to play with, then take it all away so they would have to play online with other people instead.

Frankly I am insulted by this. And DIII has been bumped off my buy-list until further notice.

Because these aren't Mercs like in D2. Like you said they made them as a sort of tutorial to get players used to having other characters working with them. I don't really see the big deal but then again I rarely if ever used Mercs in D2.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Xacual

Because these aren't Mercs like in D2. Like you said they made them as a sort of tutorial to get players used to having other characters working with them. I don't really see the big deal but then again I rarely if ever used Mercs in D2.

That's not the problem; the problem is that by making mercs a Multiplayer tutorial only, it means I have no more reason to treat Diablo as a single-player game.

I don't care about multiplayer no matter how good it is suppose to be. It is not my type of fun. And as such, since DIII is now officially a full Multiplayer game all the way through, and Blizzard even told me to my face that I am a minority who isn't going to matter very much, that I would make sure the "minority" gets even more minor by taking myself out of it.

There is another RPG that is coming out this year, that has a dedicated Single-Player. I will not name it as I don't want to start a versus argument. But let it be known that Blizzard helped me make up my mind which RPG I would be playing at the end of 2011.

[Xacual]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

That's not the problem; the problem is that by making mercs a Multiplayer tutorial only, it means I have no more reason to treat Diablo as a single-player game.

I don't care about multiplayer no matter how good it is suppose to be. It is not my type of fun. And as such, since DIII is now officially a full Multiplayer game all the way through, and Blizzard even told me to my face that I am a minority who isn't going to matter very much, that I would make sure the "minority" gets even more minor by taking myself out of it.

There is another RPG that is coming out this year, that has a dedicated Single-Player. I will not name it as I don't want to start a versus argument. But let it be known that Blizzard helped me make up my mind which RPG I would be playing at the end of 2011.

I have to be honest with you. If a small announcement like this is making you totally forsake a game then it doesn't sound like you really ever intended to like it in the first place.

Blizzard isn't calling single players a minority, their intention for followers were to be a helper and lore providing character for single players in normal mode. Judging by what's been said about normal mode, it's going to be simple anyway so I don't see how making a follower that is pretty much useless on the difficulty you can use it on, unavailable on the other difficulties a big deal.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Xacual

I have to be honest with you. If a small announcement like this is making you totally forsake a game then it doesn't sound like you really ever intended to like it in the first place.

Blizzard isn't calling single players a minority, their intention for followers were to be a helper and lore providing character for single players in normal mode. Judging by what's been said about normal mode, it's going to be simple anyway so I don't see how making a follower that is pretty much useless on the difficulty you can use it on, unavailable on the other difficulties a big deal.

http://blues.incgamers.com/Posts/1/1...te-of-dev-time
Here is the quote when Blizzard explicitly call people like me a minority:

I don’t mean any offense, but you don’t represent the majority of people that will play the game. For better or worse.

Note the "I don't mean any offense". This sentence is only used when Blizzard knows they are saying something offensive, but says it anyway.

And go ahead and accuse me of being a drama queen or that I am a liar. I have been following DIII news for months now, and I am genuinely angry at what they have done. They have officially declared that as a Single Player gamer, I don't deserve to have the full game past Normal difficulty. This is a design decision to make sure I am not having too much fun.

This is the first time Blizzard has said to my face that "You are playing it wrong, do multiplayer or don't do it at all."

[Xacual]

Spoiler for First Blizzard Post:

I don't mean any offense, but you don't represent the majority of people that will play the game. For better or worse. People here, logging in with their Diablo II keys to talk about an unreleased product - - on an essentially hidden forum - - do not represent the vast majority of people that will play the game. Which doesn't mean we don't want the game to appeal to you or be a lasting game you'll want to play as long as you played Diablo II, it very much is our intent to be, but we have a broad range of Diablo fans to appeal to.

Looking at Diablo II the amount of people that bought the game, never logged on to Battle.net, and never went beyond Normal are not insignificant. In fact, they're a substantial portion of the people that bought copies throughout the life of the game. The same goes for StarCraft II. Many (maybe most) people play through the story on normal difficulty, they MAY jump into multiplayer for a bit, and then that's about it. Putting effort into ensuring their experience is a solid one is not a waste of time because some other people completely skip the story and go straight to the 1v1 ladder.

Followers fit in with that 'average' use of games very well, but their intent is to also help people expand beyond their initial intent of beating it on Normal, and then shelving the game. If the followers can get a player excited about co-op because they like playing with another character, that's a win. We also think they just add a lot to the experience up front, which is important.

And, they're memorable characters. I don't think the scope of who these people are needs to end because their health doesn't scale so we can ensure the end-game is pure and there's less visual noise in multiplayer games. We don't have any plans for them beyond what we've announced, but, I wouldn't be surprised if they became meaningful in other ways in the future. Even if they're not, if someone enjoyed playing along with them, enjoyed the dialog, and liked what they add to the single player experience (which is pretty significant) then that's not a waste of time.

Q u o t e:
Not even needed to finish Normal mode according to Bashiok



Normal is super easy. It's intentionally super easy. You will die, but you can essentially slap on gear and not think too much about it, and probably beat the game without too much trouble. There will be many people though that will get a good amount of damage and utility by keeping their follower along. But, realistically people aren't going to actively refuse the help of a follower as they play through the game the first time.

I can beat the game on normal without gemming any items. That doesn't mean gems are a waste of time as a system. One happens to be required more at higher difficulties, one happens to be more useful and fun when playing alone in Normal. There's nothing that says all of our mechanics have to be useful at all times through all difficulties and classes or else it's a waste of time, and in fact, that'd probably make things super boring.

Spoiler for Third Post:

Followers were originally going to be available during co-op, and actually are right now because of a bug in the current build we're playing. And it's crazy. If you're unfortunate enough to also have a witch doctor, it's insanity. Eight characters running around plus all of the potential pets. It's complete chaos. That's the biggest reason they aren't going to be available outside of single player.

We also love that they're these strong, vocal, named characters that have a place and point in the world. They have objectives, they have opinions, and when you're by yourself it's awesome. They'll chime in and offer a comment on something, and it just does that much more to bring the world to life. But, in a co-op game, we all pick the Templar, and all of a sudden there's this character in the world cloned four times, with the same voice, saying the same things... and it gets real weird real fast. Also they do tend to talk a bit, and having four followers all piping in at different times can be pretty annoying when you're trying to talk with your friends.

There is actually the situation where you can have a follower and then re-run the quest where you pick them up, which could be a little weird, but we have some creative solutions we think keep that specific paradox from unraveling the spacetime continuum.

Followers have been a feature and we've known who these characters were going to be since before we announced the game, and while they haven't been in active testing that entire time, we're pretty well informed in how we feel they'll play out best. Of course, iteration is the name of the game. I don't really see the current plan changing, personally, but I'd be willing to be wrong. I just don't see a potential for (clean) alternative options outweighing the pretty massive negatives that these rules correct.

After reading all three posts, I'm still not seeing them calling single players a minority. He was telling those people on that forum complaining about not being able to use mercs on higher difficulties and essentially posting on a hidden forum that they aren't a majority of the people that will be buying the game. Let's be honest, people who use a forum for a game that's not even out yet, aren't a majority no matter how you slice it.

[Kyero Fox]

So they make templar a companion and not a playable class? fuck you blizzard.

[Xacual]

Originally Posted by Kyero Fox

So they make templar a companion and not a playable class? fuck you blizzard.

Err, we already know all the playable classes. They said D3 would have 5 and we have 5 announced already.

[Kyero Fox]

Originally Posted by Xacual

Err, we already know all the playable classes. They said D3 would have 5 and we have 5 announced already.

Yes.. they did.. while they could have put in more and templar seems to be a good class to be able to use, its not like barbarian. it looks like paladin does.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by Xacual

[SPOILER="First Blizzard Post"]After reading all three posts, I'm still not seeing them calling single players a minority. He was telling those people on that forum complaining about not being able to use mercs on higher difficulties and essentially posting on a hidden forum that they aren't a majority of the people that will be buying the game. Let's be honest, people who use a forum for a game that's not even out yet, aren't a majority no matter how you slice it.

Blizzard wants me to play Multiplayer by stopping Companions from levelling up past 25, making them impossible to use in Nightmare or higher. This is a deliberate decision in order to discourage single player from being fun past that point. This also means Blizzard knows that I would enjoy having viable Companions in Nightmare and Hell, and they can't have me doing that.

There is no reason to give companions a 25 level cap except to punch me in the face for not playing multiplayer.

[NoLongerSane]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Bad news.
http://forums.battle.net/thread.html...=3000&pageNo=2

Mercs are designed to be entirely useless past normal difficulty. They stop levelling up past level 25. The intention was to "ease" Single-player gamers into playing Multiplayer by giving them someone to play with, then take it all away so they would have to play online with other people instead.

Frankly I am insulted by this. And DIII has been bumped off my buy-list until further notice.

I am a bit disheartn from reading that. I too have valued my Merc and made sure that they were near the same level I was when doing the harder difficulties. I am also very avid in playing multiplayer and the reason for that was the mercs that I would bring in along to help out the others during quest and level ups.

I am hoping that Blizzard changes their minds on this.

[LoweGear]

I dunno about you, but my experience with the Merc system in D2 was that once you hit the latter parts of the game like in Hell (the level, not the difficulty), or Harrogath they tend to die really fast. So much so in fact that I practically soloed the game in Nightmare and Hell difficulty due to how many times my Merc kept on dying. (And since I liked my mercs it was rather disheartening).

Also, I don't think we have all the information here. While we know Followers will only level up to 25, we don't know how that kind of level scales in relation to the game, or if the leveling system for the Followers will be similar to the player at all. And given that they said you don't even require followers to finish Normal difficulty due to how easy it's supposed to be, then it points to the possibility of a player wanting to use Followers in Nightmare and Hell difficulty to ease the pain. Hell (pun intended), we don't even know how the game will scale across Normal, Nightmare and Hell in relation to your character and your Follower.

Finally, the Follower's system is not the merc system for one reason: as stated, you don't have to return to camp to pick up a dead Follower, in fact they don't "die" at all, unlike mercs - they just become unuseable for a short period of time, then get back into the action immediately. So you're never truly alone if you choose to bring your Follower with you and thus you no longer have the frustration of having to go back to camp to get them back. Hence even in Hell difficulty they should still be viable enough on paper, just not as a secondary powerhouse. In the first place, the Followers system (and arguably the predecessor Mercenary system) was not designed to be your crutch in a game; if you're playing badly, no amount of superpowered Merc or Follower is going to save your ass. You're the one who's supposed to be playing the game, not your Follower. And if you're bringing along the Follower for the lore and interactions they bring, then how they fare in combat shouldn't matter as much, given that they won't technically "die" on you.