Like you said, it's all fine and good if you have a well-rounded four-player team, but none of my friends are in college anymore. They have obligations. If I want to solo, then it's probably not going to work out because of the enrage timers. Most of the hardcore players here are presumably in US East or West, so I'll be lucky if I can find someone playing in the European servers. There's no hostile button at least, so I can at least join public games. I'll have to see how enemies scale before I let my life depend on complete strangers.
Unless you're doing my 'nothing but run speed maxed all the time barbarian' build you're probably going to be able to do enough damage to kill things in a solo game.
Like you said, it's all fine and good if you have a well-rounded four-player team, but none of my friends are in college anymore. They have obligations. If I want to solo, then it's probably not going to work out because of the enrage timers. Most of the hardcore players here are presumably in US East or West, so I'll be lucky if I can find someone playing in the European servers. There's no hostile button at least, so I can at least join public games. I'll have to see how enemies scale before I let my life depend on complete strangers.
Inferno's a tremendous step up in difficulty from Hell, man. I honestly don't think a lot of people will enjoy it. I'm looking at screenshots from MMO-Champion that show enemies have potentially millions of HP on Inferno. Like, here's one that has 76k health at most on Hell, and 428k health on Inferno. The Champion version of this enemy has 266k health on Hell, while the Inferno version's got close to 2 million.
The way I understand it, the number of people who will complete Inferno will be comparable to the number of people who complete top-tier raid content on WoW when it's new. Which is to say ... not many people.
Which is part of the reason why I'm so excited about it.
...but if I had to grind out level 30 or farm for a full set of green gear at level 20 to beat duriel then I really doubt I would have kept playing D2.
Personal preference, and that's fair enough. I will note that a large portion of the D2 playing population kept doing so, repeatedly farming gear, long after the undefeated mobs had run out.
They didn't even have the reason of some undefeated mob to progress for, and yet they still kept playing anyway. I understand your position above, but I think Blizzard might be catering to the preferences of a larger demographic.
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darklite_xI'm not an r-tard...Registered Userregular
I'd like to hear what some of the hardcore fans think about this since I know we have a considerable amount of them on these forums. I personally hate the idea in any implementation, but in hardcore where kiting is a survival strategy this seems almost like it was designed to screw over HC players. Anyone of you HC-purists care to chime in?
Steam ID: darklite_x Xbox Gamertag: Darklite 37 PSN:Rage_Kage_37 Battle.Net:darklite#2197
I plan on using a defensive monk in Hardcore, too. Why is that not viable because of enrage timers?
I think he might want the option to wear down any mob in the game if he's willing to put in the time on the fight. Or, perhaps the enrage timer represents too great a risk to hardcore players if the mob can suddenly turn around and 1-shot you.
I'd like to hear what some of the hardcore fans think about this since I know we have a considerable amount of them on these forums. I personally hate the idea in any implementation, but in hardcore where kiting is a survival strategy this seems almost like it was designed to screw over HC players. Anyone of you HC-purists care to chime in?
I play almost exclusively hardcore, the only exception being when I'm playing with my wife or someone else who just refuses to play hardcore. For whatever it's worth, I'm happy about enrage timers. It seems specifically designed to combat some of the more cheesy tactics you could get away with in D2 -- namely endlessly plinking the mob, running away, healing up, going back for another few hits, etc. I know we haven't heard anything official, but I seriously doubt the enrage timer is such that you have to have top of the line DPS, and you have to go balls to the wall nuts on the mob as soon as you see it and never let up. I would imagine that the enrage timers will be much more lenient, allowing plenty of time for reasonably balanced, defensive-oriented builds to do just fine.
Besides, the more challenge, the longer this game will last for me. If I still haven't managed to beat hardcore Inferno by this time next year, I will be thrilled.
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darklite_xI'm not an r-tard...Registered Userregular
I'll admit that I'm jumping the gun here, basing my 'enrage timer' knowledge off of WoW experiences, so I could be getting disappointed over nothing. Maybe it's just another random modifier like 'arcane enchanted' or whatnot. My fear though, is that this is just another way to funnel players into Blizzard's visioned playstyle. My fear is that it's going to homogenize gear so that only one type of modifier will be useful (exaggeration but you get the point), and that build experimentation will be worthless because even if you come up with a neat gimmick build based on defense for example, it'll be completely ineffective, and people will be doing the min/max BS that currently runs WoW. I know people are going to do min/max builds regardless of enrage timers or whatever else they put in, but I'm concerned that they'll become a necessity.
Steam ID: darklite_x Xbox Gamertag: Darklite 37 PSN:Rage_Kage_37 Battle.Net:darklite#2197
and Inferno isn't intended for Hardcore characters, so once again I'm failing to see the problem?
It's not really designed to be beaten by HC characters, but Blizzard is on record as saying HC players should consider that a challenge. And they will. There is no doubt at all that HC players will be running Inferno and that Blizzard wants them to try it. So, I guess the question then is this: Is HC + enrage timers so punishing that it would render the experience un-fun?
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GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
The philosophy behind rage timers seems a little different for D3 than for WoW.
In WoW it's a gear check and group check. Do you have the gear to do enough damage to burn down the boss? Ok. Do you have a well-balanced group that's not overloaded with healers? Ok.
In D3 it's more about pacing. Obviously it acts as a gear check as well, but if the game is balanced and meant to be completed solo as they've been saying from the start, it's to ensure that players and groups are going toe to toe with bosses and not being ultra cheesy or overloading on defensive gear.
I dunno, I'm not a huge fan of the mechanic, but I can see it functioning a bit differently in this context. It's unlikely to affect me frankly since I probably won't have the time to play through Inferno.
I'll admit that I'm jumping the gun here, basing my 'enrage timer' knowledge off of WoW experiences, so I could be getting disappointed over nothing. Maybe it's just another random modifier like 'arcane enchanted' or whatnot. My fear though, is that this is just another way to funnel players into Blizzard's visioned playstyle. My fear is that it's going to homogenize gear so that only one type of modifier will be useful (exaggeration but you get the point), and that build experimentation will be worthless because even if you come up with a neat gimmick build based on defense for example, it'll be completely ineffective, and people will be doing the min/max BS that currently runs WoW. I know people are going to do min/max builds regardless of enrage timers or whatever else they put in, but I'm concerned that they'll become a necessity.
That's nearly exactly what I was thinking of. Why build an Iron Barb, for instance, if it just gets insta-gibbed after a while?
Seems kind of stupid to put defense spec characters in the game if you're just going to punish people for using them.
Why is everyone assuming Blizzard is just going to copy-paste enrage timers from WoW without doing anything to make sure it fits into Diablo 3's gameplay?
Inferno was designed to be extremely challenging; a clear step above Hell in every way, shape, and form. Of course certain builds will be stronger than others. Of course certain "gimicky" builds will be ineffective in that environment. That's just how it goes. I don't think Inferno mode's meant to "screw over Hardcore players", or to "funnel players into Blizzard's visioned playstyle".
I've completed Hell mode on Diablo 2 with a few experimental builds, and I found it to be fun, challenging, and ultimately really rewarding. This is a whole new thing, though. Enemies have like quadruple the amount of health that they did on Hell, and possess a new abilities specifically designed to fuck players over. It's intended to be incredibly difficult. So yeah, people who want to take on a challenge like Inferno mode are going to be min/maxing and trying to find the most optimal build setups.
Man... I can't wait to see how it all plays out. Gamers frequently storm the gates of these sorts of challenges and tear the hinges off before game companies can even get their pants on. Would be interesting to see a non-MMO come up with some challenge that we don't utterly dominate in the first year.
Why is everyone assuming Blizzard is just going to copy-paste enrage timers from WoW without doing anything to make sure it fits into Diablo 3's gameplay?
Why is everyone assuming Blizzard is just going to copy-paste enrage timers from WoW without doing anything to make sure it fits into Diablo 3's gameplay?
Jumping to conclusions, fun for the whole family!
I'm not surprised at enrage mechanics not being unique to the Thousand Pounders, seeing as they go batshit when they're at low health. Having critters do the same when they haven't been given enough tender, loving stab wounds seems dandy to me.
It depends on your play style and gear preferences. Personally, I'm super cautious on hardcore, especially when I don't have the greatest gear, which is all the time. I know HC people who use Stone of Jordans to amp up their damage, but I prefer Dwarf Star and Ravenfrost even if I happen to have SoJs, as it gives me a level of comfort. Stormshield beats a Spirit shield runeword. Thundergod's beats an Arachnid Mesh. That's the thing. Hardcore isn't about min/maxing, it's about not dying. Enrage timers clashes with this cautiousness. I don't have the illusion that I'll beat Inferno on hardcore any time soon if ever, but it is a tacky feature used to increase the challenge and vulnerability of the HC player base. It's like Jay Wilson implemented it purposefully after the constant moaning and double daring of the fanbase. The comparisons with WoW are irrelevant. Let's talk WoW when it has a hardcore mode.
Enrage timers were a stupid mechanic when they were first thought up and they still are now. I understand WHY they were made, for gear/skill checks... but they never made sense. If a monster could "enrage" and 1 shot you... why would he not do that ALL the time, or randomly? Why only after a set amount of time? I know that if *I* was a mob getting attacked by a bunch of ppl I would do everything I could to survive... if I could get mad and kill everything, then I would.
In D3 it makes even less sense because it is NOT an MMO or even a large group multiplayer game, where gear/skill might be detrimental to the rest of the group's fun. I think it is a stupid mechanic and should not be in any game ESPECIALLY not in D3.
Enrage is a game mechanic there to curb certain strategies that make the game stale. In WoW healer stacking, and in D3 presumably to make sure you balance defence and offence, since a full defence build group looks like it could pretty much not take damage at all otherwise. They are just that, a game mechanic. Not really meant to be logical in any way.
Makes perfect sense as they want inferno to be hard, making sure you can't cheese it with excessive kiting or defense stacking.
Enrage timers were a stupid mechanic when they were first thought up and they still are now. I understand WHY they were made, for gear/skill checks...
That isn't at all why they were made, though. Enrage timers aren't really a "gear-check" thing; they're in place to prevent players from cheesing content by leveraging parties built for total defense. A four-Monk party in Diablo 3 is essentially invincible, but isn't exactly a DPS machine. Enrage timers, in and of themselves, likely won't present any kind of gear-check at all for players in Diablo 3. Instead, Inferno itself is the gear-check. In just the same way that a player who's just defeated Nightmare will likely struggle if he tries to jump right into Hell, players will struggle if they try to jump into Inferno the moment they've completed Hell. The difficulty itself represents the gear-check, and Enrage timers just represent an effort to prevent players from cheesing a mode that's intended to be super difficult.
In WoW healer stacking, and in D3 presumably to make sure you balance defence and offence, since a full defence build group looks like it could pretty much not take damage at all otherwise.
You'd also not be able to deal any sort of damage if enemies have any sort of health regeneration, which D2 had on Hell difficulty. I hate to use MMO terminology, but every class is a DPS in D3. There are no healers. So I don't really understand why people bring up the MMO comparisons. No. Enrage timers enforce the min/max attitude, which is what can make the game stale. Didn't you guys applaud the variety of builds? Now you applaud a feature that clashes with it?
I think people aren't fully understanding yet that Inferno isn't going to be for everybody. It's the ultimate difficulty designed only for the ultimate builds. Just to play it you need to grind Hell for really good equipment. There are all sorts of strategies and builds that will no doubt work in Hell but you'll have to leave behind if you want to move on. To do otherwise would be to trivialize Inferno for the people who min-max.
Wouldn't giving the monsters constant HP regeneration have a similar effect as the enrage timers without the risk of characters being one-shotted? Builds that are extremely defensive would have a difficult time overcoming the regeneration rate of the monsters, signaling that a more aggressive build is needed.
I absolutely appluad Diablo 3 for having tons and tons of viable builds. Every time I read through someone else's build, I think, "Well, that's not what I'd do, but I totally see why he's taking this power or that power, and it totally looks like it'll be effective for him." I think that's great. I also appluad it for implementing an entirely new difficulty that's supposed to be ridiculously, keyboard-smashingly difficult, where min/maxing is encouraged (if not required).
Let's be honest here, guys: how many people are going to actually play Inferno mode? I mean, be serious. I don't know a lot of people, personally, who've completed Hell. I mean, I don't know a lot of people who play on the hardest difficulties on any game. I like to browse through other peoples' achievements on Live, and I'm always amazed that I'm like, the only person who's completed X game on Insanity, or Y game on Veteran, or whatever. I don't think less of people for not playing on the hardest difficulties at all, though; don't get me wrong. I'm just always amazed that nobody does it.
I just don't think that, in all seriousness, most players will even unlock or attempt Inferno mode in Diablo 3. My wife almost certainly won't. She loves Diablo, but she's not the kind of player who wants to like, basically wipe over and over again trying to take down enemy packs (which is exactly what Blizzard's said Inferno's going to be like).
I think people are making a big deal about nothing, to be honest, because I believe the number of people who will progress though Inferno will be comparable to the number of people who progress through top-tier raid content on WoW. It's intended to be a "min/maxing" kind of experience, as far as I can tell.
If you don't think that sounds fun, don't play it.
There were two kinds of enrages in WoW bosses. One was the one that was absolutely key to the encounter, like Patchwerk, or Vael. The design intent of these was to make your DPS sweat, and place the bulk of the challenge on them, instead of the tanks or healers.
Most other bosses had a much longer enrage. These were to ensure you weren't doing something cheesy or exploitative, like stacking all healers or kiting or using geometry in a sneaky way. As long as you were doing a 'normal' amount of DPS they were never an issue.
In WoW healer stacking, and in D3 presumably to make sure you balance defence and offence, since a full defence build group looks like it could pretty much not take damage at all otherwise.
You'd also not be able to deal any sort of damage if enemies have any sort of health regeneration, which D2 had on Hell difficulty. I hate to use MMO terminology, but every class is a DPS in D3. There are no healers. So I don't really understand why people bring up the MMO comparisons. No. Enrage timers enforce the min/max attitude, which is what can make the game stale. Didn't you guys applaud the variety of builds? Now you applaud a feature that clashes with it?
There are builds and combinations that almost entierly sacrifice damage in favor of defense and healing, like the aforementioned 4 monk party though, so there are degrees of damage and support. And inferno is meant to enforce a min/max attitude, as it is supposed to be hard. you literally can not make something challenging in a game that's about numbers and skills without making it require some thought into the builds needed. I find a enrage timer to be more fun than health regen as well, as it at least stops fights from taking forever. I have no doubt there will be a fair few builds and combos viable for inferno, but far from as many as hell and before. This is fine though, as Inferno seems to be designed for people who enjoy somewhat masochistic streaks in their games, much like WoW hardmodes before they are tuned down.
There were two kinds of enrages in WoW bosses. One was the one that was absolutely key to the encounter, like Patchwerk, or Vael. The design intent of these was to make your DPS sweat, and place the bulk of the challenge on them, instead of the tanks or healers.
Most other bosses had a much longer enrage. These were to ensure you weren't doing something cheesy or exploitative, like stacking all healers or kiting or using geometry in a sneaky way. As long as you were doing a 'normal' amount of DPS they were never an issue.
I assume D3 is going for the second case.
That's what I think, too. I don't get the impression that enrage timers are meant to create Patchwerk-style DPS races at all.
I think people are making a big deal about nothing, to be honest, because I believe the number of people who will progress though Inferno will be comparable to the number of people who progress through top-tier raid content on WoW. It's intended to be a "min/maxing" kind of experience, as far as I can tell.
Except, like I said, hardcore isn't about min/maxing. To me, it seems like they implemented the feature to artificially increase the kill rate, in the vein of the enchanted/claw viper/corpse explosion bug in D2. I take it as a big middle finger to the hardcore crowd. We're masochists, but we have our limits!
I also think it's kind of silly to complain about min/maxing builds in Diablo 3, since you can change your character around whenever you've got a free moment. In Diablo 2 (and I know they eventually implemented the ability to rebuild your character once per difficulty), it was all about min/maxing, and over-thinking builds, and worrying about which skills and synergies were the most valuable, because after you invested your points, you're stuck with them. So there was a strong emphasis on min/maxing.
In Diablo 3, you can change your stuff around every time you play, if you want. You can play one way all through Normal, another way all through Nightmare, another through Hell, and another still through Inferno. And there's no penalty or restriction associated with that. As difficulty amps up, though, nobody should be surprised that certain builds become less effective, while others become more effective. As you progress from Normal to Nightmare, Nightmare to Hell, and Hell to Inferno, the number of really effective builds will naturally shrink.
I think people are making a big deal about nothing, to be honest, because I believe the number of people who will progress though Inferno will be comparable to the number of people who progress through top-tier raid content on WoW. It's intended to be a "min/maxing" kind of experience, as far as I can tell.
Except, like I said, hardcore isn't about min/maxing. To me, it seems like they implemented the feature to artificially increase the kill rate, in the vein of the enchanted/claw viper/corpse explosion bug in D2. I take it as a big middle finger to the hardcore crowd. We're masochists, but we have our limits!
They implemented the feature to make Inferno hard, end of story. A natural extension of that is that it's not reasonably possible for Hardcore, but that's not Blizzard's problem. I would have thought that Hardcore players of all people wouldn't want the whole game made easier just to accommodate them.
I think people are making a big deal about nothing, to be honest, because I believe the number of people who will progress though Inferno will be comparable to the number of people who progress through top-tier raid content on WoW. It's intended to be a "min/maxing" kind of experience, as far as I can tell.
Except, like I said, hardcore isn't about min/maxing. To me, it seems like they implemented the feature to artificially increase the kill rate, in the vein of the enchanted/claw viper/corpse explosion bug in D2. I take it as a big middle finger to the hardcore crowd. We're masochists, but we have our limits!
Here's what Jay Wilson says about Inferno, though:
Inferno
Jay Wilson states that he can not clear less than half of act 1 without less than 10 deaths.
He states that in Inferno if you find a really hard pack, you are not really able to skip them, while in nightmare and hell you can kind of just move around them.
We have encounters in the Inferno mode, where we will die a dozen times trying to take a rare down.
We also have enraged timers, where if you don’t kill the monsters in a certain amount of time, they enrage and then they do massive damage.
The level of difficulty on Inferno is so high that a lot of people on the dev team can’t test it very effectively. So we’ve actually had to use a specialty group within. We formed a specific strike-team, just for end-game. And their goal was to tell us that this was a challenging and compelling experience.
I mean, it sounds to me like enrage timers are the least of Hardcore players' worries.
I think people are making a big deal about nothing, to be honest, because I believe the number of people who will progress though Inferno will be comparable to the number of people who progress through top-tier raid content on WoW. It's intended to be a "min/maxing" kind of experience, as far as I can tell.
Except, like I said, hardcore isn't about min/maxing. To me, it seems like they implemented the feature to artificially increase the kill rate, in the vein of the enchanted/claw viper/corpse explosion bug in D2. I take it as a big middle finger to the hardcore crowd. We're masochists, but we have our limits!
They implemented the feature to make Inferno hard, end of story. A natural extension of that is that it's not reasonably possible for Hardcore, but that's not Blizzard's problem. I would have thought that Hardcore players of all people wouldn't want the whole game made easier just to accommodate them.
I never thought enrage timers were terrible in WoW, but I feel like it's not something that has a place in Diablo. I don't like the idea of a 'gear check' or 'gear gating' in Diablo. Like in D2, if I go up against Duriel at level 20 with decent gear I can eventually wear him down you know, but if I had to grind out level 30 or farm for a full set of green gear at level 20 to beat duriel then I really doubt I would have kept playing D2. It's the idea that characters will be gated based on gear rather than skill or, in some cases ingenuity or patience. If someone wants to kite Superbad Demonbro for 20 minutes just to whittle down 1% every 30 seconds or something then why shouldn't they have that option? All I'm saying is that it doesn't really seem like a mechanic that belongs in a Diablo game.
Dingdingding, if the enrage timers are strong enough that it turns the fight into a gear check? Worst design decision D3 has made. I have been slightly disappointed by decisions before, but this is gonna stick with me, I think.
Enrage is a game mechanic there to curb certain strategies that make the game stale.
As WoW is an MMO, it sort of makes sense. D3 is not, you should be able to play how YOU want, unless of course they lie and the game isn't designed to be playable single player in every regard. Want to play with "stale" gimmicky builds? You should be allowed, at all times.
Let's be honest here, guys: how many people are going to actually play Inferno mode? I mean, be serious. I don't know a lot of people, personally, who've completed Hell.
Can't have complaining in Blizzard threads, can we?
I'll bet money that the four defensive Monk party won't even be viable in Hell, much less Inferno. Just too little damage output for you to survive mobs of enchanted enemies and champions. This irrational fear of heal stacking or whatever ruining the game is quite frankly laughable.
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Inferno's a tremendous step up in difficulty from Hell, man. I honestly don't think a lot of people will enjoy it. I'm looking at screenshots from MMO-Champion that show enemies have potentially millions of HP on Inferno. Like, here's one that has 76k health at most on Hell, and 428k health on Inferno. The Champion version of this enemy has 266k health on Hell, while the Inferno version's got close to 2 million.
The way I understand it, the number of people who will complete Inferno will be comparable to the number of people who complete top-tier raid content on WoW when it's new. Which is to say ... not many people.
Which is part of the reason why I'm so excited about it.
Personal preference, and that's fair enough. I will note that a large portion of the D2 playing population kept doing so, repeatedly farming gear, long after the undefeated mobs had run out.
They didn't even have the reason of some undefeated mob to progress for, and yet they still kept playing anyway. I understand your position above, but I think Blizzard might be catering to the preferences of a larger demographic.
I think he might want the option to wear down any mob in the game if he's willing to put in the time on the fight. Or, perhaps the enrage timer represents too great a risk to hardcore players if the mob can suddenly turn around and 1-shot you.
I play almost exclusively hardcore, the only exception being when I'm playing with my wife or someone else who just refuses to play hardcore. For whatever it's worth, I'm happy about enrage timers. It seems specifically designed to combat some of the more cheesy tactics you could get away with in D2 -- namely endlessly plinking the mob, running away, healing up, going back for another few hits, etc. I know we haven't heard anything official, but I seriously doubt the enrage timer is such that you have to have top of the line DPS, and you have to go balls to the wall nuts on the mob as soon as you see it and never let up. I would imagine that the enrage timers will be much more lenient, allowing plenty of time for reasonably balanced, defensive-oriented builds to do just fine.
Besides, the more challenge, the longer this game will last for me. If I still haven't managed to beat hardcore Inferno by this time next year, I will be thrilled.
It's not really designed to be beaten by HC characters, but Blizzard is on record as saying HC players should consider that a challenge. And they will. There is no doubt at all that HC players will be running Inferno and that Blizzard wants them to try it. So, I guess the question then is this: Is HC + enrage timers so punishing that it would render the experience un-fun?
In WoW it's a gear check and group check. Do you have the gear to do enough damage to burn down the boss? Ok. Do you have a well-balanced group that's not overloaded with healers? Ok.
In D3 it's more about pacing. Obviously it acts as a gear check as well, but if the game is balanced and meant to be completed solo as they've been saying from the start, it's to ensure that players and groups are going toe to toe with bosses and not being ultra cheesy or overloading on defensive gear.
I dunno, I'm not a huge fan of the mechanic, but I can see it functioning a bit differently in this context. It's unlikely to affect me frankly since I probably won't have the time to play through Inferno.
That's nearly exactly what I was thinking of. Why build an Iron Barb, for instance, if it just gets insta-gibbed after a while?
Seems kind of stupid to put defense spec characters in the game if you're just going to punish people for using them.
I've completed Hell mode on Diablo 2 with a few experimental builds, and I found it to be fun, challenging, and ultimately really rewarding. This is a whole new thing, though. Enemies have like quadruple the amount of health that they did on Hell, and possess a new abilities specifically designed to fuck players over. It's intended to be incredibly difficult. So yeah, people who want to take on a challenge like Inferno mode are going to be min/maxing and trying to find the most optimal build setups.
None of that sounds bad to me.
Jumping to conclusions, fun for the whole family!
I'm not surprised at enrage mechanics not being unique to the Thousand Pounders, seeing as they go batshit when they're at low health. Having critters do the same when they haven't been given enough tender, loving stab wounds seems dandy to me.
In D3 it makes even less sense because it is NOT an MMO or even a large group multiplayer game, where gear/skill might be detrimental to the rest of the group's fun. I think it is a stupid mechanic and should not be in any game ESPECIALLY not in D3.
Makes perfect sense as they want inferno to be hard, making sure you can't cheese it with excessive kiting or defense stacking.
That isn't at all why they were made, though. Enrage timers aren't really a "gear-check" thing; they're in place to prevent players from cheesing content by leveraging parties built for total defense. A four-Monk party in Diablo 3 is essentially invincible, but isn't exactly a DPS machine. Enrage timers, in and of themselves, likely won't present any kind of gear-check at all for players in Diablo 3. Instead, Inferno itself is the gear-check. In just the same way that a player who's just defeated Nightmare will likely struggle if he tries to jump right into Hell, players will struggle if they try to jump into Inferno the moment they've completed Hell. The difficulty itself represents the gear-check, and Enrage timers just represent an effort to prevent players from cheesing a mode that's intended to be super difficult.
You'd also not be able to deal any sort of damage if enemies have any sort of health regeneration, which D2 had on Hell difficulty. I hate to use MMO terminology, but every class is a DPS in D3. There are no healers. So I don't really understand why people bring up the MMO comparisons. No. Enrage timers enforce the min/max attitude, which is what can make the game stale. Didn't you guys applaud the variety of builds? Now you applaud a feature that clashes with it?
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Let's be honest here, guys: how many people are going to actually play Inferno mode? I mean, be serious. I don't know a lot of people, personally, who've completed Hell. I mean, I don't know a lot of people who play on the hardest difficulties on any game. I like to browse through other peoples' achievements on Live, and I'm always amazed that I'm like, the only person who's completed X game on Insanity, or Y game on Veteran, or whatever. I don't think less of people for not playing on the hardest difficulties at all, though; don't get me wrong. I'm just always amazed that nobody does it.
I just don't think that, in all seriousness, most players will even unlock or attempt Inferno mode in Diablo 3. My wife almost certainly won't. She loves Diablo, but she's not the kind of player who wants to like, basically wipe over and over again trying to take down enemy packs (which is exactly what Blizzard's said Inferno's going to be like).
I think people are making a big deal about nothing, to be honest, because I believe the number of people who will progress though Inferno will be comparable to the number of people who progress through top-tier raid content on WoW. It's intended to be a "min/maxing" kind of experience, as far as I can tell.
If you don't think that sounds fun, don't play it.
Most other bosses had a much longer enrage. These were to ensure you weren't doing something cheesy or exploitative, like stacking all healers or kiting or using geometry in a sneaky way. As long as you were doing a 'normal' amount of DPS they were never an issue.
I assume D3 is going for the second case.
There are builds and combinations that almost entierly sacrifice damage in favor of defense and healing, like the aforementioned 4 monk party though, so there are degrees of damage and support. And inferno is meant to enforce a min/max attitude, as it is supposed to be hard. you literally can not make something challenging in a game that's about numbers and skills without making it require some thought into the builds needed. I find a enrage timer to be more fun than health regen as well, as it at least stops fights from taking forever. I have no doubt there will be a fair few builds and combos viable for inferno, but far from as many as hell and before. This is fine though, as Inferno seems to be designed for people who enjoy somewhat masochistic streaks in their games, much like WoW hardmodes before they are tuned down.
Wiping for hours while getting progressively more drunk/grouchy/prone to fits of giggles over voice chat? Yup. It's a thing.
That's what I think, too. I don't get the impression that enrage timers are meant to create Patchwerk-style DPS races at all.
Yep, same here.
Except, like I said, hardcore isn't about min/maxing. To me, it seems like they implemented the feature to artificially increase the kill rate, in the vein of the enchanted/claw viper/corpse explosion bug in D2. I take it as a big middle finger to the hardcore crowd. We're masochists, but we have our limits!
In Diablo 3, you can change your stuff around every time you play, if you want. You can play one way all through Normal, another way all through Nightmare, another through Hell, and another still through Inferno. And there's no penalty or restriction associated with that. As difficulty amps up, though, nobody should be surprised that certain builds become less effective, while others become more effective. As you progress from Normal to Nightmare, Nightmare to Hell, and Hell to Inferno, the number of really effective builds will naturally shrink.
They implemented the feature to make Inferno hard, end of story. A natural extension of that is that it's not reasonably possible for Hardcore, but that's not Blizzard's problem. I would have thought that Hardcore players of all people wouldn't want the whole game made easier just to accommodate them.
Here's what Jay Wilson says about Inferno, though:
I mean, it sounds to me like enrage timers are the least of Hardcore players' worries.
The best thing.
Dingdingding, if the enrage timers are strong enough that it turns the fight into a gear check? Worst design decision D3 has made. I have been slightly disappointed by decisions before, but this is gonna stick with me, I think.
As WoW is an MMO, it sort of makes sense. D3 is not, you should be able to play how YOU want, unless of course they lie and the game isn't designed to be playable single player in every regard. Want to play with "stale" gimmicky builds? You should be allowed, at all times.
You play diablo with the wrong folks, my friend.
I'll bet money that the four defensive Monk party won't even be viable in Hell, much less Inferno. Just too little damage output for you to survive mobs of enchanted enemies and champions. This irrational fear of heal stacking or whatever ruining the game is quite frankly laughable.