There sohuld be nothing in diablo 3 that is single player only.
Either have it in multiplayer or not at all.
Oh, you can have them while playing by yourself in multiplayer......
Haha, jesus.
I don't know why everyone thinks they know better than the professional game developers making this game.
Does it not make sense to enrich the single player grind that probably becomes boring when played alone. Being able to change up the party dynamic from time to time to keep things fresh makes a lot of sense to me. Diablo 2 was boring as HELL alone. Now, I have zero intentions of ever playing D3 alone, but I still think it makes sense to throw single player gamers a bone.
Blizz has a pretty solid history of making great game design decisions
Pookiepoo on
Steam: Pookie GG Now Playing: BattleTech, Divinity Original Sin 2, MechWarrior 5
Also, if you realllly hate magic find and it is in the game, can't you just not use it? Free will and all.
I don't think that really solves the problem. The problem with magic find (at least for me) was that, since so much of the point of the game is to find the best items, you want as much as possible, which precludes wearing the best items you already have. And once you got a high level of magic find, it feels like wasted opportunity to play with any other character or gear. It's less fun to play the game the way you want if you know you could be more successful playing a different way.
Tarantio on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited May 2011
Let me try something.
Diablo 3 is not Diablo 2.
I know that this won't get across to some people that need to realize it, but I'm gonna try for their sake.
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited May 2011
And to illustrate my point further to Rakai - Diablo 2 was designed with mercs-in-multiplayer in mind. Diablo 1 was not, however, and Diablo 3 apparently not being designed with mercs-in-multiplayer in mind as illustrated by them not being accessible in multiplayer (well, unless you're by yourself). The game isn't going to be harder without mercs in multiplayer, it isn't going to be easier for it, it's just the way it is.
Edit - And being upset with the removal of a mechanic / feature of a game would be something easier to empathize with if you state it as, "I really liked it, now it's gone, that sucks." When you start making claims about what a game's design is suppose to be based around, you're getting silly-goosey.
Welp followers are only for single player normal mode.
Cool addition!!
Incorrect.
Single player AND multiplayer without other players in the game.
So if I make up one of the usual wang/wang games on USEast and nobody bothers to show up, me and my trusty merc can plow through an act or three questing, seeing the sights and finding/trashing loot.
Then NGN: Barbarian extraordinaire joins the game and I'm all "Hey, Raheed, you're awesome and all but you're also dumb as a mule, fuck off!" and we trash another act, but then you have to go because you actually have a life and kiss girls (or boys as the case may be) or some shit and I'm all "Hey Raheed, trusty mercenary companion, return to my side so we might smite the forces of hell once more!" and suddenly he's there and the goatmen have someone else to violate with their pikes and arrows.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Also, if you realllly hate magic find and it is in the game, can't you just not use it? Free will and all.
I don't think that really solves the problem. The problem with magic find (at least for me) was that, since so much of the point of the game is to find the best items, you want as much as possible, which precludes wearing the best items you already have. And once you got a high level of magic find, it feels like wasted opportunity to play with any other character or gear. It's less fun to play the game the way you want if you know you could be more successful playing a different way.
Jay Wilson has said loud and clear that MF will not be in Diablo 3 like it was in Diablo 2. The problem with Diablo 2's MF was that you needed to cripple yourself with a suit of specially dedicated magic find gear, and because sorceresses didn't rely on gear much at all and had superior mobility with teleport, they were far and away the best magic finders. The game also hugely rewarded running the same boss or tiny snippet of content over and over and over again to farm up items, which is another thing that has been repeatedly stated as something they want to eliminate.
Any implementation of MF in Diablo 3 will not be a tossup between "real" gear and magic find gear anything like the dynamic that was in Diablo 2. We don't have any hard details on how MF will work but it is more than likely going to come in the form of entirely ancillary benefits, such as talisman items, temporary buffs, follower skills, gemming (keeping in mind that gems can be popped in and out freely now), etc. Rather than having to hunt down that unique helm with +150% magic find or filling your entire inventory with MF small charms.
Are we seriously whining about a "removal of a feature" because Mercs are different now? Mercs in Diablo 2 were broken as fuck. They were utterly worthless in vanilla D2, and in LoD you either totally ignored them because they were weak and annoying to level up, or they were game-breaking Act 2 mercs with entire builds hinging on certain auras.
Followers seem fine, but magic find still worries me.
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ZarathustraEckUbermenschnow with stripes!Registered Userregular
edited May 2011
Regarding the Scoundrel:
We’ve put in hours of voice work with individual casting for them, giving each Follower a unique personality... The Scoundrel is called a Scoundrel for a reason, he's a bit of a lighter character with a humorous but dark side and he emits a feel that is very different from the Templar...
Magic find put you in the position of saying, "I'd like to use this cool new toy I found, but whenever I'm doing so, I'm missing out on future toys." So, the best long-term plan was to never actually play with anything.
If they're going to offer a choice between something that gives MF and something that doesn't, it really needs to avoid conflicting with your primary goal of having fun while playing Diablo. If it was a temporary buff potion, that would work. Or if the other options were something like +rune finding or +gold dropped, that'd be fine too.
If we have to pick between +100 hitpoints and +MF%, the hitpoints are going to be the wrong choice almost every single time.
Unless, of course, MF is limited in scope, and irrelevant in finding the top end gear. Wasn't it revealed earlier that set items require recipes? For forging? That doesn't seem like something MF would affect. MF is nice, but if there isn't something ridiculous like Shako, Occulus, HoZ etc., I wouldn't personally bother with MF. MF is neutered anyway now that Teleport has a cooldown.
regarding NGN's posts... are they actually normal only and not usable in Nightmare and Hell?
I can't imagine that being the case.
"Well, followers are essentially a flavor bonus to those playing through normal the first time by themselves. It provides some story elements, but more importantly it gets the idea in their head of playing with another person. You come across each of them pretty quickly in Act 1, and then they help you throughout the rest of the game if you'd like. They aren't required to beat the game on Normal, even if you're playing by yourself. Feel free to leave them behind if you like. But they are pretty awesome.
They're also tuned so that they become very weak starting in Nightmare, and then are completely unusable in Hell. Even if you're playing alone, you will probably not be using Followers past Normal - - you can try but they're going to just be one-shot back to back. They're there as a bit of flavor, to help get people into the mindset of co-op if they're a bit reluctant, and... that's about it. They won't be usable at end-game, and they'll never replace the abilities and power that another player can bring."
The followers cap at level 25.
They all have mf and gold find bonus skills. So you'd think they'd be good for running, but nope.
"I’m sure people will try to game this, and ideally they will fail. If not we will ensure followers are not part of the end-game MF equation. They are not intended to be, and we will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure they cannot be. "
regarding NGN's posts... are they actually normal only and not usable in Nightmare and Hell?
I can't imagine that being the case.
I don't believe they've said either way, but given what they have said about implementation, and knowing that the playerbase will naturally drift heavily towards Nightmare, Hell and any other difficulties they might include, I sincerely doubt they're designing a game mechanic only to be used under such limited conditions.
Let's be honest here; most of us are likely going to see Normal as the tutorial and expect things to really fire up in Nightmare. Sure, D2 /= D3, but it'll take a hell of a lot to convince me otherwise, and if that were the case then we might as well ignore mercs entirely.
Unless they make some drastic changes, I would be shocked if they implemented such a feature only to have it usable by a fraction of a fraction of the playerbase. (ie: SP and solo MP players in 1 out of (3?) difficulties). It'd practically be a waste of time.
Edit: also, we've seen that they have skills that can be chosen at higher levels, whether or not you can even cap out a merc in the base game without 'farming' the end areas remains to be seen. And furthermore, they commented on being able to respec the merc for gold, which sounds like a natural gold sink, and thus, yet another way to make gold useful in the economy, and something that would naturally scale up over the levels, which would be awesome and beneficial to the community (or at least help us avoid 1 chipped gem costing 150,000 gold).
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
And theres been a bunch of questions answered about them by Bashiok over on the forums. Just going to link to the incgamers article, but its worth a look through.
If nothing else it'll be nice to have the held bumping characters up to Nightmare, especially as a force multiplier where I can pawn off (depending on merc class, skill and gear choices) stuff from NM+ characters down to those starting out.
But I admit I kind of liked the idea of having a companion whenever I wanted one regardless of difficulty level.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
I hate to say this, but the environments look kinda shitty. They've gone with an ultra-low-contrast style and very modest texture resolution that makes the world look blurry and devoid of detail. There are exceptions, like that bridge scene, which looks great and full of detail, but it looks like you'll be mostly running around landscapes in soft-focus.
Screenshots are not representative of the product. The game looks stunningly beautiful when being played, speaking as someone who has played it.
Question: Avoiding Single Player Online Magic Find(MF) Games. One of the big reasons that everyone only sees their own loot is to encourage people to play together and kill bosses together. It was specifically stated that Blizzard doesn’t want people creating their own solo games because they felt like that was the best way to get loot. Yet here you are creating a followers system which is required in order to maximize your MF (5 item slots and a skill), yet is SP only.
Answer: Followers will not stay alive easily past Normal, and if they’re not alive you aren’t going to be getting their bonuses. I’m sure people will try to game this, and ideally they will fail. If not we will ensure followers are not part of the end-game MF equation. They are not intended to be, and we will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure they cannot be.
Emphasis mine.
They do of course note they're aware of this, but they're right, someone is going to try to break the ever loving shit out of this.
Edit part deux: Yup, later posts note that they will indeed be available in the higher difficulties, but they'll see diminishing usefulness in NM and likely get one-shot in Hell, and due to lack of scaling their attacks won't be terribly useful either. So they're not verboten entirely, they're just unlikely to be terribly useful.
... until someone manages to break the ever loving shit out of them.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Screenshots are not representative of the product. The game looks stunningly beautiful when being played, speaking as someone who has played it.
As someone else that has played it, I agree completely.It looks so much better than anything you guys have actually seen. Was actually kind of surprised about it the first time I sat down with it to be honest. Maybe I'm crazy but it also honestly reminded me of Diablo 2 way more than I had expected.
Whoever is in charge of Blizzards screen and video quality needs to step it up.
Well they get their unique item slot opened at level 25, after that there's nothing. And they become somewhat to totally useless from nightmare on, so why would they continue to level up?
... until someone manages to break the ever loving shit out of them.
Nope.
I’m sure people will try to game this, and ideally they will fail. If not we will ensure followers are not part of the end-game MF equation. They are not intended to be, and we will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure they cannot be.
I imagine the demos at Blizzcon/wherever were on machines running it on the highest video settings. I get the feeling a lot of the screenshots going out aren't on maxed settings for whatever reason.
... until someone manages to break the ever loving shit out of them.
Nope.
I’m sure people will try to game this, and ideally they will fail. If not we will ensure followers are not part of the end-game MF equation. They are not intended to be, and we will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure they cannot be.
I just know that they're going to have to take those steps several times as people get more and more clever.
Some people here are pretty darn thickheaded. Followers, excluding their level cap, have zero slots for armor. I'm pretty sure they'd spontaneously combust if they were to set foot in hell.
So they don't want people to play solo games online? Thats pretty much how I only play diablo 2. The only reason I play online is so I can trade or play with a friend every now and then. Like, rarely.
Not really sure why they're making followers useless in hell. I mean, no matter how much people overreact, I can't see any way that a single AI with probably like half the utility of a player and no armor slots who provides glorified support fire can be more useful than 1-3 human players with their own gear, strategy and intelligence along with all the relevant bonuses the game applies to multiplayer.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
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I don't know why everyone thinks they know better than the professional game developers making this game.
Does it not make sense to enrich the single player grind that probably becomes boring when played alone. Being able to change up the party dynamic from time to time to keep things fresh makes a lot of sense to me. Diablo 2 was boring as HELL alone. Now, I have zero intentions of ever playing D3 alone, but I still think it makes sense to throw single player gamers a bone.
Blizz has a pretty solid history of making great game design decisions
I don't think that really solves the problem. The problem with magic find (at least for me) was that, since so much of the point of the game is to find the best items, you want as much as possible, which precludes wearing the best items you already have. And once you got a high level of magic find, it feels like wasted opportunity to play with any other character or gear. It's less fun to play the game the way you want if you know you could be more successful playing a different way.
I know that this won't get across to some people that need to realize it, but I'm gonna try for their sake.
Cool addition!!
Edit - And being upset with the removal of a mechanic / feature of a game would be something easier to empathize with if you state it as, "I really liked it, now it's gone, that sucks." When you start making claims about what a game's design is suppose to be based around, you're getting silly-goosey.
Incorrect.
Single player AND multiplayer without other players in the game.
So if I make up one of the usual wang/wang games on USEast and nobody bothers to show up, me and my trusty merc can plow through an act or three questing, seeing the sights and finding/trashing loot.
Then NGN: Barbarian extraordinaire joins the game and I'm all "Hey, Raheed, you're awesome and all but you're also dumb as a mule, fuck off!" and we trash another act, but then you have to go because you actually have a life and kiss girls (or boys as the case may be) or some shit and I'm all "Hey Raheed, trusty mercenary companion, return to my side so we might smite the forces of hell once more!" and suddenly he's there and the goatmen have someone else to violate with their pikes and arrows.
I can't imagine that being the case.
Jay Wilson has said loud and clear that MF will not be in Diablo 3 like it was in Diablo 2. The problem with Diablo 2's MF was that you needed to cripple yourself with a suit of specially dedicated magic find gear, and because sorceresses didn't rely on gear much at all and had superior mobility with teleport, they were far and away the best magic finders. The game also hugely rewarded running the same boss or tiny snippet of content over and over and over again to farm up items, which is another thing that has been repeatedly stated as something they want to eliminate.
Any implementation of MF in Diablo 3 will not be a tossup between "real" gear and magic find gear anything like the dynamic that was in Diablo 2. We don't have any hard details on how MF will work but it is more than likely going to come in the form of entirely ancillary benefits, such as talisman items, temporary buffs, follower skills, gemming (keeping in mind that gems can be popped in and out freely now), etc. Rather than having to hunt down that unique helm with +150% magic find or filling your entire inventory with MF small charms.
Are we seriously whining about a "removal of a feature" because Mercs are different now? Mercs in Diablo 2 were broken as fuck. They were utterly worthless in vanilla D2, and in LoD you either totally ignored them because they were weak and annoying to level up, or they were game-breaking Act 2 mercs with entire builds hinging on certain auras.
First thing that came to mind when I saw the Scoundrel...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_JCnpbnLM0
-Z
If they're going to offer a choice between something that gives MF and something that doesn't, it really needs to avoid conflicting with your primary goal of having fun while playing Diablo. If it was a temporary buff potion, that would work. Or if the other options were something like +rune finding or +gold dropped, that'd be fine too.
If we have to pick between +100 hitpoints and +MF%, the hitpoints are going to be the wrong choice almost every single time.
"Well, followers are essentially a flavor bonus to those playing through normal the first time by themselves. It provides some story elements, but more importantly it gets the idea in their head of playing with another person. You come across each of them pretty quickly in Act 1, and then they help you throughout the rest of the game if you'd like. They aren't required to beat the game on Normal, even if you're playing by yourself. Feel free to leave them behind if you like. But they are pretty awesome.
They're also tuned so that they become very weak starting in Nightmare, and then are completely unusable in Hell. Even if you're playing alone, you will probably not be using Followers past Normal - - you can try but they're going to just be one-shot back to back. They're there as a bit of flavor, to help get people into the mindset of co-op if they're a bit reluctant, and... that's about it. They won't be usable at end-game, and they'll never replace the abilities and power that another player can bring."
The followers cap at level 25.
They all have mf and gold find bonus skills. So you'd think they'd be good for running, but nope.
"I’m sure people will try to game this, and ideally they will fail. If not we will ensure followers are not part of the end-game MF equation. They are not intended to be, and we will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure they cannot be. "
I don't believe they've said either way, but given what they have said about implementation, and knowing that the playerbase will naturally drift heavily towards Nightmare, Hell and any other difficulties they might include, I sincerely doubt they're designing a game mechanic only to be used under such limited conditions.
Let's be honest here; most of us are likely going to see Normal as the tutorial and expect things to really fire up in Nightmare. Sure, D2 /= D3, but it'll take a hell of a lot to convince me otherwise, and if that were the case then we might as well ignore mercs entirely.
Unless they make some drastic changes, I would be shocked if they implemented such a feature only to have it usable by a fraction of a fraction of the playerbase. (ie: SP and solo MP players in 1 out of (3?) difficulties). It'd practically be a waste of time.
Edit: also, we've seen that they have skills that can be chosen at higher levels, whether or not you can even cap out a merc in the base game without 'farming' the end areas remains to be seen. And furthermore, they commented on being able to respec the merc for gold, which sounds like a natural gold sink, and thus, yet another way to make gold useful in the economy, and something that would naturally scale up over the levels, which would be awesome and beneficial to the community (or at least help us avoid 1 chipped gem costing 150,000 gold).
It'll be like mercs in original D2 before the expansion, mostly useless.
And theres been a bunch of questions answered about them by Bashiok over on the forums. Just going to link to the incgamers article, but its worth a look through.
http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/official-followers-page-plus-blue-answers/
I'm completely fine with them being just a part of a solo normal run-through.
If nothing else it'll be nice to have the held bumping characters up to Nightmare, especially as a force multiplier where I can pawn off (depending on merc class, skill and gear choices) stuff from NM+ characters down to those starting out.
But I admit I kind of liked the idea of having a companion whenever I wanted one regardless of difficulty level.
http://diablo.incgamers.com/blog/comments/official-followers-page-plus-blue-answers/
Emphasis mine.
They do of course note they're aware of this, but they're right, someone is going to try to break the ever loving shit out of this.
Edit part deux: Yup, later posts note that they will indeed be available in the higher difficulties, but they'll see diminishing usefulness in NM and likely get one-shot in Hell, and due to lack of scaling their attacks won't be terribly useful either. So they're not verboten entirely, they're just unlikely to be terribly useful.
... until someone manages to break the ever loving shit out of them.
As someone else that has played it, I agree completely.It looks so much better than anything you guys have actually seen. Was actually kind of surprised about it the first time I sat down with it to be honest. Maybe I'm crazy but it also honestly reminded me of Diablo 2 way more than I had expected.
Whoever is in charge of Blizzards screen and video quality needs to step it up.
Yeah, but Blizzard also says they'll nuke that too. They say. We'll see, but I imagine just straight ripping them out of NM/Hell would work.
Well they get their unique item slot opened at level 25, after that there's nothing. And they become somewhat to totally useless from nightmare on, so why would they continue to level up?
Nope.
I just know that they're going to have to take those steps several times as people get more and more clever.
Sure you can, they're just useless.
I got the impression that they were hard to keep alive, not 'useless.'