Diablo III Requiring Thought Behind Every Click

[Tom Goldman]

Diablo III Requiring Thought Behind Every Click

Getting through an encounter in Diablo III will require more than a strong index finger.

Blizzard has updated its Diablo III [http://www.amazon.com/Diablo-III-Pc/dp/B00178630A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292990898&sr=8-1] website with new details on how players will have to go about destroying legions of monsters in the series' third entry. Earlier Diablo titles were all about the mouse click, and Blizzard isn't necessarily changing that, but wants to make you think a little bit more about those clicks in Diablo III.

Blizzard writes that it wants to make monster encounters "more tactically interesting" than in previous games, but without sacrificing that fun, quick Diablo feel. There are two techniques Blizzard is using to do so.

The first is through diversity. Blizzard says it's implemented a "malevolent throng of new, more diverse monster types" in Diablo III. A big room of monsters in Diablo used to mean clicking on all of them as fast as possible, perhaps taking out the ranged enemies first. Diablo III will require much deeper choices in regards to the order in which monsters must be dispatched.

Secondly, Blizzard has categorized every enemy by its unique behaviors, instead of its type. One category is called "big hit," and includes enemies that will make "very telegraphed, obvious, and often slow attacks that do a great deal of damage if they hit you."

As an example of how all this comes together, Blizzard talks about the Vessels, human cultists that are in the process of being possessed by a demon. Allowing Vessels to live for too long will result in the creation of much more violent enemies. When enemies like Vessels exist on a battlefield also filled with a mass of Fallen (similar to Imps), Sandwasps firing slow moving but high damage projectiles, and a seemingly invincible Dune Dervish whirling his blades around willy-nilly, tactical choice is of the player's utmost concern.

Players might have to use the environment to keep swarms of enemies around them to a minimum, and think about defensive skills just as much as offensive skills. It might not be as much fun to use earned experience to improve your armor's toughness over the strength of your bombs [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/104652-BlizzCon-2010-Diablo-III-Demon-Hunter-Hands-On], but it's necessary for survival. A cow may no longer be simple click fodder in Diablo III.

Source: Blizzard [http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/world/systems/encounters.xml]

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[jonnosferatu]

This game is sounding better and better.

RELEASE PLZ!

 

[SnipErlite]

Awesome. I am really looking forward to this.

You can drop walls on zombies. That's cool enough. Plus tactics and shit.

(Y) I want this.

 

[Shjade]

You can drop walls on zombies. That's cool enough. Plus tactics and shit.

Isn't dropping walls on zombies itself a tactical decision?

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

This is both good, and bad. It's good because it can make the game more interesting. I can see the potential for bad though, in the same way that pugging for an instance in WoW can sometimes be a total nightmare. Some (many) players just aren't that good.

 

[archvile93]

I'm not convinced. There's only so much strategy you can get out of the combat system of "click on monster, pray to god your stats are higher."

 

[Grey_Focks]

Oh sweet zombie Jesus, I want this game, and I want it bad.

 

[Fr]anc[is]

Diablo... Thought...

...

...What?

 

[Telperion]

I'm not convinced. There's only so much strategy you can get out of the combat system of "click on monster, pray to god your stats are higher."

Looking through the in-game videos it's obvious that they have accomplished a little more than that.

Examples:
- you got to prioritize on those cultists, before they become possessed with all manner of hellspawn

- you have to somehow stun or stumble skeletons with shields, or your frontal attack will be ineffective

- you have to evade or disorient masses of strong enemies designed to block your path to (say) cultists summoning hellspawn

We have seen stuff like this before, but not quite so obviously designed. It's more about getting the player to learn an increasing number of ways to "solve" individual monster puzzles. It's better than "click on these monsters real fast until they die, and drink a health potion if you need to", but it's hardly revolutionary. Torchlight, for example, has similar stuff.

 

[Baresark]

Holy Christ, just release the game. I hate to point out the obvious, but this is not a big step in video games. Players faced similar choices since the first God of War, as an example. While this is all fascinating, I can think of one game in particular that was awesome but felt no real need to step away from the the point and click style, and that was Torchlight. The Diablo 2 had the same kind of mechanic in the respect that when you were surrounded by various types of enemies, you always had to take the right one's out first.

More fodder, another reason the game isn't out in a timely fashion. As time goes on, this is gonna be just like Starcraft 2. All that waiting, then when the game finally comes, I have long since stopped caring about it. I still haven't bought that, I played it at a buddies house and while it was fun, I couldn't get excited about it. If/when the price drops, I'll pick it up.

 

[templargunman]

NOOOOO!!! Diablo and games like it are perfect for playing high! I'd get a group of friends, smoke some weed and play this! It was perfect, you'd kill the healer and then zone out killing everything that moves. I once played titan quest so keyed I walked in an expanding circle killing everything in front of me for 20 minutes! The only reason I stopped was because my friends told me there was nothing left to kill and I had done two rotations without running into anything. Don't take this away from me blizzard! I don't want to think! If I want to think about one of your games I'll play Starcraft (though that's really fun to play high too). Actually, any game is fun to play high, even if you die a bunch.

 

[Credge]

Look, it's obvious that no matter how much 'thought' they think this game is going to require, it's just not going to require that much thought.

Oh no, big monster dude is taking a swing at me. I better click away from him.

Oh no, this monster has a shield! I better use my big attack on him to break it.

Oh no, there are archers in the back of the room and I can't reach them. I better use that movement skill that every class has to get to them in order to kill them.

All of this stuff is in Torchlight and that game, even on the highest difficulty settings, required no thought. Sigh.

I really wish Blizzard would release something of interest that we didn't know before. They're rehashing two year old news at this point.

 

[MaG iiC 3E]

Oh boy, I need to choose which enemies to kill sometimes.

Sounds like I'll need to put as much thought into clicking on shit as I should picking between pulling the left trigger or pulling the right trigger with akimbo anything in Call of Duty.

 

[BabyRaptor]

Blizz needs to stop yapping about the game and just get it ready for release. Every time they open their mouths, I get more excited.

 

[Niccolo]

You can drop walls on zombies. That's cool enough. Plus tactics and shit.

Isn't dropping walls on zombies itself a tactical decision?

Be that as it may, I doubt most gamers do it for the tactics. It's more likely done for the lulz.

 

[Weaver]

That's cool blizz, I don't care about D3 much anymore though. You've been riding the hype train for 2.5 years now and you're running out of steam. Why not release the game? Playable demo?

 

[Phototoxin]

Sounds like they've been playing 4th edtion D&D - minions, brutes, soldiers...

 

[Random Fella]

They should make diablo into a keyboard to move and attack game, It may sound crazy making that big of a change but i feel that it could make the game so much better, and have it on consol. 8D