Blizzard Describles Diablo III Death Mechanic

[bulletproof12]

So what we're basically talking about is the old platformer notion of lives?

And sitting there waiting for your health to regenerate is going to be so much fun...but will keep you online that much longer.

In fact, if there's no real penalty for death other than that, you may as well just hole up on regeneration/heal and Zerg the area.

if it is like WoW or any other MMO that is a bad idea. mobs regen fast when not being attacked so in the time it takes you to spawn, heal (depending on rez health) and start yelling leeroy jenkins again that mob is back to full hp and ready for the second course.

 

[Alex_P]

Unsurprising given who worked on Guild Wars...

Not the same people who are working on Diablo 3, that's for sure.

Nope, but they probably sat around and helped brainstorm some of the ideas. Guild Wars is like half World of Warcraft and half Diablo, after all.

-- Alex

 

[Dictaternutz]

So what we're basically talking about is the old platformer notion of lives?

And sitting there waiting for your health to regenerate is going to be so much fun...but will keep you online that much longer.

In fact, if there's no real penalty for death other than that, you may as well just hole up on regeneration/heal and Zerg the area.

if it is like WoW or any other MMO that is a bad idea. mobs regen fast when not being attacked so in the time it takes you to spawn, heal (depending on rez health) and start yelling leeroy jenkins again that mob is back to full hp and ready for the second course.

I guess it's a good thing it not an MMO and that it'll be on Battle.net
(I LOVE BATTLE.NET!!!)

 

[TOGSolid]

And I guess it's also a good thing potions are never in short supply eh?

 

[rossatdi]

I quite liked the old system, at least from II. It gave you a good motivation to not die and also to track down the waypoints and use Town Portals intelligently.

If it ain't broke, leave it the fuck alone.

 

[Cheesus333]

This sounds pretty fair to me, however I never played the other Diablo Games so I guess I couldn't possibly comment.

Do yourself a massive favour, and buy Diablo 2 and it's expansion. Kept me entertained for 6 years

 

[Amnestic]

Hold up a sec.

Diablo 3 is going to be subscription-based?

Buh-wah? Why on earth....

?

Not sure it is, Pyronox's comment is the first I heard about Diablo being subscription based. It wouldn't surprise me... Anger, yes, it would anger me, but not surprise.

Bottom line for me is I pay for a game once, not monthly. If they go this route, I'm out.

After a quick dive (literally ten minutes) into the ol' Google search, I've found nothing that says that it definitevly will have monthly payments. Most of it is people asking: Will it have monthly payments? or Will you play it if it has monthly payments?

Considering D3 is a Battlenet thing and SC, WC3 and D2 (along with others, though those spring to the front of my mind) have been free for BNet thus far, I don't see why they'd change it now.

 

[meatloaf231]

WHAT
THE
FUCK?

So, it's not enough for you to add a subscription fee, remove hostility altogether, fuck up the graphics, now you have to tamper with the mechanics?

No way I'm buying this piece of shit.

Then I think this game may suit your tastes more.

Nobody has a right to get angry at a developer for designing the game differently than "the way it should be," especially early in the development process. If in 10 years Valve made Half Life 3, and turned it into Gears of War, complete with a sweaty, manly, talking Gordon Freeman, I would be surprised, sure, but I still wouldn't get mad at them because they're "doing it the wrong way." It's their game, let them do whatever the heck they want with it. If it turns out good, I will buy it. If it's crap, then I won't buy it. End of story.

 

[Alex_P]

WHAT
THE
FUCK?

So, it's not enough for you to add a subscription fee, remove hostility altogether, fuck up the graphics, now you have to tamper with the mechanics?

No way I'm buying this piece of shit.

Umm, if you're not going to "tamper with the mechanics," why bother releasing a new game?

(If anyone mentions Madden I'll punch you.)

-- Alex

 

[Meado]

WHAT
THE
FUCK?

So, it's not enough for you to add a subscription fee, remove hostility altogether, fuck up the graphics, now you have to tamper with the mechanics?

No way I'm buying this piece of shit.

Wow. I was going to say something along the lines of "In b4 someone says this ruins the game", but damn...

Also, judge it when it's a few months from release, not a few years. Things change, and if I had to say which game company I trust most, it would be Blizzard.

 

[Novajam]

I think Blizzard would be smart to take a cue from Fate, which would be doubly fun since Fate is essentially a casualized Diablo ripoff. When death comes a-callin' in Fate, you're given three distinct choices as to how to proceed, each with its own benefits and costs. If you have the time and inclination to do a corpse run, you can do so; you can also choose to have the game essentially hand your stuff back to you, spank you for some XP and send you on your way almost immediately. It's elegant and flexible; the only downside is that it's a bit of a mood-killer for a "serious" game.

What's the third option?

 

[Meado]

I think Blizzard would be smart to take a cue from Fate, which would be doubly fun since Fate is essentially a casualized Diablo ripoff. When death comes a-callin' in Fate, you're given three distinct choices as to how to proceed, each with its own benefits and costs. If you have the time and inclination to do a corpse run, you can do so; you can also choose to have the game essentially hand your stuff back to you, spank you for some XP and send you on your way almost immediately. It's elegant and flexible; the only downside is that it's a bit of a mood-killer for a "serious" game.

What's the third option?

Copied from Wiki:

"If at any point in the game the character dies (Health Points driven down to zero) the death is not permanent. The personification of Fate appears, who resembles the Grim Reaper. Fate offers the player three choices: first, the character can be brought back to life at the spot where they fell, in exchange for a portion of their Experience Points and Fame Points. Second, they can be brought back to life and transported to a nearby level (one or two levels up or down) in exchange for a portion of the character's gold. This new place may be safer or more dangerous than the one where the character died. Third, the character can be brought back to life and transported three levels up in exchange for all the gold in their possession. This new location is usually safer than where the death occurred. (If the character died on level 1, 2 or 3 of the dungeon they will be taken back to town.) If the player chooses this third option and can make it back to the exact spot where their character fell before the dungeon level regenerates, their gold will be waiting in a pile for them to pick up. (If the character stays out of a previously-visited dungeon level for 20 minutes on the game clock, the level will be automatically refreshed with all new monsters and treasure, although the dungeon layout stays the same. Therefore, if the character died on that level and doesn't make it back within 20 minutes, any gold they left there when they died will be gone for good."

 

[Jamanticus]

I think Blizzard would be smart to take a cue from Fate, which would be doubly fun since Fate is essentially a casualized Diablo ripoff. When death comes a-callin' in Fate, you're given three distinct choices as to how to proceed, each with its own benefits and costs. If you have the time and inclination to do a corpse run, you can do so; you can also choose to have the game essentially hand your stuff back to you, spank you for some XP and send you on your way almost immediately. It's elegant and flexible; the only downside is that it's a bit of a mood-killer for a "serious" game.

You have a very good point about the death system. Then again, I'm sure that there would be a multitude of people saying that Diablo III will be anything but serious now that it has its new, happy color scheme. If that is the case and Diablo III isn't as serious a game as the first two, then that death system you mentioned would work absolutely perfectly.

 

[TOGSolid]

WHAT
THE
FUCK?

So, it's not enough for you to add a subscription fee, remove hostility altogether, fuck up the graphics, now you have to tamper with the mechanics?

No way I'm buying this piece of shit.

Is our intent to make a subscription-based game like World of Warcraft? No. We're not an MMO. That's not our goal. So we are leaning towards more of a boxed product. Would we consider microtransactions? Yes, we would -- if it was right for the game. Would we consider some kind of subscription-based, or pay-to-play? Maybe in some regions. Or maybe for North America, if it was right for the game, and if it felt like a "win" for the fans. We want to make money, obviously, we're in business for that, but we don't want to gouge our customers, we don't want them to have an experience that feels worse. What we prefer is to offer them a service that they feel is worth paying for. And that's how we tend to approach things: "This is a service that we want to offer. How much is it going to cost us? OK, it's going to cost us this much, so we do need to supplement. Is it something we feel is worth paying for?" And if the answer is yes... obviously, no one likes paying for anything. I'd love to get everything for free. That would be awesome, right? But the truth is, we wouldn't ever get anything.

Obvious lack of reading comprehension is obvious.

It's pretty amusing watching the anti-fanboys shit themselves and blow everything out of proportion just to fuel their nerd rage. Also, Blizzard will have PVP in Diablo 3, however I can't go read up on it atm due to those sites being blocked (lol @ posting from work). I do believe from what I can gleam from my google search though that it's going to be far more fleshed out than "lol I go hostile" *whack whack whack* which honestly just felt like it was thrown into the game. I'll dig up more info when I get off shift.

I actually like this change to the death mechanic. Getting shunted back to town always kind of broke the action up and it's not like there was any real danger to walking back since everything was dead up to that point anyway (at least I made sure it was, yay for OCD!)
Anyone bawwwwing about 'waiting to regen' seems to have conveniently forgotten about potions.

 

[st0rmwind]

Dont know whether all of these were posted before the latest info update from blizzard but I think you are kinda missing the point by comparing it to D2. The latest info states there may be no more potions, just energy drops by corpses which effect a partial healing but cannot be picked up, only collected or left.
If this is the case then they will need to change the damage ratios significantly to prevent characters dying off instantly against harder monsters with no potions for healing. It is likely that health will last for considderably more of a pummeling than D2 so there should be plenty of opportunity to back out of a situation before death occurs. If dying becomes more of a result of lack of attention than of bad luck or one powerful monster attack then why worry? Chances are anyone who understands how to play D2 properly and can transfer the same obsessive compulsive-type attention to D3 will soon have figured out how to death-proof their character anyway.
If death becomes a much rarer event then it becomes less important how ressurection occurs as it will no longer be a frequent event.

Or I could just be talking out of my ass!

 

[Graustein]

Checkpoints! Woo!
Now, obvious question: Is there any real penalty for death beyond being shoved back somewhere with low health that slowly comes back anyway?