Diablows 3

[Brotherofwill]

Ok, Diablo 3 doesn't blow, or atleast I hope it won't blow. I love Diablo and I hope part 3 will kick ass.

Anyway now: With the current BlizzCon extravaganza going on I think it's only natural to talk about some of Diablo's core philosophies and how they seem to be implemented in the new iteration.

What I want to talk about is the very core of playing Diablo 2 on a high level: Survival.

In many ways when you solo-d Diablo 2 and got all the way to the later levels in Hell you had but 1 goal: Survival. Most monsters could kill you with a few shots and some insta-killed you, especially when playing the range oriented characters. It was a brutal, hostile place. Not because of the art design or 'dark, gothic' athmosphere, but because of the threat every monster posed. Yes, Diablo 2 was about slaying 20 monsters with 2 spells, but if any of those monsters broke through you were in some serious trouble.

[img, width=300, height=200]http://biobreak.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/diablo-iii-rainbow-unicorn-logo.jpg[/img]
​

Diablo 2 wasn't just athmospheric and scary because of dark levels and gothic interiors,
it was because the combat was tense and you could die at any moment.​

Now this gets us to D3. Diablo 3 introduces a new system called health globes. What that basically means is that globes drop to the floor when you kill monsters and they instantly replenish part of your health.

Now what will this lead to? More frantic combat it seems, or atleast that's what the developers want. You essential have to leave your ground, engage the enemy, get close and pick up orbs. This is what the makers have to say about it:

Diablo III's health system is designed to keep you thinking on your feet and rushing toward the next fight. As a hero struggling against the sinister forces of the Burning Hells, fleeing from battle to recover your strength isn't an option. To avoid dying a gruesome death, you'll need to hunt for ways to keep up your strength. (there's a lot more they say on the subject check out their site to read on)

I highlighted the bit for added importance. Diablo 2 was all about fleeing, it was essential to the whole end game if you weren't Barabarian and soloing. It was rather effective too I'd say because it made you fear the monsters, made combat tense and made the distance you keep absolutely crucial. I know what they want to accomplish with this: Make it engaging and more fast flowing, get you out of your comfort zone and push you in the monsters.

But is that really a good direction for D3? Torchlight was much more fast flowing than D2. You never had to go to town, you were rarely threatend by monsters and you could just blast and go crazy engaging monster after monster after monster. The combat felt stale very soon, not because it wasn't well balanced or lackluster, but because it was too engaging I thought. No retreating in fear, no careful planning of the next few enemies.

Now I'm not saying that health globes will lead to repetative combat (and Torchlight is a lot more fun than I made it sound) but it still worries me. Retreating was absolutely crucial in D2. Anyone that has played the game knows that. Anyone knows these moments were a monster hits you, you get trapped and you desperately mash the health potion key 5 times in a row. Next time you meat that monster, you'll surely keep your distance. It makes for memeorable encounters.

This brings me to 2 different aspects: the health system in D2 and movement as a means to survive.

The health system in D2 improved on D1 in a number of incredible ways. You couln't really chug potions because they took time to work and you could find insta-healing potions, for the special "OMFG PANIC!" moments, that were rare and couldn't be bought in stores. I think it worked really well.

Characters were rather slow in D2 to the point that upgrading their speed by items was crucial. Running away from monsters felt tense because they chased you or they fired projectiles in your back. It got more intense later on with monsters having insane speed boosts or stunning you on strike. Running and the planning of escape (keeping an exit strategy with portals or a wide space) was key. Blizzard just revealed that every class will have a special movement ability in D3. Why the fuck would they do that?

In D2 the Sorceress was given a teleport ability that was a huge 'save my ass' ability when things got rough. It was her special ability to make up for her weak class and insta-kills and gave her quite a considerable advantage that other weak classes could only dream of. The Barbarian could jump, but he wasn't the kind of class that needed to be rescued a lot, the Assasin had a speed boost but that didn't really save your ass (she also had a special teleport kick with varying effectiveness). Now EVERY class will have a means to quickly get past enemies without catching damage. The Witch Doctor stealth walks, Wizard teleports, Crossbow girl shadow rolls the monk will probably do some sort of cart weel type thing and the Barbarian still jumps I guess.

Where is the tension when all the classes, especially the vulnerable ranged ones, can simply merrily skip past the chasing monsters? That doesn't make any sense to me and further the diminishes the whole importance of keeping distance and the thrill of staying alive.

Really what this whole argument boils down to is: Will it still be fun to fight for survival in Diablo 3? There's lot's of games where you fight for survival and there's lot's of games that are fun but rarely are those 2 qualities combined. Diablo 2 nailed survival. It absolutely nailed it. The few games that get it right (like Diablo 2, Demon's Souls etc) usually end up having much more replayability in my opinion.

I obviously haven't played D3 and I'm pulling most of these assumptions out of my ass but I think it's cool to discuss upcoming games on design values even if you're just speculating. I'd appreciate any input. Anyone lucky enough to have got their hands on a demo session yet? WOuld be awesome to hear what it's like.

TLR Read the post if you want to contribute. Suck it up.

 

[scrambledeggs]

I'm going to wait till I play the game to find out if the new health system is wrecked.

And besides.. Although single player was awesome, Item grinding (MFING), merchanting and other things like that were my favorite things about diablo 2.

 

[Rusty Bucket]

Thing is, Diablo 2 only really got hard once you got to the later levels on Nightmre difficulty, and then it was a total ***** all through Hell difficulty. For the majority of the game, barring a few specific areas, you could get by easy enough provided you hadn't gimped your character and had enough potions.

Hell difficulty was just fucking unfair though. Specced yourself as a primarily fire using Sorcerer? You're fucked now, the basic enemies in Act 1 are all immune to fire. In fact, if you took anything solo into Hell difficulty that wasn't a properly built Hammerdin, or a Sorcress whose bringing along an Act 2 merc wielding Infinity you were royally fucked.

God dammit I love Diablo 2.

 

[scrambledeggs]

Thing is, Diablo 2 only really got hard once you got to the later levels on Nightmre difficulty, and then it was a total ***** all through Hell difficulty. For the majority of the game, barring a few specific areas, you could get by easy enough provided you hadn't gimped your character and had enough potions.

Hell difficulty was just fucking unfair though. Specced yourself as a primarily fire using Sorcerer? You're fucked now, the basic enemies in Act 1 are all immune to fire. In fact, if you took anything solo into Hell difficulty that wasn't a properly built Hammerdin, or a Sorcress whose bringing along an Act 2 merc wielding Infinity you were royally fucked.

God dammit I love Diablo 2.

Hammerdin's killing the ubers? Brings back goooood memories.

 

[Rusty Bucket]

Thing is, Diablo 2 only really got hard once you got to the later levels on Nightmre difficulty, and then it was a total ***** all through Hell difficulty. For the majority of the game, barring a few specific areas, you could get by easy enough provided you hadn't gimped your character and had enough potions.

Hell difficulty was just fucking unfair though. Specced yourself as a primarily fire using Sorcerer? You're fucked now, the basic enemies in Act 1 are all immune to fire. In fact, if you took anything solo into Hell difficulty that wasn't a properly built Hammerdin, or a Sorcress whose bringing along an Act 2 merc wielding Infinity you were royally fucked.

God dammit I love Diablo 2.

Hammerdin's killing the ubers? Brings back goooood memories.

I was thinking about Hammerdins the other day, and I realised something completely ridiculous about them. Without Hammerdins, there's no easy way to do Baal runs, so there's no quick way of levelling up through the 70's and 80's. That means it'd be a ton harder to make effective magic finding builds, which means there'd be a lot less unique items, high tier runes and rune words rolling about. Since that's what the online economy is built on, I realised that the entirety of the essentially player built economy revolves around a single hilariously broken skill on one class. Nerf the Hammerdin, and you trigger a fucking recession.

 

[Lord Legion]

As a necromancer, I did not fear monsters, monsters feared me.

But I wholeheartedly understand your woes, but they are offering up much more in terms of baddies and their ill effects.
For instance, skeletons with shields you have to stun in order to break through, monsters that hold you in place, not to mention boss battles with a three story house.
Looks like a sweet deal.

Besides, the panic that will ensue from having slim health left and praying that you get that desperately needed orb should take D3 further than D2 ever did.

 

[hittite]

Absolute favorite memory of D2: just unlocked frost nova, walked into the center of a band of Fallen and set it off. The game nearly crashed trying to process all of them dying at the same time.

I don't know, but I'm looking forward to trying out the monk and the demon hunter. they look fun.

 

[Brotherofwill]

Nerf the Hammerdin, and you trigger a fucking recession.

Hahaha that made me laugh so hard. Diablo economics. Nice one.

God dammit I love Diablo 2.

 

[Serenegoose]

Duriel has no patience for your potionry! Duriel has cast aside your mashing the 1-4 keys in favour of collecting health for your foes.

Duriel squirms in glee at the prospect of DEVOURING your corpse, because Duriel does not fight with compatriots.

Or, in more plain english, how will health globes work against end of act bosses that tend to be solo challenges? Trash enemies thrown in as health fodder? (why would diablo do that?!) or considerably easier bosses?

 

[scrambledeggs]

Thing is, Diablo 2 only really got hard once you got to the later levels on Nightmre difficulty, and then it was a total ***** all through Hell difficulty. For the majority of the game, barring a few specific areas, you could get by easy enough provided you hadn't gimped your character and had enough potions.

Hell difficulty was just fucking unfair though. Specced yourself as a primarily fire using Sorcerer? You're fucked now, the basic enemies in Act 1 are all immune to fire. In fact, if you took anything solo into Hell difficulty that wasn't a properly built Hammerdin, or a Sorcress whose bringing along an Act 2 merc wielding Infinity you were royally fucked.

God dammit I love Diablo 2.

Hammerdin's killing the ubers? Brings back goooood memories.

I was thinking about Hammerdins the other day, and I realised something completely ridiculous about them. Without Hammerdins, there's no easy way to do Baal runs, so there's no quick way of levelling up through the 70's and 80's. That means it'd be a ton harder to make effective magic finding builds, which means there'd be a lot less unique items, high tier runes and rune words rolling about. Since that's what the online economy is built on, I realised that the entirety of the essentially player built economy revolves around a single hilariously broken skill on one class. Nerf the Hammerdin, and you trigger a fucking recession.

I'm sure that's a beautiful analogy for some critique of society, but I'm too lazy to think of one.

But you're right. That's quite interesting. All this reminiscing makes me feel like busting out the old CD key - but I know i'd just get addicted >:|.

 

[Rusty Bucket]

Thing is, Diablo 2 only really got hard once you got to the later levels on Nightmre difficulty, and then it was a total ***** all through Hell difficulty. For the majority of the game, barring a few specific areas, you could get by easy enough provided you hadn't gimped your character and had enough potions.

Hell difficulty was just fucking unfair though. Specced yourself as a primarily fire using Sorcerer? You're fucked now, the basic enemies in Act 1 are all immune to fire. In fact, if you took anything solo into Hell difficulty that wasn't a properly built Hammerdin, or a Sorcress whose bringing along an Act 2 merc wielding Infinity you were royally fucked.

God dammit I love Diablo 2.

Hammerdin's killing the ubers? Brings back goooood memories.

I was thinking about Hammerdins the other day, and I realised something completely ridiculous about them. Without Hammerdins, there's no easy way to do Baal runs, so there's no quick way of levelling up through the 70's and 80's. That means it'd be a ton harder to make effective magic finding builds, which means there'd be a lot less unique items, high tier runes and rune words rolling about. Since that's what the online economy is built on, I realised that the entirety of the essentially player built economy revolves around a single hilariously broken skill on one class. Nerf the Hammerdin, and you trigger a fucking recession.

I'm sure that's a beautiful analogy for some critique of society, but I'm too lazy to think of one.

But you're right. That's quite interesting. All this reminiscing makes me feel like busting out the old CD key - but I know i'd just get addicted >:|.

I know the feeling. Fortunately I've gone through this enough times to know that the game is completely dead to me. I literally can't play it anymore. Been on too many Baal runs, tomb runs, cow runs and Tristram runs to enjoy it anymore.

Still love reminiscing though. I remember the most fun build I ever used was a really simple Assassin one. You use Dragon Talon, which let you kick monsters in the face 4 or 5 times in a split second, and Dragon Wing, which was a kick that let you teleport up to enemies for massive damage. There was a specific set of boots that had a 15% chance of crushing blow on them, which, when it triggered, instantly quartered the enemies current health. When you attack 5 times a second, 15% is huge.
Also awesome was when me a friend built wind based Druids and got them from level 1 to level 75 in a single day.

Here's something that will either relieve the addiction, or kick it up a notch and force you to play the game.

 

[Kejui]

You're complaining about not having to run ten minutes to town and back after every fifteen minutes of fighting?

That's one of the things that started making EQ suck, when they gave everyone the ability to easily teleport from one area to another, instead of walking for hours to a particular destination. It takes away from the tediousness of the game, yeah, but what does that make you work for? It gives you that much more of an incentive not to die instead of, "Oh, well, if I die, I can just loot my corpse real quick via portal."

Anyway, you already had town portals , so it never took ten minutes to get back to town.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I played as an Assassin and could readily solo any boss on any difficulty. Granted it took a half dozen builds before I found something that "worked" in any difficulty. It always seemed like the more useful a skill looked, the worse it was in Hell difficulty. All but one of your charge up moves was useless (Phoenix Strike), the poison upgrade was useless (what's a few hundred poison damage over 10 seconds if that is simply reduced to >>1 second and the enemies all have thousands of HP anyhow?), one of your two summonable buddies was useless, all the traps except the one that exploded corpses was useless...I could go on.

 

[Brotherofwill]

It always seemed like the more useful a skill looked, the worse it was in Hell difficulty. All but one of your charge up moves was useless (Phoenix Strike)

Yeah? I always thought Tiger strike was the only good strike for the Assasin. Phoenix strike was okay, but Tiger Strike + Charge kicks was pretty fun.

Duriel has no patience for your potionry! Duriel has cast aside your mashing the 1-4 keys in favour of collecting health for your foes.

Duriel squirms in glee at the prospect of DEVOURING your corpse, because Duriel does not fight with compatriots.

Or, in more plain english, how will health globes work against end of act bosses that tend to be solo challenges? Trash enemies thrown in as health fodder? (why would diablo do that?!) or considerably easier bosses?

Excellent question. I think they talked about bosses having minions (which would be lame) or bosses dropping orbs while being damaged (which would be slightly less lame).

Duriel is a great example because he's the kind of boss I was always worried about facing. Intense showdown that is in that tomb. It usually came down to running around like a girl, going in portals (and praying to god Duriel wouldn't be directly at the spot of your portal when you came back in ) and respawning your merc 10 times.

Apparently they also worked with methods against portal spamming so I have no idea how a boss like that would work. Maybe bosses just won't have that insane 'pop' and damage, but then again the boss they showed in the demo was able to insta-kill the Barbarians by biting their heads off, so I don't know.

I guess they could always go the D2 route and just say: Tough shit. How was a skeleton based Necromancer supposed to fight a boss? Well tough shit. They better have a Duriel type boss in D3 somewhere .

 

[Pikey Mikey]

I'll probably end up buying it, I loved Diablo I when I was younger (still like it) and I loved Diablo II, escpecially when playing with a friend =), I'll probably play all classes... AT THE SAME TIME (I don't really know which class I'll pick first)

 

[veloper]

D2 was nice, but #3 just looks like diablo with new graphics.

I'm not a total gfx whore so I think I'll pass on this one. If I want D2 gamplay I already have that, gathering dust.

What I wanted was Diablo3 with WASD controls and mouse aim, where I my toon doesn't have to stop before he can shoot. Too late for that now. Maybe D4 in 2020.

 

[John Horn]

Dull. Diablo 2 was as shallow as the first. Hack'n slash isn't my cup-o-tea. This sort of game design does little to aid the already monochrome atmosphere of the game. I prefer a good RPG over hackn'slash any day of the week. The only RPG'ish element in Diablo was the asinine "quests" :
"go to A and pick up B, return to C"

But let's hope Blizzard does something pioneering for once in Diablo 3. Thus far, Blizzard's actions have been the opposite of visionary, so I don't expect a sudden change of heart.

 

[Signa]

Besides, the panic that will ensue from having slim health left and praying that you get that desperately needed orb should take D3 further than D2 ever did.

I'm expecting the game to play like Too Human in this case. You do not want that.

Personally, I stopped giving a fuck about D3 when I played Sacred 2. I continued further to giving even less of a fuck (what?) when I realized that Blizzard is no longer the same company it used to be and feel no obligation to support them. Anything Blizzard did in the past has been done better by other games. It took long enough, but I don't need to play them anymore.

What I wanted was Diablo3 with WASD controls and mouse aim, where I my toon doesn't have to stop before he can shoot. Too late for that now. Maybe D4 in 2020.

Sacred 2.

 

[Bon_Clay]

You raise some good points, I was wondering how they would change the dynamics of fighting hordes as well.

As someone who used to play sorcs on hardcore (where you have one life, you die once, character and items are gone FOREVER and you have to make a new one and start again), running for my life and being scared shitless by powerful monsters on hell and nightmare somewhat were a big part of the Diablo experience.

I still think orbs can work for bosses. Either there will be none to get, or you'll have to try and avoid the boss while hunting down weak stuff to heal instead of just pressing a hotkey. So it may even be more frantic and intense.

Hopefully they have plenty of elemental and physical immunes on the hardest levels, as this will stop you from being able to take on any group of enemies you see head on, even if you are really powerful.

 

[Signa]

Besides, the panic that will ensue from having slim health left and praying that you get that desperately needed orb should take D3 further than D2 ever did.

I'm expecting the game to play like Too Human in this case. You do not want that.

Personally, I stopped giving a fuck about D3 when I played Sacred 2. I continued further to giving even less of a fuck (what?) when I realized that Blizzard is no longer the same company it used to be and feel no obligation to support them. Anything Blizzard did in the past has been done better by other games. It took long enough, but I don't need to play them anymore.

What I wanted was Diablo3 with WASD controls and mouse aim, where I my toon doesn't have to stop before he can shoot. Too late for that now. Maybe D4 in 2020.

Sacred 2.

Diablo has never played like Too Human. Sacred 2 looks okay at best, so I'm willing to give it a try, but no game has ever done the dungeon crawler hack n' slash better than Diablo. And at a 70% average review score, I'm not exactly expecting Sacred 2 to be the second coming of Jesus.

I don't get the whole "fight the power" mentality that gamers tend to have. Yea, Activision merged with Blizzard, and that sucks. But it doesn't mean that all games they have made are retroactively bad or that future games they make will be bad, either.

I'm not saying that Too Human and Diablo 3 will be the same, but TH had players hoping for health drops and never getting them when they needed them. Possibly it's because the drop rate was too low (something Bliz could fix).

What sold me on Sacred was the grand scale of the game while offering a very unique skill system. I think a lot of the reviewers were looking for Diablo 2.5 in it, and didn't see it so they rated it low. Sacred is NOT diablo, but it can satisfy that itch. It's got exploration and lore elements from the Elder Scrolls series while still being a top-down hack 'n' slash like Diablo. You get a mix without being greater parts of either games.

As far as bucking popular companies, that had NOTHING to do what what I said above. I genuinely feel that Blizzard's quality is severely lacking, or at least it is in terms of innovation. They haven't made a game I'd play since Warcraft 3, and that one really wasn't that good to me anyway. I have to go back as far as D2 or even Warcraft 2 to play a game that I genuinely enjoyed from them (I loved D2, but it always was shallow for me since it was so much of a grind). They are not the same company as then, so holding my allegiance to nothing more than their name is foolish.

I recommended Sacred 2 because I genuinely feel it's a good game. While it has far too many bugs to ignore, I still felt a strong sense of love from the developers in making the game. So many games these days can't boast about that. They are all cookie-cutter and are thrown out the door as soon as they think they can turn a profit on it. Sacred 2 felt like a game made to be fun, not a profit margin. Sadly, it ended up being a poor example to other companies because Ascaron closed shortly after making the game. It's unfair because it's what I wanted, but it's probably the last of what I'll get.