Vote: Will You Play Hardcore in Diablo III?
Posted 1 May 2012 by FluxWe ran a vote on D2 
Hardcore play experience a couple of years ago, and while it was (sadly) eaten by a news script switch over, as best I recall only about 10% of respondents had ever played HC in D2. I was surprised that the figure was so low, but what does that tell us about D3 Hardcore play plans? Very little.
So here’s the new vote. Are you going to play HC in D3? Yes? Maybe? No way? Pick an option and we’ll see just how many tears Xanth should shed over your lack of faith.
Will you play Hardcore in Diablo III?
- 2) Yes, but I'll play normal mode also. (33%, 2,832 Votes)
- 3) Possibly? I'm a little HCurious. (26%, 2,218 Votes)
- 4) Probably not. (22%, 1,888 Votes)
- 5) No way. Not even once. (11%, 904 Votes)
- 1) Yes, exclusively. (8%, 660 Votes)
Total Voters: 8,494
Loading ...Last Vote Results
The last vote went up just as the open beta weekend began, and was thus kind of ignored as you guys had better D3 things to do. Still, I found it interesting that more than half of you guys had a favorite class since you first heard about it. That might correlate with the Barb and Wiz always leading the fave class votes, since we’ve known about them both since 2008, while the Monk came along in 2009 and the Demon Hunter in 2010, after the more archetypal classes had already been revealed.
Do you have a favorite Diablo 3 class?
1) Yes. The same class since it was revealed. (52%, 2,257 Votes) 2) Yes, but I’ve switched favorites in the past. (22%, 965 Votes) 3) I don’t have a favorite. Still undecided. (19%, 814 Votes) 4) Favorites are silly. I play whoever draws my mouse that day. (7%, 299 Votes) Total Voters: 4,335
D3 HC will bring all the achievement whores to the yard.
I’m really hoping for hardcore-only achievements, and I’m disappointed that Blizzard hasn’t mentioned anything about that yet.
Agreed, very disappointing, but I’m hoping it’s just a PR oversight. There are too many cool things they could do.
Well at least they’ve got plenty of softcore-only achievements, so they’re halfway there?
I assume D3 will be able to teach me….but it has to charge?
This.
I never played hardcore D2. Achievements however…I’m a sucker for them. They are such silly and simple things yet I can’t get enough of them. They give me a goal to achieve and I’ll probably shoot for every one of them.
I would be shocked if they didn’t have most all softcore achievements duplicated as a hardcore achievement.
Another achievement sucker here :S yeah I might try to finish HC normal just for the points. Actually what draw me most is the achievement reward, that skull base under the banner is just too cool!
Voted for “Probably not”, beacose I got easly tired on doing something same most of times. Than I start watching youtube, browsing fun sites etc … and that’s how I died on my every HC char in D2.
I also voted probably not. I will play SC exclusively until that gets boring, then when I need a new challenge (if expansions aren’t out) I will maybe play HC. Or just stop playing the game and focus on studies/career.
i voted “never” since its a waste of time. you WILL eventually die. and that time invested on the character will infuriate me. (yes i know, D3 wont be here forever too, but its a short-term commitment and im not willing to let myself go through that)
Option #2 (hybridcore?) covers a lot of ground. It’s the choice I went with. I want to play mostly hardcore, but I have a lot of friends who are not interested in it, and I don’t want to reject playing with them completely. It’s a hard choice on which class to have as my softcore character, because I won’t play that mode enough to bother having more than one. Probably something fun to play recklessly, like a dual-wielding barbarian.
I played HC exclusively in D2 and D2X, I’m quite surprised at the 10% statistic you mention, for me D2 offered very little in terms of gaming enjoyment after I experienced the thrill of HC. Despite lag deaths, town portal bot deaths, hacks before Ruststorm, etc. Even as I became increasingly jaded by the decline of D2′s online experience, hardcore was a rush.
I may keep a Softie around for Inferno content, or to fall back on to complete achievements, but I voted for the exclusive HC option. I will complete my first play through in HC.
To those who voted “NEVAR”, you really owe it to yourself to at least try it. It’s like nothing else, and when I say nothing else I mean like no other game out there. You might consider us all masochists but no pain no gain, it’s the best video game thrill ever, IMO.
Im not bashing on you, but how does it feel when you die in HC? for me, it feels like waste of time. like a house from a deck of cards you built, for it only to be demolished at any sec. but DUH! not everyone thinks like me
I won’t beat around the bush, it sucks, but the reason I’m playing (and I would imagine the reason 99% of us are playing) is for enjoyment. Playing 8 hours on a HC character for me is much more enjoyable than 8 hours of a softcore. The whole game experience changes — everything is more fun, challenging, intense. But, YMMV. If you want to show off a character you’ve worked ages on, Softcore is the way to go. If you want the closest thing to adrenaline in video games, play Hardcore.
Just imagine, the day you finally complete a house of 52 cards. What a feeling! Were all the failed attempts a waste of time? They were part of the journey, enjoyable with moments of frustration. The overall experience is very rewarding.
then it was destroyed. *rage Face*. knowing the day will come when the character will die, soon, very soon. if only you would retain the gears, i would be happy to play hardcore.
might be rewarding to play HC, but its not worth for ME. anyway, everyone has opinions
I’m gonna play HC whilst snorting coke from a hooker’s navel, I bet that will be a rush. And I’ll play lots of SC too.
I will probably clear all difficulties (up to inferno) on SC in the first week just in case server stability isn’t up to par. Then it is all HC from there.
your post raises an idea in my head. You think you will clear hell in a week. I’m hoping you are delusional. Which brings me to my idea. (FLUX READ THIS!!)
Would be cool to have a thread at some point where we share the time played to 60. I guess this might be better in forums, but I tend to really only look at the blog pages. Perhaps Flux can think of a way to make this happen as a blog post. Perhaps just a post at the end of each week asking for peoples time played and char level.
It could simply be a weekly Flux news post, or better yet a column which tracks the progress towards the elusive Inferno First Clear. What levels the highest are at, and how far into Normal, then Nightmare, then Hell, then Inferno they are, for SC and HC. Anyone could write this column, if someone is so inclined. I’d certainly read it religiously.
I’ll hit 60 for sure in a week. I don’t think gear checks will be that big of a deal until Inferno. I might not clear Hell in a week, but I’m betting others and myself will in that time frame.
I might start a forum thread just to keep my personal log if anyone is interested. I love tracking stuff, so this is an interesting idea. In fact I signed up to Xfire just to keep my D3 played time :S
Never played HC but I think I’ll give it a go but only after I’ve seen the game in SC.
Take one right up and through inferno difficulty. What could possibly go wrong?
you should add an option – just for achievements !!!! i vote for that one
I’ll end up playing HC at some point, but it won’t be until after I have experienced the entire game, collected and used most all of the best items, and am totally bored with SC.
I just need to muster all of my HCourage and then HConquer Diablo 3.
HCurious… lol, made my day
“That might correlate with the Barb and Wiz always leading the fave class votes, since we’ve known about them both since 2008″
Don’t forget about the WD.
Why not? Everyone else has?
We’ll run a fave char vote next week pre-launch, but as the Barb and Wiz are always 1 and 2 in the other votes I’ve seen, I’m wondering how much of that is just about archetypes. Barb is the basher, Wiz is the mage. Those are the only 2 pure archetype classes in D3. WD and Monk are hybrids and DH is basically an archer, but with enough weird stuff to not quite fulfill that role, and in any event archers seem to be one of the less popular archetypes in RPGs.
D3 devs talked about wanting to move away from traditional RPG roles for their chars in D3, but as you look at which 2 are the most popular…. you wonder if they were outsmarting themselves?
Not everyone may appreciate the dev’s efforts to stray away from the classic archetypes, but I certainly do. The WD was love at first sight for me and it remained my favorite class by far even after playing the beta.
I’m curious to see the results of a favorite class poll as well.
I’m not sure the Wiz is a clear favorite for site readers anymore…It seems like there is a lot more love for the Monk and WD on the forums since the open beta. I predict in the community vote the Barb will be the highest with the rest being pretty close. I guess we will see.
I agree, though, that among the hoi polloi that will be hitting the game on may 15, Barb and Wiz will be the most common. Good reason for me to choose the WD, DH, or Monk first.
Recent vote on our FB page has Barb, then Wiz, then the other 3 pretty tightly clumped. But it’s only a few hundred total votes; a lot less than the ~10k we’ll get in votes on main page here for that topic.
http://www.facebook.com/questions/412210395465599/