Now that the game seems less broken will Hardcore still be a challenge?

[Kiroptus]

I know everyone wants hardcore to be back but doesnt Diablo3 sound very hardcore unfriendly (in terms of challenge) so far?

I mean... ok, potions were pretty much removed which is good but on the other hand Jay Wilson already expressed that he wants to make the game flow normally and for that, there wont be one-hit-kill monsters which was where the challenge of hardcore was, to know when and how to face that nasty MSLEFE monster.

Plus there are skills that seem to go on the opposite way from hardcore, like the Barbarian Ressurection skill. If that goes live we can expect a lot of barbarians in HC mode.

I agree with all the changes that Jay bought but maybe we liked hardcore for the challenge of playing a game with a lot of broken mechanics like Diablo II. Now that everything seems more sane and balanced, the game does seem more attractive to me but somehow hardcore is not that hardcore anymore.

People have been suggestion that 10-20 sec timer to logout, and really its the only way to bring some extra difficulty to HC mode because now with the action and flowing normally and with that sudden and scary (and I might add, broken) one-hit-kill monsters not being there, its very easy to hit esc or alt-f4 and get out of the fray or doing that when your barbarian is about to die (again) after being ressurected.

[TheDarkSide]

I dont care for that 20 - 30 second log off thingy people are talking about really . When I need to get out of the game I want to get out now and not have to wait . Having two young kids , I tend to have to go to town quite often so Im interested to see what happens with this . Some people will argue that I dont need to be gaming when I should be watching the kids anyways but whatever .

I imagine that the changes in D3 will be a lot like they were going from D1 to D2 and will take a while to get used to . Once people have played a bit and figured it out Im betting it will be an enjoyable gaming experience . I dont see a whole lot changing with going from SC to HC mode really .

I dont know about you but that big monster biting off the Barbarians head seemed pretty hardcore to me . And with the lack of potions to cure you everytime you get hit Im thinking Hardcore might be even more Hardcore now than it was in D2 ...

[Kiroptus]

That was for the show purposes, we dont know how dangerous the siegebreaker was afterall, I am not talking "hardcore" in terms of gory, that was just a finisher move of the boss. On the other hand, Leoric on the Diablo 3 demo that few got to play was quite easy and delt little damage from what people said.

The thing is that, its very easy to press esc and quit, and the only reason why I ever got killed in HC was when I was on a situation that I died so quickly that I couldnt leave the game. Now that every damage seems more fair and steamlined and no more one-hit-kills it seems quite easy to just exit the game and be back in a sec. It doesnt matter if you have no potions or no health globes are near, just exit the game.

[zebu]

On HC or not, I like one-hit-kill monsters...
why our "heros" have to be so strong?
I mean, I can die on a car crash but there's no monster stronger enough to kill me by hitting my head ?

I agree with that time to logoff, but 20 seconds seems to be eternity. 5 sec is enough ...

[Knight_Wolf]

I mean... ok, potions were pretty much removed which is good but on the other hand Jay Wilson already expressed that he wants to make the game flow normally and for that, there wont be one-hit-kill monsters which was where the challenge of hardcore was, to know when and how to face that nasty MSLEFE monster.

One hit kill monsters are frustration not a challenge, there is a hair-thin difference between making something challenging and making it frustrating, and it is definitely on the frustration side for many people so it has to go.

And removal of potions spamming more than makes up for the challenge value, actually it is exactly how you make it challenging not frustrating.

Plus there are skills that seem to go on the opposite way from hardcore, like the Barbarian Ressurection skill. If that goes live we can expect a lot of barbarians in HC mode.

If you think about hard enough you will figure out it is pretty much an extra temp boost to the Barbarian HP, if you are already surrounded by a mob and get killed using a barbarian you will get few extra HP but they won't do you any good and you will die shortly after if you are playing bad.

I agree with all the changes that Jay bought but maybe we liked hardcore for the challenge of playing a game with a lot of broken mechanics like Diablo II. Now that everything seems more sane and balanced, the game does seem more attractive to me but somehow hardcore is not that hardcore anymore.

Actually the good thing is that it will make hardcore more accessible and will invite more people to play it which is a good thing really, with more people around PvP and duels in HC will be adrenaline pumping.

People have been suggestion that 10-20 sec timer to logout, and really its the only way to bring some extra difficulty to HC mode because now with the action and flowing normally and with that sudden and scary (and I might add, broken) one-hit-kill monsters not being there, its very easy to hit esc or alt-f4 and get out of the fray or doing that when your barbarian is about to die (again) after being ressurected.

The timer could be viable but it isn't streamlined enough, maybe a checkpoints system will work better, when you quit in the middle of a fight ( trying to cheaply escape death ) you lose all the things ( progress, money, items .. etc etc ) you did since the last time you used/touched a check point ( the ones you get resurrected at in Softcore ), that's assuming these check points are the fixed portals you use to get back to town.

That feels more fair and streamlined to me.

[Kiroptus]

Some bosses might have some lethal move but I believe there will be some cast-animation warning to give you time to react.

Still, all of our fears from HC came from broken monsters, like the bugged zombies that could one-hit-kill your high-hp barb in hell, the MSLE monsters, the bugged FE monsters or the cheap burning souls. Those were our bane but they were also the result of broken mechanics and now that Diablo 3 seem to be aiming for more refinement, maybe what we think of HC wont be as much of prestige as it once was in D2.

When I saw a high lv HC I would think "man, that guy was good" now in D3 will it be "ah, a high lv HC, he surely was quick to press "save and quit" a lot of time". Because right now from what I gather there certainly is more danger in Diablo 3 but not that scary black-robe-wearing death carrying a scythe that could suddenly chop your head off. If you are on that situation isnt it easily to just save and quit? Plus there is the second chance skill from the barb, we can expect a lot of HC barbarians if the skill goes live because once that thing triggers, its the right moment to "Save and Quit".

[Kiroptus]

One hit kill monsters are frustration not a challenge, there is a hair-thin difference between making something challenging and making it frustrating, and it is definitely on the frustration side for many people so it has to go.

I agree with that and I am glad that they are gone.

And removal of potions spamming more than makes up for the challenge value, actually it is exactly how you make it challenging not frustrating.

I agree too. Potion spamming was awful. Still its easy to just save and quit if things get ugly and no health globes are nearby or are hard to access.

If you think about hard enough you will figure out it is pretty much an extra temp boost to the Barbarian HP, if you are already surrounded by a mob and get killed using a barbarian you will get few extra HP but they won't do you any good and you will die shortly after if you are playing skill is low.

But thats more than enough time to just quit. It takes less then a second if you are quick.


Actually the good thing is that it will make hardcore more accessible and will invite more people to play it which is a good thing really, with more people around PvP and duels in HC will be adrenaline pumping.


Hmm... we dont know much about PVP, maybe the separated PVP system wont even allow players to kill themselves, more like a "friendly duel with both players consesus" that drops players to 1 hp, just like WoW. I just dont believe that a player will be able to take down someone's character for good. Unless there is a option to do so, but I guess the default mode will be "just drop HP to 1 and the other player wins the duel".


The timer could be viable but it isn't streamlined enough, maybe a checkpoints system will work better, when you quit in the middle of a fight ( trying to cheaply escape death ) you lose all the things ( progress, money, items .. etc etc ) you did since the last time you used/touched a check point ( the ones you get resurrected at in Softcore ), that's assuming these check points are the fixed portals you use to get back to town.

That feels more fair and streamlined to me.

Nah that can create a lot more of problems imo, losing all gold and item gathered so far? What if people need to get out quick and the checkpoint is hard to get and to make things worse you just found an amazing item. Certainly wont please a lot of people that supports Diablo as a more casual game.

[Rashiminos]

Still, all of our fears from HC came from broken monsters, like the bugged zombies that could one-hit-kill your high-hp barb in hell, the MSLE monsters, the bugged FE monsters or the cheap burning souls. Those were our bane but they were also the result of broken mechanics and now that Diablo 3 seem to be aiming for more refinement, maybe what we think of HC wont be as much of prestige as it once was in D2.


Only the MSLE monsters and burning souls weren't broken.

[jakotaco]

Only the MSLE monsters and burning souls weren't broken.

Wasn't it something with the souls using some manaburn table with incorrect damage or something like that?

[AkumaSlayer]

The timer could be viable but it isn't streamlined enough, maybe a checkpoints system will work better, when you quit in the middle of a fight ( trying to cheaply escape death ) you lose all the things ( progress, money, items .. etc etc ) you did since the last time you used/touched a check point ( the ones you get resurrected at in Softcore ), that's assuming these check points are the fixed portals you use to get back to town.

That feels more fair and streamlined to me.

Hell no! What if you found an awesome unique and then after a few minutes you're near the checkpoint and your internet connection cuts off, or your computer freezes? That's frustrating.

But the timer isn't the best solution either.

I think hardcore mode will still be challenging, in any case. All it takes is a moment of carelessness, or a false sense of security and you could find yourself surrounded, and then dead before you think to ALT F4 out of the game.

[Master Zap]

On the barb skill for avoiding death.

I'd like to point out that Any shifter druid who receives a fatal amount of damage also doesn't die, but rather he unshifts instead. Yes he's left at 1hp and the barb in D3 will have 30%, but it's a similar mechanic that's already in the game.

On Hardcore Druids are still not overly represented, and most of the Druids you run across these days are windy, so that deshift from fatal blows isnt getting "abused".

With druids now, there is no cool down either save the near instant amount of time it takes to reshift.


I'll be honest , I kinda like the "broken" overly damaging monsters mods in D2. Souls, Nith snakes that do 30 ish damage per frame, FE pops. All these things take finesse and proper play around to not die. It adds challenge. I hope D3 also has some types of damage that require another play strategy around.


I'm a fan of no insta exits, but I also dont want to have to wait awhile for either. 5-10 seconds is enough to prevent chickening.

I'd say take the avg expected health of a player in the avg spot in "hell". Figure out the avg monster damage. Whatever amount of time it would take for one monster to kill you is the amount of time they should use for the delay.


I hope there is plenty of instant deed monsters and situations in d3.

IM , hope it stays, it requires one to plan for it and I think it makes a person a better d2 player. Fwiw , ive lost one character since I started hc to long ago. Made the mistake of dragon flightning my kicksin. I got cursed mid flight and it was all over.

Anytime your going after a high life fe monster in hell and nm especially, it requires you use some finesse or you will get popped. It's these things that keep you on your toes and the game interesting. I'd take it a step further and request a caster im too , meaning that your casted spells reflect the damage back to you like melee does with im.

I'm hoping that HC remains a challenging mode of play that takes skill and strategy to beat.

I dont think of the "fe bug" as a bug, it's existed for so long , it just "is" , With the multiple updates and patches that have been released I think this one falls under "working as intended".

If you think your going to take your whirl-till-your hurl 10K ww barb thru chaos and not die then I suggest you go back to sc mode to learn some work arounds.

Bezerking amply covers your im . You will "actually" have to keep an eye on your mana bulb, use howl/warcry and leap so your not getting swarmed.

[Bad Ash]

I think we need to trust Blizz in this regard. I am sure it will be challenging and still hard as hell to get a char high leveled.

I dont think the death blow was just for show...They kind of stated that they wanted it to be, but that people thought it was so cool they are going to try and implement it in the game. Guess what that means? If you are at a certain health % and he grabs you, your deeds will be remembered. That is intense and a challenge, you dont have to worry about losing all of your life, you now have to worry about losing some of it.

Also, with no pots, that is a HUGE challenge to hc. you cant spam pots to regain life, you have to actually strategize and plan your battles. If someone is saving and exiting every time they encounter this situation, they wont be making any progress in the game because its going to be constantly happening.

[Wheeze]

It shouldn't be forgotten that diablo 3 hardcore won't just be diablo 2 hardcore without bugged monsters. If anything the fact that bugged monsters are a necessity to make hardcore in diablo 2 a challenge goes more to say how easy diablo 2 is.

My hope is that, without instant full hp just a button away, diablo 3 will present a more constant challenge for hardcore players, rather than just slapping you in the face once in a while with a situation which will just plain unfairly rob you of a character.

I am a little intrigued with the cooperative aspect in diablo 3. Partly because I never got the chance to party up in diablo 2 hardcore, any game I joined was full of bickering and petty pker's. It seems that good teamplay will make things much easier; I can imagine perhaps the Barbarian over extends himself, so the wizard casts slow time to help him retreat, as another player goes behind the monsters to pickup a health globe which would be dangerous for the barbarian to get to himself. I think with the assumption that players are going to try and help each other like that could lead to interesting monsters with multiple dangerous abilities.

Other than that I think it could be a little early to gauge the difficulty of diablo 3. I appreciate some people have first hand experience of the demo, but entire sections of the game may end up being rebalanced once they finished polishing all the characters, skills and items. Also, I can't remember when I last died in diablo 2 on normal mode. So, if you are going to draw close parallels between d2 and d3 hardcore difficulty, wouldn't it be safe to assume the first act of normal would not have any particular challenge. Perhaps they'll stick Duriel at the end of act 2 to kill unwary players though :?

[MoUsE_WiZ]

If you are at a certain health % and he grabs you, your deeds will be remembered... If someone is saving and exiting every time they encounter this situation, they wont be making any progress in the game because its going to be constantly happening.

This is the hope.
With or without an exit timer this is presumably the only way HC could possibly present a challenge from what I'm reading. In order for this approach to be successful though, the relative power of characters would need to be dropped significantly. We haven't heard much about how powerful characters will be in D3 other than Jay Wilson saying he knows that people want to be powerful and that it's part of the fun of the game.

The thing is, while I can definitely see it being set up such that questing through and beating the game is fine with this sort of theory in mind, dying afterwards (while trying to MF or level) seems less likely. The two main reasons for that are that if you can get through it ok untwinked, once you've got gear, it WILL be easier (as mentioned above, it depends on how MUCH easier). And more importantly... while you're trying to quest, progress matters. While you're trying to gain exp or items, not so much.

Eg: if you're questing through the CS and are forced to exit every time, you'll never get to A5 (rushing obviously results in the endgame mattering more and questing difficulty mattering less). However once you're through it, presumably you will be able to get through it again. Maybe not every time. Maybe only every other time. But even if you're only getting through it every other time without a quick exit, you're still able to MF/level there. It might be a bit slow, but not unreasonably slow, and at this point the chances of death drop to virtually 0 without "broken" monsters in the game.


One hit kill monsters are frustration not a challenge, there is a hair-thin difference between making something challenging and making it frustrating, and it is definitely on the frustration side for many people so it has to go.
One hit kill monsters are only a frustration for bad players.
Blizzard does not have to make the mode that is supposed to be a challenge into a mode that is only a challenge for bad players.

Good players learn to spot the monsters that can kill quickly and learn to play around them and learn to gear in such a way that they are no longer a threat. If they die to such a situation once they think "hmm... what can I do differently to avoid that next time?" Bad players die and get frustrated that they died scream "BROKEN!!!!" and go back to SC.

[raveharu]

The monsters in the game, ast least from the trailer, looks pretty nasty and challenging.

[AkumaSlayer]

If you are at a certain health % and he grabs you, your deeds will be remembered... If someone is saving and exiting every time they encounter this situation, they wont be making any progress in the game because its going to be constantly happening.

I think that as soon as the monster begins the finishing move, you're already dead. So even if you save and exit before the monster rips your head completely off, chances are when you load your character up again it will just be a hooded figure.

[Bad Ash]

defintely. Even though the saving and exiting was in reference to the lack of pots in the game.

I do think that blizz will make it challenging and it will be what we expected it to be. I cant imagine them making the game easier than D2 was...at least I really REALLY hope not. in my mind D3 is harder not only in hc but in sc too. Even if its uber one hit kill monsters, thats fine, but Ive milked D2 enough that im hungry for a challenge.

[BitsNPieces]

I think most ppl here are experienced hc players. We know the ins and outs. We have played for years, used the forums to gather information. Codediggers have exposed game mechanics and players have tested all situations they could come up with. We KNOW about FE/LE pops in nm when you are cursed, we know how to glitch MF the bosses, we know the bugs and loopholes. We can handle all situations the game throws at us. We have custombuild characters to suit our needs (BO slaves, chantresses, keyrunners, magicfinders, goldfinders, cowrunners etc) and a muling system for twinking our chars. Need a particular item? Trade for it. High runes galore. So HC mode has been defeated. Only for guys that go single player (no third party programs) and FIND all there items hc mode will still be a challenge I reckon. Playing a high lvl char on Bnet with all godly gear =/= challenge.

I just hope the sequal gets way tighter security wise (no more dupes/hacks etc) and I hope they find a way to somehow protect the code so codediggers can't rip 'r apart right from the word go.

About saving and exiting: IMO a good option would be to let players only save and exit when they are in town. Having to cast a tp to get back to town gives you just that little bit delay.

edit: ah just read a bit more in the other thread. So tp exit was already suggested and likely won't work

[Grug]

hmmm...

Well firstly, The finishing moves are just that, finishing. Whenever the monster hits you, the game checks if you would die from the hit. If so, then the finisher plays. I do think that would make Hard Core much more attractive, since it would give you a parting gift before deleting your guy.

But yeah, 1 hit kill monsters are not fun at all. People say that Good players can deal with them by using tactics. Here's a term I coined: In Diablo 2, the difficulty cruve was an Event Horizon. Bashiok himself said that in D2, the only way to challenge the players is kill them. He's trying to make the fights be more involved. And no matter what you say, getting killed in 1 hit is not fun. It might make sense if the player does something stupid like Not Wear Armor or fight enemies many levels higher than them, but if the Death Bugs or whatever are supposed to be the same level, you should be able to fight them like you would any other monster, instead of hoping for a coin toss. "Heads I win, Tails I die."

[MoUsE_WiZ]

I think most ppl here are experienced hc players.
This is true.
Only for guys that go single player (no third party programs) and FIND all there items hc mode will still be a challenge I reckon.
This is not.

Most people here are experienced HC players. The single biggest life saving skill in HC is a quick s&e. This experience translates to *every* game that includes an HC mode without any sort of s&e prevention. Or at least I didn't actually die once in HG:L, and in Mythos I died twice before I stopped dying.

In Diablo 2, the difficulty cruve was an Event Horizon. Bashiok himself said that in D2, the only way to challenge the players is kill them.
This is true. In terms of difficulty for the game in general I have no doubt that D3 will be fine and have gameplay that is 100 times more awesome than D2 thanks to the removal of potions and the introduction of an endurance concept.

However, keep in mind that HC is supposed to be *MORE* challenging than SC.

If the designers are not trying to either kill players quickly (eg 1hit ko) or keep them locked into fights when fights occur (eg S&E timer) then players *WILL NOT* die in HC. It will slow down their progress sure, but the fun of having the risk of dying will be virtually gone.

In other words - "the only way to challenge players (in HC&beyond the challenge of SC) is to kill them".

no matter what you say, getting killed in 1 hit is not fun.
Getting killed - in any way - is not fun.
What is fun is knowing that if you were a lesser player you would have died, but since you aren't you didn't.

One hit kill is a bit of a misnomer... if you build right virtually nothing can one hit you. If you play right nothing will one hit you; it's not as if these monsters are gaurenteed to kill anyone regardless of anything.

[jeremyk]

Of course Hardcore will still be a challenge. If it isn't a challenge (ie: never dying) than Blizzard made a flawed game.

I fail to see how you would implement the 20-30 standby before you can exit the game. When I play hardcore on d2, I usually use the Alt-F4 function when there is danger.

Now if you do the 20-30 sec standby, does that mean that everytime the game crashes/quit/lags that there will be a 20-30 sec standby of your character standing there getting raped by monsters while the player has no control over it? Sorry, but this standby mode won't work for this reason.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

Of course Hardcore will still be a challenge. If it isn't a challenge (ie: never dying) than Blizzard made a flawed game.

There's a very significant difference between never dying and never dying in HC.

[Kiroptus]

There's a very significant difference between never dying and never dying in HC.

Yep.

The problem is, in HC we are not bound to take too much risks, so far from what we heard there were lots of moments were people felt to be in danger while playing the Diablo 3 demo, which is good, but we, HC players, know that being in danger means the time to run away. At least in cetain situations were we can quickly analyze and say "Esc, S&E" or press ALT-F4.

Would our progress be halted? Sure, but then we try again with a more safer dungeon tileset and monster arrangement, after all its all random so sometimes there might be situations were its easier so we will always hope that and eventually an easier dungeon will come..

The globe system is a blessing but I am not going to risk my character's life hoping for their drops, If I am surrounded and no globes are nowhere near I will save and exit and so will all of you (dont tell me you will bravely stand there and slash the monsters for the globes drops even if your health is very low because its a lie).

In HC we dont take risks but Diablo 3 seems to be leaning toward a more risky and action packed territory, which is fun, but if we are bound to "save and exiting" from every risky situation, I might as well play SC and not be tempted to leave the game.

I believe the most elegant solution or the less non-elegant solution is to add the timer, it could be 5-10 secs but I believe it must be done to reward players who take risks in HC.

[AkumaSlayer]

Now if you do the 20-30 sec standby, does that mean that everytime the game crashes/quit/lags that there will be a 20-30 sec standby of your character standing there getting raped by monsters while the player has no control over it? Sorry, but this standby mode won't work for this reason.

No silly, you will still get to control your character while the timer runs down.

[Romak]

No silly, you will still get to control your character while the timer runs down.

No, Akuma... he meant that if there's a computer crash or for some reason the game closes against his will, he won't be able to control his character... because the game won't be running. So if the 20-30-sec rule is active, the character will just stand there, getting raped. And he absolutely right. Not only because this will cause many deaths in Hardcore AND Softcore, but also because people don't wanna wait so much time to exit the game... it's not like in WoW where you are always in the same 'map' with everyone. In Diablo, you sometimes change game every few minutes. Just think how tidious this might get? Diablo is known for being a fast paced game. I don't believe such system will be implemented.

[AkumaSlayer]

Ah, my bad. Well in any case, I think that problem can be solved by changing the timer to something like 5 seconds. I mean if the game crashes, 5 seconds isn't a lot of time for the monsters to kill you *unless* you had low health and were going to die anyway.

[raveharu]

Ah, my bad. Well in any case, I think that problem can be solved by changing the timer to something like 5 seconds. I mean if the game crashes, 5 seconds isn't a lot of time for the monsters to kill you *unless* you had low health and were going to die anyway.

Easier said than done.

It would be nice for this timer thingy implemented in normal mode.

[stillman]

Well Blizzard can just introduce other dangers and tests instead of striving for brokenness. For instance, it's the same 3 monsters in the blood moor every time you make a game. Jesus. How can you lose? Blizzard should randomly select 6 different monster types to spawn there from a list of 20. You would have to be a true master and know the insides and outs of ALL 20 monsters to survive. If you forgot that sometimes a very fast and high damage monster can spawn, suddenly a mob of them dash out onto the screen and they kill you.

They can also make more monsters like souls but without glitches. Just give some mosnters a whole lot of abilities like the souls. Here is what souls can do:

-Way more damge than other monsters.
-Invisibility and movement while being invisible.
-Double immunity.
-VERY high physical resist almost making them tripple immune.
-Ability to fire in unision in groups.
-Faster movement compared to other monsters.
-Undead so they can be resurected.
-Very fast firing rate.
-Drains mana
-Shoot you from way the hell off the screen.

And what do other monsters have?

-One immune for most of them.
-Some very predictable running away or approaching behaivior.

They just need to make more tough mosnters like souls who have some varitey. No glitch-like one hit kills are necessary. Souls are hard whether they are glitchy or not.

HC in d2 is easy because Blizzard made the game very cheap, giving monsters very few abilities and low AI.

Edit: more surprises too. Like you're going along fighting the same 6 monster types over and over again, but then suddenly a rare mob appears when we thought we had seen all the monster types of that area.

Edit 2: How about you can Save and Exit all you like, but you lose some exp whenever you do this outside of town?

[raveharu]

Well Blizzard can just introduce other dangers and tests instead of striving for brokenness. For instance, it's the same 3 monsters in the blood moor every time you make a game. Jesus. How can you lose?


Well this applies only for Normal mode.
Monsters in Blood Moor for other modes, especially Hell, are pretty nasty IMO.



Blizzard should randomly select 6 different monster types to spawn there from a list of 20. You would have to be a true master and know the insides and outs of ALL 20 monsters to survive. If you forgot that sometimes a very fast and high damage monster can spawn, suddenly a mob of them dash out onto the screen and they kill you.

They can also make more monsters like souls but without glitches. Just give some mosnters a whole lot of abilities like the souls. Here is what souls can do:

-Way more damge than other monsters.
-Invisibility and movement while being invisible.
-Double immunity.
-VERY high physical resist almost making them tripple immune.
-Ability to fire in unision in groups.
-Faster movement compared to other monsters.
-Undead so they can be resurected.
-Very fast firing rate.
-Drains mana
-Shoot you from way the hell off the screen.

And what do other monsters have?

-One immune for most of them.
-Some very predictable running away or approaching behaivior.

They just need to make more tough mosnters like souls who have some varitey. No glitch-like one hit kills are necessary. Souls are hard whether they are glitchy or not.



Souls are tough because many players have crappy resists in Hell.
Not to mention its a bunch of souls shooting lightning and not just one.
Other than that they are pretty much easy to kill.

They can't make monsters TOO strong, it'll be ridiculous if normal monsters are harder than Bosses.
That's the reason why souls have weak life.


HC in d2 is easy because Blizzard made the game very cheap, giving monsters very few abilities and low AI.

Edit: more surprises too. Like you're going along fighting the same 6 monster types over and over again, but then suddenly a rare mob appears when we thought we had seen all the monster types of that area.

Edit 2: How about you can Save and Exit all you like, but you lose some exp whenever you do this outside of town?

Possible I guess, as long as they don't reuse monsters like what they did with Act 5 for NM and Hell modes.

[stillman]

True, the blood moor monsters are nasty in hell mode, but I'm saying they become piece of cake when we all know exactly that it's going to be quill rats, zombies and carvers or w/e every single time. Blizzard should shake things up a bit and lessen the predictability.

Of course, there is still this easy S&E problem which seems to negate any challenges.

One idea I had a while back was this: You can only S&E in town, but when you make a tp, the portal opens up a few paces away from you in a random direction. If there are no monsters, you run the 2 paces to the portal to town and S&E which will all take about 1 second. One second won't be too much time for those with kids and real life emergencies and such. 5 seconds kind of creates problems for some.

Now, if you are surrounded by monsters, you make the tp and let's say it appears behind you to the left or w/e and as you run the 2 steps toward it the monsters finish you off. You're dead. Or, you're completely surrounded and you can't even run the 2 paces to the tp. You're dead and S&E won't work because it can only work in town.

The problem is, I believe tp's may not be so easily accumulated in d3 and I came up with this before hearing Blizzard wants to keep us out of town so much.

[satheron]

I think hardcore will be much better overall in d3.
The only thing that ever killed me in d2 was a player Kill, and as far as the one hit kills Jay is referring to, I would figure he means The Lightning Enchanted/mult-shot types.. Or Iron Maiden in Act4.

If your melee there is nothing you can do to avoid that kind of damage coming at you, as its abrupt. Ranged characters came into certain dangers with the Lightning enchanted, even though they are ranged. Forget it if your melee.

These are the kinds of things Jay is referring to.

As for the flow of things. Anyone that has played d2 within the past few years knows the awkward flow of development. Lets say you decide to play the game normally, no rushing. Which you will hopefully do.

You play act1-5 normal, by the time you finish act5(or stopping just before killing baal) your around lvl 30, We will say 33-35. Are you strong enough to go straight into nightmare? Thats questionable.

What almost everybody does at this point is they do normal baal runs until they hit lvl 45 atleast before advancing to nightmare.

Same process they proceed from act 1-5 in nightmare. They are higher in level, so fewer are gained, just roughly ball parking it, lets say they hit 52, which I would say is generous. At this point they have to stop, and power baal again until lvl 70 something. Before proceeding comfortably till hell mode.

This the kind of flow disruption in diablo2, that jay is trying to solve in d3, the main reason why stats are auto allocated so he can make coming monsters the right strength. Since he will have a more than good idea of where characters are power wise at each level.

I think there will most definitely be situations (maybe not right away) where there will be an abrupt death..an abrupt death for those not paying good enough attention to see it coming.

Even in diablo 2, if you built a moderately decent character and since we are hc players, most of us so do so with some level of defense in mind..I can't think of any monsters that DID kill a player in one hit to begin with. Other than the 2 situations mentioned above.

They just dealt a lot of damage really fast, which I think will be the same case with d2.

PS: the 30 second logout is a terrible idea, I think they should just do it like most other games, where you aren't allowed to exit the game while in combat.

[Turnip]

I think it will be more irritating to have to sit and wait for a health orb to appear, its like adding a timer to potions; all that happens is you run in circles until you can use it again. And to anyone whose played mythos knows, its really really lame. Anyways I had fun with diablo 2, I dont see why it all the sudden has these "flaws" that need to be fixed.

[teh_Thrasher]

The timer could be viable but it isn't streamlined enough, maybe a checkpoints system will work better, when you quit in the middle of a fight ( trying to cheaply escape death ) you lose all the things ( progress, money, items .. etc etc ) you did since the last time you used/touched a check point ( the ones you get resurrected at in Softcore ), that's assuming these check points are the fixed portals you use to get back to town.

lol oh man that would be brutal! i like it lol. Hardcore is not for the feint of heart or those with "lives" those that play will be IN IT TO WIN IT!

the idea will need a little fine tuning but it would def get rid of those people that save and exit all the time or chicken hack or any of that crapola.

[BitsNPieces]

@Satheron
I don't agree that only IM or FE explosions cause 1 hit deaths. It depends on the monster type, the modifiers they spawn with and the chance of certain events happening (amp/critical strike). I have lost a lvl 70 ama in the tower last ladder. 1 Hitted by a dark ranger boss. My merc got 1 hitted by her first. At that point I should have realised this monster was dealing serious dmg as my merc was wearing a 20% dmg reduction vampire gaze. We both had full health and were not amped. I saw the might aura on the boss and I guess the other modifiers must have been "extra strong" "extra fast" and elemental dmg mods. I don't know if these rangers have a chance of landing a critical strike but I think this is what happened in both cases. Looked like this one was on steroids (or bugged?).
-Doll explosions have a chance of critical strike. So if your mers kills an extra fast doll boss next to you while you just got amped and your "chance to block" fails...
-Extra fast light ench gloam boss with conviction aura popping up next to you. Anything less then max resist would have you in serious trouble. My fishyzon met one this ladder and survived because of very quick fingers hitting the purples (she has max light resist + t-god's)
-Ancients (extra strong and you amped) can land a critical strike too I reckon.
-Some extra fast frenzytaur packs. They don't one hit you, but can surely one second you.

A few examples that spring to mind.

[Blikbladae]

dude I don't care what they say about no 1 hit kills, ect there will be godlies, and where there are 'omfg leet uber godlies' there will be 1 hit kills, and pwning of noobs. There better be hc, just by 2 cents.

[satheron]

@Satheron
I don't agree that only IM or FE explosions cause 1 hit deaths. It depends on the monster type, the modifiers they spawn with and the chance of certain events happening (amp/critical strike). I have lost a lvl 70 ama in the tower last ladder. 1 Hitted by a dark ranger boss. My merc got 1 hitted by her first. At that point I should have realised this monster was dealing serious dmg as my merc was wearing a 20% dmg reduction vampire gaze. We both had full health and were not amped. I saw the might aura on the boss and I guess the other modifiers must have been "extra strong" "extra fast" and elemental dmg mods. I don't know if these rangers have a chance of landing a critical strike but I think this is what happened in both cases. Looked like this one was on steroids (or bugged?).
-Doll explosions have a chance of critical strike. So if your mers kills an extra fast doll boss next to you while you just got amped and your "chance to block" fails...
-Extra fast light ench gloam boss with conviction aura popping up next to you. Anything less then max resist would have you in serious trouble. My fishyzon met one this ladder and survived because of very quick fingers hitting the purples (she has max light resist + t-god's)
-Ancients (extra strong and you amped) can land a critical strike too I reckon.
-Some extra fast frenzytaur packs. They don't one hit you, but can surely one second you.

A few examples that spring to mind.

Yes those are decent examples, but my point is that all of your examples there is a solid defense for. And you can see the damage coming. Sorry if I wasn't clear on that in my last post.

My sorc had max resists(95%), t-gods. The attacks from Gloams would heal me. A strong attack they do have, but are ways to deal with it.

You are right there are some super-unique monsters that will get the right set of stats to make them extremely powerful, I believe I mentioned that somewhat with the Lightning enchanted, sorry if I didn't clarify it further.

With the frenzytaurs your right, they will drop you in a second, if you allow them to build up their frenzy on you. It exactly along with what I said that just because there aren't monsters that deal 100% damage, it doesn't mean there aren't ones that deal around 80% of it and fast. Seems we are in agreement :)

Anyway my main point is that with a lot of the high amounts of damage a player will receive there are defenses for it.
Which is not the case in some examples where the player has to totally avoid direct confrontation to live. CE, and IM are good examples.
So are some super-uniques, but wether its because the monster is unbeatable or the player is ill-prepared is another debate.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

Which is not the case in some examples where the player has to totally avoid direct confrontation to live. CE, and IM are good examples.

The player does not need to avoid confrontation with FE or IM.
If you're going to argue that getting resist >75% and wearing absorb is a defense against gloams, then there's defense against both FE and IM.

FE - don't stand next to it when it dies. All this requires, if you lack ranged attack, is having a merc that can stand there in your place for a couple seconds when it's almost dead. Wearing spurs and dwarfs helps too, so if res+sorb is a defense against gloams, res+sorb is a defense against FE, but good play is an even better defense rendering a gear based solution unnecessary.

IM - there's a solution for every class that allows them to kill OKs. Some solutions are better than others, but the solutions always exist. A single point in Zerk, for example, means that a barb does not need to avoid confrontation with OKs.

The reason IM is a broken ability is not because of its play implications for melee characters... IM is fine, it provides challenge for melee players who want to venture into the handful of areas in the game it exists... no, the reason IM is broken is that there is no corresponding ability for ranged classes. IM is not overpowered, other monsters are underpowered.

[BitsNPieces]

Satheron, your sorc must have had stacked resists? A gloam boss with conviction would otherwise lower your resists enough for his lightning to hurt. T-gods + 85% LR was nowhere near enough for me in above example.

[Valmy]

There are some good ideas here and an intense debate, but honestly I think it's too early to know how easy Diablo III will be.

An easy Demo doesn´t mean the game will be this way. Remember that characters started at level 5 in low areas and I think the final product will be notable different from now.

Honestly again, I think we can only speculate, and we have no idea if Diablo 3 will be easier than Diablo 2.

Impossible to imagine at the moment. Too many modifiers and formulas unknown, granted the fact that now the stats will be autoassigned, and mage classes won't have lots of life or good block. Imagine their very low durability against hell bosses or mobs with immunity, adding the handicap of going around with less life, and without "bo's", auras or thinks like that, and withouts "click-drink-pots-my-friend-until-end".

AND seems like block now, if succesfully, won't protect from full damage and will only decrease it.


Time will tell, my friends. Time will tell.

[obsoleteAUS]

Hey, just signed up to these forums because I'm getting excited about D3 (Didn't play much of D2, only single player and got a HC char to Normal Hell (Died against Diablo)).

1) What's the point of playing HC if your just saving and quitting everytime your about to die? Why not just play SC and discipline yourself to play safely?

2) If alot of people to the save/quit then some method needs to be in place to stop that. Sometimes when I'd be close to death in D2 I'd try cast TP and get back to town, only to have the TP spawn out of reach because of the monsters mobbing me. Maybe having Save/Quit only available in town would be a good idea. It would help people get out of game quickly if they needed to but make it harder to escape the cheap way.

3) Make the TP cast a long animation, maybe a few seconds to further stop people cheating death.

I'm going to try play D3 in HC mode, so maybe I'll become more than just a casual/poor player but I don't want to beable to cheat death everytime it comes my way.

[AkumaSlayer]

Hey, just signed up to these forums because I'm getting excited about D3 (Didn't play much of D2, only single player and got a HC char to Normal Hell (Died against Diablo)).

1) What's the point of playing HC if your just saving and quitting everytime your about to die? Why not just play SC and discipline yourself to play safely?

2) If alot of people to the save/quit then some method needs to be in place to stop that. Sometimes when I'd be close to death in D2 I'd try cast TP and get back to town, only to have the TP spawn out of reach because of the monsters mobbing me. Maybe having Save/Quit only available in town would be a good idea. It would help people get out of game quickly if they needed to but make it harder to escape the cheap way.

3) Make the TP cast a long animation, maybe a few seconds to further stop people cheating death.

I'm going to try play D3 in HC mode, so maybe I'll become more than just a casual/poor player but I don't want to beable to cheat death everytime it comes my way.

So you're saying you will use save and exit to cheat death if you can? Why should they disable it if you're going to use it?

[satheron]

If anything the game was made harder.

They took away potions, which means you can't have a belt full of Full Rejuvs, to have at least 30 instant cast full HP/mana heals on command.

The fact you will have to slow down, and use more tactics when your getting dry on globes, that will add a fanstantic element of danger vs reward.

Do I want to keep fighting at the chance a globe will drop, and get the treasure?

Or do I want to pull out now, and live to fight another day?

When people mention that diablo 2 was broken, many fail to realize it can work both ways. A lot of the Necromancer players will get a little put off by this.

But what Risk is there to having a Summoning necro in hard core???

In the same respect a lot of broken mechanics will be removed, as Iron Madien, but I do believe for those not paying attention death will come pretty swiftly, and hard.

The 20-30 second timer idea is pretty terrible.
All you have to do, make it so you can only log out, outside of combat...

Just like plenty of other games.

[Kiroptus]

"just logging out of combat" is a much worse idea as I presume that if the connection goes down in the middle of a fight your character will stand there, what if you just ignored the annoying mobs and went straight for the bosses and killed him, he droped some good stuff, you picked it but now you want to get out of that game oh but you cant because you need to kill all the enemies on the screen. Infact it works much worse than the timer.

What if you are in a middle of an epic and long boss fight and your connection goes down? You character will stand there for how many seconds before the boss smashes you to death? HC already isnt for the casual, whats the matter in waiting 10 miserable seconds to log out or no seconds at all if no enemies are nearby? Quitting so easily needs some kind of nerf.

And yes, D3 looks more challenging but as it tends to put you in a lot of danger situations now without the potion spam (thank god for that) if the "save and quit" skill isnt balanced on how easy it can save you. Its still going to be the way the HC will be played, saving and quiting whenever the situation seems too dangerous if there isnt a
little timer on the quitting.

Conditions like "only in combat" or "only in town" will be worse than 10 secs waiting because of the nature of the game that always keep track of your character progress by constantly saving, you wont change that mechanic by adding this otherwise many unpleasent situations will happen.

[Valmy]

I think 3-5 seconds before leave game would work OK in Diablo2. It is well balanced, because it isn't too much time if you want to leave a normal game after a run or after a trade, and also it isn't too less time if you want to retreat and also gives you an added risk to die in the middle of the battle.

In D3 no idea, but if it will be similar in survive tendency, 3-5 seconds would work very well covering most undesirable situations (lag, surrounded by dangerous mob of monsters and empty of mana, stomach ache, coughs, mothers or wife or husband, children).

I think it works OK, because it is like flip a coin: death or alive. And it is not just a given transit like in D2 is when the only thing you must do is to save&exit and you will remain free and alive 99% of the times.

[obsoleteAUS]

So you're saying you will use save and exit to cheat death if you can? Why should they disable it if you're going to use it?

No that's not what I'm saying at all. Picture yourself in the characters shoes...If you have access to a TP scroll and your in danger then you have the opportunity to use it, and you would. Even if it dosn't guarantee you surviving, it gives you that chance. What you don't have is the ability to save and exit yourself from imminent death and just rejoin another game.

I used that method sometimes in SC mode to get out of trouble but I think it needs to be nerfed so that it's harder to do, or it can only be done without monsters on your screen (or other rules for casting it...if there are even TP scrolls in the game).

My point was: why play HC if you can cheat death by pressing esc then clicking quit game? Takes less than a second to do so your chance of dying if you stuff up is next to none. Which is basically like playing SC, because it's giving you 'lives' that you shouldn't have.

Ideas:
- 3-5 Second timer on quitting a game
- Can only exit a game from town/waypoint
- Can only exit a game when no enemies on screen
- Exiting costs gold (Not a great idea, but maybe someone can work on it?)
- Longer casting times on abilities that can 'save' you. ie: TP Scroll
- Longer cooldown on spells that can help you escape. ie: Leap/Teleport

Edit:
Just read some posts that were posted while I was typing this up:
I see the logic behind quitting from town/no enemies ons creen being annoying.

I'm guessing blizzard will have some system implemented that can record when your connection was lost and if you were alive or not at the time. So next time you load up your char will just start from town/last waypoint.

It's like when you try to message someone on friends list and it says
"User is not online"
I guess it's just building on from that.

[AkumaSlayer]

But they can't stop you from using ALT F4.. what should happen to your character if you manually exit, or your connection is lost, or your computer crashes?

I guess a 3 second timer could be an option -

Enough time for your character to die if you are trying to cheat death by using save/exit.
If your computer crashes in the middle of a fight your character should probably survive the 3 second logout time.

[obsoleteAUS]

Yeah I didn't think about game crashes or lag issues, I never had crashes while playing D2 and I never played online so lag wasn't an issue. Cheers for bringing those up.

Save/Exit and Alt-F4 would both work the same way, a countdown timer before the character is actually out of the game. (Though not sure if that works if Alt-F4 is pressed? Maybe disable quick exits from the game such as Alt-F4?).

Already went over losing the connection but again:
Bnet records if you were alive when your connection was lost so next time you load up your char is still there. (Though how to stop people from unplugging their modems is another issue).

Lag would be tricky. I suppose they could have a monitoring system that checks if packets are still being sent/recieved and if not then all damage delt to you during this time is reduced to zero. (Better than dying, but no good if you get surrounded while lagged and just take heaps of damage when play resumes properly).

I'm not sure? What are your thoughts on it?

[AkumaSlayer]

I reckon that there would be some way for bnet 2 to continue your character for 3 seconds after you've been disconnected. However if it can't, then it would be best to scrap the timer idea altogether.

If ALT F4 didn't work then players could still enter the task manager and shut it down.. but that would take 3 seconds or more anyway.

I don't think they should do anything about the lag other than trying to reduce it... well, they could add an indicator like the one in Guild Wars which flashes green, amber or red depending on your connectivity. It's really up to the player to realize when their game isn't stable, and whether to risk playing.

[Kiroptus]

In all games that there is a timer to logout you can use alt-F4, what it does is that your character stays in the game waiting for the timer, so no, alt-F4 is not abusable, infact its just risky to use it.