The only way Hardcore will be interesting in D3

[windforce]

First of all this is not another post about pk. This is about the pvm aspect of the game. I'm not trying to start another debate about the hostile button, so if you have something to say about it, do so in another thread.

Ok so we know that PK will not be a part of D3. Frankly, if they removed PK from diablo 2, it would make HC incredibly uninteresting because the game is just too easy. Because of the way the game is designed, it takes very little effort to beat it and have a high level character. All you need to do is get rushed then tag along with a large group of players and let them do all the killing. And without the possibility of PK, you would not even have to worry about these people killing you for not contributing. And since baal runs only take a few minutes, you can gain 50+ levels in an hour or two from character creation. The whole thing is just too easy, and the presence of PK adds a much needed challenge.

I think that if they are removing the hostile button from diablo 3, they better make the game hard enough that making a high level character is actually a challenge even without PK, This means:

a) a longer game.
b) much harder monsters.
c) manditory quests that actually require the full participation of all party members. This would prevent people from taking the easy way out and just hiding in the corner while everyone else does the killing.
d) And I have nothing against 1-hit-one-kill monsters. They are what make the game suspensful. What's the fun if you know before you enter a new area of the game that no matter what, you will not die in one hit, so you don't have to be nervous. I want super strong monsters that will stomp you if you get too close, and if you die then its a learning experience for your next attempt. I like the feeling of suspense when you know that instant death might be waiting for you on the other side of the door, and you have that feeling in your stomach that this might be the last time you play your character.

After learning that Blizzard mentioned that they are getting rid of 1 hit wonders, I'm getting the feeling that PvM will be too easy and predictable.


These are things that make a PvM game fun and lasting, and D2 lacks a lot of these features, which is why it's not the least bit impressive to have a level 90 HC character (unless you are playing solo in which case its reallly hard). But at least with PK, there is an added challenge. When they remove PK, they have to fill the void, or we will have a very unrewarding hardcore mode.

I simply cannot see myself playing D3 HC unless I have some incentive to play PvM. In D2, I have no desire to play PvM because the PvM game is too shallow and too easy. Sanctuary is a world of chaos and deception, and if players will not be allowed to fill this void, the monsters better step it up a notch in D3.

[LucianDK]

Some interesting points here. I would like to add in some tidbits:

From what ive read they are planning for the game to be played in 15 minute segments. There will be no easy way to escape back to town once youve commited. No wussing out because you are getting low on life. Which means that orb drop enhancing skills will be a must to improve. Plus I had read an example of earning them during boss fights might be that the boss might summon adds which you could pop for a limited amount of health/mana orbs.

There will be no scrolls of town portal dropping. From what I read they had not yet decided on how to get the player back to town to sell loot and restock. My personal guess is that there might be the ocassional town portal shrine, and one that opens when a big foozle is popped.

Which is also why they are making inventory easier to manage, no inventory tetris and higher carry capacibility too if I remember right.

[hubb]

Because of the way the game is designed, it takes very little effort to beat it and have a high level character. All you need to do is get rushed then tag along with a large group of players and let them do all the killing. And without the possibility of PK, you would not even have to worry about these people killing you for not contributing. And since baal runs only take a few minutes, you can gain 50+ levels in an hour or two from character creation.

a) a longer game.
b) much harder monsters.
c) manditory quests that actually require the full participation of all party members. This would prevent people from taking the easy way out and just hiding in the corner while everyone else does the killing.


Yeah. That's pretty retarded. The game isn't easy because of the way it was designed, it's because of the way you play it. If you actually play through the quests alone (like you pointed out) or with players near your level, like they intended, the game is harder and much longer. Still a little easy, but not 50+ levels in 2 hours.

The choice is yours not to go along with Baal runs. Start a game with skill cap enabled or ask your friends and I'm sure you'll find some like-minded people.

You do have a point in c) there. Obviouly they didn't anticipate 8 years ago how players would abuse the game, but they'd be pretty stupid if they implemented a system that's as easy to abuse.

[Knight_Wolf]

First of all this is not another post about pk. This is about the pvm aspect of the game. I'm not trying to start another debate about the hostile button, so if you have something to say about it, do so in another thread.

Ok so we know that PK will not be a part of D3. Frankly, if they removed PK from diablo 2, it would make HC incredibly uninteresting because the game is just too easy. Because of the way the game is designed, it takes very little effort to beat it and have a high level character. All you need to do is get rushed then tag along with a large group of players and let them do all the killing. And without the possibility of PK, you would not even have to worry about these people killing you for not contributing. And since baal runs only take a few minutes, you can gain 50+ levels in an hour or two from character creation. The whole thing is just too easy, and the presence of PK adds a much needed challenge.

Wow, wow .. hold it .. hold it .. what's so easy .... you are mixing things up here ... D3 isn't a photocopy of D2 and isn't going to be designed the same exact way at all .. there are already many systems changing and many exploits removed ..... so saying it will be easy and that you can do Baal runs to level up +50 level in 2 hours (that if Baal or even a similar monster exists in D3) is jumping to conclusions without checking the data input we have on D3 (which is clearly differernt from what we had in D2)

I think that if they are removing the hostile button from diablo 3, they better make the game hard enough that making a high level character is actually a challenge even without PK, This means:

a) a longer game.
b) much harder monsters.
c) manditory quests that actually require the full participation of all party members. This would prevent people from taking the easy way out and just hiding in the corner while everyone else does the killing.

Good points ... but i didn't think they will make "party quests" that's diverting the MP too much from the SP ... but making existing quests and monsters much harder with more player joining a party is natural indeed.

On a second thought .. they could make a modified version of the SP quests that alters a thing or two about the same quest to make it require more team work or effort (like making the team in MP have to collect 5 scattered keys to unlock a certain quest door instead of one key in SP) ... but i'm not sure that's possible with all quests.


d) And I have nothing against 1-hit-one-kill monsters. They are what make the game suspensful. What's the fun if you know before you enter a new area of the game that no matter what, you will not die in one hit, so you don't have to be nervous. I want super strong monsters that will stomp you if you get too close, and if you die then its a learning experience for your next attempt. I like the feeling of suspense when you know that instant death might be waiting for you on the other side of the door, and you have that feeling in your stomach that this might be the last time you play your character.

After learning that Blizzard mentioned that they are getting rid of 1 hit wonders, I'm getting the feeling that PvM will be too easy and predictable.




Nothing easy and predictable if the monsters are done right and smartly (one good example would be "the Suffering") .. i don't know how did you reach that conclusion about D3 !!! ... the one-hit-kills are more of frustration and annoyance than anything else ... there are other better ways to design challenging monsters ... one way is like we saw in the WWI gameplay when monsters work together against the player and protecting/supporting/reviving each other and require you to adapt quickly changing your tactics on the fly or you get cornered .. that's way smarter and better than the too simple and straightforward (rather very lazy) way of adding one-hit kills.

These are things that make a PvM game fun and lasting, and D2 lacks a lot of these features, which is why it's not the least bit impressive to have a level 90 HC character (unless you are playing solo in which case its reallly hard). But at least with PK, there is an added challenge. When they remove PK, they have to fill the void, or we will have a very unrewarding hardcore mode.

Well .. we still don't know how PvP will work in D3, maybe they will allow PKing in HC.

I simply cannot see myself playing D3 HC unless I have some incentive to play PvM. In D2, I have no desire to play PvM because the PvM game is too shallow and too easy. Sanctuary is a world of chaos and deception, and if players will not be allowed to fill this void, the monsters better step it up a notch in D3.

Agree on that.

[5zigen]

Despite what you said, the thread is mostly about hostility and how that makes the game "fun" somehow. (Which really is what makes the game into a solitary experience for the most part.)

Aside from that, you are operating on the assumption that things like rushing will be possible, which I doubt will be the case. There is likely no way to entirely remove the aspect of high level characters helping low level characters, but that is OK as long as the low level characters don't get to skip the whole game.

I don't think the way to do it is to force people to do certain quests to advance. I do think the way to do it is to split exp more agressively between the high level player helping and the low level player.

Aside from that, they haven't said much about town portals and how they will work, but it is foreseeable that people wont be able to abuse them in conjunction with teleport which is also seeing a nerf (can only teleport in LOS, which would make teleport rushing as we know it today suicidal).

And there is some sort of confirmation of respecs in the game, which seems to suggest that blizzard will be more focused on delivering high end content and putting a lot of the difficulty in the high end rather than trying to spread it out over the entire game.

I don't think it's safe to assume that D3 will be so much like D2 to the point that they will be leaving in the broken quest and leveling systems, particularly when it has been acknowledged that they are broken.

Simply removing the ability to S&E instantly (like in WoW where it takes 10 seconds to log off, and you can't do it in combat) and the instant town portal to safety is enough to make the game much more difficult in pve, in addition to taking the advantage of survival away from those who use chickenhack.

Additionally, the removal of spammable potions also has the potential to make the game more challenging as well, as things will likely be more than just a "let's see if I can do enough damage before running out of pots." Which is another reason that blizzard had to resort to monsters that could kill in a single hit fairly easily, because if they couldn't do that much damage players could endlessly stock up on health potions and just never die. Without the ability to do that, the game will be more challenging as well.

Blizzard has a lot of tools to make the game more challenging and interesting on the pvm side. I firmly believe that they will do it.

[Nilaripper]

Ok so we know that PK will not be a part of D3. Frankly, if they removed PK from diablo 2, it would make HC incredibly uninteresting because the game is just too easy.
All you need to do is get rushed then tag along with a large group of players and let them do all the killing.
a longer game.
much harder monsters.
manditory quests that actually require the full participation of all party members. This would prevent people from taking the easy way out and just hiding in the corner while everyone else does the killing.
And I have nothing against 1-hit-one-kill monsters.



Just a few comments.

I cound not care less about PK implemented in D3. No PK ever got me in D2LoD. Never ever.Thrill? No, for it me was just annoying. I always decided not to go into combat with an icevan against a ferrari. But most important: Implementation of PK in D3 will lead to exploits, which will lead inevitably to TPPK derivates. Trust me.
Being rushed. This will always be possible and it is good how it is. Imagine playing with friends, one gets a phonecall, he just stays in town for a while... should the whole party stop IOT wait for one player or loose one on the quest? Especially in HC mode rushing is a very good possibility to reach your higher lvl friends again fast, if you for example died to lag.
Players have been demanding a longer game for years. Expansions, the more the better. Absolutely yes.
Harder monsters. Imho there are plenty of hard monsters. The implementaion of the insane runewords made them look easy, but for a "selffound player" hell mode is a challenge. Only the duping exploit made it that easy. People will always try to dupe or use bots to get the best items. If blizzard can stop botting and duping(which i doubt) on D3 the game will be hard enough.
Again, full participation is needed in hell mode if you play selffound. ATM the remaining HC players are experienced in trading/mf items and high runes they need and that is why it seems so easy. If you make the game too hard, no beginner will ever reach hell. Well, in fact TPPK emptied public HC so you never saw such beginners in public HC hell anymore.
One hit kill monsters can really lead too frustration. Remember the FE bug in Hell HC. The hell ancients did over 9k FE damage which made blizzard change the bug. I agree on that part with you, harder monster are a challenge but one hit killers in HC are questionable.


Nilaripper

[LucianDK]

Would be an easy way to stop rushing. Simply dont allow other people to enter the town portals you create. If they have town portals at all. Look back at what I wrote earlier about playing in 15 min segments with NO chance for wussing out, death or glory indeed!

It will be interesting to see how they plan to get players back to town, but removal of easily attained town portals should kill rushing nicely and effectively.

[Cevilo]

maybe if they put low level caps on some points then it could stop rushing. I don't mean like "the average level you could be when u get here is is the cap" but like I guess in terms of d2, on average of Actually playing the game, you will be lvl 15ish when you get to Andarial. so put a lvl 10 cap on here so u can't go in to act 2 until u beat her at leave at level 10. it's possible to do with sigons set so if you actually play the game, you'll be well beyond that. say a lvl 15 cap in act 2, a lvl 20 cap in a3 a 25 cap to get out of act 4 and a lvl 30 cap to go in to NM. playing the whole game with out a rush I got to NM at about 35. so the level caps aren't so bad. (I'm using D2 terms because it's all we have to compare to d3)

as far as the one hit KOs I don't see why they would be frustrating. I know the HF bug in hell was frustrating because there was no way to get around that. but if your fighting say a Giant cyclops with a club, and he could bring his club crashing down on ur character and make you a smudge in the ground. I think it would be ok, you see the attack coming you have a chance to dodge it. if there was any One hit ko moves I don't think it would be at random or out of no where you'd see some thing going on before it happened. EX: any one who played Guild Wars: Factions, the Fight against the last boss, he dose a meditation pose in the air, and you know that you have to inflict a crap load of damage to him, or the party will be wiped when he's done meditating. same deal here.

[Fruitvendor]

At first, I was surprised how many players here are complaining about how easy D2 has become. Then I realized the people who are still playing this decade old game are mostly the real experts in this game or have become one through years of experiences.


Perhaps I'm no much an expert with D2LoD if compared to you guys. I found D2Lod can be very challenging in the right setting. Please try making all characters into a Guardian in single player, untwinked, player 8 setting. If you're crazy enough, do it naked. I think complaining about D2 being too easy to play would gain you more merrit after you've achieved that.


Personally I think Hardcore will be very interesting in D3 no matter what Blizzard do with the game, with or without the PK function. I trust Blizzard to be the pro in making games, I'm sure they will do what's necessary to make the game as enjoyable as they possibly can, as that is their primary instinct to survival as a company.

[Smash]

D2 is easy, too easy even if you are SP player with players 8 mode without top gear. I speak about myself.

I got this impression from day 0 of diablo 2 classic when i went outside the town to find and do my first quest with my first class. Every monster was dieing from 1 hit and do nearly no damage, in cave i found giant beast, happy that it will be good fight i kill it with 2 hits wtf?

Now for comparison go play diablo 1, i guarantee you that from first levels you will get nice challenge.

Honestly people Diablo 3 has new team and they know what was wrong with prequel.

[KingOfKings]

some hack sites are already preparing a d3 style pk hack, i think its just encouraging hacks personally.

softcore pking has no place. thats a given, since there is no loss or risk in softcore at all.

hardcore communities were built on famous pvp deaths, pks, pk clans etc.

d3 is promising thus far, but to the OP dont forget that there are no more tps or save+exit.

that just made the game even harder pvm. make it even sicker if we have a hostile button/ game toggle!!!

[Darkflight]

I don't believe the people who are saying Diablo 2 is easy has tried playing the game the hard way.

This game can be amazingly hard if you restrict yourself a little.

[The Rockman]

Part a) Longer game well looking at the trend with games inculding diablo I am sure it will be longer than diablo 2.
b) Harder monster well from what I seen the monsters should be more challenging than D2s, the easy way to do this is to give monsters a wide variety of attacks and moves, a long with decent hp and damage.
c) Hmm I agree with this.
d)One hit kill monsters no thank you, unless you something like a lvl 1 vs a lvl 10 or something like than then its fine. Other than that they don't make it suspensful in fact in games I played with one hit kill monsters and they are the most annoying monster to fight, as the only way to really deal with them safly is to one hit them (If its avoidable then it just becomes a dance of attack attack run attack repeat). I prefer a monster to be able to knock me down to low health instead, if there's no easy escape.
And how does one hit kill monsters make the game any less predictable? To me a monster with one hit kills is the most predictable and lame thing ever to turn up in gaming.
To reduce predictability the best thing is to give monsters a range of moves and attacks and let them use them semi-randomly (the move has to kind of make sense) as this means no two encounters will play out the same, this will also increase the difficulty from the stage where monster done X so Y will be next stage.

[Cormac McArt]

One hit killing monsters which belong to a monster crowd with like 100 monsters - yes.
One hit killing champions , uniques and super uniques - no.

[SEANBCOOL]

Wait, there won't be a Save and Exit button? What will there be?

[emopanda]

We still got dolls that kills on explode in hc dude. I had a lvl 76 zon died to a champion doll explosion one boom and I m dead :( It was the worst death ever because in my screen it died 10 yards away due to some weird graphic lag.

My life was about 900+

[Cormac McArt]

We still got dolls that kills on explode in hc dude. I had a lvl 76 zon died to a champion doll explosion one boom and I m dead :( It was the worst death ever because in my screen it died 10 yards away due to some weird graphic lag.

My life was about 900+
Valkyrie? Merc? Decoy? D/A/E?

[GoBigRed]

It seems that blizzard is gonna try to add in "traps/ambushes" to surround the characters at times and that overall, there will be alot more monsters around. Based on the skills available and how often you can use them, we might find ourselves trapped in a room surrounded by monsters with no way of getting out and that's just 1 possible way of death without 1 hitters.

[emopanda]

Valkyrie? Merc? Decoy? D/A/E?

Yes valkyrie and merc were tanking 10 yards away, the doll exploded and I died.:hang:

I send a email to blizz about the "unfair" death and I bet they just lol'ed it and deleted it because they never replied..

[Cormac McArt]

Anyway that's the good side with Glass Cannon Bowazons - that they easily Die. What I mean is to see an Amazon Dying is so much more exciting than see her Killing - not for her Death - but for her Death Animation - so Hot - Priceless IMHO!

P.S.: Anyway that's HC so - my condolences for your lady! =(

[jhtvman]

a) a longer game.
Sounds good.
b) much harder monsters.
Fine with me.
c) manditory quests that actually require the full participation of all party members. This would prevent people from taking the easy way out and just hiding in the corner while everyone else does the killing.
Difficulty is good, but making sections of the game practically impossible to beat solo is a bad idea. Even though Diablo 3 is primarily a co-op game, it can't be ignored that many, many people will stick to playing solo. Unless some kind of scaling system can be put into place depending on the number of players besides simply increasing monster health, then I'd rather not see that kind of extreme difficulty.
d) And I have nothing against 1-hit-one-kill monsters. They are what make the game suspensful. What's the fun if you know before you enter a new area of the game that no matter what, you will not die in one hit, so you don't have to be nervous. I want super strong monsters that will stomp you if you get too close, and if you die then its a learning experience for your next attempt.
Instant death is a stupid game mechanic that should have died in the early 90s when we left sidescrollers where you get 3 lives behind. There are better and more interesting ways to make a game difficult than simply loading up a monster with some kind of all powerful melee attack that does 10 million damage. That's a cheap and lazy way out. I remember playing through normal untwinked via LAN once with a couple of buddies. We were doing the malus quest in Act 1. We handled The Smith without too much difficulty, but when he died, he corpse exploded and our entire party was instantly killed. That sort of crap is exactly that: crap. It's not fun, it's not fair, and serves no purpose but to frustrate. Making high level monsters that you have to be careful with is fine, but giving them the ability to just take you out with one swipe is bad, bad, bad.

[WizardFan]

I have to agree that DII is a VERY challenging game, like someone already said, if you'e a "selffound player".

Try going solo on HC. Use only items and runes that you find yourself. If you trade for items all the time and have great equipment and powerful runewords, yes it can get easy. Never party with anyone.

Just use the gear you find, don't trade, don't party, play solo. I always did it like this and I have to admit that I found DII to be a very challening game.

If you get rushed all the time, sure it's easy. When you get duped runes to make your runewords, yeah it's easy as well. Try doing it like me. Then you'll see how hard the game actually is. No friends to kill the monesters for you, no duped runes or powerful runewords, no trading for powerful items.

Also try killing every single monster you find. Even if it can kill you easily. The challnge of HC, IMO, is to challenge everything and survive. You can't say you're an awesome HC player if you just kill what can be killed easily, and then park the rest of the more dangerous monsters somewhere, where they can't hurt you, and be done with it. Challenge EVERY monster and survive. Even if it's a Fan/might/extra strong/LE teleporting hephasto :P

I also hope there will be a hardcore mode in DIII, I would very much like this.

[Baranor]

Depends on the class to be honest. Trapsins and Armymancer have a fairly easy time going solo untwinked, and there's a whole lot of tips and tricks out there to make life easy. Most important is to take your time.

Hc should be eactly the same game as SC. The added pain of death is enough :)

[TheDarkSide]

D2 is easy now because its 10 years old , economy is hacked to death , every build has been perfected , and we pretty much know how all the game mechanics work.

I hope D3 adds in a no rush feature , a no Fluxxing , no constant TP , NO Hacks and they make it so you have to play the game through. I used to have so much fun playing D2 this way that I still enjoy the game to this date.

The game used to be much harder before the incredibly over powered roonwords arrived . Now days Iv'e gone away from the find all my own items policy and through trading Iv'e even aquired the Enigma's, Chains of Honor, Inifinity poleaxe, etc and all these items really did was just make the game incredibly easy and it becomes boring after a while.

Lets hope D3 incorporates all the lessons learned from the D2 hack fest its turned into the last couple years and makes a truely enjoyable game. I feel the devs have learned a lot and are trying to make this happen.. Only time will tell ...