Should HC be a factor in the game design?

[moranor]

Hey guys,

I was reading up on some of the more recent D3 info and got reminded of the fact that we won't be able to assign stat points anymore (which might beg they question why they even have them). Someone from Blizzard said something along the lines of stat points being a bad system of character customization because they were easy to mess up and there was typically a 'right' way to assign them, which is hard to argue with.

Yes, you could make a dexazon, or a max block sorc but I'm sure they'll introduce new systems to fill the gap. What they seemed to have missed though was the fact that there was a big difference in character builds between HC and SC, and the 'right' build for SC would get you killed in HC!

I got a little bit upset over this at first but then I asked myself this question:
Why should they make any design decisions to make HC more 'fair' or easily playable? Isn't the point of HC kind of that we play a game that's not explicitly balanced for HC?

If we don't get S&E, townportals of belts full of juvs then we'll just have to rise up to the challenge! No one made D2 fair to HC players and I doubt they thought we'd get as good at it as we did.


Anyway, that was just a thought =)
Thanks for reading

[5zigen]

The question you pose is really the elephant in the room.

Sometimes I wonder myself if blizzard can really make a "challenging" game (in difficulty) without making it all but impossible for a hardcore player.

but it would seem somewhat ridiculous to include the mode if say, only one class of the 5 can really viably complete it, or if it was not really completable by any of the classes or even groups.

I personally didn't really care about the stats thing as long as they add another layer to add to the character customization, which they have, with runes. (items-skills-runes is also more robust than items-skills-stats from d2)

[MoUsE_WiZ]

Yes, no, and kind of.

Yes in the sense that we don't want immortality being granted through SC design choices. S&E makes HC trivial. I don't mean D2 HC, I mean HC in general. Mythos and HG:L were both cake thanks to my already existent S&E skills. Another thing they need to consider is resurrection skills... such things have no place in HC!

No in the sense that you're posting about... for the most part HC is supposed to be SC only we have to not die. They shouldn't really balance around HC specifically, or if they do, they should just drop SC altogether and make a new mode Hardercore to fill my needs.

That said if HC is going to be part of the game they shouldn't be balancing around HC, but they should be balancing around an SC game where death isn't a guarantee for a player with appropriate gear/level/build, knowledge, and ability. They should really be doing that even without HC; WoW has the "guaranteed to die once in a while" market cornered already and as mentioned by Jay Wilson, players don't like dying regardless of the associated loss ~_~

[KingOfKings]

as endgame players, we will adapt as we always have to the game.

bring on the new challenges, our game just got better :)

great post tho