Hello Blizzard Staff,
In an effort to enhance your creative spirit, I came up with a general theme that would augment what was one of the most amazing gaming experiences ever. I can produce an endless list of small perks and tidbits that would potentially improve or even harm Diablo 3, but I wanted to avoid being trivial and/or destructive. In that spirit, my theme is based on team-play. My ideas are geared towards changing the attitudes of players towards one another. To do this, Diablo 3 would have to encompass a style of game-play that is potentially enhanced when team-play is used. When a party is made, there should always be some sort of benefit. The best way to show exactly what I mean is by providing an example.
***The numbers and percentages that you guys will see are all hypotheticals. In other words, they are simply to give you all a clear visual of my suggestions.
When a party is formed, players can be awarded a 10% experience bonus, per party member that attacks any demon. I understood in Diablo 2 that as the number of players in a room increased the difficulty as well as the amount of experience each monster gave increased. But these numbers were constant whether you were in a party or not. When a monster is killed by a party, the amount of experience given by that monster should be increased by 10% per party member that does damage to that monster. This gives players the incentive to participate in team play, whereby everyone is in the party is attacking and not leeching.
Along with the experience bonus, there should be other bonuses. For example, players should receive +5% faster run/walk for every 2 members in their party, or +10% to max life/mana for every 4 party members in their party. I want to avoid class specific bonuses (+100 to defense for every barbarian in your party or +5% to cast rate per witch doctor in your party) because this is grounds for abuse and class specific discrimination. Furthermore, there is no sure way of figuring out which bonuses are better than the others in the eyes of the player. Instead, the character class being played should indiscriminately receive specific bonuses for each party member added. For example, the barbarian should receive +100 to defense for every member in his/her party, while the witch doctor receives +5% to cast rate per member in his/her party. This would mean that partying gives not only a general set of bonuses, but also another great reason why your character class works better with teammates. These perks are easily implemented as you, Blizzard, would not have to tinker with the in-game graphics/visuals. It also does not change the inherent structure of the Diablo series. It simply adds to the source of modifications that players yearn for when they choose certain weapons, armors and charms. This idea also goes in conjunction with the pre-existing feature that makes the strength of the demons increase as the number of players in a particular game increase. The only way to incur these player bonuses is to team up and fight the demons as a strong group, rather than as a set of discrete and self righteous individuals.
Before I write a 10 page paper about what I expect of Diablo 3, I will propose 1 more improvement. This improvement, however, does involve graphical modification, as well as a change to the structure of the Diablo series. I remember in Diablo 1 and 2 a phenomenon where when you died and respawned, your body remained where you were slain. Then you would have to run through the ridiculous mob that killed you to retrieve your body, consequently, dying again before you can gear back up, causing you more shame, doubt and experience loss. You would then decide to leave game and return to retrieve your body; a very unconventional tactic you, Blizzard, probably didn’t predict would be as abused as it was in Diablo 1 and 2. At times, before you could get back into the game, a random passerby stole your in-game slot. This unfair/annoying feature in Diablo 1 and 2 produced more headaches than it produced appreciation for the game. I am proposing a way to alleviate the pains and struggles of body camping by the horde of enemies.
I call this new feature player pick-up (ppu). This allows only your party members to pick up your dead body and lug it to a point of safety. Ppu’s controls can easily be incorporated into the game’s functions. My suggestion is that the ppu option be as accessible as the run/walk option in Diablo 2. Just as run/walk can be activated and deactivated, permission for other players to pick you up should be activated or deactivated. To pick someone up, a player would first hit a hotkey that changes their mouse arrow into a ppu hand (a ppu hand is a modified mouse cursor that when used to click on a teammate, that teammate is picked up). They would then click on their teammate as in Diablo 2 when they wanted to trade with that person, but instead pick them up. At this point, the player being carried has the option of deactivating the ppu option, which would lead to them being automatically dropped. The player doing the carrying also has the option of dropping their teammate by hitting the same hotkey that was used to turn their mouse cursor into a ppu hand. These controls are simple, easy to use, and cannot be used to annoy other players. If you don’t want to be picked up, then turn ppu off. Ppu can be embellished to the point where you can carry your teammates while they are alive. Both characters would be linked in battle, where barbarians can leap with teammates, and sorcerers can teleport teammates, while both characters are still capable of attacking with run/walk and attack speed penalties of course. But be before I open up a whole new can of worms, I’ll end the letter here.
If you would like to hear more of my ideas/suggestions, please let me know.
My email is
NUWAKWE@HUNTER.CUNY.EDU
Thank you for your time. Gforce…
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