Diablo 3 Teaser Trailer

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I never got into PvP in any game - the Diablo series or otherwise. I never even got into PvP in the SC series, and that game is essentially designed as a PvP game (you can only play the Terrans in the initial release of the game for the set missions, but you can play any of the three races in PvP).

 

My feeling is that PvP scene is usually in minority. At least in games that offer at least an equivalent quality PvE side.
Why exactly that is i don't know. There's a lot of factors that come to mind, but at the end of the day, it might be just down to preference. I never liked to PvP in RTS's either, yet i love to in shooters. Where, ironically, i can't stand singleplayer.

I heard Guild Wars 2 will be using an iron curtain between PvE and PvP. Complete game separation. People will be able to play to max level, gather best gear and spend loads of time on social aspect that's integral to PvP. Without ever touching PvE.


I'm somewhat ambivalent on D3 releasing without PvP sorted.
On one hand it's good, i'll love to try PvE without feeling i'm falling behind in PvP. It's also great cause they'll have a huuuge player pool to base their testing and adjust their numbers to. It'll also free their hands to focus more on PvP balancing (being beta basically) since they've (hopefully) smoothed out major quirks in PvE in upcoming d3 official beta.

That's exactly why they have to be utterly independent of one another. Sooner or later it comes to the question of which side is more important. And unsurprisingly, since one side has 80% of player base, they conclude that's the side that's more important. The remaining 20% really doesn't feel all that good about paying for a game that so obviously favours something you don't play and throws scraps your way.

 

Just saw the follower system. It is replacing the D2 concept of mercenaries. I think there have been some improvements here. First of all, there are three to chose from, which you get access to by doing specific quests. You can get a Templar, a Scoundrel, and an Enchantress. The three are interchangable. All you need to do to switch from one to another is go back to town. Another good point is that you don't have to level them. All followers have their level set to one level less than your character's level, so when you level up, all three followers level up as well. They also have their own storyline that adds to the main story, and will give a lot of info on Diablo lore during the adventure (although it is not necessary to pick one specific follower - or even have one at all - to do any specific quest).

Another signficiant difference is that their equipment gradually improves automatically as they level. You don't have to actually set their equipment yourself, although they do say there are certain items in the game that are only equipable by followers, so there is some tweaking you can do. I seems like the armor pieces gradually improve. In the screenshots, the Templar starts out with leather armor and cap at level 5, but is in full plate mail by level 20.

You also have some control over their skills. You get to pick a new skill for each of your followers when they reach levels 5, 10, 15, and 20. All followers have different sets of skills, and you pick one out of three choices at those levels. However, the choices you get to pick from every five levels are all different, so once you pick a skill, the other two choices are lost to you forever. To show by example, the Templar's choices of skill at level 5 are Heal, Charge, and Protection. You never get any of those three choices again, so once you pick one, you forever lose access to the other two.

It also seems that if synergies are incorporated like D2, you can build your followers skills in specific ways. For example, the Templar's skill choices look like you can make him an offensive fighter, or more of a cleric type character with an array of healing spells. Comparatively, the Scoundrel is equipped with a crossbow, and has access to offensive skills such as Rapid Fire, Crippling Shot, and Multishot, similar to an amazon, but also has a set of skills such as Dirty Fighting, Vanish, and Black Market that seem more like a rogue. Finally, the enchantress has a combination of direct damage spells, or can be more of a debuffing character if she picks things like Amplify Damage, Lower Resistance, and Disorient.

Followers also cannot die, and so you also don't have to spend gold to resurrect them. When their hitpoints reach zero, they run off, but return about 30 seconds later fully healed.

All of this sounds really good, but there are a few negative points as well. Followers are only available when you're going solo. They cannot enter PvP arenas, and they cannot accompany you if you're partied up with one or more other players. Secondly, unlike characters who can advance up to level 60, their level is capped at level 20. Therefore, followers are considered normal difficulty companions. While you can take followers along with you provided you are going solo in any difficulty level, starting in mid-nightmare things are going to get extremely difficult for them, and by hell difficulty they likely will be one-hit killed by most monsters. It's for this reason that I'll likely play through the game at least on normal difficulty solo, so I can see this aspect of the game.

The other thing I'm really happy about is that all of the crafting in D3 is performed by the vendors. The blacksmith can add sockets and build class-specific weapons/armor for you (it's still random but you'll always get melee-oriented mods if you're playing a barbarian, and caster-oriented mods if you're playing a wizard). These activities require gold, so gold actually serves a function beyond gambling. Similarly, the jeweler is required to upgrade gems. There are 15 (!) gem quality levels in D3, and only the first 5 quality levels can be dropped by monsters, so you'll need the jeweler for all the others, and all the upgrades cost gold. You also have to spend gold to upgrade the vendors. There are five vendor "levels", and by spending gold to upgrade them, their skill increases. For example, each time you leves the blacksmith he will offer more items for sale, and those items are likely to have improved properties.

 

I like the lesser number of followers and the ability to specialize them according to your wishes. It makes them more personal. While Blizzard says they're fellow adventurers with the same goal of defeating Evil, they are "followers". Following your direction, so if you need a healer, the templar goes healing instead of damage sponge for a witch doctor for instance.
I'd love to see their full gear entirely up to player's choice. Perhaps as an advanced option of the game, not intended for first time player. It would add depth to them and combat that wouldn't complicate battles, since you do it in the town anyway.
I'm not certain i like the inability to control them. That's fine for multiplayer, you're playing with other people, having pets you also have to control is too much. It could add another dimension to singleplayer game however. Still, better they're uncontrollable and polished than to have them poorly done puppets, like we've surely all seen in various games.
Also, while it fleshes them out better if you have to choose their role early on and are from then onwards restricted from other role skills... it also limits them, makes them less important. Maybe i'd like a generalist sorceress with my barbarian. Able to cast Amplify Damage on foes as well as some decent ranged damage. Dunno, we'll have to see how narrow their roles are.

I don't see why they chose to basically restrict followers for normal difficulty only. In D2 now, we have builds that rely heavily on their personal army. Necromancer, Druid, partly Amazon. D3 seems to say "do it yourself or die". I'm kinda dissapointed in that. My favourite characters were the ones that got to hang back, toss a ranged spell or two on the creeps and let his minions do the manual labour of hack&slash. It frees you to tacticizing and strategy.
I guess multiplayer takes the fault here. D2 had some major problems with Necromancer 40man armies in co-op play. And it does make sense, i'd prefer not to rely so heavily on NPC's when i'm playing with other people. They're there to take the axe-in-your-face-monster role for you. A big loss for singleplayer though.

 

I just saw this on Diablo: While it has been known for a while that there will be 18 different tiers of equipment for all item slots - everything from weapons, armor, helms, etc., it's not going to be like in D2 where you had exceptional and elite items that looked identical to their normal counterparts. Blizzard has stated that even though there will be 18 tiers of equipment - 6 each in normal, nightmare, and hell, all 18 will be visually distinct when you equip them. So it's not like D2 where all plate mail type armor had the same appearance. Th 18 different body armors all look different, the 18 helms all look different, etc - which is pretty cool IMO.

 

Some new stuff:

Your character will pick up gold automatically when you walk over to it. So your character is a gold vacuum.

When a monster drops a non-gold item, the name plate of the item will remain visible for 15 seconds, so you don't have to hold down Alt constantly to see the stuff that drops. After that 15 seconds are up, you can renew it by pressing Alt again.

6 tiers of skills. As tier increases, so does the cooldown on the skill. Tiers 1-2 are spammable, and the only thing that limits your ability to cast is your cast rate. However, once you get up to Tier 6, the cooldown timer is 7 seconds (at least)! Summons are not going to be spammable at all. For example, one of the Barbarian top tier skills, Call Ancients, summons the three Ancients to fight for you. They show up and kick some major ass for 30 seconds. The catch is the cooldown on that is 2 minutes so there is definitely some strategy for the casting of that spell. This is to make people stop using one skill for the entire game. Frozen Orb sorceresses and Blessed Hammer paladins, we're looking at you.

Auction House. Say you've been playing for a while, and you got a unique drop of something that you already had. You take it to the auction house, and set it up for an auction where it stays for an hour and whoever places the highest bid wins. Alternatively, you can just set a sell price, and whoever pays the price gets it. Best of all, you can do it in-game, so you don't have to stop playing to ditch some of your now un-wanted gear.

 

Anyone know the release date?

 

Beta testing starts in a week - no official release date from Blizzard yet.