Diablo 3 Lead Designer Jay Wilson sat down with Multiplayer Blog to explain how the health system works in Diablo 3 and how it differs from Diablo 2. In short, you can’t add a new feature without removing an old one, in this case we’re talking about health potions.
The goal is to broaden the Diablo audience to more than just the hardcore fans. Lets be honest with ourselves, the health potion system was way too far out of control (broken?) By mid-game or earlier, half the character inventory was full of potions and you might have just purchased shares in the potion selling company with all the spending you’ve done there. The health potion system created the infinitely powerful character, in essence, by making them immortal.
Activision Blizzard has learned a bit about their success with broad audiences in games like World of Warcraft, which has surpassed game sales over Diablo 2, their most successful game title. What they’ve decided to do in this release of Diablo is to limit the characters ability to heal and make them “mortal” again, requiring the player to use strategy, tactics and skills to defeat enemies. Rather than charging forward pressing “1” then “2” then “3” and the other hot keys for potions, you’ll be forced to back away during strong stomp attacks, mind your enemies special attacks and defend yourself.
“One of the things that happened in ‘Diablo II’,” Wilson continued, “was the player was faster than most of the monsters and had pretty much infinite health because they would just pop as many potions as they wanted. So when you have a player who has more mobility, more health and endless power, essentially the only thing you can really do to challenge [the players] is to kill them… by just spiking the difficulty.” (multiplayer blog)
Gating the users ability to heal is a classic RPG/Adventure game mechanism for changing the playing field in terms of difficulty. You can make a game with weaker enemies in abundance and still cause you harm, take a look back at Gauntlet in the arcade for an example of this method. You can build challenging enemy styles and dungeon traps to cause the player to mind their step, look at the classic Zelda series and some of their crazy enemies. A great example is the Darknuts from The Legend of Zelda, it was a small knight that could only be attacked from behind but had a sharp little dagger if you bumped them from the front. You had to use tactics to wipe out a full room of Darknuts.
Activision Blizzard will now have the option to create some fancy enemies with challenging special abilities that do not involve insta-kill upon contact battle tactics. You control a super hero character, not an immortal; there should be some challenge besides hacking and slashing through mobs of enemies. Wilson went on to say, “We can make a monster that affects your mobility, we can make a monster that has different kinds of attacks that are dangerous to you and that you actually have to avoid. And so it makes the combat a lot more interesting.”
One of the criticisms to the Diablo franchise has always been the “click fest” of battle. You sit still and click on enemies until everyone is dead. Perhaps, without having infinite potions you’ll be challenged to use your brain on occasion, like a real RPG and have more creative use of your money rather than investing a half-billion into the potion vendors.
Where does that lead the hardcore Diablo fans? Activision Blizzard hopes they’ll see a title with a lot more depth, a new style of challenge and a long term appeal.
“No venerable game players.” *cough* Robin Williams *cough*, though it may be too late to get his opinion on this matter I do want to highlight his own daughter, another fellow gamer, bullied off twitter. I know personally a grandmother who’s at least 60 and as much as a gamer as me. So my point is that there ARE older gamers. Though they may be a minority and the majority may be the immature, the loud and obnoxious ones making the rest of us look bad.
I heard what happened to Anita and it is horrible what others deem as acceptable behavior. I don’t agree with everthing she says but that’s no way to treat a person with a differing opinion. Let’s face it the women have a point, when my daughter asks if she can play a game with a Girl lead and I have to struggle to find ones that AREN’t scantily clad or just sex objects, I have to give her a point. All she wants, and the rest of female gamers is to be represented by more then just digital sex objects and with real female characters.
When I see games advertized on various websites in the side bar ads with scantily clad women with over sized breasts that are barely covered, I know I am being pandered to.
I like to point out the Sierra games had several strong female characters and in lead roles. Like Rosella in KQ 4 & 7, Luara Bow in Dagger of Amon Ra and Colonel’s Bequest, Grace Nakimura from Gaberiel Knight, Elsa, Erana, Aziza all from Quest for Glory. The world didn’t end when it was revealed that Samus Aran was a woman in Metriod, why should we stop there?
I’m still waiting for a Co-Op Zelda and Link game Nintendo.
Your right about the violent reaction because I think the gamers that are showing outrage are the ones afraid their digital sex toys are going to be taken away from them. That isn’t what’s being asked, all that is being asked is for more stronger female cahracters to be show. For women to be accepted as People and not jsut play things, and why stop there? Why not have different races, nationalities, ideologies, sex pref, etc.
It’s disgusting that some of my fellow gamers are treating women and anyone different from their norm so poorly. I grew up feeling like an outcast cause I liked to play games and read fantasy novels. I was seen as a wierdo and I didn’t meet many female gamers at all during school. Once after school though I saw that there were many women gamers and it made me feel accepted and like more a part of humanity knowing I wasn’t some freak oddball.
So to see other gamers reject women gamers just boggles my mind. Do men who favor sports reject having women join in? Do men at car shows say “look at that fake car girl she shouldn’t be here!” It’s beyond my comprehension at all the “fake gamer girls” and calling every girl with an opinion a “femi nazi”.
It’s time for some boys who seem to be stuck in high school still to GROW UP already.
@Qotw: I loved playing WoW but it was an time sink of a game. My most memorable moments weren’t the raids or instances but the times where I was just hanging out with friends around a fishing pond or traveling through the air on my griffon. I also seemed to be one of the few human players who went and got a giant tiger mount from the Elves.
While I like superhero stories the fantasy setting is what does it for me.
A little update:
Lori and Cory Cole, the makers of Quest For Glory had an update to their Kickstarter Hero-U. In it they discussed the issue about the hate toward females in games and players themselves:
“We have been very disturbed by the degree of hate towards indie game developers, and women developers and players in particular, on many web sites. Personally I think it comes from jealousy – The commenters want the publicity and success of the game developers without devoting the years of 60 hour weeks that it takes to build a game.
Unfortunately, a lot of this has come across in the form of hate towards women. This isn’t new – Roberta Williams got hate mail for featuring Rosella as the main character in King’s Quest IV – but it is just plain wrong. Games can be fun with either a male or a female protagonist as long as the story reflects that choice. Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a male Slayer? Boring!”
“Shawn Could Have Been Shawna
Lori wrote about why we decided on a male character for the first Hero-U game at http://www.hero-u.net/leaders/why-shawn-isnt-shawna/. I assure you that we will have female protagonists in future games and that we will ignore any resulting hate mail. 🙂 We are proud of the strong female characters we created in previous games, and even more of the ones in Hero-U.
We have also proudly added our names to an anti-hate open letter on diversity in gaming and the game industry at https://medium.com/@andreaszecher/open-letter-to-the-gaming-community-df4511032e8a. We hope many of our backers will continue to speak out against hate and harassment in any form. This week I learned a new term – SJW or Social Justice Warrior – used negatively about people who harp about social justice in gaming and media. You know what? We’ll wear that badge proudly. Our games have always been about heroism, and yes, that includes social justice.”
To summarize they were appalled at the hate, they signed the Petition against hate, and they revealed that Roberta Williams herself had received hate mail for Rosella being the lead in KQ4 and how DARE she save her own father.
I had no idea that Roberta had received hate mail for what was one of my favorite of the KQ series. Remember this game was Pre-internet days so it was easy to be isolated to my own POV on this game. I had already known about Samus Aran as female so I then took it for granted that there would be more of the like.
They also brought up the subject of the Sierra company revival, while they stated they weren’t involved they were also not against future involvement should something come up. So yay! 🙂
@All the things that are wrong with the gaming world
This debate has been going on for a long time and I am not sure I can add anything that hasn’t already been said. To be honest, I am indifferent to the opinions of the general gaming mass. They can be homophobic, sexist or even marxist for all I care; as long as they don’t cause other people trouble. What I find worrying the most is discrimination in the gaming industry itself. Mature, highly educated professionals who are often in position of power over others are the worst kind. They can genuinely harm the well-being of others with their discrimination and often do so. I would say sorting the industry out is a priority; trying to change gaming as a whole is impossible at this moment.
This all reminds me of the gaming “civil rights” movement of the sixth generation, which was fueled by the release of GTA: San Andreas. Many gamers pointed out that African-Carri beans were highly under-represented as the main protagonists. Not much has changed since then. My friend still complains when we play an Asian MMO and the only character he can make is a very attractive white male.
@All those lovely times I did not play WOW
My first time playing WOW was 2012. I spent weeks downloading the 32GB patch and when I finally played it I was lamed out. Since I played many many WOW clones beforehand, I found WOW itself to be very dated in comparison. I didn’t bother playing it past the first quest, especially since my friend dropped the game saying that Mysts of Pandaria update made it crap.