Bashiok recently posted quite a few responses to some questions that were raised by members on the Battle.net forums in regards to Blizzard encouraging people to play games together rather than going off on single-player missions.
"The distance limitation you're speaking of in being considered an active participant already exists in the game.
The item benefit of playing together is due partly to the per-player item drops, but also increase in items-per-minute ratio due to groups killing faster than a single player. The amount of items dropping with each additional player is slightly higher than if those players were to just play in their own games. Now, that's slightly deceiving because we're talking about the entire pool of drops, but actually each player sees and receives an equal portion, so in this case we're looking at the drops as if they were shared completely freely within the group. This may not be the case for all items or groups.
Still, if you have three friends and you're all buddy-buddy with each other and sharing everything, the benefit of playing together for item drops is noticeable. If you're all being very stingy and not sharing anything, or just throwing out the crap, you'll still see a slight increase just from killing speed.
But anyway, with all that in mind, there is already of course a distance limit in which you'll be considered an active participant in a monster kill to be able to receive a drop from it. If you're out of range and someone in your party kills something, you don't get a drop from it. It's a very obvious solution to deal with a very obvious issue. The range is fairly forgiving.
So instead our focus turns to helping groups help themselves through various mechanics to keep everyone together. But those are specifics for another time though."
He then went on to respond to more user questions:
"By the sounds of it, being an "active participant" simply means you have to be within a close proximately of the monsters on death, but that does not mean that you will actually need to help in any way, shape, or form in killing it."
"If you did need to damage every enemy in order to get a drop from it we would essentially be requiring all players who wanted to play in groups build their characters for AoE damage. It would then be enforcing the exact opposite of teamwork. Everyone would be going crazy trying to do as much damage to as much as possible so they could try to get a drop off of it.
We could then rename the game to Antithesis of Fun."
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the exact same thing that is happening in Diablo II baal runs, where there are 1 or 2 Hammerdins killing everything and the rest of the players is composed of leechers doing nothing more than picking up the drops?"
"There's nothing wrong with the idea of friends running other friends through the game. Have a friend with a higher level character? Cool, have him help you through the game if you want. That doesn't mean we won't have some limitations or slight impedances, for instance we probably wouldn't want it to figure out to be the best way to level, but the general idea of friends helping friends is a positive aspect and something we want to retain as best as possible."
"The problem I personally have is just those that do nothing but leech, or the players that do absolutely nothing to contribute to the party but is shared equally in the rewards. Again, the example of baal runs in Diablo II comes to mind. In baal runs, we often see AFK naked characters wielding nothing but Ondal's Wisdom for the 5% to Experience Gained sitting in the corner or within that distance that you were talking about for Diablo III inorder to "earn" the rewards without actually doing anything. Sometimes they are not even AFK, so they run around and pick up the drops, and again, this sounds like it could be done in Diablo III, with or without bots. Maybe it's just me, but I have never thought that leeching or having leechers follow me around all day doing nothing but picking up the loot from my kills was a whole lot of fun."
"Players joining your games that do something to annoy you will always be a problem as long as you allow them to. So really the simple solution here is to not play in publicly open games.
But, from a game feature side, it sounds like what you're actually asking for are game moderation options. Such as the ability for the game creator or game participants to kick, ban, squelch, etc. And maybe those are some possibilities, maybe, but they themselves could easily be turned around and used as griefing tools themselves.
There are solutions. I don't think it's a problem that warrants a lot of time at the moment though."
So what do you guys think about all of these group play issues? Let's hear your opinions!
Awww, I was hoping they'd find a way to get rid of leeches but I guess that's not gonna happen. I don't really know what I think of all this. Is Blizzard sort of covering their butts? Is there any effective way where they could've gotten rid of leeches? Well, whatever. I'll be playing single player mostly anyway probably since I doubt I'll be able to compete with all those players with godly gear and whatnot.
Still, is it that hard for a player to just damage a monster to get experience from it? I mean come on. Even if you're only inflicting a little damage with your more experienced teammates finishing the monstor off, at least it encourages some kind of contribution on your part to the battle. Of course, I don't even understand why anyone would want to leech. What's the fun of just standing around and reaping experience? It just seems like such a waste of time and life.
Hmm, only thing that worries me is that the whole "drop range" may encourage players to rush ahead of the group to kill everything, so that they get the majority of the drops.
May not be doing much good for teamwork...
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Quote from "Sixen" »
"One in every 10 million people can potentially have a headache from this pill." God forbid she is the 0.000000001% of having a headache.
Well, leeching is something that just isn't going to go away in this kind of online game. After you beat the game a few times, regardless of what you may say and who you are, you will either stop playing the game (indefinitely, until the interest perks you again) or want something else out of the game, usually in the sense of getting the most power and prestige from it, which is gained through leveling, getting the best gear, accomplishing the extra quests, et cetera. This is accelerated by leeching and grinding- because at the point of play I'm talking about you don't care much about the story since you've been through it a lot.
So leeching, in my opinion, isn't really a bad thing. It's just what it is. It will exist in some form or another. People are obviously not just going to keep repeating the whole storyline again and again and say "okay, I'm done now". They grind afterwards. It's what gives the game longevity.
This isn't to say that gameplay shouldn't be engaging, but it's a reality of long-term games with internet play, I think.
Yeah, I think that leeching is inevitable in the kind of environment that the Diablo games reside in. The fact that people will actually have to be within a certain range is at least a plus, but I don't think there is going to be anyway to rid it completely. I guess the moral here might be don't play with people you don't know?
My biggest concern is people rushing and screwing up the economy making good rare items useless. But since we have no idea how the economy of the game will work I can't really comment on any of that. Also we have no idea what features B Net 2.0 will have in it; which could play towards having more control of things like leeching, etc.
Awww, I was hoping they'd find a way to get rid of leeches but I guess that's not gonna happen. I don't really know what I think of all this. Is Blizzard sort of covering their butts? Is there any effective way where they could've gotten rid of leeches? Well, whatever. I'll be playing single player mostly anyway probably since I doubt I'll be able to compete with all those players with godly gear and whatnot.
It's simple. If a full game scales to a point where every player needs to participate in the fight in order to be able to even kill a boss (as it damn should be), then there can't be any "leeching".
Quote from "Musica" »
Still, is it that hard for a player to just damage a monster to get experience from it? I mean come on. Even if you're only inflicting a little damage with your more experienced teammates finishing the monstor off, at least it encourages some kind of contribution on your part to the battle. Of course, I don't even understand why anyone would want to leech. What's the fun of just standing around and reaping experience? It just seems like such a waste of time and life.
If each player in a party has to damage each and every one in the group of 20 monsters which could easily die when only two of the players in the game use their AoE abilities on them, then it becomes a game of tag.
Quote from "Zhar" »
Hmm, only thing that worries me is that the whole "drop range" may encourage players to rush ahead of the group to kill everything, so that they get the majority of the drops.
May not be doing much good for teamwork...
Are you even listening to yourself? YOU GET YOUR OWN DROPS. YOU CAN'T GET "EVERYTHING".
The way I see it... you win some... you lose some.
As Baishok said... if you had to put at least a single damage on every mob, because of the way the creature and monsters behave (and the numerical amount at any given time), all classes would require some sort of AoE... and the game would be bland and less-than-fun.
On the flip side, leeching does pose a problem to people who believe that everyone should work hard to get from 1 to cap.
Hopefully, with additions like the skill-reset feature, the amount of leechers will be lessened by a lot. People will have at least one of every class, and maybe one more as a mule (in addition to the hopefully obvious cross-character stash).
Not everything that resembles WoW is evil, and in this case, a skill-reset is a good reason for keeping leechers down.
I also like the item-drop idea. Everyone gets their own loot. It benefits both the benevolent, and the selfish.
My biggest concern is people rushing and screwing up the economy making good rare items useless.
Though a good concern.... with all games, the more time alloted, the worse any economy will be. This has to do with Supply and Demand on a monetary level. Take any MMO. Most mobs will drop currency. Most rewards will net currency. Most items will sell for an equivalant amount of currency. Without some sort of constant gold sink, the amount of currency in the playerbase will forever increase, thus making it more and more worthless.
The more of something that exists, the less value it will hold.
Either way, I'm sure they'll work out all the bugs. Blizzard has been known to do things the right way, or at least have a very good reason for doing it their current way.
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------------------------------------------- Those who stand for nothing will fall for anything.
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Yea no reaction speed, or strategy, or anything like that to be the best in Diablo...not. Get out of here kid you clearly were not anything special.
Now as for leeching, who cares? If someone is leeching you go hostile them and kill them. Or just don't party, whichever. Now you probably won't be able to go hostile and killing tho cause 80% of you are crying about hostile and grieving so...dig your own grave and now you gotta lay in it.
Second of all: If they make it so you can only get drops from a party member killing something, and you have the power to kick people from your party or not invite them, then how could they still leach from you?
Right now it seems like in Diablo II Leaching works because you can still grab the item regardless of whether or not you are in the party.
But if you cannot receive item drops from monsters killed by non-party members, then I would imagine that the leaching problem should disappear.
The tradeoff has always been that having more people in the game means more drops and xp. That's why the typical Hammerdin rusher doesn't mind the extraneous people in the game (he actually doesn't NEED any help, especially if he has Enigma).
That's why the Baal runs are advertised, as opposed to giving them secret names so that leechers don't know to join in. They WANT them in. They get more stuff that way. So do the leechers. It's a benefit to everyone, and that's why they do it.
Another problem when it comes to contribution is the absolute uselessness of certain characters. If you can't manage to have a positive effect on the battle, you're better off abstaining. For example, Bonecromancers who are built for PvP and can't do anything in Baal runs except annoy everyone with Bone Walls. If people were able to make small, helpful contributions without getting in the way, they wouldn't be relegated to leeching.
Now, a reality check we need to make is the boss we saw in the old gameplay video. You know, the one that picks up the barbarian and bites its head off? If monsters are able to do THAT to leechers, I think it'll all be okay. You either stay active or die.
The moderation thing. They should make it a vote and the creators vote should get like a extra point to it so it wont tie. Some day people will try and kick all the newbs out of there game and that is unfair to them.
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www.myspace.com/mpotatoes for all your Trans Siberian Orchestra listening pleasure
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
Hmm, thats actually a really good question.
It will probably end up with mf affecting everyones drops though, I mean back in D2 MF affected drops, and everyone could grab said drops.
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Quote from "Sixen" »
"One in every 10 million people can potentially have a headache from this pill." God forbid she is the 0.000000001% of having a headache.
He then went on to respond to more user questions:
"By the sounds of it, being an "active participant" simply means you have to be within a close proximately of the monsters on death, but that does not mean that you will actually need to help in any way, shape, or form in killing it."
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the exact same thing that is happening in Diablo II baal runs, where there are 1 or 2 Hammerdins killing everything and the rest of the players is composed of leechers doing nothing more than picking up the drops?"
"The problem I personally have is just those that do nothing but leech, or the players that do absolutely nothing to contribute to the party but is shared equally in the rewards. Again, the example of baal runs in Diablo II comes to mind. In baal runs, we often see AFK naked characters wielding nothing but Ondal's Wisdom for the 5% to Experience Gained sitting in the corner or within that distance that you were talking about for Diablo III inorder to "earn" the rewards without actually doing anything. Sometimes they are not even AFK, so they run around and pick up the drops, and again, this sounds like it could be done in Diablo III, with or without bots. Maybe it's just me, but I have never thought that leeching or having leechers follow me around all day doing nothing but picking up the loot from my kills was a whole lot of fun."
So what do you guys think about all of these group play issues? Let's hear your opinions!
Still, is it that hard for a player to just damage a monster to get experience from it? I mean come on. Even if you're only inflicting a little damage with your more experienced teammates finishing the monstor off, at least it encourages some kind of contribution on your part to the battle. Of course, I don't even understand why anyone would want to leech. What's the fun of just standing around and reaping experience? It just seems like such a waste of time and life.
May not be doing much good for teamwork...
So leeching, in my opinion, isn't really a bad thing. It's just what it is. It will exist in some form or another. People are obviously not just going to keep repeating the whole storyline again and again and say "okay, I'm done now". They grind afterwards. It's what gives the game longevity.
This isn't to say that gameplay shouldn't be engaging, but it's a reality of long-term games with internet play, I think.
its not supposed to be a nice game
autostats are rediclous
lack of pots is not welcome
if it aint broke dont fix it! (diablo2)
My biggest concern is people rushing and screwing up the economy making good rare items useless. But since we have no idea how the economy of the game will work I can't really comment on any of that. Also we have no idea what features B Net 2.0 will have in it; which could play towards having more control of things like leeching, etc.
If each player in a party has to damage each and every one in the group of 20 monsters which could easily die when only two of the players in the game use their AoE abilities on them, then it becomes a game of tag.
Are you even listening to yourself? YOU GET YOUR OWN DROPS. YOU CAN'T GET "EVERYTHING".
As Baishok said... if you had to put at least a single damage on every mob, because of the way the creature and monsters behave (and the numerical amount at any given time), all classes would require some sort of AoE... and the game would be bland and less-than-fun.
On the flip side, leeching does pose a problem to people who believe that everyone should work hard to get from 1 to cap.
Hopefully, with additions like the skill-reset feature, the amount of leechers will be lessened by a lot. People will have at least one of every class, and maybe one more as a mule (in addition to the hopefully obvious cross-character stash).
Not everything that resembles WoW is evil, and in this case, a skill-reset is a good reason for keeping leechers down.
I also like the item-drop idea. Everyone gets their own loot. It benefits both the benevolent, and the selfish.
Though a good concern.... with all games, the more time alloted, the worse any economy will be. This has to do with Supply and Demand on a monetary level. Take any MMO. Most mobs will drop currency. Most rewards will net currency. Most items will sell for an equivalant amount of currency. Without some sort of constant gold sink, the amount of currency in the playerbase will forever increase, thus making it more and more worthless.
The more of something that exists, the less value it will hold.
Either way, I'm sure they'll work out all the bugs. Blizzard has been known to do things the right way, or at least have a very good reason for doing it their current way.
-------------------------------------------
Those who stand for nothing will fall for anything.
-------------------------------------------
I would like to let you in on a little secret. It takes no gaming skill at all to be "uber" at this game.
Now as for leeching, who cares? If someone is leeching you go hostile them and kill them. Or just don't party, whichever. Now you probably won't be able to go hostile and killing tho cause 80% of you are crying about hostile and grieving so...dig your own grave and now you gotta lay in it.
Second of all: If they make it so you can only get drops from a party member killing something, and you have the power to kick people from your party or not invite them, then how could they still leach from you?
Right now it seems like in Diablo II Leaching works because you can still grab the item regardless of whether or not you are in the party.
But if you cannot receive item drops from monsters killed by non-party members, then I would imagine that the leaching problem should disappear.
He started talking about moderators? i hope he is not thinking WoW there.
That's why the Baal runs are advertised, as opposed to giving them secret names so that leechers don't know to join in. They WANT them in. They get more stuff that way. So do the leechers. It's a benefit to everyone, and that's why they do it.
Another problem when it comes to contribution is the absolute uselessness of certain characters. If you can't manage to have a positive effect on the battle, you're better off abstaining. For example, Bonecromancers who are built for PvP and can't do anything in Baal runs except annoy everyone with Bone Walls. If people were able to make small, helpful contributions without getting in the way, they wouldn't be relegated to leeching.
Now, a reality check we need to make is the boss we saw in the old gameplay video. You know, the one that picks up the barbarian and bites its head off? If monsters are able to do THAT to leechers, I think it'll all be okay. You either stay active or die.
false....
ive seen players with the best gear ever still not able to kill countess in hell.
its not supposed to be a nice game
autostats are rediclous
lack of pots is not welcome
if it aint broke dont fix it! (diablo2)
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
It will probably end up with mf affecting everyones drops though, I mean back in D2 MF affected drops, and everyone could grab said drops.