Yesterday we were privileged to a "sneak peek" of the new Followers system that will be used in Diablo III. Unfortunately, this leaked video left us with only the basic construct of the system and left room for plenty of speculation. Well, today comes with a slew of interviews from Jay Wilson and Leonard Boyarsky. They go into some detail about just how the system is working and how we will interact with these newly added characters.
First, some nitty gritty about the characters themselves. We learned yesterday that the three Followers are the Enchantress, Scoundrel, and Templar, but just who are these characters? Each one will have their own unique story and personality to add to the game. As you play through the main story arc, you will run across these characters in need of some form of assistance. After helping them through their own journey, they will lend their abilities to you. As they venture with you, you will explore their backstories. They will make note of particular instances or comment on something that is going on. They will help tell the story to the player while they are out fighting demons instead of having to sit and read some books.
Beginning with the Templar, named Kormac, he is a stoic character with righteousness on his side. His order is actually trying to retrieve scrolls and books that Lazarus had taken before the story of Diablo I. Betrayed by a corrupt member, you will find Kormac locked up in a dungeon. After you free him and slay the corrupt order member, the Templar will offer his services of protection to you. Kormac has a varying play style that will be valuable no matter what class you are playing. If you need a tank character, he will be able to fill this role very well. However, if you are already a melee oriented character, the Templar can offer healing and other supportive abilities.
After finding and rescuing Kormac, the next Follower you will run into is Lyndon the Scoundrel. Lyndon is a dark humor type character with a questionable sense of morality. Once belonging to a thieves guild, Lyndon was disgraced and thrown out of the guild. Perhaps motivated for more personal gain, he will join you for opportunities to obtain better riches and items. Lyndon is a sort of throw back to the Diablo I Rogue. His focus will be on ranged attacks with the use of a bow or crossbow. However, if a ranged damage dealer is not something you are interested in, he also has a variety of other skills that are more focused on his Scoundrel title like helping you get more gold.
The last Follower you will run into, about a third of the way into the story, is the Enchantress Eirena. Her story is a bit more shady and will unravel as the story continues. All we know when we meet her is that she is following a Prophet who has the ability to control people. In the midst of a fight, she is trying to protect some people and needs your help to save them. After doing so, she will follow you on your heroic journey. Offering magic-based ranged attacks, Eirena will be able to cast from afar to deal damage. However, thanks to her skills gained from the Prophet, she can also offer you services in helping control your foes for you to kill.
Moving past their stories, we go into the mechanics of how this system will work. First and foremost, it is important to note that the Followers system will only be available to those playing in a game by themselves. If another player joins the game, the Follower will head back to your caravan. However, if you find yourself alone again in this fight, the Follower will come right back to aid you. This was done to help players who want to play by themselves but decrease the clutter if multiple people are in one game. Along with this, despite having all three Followers at your disposal, you may only use the services of one at a time. But do not worry, all three will gain experience regardless if they are being used or not. This will allow you to use them when you want to and not because you have to in order to level them up. You can also switch them out whenever you want to aid you best in different scenarios. If a follower "dies," you will not have to go back to town resurrect them. This is how it was originally planned but Blizzard felt like it took too much time away from fighting and caused players to not even use them. Instead, the characters will be knocked out temporarily. After about 15-20 seconds, they will regain consciousness and rejoin the fight. If this is too much time for you, you can channel on them and help revive them sooner. To help keep them fighting longer, they will also gain the effect from any health globe you pick up.
Each Follower comes with their own unique skill set to choose from. Every five levels up to 20, you will gain access to a new set with three different choices. You can choose one from that set to help cater to your liking. Along with skills, you will be able to customize your Followers with some gear. One amulet and two rings will be able to be equipped by them to help customize their stats to the play style you have planned for them. Along with this is a weapon slot. Each Follower will have a distinct group of weapon choices that they can equip but there will still be some variety. Perhaps a heavy damage dealer is what you want for your Templar, so you give him a two-handed weapon. But if you are looking for a tank, then you can give them a sword and shield. The last item slot, which can be seen in the inventory screenshots, is for a class specific item. The only one we know for sure is the Templar's tomes. Speculation for the other two may be a satchel or quiver for the Scoundrel and perhaps some off-hand orb for the Enchantress. These unique items will only be for each particular Follower. These characters were purposely left with a limit to their customization and stats to help lighten the load of these characters. Blizzard did not want players to feel like they were leveling a second character. Instead, you are able to help design this person who will fight along with you when needed.
Moving on to the last part, the way the Followers function in a game is very important. Their are no direct controls for your Followers. Meaning, you cannot tell them to attack a particular unit or to heal you whenever. Instead, this will all be handled by the advanced AI system that has improved since the previous game. Player control is more based on the skills you give them. An example that was given of the AI is the Enchantress' energy bomb skill. A massive AoE, the Enchantress will use this skill when the player is low on health to help clear out some demons and hopefully get some health orbs. Healing and other support skills will be used similarly to best help your character in the fight. Now, there are a lot of people who are afraid that these Followers can be used to do all the killing for you while you just stand and wait; this will not be the case. This is handled in two ways. First, monster AI is improved. Back in Diablo II, you could just stand back as all of the demons would attack your hireling. Now, monsters will not just target the player closest to them. Certain monsters are programmed to go after the person in the back first while others will go after the biggest threat at the moment. Players will constantly have to be on their toes this time when fighting hordes of enemies. If this is not enough for you, then each Follower can be managed to not steal kills from you and instead just help you kill them more easily. If you do not want to spec you Follower with damage skills, then you can focus on more crowd control skills so you can still do all of the killing, or even choose more passive bonuses like extra magic or gold find. Either way, they have designed these Followers to not be a necessity to the game but will just aid you if you would like. Keep in mind, that they will also still level with you even if they are not being used so if you decide you want to use them later, you will not have to go back to re-level them.
If you would like to read any of the interviews that were conducted, you can check out the links below. You can also check out the official Diablo3 site page.
The system seems ideal, especially after the blue post. It's kind of like in Cataclysm starting areas, where in the first few quests, you have an AI friend to give you a hand (thinking specifically of the Troll starting area, Echo Isles and the Level 1 - 6 quests there).
There's a couple of story elements, just enough customization and in terms of co-op gameplay, it's a nice primer.
Hats off to Blizzard, not that we expected any less.
Well, followers are essentially a flavor bonus to those playing through normal the first time by themselves. It provides some story elements, but more importantly it gets the idea in their head of playing with another person. You come across each of them pretty quickly in Act 1, and then they help you throughout the rest of the game if you'd like. They aren't required to beat the game on Normal, even if you're playing by yourself. Feel free to leave them behind if you like. But they are pretty awesome.
They're also tuned so that they become very weak starting in Nightmare, and then are completely unusable in Hell. Even if you're playing alone, you will probably not be using Followers past Normal - - you can try but they're going to just be one-shot back to back. They're there as a bit of flavor, to help get people into the mindset of co-op if they're a bit reluctant, and... that's about it. They won't be usable at end-game, and they'll never replace the abilities and power that another player can bring.
It provides some story elements. That's right. The companion doesn't add any more story than is already provided. Instead, the character adds color to the situation.
Official Blizzard Quote:
Followers will not stay alive easily past Normal, and if they're not alive you aren't going to be getting their bonuses. I'm sure people will try to game this, and ideally they will fail. If not we will ensure followers are not part of the end-game MF equation. They are not intended to be, and we will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure they cannot be.
They're also tuned so that they become very weak starting in Nightmare, and then are completely unusable in Hell.
They are not intended to be, and we will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure they cannot be. In other words, this is JUST A FLAVOR MECHANIC FOR NORMAL DIFFICULTY.
making them only viable for normal, not very much so in nighmare and useless in hell, it seems like a lot of wasted development time. I understand that they probably had to do this for balance issues, or else end game would end up making them mandatory balance wise, but its disappointing none the less.
I think people are underestimating how many people will play solo once in a while. Us solo players (me included) aren't that few, and most people will want to play alone once in a while ;).
I don't think there is any point for followers in 2-player game (you get to do the quests probably anyway, so you won't miss out on any lore). As Bashiok said, they're there for the lone wolfs.
Sanctuary is too small for more than one hero at a time (tm).
I'm with you here. I'll be playing solo about half the time.
I'd like to emphasize another reason why followers are awesome. When you create a new character and your friends don't want to "carry you" through Normal, these companions will make it a little easier to go through and add a little more fun to the mix.
They're also tuned so that they become very weak starting in Nightmare, and then are completely unusable in Hell. Even if you're playing alone, you will probably not be using Followers past Normal - - you can try but they're going to just be one-shot back to back.
Followers will not stay alive easily past Normal, and if they're not alive you aren't going to be getting their bonuses. I'm sure people will try to game this, and ideally they will fail. If not we will ensure followers are not part of the end-game MF equation. They are not intended to be, and we will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure they cannot be.
Okay then I totally do not get the point of worrying about a Follower at all. I'm assuming that the best MF run you can do is in Hell difficulty. So if your Follower dies very easily in this difficulty, than you almost will have to exclusively do MP. I'm sure we can solo a MF run in Hell difficulty, but if they kill Followers this easily, then I would imagine they really do mean that it will be hard for you to go off on your own.
They've stated many times that they are trying to push players into an early mindset of playing Co-op. I did enjoy running MP, but I occasionally liked to go off on my own. I'm wondering how much support there is in the game currently for solo work.
This whole system seems kind of pointless with all the limitations. I don't think anyone will spend much time with them knowing that they will just be underpowered in the next difficulty. If the difficulties are similar to D2, Normal will be the fastest difficulty you get through.
I will probably go with a different follower for 3 of my characters just to get all the story out of them. I don't see myself using them much on any later characters. It's disappointing because it really looks like they spent a lot of time designing this system, but it will barely be used.
I think most players will see the follower once with their first character in Normal difficulty. After that they will probably play multiplayer almost exclusively, because single player has no incentive compared to co-op. This confirms my prediction that Blizzard would not allow 4 players + 4 followers in multiplayer, but so I'm disappointed they would waste time on something like this.
I'm not sure If I really like this system, or if I'm just not all that enthusiastic about it. I think it will be great to have them around in Normal and the lore will be fun to learn about, but will the quests stick around in the higher difficulties? I hope not. I feel like they probably can only hit lvl 30 (when you should be finishing Normal difficulty anyway) so I might carry them over for the first few acts of nightmare, but after that I feel like I will miss them being around. On the other hand, I am The Hero and sometimes the hero just must go alone, which will certainly feel good and powerful. I think I would like them to fulfill some role once out of Normal but what that is, I'm not sure.
I don't feel like it's wasted effort on Blizzards part in any case. did it take time to produce? Yes. Do they add to the game? Yes. No problems there.
I guess I really only have one question. If they augment your character in normal, then when you first drop them, do you feel weaker, or is the transition more or less seamless? The way I suggested I likely would do (taking them through the first act or two) would probably alleviate this problem, but what if you drop them right when you beat the first difficulty? I dunno. I am excited to give them a test run though!
I've been at work so I haven't been able to respond.
The blocked out lvl25 square is for their character specific item like the templar's tomes.
I don't think bashiok meant that they are not viable after normal. Just that they will die more often just as most players will in nightmare and hell difficulty.
I think it's funny that before the announcement a lot of people were complaining about the followers being to OP. Now, people are complaining about them being to weak and pointless. This just shows it's impossible to appease everyone no matter what decision they make. As a primary SP, I'm really excited for this system. If im playing with friends, then who needs followers, I have friends to play with.
While I still think this system does not 'encourage' co-op, I thought what Bash said about getting in the co-op mindset even when playing SP is a very valid point.
I've been at work so I haven't been able to respond.
The blocked out lvl25 square is for their character specific item like the templar's tomes.
I don't think bashiok meant that they are not viable after normal. Just that they will die more often just as most players will in nightmare and hell difficulty.
I think it's funny that before the announcement a lot of people were complaining about the followers being to OP. Now, people are complaining about them being to weak and pointless. This just shows it's impossible to appease everyone no matter what decision they make. As a primary SP, I'm really excited for this system. If im playing with friends, then who needs followers, I have friends to play with.
While I still think this system does not 'encourage' co-op, I thought what Bash said about getting in the co-op mindset even when playing SP is a very valid point.
If you read Bashiok's quote, followers will basically be one shot in Hell regardless of gear (their base stats/skills won't scale at the same rate as the hero's). Even in single player, you won't really use them in Hell especially since it costs a little bit of gold to revive them each time. No follower will survive long enough to be a benefit for MF, and if it does happen, Blizzard will nerf followers to ensure they can't survive.
My initial thoughts about this now after reading the interview and looking at the screenshots.
I can't wait to hear the followers comments while playing through normal multiple times. What they say isn't "important" to the story. It's more like what the D2 characters used to say upon entering a dungeon or something similar.
Upon reviewing the screenshots. The landscape art in this game looks sick. I also like the skill variety.
I'm sort of happy about the way they did this. I won't be playing alone. Then when I'm online I'll be focusing on team work with my friends, not worrying about what a follower is doing. I also think followers dying a lot easier in nightmare and hell is to encourage online play for better items. Sure you'll be able to solo it, but you'll basically be doing it slower and without any help even from AI.
No where in that quote does it say anything about being one shot in hell. All it says is that they will die more frequently and easier as will all characters that play in a higher difficulty. It only makes sense that they die more often in a harder difficulty. And where does it say it costs to revive them. This is done automatically in the battle field. The only possibility is a dura hit.
If they are involved too much with MF, I don't think they will make them die easier. Just make it so MF gear isn't that viable for them.
Templar: I'm jealous. I wanted to play a knight archetype, not have it follow me around. I'm worried that this will prevent a knight class from being in an expansion. I could get used to having him around though.
Scoundrel: Star Wars RPG anyone? Interesting. Demon Hunter is enough that I don't feel too jealous. I'm interested in hearing his comments.
Enchantress: Cool. I'm a dude who usually plays as a dude, so I'm less jealous of this one. Could be fun to have around. Prophet storyline seems interesting.
Overall: I like it, although it seems like we're going to have a full entourage following us from place to place. I also do somewhat miss hirelings as they helped us get a feel for what kind of people were living in the town. Still, I like this idea. They better add a bard to my entourage to sing songs of my exploits.
The whole not much help after normal thing doesn't interest me much, as I don't play hell or nightmare really.
I agree with Deathjester, we need more information from Blizzard. It's weird to make such an in depth follower system only to have it for the first half of the game. It makes you feel like time spent customising them is only going to be a waste in the end.
Still, playing through normal the first few times will be special. But I can't help feeling like we'll lose a special friend once we reach nightmare. My one solace is that they might have something else planned for nightmare and hell, and there's always the "end game" content yet to be released. Maybe something that is more multiplayer specific?
@Scyber - Bashiok says they're completely unusable in hell.
I agree with Deathjester, we need more information from Blizzard. It's weird to make such an in depth follower system only to have it for the first half of the game. It makes you feel like time spent customising them is only going to be a waste in the end.
Well you really won't be wasting anything. You can just salvage their gear afterwards, and theres not really any gold costs involved with them. I think people need to stop looking at it from the point of view of it being anything but something to keep people playing single player for the first time (which is really the majority of the people who ever play the game) some company, and to put the idea in their head that the game is better with someone else.
Time, Jackzor. You would spend ages thinking of a build for you character, but not for the followers because they go obsolete. Not worried about the items I am quite aware that you can get them back.
The reason you wouldn't spend ages thinking of a build for a follower is because theres 5 slots composed of 3 skills each. So its simply impossible to take more than a few minutes thinking of what purpose you want them to fill. Want an MF/GF follower? Choose the MF/GF skills. Want a crowd control follower? Choose crowd control skills. With a total of 15 skill choices, most of which aren't interchangeable, theres simply not a lot of possibilities by design.
Followers system that will be used in Diablo III. Unfortunately, this leaked video left us with only the basic construct of the system and left room for plenty of speculation. Well, today comes with a slew of interviews from 
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Posted May 13, 2011There's a couple of story elements, just enough customization and in terms of co-op gameplay, it's a nice primer.
Hats off to Blizzard, not that we expected any less.
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Posted May 13, 2011making them only viable for normal, not very much so in nighmare and useless in hell, it seems like a lot of wasted development time. I understand that they probably had to do this for balance issues, or else end game would end up making them mandatory balance wise, but its disappointing none the less.
oops, fixed my post.
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Posted May 13, 2011I'm with you here. I'll be playing solo about half the time.
I'd like to emphasize another reason why followers are awesome. When you create a new character and your friends don't want to "carry you" through Normal, these companions will make it a little easier to go through and add a little more fun to the mix.
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Posted May 13, 2011http://us.blizzard.com/diablo3/world/systems/followers.xml
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Posted May 13, 2011Okay then I totally do not get the point of worrying about a Follower at all. I'm assuming that the best MF run you can do is in Hell difficulty. So if your Follower dies very easily in this difficulty, than you almost will have to exclusively do MP. I'm sure we can solo a MF run in Hell difficulty, but if they kill Followers this easily, then I would imagine they really do mean that it will be hard for you to go off on your own.
They've stated many times that they are trying to push players into an early mindset of playing Co-op. I did enjoy running MP, but I occasionally liked to go off on my own. I'm wondering how much support there is in the game currently for solo work.
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Posted May 13, 2011I will probably go with a different follower for 3 of my characters just to get all the story out of them. I don't see myself using them much on any later characters. It's disappointing because it really looks like they spent a lot of time designing this system, but it will barely be used.
I think most players will see the follower once with their first character in Normal difficulty. After that they will probably play multiplayer almost exclusively, because single player has no incentive compared to co-op. This confirms my prediction that Blizzard would not allow 4 players + 4 followers in multiplayer, but so I'm disappointed they would waste time on something like this.
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Posted May 13, 2011I don't feel like it's wasted effort on Blizzards part in any case. did it take time to produce? Yes. Do they add to the game? Yes. No problems there.
I guess I really only have one question. If they augment your character in normal, then when you first drop them, do you feel weaker, or is the transition more or less seamless? The way I suggested I likely would do (taking them through the first act or two) would probably alleviate this problem, but what if you drop them right when you beat the first difficulty? I dunno. I am excited to give them a test run though!
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Posted May 13, 2011The blocked out lvl25 square is for their character specific item like the templar's tomes.
I don't think bashiok meant that they are not viable after normal. Just that they will die more often just as most players will in nightmare and hell difficulty.
I think it's funny that before the announcement a lot of people were complaining about the followers being to OP. Now, people are complaining about them being to weak and pointless. This just shows it's impossible to appease everyone no matter what decision they make. As a primary SP, I'm really excited for this system. If im playing with friends, then who needs followers, I have friends to play with.
While I still think this system does not 'encourage' co-op, I thought what Bash said about getting in the co-op mindset even when playing SP is a very valid point.
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Posted May 13, 2011If you read Bashiok's quote, followers will basically be one shot in Hell regardless of gear (their base stats/skills won't scale at the same rate as the hero's). Even in single player, you won't really use them in Hell especially since it costs a little bit of gold to revive them each time. No follower will survive long enough to be a benefit for MF, and if it does happen, Blizzard will nerf followers to ensure they can't survive.
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Posted May 13, 2011I can't wait to hear the followers comments while playing through normal multiple times. What they say isn't "important" to the story. It's more like what the D2 characters used to say upon entering a dungeon or something similar.
Upon reviewing the screenshots. The landscape art in this game looks sick. I also like the skill variety.
I'm sort of happy about the way they did this. I won't be playing alone. Then when I'm online I'll be focusing on team work with my friends, not worrying about what a follower is doing. I also think followers dying a lot easier in nightmare and hell is to encourage online play for better items. Sure you'll be able to solo it, but you'll basically be doing it slower and without any help even from AI.
I'm overall pleased with this.
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Posted May 13, 2011No where in that quote does it say anything about being one shot in hell. All it says is that they will die more frequently and easier as will all characters that play in a higher difficulty. It only makes sense that they die more often in a harder difficulty. And where does it say it costs to revive them. This is done automatically in the battle field. The only possibility is a dura hit.
If they are involved too much with MF, I don't think they will make them die easier. Just make it so MF gear isn't that viable for them.
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Posted May 13, 2011Templar: I'm jealous. I wanted to play a knight archetype, not have it follow me around. I'm worried that this will prevent a knight class from being in an expansion. I could get used to having him around though.
Scoundrel: Star Wars RPG anyone? Interesting. Demon Hunter is enough that I don't feel too jealous. I'm interested in hearing his comments.
Enchantress: Cool. I'm a dude who usually plays as a dude, so I'm less jealous of this one. Could be fun to have around. Prophet storyline seems interesting.
Overall: I like it, although it seems like we're going to have a full entourage following us from place to place. I also do somewhat miss hirelings as they helped us get a feel for what kind of people were living in the town. Still, I like this idea. They better add a bard to my entourage to sing songs of my exploits.
The whole not much help after normal thing doesn't interest me much, as I don't play hell or nightmare really.
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Posted May 13, 2011Still, playing through normal the first few times will be special. But I can't help feeling like we'll lose a special friend once we reach nightmare.
@Scyber - Bashiok says they're completely unusable in hell.
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