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.
Interviews:
- GamePlanet
- AUSGamers
- NowGamer
- FZ
- GameStar (it's German, here is a translation)
- IGN
- Diablo3-ESP
- GameInformer
Well at least in the case of the Scoundrel theres really no use for him if you're a DH except for the MF/GF. In the end, no matter how they modify the skills the followers have, if you make them able to be used in the endgame they will be essential. Theres not any way around it. If they give you a benefit, you won't be operating at the peak of your game unless you have one. So the only way around that is to make them give you no benefit when balance between players really matters (aka Hell).
Even without bringing other players into the equation, if you were playing SP Hell, they would have to tune the game around you having a follower and make it challenging with them around. Its not like Normal where they can make it so its just easy with or without the follower. If they allowed them in Hell, that means they would have to make the game difficult with them in Hell, which means it would be nearly impossible without them in Hell. Unless they were useless, which is the current scenario. So they had to choose between making them useless or tuning the game around them, and they chose useless. Obviously you can have a problem with that, but its not like their rationale isn't legitimate.
I can certainly handle not using it in multiplayer due to screenclutter, this is fair enough and you want to focus on playing with your friends. But surely if they're saying it aids you in single player you're going to need them so so sooooo much more in hell difficulty than in normal? Not to mention the exciting bit of customisation that is going to be exciting at all points in the game (or it should be!)
Very, very disappointing, truly hope blizz turns around on the difficulty part as I thoroughly enjoyed gearing my d2 merc even in endgame
The fact that they aren't going to be used in co-op I also agree is a good thing. The game is said to be balanced for co-op play, removing them from this removes the over complication of trying to balance with several players and their followers. I thought the followers would be a good balance mechanism for when you don't have the other players to co-op with? When you remove the other players from a game balanced for co-op this balance is broken anyway. Seems like a lost opportunity to me..
Though I can see both sides of this argument, I still don't think it needs to be so polarized.
If nothing else I hope they fix this with expansions as the system looked like a lot of fun until i found out I could only use it at the start...
Now a lot of people may see this as catering to the casuals, but I think that's the way it should be. Nightmare and above should be harder, and about your character, without followers as much. It should also require more team work in multiplayer and less about your follower like in D2.
I don't want people depending on their follower templar to tank things for them when my barbarian could easily do it. With the battles being more strategic and fewer people per game we need to work together and depend on each other more in multiplayer.
Hoping it will make for a better multiplayer and community experience overall.
Sorry, I was wrong about the gold cost. Bashiok said followers will have a respect cost, and I misread that as a revive cost. However, here is a direct quote from Bashiok about followers being one-shot in Nightmare and Hell, from the Official forums:
Official Blizzard Quote:
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.
Also, it seems no matter how good the gear you have on them, followers will not survive in higher difficulties. In another quote Bashiok even says Blizzard will ensure followers never become viable at endgame:
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.
If followers just provided more story and lore, I don't think people would complain as much. The fact that they gave followers some customization options (gear and skill slots) and then shortly later take followers away from you is what gets people angry.
Well said. Come on guys blizzard is really trying to make Diablo 3 a badass game and it will be. Don't be disappointed with followers. It will be awesome w/o them esp. past normal and in co-op. I will never replace my friends to an AI. Maybe in year 3000 where AI is almost as smart as human, lol. Anyway, let's all just wait for the next system and beta!
To me, the point is that if Nightmare and Hell are harder and more about teamwork - what about when you have no team? The game is balanced for team play, and that is how I want to play the game most of the time, but surely some people want to play by themselves sometimes?
Using the followers for this seems like a perfect opportunity and its not competing with co-op play because they can't be involved when people are playing together. Co-op will still be the preferred choice and letting your barbarian or your follower take damage will not be a choice you need make.
This way it could still be about your character AND about team work - even when playing by yourself.
Don't get me wrong - I like the followers. If they stay how they are that's fine by me :-)
It just seems that there is plenty of wiggle room without making them essential OR useless.
I imagine their exact reasoning behind disallowing them after nightmare and hell may have something to do with gold find and magic find? Having a scoundrel with +% gold find in Hell could allow for max gold running and in the end mess with the auction house? Sure they could remove that skill I guess. Who knows what the real reason is, I guess we'll have to wait to find out.
I think it also is a little about if you enjoy playing with another class, such as someone tanking for you, they want you to go online and play there with people.
I guess I just figured the game is already balanced for co-op. Jay Wilson has said a few times that if you play single player you are essentially playing a co-op game alone.
I sort of wish depending on which follower you took to the end it would have some small effect or something. Like just mentioning them in the story ending. Having them die in the end of Normal would be a good way to not have to include them in further acts if that's really the way they want to go with it. The templar could die in battle, the enchantress become possessed, and the scoundrel gathered his loot and ran away.
I'm a sucker for small tie ins.
How will the game be balanced around the followers?
The followers won't be a massive part of game balance. They're there to make the single-player, normal difficulty experience feel more cooperative and to aid in enhancing the story. These factors lose some importance in multiplayer and in the higher difficulty settings of the game, and as such, the followers won't be as relevant there.
So I'm a little unclear after all the things I've read about followers are they in multiplayer at all and what does it mean their not as important in higher difficulties? Being some one that only ever had 1 character that could do hell in all my time of playing D2 (no friends to play with ) I see followers as a sign to me that I might not get left behind after nightmare.
As far as their importance in higher difficulties they've made it clear they want them to become less and less useful the further we go, but to what extent we don't know yet. Hopefully some clarification on that soon.
In any case I'm sure Hell won't be as unforgiving this time around in the immunities sense. That was my main beef with it. "I'm a fire/ice sorc. Oh hey cool a unique that's immune to fire AND ice. Awesome."
Even though its not about followers, immunities won't be in D3. There will probably still be high-resist monsters though. And without trees characters can be considerably more varied in terms of the kinds of damage they deal.
This system has been tested and iterated and retested by hundreds of people for thousands of hours already, before Alpha even started. Experienced Designers have been retooling and testing it and changing it again until it was damn near perfect, then improving it more. This is their job, and many of them have been doing it since before you put your grubby paws on Warcraft One.
To second guess them, without having even played the game, is criminally stupid.
If you wanted to keep your Follower until later in the game, that's different. Personal taste is one thing.
If you're making judgments about the specific workings of a system you haven't used created by people who thought of every single thing you have already (and more) years ago, that's another thing entirely.
Believe it or not, playing video games does not a Game Designer make.
That was one the problems I had. The other is the gear gap from nm to hell always seemed a bit wide to me. So I would have gear to run nm with only a death here and there due to the annoying things (you know zealadin meats iron maiden/ anything meats lower resist so on....) But I would zeal the crap out of act 1 mobs and take all die and alot of deaths just to get to and kill andy. Stupid poison damage. -.-
I also love how Templars can have heal.
OK there are a few problems I have with some things your saying here.....
#1 to call people of the forum having an intelligent conversation/debate (a key purpose for forum to exist) is as you to eloquently put it "criminally stupid"
#2 To the point of being tested and retested I've been apart of a few various betas and things of that nature. And I'll say this now they might have done this a lot for many games BUT!!!!! that doesn't make them immune to getting something wrong or miss judging how people think. I'll concede that they listen to the community well but at the same time they're doing their best to please everyone. This has been the down fall of many people and things.
#3 This goes back to the top. We know they're guesses and lacking information for solid ideas on the matters but in the end this is about us doing something at the very least semi-productive with our time till release. Then we can talk about what actually is all you like.
Great I forgot what I wanted to actauly talk about now that I'm at the end of my rant.... *sigh*
On the matter of the Blizzard post here, I don't mind you don't want us to use them later so you can maintain the co-op game. That's fair we're all good there. But, at the same time someone wants to try their best to make it work for them to get use out of some passive or skill and your response is they'll have to go through us first..... yea thats just like WTF why all the hate for the players all the sudden.
Also I have to agree with Thander's last statement. If your just going to take them away anyway then just give us a follower more like the quest related ones they've talked about. This covers the story with no problem without you doing something like; of look a shinny see how it sparkles and shines in the sun, amazing isn't it. (10 seconds later) Well, that's all you get you won't be seeing this nice thing again, bye. i.e. how to induce rage.
By the way, sorry about how negative my posts seem to be today and lengthy....
No, it's not really a "punishment" since you're not losing anything you wouldn't have normally. You're just not being helped any more. I argue there is a difference in that.
Apparently they think they've done the right thing and, hey, it's their game to do what they want with. We wouldn't even have the joy of talking about it if it wasn't for Blizzard. Overall they're making great decisions, even if they missed the mark on this one (in my opinion). My only issue with the system is it seems sub-par compared to D2's merc system and I'm a bit surprised at that.
I still can't wait until this game comes out so I can see how little sleep the human brain can work on. Between a new baby, a 2 year old, a tired wife, work and d3 I should get no more then 2-3 minutes of solid sleep a night.
Wait, did you just slip a yoda-ish saying in there at the end? lol.
I have to point out one issue on your statement above. You don't have to be knowledgeable about how a system is implemented to be knowledgeable on how it should work. I buy a car and I might not know *how* it works, but I know that when I push the gas pedal it should go, the break pedal and it should stop, the wheel makes it turn, etc.
The same applies to most things in life. The way things work is far more complicated then the interfaces that are used to control them. So to assume that we (we being a broad term for those of us who are discussing the follower's system) know nothing of how the system should or could work is pretty bold.
Oh, and believe it or not, being an avid gamer is a requirement for a lot of game development positions for a reason.