With Diablo III, many new systems have been put into place to keep the action in ARPG, Waypoint locations have been significantly increased to help minimize any walk time between areas and towns when you needed a quick portal. Checkpoints were also added for a player to respawn at after death. Along with these quick ways of transportation, Health Globes were also added, removing the necessity to constantly go to town to restock on potions. With these three mechanics in place, it appeared as though most of the town portal's uses were covered without any of the disadvantages they caused. However, it appears through Blizzard's constant iteration process, it seems like this still is not enough for the loot heavy, quick-pace game that is Diablo.
Official Blizzard Quote:
We've always been trying to see if we can create a better system than town portals, making waypoints the main travel back to town mechanic. But, it's looking like it's just simply more fun and a quality-of-life-nicety to be able to jump back to town from anywhere even if waypoints are all over the place. Plus it's not really that hard to avoid the few pitfalls that TPs in Diablo II had.
Also I never said you can just use them anywhere anytime as much as you want.
On a related note, it was also mentioned, by a user, about the ability to quickly join others without town portals. In Diablo II, any person joining a game could instantly join their friends in the fight by one of the players opening a portal for them. Without this system, even the closely placed waypoints still seemed to be too much of a hassle for players to go through. In Diablo III, players will still be able to group up instantly when wanting to join the fight.
Official Blizzard Quote:
There is actually a mechanic that allows you to jump from town (one-way) to any other player in the game.
The last bit of news we got included just one more piece of the puzzle that town portals have created. With their official removal, Blizzard also added a new item to the game. The scroll of wealth was an item a player could carry around in their inventory. This scroll could be used on an item and give the player gold in exchange. This helped alleviate the need for players to go back to town to dump off loot without missing out on any potential gold. However, it seems that this item was short lived.
Official Blizzard Quote:
We haven't had those for a while, although we do have another mechanic to sell items while out and about.
With all of these changes still going, it is clear to see that the Diablo III team is still hard at work perfecting the game. However, do not let this trick you into thinking that our coveted Diablo III will never be released or that it is doomed to continuous push-backs. Blizzard always continues progress on their games up until release and then after.
As far as TP's, I was happy to see them go. If any of you ever played Hell Unleashed (From Soulmancer), TP's were removed and it created a whole new level of combat. It actually created a challenge and there was no escaping. However, this might be problematic for all the new or casual players, but I still think it adds to the game. But, as long as they create a way to sell items while out of town, that takes care of about 90% of the reasons I used TP's in D2 (other than buying back my merc who just got pwned by iron maiden)...
Lets just hope its not something that can be exploited...
So in a few words. We will only go back to town to hand out quests? Or are there new things to remplace the pot and selling trips back to town? I mean we now know we wont go back to sell but what about buying and improving our crafters?
If you are talking about replacing potions, yes, they have replaced potions with health globes that will drop randomly from monsters as you kill them; thus, preventing the need to go back to town to stock up...
They did say in the post that there will still be a way to sell items along the way without having to go back to town, so we will just have to see what that is...
So really, the only reason to go back to town is to get quests, buy items, upgrade/trade with crafters, etc....
I wouldn't be so sure about that after the news on TPs.
Unfortunately without some restrictions, this is basically the same mechanic.
After reading Bashiok's post, here's how I see portals being implemented: one way trip to town, only castable out of combat.
Yes he mentioned that later in his post, but what I'm saying is it will be one-way to town if you're playing solo, and if you are playing co-op your friends can offer you a one-way back.
I think d3 was being designed for more advanced players, and now management is dialing that back and making it more casual-friendly. Not that much more to it.
I would accept walking back from the waypoint as a resonable penalty for escaping or dying in a fight. Add respawns to that too if they want. If you have the ability to return right where you left off fully replenished and restocked with potions doesn't that trivialize the encounter?
If you still able to rush some low lvl through act 1 with TP to the '' main '' waypoint then you kill the game IMO. When they annonced that they removed the TP, that kind of rush wasn't possible, but now they open a door to exploit the TP again depending of the restrictions.
I agree with you exactly, I was thinking of possibly a hearthstone type deal or a spell.
If you are worried about rushing, blizzard should make some sort of exp restrictions.
Example: If a level 45 groups with a level 15, don't let the 15 get exp unless he is responsible for the majority of the damage on the kill.
This is just an example and might not work but I don't think that town portals should be responsible for fixing rushing.
Potions I feel are a slow regeneration mechanic that is useful in between battles, but too slow for when in the middle of a battle. In combat healing will be done by Orbs. That just seems like how it will work as of right now.
TP's are an interesting mechanic to toy with though. It seems to me that the major problem was that people would high-tail out of battle if it wasn't going well. to solve this they could make you face the boss (either by letting it chase you or confining you to the arena) and then have the TP be a channeled action. It does not need to be interrupted, although that was a good idea. :Thumbs Up: Imagine channeling a spell while fighting Durial. If you are not doing well already you will die before you make it home! This would certainly prevent people from escaping dire situations weather it was a boss battle or just a normal mob. Notably, this does not require a cool-down or arbitrary location restrictions. Add the 'only the caster' idea and it sounds like a great solution.
As for skipping content, I get the impression that they don't like it, but they are not fundamentally against it either. The way to reduce content skipping that I think they will go for is making the content both interesting and rewarding. Remember Bash posted that there was already a separate mechanic for joining allies in the field one-way so, even without TP's, rushing is possible.
If waypoints are close by I may try to run for it but otherwise what shall I do?
Maybe if you use TP you won't be able to heal yourself and not stock on potions, just sell&repair.