DiabloFans

Resistance is futile!

Bashiok mentioned were are in for a bit of PUNishment from our boy Lyndon.

I'm keen to hear your best shots (if you'll forgive the pun). A few for starters:

"I got kicked out of the thieves guild because I've given up stealing - I'm on the straight and arrow"

"Oh! a wizard... I hear your looking for staff"

"I'm a mana my word!"

"I quiver with anticipation"

"Want some gum? its spear-mint"

"Do you need help? I'm getting sick of baaling you out"

It's funny when people get angry or upset in game discussion forums

Yeah it's interesting.. It's bound to be something to do with the gold-find type abilities I recon. Im sure they'll do the right thing.

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.

Quote from Daemaro

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.

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.

Quote from Jackzor

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.

Yeah I do agree. But in saying that I don't think that mercs were essential in D2, though they were helpful.

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.

Quote from DieHardDiabloFan

They should just remove the magic find/gold find skills followers have and make them endgame-viable.

Yeah, they could have the best of both worlds if they did that. Surely the MF & GF skills aren't essential to making them good for new players in normal difficulty. I like how they wont be used on co-op but I dont see why they feel they have to make them crap in the late game on to make them useful early on? its not binary..

I think they look great. Skill system seems just as straightforward as it should be. It makes absolute sense to me that they should leave when co-op players come along - though I hope they leave when people get in close proximity or join your party rather than just when they join the game.

I am hoping that the scale from useful to unusable is a little more gradual than it has been made out to be so far.

They're also tuned so that they become very weak starting in Nightmare, and then are completely unusable in Hell.

Singleplayer is singleplayer, and having a follower to help you definitely isn't less useful when the difficulty is harder - if anything I would have thought you'd need them more.

Moderately weak in Nightmare, weak but usable starting in Hell and then unusable by the end of Hell?

In saying that, I have never played the game and they have played it millions of times - I'm pretty sure they know what they're doing.

Thanks guys! Pumped about the beta. If I don't get to play it myself I will at least get to see tonnes of new gameplay footage from Force and the like.

Tip top podcast as ever - thanks!

What's this about the necromancer being in one of the blizzcon demos? Got any more details for me about that?

Thanks homies

Quote from ansl

The only problem I had with them in DII, was that everyone would use Aura mercs from A2.

Yeah I feel the same. Seems like they are going to balance them a bit better and for more builds, which would be nice. I'm generally in favor of mercenaries though.

Thanks for the update :-) Surprised by how aggressively underwhelmed some people can be about it. What ever happened to good old fashion ambivalence?

Phew! I could see my self feeling disappointed when another company came up with diablo. As soon as they labeled it "Blizzard North" I was relieved. Nice.

Sweet - It's decided. They're gonna be so happy when they find out.