The evolution of friendly fire

[Kylearan]

Hi,

playing the D3 beta for me brought back a lot of memories from D1, which is a good thing; especially the dark atmosphere and the event system comes to mind. But there's one other feature in D3 that reminds me of D1, but in a twisted, malformed way: Friendly fire.

Remember how D1 had friendly fire? Together with the tile-based, slower combat system it made for a really fun tactical game which I thoroughly enjoyed. I really disliked how D2 removed friendly fire altogether, although I can see the reasoning behind it. The faster, tile-less combat, the higher number of players and monsters and the higher amount of AoE spells probably made it unusable and unfun in practice. Still, I weeped.

Now in the D3 beta, I noticed friendly fire is back - although in a really unexpected way: Not for the players, but for the monsters! If you kill a grotesque for example, that fat monster that explodes into eels, the explosion damages monsters around it, too. Which in my last game created a chain of exploisons when a mob of elite (is this the correct terminology? A mob of "blue") grotesques attacked me, and killing the first resulted in killing the others which in turn resulted in killing the eels which then resulted in the "Massacre!" message. Which was kind of funny, but also kind of silly.

So the evolution of friendly fire in the Diablo series goes from friendly fire suffered by the players in D1, to no friendly fire in D2, to friendly fire suffered by the monsters in D3...huh, not sure what Blizzard's reasoning is here.

-Kylearan

[Tal]

Now in the D3 beta, I noticed friendly fire is back - although in a really unexpected way: Not for the players, but for the monsters!

-Kylearan

Whew - I'm glad for that. I didn't want Treesh yelling at me to get outta the way so she could fire again.

[Kevin]

It's been awhile since I've poked at the D3 beta but I do seem to recall thinking I had seen something like that happening.

I did like friendly fire in D1 too, the only issue was the massive desync problems that resulted in a lot of "Ow ow ow ow ow ow!" comments because of arrows hitting me in the back because I'm in a different tile on the host machine than I am on my machine, or the rogue or sorc was in a different tile than they thought, so the fire angles were wrong for what the host thought and you would be pelting someone by mistake. Saying "Ow ow ow ow ow ow!" out loud was the proper response as it was funny and we all knew what was going. So someone would crane their neck to see the host machines screen to figure out where it thought they were so they could adjust.

Yes I played it a lot on LAN not so much on Battle.net

[Ruvanal]

It's been awhile since I've poked at the D3 beta but I do seem to recall thinking I had seen something like that happening.

I did like friendly fire in D1 too, the only issue was the massive desync problems that resulted in a lot of "Ow ow ow ow ow ow!" comments because of arrows hitting me in the back because I'm in a different tile on the host machine than I am on my machine, or the rogue or sorc was in a different tile than they thought, so the fire angles were wrong for what the host thought and you would be pelting someone by mistake. Saying "Ow ow ow ow ow ow!" out loud was the proper response as it was funny and we all knew what was going. So someone would crane their neck to see the host machines screen to figure out where it thought they were so they could adjust.

Yes I played it a lot on LAN not so much on Battle.net

The desync on battle net was usually a lot worse than it would be on a LAN game. Sometimes to the point that a PK could get in screen range and kill you before your client even would show them on the mini map.

To Kylearan: this type of problem and desire to have some non-single target effects (circle areas, cones, broad swaths, etc.) to broaden the varieties of skills in use, is why most online games like the Diablo series and MMOs have had to resort to no friendly fire method of play. The damage you see the monster doing in D3 is part of their push to make more of a dynamic environment interaction. Consider the achievment for killing a certain number of mobs using the dungeon terrain (chandeliers or propped up weak wall areas are the more noticeable).

[FireIceTalon]

Removing friendly fire in D3 was almost certainly a necessity, because so many of the skills have area dmg, which would make co-op play pretty crappy if friendly fire remained. And, it eliminates malicious hunting and PK'ing. I know we all enjoyed doing this at one time or another, but this is mostly a favorite thing to do of younger gamers. I'm sure many people were sick of playing HC D2 and being hostiled by someone only to lose all their hardwork, or be MK'd in D1 by some jackass (though if you were a cheater, you kind of deserved it).

If you want to beat eachothers brains in, take it to the PvP realm I say, which I will most certainly be doing once it is implemented.

[Treesh]

Now in the D3 beta, I noticed friendly fire is back - although in a really unexpected way: Not for the players, but for the monsters!

-Kylearan

Whew - I'm glad for that. I didn't want Treesh yelling at me to get outta the way so she could fire again.

Nah, I'd just fire anyway and when you complain about getting hurt, tell you that you should have just moved when you first noticed getting hurt.

[Lissa]

Now in the D3 beta, I noticed friendly fire is back - although in a really unexpected way: Not for the players, but for the monsters!

-Kylearan

Whew - I'm glad for that. I didn't want Treesh yelling at me to get outta the way so she could fire again.

Nah, I'd just fire anyway and when you complain about getting hurt, tell you that you should have just moved when you first noticed getting hurt.

For those that were part of AoH or remember it, I once pissed off Grimm (Warrior in AoH) because he was telekilling and we were done on 15, I saw the light source from one of Laz's wenches and opened up. Well, Grimm saw said lightsource as well and had been off on a tile I couldn't see. Since I was playing around with a Needler at the time (this was just after they fixed speed on bows), he teleported right into the stream...needless to say...there was a lot of gear lying on the ground before he could tell me to stop shooting... (Xi might remember that one)

[Kylearan]

Hi,

The damage you see the monster doing in D3 is part of their push to make more of a dynamic environment interaction. Consider the achievment for killing a certain number of mobs using the dungeon terrain (chandeliers or propped up weak wall areas are the more noticeable).

The general idea of a more dynamic environment is good, and seen in this light I like the grotesque explosion affecting nearby monsters a bit better. I only hope the later variations on chandeliers and weak walls are more than just "Please press this button to kill the three monsters patiently waiting for this over there".

-Kylearan