Diablo III Ideas

[Encore]

Ok iI see waaaay to many things on classes and other stuff, not anything really on story. Am I the only one who's been bored enought to read the interesting stories inside the books? It says there are SEVEN Evils in all, but, oh, what's this? We've only killed 5, you say? Maybe Belial, Lord of Lies, and Azmodan, Lord of Sin can set the evils free again.

[Attika]

Some of the things I'd like to see in Diablo 3:

#1.) Individualize/personalize the spells/skills. When you read another book or go up another character level and "improve" an existing spell (like, say Fireball), YOU get to choose how you'll improve it. Say, you can "improve" your spells so that it does more max damage, does more min damage, costs less mana to cast, or casts faster, but you can only improve ONE of those aspects each time! Thus you might have a sorceror who's a "gunfighter" -- fast on the draw but not doing incredible damage -- or another who can do great damage but who's cast time is long or spell speed is slow -- or yet another who does moderate damage and casts moderately fast, but whose spells cost very little mana. For weapon's skills, something along the same thing too.

#2.) Let there be single player content, but how about some timed or either/or quests. Suppose BOTH Adria and Griswold were captured and led away to be sacrificed, and you could only save ONE; or perhaps you had a time constraint under which you'd be able to save both. Tie in quest rewards taking into account the level of the character that completed it. The lower the level character that succeeded, the higher the reward.

#3.) Some way to _improve_ items already in your possession, like raising an Obsidian amulet from resist all 33% to resist all 34%. A traveling craftsman or something, who'll do it not for money but in exchange for an item of similar/better qlevel? Or in exchange for TWO items of similar/better qlevel.

#4.) How about a weapon or armor that each character gets at the beginning of th game, and each time you level that item gets a free "imbue" -- very minor -- but which YOU get to choose from a list that would include all the prefixes and suffixes up to clevel +2 in qlevel? So a warrior might start out with a mere short sword, but when he lups to clevel 2 he could make it a short sword "of quality" (qlevel 2), then when he reaches clevel 3 he could add "jagged" (qlevel 4), etc, etc. Then you could end up with some cool personalized weapons. If too strong, allow the "imbue" to take effect once every 5 clevels or so.

#5.) A pre-installed Mod maker. You know some of the best minds out there are your players, why not let them have the chance to design their own Mod, and Blizz then host those Mods on a Realm (server). That way "new content" could be continually added without the company itself having to lift a finger.

Att

[Whiggles]

First of all, something I'd like to see is a return to the more confined scope of the original DIABLO. What I really liked about that game was the claustrophobic atmosphere, the gothic style, the feeling that you were progressing in a very definite direction: deeper and deeper into the earth. DIABLO II, by contrast, is more of a globe-trotting adventure, and as a result of this they not only blew the atmosphere but also resulted in throwing every ingredient they could think of into the cooking pot. Quite simply, there was no structure or consistency in the world. They went from the demons of the original to the spear-wielding humanoid cats of Act II. It stopped resembling a gothic horror and came to look more like an amusement park.

The end of the DIABLO II Expansion sets up a wealth of possibilities. No-one, not even Cain, Tyrael and the like, know what will happen now that the Worldstone has been destroyed. So I say keep it that way. Have players enter a new world unsure of what's what, whether or not the Prime Evils are still out and about. Reveal the story bit by bit in the game, with players starting out unsure of their goals and getting a bigger picture of the world as they go along.

Personally, I really like the idea someone suggested of allowing players to customize which aspects of their skills they want to upgrade. For example, you could choose between increasing damage, speed, cool-down time (if applicable), mana cost, etc. I also think that there should be trade-offs. Ensure that choosing one path hurts your abilities in another. For example, you might have to sacrifice magic ability in order to improve strength. This would go some way towards ensuring that one build doesn't end up being overpowered, because there would be no "best of" that could excel at everything.

Some people have been suggesting the addition of more classes and customizability. Personally, I would like to see a move in the opposite direction, even to the extent of selecting pre-determined characters, with names, back-stories, specific abilities, etc., instead of a broad class archetype. The way I see it, it's much easier to invest in the storyline of a character with a specific past than it is to care about a random nameless adventurer who fits into a broad role of "Sorcerer", "Warrior", etc. Have the characters integrate more personally into the game's storyline. Perhaps certain NPCs will have had run-ins with a character in the past and will react differently to them. It would be pretty neat to have, for example, the people of a town greet one character as a hero and completely shun another. (As you can probably guess, I'm thinking more about the single player game with these character-based elements. How this would translate into the multiplayer arena is anyone's guess.)

Finally, I would like to see a return to the random level generation of DIABLO, rather than the "block generation" of DIABLO II. In DIABLO, each game was different, because the block sizes were small enough that there was a near-infinite number of possible layouts. In DIABLO II, aside from the increase in fixed levels, the "brushes" used in the random levels were simply too large, meaning that whole rooms or series of rooms would show up again and again with little new content except perhaps the corridors connecting them.

[Bob]

  By doing this, he has pretty much knocked down the only thing keeping the normal and paranormal worlds from merging. That was the gist I got from it, anyway.

Ah, then D3 has already been released, it's just the D stands for Doom

With it now gone, what is there stopping the battle of heaven and hell from COMPLETELY spilling over into Earth?  I'm not talking about your basic siege of Arreat, but more along the lines of legions of demons doing battles with legions of angels.  Humans of all cultures battling along side, and against them.

sounds massive and fun (so long as you can keep idiots who are just there to create trouble out). Any chance of having some sort of an RTS element with a vague sort of a rank/instructions/rewards system (obviously, we don't want an orders system, people don't go to play a game to get bossed around by some modem jockey on the other side of the world) but I'd love to be able to play alongside 20 or 30 people in an organised group in a large battle against intelligent foes (people could choose to play as good or evil and fight each other, but there might be problems with level differences which would need ironing out)

If they were to make a Diablo 3, it would have to be epic.  The storyline would have to blow that of the other two out of the water. 

agreed, they could never go back to the small scale plot of D1, I liked it then and it was good for the game, but they've let the cat out the bag now and it won't go back in. That said, I've never seen a wide plot pulled off sucessfully.


-Bob

[Grul]

I would build up the story something like this:

"The lands have been calm since Diablo and his two brothers were slain, but evil forces have been getting stronger and stronger through the time and they have began rising from hell to wreak havoc once again. (as someone said Belial and Azmodan were still 'alive' so there we have something concrete to build the story around) We must embark on a journey to destroy the root of the evil forces" etc. etc. etc.

And the big change from Diablo II would be that the time had passed... A long time. Diablo III would play in a completely new setting. The world would be in a time much like the one we all live in, except there has been big problems with the forces of hell and chaos is spreading throughout the lands. If anyone played Fallout or Anarchy online that's the kind of feeling I would try to achieve if I got to choose.

The government has been taking things too lightly and the people are taking things in their own hands. Soon the world has become a world where every man fights for his own survival. A world where you would combine metal scraps into armor parts and make homemade guns out of parts from the local junkyard. However, the world can't be in this state forever, since the evil forces are getting stronger and stronger all the time so someone has to stop them. Guess who that one will be? :)

Of course the fine arts of magic wouldn't be forgotten so a sorceress (or perhaps a sorcerer this time) would be an available class.

There could also be some kind of Mercenary who has different gun masteries. One for small weapons such as pistols with a fast attack speed and a relatively low damage, another could be rifles which would be pretty much the opposite. "Gunslinging" would be a nice skill tree that would contain skills like Rifle Mastery and Double Shot. Another skill tree that could be available would be "explosives" which could contain setting up traps or just throwing grenades at the enemies.

Another class could be a hitman who would be able to specialize in rifles and/or daggers. This class would be a little more sneaky if you like it. Skill trees would be made up so that one was for ranged assassination, one for sneaking/dagger skills and then maybe something similar to the amazon's Passive & Magic tree.

Of course we need a full on melee class too. Why not an Enforcer (courtesy of Anarchy Online) that, not unlike the barbarian we all know, can specialize in different weapons and skills according. This guy's skill trees would be built up pretty much like the barbarian's with a skill tree for passive skills, one tree for combat skills and a third tree that would fill out what's left out in the other trees.

The coolest class in my opinion would be the Avenger. If anyone's seen the anime Trigun (particularly the character Nicholas D Wolfwood) you will know what I'm talking about. A man sent from the heaven with one goal, to bring the bad guys to justice using his oversized gun :) Blasting off with skills like Holy Shot this character would be pretty much like the paladin from Diablo II, but much cooler :) He would call the forces of above and make Light Novas, Undead Judgement etc. etc. His main weapon would be his gun.

I know the probabilities for all this to happen are slim, but you can always hope. :) If anyone's got some more ideas on this I'm all ears.

(Didn't mean for it to be this long, but the ideas kept me busy)

[Brother Laz]

And the big change from Diablo II would be that the time had passed... A long time. Diablo III would play in a completely new setting. The world would be in a time much like the one we all live in [...]

Actually, the original Diablo 2 team is working on exactly that:
Hellgate: London
......
THE Flagship Studios

[Grul]

Actually, the original Diablo 2 team is working on exactly that:
Hellgate: London
......
THE Flagship Studios
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No way! :D That's just bloody brilliant :) (my idea I mean)

Edit: Yuck, it's a first person shooter :( I prefer the Diablo engine. Oh well, it may turn out to be good anyway...

[Brother Laz]

It's not a shooter - it uses RPG concepts and twitch reflexes aren't needed.

It's not first person - you can switch between first and third person view at will.

:)

[Rhydderch Hael]

Okay, I'll readily admit that the only reason I'm re-visiting the D2 forum and popping into this thread is because of a tangential inspiration. Something outside of Diablo set me to this chain of reasoning.

If there is a new game, they should include swordfighting.

:blink: "Swordfighting?" you might ask. "Have you played the game? See those huge knife thingys the Paladins and Barbarians and Assassins are holding?"


The truth is, what you experience in the game isn't swordfighting. It's the animation sequence for a close-ranged attack mapped in front of the character. And what do they do in that animation? Swing the sword, bring the sword back to the starting position, and swing the sword again.

I'm a novice in casual study of 14th-15th German longsword technique, but even an inexperienced book-rookie such as I can tell you that that above-described method would get you killed in an actual swordfight.

A sword stroke is the energetic transition from one guard position from another. And in refined technique, the position your sword ends up in after the stroke (whether you hit the target, bind swords with the enemy, or miss him outright) is always going to be a position from which you can initiate a new, different attack. No resets in mid-fight, no need to find a new guard position to initiate the new attack— you'e already there, baby.

In the Liechtennauer swordfighting tradition, I can start out in the high guard of a right Vom Tag (sword in a batter's stance) and execute a Zornhau (full-strength stroke traveling diagonally down to my left side). If I miss (or slice right through Rakanishu's ponytail) I end up with my sword low and near my left leg— the left Nebenhut guard position. The left Nebehut is a good starting position for an Unterhau: an undercutting stroke traveling back up the path my sword blade took on the way down. But this time I cannot recover the blade back in the right Vom Tag guard— too slow. It's faster and smoother to recover an Unterhau in the right Ochs guard: the hilt beside my head with the blade pointed forward in a menacing position aimed at my enemy's head. What can I do then? A Zwerchhau, essentially whirling the blade counter-clockwise over my head before bringing it around in a high sideways attack against my enemy's head, recovering the stroke in a left Ochs guard. Or, if I didn't want a Zwerchhau, I stab at the sucker from the Ochs or extending into the Langenort: the long-point guard (I skewer the guy).

I didn't need to go back to the batting stance of the Vom Tag in order to repeat my attack, and if I had tried, that would have taken enough time for the other guy to attack with virtual impunity.

What you see happening in Diablo (or much of any other swords-and-sorcery game) is unfaithful to true swordfighting techniques. Now, it is also a matter of game mechanics— skill/difficulty balancing and timing issues. But, what may be seen as a technical shortcoming may be exploited by designers to become a game feature.

The underlying concept behind increasing damage potential (and increasing stat requirements) of weaponry in the game is to explain how a maturing character becomes deadlier as time and experience build on. A veteran character has access to damages and abilities that a brand-new character is denied.

Yet in animation mechanics, the novice and veteran characters "fight" the same way— in the same motions and probably at the same speed. The same clumsy motion, the same pre-determined speed.

Want a game with swordfighting in it? Give the novice character those clumsy, wasteful moves. Have him re-set himself into the same stance every time he attacks. Make him look like a rookie swordfighter. But as he levels up and accesses higher skill levels and items, alter the mechanics. Give him "special" moves as he matures. A thrust that comes immediately after a stroke, thus ramping in a little extra attack. Have him recover into a good guard that temporarily blocks an attack for a second after the stroke. Or when you give him an Increased Attack Speed weapon, have him start his next attack immediately after recovering from making his first attack. It would still be "point and click" attacking, but the incidental improvements in the animation are what contributes to the increased fighting potential of a matured character.

Have it so that the game features swordfighting characters who not only do more damage as they level up— they actually look and act like they're improving in swordfighting skill. Make it so that a rookie looks like a rookie, but a veteran looks really, really cool.

Given the future of game-making in 3D rendering and motion-capture animation, this would be feasible with current and future programming.

[Hammerskjold]

>Have it so that the game features swordfighting characters who not only do more damage as they level up— they actually look and act like they're improving in swordfighting skill. Make it so that a rookie looks like a rookie, but a veteran looks really, really cool.

>Given the future of game-making in 3D rendering and motion-capture animation, this would be feasible with current and future programming.

I don't doubt the technical ability is there, but like you said, a lot of it rests on the creativity of the designers. At the moment, I think the closest CRPG I remember that can even come close to what you're talking about is Fallout. At least the 'act' part. There probably is some others, but it escapes my sieve-like memory right now.

But yes, it would be a refreshing change to play a Diablo like game where the measure of a character's level is not the super duper shiny weapon in their hands, but how well they use it. eg: a rookie can still blunder even with Excalibur+1, whereas the vet can kill with a spork. Having said that, some of the appeal of Diablo is that treasure hunt. If there is a game that can manage to balance both, I'll happily fork over my cash. Because there needs to be a video game where I can wield a spork with deadly result dammit.