First Question is regarding bosses resetting, In D2 they didn't, and you could continue to charge them and die repeatedly and slowly beat them down. Will this change in D3?

Also, I was watching some Q&A sessions from a Blizzard WWI and one of the questions was how does D3 deal with loot distribution. The response was that each player will get the same loot, but wont this flood the market and kill the economy?

Something unrelated, an idea I had that I guess could be considered a gold sink but its something people would want to invest their money into. Allow players to purchase maps from NPC for dungeons and area's, these maps would only be of use for the particular game your in. This would also help cut down on people using cheats. Seeing as how Diablo's world is never the same due to the randomized dungeons and zones, a map that you could simply discover areas like that of WoW's wouldn't work.

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Q u o t e:
First Question is regarding bosses resetting, In D2 they didn't, and you could continue to charge them and die repeatedly and slowly beat them down. Will this change in D3?

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With what we know about D3's death system, you are able to spam bosses easier. When you die you simply respawn at the nearest checkpoint (be that a waypoint or dungeon entrance) with all your weapons and items, but have only 10% of your life - which regenerates. You can use waypoints to teleport you directly to a teammate (if you are playing with any).

So knowing this I can tell you spamming bosses will be a lot easier as you: do not have to start back at the town; you do not need to collect your items from your corpse; and you can get back to the fight in a matter of seconds.

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Q u o t e:

Also, I was watching some Q&A sessions from a Blizzard WWI and one of the questions was how does D3 deal with loot distribution. The response was that each player will get the same loot, but wont this flood the market and kill the economy?

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They don't get the exact same thing, they just all get their own drops, which are an equal amount between all participating players.

So if there are 3 players, a monster that would normal drop 1 item (on single player) will drop 3 different items, but each player can only see 1 item. By doing this them aim to increase players trading between themselves after a dungeon raid.

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Something unrelated, an idea I had that I guess could be considered a gold sink but its something people would want to invest their money into. Allow players to purchase maps from NPC for dungeons and area's, these maps would only be of use for the particular game your in. This would also help cut down on people using cheats. Seeing as how Diablo's world is never the same due to the randomized dungeons and zones, a map that you could simply discover areas like that of WoW's wouldn't work.

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A problem with this is the dungeon changes every time you play the game meaning you would have to buy a new map every time you wanted to go to that area - meaning people wouldn't bother buying them unless they were doing a rush for something, and Blizzard are trying to reduce rushes.

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Q u o t e:

A problem with this is the dungeon changes every time you play the game meaning you would have to buy a new map every time you wanted to go to that area - meaning people wouldn't bother buying them unless they were doing a rush for something, and Blizzard are trying to reduce rushes.

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That's the idea, it would help pull gold out of the economy and those who don't like to roam around aimlessly looking for things wouldn't be so quick to download a hack to do it for them. These maps could also be somewhat incomplete, missing key areas near bosses and whatnot.

Not sure I like the idea of checkpoints near a boss, seems like it'll make it to easy, and no recovering your corpse? Ugh.

I have a strong reason to believe the mobs when disengaged of combat for more than like 15 seconds or so, will regenerate their HPs to prevent that kind of spam abusing =o)

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Ok, easy mode on. FTL

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Certainly does seem like easy mode, but I guess it's hard to say till we actually get to play the game.

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We can guess at what issues may crop up, you can guess too, but they're all tweaks and changes for a later time.

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so everyone's guessing...but does this mean that when the time for tweaks comes, we will have a better understanding of the game mecanics? if player's imput is wanted, then it would make sence for the players to know how something works, so decent guesses can be made...
is there any chance this will happen? when the time comes, ofc...(talking about informing the players on the mecanics)

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Q u o t e:
It's possible the checkpoint system may affect boss encounters. If it turns out that checkpoints make kamikaze runs a viable technique to down a boss, there will probably have to be some measures to keep it in check.

I've also seen some alarmist concerns with it being used as a way to grief others, or take advantage of this system or that. They're certainly valid questions and concerns, but I suppose it's the conclusions that are being jumped to and the certainty in which they're held that's off-putting.

In general it seems some assume too much, that we're going to put in a feature, and then dust our hands off with a nod and say mission accomplished. No, if a feature makes the game too easy, too difficult, or more importantly doesn't make it fun and engaging, it's not going to go in as it is. That all takes a myriad of balance and playtesting to reach, and we're not there yet. We can guess at what issues may crop up, you can guess too, but they're all tweaks and changes for a later time. Bottom line - we're not going to put out a game we're not happy with.

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Bashiok, do you ever reply with anything outside the scale of "perfectly reasonable" to "great answer"? And I'm not talking about the car question then =P

Lots of people seem to see ghosts of problems in places they could only imagine them to be. Does this type of question sometime actually reveal a flaw you had in mind for a mechanic, or perhaps point out a possible drawback with somethign you had planned? Or are you only putting out wildfires in the forums? ;)

I would say...

Just do not make another "age of conan" mistake.


AOC used a very similar system. And it was horrible. The death penalty was tiny (their goal was also to "get the player back in the game as soon as possible"). Well, it worked.

At some points in the game, it was actually easier to just die in order to resurrect yourself somewhere, rather than walking. When fighting players or mobs, there was mostly no reason to do everything you can to stay alive (especially if it meant spending $$ for healing pots and the like). Kamikaze worked very well too.

So blizzard... please give death meaning.
If you don't want it to be a time penalty, then make it either a hefty financial penalty (assuming gold has value), or an experience penalty (until you get to max level... then this would have to be tweaked)

I remember there was an old game (Everquest?) that you can lose items on death... Please don't do that.

@Bashiok:

I understand and respect what you are saying, which is why I said "from what we know so far". So from what we have been told by Blizzard about the death system, a lot of people have decided it's not a system that we want. But that "hate" is only for the system we have been told is currently in the game.

I know it's not going to be the actual system used in the final product, and I'm glad.
I know there is hardcore, but I don't want to choose between "casual" and "hardcore", I want to play normal / medium core.

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Q u o t e:
It's possible the checkpoint system may affect boss encounters. If it turns out that checkpoints make kamikaze runs a viable technique to down a boss, there will probably have to be some measures to keep it in check.

I've also seen some alarmist concerns with it being used as a way to grief others, or take advantage of this system or that. They're certainly valid questions and concerns, but I suppose it's the conclusions that are being jumped to and the certainty in which they're held that's off-putting.

In general it seems some assume too much, that we're going to put in a feature, and then dust our hands off with a nod and say mission accomplished. No, if a feature makes the game too easy, too difficult, or more importantly doesn't make it fun and engaging, it's not going to go in as it is. That all takes a myriad of balance and playtesting to reach, and we're not there yet. We can guess at what issues may crop up, you can guess too, but they're all tweaks and changes for a later time. Bottom line - we're not going to put out a game we're not happy with.

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seems to me if you have 2 seperate parties in a game.. and 1 of the people in party A is hostle to party B while the other Party A guy is not and he goes and finds party B then the hostile A can port to them and mess up thier fun just a though

Uhh what kind of grieving would you be able to do with a checkpoint system that people have thought of? Im curious to know.

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Q u o t e:
Uhh what kind of grieving would you be able to do with a checkpoint system that people have thought of? Im curious to know.

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Specifically pertaining to this topic, someone could keep resetting a boss you're trying to kill.

h2m4u6g5

Ha make the player have to walk his way back as a ghost to a check point. *laughs at the people compairing it to wow*. Well either that or force the player to look at his or her mangled corpse for 1 or 2 mins before respawning (Which is very reasonible and not irriatating at all, in fact it is the contrast to the action so that you will want to be in the action when you are dead, increasing game longevity).

Ironicaly the best methods invovle following wow. An Abillity mute for example lasting for 2 mins. Res sickness anyone?

Any of these options are better than a automatic rez at 20% health. You need to not want to die. But at the same time irratating death pentaltys like gold or exp loss encourage rage quitting the game.

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Q u o t e:
Something unrelated, an idea I had that I guess could be considered a gold sink but its something people would want to invest their money into. Allow players to purchase maps from NPC for dungeons and area’s, these maps would only be of use for the particular game your in. This would also help cut down on people using cheats. Seeing as how Diablo's world is never the same due to the randomized dungeons and zones, a map that you could simply discover areas like that of WoW's wouldn't work.

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This is an excellent idea not only will this eliminate the use of map hack but defeat the annoyance of having to aimlessly run around the map only to find that the exit was right next to the entrance. Few things to add on to this could be...

1) You can only purchase these "maps" if you have previously cleared this dungeon or area.
2) The cost of the "map" increases as the level of the dungeon/area becomes higher.

Regarding the death system. The old D2 style was fine, as long as tp remain the same. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it…