Diablo 3 Developer Explains Health and Potion Changes

One of the new features in the upcoming Diablo 3 release is a change from the traditional potion-guzzling, inventory-clogging system of previous games to a new scheme in which monsters drop health orbs on the ground that refill your health when you touch them. Lead Designer Jay Wilson says the change makes for more varied gameplay and a more consistent way to scale difficulty. He told the Multiplayer blog: "When the player has similar downsides, it means we can make a lot more interesting monsters. We don't have to kill you to challenge you. We can make a monster that affects your mobility, we can make a monster that has different kinds of attacks that are dangerous to you and that you actually have to avoid. And so it makes the combat a lot more interesting."

Comments

Finally!

[fructose]

Thank goodness! No more 10 minute sessions of inventory management just to juggle your potions around.

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

Speak for yourself. That is what made the Diablo games different. In fact, the many hours that I spent playing Diablo and Diablo 2 gave me the inventory management experience to land me my dream job. You are currently reading the post of the Senior Late Night Inventory Management Specialist at Safeway Food and Drug, Whitefish, Montana.

Re:Finally!

[Moryath]

I miss the days when inventory management was a challenge, rather than being simplified away into nothingness. Developers need to learn that just because you can simplify a game mechanic into meaningless doesn't mean you should; do it too much and too often, and you get today's dumbed-down pile of shovelware games.

And yes, I had the same reaction to the dumbed-down "inventory" system of Deus Ex 2 as opposed to the elegant, tricky system in the original Deus Ex. When a RPG launcher takes up the same "space" in inventory as a handgun, something is off.

Re:Finally!

[Duradin]

I think there's a way for you to enjoy modern inventory systems.

Whenever you pick up an item, pause the game.
Then start up a game of tetris, easy for small items, increase difficulty as the item size increases.
Beat 99 levels in row. If you fail you do not have enough inventory space for the item.
Unpause the game. If you completed 99 levels, add the item to your inventory. Otherwise leave the item behind.

This way, the rest of us can actually play the game and you can still play inventory management.

Re:Finally!

[NoobixCube]

I've never been able to decide if I like a weight based inventory (like The Elder Scrolls) or a slot inventory (like Diablo) more. Both systems have their pros and cons, but I think a mix would be best. Sometimes really small things can be very heavy, while large things can be light. A slot inventory that gets dynamically adjusted based on the weight of things you are carrying would be good. Small heavy things would reduce the available slots, while large light things might give back half the space they take. It probably sounds a little half-baked, but I haven't fully worked out how I'd implement it yet, so it IS half-baked :P

Re:Finally!

[maglor_83]

See Baldur's Gate.
You have a maximum number of slots, and a maximum weight. If you go a little over the weight, then you slow down. If you go a lot over, you can't move.

Re:Finally!

[MikeBabcock]

As funny as that was, it annoys me when games allow you to carry phenomenal amounts of weight without considering the awesome difficulty of having 14 different massive hammers over your shoulder at once.

Re:Finally!

[Guruthegreat]

Everyone knows you don't carry 14 different massive hammers at once, you carry 12 massive hammers and a magic box with 2 massive hammers inside it

My reponse

[Kingrames]

Git offa ma lawn - ooh, shiny! *begins furiously looting*

Damn you and your addictive games, Blizzard.

Re:My reponse

[Cornflake917]

That's also one of the big changes they are putting in to Diablo 3. When you're in a multiplayer game, each item drops for a specific player, and only that player can see that item until they pick it up (and drop it). So no you don't have to loot furiously or out ninja-click your teammates to get shinyz any more.

For those who think I'm talking out of my ass:

http://blizzplanet.com/news/2537/

Metroidiablo

[Captain Spam]

Monsters drop health orbs on the ground when you kill them, instead of a potion system? So, in a way, what they've got now is Metroid applied to a dungeon crawl?

(yes, there's a billion other games that do that, Metroid was just the first to come to mind)

Re:Metroidiablo

[colmore]

Plentiful and common health potions that can heal the main character from near death to perfect health reliably and repeatably aren't the least bit realistic either.

This changes health management in two ways:
1 - health isn't tied to inventory
2 - the graphic for "health item" looks different

I hope nobody is complaining that this represents some grave cheapening of the game. It wasn't Fallout, where health items are rare, cost a fortune, and come with some of the side effects of actual drugs.

Oh any word on if Fallout 3 is still going to be scarce on the health power ups? The demos have looked combat-y (which is fine, it's certainly the most interesting bit of a game, at least visually) but is the game such a heavy shooter that they're going to need to throw downside-free stimpacks at the player all the time?

Re:Metroidiablo

[ildon]

I think you're missing an important gameplay point. You actually have to KILL mobs to obtain health orbs while in combat. A lot of times in Diablo/Diablo 2 on the harder difficulties (and especially hardcore in D2) often times when faces with extremely dangerous packs of enemies or difficult bosses, you'd have to town portal REPEATEDLY to restock on potions, before a single monster had fallen. Admittedly, this was pretty bad game design. It pulled you out of the action and felt "cheesy".

The obvious answer is to tune difficult groups of monsters and bosses with this in mind (or provide alternate sources of healing through things like abilities, life leech items, or secondary mechanics to drop health orbs BEFORE an enemy or set of enemies dies), but it's still a considerably bigger change than simply "unlinking healing items from inventory".

Overall, I do think it's a positive change, I just think you're oversimplifying it.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance

[urikkiru]

This is the exact system used in Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Which was also an evolution from a potion system in X-Men Legends 2. That said, it's actually a very *good* system. I approve.

What about bosses?

[jevring]

So, if there's an extended fight like, say, DIABLO...
A fight which you might not survive with just the health and mana you have in your orbs, what do you do? If you can't chug potions, you have to, in effect, execute the monster perfectly to even survive. I think that the orb system is better when you're hacking and slashing your way through several monsters that actually die, but when you encounter monsters that are not easy to get down, then you might need a heal or two. I certainly prefer chugging potions to relying on support classes (like priests, druids, paladins and shamans in wow) to heal you.

Re:What about bosses?

[ivan256]

Who's to say an "orb" doesn't fall out if you hit the boss hard enough? It doesn't necessarily have to die....

Re:What about bosses?

[amuro98]

Someone mentioned Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, which I think is a very good comparison.

While defeating enemies in the game would cause them to drop health and mana orbs, bosses would drop them on a regular basis while you beat on them (I think ever 25% of so.) So, you didn't have to be able to defeat the boss without dying - just able to knock 25% of his health off so you could heal up enough to keep on beating on him.

This could work for DiabloIII as well, though I can remember some fights where I wasn't even able to put a dent in the stupid boss the first few times I faced it, dying a good 4 or 5 times before I figured out the strategy for my combination of boss and character class.

Re:What about bosses?

[tknd]

I propose a much better system where the player dies after one hit or tap from a monster. And if the player wishes to be able to survive a second hit, he must either find the nearest mushroom or orange flower hidden away in some box disguised like all the others.

Re:Well...

[4D6963]

How is that going to affect boss matches? Unless the boss monster has a load of minions, that could be quite a challenge!

Indeed, I only hope the monsters drop these "health orbs" through specific orifices. Would give a new sense to beating the proverbial shit out of them. Mostly if that shit heals your wounds.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:"new" ???

[idlemind]

Yes, it's new system for Diablo. It's not like they are claiming they invented it.

My mature, well thought out response

[Alzheimers]

click...click click click click click ooh shiney clickclick click click click click click click click click...

Orb monster drops? WTF no!

[Tavor]

We don't have to kill you to challenge you. We can make a monster that affects your mobility, we can make a monster that has different kinds of attacks that are dangerous to you and that you actually have to avoid. And so it makes the combat a lot more interesting."

As opposed to what... ice-based attacks that freeze/slow? Poison that drains health? And what, avoiding those *&^*&^ Pit Lords and Abyss Knights at the River of Flame? Yeah, I don't see anything new here, ffs. As someone who likes fending off PVP'ers in the middle of fighting demons, I'd prefer being in control of my health, rather than being dependent on monster drops.
Just having a system where potions in your inventory were dropped to your 'belt' hot-bar automatically would be an improvement far beyond the orb system.