Ears. If you watched the debut trailer for Diablo IVrogue class, that was your main lesson – at least, if you’re like me. The cheater appeared to “confess” with a big, old bag of ears. The priest had a damn box of trophy ears. That may have seemed strange to you – most normal people keep only one or two disembodied ears in their hands at any time – but if you played Diablo II In the past, you probably felt at home.
At the Diablo II, the ears were symbols that other players dropped in PVP combat. If you killed someone, you would have an ear with her name, which you could sell for gold if you were same suffering for money. It was one of those dark pieces of strangeness that made Diablo II Special. Blizzard says the system will be making a comeback in Diablo IV, somehow.
“We are very excited to bring this idea back Diablo IV, ”Said systems designer Joe Piepiora Kotaku in an interview at Zoom, noting that the development team is still analyzing the details of how exactly the system will be implemented. “What we don’t want to do with this is make it a currency, the gain, that you spend on cosmetics. That is not the focus. “
The objective, explained Piepiora, is to emphasize the appeal of the Diablo II, instead of turning ears into another coin that you can insert into the infinitely agitated slot machine in the game.
“We think what is exciting about the ears and interesting about the ears is the fact that you basically have this permanent symbol of achievement over another character that you killed as part of the fight,” said Piepiora. “We are excited to find a way to integrate this with the PVP experience we have, without making it part of some kind of PVP progression. We want to leave you in that trophy space, where it’s exciting to collect these things and look back at the things you’ve done without feeling like you’re just grinding as many things as you can to get some ax or chest piece. “
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So, to summarize: There will be ears, but there will not be an earconomy. The fact that some players would even expect such a thing, however, is illustrative of the strange space in which Diablo IV lies. even though Diablo IIIthe disastrous “always online” launch, Diablo IV you won’t have a single player mode. But Blizzard is also not trying to make an MMO. While titans like Destiny and Way of exile– with loot tables and other playing field leveling systems – now dominate the perch Diablo once dominated (of destruction), Piepiora characterized Diablo like a series where even a random barrel you destroy can contain a unique weapon.
Blizzard is looking for a compromise between a player and an MMO, where encounters with other players will be rare and, when they occur, no one will be surprised. There will be designated PVP areas in the open world of the game – called Campos do Ódio, presumably because this is where you will plant bodies – and you can complete various objectives within them to earn money that you can exchange for special items, especially cosmetics. This loot will not be inherently better than the weapons and armor you get elsewhere in the game, but it will be unique. These areas will also contain many enemy NPCs, which means that you can cultivate Fields of Hatred to obtain legendary weapons that you can also obtain elsewhere.
As a result of systems like this, Blizzard finds itself staring at a philosophical schism within its community. Some players want a Diablo IIMultiplayer experience similar to that where chaos reigns and anyone can exchange any item – regardless of how they won it – with any other player. Others want something more structured. Other– others want the option of playing entirely solo. Blizzard is trying to serve them all with a single shared experience. There will be some chaos in multiplayer mode; Fields of Hatred was designed to facilitate moments of asymmetry – for example, one player ambushing another while battling an NPC boss and a mechanic that marks PVPers especially successful on other players’ maps so they can team up and hunt them down . But this is not going to be Diablo II-2. even though controversy within the community, Blizzard will still limit trading systems, at least to some extent.
“There will be some high quality or specific items [that won’t be tradeable], ”Said Piepiora. “You can imagine, if you went and made, for example, the content of PVP, and obtained a special assembly only for PVP. We would not allow this to be negotiable, because we want it to be a prestigious item that players collect. But when it comes to a legendary item with very good power, but maybe not for you, we like the idea of trying to find ways to make them marketable to players. ”
Players have concern expressed that such limits can negatively impact Diablo IVthe end of the game, directing players to a small handful of activities as in Diablo III, where many items could only be purchased by means prescribed by Blizzard and were later linked to players’ accounts. About that, Diablo II didn’t have an endgame in the modern sense, but many players considered PVP to be the endgame – something Diablo IIIlimited systems did not allow. But Piepiora said that in Diablo IV, high level players will still have something to strive for.
“There are going to be some specific types of items – basically top-tier things – that we are not going to make negotiable, but we want to make sure that players who are at the end of the game still have things that are negotiable, that are valuable to them,” he said .
It’s pretty clear that Blizzard is walking a fine line, trying to make a game that satisfies all the different types of players that Diablo series has increased over the decades. But Piepiora thinks Blizzard learned its lessons from Diablo III. It is not trying to put on an auction house or MMO elements that do not fit. The goal, he suggests, is to create a Diablo game that listens and looks ahead.
“As far as I’m concerned, Diablo it’s a game for a player that you can play with friends and a party game that you can play for a player, ”said Piepiora. “So, it is really compatible to go anyway. We are not trying to create content that says, ‘You need to make a group of four players to make this dungeon’. This is not the Diablo experience … We don’t want to take away players who want to play alone. Likewise, players who want to play with their partners or friends on the couch – we want to make sure it never seems like you need to go any further, if you don’t want to. But if you want, it’s great, right? “
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