teleport changes

[jamesisbest]

I know this is a touchy issue but an important one.

I think there are three possible ways blizzard could go about making the blizzard skill. I will list them in the order from what I view as best to worst.

1. No teleport skill for player characters. It will be acceptable as an enemy skill since it can add to enemy variety.

2. Teleport allowed as a class skill for a maximum of one of the classes. This skill however will have a 30 second cooldown timer to insure it will not be abused. This will allow it to be a useful skill for getting out of a bad situation when using a weak caster/magic class when they need it. It will prevent people using it to skip dungeons, or use it for an excessive advantage in pvm and pvp situations.

3. Teleport allowed for a maximum of one class and with a lower cooldown timer of a few seconds. It will be more viable as an occasional pvp tool. However, the real kicker is that it can't teleport past objects such as walls, tables, and other such things in order to disallow people skipping dungeons. This option is not nearly as strong as first 2 I listed in my opinion.

One thing they should definately not have is items that can give the teleport skill to other classes. Many Diablo 2 exploits are results of the abuse of teleport, especially with paladins using enigma. I would prefer no teleport at all because in a rpg it isn't mandatory and could bring about disbalance quite easily.

What are all of your opinions?

[prion]

well it should *not* be an item.

maybe scrolls...then teleport casts would be limited by your inventory space.

[Kiroptus]

I think teleport should be out. There I said.

They already said that there are many random scripted events that can happen in the dungeons. Rubble may fall, the floor might open, a secret passage might reveal itself, etc... teleporting ahead of those scripted events could be troublesome.

Imagine: A part of a bridge is about to colapse, its bound to happen when you get near, you teleport right in the area where it will colapse, you fall into an abysm, insta-die. Was it a lv 99 hardcore character helping someone in normal diff? Too bad, its over.

Just get away with teleport, lets have more sane mobility skills like the ones from the barb.

[Hello Jim]

Maybe.
But teleport is still the coolest skill in Diablo. I hope it'll be back at least only for Sorc.
I just love teleporting..

[diabloIII]

im pretty sure that they will put a cooldown cause if u look carefully in the gameplay video when the barb use is bo and can see the skill square having a cool down so for teleport if there is they will probably put a cooldown cause the it was too much abusive in d2:coffee:

[Vulcon]

That would be a shame.
As someone who plays exclusively in Single Player the teleport skill is one I rely on most often. I can appreciate on-line there is potential for abuse, but it makes retrieving bodies much less painful than walking all the way, especially for places like the underground passage or when facing Diablo.:thumbsdown:

[diabloIII]

i prefer having difficulty retrieving my body then having a freaking blizz sorc non stop tele that was so annoying

[Vulcon]

As I said, I play exclusively in Single player.
I suspect on-line is whole different story, and needs to be looked at differently.

Similarly, I can totally understand the justification of the change in telekinesis, but for a Single player, never playing on-line, it was a loss.

[Throndhart]

15 second cooldown. Problem solved.

[Swiffer]

Imagine: A part of a bridge is about to colapse, its bound to happen when you get near, you teleport right in the area where it will colapse, you fall into an abysm, insta-die. Was it a lv 99 hardcore character helping someone in normal diff? Too bad, its over.

Most games that have these kinds of scripted events prevent stuff like you suggested from happening by having the particular part of the floor be unwalkable, so if your teleport would land you on the part that was scripted to collapse, you would get pushed back to the edge, where it would then collapse in safety.

If they include teleport, this will be one of the things they need to take into consideration, but i don't think it would be a difficult impediment.

[poroboszcz]

I totally disagree. Imho the teleport is very important part of D2 gameplay and is an awesome skill. The problem really wasn't teleport or enigma, but duping. If there was no bugs and hacks you wouldn't see so many barbs and palas teleing around. Also if you play hardcore you don't usually tele like mad without being careful. I would be dissapointed if there was no tele in D3.
On the other hand enigma is quite an unbalanced item as it gives you very good mods and the tele on top of that. They should have made more items with tele to allow you choose from or make one, but without such a good mods so you have to make a choice.

[diabloIII]

i don't understand cleary what ur saying???

[phool]

15 second cooldown. Problem solved.

A mere .5 secs turns you into a teleporting amazon by d2 standards. Good hench/minion control and wall jumper, pretty much useless if you want to tele to throne.

I think there are far more options... depending on what, exactly, you think is the problem with tele. Teleport as a skill, possibly quest reward, for all classes. Teleport's fpc being affected dramatically by point investment. Teleport using a % of max mana instead of a negligible set amount. Teleport not being able to be used consecutively with itself. Teleport causing a temporary and perhaps cumulative fhr res and dr reduction. Etc

In pvm, I love nothing more than a highly aggressive, teleport-heavy play style played on 200 fcr and would hate to see that go. On the other hand, the game imbalance the skill created was unreasonable, and enigma a poor solution. I am all for rushing remaining in the game, assuming Blizz doesn't go overboard on the respec option.

[Cast_Raider]

It is kinda fun to dart around as a sorc. But on the other hand, it's such a whopping big advantage that bnet was full of magic finding sorcs and rushing sorcs. I guess blizzard tried to even the playing field with enigma so that others could compete; but then it only really benefitted spellcasters--primarily paladins and necros.

I propose the following:

1) A rather long spell timer. Bare minimum: the same as meteor's delay. If you hold down teleport and spam it, you travel at about the same speed as someone wearing no run/walk gear.

2) No blind teleporting. If you haven't visited it and it's not on your mini-map, you can't tele there. This prevents people from skipping through big dungeons to farm the act boss. Speaking of which...

3) Change the drop system for bosses. Either reduce act boss drops, or...somehow make it worth it for people to clear acts and not just farm the bosses.

4) Can we get a better way to guide summons? This was half the benefit, for necros--being able to put summons where they belong. If I had been able to steer my minions, I probably never would have bothered with enigma. I would have just loaded up some more run/walk gear instead.

[Kaeros]

I like the above suggestion best so far: No blind teleportation. Not that logic takes a real big role in games, but what self-respecting Mage would ever teleport completely blindly into an area? He could find himself crushed in the middle of a wall, or right in the lap of a monster..

By only teleporting into areas where the map is uncovered, that'll keep content from being skipped, but will also retain all of the 'legit' uses of the spell -- aka avoiding mobs, grouping your summons (which presumably won't be a problem in DIII anyway), and traversing obstacles.

I don't think Blizzard ever really intended Teleport to be a zone-skipper.

I also agree that the "problem" of Teleport in DII really was compounded by the huge amount of cheating and duping. Without all that, I'd say it's not a huge deal either way.

[Vulcon]

Totally agree for BNet, but keep teleport as is for Single Player.

[Dazuni]

you see I have different view, as mentioend by the other poster, teleport is not the problem, the issue is with dupilication cheat. reslove the cheat then hard earned teleport is fine.

I would also recommand to look into the option to have group teleport, because if you look into old school non-diablo RPG (i.e. D&D) teleport is a group skill, simply let the mage to have a teleport maker skill, give the party member some minor buff (think curses in D2, which has no effect on ally anyway) and then cast teleport, the maked ones will be teleported on the same spot as the caster, overlapped just like you would have in D2.


there, a new team play element for the sorcs, they are now the bus, ferry, and aeroplane; more tacic in teamplay

[Dimmu]

I think the pure mage type class should keep teleport for sure (sorcerer/sorceress, whatever it may be). But every other class should have some sort of unique enhanced mobility skill as well.

We saw that the barb has a drastically improved leap, as well as charge, which worked well to say the least in d2.

So let's say they give the witchdoctor some form of levitation that let's you ignore inanimate obstacles(not walls obviously) but drains mana rapidly. Give one character some kind of short-ranged charge that makes you teleport while in the motion of charging, like a dash.

We can't take teleport completely out of the game and giving it a cooldown would ruin the adreneline rush associated with the fast pace teleportation we all love. The only nerf i think teleport should have is that you can only teleport to a location you can clearly see. And the huge advantage can be compensated by giving each class their own unique means of enhanced mobility.

[Nebulus]

if u look carefully in the gameplay video when the barb use is bo and can see the skill square having a cool down.
Wow, i'd be really mad if they put a cooldown on BO and BC.
I absolutely loved casting that multiple times just to look at IT. I love the sound the barbarian makes when he casts it and the loud ripple effect it makes.
They better not put a cooldown on it.

[Swamigoon]

In D1 and D2, extra skill points invested in the teleport skill do nothing except decrease the mana cost of the skill. With the introduction of cool-down timers in D3, maybe the developers can make the timer a function of skill rank - that is, the higher the skill rank, the shorter the cool-down period?

[jamesisbest]

I think a lot of people here don't realize that before enigma teleport was still heavily abused with the sorceress. People used it to skip dungeons for magic find runs and it even was used for meph bots. Also teleport was likely one of the main motivations for maphack, so people could skip all the dungeons for magic find runs (and now key runs). I don't think it's Blizzards intention for people to skip portions of the game in order to constantly kill bosses.

[5zigen]

Yay!!

I'm glad I'm not alone in my dislike of the imbalance introduced with teleport.

My solution though, instead of completely removing teleport, would be to put it on a 4 second cast time AND give it to everyone. So it's more of a utility skill than a "must have to rush bosses and ultimate mobility skill". I think this would solve the "terrain" issues for characters that maybe dont have Leap, and it adds a little flavor to the game for the semi lazy who cant be bothered to walk around all the time.

Additionally with such a long cast time, it would add a degree of danger to the spell as you couldn't teleport into and out of a group, only into a group of enemies. Which might even be your strategy, who knows?

[EnerSense]

I know this is a touchy issue but an important one.

I think there are three possible ways blizzard could go about making the blizzard skill. I will list them in the order from what I view as best to worst.

1. No teleport skill for player characters. It will be acceptable as an enemy skill since it can add to enemy variety.

2. Teleport allowed as a class skill for a maximum of one of the classes. This skill however will have a 30 second cooldown timer to insure it will not be abused. This will allow it to be a useful skill for getting out of a bad situation when using a weak caster/magic class when they need it. It will prevent people using it to skip dungeons, or use it for an excessive advantage in pvm and pvp situations.

3. Teleport allowed for a maximum of one class and with a lower cooldown timer of a few seconds. It will be more viable as an occasional pvp tool. However, the real kicker is that it can't teleport past objects such as walls, tables, and other such things in order to disallow people skipping dungeons. This option is not nearly as strong as first 2 I listed in my opinion.

One thing they should definately not have is items that can give the teleport skill to other classes. Many Diablo 2 exploits are results of the abuse of teleport, especially with paladins using enigma. I would prefer no teleport at all because in a rpg it isn't mandatory and could bring about disbalance quite easily.

What are all of your opinions?

This debate will probably go on forever. I play exclusively on Single Player so Teleport is a very important skill. It can get her out of danger so any cool down could be lethal. Sorcs generally stay in the back in parties so their spells can also be cast safely. They just aren't made for physical combat although there are exceptions. I understand that this can be abused in PVP but at the same time this is what defines a sorceress. When I think of a sorceress I assume she can teleport. Maybe an item or potion can be thown at the sorceress to disorient her so it takes a few seconds to recover. Guess this would be similar to a stun move. I think that would be fair instead of a cool down period.

[Arkardo]

I think teleport is fine the way it is now. However, I think other classes should have similar skills for quickly moving around.

In D2, Barbarians have Increased Speed and Leap/Leap Attack, Paladins have Charge (although very costly for mana), Assassins have that telekick thingy (which requires a visible monster). Other classes have nothing at all. Of all these classes, only the Barbarian has decent ways of quickly moving around. In D3, all classes should have skills for this.

OR reduce the need for quick movement, by reducing drops from bosses and increase it for normal monsters.

[Felix]

A Sorc could have teleport, and it needs only a 3 second cooldown to make it impossible to blindly teleport through a map. I'd like to see it on an item like Enigma given; Battlenet 2.0 has done away with dupes, and a 3 second cooldown.

It would still be a skill which could be used for all the right things.

[phool]

A Sorc could have teleport, and it needs only a 3 second cooldown to make it impossible to blindly teleport through a map. I'd like to see it on an item like Enigma given; Battlenet 2.0 has done away with dupes, and a 3 second cooldown.

It would still be a skill which could be used for all the right things.

Actually a mere 3 frames (~0.12 seconds) cooldown would make blind tele impractical to suicidal in harder areas.

I think this would solve the "terrain" issues for characters that maybe dont have Leap

there are no terrain 'issues' unless blizz add them. Blizz will only add them if everyone can deal with them. So... yeah. Not really a point either way.

[Kiroptus]

I once read on these forums that necro's summons were against the idea the a hack and slash.

Now if there is something that is completely against hack and slashing it is teleport. The power that this gives to skip everything is just sickening, you are supposed to storm the stronghold a boss by killing everything in its path but instead of that you just blink like a madman until you reach the boss.

Remove teleport, just give the characters cooler ways to move in the battle. Allow it be used more as an escape/manuver mechanism than an uber game-skipping skill.

[Vulcon]

Now if there is something that is completely against hack and slashing it is teleport. The power that this gives to skip everything is just sickening, you are supposed to storm the stronghold a boss by killing everything in its path but instead of that you just blink like a madman until you reach the boss. Remove teleport, just give the characters cooler ways to move in the battle. Allow it be used more as an escape/manuver mechanism than an uber game-skipping skill.

Speaking as someone who plays exclusively in Single player:-

One of the great things about this game is the massive variance in game play style that is available. If hopping straight into battling boss is someone cup of tea, let them do it. I don't feel there it would be a particularly good thing to restrict gameplay to one particular style.

[5zigen]

Speaking as someone who plays exclusively in Single player:-

One of the great things about this game is the massive variance in game play style that is available. If hopping straight into battling boss is someone cup of tea, let them do it. I don't feel there it would be a particularly good thing to restrict gameplay to one particular style.

Unfortunately, in multiplayer that leads to degenerative gameplay and you end up with the situation where everyone teleports directly to the bosses, which means you need a specific character to be able to farm items effectively which does more to restrict gameplay than to vary it.

Something like a 5 second cooldown on the spell would be sufficient for me. Hell 1 second in D2 would have completely prevented it's use in terms of boss running.

[Kaeros]

Speaking as someone who plays exclusively in Single player:-

One of the great things about this game is the massive variance in game play style that is available. If hopping straight into battling boss is someone cup of tea, let them do it. I don't feel there it would be a particularly good thing to restrict gameplay to one particular style.

I typically agree with that philosophy. Hellgate, for example (I totally don't mean to pick on it so much today!), removed the loopholes for players to farm some of the bosses. I disagreed with this because boss-farming is a lot of players' "cup of tea", as you put it.

However, like the poster above says, allowing a player to skip entire areas of intended content just leads to degenerative gameplay. People will always slump to the lowest common denominator if it means better gear, and with insta-teleportation to bosses with great loot, the will to actually play the game is eventually lost.

Now, I could care less if an individual wants to do that, but the problem is that these incredibly quick farming sessions bloat the market with items and devalues everything.

The root problem, really, is boss farming in general, but teleporting just makes it so much worse.

[DANIEL3RD]

In D2 teleport is a godly 1 point skill. I am not sure how they will approach it but I reckon it will be heavily nerfed. In D2 a sorc could skip through 90% of the game without any problem at all. This wasnt the intention of the game play.

In my opinion the only character who SHOULD have a teleport skill is the sorc. However she should only be able to teleport to parts of the map she has already uncovered, with casting delays built in. If shes permitted to teleport to uncovered areas then her screen should be dimmed as though dim vision was cast. This effect should then continue until she stops casting, at which time her screen should then take a second or two to clear.

This way any extended teleportation could lead to a whole bunch of trouble.

In addition Energy or mana should also be very heavily depleted. Which means if the sorc is intending to use teleport a lot then a great deal of xp points must be placed into the skill, which would be at the detriment of other stats.

The intention is to allow her to use her skill to "retreat" out of danger. If she teleports to uncleared areas ahead of the group then she is risking multiple deaths. I dont think this is unreasonable. In this way she will hopefully stay with the party, which I believe will be Blizzrds intention.

As for the other characters there should not be armours such as enigmas!! This ruined D2Every man and his dog became a hammerdin.

However I believe there should be rings and amulets with teleport charges. These could have a max of 5 charges and cost the earth to recharge. These are there to be used by all characters in dire consequences but the same rules apply as with the sorc teleport skill. With one other addition, a longer cool down period.

These would assist for example by getting over walkways that have collapsed as in the video. I am sure there will be alternate routes in these circumstances if some of the party dont have these items. But this would assist in adding an extra dimension to the game. Does the party stay together or does the sorc and barb go on alone while the others take the alternate route and meet up later. Decisions to be made.

[phool]

For areas which are most desirable to bossfarm, simply have gateways that require certain actions to open, Chaos Sanctuary style. Killing all enemies in an area to get to the next area being the obvious example (however enemies in such an instance should have a resistance cap of something along the lines of ~75-90%). Alternatively seals, where enemies within a short range must be killed, avoiding den of evil type hunting of missed monsters. Even areas with a passive background effect (GW style) on players such as reduced fcr and ias bps, all skills have a .2 second cool down after being used, an accumulating health lost on skill use penalty that resets after a second on no skill use and (duh) no teleporting restriction. It doesn't have to be area effects either... an enemy that has an monster only curse that seriously hinders tele spam strategically added to the right areas (or making it an enemy that can spawn in very small numbers, randomly, in every single area of the game) would work as being cursed is basically unevadable. I'm sure you can think of other area-specific hinderances and sufficiently plausible explanations.

Which leaves teleport as an imbalance that's pretty much acceptable, outside of pvp, and the question of whether there should be an enigma mk 2.

How teleport is handled is going to be a very important factor to D3 and I'm sure this debate is totally hypothetical; Blizz have already decided on their solution, and will have built a lot of other things around it. Still it's interesting to wonder how we might have done it.

[AgentMarth]

Either everyone should have it, or noone is the way I lean. But really, I think it should be taken out, but each character should have a way of moving around fast. However I am still not sure about that, so i'm on the fence till I see more of D3. Just imagine if it was like D1 were you could only walk slow, and never run.

People don't seem to get that even lowering the cool down a few frames makes a huge difference. Its why we never see Zon's porting Hell Baal's, since there slow FCR rate on it. However, I don't like the idea of a cool down at all. The best way to "nerf" it would be, like said, to not be able to port through a wall.

Or, be tricksy little devils and have the cost of Teleport go UP the higher the skill level. Imagine all these Sorc/Pala/etc with 20+ skills having a teleport that cost 45+ mana a use, rather then a negligible ~5. It however doesn't work well for melee characters, but then melee character are generally used for MFing, as they need survival gear for the most part.

That could be a kicker.

[mephiztophelez]

i started a thread and poll on this a while back..... (http://forums.diii.net/showthread.php?t=668792.)

the current polling shows that most people want teleport to be a mage-only skill and for it to have some kind of nerf compared to D2 tele (huge mana cost/timer etc).

followed by: available as charges and "no teleport at all".

[Moja]

Teleport simply needs to become an unspammable defensive utility skill, relegated to the mage/sorc class only.

High mana cost is bad since the times you need tele most as a defensive skill are likely to be the times your mana is also depleted (energy shield?).

It just needs a timer. Best is a diminishing timer with increased skillpoints, to a minimum cap of 1.5-3 seconds (most players would see about a 3-5 second cap). You can't telespam with a timer that long; it's too dangerous. And if you want to blind tele into an unexplored room, you might just be teleing to your death...

A 1.5-2 second timer would probably be balanced for pvm, but I dunno for pvp. 3 seconds would be balanced for both; no doubt about it.

For comparison, some other skill timers: meteor = 1.2 seconds, blizzard = 1.8 seconds, frozen orb = 1 second.

[AlexanderM]

Here's a suggestion that hasn't been thrown out there yet: replace teleport with D1's phasing. You can teleport, but you cannot control where you'll end up (somewhere within the general vicinity of your location beforehand, not a different act/map). It couldn't be used for "travel" per se, as you might end up moving the wrong direction, or simply popping around one bit of land a lot, but only as a defensive escape measure to escape a mob of monsters.

As for other characters getting teleport as an +oskill, well, I dislike all +oskill items, and Enigma is no exception.

[PlasmaTorture]

Where did this idea that Blizzard thinks Teleport = defensive skill come from?

Teleport is probalby my favorite skill in Diablo 2... Sorc is definitley my favorite class, followed by Barb. The list cascades down until Necro and Amazon, who both have no mobility skills.

Why? Because mobility was key in Diablo 2. Plus, the concept of blinking around everywhere in a battlefield while casting spells is just awesome.

I think the best (and obvious) solution is just to make other, non-teleport spells viable and obviously not have an Enigma mk 2. If the mage class has an advantage due to that? So what? Other classes have advantages in other ways. It only makes sense that the weakest physical class would have some extra mobility to make up for it.

[5zigen]

If the mage class has an advantage due to that? So what? Other classes have advantages in other ways. It only makes sense that the weakest physical class would have some extra mobility to make up for it.

Because it's too unbalancing, not only from a pvp standpoint but an economic standpoint. Making any non sorc to MF (with the exception of a hammerdin) is basically economic suicide.

[raveharu]

For areas which are most desirable to bossfarm, simply have gateways that require certain actions to open, Chaos Sanctuary style.

This is the most feasible suggestion so far, but why not bring it to the next level.

I think having the compulsory rule to complete the entire dungeon level and then moving on to the next is a better idea.
That means the entrance to the next dungeon will not be opened until you cleared every single monster in the current level.
Not only will this prevent rushing and the abuse of teleport, it will remove the "just get to the next level" mindset that every D2 gamer has.

To further support this, WPs (speculation only, not sure if it will be in D3) should NEVER EVER be placed within a dungeon.(eg, Durance of Hatred level 2).
Instead, have the WPs implemented to the entrance to the dungeon (Eg Travincal only).

However we cannot say more up till this point because we do not know what will the game and the contents be like.

[Aaiieeee]

Remember that in D2, if you move away from a mob of monsters, they will follow you. If you can teleport ONCE in 30 seconds (even 5 seconds) is there any point in having the skill since the monsters will just catch you up again? What if the monsters are fast enchanted or powerful ranged? Oh and the fact that the sorc is the weakest class in the game is irrelivent I suppose.

[Arbedark]

Remember that in D2, if you move away from a mob of monsters, they will follow you. If you can teleport ONCE in 30 seconds (even 5 seconds) is there any point in having the skill since the monsters will just catch you up again? What if the monsters are fast enchanted or powerful ranged? Oh and the fact that the sorc is the weakest class in the game is irrelivent I suppose.

ES, Oskill BO, Max Block with straight MDR and DR, and a Medi Merc...yeah weakest class in the game...totally...

As for your first point, tele should be an "oh crap" skill, tele through a wall, over a river etc to escape...