Corpse Retrieval

[5zigen]

This was a hot spot I think, even though most people don't think about it so much. I have a huge problem with item loss when a character dies. My problem with it is this: It isn't fair.

Everyone knows the situation, you die, solo, in a game just maybe doing some mf or messing around, then all of the sudden bam, character dies, all gear lost. Now, I see this as actually a natural part of HC, in that without this mechanic, the hc item pool would be much closer to the SC item pool. And I think the scarcity of items and robustness of the HC economy a key draw personally.

What my problem is with is 2 things. First, that if you die with a friend, your loss is mitigated. This is sort of arguable as fair "make friends and dont worry about it" but I'm sure we all know this isn't always practical. I had plenty of friends on HC but when they weren't running MF runs solo, they were leveling a character in the wrong difficulty.

Where the real problem I have is the advantage it gives people with 2 accounts. I'm sure most people have thought of this, and D2 accounts are pretty cheap these days, but I still am opposed to being (what I consider to be) forced to buy 2 copies to get the "whole" game.

Just an example of why 2 copies is "unfair" in my eyes.

- It gives you a MF and experience advantage even solo.
- It gives you a chance to really double the quest rewards you get (particularly hellforge)
- It gives you double hp, mp +1 skill and defense increase for upwards of 14 minutes (if you are smart and have your alt as a 'singer').
- It essentially lets you run bosses for unlimited "first" drops (if you understand the system, not the place to explain).
- And how it pertains to HC, it is essentially 100% assurance that you will never lose your loot on your main character (again, a singer with decent gear can warcry all enemies into stunlock, have absurdly high health and mana, and basically leap everywhere.)

So basically what I am trying to say is that the corpse loot system unfairly penalizes people who only have one copy of the game (though in other ways people with 1 copy are also penalized).

My opinion on the matter is that your items should either ALWAYS be lost, or always be recoverable (for example, letting you join the game with another character to loot them). I don't really care which one, as long as it removes (what I consider to be) one of the biggest imbalances of having 2 accounts.

P.S. I got burned out on D2 after playing with 2 accounts and seeing people with things like 8 accounts, and I dont have my 2 accounts any more and can't bring myself to play D2. I just can't bring myself to play with a severe handicap.

What do you guys think? Is this acceptable though? How I see it is basically paying 60$ at an item shop to prevent your from losing your character's gear, in addition to increasing the exp, and doubling your health / mana. How would people view this? I have a feeling not nearly as harsh as buying the game twice, but ultimately it's the same thing.

[stillman]

Maybe it's a conspiracy that Blizzard lets this sort of thing go because it means more games get sold. IMO, all that stuff should have been fixed/prevented a long time ago. It just amounts to more problems that make the game look unprofessionally built. In fact, I believe a lot of the animosity we read about toward Blizzard comes form deep rooted frustration and disapointment with problems that never get fixed.

Hopefully in d3, they'll leave no stone unturned, because players will leave no stone unturned.

[Shadowknife]

You're thinking about it backwards. People with one copy aren't penalized, but rather having 2 copies to loot their corpse is an exploit. But I'm not the kind of person who whines about what's fair or not, I just play my game and enjoy it. Sometimes I lose all my gear, sometimes I'm playing with a friend to loot. Thems the breaks. If someone else wants to take an advantage by bringing in a character to loot, go nuts.

That said, I think there really needs to be a way for gear to be lost permanently. Whether it's the current system of sometimes you do, sometimes you don't... or if you always lose it when you die. Either is fine with me. Finding and collecting gear is a big part of the fun, so having that 'sinkhole' is a big part of what makes hardcore much more fun that softcore IMO.

[Akse]

I just hope they design all kind of buffing skills in a way that they can't be exploited so easily as now. Pre 1.10 you didn't really see people having own BO characters cause the Bo duration was so much shorter.

So having the buffs etc shorter in D3 would already prevent this. You would have to find groups if you want to play more safe. I think thats what they are looking for, less solo play with multiple accounts, more team play.

[Wheeze]

I just hope they design all kind of buffing skills in a way that they can't be exploited so easily as now. Pre 1.10 you didn't really see people having own BO characters cause the Bo duration was so much shorter.

So having the buffs etc shorter in D3 would already prevent this. You would have to find groups if you want to play more safe. I think thats what they are looking for, less solo play with multiple accounts, more team play.

There's a fine line between a skill being too long and easy to exploit, and too short and annoying to rebuff constantly. One of the reasons shapeshifting always turned me off in D2 was the need to constantly reshift into wolf or bear mid battle.

It might make more sense to keep the duration lengthy but you receive a reduced effect when you stray too many screens from the character that gave you the buff. Which promotes players staying and working together, and prevents a single player using several accounts to super buff a character, because it would be much more difficult to have that character give the buff and follow the character that receives the buff constantly.

[Akse]

It might make more sense to keep the duration lengthy but you receive a reduced effect when you stray too many screens from the character that gave you the buff. Which promotes players staying and working together, and prevents a single player using several accounts to super buff a character, because it would be much more difficult to have that character give the buff and follow the character that receives the buff constantly. Good idea.. :) It could be like pala aura actually. Wears off completely if you are too far away 1-2 screens. No multiboxer would want to move the other character behind all the time. :)

[MoUsE_WiZ]

Just an example of why 2 copies is "unfair" in my eyes.
Just wait till the real multiboxing hits in D3.
Right now people don't do the incredibly abusive stuff because either they've already got a bot doing an even better job than keyclone could, or they don't want to be doing things too similarily to what bots would do.

For example, it'd be cake to get 8 copies to create 8 games and run pindle 8 times in the span it'd take someone else to do it once.
Or things like baals, getting all 8 of them to enter the portal once it's up and just hold down their spam spell.

Oh, and Blizzard has stated they're going to be doing more set maps instead of random in D3, because it lets them make the art prettier. That'll just make it easier.

And no, Blizzard is not likely to do anything about multiboxing to that extent... people abuse the crap out of it in WoW and (though my knowledge is a bit out of date so I COULD be wrong) they've yet to do anything about it. A 5 boxing elemental shaman even managed to turn their arenas into a joke, pulling in a rating good enough for top 20 and beating mutiple top teams, just because humans can't coordinate their burst nearly as well as a computer.

This deserves multiple threads of it's own in forums other than this. But oh well.

As for the actual topic... I agree. Always lootable by anyone who enters the game, or never lootable. But I agree for entirely seperate reasons...

I think never lootable makes the economy that much better for those who are good at the game, while always lootable (so long as it's by everyone, not just people you set it to) makes death that much more interesting for everyone who isn't a victim.

What I don't want is a system like what we've got now, only with the ability to hit the loot check box after death. I think that just makes it easier in general.

[BigVF]

As I see this conversation moving more into a multi-boxing discussion I'd like to make a couple points. Amongst many other games, WoW is now notorious for it's multi-boxing. With a recent bonus on their "Refer-a-friend" program they just announced a couple days ago, it's almost asking for more people to multibox. It's not shunned upon in WoW, and my guess is that it won't be in Diablo 3.

In Diablo 3 it's going to give people more of an advantage, but those people just spent another $50+ to have it. It's not like they're just handing out the capability to mutlibox. I look at it this way, if you put time into MFing you're going to get that good item at some point. If you put time into questing and grinding you're going to level quickly. So in the same respect, if you put money into a second copy you're going to be able to multi-box and benefit from it. This is in no way comparable to buying a premade account off a site or buying items off EBay. That's all instant in your hands "goods". With multi-boxing you actually have to play to better yourself. There's also a reason why buying items and characters is against the user agreement and why multiboxing isn't. Blizzard isn't profiting from it.

Now of course this whole rant only makes sense if everything is kept clean. People running a bunch of copies to run bots is of course cheating. If you're going to sit there and actually control all of these games at once to better yourself, my hats off to ya. So to sum it up, there's no real way you can make this aspect of the game fair and balanced unless you convince Blizzard that they don't want to sell extra copies of their games in order to please a percentage of their fan base.

[Akse]

Seems like the boss fights are going to be a lot more complicated now and more randomness there. A bot doing the siege boss could be quite complicated to make.

[Spero]

I didn't read your whole post, but your use of the word "fair" stands out for me. Why do you expect the game to be fair? Especially in HC, character death is supposed to be harsh and final, not fair. I think it makes the game better when there are some random things that can get you. You can have a bad day - encounter a boss with a few extra mods at just the wrong time, not exit fast enough when a pker comes after you, etc.

[MoUsE_WiZ]

I didn't read your whole post

You should work on that if you want to avoid posting things that are somewhat irrelevant to the thread ~_~

[Gamekk]

Maybe it's a conspiracy that Blizzard lets this sort of thing go because it means more games get sold. IMO, all that stuff should have been fixed/prevented a long time ago. It just amounts to more problems that make the game look unprofessionally built. In fact, I believe a lot of the animosity we read about toward Blizzard comes form deep rooted frustration and disapointment with problems that never get fixed.

Hopefully in d3, they'll leave no stone unturned, because players will leave no stone unturned.

Remember that you're talking about a 10 years old game there, it sure doesn't meet the standards of 2008.
There are several aspects that you see in DII that people might consider "unfair", but there will always have... just look at WoW, it's P2P and I still see several ways to exploit a couple of the game's system...

[CosmicallyDrifting]

Maybe it's a conspiracy that Blizzard lets this sort of thing go because it means more games get sold. IMO, all that stuff should have been fixed/prevented a long time ago. It just amounts to more problems that make the game look unprofessionally built. In fact, I believe a lot of the animosity we read about toward Blizzard comes form deep rooted frustration and disapointment with problems that never get fixed.

Hopefully in d3, they'll leave no stone unturned, because players will leave no stone unturned.

I will cherish this beautifully written and to the point post for all of eternity. This was exactly what i was thinking.