Diablo 3 - Gamepad Edition

[Cjail]

Obviously each game requires a unique/different approach.

Now haptic feedback would be of help but I would never use it as the primary source of info for sure and animations to show the health condition/status of the character would not work well in Diablo 3 as you say...at least not without changing significantly the camera system and more which is not going to happen.
In concrete though Blizzard could reduce the HUD and make it more streamlined.
That can be done.

 

[Grall]

HUD is not a necessity, it's a habit that dev have, a "bad" habit IMO.

Don't agree. Skyrim is what you get when your HUD is minimalistic, IE you don't know your follower's health level (can get killed at any time, even though you may have access to healing spells), you don't know if you've catched vampirism or shit like that unless an NPC tells you you're looking sick, and so on.

The HUD is there to tell you things that would have been pretty obvious had you been a real flesh and blood person. Hiding away information just for the sake of being minimalistic is terrible. It's putting form over function, which is a completely deplorable design practice (one which apple has made into an artstyle and sadly been praised for for years now... )

 

[AlNom]

Given how I play, I think an optional HUD wouldn't be bad (better for plasma tv!). I only ever care about health when the potion thing flashes over my character, so I'm not really looking at the bar itself. Or maybe it just needs to pop up when taking significant damage. *shrug*

The resource orb isn't that useful to me since I'll keep mashing the button until the spell worksor stops working or character says explicitly that there's not enough fury-mana-spirit.

The only thing that seem useful to me are the cooldown timers for abilities. And even then, they could just have the ability icon pop-up to show the timer (or reverse, to show which abilities are ready).

Options are a good thing!

 

[Grall]

I'm thinking, if you don't know exactly how much health you have (or resources for that matter), and you run into some pack or two of champion monsters you could get your ass handed to you very quickly. Maybe that isn't so much of a problem in softcore gameplay, but with permadeath involved...

If you start adding all kinds of options to trim down the interface in various ways you'll get people getting confused turning off their health and mana orbs and then not knowing where they went, why or how to bring them back. Yeah. Such people exist, all over the place.

 

[AlNom]

Oh certainly, hardcore's entirely different.

Trimmed interface could just be 1 option to toggle. They already have many gameplay options available already (and the rather useless "smart co-op minimap").

On a side note, having the minimap in the center bottom area of the screen in co-op is annoying when it gets overlaid by the massacre etc messages (messages that are pretty meaningless anyway). :[ Then there's the intrusive dialogue boxes. >_>

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Given how I play, I think an optional HUD wouldn't be bad (better for plasma tv!). I only ever care about health when the potion thing flashes over my character, so I'm not really looking at the bar itself. Or maybe it just needs to pop up when taking significant damage. *shrug*

The resource orb isn't that useful to me since I'll keep mashing the button until the spell worksor stops working or character says explicitly that there's not enough fury-mana-spirit.

The only thing that seem useful to me are the cooldown timers for abilities. And even then, they could just have the ability icon pop-up to show the timer (or reverse, to show which abilities are ready).

Options are a good thing!

How do you even survive in D3 playing like that ? On normal maybe, but the fun happens in Hard+Monster level 2 or 3. You can't play like that there. I , OTOH, want every info displayed. I even played Bio Infinite with Damage ad Health bars turned on for enemies !

 

[AlNom]

Well, I turn on enemy health bars - I'm mainly just talking about not needing the player health bars 100% of the time. Given that the main indication that I'm in real trouble is the already existing sounds and flashing warnings on the character itself, the bar is somewhat superfluous to me. I'll hit the health potion asap, run away, dodge etc. I find with D3 and taking damage is that you either get damaged bit by bit (nothing to worry about) or you get super damaged at once and either can't do anything about it, or you just potion and run away for a bit (even back to the healer in the base - he's there for a reason ).

If you're dying every battle, then that's just a waste of time and gold. Hard is a waste of time since there's no benefit to XP/MF/GF. But that's all old stuff. I'm at master level 3 inferno with 250-270K DPS, and it's fine. I could bump it to 5, but then dying every two seconds means I don't really need a health bar, now do I? (i.e. two hits to die + laser fields/desecration/wall/vampiric/reflect etc is hard to escape once you're in it).

So again, all I really need is a warning that I'm below say... 30% HP, which is already there when the potion sign pops up on your character's head.

Anyways, not like I'm saying this should be mandatory.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Well, I turn on enemy health bars - I'm mainly just talking about not needing the player health bars 100% of the time. Given that the main indication that I'm in real trouble is the already existing sounds and flashing warnings on the character itself, the bar is somewhat superfluous to me. I'll hit the health potion asap, run away, dodge etc. I find with D3 and taking damage is that you either get damaged bit by bit (nothing to worry about) or you get super damaged at once and either can't do anything about it, or you just potion and run away for a bit (even back to the healer in the base - he's there for a reason ).

If you're dying every battle, then that's just a waste of time and gold. Hard is a waste of time since there's no benefit to XP/MF/GF. But that's all old stuff. I'm at master level 3 inferno with 250-270K DPS, and it's fine. I could bump it to 5, but then dying every two seconds means I don't really need a health bar, now do I? (i.e. two hits to die + laser fields/desecration/wall/vampiric/reflect etc is hard to escape once you're in it).

So again, all I really need is a warning that I'm below say... 30% HP, which is already there when the potion sign pops up on your character's head.

Anyways, not like I'm saying this should be mandatory.

---

Currently, I'm just trying out monk and I've had a bunch of great gear saved that I picked up along the way (another character who's P22) and Nightmare Master V has been a bit of a joke (monk is lvl 48 now in Act 3). It really is luck in finding gear and certainly equipping gems, but if you've played that long, you ought to have some good stuff worth saving for future playthroughs. )*shrug*

I guess it makes sense for your own character in a brute way, but I want health bars on all enemies, so that I know when to take risk or not. I would prefer to have my own health bar too, as I can save potions if I see my health going down and run away for it regen or pick up ahealth orb.

As for me, I am currently selling off anything my character cannot equip. The stash is too small to hold times for my other characters and my other characters will find their own gear when I play them , anyway. I am selling off anything and have lots of Gold at any point of time. Don't know what to do with it as traders never have anything worthwhile for my Demon Hunter. The staff of herding someday, i guess. I lack one component , I guess, never checked which one. I got all the others usring regular play, without knowing !

 

[Cjail]

Don't agree. Skyrim is what you get when your HUD is minimalistic, IE you don't know your follower's health level (can get killed at any time, even though you may have access to healing spells), you don't know if you've catched vampirism or shit like that unless an NPC tells you you're looking sick, and so on.

The HUD is there to tell you things that would have been pretty obvious had you been a real flesh and blood person. Hiding away information just for the sake of being minimalistic is terrible. It's putting form over function, which is a completely deplorable design practice (one which apple has made into an artstyle and sadly been praised for for years now... )

I never said that I would hide info form the player.
What I would do is to inform the player using animations, visual/audio cues, and haptic feedback rather than HUD/icons.

This is how I would inform the player abut the followers HP status in the next TES:
-Followers would talk to you about their conditions; they would scream for help when they are in danger or low HP just like a true companion would in real life life.
-Followers would move differently and bleed to show that they are wounded or exhausted.
-Followers would wear a magic gem that cahnges color depending on their HP status: Blue = fine, yellow = not good, red = serious danger.
The gem would glow visibly so that you can see it better.
-Alternate status would be displyed with subtle visual cues over the head.
For instance if the follower is poisoned he would have a green mist over his head; if he is cursed he would have black mist instead, if he has vampirism a small bat would fly around his head, etc..

The player would still be informed but all without using a single bar or icon.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The resource orb isn't that useful to me since I'll keep mashing the button until the spell worksor stops working or character says explicitly that there's not enough fury-mana-spirit.

Yeah, that's how it rolls. It doesn't need a huge orb for the resource. The health bar is important to see how much damage mobs are doing so you know whether to stay and fight or run, or whether you have enough for the next encounter or should wait and heal up. Waiting for a health potion request could mean you don't appreciate the damage being done/already sustained. D3, being a PC game, is something of a resource management game, which is all about watching little icons and pressing the action button ASAP, rather than watching the game content on the screen.

The only thing that seem useful to me are the cooldown timers for abilities. And even then, they could just have the ability icon pop-up to show the timer (or reverse, to show which abilities are ready).

Even the timers aren't very clear. Instead of fading to grey when unaccesible, they fade to yellow, and then yellowish icons are hard to tell if filled or not. But one just spams the skill until it fires anyway. Heck, the vast majority of times there's just a single skill one's using over and over (machine gun for DH, beam or antimatter spread for Wizard, bats for WD).

 

[RenegadeRocks]

yup, thats the biggest gripe, I can't tell if my ability is ready for use or not. The damn thing should scream "i am ready" so that I can tell even from peripheral vision, but no, instead it just mildly changes colour.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Linky: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwZ7XDO1msw

He says something like "No loading screens" : That would be quite a biggie considering that we had a lot of them inthe game currently.

 

[Grall]

Could you post YT link to the video please, because in-line videos don't work (on this board at least) if you don't have flash installed...

 

[Arwin]

Avenger kill is a neat idea for this type of game.

 

[BoardBonobo]

The new PS4 version of Diablo III - the Ultimate Evil Edition - sounds pretty cool.

I like the added features especially the way in which an enemy that defeats you can level up and go hunting people off your friends list, if it kills them it does the same from their friends list etc. That's cool, 'Avenge me.... *gurgle*'.

Info

I got DIII for the PS3 but I'm thinking that the PS4 version not only looks amazing, but also has enough added features to be worthy of a second purchase. The fact that you can import your PS3 save is a bonus!

 

[NRP]

After reading some posts about DIII in the PC forum, I'm mildly interested in this game if it comes to the Bone.

 

[Jedi2016]

After reading some posts about DIII in the PC forum, I'm mildly interested in this game if it comes to the Bone.

No official word yet, but someone at Blizz did mention that it was in the works for both next-gen platforms. For whatever reason, they're only showing off the PS4 version, I imagine they'll both be more or less identical. The game's not very demanding, I don't see 1080p/60 being an issue for either platform.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

The new PS4 version of Diablo III - the Ultimate Evil Edition - sounds pretty cool.

I like the added features especially the way in which an enemy that defeats you can level up and go hunting people off your friends list, if it kills them it does the same from their friends list etc. That's cool, 'Avenge me.... *gurgle*'.

Info

I got DIII for the PS3 but I'm thinking that the PS4 version not only looks amazing, but also has enough added features to be worthy of a second purchase. The fact that you can import your PS3 save is a bonus!

How do we import the ps3 save? Have they explained it anywhere? I mean, it never asked me to make a Battle.net account on the ps3 so how will my character's carry over. I am anyways in trouble as my levelled up Demon Hunter is on a different psn account than the one I use now on my ps4.
@NRP: it will come to the bone, no doubt. There seems to be some deal with Sony cos even last year they kept showing up at PS events and showing the game off and talked only about the ps3 version but later it was released on the same day for x360 too. As for the game, its a good time cruncher with friends, nothing spectacular but engaging and fun in co op sessions.

 

[BoardBonobo]

After reading some posts about DIII in the PC forum, I'm mildly interested in this game if it comes to the Bone.

Blizzard said they were working on the PS4 and XB1 versions simultaneously but they didn't know where they were at with MS regarding contracts. So they can't\couldn't officially announce it.

@RenegadeRocks

I presume it might be via cloud saves if you have Plus or via USB transfer. They haven't clarified that yet.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

No official word yet, but someone at Blizz did mention that it was in the works for both next-gen platforms. For whatever reason, they're only showing off the PS4 version

Blizzard were at the PS4 launch so they may have a marketing deal with Sony like Ubisoft for Watch_Dogs and Activision for Destiny. On the flip side, EA Sports on Xbox One and Activision and CoD: Ghosts on Xbox One. When this happens you often only seen one console version in marketing material.

The game's not very demanding, I don't see 1080p/60 being an issue for either platform.

It's pretty demanding. My laptop (16G RAM, 1Gb Geforce GT650, 2.6Ghz quad core i7) struggles to maintain 60fps with all settings on at higher resolutions (between 1920x1080 to retina) with a lot going on.