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September 13 2010

Blizzard has published more information on Diablo III; more specifically, your health regeneration.  Unlike Diablo II, which allowed you to drink an endless supply of health potions in order to survive an encounter, Diablo III is going to force you to continue fighting in order to stay alive.

You may be scratching your head wondering how that makes sense, but if you’ve watched any of the videos released thus far, you know what I mean.

Each mob has a chance to drop a health globe which refills a portion of your health.  This way, Blizzard has engineered the game so that there is literally no down time, as it will be fighting and killing which keeps you topped up.

Each time you slay a “regular” enemy, whether a rabid demon or a crazed cultist, there’s a good chance (but not 100%) that a weak health globe will appear. Although weak globes emerge more frequently than other types of health globes, they restore the smallest percentage of your health.

When you do battle with stronger foes, like “rare” and “champion” monsters, you’re likely to see medium-sized health globes emerge before these monsters are killed, as they reach certain health percentages or are stripped of their defenses. Medium globes restore a sizeable percentage of your health, but you’ll need the extra boost to survive when dealing with these formidable enemies.

What they’ve also done is made potions rare and added cooldowns to prevent you from using them too often.  They’re stated that some classes will have healing spells, however these will be specialized and “require careful play, and usually incur consequences”.

Anyone who has played a Blizzard game knows that they have a tendency to guide players (strongly) in terms of how they want you to play their games.  I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, however let there be no allusions that you get to choose how to play your chosen class.  You may have some hints of control, however Papa Blizz’s hand is always there guiding you where they want you to go.

In this case, Blizzard has decided that they want you to continue fighting in order to keep your health up.  It’s an odd paradox conceptually, however in terms of gameplay, it may well work.  Instead of having to rest, eat, bandage, or waste precious health potions, you’ll simply continue hacking your way through mobs of creatures.

Diablo III’s health system is designed to keep you thinking on your feet and rushing toward the next fight. As a hero struggling against the sinister forces of the Burning Hells, fleeing from battle to recover your strength isn’t an option. To avoid dying a gruesome death, you’ll need to hunt for ways to keep up your strength.

But what of boss fights, I hear you asking.

Well, Blizzard has thought of that as well.  During long boss battles, the boss (or the environment) will have certain triggers in place to make certain you have the ability to remain topped up.  The boss may unleash lesser minions on you, which you can kill in order to gain lesser healing globes, or, he may drop globes himself as you do damage.  Alternatively, you may have to scavenge the boss’s lair to find hidden globes.

Boss battles will require careful thought in terms of when to attack minions for health versus concentrate on the boss and take your chances with your health.  This will give Blizzard a lot of control in terms of scripting boss battles and tweaking them over time.  It’ll be easy to parse some data once players are running boss instances regularly, to see if minion health and DPS need to be changed in order to make a boss fight challenging (though not impossible).

It will also mean that boss fights won’t simply be spank and tank instances.  Instead of just having to deal with the boss’s scripted abilities, you’ll also have to actually think of your health regeneration, versus simply packing as many health potions as a planned fight requires.

Health globes drive Diablo III’s tactical combat, making your lightning-fast decisions during battle intellectually engaging and relevant without adding needless complexity. If you’re injured and attacking monsters from afar to avoid further damage, but a much-needed health globe drops, what will you do? Will you put your wand away and make a dash for it, even if doing so requires you to brave a gauntlet of Fallen, or will you cautiously hang back and wait for an opening, fighting defensively so that you aren’t overwhelmed? If you’re fighting a pack of enemies, can you slaughter the weaker ones quickly enough to saturate the battlefield with health globes so that you’ll survive more dangerous attacks? Will you take the right risks at the right time?

I actually really like this concept.  I hated having to carry a wealth of potions (or having them take up precious bag space) in Diablo II.  Also, there was never any thought to my health, as I simply continued to spam potions (via keybindings). 

This new system will not always require much thought either, other than a bloodlust mentality of never slowing down on your assault, however it will add a different dynamic to boss fights which should keep you on your toes.

Tackle the minions and delay the end of the fight, or hope to get through the boss’s remaining 5% life before you yourself run out of health?

What are your thoughts?

Screenshots

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