Diablo III Forum Activity

Diablo community manager “Bashiok” discusses the witch doctor’s Horrify skill, item drops, the effect of in-game physics, and more in his latest responses on the official Diablo III forums.

On the witch doctor’s Horrify skill in PvP:

No reason to stifle or potentially redirect discussion with my own musings on a question that essentially comes down to balance; which isn’t something we would comment on until a point where the balancing these things makes sense.

There are many ideas and many solutions that could potentially work. Enjoy.

On item drops:

Yeah, drops for everything, bosses, normal enemies, chests, etc. all drop items per player. If you see an item drop, it’s for you. If you pick up an item and don’t want it, when you drop it then everyone else can see it.

There are some questions the drop system raises of course about griefing or contribution, but those are really issues that are best and maybe even easier addressed when a more complete view of a final game comes into focus.

On the effect of in-game physics:

Haha, one of the many happy coincidences afforded by physics. The siege breaker’s claw attack happened to hit the female witch doctors corpse, which sent it flying.

Another of my favorites is from the interior part, when the barbarian leaps across the chasm created by the falling rocks, he smacks some zombies and the last one flies a few feet and lands upside down straddling the side railing in a very awkward pose.

Physics adds a lot of “OH CRAP! That was awesome!” moments.

On damage types:

ny things are under consideration and continual iteration.

As to what type of damage it would be, well it’s a great question because something like soul harvest brings up those same questions for the designers and artists. Do you make it physical to avoid attaching a damage type that may not really make sense, go ahead and attach something and live with it, or think of something new?

We don’t know yet. 🙂

On wizard skills:

The wizard is a young and very arrogant student. Rightfully so in some ways as she is extremely gifted. She knows she’s better than all of her classmates at mage-school, and even some of the teachers. Something as simple as elemental magic would probably be something the wizard considers beneath her. She focuses on high magics, arcane magic, the control of space and time, and while she does like to focus on weather based magics – she tends to put a slight arcane or unnatural spin on them.

If she were to use fire, she wouldn’t do it in such a pedestrian way as to literally conjure it herself. She’d want to make it a bit more challenging.

Fire is a physical element that the Witch Doctor uses a fair amount of though. His kit is a mixture of physical magic and the supernatural, which obviously fits very well with his name. We want each class to feel unique, and a separation of visual style is important to basic gameplay, so there’s some intentional guidelines as to how much skill types and styles should overlap between the classes.

On class mobility balancing:

We definitely want to avoid as best as possible a single class being far and away better than all others at something (such as mobility) and thus used exclusively for specific tasks.

As long as there is choice and variety in the game there’s going to be one solution that gains a general consensus as being the best at “X”. The hope and the intent is to make the difference between the best and second best, third best, etc. as close to imperceptible as possible so that you can use what ever class/character you want, what ever build you want, and not feel that you’re far and away below the abilities of something else. That’s balance in choice.

We’re taking a close look at what those specific mobility issues were in Diablo II and could be in Diablo III, and yes we’re certainly trying to be a bit smarter about planning for it. You specifically mention the witch doctor. With the way he plays and feels a big warp or jump around skill just doesn’t really seem right for him, but he may have a trick or two up his sleeve…