Multiplayer Suggestions

[radicool]

So now that you've mentioned your working on multiplayer, I'd like to share some suggestions with most important being number 1. Note: You maybe have already considered my points, they may be already obvious or you may not agree with me. Whatever, they're just suggestions. Feel free to comment or post your own suggestions.


1.) Friendly Fire
I don't think multiplayer can work if a player's arrows, firewalls, chain lightnings and novas can hurt allies. Teamwork will be too difficult otherwise. In the original Diablo 1, it was an absolute nightmare trying to work with someone.

What about hurting yourself with your own firewall? I don't know. I cant see how you could easily distinguish friendly firewalls from your own firewalls, from the monsters firewalls. The easiest solution is to stop all self inflicted damage. Not sure exactly how this could be implemented.


2.) Shared Experience
Having to wait for your noobie friend to kill some units to catch up on EXP sucked. I was always better than my friend (or maybe I picked a stronger character) and had to wait for him to slowly get some kills because he was like 8 levels under me despite playing the whole game with me. Shared EXP is a must in my opinion.


3.) Better Chat System
Chat system was poor in Diablo 1. If spammed, messages could take up the whole left side of the screen. Messages were also lost once they faded.

I suggest the chat system works a little like Warcraft 3. The text is restricted to a smaller area on the top left of the screen (instead of taking half your monitor). New messages "push" old messages down. Then all messages are saved into a text log or chat log so players can refer to it later.


4.) Minimap Markings
Just like there are green arrows on the minimap indicating minions, players should be indicated too. Green for minions, white for allied players and red for hostile players.


5.) Quest Items
1 Quest item per player drops from each boss. A player may only pick up one. Just like how Diablo 2 worked. But then, what about Nightmare and Hell difficulties (where no Butcher's Cleaver drops)? Not sure. Maybe there is no quest item and they produce drops like any unique monster would and players fight over the loot?


6.) Unit Collision
I have noticed that minions can block your way. This isn't a problem unless they happen to sit in a doorway. But it could be annoying if players block your way. Someone goes to the kitchen and leaves their character blocking the doorway to a quest or something. How annoying. Maybe your hero can walk through other players and minions?


7.) Player Specific Ownership of Loot
I never liked the idea of each player having their own drops in Diablo 3 from monsters. It kind of threw away that excitement of spamming the position of the boss when he dropped items. I never had a problem sharing with my friends anyway. I can understand the possible annoyance over the internet. I doubt this feature would even be considered for implementation, but just thought I'd share my view on the matter.

Edit: I hope I haven't "jumped the gun" here. I'm not aware of the multiplayer progress, but I know its not coming any time soon. I'm just trying to throw out some basic design principles in hope it helps.

[Constance]

6.) Unit Collision
[…] Someone goes to the kitchen and leaves their character blocking the doorway to a quest or something. How annoying. […]

Turn hostile and kill him ?
I mean, that's his own fault for going away, and I have the feeling that having the possibility of several people being on the same tile would probably create more problems than it would solve.

[blankname]

could be solved by making minors move away from allied players or let allies unsummon them

[BrightLord]

Radicool you have jumped the gun but it's allright.

Remember to refresh this topic in 2016 year. Multiplayer version is as advanced in works as belzebub was in 2012. Noone even knew about it's existance back then.

[radicool]

Radicool you have jumped the gun but it's allright.

...Multiplayer version is as advanced in works as belzebub was in 2012. Noone even knew about it's existance back then.

lol. Sorry.

Remember to refresh this topic in 2016 year.

Will do

Turn hostile and kill him ?

Shouldn't both parties have to agree to hostility so you don't get random people backstabbing you? I don't think this could work.

[Constance]

Shouldn't both parties have to agree to hostility so you don't get random people backstabbing you? I don't think this could work.

It has been working like that in D2 since release date as far as I know... it's all just about how BrightLord decides pvp should get implemented.

[Wingard]

Emotes! Chat command would make our character say a quote (hearable to him and other players). I know we have F9-F12 buttons for messages like "i need help, come here!" and "now you die!" but what i mean is playing sound files. Some lines are there to use while some others would have to be extarcted and made anew.
1. "Die!" - already ready, its being played after killing the Summoner i believe.
2. "Im sorry" is contained in the quote after killing Zhar the Mad (it sounds sarcastic, but still.) Cutting the rest of the words could do it.
3. "Thank you" could be made for example from the quote "THANK the light" (destroying the Shadowfang) and "YOUr death will be avenged" from after clicking the dead townsman (or some other, i guess its a popular word).

I guess we could also use "Run away!" and "Follow me" lines, but idk these are makeable.

[radicool]

Emotes! Chat command would make our character say a quote (hearable to him and other players).

My original suggestions were aimed at providing insight into the core and fundamental mechanics to multiplayer. Not necissarily giving an answer to some things like Friendly Fire and Quest Item Management, allowing people to discuss. I thought it would be better to discuss these matters before multiplayer developement because the multiplayer design would revolve around these concepts (unaware at the time that multiplayer prototypes had already been created).

But everyone is welcome to bring new ideas to the table. I like the quote idea, but in my opinion, the core functionality of multiplayer needs to take priority. Did you have any opinions on the points I mentioned?

[Wingard]

Haha, so now you see how i felt about Ultimate suggestions thread when people preferred to post new suggestions (we already had a thread for that) instead of vointg for the ones from the list. This by the way was one of the reasons why the said thread got closed...

Closer to on-topic: BrightLord said that we might recieve a demo of the multi soon so we can go around the town and trade / chat (multiplayer mode without dungeon levels gameplay). Your suggestions are about the final version, hence the "Remember to refresh this topic in 2016 year" from the dev. I, on the other hand, wanted to suggest something which could be done for the demo, here and now. Let us worry about major issues later on when developer says that its the time for it.

On-topic:
1. Friendly fire: imo this should be optional, either full enemy fire (absolutely no way of hurting allies) or full friendly fire (we can hit other players in any way that allows to hurt the monsters).

2. Shared exp: no opinion.

3. Better chat system: good idea, warcraft-like chat window would be much better than the one we have at the moment.

4. Minimap markings: a flawless idea!

5. Quest items: i have another suggestion: Quest items would be automatically stored in the inventory for quest items after being picked up by any player (no option to throw them out). This would work for quest items ONLY, and would be accesable anywhere and anytime (not only in town) to see what quest items the team is currently in possession of.

6. Unit collision: someone afk-s and blocks the way? Turn hostile and kill the moron. Duh.

7. Player specific ownership of loot
I like it how in Diablo 3 each player has his own loot, its fair and doesnt create arguments over the items as to whom should it belong. Im a huge fan of this idea. You say you "never had a problem sharing with my friends anyway". Great, but mind the fact that not everyone have such nice playfriends.