Checkpoints-trap dilema

[Valmy]

Checkpoints-trap dilema

I would like to share with you all a bad feeling which is striking me these days.

As we know, Blizzard designers want to remove PK's, and they try to maintain a cooperative-play philosophy.

This is really good, but as hc players you and me know that there are players addicted to damage and ruin the game of other players, and perhaps the checkpoints would help them to do it.


I'm a bit concern. Do you remember those games with a 18 lvl charge paladin in the entrance of the sewers in Luth Golein, hunting noob players? Or the very well-knowed tp-traps?

Perhaps the checkpoints are an excellent way to put a party inmediatelly together for coop-play, but I was thinking about it, and I imagine dozens of players "awakening" some monsters and tanking and driving them exactly at those checkpoints, and then fastrunning/teleporting a bit around. This way, they could build very dangerous traps for all characters who immediately join the game and go to the checkpoint, and killing them.

To me, ofc this is nothing new, because we hc players know about trap-TP's and trap-WP's.

But each time I think about these checkpoints, and knowing the idea of Blizzard of erradicate PK's, I answer myself if there would be safer ways to do it or at least minimize this potencially danger trap.


Any suggestions? What do you think about it?

 

[Knight_Wolf]

Re: Checkpoints-trap dilema

Simple, make checkpoints scare monsters away by auto-casting "flee" on them ... from a lore stand point it would be the effect of "magic wards" put by NPC witch doctors or mages to fend monsters off and allow travelers to use the check points safely .... problem solved XD

 

[Nimbostratus]

Re: Checkpoints-trap dilema

Simply having the checkpoint be a boundary for monsters would present problems with people camping out near checkpoints. This would be easy to remedy, though:

-When no players are present, melee monsters stay x distance away, and ranged monsters stay y distance away.
-The boundaries are ignored while a player is there
-(optional) When a player appears at a checkpoint, monsters will hesitate before crossing the boundaries.
-(optional) Players have 1-5 seconds of invulnerability upon arrival through a checkpoint.

 

[HanShotFirst]

Re: Checkpoints-trap dilema

I would have to be against the idea of auto clearing waypoints. The reason being that probably 999/1000 times the wp is hot because the player made it hot themselves . . . not because some malicious player came into the game and created an ambush. Therefore the real function of auto clearing wps would seem to be cleaning up a sloppy players mess . . . and if you’re a sloppy player you should probably stick with sc.

Besides, I play hc for the challenge . . . if you eliminate the risk . . . you eliminate the challenge (boring). I would have no problem with the continuance of hot tp’s, or hot wp’s, or stair traps. They all contribute to the risk and therefore the challenge and excitement of playing hc.

Additionally, I am of the opinion that if there’s a will there’s a way. There are always going to be people that will get a kick out of killing someone else’s character and regardless of what Blizzard does, they will find a way.

 

[Knight_Wolf]

Re: Checkpoints-trap dilema

I would have to be against the idea of auto clearing waypoints. The reason being that probably 999/1000 times the wp is hot because the player made it hot themselves . . . not because some malicious player came into the game and created an ambush. Therefore the real function of auto clearing wps would seem to be cleaning up a sloppy players mess . . . and if you’re a sloppy player you should probably stick with sc.

The fact that this stair/checkpoint/whatever trap method is well known is proof enough it is quite a common practice, but it wasn't used too often due to the fact that you could kill the other player directly in D2, which won't be the case in D3.

There will be no PKing in D3 so people with retarded mentalities who want to ruin the game for other players thinking that it is "fun" will find no other way than to make traps for other players using the Checkpoints (which will be important in D3), so it will be a main concern in D3.


Besides .. nobody said anything about removing the monsters, we are talking about sending them back few meters (using a boundary or a flee effect) to give the players a chance to react and fight back the hordes waiting for him .. what is challenging about being spammed with monsters from every direction as soon as you use the CH, that's just stupid and frustrating for many people.

Besides, I play hc for the challenge . . . if you eliminate the risk . . . you eliminate the challenge (boring). I would have no problem with the continuance of hot tp’s, or hot wp’s, or stair traps. They all contribute to the risk and therefore the challenge and excitement of playing hc.

The risk of HC is not facing player-set checkpoint traps, making the checkpoints more secure isn't removing any serious risk ... it removes frustration and the ability for retarded players to ruin other players games.

Additionally, I am of the opinion that if there’s a will there’s a way. There are always going to be people that will get a kick out of killing someone else’s character and regardless of what Blizzard does, they will find a way.

And giving them less exploitable options/ways to annoy other players is what the devs MUST do.

 

[HanShotFirst]

Re: Checkpoints-trap dilema

The fact that this stair/checkpoint/whatever trap method is well known is proof enough it is quite a common practice, but it wasn't used too often due to the fact that you could kill the other player directly in D2, which won't be the case in D3.

I've heard of wolverines too . . . I don't think we could consider that as proof that the species is common (but then again, I suppose that all depends on what you consider "common"). In all seriousness though, I have been playing hc almost non-stop on uswest for two and a half years and have seen one portal trap (it was the portal to the moo moo farm) and that was two years ago. It didn't kill me . . . it was exciting.

There will be no PKing in D3 so people with retarded mentalities who want to ruin the game for other players thinking that it is "fun" will find no other way than to make traps for other players using the Checkpoints (which will be important in D3), so it will be a main concern in D3.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you . . . well mostly. I imagine if pkers can't create traps at checkpoints they will find another way (maybe creating well timed lag spikes? . . who knows, I'm sure we'll find out).

Besides .. nobody said anything about removing the monsters, we are talking about sending them back few meters (using a boundary or a flee effect) to give the players a chance to react and fight back the hordes waiting for him .. what is challenging about being spammed with monsters from every direction as soon as you use the CH, that's just stupid and frustrating for many people.

I didn't say anything about removing monsters either . . . what I meant by "clearing" was more along the lines of "pushing back". Anyhow, I still think that a boundary or semi-boundary would create camping/enabling issues more often than it would resolve psuedo pvp issues. For example, check out this wp camping . . . even without a "boundary". Challenge you say, check out this hot tp I went through . . . do I wish there had been a boudary or the tp had been casting flee to keep it clear . . . no way! . . that was the defining moment of that characters existence.

The risk of HC is not facing player-set checkpoint traps, making the checkpoints more secure isn't removing any serious risk ... it removes frustration and the ability for retarded players to ruin other players games.

Cool. My opinion (based on my experience) is that the risk of hc comes both from monsters but mostly from other players. If you get rid of most of the risk will it still be fun . . . maybe more so for you, probably less for me . . . again, we'll see.

And giving them less exploitable options/ways to annoy other players is what the devs MUST do.

Again, don't get me wrong (I was sure that someone was going to jump all over this, but wouldn't have guessed it would only take six hours). Of course Blizzard needs to try hard to prevent exploits (I'm sure they will . . . they make great games). What I was trying to address was the idea that you can make a game 100% safe (from exploits) . . . I don't think you can, sure, you have to try . . . but I don't think you can. Anyways, with everything else, I guess we'll see what happens.

 

[Valmy]

Re: Checkpoints-trap dilema

There will be no PKing in D3 so people with retarded mentalities who want to ruin the game for other players thinking that it is "fun" will find no other way than to make traps for other players using the Checkpoints (which will be important in D3), so it will be a main concern in D3.

This is exactly what I mean by creating the topic.

In D2 there was tppk, and nowadays these traps are uncommon. But years ago in public games in battlenet, before tppk was a popular hack, people usually kill others and ruin their experience in this ways. Because now in D3 won't be pks, some kind of traps will be the only way to kill other people. And I'm sure that players used to ruinning the experience to others will use them.

Of course I know them, and everybody knows one character being trapped in these tricks is not a good hc player, and must learn a lot from the experience. But this is not the point entirely. I'm talking about the idea Blizzard got and everytime is saying about "cooperative play" and buried apart the ones who ruins the game (pks in hc).

Then, I hope they must something to avoid this traps. I don't need them, as I said (I'm old hc player), but I'm sure this would be great for new people coming to hardcore.

The game is "building" for fun, for cooperate, for kill enemies together, and not for trick, hack, steal, or ruin the experience of other players.

 

[kreeper]

Re: Checkpoints-trap dilema

Pre-warning you may want to flame me.

I love pking. Don't get me wrong its not about ruining other peoples experience at all and nor did I intend to. I never set traps or tppked or even hostiled a character that was not within 10 levels of myself up or down. Blizz intended for there to be PKing and stated it was working as intended. I think there should just be level restrictions on who you can PK. I just loved hostiling everyone who posed a decent challenge and going about my own buisness waiting for people to show up. I was successful and had my fair share of losses. I know the feeling of having your experienced ruined by unfair tppk and pk and im entirely for getting rid of that. But im sure you will find that a good number of people simply wern't challenged enough by the monsters alone and liked the idea of people also hunting them down. So don't flame me saying I love to grief people, that wasn't the case, I merely enjoyed the thrill of human opponents and now I have lost that thanks to people whining. I don't get how having a button to choose to duel is any different than just going back to town or leaving when hostiled. Your going about solving the problem with an entirely unecesarry process that is ruining the game for a certain population, when we could have all had what we wanted. So you my friends are hypocrits. You sought out what brought us joy and took it away from us in an unfair manner and are griefing this population based on a few bad apples.

 

[Akse]

Re: Checkpoints-trap dilema

I liked the oldschool hephasto trap in river of flame.. it surely kept any lowbie in fear and not enter river of flame if you weren't sure you could handle hephasto.

 

[5zigen]

Re: Checkpoints-trap dilema

I am kind of thinking that the world in D3 won't be like that in D2, and as such is unlikely to have "checkpoints" as we think about them.

I guess in a more general sense though, will there be things like stairs and levels down or up to trap?

 

[Knight_Wolf]

Re: Checkpoints-trap dilema

I guess in a more general sense though, will there be things like stairs and levels down or up to trap?

Certainly there will be ... the trailer showed the Barbarian using a ladder to drop from one level to another ... and indeed the demo dungeon with Leoric had stairs linking the different dungeon floors.

 

[5zigen]

Re: Checkpoints-trap dilema

Certainly there will be ... the trailer showed the Barbarian using a ladder to drop from one level to another ... and indeed the demo dungeon with Leoric had stairs linking the different dungeon floors.

But was there a loading screen after using them?

The big problem with traping wps / stairs is that the game has to go through a "loading" screen, which typically means you die while loading or close enough to it.

I don't remember the video enough.

 

[Farmrush]

Re: Checkpoints-trap dilema

But was there a loading screen after using them?

The big problem with traping wps / stairs is that the game has to go through a "loading" screen, which typically means you die while loading or close enough to it.

I don't remember the video enough.

Nope! They're just stairs within a level that let you move between platforms. There was no loading, and they didn't lead to new areas. Not that all stairs and ladders won't be able to lead to new areas, just these ones didn't. They were a part of that floor.