Hidden Passages?

[Fox VII]

Hidden Passages?

With destructible environments playing a large role in the DIII scenery, I'm wondering if they will be used to hide "secret" passages. I want to have some incentive to blow up the enviorment other than to just damage enemies. These destructible secret passages would be even cooler if there was a higher percentage of the zones they lead to being populated with treasure chests!

How fun would it be to come across an old iron mine tunnel that's got boards covering it with keep out signs, WACK! BOOM! CRACK! Forgotten slave tunnels have been opened! :jig:

How fun would it be to come across a big status that appears to have a trap door peaking out from under it, SMACK! BAM! CRASH! Ancient torture chamber has been revealed! :crazyeyes:

How fun would it be to come across a bunch of vines covering have a shimmer underneath of them, THUD! THUMP! SPLAT! Mythical gold door leading to unfound treasure appears! :nod:

To make stumbling into a potential passage even more exciting, the game creators could be really mean and use the same destructible look to sometimes lead to a secret area and sometimes just blow up and be nothing but a wall.

 

[kreeper]

Re: Hidden Passages?

Kinda like they did in Gauntlet: Dark Legacy? That game was pimpin, and so is this idea.

 

[sbn]

Re: Hidden Passages?

That would be fun, and would also add some dynamic content when playing to be able to randomly come across hidden areas. It is a shame they never did this in D2, but certainly need to now. In fact I would like to see lots of undocumented hidden areas put in, but merely as a bonus to players.

 

[Risingred]

Re: Hidden Passages?

They claimed that this would be a "big part" of dungeons in D2. I remember finding a couple in the monestary and maybe the barracks and that was pretty much it.

 

[Krugar]

Re: Hidden Passages?

I'm afraid I'm against hidden rooms, passages, etc.

To be effective on a game like Diablo they must be truly random, or else soon enough they won't be "hidden passages" anymore. And to be effective on any game, they must yield some kind of reward (or better odds for a reward), or else there's no incentive to search for these.

Now, for the reason I don't personally like them: I like to sweep clean my areas. I can't see a living monster or a gap on my minimap without feeling the urge to deal with it. Hidden passages will considerably slow my game and give me perpetual anxiety since I don't know where they are and have a huge area to look for them. I really would prefer any feeling of anxiety was left for monster battling.

 

[Kaeros]

Re: Hidden Passages?

My only concern is that this series tends to get distilled down to a science after a point, and I don't want part of that science to be people hugging all the walls and clicking randomly to find secret doors.

I'd be a fan of "hidden passages" if they weren't actually that hidden and you didn't have to alter your playstyle to find them. So like, maybe a large lever on a wall that opens a door, or a trapdoor under an obviously misplaced rug that you can burn up, or a pile of rocks blocking a passageway.. Easy visual cues.

 

[TammerHime]

Re: Hidden Passages?

I love the idea of a hidden passage being part of the game. True that if they are not somewhat randomized they will soon not be secret. But either way once youve gone through the game a few times you will know them anyway. Mostly it is for those people just coming in saying to themselves "Hey i wonder why that statue fell down while i was fighting, o look something secret cool". And really it allows you to make the world feel bigger without adding that much more content.

 

[noticks]

Re: Hidden Passages?

Recall that there were at least semi-hidden rooms in D2. I remember the first time I stumbled on one and one of the chests had a pretty decent rare armor that I used for some time. Anyway, it didn't take long to learn how to identify the "secret" door panel.

Hidden passages could work the same way - with possibly more than one (that is different types of) identifying clue in the scenery.

I like this idea!

 

[NASE]

Re: Hidden Passages?

Why are we assuming the game content will be static?
Things like that aren't really hard to program, making it more then possible to add different approaches in different subpatches.

That way, they remain quite hidden as they will change every X days/week/months. And this will help to encourage people to replay area's rather then just mf.


P.S. I like hidden passages. It's adds a lot of variety and if they make enough use of this, it helps to make each replay a different experience.

 

[DANIEL3RD]

Re: Hidden Passages?

I quite like this idea. It wouldnt need to slow the player down if it wasnt overkill. How about the idea if there was maybe only one or two rooms at the most that needed to be unlocked to get into. It wasnt a necessity to complete the game but if you did open them you was rewarded well, say a very special rune.

However to open them required a special item to unlock the door. This item could drop randomly anywhere in the game and the odds of it dropping were fairly low. The rooms could also be random, so if you were lucky enough to find the room in one game but not the item, then the next game you created, the room may not necessarily be in the same place. If there as a high enough random number it may take many games to locate the room even with the item.

This way it would at least keep some element of interest going.

The item would also make a great trading item.

 

[NASE]

Re: Hidden Passages?

However to open them required a special item to unlock the door. This item could drop randomly anywhere in the game and the odds of it dropping were fairly low.

I don't think that's how hidden element should be handled. That's more like something for a uber quest possibly in combination with a hidden chamber.

Yet the true idea of a hidden room is about the beauty of something simple. People who have played nox or even tomb raider know what I'm talking about. Just something easy like destroying branches, burning carpet. Perhaps even finding a key in one room (found by destroying a desk) and using it in an other to unlock the a hidden room under the stairs or something.

And the hidden room it self should be something simple too. Perhaps one or two room with high boos density. Perhaps a sparkling chest, perhaps a super chest.
Perhaps just a short cut that allows you to pass from level 1 to level 3.

 

[DANIEL3RD]

Re: Hidden Passages?

I don't think that's how hidden element should be handled. That's more like something for a uber quest possibly in combination with a hidden chamber.

Yet the true idea of a hidden room is about the beauty of something simple. People who have played nox or even tomb raider know what I'm talking about. Just something easy like destroying branches, burning carpet. Perhaps even finding a key in one room (found by destroying a desk) and using it in an other to unlock the a hidden room under the stairs or something.

And the hidden room it self should be something simple too. Perhaps one or two room with high boos density. Perhaps a sparkling chest, perhaps a super chest.
Perhaps just a short cut that allows you to pass from level 1 to level 3.

Fair comment.

 

[TheWhetherMan]

Re: Hidden Passages?

I like the idea of optional areas with special chests and/or tough mobs, but I don't think they should be well hidden. The entrance to a "secret" area would have to be clearly marked to prevent players from trying to interact with random objects, and at that point it would be a door with another name. And that's fine.

Optional areas could be tied to uniques. Killing a unique could potentially unlock a previously hidden area near where that unique spawned. A sound would play and some object would change, and these could be determined by the area or even the type of unique that was killed.

 

[Fox VII]

Re: Hidden Passages?

Based on the currently released videos, does anyone know if destructibles stand out when your mouse is over them?

 

[kreeper]

Re: Hidden Passages?

I don't think they should be so easily found or labeled in any way, then why would they be secret? If the mouse or lighting of an object changed when you hover over a destructible item that would be more than enough, so if your running through and happen to notice oh my mouse changed when I came through here there must be something around! Otherwise we may aswell just have them be already accessible and open to begin with.

 

[Kaeros]

Re: Hidden Passages?

I don't think they should be so easily found or labeled in any way, then why would they be secret? If the mouse or lighting of an object changed when you hover over a destructible item that would be more than enough, so if your running through and happen to notice oh my mouse changed when I came through here there must be something around! Otherwise we may aswell just have them be already accessible and open to begin with.

If there is better-than-average treasure in these secret passageways, do you really want part of your gameplay experience to become: "swing mouse back and forth across screen to pick up hidden destructible outlines"? There's better things I'd like to do with my attention than that.

If there will be hidden passages, doors, levers, etc., I'd prefer them to be easily identifiable so we're not drawn from the action looking for them. I know that totally defeats the 'hidden' part about it, but it definitely still adds environmental variety and -- I think -- is more gameplay-friendly.

 

[TheWhetherMan]

Re: Hidden Passages?

If there is better-than-average treasure in these secret passageways, do you really want part of your gameplay experience to become: "swing mouse back and forth across screen to pick up hidden destructible outlines"? There's better things I'd like to do with my attention than that.

If there will be hidden passages, doors, levers, etc., I'd prefer them to be easily identifiable so we're not drawn from the action looking for them. I know that totally defeats the 'hidden' part about it, but it definitely still adds environmental variety and -- I think -- is more gameplay-friendly.

Exactly. The experience of finding one should be similar to seeing a nice item drop. That "OMG something special is over there, I cant wait to click on it!" feeling. They should be unlocked/revealed by actions players do anyway, not by random clicks and mouse sweeps.

 

[Krugar]

Re: Hidden Passages?

Indeed Kaeros.

Many of the things we'd like to see in the game at first glance (and I'm sometimes guilty of this too) don't translate well into gameplay. Certain ideas aren't just nothing more than good ideas. When put into practice they just don't work very well, and become the type of things we then move on to complain about.