Diablo 3 Planning to Use All New Checkpoint System

Post on official forums explains how dying in Diablo 3 won't result in a cross-country trek.

By Chris Pereira, 09/30/2008

Death is a touchy subject. It's hardly an ideal state to be in whether in a videogame or in real life (that's what they tell me, at least), and when you're dealing with a game as iconic as a Diablo title, the way in which death is handled is quite a big deal.

The subject recently came up on the official Diablo 3 forums. A Blizzard staffer going by the username 'Bashiok' was quick to offer up an answer as to how death is being handled in the new Diablo title. And there's a stark difference between the new system and the one found in Diablo 2: rather than being sent back to town and having to venture back to where you perished to recover your place (without any of your gear, mind you), you'll now be sent back to a checkpoint. These checkpoints are scattered throughout the world and "generally" at the end of each level of a dungeon. When respawning at a checkpoint you'll be left with a small amount of health.

Bashiok added, "It's just too early to put a ton of thought in to what penalties there should be, if any, added on top of it." That doesn't make me particularly optimistic that we'll soon be playing Diablo 3, but at least we're getting some insight into how things are changing from Diablo 2. Hopefully we won't have to suffer through an outcry over the change like we did when Blizzard first showed the game's change in art direction over its predecessors.

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I just hope they don't make the save system work on checkpoints either. Otherwise it sounds good. No more walking from the Durance of Hate 2 to Baal if I forget to put up a TP!!

Good that they have decided to do that.. the penalty of walking back to where you died removes a lot of fun from the game, and can get pretty tiresome.. me sucking at diablo 2 caused this to be one of the reasons i still haven't finished it... kept dying at one spot and couldn't get my armor back before dying again :P

won't bother me much, I'll be finishing the game as fast as I can so I can play it properly... With Hardcore characters (death = Perma)..


Only way to play diablo :)

I have total faith in Blizzard with regards to this and anything else when it comes to game development. Sadly I was only able to finish diablo 2 and the expansion on hell difficulty with one class, that being the sorceress of course :)

On normal difficulty I finished the game with Sorceress,barbarian,necromancer and druid.

Can't wait for D3 although Starcraft 2 will keep me busy enough when it comes out.

I don't remember this being a problem, just drop a TP every now and then.

This is what the Blizzard guy actually says:

"Before I get in to what we are doing let me go over some things we want to avoid with a death mechanic.

We want to separate being in town and being out on a quest/adventure/dungeon as much as possible. Leaving the safety of a town should not be a decision you take lightly. We don't want to remove the sense of suspense and danger by making town something you're always going back to pretty much whenever you like. The intent is to create a greater separation from being in town, and not, and to make your time away from town a lot more tense.

On that same note we also don't want to remove the player from the action. Throwing them back to town for every death really breaks up the action, and not in a fun, interesting, or necessary way.

So, with these things in mind we've found that a check point system works really well. Throughout your adventures, and generally at the ends of each "floor" of a dungeon your character is saved to a checkpoint. When you die you're dropped back at the last checkpoint with a small amount of health, and the rest regenerates slowly. It's obviously a very forgiving system as it is. It's just too early to put a ton of thought in to what penalties there should be, if any, added on top of it.
Regardless, potential penalties aside, this is the death mechanic we're currently using and it's working really well so far. "

Why would you walk from the Durance of Hate to Baal? Use the waypoints!

Now, dying somewhere in the Durance of Hate level 2 without a TP is what sucks, especially with those little dolls that kill you when they explode :(

This new system is for little girlie men! You need to take that walk of shame to reflect on how much you suck! :D

JUST SO YOU KNOW:

This is exactly the same Mythos did (except you had to pay gold for the teleportation "service").

Doesn't matter to me. It only helps people who die.

I'm more worried by this: