De som inte är nöjda med följeslagarna har valt att se på saken ur en annan synvinkel. En användare menar att utvecklingen av det meningslösa systemet bara har stulit värdefull utvecklingstid för spelet. Såhär skriver han och såhär svarar Bashiok. Klicka på ”Läs mer…” nedan för att läsa hela konversationen.

Followers are confirmed as only usable in Solo games. Ok whatever. They are also confirmed to be virtually useless beyond Normal mode. Ummm, that’s pretty dumb/weird….but ok. Bashiok also confirmed they’re not even be needed to finish Normal mode. Ummm…why do these things even exist?

Really Blizzard? Really!? Why even have them? Flavor you say? That’s not flavor. That’s a huge waste of Development time, and for what?

Why go into so much detail with for a system that will barely be used?

I really liked yesterday’s leak about Followers. Today I don’t like them at all. Someone unwittingly hit the nail right on the head yesterday with the thread entitled ”Why even have Followers?” It’s true. The way Blizzard is describing them, they are useless. Not even needed to finish Normal mode according to Bashiok.

Does anyone NOT see Followers as a huge waste of Dev time?

My biggest beef is that they are useless beyond Normal mode. At least make them viable throughout all difficulties of the game for those who want to use them. If this one thing was changed, I’d still be cool with Followers.

I don’t mean any offense, but you don’t represent the majority of people that will play the game. For better or worse. People here, logging in with their Diablo II keys to talk about an unreleased product – – on an essentially hidden forum – – do not represent the vast majority of people that will play the game. Which doesn’t mean we don’t want the game to appeal to you or be a lasting game you’ll want to play as long as you played Diablo II, it very much is our intent to be, but we have a broad range of Diablo fans to appeal to.

Looking at Diablo II the amount of people that bought the game, never logged on to Battle.net, and never went beyond Normal are not insignificant. In fact, they’re a substantial portion of the people that bought copies throughout the life of the game. The same goes for StarCraft II. Many (maybe most) people play through the story on normal difficulty, they MAY jump into multiplayer for a bit, and then that’s about it. Putting effort into ensuring their experience is a solid one is not a waste of time because some other people completely skip the story and go straight to the 1v1 ladder.

Followers fit in with that ’average’ use of games very well, but their intent is to also help people expand beyond their initial intent of beating it on Normal, and then shelving the game. If the followers can get a player excited about co-op because they like playing with another character, that’s a win. We also think they just add a lot to the experience up front, which is important.

And, they’re memorable characters. I don’t think the scope of who these people are needs to end because their health doesn’t scale so we can ensure the end-game is pure and there’s less visual noise in multiplayer games. We don’t have any plans for them beyond what we’ve announced, but, I wouldn’t be surprised if they became meaningful in other ways in the future. Even if they’re not, if someone enjoyed playing along with them, enjoyed the dialog, and liked what they add to the single player experience (which is pretty significant) then that’s not a waste of time.

– Not even needed to finish Normal mode according to Bashiok

Normal is super easy. It’s intentionally super easy. You will die, but you can essentially slap on gear and not think too much about it, and probably beat the game without too much trouble. There will be many people though that will get a good amount of damage and utility by keeping their follower along. But, realistically people aren’t going to actively refuse the help of a follower as they play through the game the first time.

I can beat the game on normal without gemming any items. That doesn’t mean gems are a waste of time as a system. One happens to be required more at higher difficulties, one happens to be more useful and fun when playing alone in Normal. There’s nothing that says all of our mechanics have to be useful at all times through all difficulties and classes or else it’s a waste of time, and in fact, that’d probably make things super boring.