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Followers should not be mistook for [[hirelings]], who serve a different purpose in Diablo III.
==Followers in Diablo III==
The followers in Diablo III are well removed from the mercenary system in Diablo II. One of the largest differences is in the name itself--followers are not hired, they are recruited through quests. There are three followers in Diablo III, which will all be gained within the first Act.
When a follower is incapacitated, they will revive after a short time on their own, or the player can revive them by standing above them and waking them up. The process of waking them up leaves the player vulnerable to attack, so it will be best to revive them when there aren't any enemies in the vicinity. While the follower is incapacitated, the player will not receive any bonuses that originate from them.
Followers cannot be healed by [[health potion]]s, although they can benefit from [[health globe]]s.
They're also tuned so that they become very weak starting in Nightmare, and then are completely unusable in Hell. Even if you're playing alone, you will probably not be using Followers past Normal - - you can try but they're going to just be one-shot back to back. They're there as a bit of flavor, to help get people into the mindset of co-op if they're a bit reluctant, and... that's about it. They won't be usable at end-game, and they'll never replace the abilities and power that another player can bring.</blue>
===Follower AI===
Most who played Diablo II will have not-so-fond memories of their mercenaries running against a wall, or other nonsensical behavior, and they became quite frustrating. Their help amounted to an aura or other passive ability, and the player often struggled to keep them alive.
[[Jay Wilson]] spoke briefly about the AI challenges they faced, and what players can expect from follower AI, in an April 2011 interview with Now Gamer[http://www.nowgamer.com/features/1353/diablo-iii-interview-jay-wilson-talks-followers?o=2#listing]:
<blue>'''NowGamer''': You’ve talked in the past about improvements to enemy AI – what about NPCs?
'''Jay Wilson''': They were a bit easier because they tend to lean on the monster AI, use a lot of the same things as them. Making the Followers interesting revolved around making our monster targeting systems better. In Diablo II monsters pretty much just targeted whatever was closest to them, which meant if you played as a necromancer, it could be kind of a boring class because you almost never get attacked by anything. Your scouts always moved fast to get in front of you. So we said ‘OK, let’s have enemies that attack in different ways, or choose their targets in different ways’.
Take an enemy that burrows for example – they’re really most dangerous to a ranged class, so that’s what they focus on – they burrow and make a beeline for a ranged character. Whereas a lot of enemies will go ‘I want to attack somebody, but if I can’t reach one of the guys closest to me, or he has a lot of people attacking him already, I’m just going to choose somebody else’. So the attacks get spread out a little more. It makes having a Follower a lot more interesting because they’ll pick up some of the enemies’ focus but not all of it.</blue>
Contrary to popular speculation, followers will not be able to be controlled by the player outside of dictating their fighting style by selecting their [[skill]]s. There will be no "aggressive/defensive" toggle, nor will the player be able to dictate precise movements of the follower.
Once the skills or spells are assigned, that is the end of it, unless the players choose to [[respec]] them, which will be small in cost. There are no extra ranks of abilities for followers, nor do they benefit from [[trait]]s of their own.
Follower abilities may not be affected by [[rune]]s.
===Follower Inventory===
The [[attribute]] section of the interface for mercenaries is gone with the introduction of followers. Instead, the relevant statistics displayed are the [[health]] of the follower (current health and maximum health), the range of damage they will inflict with a standard attack, and also resistances.
It is currently unknown what effect, if any, equipping a follower with an amulet containing player [[attributes]] will have, or if there are restrictions on gear or modifiers that the followers will be able to equip.
==Design Goal of Followers in Diablo III==
The function of a mercenary in Diablo II was a permanent helper that would scale with their level. Upon release of the expansion pack, Lord of Destruction, mercs gained a lot of power, particularly due to [[dupe]]d [[runeword]] items. Many [[MF]] characters relied on mercs for defense and damage.
This will not be the case with followers. The design philosphy for the follower differs drastically, where the dev team has stated that they want the followers to be a sort of introduction to co-op multiplayer. [[Bashiok]] expands on this idea[http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=27808220764&pageNo=1&sid=3000#11]:
<blue>Well, followers are essentially a flavor bonus to those playing through normal the first time by themselves. It provides some story elements, but more importantly it gets the idea in their head of playing with another person. You come across each of them pretty quickly in Act 1, and then they help you throughout the rest of the game if you'd like. They aren't required to beat the game on Normal, even if you're playing by yourself. Feel free to leave them behind if you like. But they are pretty awesome.
They're also tuned so that they become very weak starting in Nightmare, and then are completely unusable in Hell. Even if you're playing alone, you will probably not be using Followers past Normal - - you can try but they're going to just be one-shot back to back. They're there as a bit of flavor, to help get people into the mindset of co-op if they're a bit reluctant, and... that's about it. They won't be usable at end-game, and they'll never replace the abilities and power that another player can bring.</blue>
