Difference between revisions of "Hardcore"

Revision as of 03:06, 2 November 2011

Hardcore characters are exactly the same as regular characters, except that they are mortal. When they die, they stay dead. Forever. No restarting in town; no restarting anywhere.

Dead hardcore characters in Diablo 2 are able to log back onto the Battle.net chat channels, but they can not join or create games. It's not known how this aspect of things will be handled in Diablo III.

Availability

Players will have the ability to create a character in Hardcore mode after they have completed normal difficulty in Softcore mode. This was confirmed at Blizzcon 2011 but at that stage it was still not set in stone. ^[1]

Trading in Hardcore

Trade in the Auction House is separated between game modes. Hardcore characters cannot use the softcore auction house, and vice versa. In addition to this, hardcore characters may only use the gold-based auction house. Any and all items, including characters for sale, may only be purchased with gold.

Hardcore players will still be able to trade item for item, should an item-based currency develop, amongst themselves as they do in Diablo 2.

Death in Hardcore

The character is mortal and therefore death is final. The items on the character's body are lost forever as are the items in your inventory (backpack). Your items do not pop off your body onto the ground when you die so a friend can not pick them up to pass onto you later. It is all gone. The items in your Stash are not lost as that is shared between all your hardcore characters.

Details of your dead character's statistics, gear and achievements will be stored in your in-game profile in a list called Halls of the Dead, the characters can not be taken into a game to view however.

D3 Hardcore Confirmed

After months of "probably" type comments, Hardcore was confirmed as a Diablo 3 feature in August, 2010. Here's a brief timeline of official statements on the subject.

D3 Hardcore Characters Will Look Special

How HC chars will differ isn't yet known, but the D3 Team has repeatedly said they'll be set apart from regular characters in some obvious fashion. [1]

Will hardcore characters be more powerful than normal? --Spectrusv

No intent, no. But they’ll definitely have more prestige and flashy things to show off for being so awesome. --Diablo

June 2008

From the Diablo 3 Design Fundamentals panel, at the 2008 WWI event:

Q: Will there be Hardcore mode?

A: We haven't decided yet, but I don't see why we wouldn't. It’s not a decision we need to make yet. We probably will, though.

April 2009

Bashiok in a forum post.[2]

Question: Has anymore thought been put into Hardcore? Are any features decided-upon?

Bashiok: I think the last thing I heard from Jay on it in public was something along the lines of “Ok fine we’ll just commit to a hardcore mode here and now” outside of that no details have been released.

August 2010

In an interview with GameSpot AU, Jay Wilson confirmed that Hardcore is definitely returning to Diablo III.[3]

Hardcore is definitely returning to Diablo III, but we haven’t decided what sort of special Battle.net features we’ll enable with it. We want to make sure that if you see a HC char on B.net, you’ll know they’re HC. It’s a status symbol, and it’s only one if you know. We’re looking for ways to reward players, and we’re sure we’ll have a set of HC achievements also.

Paying to Resurrect Hardcore Characters?

This concept was initially floated in a forum post by Blizzard's Diablo 3 Community Manager Bashiok, in July 2009. [4]. Reaction from the Hardcore community was fairly outraged and almost entirely negative[5], and when the issue came up again in April 2010, Bashiok said it had been pretty much ruled out.[6]

Paying to bring back a fallen hardcore character was something I read someone here post once, and I simply repeated it to say I thought it was an interesting idea. I’m not a designer. Things I find interesting doesn’t mean they’re being implemented. I have though heard Jay (who is lead designer) say that paying to bring back hardcore is pretty much a horrible idea.

Perks and Difficulty

With the introduction of the banner system, hardcore characters now gain a bit of prestige in the form of added decoration options to a hardcore player's banner, including bloodied skulls littering the base of it.

Hardcore players are not receiving a gentle treatment, much to the delight of fans. There will be certain tweaks to the game that may make the game even more difficult than the softcore counterpart, such as adding debuffs to bosses that effectively nerf the effectiveness of a player, causing them to have to play even more cautiously than before.

In addition to this, Blizzard has no plans to go easy on hardcore players in the new Inferno difficulty mode, as explained by Bashiok[7]:

Arena PvP

Hardcore characters can duel other Hardcore characters in the PvP Battle Arena, just like normal characters. The big issue was not about dueling, but about the consequences thereof. After all, Hardcore characters stay dead once they die to monsters, while the Diablo III Arena is designed for very fast action and repeated deaths, with the winning team the one that dies less in 10 minutes.

After two years of often bitter debate, the Diablo III team changed their initial plans, and announced at BlizzCon 2011 that Hardcore characters would no longer "die" when engaging in Arena PvP.[8]

No more details were released, and it's unknown if there will be an option for permanent death from an Arena defeat, but clearly the default/only option is no longer permanent death, as HC characters experience if they die in the PvM Campaign mode.

The Perma-Death Debate

When Hardcore Arena access was first revealed in 2009, and all through 2010 and most of 2011, the design was set to mirror Hardcore play in normal games; if you died, you stayed dead. The details were never revealed; if it was literally as soon as a character died, or if there was some condition for the losing team dying at the end of a timed match, but the concept was clear.

Jay Wilson enthused about instant perma-death Hardcore dueling at Blizzcon 2010, and @Diablo repeated that in November 2010. [9]

Cracks in the armor of this opinion began to show in mid-2011, when Jay Wilson alluded to internal conflict on this issue. He said that some of the "strike team" were arguing for a non-permanent death mode for Hardcore dueling, since they feared it would just result in HC players never getting to duel with their own characters.

Hardcore Dueling Arguments

This has proven a very contentious subject, with strong opinions on both sides. The argument largely breaks down to a "realist vs. idealist" conundrum.

• Supporters are idealists who argue that permanent death is a non-negotiable part of HC, and that such high stakes will make for every intense Arena combat.
• Opponents argue that most players will never risk their characters in that way. That HC players will have to make SC chars if they wish to duel regularly. And that the Arena is a whole different game type, where every character dies repeatedly, and very quickly.

A few sample threads where this argument was threshed out in 2009 and 2010.

• HC Dueling in D3?
• PvP HC Dueling Without Permanent Death
• How about HC dueling?

Diii.net ran a vote on the issue in November 2010, which spawned another long comment thread of people on both sides of the issue. The vote results:

• 1) HC Arena should be always HC. -- 887 votes, 49.97%
• 2) HC Chars should have a non-lethal Arena option. -- 522 votes, 29.41%
• 3) No opinion/don't care. -- 366 votes, 20.62%

Additional HC Content

• You can read more about the Hardcore Mode of Diablo II in DiabloWiki Hardcore Mode
• Hardcore D3 Forum
• Hardcore D2 Forum
• D2 Hardcore Graveyard Image Gallery

References