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The reason you wouldn't spend ages thinking of a build for a follower is because theres 5 slots composed of 3 skills each. So its simply impossible to take more than a few minutes thinking of what purpose you want them to fill. Want an MF/GF follower? Choose the MF/GF skills. Want a crowd control follower? Choose crowd control skills. With a total of 15 skill choices, most of which aren't interchangeable, theres simply not a lot of possibilities by design.

I agree with Deathjester, we need more information from Blizzard. It's weird to make such an in depth follower system only to have it for the first half of the game. It makes you feel like time spent customising them is only going to be a waste in the end.

Well you really won't be wasting anything. You can just salvage their gear afterwards, and theres not really any gold costs involved with them. I think people need to stop looking at it from the point of view of it being anything but something to keep people playing single player for the first time (which is really the majority of the people who ever play the game) some company, and to put the idea in their head that the game is better with someone else.

The followers are only usable in Normal. And level 25 is probably close to their max level.

All this effort and work, involved in animation, dialogue and story just for normal? and not to mention that you can't use them while you play in co-op?
I'm going to be playing with 3 of my other friends, so I won't be using mercs at all

Making people want to play more after playing normal through the first time is one of the most important things to build up a good base of people who want to play. Not to mention the people like Don who play solo almost all the time. So its really not at all wasted.

Kinda goes to show that Blizzard's reasoning is not always the best... atleast from my perspective.
If your going to devote an entire team to think about follower system and to go about designing them and animatining each skill and every movement... and to throw them out after normal difficulty?

Where in any interview did they say or imply that the entire team was working on this at any time? Compared to stuff like the rune system its not that much work, and it probably took less time than the Artisans.

For those who say Blizzard releases game late because its justified for the high quality.
Lol, laugh your ass right now. This has surely proven thats not the case.

Really? Because if anything these followers look extremely high quality to me. Not to mention that this was apparently one of the first systems they had implemented.

Quote from Auluaden

Quote from Jackzor

Also, magic find (last we heard) only applies to the person who has the magic find item/skill/etc. Not to mention that the names of some of the followers skills seems to imply they will boost your MF as well.

If you re-read what I wrote, I didn't say anything about increased magic find %, but simply stated you'll get more drops TOTAL, spread among four people, instead of one person doing magic find runs, like we did in diablo 2.

Oh, I wasn't disagreeing with that at all, but I was just explaining that in D3, MF doesn't work the same as in D2. So unless you have a group of friends to MF with, playing with randoms won't get you anything more than MFing while soloing.

Do we know if having a follower will decrease your experience gain rate? I am pretty much not goign to use them if they take away from my EX PEEEEEES

They definitely won't.

And... ACTION!

Bashiok quote

Which also makes it very easy to experience their story for anyone wondering about that, seeing as playing through Normal will take about .5 seconds.

Quote from CherubDown

I don't know about you guys, but I love this!!! This has got to be one of the best day for Diablo since Blizzcon!

Oh yea. What probably excites me most about it is the fact that the Followers are part of the same "caravan" that the Artisans are. I can't wait to see what other people you'll have travelling from town to town with you.

Quote from Auluaden

My biggest disappointment: I play Diablo for the storyline, and they stated that the followers can flesh out the storyline.. So, you're telling me that I have to sacrifice storyline to play with my girlfriend? That's a major Thumbs Down. Honestly, It's already more EFFICIENT to Magic Find as a group in D3 now. Everyone gets their own drops, that means if you magic find with a group of friends, the chances of ONE of you finding something that one of you needs/wants is much higher, instead of soloing constantly to get magic drops. They state clutter is the reason, but honestly... If I play with my girlfriend, it will be just the two of us... two NPC's following us won't clutter the screen, and I want my storyline comments, damnit.

So its either:
1) If I play solo , the follower system is valid and I get to know the storyline (aka. the extra story that they give)
2) If I play with a friend, the follower system is invalid and I don't get to know the extra story (aka. i don't get the extra story from these followers)
This is a disappointment, i want to utilize this follower system, but if i play with someone else then its gone!?

Well from how it was described, you will still run in to and rescue each follower even if you are playing with a friend. Other than that you're just 'missing out' on them saying 'Oh that instance looks creepy' and stuff like that. The majority of their story will probably come from when you rescue them, and possibly a few other moments, in which case it will be easy to go back through those select moments where the follower's story is fleshed out a bit more.

Also, magic find (last we heard) only applies to the person who has the magic find item/skill/etc. Not to mention that the names of some of the followers skills seems to imply they will boost your MF as well.

btw nothing's mentioned what will happen to them when you go from normal to nightmare and to hell, a new set of followers in each new difficulty like in diablo 2? probably you'll only meet them in normal

There wasn't really a new set of followers in each difficulty. It was really only that they had a higher level, and since these followers keep their level ups even if they 'die,' it won't really be necessary to introduce a new list of higher level followers.

Oh. Well buy Diablo II! Its great

I'm pretty sure you can have a Battle.net account without a Blizzard game.

Well if they do it right, balancing out the money it takes to maintain a follower during the leveling process with the benefit you gain from a follower could end up making it both non-essential and useful.

As in they could essentially make it so that its just another thing you can put money towards, and since you only have limited funds its either you put gold in, say, followers, but that means you can't put it towards crafting better items or getting the best enchantments on all your gear at all times, etc. Especially if they die often and it costs money to resurrect them (which I'm assuming you'll be able to do, considering the customization that seems to go into each follower).

Obviously in the endgame things might change, since you can (presumably) save up gold much easier, so in order to be at the peak of your game you would still possibly need a follower, but well tuned gold costs could at least make it a choice thats not necessarily the best one while you're leveling.

Quote from lukelog

Follower isn't the greatest term, but at least it seems the mercenaries are more effective.

Well I think the main reason for that choice is because its supposed to imply that you don't hire them, and they choose to follow you. Probably through some quest of course

Well as I said in the other thread, they could easily have a DPS mouseover, just because Damage then DPS is kinda repetitive.

Quote from Bredalolz

So if I got this right, traits are..

like passive abilities/stats?

Yes. Since you can only choose seven skills, they separated passive skills into traits so you still have a reason to get them.

It's possible we have an "off-by-one" error here. If you get a trait after every three level-ups, then you'd have 19, because you start at level 1.

Ding level 1 -> 2 = 1
Ding level 2 -> 3 = 2
Ding level 3 -> 4 = 3 << First trait point

I thought that as well, but starting at level 3 and getting a point every 3 level ups leads to getting your last point at level 60, which seems to make more sense than getting your last point at 59, or really any other level.

Quote from AcidReign

But what if you put something up for trade, go to bed, and in the middle of the night, someone wants to bargain with you. Makes you a GREAT deal. But you're not there, so then you wake up and the other guy logged off. Instead, someone bought it out with gold. Missed opportunity - and unfair for the guy with less gold, but better items.

How is that unfair to the guy with items? If you had been awake you would've gotten the deal, and another one will probably present itself. Bartering will probably always have to be a more one-on-one thing compared to the AH, but for going out of your way to barter you get the reward of not having to use gold, and therefore you'll be able to improve your items/artisans (or any other gold sinks) faster.

Its something like you can respec a skill at a time. There could be other options for traits though, seeing as you'll probably be spread out across more than seven traits.