Lorcan Ward
7slinger
This looks promising! I loved I + II but never gave III a chance. This is a return to form anyway!
Diablo IV
- Thread starter Lorcan Ward
- Start date
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diagrammatiks
Well-Known Member
this isn't the mobile game right?
I sure hope not.
I never played I and II but capped and did all the expansions in III. Looking forward to this one. I hope it has more replayability than III.
Lorcan Ward
7slinger
This looks like an evolution of II which is what fans have been asking them for years.
Adieu
Well-Known Member
Too much cutscene crap, and no visible interface on the isometric presumed-gameplay parts....wtf???
And what's this attempt to act like a hack and slash has some sort of plot that anyone, you know, actually GIVES A SH!T about????
And what's this attempt to act like a hack and slash has some sort of plot that anyone, you know, actually GIVES A SH!T about????
KnightBrolaire
Pickup Connoisseur
ehh... III was meh. I'll wait until they show some in depth gameplay before I give a shit.
Crundles
Well-Known Member
IV looks ... really not good to me tbh. I know we're only being showed the extreme early game, but there's nothing in the gameplay vids that has made me go "wow I gots to have that ASAP". It does seem to have a nice engine and lighting, but the whole just looks ... generic.
Also this might be way too spicy a hot take, but I really dislike their decision to all-in on the grimdark.
Yes, that was Diablo 2's thing, and I played 2 for literal aeons, but I was 11 when Lord of Destruction came out. Now that I'm nearly 30, it turns out I vastly prefer vibrant, cartoony styles for my hack-n-slashes. If someone could make a complete character rework mod for Torchlight 2, it would be the perfect action RPG for me. Even if it's not cartoony, I still prefer color - like Titan Quest. I finally caved in and started playing Path of Exile for the first time in my life, and while I like some things, the amount of gore-themed enemies and bosses is just absurd. OH NO LOOK OUT FOR THE GROSS LEVEL OF MEAT AND GORE AND PEOPLE IMPALED ON SPIKES OF BLOOD but also don't forget to go play the tower defence, and collect the 5 pokeymons!
Also Diablo 3 is perfectly fine. I play a week or so every season, it's a decent time. It has major foundational problems which will never let the patched in elements (Greater Rifts, sets-as-builds) stuff be great, but the core gameplay in the end-game is good enough. It's all the other things around the core gameplay that irk me.
Also this might be way too spicy a hot take, but I really dislike their decision to all-in on the grimdark.
Yes, that was Diablo 2's thing, and I played 2 for literal aeons, but I was 11 when Lord of Destruction came out. Now that I'm nearly 30, it turns out I vastly prefer vibrant, cartoony styles for my hack-n-slashes. If someone could make a complete character rework mod for Torchlight 2, it would be the perfect action RPG for me. Even if it's not cartoony, I still prefer color - like Titan Quest. I finally caved in and started playing Path of Exile for the first time in my life, and while I like some things, the amount of gore-themed enemies and bosses is just absurd. OH NO LOOK OUT FOR THE GROSS LEVEL OF MEAT AND GORE AND PEOPLE IMPALED ON SPIKES OF BLOOD but also don't forget to go play the tower defence, and collect the 5 pokeymons!
Also Diablo 3 is perfectly fine. I play a week or so every season, it's a decent time. It has major foundational problems which will never let the patched in elements (Greater Rifts, sets-as-builds) stuff be great, but the core gameplay in the end-game is good enough. It's all the other things around the core gameplay that irk me.
D3 was terrible when it came out and for a long time. From about Reaper of Souls onward, it's actually really solid. I've been playing it a lot on Switch and while it's maybe not the Best Game Ever, it's a lot of fun if you like that kind of thing.
Bluddshed has a full stream of playing the demo at Blizzcon: It looks pretty good, but the demo is really limited and it's going to be at least another year of development before it's released, so it's hard to really conclude too much.
Bluddshed has a full stream of playing the demo at Blizzcon: It looks pretty good, but the demo is really limited and it's going to be at least another year of development before it's released, so it's hard to really conclude too much.
wankerness
Well-Known Member
3 is awesome, I've spent hundreds of hours in it. It was rough going at launch when everything was overtuned, they didn't have the rifts or seasons, and the drop rates were absolutely horrible since they were trying to get you to buy things through the real money auction house. But, I love the state it's been in for the last several years. I played a TON on PC and quite a bit on console, the console versions were very surprisingly playable considering how clicky it is on PC. I haven't tried playing as the demon hunter, though, my guess is that wouldn't be so great (most of my strat on PC with that character was stutter step kiting).
I don't care about this until we see more classes. If it really launched with 3 classes, that would be unacceptable, unless it's one of those deals where they can change into a different class at a certain level or something.
I don't care about this until we see more classes. If it really launched with 3 classes, that would be unacceptable, unless it's one of those deals where they can change into a different class at a certain level or something.
UE Multishot and Impale are both very playable on console. The DH builds that suck are mostly the ones that require precise turret placement.
They've said that there will be five classes at launch and more added through expansion packs.
From the dev interviews and panels that came out over the weekend, it sounds like the game is *very* early stage. Probably closer to 2+ more years of development and very little of what's in the current demo is written in stone. They basically have a working engine, some decently fleshed out art direction, and rough idea of where they want to go with the game mechanics, but not much more. The main thing that has me at least optimistic is that they seem to be interested in community feedback and are giving the impression that they are actually listening.
Drew
Forum MVP
DIII had some issues at inception, sure, but in its current form it's great, and a lot of people forget that while DII was eventually much loved, it too was not really well received at first until Blizzard did some serious tweaking. DIII, in its current form, has a really fun, repeatable endgame, with the bounties and (especially) rifts.
Honestly, I'd really forgotten most of this, and how far the game had come. Dear god, the auction house and real money auction house?
A buddy of mine who played a lot more than I did in the early days basically managed to pay for the game by selling a couple legendaries he didn't need when he got better drops, but when they removed the auction house, honestly, while it made it harder to find specific items or attributes, I was happier with the gameplay. It "felt" more how the game should function.
The original Diablo looks dated today, but if you can track down a copy, it's worth a play. I don't know how much there is in the way of replayability, but the thiong that I always lvoed about it as a kid was there's basically no background presented at all - you're just dropped in this town, and everyone in town is like, "Hey, the king's son just got kidnapped, and now skeletons are coming out of that old cathedral over there. You look like an adventurer, maybe you should check it out." A story only starts to emerge as you explore.
I guess the thing that I'm more curious about... Lilith became a "character" (not ever seen, but you'd hear her in a lot of the books and scrolls while going after Malthael) in Reaper of Souls, and she's presented as, in conjunction with an angel (Inarius? Or am I thinking Baldur's Gate?) wanting out of the Eternal Conflict, so she and he become lovers, use the Woldstone to create Sanctuary, and eventually give birth to the human race. Here, however, she seems to be pretty clearly aligned with the Prime Evils, and to have squarely picked a side again. I'm really not sure what to make of that.
Honestly, I'd really forgotten most of this, and how far the game had come. Dear god, the auction house and real money auction house?
A buddy of mine who played a lot more than I did in the early days basically managed to pay for the game by selling a couple legendaries he didn't need when he got better drops, but when they removed the auction house, honestly, while it made it harder to find specific items or attributes, I was happier with the gameplay. It "felt" more how the game should function. The original Diablo looks dated today, but if you can track down a copy, it's worth a play. I don't know how much there is in the way of replayability, but the thiong that I always lvoed about it as a kid was there's basically no background presented at all - you're just dropped in this town, and everyone in town is like, "Hey, the king's son just got kidnapped, and now skeletons are coming out of that old cathedral over there. You look like an adventurer, maybe you should check it out." A story only starts to emerge as you explore.
I'm hoping it's just an early demo, but I agree - the palate is very true to the original, after evidently they got a lot of feedback that DII and III were too "cartoony." I agree with that feedback to a certain extent, but I also think they've gone too far here, everything's grey and washed out like they just dialed back the saturation and contrast. By all means, get less cartoony, but it doesn't have to be so dull and monochrome either.
I guess the thing that I'm more curious about... Lilith became a "character" (not ever seen, but you'd hear her in a lot of the books and scrolls while going after Malthael) in Reaper of Souls, and she's presented as, in conjunction with an angel (Inarius? Or am I thinking Baldur's Gate?) wanting out of the Eternal Conflict, so she and he become lovers, use the Woldstone to create Sanctuary, and eventually give birth to the human race. Here, however, she seems to be pretty clearly aligned with the Prime Evils, and to have squarely picked a side again. I'm really not sure what to make of that.
Lindmann
SS.org Rectangular
I loved Diablo I back then. It was very atmospheric, especially because of the fantastic soundtrack.
Diablo II was probably as good as Diablo I if not even better. But since I wasn't playing video games that much anymore, I never got so addicted like I have been to Diablo I.
I never cared for Diablo 3. So I never played it. The videos I saw really put me off. It completely lost the dark atmospheric tone the previous two had. Instead it was an effect overkill and it looked like a fucking comic. Goofy proportions and overly saturated colors. Appeared to me as made to please the world of warcraft crowd.
Now Diablo 4 seems to return to the darker and less comicy style again. Might be too early to judge but at least I am interested.
Diablo II was probably as good as Diablo I if not even better. But since I wasn't playing video games that much anymore, I never got so addicted like I have been to Diablo I.
I never cared for Diablo 3. So I never played it. The videos I saw really put me off. It completely lost the dark atmospheric tone the previous two had. Instead it was an effect overkill and it looked like a fucking comic. Goofy proportions and overly saturated colors. Appeared to me as made to please the world of warcraft crowd.
Now Diablo 4 seems to return to the darker and less comicy style again. Might be too early to judge but at least I am interested.
Drew
Forum MVP
I guess one final thought.
I only bought and started playing Diablo II after seeing pre-release footage of III, well before it came out, for similar reasons - I loved the first, but the 2nd came out while I was in college, at which point I had neither the time nor the money to be buying and playing video games (I played a little bit of Runescape here and there but that was about it). So, it was probably 2009 or 2010 when I bought the battle chest edition and played it, at which point the game had already been pretty fully fleshed out.
The one thing I think Diablo III does much better than II was make the end game way more explicit. I played II through, beat it, and that was that. It wasn't until well after that I realized for a lot of people the "end game" of II wasn't just beating the game, it was unlocking the higher difficulty levels and then going after specific bosses, upgrading gear, etc etc etc. Again, I wasn't a big gamer, and was playing solo, so it never even crossed my mind there was any point in playing through it again.
What DIII did well, from the perspective of a casual gamer, was make it very explicit that when you beat the game, there was still a lot of replay value in seeing how high up in Torment you could take down certain bosses and giving you rewards for doing so, as well, as Rifts/Greater Rifts with essentially limitless difficulty, so once you beat the "storyline," there was an entirely different way to play the game.
Again, most of you were probably already thinking like this and this was nothing new, but from the standpoint of a more casual gamer, the fact that the game was designed to encourage you to keep fighting well after the storyline ended was cool.
I only bought and started playing Diablo II after seeing pre-release footage of III, well before it came out, for similar reasons - I loved the first, but the 2nd came out while I was in college, at which point I had neither the time nor the money to be buying and playing video games (I played a little bit of Runescape here and there but that was about it). So, it was probably 2009 or 2010 when I bought the battle chest edition and played it, at which point the game had already been pretty fully fleshed out.
The one thing I think Diablo III does much better than II was make the end game way more explicit. I played II through, beat it, and that was that. It wasn't until well after that I realized for a lot of people the "end game" of II wasn't just beating the game, it was unlocking the higher difficulty levels and then going after specific bosses, upgrading gear, etc etc etc. Again, I wasn't a big gamer, and was playing solo, so it never even crossed my mind there was any point in playing through it again.
What DIII did well, from the perspective of a casual gamer, was make it very explicit that when you beat the game, there was still a lot of replay value in seeing how high up in Torment you could take down certain bosses and giving you rewards for doing so, as well, as Rifts/Greater Rifts with essentially limitless difficulty, so once you beat the "storyline," there was an entirely different way to play the game.
Again, most of you were probably already thinking like this and this was nothing new, but from the standpoint of a more casual gamer, the fact that the game was designed to encourage you to keep fighting well after the storyline ended was cool.
Crundles
Well-Known Member
The problem is, while D3's core gameplay - ie, smack demon, demon fall apart - is really quite polished and fun, there are minor or major issues with every element surrounding it. Let's briefly explore my major gripes with D3, as it is in this moment.
1. Endless progression via Paragon level is bad. While in theory "continue getting stronger forever" is an enticing mechanic, especially if you're coming from a progression-based action RPG like D2, there's a reason the vast majority of D3 playtime comes in the first few days of a season. Endless Paragon encourages botting, and warps endgame progression - if you follow any content creators you know the "correct" way to play is to grind paragon, most likely through rat runs, for the entirety of the season, and spend the last two weeks pushing as high as you can go.
2. Rifts and Greater rifts are obviously patched in. The different layouts and monster types vary greatly in difficulty, in convenience and honestly, in fun. This is why fishing is so commonplace - historically the best builds have been glass cannon, and are forced to avoid certain monster types, so your endgame pushing consists of spamming Grifts until you get the perfect monster type + maptile combo. Check out the best clears on youtube and see how many feature the same map.
3. The vast majority of builds are mechanically clunky. This might be me, personally, but I feel like every single build has an unnecessary downside. For example - Demon Hunter UE multishot's damage is based on your current resource rather than your max resource, so you get unnecessary slowdowns. R6 HOTA is forced to wall-charge for ages before you can damage the boss. Bazooka, the highest skill-cap build, has timing which is almost impossible to get without a macro. Condemn crusader needs to macro 4 out of the 6 abilities because you will never not use them on cooldown. The same is true for speed builds, which is the vast majority of your playtime - almost all speed builds include Ingeom - an item which reduces all your cooldowns by 10 seconds for 15 seconds when you kill an elite or rare pack. So now your playstyle becomes jump from pack to pack as quickly as you can to maintain this buff. But what if I want to stop and look around, without losing all my inertia? Too bad, play multishot again.
Give me Torchlight II's presentation, Titan Quest's class system, and Path of Exile's amount of content, all together in one package and I'll click away the vast majority of my free time.
1. Endless progression via Paragon level is bad. While in theory "continue getting stronger forever" is an enticing mechanic, especially if you're coming from a progression-based action RPG like D2, there's a reason the vast majority of D3 playtime comes in the first few days of a season. Endless Paragon encourages botting, and warps endgame progression - if you follow any content creators you know the "correct" way to play is to grind paragon, most likely through rat runs, for the entirety of the season, and spend the last two weeks pushing as high as you can go.
2. Rifts and Greater rifts are obviously patched in. The different layouts and monster types vary greatly in difficulty, in convenience and honestly, in fun. This is why fishing is so commonplace - historically the best builds have been glass cannon, and are forced to avoid certain monster types, so your endgame pushing consists of spamming Grifts until you get the perfect monster type + maptile combo. Check out the best clears on youtube and see how many feature the same map.
3. The vast majority of builds are mechanically clunky. This might be me, personally, but I feel like every single build has an unnecessary downside. For example - Demon Hunter UE multishot's damage is based on your current resource rather than your max resource, so you get unnecessary slowdowns. R6 HOTA is forced to wall-charge for ages before you can damage the boss. Bazooka, the highest skill-cap build, has timing which is almost impossible to get without a macro. Condemn crusader needs to macro 4 out of the 6 abilities because you will never not use them on cooldown. The same is true for speed builds, which is the vast majority of your playtime - almost all speed builds include Ingeom - an item which reduces all your cooldowns by 10 seconds for 15 seconds when you kill an elite or rare pack. So now your playstyle becomes jump from pack to pack as quickly as you can to maintain this buff. But what if I want to stop and look around, without losing all my inertia? Too bad, play multishot again.
Give me Torchlight II's presentation, Titan Quest's class system, and Path of Exile's amount of content, all together in one package and I'll click away the vast majority of my free time.
Drew
Forum MVP
Singling this out in your final point that I broadly agree with, because this I actually don't agree with. Why would you ever want to stop and look around?
I do agree, though, that a lot of the more "advanced" builds are just less fun to play than less-advanced ones. One of the most fun builds I've ever done was a Wizard where I didn't get into the theorycrafting behind it much more than buffing my fire damage as much as I could and using a lot of the Firebird's Plumage set, and then raining whatever the largest fireball down on pretty much everything, coupled with occasional fire Archon for bigger fights. It was a blast to play, and the major advantage of that particular fireball was you could aim it pretty well and it was almost instantaneous, vs a lag and a spread on the rest of the runes, and it "felt" like what it should be like to be a flame-weilding wizard. It definitely couldn't hold it's own on higher Torment levels, though. I haven't played it in ages, and I don't remember where I really topped out, but it wasn't especially high.
I've been leaning more on building resources since then and followed Icy Veins' recommendation for a Crusader for the past season, and while it's an extremely effective build, the heavy reliance on AoE really just doesn't make for especially fun gameplay. You basically jjust keep spamming spirit hammer or whatever that is to keep a stream of hammers swirling around you and periodically suck enemies towards you with Condemn/Vaccum, I think it is. It's extremely effective, especially once you start getting your cooldown fairly low, and I was surprised how quickly I could get into fairly high torment levels in-season even before the season ended and I got several hundred paragon points to work with - I think I got up to a level 30 Greater Rift in fairly short order once I completed the season and unlocked the rest of the set - but the gameplay feels awfully passive.
Admittedly you can't really fault Blizzard for this, since this is the result of people thinking long and hard about how to optimize builds around various peices of gear and sometimes thinking quite outside the box to get there - it's a build with no primary resource generator, so it's likely Blizzard never really stopped and thought about how the gameplay might feel if sopmeone went down that road - but I do feel like if you want to have a "fun" time playing the game, that maybe really trying to push your ability to hit the highest level greater rifts or Torment levels you can probably, paradoxically, isn't the way to go, and maybe you'd be better off just putting together a "fun" build and sticking to lower rift or torment levels.
Crundles
Well-Known Member
Singling this out in your final point that I broadly agree with, because this I actually don't agree with. Why would you ever want to stop and look around?
SNIP SNAP
I do agree, though, that a lot of the more "advanced" builds are just less fun to play than less-advanced ones. and maybe you'd be better off just putting together a "fun" build and sticking to lower rift or torment levels.
Sometimes a dude just wants to wander through cemeteries and stare at the coffins, dang.
D3 actually has some pretty cool things to see, and tiny micro-events to complete, if you poke around.
The problem, and I've seen a lot of people in the D3 reddit express the same, is that since progression is literally endless, every moment you're not min-maxing feels wasted. It's pretty weird, and I'm sure there's psychology papers on this, but while I will happily sit around town for 30 minutes, matching item transmogs and dye colours to make my female demon hunter G L O R I O U S, if I get into a grift, I'm there to monster it; if I'm playing a subpar build, it's not really fun for me, as I know it is time I could spend getting greater rewards for my time.
Obviously I'm exaggerating, and I know some people don't mind playing a self-made build in Greater rifts in the low 60s, I just don't enjoy it. I'm not a die-hard min-maxer, but I'm closer to that (playing dressup excluded).
Do bear in mind this is coming from the point of view of someone who takes time off work to play until 6 am the day any given season starts, and I usually complete my set and push 70 so primals start dropping the very first night of the season. I burn out quickly, and as the seasons progress I'm more and more likely to just log in, and carry a random group of paragon 500s through a 100 GR, or try out different builds; but this is because I know I'm well and truly out of the races, so might as well do fun-but-suboptimal stuff.
Now that I'm typing it out, it really does sound weird and conflicting
Adieu
Well-Known Member
Did somebody here seriously want COLOR in their Diablo???
Sh!t, this was why D2 and onwards sucked....because they went FULL MARIO.
Diablo is about gloom and hell and creepy sh!t. The first one was actually genuinely disturbing in places, at least for a kid. It had atmosphere, not the cartooney crap.
You wanna go wack cutesy smiley-slimes and porkchop orcs and horned wabbits, go play a generic JRPG
Sh!t, this was why D2 and onwards sucked....because they went FULL MARIO.
Diablo is about gloom and hell and creepy sh!t. The first one was actually genuinely disturbing in places, at least for a kid. It had atmosphere, not the cartooney crap.
You wanna go wack cutesy smiley-slimes and porkchop orcs and horned wabbits, go play a generic JRPG
Drew
Forum MVP
Yeah, you take things a little farther than I do.
I hear you on the taking time to explore thing, though - usually when playing a new season I'll at least start playing through the main campaign rather than just getting into bounties and rifts. It's a very different style of gameplay, when you're say a level 32 character still relying mostly on rares, and even if you're pushing the difficulty a little (I usually start around Hard or Torment I), there's not TOO much that can really mess you up, while first leveling up. By the end though, while you're level 70, the focus shifts a bit and you're farming for the right gear and then starting to push Torment levels or Greater Rifts. Idunno. It's a totally different gameplay experience, and IMO that's probably the best part about the Seasons, and frankly I'll be a little sorry that they're ending as development shifts to IV.
The flipside is you've pushed things quite a bit farther than me in gameplay - I don't know if the personal best resets every season or not, but last night's Level 30 Greater Rift is evidently my all time high, thopugh I could have sworn I'd gotten a bit higher than that at some point in the past. I'm also a very casual player, I can't have spent more than 5-10 hours on the game since completing Haedrig's Gift for the season.
You never forget the first time you stumble into the Butcher.
That said, I think you can still be dark and gloomy, while not being washed out.
Crundles
Well-Known Member
Yeah it's become a bit of a ritual - get together with friends, tryhard AF the Friday the new season starts, and maybe the weekend immediately following it, and then sort of peter out slowly. It's pretty fun, and something to look forward to every season for me.
Honestly my favourite overall pacing has got to be the first difficulty of Titan Quest. I've played through a few time solo, and one time with a buddy with the mod that spawns ... I think 10 times as many monsters? (could be just 3), and it's just a blast.
Things die fast, so you honestly want the added monster quantity (which the game just couldn't support at the start) but the low travel speed, the medium-ish map size and great map diversity means you're never really bored. There are small quests everywhere, and, at least for its time, it was absolutely gorgeous to look at. Wonderful environments and lighting, soundscape, all of it.
If D4 keeps rifts and Greater rifts as the end-game, I hope they steal the idea of having Rift modifiers. Things like increase drops but also increase enemy Cold damage, add extra packs etc. I know Path of Exile goes bonkers with this, but I think Torchlight 2 also had this.
Honestly my favourite overall pacing has got to be the first difficulty of Titan Quest. I've played through a few time solo, and one time with a buddy with the mod that spawns ... I think 10 times as many monsters? (could be just 3), and it's just a blast.
Things die fast, so you honestly want the added monster quantity (which the game just couldn't support at the start) but the low travel speed, the medium-ish map size and great map diversity means you're never really bored. There are small quests everywhere, and, at least for its time, it was absolutely gorgeous to look at. Wonderful environments and lighting, soundscape, all of it.
If D4 keeps rifts and Greater rifts as the end-game, I hope they steal the idea of having Rift modifiers. Things like increase drops but also increase enemy Cold damage, add extra packs etc. I know Path of Exile goes bonkers with this, but I think Torchlight 2 also had this.
