Diablo IV (PC/PS5/XSX/PS4) - June 6, 2023

[theshun]

D3 had and still has a lot of problems, but I probably play an hour or two a week on the Switch version.

Hopefully the PC version won't be forced online like 3 since you have to imagine they won't put a fucking auction house in again. The console versions are flooded with hackers, but the ability to play offline is so worth it

It will be 100% online with other players all the time. It says "Encounter other players."

[Arkanna]

Cautiously optimistic.

Loved D1. Loved loved loved D2. Liked D3 at launch (somehow), came to like it a lot more after Reaper of Souls, but never loved it.

Don't fuck this up Blizzard.

[Krandor]

It will be 100% online with other players all the time. It says "Encounter other players."

Meh.

I'm probably never getting stationed at a deployable unit again after I transfer next year, but still annoying for travel situations.

[Rulke]

It will be 100% online with other players all the time. It says "Encounter other players."

They say this now. Wait until the griefing starts. We all know how Blizzard handles that. They'll make these PVP zones entirely optional or add an offline mode or something. Can't have people unhappy in a Blizzard game due to others!

[Gokulo]

I thought it referred to online mode in general, not specifically PVP

[6souls]

Looks like I missed the other press release.

An ancient evil threatens to engulf Sanctuary in darkness, and new heroes have been called upon to face challenges the world has never seen before. Today, Blizzard Entertainment announced Diablo IV, the highly anticipated next entry in its genre-defining action–role-playing series. The newest installment of Diablo was announced during BlizzCon 2019, where attendees were eager to be the first in the world to play a public demo of the game. Diablo IV draws players into a grim story line and gives them the freedom to explore and forge their own path across the most expansive and intense vision of the world of Sanctuary—a bleak and shattered hellscape bereft of hope and beset by demons.

True to the franchise’s roots, Diablo IV will deliver visceral combat, gruesome and varied monsters, an epic hunt for legendary loot, and endless playability and progression. Players will find a lifetime’s worth of adventure scattered across a land rooted in unique ecologies and inhabited by dangerous new foes. They’ll delve into randomized dungeons packed with unpredictable adversaries and unimaginable treasures. While continuing to fully support solo and coordinated party play, Diablo IV will also provide opportunities for groups of players to encounter each other in the same shared world—whether to tackle bigger challenges... or possibly even slaughter one another in player-vs.-player combat.

“Sanctuary has been a home to Diablo players for more than 20 years, and it’s with our own deep passion for the series and a deep appreciation of the community that we announce Diablo IV today,” said J. Allen Brack, president of Blizzard Entertainment. “We’re excited to be returning to the dark, quintessential Diablo gameplay that players love while expanding the world and story in new ways, and we can’t wait for more people to be able to experience it.”

In Diablo IV, players will attempt to bring hope back to the world by vanquishing evil in all its vile incarnations—from cannibalistic demon-worshipping cultists to the all-new drowned undead that emerge from the coastlines to drag their victims to a watery grave. For the first time in the series, Sanctuary will be a contiguous, seamless landmass comprising diverse regions ranging from the burning desert of Kejhistan, to the verdant werewolf-infested forests of Scosglen, to the harsh and rugged wilderness of the Dry Steppes.

At BlizzCon, Blizzard revealed the first three of Diablo IV’s character classes, all playable at the show:

• The Barbarian, known for their unparalleled strength and brutal melee combat, utilizes a new and more powerful system in battle, Arsenal, which arms them with the ability to carry and rapidly switch between four different weapons at a time by assigning them to individual attacks.

• The Sorceress hearkens back to their Diablo II roots and shapes the elements to obliterate their foes by impaling them upon jagged spikes of ice, electrocuting them with bolts of lightning, or raining flaming meteors from the sky.

• The Druid is a savage shapeshifter whose updated playstyle empowers them to fluidly transform between werewolf, werebear, and human form to unleash the raw power of nature’s fury on the forces of the Burning Hells.

These three iconic characters honor the legacy of the franchise and exemplify how Diablo IV builds upon the series’ history by preserving the core Diablo fantasy while allowing players to explore untapped gameplay possibilities with fresh inspiration. Players will be able to experiment and discover countless character builds through customizable talent trees and skills, a deep loot system filled with legendary and set items to collect, runes and rune word combinations, and even personalized mounts for traversing the open world.

Diablo IV is being developed using modern technology that pushes the franchise to dark, new depths. This technology is at the heart of everything players will see, hear, and feel—delivering much higher fidelity and a more engrossing experience. It opens up countless possibilities for the Diablo series, from smooth character animations, such as the Druid’s fluid shapeshifting, to the seamless, vast overworld players will travel across in search of the next loot-filled underground dungeon. Ultimately, Diablo IV will ground players in a grittier and deadlier world.

[Guitarman]

Confirmed in Q&A that there is no offline mode. Looks like they really haven't learned all their lessons.

[Waraji]

After the cold reception I felt from D3, and the gameplay video, this is looking like a hard pass for me.

[theshun]

I hope Auction House 2.0 happens...

[Wulfgang]

The most critical aspect of the game will be loot progression to me. The homogeneity of loot in D3 is a substantial turn-off vs D2/PoE. I would love to see more unique affixes / loot / rune words / socket effects / etc. I'd also like to see more "holy shit!" loot that almost never drops vs the gamble at Kadala and you'll eventually get what you're looking for in a few hours. No AH, but absolutely needs to be trading. Add the old BNET game finder system as well with custom game lobbies (i.e. A2N walking, XYZ runs3, etc.).

The level progression is another area where I'd go back to the roots of D2 / PoE. Tie skill points to levels and make level 100 a ridiculous grind again that 99% of people will never hit. Hated the Paragon system.

Basically, remake D2 with better graphics/gameplay engine and steal some stuff from PoE. Unlikely all of the above happens, just my view.

[Krandor]

I remember seeing a tidbit that they want to simply loot even more then in 3, which seems like an awful idea.

Edit : yeah this, from their website

When it comes to combat statistics, we’ve simplified the math problem. Players should spend more time thinking about stats that change how they play rather than solving arithmetic. Attack and Defense will be your bread and butter; one stat for increasing your damage, and one stat for decreasing damage taken.

More complex stats like Attack Speed or Melee Damage Reduced will still exist; however, these are stats that can change your approach to combat in more than a numerical way. While they might still increase your damage output or reduction, they do so in ways that make you think about the battlefield or which skills work best in different situations.

Some items will also boost individual Talents, effectively acting as bonus points spent in them. If you want to go all-in on Pulverize, you can do so with Skills, Talents, and items!

[Koul]

The game director said: "We’re not coming out soon, not even Blizzard soon"

so a lot can happen in X years when it finally releases

[Gokulo]

Watching some streamers, the world boss was pretty sweet and it was cool how the game zoomed out for it and all the people teaming up - that's on one hand, but on the other just running into people on the overworld seems kinda anticlimatic for Diablo, at least when doing scenario. Of course that's something you'd probably get used to pretty fast. However, wonder how it will work when it comes to hunting mobs, kill stealing etc.

[theshun]

Caves seem to be instanced/solo but you can team up on the fly "like Destiny"(which keeps getting thrown out there). Yeah, it's a long way off but it's D3 with some PoE stuff.

[6souls]

[Kachiko]

If they add in the best parts of Lost Ark, and improve/add their own flair, this could be fun, otherwise, not sure what D4 brings to the franchise as a graphics pack for D3. See you in five years or so.

[arus2001]

Forums are pretty much a nightmare to navigate right now since everyone thinks they're a game dev with 20+ years of experience.

[Karbuncle]

honestly if the loot is interesting that’s all they need to hook me. More D2 and less D3. But we’ll see.

[6souls]

[arus2001]

honestly if the loot is interesting that’s all they need to hook me. More D2 and less D3. But we’ll see.

Similar to the board, the problem here is that "interesting" is going to vary from person to person. You've also got the people who stubbornly think unregulated free trade is absolutely what the game needs, 100% ignorant of what RMT has done to D2 or countless other online game the past 2 decades. "I never used them, so it doesn't affect me!" is the common defense, even though you can bet they're tanking common markets with 24/7 play while doing their best to rig rarer markets that legit players are interacting in.

Another is the group that thinks "every item should matter" in that you should literally be picking up everything that drops ever in case it may be useful for something you'd later use or trade. They'll spin it as something like, "Whites were important for Runewords!" when, if we're being honest, RWs were a primitive form of crafting. You've then got the people that think you should be able to wear a full set of blues and be competitive with uniques/legendaries. Now, my contention with this is you obviously have to do some affix comparisons in both total number available to the player and total on each piece of gear. If you figure blues have 2 mods, this means their respective affixes are going to have to be 3-4x more powerful than the top tier. This can easily go out of control when it comes to glass cannon builds and a hyper-focus on offensive stats. Rares being comparable is a muddier water. While closer in base stats, the question becomes what would they offer to compensate for a loss of legendary power? I'd actually be more inclined to not a have a legendary/mythic tier at all and instead let us craft legendary mods onto desired rares, but then you've got the faction so vehemently against crafting (or gambling) being useful at all, especially if it's a way to get around trading.

Anyway, I still say it's too soon to say whether or not Blizzard is fucking this up. Them telling us the game will be soloable still isn't indicative of it being fun to do so. I'm not, and have never been, an ARPG marketeer. If it turns out drop rates are shit because they want players "interacting" in the primitive WUG?! dance, it'll be a hard pass from me. Of course, I'm also cognizant of the argument D3 dropped legendaries/sets too much, to which I'd merely say I'd be okay with less frequent drops there if it meant tightened RNG on rolled affixes. Everything else eventually becoming a craft mat after a certain point in progression is AOK by me. I'd rather be killing monsters than garbage picking, or relying on third party tools/filters to do that.