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

[Greedouw]

The camera in D3 felt too zoomed out, but this looks much better.

We'll see; it's way too far off to get super excited about

[Karbuncle]

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.

I liked Rune-Words, mostly because I liked finding Runes in general lol. I never thought of it as a "primitive form of crafting" though, unless you mean that in the same way Pong is a Primitive form of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I've run into the types of people you're describing before lol. Personally, I don't need "Every piece to be worth picking up", definitely not that category, but I wouldn't scoff at Rune-Words coming back and making the idea of finding a really good White-tier item exciting from time to time. I see the value in that concept. I do like the idea of Yellows/Blues being "not instant-fodder", but they were in D3 as well due to random rolls. Once you hit deep endgame though thats not likely and thats okay.

All I really want is more Diablo 2, less diablo 3, as I said. Less Crit Rate, Haste, Crit damage... more +3 to Fireball, +2 to all Ice skills, +2 to Hammer Skills, etc. I liked the Sets in D3 that enhanced certain perks completely changing them, I wouldn't mind those back either. I already saw Attack Speed on some of the items they showed off I think, so I'm sure its just D3 Enhanced Edition... but a man can dream.

Really I guess D2 is a game of its era and kids these days don't want that anymore. If I ever want Diablo 2 again I'm going to have to wait for a Diablo 2 remaster, maybe with new content and items(Or just play the old one which is still a fun game).

[arus2001]

Thing is, +skills were basically D2's trifecta. You wanted them everywhere. You wanted an inventory of charms with it. Sure, not all skills handled + investments the same way, but I figure if we're going to start modifying splash radii, MP costs, double/triple cast, or do other fancy things, they may as well be more of a legendary power of sorts.

As for runewords, I say it was primitive crafting precisely because it was gathering very specific things for a slightly randomized specific outcome. Throwing a couple runes into a white is no different than visiting Haedrig and clicking the craft button conceptually. My ultimate issues with RWs, however, were the absurd rarity of the high tier and how so many of them were actually not worth using or insipidly cost prohibitive because of the high rune rarity issue. Sure, everyone wanted an Enigma to teleport around with and an Infinity for their merc to say fuck you to Hell's over-reliance on immunities, but I'd argue anyone playing legit self-found would be in the fractional percentage of people who actually found the stuff without no-lifing. Anyway, a robust crafting system still meets the same end. Instead of needing a very specific weapon type and socket count, every white can be converted to components toward that end. As well, a certain degree of rarity can be maintained relative to other required components. You might not have some gibberish word in the item tooltip, but you still get a fancy item.

[6souls]

Cosmetic microtransactions confirmed

[Karbuncle]

Thing is, +skills were basically D2's trifecta. You wanted them everywhere. You wanted an inventory of charms with it. Sure, not all skills handled + investments the same way, but I figure if we're going to start modifying splash radii, MP costs, double/triple cast, or do other fancy things, they may as well be more of a legendary power of sorts.

As for runewords, I say it was primitive crafting precisely because it was gathering very specific things for a slightly randomized specific outcome. Throwing a couple runes into a white is no different than visiting Haedrig and clicking the craft button conceptually. My ultimate issues with RWs, however, were the absurd rarity of the high tier and how so many of them were actually not worth using or insipidly cost prohibitive because of the high rune rarity issue. Sure, everyone wanted an Enigma to teleport around with and an Infinity for their merc to say fuck you to Hell's over-reliance on immunities, but I'd argue anyone playing legit self-found would be in the fractional percentage of people who actually found the stuff without no-lifing. Anyway, a robust crafting system still meets the same end. Instead of needing a very specific weapon type and socket count, every white can be converted to components toward that end. As well, a certain degree of rarity can be maintained relative to other required components. You might not have some gibberish word in the item tooltip, but you still get a fancy item.

Yah, I never really dug into D2 endgame like sweathard. You're probably right so I defer to you, this is a matter of personal taste and I just straight up preferred what I could do in D2 over what I was Railroaded into in D3

[arus2001]

There was a time where I worked on a D2 mod before patching (1.09) or so basically broke a lot of shit. It might not have been to the extent of Path of Diablo now or maybe some other big names, but we still had a fair bit of rebalancing and new content of our own, on top of a private server with a decent, yet small community. There were a lot of "under the hood" issues people either didn't know about with D2 or willfully ignored, some of which modding itself couldn't fix. When I see people calling for some of that stuff to return, all I can really do is cringe.

That said, itemization needs to be incredibly wary on what it affords RMT, bots, and other forms of exploiters. I'll happily dunk on anyone who thinks RMT doesn't affect them because they never personally go to their sites or whatever, yet they nonetheless try to justify that for 100% open free trade. It's like, no dude, those wankers are tanking lesser consumable markets through sheer attrition, while doing what they can to monopolize the more exclusive goods like flipping, PKing if applicable, crowding mobs, etc.. I know there's a fine line between this and what some legit players do, but I'd say if one's actions can overtly prevent other people from progressing, there's something wrong in the equation somewhere. Further sounding like they're embracing seasons even more with timed exclusivity, you're also going to be more overtly screwing the casuals who can't completely recreate a top tier build every 3-4 months if rarity is further determined with open trade in mind.

End of the day, I'll never say D3 was a perfect game. However, given a choice, I'd play it over D2, no question. PoE as the "spiritual successor" of D2, as some like to claim, has never managed to catch my interest despite multiple attempts over time, either. Basically because I realized it treated the more casual player like shit on multiple fronts, which further snowballs into friends falling more and more behind me even if I could coax them into playing, too. "Easy to get into, difficult to master," should really be the mantra, with difficulty being more about about personal skill than time sink, penalties, or taking advantage of third-party apps to make things easier.

[Karbuncle]

For sure. I enjoyed D3, I played it for several seasons even some of the later ones, I don't consider it a bad game(aside from launch). I just found the loot in D2 to be more exciting to find overall, not just Whites for Runes or nothing, just the variety of Modifiers I suppose? But its probably because as with most games I'm not nor have I ever been the "Final Destination Fox Only" gamer that oh-so-many people here are, so I rarely get deep into theorycrafting and Meta Slavery. Those things rarely if ever cross my mind let alone "Under the hood" stuff, which is why I'm not asserting that D2 is the objectively better game, simply that subjectively for a player like me, D3 doesn't hold a candle to D2.

I also never got into Path of Exile, I hated in fact, I don't like how loot was handled in that game and I simply didn't find picking up "new skills" to be a chase I enjoyed.

Edit: Should probably point out what I prefer most of Diablo 2 vs Diablo 3 was the Skill tree. Sure there were optimized builds and some things just sucked balance wise, but again, Filthy casual, never bothered me, love Skill Trees.

[Guitarman]

Really too super early for me to speculate on anything. I am somewhat concerned that the guy that "fixed" D3 with Reaper of Souls is no longer with Blizzard. D3 was pretty rough before the expac hit. That's when it really hit it's stride, imo.

[arus2001]

I can like skill tress, too, but this also relies on experimentation being encourage as opposed to punished. For the longest time, D2 didn't have a respec option, which meant leveling something else entirely if you fucked up or found a build didn't work as you hoped. PoE has this weird culture fixated on people screwing up their first few characters before they should be considered worthy for more endgame things. Nonetheless, whenever I see people asking for these sorts of progression styles, I ultimately see someone who just wants to wait for the next meta build to be published or leeched from someone who does well so they can pretend to be more well-informed because they know of some site someone else may not even know exists.

As for D3's approach, to me the problem was never that everyone of a given class knew everything at the base level, it's that specialization only really existed through gear (and hoping a set accompanied that). If players had more of a means to tweak, say, Multishot more specifically to their play style, I think D3 would've been held in higher regard. But I'd say the long term problem here is that Blizz largely gave up on D3 after RoS instead of doing what they needed to do to make it the AAA title it really should've been from the start. And it makes me all the more salty it never got an offline mode so modders could really shine.

Probably one of the biggest logical hurdles I tend to have with this genre is that what people can learn is finite, or that knowledge of one thing comes at the consequence of another. That's what happens when you get tight on skill points and/or restrict respecs. Knowing things beyond a basic build concept also doesn't mean those contingencies are applicable in any given moment, particularly if gear does not support their use (and can't be swapped mid-battle), same with selected skill limits. Get over that, and suddenly "mistakes" may not seem so bad. But yeah, I'm just rambling now.

[Silenka]

I won't pretend I didn't enjoy playing D3, but the story and tone were overall pretty stupid and hokey aside from a few points. It's hard to find a smooth and polished ARPG so that was mostly why I enjoyed D3 - if there had been something better around with classes I enjoyed more I likely wouldn't have sunk so many hours into it.

Titan Quest and D2 are still my favorites, tried a lottt of ARPGs and while there are some interesting ones that are fun for a while most just don't have any sticking power. As far as Grim Dawn, while it's great, I'm not in love with the classes or the setting. I'm still waiting for a pure fantasy ARPG closer to what TQ is like. It seems like everything is steampunk or gritty post-apoc.

[theshun]

The Incredible Adventures of Van-Helsing.

[Karbuncle]

The Incredible Adventures of Van-Helsing.

Watching some Gameplay videos of that. Man, that looks good. I might just have to try it out.

Edit: Looks like the "Final Cut" is the game you want to buy if you pick it up. Man there was a lot of them.

[Wulfgang]

I won't pretend I didn't enjoy playing D3, but the story and tone were overall pretty stupid and hokey aside from a few points. It's hard to find a smooth and polished ARPG so that was mostly why I enjoyed D3 - if there had been something better around with classes I enjoyed more I likely wouldn't have sunk so many hours into it.

Titan Quest and D2 are still my favorites, tried a lottt of ARPGs and while there are some interesting ones that are fun for a while most just don't have any sticking power. As far as Grim Dawn, while it's great, I'm not in love with the classes or the setting. I'm still waiting for a pure fantasy ARPG closer to what TQ is like. It seems like everything is steampunk or gritty post-apoc.

Have you tried Path of Exile? I literally have over 2,000 hours on it; fantastic modern successor to D2 imo. Strongly recommend you install on SSD if you do give it a whirl though. It's also highly seasonal/ladder-focused just an FYI; I love that dynamic, but some may not.

[Patriarch]

Can confirm PoE is excellent. What D3 should have been

So far as D4, hearing the words "account bound" is troubling

[Silenka]

I didn't end up liking PoE either of the times I played it. Nothing about it really compelled me to play.

[Rulke]

^ Same. I DID like the art style and feel of the game. But somewhere in Act 3 I lost interest. This was years ago though. Conceptually I liked it but the overall pull fell flat for me.

[Prothescar]

Can confirm PoE is excellent. What D3 should have been

So far as D4, hearing the words "account bound" is troubling

PoE 4.0 is also lined up to directly compete with D4 according to Chris Wilson. It won't be a small league or expansion, it's meant to completely expand and renew the game to put it into the next generation.

From the sounds of things though they won't have to do much.

^ Same. I DID like the art style and feel of the game. But somewhere in Act 3 I lost interest. This was years ago though. Conceptually I liked it but the overall pull fell flat for me.

You might want to try it again. 3.0 redid all of the original 4 acts and added 5 (and a half) more, plus a shitload of league mechanics that add more depth on top of that. Melee just got a massive rework as well and it feels great.

[tyven]

I could go for another Grim Dawn, that shit was my shit

[Koul]

Yeah, if you didn't like PoE a couple years ago, should really give it another go. Just look for a cyclone build and spin around destroying shit like a dumbass. I'd be playing the hell out of it but it constantly crashes my dumpster PC lol

[Cyn]

Are the graphics significantly better? Because the graphics were pure fucking ass before, even for when it came out.