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

[Melena]

Just finished the Campaign at lv46 and fought a world boss right after with a bunch of folks; good times. The battle cinematic in Hell was A++; definitely don't skip it. Overall, pretty enjoyable first-time campaign clear, though I'm not sure I want to do it all again for every alt.

That's the neat part. You don't.

[Cail]

twitch drops are live

[Wulfgang]

That's the neat part. You don't.

Oh no way; what happens when you start an alt? Just dungeon/quest/event/etc. spam?

Also, I instantly phased the final boss from 80% to 1% by proccing Vuln + knockdown + Ult and obliterating the entire health bar. The game still has to go through all the platform phases so it just runs through scripted animations for the next 3 mins before finally dying.

[Melena]

I'm not sure, just said on e you complete the campaign, you don't have to on alts

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[Dimmauk]

I spent an hour on the creation screen.

[Mertron]

RAINING BLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODDDDDD

[arus2001]

D4 is more like D2, say what? in D2/D2R, you can find items you will keep forever or a very long time by mid-Nightmare. D3 and D4 itemization allow no such possibility for this. if you see Swirling Crystal in gold letters early on, there's a giddy excitement as you pick it up; this sort of design philosophy & itemization died with Blizzard North

Just because D2 stuck to relatively smaller numbers doesn't mean the itemization was awesome or that things weren't bland. I could equally argue that level 29 items having no level 90+ replacement is bad design and hamstrings the endgame loot hunt.

All gold items should be good, period. Blizz made the right call in D3 by eventually making legendaries drop at character level. This solved the underlevel issue while leaving room for improvement if you did get a lower version. However, let's not pretend D2 had a wide variety of uniques that people actually used specifically for a build. Oculus was OP for its level. Casters not being restricted to weapon damage or hit rate like melee was also a design flaw. Cubing items up a difficulty tier could also hypothetically ruin them with increased stat costs. Fortunately, a lot of these issues weren't repeated, but I'm not going to pretend a lot of D2's uniques weren't like D3's powerless legendaries and that they're absolutely useless stinkers.

[Koul]

great... killed a boss in act 6 and got kicked... -_-

[Salodin]

yeah, 40mb update or something. lagged me out and if it fucked my progress imma be pissed...

[Roranora]

I spent an hour on the creation screen.

this is way to savor your glass of D4

[Salodin]

Server is fucked, I can't login

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[Weltall]

Same RIP

[Roranora]

Just because D2 stuck to relatively smaller numbers doesn't mean the itemization was awesome or that things weren't bland

i think we're lost on what's bland itemization here. and then sent astray

D2's itemization was not bland. that is, items can drop directly that are good/coveted/powerful. these items often remain that way even with char level increases; they're special and more memorable to find and use. (re: bland: neither was D1's really. D1's was primitive and imperfect yes, but think about finding a Thinking Cap and then a Hidden Shrine early on your way down to Diablo) these are fun loot hunting moments, often take you to the end of the game, and can thus help define your play experience around finding an item

D2's is itemization is pretty flavorful and also fantastically flawed. one of the biggest flaws with unique items in D2 is that too many of them are too worthless, yes. this is true independent of LoD and rune words and their flaws. we need not pick apart D2's loot hunt to understand what's bland and not bland. that is, finding cool and powerful items you can use a lot for your character or even multiple characters

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the bland critique is on the imperative numeric ascent that takes place in D3 and D4 as well. no item can last very long at all, and no item find does. they're all quickly replaced stepping stones and eventually you've been led along far enough and you're done

D3 and D4 were and are both fun enough and deserve playthroughs; the itemization and/or loot hunt is neither the strength nor the focus. this is a bowl of vanilla ice cream to appeal to the biggest group of people possible, and i will happily enjoy my portion

[Dimmauk]

Started a rogue, got to level 5. Deleted and started a necro.

[arus2001]

Look, if I found a low level Spines of Seething Hatred while working on a DH, you can bet I'll be wearing it until around level 60. The damage bump to Chakram and making it a generator is just that good. And yet, this probably wouldn't even make it into the top 5 of DH legendaries. No individually found item in D2 is going to have this sort of impact because +skills was about the best the item pool could muster, and how that translated to skills depended on the skill and their own tables.

D4 is similar in this regard, though with a slight twist if you can get the power to imprint early on. So you could kinda sorta make better versions as you go, but this is again conditional. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if progression metas eventually arise around early power access. Nonetheless, we can't really argue that D4 didn't take power from items. That was even one of the dev talking points, but the cost is that, yes, you make things bland. Trying to make rares the best to convert is yet more D2 shoehorning.

D1 was primitive compared to D2, yes. I feel the same of D2 to D3. D3 showed you could do more than just +skills and damage reduction to make things interesting even if it did have its own flaws. But much like D2, you probably won't notice just 7% attack speed on item. It's when there's a lot of something that you get that feeling of oomph. There is a tipping point, yes, and we could argue that's where D3 failed alongside caving to the whole "infinite dungeon" and difficulty creep thing. But even if you squished things down to 6 difficulties and rolled back drop rates a bit, what they established in itemization would remain. A lot of items and combos just felt really good to get and did more than just be stat sticks.

[Melena]

Ran into butcher on my first dungeon after jumping up to tier 3.

Took all 7 potions and blowing cool downs on timer, but got him to 75% lawl.

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[Mertron]

i have beaten the game and explored the whole map

my werewolf turned into a beefy boy as the game progressed, just facetanking everything the last two acts the way my build turned out while still dealing something resembling damage

gonna wait 20ish for this world boss to spawn then call it a day

[Guitarman]

So the codexes you get from dungeons, are those 1 time only? Or are they indefinite?

[Mertron]

dungeon ones can be used over and over, ones extracted from gear are one shot only (until you farm another one)

[Mertron]

hell yeah 5 legendaries from that world boss and two are immediate upgrades including a weapon, great success