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

[arus2001]

Blizzard can't tell good stories. Fite me.

That said, the only part of that video that wasn't touched was the nostalgia pining fandom that screeched and whined for a lot of the eventual decision iterations the game landed with. I know it tried really hard to pin shit on D3, but the mechanics of RPG activities are fairly limited with the variance coming in storytelling alongside effort to reward ratios. All this piecemeal keep numbers small, shit rare, items bland, max level should be hard to get, and curbing build experimentation is 110% on the D2 cult and this string of devs that though year 2000 gaming would fly today.

D3 arguably stopped getting new, meaningful shit with Kanai's cube and the Necromancer as the last hurrahs. So while it has a decade on D4, it's frankly more like a 3-4 year old game Blizz strung along because it gave up too soon. Nonetheless, it did do some things right even with its own problems.

[Meresgi]

Eh, there are some ok points in there, but spoken from someone who has no idea bout gaming development; There's nothing there we didn't already know or that added to the discussion. Blizz made a good story-mode game but struggled with providing the end-game experience that matched other games that have been out for years, which really isn't a good expectation. The biggest issue was that it just wasn't fun, and that's why people stopped playing.

They failed at

1) Being able to experiment with builds
2) Itemization
3) No End Game loop

All 3 of those and add a new tier to the game and you'd at least have people having a reason to farm beyond lvl 72 when you have your BiS (or as 99.0% as close as you can get). Nightmare dungeons are trash fucking tier, and they take the worst aspect of Mythic dungeons from WoW (pure negative affixes) and inject roids into it. The story was decent, it was def not on part with any other Blizzard story imo but is what it is. I expected much more, I think the story of D3 was much better told and having the Acts setup the way they were provided a good movement through the game. D4 is just "Ok now you go to brown area cuz Lil has been there, ok now go to green area cuz she's there" without really much environment change to set them apart.

It was a Tolkien level epic story compared to what you see in most ARPGs.

They just put all their effort into the story instead of the endgame content that keeps people playing games in the genre.

Haven't played many ARPGs so can't argue, but their effort into the story wasn't even that fucking stellar. It was clear there was no real direction for this game, it needed more time to cook and now they are just throwing darts around and hoping anything sticks. Season 1 could have been a great time to push out a new tier, buffs for classes that needed them and then let the playerbase fuck around...instead we got some shitty gems for our rings and nerfs across the board to a ton of shit. Tale as old as time with Blizzard now that they want you to play game how THEY want you to play, fuck you if you dare do anything they don't want.

[Celeras]

I thought the story was the only enjoyable part. Nonsensical at times sure, especially with some of the supporting NPCs. But from a main player perspective pretty good and A+ cinematics. Gave me some optimism after how much I hated D3s narrative. Alas...

[Andalusian girls]

ye i thought it was prolly the best story in the series, and one of the best aspects of the game. wasn't anything special but engaging and well executed.

Blizzard can't tell good stories. Fite me.

slow your roll son, Warcraft 3 told the best story in RTS this side of Homeworld

[carlweathers]

I think peak Blizzard (1998-2004) titles didn't really have great stories, they were just really fucking cool moments in the scenes that carried the story. Plus Warcraft 3 had a really cool factor of playing different factions and you were straight up evil in one of the campaigns. It's really cool but its like Xenogears or anything with depth.

That being said, D4 definitely did way better on presentation than D3.

[Dimmauk]

I'm still casually playing it daily. I set an hour in after work before dinner. This game definitely needs help. Alot of people binged this game, trying to churn out content for their streams and blizzard failed to provide them enough to shit to make money off of. So they all bailed for the next shiny object.

No sets
No repeat boss farming
The uniques are mostly garbage.
There are plenty of builds to play, but itemization is confusing.
The animations and skills need help to.

[carlweathers]

I'm not sure how I feel about sets. They're so iconic from a franchise perspective but I'd imagine they can be so limiting as kinda restrict what kind of gear you can pursue

[Mertron]

make the sets good

or give them seasonal boosts like d3 did to at least get you to try different play styles

[chazzyphizzle]

itemization is horrid, having to look at every fucking ancestral yellow you find to see if its worth keeping is asinine and i really hope they change that loop at some point. also trying to swap paragon points to do a new build is obnoxious too

[Meresgi]

Nonsensical at times sure

Dude getting stabbed in hell for touching a pillar was fucking hilarious and a "....wait what?" moment from me

[Andalusian girls]

I think peak Blizzard (1998-2004) titles didn't really have great stories, they were just really fucking cool moments in the scenes that carried the story. Plus Warcraft 3 had a really cool factor of playing different factions and you were straight up evil in one of the campaigns. It's really cool but its like Xenogears or anything with depth.

first of all how dare you

second if any RTS ever tried the dumb bullshit Xenogears disc 2 put us through strategy fans would rise up en masse

third fr it is not a genre that lends itself well to in depth storytelling. i'm trying to think of the best ever stories in RTS games and it is a fuckin wasteland out there.

[Prothescar]

That's because expectations are so low. It isn't that you can't tell a good story in an ARPG or RTS, it's that the general unwashed masses only want to smash things and see big numbers bing bing wahoo.

Gacha games these days have better stories on average than these two genres, and gacha games are typically told as VN/cutscenes in between the gameplay segments. There's no reason ARPGs and RTS couldn't do the same if they actually wanted to improve. THis would actually benefit everyone cause then you could skip the dialogue if you don't care about it instead of having to sit through 20 mins of characters droning at each other in their idle animations at the end of a mission.

[carlweathers]

first of all how dare you

second if any RTS ever tried the dumb bullshit Xenogears disc 2 put us through strategy fans would rise up en masse

third fr it is not a genre that lends itself well to in depth storytelling. i'm trying to think of the best ever stories in RTS games and it is a fuckin wasteland out there.

Second is a given but I think my comparison still holds up.

I think your third sentence is moreso my point. I think a lot of people hold up Starcraft/Warcraft's storytelling on a pedestal. I probably wouldn't mind it if it was said "It has a great story.....for an RTS." My favorite story experiences are from CRPGs/JRPGs ( I assume most users on this board will have that same background) so I find those early Blizzard titles lacking in depth. SUPER COOL SHIT happens but it's not something emotionally or cerebrally engaging. Which is why I think when future installments of those franchises tried to continue the story..... it turned into a hot mess in spite of having the same writing talent that initially created it.

[Dimmauk]

Something that does bother me is some skills for different classes are basically the same.

Ice shards and Rapid fire
Twisting blades and double swing
Upheaval and pulverize
Trample and charge
Poison trap, Poison vine, corpse explosion

Kinda lame and lazy

[Takiwaki]

Pretty huge changes from todays stream.

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/diab...-on-october-17

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/diab...=blizzard-news

More changes next week focusing on class adjustments

[Koul]

HUUUGGEE QOL changes. Thank christ.

[Kachiko]

Moving in the right direction. Lets see dem class balances to see if it's worth a shot.

[Meresgi]

The one boss Zir being based around World Boss drops and Legion Event drops? eww....haven't gotten through full stream yet but i'm hoping they announce the events/bosses being more often? Cuz fuck that shit having to set a timer to get a chance at items for a boss

[Koul]

Yeah, World bosses went from 6 > 3 1/2 hours and legion events went from 30min > 25min.

[Meresgi]

Yeah, World bosses went from 6 > 3 1/2 hours and legion events went from 30min > 25min.

Ok good news, i'm glad to hear we can target farm stuff now too. I may actually play this season now with these additions. I don't think it's enough but it is a step in the right direction. Why it took 2 seasons to get here when a lot of this was pointed at in beta is....well it's Blizzard in a nutshell.