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Diablo IV

Shadenuat

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stats 100% tied to gear
Ironically I think they wanted to solve the arpg conundrum which existed in D2 and also exists in PoE of skill based/caster characters being simply stronger than anyone who must rely on a statstick, which is usually anyone who uses a weapon, which is usually basically any fighter (archers somewhat get away with it since they only usually need good weapon; melees need weapon and full armor and shield to survive as well).

Of course, the problem comes from progression and inflation itself; if 2 characters go through game and one has to put skill points into skills, while another has to rely on random drops, progression creates a disparity between the two.

Now how do you solve this; either equalize everyone (but then you get d3 and melees and casters are basically the same) or through powerful itemization (although as PoE shows, it doesn't totally solve the problem); or try and cut the root of the problem out somewhere is up to discussion.

Diablo 1 actually had set "boosts" for Fighters too (Butcher cleaver or that armor) yet randomized spells; so there's that. Also shopping was just more useful.
 
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Cryomancer

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Ironically I think they wanted to solve the arpg conundrum which existed in D2 and also exists in PoE of skill based/caster characters being simply stronger than anyone who must rely on a statstick, which is usually anyone who uses a weapon, which is usually basically any fighter (archers somewhat get away with it since they only usually need good weapon; melees need weapon and full armor and shield to survive as well).

Of course, the problem comes from progression and inflation itself; if 2 characters go through game and one has to put skill points into skills, while another has to rely on random drops, progression creates a disparity between the two.

But think a little. Barbarians are the least popular class on D2. Instead of making the Barbarian less reliant on RNGodness blessing, they just made all classes like BARB on D3.

And look to Dark Souls 2, casters needs a catalyst and the closest thing to a "naked caster" is a pyromancer who only need pyromancer flames eqquiped. His flames, mechanically wise is like any other weapon, except by having no weight. A much better solution. Also, D1 casters depends on the loot to level up. They need to read tomes. IMO is more easy to do a naked run with a monk(hellfire) than with a sorcerer on D1. And it is perfectly fine. I don't wanna make monk's muscle mass tied to how much arcane tomes he read. That would be retarded like D3 "everyone needs to play like barbarian"

Anyway, immersion, fun and replayability >>>> balance.

You can argue that VtMB is unbalanced because the guy running as a Nosferatu has much harder time getting blood(can't get blood dolls and even prostitutes refuses the deformed aberration) than playing as a Tremere, but that is what makes a Nosferatu run more unique and interesting.
 

Shadenuat

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Dark Souls is actually fairly "banalced". You have: same power pool (Souls), which increases everything (even pyromancy), put points into Faith and suddenly your lightning weapons do fuckton of damag even if it's just a starting weapon. Of course there's nuance like crafting which varies from game to game; but wizard does with sword same damage as fighter if he uses blueh sword. Yes there's nuance to that too (resists); but the system is "equalized".

For Souls it kinda works because there is like a 80/20 input between player skill and build; Diablo is different, it's build+, skill -.

Meanwhile,

oh boi good ol poison vipers at Nithilak's.
still working as intended ic.
 
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Cryomancer

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For Souls it kinda works because there is like a 80/20 input between player skill and build; Diablo is different, it's build+, skill -.

Yes, you are right, but your build impacts a lot. I mean, a guy who picks a longsword an don't use polearms, heavy armor, consumables, etc will have a muche harder time vs a paladin in heavy armor
 

Damned Registrations

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DS1 is set up such that you need 10 'points' of advantages to get through it, and you have about 10 available from skill, 15 available from gear, 15 available from coop, and 5 available from stats on your character. So your playthrough can be all skill and no gear, or all gear and no skill, or just letting someone else play for you.
 
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This. Even though you do end up fighting huge mobs in D1, gangbang is an ever present threat and you don't have the huge speed advantage in the form of sprint afterburner that allows you to disengage and GTFO if overwhelmed. At best you can get some minimal breather out of specific pathfinding quirks of various monsters.

Exactly.

Remember Chamber of Bone? That shit was terrifying because it was the moment where the game designers gave no fucks and just swarmed the player with skeletons until their fingers failed from clicking forever. If you didn't know how to door-choke, you were fucked as hordes of skeletons just pour out.

The Hell mod makes it even more terrifying because, if I remember right, its not just bog-standard skeletons there.

In D2, like you said, few normal monsters are real threats. Most are slow, die in a few hits and appear in giant 20-50 mobs that get casually destroyed. Meanwhile in D1, you can get shanked by shit like Hell Goats because you thought you are the shit and could fight a few more than you could really chew.

I like the idea of running itself (people run), its just too easy. Most monsters are way slower than the player, and any decently-leveled character has enough stamina to beat the São Silvestre race. Maybe if mechanics like armor weight became a thing it would work (and constantly increasing numbers go away), then a Warrior fully-decked in armor plate and running on ST/VIT build can only do short runs, while say, a Rogue clad only in a skimpy clothing and light leather armor running a DEX build can run circles around the monsters, but she's far less armored.

btw I would't mind the game getting away from the Armor Class system myself, I prefer Damage Resistance/Threhold systems, because when I wear heavy armor, I like to feel Tanky, and when I wear light armor, I like to feel Nimble.

The main advantage is that it relies on what you find. In D2 you can just plan your entire build because you develop by spending points. It's all deterministic.

D1 was less deterministic in all aspects than its successors, dungeon layouts and enemy composition included.

Makes sense.

Would a mix work? Class abilities are a thing, but so are tomes and such.

Act 2 could have worked if they as much as dropped all the derpy shit in the desert.

Desert in D2 >>> Those boring-ass green nondescript plains that went on FOOOOOOREVER in D2 Act I. But really, the desert becomes a lot cooler during the Eclipse, and I don't mean just the heat.

Desert would have been interesting if being in a desert meant something. Like bringing water (which would hog the potion space, lol) and increased stamina drain due to heat. D2 taught me that people can run entire marathons in the middle of the desert in metal plate. The tombs were pretty cool. Summoner's Sanctuary was also very interesting due to how bizarre that place is compared to everything else in the entire game, I could see a modern re-rendition being full of M.C Escher-like and Non-Euclidian malicious architecture.

Huh, now that I think about it - I don't think I ever remember a situation in Diablo games where the architecture is actively malicious and trying to kill you.

I'm surprised they went with semi-open jungles in Act 3, deep jungle can be very claustrophobic and dark.

Act 3 could have worked if they didn't necessarily make it the last act or Mesoamerican jungleswamp (temperate european swampy area could be worth it for example, so would the setting's equivalent of something near the Euphrate or Sud).

I actually think Act 3 was pretty well-executed in some parts, the real problem is all the end-less jungle. Cram that shit into something smaller, and then Kurast and Travincal, that would rock. Or make the jungle actually mean something, obstacle-like. Imagine both player and monsters being able to set the jungle afire. Make the player waddle through watery swamps and creeks, going slowly in a place full of corrupted hell piranhas and hellgators or something. Do more with the theme and have more aztec-style horrors. Maybe pull something from south american myth too - imagine Corrupted Botos. Have an entire area set in a jungle burning with the fire of hell. Have monsters attacking from the top of trees before jumping on the player.

The thing is all those open spaces didn't add anything to the gameplay. A game like Diablo needs battlefield to be structured by all sorts of obstacles. Large featureless planes are boring.

Very much agreed. Those open spaces could diminish by like 80% and get fused with other areas, nothing would be lost.

Memory is thin, but if I remember right, the open spaces only worked in Harrogath. But there were plenty of obstacles and they did sell it pretty well that it wans't just another open space, but the site of a siege.

It also allowed you to forget that they fucking put setting's Vatican in fucking Mesoamerican jungle because reasons.

Seriously, don't pull this kind of shit if your setting runs on rough equivalence with medieval Europe and surroundings.

I liked Mesoamerican Vatican. :(
 

Old Hans

Arcane
Joined
Oct 10, 2011
Messages
1,442
I find it ironic that Blizz tried so hard to plagiarize on Warhammer which varies from cartoony good vs evil toystoldier to noblebright to historically inspired; and Blizz-thing failed at replicating any of it

jvvhZg5.jpg

729a71c3968029d661be4e636303bbd0.jpg


f44a6c43ae4224a7e70e0baf478a3d3b.jpg

although GW themselves with their fiasco and destruction of Old World and new fantasyh marines failed at their own thing as well so i guess: checkmate englishmen

everyone loses.

it all depends on what year it was. late 80's warhammer was very dark, gritty and grounded in medieval history for its ashetic. then in early 90's it started getting really cartoony and red, which is when blizzard did Warcraft 1
 

Shadenuat

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it even has fanart on it

diablo_2_act_2_maggot_lair_by_unidcolor_d4ify4j-fullview.jpg


I can say that for a pretty much flat game, D2 has enough of malicious level design, be it fucken tombs with tactically positioned resurrectors with 50 sekeletons, or maggot lair, or stunlocking viper temple, or Summon Sanctuary, or whole of Kurwast with pigmi, its dungeons with traps everywhere, black marsh with invisible GLOOMS, sneks that vanish in water + stamina drain mosquitos; act 4 FLYING ENEMIES THAT U CANT HIT AAA over lava; the act 5 doors+towers shooting+catapults+teleporting midgets and of course Nithilak using Corpse Explosion on minions you killed. Bhaal also summons tentacles I guess.

Sure it's not done through 3 million trillion dollar budget with torching whole levels but whatever they had they used maliciously enough.
 
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DayofBlow

Educated
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Nov 12, 2018
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Huh, now that I think about it - I don't think I ever remember a situation in Diablo games where the architecture is actively malicious and trying to kill you.
I think only Tal Rasha's tomb does that. It's a small square room with a one way entrance that dumps an act boss on you out of nowhere.
'Looking for Baal?'
They turned Duriel into a fatty. He used to be a jacked up bug demon with a sixpack.
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
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Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
Dark Fantasy influenced art is incline from Diablo III animu shit but if I can slaughter armies of demons without breaking a sweat, what is the point? I still remember to this day when I got a sorcerer with lighting nova, finally after suffering like a fucker without a decent spell for most of the game. Thinking I was the shit only to end on a level full of lightining resistant dark knights and succubus, I had to move slowly to not be hentai raped.

This wont come back, most players want easy as shit content and kill the same easy as shit monsters over and over again to get shiny loot to kill the same ultra easy monsters even faster. What is the point? You do 2 of damage and the enemy has 20 of life, you do 2.000.000 of damage on the end game while enemies have 20.000.000 HP. Virtual inflation is the same shit as real inflation, no, it won't make you better for it. It is like most players are dogs chasing their own tail only ending on the same place.
 

Cryomancer

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Only a curiosity. Did you knew? Jay Wilson din't implemented necromancer on D3 because according to him, necromancer was too good implemented on D2?

""If we were going to bring him back, curses, skeletons, corpse explosion—you’re done. That’s the class. We felt the job was so well done that we didn’t know that we could do a lot to improve him,, and that choosing to make that class was more or less like putting handcuffs on ourselves and wouldn’t allow us to create new and original gameplay. So we decided to go with a new pet class. We focused with the witch doctor on having him play differently enough from the necromancer so that, say if someday in the future we want to add some of the old classes back to Diablo III, I don’t like those doors to be closed." https://www.diablowiki.net/index.php?title=Necromancer

So, what he did? Took away everything cool about necro and added witch doctor, who can only use poison and create boring zombies. The DLC who added necro years later, was awful. Bone golems goes against the notion of imbuing the spark of (un)life in a inorganic material from previous games lore, revive only lasting for 10 sec, corpse explosion scaling with %WD not mob's HP(everything scales with WD on D3), lack of attract, bone wall, bone prison, etc.

iu
"While it is fairly simple for a Necromancer to animate dead tissue, it is another matter entirely to instill the spark of life into inanimate objects. The Clay Golem is the simplest form of this complex art, creating a servant directly from the earth to serve the Necromancer. The intense drain this places on the psyche of the caster only allows him to maintain a single Golem of any type at a time." sources > http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/necromancer-summoning.shtml#claygolem and https://diablo.gamepedia.com/Necromancer_(Diablo_II)

IMO Diablo 2 and M&M VIII had the best implementation of necromancer. You can criticize M&M 8 - day of destroyer for anything, dated graphics for his time, lack of difficulty, easiness but the necromancer implementation was amazing. Sure, on 7 you can if join in dark side, learn dark magic and become a lich, but is not as if your char is a dedicated necromancer. Was one of the most popular classes on D2.



Druid was also very popular and i knew that if it come to D3, it would be very boring. Hurricane and transformations on cooldown would ruin the class. I wish that Druids become more D2 like on D4.
 

Generic-Giant-Spider

Guest
Remember when you could make Iron Golems out of another player's items? What a great way to troll "FREE ITEMS" games.
 

Shadenuat

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Only a curiosity. Did you knew? Jay Wilson din't implemented necromancer on D3 because according to him, necromancer was too good implemented on D2?
I can think of many ways to improve necro beginning with AI and of course skills as well. Dude maybe never played one to Hell, needs more maggot lairs.
 

DraQ

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Remember Chamber of Bone? That shit was terrifying because it was the moment where the game designers gave no fucks and just swarmed the player with skeletons until their fingers failed from clicking forever. If you didn't know how to door-choke, you were fucked as hordes of skeletons just pour out.
You should door choke pretty instinctively, though. It would work better if there were alternative routes getting open simultaneously for skellies to pour out, or a few rows of ranged attackers hanging around in the back.

Meanwhile in D1, you can get shanked by shit like Hell Goats because you thought you are the shit and could fight a few more than you could really chew.
Even a lone hellgoat can be a scary experience for a fresh character.

I like the idea of running itself (people run), its just too easy. Most monsters are way slower than the player, and any decently-leveled character has enough stamina to beat the São Silvestre race.
Yes, the problem is not running, the problem is that it is a get out of gangbang free card.

Maybe if mechanics like armor weight became a thing it would work (and constantly increasing numbers go away), then a Warrior fully-decked in armor plate and running on ST/VIT build can only do short runs, while say, a Rogue clad only in a skimpy clothing and light leather armor running a DEX build can run circles around the monsters, but she's far less armored.
btw I would't mind the game getting away from the Armor Class system myself, I prefer Damage Resistance/Threhold systems, because when I wear heavy armor, I like to feel Tanky, and when I wear light armor, I like to feel Nimble.
:incline:

You might end up giving someone an aneurysm, though.

Would a mix work? Class abilities are a thing, but so are tomes and such.
Yes, there multiple ways to make a mix, though.

Desert in D2 >>> Those boring-ass green nondescript plains that went on FOOOOOOREVER in D2 Act I. But really, the desert becomes a lot cooler during the Eclipse, and I don't mean just the heat.
I have no problem with desert itself. At least it fits thematically.
What I do have a problem with is the sheer amount of derping around in the desert and all the random shit attacking you there.
Catgirls? In my Diablo? Puh-lease!

Desert would have been interesting if being in a desert meant something. Like bringing water (which would hog the potion space, lol) and increased stamina drain due to heat. D2 taught me that people can run entire marathons in the middle of the desert in metal plate.
It would be a nice idea to have environmental hazards actually (desert heat and sandstorms included - maybe demonic entities IN those sandstorms) - could spice up navigation and combat.

A cosmetic but nevertheless nice improvement would be having modified PC sprites for each act - with characters wearing different garb matching the outside conditions. It would look less weird and reinforce the fact the plotwise you are traveling a fucking lot.

Summoner's Sanctuary was also very interesting due to how bizarre that place is compared to everything else in the entire game, I could see a modern re-rendition being full of M.C Escher-like and Non-Euclidian malicious architecture.
That's also one of the cool things that admittedly could not translate into 3D at all (you could make equivalently weird stuff with a portal based engine if you had vision and knew what you were doing, though, but it wouldn't be presentable in overhead view). I am perfectly fine with 2D overhead Diablo, mind you, especially with nifty fake 3D effects they added in 2. I actually like the looks of 2.

I actually think Act 3 was pretty well-executed in some parts, the real problem is all the end-less jungle.
Some dungeons were good, but the jungle itself was boring and thematically wrong.

Or make the jungle actually mean something, obstacle-like. Imagine both player and monsters being able to set the jungle afire. Make the player waddle through watery swamps and creeks, going slowly in a place full of corrupted hell piranhas and hellgators or something. Do more with the theme and have more aztec-style horrors. Maybe pull something from south american myth too - imagine Corrupted Botos. Have an entire area set in a jungle burning with the fire of hell. Have monsters attacking from the top of trees before jumping on the player.
Observation: You don't need specifically jungle or specifically south/meso-American stuff to fit most of those ideas.

Memory is thin, but if I remember right, the open spaces only worked in Harrogath. But there were plenty of obstacles and they did sell it pretty well that it wans't just another open space, but the site of a siege.
Because they were no longer featureless open planes of derpage.

I liked Mesoamerican Vatican. :(
The thing is it didn't fit.
Diablo, at its core is very bare-bones evil-in-a-can story. What made it work was implicit reliance on medieval europe and judeochristian mythology modified with generous dose of Manicheism. Take that away and setting fells flat like jellyfish out of the water, its horrors no longer compelling. Aztec Vatican wrecks those unstated assumptions completely.

You could have Aztec stuff, but you would have to incorporate conquistador-like themes into the game somehow and you wouldn't have setting's Not-Vatican there.
Alternatively you could have different, not necessarily tropical swampforest. Perhaps you would have to cross swamps of setting's not-Dnieper while on your way east (with malicious and corrupting forces trying to stop you there)? Perhaps you would end up around setting's not-Euphrat and not-Tigris which is area that could have significance to the game's mythos?
You'd still not get not-Vatican there, mind you.
 

Cryomancer

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I can think of many ways to improve necro beginning with AI and of course skills as well. Dude maybe never played one to Hell, needs more maggot lairs.

Spells like 3.5e finger of death/wail of the banshee, animate daggers/spears/crossbows/etc, improved IA, blood magic, inhuman transformations like become a vampire or lich(not depending on a set), auras that damage living and heal undead, etc, etc, etc; there are countless of ways to improve necromancer. But since Jay Wilson only know WoW, he din't realized that... He could just ask D2 fans what they wanna see new in necro. I believe that nobody will say "make my corpse explosion, bone spear, etc tied to the size and sharpness of my axe"
 

DraQ

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I can think of many ways to improve necro beginning with AI and of course skills as well. Dude maybe never played one to Hell, needs more maggot lairs.

Spells like 3.5e finger of death/wail of the banshee, animate daggers/spears/crossbows/etc, improved IA, blood magic, inhuman transformations like become a vampire or lich(not depending on a set), auras that damage living and heal undead, etc, etc, etc; there are countless of ways to improve necromancer. But since Jay Wilson only know WoW, he din't realized that... He could just ask D2 fans what they wanna see new in necro. I believe that nobody will say "make my corpse explosion, bone spear, etc tied to the size and sharpness of my axe"
Jay Wilson is a textbook example of Peter principle.
He was a competent mapper once. Now he is a mindbogglingly incompetent game designer.
 

ArchAngel

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Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
19,885
I must say Path of Diablo is pretty cool. It is expanded Diablo 2 vanilla but changed in all the right ways. It has a bunch of cool UI improvements and added endgame dungeons and bosses and more chase items and runewords.
Some buffs to previously bad skills and only a few skills added that are inspired by skills in Path of Exile. It has its own trade site that can be used to sell and buy items more easily and it has a global chat.

For more details I recommend this video:

 

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