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Decline The Diablo Legacy of Fail

Absinthe

Arcane
Joined
Jan 6, 2012
Messages
4,062
This was originally going to be posted as a reply to the Can we please stop calling RPGs without gameplay Adventures? thread but I feel it deserves its own thread, since this is an entire topic unto itself.

Not sure about BG, but I can distinctly remember how Morrowind was received by then-oldschool gamers as huge decline and disappointment compared to Daggerfall.
Even more so, Diablo - that was a swearword back then, the epitome of decline. And now you have folks considering it a classic of ARPGs.
I don't really regard Diablo-likes as RPGs either. They're just Hack & Slash and Diablo isn't even very good at the Hack & Slash elements. I enjoyed Diablo well enough, but it's also one of those games many people never bother to finish because it's kind of dull after a while. It's mostly the atmosphere design (the best part of Diablo, and also what all the fucking knockoffs fail at) that keeps you going. The sad part is that the Diablo-ish followups didn't even expand on the dungeon exploration elements, the interactivity of combat, or resource management aspects either but instead just turned into giant click to explode lootwhoring grindfests. NoX is an exception, but only because it wasn't actually trying to be Diablo.

The reason people hate on Diablo is because it (much like WoW after) reduced the RPG genre to nonstop filler combat and little to nothing else, which is a plague that has continued to this day. Originally RPGs were more inclined to have Adventure-genre elements, environment interaction, exploration elements, and C&C then Diablo came out and people were like "BRILLIANT! ALL YOU NEED FOR GAMEPLAY IS SKELETONS TO MASH ABILITIES ON, LOOT, AND AN ENDLESS AMOUNT OF SKELETONS AND BOSSES!" which is pretty much shithole design for something you want to call a RPG, just pure hack & slash. Even now popular RPGs thrive on extended bouts of pointless filler combat as their "gameplay" vehicle while doling out the story in tons of fucking cutscenes and a pointless levelup and loot design system the game's makers do not fucking understand. Morons with no fucking clue of how to make a game, who are basically shoving a B-movie "cinematic" plot at players while making people click to explode shit along the way so they can still call it a game.

It's not a surprise that Diablo caught a lot of flak for basically shitting up the RPG genre with Hack & Slash grinders that pretend to be RPGs because they think the presence of combat, levelups, loot, and story is all it takes to make an RPG, but I'm willing to give Diablo itself some slack. Diablo was actually decent enough in its own way, even if it was a stripped-down version of a Roguelike. The big problem was just the giant wave of derivative retards who didn't understand game design for shit, mindlessly copied shit, and frequently shat it up further in the process with excessive conveniences that trivialized elements of gameplay (like movement abilities that remove the importance of careful positioning, easy availability of super-gear that makes almost all regular loot into vendor trash, removal of resource management pressures, etc.) and other copycatted shit that wasn't a good idea (like the infodump school of storytelling, especially through audiologs; linear level design; overreliance on automap to compensate for bad level design by autopiloting players; garbage MMO quest design; etc).
 

spectre

Arcane
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Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,381
Shitting on Diablo, what year is this? Isn't that horse long decomposed?

I choose to stick by my definition of cRPGs as computer games which attempt to simulate the experience of tabletop rpg, and following this, I think Diablo barely qualified as such.
It fits the pattern I keep seeing repeated - a company discovers that it can make oodles of money by making a game which pretends to be genre X, but actually isn't.
The ironic thing was that Diablo was genuinely lauded as something that actually revitalized the genre by some people.

Regarding the OP's titular legacy of fail, if you look what Diablo's gameplay evolved (or perhaps degenerated) into of late - farming bosses and areas to find items, either for yourself or to pawn off at different breeds of auction houses,
various character builds characterised by area clear speed, dps, etc. etc., I don't think anyone can say with a straight face that this is something you ever wanted to see in an RPG.
Not saying these are bad things, I have sunk many hours into the Diablos and Path of Exile myself, I know there are people out there genuinely convinced that clearing dungeons in a lawnmower-like fashion, left to right then right to left
is what you do in RPGs, though what I recall from my tabletop days, munchkinism and dungeon crawling wasn't ever considered the highest point of the hobby. Sure, it could be a nice distraction every now and then.
(killing monsters to get exp and phat lewt is a long time genre staple). While I am all for good itemization, when it takes the form of loot skinner box casino, it is something RPGs essentially aren't.
It's good that the "Diablo clone" genre matured enough to have its own niche (or niches, do we consider WoW a clone? how about MOBA?) and those who enjoy it can leave the bona fide RPGs at peace.

Back in the nineties, journos would refer to character progression through attributes, skills and itemization as "RPG elements." Generally, it was seen as something positive, people liked to have "RPG elements"
in their games, be it action games, racing games, strategy games. At some point in time (perhaps when the first Diablo came about), the cart was put before the horse and a lot of folks became convinced that
just having those "RPG elements" is sufficient to call something an RPG game.

When it comes to worldbuilding, dialogues, etc. I have no quarrel with Diablo, at least not the first one. It hit the sweet spot with "less is more" and was very effective in making the gothic atmosphere come together - if there's one thing Diablo 1 did superbly, it's this. I'm not a fan of unnecessary overgrowth and having everything spelled out, which is why Diablo 2 and all its developments never really clicked with me.
 
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The monsters Diablo spawned isn't due to its lack of dialogue, or non-combat options. It's due to the randomized loot system. While it's merely part of the questionable goal of an endless dungeon concept, it had ramifications that we suffer today. Random loot need volume. More bodies. Random loot system can't function properly in a narrative driven plot where character can engage in multiple (less lethal) solutions, or against foes which tax the limitations of the character or player. Designers simply wouldn't be able to create enough content.

Thus, your character is going to be disproportionally powerful as it wades through hordes of disposable enemies. Hordes of disposables do not beget depth of mechanics, or challenging AI. The game system, rationally, will ignore anything not directly relevant to combat. Game plot and narrative breadth will be a function of the loot drop table, rather than the primary motivation for the player/character. It's why the Diablo series has only the vaguest imitation of quests, because they're are ultimately irrelevant. All that matters is how far off the end is. Everything else is filler. The second act of Diablo II probably overcomes this better than any other portion of the series, but still pales when compared to any D&D based cRPG. The Divinity: Original Sin series tries to have it both ways, and the disconnect and incompatibility is obvious to everyone.
 

Duraframe300

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Messages
6,395
Diablo 1 itself was never considered decline. That's horseshit.

What was considered decline were all the clones popping up and the design principles being shoved into games fitting or not.
 

Generic-Giant-Spider

Guest
Diablo 1 is a genuinely great game.

Now Diablo 2, a good game perhaps but it is where the imitators took most inspiration from and embellished the bad parts. If you play Diablo 2 offline without a care in the world you're gonna have an enjoyable time but it is the very second you step into the online world that the autism seeps into your pores and takes hold. You begin to see what the genre has become at a glance: insane clearspeeds, a bunch of shit happening on screen, things dying en masse, teleporting or running around like you are mentally disturbed.

Now Diablo 1 had some bad stuff online, notably how easy it was to hack and exploit characters/items, but nothing was brought to the retarded degrees D2: LoD introduced. I still like D2, but the more you try to min-max it the more you begin to despise it and in its own little bubble maybe it would fly but the problem is every clone adheres to these pitfalls like it's religious.

If more games in that field took after Diablo 1 and very carefully extracted/injected the good things from Diablo 2 (character customization/interesting itemization but without insane LoD levels of powercreep) then it'd be fine. As it stands though, the typical Diablo clone is an overly bloated mess of shit that makes mobile gacha game UIs look less busy.

I harbor nothing but pure hatred for Path of Exile. That game is an absolute hideous thing both in gameplay and systems.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
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In a way, I see Diablo more as introducing RPG and rogue-like mechanics into Smash TV than being a dumbing down of the RPG or rogue-like genre. Kind of like how Tower of Doom Shadow Over Mystara added RPG mechanics to beat 'em ups. All of the "MULTI KILL!" and things exploding and drops that give you cool new ways to blow enemies up and simple quests and kiting enemies to keep from getting surrounded and dungeon grinding are part of what made Smash TV's loop fun. Watch this through when he gets the ring of fireballs:

I'm obviously not saying they're identical--a key part of Smash TV is that enemies die fast and the player dies in one hit. But mutatis mutandis, the two seem more similar to me than, say, Diablo and Fallout (its 1997 contemporary).
 

spectre

Arcane
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Messages
5,381
Diablo 1 itself was never considered decline. That's horseshit.
People who actually played RPGs back then would disagree. Not necessarily pnp, but stuff like Ultima, Daggerfall, Might and Magic, etc. etc.
Now, there were plenty of of people back then for whom Diablo was their first RPG, or even the game that got them into gaming. I am sure the filthy casuals didn't mind and didn't knew any better.

Thing is, the RPG genre (and pretty much every other niche genre) back then was all but buried by the diarrhea of dune and doom derivates.
Diablo was something that made the masses notice, hey, RPGs can be cool too. Some would go as far as say that it revived the genre,
though I am more of an opinion that it supplanted it with something else.

Case in point - i vaguely remember the original adverts for Fallout 1 going out of their way to sell the game as being similar to Diablo, where you run around and roast radscorpions with flamethrowers.
(a game without elves, magic and all that boring shizz - I think the tagline went something like this) - in the popular mind, RPG was a boring, turn-based number crunch-fest, and it wasn't something the cool kids wanted.

Smells like tell-tale signs of decline to me. A full-bred RPG title tries to piggyback a simplified clone just to sell enough.
Maybe it's barely the onset, but you can see it in hindsight.

Now Diablo 2, a good game perhaps but it is where the imitators took most inspiration from and embellished the bad parts. If you play Diablo 2 offline without a care in the world you're gonna have an enjoyable time but it is the very second you step into the online world that the autism seeps into your pores and takes hold. You begin to see what the genre has become at a glance: insane clearspeeds, a bunch of shit happening on screen, things dying en masse, teleporting or running around like you are mentally disturbed.
Yeah, I remember having a moment like this back when LoD came about. Never really played any multi, but I started reading all those online guides and kept thinking to myself, is this really how you're supposed to play this game?
Keep running one guy and keep your fingers crossed for the good stuff to drop?

I have no quarrel with Path of Exile. Did some coop with friends a few years back and it scratched that itch when it was still a buy-in beta. Tried picking it up again not long ago, didn't really appreciate that the game seems to be about zoom zoom zooming
everywhere across the screen. What used to be tight feels bloated and overgrown, D2 all over again. Guess I stopped being the target audience.

I think my fundamental problem with the way these games are designed is when the expectation to do the "same shit but different shit" all over again is built right into the system. I can clear a dungeon once. Kill the boss once.
But plowing through the same area repeatedly just to make sure I got the best stuff it could give?
Why on earth do you expect me to fire up a higher difficulty level and go over all this shit with the same character doing the same shit but this time with HP bloat and a global -% to all my resistances?
I think PoE actually tried to justify this a little bit in the story, but I think there's a fundamental mismatch somewhere in your design that you need to reuse the entire content before getting to the endgame.
So you killed Diablo once, that's the climax for the character and their story is complete. Time to roll another. Does it make sense to go out and kill him again (in the same game, not the sequel), what about seeking out a Turbo-Tristram Uber Diablo variant to kill?
This is easter-egg material, right there with the cow level, it shouldn't be legitimized as an endgame (and yet here we are with the entire MMORPG genre doing just that, so it seems to appeal to a particular breed of the autiste).

While Diablo claims to be descended from roguelikes, it did one thing poorly (and I think a lot of the criticisms can be traced back to it). You were expected to succeed rather than fail. Permadeath wasn't really a thing.
I think certain systems would not take root in the genre if it stuck to the original path. I mean, why would you need to beat the game twice or thrice with the same guy, if beating it once was already an accomplishment?
 

Axioms

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Lootwhoring probably wasnt the intended point of Diablo and its early clones. It was probably something that evolved from the design in a way the original designers didn't anticipate. Also stuff like "ultimate mode" was a just a cheap way to add "extra" content. It also was a way to allow normies and hardcore people to play the same game.

However humans are very stupid and very commonly take a one off design decision in a popular game as gospel. And devs are both cowardly because of money and also stupid and aren't really able to understand why one game clicked while a similar game didn't.

The absolute most fun part of ARPGs isn't even loot. Its character builds. Loot itemization is a close second, though. But not the farming. The farming is a thing people do because they have to. If you put the kind of build customization and theming of an ARPG in a regular RPG then you probably would greatly reduce the popularity of ARPGs. Sadly no one seems to want to do that.

Just let me play awesome Necros and dual classes in a regular RPG and I'll ditch arpgs so fast.
 

Butter

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Oct 1, 2018
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They didn't start that way, but ARPGs have become nothing more than skinner boxes. They encourage players to only care about clear speed because you're expected to replay the same maps hundreds of times looking for rare drops in order to make a number go up on your character sheet. They're BUTTON!AWESOME taken to its logical conclusion, and the worst kind of decline.
 
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Machocruz

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In a way, I see Diablo more as introducing RPG and rogue-like mechanics into Smash TV than being a dumbing down of the RPG or rogue-like genre. Kind of like how Tower of Doom Shadow Over Mystara added RPG mechanics to beat 'em ups. All of the "MULTI KILL!" and things exploding and drops that give you cool new ways to blow enemies up and simple quests and kiting enemies to keep from getting surrounded and dungeon grinding are part of what made Smash TV's loop fun. Watch this through when he gets the ring of fireballs:

I'm obviously not saying they're identical--a key part of Smash TV is that enemies die fast and the player dies in one hit. But mutatis mutandis, the two seem more similar to me than, say, Diablo and Fallout (its 1997 contemporary).

Interesting reference. I see Gauntlet as a closer arcade analog to Diablo, maybe the closest, and I suspect a direct influence. Delving down through dungeon floors while combating, or avoiding, scores of villains, controlling one of four different "classes". Diablo is that, slowed down. The drops and spells are things it picked up from roguelikes, which are in the RPG family.

Not that I'm against the Smash comparison. This concept in which you are harried by a number of enemies that is higher than normal, fighting them in real time, with an elevated perspective i.e. bird's eye view, isometric, etc., is both well-worn and specific, enough so that these comparisons are sound and it's highly possible that the similarities were conscious choices by the designers.
 

Generic-Giant-Spider

Guest
So you killed Diablo once, that's the climax for the character and their story is complete. Time to roll another. Does it make sense to go out and kill him again (in the same game, not the sequel), what about seeking out a Turbo-Tristram Uber Diablo variant to kill?

Diablo 1 did something interesting that I don't think has been done since to my knowledge and that is they had different groups of quests. You had the core few like killing Lazarus/Diablo but you had things like the Poisoned Water Supply or Ogden's Sign that would only appear on certain playthroughs. Even the Butcher was a randomized quest whether or not you had the dying townsman at the start.

I guess you could also argue the procedural level generation was another selling point at the time since it was advertised as having "tons and tons" of levels which was really just a guessing game of "where the fuck is the staircase?"

Edit: And yes, I always saw Diablo as having much more relation to Gauntlet/Rogue than Smash TV. I think it was originally pitched as being a hybrid of Rogue and Doom, though.
 

Machocruz

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Diablo 1 did something interesting that I don't think has been done since to my knowledge and that is they had different groups of quests. You had the core few like killing Lazarus/Diablo but you had things like the Poisoned Water Supply or Ogden's Sign that would only appear on certain playthroughs. Even the Butcher was a randomized quest whether or not you had the dying townsman at the start.
YEEEESSS. This is one of those things I admire about the original game, and its followers didn't emulate. Was so cool the first time I realized this was going on. Also reminds me how the shrines were random and could even be detrimental to you, and you didn't know until you activated them. Another great touch. Unpredictability and mystery are things I cherish in a game world.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
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Interesting reference. I see Gauntlet as a closer arcade analog to Diablo, maybe the closest, and I suspect a direct influence. Delving down through dungeon floors while combating, or avoiding, scores of villains, controlling one of four different "classes". Diablo is that, slowed down. The drops and spells are things it picked up from roguelikes, which are in the RPG family.
Not sure. I initially thought Gauntlet, too, but there are a variety of ways in which Smash TV feels much more similar, despite the significant difference in setting and lack of character classes. But as I think about it, didn't Diablo have enemy spawners the way Gauntlet did?
 

Generic-Giant-Spider

Guest
didn't Diablo have enemy spawners the way Gauntlet did?

No, Diablo II had some enemy types that would create smaller mobs like those giant worms and their eggs. In D1 if you saw you were about to enter a large room there's a 90% chance it was full of cocksuckers waiting to rush out and meet you. And if there was nothing in it you'd hold shift or alt and wildly swing to kill those invisible stalkers.
 

tritosine2k

Erudite
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Dec 29, 2010
Messages
1,465
Lootwhoring probably wasnt the intended point of Diablo and its early clones. It was probably something that evolved from the design in a way the original designers didn't anticipate. Also stuff like "ultimate mode" was a just a cheap way to add "extra" content. It also was a way to allow normies and hardcore people to play the same game.

However humans are very stupid and very commonly take a one off design decision in a popular game as gospel. And devs are both cowardly because of money and also stupid and aren't really able to understand why one game clicked while a similar game didn't.

The absolute most fun part of ARPGs isn't even loot. Its character builds. Loot itemization is a close second, though. But not the farming. The farming is a thing people do because they have to. If you put the kind of build customization and theming of an ARPG in a regular RPG then you probably would greatly reduce the popularity of ARPGs. Sadly no one seems to want to do that.

Just let me play awesome Necros and dual classes in a regular RPG and I'll ditch arpgs so fast.

It's like they looked at their 90's servers and 90's bandwidth & in a fraction of a second it was decided they won't keep around 8meg+ save files of playthroughs and they fit all progress into kilobytes. So essentially it's just a char sheet and progress flags from server side and that's reasonable for 90's . Then this stuff creeped into Diablo2 -s SOLO mode , then everywhere else. Kind of unacceptable and poor substitute for a 2020's solo IMO.
 

Citizen

Guest
Now Diablo 2, a good game perhaps but it is where the imitators took most inspiration from and embellished the bad parts. If you play Diablo 2 offline without a care in the world you're gonna have an enjoyable time but it is the very second you step into the online world that the autism seeps into your pores and takes hold. You begin to see what the genre has become at a glance: insane clearspeeds, a bunch of shit happening on screen, things dying en masse, teleporting or running around like you are mentally disturbed.

Ya'll weaklings don't possess the required autism levels to properly enjoy build creation process in d2 multiplayer. Where's my gurl Lilura to dab on your casual gamers' asses?
 

Wunderbar

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Diablo is like Half-Life or Amnesia the dark descent. Good games that paved the way towards popamolization of their genres.
 
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spectre

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YEEEESSS. This is one of those things I admire about the original game, and its followers didn't emulate. Was so cool the first time I realized this was going on. Also reminds me how the shrines were random and could even be detrimental to you, and you didn't know until you activated them. Another great touch. Unpredictability and mystery are things I cherish in a game world.
Sounds like you'd love an actual roguelike then. ADOM is very accessible these days, the built-in tileset is pretty good and it even has proper mouse UI.
The game really has it all, apart from a bunch of areas related to the main quest and the dungeons are all randomized. You have magical items with hidden properties (discovered by magic or by using),
perhaps that potion you drank last time that got you sick will have a different effect if you did an item into it? There are character race and class combinations that all play differently, etc.

Makes me wonder what might have been if the genre had moved towards 'losing and figuring stuff on your own is fun' rather than the loot casino.
 

octavius

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The monsters Diablo spawned isn't due to its lack of dialogue, or non-combat options. It's due to the randomized loot system. While it's merely part of the questionable goal of an endless dungeon concept, it had ramifications that we suffer today. Random loot need volume. More bodies.

Might&Magic 2 had random loot long before Diablo. It made the game not turn stale, like for example Wizardry 7 did.

Random loot system can't function properly in a narrative driven plot

Give me random loot before a narrative driven plot.
 

samuraigaiden

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Harare
RPG Wokedex
The fact there’s a whole generation of people out there who call Diablo clones Dungeon Crawlers is also part of the shitty legacy.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Case in point - i vaguely remember the original adverts for Fallout 1 going out of their way to sell the game as being similar to Diablo, where you run around and roast radscorpions with flamethrowers.

I remember the trailer for Arcanum being like that, and since Diablo had been my first RPG, Arcanum really positively surprised me with its complexity, worldbuilding and gameplay.

 

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