Diablo IV

[United Nations]

In terms of gameplay, there's not much innovation that can be implemented in an isometric hack & slash ARPG, the core gameplay mechanics are pretty straightforward.

A one sentence summary of why I can't get interested in this game, even if I thought highly of the developer, which I don't.

I will remain ass pained that they didn't choose to go third person combat. Could do so much more with the atmosphere and tone, which is what made the Diablo franchise special imo.

AKA Hellgate: London...

Switching Diablo to 3rd person POV would be badass, but it would most likely end up as a Soulsborne clone.

3rd person over-the-shoulder by comparison would be total trash lol.

How about focusing solely on the horror elements and turning Diablo into a first-person horror game?

Would that work or would the non-ranged combat ruin the game?

 

[Cassar]

Anyone that isn't limiting their frame rate via driver or some other method is just asking to fry their GPU. You can't rely on developers to do their jobs properly.

Not the first time Blizzard game does this. Starcraft 2 at launch was notorious for frying NVidia's 200 serie cards (my 295GTX included)

Guys, it isn't the developers' fault if someone's GPU gets damaged from high framerates, GPUs are supposed to be able to handle high framerates - or any software induced stress - and if any doesn't then it is bad hardware, plain and simple.

Somehow Blizzard titles are known for frying GPUs but most other games are not. Are hardware manufacturers responsible for the work of Blizzard programmers?

I don't think they are known for that. Outside of that initial Starcraft 2 release, i don't recall ever being the case. The user above is right. That wasn't Blizzards fault, even with Starcraft 2. They just had the framerate unlocked in the menu so people had high framerates, which made their gpu work. And the ones that had inadequate cooling fried their cards. That could have happened with any other demanding software of any kind. Starcraft just exposed the faults in a few people's systems. If you'd have had competent cooling in your PC, this would have never happened. Just a misfortune

 

[Tacgnol]

It isn't the developers' job to work around broken hardware, it is the manufacturer's job to not release broken hardware in the first place. If your GPU dies due to some game you need to send that hardware back for replacement.

I do agree that hardware shouldn't fail due to software load. If it's that easy to destroy GPUs then people should start making malware that maxes GPU usage.

That said, I never understand why CURRENT_YEAR devs allow games to run completely uncapped by default. Especially with Blizzard hitting this exact issue multiple times.

Also thanks Perkel for the in-depth review/commentary. It's getting a bit annoying only reading the bitching about queues when I just want to know how it compares to Path of Exile.

 

[Fedora Master]

how it compares to Path of Exile.

They're both shit. This isn't rocket surgery.

 

[Perkel]

All true. Still, in itself, WC3 was a good game.

IT was nice but nothing amazing. It was just a blizz game and back then blizz had shitload of fanboys who would hail everything they do as the best. There were ton of RTS games back then that were miles better than it.

 

[ItsChon]

I would love to hear some comparisons to PoE. Perkel Any insight?

 

[Dayyālu]

cut missions are referred in dialogue

Huh? Which ones?

In the first Terran campaign is made clear that the Terrans already met the Protoss and fought with them, and Tassadar in the Zerg campaign supposedly knows already Kerrigan an' shit. They cut two missions from the Terran Episode 1 (https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Hidden_Missions) and flat-out ignored the script inconsistencies.

All true. Still, in itself, WC3 was a good game.

IT was nice but nothing amazing. It was just a blizz game and back then blizz had shitload of fanboys who would hail everything they do as the best. There were ton of RTS games back then that were miles better than it.

Gameplay-wise, I'd say yes. As much as I find WC3 to be a good game, the basic gameplay loop (and hero-focus) isn't amazing and there are other RTS that have far better ideas. One of the reasons people remember it fondly is mostly..... presentation, Old Blizzard had a knack for making stuff look shiny and cool. Plus mods.

 

[Grunker]

I would love to hear some comparisons to PoE. Perkel Any insight?

It's basically nothing like PoE from what we can see. The skill tree is a spruced up very traditionalist tree. Very limited/constrained, though with a bit more going on than D2.

The gameplay model has more in common with Lost Ark. In fact if you've played Lost Ark you'll constantly be noticing points of comparison. The open world and the way it works is borderline identical, for example.

The core meat of the combat is fairly similar to Diablo 3 in the sense that it is strongly tied to a generator, a spender, and a hotbar of long cooldowns.

 

[Yosharian]

Anyone that isn't limiting their frame rate via driver or some other method is just asking to fry their GPU. You can't rely on developers to do their jobs properly.

Not the first time Blizzard game does this. Starcraft 2 at launch was notorious for frying NVidia's 200 serie cards (my 295GTX included)

Guys, it isn't the developers' fault if someone's GPU gets damaged from high framerates, GPUs are supposed to be able to handle high framerates - or any software induced stress - and if any doesn't then it is bad hardware, plain and simple.

Somehow Blizzard titles are known for frying GPUs but most other games are not. Are hardware manufacturers responsible for the work of Blizzard programmers?

No software running in user space (i.e. anything aside from drivers - and really even drivers shouldn't be able to do that, the hardware should have safeguards in place) is supposed to be able to damage hardware in any operating system released since the 90s.

All hardware suffers from wear and tear and will eventually fail if taxed too much. Moreover, electricity costs money.

It isn't the developers' job to work around broken hardware, it is the manufacturer's job to not release broken hardware in the first place. If your GPU dies due to some game you need to send that hardware back for replacement.

It is the work of developers to build software running on available hardware, not some idealized perfect devices, for example OSes have always implemented workarounds for hardware problems: https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstec...around-is-still-slowing-down-amd-systems/amp/

You cannot return your GPU once the 2 year warranty expires.

1. It is not that hard to implement proper frame rate limiters and its actually hugely beneficial for gameplay. In-game frame rate limiters are extremely good for reducing input delay, they are better than any other method including driver-level limiters (which are admittedly still good).

2. There is no reason to run fucking game menus at 5000 FPS. "Lol your GPU was defective" is a fucking retarded take and people should be embarrassed posting it. Even if your GPU isn't overheating or frying itself, it's still wasting electricity and other resources pushing frame rates in a situation where it doesn't matter at all.

(not responding to you specifically Arbiter I'm just lazy)

 

[Camel]

stopped reading at

Controller support feels great on PC

Absolute state of D4 fan(boy)s.

This ended more than 20 years ago. Diablo 2 is probably what I consider blizzard's last good game.

SC2 was good with a great multiplayer and I still watch pro games where a great white hope Serral battles the Koreans.

 

[Storyfag]

In the first Terran campaign is made clear that the Terrans already met the Protoss and fought with them

Doesn't mean it's a cut mission, or a script inconsistency though, does it? Protoss preparing to sterilise Chau Sara happens in the opening cinematic. Is it bad on Blizzard for not including *that* in a mission?

Tassadar in the Zerg campaign supposedly knows already Kerrigan an' shit.

He could be referring to their meeting in Mission 9, if, indeed, Tassadar was still the Executor back then. In any case, these characters are not the player inserts, so they are entitled to have meetings that do not include the player. It's as if you were complaining that Bloodlines didn't *show* you how Jack steals the mummy. Oy, vey, cut content.

 

[Reinhardt]

Jack steals the mummy

dindu nuffin

 

[Storyfag]

I still love the D2 UI to this day. D4 is meh at best.

D4 UI is sterile and tiny. Also, those padlocks are out of place as fuck.

 

[Grunker]

I still love the D2 UI to this day. D4 is meh at best.

Also, those padlocks are out of place as fuck.

It really is such an amazingly weird ui element. Like, it's a small thing, but it's so misplaced

 

[Reinhardt]

GOTHIC HORROR things. you won't understand.

 

[cvv]

Do you remember Blizzard's golden decade when one could buy their new games on release without even bothering to read reviews?

Early Blizzard:

End times Blizzard:

I guess we'll never know what happened there.

 

[Dadd]

Do you remember Blizzard's golden decade when one could buy their new games on release without even bothering to read reviews?

End times Blizzard:

View attachment 34487

I guess we'll never know what happened there.

Amazingly there are only about two biological women in the picture.

 

[Dayyālu]

He could be referring to their meeting in Mission 9, if, indeed, Tassadar was still the Executor back then. In any case, these characters are not the player inserts, so they are entitled to have meetings that do not include the player.

If we're clutching at straws, Tassadar specifically calls out that Kerrigan fought as a noble defender of civilians, a feat he didn't see because it was in a cut mission. Also if the Protoss can sterilize worlds, why can't they deploy such stunning weaponry to check the Zerg's advance on Aiur and other planets? Why do they need the Xel Naga temple in Brood War? How does exactly the psi beacons interact with the Overmind plan? Are we really going to discuss the details of a haphazardly written RTS campaign?

It's far simpler: they just didn't care because "coherent narrative" was secondary to "throw out the campaign, do interesting missions". Raynor and Kerrigan keep sniping and each other and barely interact, but the plot requires them to be lovey-dovey because the plot requires. I don't care, I get to shoot bugs, but I'm not going to claim that the writing is done well. WC3 tried a more coherent narrative with in-game cutscenes and dialogue. SC2 shows what happens when you give too much space to subpar writing, the cracks are so massive even normies start to see them.

I guess we'll never know what happened there.

WoW/Activision happened. If you read about Blizzard's cancelled projects, it's.... impressive how much they fucked up, and even their released projects are interesting bad choices. Heroes of the Storm, anyone?

 

[Perkel]

I would love to hear some comparisons to PoE. Perkel Any insight?

D4 reminds me POE beta when enemies still could die in multiple hits rather than one and you were slow instead of zoom zoom what is modern poe trash clear screen meta.

Obviously i can't compare end game but so far but compared to POE:

D4 much slower tactical combat. Enemies don't die on one hit usually and you with with stronger enemies a good while. You have to deal with CC as enemies can stun you, knock you down, blow you back, freeze/chill you etc. Enemies attack in groups and work as a group with mages trying to CC you, lower end enemies swarm you while you have to dodge and move around bigger stronger ones that can deal a lot of damage or knock you down.

When it comes to bosses there isn't really any comparison here. All D4 bosses even small ones are essentially what POE lately tries to do but fails to do so because of it's inheritent problems with defenses and how meta works in POE. All of them have gimmicks that you have to watch out for, some can grab you etc. Overall D4 is miles better at bosses here mostly because it doesn't have issues with it's systems and that dev team did spend some time playtasting those.

I really like potions. POE potion system mostly fixed issue with D2 potion system but it introduced new issue aka piano and how important it was. Potions became effectively metronome. D4 mostly fixes that because health potions are just one kind (with upgrades) and other potions are high length ones (30 minutes each) that you drink when you need to rather than to survive. You find them pretty often but not too often.

It's really hard to say more than that. There are too many unknowns when it comes to full game to say if it will be better or worse than POE. IF rest of the game can keep quality of beta and introduce new things like mentioned locked paragon system, rune trigger system shown before, uniques that drop from lvl 50 onwards etc. i honestly might completely drop POE.

 

[Reinhardt]

All D4 bosses even small ones are essentially what POE lately tries to do but fails to do so because of it's inheritent problems with defenses and how meta works in POE. All of them have gimmicks that you have to watch out for, some can grab you etc. Overall D4 is miles better at bosses here mostly because it doesn't have issues with it's systems and that dev team did spend some time playtasting those.

I just fought the world boss. Felt kind of out of place since the click to move system makes it hard to avoid telegraphed attacks from an enemy who takes up half the screen. It's like fighting an MMO raid boss except players run around like chickens with their heads cut off. Also there's no risk to dying other than durability loss, since you respawn two seconds away.

 

[Kjaska]

One of the most autistic PoE players gives her impressions:



tl;dw:
- as predicted by many, it's not actually competing against PoE or Last Epog but rather going the Lost Ark route
- excellent visuals which don't translate into videos
- garbage UI
- good performance
- simple and straightforward character progression, don't need a guide
- re-speccing is very cheap
- unusually janky for a blizzard game
- boss mechanics don't feel fun on melee
- lots of dungeons, but they are all very repetitive
- skill tree is boring
- skill cooldowns are too long
- skill bar is very restrictive, de-incentivizes speccing into new skills later on
- movement skills are very bad (probably to incentivize mounts)
- no central, transparent map overlay
- seems like a fun game to play through once, but probably much more boring for long term play

 

[Reinhardt]

don't need a guide

current state of "gamers" - you need guide for diablo gaems...

 

[Storyfag]

If we're clutching at straws, Tassadar specifically calls out that Kerrigan fought as a noble defender of civilians, a feat he didn't see because it was in a cut mission.

No. It's a feat we as players didn't see. Tassadar is not a player character. Kerrigan is not a player character. Plus, she did defend civilians from the Protoss in Mission 9.

Also if the Protoss can sterilize worlds, why can't they deploy such stunning weaponry to check the Zerg's advance on Aiur and other planets? Why do they need the Xel Naga temple in Brood War?

Presumably because their fleets have already taken a toll *and* they might want to keep Aiur and Shakuras intact?

How does exactly the psi beacons interact with the Overmind plan?

It wanted to infest a Ghost. Psi emmitters broadcast a Ghost-like signal.

Are we really going to discuss the details of a haphazardly written RTS campaign?

As long as you keep bashing it for imaginary things, not for those it deserves? Yes.

Raynor and Kerrigan keep sniping and each other and barely interact, but the plot requires them to be lovey-dovey because the plot requires.

Why do you feel you need to witness all the interactions of these characters on-screen, and that them having interactions you do not see is bad plot? They are not player characters, they are NPCs. Yes, even Raynor.

Disclaimer: I am not saying SC plot is the second coming of Homer or whatever. It is servicable. The issue is, your arguments and/or premise are flawed.

 

[Kjaska]

I would love to hear some comparisons to PoE. @Perkel Any insight?

perkel hasn't played PoE beyond the campaign in years, you're better off watching Ziz quick impressions:

 

[Dadd]

Why are all PoE players trannies or gays?