Diablo IV

[Zeriel]

Microcosms of gaming decline in this thread. If you ever wonder why RPGs are so shit just look at the last page. One retard played Diablo for the story, another thought min maxing in an RPG is accounting, third suggests the genre should had gone the puzzle route (Nox).

I didn't care about the puzzles in Nox, but as an action game it was really fun.

 

[d1r]

Once I learned you don't have to download 85 gigs and can instead limit yourself to 40, I gave it a shot.

I actually foolishly had reasonably high hopes for it based on all the pre-release shilling.

I quit at around lvl 5 after getting to the hermit hut. There were some things I liked (animations and responsiveness, that neat little thing where your track is highlighted on the map) and a lot of things I didn't (to name a few - maps are corridors and from what I gather it's not even randomized, no inventory tetris and everything is one slot, gear score levels, fucking scaling making everything pointless, pathetic skill level up bonuses of +1 damage wow, locked skill bar until you level up, crafting can fuck off, UI and fonts are straight garbage, the skill tree presented in such a way that you can't see the big picture and can only see chunks of it at a time, no map overlay, and the list goes on).

But what really made me say fuck it, I'm too old for this shit is how it commits the ultimate ARPG sin of being a cutscene fest. You can't go five steps without getting some cinematic that stops you from actually playing the game. And even conversations are KCD style where the game stops and goes into a mini-cutscene where you can exchange conversation options for long drawn out exposition, and even fast-forwarding it isn't fast. I hate it with a passion. Just let me play the game. If you want to tell a story, just do what POE does and have tablets narrate shit while I slay demons.

Thing also gobbles RAM like candy, but it's whatever I guess. Whoever pays 70 big ones for this is a god damned fool.

Considering you can skip literally all of them, that's the dumbest complaint I've ever heard.

The majority of people do not plays ARPG's for the story, mini cutscenes or dialogues. You might watch them once, or read through the dialogue tree twice, but at the end of the day, in a game like this, you want to progress as fast as you can to reach the endgame. And I am pretty sure that Blizzard knows that as well. It's all about the grind, and these annoyances, as small as they might be, are absolutely contraproductive for the flow of the game.

 

[Anomander]

Once I learned you don't have to download 85 gigs and can instead limit yourself to 40, I gave it a shot.

I actually foolishly had reasonably high hopes for it based on all the pre-release shilling.

I quit at around lvl 5 after getting to the hermit hut. There were some things I liked (animations and responsiveness, that neat little thing where your track is highlighted on the map) and a lot of things I didn't (to name a few - maps are corridors and from what I gather it's not even randomized, no inventory tetris and everything is one slot, gear score levels, fucking scaling making everything pointless, pathetic skill level up bonuses of +1 damage wow, locked skill bar until you level up, crafting can fuck off, UI and fonts are straight garbage, the skill tree presented in such a way that you can't see the big picture and can only see chunks of it at a time, no map overlay, and the list goes on).

But what really made me say fuck it, I'm too old for this shit is how it commits the ultimate ARPG sin of being a cutscene fest. You can't go five steps without getting some cinematic that stops you from actually playing the game. And even conversations are KCD style where the game stops and goes into a mini-cutscene where you can exchange conversation options for long drawn out exposition, and even fast-forwarding it isn't fast. I hate it with a passion. Just let me play the game. If you want to tell a story, just do what POE does and have tablets narrate shit while I slay demons.

Thing also gobbles RAM like candy, but it's whatever I guess. Whoever pays 70 big ones for this is a god damned fool.

Considering you can skip literally all of them, that's the dumbest complaint I've ever heard.

The majority of people do not plays ARPG's for the story, mini cutscenes or dialogues. You might watch them once, or read through the dialogue tree twice, but at the end of the day, in a game like this, you want to progress as fast as you can to reach the endgame. And I am pretty sure that Blizzard knows that as well. It's all about the grind, and these annoyances, as small as they might be, are absolutely contraproductive for the flow of the game.

I think it is the opposite. Most of the players play it (at least Diablo) for the story. And only minority stays after they finished it one time.

 

[Anomander]

Diablo 3 sold over 30 milions units. Do you really think most of those players played multiple times (or even started playing endgame)? Half of them probably didn't even finish this single time.

 

[Reever]

I don't know why it's such a controversial opinion. I can guarantee you the casual player that buys diablo just because it's a big name has more of an interest in the pretty cutscenes rather than how deep the end-game systems are. And they are by far the majority.

 

[Late Bloomer]

A lot of those players, the casual ones who never do anything endgame or really even get there, have big dreams of doing good, of having fun for a long time (I remember playing WoW when Diablo 3 came out and people in the guild I was in were saying they were leaving WoW for Diablo 3. Almost everyone of them came back shortly after), of being someone important , only to quit without finishing the game or to quit before doing anything of note at endgame. The next game is always around the corner for most people.

 

[Dadd]

Some of you underestimate how many hardcore gamers were produced during the coof lockdowns when normies had nothing else to do in their free time than play video games.

 

[Arbiter]

My verdict after playing the open beta: I am going to wait for a D2 Resurrected sale instead.

 

[ADULF HITLOR FAN KLUB]

D4 is alright, but there is no way I would pay full price for it, simply out of principle. The game has fundamental design problems and the extensive level scaling is absolutely atrocious.

To be fair, the game is not bad. I did have fun playing, despite its obvious problems.

All said, D2 resurrected is BY FAR the better game. Buy that instead.

 

[Camel]

Is this supposed to be wymmyn ? looks like a man with boobs. Also at the runes carved in the collar and the deer tusk. We wuz druiz.

Barbarian in the teaser also looks like a man.

 

[Takamori]

After trying this, my conclusion is that I will buy Diablo 4 from sale at some point in the future. It's just ok.

Definitely not worth the 70, 80 or whatever the fuck bucks they are asking for now.
What boggles my mind is the "end game" being dungeons and key farming for those nightmare dungeons. So you get gear to just see numbers go up? No bosses or even challenges to test if your build is shit or not?
I'd wait a year to get the full version after the inevitable community finally realizes the game has the depth of a watery tart and Blizz takes 1 year to address all that shit because they are a inefficient corpo cock sucking structure.

 

[Takamori]

I don't know why it's such a controversial opinion. I can guarantee you the casual player that buys diablo just because it's a big name has more of an interest in the pretty cutscenes rather than how deep the end-game systems are. And they are by far the majority.

Oh also this is pointing the sky is blue. Your run of the mill blizztard casual gamer will play see the story and move on to whatever next hype game lies in store also while buying all the battle pass bs and not even leveling that garbage for the sake of claiming the cosmetics.

 

[ArchAngel]

D4 is alright, but there is no way I would pay full price for it, simply out of principle. The game has fundamental design problems and the extensive level scaling is absolutely atrocious.

To be fair, the game is not bad. I did have fun playing, despite its obvious problems.

All said, D2 resurrected is BY FAR the better game. Buy that instead.

What does paying for D2R give me that is better than free Path of Diablo?

 

[ADULF HITLOR FAN KLUB]

What does paying for D2R give me that is better than free Path of Diablo?

Never hard of Path of Diablo.

D2R only costs 13 dollars when it is on sale, it is up to you if you buy it or not.

 

[anvi]

D4 is alright, but there is no way I would pay full price for it, simply out of principle. The game has fundamental design problems and the extensive level scaling is absolutely atrocious.

To be fair, the game is not bad. I did have fun playing, despite its obvious problems.

All said, D2 resurrected is BY FAR the better game. Buy that instead.

I heard D2 with mods is better because Resurrected has censoring and balance changes, or something. Is that true?

 

[Tyranicon]

I don't think this has been posted yet?



Holy shit, even IGN here throwing shade.

Not a chance in hell the skill ships in this state. A Legendary Aspect called "Explosive Mist" will trigger Corpse Explosioin over and over, reset its own cooldown, and make you immune. Essentially making you permanently unkillable while wiping everything off the screen.

As a former D2 necro main though, necro's being OP is just as intended.

 

[Yosharian]

My verdict after playing the open beta: I am going to wait for a D2 Resurrected sale instead.

Blizzard games go on sale?

 

[Yosharian]

What does paying for D2R give me that is better than free Path of Diablo?

Never hard of Path of Diablo.

D2R only costs 13 dollars when it is on sale, it is up to you if you buy it or not.

Wtf when was it on sale

 

[Grunker]

Half of them probably didn't even finish this single time.

That’s par for the course for any game, and it’s way less than half. Most games have a pitiful completion rate on Steam.

But modern games like Diablo 4 make a significant share of their earnings from Battle Passes and the like, and so are utterly dependant on Player Retention. If Diablo 4 does not have longevity it will be considered a massive failure by Blizzard execs - the entire business model AND game design (Lost Ark open world) have been crafted with that purpose in mind.

A big mistake people often make is using the common sense notion that the biggest share of income in business, and online games especially, comes from a majority of the customer base paying small amounts, turning many lesser purchases into an ocean of money. However in many moderne games, tens of thousands of normal players can‘t compete with the insane amount of money single whales can drop:



Diablo 4 probably won’t be whalefocused to that extent, but the underlying point remains the same: Diablo 4 doesn’t need to retain anything near a majority of the players who buy the game to make much, much more money from its endgame than from its retail sale. It just needs a big enough retention rate to make its Battle Pass and similar purchases profitable, and those sales will dwarf the game’s retail price over time.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Is it just me in my echo chambers or has the overall reception of D4 been more lukewarm than I expected it to be? I'm not just talking about the Codex. Even the usual fanboy dens like the battle.net forums and even GameFAQs are full of people with reservations and hesitations which is surprising to me at least. The MMO stuff doesn't seem to be resonating with people the way that developers had hoped and I've seen lots of people describe the game as just "boring". Most people agree that the visuals and audio are great, but there's something about the gameplay that isn't satisfying.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Is it just me in my echo chambers or has the overall reception of D4 been more lukewarm than I expected it to be? I'm not just talking about the Codex. Even the usual fanboy dens like the battle.net forums and even GameFAQs are full of people with reservations and hesitations which is surprising to me at least. The MMO stuff doesn't seem to be resonating with people the way that developers had hoped and I've seen lots of people describe the game as just "boring". Most people agree that the visuals and audio are great, but there's something about the gameplay that isn't satisfying.

Because even with great visuals, sound, music and mood it's a soulless game with a real identity. Even back than Blizzort barrow most things from other games but still they add one or two of their touches that make the game more fun than similar one. That Blizz died quite a while ago.

This game isn't really a Diablo game other than setting and characters. It's a cheap Lost Ark clone without the things made that game a success. And they want $70 for this...

Edit: Even my casual player friends who play everything they find without thinking are saying that this game won't survive for long. There isn't much skill variety right now.

 

[Grunker]

The Diablo name also has less value than before. D3 was lauded on name alone, but in a post-D3 world, that's not enough.

Also, they kept the worst part of the core D3 system, the Generator-Spender gameplay, and that's always going to feel like ass especially on low levels, so anyone not playing a sorceress (or maybe necro) in the beta will probably be bored out of their skull left-clicking and hitting like a wet noodle.

It's a cheap Lost Ark clone without the things made that game a success

The games are pretty similar except D4's presentation is better and it doesn't have the asinine business model or trophy hunting (except a single similar system) and we don't know how the endgame will look.

Lost Ark was a pretty terrible game outside of its endgame modes, dungeons and raiding which were all top notch.

 

[Tacgnol]

Is it just me in my echo chambers or has the overall reception of D4 been more lukewarm than I expected it to be? I'm not just talking about the Codex. Even the usual fanboy dens like the battle.net forums and even GameFAQs are full of people with reservations and hesitations which is surprising to me at least. The MMO stuff doesn't seem to be resonating with people the way that developers had hoped and I've seen lots of people describe the game as just "boring". Most people agree that the visuals and audio are great, but there's something about the gameplay that isn't satisfying.

Entirely anecdotally, but even one of my massive Blizzard fanboy friends is disappointed. It's not that he thinks D4 is outright bad, but he's just entirely underwhelmed by what he has seen.

I seem to get a very similar impression from most places I've read about the game.

 

[ArchAngel]

Now that I am done with beta let me leave some more thoughts.
I played Druid to 25 and Necro to 22. Graphics and animations and exploration is best I have seen in any aRPG so far. Also I loved that there are many fun side quests, some are even chains of quests where new part unlocks later when you arrive in same town. I like a lot of parts of how itemization works, especially aspects thing and ability to move aspects to other items. 30 minute potions are also a good idea compared to D2 almost useless potions (I tried using thawing ones vs Duriel and that is it).
MMO lite elements I didn't mind and mostly enjoyed. I didn't try world boss event but I was part of some Stronghold event where 4 of us had to work together to do it.
Minute to minute combat was fun and I enjoyed it (but..). Boss combats are well done and better than PoE. It is more clear what is happening and how to avoid things.

There is a bunch of negatives as well.
I can see combat getting irritating after a while. While fun at first, I do not see myself enjoying needing to use 6 buttons or so all the time until I stop playing. In D2 my Necro basically used 2 buttons, one for curse and one for Bone spell of choice. I would need to resummon some skeletons sometimes but that was not in every battle.
Druid was same, you cast your Hurricane and spam Tornadoes. Here I got 5-6 buttons to use for my Hurricane/Tornado Druid. I can see this getting very boring and irritating after 100h.
Dungeons are mostly the same with only a couple same bosses. Story dungeons have their own unique boss but other 22 dungeons do not.
Shit is very unbalanced atm, especially for melee and there is a lot of bugs.
70$ is way too much for this, at least based on this beta. Unlike D3 where its beta got me to buy full copy, this has not made my do anything but wait and see and still there is no way I am giving 70$ for a game like this.
I rather buy Last Epoch and Rogue Trader for that money and wait for PoE2.
For 70$ this needs to be by far the best aRPG ever.

 

[Grunker]

30 minute potions are also a good idea

you are insane