Diablo IV

[Crispy]

I told you you still don't get it.

 

[ind33d]

SDG you still don't get it. I don't think you ever will.

I'm sure you hold as a sincere, even fervent view of Diablo -- Diablo anything, 1, 2, 3, whatever -- as being genuinely "good games". You probably even think of them as RPGs, which, in a sense, they sort of are, but only very controversially so.

Diablo as a franchise is generally viewed, or at least used to be before Gen-Z came along, as the demise of the classic computer roleplaying game. It was seen as the first truly popular whack-a-mole type "RPG", and for good reason.

Yet here you are, unironically boasting that you've A) pre-purchased it and B) will even revel in it because you honestly feel in your heart that it's your favorite type of game. But you still fail to grasp why RPG Codex doesn't really accept you. I guess you could retort that it doesn't really accept me, either, or even that I can't or shouldn't attempt to speak for all of RPG Codex anyway, but neither of those things negates what Diablo and, by extension, you are:

Decline.

calling diablo 2 popamole is disingenuous. LOD hardcore is more difficult than most full-time jobs

 

[abija]

Popamole can be difficult though, what exactly is your point.

 

[Crispy]

Exactly. Popamole has nothing to do with difficulty at all. It refers to the incessant and mindless click-click-click gameplay loop that Diablo heralded with its arrival.

But wait, Crispy, every RPG requires one to click the mouse, what the fuck are you talking about?

If you still don't understand then I kindly ask you to excuse yourself from this establishment by walking your ass out our front door.

 

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

Yet here you are, unironically boasting that you've A) pre-purchased it and B) will even revel in it because you honestly feel in your heart that it's your favorite type of game. But you still fail to grasp why RPG Codex doesn't really accept you. I guess you could retort that it doesn't really accept me, either, or even that I can't or shouldn't attempt to speak for all of RPG Codex anyway

Codex doesn't accept or align with anyone inherently. It's why it's so interesting here and why there are so many interesting opinions.

Echo chambers are boring.

calling diablo 2 popamole is disingenuous. LOD hardcore is more difficult than most full-time jobs

Difficult, yes. Interesting, no.

Difficulty doesn't matter. At the end of the day, the core gameplay boils down to, essentially, whack-a-mole. The game being difficult doesn't magically negate how shallow it is, nor does it magically make it good.

I do disagree SOMEWHAT about that with Diablo 1, though. Diablo 1 is still very clicky and has a lot of repetitive aspects to it, so it largely fits with the definition. However, I feel like by having spells learned from books rather than skill trees, and not having endlessly-respawning enemies, the experience was more about completing the dungeon with what you have, rather than mindlessly and endlessly farming the best gear. It's almost like a primitive roguelike. Diablo 2 shat all over that by making death meaningless, incentivising the grind, and compensating for it by numerically upping the difficulty. The loop in D2 (and every game onwards) is so repetitive and stale that it's got barely anything going for it. Obviously D1 is quite primitive in it's design and lacks a lot of mechanical depth, but I feel like building on that framework rather than throwing most of it in the garbage for the sake of party-focused item hunting would have been a net positive for the series.

If they ever make a game similar to D1 again, I would be interested. Otherwise, loot-simulators are nothing but decline.

Blizzard didn't just ruin Diablo, they ruined the whole genre. Now every hack-and-slash RPG from Torchlight to Path of Exile all follow the D2 "item hunt" formula, rather than the D1 "randomised dungeon crawl" formula. PoE tries to be somewhat interesting with it's very well-made skill system, but it's just one layer on top of a relatively boring core loop.

Stop praising what has been one of the worst declines in gaming history.

"Diablo 2 is really fun and interesting" - man who just completed Uber Tristram for the 300th time in a row trying to farm specific runes and items.

 

[abija]

King Crispy to be fair there have been multiple requests to move this in the section it deserves.

 

[Crispy]

Yeah I knew someone was going to mention moving this thread to General Gaming, but we're not going to do it.

As much as it pains me, I have to admit that Diablo is still an RPG. I personally think it just barely qualifies as that; I'd lean more towards characterizing it as a fantasy-themed action clicker, but whatever.

We have to give in to certain things and the number of drooling monkeys crawling up the walls complaining about Diablo not being in the RPG section would probably overwhelm our security forces, so here it stays.

 

[Cohesion]

Yeah I knew someone was going to mention moving this thread to General Gaming, but we're not going to do it.

As much as it pains me, I have to admit that Diablo is still an RPG. I personally think it just barely qualifies as that; I'd lean more towards characterizing it as a fantasy-themed action clicker, but whatever.

We have to give in to certain things and the number of drooling monkeys crawling up the walls complaining about Diablo not being in the RPG section would probably overwhelm our security forces, so here it stays.

But D3 is in MMORPG subforum, why?
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/diablo-3-reaper-of-idiots.89985

 

[Crispy]

Because Diablo 3 possesses many of the aspects inherent to massively-multiplayer games, moreso than Diablo 1, 2, and apparently 4 will.

At least I think that's true. I don't even remember whether I've played a single minute of Diablo 3. Is it primarily co-op oriented? If so, that's why it's in MMORPG.

Ask Infinitron.

 

[Crispy]

SomeGuyWithAnOpinion, you didn't need to delete that comment. It was a valid point.

 

[abija]

Yeah I knew someone was going to mention moving this thread to General Gaming, but we're not going to do it.

D4 It is the most mmo of the Diablos, throwing random players in your way anywhere outside dungeons wether you like it or not. In fact D3 has no mmo aspects, in that regard is always online D2.

D3/PoE were thrown there for the always online requirement, which D4 also has.

 

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

SomeGuyWithAnOpinion, you didn't need to delete that comment. It was a valid point.

I deleted it because I double-posted, so I moved the original comment into the second post, and deleted the first.

It's still there.

 

[Fedora Master]

There are codexers who like Dragon Age, Fallout 3, and Skyrim.

And we don't want them here either.

 

[KIss My Ass]

There are codexers who like Dragon Age, Fallout 3, and Skyrim.

And we don't want them here either.

What's this we shit? You got a turd in your pocket? Just accept that people have different opinions. Get over it Butthurt Master.

 

[Zlaja]

the experience was more about completing the dungeon with what you have, rather than mindlessly and endlessly farming the best gear. It's almost like a primitive roguelike. Diablo 2 shat all over that by making death meaningless

Death is not totally meaningless in D2. Even if you disregard hardcore you lose a certain amount of your gold and all your gear drops on the ground and has to be retrieved manually, which is inconvienient enough to make you groan when dying. If you choose to have your gear brought to you instead, then all monsters and dungeon layout respawns. And on higher difficulties you also lose some xp towards next lv. Not the best system, but it's something.

In D1, you simply load your latest save and that's it.

Also, can people stop bitching about this hack & slash loot fest being...you know...a hack & slash loot fest. There're legitimite complaints like the annoying level-scaling and always online crap, but whining about Diablo being Diablo in a fucking Diablo thread is just tiresome.

 

[Ryzer]

You can be an Hack&Slash and have interesting things going on for it like you know that game Westwood made called Nox.
But I guess, you need to be Westwood in order to make something remotely original from an uninspired genre.
Too bad, there is no Nox clone, otherwise they would have seen that H&S games can be more than piñatas.
So I found this complain about H&S loot fest entirely legitimate.

 

[Zlaja]

You can be an Hack&Slash and have interesting things going on for it like you know that game Westwood made called Nox.
But I guess, you need to be Westwood in order to make something remotely original from an uninspired genre.
Too bad, there is no Nox clone, otherwise they would have seen that H&S games can be more than piñatas.
So I found this complain about H&S loot fest entirely legitimate.

Yeah, let's mention Nox for like 16th time in this thread and pretend that was the only time someone tried to do something original in the genre. Dungeon Siege went with party-based hack & slash, Titan Quest let you mix & match between various skill trees freely, Sacred went with open world hack & slash, and Divine Divinity mixed the Diablo formula with traditional questing and dialogue trees.

Plenty of tries to innovate with mixed results.

 

[Kjaska]

I would trust Alk's expertise when it comes to melee characters:

 

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

Death is not totally meaningless in D2. Even if you disregard hardcore you lose a certain amount of your gold and all your gear drops on the ground and has to be retrieved manually, which is inconvienient enough to make you groan when dying. If you choose to have your gear brought to you instead, then all monsters and dungeon layout respawns. And on higher difficulties you also lose some xp towards next lv. Not the best system, but it's something.

In D1, you simply load your latest save and that's it.

Death being annoying is not the same as it being genuinely inconcenient.

"The level layout will respawn"

So the game punishes you with more grind for dying while grinding. Woohoo

The problem with D2 (and the death mechanics play into this) is that everything is focused towards the item grinding. Item grinding is not seriously affected by dying, and there's no real serious penalty for doing so.

D2 in Hardcore mode is a lot more punishing and is, IMO, the only fun way to actually play the game.

I know that "in D1 you just reload", but they could have built on this and made it work better and discourage save scumming. Instead they went on with the bad design of focusing everything towards items.

D1 is a flawed game, but ANY sort of restart/doover mechanic works better than...whatever D2 had.

Also, can people stop bitching about this hack & slash loot fest being...you know...a hack & slash loot fest. There're legitimite complaints like the annoying level-scaling and always online crap, but whining about Diablo being Diablo in a fucking Diablo thread is just tiresome.

Calling a bad game bad because it's in a genre known for bad games is legitimate.

 

[Zlaja]

The problem with D2 (and the death mechanics play into this) is that everything is focused towards the item grinding

But you don't really have to spend massive amount of time grinding for ultra epic gear. The goal for most people is, after all, to beat the game on all difficulties (or just normal mode even), and then either move on or play a different class. The only time you're really required to do some grinding is when playing a melee build and going from nightmare mode to hell mode. And even that transition can be made much faster if you have some great gear in your shared stash you got while playing a previous character. You can also trade for some stuff (not my cup of tee tho).

Trying to level up to LV.99 and get best gear possible is just extra autism mode. In all my years of playing D2, I have never spend that much time just grinding same boss/location over and over again to maximize my chance of phat loot drops.

 

[ArchAngel]

@King Crispy are you going to bro-op Diablo 4 with me on thursday? I think I'm going to play as a Wizard or Rogue as my first character. What about you?

I'm going to wait until this is available for free from Game Pass then I'll laugh seeing how stupid it is.

That depends on if Microsoft manages to buy Activision and still it would make everyone that cashed out 70 to 90$ angry

 

[d1r]

One step closer to in-game ads.

 

[Fedora Master]

I would trust Alk's expertise when it comes to melee characters:

Typical. The modern Blizzshart audience is even too lazy to figure out the game on their own, they immediately look for "da best builds" before the game is even out.

Blizzard Fans deserve the rope.

 

[Perkel]

Yeah seriously the best part about playing new games is exploring what it offers. The moment you search for build you lose that fun and you are playing effectively someone else game not yours.

This goes double for ARPG like diablo.

 

[Kjaska]

This less an aRPG and more an MMO like Lost Ark is. If you enjoy building your own character above all else, then I suggest playing something else instead. That said, just because there are guides out there and people who prefer to follow them, doesn't mean that you are somehow now forbidden from ignoring all that info and just building your character yourself.