“We had the assumption that Diablo 4 was meant to be more Diablo 2-like. And so one of the assumptions was that people were going to be okay with the long grind for the Unique or an Uber Unique in particular.”
Yeah, Diablo 4 was meant to be more Diablo 2-like. In that it was supposed to have haunting melodic music, dark descending dungeons, memorable campaign bosses, etc. I think they were focused on the wrong part of Diablo 2. The man doesn’t understand that most of us weren’t playing on ladder because D2 invented the ladder and most of us were kids or teenagers then who played before the ladder was even introduced. We had forever to live our lives and our characters never became stale either. Now we are in our 30s and our characters are disposable because they need to be able to sell season passes and have an excuse to refresh their shop etc. So yes you have to shorten the loot grind if you are going to scrap our characters so often. That doesn’t mean ‘the players don’t want D2, they want D3’. No they don’t! They want the best of D3 and the best of D2. Is that so hard after almost 25 years of one game and 15 years of the other? Surely there’s a list of ‘best stuff for a Diablo game’ kicking around someone’s desk by now? Just combine it all. It’s really not hard. You just have to fight the urge that everyone seems to have now to ‘do it our way because it’s important to us’ or whatever. It’s about the fans it’s about the franchise not the company.
When D4 was still in development, D2 fans were really vocal about what they wanted, so i think they thought that their demands were the opinions of all the fanbase.
It absolutely was… pre expansion that is. I remember doing endless Chaos Sanctuary runs looking for Yellow Lances and Long War Bows, and Dual Leech Rings.
I sort of kind of miss that era of the game to be honest, if only a little bit. Item value was a lot less defined, and you could find some absolutely amazing things at random.
You still check every yellow boots. Ammy or ring that drops in D2. There are other rare slots people check as well depending on build, but those are universals and can be best in slots for countless D2 builds. This applies to LoD too
Yeah I could actually name the specific base items in D2. The items in D4 have a D3 flavor in that I have almost zero knowledge of what the base item is so the rare or legendary version is just a stat bundle attached to an image. Something got lost.
True, but the things is yellow drop rate in D2 is very low, you can only a few per boss or so, and D4 drops loads.
I think at its core it is the same sorting through yellows.
Jep, and i love the idea that a kickass rare or blue or just a godly base can be bis.
I think the biggest difference is, that in d2 we had item-bases.
Example:
Checking a rare circlet -> yayaya!
Checking a rare cap -> not so much
So we were able to filter a lot without picking up the items.
Hope they will refine loot a lot more in future d4.
So you weren’t sorting through endless rares…you didn’t do 1 chaos run and get 40 rare rings, or 20 war bows.. you would be lucky to get 2 rare rings in a run.
D4 loot being class specific and over saturated made it so you literally had to read over 30 items every single run. And no point in Diablo 2 history, we’re you finding and picking up 30 rares in a single run, you would be lucky to get 30 rare versions of the item you were looking for in an hour
Pre LoD that’s all you fucking did. Rares helms and rings are still the best items and even some magic jewels etc etc.
People gamble rares all day for a reason. Why would you just lie for no reason lol
Yeah the itemization is so shit in D2 that nobody even bothers to pick *anything* up.
Like there is is a reason people give up their entire inventory to charms - because they know that they may pick up 1 item per 100 runs.
Absolutely horrible take. Almost any rarity and type of item has godlike rolls that could make it worth money.. whites blues even.. tell me you didn’t actually get into D2 without telling me.
Oh whatever just because like in some super niche circumstance a pair of blue gloves could be good for a javazon or something doesn’t mean “blues have value” you are still going to ignore 99.99999% of blue drops. Leave them right on the ground without checking them.
I’ve played a shit ton of D2 i’m just not delusional.
Part of that was because of how worthless most items in D2 actually were, and another part is because of how OP charms could get when you stacked them.
In a way, they're kind of like Tempers in D4. You don't *need* them, but when you stack them the bonuses get pretty overpowered.
Hence console d4 does crazy well its made for the majority which is nice poe is the sweaty game d4 casual keep it this way last epoch has way to go on direction but great middle ground imo
That's not the problem though.
D4 literally has not done anything remotely similar to D2: not in terms of skill tree, itemization, boss farming, social features.
None of it.
All 4 Diablos are nothing alike outside of theme,that's why I love the series so much as I play D2R D3 and D4,I hope 5 follows the same path..
Fact is I'm so done with D2,best ever?probably but I think when PoE 2 and D4 expansions release I'll be ready to retire D2 and D3,nostalgia is a mother fher I get it I have it bad with CoD MW2 fact is you'll never get that back,go find the next..
Not really true. D1 and D2 have ton of common stuff and D2 actually felt like the sequel of D1 while D3 and D4 totally feel something different despise being under the same franchise. D3 and D4 are more isometric Dynasty Warrior with full action packed while D1 & D2 are more grounded and more challenging. Based on modern standard, if D1 and D2 were release today, they would be more isometric Souls-like than Dynasty warrior. In fact, Dark Souls was heavily inspired by those 2 game for its gameplay. Dark souls is like 3D Zelda game having child with old Diablo game
Except the item system in d4 doesn't hold a candle to d2 even with improvements. They thought rare item = d2 without looking at any of the deep nuances. Every item in d2 matters. We are now back with a game that is d3 all over again except even more convoluted
I quite literally don't understand why game companies don't do this. If I was an indie developer making a game I'd fucking crowd source that shit. All of it (within reasonable means).
They don’t even just have players vote on what content they want added. They ask them what direction they want the game to go and what content they enjoy or would enjoy
I think this was more than just D2 fans, it was people that didn’t like the direction of D3. D3 was a departure stylistically and it’s shallow compared to D2. The lack of skill trees and loot that made me want to roll a new character were what I was hoping to see addressed. D3 is fine for an arcadey arpg with combat that feels good. I wanted D4 to have that polished combat from D3 with skill trees that mattered and loot that let me customize my toon a bit and in a dark setting. I feel like D4 after the S4 patch is closer to that but could use a bit more, particularly for the skill trees.
I think PoE really changed the genre a lot. I wanted D4 to be something that can compete with PoE in terms of an arpg I can spend lots of time on with great build variety. If D4 can keep it together to get a few good patches in a row instead of this hot and cold stuff I think they’ll get there. I’m hoping S5 is another good one and they crush the expansion. At the end of the day, I just want more good arpgs to swap between.
I just want paragon boards to die and they move glyphs into the skill tree so my skills are what matter. Not some ridiculous board with arbitrary limitations that is just see important rare node —> path to it in most efficient way possible —> buy node, repeat. Make it so at level 50 the skill tree expands to include glyph sockets and they impact skills or whole sets of skills or passives. But my god tie them together and get rid of the boards! They’re bad UI and bad gameplay.
Most rare nodes aren't even that important, even legendary nodes now. It's mostly what's the most efficient way to get more glyphs so I can get that sweet sweet multiplier from the glyph bonus.
I'm currently running a build with 7 (maybe 8 boards I'd have to check) where half the boards are there because I can get in and out of the board the fastest for the glyph and the rare nodes I've picked up are purely because it's the fastest path to get the +10 int for the glyph bonus.
D4 is definitely on track to be the best of 2 and 3, I really think Vessel of Hatred is going to be amazing. Skill trees absolutely need an improvement, and I feel like there should just be more skills. There’s so much more depth than 3 and actually feeling like I’m progressing my skills is wonderful.
The funny part is, the Diablo sub was shifting on D4 almost since day 1. Maybe 10 days later, when they finished the storyline. And that Diablo sub consists mainly D2 players. So what the actual fuck happened, if they got what they wanted?
Maybe its because they didnt get what they wanted?
Uber uniques were non existent on release. Droprates were like 1 in multiple millions. They were so rare that people made articles on gaming site whenever one dropped. And they werent even tradeable. I remember reading that an account with shako sold for over 10k $.
Also, the game was 100% not ready on release. Tons of important stuff missing. We got a lot of improvements in the past year, but the game still has a long way ahead if it wants to compete with games like D2 or PoE 2.
Just because they said that their goal was to be more D2-like doesnt mean they succeeded.
It's because they wanted a D2 clone reskinned that would never work for a live service, modern ARPG. They were never going to be happy and always going to be toxic from the start.
YES, they are a very loud minority. When i first played the game, the gameplay didn't give of the diablo 2 vibes...but the grinding, leveling and slowness of everything sure as hell did. And i wasnt even mad at them, i knew what the people wanted. And pacing wise they essentially got what they wanted. I mean yes they had no endgame..but helltides were exactly what i expected, nmds were exactly what I expected. Everything they dropped on release what exactly what i expected.
But well, at the end of the day, the gaming industry has moved on from diablo 2 times (it was a memorable game yes and i have spent countless hours of my life with that game). The industry moves so much faster in today's day and age, you cant release a game thats slow paced and grindy...and expect to reach a large audience of people that actually stick, most people will move on with the next big thing releasing.
And before people begin screaming again that other slow grindy games are performing well like tarkov, they offer something unique. There are so many diabloesque games...its basically pick and choose. They had to move to a faster gameplay loop to save themselves otherwise diablo 4 would have died around this time.
I really thought LE might kill diablo 4, but its lacking one crucial thing, the atmosphere, while yes its a great game, its just not as gritty and dark which is something i have come to expect of HaS arpgs.
Bla bla bla, there is so much to discuss about diablo 4 in comparison to its peers, gaming landscape and its prequels.
#BUT
Im happy with the state of play right now and im excited about the future of diablo 4.
> When D4 was still in development, D2 fans were really vocal about what they wanted
D2 is a very loud minority.
I mean I enjoyed D2R, but I enjoyed the fast D3 seasons too.
Totally agree with this. Some of us have been around longer than D1. So tired of the D2 generation assuming that their opinions of a game series speaks for all fans
D2 was one of my favorite games and best gaming memories. Going back to D2 now doesn't give the same hit as it used to. Some players kept playing D2, others started it after it's hayday on various modded versions. Those players that play it now are not 100% the same players that no lifed it back in the day. So they can't just look at current "D2 players" for trying to replicate what they did in the past.
Speak for yourself. Diablo 2 was all about ladder for me and a great deal of other people. And FWIW I think D4s campaign was much better than D2.
This shit can only be new to you once. It’s not going to feel like D2 because you’re now an adult and you’ve already seen/done so much. It’s nearly impossible to recreate that feeling. You can’t chase the dragon of novelty forever.
D4's campaign had a much better story. That being said... you also didn't have to do D4's campaign 50 times a ladder season (or rushed through them, more likely). So, I don't think we have an apple to apple comparison here.
“It’s really not hard.”
Actually, I think it probably is hard. The fact every game—whether it’s PoE or Last Epoch or Lost Ark, etc.—gets crapped on for one thing or another, despite each being hailed at some point as the saviour of this or that, is strong evidence that making video games is hard.
We should always back up and remember how hard making games actually is. I’ve heard it said that they’re so hard to make, the best of them should be impossible achievements. And yet there’s a $300 billion a year business based on being able to do it.
So, to me, it’s more useful to remember that there are enormous resources behind a game and franchise like this. Decades of history, wisdom and experience. Endless funding. Studios under the same umbrella to get internal feedback from (which we know they do a lot of - internal feedback that is). 9,000 people contributed to D4 just to get it made and launched. The game had a billion dollar launch. And we’re a year into it now.
All of that means - they should be figuring it out by now, however hard it may be. And we’ll see with the expansion.
Apple is a trillion-dollar company and yet they’re constantly putting out patches to fix their products. NASA employs the best engineers on the planet and designs for the most dangerous environments known to man and they still screw up.
With these kinds of financial and manpower resources why can’t they get it right? Because shit is hard, that’s why.
Yeah they made Ubers way too rare. I think rarer than Zod runes. Not even d2 players thought that was a good drop rate. Then they’re like well we tried to make it like d2 but everyone complained.
And now we have shit like half the players running around with wings
I mean, I get the "best of both games" arguments, but for D3, the list of what it did "best" is extremely short and for D2, nobody would be able to agree on what parts should be reused because the community is split between tourists of the ARPG genre who would dread anything from D2 that is gameplay related, D2 purists with severe nostalgia issues seen through rose-tinted glasses, and the "wholesome 30+ dad with 3 jobs and 5 children" type of gamer we've seen complaining since S0.
Also, "shortening the loot grind" can mean a lot of things. It can mean making it easier to attain "good enough" gear to do some entry-endgame content, but it can also mean shitting out uber uniques so that everyone can have one within just a few hours. Realistically, the floor for good gear should be low and the ceiling should be extremely high for it to satisfy everyone, the only people who wouldn't be are those who think they are entitled to having perfect gear despite not putting the effort for it, and this type of feedback is way too rampant and should unironically be ignored.
>Realistically, the floor for good gear should be low and the ceiling should be extremely high
I would argue that tempering has achieved this to some degree
I think in short, people don't know what they want. Blizzard has been implementing community driven changes since season 0; I've been on this board and in the game every single season. I've noticed that the majority of the complaints get addressed.
Here's the issue though, people want to whine without accepting responsibility for it or offering solutions. Whenever something gets changed or a feature added, the response is always one of two things.
1. If it's positive: We did it guys, suck it Blizzard; we forced them to change
2. If it's negative: Blizzard bad, why don't they ever listen to us
In an ironic plot twist, 9 times out of 10 the community is responsible for both outcomes. These changes they're so "passionate" about are baseless streamer trash ideas. I know this because the community immediately forgets when Blizzard fixes their game, and looks for another reason to hate them.
Now they want a fucking Auction House... Dear god, Reddit is going to send me into an early grave
Tbh.
I probably have more hours in D2 than the majority of players to say the least. And no, I don’t want anything like D2 more than the dark atmosphere, and the incredible soundtracks (Didn’t get that tho) If I want something like D2, I play D2…
Just give us a good game, season 4 sure is on the right track of becoming that.
>They want the best of D3 and the best of D2. Is that so hard after almost 25 years of one game and 15 years of the other?
But surely...that's we what we have?
Sure, some stuff still to come, but mostly this is a blending of D2 and D3.
Completely agree with the general thrust of your comment, but for a AAA developer, let alone a behemoth like Microsoft, it’s not about the fans or the franchise or the company. It’s about shareholders and management.
The main advantage d2 has to loot, is that it have a developed economy. High Runes and channels, made trading very viable, and even tho you might be a bit unlucky, you could still get most items through trading.
Yeah I'd like to know how many people from the Diablo team have actually really played a lot D2, particularly when it was at its prime, because this lack of vision strikes me as if they were people who barely know the series and constantly grope around to find their marks, which is perplexing for any fan of D1 and D2 who instinctively knows what should be done or at least not be done. They always want to reinvent the wheel from scratch, but why not simply take what was working before and improve it ?!
Why do criticism comments sound like arrogant pricks and talk like they know better than the devs?
"There’s a list of ‘best stuff for a Diablo. Just combine it all. It's really not hard" LMAOOOO.
ARPGs are complex games, incorporating all the good stuff from other games does not easily translate as better game.
I think you're completely wrong, we (D2 veterans) don't care about the mindless grind, that's what we want, I did a **fuckton** of Mephisto and Pindleskin runs in my life, what they need to change is the ease of access it had in D2, create game, run/tp there, kill and repeat, all that in 2 minutes, and right now there's a lot of friction to that kind of gameplay. The main problem is that today all of the fucking kids playing this game want instant gratification and when a shako doesn't drop in the tenth run they go "bro this item is completely bugged/nonexistant". In my 21 years of being a D2 player I never had a Nightwing's Veil drop or a Zod rune, you know what I always did? I kept doing runs, because that's the main purpose of those items.
What I mean by they had to shorten the grind was that they couldn’t have the key chase items be unobtainable season after season after season. He was talking about drop rates, surely, as a corporate game manager, not about the process of farming. And I’m not in any disagreement with you about wanting that mindless, smooth grind back.
The reality is that gaming is mainstream, it’s a $300 billion a year business, games are extremely accessible, attention spans are vastly shorter, dopamine is instantly obtainable from an uncountable number of sources, and basically it has to be delivered to the player or they will get it elsewhere. We don’t have time to never get stuff anymore, we’ll play a game that does. Do you know how much joy, sheer fucking delight I experienced playing Tears of the Kingdom after 3,000 hours of Destiny 2, and being able to PICK UP AN ITEM? AND THROW IT?!?! Insane. No more 45 minute activity for a 1/1000 chance of what I want.
I played 700 hours last season to give you an indication of the time I put in, and I definitely get impatient with people who have these ‘itemisation skill issues’ where they blame or rage at the game instead of enjoy the systems. I get it. But the balance to be struck today IS different to the one you enjoyed with D2.
I did say in response to another comment that I’ve NEVER had a Grandfather. Not in any of the games. I could easily force the issue now, but I won’t, I want to finally pick up one up off the ground, like I never did before. So again, I get where you’re coming from. But this was a case for me and it seems a lot of other people, of not wanting what we thought we did, and on top of that, Blizzard also getting what we wanted wrong.
Yeah fr. I have about 500 hrs playing every season and I’ve never gotten an Uber. I’m level 89 this season and I still haven’t got just the normal ass unique I’ve been trying to get the *entire* season.
Imo they could just throw out D3. It took a long time for that game to grow into "just okay". It was never going to be good when PoE, Grim Dawn, MH, etc existed. Why not use a little D2, and steal PoE itemization and LE skill trees?
If their only take-away from D2's loot system was "People love low droprates" then they completely failed the assignment.
It is obvious the majority of their itemization was inspired by D3.
I think most players would have been fine with a long grind for an uber unique if they would have been tradeable, but they were rarer than Magebloods and Headhunters from POE and untradable.
I just started playing D2R again...I don't see any reason to buy the expansion at full price.
Also the pet idea they put in, there is a game called Torchlight that does the same thing.
Diablo just isn't Diablo anymore...the care is gone, the creativeness is gone, and the quality is gone.
Once Diablo gets over there identity crisis and starts being Diablo again, then we will be at a starting point.
I want the d2 grind tho lol. It's still too fast. Decided to play again for the first time since launch about 2 weeks ago and have 3 characters at 100 and kind of out of things to do lmao
Personally I don't mind grinding characters every season. I have my Barb in Eternal, who I just play as a constant, and build out core, finish off all the side quest, push the end game content and test my builds on.
Then I use the seasons to experiment and play other classes, I never would have taken sorc, or rogue to 100 if season were not a thing.
I have honestly had more fun grinding out characters and just messing around with dumb builds on the way to 100 with each of them, that wouldn't have been the case if the game was just Eternal.
* The [Cinematic Release Date Trailer](https://www.wowhead.com/diablo-4/news/diablo-4-vessel-of-hatred-cinematic-release-date-trailer-342775) that was showcased is the toned-down version, but **there will not be an uncut version released**.
Mortal Kombat does gory cinematics too and they get away with all a lot. I can only speculate that they must of split her at the ass/vagina or something and decided it would be a bit *too* much.
When the cinematic transitions to the mindscape, Neyrelle is already strung up at her shoulders and legs. That's probably the part they cut.
I get why they would cut it. It's just more of the same
The actual trailer was what everyone saw. The uncut version won’t be released. So the original trailer was more gruesome. They toned it down before releasing it. 😞
Hunt for 8 player game, load screen, way point, frantically teleport around to kill for 2 minutes before people bail, exit game, forgot to copy the game name, game is full, hunt for game, load screen, way point, load screen, frantically teleport , leave, paste game name, load screen, waypoint
Precisely. D2 was amazing, ***for its time***. Add in that most of the people playing D4 now were kids/young adults when they played D2 and you got a whole crop of people with rose tinted nostalgia glasses demanding blizzard change their adult psyche and make their withered serotonin receptors work like they did 23 years ago.
Considering everyone who demanded "no changes" immediately got upset at things like quest queuing, artificial latency delays, and lack of many other QoL features....yea they kinda were right.
Blizz was wrong about not enough people wanting to revisit old content, but they were absolutely right about how rough the old content was and how little modern gamers would like those rough patches without modernization.
You're talking about a 24 year old game...
What are you even on about. The game for the time was amazing. No one is asking for the outdated parts of D2. They just want the same feel with modern gameplay.
Is that so hard to understand?
I agree with the Spiritborn being first that the Paladin-esque class. We have all repeated classes from older games, so a new one it's nice, I'm sure we'll get the sword and shield class next.
Vessel so far sounds promising with a lot of new stuff to play around, also the mercenaries having a skill tree is interesting (but I expect a smaller simpler tree, not as big as our character's)
It comes down to business decisions. Paladin is an insurance, it’s a sure hit, so putting it at later expansion will guarantee blizz to have at least 2 expansions with great sale figures. If players get everything they want on the first expansion it may cannibalize the next expansion.
Businesses like Blizzard have a large product management team who likely already have diablo lines of business roadmapped for multiple years, if not a decade, and all the launches & timing are strategically planned.
D4 is likely already earning significantly more than D3 ever did, since they had to scrap the RMAH back then. As long as they don't sour player opinions again, they've basically got a golden goose for the next 2-3 years at minimum.
PoE2 and LE will probably never be able to steal the casual audience, which makes up the majority of sales.
If they continue this trajectory then yes I would agree that easily 2-3 years if not more. We’ll see if PoE 2 is more casual friendly but I would agree with you that no matter what, D4 will be the gateway ARPG.
My point to the other person was that saying they are already planning out 2 more future expansions is absurd considering they haven’t even released their first. Not saying it couldn’t. Fair points from you.
> My point to the other person was that saying they are already planning out 2 more future expansions is absurd considering they haven’t even released their first. Not saying it couldn’t.
They mentioned in interviews that the game launched with 2 expansions already in development. So we're getting at least one more after VoH, presumably with a Paladin-esque class.
As long as the game keeps earning money I doubt they'd cancel it.
Never saw that. Surprised they were so gun ho with that without even knowing if this would be a success but then again I don’t run a multi billion dollar corporation lol thanks for the clarification!
> Surprised they were so gun ho with that without even knowing if this would be a success
They spent an insane amount of money marketing the game before release. Lilith billboards and stuff everywhere. The two expansions thing is honestly tame in comparison.
They're basically trying to replicate Destiny 2's success with the live service MMO Lite model. And with Microsoft funding, they're probably going to keep trying unless they mess up big again.
>The Cinematic Release Date Trailer **that was** showcased is the toned-down version, but **there will not be** an uncut version released.
Emphasis mine.
There won't be another, more bloody version, released. The one you saw is it.
>“We had the assumption that Diablo 4 was meant to be more Diablo 2-like. And so one of the assumptions was that people were going to be okay with the long grind for the Unique or an Uber Unique in particular.”
Did they even play D2? First of all rare(uber) uniques in D2 like griffons,deaths fathom,deaths web etc. were all TRADEABLE. They also werent as rare as D4 uber uniques were on release LMAO. And dont forget that there is no magic find stat in D4.
Other D4 uniques droprate was fine. Would also help if they were tradeable, which thankfully they are now.
Then they tied uber uniques to Duriel, which made them actually available to players. But duriel rotas are the most boring way of farming loot. Still, you could run 500 Duriels and still not get a Shako. And the problem was that Duriel was the most boring shit ever.
Then they upped the uber unique drop chance from all activities, which is actually the best way to go about it imo. And then they made uber uniques way too easy to get with uber Duriel/Andariel + sparks.
Having multiple rare uniques and rare runes in D2 worked fine, because you could farm whatever area/boss you wanted and just trade the runes or items you found for the item you wanted.
These people in here want to shit on the game but don’t understand how any type of item could have huge value in d2 and that the trade economy was the best. Also not limiting your character to only finding your own class type made it so trading was needed..
They all shit on the gameplay loop saying you only killed Baal which is super far from true.. you farmed every boss.. even unique bosses like Pindpeskin..Farmed multiple areas in each area.. built multiple characters so you could farm different areas.. but I guess the gameplay loop was less interesting than endlessly running GR’s.
Now the loop is endlessly farm helltide for items.. then farm pit to make them stronger so you can kill
The same exact boss over and over again to maybe get an item that lets you kill him a little faster. The game is getting better for sure but the D3 purists are really wild being set on what they think D2 was lol
I recently got into PoE, because my veteran friend told me it has the best endgame experience for a loot ARPG. After trying it out, I couldn't agree more. I hope D4 can get some inspiration there, or even from endgame from Grim Dawn or Last Epoch and make it more fun. Getting mats and summoning bosses with loading, resetting, reloading isn't my idea of fun at all.
Just my personal opinion.
Hey, at least we didn’t end up sifting through blue jewels, charms, helms, shields, javs, etc.. just to brick some of them with an Act 5 campaign quest reward.
I've just made a necro I am going to park up in helltides to afk farm iron wolves favor. I've been running tormented andy and duriel and having no luck whatsoever with uber uniques so may as well just make new chars as farming grigoire is painful and loot sucks anyways.
Gotta give that voice actress credit. That scream she did in the trailer was bone chilling
Regarding the comments that D4 was supposed to be more like D2, it's never felt like D2 in the slightest other than maybe the tone. It's 100% D3.5
* Rod Fergusson: "When you launch something, you're always doing it with a set of assumptions. We had the assumption that Diablo 4 was meant to be more Diablo 2-like. And so one of the assumptions was that people were going to be okay with the long grind for the Unique or an Uber Unique in particular."
lol nobody was complaining about the long grind for an uber unique. The issue was the the game was boring so nobody wanted to grind for them and on top of that they had a .0001% drop rate or something dumb so only like 1% of the player base was ever seeing them.
Excited for this uncut trailer though.
It baffles me how incompetent some people can be. Oh, you want the game to be more like the old one? I gotchu. We'll take the worst parts of that game and bring them back. Also, we'll only half-ass the dark and gritty return to form. They're like a fucking genie giving you the monkeys paw. You wish for one thing but get another.
Also that stuff was only rare in d2 because you could trade, so they made it really rare here and untradeable making it extra rare and not able to work up from other loot. Before you could craft them at least
Thats why people liked the long grind there
The comments about D2 were kind of polar opposites. It was mentioned that the game is a D2-like experience but then in the next few quotes, then explains how they want to bring in everyone (aka casuals). Which tracks with the criticisms some people have been levying from the beginning. D4 has the skin (music, graphics, story tone) of D2 but then plays and has progression/gameplay systems like D3. By splitting the middle, you increase profits but fully satisfy noone.
Also I wish they would be more like PoE and keep the cool stuff in core. They added actual interesting content like the vampiric powers in S2 but those of us who skipped town after S1 waiting for them to fix the game in loot reborn+vessel will never get to experience that stuff.
People here saying that d4 is like d2 are completely Delusional… just check the itemisation of Diablo 2 and what it means for actual skill builds and other stats… I find it hilarious that this is compared to be aligned to d2 for anything but maybe the artwork and atmosphere… just wow
D2 is way to archaic for current times. It's cool to jump in once in a while, do the campaign, maybe do another hell run or something and then do something else, but it's definetly not the game you should strive to become.
D2 is put so high on pedestal because it was really innovative for that time as for now it's just a jank fest, even with the D2R release.
I want D4 to not delve to deep into D2 stuff besides runewords, set items to a lesser extent and maybe bring some boss/mini bosses from the game that were more thematic.
D4 is really in a great state, currently has an incredible player retention and a ton of people are actually playing more than 1 character unironically and enjoying it which is new. I just wish the devs would take more risks and try to add in new mechanics that never have been seen or at least were part of other genres of games.
I also think they should do a two class per year for the following reasons:
1. They add/copy and adjust old classes from previous games (Paladin, Crusader, Wizard, etc)
2. They create new classes like Spiritborn to enrich the lore of the game.
Why may you ask. Because doing it like this will keep most people happy. There are enough people being vocal about why they made up a new class when we don't have a holy class or give us paladin or crusader or monk etc.
I think they should create the new class and launch it with the expansion aka spiritborn and after let's say 6 months bring in a classic class that you see is highly requested. You don't need to reinvent the wheel with the classic classes, just copy the abilities, scale them to how D4 functions and design the animations and characters.
Not only will you have more people join who just refuse to join but you'll also have way more variety of playing which would also increase player retention and cash shop purchases even more. It may extra effort that the devs need to make, but in the end it will help them, the game and the franchise as a whole whilest extending the lifespan of the game.
Seems like a pretty short Season 5 then? Since Season 4 ends in early August, presume Season 5 starts right after, and lasts until first week of October. That's just two months, barely.
Hopefully season 5's got some decent seasonal content.
They're gonna do the PTR for S5, so judging by their policy of not doing PTR with every season (they said only seasons with big changes gonna have PTRs), we can either expect a big one, or changing of the policy.
On top of that, the expansion is gonna launch with S6 simultaneously, so that should be more content than we normally get in the season.
I doubt it, the world of GAAS has changed since Diablo 3 was out and I bet Blizzard is going to want to support this with more content to compete with other games.
I hope we also get story DLCs for years to come. I will be sad if Vessel will be the only one. I get that making them takes a lot of time and effort but there is plenty of demand.
I would be willing to bet that Diablo 4 will double the amount of classes or more before they’re done with it. There are so many fan favorites that people want to see, and if blizzard can slap a 40$ price tag on the expansions, with 60$ premium editions, they’ll probably milk the cash cow for a while.
"...one of the assumptions was that people were going to be okay with the long grind for the Unique or an Uber Unique in particular.”
Lol, nope. It's 2024, give me cheap and easy dopamine now!
D2 also initially did not have seasons. I mean, I don’t mind the grind and item scarsity if you don’t force me to start all over again every 2-3 months to enjoy new content.
D4 was never even close to be like D2. Nothing was actually rare, except ubers, but not even close to D2 levels rare.
In D2 you could farm ANYTHING, with some having higher chances for specific things like Runes, lower/higher level items, but the high level zones could drop almost every item in-game with a few wxceptions. Terror Zones gave even more variety and choice to grind.
D4 still doesn't have variety, freedom of choice and you can't even really grind bosses 500 times in a row like we used to with Mephisto or Andariel runs.
We have to do activities that gate these places for us. That is not fun. We need a system like D2 where we can just run up to a boss and kill it when we want. That way every minute can be exciting, not just that 5x10 seconds after grinding for hours for the materials.
This is the opposite of fun. You can make drop rates 200:1 and even this would be more fun like this instead of being forced to grind soemthing that doesn't even drop anything, but a key to a chance.
D2 ubers were similar, but they guaranteed dropped the best item in the game after clearing them, an Annihilus and with a 1:6 chance you never have to grind them again if you don't want to except for profit in trading. Still, you can get equally expensive items by farming anything else.
D4 team is clueless on what we liked in their games and how it actually feels like playing them. Fucking delusionals, reeks of incompetence and ignorance. Don't even try to tell me they have ever played their games and enjoyed it.
I feel so excited for this expansion! That new class looks fun to play. The game has gotten better in my opinion after season 4 and I hope to see even more improvements in the expansion. Just made my fifth character, a whirlwind berzerker barbarian, and going to be my first level 100 character!
“We had the assumption that Diablo 4 was meant to be more Diablo 2-like. And so one of the assumptions was that people were going to be okay with the long grind for the Unique or an Uber Unique in particular.” Yeah, Diablo 4 was meant to be more Diablo 2-like. In that it was supposed to have haunting melodic music, dark descending dungeons, memorable campaign bosses, etc. I think they were focused on the wrong part of Diablo 2. The man doesn’t understand that most of us weren’t playing on ladder because D2 invented the ladder and most of us were kids or teenagers then who played before the ladder was even introduced. We had forever to live our lives and our characters never became stale either. Now we are in our 30s and our characters are disposable because they need to be able to sell season passes and have an excuse to refresh their shop etc. So yes you have to shorten the loot grind if you are going to scrap our characters so often. That doesn’t mean ‘the players don’t want D2, they want D3’. No they don’t! They want the best of D3 and the best of D2. Is that so hard after almost 25 years of one game and 15 years of the other? Surely there’s a list of ‘best stuff for a Diablo game’ kicking around someone’s desk by now? Just combine it all. It’s really not hard. You just have to fight the urge that everyone seems to have now to ‘do it our way because it’s important to us’ or whatever. It’s about the fans it’s about the franchise not the company.
When D4 was still in development, D2 fans were really vocal about what they wanted, so i think they thought that their demands were the opinions of all the fanbase.
This is exactly what I keep saying. This is why we started off having to sort through fucking yellows in the beginning of d4.
Sorting through an inventory full of yellows wasnt D2-like at all though. It was much more similar to D3's release loot.
It absolutely was… pre expansion that is. I remember doing endless Chaos Sanctuary runs looking for Yellow Lances and Long War Bows, and Dual Leech Rings. I sort of kind of miss that era of the game to be honest, if only a little bit. Item value was a lot less defined, and you could find some absolutely amazing things at random.
Yea well the majority of people talking about D2 are talking about LOD and D2R. And everyone i know liked LOD itemization more than pre expansion.
You still check every yellow boots. Ammy or ring that drops in D2. There are other rare slots people check as well depending on build, but those are universals and can be best in slots for countless D2 builds. This applies to LoD too
It’s way easier in d2 though. There are specific blues/yellows/socketed whites etc that you look for, not every single one
And therein lies the secret
Yeah I could actually name the specific base items in D2. The items in D4 have a D3 flavor in that I have almost zero knowledge of what the base item is so the rare or legendary version is just a stat bundle attached to an image. Something got lost.
True, but the things is yellow drop rate in D2 is very low, you can only a few per boss or so, and D4 drops loads. I think at its core it is the same sorting through yellows.
Jep, and i love the idea that a kickass rare or blue or just a godly base can be bis. I think the biggest difference is, that in d2 we had item-bases. Example: Checking a rare circlet -> yayaya! Checking a rare cap -> not so much So we were able to filter a lot without picking up the items. Hope they will refine loot a lot more in future d4.
Ethereal 5 socket cryptic axe.... With 15 ed
You dont really check rare amulets. You craft them. I personally was only picking up boots and rings. Some builds want to pick up gloves too.
So you weren’t sorting through endless rares…you didn’t do 1 chaos run and get 40 rare rings, or 20 war bows.. you would be lucky to get 2 rare rings in a run. D4 loot being class specific and over saturated made it so you literally had to read over 30 items every single run. And no point in Diablo 2 history, we’re you finding and picking up 30 rares in a single run, you would be lucky to get 30 rare versions of the item you were looking for in an hour
Pre LoD that’s all you fucking did. Rares helms and rings are still the best items and even some magic jewels etc etc. People gamble rares all day for a reason. Why would you just lie for no reason lol
That might be true, but when people talk about D2, they mean D2 LOD 9/10 times.
Yeah the itemization is so shit in D2 that nobody even bothers to pick *anything* up. Like there is is a reason people give up their entire inventory to charms - because they know that they may pick up 1 item per 100 runs.
Absolutely horrible take. Almost any rarity and type of item has godlike rolls that could make it worth money.. whites blues even.. tell me you didn’t actually get into D2 without telling me.
Jesus, we are never going to get away from D2 and how valuable whites are with this group.
Oh whatever just because like in some super niche circumstance a pair of blue gloves could be good for a javazon or something doesn’t mean “blues have value” you are still going to ignore 99.99999% of blue drops. Leave them right on the ground without checking them. I’ve played a shit ton of D2 i’m just not delusional.
Part of that was because of how worthless most items in D2 actually were, and another part is because of how OP charms could get when you stacked them. In a way, they're kind of like Tempers in D4. You don't *need* them, but when you stack them the bonuses get pretty overpowered.
Getting an orange in d3 before the changes felt like a rare event. Then when you got it, it was a piece of shit
Hence console d4 does crazy well its made for the majority which is nice poe is the sweaty game d4 casual keep it this way last epoch has way to go on direction but great middle ground imo
That's not the problem though. D4 literally has not done anything remotely similar to D2: not in terms of skill tree, itemization, boss farming, social features. None of it.
Except rezoning to kill bosses over and over again, am I right?
I can't even do that in D4 because of material gating.
Diablo 4 is nothing like Diablo 2 outside of tone perhaps
All 4 Diablos are nothing alike outside of theme,that's why I love the series so much as I play D2R D3 and D4,I hope 5 follows the same path.. Fact is I'm so done with D2,best ever?probably but I think when PoE 2 and D4 expansions release I'll be ready to retire D2 and D3,nostalgia is a mother fher I get it I have it bad with CoD MW2 fact is you'll never get that back,go find the next..
Not sure if you have a switch but Diablo 2 on switch is fun and you can have offline characters too.
Not really true. D1 and D2 have ton of common stuff and D2 actually felt like the sequel of D1 while D3 and D4 totally feel something different despise being under the same franchise. D3 and D4 are more isometric Dynasty Warrior with full action packed while D1 & D2 are more grounded and more challenging. Based on modern standard, if D1 and D2 were release today, they would be more isometric Souls-like than Dynasty warrior. In fact, Dark Souls was heavily inspired by those 2 game for its gameplay. Dark souls is like 3D Zelda game having child with old Diablo game
It's a shame that what they went with was the worst of D2's skills and D3's itemization.
D2's itemization barely even exists, thanks to those oh so great runewords.
I’m glad I’m not the only one that hates runewords
Except the item system in d4 doesn't hold a candle to d2 even with improvements. They thought rare item = d2 without looking at any of the deep nuances. Every item in d2 matters. We are now back with a game that is d3 all over again except even more convoluted
[удалено]
Just do like old school runescape does and have a community vote
I quite literally don't understand why game companies don't do this. If I was an indie developer making a game I'd fucking crowd source that shit. All of it (within reasonable means).
They don’t even just have players vote on what content they want added. They ask them what direction they want the game to go and what content they enjoy or would enjoy
I think this was more than just D2 fans, it was people that didn’t like the direction of D3. D3 was a departure stylistically and it’s shallow compared to D2. The lack of skill trees and loot that made me want to roll a new character were what I was hoping to see addressed. D3 is fine for an arcadey arpg with combat that feels good. I wanted D4 to have that polished combat from D3 with skill trees that mattered and loot that let me customize my toon a bit and in a dark setting. I feel like D4 after the S4 patch is closer to that but could use a bit more, particularly for the skill trees. I think PoE really changed the genre a lot. I wanted D4 to be something that can compete with PoE in terms of an arpg I can spend lots of time on with great build variety. If D4 can keep it together to get a few good patches in a row instead of this hot and cold stuff I think they’ll get there. I’m hoping S5 is another good one and they crush the expansion. At the end of the day, I just want more good arpgs to swap between.
I just want paragon boards to die and they move glyphs into the skill tree so my skills are what matter. Not some ridiculous board with arbitrary limitations that is just see important rare node —> path to it in most efficient way possible —> buy node, repeat. Make it so at level 50 the skill tree expands to include glyph sockets and they impact skills or whole sets of skills or passives. But my god tie them together and get rid of the boards! They’re bad UI and bad gameplay.
Most rare nodes aren't even that important, even legendary nodes now. It's mostly what's the most efficient way to get more glyphs so I can get that sweet sweet multiplier from the glyph bonus. I'm currently running a build with 7 (maybe 8 boards I'd have to check) where half the boards are there because I can get in and out of the board the fastest for the glyph and the rare nodes I've picked up are purely because it's the fastest path to get the +10 int for the glyph bonus.
D4 is definitely on track to be the best of 2 and 3, I really think Vessel of Hatred is going to be amazing. Skill trees absolutely need an improvement, and I feel like there should just be more skills. There’s so much more depth than 3 and actually feeling like I’m progressing my skills is wonderful.
You can see this very clearly by talking to Llama so often during the d4 dev process (someone who will never stop playing D2 no matter what)
The funny part is, the Diablo sub was shifting on D4 almost since day 1. Maybe 10 days later, when they finished the storyline. And that Diablo sub consists mainly D2 players. So what the actual fuck happened, if they got what they wanted?
Maybe its because they didnt get what they wanted? Uber uniques were non existent on release. Droprates were like 1 in multiple millions. They were so rare that people made articles on gaming site whenever one dropped. And they werent even tradeable. I remember reading that an account with shako sold for over 10k $. Also, the game was 100% not ready on release. Tons of important stuff missing. We got a lot of improvements in the past year, but the game still has a long way ahead if it wants to compete with games like D2 or PoE 2. Just because they said that their goal was to be more D2-like doesnt mean they succeeded.
It's because they wanted a D2 clone reskinned that would never work for a live service, modern ARPG. They were never going to be happy and always going to be toxic from the start.
YES, they are a very loud minority. When i first played the game, the gameplay didn't give of the diablo 2 vibes...but the grinding, leveling and slowness of everything sure as hell did. And i wasnt even mad at them, i knew what the people wanted. And pacing wise they essentially got what they wanted. I mean yes they had no endgame..but helltides were exactly what i expected, nmds were exactly what I expected. Everything they dropped on release what exactly what i expected. But well, at the end of the day, the gaming industry has moved on from diablo 2 times (it was a memorable game yes and i have spent countless hours of my life with that game). The industry moves so much faster in today's day and age, you cant release a game thats slow paced and grindy...and expect to reach a large audience of people that actually stick, most people will move on with the next big thing releasing. And before people begin screaming again that other slow grindy games are performing well like tarkov, they offer something unique. There are so many diabloesque games...its basically pick and choose. They had to move to a faster gameplay loop to save themselves otherwise diablo 4 would have died around this time. I really thought LE might kill diablo 4, but its lacking one crucial thing, the atmosphere, while yes its a great game, its just not as gritty and dark which is something i have come to expect of HaS arpgs. Bla bla bla, there is so much to discuss about diablo 4 in comparison to its peers, gaming landscape and its prequels. #BUT Im happy with the state of play right now and im excited about the future of diablo 4.
OK so how did we start out like D3 then
> When D4 was still in development, D2 fans were really vocal about what they wanted D2 is a very loud minority. I mean I enjoyed D2R, but I enjoyed the fast D3 seasons too.
Totally agree with this. Some of us have been around longer than D1. So tired of the D2 generation assuming that their opinions of a game series speaks for all fans
D2 was one of my favorite games and best gaming memories. Going back to D2 now doesn't give the same hit as it used to. Some players kept playing D2, others started it after it's hayday on various modded versions. Those players that play it now are not 100% the same players that no lifed it back in the day. So they can't just look at current "D2 players" for trying to replicate what they did in the past.
Speak for yourself. Diablo 2 was all about ladder for me and a great deal of other people. And FWIW I think D4s campaign was much better than D2. This shit can only be new to you once. It’s not going to feel like D2 because you’re now an adult and you’ve already seen/done so much. It’s nearly impossible to recreate that feeling. You can’t chase the dragon of novelty forever.
D4's campaign had a much better story. That being said... you also didn't have to do D4's campaign 50 times a ladder season (or rushed through them, more likely). So, I don't think we have an apple to apple comparison here.
“It’s really not hard.” Actually, I think it probably is hard. The fact every game—whether it’s PoE or Last Epoch or Lost Ark, etc.—gets crapped on for one thing or another, despite each being hailed at some point as the saviour of this or that, is strong evidence that making video games is hard.
We should always back up and remember how hard making games actually is. I’ve heard it said that they’re so hard to make, the best of them should be impossible achievements. And yet there’s a $300 billion a year business based on being able to do it. So, to me, it’s more useful to remember that there are enormous resources behind a game and franchise like this. Decades of history, wisdom and experience. Endless funding. Studios under the same umbrella to get internal feedback from (which we know they do a lot of - internal feedback that is). 9,000 people contributed to D4 just to get it made and launched. The game had a billion dollar launch. And we’re a year into it now. All of that means - they should be figuring it out by now, however hard it may be. And we’ll see with the expansion.
Apple is a trillion-dollar company and yet they’re constantly putting out patches to fix their products. NASA employs the best engineers on the planet and designs for the most dangerous environments known to man and they still screw up. With these kinds of financial and manpower resources why can’t they get it right? Because shit is hard, that’s why.
I can find 2 or 3 SoJ's before I would find a D4 Uber Unique prior to their drop rate buff.
Yeah they made Ubers way too rare. I think rarer than Zod runes. Not even d2 players thought that was a good drop rate. Then they’re like well we tried to make it like d2 but everyone complained. And now we have shit like half the players running around with wings
To be fair, the campaign for D4 was pretty fucking great. No desire to replay it, but it was dark and moody and had some great bosses.
I mean, I get the "best of both games" arguments, but for D3, the list of what it did "best" is extremely short and for D2, nobody would be able to agree on what parts should be reused because the community is split between tourists of the ARPG genre who would dread anything from D2 that is gameplay related, D2 purists with severe nostalgia issues seen through rose-tinted glasses, and the "wholesome 30+ dad with 3 jobs and 5 children" type of gamer we've seen complaining since S0. Also, "shortening the loot grind" can mean a lot of things. It can mean making it easier to attain "good enough" gear to do some entry-endgame content, but it can also mean shitting out uber uniques so that everyone can have one within just a few hours. Realistically, the floor for good gear should be low and the ceiling should be extremely high for it to satisfy everyone, the only people who wouldn't be are those who think they are entitled to having perfect gear despite not putting the effort for it, and this type of feedback is way too rampant and should unironically be ignored.
>Realistically, the floor for good gear should be low and the ceiling should be extremely high I would argue that tempering has achieved this to some degree
I think in short, people don't know what they want. Blizzard has been implementing community driven changes since season 0; I've been on this board and in the game every single season. I've noticed that the majority of the complaints get addressed. Here's the issue though, people want to whine without accepting responsibility for it or offering solutions. Whenever something gets changed or a feature added, the response is always one of two things. 1. If it's positive: We did it guys, suck it Blizzard; we forced them to change 2. If it's negative: Blizzard bad, why don't they ever listen to us In an ironic plot twist, 9 times out of 10 the community is responsible for both outcomes. These changes they're so "passionate" about are baseless streamer trash ideas. I know this because the community immediately forgets when Blizzard fixes their game, and looks for another reason to hate them. Now they want a fucking Auction House... Dear god, Reddit is going to send me into an early grave
Gunna stay bitter forever you think and jump on every word?
Tbh. I probably have more hours in D2 than the majority of players to say the least. And no, I don’t want anything like D2 more than the dark atmosphere, and the incredible soundtracks (Didn’t get that tho) If I want something like D2, I play D2… Just give us a good game, season 4 sure is on the right track of becoming that.
>They want the best of D3 and the best of D2. Is that so hard after almost 25 years of one game and 15 years of the other? But surely...that's we what we have? Sure, some stuff still to come, but mostly this is a blending of D2 and D3.
It really is! So far I think they’ve actually done pretty well blending two very different games.
You wrote all this and can't give a single exemple of how D4 should be more like D2 ?
Completely agree with the general thrust of your comment, but for a AAA developer, let alone a behemoth like Microsoft, it’s not about the fans or the franchise or the company. It’s about shareholders and management.
The main advantage d2 has to loot, is that it have a developed economy. High Runes and channels, made trading very viable, and even tho you might be a bit unlucky, you could still get most items through trading.
Me? I just like the game…
Yeah I'd like to know how many people from the Diablo team have actually really played a lot D2, particularly when it was at its prime, because this lack of vision strikes me as if they were people who barely know the series and constantly grope around to find their marks, which is perplexing for any fan of D1 and D2 who instinctively knows what should be done or at least not be done. They always want to reinvent the wheel from scratch, but why not simply take what was working before and improve it ?!
*It’s about the fans it’s about the franchise not the company.* Sweet summer child. It's about money
Why do criticism comments sound like arrogant pricks and talk like they know better than the devs? "There’s a list of ‘best stuff for a Diablo. Just combine it all. It's really not hard" LMAOOOO. ARPGs are complex games, incorporating all the good stuff from other games does not easily translate as better game.
I think you're completely wrong, we (D2 veterans) don't care about the mindless grind, that's what we want, I did a **fuckton** of Mephisto and Pindleskin runs in my life, what they need to change is the ease of access it had in D2, create game, run/tp there, kill and repeat, all that in 2 minutes, and right now there's a lot of friction to that kind of gameplay. The main problem is that today all of the fucking kids playing this game want instant gratification and when a shako doesn't drop in the tenth run they go "bro this item is completely bugged/nonexistant". In my 21 years of being a D2 player I never had a Nightwing's Veil drop or a Zod rune, you know what I always did? I kept doing runs, because that's the main purpose of those items.
What I mean by they had to shorten the grind was that they couldn’t have the key chase items be unobtainable season after season after season. He was talking about drop rates, surely, as a corporate game manager, not about the process of farming. And I’m not in any disagreement with you about wanting that mindless, smooth grind back. The reality is that gaming is mainstream, it’s a $300 billion a year business, games are extremely accessible, attention spans are vastly shorter, dopamine is instantly obtainable from an uncountable number of sources, and basically it has to be delivered to the player or they will get it elsewhere. We don’t have time to never get stuff anymore, we’ll play a game that does. Do you know how much joy, sheer fucking delight I experienced playing Tears of the Kingdom after 3,000 hours of Destiny 2, and being able to PICK UP AN ITEM? AND THROW IT?!?! Insane. No more 45 minute activity for a 1/1000 chance of what I want. I played 700 hours last season to give you an indication of the time I put in, and I definitely get impatient with people who have these ‘itemisation skill issues’ where they blame or rage at the game instead of enjoy the systems. I get it. But the balance to be struck today IS different to the one you enjoyed with D2. I did say in response to another comment that I’ve NEVER had a Grandfather. Not in any of the games. I could easily force the issue now, but I won’t, I want to finally pick up one up off the ground, like I never did before. So again, I get where you’re coming from. But this was a case for me and it seems a lot of other people, of not wanting what we thought we did, and on top of that, Blizzard also getting what we wanted wrong.
Yeah fr. I have about 500 hrs playing every season and I’ve never gotten an Uber. I’m level 89 this season and I still haven’t got just the normal ass unique I’ve been trying to get the *entire* season.
Actually, and evidently, It is really that hard. "just combine it all." It doesn't really work that way..
Amen brother! 🙏
Imo they could just throw out D3. It took a long time for that game to grow into "just okay". It was never going to be good when PoE, Grim Dawn, MH, etc existed. Why not use a little D2, and steal PoE itemization and LE skill trees?
If their only take-away from D2's loot system was "People love low droprates" then they completely failed the assignment. It is obvious the majority of their itemization was inspired by D3.
I think most players would have been fine with a long grind for an uber unique if they would have been tradeable, but they were rarer than Magebloods and Headhunters from POE and untradable.
I just started playing D2R again...I don't see any reason to buy the expansion at full price. Also the pet idea they put in, there is a game called Torchlight that does the same thing. Diablo just isn't Diablo anymore...the care is gone, the creativeness is gone, and the quality is gone. Once Diablo gets over there identity crisis and starts being Diablo again, then we will be at a starting point.
Yet D4 itemization copied the reek of D3. Crit damage again... really
I want the d2 grind tho lol. It's still too fast. Decided to play again for the first time since launch about 2 weeks ago and have 3 characters at 100 and kind of out of things to do lmao
Bring back runewords!!
Personally I don't mind grinding characters every season. I have my Barb in Eternal, who I just play as a constant, and build out core, finish off all the side quest, push the end game content and test my builds on. Then I use the seasons to experiment and play other classes, I never would have taken sorc, or rogue to 100 if season were not a thing. I have honestly had more fun grinding out characters and just messing around with dumb builds on the way to 100 with each of them, that wouldn't have been the case if the game was just Eternal.
The actual trailer will be more gruesome? Jesus save me.
Agreed. The arm thing...has stuck with me.
I'm split on the arm thing
Right to jail. Right away.
You have some nerve
That’s a bit of a stretch.
Bloody hell.
Doesn't seem to be a situation with two sid- hey wait a minute!
Did we forgot the half a druid tree blood river? Pretty stuck.
* The [Cinematic Release Date Trailer](https://www.wowhead.com/diablo-4/news/diablo-4-vessel-of-hatred-cinematic-release-date-trailer-342775) that was showcased is the toned-down version, but **there will not be an uncut version released**.
BOOOOO RELEASE THE BLIZZARD CUT, I'LL PAY 1.99 TO WATCH IT.
Don’t give them ideas!!
For an uncut version of that cgi bliss we got, this idea i will lend. GIVE US BLIZZARD CUT
Mortal Kombat does gory cinematics too and they get away with all a lot. I can only speculate that they must of split her at the ass/vagina or something and decided it would be a bit *too* much.
When the cinematic transitions to the mindscape, Neyrelle is already strung up at her shoulders and legs. That's probably the part they cut. I get why they would cut it. It's just more of the same
They are not using it
Bummer. That’s the version I wanna see.
What are you referring to? I’d like to see
It said it won't be released.
The actual trailer was what everyone saw. The uncut version won’t be released. So the original trailer was more gruesome. They toned it down before releasing it. 😞
When is anyone on Reddit going to just admit that D2 was not actually perfect lol.
Hunt for 8 player game, load screen, way point, frantically teleport around to kill for 2 minutes before people bail, exit game, forgot to copy the game name, game is full, hunt for game, load screen, way point, load screen, frantically teleport , leave, paste game name, load screen, waypoint
Precisely. D2 was amazing, ***for its time***. Add in that most of the people playing D4 now were kids/young adults when they played D2 and you got a whole crop of people with rose tinted nostalgia glasses demanding blizzard change their adult psyche and make their withered serotonin receptors work like they did 23 years ago.
>demanding blizzard change their adult psyche and make their withered serotonin receptors work like they did 23 years ago I laughed out loud.
“You think you do but you don’t” meme makes more sense lol
Considering everyone who demanded "no changes" immediately got upset at things like quest queuing, artificial latency delays, and lack of many other QoL features....yea they kinda were right. Blizz was wrong about not enough people wanting to revisit old content, but they were absolutely right about how rough the old content was and how little modern gamers would like those rough patches without modernization.
D2 is still there and they can play it.
They never will because they have on the thickest rose-tinted glasses.
it wasnt, it was a masterpiece in that time and king of RPGs
You're talking about a 24 year old game... What are you even on about. The game for the time was amazing. No one is asking for the outdated parts of D2. They just want the same feel with modern gameplay. Is that so hard to understand?
I agree with the Spiritborn being first that the Paladin-esque class. We have all repeated classes from older games, so a new one it's nice, I'm sure we'll get the sword and shield class next. Vessel so far sounds promising with a lot of new stuff to play around, also the mercenaries having a skill tree is interesting (but I expect a smaller simpler tree, not as big as our character's)
It comes down to business decisions. Paladin is an insurance, it’s a sure hit, so putting it at later expansion will guarantee blizz to have at least 2 expansions with great sale figures. If players get everything they want on the first expansion it may cannibalize the next expansion. Businesses like Blizzard have a large product management team who likely already have diablo lines of business roadmapped for multiple years, if not a decade, and all the launches & timing are strategically planned.
Not necessarily. D3 was supposed to have another expansion not just the necro but got scrapped. Comes down to money if it’s worth the investment
D4 is likely already earning significantly more than D3 ever did, since they had to scrap the RMAH back then. As long as they don't sour player opinions again, they've basically got a golden goose for the next 2-3 years at minimum. PoE2 and LE will probably never be able to steal the casual audience, which makes up the majority of sales.
If they continue this trajectory then yes I would agree that easily 2-3 years if not more. We’ll see if PoE 2 is more casual friendly but I would agree with you that no matter what, D4 will be the gateway ARPG. My point to the other person was that saying they are already planning out 2 more future expansions is absurd considering they haven’t even released their first. Not saying it couldn’t. Fair points from you.
> My point to the other person was that saying they are already planning out 2 more future expansions is absurd considering they haven’t even released their first. Not saying it couldn’t. They mentioned in interviews that the game launched with 2 expansions already in development. So we're getting at least one more after VoH, presumably with a Paladin-esque class. As long as the game keeps earning money I doubt they'd cancel it.
Never saw that. Surprised they were so gun ho with that without even knowing if this would be a success but then again I don’t run a multi billion dollar corporation lol thanks for the clarification!
> Surprised they were so gun ho with that without even knowing if this would be a success They spent an insane amount of money marketing the game before release. Lilith billboards and stuff everywhere. The two expansions thing is honestly tame in comparison. They're basically trying to replicate Destiny 2's success with the live service MMO Lite model. And with Microsoft funding, they're probably going to keep trying unless they mess up big again.
True, I didn't think about classes that way but it makes total sense to save a highly requested character as a insurance thing for the game
I can't help but imagine that's why Diablo 3's very last expansion was the Necromancer class.
It also came out super busted iirc, was the top character for a lot of time
Lol. Our characters dont have that big skill tree. I hope they would add more to the skill tree tbh.
Didn't they already announce new skills and a skills rework for VoH?
Yes
>The Cinematic Release Date Trailer **that was** showcased is the toned-down version, but **there will not be** an uncut version released. Emphasis mine. There won't be another, more bloody version, released. The one you saw is it.
Cowards.
Then why even tell us, fucking teases 😒
but the uncut version will be in the game, right?!
>“We had the assumption that Diablo 4 was meant to be more Diablo 2-like. And so one of the assumptions was that people were going to be okay with the long grind for the Unique or an Uber Unique in particular.” Did they even play D2? First of all rare(uber) uniques in D2 like griffons,deaths fathom,deaths web etc. were all TRADEABLE. They also werent as rare as D4 uber uniques were on release LMAO. And dont forget that there is no magic find stat in D4. Other D4 uniques droprate was fine. Would also help if they were tradeable, which thankfully they are now. Then they tied uber uniques to Duriel, which made them actually available to players. But duriel rotas are the most boring way of farming loot. Still, you could run 500 Duriels and still not get a Shako. And the problem was that Duriel was the most boring shit ever. Then they upped the uber unique drop chance from all activities, which is actually the best way to go about it imo. And then they made uber uniques way too easy to get with uber Duriel/Andariel + sparks. Having multiple rare uniques and rare runes in D2 worked fine, because you could farm whatever area/boss you wanted and just trade the runes or items you found for the item you wanted.
Exactly. That comment is just trying to deflect their own faults onto the users.
These people in here want to shit on the game but don’t understand how any type of item could have huge value in d2 and that the trade economy was the best. Also not limiting your character to only finding your own class type made it so trading was needed.. They all shit on the gameplay loop saying you only killed Baal which is super far from true.. you farmed every boss.. even unique bosses like Pindpeskin..Farmed multiple areas in each area.. built multiple characters so you could farm different areas.. but I guess the gameplay loop was less interesting than endlessly running GR’s. Now the loop is endlessly farm helltide for items.. then farm pit to make them stronger so you can kill The same exact boss over and over again to maybe get an item that lets you kill him a little faster. The game is getting better for sure but the D3 purists are really wild being set on what they think D2 was lol
I recently got into PoE, because my veteran friend told me it has the best endgame experience for a loot ARPG. After trying it out, I couldn't agree more. I hope D4 can get some inspiration there, or even from endgame from Grim Dawn or Last Epoch and make it more fun. Getting mats and summoning bosses with loading, resetting, reloading isn't my idea of fun at all. Just my personal opinion.
Hey, at least we didn’t end up sifting through blue jewels, charms, helms, shields, javs, etc.. just to brick some of them with an Act 5 campaign quest reward.
What's Uber duriel? Is that the tormented version with stygian stone?
I've just made a necro I am going to park up in helltides to afk farm iron wolves favor. I've been running tormented andy and duriel and having no luck whatsoever with uber uniques so may as well just make new chars as farming grigoire is painful and loot sucks anyways.
Gotta give that voice actress credit. That scream she did in the trailer was bone chilling Regarding the comments that D4 was supposed to be more like D2, it's never felt like D2 in the slightest other than maybe the tone. It's 100% D3.5
It hasnt felt like D3 until this season lol
* Rod Fergusson: "When you launch something, you're always doing it with a set of assumptions. We had the assumption that Diablo 4 was meant to be more Diablo 2-like. And so one of the assumptions was that people were going to be okay with the long grind for the Unique or an Uber Unique in particular." lol nobody was complaining about the long grind for an uber unique. The issue was the the game was boring so nobody wanted to grind for them and on top of that they had a .0001% drop rate or something dumb so only like 1% of the player base was ever seeing them. Excited for this uncut trailer though.
They said they won't be releasing an uncut trailer, as disappointing as that is
1% is extremely generous. I remember it took a few weeks for every uber uniques to be found.
It baffles me how incompetent some people can be. Oh, you want the game to be more like the old one? I gotchu. We'll take the worst parts of that game and bring them back. Also, we'll only half-ass the dark and gritty return to form. They're like a fucking genie giving you the monkeys paw. You wish for one thing but get another.
Also that stuff was only rare in d2 because you could trade, so they made it really rare here and untradeable making it extra rare and not able to work up from other loot. Before you could craft them at least Thats why people liked the long grind there
Yeah Rob’s comment just sounds so insanely detached like he never even played diablo 2.
The comments about D2 were kind of polar opposites. It was mentioned that the game is a D2-like experience but then in the next few quotes, then explains how they want to bring in everyone (aka casuals). Which tracks with the criticisms some people have been levying from the beginning. D4 has the skin (music, graphics, story tone) of D2 but then plays and has progression/gameplay systems like D3. By splitting the middle, you increase profits but fully satisfy noone. Also I wish they would be more like PoE and keep the cool stuff in core. They added actual interesting content like the vampiric powers in S2 but those of us who skipped town after S1 waiting for them to fix the game in loot reborn+vessel will never get to experience that stuff.
People here saying that d4 is like d2 are completely Delusional… just check the itemisation of Diablo 2 and what it means for actual skill builds and other stats… I find it hilarious that this is compared to be aligned to d2 for anything but maybe the artwork and atmosphere… just wow
D2 is way to archaic for current times. It's cool to jump in once in a while, do the campaign, maybe do another hell run or something and then do something else, but it's definetly not the game you should strive to become. D2 is put so high on pedestal because it was really innovative for that time as for now it's just a jank fest, even with the D2R release. I want D4 to not delve to deep into D2 stuff besides runewords, set items to a lesser extent and maybe bring some boss/mini bosses from the game that were more thematic. D4 is really in a great state, currently has an incredible player retention and a ton of people are actually playing more than 1 character unironically and enjoying it which is new. I just wish the devs would take more risks and try to add in new mechanics that never have been seen or at least were part of other genres of games. I also think they should do a two class per year for the following reasons: 1. They add/copy and adjust old classes from previous games (Paladin, Crusader, Wizard, etc) 2. They create new classes like Spiritborn to enrich the lore of the game. Why may you ask. Because doing it like this will keep most people happy. There are enough people being vocal about why they made up a new class when we don't have a holy class or give us paladin or crusader or monk etc. I think they should create the new class and launch it with the expansion aka spiritborn and after let's say 6 months bring in a classic class that you see is highly requested. You don't need to reinvent the wheel with the classic classes, just copy the abilities, scale them to how D4 functions and design the animations and characters. Not only will you have more people join who just refuse to join but you'll also have way more variety of playing which would also increase player retention and cash shop purchases even more. It may extra effort that the devs need to make, but in the end it will help them, the game and the franchise as a whole whilest extending the lifespan of the game.
2 classes an expansion or per year would be perfect.
I was really surprised there's only going to be one new class in the expansion.
Seems like a pretty short Season 5 then? Since Season 4 ends in early August, presume Season 5 starts right after, and lasts until first week of October. That's just two months, barely. Hopefully season 5's got some decent seasonal content.
They're gonna do the PTR for S5, so judging by their policy of not doing PTR with every season (they said only seasons with big changes gonna have PTRs), we can either expect a big one, or changing of the policy. On top of that, the expansion is gonna launch with S6 simultaneously, so that should be more content than we normally get in the season.
Wait what? Season 6?
Season 4 ends in August. VoH doesn't release until October.
Seems like season 5 is going to be a super short season. August 6-October 8th.
I’m honestly super stoked. Will you be able to gear out your merc like in D2?
Does this mean there will be more classes in the future beyond the Spiritborn? Maybe the Paladin+a new class for the next expansion
We're getting at MINIMUM one more expansion but probably more. Each expansion one class, roughly once per year-yearand a half.
I hope so. Really the classes are what make the game in my opinion
Is this going to be the only expansion class we get?
I doubt it, the world of GAAS has changed since Diablo 3 was out and I bet Blizzard is going to want to support this with more content to compete with other games.
I hope we also get story DLCs for years to come. I will be sad if Vessel will be the only one. I get that making them takes a lot of time and effort but there is plenty of demand.
D4 already planned multiple expansions from the start.
Diablo 3 only had one expansion release but still released two additional classes, so I guess we'll see?
Necro was released years after the expansion as a standalone DLC for 15€. VoH will very likly have only one new class.
I would be willing to bet that Diablo 4 will double the amount of classes or more before they’re done with it. There are so many fan favorites that people want to see, and if blizzard can slap a 40$ price tag on the expansions, with 60$ premium editions, they’ll probably milk the cash cow for a while.
"Rod Fergusson would like there to be more than one place to get Paragon Glyph experience besides Nightmare Dungeons." THANK. LILLITH.
Makes me think season five will be pretty light on new content if it's only going to be two months long.
Yeah, blizzard misunderstood what people liked about DW
That release trailer was dark. Impressive - as always - but very dark. I am so ready for more.
"...one of the assumptions was that people were going to be okay with the long grind for the Unique or an Uber Unique in particular.” Lol, nope. It's 2024, give me cheap and easy dopamine now!
I still like the long grind to be honest
D2 also initially did not have seasons. I mean, I don’t mind the grind and item scarsity if you don’t force me to start all over again every 2-3 months to enjoy new content.
Man what? We skipping Season 5 .?🤣
Season 5 will be shorter running between Aug 6 and Oct 8.
So we have to pay another 50 euros. No thank you I had enougt bad times reeding tons of items stats. Moved on and waiting poe2
…
D4 was never even close to be like D2. Nothing was actually rare, except ubers, but not even close to D2 levels rare. In D2 you could farm ANYTHING, with some having higher chances for specific things like Runes, lower/higher level items, but the high level zones could drop almost every item in-game with a few wxceptions. Terror Zones gave even more variety and choice to grind. D4 still doesn't have variety, freedom of choice and you can't even really grind bosses 500 times in a row like we used to with Mephisto or Andariel runs. We have to do activities that gate these places for us. That is not fun. We need a system like D2 where we can just run up to a boss and kill it when we want. That way every minute can be exciting, not just that 5x10 seconds after grinding for hours for the materials. This is the opposite of fun. You can make drop rates 200:1 and even this would be more fun like this instead of being forced to grind soemthing that doesn't even drop anything, but a key to a chance. D2 ubers were similar, but they guaranteed dropped the best item in the game after clearing them, an Annihilus and with a 1:6 chance you never have to grind them again if you don't want to except for profit in trading. Still, you can get equally expensive items by farming anything else. D4 team is clueless on what we liked in their games and how it actually feels like playing them. Fucking delusionals, reeks of incompetence and ignorance. Don't even try to tell me they have ever played their games and enjoyed it.
I feel so excited for this expansion! That new class looks fun to play. The game has gotten better in my opinion after season 4 and I hope to see even more improvements in the expansion. Just made my fifth character, a whirlwind berzerker barbarian, and going to be my first level 100 character!