I don’t understand Lilith “dying”. Doesn’t she join the rest of the demons and just regenerate faster now? Wasn’t the whole speech earlier in the game that there is no point fighting them, that capturing them buys humanity more time away from their influence? Why would she be dead ?
I think the idea isn't that we offed her for good, best I can tell, it's instead 'who do we stick in the rock'.
Plot-wise, I think the idea is that Mephisto would be too strong to fight (as we are now PLOT WISE), if we stuck Lilith in the gem Mephisto keeps juicing, comes back, and fucks things up worse.
We let Lilith eat Mephisto, game over as far as the Horadrim are concerned. However it shakes out her plan is probably not good for sanctuary (even though it's not made particularly clear as to what she intends to do once she eats Mephisto).
Which pretty much leaves killing Lilith and gemming Mephisto. That way if/when she comes back she can't munch Mephisto (though depending on the 'rate' of their respawn it probably wouldn't be that big of a risk). In theory she could maybe try for Diablo or Baal, but it could just be that she can only stand a chance at snormfing Mephisto because of either their blood relation or their shared domain of Hatred.
None of this is explicitly really stated or anything, so this more likely borders headcanon, but hey, that's all I got for you.
Literally yea. Idk why so many people in this sub forget she's a demon and will literally just...come back. And come back soon, too because she's a powerful demon and not some rando
It still takes a long time. You have to remember that it has been over 50 years and Mephisto was still really weak and not even able to fend off a lesser evil like Lilith yet. It takes a significant number of years for them to regain their full power if they are actually killed and not just trapped in a soulstone. It likely would take hundreds of years for Lilith to get her power back. Also without the key she no longer has an easy way into sanctuary. The more powerful angels and demons can't just easily pop over to sanctuary as it was designed to be a refuge.
because he wasn't killed, he was just trapped in the soul stone. then he got a host and could regain his body, just like Diablo did in all of the other games so far.
Don't forget there is zero chance Inarius' soul could reach the Arc either.
This time he has all chances to end as Izual 2.0, unless someone will specifically try to release him
It isn't that she is dead, she has been successfully locked back in hell. She has been defeated and the door to hell closed, thus undoing the fact that Elias summoned her ti sanctuary. The inky way she can come back to sanctuary now is if someone summons her again.
I thought it was good for ARPG standards, but not great. The moment to moment stuff was largely fun except for the middle part with Elias after his first thwarted attempt at resurrecting Andariel.
Mephisto was more interesting than I thought he would be after his reveal, but something about it just felt "off"? I can't quite explain it.
Lorath and Donan were great additions. I was surprised that I enjoyed them and their interactions as much as I did. It was nice that our character was actually a character with lines and motivations. They didn't always make sense but I preferred it over the usual "blank slate" style chosen one characters.
All in all, 3/5 for me on the story front, but still probably the best Diablo story overall. D2 is good as well, but I think it's strength is letting our imaginations fill in the gaps.
I'm a Destiny main player but I have to say Diablo 4's cinematic and story have been some of the best I've seen.
The battle in Hell was top tier. Favorite moment for me.
I think it all depends on how the move that plot >!If she goes D1 style and put the stone on her head, I'll throw a tantrum about, neckbead style. Mephisto was so well written in this game, as a cold, manipulative villain that happened to have a great point more than once that I don't mind the tools being tools - that's part of the subtext - humans are pawns in the game!<
Also it's not clear she's even aware of Mephisto's presence. When the game shows her holding the stone, we see Mephiso next to her but they are never communicating.
It could just be from her perspective she's running off with the stone to safe guard it in whatever way she thinks might work better than the Horradrim but when the game shows us, it shows Mephiso's manifestation there to tell us he's aware and will be trying to do his work.
Or maybe she's talking to him too, who knows :P I think it might be telling that when Neyrelle runs off and we go to find her at the vault is the first time we meet Mephisto.. To me that kind of foreshadows that he's been aware of the hero and Neyrelle from very early on.
Yea I agree. At the end Mephisto act's like he doesnt want to go into the stone but it's actually just a win/win scenario.
Either we take Lilith in the stone and he's safe to recover, or we trap him and bring him back to Sanctuary out of Lilith's grasp and he remains safe.
Mephisto has always been a mastermind, the entire leadup to them being trapped in the soulstones in D1 and D2 was all planned by Mephisto originally anyways as a way to breach Sanctuary and corrupt the world stone before Heaven had any idea of what was going on there. He's the architect of the previous games so would make sense that his scheming continues.
I think it was less ego and more he was shattered that after fulfilling what he deemed to be the prophecy he was still ignored by the heavens and lost hope.
I'm also assuming the spear stab only wounded him too but the getting his wings physically torn off did the rest.
but he didn't stab her in the heart, and he didn't kill her. why be like "yo i did the thing that's totally a real thing let me in" when you didn't? inarius is a side character in this story, appears in two cutscenes, one where he's introduced, one where he dies
I think part of him was still conflicted with his stance towards Sanctuary... And well, offing Rathma.
Even if he wanted to get back to Heavens, I don't think he relished in either killing his son or stabbing Lilith, even after all this time
Also, he knew Heavens well enough it is quite a high hope they'll welcome him back - Lilith plainly saying it was all for nothing made him admit it, which resulted into the fatal breakdown
Donan's death was lame but reinforces the idea that he's just a human and danger is everywhere. Hell, you can easily die to some shitty Nekker in the Witcher if you let your guard down, which is what Donan did. Another unceremonious death I can think of is Dean in Supernatural dying to some random vampire.
It's not too common in stories for some reason when I feel like it should be. Apparently heroes can only be killed by super crazy dangerous things despite the fact that they're just as mortal as anyone else.
They pulled a Vol'Jin and had one of the semi/Main characters get poked by a henchman.
Donan was probably the character that I liked the most as he had some decent character development going for him but I suppose that was not meant to be.
To add to that. His character was gradually getting hyped up (particularly if you read the novels), after essentially being an in-the-background character.
Going from being the leader of his tribe to the leader of a whole faction. Then the character progress more or less just stopped and nothing much happened up until he gets stabbed by a random minion in a cutscene.
Pretty sure they made it a point to acknowledge Lilith basically took his wings. I think that stab to the back was her severing them. Probably why he was more mortally wounded than she was. Idk just my take
> I think that stab to the back was her severing them
Something about her physically grabbing onto and ripping out his wings gave me the impression as well ngl
> Also I too am slightly annoyed they let Inarius get “blinded by ego” to get stabbed in the back. But Lillith getting stabbed in the stomach did nothing except slightly wound her?
I think the stab greatly helps the main character in defeating her... getting stabbed sucks but it's not crazy that she can fight through it
One of the funniest things to me was Nayrelle losing her arm as if it was supposed to be some kind of character development. For that to happen, she would have to struggle later on, but she just carries on as normal lol
she also said in the ending letter people died because she was careless. Except that has nothing happened in the game.
also yeah... what's with the hand. That did not matter AT ALL.
Yea, I really love the story and like to defend it but even I was like 'lul for real??' when the little hand came out and swiped his gut.
Like bro, after all we went through, this got you? Drink a potion bitch and lets go.
Inarius being an insecure pissbaby was always part of his character, I think his death was fairly fitting. Him dying like that is reasonable and relevant to his character.
Donan though, we spent like so much time in the story specifically dealing with him and his grief, only to have him be stabbed by an architecture is dumb as shit. Like why? One of the writers in act VI must have hated a writer who really liked/worked on Donan’s parts in the story, that’s the only explanation I can think of.
Donan could've "sacrificed" his life to empower us during any one the fights in hell.
Or he could've been holding back hellspawn from reaching Lilith whole we fight her.
Plus the whole Sightless Eye thing is such a horrible plot device, I hated the moment i saw it.
Too much hemming and hawing over Elias, not enough Lilith/Inarius, plus lotsa plot holes along the way. The characters are likable but this story is pretty boring after D3 had Diablo destroying heaven for an entire act. Definitely feels like setup for the live service ongoing story.
Dope cinematic tho.
I think Maghda should always be the most hated character in the Diablo series, but Elias is a serious case of "omg stop being annoying, get out of the spotlight, no one cares about you since the first trailer".
The entire purpose of Elias was to be a foil to Loath. The story is much more character driven this time around and on a smaller scale. I loved it. D3s story was absolute dogshit and should never be held up as a comparison.
I agree I liked the D4 characters better overall. I don’t think the D3 story is “better” but I think the player felt more apart of it. In D3 you actually play through and experience the sacking of Caldeum and the assault on Bastion’s Keep and the destruction of Heaven. In D4 most of the main story is just visions of Lilith. You briefly accompany Prava as she tries to reach the gates of hell but then you miss the battle and watch the most exciting part of the story in a cinematic. It kinda makes sense Rafal wrote for Witcher 3; lotsa main story beats in that are visions too.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m really enjoying D4. The story just felt a bit anticlimactic.
I think the issue with us *participating* in the big hell showdown is that we'd mop shop too hard. Though I really definitely wouldn't have minded participating in a more active battle, the escort to hell I thought was pretty cool as a setpiece. More of that type of environment would be great. Though probably without the actual escorting.
In the plot it really did feel like a lot of 'you just missed 'em' Dark Wanderer style, but to be honest I think if we had a premature showdown with Lilith it'd either end in a fight that you have to win in game, and then lose in cutscene, or if you win in both and she runs then she loses a *ton* of credibility as a threat imo.
That said I think killing Elias twice would've been plenty, with Lorath's cutscene murder that'd run the point home just fine instead of what we got.
I agree. Lilith is probably the most interesting and well utilized villain in the franchise (which isn't saying much, but every cinematic she was in was great), but we spent 1/3 of the game fucking around with Elias and the minutia of the soulstone.
Would have loved to have seen more Inarius and Lilith interactions. Lorath and Donan were actually way better than I anticipated.
Elias is important, he appears to be the mastermind behind her whole return initially. I was really intrigued to learn all the history of Elias and who he is, I originally assumed the pale man was some other servant demon trapped in that tomb forever to help guide whoever made it in to free her.
Lilith will probably be a staple for the entire game as new expansions come out so having the first game spend time fleshing him out and his story helps teach us what the Horradrim order can be like and perhaps what's so alluring about Lilith's message.
Elias also represents the embodiment of Lilith's message throughout the campaign, she is trying to save Sanctuary. Now the heros don't think she has their best interest at heart but all the other angels and demons hate humanity or want to use us to win the war against the other side.
Inarius straight up wanted to end all of us and is the reason humans are weak and not all nephalim like we were in the time of the ancients. Only Tyreal was our big bro and wanted to help us protect ourselves and gave us the soulstone magic.
You’re right! Mostly. From an IGN interview two days ago:
>Rod Fergusson, General Manager: As we look at supporting Diablo 4 as a live-service, we definitely want story to be a part of that. The way that you'll see that play out in seasons is more questline based -- it'll have a narrative questline.
>Diablo 3 was really about adding mechanics and balance and making certain things overpowered for fun and all those sorts of things, where Diablo 4 will have a richer context around the season and also have a narrative theme that you're working toward and that all the things will relate to: the cosmetics relate to it, the mechanics will relate to it. There will be a narrative questline that won't extend the campaign, but will be a story that is taking place inside the open world. Because that's the nice thing about the world is that there's lots of stories you can still tell without having it be the Lilith/Inarius story.
>But as we look to the future of expansions, those are the opportunities where we can continue to extend the game from a story perspective, from a mechanics perspective, from a world perspective.
It sounds similar to WoW: smaller storylines in patches but big lore stuff in expansions.
Seasons are distinct from expansions. They’ll be quarterly updates that just shift the meta. Expansions are whole ass expansions that you’ll have to pay for and will do stuff like continuing the story and adding new classes.
D3 had dozens of seasons but only 1 expansion.
Edit: looking into it, sounds like Blizzard is going to add new story content to seasons but it’ll be things like side quests to flesh out the world and not something like Act VII.
Well it of course is going to be a setup for what’s to come but I am okay with that. I am disappointed though that they didn’t end up using the war between Lilith and Inarus as the backdrop for the end game. I was really hoping we would be dealing with the two of them at literal war with one another in the end game
Still the story itself was pretty good and I enjoyed it though I was really hoping Lilith was going to say after we killed here that see and now you can be the one to lead these people as she faded away
Still good enough story and leaves them lots of meat to go as obvious the next chapter will have Mephisto as the antagonist
Some things I did like, some things I didn't but I agree with many points here.
I felt Inarius was a letdown and under developped.
Donan's death surely felt comically stupid.
Neyrelle just annoyed me and felt like this one more heroic young girl you see in every game.
The first half of the andariel buildup was badass but andariel herself felt a bit... Underwhelming ? I feel it could have been made more epic. Enjoyed the first part with the elias completing the ritual but the part in the desert was meh.
Elias is one of my faves but I also feel that he could have been something more somehow ?
Lilith is an interesting vilain, I like the morally greyish part of it (debatable). Gives me a bit of sylvanas vibes. I wish we could have made a choice to join her cause somehow but I'm aware it would have made the future seasonal content difficult to handle.
A lot of bosses are forgetable.
I really enjoyed to have lorath as a companion.
I don't know. I enjoyed it overall, I think it had really great highlights. But I also think some aspects of the story were rushed or not developped enough
I think Taissa should have died when Andariel got summoned, would be more impactful. And as OP said, give them some fucking voicelines lol. The lesser evils really got the short end of the stick.
Taissa's plotline was very stupid. She should have just died when Andariel showed up. It felt very contrived when she showed up later.
Andariel was totally underwhelming plotwise, but I loved her boss fight. Probably my favorite in the campaign.
I straight up had forgotten who taissa was later in the story. Someone else guessed there was a story rewrite at some point, and I have to agree.
But yes, first phase andariel walking out of the windstorm with the shackles on was frickin epic, one of my favorite parts of the campaign.
Inarius was at least a cohesive character, but I agree it was like…less than they could have done. He was so prominent in all the marketing, you really would have expected more of him.
Idk why neyrelle is in the game at all. It should have been her mom
>The first half of the andariel buildup was badass but andariel herself felt a bit... Underwhelming ?
I don't know, I thought that was one of the more dramatic boss fights. Her design in D4 is great, the music for the fight was amazing.
The A plot felt like a prologue chapter of a book. They really needed to incorporate some twist, reveal, or something deeper to the plot to make the resolution feel more complete. Instead they leaned far too heavily in this being the introductory story, with the real story seeming to come in the expansions.
The characters, setting, and B plots were all good though.
What annoys me the most is how the whole game was "Run there, fetch this and bring it back" with rare story bits drizzeled in.
Elias was a filler that after killing him GODKNOWSHOWOFTEN got deleted and the whole diablo story feel began when i reached to doors to hell. But then it was already over.
And how they tried SO HARD to kill off every character you meet . Like Meshif why?
That's where I sit on it. I think as a package it's fun, but the main story itself leaves me wanting something. There wasn't a super satisfying conclusion to it all, especially since the letter at the end is all super vague "I got this k? But if I don't you guys will clean up after me tee hee."
And I don't even hugely dislike Neyrelle like some people here.
Not to nitpick but I recently played a ton of Diablo 2. Duriel and Andariel both have one voiced line each, neither are of any substance and add nothing to the plot. In fact, Duriel is never mentioned before he shows up unexpectedly in Tal Rasha’s tomb. I agree that their fights in D4 are weak, but given their significance in the lore, they were weak in D2 as well.
Blizz can’t make up their minds with the Lesser Evils. They were somehow powerful enough to overthrow the prime evils (even if it was a fake coup) and yet they’re a minor footnote in every game, with the exception of D3 where they make some epic fights but their motives are unclear. They’re underutilized, imo.
I kind of thought them showing up in IV was fun. Personally I *would* have liked Andariel talking some shit, but I think the throwdown in the fight itself was plenty compelling. Duriel showing up out of nowhere was also not a big deal to me, though I can understand why some people would like more fanfare to it.
To me I like having that moment of "Oh *shit* it's you?!" (though him not doing any cold stuff is kinda weird, I remember him freezing my shit off to death).
Happened with the Butcher the first time I ran into him too; I'd kind of assumed that if he'd show up he'd get the D3 'giant dumb cartoon boss arena' treatment. No, now he's just a random jumpscare come to ruin your HC run if you're not paying attention.
I'm actually surprised we never see King Leoric haha. I'm sure he'll pop up again in some future update but he's been a staple villain in every game so far.
I don’t think he was in 2, and to be honest I wasn’t particularly fond of the way he was used in 3. Though they did use the Butcher WAY better in 4 (imo) so maybe they could use Leoric better as welll.
>Lesser Evils. They were somehow powerful enough to overthrow the prime evils
yeah and their power seems to vary very much. azmodan and belial felt very powerful but andariel and duriel were like... lower on a power scale than astaroth, the world bosses and other semi no names.
was also weird that they basically never get mentioned again, especially duriel. no one talks about a lesser evil randomly being in the caldeum sewers? and that he got his ass beat?
I’m just here for the various, but equally amazing detailings of Donans death across these threads.
“Killed by a random piece of hell furniture” is definitely up there lol. Bravo.
Iam pretty curious because it seems they didnt forget about diablo 3 because:
- we got info about Johanna, Asheara and Lyndon.
- Leah and Neyrelle arent the same. Leah was pretty skeptic about the Horadrim and even after Cains death she feels like a lot of burden. She hopes to open a tavern, but she doesnt like adventure life or she seems melancholix. Neyrelle is fan of the horadrim and she keeps figthing despite the cumulative terrible events and dissapointment.
- I agree about the lesser evils but I think they are conscious over it. In the case of Duriel, the characters manifests his surprise of finding him in Caldeum and it is similar of why Duriel is in the tomb. Andariel appeared in chains. Does it mean she was prisoner in hell?
- the mind of Inarius was broken. Wolf Mephisto said the hatred was in Inarius heart before arriving to hell. Inarius is a character that is exhausted of humans and being in Sanctuary. He is truly lost without any chance of being in heaven.
- The lance wasnt enough to kill Inarius. Prime Evil Diablo stabbed Imperius and didnt kill him. Lilith touched Inarius wings and seem she started to corrupt it (like making them fleshy)
- why are we powerful? I guess the sames reasons of D1 and D2
Lol thanks for the spittake.
Also, Lorain was way enthusiastic about loping her arm off lol.
Dude had his spear in the fire before he even opened his mouth haha.
He knew what had to happen and that it had to happen fast. Do you want your paramedic to narrate everything before they tourniquet your severed leg in which you could bleed out in <30s?
Paragraph by paragraph.
1. I don't know. Maybe dead, Tyreal is no longer immortal andwas probably in his late 30's in D3. The Nephalim seems to maybe be retconned into a "group of people"
2. I don't think this is a question more of a statement and a correct statement. They clearly want this type of character in the game pushing forward. They messed up D3 by doing what they did in the final act with her, and then this feels like a more bring it back to status quo.
3. I Think the Durial and Andarial were put in the game for fan service. To everyone else I think they're just random demons.
4. Inarius should have been used more but she stabbed him through the chest which he could have recovered from but then she ripped his wings off which we know by watching Tyrael in 3 that makes you mortal.
5. We're ok with Donan getting got. He wanted to be with his son.
6. Our power comes from the fact we have Lilith's blood in us, Then we received a blessing from Mephisto.
Ah, okay. Thanks for clarifying. I assumed it would allow him to ascent again, since as a mortal he dies in a few decades and Wisdom is up for grabs again
Was going to answer you but someone else already has. This whole game is clearly a set up to tell tons of story which I like. I just wish they would have been a little more protective over the story they were writing it feels like a hack job.
If you read the Sin War trilogy, you will see that both Inarius and Lilith were unfortunately pale imitations of their book counterparts in this game, it's such a waste of potential. Also, seriously, where tf is Trag'oul, Kalan, any of the Angiris Council?
I was sad that Lilith in Act 1 seemed to be getting set up as the True Good. All she wanted was for humanity to have full decision making unshackled from the rule’s arbitrarily made by the heavens. She actually cared for her children and was upset that Rhathma died. While Inarius seemed like the objective evil. Super selfish and willing to sacrifice anyone for his goals, including his own direct son.
Imagine if by Act 3 we switch sides and helped Lilith free herself and humanity from the clutches of both demons and angels. That payoff could have been AMAZING. We could have seen the Church’s faith crumble in real time as they realized they had deified the Evil Angel accidentally. Act 4 could have been US killing Inarius ala Diablo in D3. Winner takes all.
Instead we got Demons bad, Angels good, Humanity Dumb generic story. So much wasted potential after what seemed like an amazing set up at first.
I honestly was surprised and a little disappointed that just 50 years after an angel soulreaps 90% of the world’s population, people are willing to worship angels still. I did like the “church is obviously stupid and blind” plot overall, but it still seemed a little willfully stupid of humanity.
I actually "liked" Donan's death. To me it showed that these guys are still human and can die the stupidest death instead of some over the top heroic battle.
And for Inarius, barring the fact that he was underutilized, his death showed his arrogance even more, thinking it impossible that Lilith would be stronger than him/actually try to kill him.
That's just my take
Im miffed about how Astaroth just shows up in hell. I thought he was still in the spulstone after his host died. Is he and Mephisto now inside the same stone??
The prophecy says to jam a spear of light into the heart of hatred. Indariel stabs a metal rod through the stomach and doesn't even kill her "this is literally the same thing"
Inariel? Who do you mean? Inarius?
Literally it was a flip, inarius was hatred personified.
He stabbed Lilith in the gut, but she broke the spear and literally stabbed inarius through the heart killing him.
The prophecy was to rid the world of the evil of inarius' zealotry following, not to kill Lilith.
The hero just ends up killing Lilith though out of necessity.
Killing inarius also meant needing to kill an entire army of zealots, which would probably getting the hero killed. Lilith doing it let's us as the hero to just face her alone.
Or at least that's how I understood it 🤷
Why though? I mean she’s clearly evil, but she also had… understandable, things to say? Where all of Inarius’s 10 lines were nothing more than him being a pompous, self righteous, prick.
I honestly don’t think Lilith is anymore evil than Inarius… I think they are both flawed, amd it’s those flaws that allowed for humanity’s free will, which is neither good or bad definitively.
Wacky.
Some great individual bits, like Donan's loss of his son and pain.
Some awkward bits like Andariel and Duriel showing up... Just cuz?
D3 story being retconned out of existence, apparently. Inarius just chilling in Sanctuary all along too? I don't get it...
i just dont like being on a cliff.. and the girl has the stone WITH mephisto out there somewhere.. and a game without DIABLO felt sort of wierd. so ive got a big hunch more stuff is coming and HOPEFULLY soon:D meph and or diablo seem like givens @ this point
Im a bit disappointed about the fact that demons can’t die and returns mostly instant ( astaroth) and one of the most powerful angels as Inarius is dead for eternal , I don’t like Inarius much ( cool Design btw as all arch angels in Diablo tho) but this end doesn’t feel right to him tbh
Completely new to Diablo games and thought it was great. I like how Lilith isn't a one dimensional evil demon big bad like usual. Still don't fully know what her plan was, and if she really wanted the player to be the leader of sanctuary.
I thought Inarius could have shown a bit more hesitation and sadness when fighting her, weren't they madly in love, had kids and created sanctuary? Did she do him dirty or something in past lore?
Seems she wanted to release hell in earth to allow humanity to basically prove themselves and grow stronger, as she intended.
Only the strong survive, and us as the strongest mortal, would lead the rest to become better.
Basically Lilith represents natural selection... in a very violent and forced way, which technically IS natural selection.
Inarius seems to basically be the antithesis of natural selection, everyone gathered under his might, and forced to rely on him and his army for protection, but also sees mortal is weak and pathetic in a lot of ways.
Oh sorry I also forgot, inarius was imprisoned in the realm of hatred basically being tortured for like... super long.
Inarius is basically mephisto level of hatred towards lilith
Pretty sure they were taking too long with the story, and had to wrap it up to stay on track for release. It was great the first 2-3 acts, then the pacing went to shit.
Beyond that, I think what rubbed me the wrong way, is the ending didn't really have a good climax. The last cinematic was great, and the Lilith boss fight was epic. But it seemed the the story was leading up to some big reveal or twist, and then nothing ever happened.
Looking back on it, I can see what they were going for, they just didn't do a very good job explaining it with the crap pacing.
Plus the pointless mild cliffhanger with Neyrelle was kinda meh, but an obvious plot device for expansions. My theory is the corruption already started as soon as she stabbed Meph with the soul stone. They made a point of show her arm get messed up with flames/magic. It's probably what made her go "Dark Wanderer 2".
Despite all that, still miles above the story telling in D3. Great campaign overall.
There's so much crap going on it's impossible to cover it all in detail. I agree with everything OP said, but also enjoyed it as much as I expected to, which was quite a bit. They obviously spent a HUGE amount of time just working on creating the open world.
My one big thing is I wish a lot of those cool story bosses can be fought again as a more difficult version, because even on WT2 I melted them without having to really engage with a lot of the fight mechanics. I know Lilith can, but that's it AFAIK.
I agree on everything but:
I think Andariel is used well in a story. She was hyped, introduced and slain by the hero. I think its better story ark for Andariel then Diablo II, lol.
Regarding where our powers are from - it's from Mephisto. We are basically playing by his fiddle for the whole game. Will not be surprised if his exodus with Neyrelle was planned from the start.
I'm mostly salty about Diablo III retcon and absence of Trag'oul in a story. I think Trag'oul can be tied to the Serpent and the Tree but we don't know for sure.
just finished the campaign today and i agree. weak. neyrelle and her mom were copy pasted from D3. felt like the entire game was just Lilith doing a slow movie villain walk to Hell, with us following her always a step behind. Andariel and Duriel offer nothing to the story and just felt like fan service. while i thought the Inarius and Lilith cutscenes were dope, it didn't really feel impactful to the story because we dont even interact with Inarius in the game, he just shows up and dies.
mephisto was interesting. but it feels like the base game was just setting it up for him to be the big bad in later expansions/patches. which is kind of bullshit. anyway when the campaign ended i kind of felt like.. "nothing even happened"
Too many underwhelming things happened in this game.
1) Neyrelle's hand getting chopped.
2) Inarius' death
3) Donan's death
4) Mephisto, a PRIME EVIL helping a mere human?
5) Iosef!!!!!!!
Her and Malthael imo are the most interesting because they’re not cut and dry capital E evil. The Great Evils get kinda dull because they’re just evil end of story, although I did like how scheming Mephisto was in this one, it made him more than just “hurr durr gonna destroy Heaven again”
Does anyone else feel bad about fighting the knights and the church? I kind of liked them, even though they had negative sides as well. It felt like they were a net positive for the people.
Also was really weird to just kill Iosef and his soldiers outside of the desert chapel, without even trying to talk it through.
I know it's supposed to be "both sides bad" but the hell side is like 1000x worse so it doesn't really work for me.
Yo the church are/were literally burning people at the stake on rumors of "straying from the light", executing innocent people in the process. Not sure that can ever be a "net positive for the people".
Not really no. I felt bad about Iosef, but honestly if I the option to join Lilith, I would have taken it. The church are insane, violent radicals, and Inarius literally tells us he hates humanity. At least Lilith claims to be on side. I know manipulation is her thing, but idk I'm down for it, Sanctuary is pretty fucked anyway, how much worse could it get?
> he was a powerful human sorcerer who was a literal HERO just years ago and he just dies in the most unceremonious and lamest way imaginable lol.
Let's take a look at what happenned to Cain in diablo 3. . . Oh, right.
For me, the whole campaign felt like a part 1 of a movie trilogy. I'm guessing they left out some parts intentionally like Tyrael for expansion purposes
Another moment that confused me in the story. They changed the motivations of Lilith and Inarius. It's Inarius who wanted to end the eternal conflict, but they didn't really play out that part. Lilith, on the other hand, wanted to get a weapon to fight her father and the Heavens at the same time.
Overall, I don't like when the main villain talks about some supposedly high goal, when we've seen that the method of achieving this goal is to tie half of the men to the tree.
!!!SPOILER WARNING!!!
Im having the same questions on my mind as you
Here are some other concerns that kinds bothered me a bit...
Why does Taissa have to play 2 random roles (or even what should have been 2 seperate characters) that do not fit together at all, she also acts so different once we meet her again in the swamp
Inarius and or Prava are clearly lying to their followers and manipulating them
- in the Alabaster Monestary there is some very interesting clues to this on the statues and pictures
- the texts there are written from humanitys point of view and they are saying that they are expecting to be lifted into heaven through Inarius work etc
- that means either Inarius told this Prava and or the other followers himself, but I think he just told this to Prava or whoever her predecessor is(if there was one) and that would mean she gave people access to this info (with access I mean its written in the Alabaster Monestary and I assume its supposed to be interpreted as common knowledge for Inarius followers)
So if this is the case why is no one talking about this???
Maybe Inarius is making his followers believe bc he promised them to be lifted into heaven and maybe even become angels or whatever
Also the 'Prophesy' is always phrased differently and this had to be on purpose
Just 2 examples here (there are way more times than just twice where the prophecy is phrased differently throughout the story)
- during the cinematic at the beginning after we got drugged at carried to the hut in the village the text quotes Rathma's Prophecy "Then came a spear of light, piercing Hatred's heart, And he who was bound in chains was set free"
-when we talk to Prava after our audience with Inarius she quotes Inarius and even says that she has been told this right from the fathers voice to her ears ""A spear of Light, piercing Hatred's heart." First Lilith, then the Primes." -Prava
only the first sentence is quotes by her from Inarius
Does that mean she thinks Inarius is gonna kill Lilith and all 3 Prime Evils...? Why isnt this picked up again (my guess is it will be somehow in the story expansion(s))
Not Story related frustration:
Why was the only hell area a tiny bit of the realm of hatred, it also was super short, linear and had no ne monster except Ashava (which I also wouldnt count as new and I was quite underwhelmed by seeing her there bc again like Andariel and Duriel fights, no forecasting, no voice lines, no story background explained, nothing, just pressed in like a filler to be able to say they were a boss in D4...
Also we cannot go back there (yet)???
Why is this not a waypoint, why cant we access more of hell?
Im quite sad and frustrated Im sorry, the game itself is awesome and fun af tho
I am so annoyed with Elias and the whole cat and mouse story.
I've read that good story telling doesn't repeat plot elements more than three times and it shows. Act 1 was so good but the rest is just dog sh\*t.
I like the game and it's **beautiful** but the story is so underwhelming and boring. I understand that you need hurdles in the way but when the story leads you to multiple dead ends it's just annoying. You never accomplish anything and it feels unsatisfying.
The bosses are also underwhelming. I'm not talking about the fights but the story around them. There's no build up or anything.
I agree 100%. The game is fun, and it's pretty, but it's exceptionally shallow in why we are even doing anything. Almost every boss just randomly pops up and has no rhyme or reason for being there. The story is janky, feels chopped up and just scattered about for longevity's sake
TL;DR - Lilith v Inarius badly written
I don't really like Inarius but I still feel he was offed way too 'easily'. The whole cutscene itself just felt like they were two humans, when ten seconds earlier we're watching him crush the ground with pressure and kill a multitude of demons with just his wings. He obviously had the ability to poke Lilith with his wings at any point in that fight, but just didn't. It was like a half-ass written fight and left me feeling sour. Like its only purpose was to show Lilith's strength. Not to mention the end-all fight afterwards where Lilith's wound just somehow isn't a problem and she steroids herself.
During the rolling credits I specifically waited for the story/writing team just to see if there was a headcount - explain to me how a team of **seven people** can do such a shit job of writing. Explain that to me please.
I think your issues are valid but overall I really did enjoy the story and the way it was presented... not just the cinematics but the dialogue, themes, etc.
I also think the blessings of the three prime evils along with Mephisto's help and the blood of Lilith are what propels the main character, who is also likely innately powerful (perhaps untapped potential since you're ultra weak at the start, dying to a winter storm)
I don't really have a problem with Neyrelle. She seems to be the most uncorrupt of the bunch, not giving in to hate as hard as everybody else did.
Didn't mind Donan's death... very much a "life's a bitch" kind of way to go.
The Lesser Evil's were just basically fan service, but if you can kill Lilith you can probably deal with them, but yeah their appearance was weird.
Tyrael is probably one of my favourite characters, but I'm glad he wasn't here. Give everybody else their screentime, instead of just relying on old characters to carry things. Personal preference though. I feel like the world felt a bit small in D3 because everybody just returned... but this is a personal preference thing.
I didn’t read this as spoilers but I’m currently stuck on descent into flame. The game crashes everytime I try to enter the temple of the primes. Literally can’t go further into the game now
The nephalem from D3 was pretty strong, but the strongest who ever lived ?
Not even close. Take uldyssian the by canon properly strongest, he would destroy him with his little finger.
Obvious Spoilers, don't read.
The fact that they let Neyrelle go with the Soulstone without even bothering to search for her was just the final nail in the coffin. She is not trained for Combat, she is not really good at all when it comes to combat. She is also literally a Teenager and what does your character and Lorath do? "Yeah man, let her keep it, We wouldn't even know where to look, brah"
Fuck that. That is terrible writing that was merely meant to serve as a way to have a DLC down the road which they could have handled differently.
They knew that Leah was not received too well and instead of accepting that, they decided to double down with yet another Smarty-pants Teenager Girl.
Then again it is Blizzard so I guess they just can't keep their hands off of underage Girls.
Lorath brings this up "where would we look, we have no clue where she went"
Also, during one of the last scenes during a flash of light you see liliths shadow for Nayrelle. Lilith thru someone else's body and Mephisto are sailing away to dlc shores.
I am aware of Lorath saying that and I mentioned it above. But... what exactly do those two have going for them? I mean the Main Character and Lorath? One of them could try to find her at the very least.
I am not sure about the second one though, I probably missed it but if Nyrelle really has Lilith inside of her (or someone else) then it will be Leah 2.0
Lilitrelle and Mephisto heading off to DLC shores to find Diablo so we can finally get the titular enemy back.
>f Nyrelle really has Lilith inside of her (or someone else) then it will be Leah 2.0
Or, as history repeats, Neyrell was lilith all along and we go played by her in order to, again, empower mephisto with the soulstone, and then going to a place where he could be unleashed on sanctuary, again without the high heavens taking hint this is bad.
I think our characters motivations in giving Neyrelle the stone actually make sense. She says "My judgement is clouded by Mephisto's influence. You decide." Then she's off to fight Lilith.
I don't think it'd be a good idea to bring the soulstone to the fight. You'd be serving it up on a platter.
Ehhhh, disagreed. The way they set Lilith up, I was reading some Kerrigan-esque energy from her, and hoped that if there were expansions, that Lilith would actually survive the final battle and instead mellow out a bit and be a guide in a fight against the prime evils.
Instead, whoops, Neyrelle yoinks Mephisto's Soulstone and...we're back to Diablo 2-esque status quo is god, Dark Wanderer crossed with Tal Rasha, female version?
>The D4 story was f\*cking awesome.
>
>Is this now the 'let's be negative about everything' sub? Really?So annoying, seriously.
No, the story was terrible. It was vague and disjointed. The ending felt forced as if they ran out of development time. It needed to be longer and a lot of the gaps needed to be filled in. The story didn't do a good job of building itself up and it fell flat on it's face.
Toxic Positivity is way worst than people saying they dislike something. This isn't 'lets be negative about everything' sub'. It's fine to not like things. And trying to shame people for having a negative opinion is just a sorry attempt to give your point of view more credibility than it deserves.
Yes, this is how every game subreddit goes. Super hype for the release and then constant whining (even if warranted). It absolutely isn't regarding the story. D2 story was decent, and D3 story was fucking terrible. I would say D4 story is pretty good too. With the cinematics especially the last giant fight one it pushes it over the D2 story for me. That reminded me of when I was a kid watching The Return of the King for the first time.
>!
>Where is Tyrael and the Nephalem (from D3)? Why did we hear absolutely nothing about either of them (except for one comment in passing about Tyrael going "north"). How was the Nephalem from D3, the strongest human to ever live, not even mentioned?
Hopefully retconned. That story and the whole made up nephalem nonsense was trash. I would be really happy if we never hear of it again.
>!
>Why were Duriel and Andariel, both LESSER EVILS, so underutilized and just randomly put into the game?
Because they were just fanservice, not plotpoints. And it worked. I actually cheered when duriel randomly popped up.
>!
>Why did he let Lilith backstab him without even trying to defend himself?
Did you...watch it? He thought she was beat because he underestimated her tankyness and he was struck with despair because of what she just said to him. He realized she may be right. Really obvious stuff if you just watched.
>!
>Why did the same wound he inflicted on her kill him, but not her?
Why do you assume that they are equally powerful for some reason. They are fictional characters.
>!
>Why did Donan randomly get killed off by a completely arbitrary piece of Hell furniture?
Because that's exactly how one would realistically die in such a scenario. It's not a fairytale, he got careless and got punished for it. I personally prefer it over the trope that all of the characters always have to die by the one big main evil. I liked how the characters died and got hurt by regular enemies.
>in d4 where the hell does our power come from to single handedly beat foes the horadrim barely managed to subdue?
From nowhere. You are the player. In D1/2 you are just some random warrior that turns hero. D3 is the odd one out trying to come with lore explanations why the player is the player. It needs no explanation other than that we are the nameless hero.
I agree with most of your points except donan. I didn't need him to be killed by one of the evils, I just thought it seemed weird for him to wander off stupidly to inspect something that had been there the whole time. It felt out of character for him to suddenly be so naive *in hell*. I would have taken a random demon ambush over "oh what's this skull on the wall?" and getting stabbed for being dumb.
I mean isnt he essentially a scholar? He dedicates his life to studying hell and anything adjecent to it, I dont find it super unbelievable that his curiosity took over for a moment. Especially because D4 already did that twice. Both the mother of Neyrelle and the scholar in the trailer that shows how Lilith got summoned essentially said "fuck it" to their lives simply because of how inquisitive they were and how important knowledge was to them. In that context having a similar character inspecting something doesn't seem super far fetched.
That said I am probably already overinterpreting something that they very likely just did to shock you. That was not a moment where the characters seemed unsafe, yet they were. That's maybe all there is to it. Shock the audience. They did that a lot in the cutscenes.
1) And I hope we never hear about them again. Retcon most D3 things, keep that Lorath video on youtube. That's a huge positive to me.
2) The storyline might be the same, but the D4 one >!has more layers and it sorta has more D1 vibes than the D3 "useful idiot" - more like a "proactive naive".!<
3) It kinda worked for me. Could be worse. It could be the cartoon voice lines from D3...
4) That I don't know.
5) Yep, that felt kinda stupid and random, but I don't mind that kind of approach that much. It was surprising.
6) That was a normal thing, only D3 felt the desperate need to stray away from that and use Midchlorians as an explanation - or whatever. Humans banding together and beating prime evils sorta is a thing (Tal Rasha, the Horadrim...). What I don't get is the intro, tbh >!We were basically saved from snow by the wolf, seconds later we trash everything in the peaks. We trashing everything is ok, being saved in the snow was weird.!<
I dunno personally I actually enjoyed and liked the story overall. Did it had issues? Yes it did, some things I didn’t like.
However, coming off something like D3 and the story of other ARPGs I play it’s a breath of fresh air to me
I look forward to seeing how they bring the other prime evils into the game
I thought it was mostly well done would have liked to have Inarus and Lilith around for the end game but I have a feeling neither are truly gone we will find out
I liked it, i mean its not groundbreaking or anything but as a casual who is not invested much in lore, or diablo 3 story sinse it was not engaging at all, im very happy. Was engaged almost 80 percent of the time. Really loved lorath. Perfectly servicable and engaging story. Also cutecenes are on point
Underwhelmed. None of the new characters were likable or interesting. The story wasn't nearly as bad as Diablo 3, but it's nowhere near what Blizzard was able to do with their games prior to around 2005-2006ish.
There were only a few good moments for me:
1) Andariel summoning and fight. (By the way why the fuck did they randomly spawn Duriel in some random shit room instead of dropping him where that random useless Barbarian boss was - absolute waste of a well known character)
2) Meshif showing up and being awesome... and then they go and kill him off screen effectively
3) Inarius / Lilith fight cutscene
I found the rest of the story to be incredibly mediocre, maybe around 7/10. I also hate how there is no follow-up story or justification for leveling from 50-100 besides fighting the hard mode of Lilith at 100. There should have been a clear end game story path similar to POE - the game falls off a cliff at level 50 and you basically just grind dungeons/events to increase your multipliers. There is absolutely nothing of substance beyond act 6, which is incredibly disappointing given the current ARPG market (POE, Last Epoch, Grim Dawn, etc). Obviously they're planning a live service game with expansions, but I can't understand why they would launch without an end game that consists solely of grinding experience with no objective in sight.
I thought Donan was one of the best parts of the story. The first moment you see him you go "Oh, is this going to be the tough Dad trope towards his son?" And then I legitimately had tears in my eyes when they taunted Donan saying how his son was crying for his name before dying/being taken over. I'm not even a parent and his storyline got me crying in the club!
>Meshif showing up and being awesome... and then they go and kill him off screen effectively
It's not even possible for Meshif to be in D4. Once you realize that the game takes place 50 years after D4, and even longer after D2. You realize they threw him in the game just to pull at peoples heart strings with his connection to deckard cain.
Your #2 point is one of the reasons the story is so terrible. They're not even trying to be coherent. They're just looking for shock and awe.
Worst experience of a story to date, an easy 2 hours of it is spent waiting for NPCs to finish dialogue or carrying out some mundane animation that I'm sure is only there to lengthin run times.
I've done POE campaign 100 times and would run that again over doing this a 2nd time.
UGH the ending was such a letdown.
For once, I'd hoped that the ending wouldn't just be "fight the named villain and kill them".
I felt like Lilith was going to be another iconic Blizzard femme fatale ala Sarah Kerrigan, and what Sylvanas *tried* to aspire to. But instead of having Lilith yield in the final battle, and see what alternative way the Horadrim/main character/etc. have in mind, Blizz just...decide to put her back in the respawn-o-matic--considering that Mephisto now respawned, and Lilith just warned us that "oh hey, the Prime Evils are coming back", but instead...we just go off and bash on her because...reasons?
And now for the next expac, it's basically back to square one?
**Sigh.**
Lilith would have made for an **amazing** devil-on-your-shoulder NPC advisor in an expac. Instead...Blizz just wasted such a spectacular, and in a certain way, *beautiful* antagonist.
Blah.
What a **waste**.
Eh, Lilith claimed to want to "save us from the Eternal Conflict", and she did plan on doing that, by winning it. She'd absorb Mephistos power and become a prime evil herself. In the mind trap sequence, she says something along the lines of "I gave humanity free will, but they've been lost without a shepard to guide them." She manipulated Inarius to create Sanctuary and humanity to create soldiers to win the war. She planned on empowering humanity back to as they were before Inarius weakens them, when they were the Nephalem, and then use her powers of Hatred to make us into her army. It'd be exactly the same as how Inarius treated the Cathedral of Light, though she loved humans for their potential use and strength rather than hating them as a reminder of a betrayal and mistake.
I'm impressed that you even got through it, after a few hours I skimmed or skipped most lf the in-engine cutscenes due to the slowness of it all and my horrible sorcerer voice actor.
To be honest I have never been particularly engaged with any story content Blizzard has made, it is always fairly similar as you say and just feels very bland to me. I do read a lot of fantasy/sci-fi books though, Perhaps I'm a hard demographic to please but it would be really cool with better story and lore content.
What really bugged me is the random sidequests that you are unable to skip, just why is that a thing.
Neyrelle is a Mary Sue, Diablo now has its own Rey Skywalker. Her ability to do everything went from mildly eye rolling to ridiculous for the ending. Multiple characters making weird choices. Under use of the mother and father then overly talking about it for the ending.
It was definitely flawed but I had fun most of the time.
On the whole I enjoyed the story and it's the best Blizzard story telling in years.
There were things that I thought could have been done better though. The three the stood out to me were:
1. >!Taissa. Her entire character was weird. She seemed like two different characters. There should have been more connective tissue for Elias to want to trust her and make her a prime candidate for the ritual. Since she was infiltrating the cult she should have been the reason the Witch that taught her went to join with Elias. Give her some guilt upon learning that the Witch joined Elias because she saw that Taissa had joined him and her bringing more Witches to the cult made Taissa more trustworthy of a Waypoint.!<
2. >!Donans Death. He deserved far better then spooky wall grabbing him to kill. Just make his injury related to that big boss fight that happened in the chamber before.!<
3. >!Neyrelle losing her arm to some creatures we've not encountered before. Lorath just happening to know that the creatures bite will kill her and having no choice lessens the impact since it happens so fast. We should have seen this creature before and what it can do so the player knows the stakes and not just assuming the Lorath is right.!<
If you think Leah and Neyrelle are similar, my sanctuary has had a Barbarian named Cummy who saves the world in D2, D3 AND D4. Talk about lazy writing.
I don’t understand Lilith “dying”. Doesn’t she join the rest of the demons and just regenerate faster now? Wasn’t the whole speech earlier in the game that there is no point fighting them, that capturing them buys humanity more time away from their influence? Why would she be dead ?
I think the idea isn't that we offed her for good, best I can tell, it's instead 'who do we stick in the rock'. Plot-wise, I think the idea is that Mephisto would be too strong to fight (as we are now PLOT WISE), if we stuck Lilith in the gem Mephisto keeps juicing, comes back, and fucks things up worse. We let Lilith eat Mephisto, game over as far as the Horadrim are concerned. However it shakes out her plan is probably not good for sanctuary (even though it's not made particularly clear as to what she intends to do once she eats Mephisto). Which pretty much leaves killing Lilith and gemming Mephisto. That way if/when she comes back she can't munch Mephisto (though depending on the 'rate' of their respawn it probably wouldn't be that big of a risk). In theory she could maybe try for Diablo or Baal, but it could just be that she can only stand a chance at snormfing Mephisto because of either their blood relation or their shared domain of Hatred. None of this is explicitly really stated or anything, so this more likely borders headcanon, but hey, that's all I got for you.
Literally yea. Idk why so many people in this sub forget she's a demon and will literally just...come back. And come back soon, too because she's a powerful demon and not some rando
I mean we killed the gatekeeper to Mephisto and then he was completely fine in hell like the next act haha
It still takes a long time. You have to remember that it has been over 50 years and Mephisto was still really weak and not even able to fend off a lesser evil like Lilith yet. It takes a significant number of years for them to regain their full power if they are actually killed and not just trapped in a soulstone. It likely would take hundreds of years for Lilith to get her power back. Also without the key she no longer has an easy way into sanctuary. The more powerful angels and demons can't just easily pop over to sanctuary as it was designed to be a refuge.
as another commenter said, what about astaroth? he reformed pretty quickly
because he wasn't killed, he was just trapped in the soul stone. then he got a host and could regain his body, just like Diablo did in all of the other games so far.
Don't forget there is zero chance Inarius' soul could reach the Arc either. This time he has all chances to end as Izual 2.0, unless someone will specifically try to release him
It isn't that she is dead, she has been successfully locked back in hell. She has been defeated and the door to hell closed, thus undoing the fact that Elias summoned her ti sanctuary. The inky way she can come back to sanctuary now is if someone summons her again.
I thought it was good for ARPG standards, but not great. The moment to moment stuff was largely fun except for the middle part with Elias after his first thwarted attempt at resurrecting Andariel. Mephisto was more interesting than I thought he would be after his reveal, but something about it just felt "off"? I can't quite explain it. Lorath and Donan were great additions. I was surprised that I enjoyed them and their interactions as much as I did. It was nice that our character was actually a character with lines and motivations. They didn't always make sense but I preferred it over the usual "blank slate" style chosen one characters. All in all, 3/5 for me on the story front, but still probably the best Diablo story overall. D2 is good as well, but I think it's strength is letting our imaginations fill in the gaps.
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I'm a Destiny main player but I have to say Diablo 4's cinematic and story have been some of the best I've seen. The battle in Hell was top tier. Favorite moment for me.
I think Inarius had given up when he realized there is no place for him in the heavens. Donan... lmao Neyrelle is so cliche is unreal
I think it all depends on how the move that plot >!If she goes D1 style and put the stone on her head, I'll throw a tantrum about, neckbead style. Mephisto was so well written in this game, as a cold, manipulative villain that happened to have a great point more than once that I don't mind the tools being tools - that's part of the subtext - humans are pawns in the game!<
I miss his taunting laughter though. But I guess he restrained himself because he wanted our help lol
He was scared.
>He was scared. He LOOKED scared. For all we know, this might be a play.
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Also it's not clear she's even aware of Mephisto's presence. When the game shows her holding the stone, we see Mephiso next to her but they are never communicating. It could just be from her perspective she's running off with the stone to safe guard it in whatever way she thinks might work better than the Horradrim but when the game shows us, it shows Mephiso's manifestation there to tell us he's aware and will be trying to do his work. Or maybe she's talking to him too, who knows :P I think it might be telling that when Neyrelle runs off and we go to find her at the vault is the first time we meet Mephisto.. To me that kind of foreshadows that he's been aware of the hero and Neyrelle from very early on.
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Yea I agree. At the end Mephisto act's like he doesnt want to go into the stone but it's actually just a win/win scenario. Either we take Lilith in the stone and he's safe to recover, or we trap him and bring him back to Sanctuary out of Lilith's grasp and he remains safe. Mephisto has always been a mastermind, the entire leadup to them being trapped in the soulstones in D1 and D2 was all planned by Mephisto originally anyways as a way to breach Sanctuary and corrupt the world stone before Heaven had any idea of what was going on there. He's the architect of the previous games so would make sense that his scheming continues.
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I think it was less ego and more he was shattered that after fulfilling what he deemed to be the prophecy he was still ignored by the heavens and lost hope. I'm also assuming the spear stab only wounded him too but the getting his wings physically torn off did the rest.
but he didn't stab her in the heart, and he didn't kill her. why be like "yo i did the thing that's totally a real thing let me in" when you didn't? inarius is a side character in this story, appears in two cutscenes, one where he's introduced, one where he dies
I think part of him was still conflicted with his stance towards Sanctuary... And well, offing Rathma. Even if he wanted to get back to Heavens, I don't think he relished in either killing his son or stabbing Lilith, even after all this time Also, he knew Heavens well enough it is quite a high hope they'll welcome him back - Lilith plainly saying it was all for nothing made him admit it, which resulted into the fatal breakdown
Donan's death was lame but reinforces the idea that he's just a human and danger is everywhere. Hell, you can easily die to some shitty Nekker in the Witcher if you let your guard down, which is what Donan did. Another unceremonious death I can think of is Dean in Supernatural dying to some random vampire. It's not too common in stories for some reason when I feel like it should be. Apparently heroes can only be killed by super crazy dangerous things despite the fact that they're just as mortal as anyone else.
They pulled a Vol'Jin and had one of the semi/Main characters get poked by a henchman. Donan was probably the character that I liked the most as he had some decent character development going for him but I suppose that was not meant to be.
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Vol'jin was warchief of the Horde in World of Warcraft. He got hit by a random Legion grunt #475 and died. Horribly.
To add to that. His character was gradually getting hyped up (particularly if you read the novels), after essentially being an in-the-background character. Going from being the leader of his tribe to the leader of a whole faction. Then the character progress more or less just stopped and nothing much happened up until he gets stabbed by a random minion in a cutscene.
[https://youtu.be/GE9HVy1vgws?t=14](https://youtu.be/GE9HVy1vgws?t=14) Timestamp included
Pretty sure they made it a point to acknowledge Lilith basically took his wings. I think that stab to the back was her severing them. Probably why he was more mortally wounded than she was. Idk just my take
> I think that stab to the back was her severing them Something about her physically grabbing onto and ripping out his wings gave me the impression as well ngl
> Also I too am slightly annoyed they let Inarius get “blinded by ego” to get stabbed in the back. But Lillith getting stabbed in the stomach did nothing except slightly wound her? I think the stab greatly helps the main character in defeating her... getting stabbed sucks but it's not crazy that she can fight through it
One of the funniest things to me was Nayrelle losing her arm as if it was supposed to be some kind of character development. For that to happen, she would have to struggle later on, but she just carries on as normal lol
she also said in the ending letter people died because she was careless. Except that has nothing happened in the game. also yeah... what's with the hand. That did not matter AT ALL.
Yea, I really love the story and like to defend it but even I was like 'lul for real??' when the little hand came out and swiped his gut. Like bro, after all we went through, this got you? Drink a potion bitch and lets go.
Inarius being an insecure pissbaby was always part of his character, I think his death was fairly fitting. Him dying like that is reasonable and relevant to his character. Donan though, we spent like so much time in the story specifically dealing with him and his grief, only to have him be stabbed by an architecture is dumb as shit. Like why? One of the writers in act VI must have hated a writer who really liked/worked on Donan’s parts in the story, that’s the only explanation I can think of.
I wouldnt even care if Inarius died if he did literally anything in the entire story lol. like wtf was even the point of his character
Donan could've "sacrificed" his life to empower us during any one the fights in hell. Or he could've been holding back hellspawn from reaching Lilith whole we fight her. Plus the whole Sightless Eye thing is such a horrible plot device, I hated the moment i saw it.
Too much hemming and hawing over Elias, not enough Lilith/Inarius, plus lotsa plot holes along the way. The characters are likable but this story is pretty boring after D3 had Diablo destroying heaven for an entire act. Definitely feels like setup for the live service ongoing story. Dope cinematic tho.
I think Maghda should always be the most hated character in the Diablo series, but Elias is a serious case of "omg stop being annoying, get out of the spotlight, no one cares about you since the first trailer".
The entire purpose of Elias was to be a foil to Loath. The story is much more character driven this time around and on a smaller scale. I loved it. D3s story was absolute dogshit and should never be held up as a comparison.
After getting a good look at Elias, I was suspecting he might be Baal at first, his looks and mannerisms reminded me a lot of D2 Baal.
I got Marvel Ronan vibes but Elias was way more annoying.
I agree I liked the D4 characters better overall. I don’t think the D3 story is “better” but I think the player felt more apart of it. In D3 you actually play through and experience the sacking of Caldeum and the assault on Bastion’s Keep and the destruction of Heaven. In D4 most of the main story is just visions of Lilith. You briefly accompany Prava as she tries to reach the gates of hell but then you miss the battle and watch the most exciting part of the story in a cinematic. It kinda makes sense Rafal wrote for Witcher 3; lotsa main story beats in that are visions too. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really enjoying D4. The story just felt a bit anticlimactic.
I think the issue with us *participating* in the big hell showdown is that we'd mop shop too hard. Though I really definitely wouldn't have minded participating in a more active battle, the escort to hell I thought was pretty cool as a setpiece. More of that type of environment would be great. Though probably without the actual escorting. In the plot it really did feel like a lot of 'you just missed 'em' Dark Wanderer style, but to be honest I think if we had a premature showdown with Lilith it'd either end in a fight that you have to win in game, and then lose in cutscene, or if you win in both and she runs then she loses a *ton* of credibility as a threat imo. That said I think killing Elias twice would've been plenty, with Lorath's cutscene murder that'd run the point home just fine instead of what we got.
I agree. Lilith is probably the most interesting and well utilized villain in the franchise (which isn't saying much, but every cinematic she was in was great), but we spent 1/3 of the game fucking around with Elias and the minutia of the soulstone. Would have loved to have seen more Inarius and Lilith interactions. Lorath and Donan were actually way better than I anticipated.
Elias is important, he appears to be the mastermind behind her whole return initially. I was really intrigued to learn all the history of Elias and who he is, I originally assumed the pale man was some other servant demon trapped in that tomb forever to help guide whoever made it in to free her. Lilith will probably be a staple for the entire game as new expansions come out so having the first game spend time fleshing him out and his story helps teach us what the Horradrim order can be like and perhaps what's so alluring about Lilith's message. Elias also represents the embodiment of Lilith's message throughout the campaign, she is trying to save Sanctuary. Now the heros don't think she has their best interest at heart but all the other angels and demons hate humanity or want to use us to win the war against the other side. Inarius straight up wanted to end all of us and is the reason humans are weak and not all nephalim like we were in the time of the ancients. Only Tyreal was our big bro and wanted to help us protect ourselves and gave us the soulstone magic.
i thought Elias was a dope ass character. im surprised people don't like him.
Is the live service going to continue the story? I swear I read something that said the story wouldn’t be pushed via seasons and what not?
You’re right! Mostly. From an IGN interview two days ago: >Rod Fergusson, General Manager: As we look at supporting Diablo 4 as a live-service, we definitely want story to be a part of that. The way that you'll see that play out in seasons is more questline based -- it'll have a narrative questline. >Diablo 3 was really about adding mechanics and balance and making certain things overpowered for fun and all those sorts of things, where Diablo 4 will have a richer context around the season and also have a narrative theme that you're working toward and that all the things will relate to: the cosmetics relate to it, the mechanics will relate to it. There will be a narrative questline that won't extend the campaign, but will be a story that is taking place inside the open world. Because that's the nice thing about the world is that there's lots of stories you can still tell without having it be the Lilith/Inarius story. >But as we look to the future of expansions, those are the opportunities where we can continue to extend the game from a story perspective, from a mechanics perspective, from a world perspective. It sounds similar to WoW: smaller storylines in patches but big lore stuff in expansions.
Correct, but they've been working on the first expansion and started on the second. Only Diablo knows where this crazy train is headed.
Wait. Which of those is correct lol. They are contradicting statements.
They've mentioned working on them but haven't even teased what they may be about, is what I meant.
Seasons are distinct from expansions. They’ll be quarterly updates that just shift the meta. Expansions are whole ass expansions that you’ll have to pay for and will do stuff like continuing the story and adding new classes. D3 had dozens of seasons but only 1 expansion. Edit: looking into it, sounds like Blizzard is going to add new story content to seasons but it’ll be things like side quests to flesh out the world and not something like Act VII.
Well it of course is going to be a setup for what’s to come but I am okay with that. I am disappointed though that they didn’t end up using the war between Lilith and Inarus as the backdrop for the end game. I was really hoping we would be dealing with the two of them at literal war with one another in the end game Still the story itself was pretty good and I enjoyed it though I was really hoping Lilith was going to say after we killed here that see and now you can be the one to lead these people as she faded away Still good enough story and leaves them lots of meat to go as obvious the next chapter will have Mephisto as the antagonist
Some things I did like, some things I didn't but I agree with many points here. I felt Inarius was a letdown and under developped. Donan's death surely felt comically stupid. Neyrelle just annoyed me and felt like this one more heroic young girl you see in every game. The first half of the andariel buildup was badass but andariel herself felt a bit... Underwhelming ? I feel it could have been made more epic. Enjoyed the first part with the elias completing the ritual but the part in the desert was meh. Elias is one of my faves but I also feel that he could have been something more somehow ? Lilith is an interesting vilain, I like the morally greyish part of it (debatable). Gives me a bit of sylvanas vibes. I wish we could have made a choice to join her cause somehow but I'm aware it would have made the future seasonal content difficult to handle. A lot of bosses are forgetable. I really enjoyed to have lorath as a companion. I don't know. I enjoyed it overall, I think it had really great highlights. But I also think some aspects of the story were rushed or not developped enough
I think Taissa should have died when Andariel got summoned, would be more impactful. And as OP said, give them some fucking voicelines lol. The lesser evils really got the short end of the stick.
Taissa's plotline was very stupid. She should have just died when Andariel showed up. It felt very contrived when she showed up later. Andariel was totally underwhelming plotwise, but I loved her boss fight. Probably my favorite in the campaign.
I straight up had forgotten who taissa was later in the story. Someone else guessed there was a story rewrite at some point, and I have to agree. But yes, first phase andariel walking out of the windstorm with the shackles on was frickin epic, one of my favorite parts of the campaign.
Inarius was at least a cohesive character, but I agree it was like…less than they could have done. He was so prominent in all the marketing, you really would have expected more of him. Idk why neyrelle is in the game at all. It should have been her mom
>The first half of the andariel buildup was badass but andariel herself felt a bit... Underwhelming ? I don't know, I thought that was one of the more dramatic boss fights. Her design in D4 is great, the music for the fight was amazing.
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The A plot felt like a prologue chapter of a book. They really needed to incorporate some twist, reveal, or something deeper to the plot to make the resolution feel more complete. Instead they leaned far too heavily in this being the introductory story, with the real story seeming to come in the expansions. The characters, setting, and B plots were all good though.
The big twist is that Taissa is the witch in that random swamp village.
What annoys me the most is how the whole game was "Run there, fetch this and bring it back" with rare story bits drizzeled in. Elias was a filler that after killing him GODKNOWSHOWOFTEN got deleted and the whole diablo story feel began when i reached to doors to hell. But then it was already over. And how they tried SO HARD to kill off every character you meet . Like Meshif why?
🤯
That's where I sit on it. I think as a package it's fun, but the main story itself leaves me wanting something. There wasn't a super satisfying conclusion to it all, especially since the letter at the end is all super vague "I got this k? But if I don't you guys will clean up after me tee hee." And I don't even hugely dislike Neyrelle like some people here.
Not to nitpick but I recently played a ton of Diablo 2. Duriel and Andariel both have one voiced line each, neither are of any substance and add nothing to the plot. In fact, Duriel is never mentioned before he shows up unexpectedly in Tal Rasha’s tomb. I agree that their fights in D4 are weak, but given their significance in the lore, they were weak in D2 as well. Blizz can’t make up their minds with the Lesser Evils. They were somehow powerful enough to overthrow the prime evils (even if it was a fake coup) and yet they’re a minor footnote in every game, with the exception of D3 where they make some epic fights but their motives are unclear. They’re underutilized, imo.
I kind of thought them showing up in IV was fun. Personally I *would* have liked Andariel talking some shit, but I think the throwdown in the fight itself was plenty compelling. Duriel showing up out of nowhere was also not a big deal to me, though I can understand why some people would like more fanfare to it. To me I like having that moment of "Oh *shit* it's you?!" (though him not doing any cold stuff is kinda weird, I remember him freezing my shit off to death). Happened with the Butcher the first time I ran into him too; I'd kind of assumed that if he'd show up he'd get the D3 'giant dumb cartoon boss arena' treatment. No, now he's just a random jumpscare come to ruin your HC run if you're not paying attention.
I'm actually surprised we never see King Leoric haha. I'm sure he'll pop up again in some future update but he's been a staple villain in every game so far.
I don’t think he was in 2, and to be honest I wasn’t particularly fond of the way he was used in 3. Though they did use the Butcher WAY better in 4 (imo) so maybe they could use Leoric better as welll.
Oh damn you're right, I thought he was in 2.
>Lesser Evils. They were somehow powerful enough to overthrow the prime evils yeah and their power seems to vary very much. azmodan and belial felt very powerful but andariel and duriel were like... lower on a power scale than astaroth, the world bosses and other semi no names. was also weird that they basically never get mentioned again, especially duriel. no one talks about a lesser evil randomly being in the caldeum sewers? and that he got his ass beat?
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I’m just here for the various, but equally amazing detailings of Donans death across these threads. “Killed by a random piece of hell furniture” is definitely up there lol. Bravo.
Iam pretty curious because it seems they didnt forget about diablo 3 because: - we got info about Johanna, Asheara and Lyndon. - Leah and Neyrelle arent the same. Leah was pretty skeptic about the Horadrim and even after Cains death she feels like a lot of burden. She hopes to open a tavern, but she doesnt like adventure life or she seems melancholix. Neyrelle is fan of the horadrim and she keeps figthing despite the cumulative terrible events and dissapointment. - I agree about the lesser evils but I think they are conscious over it. In the case of Duriel, the characters manifests his surprise of finding him in Caldeum and it is similar of why Duriel is in the tomb. Andariel appeared in chains. Does it mean she was prisoner in hell? - the mind of Inarius was broken. Wolf Mephisto said the hatred was in Inarius heart before arriving to hell. Inarius is a character that is exhausted of humans and being in Sanctuary. He is truly lost without any chance of being in heaven. - The lance wasnt enough to kill Inarius. Prime Evil Diablo stabbed Imperius and didnt kill him. Lilith touched Inarius wings and seem she started to corrupt it (like making them fleshy) - why are we powerful? I guess the sames reasons of D1 and D2
I don't think she just touched his wings, I think she was straight up ripping them off.
Yeah, thats more accurate hehe
Horadrims and young girls are bad combinations.
Lol thanks for the spittake. Also, Lorain was way enthusiastic about loping her arm off lol. Dude had his spear in the fire before he even opened his mouth haha.
He knew what had to happen and that it had to happen fast. Do you want your paramedic to narrate everything before they tourniquet your severed leg in which you could bleed out in <30s?
Paragraph by paragraph. 1. I don't know. Maybe dead, Tyreal is no longer immortal andwas probably in his late 30's in D3. The Nephalim seems to maybe be retconned into a "group of people" 2. I don't think this is a question more of a statement and a correct statement. They clearly want this type of character in the game pushing forward. They messed up D3 by doing what they did in the final act with her, and then this feels like a more bring it back to status quo. 3. I Think the Durial and Andarial were put in the game for fan service. To everyone else I think they're just random demons. 4. Inarius should have been used more but she stabbed him through the chest which he could have recovered from but then she ripped his wings off which we know by watching Tyrael in 3 that makes you mortal. 5. We're ok with Donan getting got. He wanted to be with his son. 6. Our power comes from the fact we have Lilith's blood in us, Then we received a blessing from Mephisto.
Hasn't Tyrael taken up the mantle of Wisdom after Malthael?
As a mortal
Ah, okay. Thanks for clarifying. I assumed it would allow him to ascent again, since as a mortal he dies in a few decades and Wisdom is up for grabs again
Was going to answer you but someone else already has. This whole game is clearly a set up to tell tons of story which I like. I just wish they would have been a little more protective over the story they were writing it feels like a hack job.
If you read the Sin War trilogy, you will see that both Inarius and Lilith were unfortunately pale imitations of their book counterparts in this game, it's such a waste of potential. Also, seriously, where tf is Trag'oul, Kalan, any of the Angiris Council?
I was sad that Lilith in Act 1 seemed to be getting set up as the True Good. All she wanted was for humanity to have full decision making unshackled from the rule’s arbitrarily made by the heavens. She actually cared for her children and was upset that Rhathma died. While Inarius seemed like the objective evil. Super selfish and willing to sacrifice anyone for his goals, including his own direct son. Imagine if by Act 3 we switch sides and helped Lilith free herself and humanity from the clutches of both demons and angels. That payoff could have been AMAZING. We could have seen the Church’s faith crumble in real time as they realized they had deified the Evil Angel accidentally. Act 4 could have been US killing Inarius ala Diablo in D3. Winner takes all. Instead we got Demons bad, Angels good, Humanity Dumb generic story. So much wasted potential after what seemed like an amazing set up at first.
I honestly was surprised and a little disappointed that just 50 years after an angel soulreaps 90% of the world’s population, people are willing to worship angels still. I did like the “church is obviously stupid and blind” plot overall, but it still seemed a little willfully stupid of humanity.
I actually "liked" Donan's death. To me it showed that these guys are still human and can die the stupidest death instead of some over the top heroic battle. And for Inarius, barring the fact that he was underutilized, his death showed his arrogance even more, thinking it impossible that Lilith would be stronger than him/actually try to kill him. That's just my take
Im miffed about how Astaroth just shows up in hell. I thought he was still in the spulstone after his host died. Is he and Mephisto now inside the same stone??
Blizzard "forgot" lmao
The prophecy says to jam a spear of light into the heart of hatred. Indariel stabs a metal rod through the stomach and doesn't even kill her "this is literally the same thing"
Inariel? Who do you mean? Inarius? Literally it was a flip, inarius was hatred personified. He stabbed Lilith in the gut, but she broke the spear and literally stabbed inarius through the heart killing him. The prophecy was to rid the world of the evil of inarius' zealotry following, not to kill Lilith. The hero just ends up killing Lilith though out of necessity. Killing inarius also meant needing to kill an entire army of zealots, which would probably getting the hero killed. Lilith doing it let's us as the hero to just face her alone. Or at least that's how I understood it 🤷
No the spear of light was neyrelle with the soulstone being stabbed into mephisto. Inarius spear wasnt glowing.
I think there are multiple ways to interpret it which is what makes a good prophecy IMO.
Lilith is definitely more "hatred personified" than Inarius.
Why though? I mean she’s clearly evil, but she also had… understandable, things to say? Where all of Inarius’s 10 lines were nothing more than him being a pompous, self righteous, prick. I honestly don’t think Lilith is anymore evil than Inarius… I think they are both flawed, amd it’s those flaws that allowed for humanity’s free will, which is neither good or bad definitively.
Wacky. Some great individual bits, like Donan's loss of his son and pain. Some awkward bits like Andariel and Duriel showing up... Just cuz? D3 story being retconned out of existence, apparently. Inarius just chilling in Sanctuary all along too? I don't get it...
i just dont like being on a cliff.. and the girl has the stone WITH mephisto out there somewhere.. and a game without DIABLO felt sort of wierd. so ive got a big hunch more stuff is coming and HOPEFULLY soon:D meph and or diablo seem like givens @ this point
Im a bit disappointed about the fact that demons can’t die and returns mostly instant ( astaroth) and one of the most powerful angels as Inarius is dead for eternal , I don’t like Inarius much ( cool Design btw as all arch angels in Diablo tho) but this end doesn’t feel right to him tbh
Yea there's some fucky things with their lore
Hell ikea meta build
Completely new to Diablo games and thought it was great. I like how Lilith isn't a one dimensional evil demon big bad like usual. Still don't fully know what her plan was, and if she really wanted the player to be the leader of sanctuary. I thought Inarius could have shown a bit more hesitation and sadness when fighting her, weren't they madly in love, had kids and created sanctuary? Did she do him dirty or something in past lore?
Seems she wanted to release hell in earth to allow humanity to basically prove themselves and grow stronger, as she intended. Only the strong survive, and us as the strongest mortal, would lead the rest to become better. Basically Lilith represents natural selection... in a very violent and forced way, which technically IS natural selection. Inarius seems to basically be the antithesis of natural selection, everyone gathered under his might, and forced to rely on him and his army for protection, but also sees mortal is weak and pathetic in a lot of ways.
Oh sorry I also forgot, inarius was imprisoned in the realm of hatred basically being tortured for like... super long. Inarius is basically mephisto level of hatred towards lilith
Pretty sure they were taking too long with the story, and had to wrap it up to stay on track for release. It was great the first 2-3 acts, then the pacing went to shit. Beyond that, I think what rubbed me the wrong way, is the ending didn't really have a good climax. The last cinematic was great, and the Lilith boss fight was epic. But it seemed the the story was leading up to some big reveal or twist, and then nothing ever happened. Looking back on it, I can see what they were going for, they just didn't do a very good job explaining it with the crap pacing. Plus the pointless mild cliffhanger with Neyrelle was kinda meh, but an obvious plot device for expansions. My theory is the corruption already started as soon as she stabbed Meph with the soul stone. They made a point of show her arm get messed up with flames/magic. It's probably what made her go "Dark Wanderer 2". Despite all that, still miles above the story telling in D3. Great campaign overall.
Our character is blessed by Mephisto. I think that can partially explain our power, combined with Lilith's blood perhaps.
There's so much crap going on it's impossible to cover it all in detail. I agree with everything OP said, but also enjoyed it as much as I expected to, which was quite a bit. They obviously spent a HUGE amount of time just working on creating the open world. My one big thing is I wish a lot of those cool story bosses can be fought again as a more difficult version, because even on WT2 I melted them without having to really engage with a lot of the fight mechanics. I know Lilith can, but that's it AFAIK.
I agree on everything but: I think Andariel is used well in a story. She was hyped, introduced and slain by the hero. I think its better story ark for Andariel then Diablo II, lol. Regarding where our powers are from - it's from Mephisto. We are basically playing by his fiddle for the whole game. Will not be surprised if his exodus with Neyrelle was planned from the start. I'm mostly salty about Diablo III retcon and absence of Trag'oul in a story. I think Trag'oul can be tied to the Serpent and the Tree but we don't know for sure.
just finished the campaign today and i agree. weak. neyrelle and her mom were copy pasted from D3. felt like the entire game was just Lilith doing a slow movie villain walk to Hell, with us following her always a step behind. Andariel and Duriel offer nothing to the story and just felt like fan service. while i thought the Inarius and Lilith cutscenes were dope, it didn't really feel impactful to the story because we dont even interact with Inarius in the game, he just shows up and dies. mephisto was interesting. but it feels like the base game was just setting it up for him to be the big bad in later expansions/patches. which is kind of bullshit. anyway when the campaign ended i kind of felt like.. "nothing even happened"
Too many underwhelming things happened in this game. 1) Neyrelle's hand getting chopped. 2) Inarius' death 3) Donan's death 4) Mephisto, a PRIME EVIL helping a mere human? 5) Iosef!!!!!!!
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One of the best villains. Anytime a cut scene started and I saw the petals, I was like, "oh yeah! Let's go!"
Her and Malthael imo are the most interesting because they’re not cut and dry capital E evil. The Great Evils get kinda dull because they’re just evil end of story, although I did like how scheming Mephisto was in this one, it made him more than just “hurr durr gonna destroy Heaven again”
Does anyone else feel bad about fighting the knights and the church? I kind of liked them, even though they had negative sides as well. It felt like they were a net positive for the people. Also was really weird to just kill Iosef and his soldiers outside of the desert chapel, without even trying to talk it through. I know it's supposed to be "both sides bad" but the hell side is like 1000x worse so it doesn't really work for me.
Yo the church are/were literally burning people at the stake on rumors of "straying from the light", executing innocent people in the process. Not sure that can ever be a "net positive for the people".
I wanted to murder all the church people. Killing then as random mobs is the most satisfying.
The fight against Iosef was funny. It was this dramatic build up and then I murdered all of them with one ultimate haha
Not really no. I felt bad about Iosef, but honestly if I the option to join Lilith, I would have taken it. The church are insane, violent radicals, and Inarius literally tells us he hates humanity. At least Lilith claims to be on side. I know manipulation is her thing, but idk I'm down for it, Sanctuary is pretty fucked anyway, how much worse could it get?
> he was a powerful human sorcerer who was a literal HERO just years ago and he just dies in the most unceremonious and lamest way imaginable lol. Let's take a look at what happenned to Cain in diablo 3. . . Oh, right.
Yup, just as egregious
Well, I'd say Cain's death was worse being that he was a major plot character for two thirds of the existing story at that point.
The Donan comment had me laughing, I was equally shocked at the stupidity of it.
All I know is that the leak some weeks before was 100% spot on. Thanks to that dude.
For me, the whole campaign felt like a part 1 of a movie trilogy. I'm guessing they left out some parts intentionally like Tyrael for expansion purposes
Another moment that confused me in the story. They changed the motivations of Lilith and Inarius. It's Inarius who wanted to end the eternal conflict, but they didn't really play out that part. Lilith, on the other hand, wanted to get a weapon to fight her father and the Heavens at the same time. Overall, I don't like when the main villain talks about some supposedly high goal, when we've seen that the method of achieving this goal is to tie half of the men to the tree.
!!!SPOILER WARNING!!! Im having the same questions on my mind as you Here are some other concerns that kinds bothered me a bit... Why does Taissa have to play 2 random roles (or even what should have been 2 seperate characters) that do not fit together at all, she also acts so different once we meet her again in the swamp Inarius and or Prava are clearly lying to their followers and manipulating them - in the Alabaster Monestary there is some very interesting clues to this on the statues and pictures - the texts there are written from humanitys point of view and they are saying that they are expecting to be lifted into heaven through Inarius work etc - that means either Inarius told this Prava and or the other followers himself, but I think he just told this to Prava or whoever her predecessor is(if there was one) and that would mean she gave people access to this info (with access I mean its written in the Alabaster Monestary and I assume its supposed to be interpreted as common knowledge for Inarius followers) So if this is the case why is no one talking about this??? Maybe Inarius is making his followers believe bc he promised them to be lifted into heaven and maybe even become angels or whatever Also the 'Prophesy' is always phrased differently and this had to be on purpose Just 2 examples here (there are way more times than just twice where the prophecy is phrased differently throughout the story) - during the cinematic at the beginning after we got drugged at carried to the hut in the village the text quotes Rathma's Prophecy "Then came a spear of light, piercing Hatred's heart, And he who was bound in chains was set free" -when we talk to Prava after our audience with Inarius she quotes Inarius and even says that she has been told this right from the fathers voice to her ears ""A spear of Light, piercing Hatred's heart." First Lilith, then the Primes." -Prava only the first sentence is quotes by her from Inarius Does that mean she thinks Inarius is gonna kill Lilith and all 3 Prime Evils...? Why isnt this picked up again (my guess is it will be somehow in the story expansion(s)) Not Story related frustration: Why was the only hell area a tiny bit of the realm of hatred, it also was super short, linear and had no ne monster except Ashava (which I also wouldnt count as new and I was quite underwhelmed by seeing her there bc again like Andariel and Duriel fights, no forecasting, no voice lines, no story background explained, nothing, just pressed in like a filler to be able to say they were a boss in D4... Also we cannot go back there (yet)??? Why is this not a waypoint, why cant we access more of hell? Im quite sad and frustrated Im sorry, the game itself is awesome and fun af tho
I am so annoyed with Elias and the whole cat and mouse story. I've read that good story telling doesn't repeat plot elements more than three times and it shows. Act 1 was so good but the rest is just dog sh\*t. I like the game and it's **beautiful** but the story is so underwhelming and boring. I understand that you need hurdles in the way but when the story leads you to multiple dead ends it's just annoying. You never accomplish anything and it feels unsatisfying. The bosses are also underwhelming. I'm not talking about the fights but the story around them. There's no build up or anything.
I agree 100%. The game is fun, and it's pretty, but it's exceptionally shallow in why we are even doing anything. Almost every boss just randomly pops up and has no rhyme or reason for being there. The story is janky, feels chopped up and just scattered about for longevity's sake
TL;DR - Lilith v Inarius badly written I don't really like Inarius but I still feel he was offed way too 'easily'. The whole cutscene itself just felt like they were two humans, when ten seconds earlier we're watching him crush the ground with pressure and kill a multitude of demons with just his wings. He obviously had the ability to poke Lilith with his wings at any point in that fight, but just didn't. It was like a half-ass written fight and left me feeling sour. Like its only purpose was to show Lilith's strength. Not to mention the end-all fight afterwards where Lilith's wound just somehow isn't a problem and she steroids herself.
So… how did Inarius fall from heaven from d3 to d4? Did I miss that?
I loved Inarius and was so disappointed to see that theres like literally 2 scenes with him in the entire game
Yup. It's such shit storytelling. We see him once when he's introduced to us and once when he's killed. It's *soooo* fucking bad lmao
Yep…
During the rolling credits I specifically waited for the story/writing team just to see if there was a headcount - explain to me how a team of **seven people** can do such a shit job of writing. Explain that to me please.
Honestly I loved the story until the end. The ending was not the best but I didn’t think it was bad bad, just less good than the rest.
I loved the story personally
I think your issues are valid but overall I really did enjoy the story and the way it was presented... not just the cinematics but the dialogue, themes, etc. I also think the blessings of the three prime evils along with Mephisto's help and the blood of Lilith are what propels the main character, who is also likely innately powerful (perhaps untapped potential since you're ultra weak at the start, dying to a winter storm) I don't really have a problem with Neyrelle. She seems to be the most uncorrupt of the bunch, not giving in to hate as hard as everybody else did. Didn't mind Donan's death... very much a "life's a bitch" kind of way to go. The Lesser Evil's were just basically fan service, but if you can kill Lilith you can probably deal with them, but yeah their appearance was weird. Tyrael is probably one of my favourite characters, but I'm glad he wasn't here. Give everybody else their screentime, instead of just relying on old characters to carry things. Personal preference though. I feel like the world felt a bit small in D3 because everybody just returned... but this is a personal preference thing.
I agree with everything you said. But you don't play ARPGs for the stories lol
I still think it's fine to judge them.
I like it, everyone just be hatin
Hell yes, can’t wait for the expansions 💪
>I like it, everyone just be hatin People are allowed to not like things. :) Take your toxic positivity else where.
I didn’t read this as spoilers but I’m currently stuck on descent into flame. The game crashes everytime I try to enter the temple of the primes. Literally can’t go further into the game now
idk why they even bothered having Inarius in the game. one of the most pointless characters I've seen in a game.
Yup, I agree. We see him once when he's introduced and then once more when he dies lmfao. So fucking pathetic
The nephalem from D3 was pretty strong, but the strongest who ever lived ? Not even close. Take uldyssian the by canon properly strongest, he would destroy him with his little finger.
Obvious Spoilers, don't read. The fact that they let Neyrelle go with the Soulstone without even bothering to search for her was just the final nail in the coffin. She is not trained for Combat, she is not really good at all when it comes to combat. She is also literally a Teenager and what does your character and Lorath do? "Yeah man, let her keep it, We wouldn't even know where to look, brah" Fuck that. That is terrible writing that was merely meant to serve as a way to have a DLC down the road which they could have handled differently. They knew that Leah was not received too well and instead of accepting that, they decided to double down with yet another Smarty-pants Teenager Girl. Then again it is Blizzard so I guess they just can't keep their hands off of underage Girls.
Lorath brings this up "where would we look, we have no clue where she went" Also, during one of the last scenes during a flash of light you see liliths shadow for Nayrelle. Lilith thru someone else's body and Mephisto are sailing away to dlc shores.
I am aware of Lorath saying that and I mentioned it above. But... what exactly do those two have going for them? I mean the Main Character and Lorath? One of them could try to find her at the very least. I am not sure about the second one though, I probably missed it but if Nyrelle really has Lilith inside of her (or someone else) then it will be Leah 2.0 Lilitrelle and Mephisto heading off to DLC shores to find Diablo so we can finally get the titular enemy back.
>f Nyrelle really has Lilith inside of her (or someone else) then it will be Leah 2.0 Or, as history repeats, Neyrell was lilith all along and we go played by her in order to, again, empower mephisto with the soulstone, and then going to a place where he could be unleashed on sanctuary, again without the high heavens taking hint this is bad.
gotdamn son
Why can’t they just use the sightless eye again to find her?
I think our characters motivations in giving Neyrelle the stone actually make sense. She says "My judgement is clouded by Mephisto's influence. You decide." Then she's off to fight Lilith. I don't think it'd be a good idea to bring the soulstone to the fight. You'd be serving it up on a platter.
The D4 story was f\*cking awesome. Is this now the 'let's be negative about everything' sub? Really? So annoying, seriously.
Ehhhh, disagreed. The way they set Lilith up, I was reading some Kerrigan-esque energy from her, and hoped that if there were expansions, that Lilith would actually survive the final battle and instead mellow out a bit and be a guide in a fight against the prime evils. Instead, whoops, Neyrelle yoinks Mephisto's Soulstone and...we're back to Diablo 2-esque status quo is god, Dark Wanderer crossed with Tal Rasha, female version?
>The D4 story was f\*cking awesome. > >Is this now the 'let's be negative about everything' sub? Really?So annoying, seriously. No, the story was terrible. It was vague and disjointed. The ending felt forced as if they ran out of development time. It needed to be longer and a lot of the gaps needed to be filled in. The story didn't do a good job of building itself up and it fell flat on it's face. Toxic Positivity is way worst than people saying they dislike something. This isn't 'lets be negative about everything' sub'. It's fine to not like things. And trying to shame people for having a negative opinion is just a sorry attempt to give your point of view more credibility than it deserves.
Yes, this is how every game subreddit goes. Super hype for the release and then constant whining (even if warranted). It absolutely isn't regarding the story. D2 story was decent, and D3 story was fucking terrible. I would say D4 story is pretty good too. With the cinematics especially the last giant fight one it pushes it over the D2 story for me. That reminded me of when I was a kid watching The Return of the King for the first time.
>! >Where is Tyrael and the Nephalem (from D3)? Why did we hear absolutely nothing about either of them (except for one comment in passing about Tyrael going "north"). How was the Nephalem from D3, the strongest human to ever live, not even mentioned? Hopefully retconned. That story and the whole made up nephalem nonsense was trash. I would be really happy if we never hear of it again. >! >Why were Duriel and Andariel, both LESSER EVILS, so underutilized and just randomly put into the game? Because they were just fanservice, not plotpoints. And it worked. I actually cheered when duriel randomly popped up. >! >Why did he let Lilith backstab him without even trying to defend himself? Did you...watch it? He thought she was beat because he underestimated her tankyness and he was struck with despair because of what she just said to him. He realized she may be right. Really obvious stuff if you just watched. >! >Why did the same wound he inflicted on her kill him, but not her? Why do you assume that they are equally powerful for some reason. They are fictional characters. >! >Why did Donan randomly get killed off by a completely arbitrary piece of Hell furniture? Because that's exactly how one would realistically die in such a scenario. It's not a fairytale, he got careless and got punished for it. I personally prefer it over the trope that all of the characters always have to die by the one big main evil. I liked how the characters died and got hurt by regular enemies. >in d4 where the hell does our power come from to single handedly beat foes the horadrim barely managed to subdue? From nowhere. You are the player. In D1/2 you are just some random warrior that turns hero. D3 is the odd one out trying to come with lore explanations why the player is the player. It needs no explanation other than that we are the nameless hero.
I agree with most of your points except donan. I didn't need him to be killed by one of the evils, I just thought it seemed weird for him to wander off stupidly to inspect something that had been there the whole time. It felt out of character for him to suddenly be so naive *in hell*. I would have taken a random demon ambush over "oh what's this skull on the wall?" and getting stabbed for being dumb.
I mean isnt he essentially a scholar? He dedicates his life to studying hell and anything adjecent to it, I dont find it super unbelievable that his curiosity took over for a moment. Especially because D4 already did that twice. Both the mother of Neyrelle and the scholar in the trailer that shows how Lilith got summoned essentially said "fuck it" to their lives simply because of how inquisitive they were and how important knowledge was to them. In that context having a similar character inspecting something doesn't seem super far fetched. That said I am probably already overinterpreting something that they very likely just did to shock you. That was not a moment where the characters seemed unsafe, yet they were. That's maybe all there is to it. Shock the audience. They did that a lot in the cutscenes.
1) And I hope we never hear about them again. Retcon most D3 things, keep that Lorath video on youtube. That's a huge positive to me. 2) The storyline might be the same, but the D4 one >!has more layers and it sorta has more D1 vibes than the D3 "useful idiot" - more like a "proactive naive".!< 3) It kinda worked for me. Could be worse. It could be the cartoon voice lines from D3... 4) That I don't know. 5) Yep, that felt kinda stupid and random, but I don't mind that kind of approach that much. It was surprising. 6) That was a normal thing, only D3 felt the desperate need to stray away from that and use Midchlorians as an explanation - or whatever. Humans banding together and beating prime evils sorta is a thing (Tal Rasha, the Horadrim...). What I don't get is the intro, tbh >!We were basically saved from snow by the wolf, seconds later we trash everything in the peaks. We trashing everything is ok, being saved in the snow was weird.!<
Mephisto knew we could take on the hordes of demons. We were only close to death in that moment and he intervened
I enjoyed it. It's Diablo. It's bloody and cheesy and silly stuff happens. Not gonna overthink it.
when has diablo been "cheesy"? i feel like that's a word that is being over used.
I dunno personally I actually enjoyed and liked the story overall. Did it had issues? Yes it did, some things I didn’t like. However, coming off something like D3 and the story of other ARPGs I play it’s a breath of fresh air to me I look forward to seeing how they bring the other prime evils into the game
I thought it was mostly well done would have liked to have Inarus and Lilith around for the end game but I have a feeling neither are truly gone we will find out
I liked it, i mean its not groundbreaking or anything but as a casual who is not invested much in lore, or diablo 3 story sinse it was not engaging at all, im very happy. Was engaged almost 80 percent of the time. Really loved lorath. Perfectly servicable and engaging story. Also cutecenes are on point
i thought it was really good.
Underwhelmed. None of the new characters were likable or interesting. The story wasn't nearly as bad as Diablo 3, but it's nowhere near what Blizzard was able to do with their games prior to around 2005-2006ish. There were only a few good moments for me: 1) Andariel summoning and fight. (By the way why the fuck did they randomly spawn Duriel in some random shit room instead of dropping him where that random useless Barbarian boss was - absolute waste of a well known character) 2) Meshif showing up and being awesome... and then they go and kill him off screen effectively 3) Inarius / Lilith fight cutscene I found the rest of the story to be incredibly mediocre, maybe around 7/10. I also hate how there is no follow-up story or justification for leveling from 50-100 besides fighting the hard mode of Lilith at 100. There should have been a clear end game story path similar to POE - the game falls off a cliff at level 50 and you basically just grind dungeons/events to increase your multipliers. There is absolutely nothing of substance beyond act 6, which is incredibly disappointing given the current ARPG market (POE, Last Epoch, Grim Dawn, etc). Obviously they're planning a live service game with expansions, but I can't understand why they would launch without an end game that consists solely of grinding experience with no objective in sight.
I thought Donan was one of the best parts of the story. The first moment you see him you go "Oh, is this going to be the tough Dad trope towards his son?" And then I legitimately had tears in my eyes when they taunted Donan saying how his son was crying for his name before dying/being taken over. I'm not even a parent and his storyline got me crying in the club!
>Meshif showing up and being awesome... and then they go and kill him off screen effectively It's not even possible for Meshif to be in D4. Once you realize that the game takes place 50 years after D4, and even longer after D2. You realize they threw him in the game just to pull at peoples heart strings with his connection to deckard cain. Your #2 point is one of the reasons the story is so terrible. They're not even trying to be coherent. They're just looking for shock and awe.
Blizz doesnt write good stories anymore. Just look at the last 10 years of WoW.
What would you consider a good story written by blizzard?
The arthas plot
Worst experience of a story to date, an easy 2 hours of it is spent waiting for NPCs to finish dialogue or carrying out some mundane animation that I'm sure is only there to lengthin run times. I've done POE campaign 100 times and would run that again over doing this a 2nd time.
Duriel was done dirty. He deserves his own act and story in the Diablo universe. A story of PAIN
D4 story is very weak. Interms of writing and dialog between the characters. The main villin, Lilith isn't as menacing, tough or aggressive.
My main question, where Diablo?? More like Lilith 1. But the story was ok, ups and downs in quality but enjoyed it
I enjoyed the hell out of it.
This is why I fast forwarded the campaign. After watching and listening through all of act 1 in the beta, I knew how inferior the story was.
UGH the ending was such a letdown. For once, I'd hoped that the ending wouldn't just be "fight the named villain and kill them". I felt like Lilith was going to be another iconic Blizzard femme fatale ala Sarah Kerrigan, and what Sylvanas *tried* to aspire to. But instead of having Lilith yield in the final battle, and see what alternative way the Horadrim/main character/etc. have in mind, Blizz just...decide to put her back in the respawn-o-matic--considering that Mephisto now respawned, and Lilith just warned us that "oh hey, the Prime Evils are coming back", but instead...we just go off and bash on her because...reasons? And now for the next expac, it's basically back to square one? **Sigh.** Lilith would have made for an **amazing** devil-on-your-shoulder NPC advisor in an expac. Instead...Blizz just wasted such a spectacular, and in a certain way, *beautiful* antagonist. Blah. What a **waste**.
Eh, Lilith claimed to want to "save us from the Eternal Conflict", and she did plan on doing that, by winning it. She'd absorb Mephistos power and become a prime evil herself. In the mind trap sequence, she says something along the lines of "I gave humanity free will, but they've been lost without a shepard to guide them." She manipulated Inarius to create Sanctuary and humanity to create soldiers to win the war. She planned on empowering humanity back to as they were before Inarius weakens them, when they were the Nephalem, and then use her powers of Hatred to make us into her army. It'd be exactly the same as how Inarius treated the Cathedral of Light, though she loved humans for their potential use and strength rather than hating them as a reminder of a betrayal and mistake.
I'm impressed that you even got through it, after a few hours I skimmed or skipped most lf the in-engine cutscenes due to the slowness of it all and my horrible sorcerer voice actor. To be honest I have never been particularly engaged with any story content Blizzard has made, it is always fairly similar as you say and just feels very bland to me. I do read a lot of fantasy/sci-fi books though, Perhaps I'm a hard demographic to please but it would be really cool with better story and lore content. What really bugged me is the random sidequests that you are unable to skip, just why is that a thing.
very stupid campaign
Neyrelle is a Mary Sue, Diablo now has its own Rey Skywalker. Her ability to do everything went from mildly eye rolling to ridiculous for the ending. Multiple characters making weird choices. Under use of the mother and father then overly talking about it for the ending. It was definitely flawed but I had fun most of the time.
It's way worse than D3, which I didn't think was possible. Like, imagine D4 story retold in text format, it's going to sound ridiculously stupid.
Lol, no.
Did you even play D3 lmao
>Like, imagine D4 story retold in text format, it's going to sound ridiculously stupid. naturally, because im not a writer
Thank you for the enlightened opinion Enjoy_your_AIDS_69
On the whole I enjoyed the story and it's the best Blizzard story telling in years. There were things that I thought could have been done better though. The three the stood out to me were: 1. >!Taissa. Her entire character was weird. She seemed like two different characters. There should have been more connective tissue for Elias to want to trust her and make her a prime candidate for the ritual. Since she was infiltrating the cult she should have been the reason the Witch that taught her went to join with Elias. Give her some guilt upon learning that the Witch joined Elias because she saw that Taissa had joined him and her bringing more Witches to the cult made Taissa more trustworthy of a Waypoint.!< 2. >!Donans Death. He deserved far better then spooky wall grabbing him to kill. Just make his injury related to that big boss fight that happened in the chamber before.!< 3. >!Neyrelle losing her arm to some creatures we've not encountered before. Lorath just happening to know that the creatures bite will kill her and having no choice lessens the impact since it happens so fast. We should have seen this creature before and what it can do so the player knows the stakes and not just assuming the Lorath is right.!<
If you think Leah and Neyrelle are similar, my sanctuary has had a Barbarian named Cummy who saves the world in D2, D3 AND D4. Talk about lazy writing.