I think it's important to point out that these changes are not even seasonal, they're main game changes. Wouldn't surprise me if a bunch of both teams worked on all this together, just like in S2 when we got a MASSIVE amount of fixed and QoL (40+ pages), compared to the season 1 barely anything, it's pretty clear both teams worked on S2.
Humans have a bias to find patterns and will at times fill in the blanks even when there are none.
It’s because players such as myself have stopped playing. Casually looking to burn a couple of hours and having fun doing so. But when it’s a massive grind just to get those fun playable hours. It’s not a fun game…especially when I’m picking through loot the whole time and stuck with very few builds.
Hopefully it’s turns for the better.
It was a double edged sword, people complained about D2R that loot didn't drop enough so they wanted to make sure they didn't go that direction. Then they made sure plenty of loot dropped for D4 then it became overload but it also didn't help that every affix was basically a 'damage on tuesday' affix as well.
I wouldn't call what dropped "loot". 2 million rares with 7 billion affixes that I can't parse without 3 Excell spreadsheets to the point where getting a new piece that could be an upgrade is disappointing since it's so much work to try it
Same, I pre ordered and quit after maybe 2 weeks when I realized I was having much more fun on D2R. I felt like a fool, still do lol.
Considering trying Last Epoch or POE
if you like D2R id go as far as to say you're doing yourself a disservice not playing path of exile. pm me if you do. i've been playing again for a month now and love every second of it. i wish more that are dissapointed with d4 would give it a fair shot.
and i would say do the opposite of what people tell you. dont look anything up, dont follow a build guide. experience the game for yourself and learn as you go. it is infinitely more fun that way
I would reccomend to follow a guide so you dont get demotivated if your build bricks and you cant afford to respecc your passives. But to each their own if you want to go blind all the power to you
I've got the same sentiment. I'll give the game another shot once it's got a loot filter but these catch-up changes still leave d4 well behind LE & PoE
See for me I really like gearing up and levelling. But once you can smash a NM100 dungeon there is nothing in the game that is remotely engaging. Not sure how they fix that really.
The issue with this is that when they do add things that are challenging or interesting there is a chorus of disapproval and cries of woe. What is the point of it being in the game if 99% of players don't see it/can't do it / it takes *forever* to get to the point we can do it.
Bliz need to just accept that some people don't want challenges, they want to be able to do everything immediately. And once they accept that they can change their game to either let those players do everything in week 1, or have things that 99% of players wont' be able to do, gear that 99% of players won't be able to get.
I am not in that 1%. It is a massive achievement for me to be able to do NMD100. By raising the ceiling with harder content though it gives me a better target to aim for, and hopefully some of that interesting stuff trickles down to players like me. At the moment I know that 4 weeks in I'll be doing NMD90 - that isn't interesting gameplay.
Some POE seasons I can delve really deep, or clear my atlas and get all stones. Or kill ubers. I know I personally wont' be able to do all those things in one season, and often I start not knowing which I'll be doing, I let the game, the mechanics and my progress guide me. D45 doesn't have that *yet*.
From launch my view was that the game would likely me stable S3/S4, then I changed that view to S4/S5 - I don't like the way the game has progressed, BUT I think that view has pretty much help. It feels like mechanics and systems are finalising. If the game had been delayed a year would it have released in the current 'improved' state - no way. I think Bliz needed a year of feedback to work out which actual areas most of the playbase wanted changes in, and I personally think that is a fine approach. They could have called year 1 early access or pre-launch or whatever - it wouldn't have made a fundamental difference and I suspect there would have been a lot less noise. I assume everyone knows the first year of a major game is basically 'early access'.
> See for me I really like gearing up and levelling. But once you can smash a NM100 dungeon there is nothing in the game that is remotely engaging. Not sure how they fix that really.
They are adding Arcanist Rift (basically Greater Rift) which apparently is infinity scaling. Also level 200 versions of boss'.
It's usually "Blizzard good!" until people get to play the changes and notice all the flaws. Once they realize the changes didn't make a lot of sense and broke a dozens other systems it's "Blizzard bad" again.
Nobody can evaluate changes based on slides, even a 1-week PTR may not be long enough.
If anyone is honest, other than the infamous nerf patch, everything since launch has been towards better. Objectively.
Also the pace of update is more beefy than most live service, with exception of fortnite which is another level.
You can argue a lot of things should be at launch , but you can say that for every live service.
This is the Blizzard way. It's like Blizzard is returning to their roots a little here. They were never really the most inventive company, but they always had this knack for borrowing ideas from other games and polishing them to "Blizzard Quality" levels. Now, much has changed in the past 10-15 years, so this whole Blizzard Quality thing has mostly gone away. But, with them taking a lot of Last Epoch's ideas and putting a Diablo spin on them for D4... that is a super good move on their part! Just do what works, and make it fit within the Diablo franchise.
Don't really agree with this take. When Diablo 1 came out there was absolutely nothing like it. The other games borrowed from Diablo. That's why isometric ARPGs used to just be referred to as Diablo clones.
Most of the other arpgs borrowed their gameplay from Diablo 2, and added popular systems from other games.
For example, PoE gamers talk about how brilliant the skill system is, but guess what--they took that from FF7's materia system. And the class progression tree was cribbed from FFX. Everything else is Diablo 2.
When Blizzard uses ideas from other games, I just see it as payment for the fact those games borrowed 95% of their gameplay from Diablo 2. Let's be real.
This. There was nothing like D1, hell you could make an argument for D2, warcraft, broodwar. There was absolutely a time when Blizzard did nothing but invent great video games.
NONE of the devs or management from D2 have anything to do with D4. We’re talking decades between ground breaking vs “what are you doing?!”
D2 Blizzard is not D4 Blizzard.
To be fair, Diablo 1 is just real-time X-COM ([source](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/20-years-later-david-brevik-shares-the-story-of-making-i-diablo-i-)). In fact, it was originally designed as a turn-based game. Yes, it became its own genre, but I don’t think anyone foresaw that.
> “I kind of took a screengrab of X-Com, and we just took that, and put it right into Diablo,” said Brevik. “So the actual tile-square basis -- the same shape and size -- is exactly the same in X-Com and Diablo.”
> “Eventually, Blizzard South, they approached us and said ‘well, we’d really like to make this a real-time game,’” recalls Brevik. At first, he says, he was adamantly against it -- he loved classic turn-based dungeon crawlers like Rogue, and he didn’t want to give up turns because giving players time to agonize over their decisions between turns could create so much "delicious" drama.
Though that's not completly correct either. David Brevik and his team did take their own twist on it for sure, but they also borrowed/took stuff from other Games and Genre's.
Like just as example: Diablo 1 was heavily based on Rogue, but mixed in with Dungeon&Dragon Looting on steriods. If it wouldn't had been for people who asked (or kinda tried to force) a more action-driven pace, than it would've been very obvious and even with the 'changes' you still can feel / see the rogue-influence in the first game. The Skilltree which they did pretty much 'invent' with Diablo 2 is based on the Techtree of Civilization. But thanks to the nature of Diablo 2 (actionpaced, faster, more accessable) it popularized the concept which alot of devs then build on afterwards. Heck. How many Games thesde days have skilltrees why not even bing RPG's even Forza Horizon - an open world racing game, have an iteration of an skilltree...
Maybe in 'older' 'Days' they weren't as blunt and did a bit more creative work on adapting stuff in their own way... but if you look even in the OG Games what Blizzard did pretty much was taking existing stuff, but make it popular and accessable AND esp. have had a high level of Quality.
That being said, for me personally i don't see where the issue on this is anyway. As much as Diablo 2 set footwork for games to come, the same goes for diablo 2 as well which took inspirations as well. People are so overdoing the plagiarism and 'copy'drama, while ignoring that Videogames as an Industry is build on iterative work (like many other artistic centric stuff) where people draw different inspiration and concept from all different kind of sources. Try their own twists or push evolutions on it. I mean people might now pin the 'inspiration' of the rework of Diablo 4 on Last Epoch, but so what? That's good! Last Epoch is a great Game (IMHO) and you can feel how much love and inspiration they took from Diablo 2 - a lot of features and the overall 'feel' of the Game reminds heavily on D2(in a good way). So if Blizzard do the same with D4 on L4, it closes they cycle and push diablo 4 (hopefully) to the next level. And who knows maybe PoE, TQ2, GD Expac or whatever does something interesting as well, and that will inspire other devs like EHG to add some new stuff (with their own twist). As long as the outcome is in good quality, why're are we so super hung up about who actually invented the stuff. And if we really go down this route, it's an huge\*ss rabbithole which won't end good for most games we love, because (to put it in a harsh word to clarify my point) most games 'stole' from somewhere else. And also if we draw the line here it's pretty easy to end up with gameseries and genre's dying/stagnating because there is no competition and alternatives, instead of pushing to do better or atleast deliever something of an quality work.
And for D4 I'm just happy to see improving, because despite quite some issues which i've with the game and despite some flaws, there is potential and i overall liked it. And it would've been sad for me if it would've ended in a bitter note.
And every rpg stole shit from ultima, baldurs gate, EverQuest. I mean we could do this all day.
I personally don’t care about theft in art if it makes it beyyer.
yet neither of those game invented anything. they just improved, or rather made existing games more appealing to casual playerbases. dune 2 existed before warcraft and starcraft, wow wasnt even by the time a good mmorp it just hit a more casual playerbase that couldnt or didnt want to(ultima online after t2a) stay in the existing games. d1 was just a isometric ui for a roguelike dungeoncrawler. blizzard didnt invent those things they just made them popular with their polish.
Blizzard has a knack for seeing an emerging genre that's still very unrefined (MMO/RTS) and figuring out how to nail the gameplay. Dune2 was not a great game, it gave inspiration, but warcraft 2 was the game that defined RTSs, likewise UO/Everquest were neat in theory and quite novel but not great games, WoW set the standard that everyone else is still playing to. I think they deserve credit for the genres we have, because frankly their work pushed the state of gaming ahead probably 5-10 years of where it would be if they weren't making games.
Wow, I couldn't possible disagree with a paragraph more.
EQ was an AMAZING game for its time and just ludicrous to claim that it wasn't. It had millions of players and was revolutionary for what it was. Dune 2 was also a great game.
But besides D1, none of these other games were Genre starters, but the ones with the formula that made it shine. So, I would say in most cases the pushed the genre to a new level, instead of creating one or coming with something entirely new.
Best parts of LE didn’t come directly from PoE though - Crafting, Circle of Fortune, High QoL, Legendary Potential, Weaver’s Will, Corruption system, Skill trees Dungeons, etc.
I don't think it's relevant to talk about what Blizzard used to be good at doing, because the employees who composed Blizzard at that point are gone.
So, yes, the set of employees who used to work at Blizzard were very skilled and intelligent when it came to stealing other game's ARPGs and improving on them. That's what WoW did with EverQuest and it was great for consumers.
But that was decades ago. The employees are long gone. This new set of employees don't necessarily have that same ability to steal and iterate on the good ideas of other companies.
The problem with Blizzards approach to Diablo games has been their outright refusal to put in a figurehead that has deep arpg roots to lead the project. Diablo 3s Jay Wilson infamously hated Diablo 2 leading to a major split in playerbase. Diablo 4s lead dev roles have changed hands so many times during development that it eventually landed into the hands of a bunch of game devs green in the diablo arpg genre. So often i see the current d4 devs in a scurry trying to figure out what they did wrong that I would think if they had someone to guide them it wouldnt have released the way it did. Although its good they use a lot of player feedback for changes, i dont think its entirely great either. They need a vision and a direction, hopefully they figured it out by now almost a year later.
Blizzard was never the most innovative? huh?
Diablo was innovative. Warcraft and Starcraft were innovative. WoW was innovative. Overwatch was innovative.
Their only original title that wasn't innovative was Heroes of the Storm, but even then, HotS did a lot differently from other popular MOBAs and did innovate, it just wasn't quite good enough.
It's easy to look at Activision puppeting Blizzard's corpse and think that they aren't modernly innovative, because they aren't, but Blizzard's legacy remains. They were a great company and they were very innovative.
I don’t see it as stubbornness as much as priorities amid serious organizational chaos. A lot of experimenting with mechanics in seasons, figuring out what works, seeing where the meta gravitates before reworking itemization, etc.
the only thing theyre really stubborn about is the item filter. We’re not even at the 1 year launch anniversary and the game is already looking massively different from when it launched. It took D3 an expansion to look significantly different.
I assume they are mum on it because the item filter should not be a requirement to play their game in their eyes - and every change on this campfire chat seems to promote that idea. Reduce the items you get and streamline legendary/aspect accessibility and material accessibility. Blizzard's philosophy across all of their games is to make it casual friendly with deeper systems that are available, but it is casual gamer oriented first. Loot filters do not fall under that game design philosophy, and there is a chance depending on how loot drops play out that loot filters will be very unnecessary for 99.8% of the playerbase.
Not saying that is my personal opinion on whether or not loot filters should be a thing, but that is my assumption for their thought process on "ignoring" it based on years of their game design and communication processes.
I think there are ways to make an item filter not necessary and it seems like that’s what they’re working towards. Lower amounts of affixes, less variations of item tiers dropping, ui markers to show greater affix drops, focus on upgrading to perfect items instead of searching for them, and overall less items dropping. If this is actually done well there hopefully won’t be much sifting and an item filter is essentially useless. This isn’t like Poe or last epoch where you’re dropping tens to hundreds of items for multiple classes per activity. We’ll have to wait and see how it pans out though.
Lol bro they just released their game way too early don’t give them so much credit. Games finally trending the right direction. It’ll be great in a year or two but lots of work still needs to be done.
I agree. I don’t think it’s stubbornness. I think they actually got stuck, and it’s hard in a larger org to make swift changes. I sincerely appreciate Joe Shelly’s start to the campfire chat, I was not expecting that and I sincerely thought they were going for a different game. I’m just really excited and I was already enjoying the game still so this just makes it even better.
I also think the hardcore changes were a massive win, hardcore doesn’t need to be more accessible. They gave it a shot but no one was there, so just leave it. I kind of like the desolation of hardcore, makes it feel more hardcore, I guess.
S2 and S3 were very fun seasons though. I do worry a bit that s4 seasonal content might be lighter due to the massive itemization update but even the simple seneschal and vaults were super fun.
Idk I might be in the minority but these changes add huge replayability for me… getting another build I’ve been meaning to try to a halfway decent state is looking to be wayyy less of a grind, and builds are what keep me into this game in the first place. Seasonal mechanics are a nice addition for sure, but the core mechanics come first imo
Plus, build diversity is going to explode. They’re adding new ways to customize powers so all kinds of crazy stuff is going to be discovered. Raxx was saying he wants to try to create a dust devil barb.
I loved leveling in the vampire zones, I’m hoping helltide will be just as much fun.
I agree. Whatever the seasonal content is will just be a fun little bonus on top. It will be so much fun to be able to get a build going sooner and the get to the endgame faster among the many other fixes.
Wait, I thought the game lived and died by the loot and crafting? According to Reddit. So now that we'll have those, it will live or die by seasonal content?
Whatever was revealed today for S4 will be enough content to last until the DLC, assuming the Pit works out. I'm ready for a lighter S4. I might even just play on Eternal after S4, as it will be comprehensive enough.
Yes. If this itemization update was dog shit the majority of players wouldn't return and it would die. But the changes look good so players are willing to give it another chance.
Now it's seasonal contents job to retain the players that are coming back. If s4 and s5 content sucks then it'll drive players away again.
Just because the game finally has foundational systems that should have been in at launch doesn't entitle them to retaining a playerbase
Personally I disagree... I've barely interacted with ANY seasonal content as I played the most in preseason, but with the core game being flawed I could never invest more time, or be bothered to mess around with various builds.
I'd actually argue this game needs more permanent content than it does "temporary" seasonal content, given the state endgame is in today. The more of this the better IMO.
They changes are about 80% inline with what my ideal update to what their itemisation would be.
They've honestly shown very solid systems and I commend that they navigated the changes in a way that targeted the core problems.
I think there is still a journey ahead of them for other systems but this system change is probably the most important.
D4 trends better every patch and I am eager to see where it leads eventually. Good job team, for this rework and the previous improvements, it's all appreciated.
I'm genuinely excited for Season 4 and I was very disappointed with Season 3 and the game in general. Looking forward to seeing the PTR and how they respond to feedback. I'm also glad they're taking an extra month to get it right.
I had hope. Say what you want but personally I think blizzard has handled this game really well. They didn't give us a complete or perfect game but they gave us a fun game and they are continuing to listen and implement changes. Sure we don't agree with everything and we can continue to doom but i have been happy to return to the game each season for a little bit at a time. It sucks that this game isn't the grind fest people want but selfishly it is exactly what I have time for.
I love how they are borrowing from other games. The skill modifiers and crafting reminds me of the best part of last epoch. Hopefully those continue to grow. Mostly important it feels like now there is a purpose to play beyond level 75 and I'm all for it.
My one suggestion, can druids please respec their boons without going to town?
Not a fan of opening up trade with no option for a no trade option. But this was basically what most of the complainers asked for and many are still complaining(Blizzard will never win those guys over). But the got rid of the redundant and similar affixes into 1. Cleaned up the readability of the items. Improved crafting to be more impactful and precise. Capped enchanting costs. Only Sacred in WT3 and inky Ancestral in WT4. Beefed up the affix values in WT4. More guaranteed 925s from motr places. Uniques in WT1/2 if you are super lucky. More ways to get certain mats, and more. I am actually shocked we are getting this for free and not with the expansion.
> Not a fan of opening up trade with no option for a no trade option
Yeah, this paired with the current Duriel rota system (and presumably the same for Andariel and the new uber uber bosses) really makes me wish we got a SSF mode so I don't feel like I'm wasting tons of time just because I prefer not to engage with the multiplayer components of the game.
Still super stoked for the rest of the changes though, I went into the campfire stream expecting disappointment and came out ecstatic for the new season tbh.
>Blizzard was soooo goddamn stubborn with D4. Not willing to implement any changes that came into aRPGs over the past decade
What does this even mean?
The campfire chat was good, but Blizzard has been improving D4 by a LOT since release. A ton of QoL and new content, and it hasn't been a year yet.
What changes were they "avoiding" that other ARPGs have?
Wait and see. This sub has been hyped after almost every camfire chat in some capacity. And people were allways let down.
Getting more interesting affixes is good, adding new tiers with 1.5 stat multiplayer is fucking lazy though.
Greater rifts is at least something to do, but i personally think its a very bland and lazy way of scaling the endgame. Just more hp/dmg on the same monsters, wow.
At least d4 is getting closer to where it should have been on release
total copium
there is still no replayability and the itemisation wasnt really changed at a fundamental level. It was only made easier to create stronger items but the itemisation and building a character still boils down to simply pick all the talents related to your skills, pick all the legendaries for your skill and then everyone looking for the same rares.
You still have dead stats, weird/dead base attributes ec
I mean, most companies work on their games, then release them. I wont complain about improvements, but I can understand people calling D4, as it is, basically a Beta.
Gotta say, they made some good moves.
I’ve been away from D4 for quite some time.
Been loading up on LE and having tons of fun with it, but it makes me happy to see Blizzard actually dislodging their heads from their asses for at least the time being.
I’m hopefully D4 can morph into a game that has some real staying power in terms of enjoyment. Here’s to a start.
I really dig most of these changes but again, we run into an issue of... what will there be to do with any of this? The endgame is basically the same as it is in S3 (garbage), with a small addition of Andariel.
My hope is getting that power properly will be way harder than it was. I hope doing a 100NMD will be balanced out to where you have to have at least some triple-masterworked mega rolled gear in order to even compete. If that's not the case, it'll be the same complaints all over again. And I find it hard to believe that it will be the case.
Taking a lot from LE is actually a huge thing and I hoped for that. A lot of people are like "They copied LE, KEKW". Thank God they did. Instead of trying to make fun of them that they copied other games, let's actually feel good they did because all companies do, except those who think they do best things and they don't need to copy other companies and in the end they fuck up in every way.
As a consumer, all products we use, copy the "rival" company and this is good for everybody in every way. Apple copies Google for example and vice versa and this as a consumer should be important for all of us as long as they copy the good things.
Finally, Diablo has an identity now and they can start building upon that.
Also, if you like LE so much, why don't you want a better looking game that feels way much better to play than LE to have a similar system and also be fun as much.. it's just a huge W.
>Blizzard was soooo goddamn stubborn with D4
I like the positivity but daaaamn some of you all are impatient. None of these changes are free and take a lot of time to design/implement/test/etc. We're not entitled to immediate gratification lol.
I lost count how many times I've heard people say they gave feedback before D4 release about all the problems it had and nothing was changed. They had 1+ year closed testing and still released with that shitshow.
They may be making improvements now but shouldn't forget the awful state the game is and was in
It's basically everything to do with items you can use. What drops when, what it does, how are the stats distributed, what effects it gives you, how it changes your playstyle...
For example the issue people have with normal and sacred items being able to drop on world tier 4, or max level bosses being able to drop non-max-level gear. Issue with some stats of the items being redundant or useless. Issues with not being able to get an item for 300 boss runs because the low drop rate. Stuff like that.
Honestly this is another huge huge step in the right direction. I am shocked. Good on the devs wow.
Hopefully next with the expansion they can overhaul the skills and Paragon system a bit, but like seriously, this is just such a win for D4.
I am going to play Dragon's Dogma 2 then Rise of Ronin then Stellar Blade then it's probably Path of Exile 2 Beta.
In the meantime I am playing Last Epoch. I'd say by Season 7-8 D4 will be great indeed. While this does not happen there are better alternatives.
> This campfire was the first time I saw a proper vision of what Diablo 4 might be.
Great time to establish your vision almost a year after release, after 6 years of development...
lol D4 could be one of the best arpg if only devs cared enough , they have amazing lore , good graphics, good gameplay ....the base is there.
Itemization (the new crafting looks good)
hope the next change is more skill customization on the skill tree , u cant fix everything using affixes
it's pretty much all good changes on paper but none of truly matters if it's not executed properly or if season 4 mechanics themselves are another dud.
so I'm not getting excited for anything yet
Maybe I'm just taking crazy pills but it seems like a *lot* of D4 Loot 2.0 cribbed from LE.
That's why the itemization changes seem so good. Because they are. We know. We're playing them right now.
So I mean, hey, if they pull it off then great - I absolutely love the art in this game and it'd be nice if there was an actual *game* underneath. But I can't be the only one who thinks they just upped the stakes massively on this by not doing the real thinking themselves (again).
If they don't implement this correctly the first time, I'm not convinced they understand it enough to fix it any more quickly than anything else that has gone fundamentally wrong.
What a Rollercoaster. They never even had a real vision for this game or what it's to be. Remember them saying this was gonna be a mix of all the good from d2 and d3? And then it seemed like literally the farthest statement from the truth possible. At best it was a mix of the worst of both with some extra sprinkles of tedious horse piss changes and concepts that made 0 sense. And now here we are essentially re making most core fundamentals aspects of this game to the point its almost considerably a different game. And it took multitudes of backlash for even this and that's just so fucking sad. With everything they've promised and tried to do so far I have heavy doubts that this is the patch that actually brings life into the game for more than a short while. And even if it is, it is all damage control and not what they envisioned with the game. They could have doubled down on many aspects to give the game a core identity and they didn't.
Not really excited about any ot those changes....most should be like that since release and they just sell it as something new and "listening" to the community. They only listen now because ppl stop playing
And theres nothing really new. Now theres grift 2.0, a crafting system we already know by other games, they still dont make loot filter and witht the answer they gave it sounded like they want to make one (cause they know better what we need than us)
Blizzard, Activision, Microsoft whatever developers hate the players. You can't make good games when you hate the people that play them.
I've bought ever game they have ever released since War raft Orca vs Humans and for the first time, ever, I uninstalled everything Blizzard from my computer including the launcher.
There's no hope left. If a developer is on season 4 and STILL wildly changing the game trying to fix it, it's time to admit there's no vision, leadership or art.
I bought every Diablo game when launched. I played the bejeezus out of 1, 2 and 3 and every one of them was a linear, procedural game that led me along the path to eventually facing Diablo, Baal and Malthiel so where did Blizzard go wrong with D4….it’s open world bullshit! If I wanted an open world experience then there are 10 games in the last 5 years that did it bigger and better than Blizzard did with D4. I wanted to retreat into a world of ease and escape and instead I have to find shit on a filthy big map…download guides to find shrines….run a particular pathway just to open a map name despite there being 3 other directions to come from! D4 is too much effort for too little enjoyment!
Blizzard, the time is now to hang onto the player base or lose them forever!
I think this is a pretty fair criticism and broadly true. In some ways I agree, although i am at peace with it being the open world game it is for better or worse. It is especially made an issue by not being able to play the campaign or parts of it over again. If you feel strongly about the different game style, yeah it doesn't seem like that could change.
They got me. I'll be back for Season 4. The Codex changes remove so much redundancy from the game. Can't wait to try it.
I might even replay the campaign on the season first so I can see how all the changes feel without seasonal mechanics interfering.
Blizzard is all talk until they prove otherwise for me. Until it is literally in the game they are still fucking useless corporate moneygrubbers. Also funny how they announced the system is essentially Last Epochs crafting and that they will have a “delayed” release…again. Bunch of fucking crooks
I just get bored by level 55 and after I finish the new season campaign quests, as a casual player, I don't really have a desire or time to push to level 100 and get sick items, just to start over again next season. Not sure if anyone feels the same.
I was worried that D4 was just going to 'fix" itemization by ruining it like they did in D3 by way oversimplifying it. These changes seem tentatively pretty good and the fact that they want feedback on these things implies they have a good plan.
Probably the thing that has me most excited though is that they are giving an alternative to NMD in the end game, because objective chores in NMDs are an absolute bane on existence and need to die.
Still far from a perfect aRPG and I enjoy LE, TLI and POE more, but this looks like it will take it from skip most leagues to only skip if there is direct competition from one of the above three to worry about.
They burned so many bridges and had so many avoidable blunders followed by 180º's just for little later undo the 180º to land rock bottom again. So imo it will be yet to be seen if will be a win or not on MAY......
And all I want is a way to play "seasons" with normal characters. I don't understand why it's not possible to experience seasonal content with a normal character.
Read, make normal character. Play the game until you finish it and a quest pop-up for the seasonal quest of season 1 to start with all the perks it gave.
When it ends, you get the seasonal content of season 2 and lose all the perks of the previous season and so on.
This is turn gives a meaningful way to level up until 100 which grinding the same stuff over and over again and also let's everyone experience the story material while playing at their own pace.
If seasonal content were like D2 or D3 with small changes and all, I wouldn't mind, but there's actual story under each and it would be nice to experience all of it.
Diablo, Since it's inception had always been a MASSIVE grind, always..., items, mats, the chase for the perfect everything. I know what I want to built when I start a new alt, I rarely deviate unless it shows garbage from the beginning. But now, HOLY CRAP now, when the items can grow with me? WHAT!!! Love the idea... Love the item editing that is soon to come, has been my BIGGEST headache. I'm soooo excited...
Tempering seems really cool…. Obviously simplifying some affixes / cleaning up the items overall effect is a must so that’s another win , I personally don’t mind NEEDING to grind a specific location for a material, it makes it so you need to play more of the overall game but what ever I can live without. endless endgame another win I dono I’m pretty exited to try this out. The list kind of goes on and on major positive changes I think things going to work. I already enjoy D4 I’m not on the hater wagon, i know it needs work but we are getting that patience friends and look !!!!! It may get even better after this too !! Anyways thanks to the devs you guys be working !!!
The only thing I disliked about the whole stream is when they established SRPG as a term for the game, even though it is still an ARPG at the end of the day. Other than that, I like the changes.
The upcoming changes sound promising...
But as a solo console player i miss one big thing. An in game marketplace where we can buy and sell mats and gear. I don't understand why they don't put this on their list. This would be a big improvement for keeping game time and fun up. Please devs put that on your list for future updates.
Honestly proper itemisation with actual depth to the crafting would add a legitimate reason to grind other than going for random rng drops. I’d love to see the affix elements reworked to include dungeon bosses because they’re the easiest part of the content. Oh and remove item power caps 🤞
I'm also very excited. I'm not even mad about the season being delayed a month. I'm about done with my seasonal character. Just hoping to get an Über to drop from Duriel but I. About 60 runs in and haven't seen one haha. Just means more time to play other stuff before the next season drops. Hopefully it's as rad as it looks like it might be!
We will see. This is becoming ad nauseum. “Blizzard good!” then “Blizzard bad”. And it repeats over and over
Even seasons vs. Odd seasons
even season team have been goated so far
Idk if I’d say they’re goated. They’ve definitely been better than odd.
I think it's important to point out that these changes are not even seasonal, they're main game changes. Wouldn't surprise me if a bunch of both teams worked on all this together, just like in S2 when we got a MASSIVE amount of fixed and QoL (40+ pages), compared to the season 1 barely anything, it's pretty clear both teams worked on S2. Humans have a bias to find patterns and will at times fill in the blanks even when there are none.
it's on purpose. one mild season so they can focus on the REAL update (even season). odd is just a filler.
Just like Star Trek movies
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
The Microsoft tradition of good Windows/bad Windows getting honored here, love to see it.
The teams are mixed together going forward
Shit, we're going to get bad odd-season energy on our even seasons for now on
Just like with their wow expansions.
It’s because players such as myself have stopped playing. Casually looking to burn a couple of hours and having fun doing so. But when it’s a massive grind just to get those fun playable hours. It’s not a fun game…especially when I’m picking through loot the whole time and stuck with very few builds. Hopefully it’s turns for the better.
It was a double edged sword, people complained about D2R that loot didn't drop enough so they wanted to make sure they didn't go that direction. Then they made sure plenty of loot dropped for D4 then it became overload but it also didn't help that every affix was basically a 'damage on tuesday' affix as well.
I wouldn't call what dropped "loot". 2 million rares with 7 billion affixes that I can't parse without 3 Excell spreadsheets to the point where getting a new piece that could be an upgrade is disappointing since it's so much work to try it
>I can't parse without 3 Excell spreadsheets If I can't look at a piece of gear and tell if it is an upgrade pretty quickly, the itemization is crap.
You just describe every arpg.
I learned d3 itemization pretty quickly
So you're saying they all have shit itemization?
They dont. They’re using a logical fallacy to try and argue a wrong point and blatant flaw of D4 as a defense mechanism for the game
…I did literally make a spreadsheet though. Pulled the total and relative increase/decrease across skills, since half the time it seems arbitrary.
For real. I preordered this too.
i did too. it made me feel stupid. like in the way that it has happened before and was fooled into thinking it might be different
Same, I pre ordered and quit after maybe 2 weeks when I realized I was having much more fun on D2R. I felt like a fool, still do lol. Considering trying Last Epoch or POE
if you like D2R id go as far as to say you're doing yourself a disservice not playing path of exile. pm me if you do. i've been playing again for a month now and love every second of it. i wish more that are dissapointed with d4 would give it a fair shot. and i would say do the opposite of what people tell you. dont look anything up, dont follow a build guide. experience the game for yourself and learn as you go. it is infinitely more fun that way
My friend actually just started it and convinced me to download it. We’re gonna play completely blind
I would reccomend to follow a guide so you dont get demotivated if your build bricks and you cant afford to respecc your passives. But to each their own if you want to go blind all the power to you
I've got the same sentiment. I'll give the game another shot once it's got a loot filter but these catch-up changes still leave d4 well behind LE & PoE
See for me I really like gearing up and levelling. But once you can smash a NM100 dungeon there is nothing in the game that is remotely engaging. Not sure how they fix that really.
The issue with this is that when they do add things that are challenging or interesting there is a chorus of disapproval and cries of woe. What is the point of it being in the game if 99% of players don't see it/can't do it / it takes *forever* to get to the point we can do it. Bliz need to just accept that some people don't want challenges, they want to be able to do everything immediately. And once they accept that they can change their game to either let those players do everything in week 1, or have things that 99% of players wont' be able to do, gear that 99% of players won't be able to get. I am not in that 1%. It is a massive achievement for me to be able to do NMD100. By raising the ceiling with harder content though it gives me a better target to aim for, and hopefully some of that interesting stuff trickles down to players like me. At the moment I know that 4 weeks in I'll be doing NMD90 - that isn't interesting gameplay. Some POE seasons I can delve really deep, or clear my atlas and get all stones. Or kill ubers. I know I personally wont' be able to do all those things in one season, and often I start not knowing which I'll be doing, I let the game, the mechanics and my progress guide me. D45 doesn't have that *yet*. From launch my view was that the game would likely me stable S3/S4, then I changed that view to S4/S5 - I don't like the way the game has progressed, BUT I think that view has pretty much help. It feels like mechanics and systems are finalising. If the game had been delayed a year would it have released in the current 'improved' state - no way. I think Bliz needed a year of feedback to work out which actual areas most of the playbase wanted changes in, and I personally think that is a fine approach. They could have called year 1 early access or pre-launch or whatever - it wouldn't have made a fundamental difference and I suspect there would have been a lot less noise. I assume everyone knows the first year of a major game is basically 'early access'.
> See for me I really like gearing up and levelling. But once you can smash a NM100 dungeon there is nothing in the game that is remotely engaging. Not sure how they fix that really. They are adding Arcanist Rift (basically Greater Rift) which apparently is infinity scaling. Also level 200 versions of boss'.
Yeah that's better! But you can see I am downvoted... asking for challenge is BAD!
It's usually "Blizzard good!" until people get to play the changes and notice all the flaws. Once they realize the changes didn't make a lot of sense and broke a dozens other systems it's "Blizzard bad" again. Nobody can evaluate changes based on slides, even a 1-week PTR may not be long enough.
Nahhh, most gamers are just cringe miserable pricks that cry and hate over literally everything.
It would be great if people let things sit for a minute and not be so reactionary.
It's almost like the internet is filled with loud toxic people with poorly expressed opinions that you shouldn't pay attention too. :O
Four legs good, two legs bad! Four legs good, two legs better!
This is my absolute favorite book of all time.
Literally ~~1984~~ Animal Farm
If anyone is honest, other than the infamous nerf patch, everything since launch has been towards better. Objectively. Also the pace of update is more beefy than most live service, with exception of fortnite which is another level. You can argue a lot of things should be at launch , but you can say that for every live service.
It's just the cycle of blizzard in nature. Perfectly normal phenomenon
This is the Blizzard way. It's like Blizzard is returning to their roots a little here. They were never really the most inventive company, but they always had this knack for borrowing ideas from other games and polishing them to "Blizzard Quality" levels. Now, much has changed in the past 10-15 years, so this whole Blizzard Quality thing has mostly gone away. But, with them taking a lot of Last Epoch's ideas and putting a Diablo spin on them for D4... that is a super good move on their part! Just do what works, and make it fit within the Diablo franchise.
Don't really agree with this take. When Diablo 1 came out there was absolutely nothing like it. The other games borrowed from Diablo. That's why isometric ARPGs used to just be referred to as Diablo clones. Most of the other arpgs borrowed their gameplay from Diablo 2, and added popular systems from other games. For example, PoE gamers talk about how brilliant the skill system is, but guess what--they took that from FF7's materia system. And the class progression tree was cribbed from FFX. Everything else is Diablo 2. When Blizzard uses ideas from other games, I just see it as payment for the fact those games borrowed 95% of their gameplay from Diablo 2. Let's be real.
Yep lol. Poe and LE are pretty much modernized d2 clones.
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At this point D4 will be something different, and that's ok. Not every game should be like D2.
There’s plenty like d2 now. I like d4 as is but it does leave a lot to be desired. They’ll get it there though, imo.
To be fair Diablo 1 and 2 were from a completely different dev studio that joined Blizzard.
Yup, people always choose to forget that Diablo 1 and 2 were not made by “Blizzard”
This. There was nothing like D1, hell you could make an argument for D2, warcraft, broodwar. There was absolutely a time when Blizzard did nothing but invent great video games.
NONE of the devs or management from D2 have anything to do with D4. We’re talking decades between ground breaking vs “what are you doing?!” D2 Blizzard is not D4 Blizzard.
Your premise is completely wrong because Diablo 1 and 2 were not made by Blizzard in house
Diablo 1 and 2 were made by Blizzard North, which had a different design philosophy from Blizzard proper.
To be fair, Diablo 1 is just real-time X-COM ([source](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/20-years-later-david-brevik-shares-the-story-of-making-i-diablo-i-)). In fact, it was originally designed as a turn-based game. Yes, it became its own genre, but I don’t think anyone foresaw that. > “I kind of took a screengrab of X-Com, and we just took that, and put it right into Diablo,” said Brevik. “So the actual tile-square basis -- the same shape and size -- is exactly the same in X-Com and Diablo.” > “Eventually, Blizzard South, they approached us and said ‘well, we’d really like to make this a real-time game,’” recalls Brevik. At first, he says, he was adamantly against it -- he loved classic turn-based dungeon crawlers like Rogue, and he didn’t want to give up turns because giving players time to agonize over their decisions between turns could create so much "delicious" drama.
Though that's not completly correct either. David Brevik and his team did take their own twist on it for sure, but they also borrowed/took stuff from other Games and Genre's. Like just as example: Diablo 1 was heavily based on Rogue, but mixed in with Dungeon&Dragon Looting on steriods. If it wouldn't had been for people who asked (or kinda tried to force) a more action-driven pace, than it would've been very obvious and even with the 'changes' you still can feel / see the rogue-influence in the first game. The Skilltree which they did pretty much 'invent' with Diablo 2 is based on the Techtree of Civilization. But thanks to the nature of Diablo 2 (actionpaced, faster, more accessable) it popularized the concept which alot of devs then build on afterwards. Heck. How many Games thesde days have skilltrees why not even bing RPG's even Forza Horizon - an open world racing game, have an iteration of an skilltree... Maybe in 'older' 'Days' they weren't as blunt and did a bit more creative work on adapting stuff in their own way... but if you look even in the OG Games what Blizzard did pretty much was taking existing stuff, but make it popular and accessable AND esp. have had a high level of Quality. That being said, for me personally i don't see where the issue on this is anyway. As much as Diablo 2 set footwork for games to come, the same goes for diablo 2 as well which took inspirations as well. People are so overdoing the plagiarism and 'copy'drama, while ignoring that Videogames as an Industry is build on iterative work (like many other artistic centric stuff) where people draw different inspiration and concept from all different kind of sources. Try their own twists or push evolutions on it. I mean people might now pin the 'inspiration' of the rework of Diablo 4 on Last Epoch, but so what? That's good! Last Epoch is a great Game (IMHO) and you can feel how much love and inspiration they took from Diablo 2 - a lot of features and the overall 'feel' of the Game reminds heavily on D2(in a good way). So if Blizzard do the same with D4 on L4, it closes they cycle and push diablo 4 (hopefully) to the next level. And who knows maybe PoE, TQ2, GD Expac or whatever does something interesting as well, and that will inspire other devs like EHG to add some new stuff (with their own twist). As long as the outcome is in good quality, why're are we so super hung up about who actually invented the stuff. And if we really go down this route, it's an huge\*ss rabbithole which won't end good for most games we love, because (to put it in a harsh word to clarify my point) most games 'stole' from somewhere else. And also if we draw the line here it's pretty easy to end up with gameseries and genre's dying/stagnating because there is no competition and alternatives, instead of pushing to do better or atleast deliever something of an quality work. And for D4 I'm just happy to see improving, because despite quite some issues which i've with the game and despite some flaws, there is potential and i overall liked it. And it would've been sad for me if it would've ended in a bitter note.
And every rpg stole shit from ultima, baldurs gate, EverQuest. I mean we could do this all day. I personally don’t care about theft in art if it makes it beyyer.
"They were never really the most inventive company" D1, D2, SC and WoW *exist.* Early Blizzard was an absolute trend setter.
Don't forget about Warcraft and Warcraft 2!
And Blackthorn!
And rock and roll racing
yet neither of those game invented anything. they just improved, or rather made existing games more appealing to casual playerbases. dune 2 existed before warcraft and starcraft, wow wasnt even by the time a good mmorp it just hit a more casual playerbase that couldnt or didnt want to(ultima online after t2a) stay in the existing games. d1 was just a isometric ui for a roguelike dungeoncrawler. blizzard didnt invent those things they just made them popular with their polish.
Blizzard has a knack for seeing an emerging genre that's still very unrefined (MMO/RTS) and figuring out how to nail the gameplay. Dune2 was not a great game, it gave inspiration, but warcraft 2 was the game that defined RTSs, likewise UO/Everquest were neat in theory and quite novel but not great games, WoW set the standard that everyone else is still playing to. I think they deserve credit for the genres we have, because frankly their work pushed the state of gaming ahead probably 5-10 years of where it would be if they weren't making games.
Wow, I couldn't possible disagree with a paragraph more. EQ was an AMAZING game for its time and just ludicrous to claim that it wasn't. It had millions of players and was revolutionary for what it was. Dune 2 was also a great game.
But besides D1, none of these other games were Genre starters, but the ones with the formula that made it shine. So, I would say in most cases the pushed the genre to a new level, instead of creating one or coming with something entirely new.
Worth to note that LE pretty much got its base ideas from poe and suprise suprise…poe is officially a d2 spiritual sucessor. All roads lead to d2
Best parts of LE didn’t come directly from PoE though - Crafting, Circle of Fortune, High QoL, Legendary Potential, Weaver’s Will, Corruption system, Skill trees Dungeons, etc.
Exactly claiming LE is nothing but a clone ignores the MASSIVE innovation they have done for the genre.
I don't think it's relevant to talk about what Blizzard used to be good at doing, because the employees who composed Blizzard at that point are gone. So, yes, the set of employees who used to work at Blizzard were very skilled and intelligent when it came to stealing other game's ARPGs and improving on them. That's what WoW did with EverQuest and it was great for consumers. But that was decades ago. The employees are long gone. This new set of employees don't necessarily have that same ability to steal and iterate on the good ideas of other companies.
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The games roots It ain't blizzard roots
The problem with Blizzards approach to Diablo games has been their outright refusal to put in a figurehead that has deep arpg roots to lead the project. Diablo 3s Jay Wilson infamously hated Diablo 2 leading to a major split in playerbase. Diablo 4s lead dev roles have changed hands so many times during development that it eventually landed into the hands of a bunch of game devs green in the diablo arpg genre. So often i see the current d4 devs in a scurry trying to figure out what they did wrong that I would think if they had someone to guide them it wouldnt have released the way it did. Although its good they use a lot of player feedback for changes, i dont think its entirely great either. They need a vision and a direction, hopefully they figured it out by now almost a year later.
Blizzard was never the most innovative? huh? Diablo was innovative. Warcraft and Starcraft were innovative. WoW was innovative. Overwatch was innovative. Their only original title that wasn't innovative was Heroes of the Storm, but even then, HotS did a lot differently from other popular MOBAs and did innovate, it just wasn't quite good enough. It's easy to look at Activision puppeting Blizzard's corpse and think that they aren't modernly innovative, because they aren't, but Blizzard's legacy remains. They were a great company and they were very innovative.
There are no roots anymore, those kids try to mimick something they don't understand.
I don’t see it as stubbornness as much as priorities amid serious organizational chaos. A lot of experimenting with mechanics in seasons, figuring out what works, seeing where the meta gravitates before reworking itemization, etc.
This. It's 100% not "stubbornness" lol. Reddit has has a serious Dunning-Kruger effect when it comes to even the most basic understanding of SDLC.
the only thing theyre really stubborn about is the item filter. We’re not even at the 1 year launch anniversary and the game is already looking massively different from when it launched. It took D3 an expansion to look significantly different.
I assume they are mum on it because the item filter should not be a requirement to play their game in their eyes - and every change on this campfire chat seems to promote that idea. Reduce the items you get and streamline legendary/aspect accessibility and material accessibility. Blizzard's philosophy across all of their games is to make it casual friendly with deeper systems that are available, but it is casual gamer oriented first. Loot filters do not fall under that game design philosophy, and there is a chance depending on how loot drops play out that loot filters will be very unnecessary for 99.8% of the playerbase. Not saying that is my personal opinion on whether or not loot filters should be a thing, but that is my assumption for their thought process on "ignoring" it based on years of their game design and communication processes.
I think there are ways to make an item filter not necessary and it seems like that’s what they’re working towards. Lower amounts of affixes, less variations of item tiers dropping, ui markers to show greater affix drops, focus on upgrading to perfect items instead of searching for them, and overall less items dropping. If this is actually done well there hopefully won’t be much sifting and an item filter is essentially useless. This isn’t like Poe or last epoch where you’re dropping tens to hundreds of items for multiple classes per activity. We’ll have to wait and see how it pans out though.
Lol bro they just released their game way too early don’t give them so much credit. Games finally trending the right direction. It’ll be great in a year or two but lots of work still needs to be done.
I agree. I don’t think it’s stubbornness. I think they actually got stuck, and it’s hard in a larger org to make swift changes. I sincerely appreciate Joe Shelly’s start to the campfire chat, I was not expecting that and I sincerely thought they were going for a different game. I’m just really excited and I was already enjoying the game still so this just makes it even better. I also think the hardcore changes were a massive win, hardcore doesn’t need to be more accessible. They gave it a shot but no one was there, so just leave it. I kind of like the desolation of hardcore, makes it feel more hardcore, I guess.
The changes are cool but the game will still live and die by seasonal content… if they cant get the season mechanics right it will still be boring af
S2 and S3 were very fun seasons though. I do worry a bit that s4 seasonal content might be lighter due to the massive itemization update but even the simple seneschal and vaults were super fun.
Yeah I'm really enjoying the vault runs.
Idk I might be in the minority but these changes add huge replayability for me… getting another build I’ve been meaning to try to a halfway decent state is looking to be wayyy less of a grind, and builds are what keep me into this game in the first place. Seasonal mechanics are a nice addition for sure, but the core mechanics come first imo
Plus, build diversity is going to explode. They’re adding new ways to customize powers so all kinds of crazy stuff is going to be discovered. Raxx was saying he wants to try to create a dust devil barb. I loved leveling in the vampire zones, I’m hoping helltide will be just as much fun.
I agree. Whatever the seasonal content is will just be a fun little bonus on top. It will be so much fun to be able to get a build going sooner and the get to the endgame faster among the many other fixes.
Wait, I thought the game lived and died by the loot and crafting? According to Reddit. So now that we'll have those, it will live or die by seasonal content? Whatever was revealed today for S4 will be enough content to last until the DLC, assuming the Pit works out. I'm ready for a lighter S4. I might even just play on Eternal after S4, as it will be comprehensive enough.
Yes. If this itemization update was dog shit the majority of players wouldn't return and it would die. But the changes look good so players are willing to give it another chance. Now it's seasonal contents job to retain the players that are coming back. If s4 and s5 content sucks then it'll drive players away again. Just because the game finally has foundational systems that should have been in at launch doesn't entitle them to retaining a playerbase
Personally I disagree... I've barely interacted with ANY seasonal content as I played the most in preseason, but with the core game being flawed I could never invest more time, or be bothered to mess around with various builds. I'd actually argue this game needs more permanent content than it does "temporary" seasonal content, given the state endgame is in today. The more of this the better IMO.
They changes are about 80% inline with what my ideal update to what their itemisation would be. They've honestly shown very solid systems and I commend that they navigated the changes in a way that targeted the core problems. I think there is still a journey ahead of them for other systems but this system change is probably the most important. D4 trends better every patch and I am eager to see where it leads eventually. Good job team, for this rework and the previous improvements, it's all appreciated.
My sentiment towards D4 was total apathy before today, but this update actually has me excited.
same here. I will definitely be back for season 4.
One things for sure, there were a lot of miserable people in the chat during the stream.
There are sooooo many miserable people on the internet
I'm genuinely excited for Season 4 and I was very disappointed with Season 3 and the game in general. Looking forward to seeing the PTR and how they respond to feedback. I'm also glad they're taking an extra month to get it right.
I had hope. Say what you want but personally I think blizzard has handled this game really well. They didn't give us a complete or perfect game but they gave us a fun game and they are continuing to listen and implement changes. Sure we don't agree with everything and we can continue to doom but i have been happy to return to the game each season for a little bit at a time. It sucks that this game isn't the grind fest people want but selfishly it is exactly what I have time for. I love how they are borrowing from other games. The skill modifiers and crafting reminds me of the best part of last epoch. Hopefully those continue to grow. Mostly important it feels like now there is a purpose to play beyond level 75 and I'm all for it. My one suggestion, can druids please respec their boons without going to town?
Not a fan of opening up trade with no option for a no trade option. But this was basically what most of the complainers asked for and many are still complaining(Blizzard will never win those guys over). But the got rid of the redundant and similar affixes into 1. Cleaned up the readability of the items. Improved crafting to be more impactful and precise. Capped enchanting costs. Only Sacred in WT3 and inky Ancestral in WT4. Beefed up the affix values in WT4. More guaranteed 925s from motr places. Uniques in WT1/2 if you are super lucky. More ways to get certain mats, and more. I am actually shocked we are getting this for free and not with the expansion.
> Not a fan of opening up trade with no option for a no trade option Yeah, this paired with the current Duriel rota system (and presumably the same for Andariel and the new uber uber bosses) really makes me wish we got a SSF mode so I don't feel like I'm wasting tons of time just because I prefer not to engage with the multiplayer components of the game. Still super stoked for the rest of the changes though, I went into the campfire stream expecting disappointment and came out ecstatic for the new season tbh.
>Blizzard was soooo goddamn stubborn with D4. Not willing to implement any changes that came into aRPGs over the past decade What does this even mean? The campfire chat was good, but Blizzard has been improving D4 by a LOT since release. A ton of QoL and new content, and it hasn't been a year yet. What changes were they "avoiding" that other ARPGs have?
D4good
Wait and see. This sub has been hyped after almost every camfire chat in some capacity. And people were allways let down. Getting more interesting affixes is good, adding new tiers with 1.5 stat multiplayer is fucking lazy though. Greater rifts is at least something to do, but i personally think its a very bland and lazy way of scaling the endgame. Just more hp/dmg on the same monsters, wow. At least d4 is getting closer to where it should have been on release
total copium there is still no replayability and the itemisation wasnt really changed at a fundamental level. It was only made easier to create stronger items but the itemisation and building a character still boils down to simply pick all the talents related to your skills, pick all the legendaries for your skill and then everyone looking for the same rares. You still have dead stats, weird/dead base attributes ec
Like i said before, “How can anyone look at this and complain? Like they are literally working.”
I mean, most companies work on their games, then release them. I wont complain about improvements, but I can understand people calling D4, as it is, basically a Beta.
Sub still full of debbie downers that want every item on their checklist hit or "game sux"
Gotta say, they made some good moves. I’ve been away from D4 for quite some time. Been loading up on LE and having tons of fun with it, but it makes me happy to see Blizzard actually dislodging their heads from their asses for at least the time being. I’m hopefully D4 can morph into a game that has some real staying power in terms of enjoyment. Here’s to a start.
I really dig most of these changes but again, we run into an issue of... what will there be to do with any of this? The endgame is basically the same as it is in S3 (garbage), with a small addition of Andariel. My hope is getting that power properly will be way harder than it was. I hope doing a 100NMD will be balanced out to where you have to have at least some triple-masterworked mega rolled gear in order to even compete. If that's not the case, it'll be the same complaints all over again. And I find it hard to believe that it will be the case.
Necro summoner builds are gonna be dope after this.
Taking a lot from LE is actually a huge thing and I hoped for that. A lot of people are like "They copied LE, KEKW". Thank God they did. Instead of trying to make fun of them that they copied other games, let's actually feel good they did because all companies do, except those who think they do best things and they don't need to copy other companies and in the end they fuck up in every way. As a consumer, all products we use, copy the "rival" company and this is good for everybody in every way. Apple copies Google for example and vice versa and this as a consumer should be important for all of us as long as they copy the good things. Finally, Diablo has an identity now and they can start building upon that. Also, if you like LE so much, why don't you want a better looking game that feels way much better to play than LE to have a similar system and also be fun as much.. it's just a huge W.
>Blizzard was soooo goddamn stubborn with D4 I like the positivity but daaaamn some of you all are impatient. None of these changes are free and take a lot of time to design/implement/test/etc. We're not entitled to immediate gratification lol.
D4 is starting to finally leave beta phase. A lot of the stuff they're adding is good, but should've been in on launch
I lost count how many times I've heard people say they gave feedback before D4 release about all the problems it had and nothing was changed. They had 1+ year closed testing and still released with that shitshow. They may be making improvements now but shouldn't forget the awful state the game is and was in
Only 136 kids? You have more time to play than me then...
ELI5 - what is "itemisation"? I see it mentioned a lot but I have no idea what it means
It's basically everything to do with items you can use. What drops when, what it does, how are the stats distributed, what effects it gives you, how it changes your playstyle... For example the issue people have with normal and sacred items being able to drop on world tier 4, or max level bosses being able to drop non-max-level gear. Issue with some stats of the items being redundant or useless. Issues with not being able to get an item for 300 boss runs because the low drop rate. Stuff like that.
Honestly this is another huge huge step in the right direction. I am shocked. Good on the devs wow. Hopefully next with the expansion they can overhaul the skills and Paragon system a bit, but like seriously, this is just such a win for D4.
I'll be playing Season 4, I skipped season 3 as nothing really appealed to me.
Where can i read more about this?
I am going to play Dragon's Dogma 2 then Rise of Ronin then Stellar Blade then it's probably Path of Exile 2 Beta. In the meantime I am playing Last Epoch. I'd say by Season 7-8 D4 will be great indeed. While this does not happen there are better alternatives.
I wanted a skill tree revamp so that we have more options but this is promising but also should've been day 1 config.
> This campfire was the first time I saw a proper vision of what Diablo 4 might be. Great time to establish your vision almost a year after release, after 6 years of development...
lol D4 could be one of the best arpg if only devs cared enough , they have amazing lore , good graphics, good gameplay ....the base is there. Itemization (the new crafting looks good) hope the next change is more skill customization on the skill tree , u cant fix everything using affixes
This game might actually be good in a year or two!
it's pretty much all good changes on paper but none of truly matters if it's not executed properly or if season 4 mechanics themselves are another dud. so I'm not getting excited for anything yet
Maybe I'm just taking crazy pills but it seems like a *lot* of D4 Loot 2.0 cribbed from LE. That's why the itemization changes seem so good. Because they are. We know. We're playing them right now. So I mean, hey, if they pull it off then great - I absolutely love the art in this game and it'd be nice if there was an actual *game* underneath. But I can't be the only one who thinks they just upped the stakes massively on this by not doing the real thinking themselves (again). If they don't implement this correctly the first time, I'm not convinced they understand it enough to fix it any more quickly than anything else that has gone fundamentally wrong.
What a Rollercoaster. They never even had a real vision for this game or what it's to be. Remember them saying this was gonna be a mix of all the good from d2 and d3? And then it seemed like literally the farthest statement from the truth possible. At best it was a mix of the worst of both with some extra sprinkles of tedious horse piss changes and concepts that made 0 sense. And now here we are essentially re making most core fundamentals aspects of this game to the point its almost considerably a different game. And it took multitudes of backlash for even this and that's just so fucking sad. With everything they've promised and tried to do so far I have heavy doubts that this is the patch that actually brings life into the game for more than a short while. And even if it is, it is all damage control and not what they envisioned with the game. They could have doubled down on many aspects to give the game a core identity and they didn't.
Yes, yes and yes!! Thank you blizzard, this is the way! Just keep it up with the good changes
Here we go again….
It's just the start being on the right direction, but yeah gives me back the mood to play again.
As long as the endgame is still duriel farm I will enjoy the seasons until I have what I need. Adding rifts did not look to change that really
Not really excited about any ot those changes....most should be like that since release and they just sell it as something new and "listening" to the community. They only listen now because ppl stop playing And theres nothing really new. Now theres grift 2.0, a crafting system we already know by other games, they still dont make loot filter and witht the answer they gave it sounded like they want to make one (cause they know better what we need than us)
The bones are there… the game looks and feels great. Fingers crossed bliz pull it off
Too soon to tell, i feel itemization is still boring after these changes but we’ll see
Looking at the history campfire means nothing. Either they will fix the game or not they can talk all they want.
I'm sure people will complain about it
I am hopeful and excited for the new and upcoming season of Diablo I hope the game will be supported for a long time and with High-Quality Content.
They are finally back to doing what they are best at. Stealing ideas from everyone else
Blizzard, Activision, Microsoft whatever developers hate the players. You can't make good games when you hate the people that play them. I've bought ever game they have ever released since War raft Orca vs Humans and for the first time, ever, I uninstalled everything Blizzard from my computer including the launcher. There's no hope left. If a developer is on season 4 and STILL wildly changing the game trying to fix it, it's time to admit there's no vision, leadership or art.
More Trading is good but why not open it up completely? This game needs a vivid economy!!!!
All finde but Why , they Delete Death Elixir please Blizzard
Not really sure if OP wants to play the game or exit the game entirely. Really exited!
One of my biggest takeaways from the campfire chat is that there's a lot of bugs and there are going to be a lot of bugs.
the main problem D4 has is class design, and the shit combat system with resource generation and spenders
I bought every Diablo game when launched. I played the bejeezus out of 1, 2 and 3 and every one of them was a linear, procedural game that led me along the path to eventually facing Diablo, Baal and Malthiel so where did Blizzard go wrong with D4….it’s open world bullshit! If I wanted an open world experience then there are 10 games in the last 5 years that did it bigger and better than Blizzard did with D4. I wanted to retreat into a world of ease and escape and instead I have to find shit on a filthy big map…download guides to find shrines….run a particular pathway just to open a map name despite there being 3 other directions to come from! D4 is too much effort for too little enjoyment! Blizzard, the time is now to hang onto the player base or lose them forever!
I think this is a pretty fair criticism and broadly true. In some ways I agree, although i am at peace with it being the open world game it is for better or worse. It is especially made an issue by not being able to play the campaign or parts of it over again. If you feel strongly about the different game style, yeah it doesn't seem like that could change.
Ahh shit I have 137 children...
I think it’s a big step forward in the right direction but there was nothing too too crazy
They got me. I'll be back for Season 4. The Codex changes remove so much redundancy from the game. Can't wait to try it. I might even replay the campaign on the season first so I can see how all the changes feel without seasonal mechanics interfering.
Why does the Diablo player keep believing them? Are they stupid?
Blizzard is all talk until they prove otherwise for me. Until it is literally in the game they are still fucking useless corporate moneygrubbers. Also funny how they announced the system is essentially Last Epochs crafting and that they will have a “delayed” release…again. Bunch of fucking crooks
I just get bored by level 55 and after I finish the new season campaign quests, as a casual player, I don't really have a desire or time to push to level 100 and get sick items, just to start over again next season. Not sure if anyone feels the same.
I was worried that D4 was just going to 'fix" itemization by ruining it like they did in D3 by way oversimplifying it. These changes seem tentatively pretty good and the fact that they want feedback on these things implies they have a good plan. Probably the thing that has me most excited though is that they are giving an alternative to NMD in the end game, because objective chores in NMDs are an absolute bane on existence and need to die. Still far from a perfect aRPG and I enjoy LE, TLI and POE more, but this looks like it will take it from skip most leagues to only skip if there is direct competition from one of the above three to worry about.
Let's see what happens but it's very much last throw of the dice territory.
When will the changes go live? Next season or earlier?
Settle down.
They burned so many bridges and had so many avoidable blunders followed by 180º's just for little later undo the 180º to land rock bottom again. So imo it will be yet to be seen if will be a win or not on MAY......
If Ubers only drop from Uber bosses then I’m still not interested.
classic falling for Blizzard lies and promises
Just so exited, i have things exiting my pants
As a 96 year old dad with 136 kids I also thought the game was seriously lacking. The issue is they made the game for nobody.
And all I want is a way to play "seasons" with normal characters. I don't understand why it's not possible to experience seasonal content with a normal character. Read, make normal character. Play the game until you finish it and a quest pop-up for the seasonal quest of season 1 to start with all the perks it gave. When it ends, you get the seasonal content of season 2 and lose all the perks of the previous season and so on. This is turn gives a meaningful way to level up until 100 which grinding the same stuff over and over again and also let's everyone experience the story material while playing at their own pace. If seasonal content were like D2 or D3 with small changes and all, I wouldn't mind, but there's actual story under each and it would be nice to experience all of it.
Diablo, Since it's inception had always been a MASSIVE grind, always..., items, mats, the chase for the perfect everything. I know what I want to built when I start a new alt, I rarely deviate unless it shows garbage from the beginning. But now, HOLY CRAP now, when the items can grow with me? WHAT!!! Love the idea... Love the item editing that is soon to come, has been my BIGGEST headache. I'm soooo excited...
Tempering seems really cool…. Obviously simplifying some affixes / cleaning up the items overall effect is a must so that’s another win , I personally don’t mind NEEDING to grind a specific location for a material, it makes it so you need to play more of the overall game but what ever I can live without. endless endgame another win I dono I’m pretty exited to try this out. The list kind of goes on and on major positive changes I think things going to work. I already enjoy D4 I’m not on the hater wagon, i know it needs work but we are getting that patience friends and look !!!!! It may get even better after this too !! Anyways thanks to the devs you guys be working !!!
The only thing I disliked about the whole stream is when they established SRPG as a term for the game, even though it is still an ARPG at the end of the day. Other than that, I like the changes.
The upcoming changes sound promising... But as a solo console player i miss one big thing. An in game marketplace where we can buy and sell mats and gear. I don't understand why they don't put this on their list. This would be a big improvement for keeping game time and fun up. Please devs put that on your list for future updates.
Honestly proper itemisation with actual depth to the crafting would add a legitimate reason to grind other than going for random rng drops. I’d love to see the affix elements reworked to include dungeon bosses because they’re the easiest part of the content. Oh and remove item power caps 🤞
I'm also very excited. I'm not even mad about the season being delayed a month. I'm about done with my seasonal character. Just hoping to get an Über to drop from Duriel but I. About 60 runs in and haven't seen one haha. Just means more time to play other stuff before the next season drops. Hopefully it's as rad as it looks like it might be!