I have seen some concerns about the oversimplification of D4. They are worried that by dumbing down the stats people’s ability to customize their character will be hamstrung. I agree tend to agree. The less complex a game is the less you can make your Champion feel like your Champion.
The problem is the more complex a game is the less likely a new player will pick up the game and start playing. This creates a dam which holds players back from playing the game, which restricts the ability for the Diablo community to grow.
Adding a complexity slider would move Diablo from a one dimensional (choose difficulty) to a two dimensional (choose complexity and difficulty) game play experience.
This would allow new players to jump right in without having to learn all the nitty gritty stats, and if they want they can learn how to play the game before they learn how to manage their character. It would also allow the deeper customization that Hardcore and Veteran players have come to enjoy
As an example you could have 2 modes: “Normal” where you see the basic stats that we saw in the beta and the more nuanced things like Resists are maxed out, or kept at 75% of max. You would do this with most of the stats. Then you have a “Softcore” mode which unlocks most, if not all the stats allowing for the full on “I want to do all the maths” system.
They are going to make D4 how they are going to make it. I will buy it I will try it. If i don’t like it ill go back to PoE. I hope they get it right. I’m not a fan of how deep and complex PoE is. I want something a fair amount simpler. but not D3 simple. Maybe even last epoch will be that game. who knows
Finding that right balance of “easy to learn but difficult to master” would be nice. I don’t want total simplicity or something that feels like I should earn a Nobel Prize when I make a bit of progress. I don’t have the answers on how to make that happen, hopefully they will.
The problem with Path of Exile, despite it’s many good qualities, is that it is now bogged down in system on top of system on top of system. What exactly was so “complex” about Diablo 2 anyway?? Sometimes I really feel like all you would have to do to make this crowd fall in line would be to add some “+1 to (insert skill here)” affixes and all of a sudden the game would turn from “casual” to “hardcore” instantaneously. I mean, there is a game whose gear focuses on that type of thing. It’s a really good one. It’s often on sale for about $7.00. It’s called Grim Dawn. People can go play it (and I suggest they do), but Diablo is going to be the pick-up and play ARPG.
And it is a good thing that people will be able to pick up and play the game. But we also want to keep them coming back. By having a slider they can deepen their gameplay experience when they feel they are ready.
What about this. You pick up the game you can finish it without to much issue, not having to look up a guide to figure it out. then after you beat the campaign and start doing the keyed dungeons is when you really need to take a look at your gear and figure out why you suck.
Then the casuals who only want to play the campaign can do that and move on. The people who want to actually farm for gear can bang their head against the wall trying to figure out builds and itemization because its fairly deep (not poe deep)
I don’t think it’s hard to understand d2 at start. Items have only few affixes and the number of affixes and suffixes are limited at start.
As Brevik said, each game had to pass the “grandma test”. Each game should be easy to understand for anyone.
Complexity only comes gradually later.
I think many people are and were actually excited to come back to a challenging game to think by themselves how to solve new demanding situations.
Some spells were not balanced and made some situation too hard, but that’s a different problem that can be fixed. A slider splits the worlds and the community and turn the game into a wordpress template.
I think in game tutorial would be enough. Two modes mean dividing players, which is never a good idea. Unless of course, it’s HC vs SC, season vs non season or SSF etc.
Game is designed for consoles, so they are limited in how much depth they can put in the game. The controllers for consoles are limiting. It’s a shame they couldn’t just focus on a new Diablo game exclusively for the PC… that would have been a really great Diablo PC game. Nope, got to do the jack of all trades for $.
For all the talk around here about how “hardcore” Diablo 2 was, it’s actually a very casual friendly game. Especially since they added respecs at some point so you can fix your character after the first time where you’ll naturally make mistakes.
Diablo 4 doesn’t have to be exactly like it, but if they want to offer a system that has some solid depth to it while also being casual friendly they do already have an example to work off of.
Not every difference of community option needs to be turned into a toggle of some kind.
A complexity slider would probably lead to either a layer cake of systems and cause design headaches, or have a bunch of superfluous attributes that don’t actually do anything. Linear Attack and Defense as primaries is fine, as there is planned to be plenty of other attributes.
They just need to not repeat mistakes from both games IMO and will be fine. And ofc, just add some new features (if possible), if not just take those which game had it better, for ex:
Combat (D3)
Character build (D2)
Itemization (D2)
Atmosphere & World (as much closer to D1 as possible)
Endgame (neither, think of something new that works)
Resource management (D3, for the most part, sometimes a melee classe might need a potion before entering combat though)
Some people think complexity ADDS to the game, not really, AT LEAST not always. And in case of D3 that “extra bit” of complexity substracted extremely severely (on the long run)
Int increases Resistances… Yes, I get it, they wanted the Sorc to feel different as a class and excel in one thing the other classes didn’t quite have (ok, WitchDoctor too)
BUT what they ended up is = just stack up your main stat and you won’t need to not only care about the choice of Resistances vs Power
Same with Str and Armor. People thought “Strength relates to armor, gonna feel cool to stack it”, my Barb is gonna wayy outperform in close combat (and things like that)
BUT, again = same thing as Int tied to Resistances, Armor tied to Str makes a Barb NOT CARE, not have a choice between stacking up main stat and close-combat toughness
DON’t think that Complex game makes it “better”. Same with Potions and stuff, some people are convinced that “Potions as a main resource” is part of a more complex gameplay. Ok, I get it, Resource is tied to Coins/Gold, BUT - IN Combat, how exactly is jacking up potions any complex ?, or better ?
Don’t get me wrong but sometimes complexity (or at least the “need for complexity”) backfires
It doesn’t have to be a slider. It could be an off switch. Off has presets put into a subset of stats. On has these presets removed. Which would mean you can keep it simple for the devs.
I am not speaking to having or not having complexity I am saying that having a slider would give a wider range of customization. This would allow people that want a more complex experience to have that and people that want a simple.
There, fixed… Was saying keep the Resource management from D3, only give the melee classes an option to gain resource out of combat via a potion or some sort of CD
@ [AirbrnBrzrkr], was simply stating that sometimes what looks as complex on paper, ends up being the exact opposite in practice
