Makes me wonder if they will bring back the Horadric Cube.
D4 seems to have the same problem as D3 and as D2 had more and more towards the end.
You overdo it in terms of damage output and area effect. You fill the world and the maps with mass NPCs and then let the players throw breath bombs. At the same time, you give the NPCs more and more effects and turn the whole scenario into a permanent spectacle at high speed.
As a result, the world itself loses its immersion and becomes a battlefield to empty bomb.
You always have the feeling that you’re playing a shooter and the RPG isn’t germinating, it’s being suppressed.
The gameplay is just overdone and just doesn’t make these games a decent RPG. I always feel in D3 just unwinding the maps and being too powerful.
That also came across more in D2 LoD then.
We have moved too far away from the game, towards a different game design.
The games will be with more survival and ground to the base, close to the character, again better games and take the players more.
Whether you can still manage that with D4… I think the train has sailed again … D4 seems to me just again too exaggerated in the fight and the effects, from the speed and that we actually rather only mass of mobs clear away from the cards. There is too little game, RPG factor, survival and attachment to the game world and too much work and banality and peng peng shooter behind it.
It’s shallow and with more and more exaggerations and leaderboards and seasons and one more difficulty and more items to make up for it, you’re just starting a spiral into infinity and the actual game will suffer more and more until it will be totally irrelevant…
We’ve had this x times for a decade now. It’s overly damaging that you keep repeating these things and think this time it will be different. But it won’t, because this basis will always degenerate into this. That is so to speak already in the principle of the thing and the way is marked out, as it is fundamentally built up.
I wont say that I think the game is going to be terrible, but to be fair if it turned out that way it’d hardly be the first game I’ve seen where I heard a bunch of people gushing how great it was going to before it losing a lot of its playerbase shortly after launch.
It’s nice to imagine but this is one thing I don’t believe modern Blizzard will do. At this point, I probably wouldn’t believe it even if they told me they were going to do it.
They told us with Overwatch that, switching to a live service model, they would be able to give us more frequent updates with the game and that was almost immediately walked back in OW2 with the excuse “well we want each season to feel unique”.
So we’re going to get major balance changes about as often as we did for the first 3 years after OW1’s release, and a new hero about as often as well. It seems like the only thing we’re getting more of is the skins they’re charging us $20 for.
I’m mostly hoping that Diablo 4 will be fun for like 50-100 hours at launch. Anything after that is an unexpected bonus.
That is logical 
What, they already walked that back?
Most predictable thing ever.
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But this contradicts all the nonsense the “games as a service is the future!” simps and bootlickers keep saying… Make it go away!
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It was flawed, but they end up bringing half of its features into the game. I don’t know how that correlates. Also remember, developers say anything to giddy the crowds. Instead of saying that they took Diablo 3 and made things better, they try to lure previous installment players by fancy wording.
Who else remembers 11 unnamed Blizzard developers from different teams, a “failure” in an interview? Because I do. This is despite the game bringing over a billion dollar in the short span of a few years which meant quadruple profits, compared to what it cost them over a decade. It was such a sham on both accounts of media and the company.
Let’s get this straight; Diablo 3 was a good game, it had its ups and downs at the past but it’s on stable ground as I see it. However, beyond all that, by comparing standards of the previous titles, it was very original from the start as well. And let’s say, not a good “Diablo” game; D2 and D1 were loosely based on DnD and White Wolf, D3 came crashing with a breeze of Warhammer. This is why it never seen as the “real” predecessor by some of the cult following that game had.
Just accept that you’re on the different scale of the ruler, or different sides of a fence and get along. I’m kind of tired reading D2 vs. D3 threads. It’s good for baiting feedback responses for D4 but besides that, it’s useless to even discuss anything at this point. Both games have more than a decade behind them. What can you change about the past?
So, I’m turning to Blizzard developers here; if they honestly want to take more from Diablo 2 and Diablo 1, they don’t limit this with the artstyle. I wanna see complicated systems acting fluid and molded into one. If you wanna melt all three installments in a pot then you better get ready to create some extremes and complex systems to envelope all, and spare none.
For example; dynamic skill swaps were the core of Diablo 2 and gave a sense of adaptation in a sense, while Diablo 3 pushed traits of commitment and reflexes in gameplay to the brim.
Other examples being, skill books were a thing in Diablo 1 and finding a unique item really felt special instead of something you could salvage without thinking twice because randomization of affix combinations weren’t dictating your gameplay.
Finally, Runewords and charms were end game fetch quest for Diablo 2, what can Diablo 4 offer at this end? Will loot hunt end abruptly like Diablo 3? What happens if a player killed 100th scale boss? Do they have any objective after destroying the endgame, or would it be more like 24/7 Baalruns like D2? Have any idea about later? Only PvP with no context of PvE? Dragging player to be a bandit that hoard shards? For what purpose then? You’re master at coming up with new stats and limiters at the last moment. Surprise us.
That’s wishful thinking. When core mechanics are broken, there’s nothing you can do to fix them. Unless you reship the game entirely, which almost never happens (FFXIV being the exception).
On the other end you absolutely CAN remake/improve visuals. Just look at WoW or any remastered game. Starcraft had a massive overhaul during developpement.
Anyway by this point D4 is as good as already shipped, nothing significant will change. I’m almost sure I’ll enjoy playing it in this state as it is basically an improved, darker, open world D3.
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Lucky us, they are not broken in D4
Crafting, unique items & itemizations are not core mechanics & do evolve over time. Not just in the diablo series, but in others like PoE; grim dawn, last epoch, wolcen.
It’s NOT wishful thinking because its history is proven, & D4 being live service, its an almost 100% certainty.
Maybe but I’m hearing both extreme (game completely shallow or very good).
Depends on what you call itemisation. Affixes are part of core mechanics, but not uniques or crafting I agree.
Haven’t seen history proving anything on this matter.
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Affix can be updated,added, we seen in D2, D3, PoE etc.
I just gave you examples.
Adding more things is not fixing things. D3 is a good example, they never resolved the trifecta/main stat problem, instead they added another system on top of it (legendary powers). Which improved things but didn’t fix them.
You mentioned games adding more stuff (crafting/uniques/affixes) which is different from core mechanics.
I can’t speak for Wolcen or LE but PoE and Grim Dawn were mostly sound from the very beginning. LE seems to be working alright but I don’t hear many good things about Wolcen though.
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