Diablo 4 - 6 Skill Disaster

General Discussion
#103

He worked on D3, Blizzard didn’t like his direction and basically dissolved Blizzard North and rebooted the project. Why in gods green earth would they contact him about a project they fired him over?

Everything the dude has worked in since he parted ways has been mediocre to bad, with MHO being the only mediocre title, which was really only because of the Marvel license. If he was in such demand or proved he wasn’t a one trick pony with Diablo, he’d be somewhere else.

But he isn’t. He’s on his own making niche games that don’t sell well at all. At some point you need to look back and realize that 1, it was really the Schaefer brothers that were more successful, and Blizzard Irvine that forced Brecik to change his game, that made him the name he is/was.

#104
  • *[Gordo 106]( (1993) - Programmer
  • *[Aero the Acro-Bat]( (1993) - Programmer
  • *[NBA Jam] (1993) - Programmer
  • *[Justice League Task Force] (1995) - Programmer
  • *[Diablo]( (1996) - Lead Programmer, Senior Designer
    *Diablo II (2000) - Project and Design Lead
  • *[Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos] (2002) - Additional Game Review
  • *[Hellgate: London] (2007) - Game Visionary, Lead Programmer, Story Editor
  • *[Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited] (2009) - Creative Director
  • *[Marvel Heroes] (2013) - Creator
  • The Nonomancer (2016) - Creator
  • It Lurks Below (2018) - Creator

That’s a lot of quality arpg experience. Dungeons and Dragons looks like it was a commercial success as well. It Lurks Below has a 9/10 rating on Steam and I guess I am one of to 20-50k players who bought the game. It’s a pretty solid arpg survival crafting game.

Sounds like what Jay Wilson was saying was needed in his dev of D3 video I linked, got to have a combination of creativity and homage to the previous title. Unfortunately for Jay, he was off the mark on both goals imo.

Funny, he acknowledges that leveling doesn’t feel as good in Diablo 3 because of the design choices but he accepted that cause he’s on some grand journey of simplifying everything (even if it doesn’t feel good apparently). I think Jay saw the wrong presentation or read the wrong book one day and got carried away with simplifying. David could have only helped if Blizz brought him in on D3 or D4.

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#105

We also know that Brevik’s original design document for Diablo 1 was nothing like what the final game was, and the founders of Blizzard North have admitted they butted heads with Irvine over what was in the game a lot.

Those games being good isn’t attributed to just Brevik.

The fact that Jay Wilson made a dumpster fire doesn’t change that.

#106

Never claimed he didn’t have experience. He was let go from Blizzard while working in D3. No need to bring him back. Outside of his Diablo games, only MHO was somewhat good, mainly due to the Marvel license. Basically what he wanted to do for D3. If that was released with a Diablo skin you all would have revolted worse than you did over D3 and D4.

D&DO is atrocious, but once again, helped out by its license. ILB is solid but it’s super niche. I get he’s doing what he wants to do, but that’s the problem. His thing isn’t mainstream enough to sell. The Diablo games being turn based with no online is what we would have had if not for the guys at Irvine. Diablo wouldn’t have sold if he released “his” game. So again, no reason to seek him out on advise on a game he was fired over basically.

#107

I wish they would actually do this. It looks like Diablo 3 2.

#108

The master of necromancy with a one-year necro bump.

Do not “bump” posts.

The act of posting simply to bump a thread is considered spamming. This also includes bumping old threads for no reason (also called “necroing”).

#109

Seems pretty relevant why these posts got bumped imo. Not trying to be negative or disagree with you but seeing 3 nearly identical titled posts all talking about 6 abilities not being enough 3 years apart, Oct 2020, March 2021 and my post now in Feb 2022.

It definitely tells a story and I’m glad they were resurrected and brought to the top of the forums right now. They really show how the community are making multiple attempts to warn Blizz that this reeks of too much simplicity for consoles sake.

It would be a real shame to find out they weren’t listening when they say they are.

Damage numbers being too high falls into this category imo as well. Many peoople have spoken out about keeping damage numbers low but in Rogue footage we see 300,000 crits leading me to believe we’ll likely step into the millions. Why have so many numbers on screen when the same amount of information can be scaled down and displayed with less numbers.

I digress. I just really hope Blizz are listening to important feedback where we know corporate tend to make mistakes like ruining pc experience to fit all the buttons on a pad.

1 Like
#110

Don’t blame console for this. You can map more than 6 skills on a controller. Btw i’m not a console gamer, or more like, I don’t limit myself to only one platform, for gameing. If I could I would play games on my toaster too. What you guys are not considering, are disabeled people. Maybe they would have a harder time playing whit more than 6 skills. So let’s not be selfish ok?

#111

Maybe they don’t want to hold everyone else back. Ever considered they aren’t that selfish?

I’ve seen a guy play COD BR with his mouth dude. With his damn mouth. Rockynohands check him out.

Disabled people can overcome a lot more than you think.

And I play console games too. I will be playing Elden Ring on pad. But this is the revolution of dungeon crawlers and rpgs. Dark Souls. People like hard games because it’s super rewarding. Sometimes you have to give someone something they don’t know they want even if they say they don’t want it before hand. They will surprise themselves with how capable they are and how good it feels to overcome a difficult game.

#112

i think 6 skills is more than enough. in fact, i have trouble finding enough skills i use on a regular basis to fill all six slots.

#113

6 skills on bar is more than enough

#114

Well… you and another dude necroed all those threads. To me this hardly shows the “community making multiple attempts to warn Blizz”.

6 skills is here to stay. Just deal with it. It absolutely has nothing to do with consoles and you yapping this tired “simplicity for consoles sake” just shows how you have no idea about how consoles operate.

1 Like
#115

Again, you can balance it so using 6 skills and 10 skills are equal. One not being better than the other.

But that argument also isnt very useful imo. Some people also cant use more than 1 button, so should the game only have 1 skill slot? Why is 6 the limit?

:100:
Absolutely true.

Yeah, 6 skills is not a console limitation.
This is all on Blizzard. They are the ones that can, and should, change this.

#116

Only beginning of a season. but drop off super fast.

Also D2R has over 200K player concurrent in ONE server at its peak. But that fell off very fast.

I believe D3 had millions concurent players at its peak. The issue isn’t getting the numbers, its about sustaining it.

I wouldn’t be surprise D4 will have millions concern players at launch. Question is, what happened after 3 months, a years, 5 years down the road?

obviously its nice to get some of PoE base, but Blizzard must be looking at other pictures to bring bigger player bases. The MMO plyers, players liking social/MP aspect, action, exploration esport, specative gameplay (streaming) etc

What make games like lost Ark so appealing is it has a little bit of them all.

#117

Gonna +1 vote for more skill slots, i’d like to see at least 8-10

They could just add a few passive skill slots so people that don’t want too many buttons to press could slot those for a passive bonus to keep everyone happy

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#118

Don’t you think it’s awfully convenient though that pad would need modifier buttons or hotbar swap if it had any more than 6 buttons? Obviously they want people to press a and x for picking stuff up/use and dodge.

It’s too on the nose and too much of a coincidence for us not to call this into question.

I’d be extremely surprised if console wasn’t the main reason for this decision.

#119

No, it’s not. It’s just straight up a design choice. There is a completely unused button on console for crying out loud. If they really wanted they could have used all the shoulder buttons for skills giving you 8 without a modifier button while not impacting gameplay at all on a gamepad. They didn’t, because it’s a design choice, not a console limitation.

2 Likes
#120

There is nothing to be surprised that it is simply a choice of design.

This is Final Fantasy 14 skillbar for controller: :point_down:

Where I have 32 skills to use for my healer to use in the combat and another 16 slots for potions, emotes, and other general commands.

Also, Path of Exile console exists. :point_down:

So much for console limitation. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

2 Likes
#121

PoE console is actually a bit different. I think it has less flask slots, and stuff like that.

#122

I am not sure what is the max slots for the PoE flask but this is what PoE posters from PoE Reddit said about PoE PS4 version: