please please please for the love of all things (un)holy, do not repeat past mistakes and implement an infinite levelling system. Paragon 2.0 was absolutely terrible in this respect.
There is no real way around such a system either becoming way too powerful over time, or being so underpowered as to be mechanically irrelevant. The former is what went wrong with Diablo 3, as, over time, players accumulated thousands of paragon levels.
There are currently players in Diablo 3 with over 6000 paragon levels, to whom paragon levels by now outweigh any other available source of power.
Another thing is the psychological effect of having a goal to chase, however far away it is, rather than a carrot on a stick dangling in front of you.
Additionally, don’t underestimate the player-base. Diablo III launched with insufficient difficulty and power-increase options, which were subsequently added over time, through patches, with Ancient legendaries, legendary powers, loot 2.0, paragon levels, and increased torment level difficulties.
Similar systems should be in place at launch.
just wanted to post another idea for D4:
could make it so players can access all inventories in-game of any created character without the need to switch to the character.
I think that would be great, it could be done with an npc, the stash or a button. Or we could have some kind of housing system in which we can find our other characters always there. I think this would be great to give a realism to the game: the characters don’t disappear when you are not playing them.
Agreed, well said, it screws with the balance of everything else.
There are so many good things being said here, and, I’d probably screw too much up if I went into too much detail… So with that said, I’ll cough up some things I’ve been thinking about:
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Endgame. You got some cool ideas, but expand, expand, expand. I despised D3 and the GR system. You got some good ideas with world bosses, but after I collect everything, and I mean everything, what am I collecting then? That in and of itself is why I liked D2 runes. Not only did it form a valuable form of currency, but it was something I could use to trade harder to get items I may not want to grind to find with other characters. Endgame can not just be things you do, but things you can collect beyond that of just items.
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Cosmetics. Stay simple and true to the genre. With that being said, there was something missing in D3 that I personally liked in D2. This would not be something that would keep me from playing or loving the game, but adding gems to wepons/armor changed it’s look in a subtle way (dark corresponding colors). Now, I doubt we will get gems, but I do think we should in some format. It offers more ways to change play style and you could even incorporate a intertwined gem/rune system that offers varying degrees of bonuses. Honestly, I like the way you are headed here, just feel it needs more depth. Maybe allow certain runewords to cast a very finite dark genre appropriate visual to the weapon/armor. For instance, one may cause the weapon to become a more polished version, or cause it to look rusted, or a discrete glimmer of ice/diamonds, or even imbue a finite fire engulfment… Visuals are king when you are adding public town hubs. And that’s not only the ones you can buy. You shouldn’t have to pay to look good.
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Skill Trees. Love you are going back this route. It looks almost too simplistic though and would definitely like to see more depth. POE is a bit overboard in my opinion but it does allow for theory crafting. Finding a good balance here is key. Not too simple, but complex enough to allow for more diversity and idea crafting.
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Trading. Obviously you have a bunch more info to release directly to trading, but trading needs and should be a viable part of the game. Now, I agree, too open trading makes the game feel like you have to trade to level quickly, however that is only for half the playing population. I personally, like to grind for my loot, but endgame trading needs to happen and I like to be able to trade anything I find when I feel the need for it. Maybe there are some parameters such as if you craft a unique to your build you have to keep it, or you can only trade something once/twice, but either way you need to allow for trading. I honestly would go the route of trading it twice. That in and of itself could create a decent in game valuable trading system to allow players to find items trading for low and then resale the items. I don’t want this to be too MMO-ish, but a bit of it like you are going for never hurt anyone.
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The whole world. Yup, I want to see every aspect of Sanctuary I’ve ever visited in other games. I want to be able to travel the world. In that, if I am traveling the seas by ship I would love to encounter some water dungeons/fights along the way, if I so chose to do so. Maybe there is an option to skip your sea travels or just use way points, but if this is an open world and I want to cross the sea, make it more difficult to get from one side to the other. Hopefully we will see the WHOLE world with included expansions. The sea element is just trying to add an additional piece to the game we have never seen. How that would be done, I haven’t a clue.
I got plenty more, but that is enough for now. Good day Blizz.
Okay let me start with the Gameplay:
I think you have done a great job with the gameplay, and from what we have shown its look solid. The animations and how your character attack looking solid. Really like Barbarian spitting and pulling his sword and the blood flow, really cool.
The new mechanics we see, like Barbarian jumping from cliff at the enemies or climbing through add to the game depth and this is really nice for the people who not only play the game purely for speed, but actually want to enjoy the time in the game and pay attention to all this stuffs.
The change to a Open World MMO is the right direction, and will add great depth to the end game, because the world will be bigger and that mean less repeatable and similar stuffs you see time after time.
Also this give you a choice to expand greater with expansion and when you play the expansion to feel like in a new game. You can`t have that with the way how D2 and D3 was. Only props for doing this, cause this is the right way for sure.
Itemization:
I think this, endgame contents(most importantly) and skills/talents are the bread of any such game.
We don`t know very much about it, but i have to said that it should give players plenty of option to play what they want. If i want to play Barbarian with one hand + shield i should be able to. If i want to play him two handed i should be able to, same for dual wield. Also for the weapons, you needs to make all type viable to the specific characters. Like melee character to chose what he like, either sword or dagger or axe or mace or flail and so on.
Diablo 3 lacks big time in this department. I also agree that rare should have part in the end game. They should be competitive to the legendary, but in different manner. For example legendary gives you a bonuses and will have edge in this department, but the rare to be strong on raw power and you to make the choice what your character is needing. I think you get the point.
Skills and talents:
I did not like what i see to be fair. Yeah skill animations actually look good, but from what i see at least from the talent tree, there is too little choice to be fair. It should be way, way bigger. Last Epoch and Path of Exile talent tree is the leader in this and you should take a note. I`m not saying to copy or to do it very similar, but to make it big, different and every player to feel unique, not 30 barbarian to have the same skill/talents. In the POE for example 10 people can play the same build, lets say Double Strike, but the 10 people will most likely have different passive tree.
I think the big downfall of D3 was the skills and the lacks of choice, customization and so on. Also make the melee characters to actually be melee, unlike Diablo 3.
EndGame
I think this is the most important part of the game. If the endgame is good, a lot of sacrifice could be make.
We need different content, and every replayability of this content to feel different. We don t have that to be fair in Diablo 3. While i like bounties, events and Rifts, they are just too similar and simple. Doing Nephalem Rifts and Greater Rifts with the exception of item drop its so similar, its actually like the same content and you get bored with it. After a week of playing its like doing the same exact rift time over time. You should add variety, maybe end game quests and or random quests that have lore in the place you are doing them. Like planetary story quest in TOR. And i think its time to see totally new end game mode on the arpg scene - fortress/village assault/defend. There should be a event that last more than 10 minutes, so when you start it, you defend the fortress/village you are at, against waves, and you doing different stuff to protect the fortress. Same goes for assaulting the fortress. If you can t imagine what exactly my idea is see Lineage Eternal trailer, where thousand are attacking a fortress and thousand are defending one. This will be a game mode in the game and its look stunning. With such mode you will just kill the arpg on the market straight away.
I know this is not easy to make, but i think its time for such mode and it will be a great future and great endgame mode that the player will enjoy a lot.
It will be a great fun in a group defending the fortress you are at or attacking it.
Leveling/Paragon
Firstable level 40 is too low, but you obviously have an idea and we don t know much about it, but i think the leveling of the game is a very cool and enjoyable part of the game, and also to make a connection with your character. My minimum even with paragon system, the leveling should be at least 70. As far as Paragon i think a lot of people like them, and they are the driven motivation for a lot of people to play D3. The people just don t make 239273723 threads to praise them. I think it was a good feature in D3, and when you are max level, its give you something to go for more monster kill and doing more content.
I like paragon system to be infinity again, but you need to make a good balance with the power creep. Scale the difficult properly.
Power Creep
I think we all can agree that we want slowly paced game. Diablo 3 and POE atm are like arcade shooting. You can`t even see the skill you are using, forget to see how your weapon swing, and its less challenging when you fight. Speed is not everything and people should stop focusing on speed builds. That will happen when you change this.
With that pace you stop enjoying and feeling the game, you just focus to do and do everything asap. You are not going to enjoy the fight, you are not going to enjoy the art, and you not going to enjoy how your weapons and skills animation looks, and you not going to enjoy the content you are doing, and as well you are not going to enjoy the monster you fight, not going to enjoy the environment you are. Its all look the same, cause of god … speed.
Monetization:
I think its important to add that, cause that is crucial to the game life span. If you want a future support of the game, the company need a good monetization system. MTX is a great way for that and i`m pretty much okay with that.
If you want a future support and regularly updates and support, the company have to make income from it, otherwise its not a good business. Maybe 2 or 3 smaller expansion per year is also a good way to have that.
Feedback from players is a good thing, but sometimes a lot of player just complain for the sake of it. And the world we live is when someone is unhappy with something for example you brought a TV and you are not happy with it or have an issue with it, you will make everyone knows and scream it to everyone and everywhere and you will most likely exaggerate the issue you have by far.
On the other hand customer that are happy with “products” they are not screaming to anyone, and everywhere. They will maybe recommended if they are asked. By what i want to said is that Diablo 3 has its problems, but its a very nice looking game and the game offer a lot of great new feature you , like interactions with the environment , the traps, mechanics and so on. Same for a lot of others good stuff that the game offer.
This is for all the people who are crying, moaning and complaining, that you should totally ignore D3 and make a D2 copy, where in reality most of the people wont be happy with just a Remastered game.
I think you said it perfectly on some of the casts, “we want to take best things from D2 and D3 change them and put them in D4”.
Diablo 4 should not be Diablo 2, should not be and Diablo 3, Diablo 4 should be a brand new game, that is very different to both D2 and D3, but have its similarity.
Best of wishes and happy holidays to all.
I`m open for future discussion.
The key dungeons sounds good as a substitute of GRs. I think bounties could work if done right (but i don’t know what that would be) and the infernal machine could work very well if it is improved: something like the key dungeons idea in combination of world bosses, with an option to do it in the open world or in an instance (alone or in party).
A few ideas:
- When many enemies die in an area, this attract bigger enemies, could even summon very difficult monsters.
- The death of enemies can trigger a bounty over your head.
- Rituals: have optional ritual events that allow you to summon enemies from hell. This would be something bad and it would give a buff to demonic power for x amount of time. Similar events for angelic and ancient power could happen too.
- Death mark: things like werewolves and similar creatures could curse the player and need to complete an event (like kill the creature that curse you or find a cure) before the time runs out, if that happens you can die. For example: for werewolf, you have until the next full moon to kill the werewolf that bite you, during this time you get a growing damage buff but when the time runs out you turn into a werewolf and lose control, this can lead the character to death.
This is an interesting concept that should be taken from another game that uses the so called “Nemesis System”. Remember that? A play off that system, something slightly different but on par for the course. That was a very popular and fun system.
Also, one more thing. I’ve seen people mention mobs getting hit releasing a flash of white surround. I also noticed mobs having a ever so slightly glow around them showing you’ve clicked on them. Make these WAY less flashy and colorful. First, we don’t have to see every time we make contact. It may be beneficial at low levels, but end game it becomes useless to see that. At least give us the option to see it or not, making it our preference. That goes for both hitting something and having a glow effect around the monster for clicking purposes. Maybe allow that target aura to be switched on or off, or allow us to navigate what we would like it to look like personally (choose color, size, etc.).
One more idea!!! Just thought this up and thought it was a really cool aspect. So, make a “Nemesis System” of sorts, but add to it. So, not only does being killed by a monster spawn a legendary monster in the world, but add that monsters name with “Slayer of whomever”. In the event we cross this monster’s path, we can attempt to kill it. If we then die, the monster’s strength continues to grow, and can grow into a world boss over time. However, if we kill the monster, we can use a dagger or bladed weapon to “claim it’s head”. We can then turn the head into either an NPC, or even more fun would be to find the first player who was killed, and trading it to them would grant us not only a temporary buff, but a coin or relic to be traded in for a reward. The better the relic, the better the reward. If you collect numerous relics and turn them in at once, then you can then get a mission to collect a even higher relic from a spawned world boss or specific dungeon boss. Obtaining that grants the “best” reward of sorts.
And then, on top of that, there can be a bounty board in town hubs that lists the specific monsters in the word, who to trade it to, and possible rewards. That way, if we are collecting relics to spawn something bigger, we can research the relics we may need and search for specific monsters in the world.
I love your number 5 idea with sea travel and ocean dungeons and whatnot. That would definitely be new and exciting.
Dunstan I love your death mark idea, where a monster can curse you or afflict you with a permanent ailment or debuff that requires undertaking a quest to get rid of.
Yes, never played with that effect but i think it is a good thing to have (for the little i know about it). As for that idea, it is from Dragons Dogma: DA. There, when you kill a big enemy, their bodies start to decompose and can attract other powerful enemies. You also can carry some rotten meat and use it to attract those enemies too.
Yes, i don’t like that. If they want to do something, change the color or shape of the pointer or something like that. The thing around enemies and npcs doesn’t look good (but it looks better than what they have done in other games, but still not good).
I like that idea a lot. I think they should do something to buff monsters that kill players, that would be an interesting mechanic they could add to the game.
Yes, i got that idea reading “The Wendigo” of Algernon Blackwood.
D4 Idea:
For better feel of the world, I hope we’ll be allowed to use attacks in towns. With this, could have things like a npc human character randomly in a town you can click but the character doesn’t want to talk and if you keep bothering/clicking, the character suddenly tries to kill you and is revealed to be a Dark Cultist spy or something. There can still be attack-free areas like for anyone who needs to go afk in multiplayer mode for a few minutes but I just hope they don’t make the entirety of towns be that.
They did that in D3, act 3, when you first arrived in Bastion Keep.
I like the new runewords in Diablo 4.
In diablo 2 runewords are just basically glorified uniques. The same affixes of the runewords can be apllied to a unique and call it a unique, no thanks.
Diablo 4’s one is better, a trigger and a effect. I just hope it can be made into 3 socketed at least tho, That have 2 triggers, or 2 affects one trigger etc.
Thanks blizzard for this new runeword system, I like it!
Ok so I’ve written down some thoughts for Diablo IV and what I’ve seen from the demo, I also understand that all of these things may change. I will make more notes and thoughts on these dev updates but I just want to get my thoughts out there now.
Diablo IV thoughts
Monsters-
-No rag doll or bodies gliding away, if I slash an enemy with a brutal attack the body should be mauled or fall apart not just fly or glide away.
-No skinny, non-proportional monsters unless for a specific reason but just looks very childish, these are harsh demonic creatures (i.e. fallen ones).
- No highlighting monsters, maybe just a subtle highlight when attacking but no outlines or colors.
-No giant demons, normal sized demons or slightly oversized demons unless its a prime, theres something more terrifying about a normal sized powerful demon than a giant sized weak demon. (maybe its just me)
Environment-
-Should be darker not so grayish white, if I’m in a dungeon unless there are windows there shouldn’t be much light unless there is a light source. Doesn’t need be solid black just darker. However the game looks way better and I think the Diablo team is going in the right direction.
Characters-
-both characters and monsters still have a bit of a cartoony look but are a huge improvement from D3. A little more realism and grittiness, like we are going through hell, literally.
- Class characters look, I love the concepts of each class looking more of where they are from (i.e. Druid) definitely huge positive.
-Stamina bar for dash kind of like in D2 with run/walk stamina bar.
Music-
-Bring back Matt Uelmen
-However, the music sounds great but I feel some of it sounds a little more modern, I think adding more classic instrumentals and less synth will do justice. More horror less epic.
Skills-
-I think the skills look great but some are a little too D3 style, they should look more powerful and devastating.
-Fire looks very fluid not necessarily like a fire but almost lava?
Power level scale-
-High increase from 0-60 (from average consumer game play completion) and moderate increase from 61-85 (for endgame and PVP grinders), from 86-99 more than moderate increase in power (for PVP differential).
Again, these are just thoughts not a must be. Maybe they’ve already adjusted some of these things or will. Maybe they come up with better ideas.
Also, the demo looked great, really pulled me back, Diablo is by far my favorite franchise, I’ve played D1-D3 my entire life. So I am a little bit obsessed.
Please leave your thoughts and comments for me, I am always open to everyone’s opinions and thoughts.
Thanks,
DDescend
Diablo 2- DDescendT1
Blizzard- Descend#11297
I would like that to have events of monsters attacking the town, and we must defend it and after rebuild. The idea of cultists and other human enemies is great too.
I like them too and i agree that more sockets would be great. But i would also like the old runes come back, maybe as a cubre recipe. The idea of the runes isn’t that much about the end result but about being able to craft (search for the ingredients, etc) powerful items.
Some giant demons could be ok, but shouldn’t be too many, and there shouldn’t be packs of them, except on very rare situations.
Nothing like in a game when you are killing regular size monsters and you see at the distance a dragon (for example) and stop in doubt of continue or run away.
But yes, big weak monsters is bad, big and rare powerful ones its ok for me.
What i would change of the world bosses of the demo would be to don’t make them be in a very restricted space (maybe some could be like Duriel in D2, but not all), and could be part of events like a town invasion or could be a monster that dominates a big area. In Dragon’s Dogma, you can see a dragon flying, and they cover a very big area and can attack at any moment.
Also, big bosses should have many posible actions of what to do in different situations, this can add to the hard to learn part of the game.
Ok now I think i get it where you are coming from, So it’s about the excitement of getting each rune and a base white item to make it huh?
Yeah that make more sense as to why you want runewords.
Because otherwise it is just glorified uniques as I have said, you can have the stats on a unique and call it a unique item instead of a runeword and it’s all the same.
Ok i get it now, that seems like a reasonable reason to want it.
Its like rolling up my own cigarettes. I usually just buy a pack of cigarette , but sometime buying a tobacco separately and rolling it myself feels good, it’s not about the end result, (that is the same, both will be a cigarette in the end), but I enjoy the process of making it, cutting the tobacco, listening to the scissors sounds (the sound it makes when you cut the tobacco/green)…feelsgoodman…hahaha.