I’ve read the Quarterly Update for Diablo 4 and I must say it appears like the game is going in a decent direction based on the bits and pieces of information shared.
My personal opinion:
What I liked:
- Art Design by Igor Sidorenko illustrating the Cannibal Tribe is very nice. Really love the art-style and fairly disturbing imagery. Fits decently into the Diablo world, but could be even a notch more disturbing and more medieval themed. IMO it should be slightly more medieval, plausible, hopeless, disgusting and less “Lord of The Rings” fantasy.
- Really like the “Cannibal Tribe” Monster Family Design. It fits very well into Diablo, a world where certain humans have become poisoned by evil that amplifies everything bad in us humans. I like the “Mad Max” vibe to this fantasy. Its gory, gritty, plausible and unsettling. Great monster design idea.
- Giving PC players the option to choose between the traditional Bottom/Center UI position and allowing to switch to the Bottom/Left UI position is a fair compromise and a WIN/WIN Design, at a cost of slight loss of “visual identity”, as some streamers will utilize one or the other creating potential confusion among viewers initially about the platform that is being watched (PC? Console?). However, this will only be confusing for new potential players dipping their toe into D4 by watching streamers on twitch etc.
What I didn’t like
- I am not a fan of homogenized item size for every piece of gear. I like the idea of AAA-quality item-art with individual item sizes aka Belt using 2x1 squares, boots using 2x2, Body armour using 2x6 squares, Long Pike-Type Weapon using 2x8 squares etc. We obviously understand its more “convenient” to have a homogenized item size for every piece of gear, but having a huge two-handed axe using the same space in your inventory as gloves is not adequate in my opinion. Bigger Items that use more inventory squares also allow for more item-detail on larger pieces which improves immersion. Inventory management is a significant aspect of a game that revolves around loot that lands in your inventory.
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Having homogenized item sizes making all items occupy the same space is like dictating that all Art-Pieces in the world should use the same canvas dimensions. Don’t forget, making games is a form of Art-Expression, and convenience should be used where appropriate, and I think this is not the right place for “convenience over individualism”.
- I am not a fan of the UI design, and I hope this is just one prototype of many, and the final design will be more “Thematically Dark and Diabolic” and have much less “Console-Vibe”.
Suggestions and Ideas that are right down the alley of “Isometric-ARPG-Enthusiasts”:
- I hope you guys will have randomness to Monster Abilities like “Auras” they can roll once a monster is generated as “champion” or other kind of “elite”. It would be really cool if encounters are different and vary in danger-levels every time we enter an area in the world. Having an Elite Cannibal roll with a dangerous aura that empowers his surrounding Melee-Combatants with a powerful buff, turning them into a deadly encounter is an amazing way of “randomizing” the world and its dangers. It allows for dynamic combat and highly randomized encounters on every single play session.
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Turning a seemingly easy-to-kill enemy horde of “trash-mobs” into a dangerously enhanced encounter just by spawning a pack-boss as an elite with a random aura buff is not only opening the door for strategic and tactical combat opportunity, but also allowing for content to remain relevant despite having a difficulty cap.
- It would be very cool to have all Monster-Families be associated with specific weapon, armour, and jewellery types heavily tied to the middle-ages and other eras throughout our real human history. Now you could associate every Monster-Family Loot Drop Table with specific bonuses that are distinct to their Monster Family. This would allow players to farm Base-Items for specific targeted crafting for mid and end-game items. It would also be an opportunity to allow for targeted farming of Unique and Set items that would be more likely to drop in a specific zone that is likely to spawn monsters from a specific family which drops the item-base-type you’re after for normal, ethereal, magic, rare, unique and set items.
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I think all unique and set items should have a chance to drop everywhere at any moment, but it would be great to allow min-maxer-type gamers to focus on farming specific areas or content to get the items they are after on a hopefully long journey of character leveling and character building.
- Talent Skill Trees and Actual Skill-Skill-Trees (lol…) should be more elaborated. Currently it is very WOW-Like, and everyone will go down the same path, because there is no choice to be made, other than how many points will i allocate while traveling down the same path as everyone else. This is BS.
- I remember You guys mentioned something like “Eventually we want every player to have all of the skill tree maxed out in every category”. Please DON’T do this. This is ridiculous. You MUST create real skill trees, where players must make crucial decisions and every decision should come with a benefit and a price to pay to get that benefit. A Lightning Sorceress should be a Lightning sorceress and very different from a Fireball-Sorceress. Allowing players to just maximize every single skill eventually, defeats the purpose of having any kind of skill tree at all. A skill tree is a tool to enhance diversity among same-class-builds and allow for specialization and sense of “identity”. D3 failed at this miserably, and so does WOW, dont force this paradigm onto D4 please. NOT AGAIN!