We’d like to encourage you to have a focused place to discuss our first Quarterly Update, now live for your reading enjoyment! This is intended to be a dedicated thread for that purpose, and our developers will be prioritizing reviewing feedback or discussion here.
Please note that this is a dedicated thread intended for player discussion and we may not respond to or immediately answer questions in this thread at this time. We may consider questions or feedback here for future inclusion in Quarterly Updates, and look forward to reading your thoughts!
If you’d like to recap or revisit previous posts on the announcement or ongoing insights on Diablo IV development, you can see everything here:
To avoid interrupting gameplay with pockets of inventory management, we’re not planning on bringing back different-sized items. However, we’ve been tackling the other points from a variety of directions.
Good!
With item icons, we’d initially pursued a painterly style to stay in line with the overall art direction of the game, and we’re finding that it doesn’t come across as well when we’re talking about small elements in the UI. We’re now exploring another approach more directly based off the 3D models to give them natural texture and realism.
Those examples look great imo.
In addition to giving players the freedom to assign any skill to any slot from the get-go, all skill slots can now have their keys rebound. We’re committed to supporting skill rebinding for controllers as well.
Very nice.
Supporting controllers on PC
Great. BUT how about mouse and keyboard support for console? There is no good reasons not to support that set-up as well.
Both MS and Sony seems to allow it these days.
Overall, I cant help being a little disappointed by the stuff you chose to focus on for this quarterly update. Not that the topics are not important, but hopefully we get much further into game mechanics, systems, itemization, skills/talents etc.
Btw, monster families seems like a reasonable way to catalogize monsters to create more coherence.
But do any of it tie to the itemization and skills/talents for example? Like doing more/less dmg against Cannibals etc.
Or more/less dmg against bruiser or swarmer archetypes etc.
You may need to clear your cache/cookies. I’ve QA’d it in both my local and an incognito browser to be sure it’s accurate. Sometimes a browser’s cache will mess with new publications, though.
I know it’s early in development, but I noticed that we have a couple armor slots missing this time around: Shoulders, belt and bracers are all missing so far.
Personally I don’t know what to make of this. I liked the idea in D3 of extra armor slots to further customize my build and stats and it actually bothers me a bit that it was removed. Anyone else feel the same way? I know it’s not a lot to go off of yet.
The Cannibal family and the family structure sounds like it can be an interesting setup, and can easily give a lot of information at a glance based on the enemy’s look and weapons. I’m hoping they develop this further for other branches like Demon, Undead etc etc.
Yeah, I am pretty much of the opinion that the more slots the better (I know, you can devalue items by having too many item slots - but it doesnt feel like we are anywhere close to that point).
Big Yay for rebind left mouse button!
I just hope it doesn’t end up as force move only (and stuped at the next door or chest). Force move plus interact is what is needed.
Oh, and I still hope they can add this little but important change to D3 too.
A few thoughts after reading the quarterly and a few comments here.
First, I agree with the comments on less equipment slots and the loss of customization. This is a tragedy that seems more and more common these days. I’m not sure if it is an attempt to simplify things for casual gamers or what but I think it homogenizes the experience and definitely waters down the gameplay for all people.
Second, I have a concern about bosses/zone bosses. Not so much about their existence more the way they were introduced in Diablo 3. The idea of the cutscene to introduce them I personally felt made it a little corny. I understand you have to make these experiences a big deal but I found the cutscene really ruined the atmosphere. I preferred the old days of D1 & D2 where the butcher, for example, just came out of nowhere (or not, if you were expecting it), it just seemed more terrifying and in-line with the eerie theme of the Diablo world.
Just food for thought. Thanks for the D4 updates, looking forward to the next one and I think the community appreciates Blizzard taking all of our feedback.
Yeah, it feels kinda odd having that removed. Maybe it’s better really. With less slots to worry about, maybe good drops feel more meaningful naturaly. With 10 slots compared to the 13 we get in D3, we could have a smaller drop rate naturaly without really having a big effect on gearing process, because we need almost 25% less items.
To be honest, I was hoping for a bit more info regarding factors such as pvp, developers opinions on players being able to create private sessions, and/or character building aspects, such as skills and the passive tree. That said it’s a good read, especially the monster family.
I am very glad to see the plans for allowing “rebind all the things”. My mouse-hand index finger thanks you!
I remain very concerned, though, that there has been no mention (that I’ve seen anywhere) of macOS support. Having played (way too much) of all 3 prior Diablos on Macs, starting with the original back in the 90’s, it would be very sad to be excluded this time around
Please take a close look at the user inventory and build customisability that Grim Dawn offers. I feel strongly that they did a beautifull job of expanding on the game mechanics of Diablo II, and made improvements on it with regards to the item slots (relics, medals and such), and the devotion system. Such type of game mechanics would certainly fit a new Diablo game very well.
As for your transparancy in communication to the public: Good job! Keep at it and it will become a beautifull game i’m sure.
This is for console or will be include for PC players?
We know many players enjoyed couch co-op in Reaper of Souls , and that the biggest complaint was the inability to do anything while one local player had a UI screen open. When the topic of couch co-op came up early on in development, we looked at the number of people who utilized this feature in Diablo III and found that the 2-player setup accounted for an overwhelming majority. For Diablo IV , we decided to focus on improving the favored 2-player co-op experience and set up our core progression UI screens such that they can be opened independently or at the same time.
Probably not going to happen, but you should have an option for switching the whole UI between left and right (including the map moving from right to left).
Peoples OLED TVs would be much happier with a slightly less static interface
I agree completely with the introduction cutscenes of bosses in D3. They were cringe-worthy in certain instances. Like the introduction to The Butcher in D3 completely ruined him for me. In D4, this could rather be done with atmospheric sound design increasing in intensity as you get closer to said boss. As a producer myself, I was not happy with D3’s overall “feel” and “atmosphere” of the sound design. It felt like a game for kids who watches power rangers. Please go back to D1/D2’s type of scoring and atmosphere. Look at how effective scoring/feeling/atmosphere is in the Dark Souls franchises. Boss battles feel like boss battles and has music that rattles your very soul. I feel often that modern games developers no longer harness the power of sound and I look forward to seeing some updates on how Blizzard is approaching audio design, scoring music and general atmosphere of D4. And for all that is unholy, turn it down with the cinematic movie approach. This isn’t Hollywood, this is Sanctuary, this is Diablo. Massive fan of the franchise since its inception in 1996. Bring back Balrogs and Magma Demons. You can modernize their character models, but they were bad a**.
Sometimes a browser’s cache will mess with new publications, though.
