Revieving the Blizzcon demo it seems that Diablo 4 will be even more simple and casual than Diablo 3.
I know nothing is final and surely will change so this concerns to the current D4 build.
Attack & Defense: Instead of AS, CC, CD, Res, Armor, Life, etc…we get simplified stats called attack and defense…rly hope that this system isn’t set in stone and we get more attribute complexity here to finetune our builds.
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Runewords: Only combining 2 runes (trigger + effect) to get a medicore effect doesen’t look that satisfying.
Here I could imagine something like the Azerite armor wheel in WOW…means if you combine Runes to a certain word you get a specific wheel with 5 rings where you can chose 1 point in every ring.
F.e. the runeword “IlElEth (Malice)” would unlocks a DOT talent ring if you want to go the bleeding/poison way with your build.
The abilitys in the ring would be major upgrades to your prefered playstile.
Ofc words with more rare runes give stronger abilitys in this wheel.
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Talent tree: Only 2 lines (wizard 3) where you can chose only 1 major point at the end.
This can have a lot more complexity than only 2 (3) lines to follow…not that complex like POE but a middle way would be nice here.
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World bosses: What I’ve seen so far it looks like a random button mashing fest with other players, no real tactic required to beat the worldboss. Suggestion: Like with the Dungeon keys you could create a “world boss banner”.
Same philosophy, you stick the banner in front of the boss and depend to the banner LVL he becomes harder, has higher level, gets new affixes, new unique attacks, resistance to certain DMG types, even 1 shot mechanics to dodge (ofc doable bcs of HC player), etc…(but pls not much more life, make it primary harder through mechanics and not through a sponge life bar)
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Dont worry Blizzard, your audience can handle a more complex game so don’t be afraid to jump over your shadow.
Nowdays we have 3 types of player:
The Veterans: People like me who play Diablo since hour 1, played the hell out of Diablo 2 and ofc dont miss any game in this genre.
The younger generation: Those player are literaly born with a smartphone in theyr hand and I think that they have even wires instead veins how much they play games.
The casual players: People who play 4-5 hours/week…They buy the game, play the story 2-3 times, try a lil bit multiplayer and thats it.
You dont have to create a game around the 3rd audience bcs they won’t go deep enough into the game to say that it’s “to complex”.
If you ask them what build/set they play they will probably answere “I’ve beaten the endboss and finished the game”. (Have many friends who gave me exactly this answere)
And the first 2 are the Core audience who dont stop after “beating the endboss”.
They keep playing 100ts or even 1000ts of hours, can handle more complexity but have to live with the simplicity if the game is to easy/simple (And this is also the major audience who buy expansions for this kind of games btw).
WIth Diablo 3 we have/had a game for the 3rd audience…I hope that Diablo 4 will be a game more for the first 2.
Let it be a true “easy to learn, hard to master” game for your core audience pls.
Could not agree more with the overly simplified attack/defense stats, runewords, and talent trees. It essentially removes any actual choice/decisions. As a result, casual players aren’t intimidated by choice (hooray…) and the people who actually love the series and will spend the most time playing it are denied key components of what made D2 so great.
How about they make an actual Diablo game which means they iterate on systems from Diablo and Diablo 2 rather than ruining the game just so they can cater to what’s likely <0.1% of the Diablo fan base.
And the example with WOW was only how the wheel could look like, didn’t say that is has to be 1:1 like in WOW…wanted only to describe the look of the wheel.
If Blizzard makes a square instead of a circle I would also be fine with it as long as it has more depth as the current runeword system.
We still have almost all those stats you said D4 doesn’t have. Atack and Defense replace only Main Stat(Str, Dex, Int) Vitality, and maybe weapon damage.
Atack speed is still in. CC and maybe CD are still in, etc. Plus we got new things like +Skill afixes and all that.
Yeah I don’t blame you tbh. Those stats didn’t really stand out on itens (besides the legendary ones) and Attack and Defense are written in a much larger font. And at least in the demo they didn’t have a panel with all the stats you character has like we have here in D3.
At first I was afraid too, but after carefuly watching more than 2 hours of gameplay from Blizzcon I noticed those other afixes on itens.
Wanted to add: complexity in a game is partly achieved through suggestions in this thread regarding stat depth etc., but it is largely achieved through complex game play.
Let’s be clear: make another game with something like ‘press 3, pause, left mouse click, pause, press 3, pause’ where characters vault forward, and with one left mouse click annihilate a whole screen - it’s just going to be a bot fest.
The more mindless the gameplay is the more it’ll be botted. This is Blizzard’s chance to make it much harder for botters, finally. Else…
actually the “attack and defense” dont replace many affixes, they only replace the mainstats “dex, str, vit, int” from d3, which were BS aswell but also somehow…mix into main equipment stats (weapons ALWAYS had attack, armors ALWAYS had defense) so it somehow doesnt make sence at all and they got rid of attributes, completely, which is also terrible
I have many non ARPG player friends, in RL and in all my guilds.
Half of them are as described player who play the story and thats it, maybe few hours multiplayer and go back to theyr prefered genre (MMO, Shooter, etc…)
And the other half will never touch games like Diablo, not even for free (I often offer them to buy the game with all expansions but they dont want).
So yes you’re right, it’s a big mistake to build a game around this kind of audience.
Attack and Defense are replacing Mainstat and general Toughness from D3. Other stats aside still exist on items. Other than that discrepancy, though, I agree.
No? it’s the most bland, boring filler shiet I’ve ever seen. They basically took a single +Dmg mod and turned it into +Dmg vs Condition which is just dumb. They’re trying to make CC make more sense in the game but it isn’t making sense at all…
You can have a certain amount of CC in a game but when you’re adding a ton of them just so your CC reduction and CC breaks has a reason for existing it just falls apart.
