Regarding Blizzard's D4 goals stated in the information leaked on Reddit

General Discussion
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From the leaked Diablo IV plans posted on Reddit here:

Within the leaked information are the following points:

  • Blizzard will be treating Diablo IV as a reboot of the franchise. Those who wanted a Diablo II Remake and a brand new Diablo game will be pleased. Basically, it’s a combination of both made for the modern era. Best way to think of this is the latest God of War that was released in April for the PlayStation 4 in 2018.

  • Diablo II Remake/Remaster was planned, but they later realized that it would be much better to give the franchise a complete reset and put majority of the fans requests into 1 giant package.

  • Paladin, Barbarian, Sorcerer, Amazon and Druid are planned for launch with more coming later. Blizzard wants people to feel like this is Diablo II all over again but in a completely new era of the franchise.

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Those are good goals to have. However, they need to be actual goals and not fluff-words and appealing sentiments meant to sucker people in with false promises.

If there’s been a decision to sideline remastering Diablo II (which I hope is only temporary until Diablo IV is released and that a Diablo II remaster will be done eventually) based on the plan to immediately fulfill Diablo II interests in Diablo IV, then Blizzard had better know the key things that will cause them to fall short of that goal.

One of those key things that is essential to meeting that goal is to have in-depth and meaningful character building.

If Diablo IV re-uses Diablo 3’s systems of levelling up and itemization, if, like Diablo 3, it has no character building but only character loadout customization, and if it uses Diablo 3’s joke system of getting abilities automatically while levelling up and being able to swap between all abilities at any time, then Blizzard will have auto-failed their goal of

Choices must matter. If Blizzard wants to pull a Diablo 3 and have switchable, then that should exclusively be restricted to a toddler / beginner / not serious mode. Diablo 3’s systems are laughable in any case and not worthy of being called gameplay - because they aren’t. But, if Blizzard wants to make that kind of system available for people who don’t play games to be challenges or deal with choices that matter and who just want to switch through all different abilities like people might try out clothes in front of a mirror, then that functionality should be separated from the main game and in its own simplified mode.

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Another thing that will mean that Blizzard failed to meet their reported goal of fulfilling people’s longing for a Diablo 2 type of experience is if they get the challenge and difficulty wrong.

This footage is from my first playthrough of Diablo 3, and is on the hardest difficulty available, which is Expert, which is the next difficulty level that’s higher than Hard. And Hard is higher than Normal.

2nd to final boss fight in Diablo 3:

Final boss fight in Diablo 3:

Does this look like it’s hard or expert? It’s impossible to die! How is that nothing other than the easiest of the diaper-wearing soother-sucking easy? What in the F are Hard and Normal then if it’s impossible to die on Expert? Why do “Hard” and Normal exist? What the F? How many millions of dollars did Blizzard spend making Diablo 3, and this was done to it? removed by moderation This is utterly atrocious and utterly unacceptable in every way. Where there is no challenge, there is no game. And Diablo 3 is no game.

Calling this expert isn’t just inaccurate, it’s an outright LIE and BS of the highest order. Do not lie to people with the difficulty settings in Diablo IV. And have actual difficulty settings, not like Diablo 3 which has no difficulty settings and only 3 options to choose god mode.

Needless to say, it made for a completely uninteresting and unsatisfying playthrough experience. In fact, the only challenge created by the game was the one of getting myself to come back to play it until campaign was completed. It was completely gruelling to get myself to roam through the game to complete it.

Do you think I felt interested to play further after finishing the boring walk-through of the game? Heck no. Uninstalling that crap was the most exciting part of owning the game, and I couldn’t wait to uninstall it at the end and never have to reinstall it ever again. I wish I could dispose of it fully from my Blizzard account.

removed by moderation

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So, character building and having the game actually be a game by presenting a challenge are two of the key things that will determine whether Blizzard meets their goal of giving people a satisfying Diablo 2 style experience in Diablo IV.

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If I make a character to play a particular style or build, and that build gets nerfed in a patch, or a new build for the class emerges that I want to play, why should I have to abandon that character and the time sunk into it and start over? Tedious and pointless. What’s the difference between having two barbarians, both playing one build, and having one barbarian that can play two builds? How is one ‘deep and meaningful’ and the other ‘shallow & boring’ when the end result is the same?

Oh but yeah, D2 players who could follow build guides and allocate their skill points ‘correctly’ were just total deep thinking theorycrafters and hardcore gamers. And if you could just change them, we’ll then there’d be no way for other players to see how leet you were! Because you clicked the right buttons at the right time! Not like the noobs who didn’t even read the build guide and allocated their points wrong! Ha ha so funny.

And your videos.“Highest difficulty”. Yeah OK. Calling your playthroughs boss fights at the highest difficulty is BS of the highest order.

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I don’t look at character guides when making my characters. And I’m sure most people don’t either. Also, there isn’t just one build guide out there for D2 characters or other stat-allocation-based game characters. There are possibilities.

What the difference between being able to have one character do everything and have a character that is the character you’ve built them to be? Well, the latter gives identity and meaningfulness to that build, while the other is meaningless and the equivalent of playing a FPS game with god-mode on or with a code to give you all the keys in the level and unlimited ammo. It’s just not fun, except maybe for young kids who are just wanting to mess about in the game - which is fine, but it shouldn’t ruin the game for everybody else.

Regarding the videos I posted, they are literally on the highest difficulty in Diablo 3 for a first run. They are on Expert mode, which is higher than Hard, which is higher than Normal. If you have trouble believing that, then I must ask: Did you play through Diablo 3 yourself? What is shown in the videos I posted genuinely demonstrates the atrocity of a non-game that Diablo 3 is.

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As long as they give us a true modern D4 and leave D2 in the history books where it belongs. I prefer Blizzard does their homework and look at all modern ARPGs for example Path of Exile, Grim Dawn, Torchlight, etc. and build a modern D4 game.

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  1. Nope. Diablo 4 is about 80% Diablo III, 15% World of Warcraft, 5% Diablo II

  2. Umm who were the idiots who decided that!?!? So sad! Why cant they do both? Hire More People.

  3. So basically making you pay for more characters. Im ok with it if they release all the rest @ once for one time payment of no more then 20-25$ depending on its content. At this rate i doubt i ever pay money to play it though. Probably wait a few months before even deciding. Fairly sure we are just getting Diablo 3 made over with even more WoW bits thrown in.
    Open word/bosses? Always online? Phasing of players? LOL

Diablo 4 should have had player made games only sorta like diablo 2. They told us otherwise.

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Ill have to watch said video.
I already know what it will have though lmao, i just made a post ranting about the difficulty of the game.
Diablo 3 is catered to 6-10 year olds thats for sure.

Yes Diablo 2 has alot of character hybridity.
Ive played Diablo 2 extensively at times and still have never played probably near half the builds of every class. Some classes mostly the amazon i probably never even had over 4-5 hours in.
Anyone following a guide is looking to min/max to the fullest extent of the game. Some or most of us get to that point at some time whether figuring it out ourselves or looking it up. Not a very good argument for people to try to use about D2.

You should try out Curse of Tristram mod on starcraft II>custom>arcade>“search tristram”. Fan made diablo 2 remake beta. Nowhere near complete but its pretty cool and i just find out about it.

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FOR A FIRST RUN. Your video just says HIGHEST DIFFICULTY. How come the description leaves out the words "for a first run’? B.S.

A ‘permanent’ build has identity and meaningfulness because reasons? You think that having to start a complete new character shows how dedicated and serious and committed you are to the new character and build (and game)? Or does it show how casual and indifferent you were to the first character, dumping it as soon as something better came along.

I can’t see how locking players into rigid choices that can only be ‘corrected’ or altered by starting over with a different character adds anything other than tedium and repetition. Why can’t my melee barb change his skills to be a ranged barb? Why do I have to start over with a whole new barb?

Hey it looks like you don’t have to change anything about your character’s if you don’t want to, and how and why would someone else changing their character’s build ruin the game for you?

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What??? The videos titles are:

“Diablo 3 - second to final boss fight on highest difficulty - first playthrough”

And:

“Diablo 3 - final boss fight on highest difficulty - first playthrough”

And the video descriptions state:

“This is on the so-called Expert mode, which is ‘harder’ than Hard mode.”

And the OP states:

What are you not getting about this? The videos show Diablo 3 on its highest difficulty for a first playthrough, which is Expert, which is higher than Hard, which is higher than Normal.

Everything is exactly as I’d stated it to be from the beginning, and so what’s BS is your reading comprehension and your wasting my time with your nonsense.

And the detail that this is the highest difficulty for a first-time playthrough doesn’t change the argument in any way - there’s nothing expert-level or hard about the Hard and Expert difficulty levels in Diablo 3, and they’re not anything even remotely resembling challenging because it’s pretty much impossible to die on those difficulty levels. The videos show how worthless it is to play Diablo 3 in the first place because it’s nothing resembling a game.

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Called it, I knew Amazon and Paladin were the other classes…

I’m surprised at Necro again though… they better not F him up again…

All we need is Assassin and we have a true Diablo II homage boys.

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Idk. leak seems fake to me. A lot of it is kind of vague language. He was completely wrong about combat system. he guessed a single class (Druid) Sorc/barb are pretty standard and almost always guaranteed.

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You play on the third and fourth lowest difficulty settings out of 20+, and shout “HIGHEST DIFFICULTY” - first playthrough! Did you play on the highest difficulty? On the actual highest difficulty in the game? No, you played Expert. You could have said “Expert Difficulty - first playthrough”, but no. “HIGHEST DIFFICULTY” - second to final boss fight on HIGHEST DIFFICULTY. Intentionally misleading at best. Or maybe you didn’t realise, right?

Correct! They’re tutorial level. Expert and Hard mean about as much as saying something is “awesome”, when it’s not awesome, just as saying this is the "Hard’ level doesn’t actually mean it’s actually hard.

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Spacecadet, take a look at the titles. Look at them closely. Fresh off the OP’s post.
Diablo 3 - second to final boss fight on highest difficulty - first playthrough
Diablo 3 - final boss fight on highest difficulty - first playthrough

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Yes, I played on the highest difficulty. Whatever you’re trying to accomplish by feigning ignorance… I’m pretty sure it’s not going to happen.

Hard means hard - but Blizzard have lied in calling what is easier than the easiest setting in about every other game that’s ever been made “hard”. And Expert is the same thing.