The problem is you’re making a “hardcore” game centered around hell for children.
To summarize your article:
You want to gate abilities on items so you can force players into specific playstyles
You refuse to make concepts slightly more difficult than “attack” and “defense”
Your “ancient legendary replacement” is literally a less complicated form of Runewords, which you’ve already announced to build hype from the D2 playerbase but you lied about it because “runewords” aren’t actually “runewords” in this game. You know that, I know that, everyone knows that - its disgusting dishonest marketing.
You puke up some pretty words and throw on a disclaimer to give people hope but the compromises you’ve made here aren’t actually compromises.
You’re “listening to the community” only for the ideas that you can casually use to reskin diablo 3 in the image of diablo 2. You’re building this game around the crowd you feel you’ll get the most money from, you’re not interested in making a good game.
HERES MY FEEDBACK:
Stop letting the marketing guys make the gameplay decisions. Video games have been around over 30 years and your game is rated M, who the hell isn’t going to be able to understand concept more complex than “attack” and “defense” at this point. This is sad.
I’m proposing to shift the whole concept of legendary powers that make builds which spawned in D3 due to the lack of investion in skills/talents, to the talent tree.
This way uniques/legendaries could remain a rare event to see one of them dropping and focusing solely on affixes and properties on gear but not defining a build completely. This way also the gear slots are more flexible, we would be chasing a collecion of affixes more than specific gear.
Is he really? He clearly thinks the demographic is something completely different than the guys that get paid to study or from all angles. Based on his post, I’d say it’s clear he’s just a guy that likes to complain for the sake of complaining.
Remember this isn’t gonna be a prettier D2 clone nor do I want it to be such a thing. Plus we haven’t seen any advancement on the runes and rune words that they did say would be there. It is like looking at early level runes and rune words sand thinking that is the way they wall will be when you might be sadly mistaken.
It is a good idea to improve what worked in D3 as well as improved on what worked in D2. Combining both worlds is the way to go. Don’t expect D4 to be a prettier clone of D2 nor do I want it to be such a game.
lmao, if Blizz didn’t listen to the marketing guys then we wouldn’t be returning to a dark game with a lot of gore. We would still have ponies and care bear cartoons. With more cartoon graphics like this game. According to a Kotaku article a while back it said that the marketing guys knew that D3 was a colossal screw up (putting more politely). They knew it had to return to its dark roots. They knew that they had to get rid of all of the cartoony stuff in order to make a good game.
This is beyond absurd. Blizzard can’t just change the essence of what made Diablo and expect fans of Diablo to continue to support the franchise. That is why Diablo 3 is hated by fans of D2 and its why D4 is so contested now. At the same time, D1 and D2 were so beloved that you would have no problem finding aspiring developers looking to work on the sequel.
I’ll admit D3 sold well, but if Blizzard is intending to sell out the audience that made them for cash then I’m just going to give my opinion and leave. If you don’t agree then you’re free to waste your time playing D4.
Started playing games on commodore 64 (1980’s). Those games then had no introduction to the story, the controls, no internet to help you. Still people learned the game.
Nowadays people already know how to play the game before they even tried, just through watching YouTube.
Most of your playerbase are nerds. The more complex, richer, the better.
“Easy to learn, difficult to master” => “Difficult to learn, HELL to master!”
A mature game with a hell theme needs to be at least somewhat difficult to manage at the start or else the feeling is lost. My biggest concern is that they believe the game needs to be “easy to learn” because it tells me that the game itself is going to be set at the same pace as D3 - easy to learn, easy to play, learn a few things and you’ve basically mastered it.
They can say “difficult to master” all day and it doesn’t mean anything to me - I know where blizz has set the bar to in terms of difficulty
To be fair, Blizz came right out and said they wouldn’t do a D2 remaster because they were just putting that effort into D4, and they’d make the D2 crowd happy.
So if they don’t make the D2 crowd happy, it’s just another Blizz betrayal.
I’m remaining hopeful at this point, because they’re so open to feedback, but I’m also realistically pessimistic.
here here. Additionally, I think the right way to do “easy to learn, hard to master” would be to use the experience leveling system to unlock meaningful complexity over time. As you and your items increase in level, the more the “stats” become available to view and alter via item choice, skill tree, rune words, charms, crafting, etc. In the beginning, attack and defense are enough, but by level 20 you should be getting into the basics: strength, intelligence, dexterity, etc. By level 50 modifiers and buffs/resistances should be in play and the skill tree should have expanded to become sophisticated. By level 100, a multitude of stats should be clearly shown and understood, while uniques, ancients, legendaries, sets, etc. become available to drastically alter the nature of gameplay. There ought to be an exponential progression of complexity in build options, skills, items, etc. so that everybody gets a chance to “play their game” on the way from level 1 to level n. Kind of like zooming in to a map. From far away, it’s all very simple, but the closer you get the more detailed and complex it becomes.
The suggestion of these angelic/demonic modifiers is fine, but it seems like they should be non-item buffs connected to alignment/moral choices in the game and not used as a broad stroke to increase stats across the board. Can’t demons heal? Can’t angels do damage? If they are going to do something like that, why not have the skill tree branch into three zones: Angelic, Nephalem, and Demonic. Angelic skills (within class) can be attained at the cost of cutting off access to Demonic Skills. Nephalem skills can be accessed by cutting off access to both Demonic or Angelic skills of equivalent level. It would be interesting as well to give players access to all skills used by bosses in this tree, such that ALL skills/items in world used by angels/npcs/monsters alike are available to us should we choose to specialize or evolve in a certain direction. It would also make more sense in the universe that nephalem have the ability to learn from either side of their lineage and also have unique skills that only they can possess by combining angelic and demonic powers.
I really wish Kim and Blizzard would go back to the guys from Blizzard North and put THEM in charge of this project.
Just make the itemization and affixes be similar to D2/PoE
Judging by what I’ve read in those system design posts I have a feeling it’s gonna be another D3 itemization. Maybe a little bit more varied but items at the moment feel very boring…
The concern is there’s hardly any concept that is reminiscence of D2 looking at current design points. May be it won’t be a prettier clone of D2 but it’s a candidate for becoming a prettier clone of D3. On a marketing point I expected that to happen but I was cracking jokes about game being diluted so much it will only have defense and damage stats. At one aspect I was expecting that, at another I was badly surprised.
As for “it was a giant screw up” that’s playing to the investors, implying that they’ll thrive to reach a wider audience which means diluting down the game. I’m willing to bet years after diablo4 next director will call diablo4 a giant screw up as well.
Oh so it must be done the D2:LOD way huh. Just copy D2’s classes features and systems. Add in some new items, maybe some new classes, story and monsters and you are done with the game. Where you don’t have to change how you play a Diablo game.
Look I understand nostalgia but holding onto the past without improving on it won’t help the series at all nor will it advance the ARPG genre. No other games will be doing that and leaving Diablo in the dust in the process.
Even D1 and D2 wasn’t difficult at the start of it, and yet they were widely acclaimed and loved.
Difficult to master will be something that only time will tell. You have to remember this isn’t Dark Souls nor should it be.
But they are not gonna do it by copying D2 in order to make them happy. Because it does nothing to move the franchise forward nor does it move the genre forward.
I would have to look at that game in order to see if it is indeed difficult to master.
I don’t see skill points in D3, nor talent points. Then the affixes are no doubt different. Plus we don’t know how powerful Crit is gonna be in D4.
That line means that they knew that there were a lot of mistakes made with D3. I highly doubt that will occur with D4.
What does the Diablo franchise need prettier clones of D2 with just a new story and a new coat of paint. Where the franchise never moves forward, nor does Diablo help move the genre forward. Where Diablo stays with the past and all other arpgs leave Diablo in the dust as far as moving the genre forward goes.