The more I hear pro players on Twitch and YouTube and the D2 fanboys on Reddit and the Blizzard boards throw their feedback in the game devs' faces, the less excited I am for D4

I don’t quite agree. Considering, that you have character progression in terms of skills in D1 and D2, where the character gets to have some inherent strength, I would say, that when it comes to the skills, it’s not just an opinion, but a reasonable expectation from the majority of Diablo fans, which wasn’t met in D3.

The skill system in D3 and the lack of inherent strength on the skills is probably the most criticized thing in this game. In D4, the devs are making it, so that the skills will have dmg (depending on rank), and the weapon will serve as dmg increase (as opposed to D3 where the weapon has the dmg and the skill is merely a multiplier)… so even the D4 devs aree with “my opinion”.

But let’s see what you have to say about the itemization:

In D2 there were so many items, that had +skills and they were much easier to come by compared to trifectas in D3 vanilla or in RoS, so I don’t exactly see the problem. Can you give me an example of an item you wanted to use, but you used an item with + skills instead?

And you know what? It was still a better system than the over-reliance on bagillion %dmg increaser on sets and weapons the way it is in D3.

That’s because Blizzard North didn’t go for a system like in WoW, where you really want a max lvl only gear. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a low lvl item being viable for endgame.

What do you mean “an early reward”? So, if I get a SoJ from Andariel on Nightmare as lvl 40, that shouldn’t last me till lvl 90 or above and I should absolutely have to replace that item?

I think your problem is, that you don’t understand how the semi loot table in D2 works. If you farm at a lower difficulty, you do so, so that you have a better chance of getting a specific item, by excluding all the higher ones from the loot table.
You can get a SoJ from Baal on Hell, but you are much more likely to get one from Andariel on Nightmare.
In your scenario, you would have it, so that only items from the end boss are viable?

I’m sorry to say it, but your opinions on itemization seem very weird and mostly come from ignorance and misunderstanding how the D2 systems work.

Yeah, that was crap about D2… but, you know what?
Nobody is arguing, that you need less stash space!!! How can you even bring up that nonsense?!

Your thesis seems to be “you claim, that the skill system and the itemization system in D2 are better, but that’s just an opinion, because… you see, the stash space was pretty low back then”. Absolutely ridiculous.

Obviously people want the best features from the previous games to make it into D4. The D3 itemization and skill systems are the most criticized features. They have been since Vanilla and remain so to this day.

If the D2 equivalents can be improved upon – sure, I would take the improvement! But the D3 systems are just trash. To claim otherwise and to come up with these ridiculous justifications such as “but all the endgame items should be farmed on max lvl” or “but the stash space” is just lame.

You can list as many as you want, the D2 system is still much better than the current D3 systems.
Characters not having inherent power and itemization leaving you no choice as to what you can have on a slot is all the cons you need to realize, that those sistems are crap in D3.

If I lable something as trash, there’s probably a reason. Now, I can write a freaking essay in order to explain how the devs are out of touch and how they don’t understand the things, that people actually want out of the game… but there is no point, as plenty have done it before me and were ignored.

And in the case of WoW, it’s not just about “I don’t like it”, it’s rather that “many people don’t like it”.
In WoW, things are (or at least they used to be) much more quantifiable.
If Blizzard releases trash, a lot of people unsubscribe.
And sure, they don’t announce subscriber numbers ATM, but something like the crazy survey should be a sufficient indication as to how out of touch Blizzard can be.

I know, right. Unfortunately, in recent years original usually means bad.

I wish they did leave it was it was back in Vanilla. Most features of RoS are trash and complete waste of development resources.
They had the golden opportunity to fix skills and itemization with RoS, and what they came up with is:
-they left skills as is;
-they made itemization even more dull and boring than it was in vanilla though the ridiculous sets;
-they spent resources on systems like Trials, Set Dungeons, Challenge Rifts and all manner of trash, that I can’t even think about right now.
(I am deliberately leaving Greater Rifts and Paragon 2.0, because they would take too long to discuss)

If we’re talking about the skill system and the itemization in D3 as a basic foundation for a Diablo game – it is rotten, very much so. The moment for salvaging was RoS and it’s now gone. Blizz made all the wrong choices.

No.

There’s nothing inherently wrong about people-who-don’t-make-games-for-a-living giving feedback to the devs.
I don’t need to be an expert game developer in order to tell you what’s broken in a game, I’ve been gaming for 20 years.

The problem starts with out-of-touch-game-developers. They release some trash in the first place. Customers naturally complain…

The out-of-touch-game-developers either don’t listen, or when they chose to listen, they end up listening to people-who-are-bad-at-games-and-don’t-like-gaming-in-general.

Explain to me what data justifies the crap skill system and the crap itemization system in D3? It doesn’t exist.

The crap skill system is a remnant of the Auction House era. Your character was designed to rely solely on gear and the skills being useless. The devs did know in advance, that the RMAH will be shut down, so they could have fixed the skill system. They didn’t. They could have made a better itemization. They didn’t.

“but they have access to data and information you don’t have access to!”
Give me a break.

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Yea, and you must be our “Brains” here…

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D3 servers will still be up and running by the time D4 comes, so you can play a game with less complexity anytime you want

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I know. The only infor released about Classic was what I mentioned. There has been no mention or breakdown as to how much money has been made specifically by Classic since you pay one sub to both versions of the game.

Know what? I agree 100% with you. The only problem was your assumption of peopple dont know about political/comercial implicarions in game development in the post. Ok at all.

We know some insues are very importante to games development in regard of monetization, consumers, lifespan, etc.
My point was, why some players, most of them, completly disconnected from game conplexties, think they must dictate how games are developed when they dont understant game development at all.
Of course games are intended to a large range of publics, but to focus on a parcel of public whom more than one time showed provoque serious problems in game development shoudnt be the main concern.
Games should be created to be played. All marketing decisions fall apart If players dont play the games. If long term players will be the focus, ofc development should think in ways to keep the sales. But If casual would be the main public, devs will need to think ways to keep them playing, even knowing they cant spent too much time in games…
Problem is: Blizz have show in WoW its game politcs about game play recently. Should we expect It be in D4 either?

I suppose the reason for your post is to offset what appears to you to be an increased complexity direction for D4.
You hear needless complexity a la POE. Blizzard has never made Diablo with needless complexity, not D1, D2 or D3.

But there is some reason that Blizzard decided not to develop another expansion for D3. They could have changed anything they wanted (practically). They could have added monetization. But they chose not to. Why is an open speculation.

Blizzard is most well known to create fairly good games which are reasonably casual in nature. This will not change in D4.

While I don’t agree with your worries, you do have a right to express them.
I suspect we will see a game that stands on it’s own in terms of legacy.
It will be deeper in design as the developers have moved away from the legacy of D3 and are creating a design that is a departure but still pays homage to all previous iterations of Diablo.

You might actually like it, but that is up to the developers as well as you.

So are D2 and poe servers, so you can keep playing convoluted games as long as you want.

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What’s so convoluted about D2?

The fact that runewords, crafting and area levels can only be understood from reading internet guides? Builds are anti intuitive (sorcs should aviod enegery stat and just boost str dex and vit) and require a bit of endgame planning from level 1?

nothing I suppose… but I don’t want to need to read a guide in order to play a game… call me wierd.

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That is what most hardcore D2 fans did the best here.

True enough.

Indeed.

Exactly.

Well said.

Yes, those things should have been explained in-game, absolutely.
However, that doesn’t mean that they can’t be.

This is like a false dichotomy… that you have to take the good with the bad… when in fact, for D4 they can take the best out of all of the previous games.

D2 is an old game. Do you think a game like World of WarCraft had a built-in catalogue of all the loot and where it comes from back on release?

D2 you think if Blizzard North still worked at Blizzard, they wouldn’t have patched the interface and add a catalogue of loot and recipes?
You do realize, that mods like plugy already show item lvls?

You clearly haven’t touched the game in years. They patched in respecs years ago. 3 free respecs per character, and you can farm to assemble Token of Absolution.

You don’t need to avoid energy. You can take energy for when you don’t have enough on your gear. When you do get more mana through lvling and gear, you can respec and get rid of it.

You don’t. You can figure those things out by yourself.
If you didn’t, then you had the internet to help you out.

Do you want in-game tips to pop up and tell you “for endgame build, dumping points on energy is a bad idea”?

ROFL…
The WoW mentality of “only max lvl items should be usable in the endgame”.
I’m starting to think wherther you guys threw SoJs away, because they required low lvl, then people laughed at you, so you’re still traumatized to this day…

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Its the philosophy that every old item must be trash lol, and stronger must replace them.
Why create trash items in a game? When you can even upgrade items.
Beides low level gear can be kept for global new characters and be used for low level duels…

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I think it’s better for a game to have microtransactions from the get-go, than having them be added in later.

I have no doubt that one of the reasons why D4 has a huge open world was to add mounts to the game, so they could monetize that.

Pets and mounts being monetized isn’t something I have a problem with, but it’ll suck if all the good looking armor transmogrify sets are behind a paywall.

If there is Lv20 SoJ and Lv70 SoJ, I will pick Lv70 SoJ obviously and throw Lv20 SoJ away.

Since there is no high level SoJ in D2, I will have to stick with low level SoJ. It is not that complex.

Easy to say when your who life revolves around copying builds other players put out in a guide and act as if you’re somehow good at the game…

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This one always makes me laugh when people use it as an example of why D2’s itemization was great.

If a low level drop is so good that everything that comes after can’t compete, that means that all the items that came after were garbage. I wouldn’t call that great itemization.

And yeah, how many times do you see these people that clamor for a long time experience saying that they hope expansions don’t make base game equipment irrelevant? Or when they talk about wanting their character to be finished?

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Why is your head so stuck up with lvls, item lvls and whatnot? Seriosly, apparenently the old days back in WotLK and the gearscore addon severely damaged a whole lot of people…

SoJ rolls with static stats. It wouldn’t matter what the item lvl is.
But let’s take something like Bul-Kathos’ Wedding Band. It’s quality would not be determined by item lvl, rather than the amount of life steal.

Why do you need a lvl assigned to an item in the first place? Why can’t you just read the stats and see if you’re happy with them? Ultimately, that’s how the game was meant to be played, instead of how a game like retail WoW is played – put the highest item lvl, regardless of the actual stats.

I can’t believe I have to explain this…

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with the only difference that a SOJ was still one of the most difficult to find unique rings in D2, with wisp projector due drop rate %.

It does not matter if its a low level item if the item itself is very hard to find.
Its even usable to low level characters.

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And this doesn’t invalidate my previous post at all. The fact remains that that low level item will outclass everything that comes after it.

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