I am aware of what Pre alpha means nothing is final and to not read into it to much.
Out of curiosity What do you guys dislike from the Pre-Alpha Footage, Dev interviews, Blizzcon Panels and Quarterly Updates you have seen and why?
Pretend what you have seen is final and will be implemented at Release.
Whether it is a Skill, An Items look or even a Hair-Style or a Rocks Aesthetic.
I am highly interested, Maybe some others are too id love to hear what you have to say.
I like the look and lore of the world, top down view and can be played mostly solo.
Things I did not care for.
I did not like this. To colors are overly de-saturated,a s if they were trying to over-compensate for the colorfulness of D3. D4 isnât even dark, it is predominantly grey and the rest of the colors are washed out.
Sightly increasing the saturation of the colors and reducing the brightness/increasing the darkness would fix it.
Does not look good.
The things that are good about itemization is that there are no massive (skill-specific) multipliers in the game, that Crushing Blow makes a return and that there are a few new cool affixes (gem power increased by x%, increased life while healthy, increased damage against enemies in melee range), but overall it still is a lot less good than it could be.
I wrote several posts and topics about this:
I personally would like items to look more like this (in regards to affixes, not the visual style they are displayed here with)
https://imgur.com/gallery/Z5NswCo
Lacking this feature just allows for 100% uptime on skills like Wrath of the Berserker, etc, so wh not let WotBâs cooldown start until after its effects have expired, which makes it impossible to have 100% uptime with it in the first place?!
That will help a lot with balancing these skills.
Wolcen and Last Epochs Skill Systems are so much better, and I honestly did expect that they would âstealâ these ideas
There are also better systems for Passive Skills than D4âs current Skill Tree, like the Trait System from Diablo 3 had at one point during its development (which was basically a List of Talents that you could spend points into without having to spend points into pre-required Talents):
This here is an original screenshot from it:
This here is my take on that:
ADA Power is a terrible replacement for an Attribute System.
I wrote why that is in some of the threads I linked above.
D4 needs a real Attribute System in which you can spend points into, even if it is just a very basic one:
⌠or one that is a bit more complex:
I personally do not like such an idea in a Diablo game.
It makes is just more MMO like.
Currently in D4, you can sidestep/dodgeroll without limit, but it causes you to recover from that dodge/sidestep for a few frames, which makes it feel really heavy.
So why not remove that recovery frames and replace them an separate, limited resource that recovers slowly and that can be only spend on Dodgerolls / Sidesteps?
Yep, thanks to the anti-tetris players (most likely D3 fans) who donât give a damn about item immersion.
https://ibb.co/MfSnvjz
https://ibb.co/82N3GCy
https://ibb.co/gTvFH86
Also here are some D2 item art and how they compare with D3. Those D2 items were some very good looking items. Those days are over.
The item art and the size of items in the inventory being reduced are (almost) two different issues.
The image of the item can be larger when you hover over it and when it gets placed into an equipment slot. You just need to replace the old images of the items with better ones like the ones from D2.
Inventory Tetris was just terrible.
playing with d3âs bland inventory really made me realize how much i enjoyed d2âs. d2âs allowed mistakes to be made and so on. itâs almost like youâre in a mini-game with the inventory. i love it. was it as pretty as d3âs? no, but i found it more interesting and made me make decisions once in a while.
my god i feel like this alone represents the two games.
100% this
not charms. iâm talking about the freedom to organize different sized items in a limited space instead of having a set amount of spaces for a set amount of items. everyone will be going to town about the same time, selling about the same amount of items in d4 lol. charms should have had their own space to organize small, medium and large.
An inventory filled with a few charms, no think you. D4s inventory is looking good.
A TON.
Tied to this is the not-diablo 2, and totally diablo 3, color choice. Itâs faded dull sandblasted neutral colors. Act 2 Diablo 2 had more color than diablo 4. The think this is the ticket, the âdark bro!â that many community members shouted, instead of âdiablo 2 style, bro!â that most of us vets want.
The zoomed in view of the char. Guess what? Just like diablo 3.
The chars slow, bouncy-hop movement, JUST like diablo 3.
The mobtypes, trash mobs exisiting, JUST like diablo 3. âHordes of not loot-containing mobsâ is not how diablo 1/2 did it, thatâs how diablo 3 did it and it breaks realism / isnât fun since they cannot drop loot.
Lack of cool soundtrack, just like diablo 3.
the not-diablo 2 style art on sorceress spells, they look faded and dull, and not vibrant like diablo 2.
The yellow arrow on the minimap. Um, no, this is diablo 3âs way of doing quests, also known as removing exploring from quests. I have an old blizzcon 2019 post w over 100 +'s not that that matters, but just to show it isnât a minority opinion to want away w diablo 3 things like a yellow arrow minimap circle in the corner at all times and such.
The lack of fog of war, a very, very diablo 3 thing to do, and not a diablo 2 thing to do, as fog early is immersion, fog late is âsmallâ immersion as your gear reduces it to not-an-annoyance.
lack of showing if thereâs eth items.
lack of showing if thereâs superior quality items.
lack of showing if bosses matter, and not just random elites.
lack of showing if elite affixes are all we battle, or if white mobs can chase you and also drop loot, unlike trash mobs, and kill you.
lack of showing if corpse fetch is in the game, or hostile.
lack of showing the banner system, and how always being able to TP to your game-mates is not always immersion, itâs like, not fun or cool. Very diablo 3 if they go banner system over TP scrolls.
i think they did the diablo 3 style inventory size, where items are the same 2 blocks instead of realism, and if so, thatâs so diablo 3 why even call it 4 if itâs diablo 3 and anti diablo 2.
Bears repeating.
The zoomed in camera, combined with slow bouncy hop walk, suggests movment skills on cooldown, nitroing around, instead of a zoomed out view, with faster running early and gearing for frw all game long, which is what it should be doing.
Zoomed in means less loot on screen, less awareness, and its super console-like style.
Ill stop here, but these are the signs ppl are talking about when they say this game is just like diablo 3, and very anti-diablo 2, even if itâs accidentally being anti-diablo 2, because itâs molding after diablo 3, bc the devs dont understand alllllll the good in diablo 2 for whatever reason.
Bonus. The 8-direction combat is part of WHY diablo 2 is so fun, ancient 1999 tech or not, it has itâs pros, and cons. new-age 360 combat is not the same as 8-direction, so, itâs worth noting. Old games like that are fun and new 360 isnât always better, nobody ever talks about that as an option. Just bc you can make something all around you, doesnt mean combat-wise, restricting directions doesnt make things more challenging at times. Challenge is good, itâs how you not afk a game.
Bonus 2.
Not talking to us, often, on here, about diablo 4, and therefore passing on their opportunity to learn other opinions, such as, about diablo 1/2 that arent about it being âdarkâ.
yeah, it is a matter of personal preference.
I am currently in the process of updating my Item Concept Art / Mock-ups, and one of the things I do is to increase the image of the item in the box that pops up when you hover over it.
So here is a work in progress:
https://imgur.com/PGeBj0Y
as a refference, here is the old one:
https://i.imgur.com/y6cgQkU.jpg
The size of the item would still be same in the inventory, just in the box and on an equipment slot it would be larger.
And then replace that with art that is more like D2âs item art and it would be fine imo.
I think that is a good middle ground between D2âs and D3âs way of portraying items.
=================
EDIT:
And replace the black background with dark, old paper:
https://imgur.com/nXXhn8l
And the Font with something like this:
https://imgur.com/6NzPcLP
And much much more.
Best things about D4 so far; Runeword system (though it needs more depth). Key dungeons sounds better than GRifts, though I still have issues with what has been shown.
While itemization seems weak, it also seems much better than D3âs. Although it would be hard to make something worse.
Lots of things look âehâ or âmehâ to me but most of them are minor/passable as long as the most important things are there. When I play a game like Diablo, all I really care about is whether the gameplay is fun and challenging and whether thereâs an incentive to keep playing (PvP, super rare loot, leaderboards, hard bosses, etc). I canât really tell from the videos whether the combat will be fun or whether there will be an incentive to keep me going. The biggest complaint I have currently is that the items and skill trees do look kind of like they were designed by a person whoâs never played an ARPG before.
All that said, this Diablo 4 is likely to have a completely different style of endgame than previous Diablo games didnât have so, who knows, it may all work out better than we can possibly predict.
Taking it as final is dumb. Because a lot of info has come out since then. You would be basing your itemization on attack and defense on every piece of gear. When we know that they made changes. Gear also has the three powers that wasnât shown at Blizzcon.
Diablo 2âs are not that deep. They look deep, but are simple to understand.
Oh put level 99 with the small amount of content that they have shown. I think with the small amount of content they have shown and told us about that level 40 could be good enough for now.
I donât want copy and paste of D2âs rune words. I want and improvement and it looks like they will be improved. More so when they announce what type of advancement that will be in place for runes and rune words.
Do you really think that it is possible that we might even get more than horses to ride. Just think of calling anything else that isnât a horse a horse.
Crit hit chance and damage are in a lot of other games outside of Diablo. Also if done right the other affixes along with legendary powers, talents and the points spent into the skills, along with anything that is socketed into the gear could change things enough where other types of builds that donât focus on crit at all will still be viable.
But as long as it takes a lot of items and skill points to achieve that 100% uptime. Which would make it fine. Because then there could be a trade off. Keep Wrath up 100% of the time and you lose a lot of maybe criting, or some other decent affix that you can build around.
The trouble with that system is that there will be only one right way to spend your points.
I would really love to see just how many players would play D4 where they feel like the game is saying you must unlock and get them all. Where the skills become the new Pokemon monsters to collect. When we have no way of knowing how rare those tomes will be.
IIRC we will only be able to change our talents not the skills.
I am sure that they have more affixes in mind and we will see them later on.
So you are saying that everything that you do in D4 is multiplayer. Where the dungeons, even the campaign before completing your objectives will be multiplayer. Or you are saying that you will have no choice but to play multiplayer because they will force us to do the world events. I would love to see where they have said just that.
I wait till they tell us about the progression of runes and rune words. There could be more than one type of rune words and more than the type of runes shown.
D2 skills being shallow does not make D4 less shallow.
Again, these days the competition in skill design is PoE, Wolcen, Last Epoch.
They have kinda claimed the game world will be huge. Showing us an entire continent.
Number of lvls is quite arbitrary though. It can be lvl 40 or 99 regardless of the amount of content.
Surely we will be able to change our skills, or there would be no purpose behind the unlimited skill points, when there are only 6 skill slots (which is another concern, 7-8 would be better imo).
So far it sounds like respecs will be basically free.
Not talking the different types of affixes. But how many affixes each item can have, Rares should be like 7-8 affixes, legendaries 4-5+legendary affix (some legendaries might be rule-breakers and have way fewer affixes in exchange for a stronger legendary affix).
Dungeons are by definition not the overworld.
The overworld is forced multiplayer according to Blizzard. Yes, only after you do the campaign quests in the area. Which you will naturally do while playing the game. It would be the weirdest game ever, if it does not encourage you to do any campaign quests (even the weird D3 game requires you do to the campaign once - D4 wont require it to get access to the world, but it will most definitely still encourage, and likely even demand it to unlock the full game)
They have already shown two types of runes. Add a third type (Power runes, increased the power of the Effect runes) and I think it would be quite optimal.
Then you can do, in a 3 socket item:
Even more options for a 4 socket item of course. I dont think runewords should be able to go above 4 sockets. Too many causes and effects then.
Only having Cause and Effect runes seems too simple however.
Still, runewords is one of the most promising things shown in D4 so far, if they improve upon it a little bit.
Mainly the fact we hardly saw anything to do with skills and what we did see had a lot missing⌠or so it seemed. I would also like to see more affixes on items and more on their customisation. We saw minimal runes/runewords and if you are bringing these back this is a very big thing. I didnât see many extra quests/side quests or story line apart from getting out of the starter cave/cavern. I just hope it has a long story feel with hinted features for DLC. It was expected with very little viewable play time from Blizzcon.
I loved the gameplay, look and graphics and the fact itâs open world. I like the fact we are waiting to hear more about skills and itemisation, please donât take as long as before to bring out the next quarterly update as i love these too. I love the fact you will be able to see random people occasionally in towns and camps ETC xD. And i love the fact D4 is coming out with customisable mounts. Also can you let us know if there is going to be a monthly subscription or not.
I would be okay with Crit Damage appearing as a bonus affix on SOME legendaries (similar to how +x to ALL Skills could only roll on some uniques, sets and RWâs in D2), and maybe if there are on eor two talents for that, but I would not want that it comes as a normal, regular affix.
The effect is just too synergistic.
Either it is too strong, or you balance it around both affixes having to be used combined in general, but that would make CHC and CHD useless on their own.
Yeah, maybe, because there also is the issue of unintended consequences in regards to balancing and synergies.
Like in D3 classic, due to unintended synergies, WotB could have a 100% uptime fairly easy and also it could happen that even without these unintended synergies 100% uptime on skills like WotB is just too powerfulâŚ
⌠and even when it is just slightly the best build, it will lead to builds like in D3 where people get annoying by having them up a 100% of time.
Also, when you are super all the time, then you are not super anymoreâŚ
⌠derived from âIf everyone is special, then no one isâ.
Which is not a problem as long as the gap between the best way to spend your points and the more average ways to spend your points is not too big.
Sure, the competitive players will always go for the best and optimal way for items, attributes, skills, builds, etc, but not everyone is a competitive player (aka a Spike Player - see link below).
There are also other kinds of players that donât (just) play for being the best, and if you donât cater to these players as well, you loose large parts of your audience:
https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Player_type
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/timmy-johnny-and-spike-2013-12-03
Not a big fan of attribute systems like those (where one is offensive, another is defense etc. each attribute should be both imo, and each attribute should be useful for some and not others, whereas dmg and dmg reduction is always useful for everyone), but it is unlikely there would be just one way to spend your points on those 4. Some builds would need resource management a lot more than other builds. The other three are more generic for everyone (though, someone with a shield might pick offense over defense, due to already having better defense etc.)
Even though I would prefer Last Epoch over Wolcen. Still if done right even a system that is an improvement over D2, even though simple would still be fine. I can always have those other games on hand if I want to to switch between them and D4.
With what they have currently it wouldnât make sense to have the max level set to the highest that they would want the game to be at launch. Always putting level 99 in games just wonât work. Take an old game that has been shutdown since 2012. Sure it was a superhero MMO called City of Heroes. The max level was 50 and it never went up. Having level 99 just to appease the ones that like the larger numbers wouldnât have worked in that game at all. Just wouldâve made it more grindy.
I know what the devs are talking about when they say that max level has to fit the content.
In a game where you have skill points to spend I wouldnât call swapping what you are using as a respec. Otherwise D2 had free respecâing to beat the band. That is unless you had only used two skills in your build.
I know you want more affixes on rares. But I understand why less is better. If you have that many affixes then you might not have any real hard choices. Where if you have a high crit build you might not have enough room to have a decent amount of crushing blow. Or even attack speed might suffer.
Silly me you are right. Thanks for telling me that when I do all of the campaign and want to run a certain dungeon. That the game will pull me from wherever I am to the closest world event even though I might not be anywhere near it to get me to participate right. You cannot skip them at all.
Wait a minute here, maybe they are part of the campaign even though they have said otherwise. They said you can go without ever doing a world boss or event.
