Good day, here is my Diablo 4 feedback, calling all devs, designers, and biggest fans! See below to be revived!:
I see so much potential in Diablo 4, like it could potentially be the best game yet! It could even become an MMO. The way the fans and I see it, we loved Diablo 2, Diablo 1. Things went down hill after D2 with Diablo 3 and Diablo Immortal. Those were bad designs, bad games, that did not represent the Diablo that we fell in love with. Diablo Immortal was the worst. It just felt unfinished and well a kick in the face to loving fans. The way I see it is, the less features, ideas, and crap inherited from Immortal or Diablo 3 the better. There are some Diablo 3 fans out there which is the other part of the Diablo community. I will explain how Diablo 3 took a down turn for the worse even though it had a powerful great potential engine.
After Diablo 2, we lost:
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Game lobbies. Also, 8 player games, the feeling of the new 1-4, or solo is just off! * player games had value in D2, was so fun to have that 8 player game!
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Uniques became this templated medium of, you are either ‘Uniqued out’, or you are below average. Diablo 2 never made you feel like that, and Diablo 2 you had to be a certain level to use very badass, and feeling powerful uniques. D2 gave us something to look forward to and something to gain item wise, not just a global medium like D3 and DI, those new games sapped the feeling of a rare or good item. Uniques should not be every level, they should be a certain level and have a power that is not ultra balanced within a balancing machine. You should feel powerful depending on what rare uniques that you find. Also, there is no feeling of ultra rare uniques anymore, it’s all this standard average that you meet or you are simply below average. A feeling of blah, there’s no fun in this should never be the case! Nor the disrespected feeling of ruining our favorite systems. Look at how hard players grind in D1/D2, we grinded that hard for a reason! The feeling of a Zod rune, or Ber is simply drowned out by this crappy cloned chesting package that players can buy, absolutely horrible! The chest clone system is a disease stemming from the phone App Market. Chesting should be removed from all games as well as battle passes. Battle pass can be rebuilt into something meaningful or titleful, or even collectors things. Not, players with the battle pass are this alive from dead feeling boosted creature. Chest clone system is a disease!
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The classes were much more open and unique in D1/D2. The D3/DI class system feels again, like meeting a global balanced standard. The classes should not all have 1-4 moves with a different spell name for each class, doing the exact same balanced result as any other class. The spells were unique and each served a purpose in D1/D2. I would say that D4 is the start of bringing back the best spell ability systems that we knew, D3/DI were horrible and felt templated.
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Classes continued, D2 Necromancers could revive unlimited pets from the dead, and make unlimited (nearly) pets. Again we lost freedom to be skillful or creative in D3/DI there was no feeling of satisfaction, just call the same skill for the 4 lousy skeletons to appear. No rush, no enjoyment, again, a templated feeling of meeting a clone spell of every other classes 3 slot spell (for example). Sorc could fast tele in D2, there is no fast tele of running in a straight line in D3/DI, it feels slow and limited. Like a sorc that had the fun chopped out in areas where players spent time. We spent time in areas for a reason, because it was fun in D2/D1. The class system was so much more advanced in D2 vs the latest games. Remember that feeling of a frozen orb sorc? Or +skill GC, and spell pierce resists. How about running around the world feeling instead of right, left, or one town only like the failed DI. Random maps/dungeons from D1/D2 were also a very impressive rpg feature that was lost.
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Get rid of the auction house! I don’t know what was worse, that all items felt like a bland global medium copy in D3 or the D3 auction house. Both were game wreckers! I see the purpose of the AH, to prevent 3rd party sales, however, it did not work or feel that way. It felt like just every item was this worthless junk calculator that was perfectly balanced to match a copy for another class where everyone gets the same thing labeled as different spells.
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Items were desirable in D1/D2, now everyone just gets unique with these common effects that you should just have every effect in your inventory, horrible. There is no challenge to finding a rare item anymore, everyone has all of the effects. That’s not fun or thrilling. More of a feeling of being let down in areas of the games that we loved during the original D1/D2. Set items follow the same bland feeling in the latest diablos. Set items were unique and powerful and useful and rare in the originals D1/D2. Uniques feel like a clone copy system of the same thing for every character. I cried before D3 was released as the best possible thing to happen for Diablo fans, and cried after D3 released as the biggest let down and a punt to the biggest fans respected areas of the game, simply chopped. Bring back a reason to grind, bring back a reason to farm. Again, areas of the game where players spent the most time, seemed to disappear!? Series of lawsuits controlling the game or series of happy players. If not a series of happy players, then a series of unthrilled fans. Remember, players only were addicted to the game because it was fun and worth their time, not because of the game’s doing for any reason what so ever, although, someone whom does not play the game would not know the difference. There were still items like Windforce Hydra bow and things that some players never found due to rarity, not like the new, every player finds every item by level 25 with just a different level cap, that is crap! The upgrade system feels a bit low and not really worth it for the same cost in materials in D4, it can be made great with better design.
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Maps were not only left to right in D1/D2 it was areas to explore. Also, there was not only one city, like in DI, very depressing design.
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Loot was thrilling to click in D1/D2 and everyone challenged each other for first pickup. The personal loot system took away all feelings of satisfaction and made you feel handed to or alone. It would be easier to fix pickit being used than to ruin the whole loot system as personal.
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Again, spells 1-4 what is this? You could map spells to any key and not all spells felt slow and clunky in D1/D2. Spells felt fast! In d3-Di-D4, spells feel slow and clunky. Knock back annoyed my melee friends so much as a ranged rogue, and they would normally be assisted by such a powerful feature. Rather, their thorns had no use and did not seem to be able to enjoy their class when using certain skills. I like the knock back feel, however, it’s a bit too much for melee to keep up with. There must be a design improvement! Not ever spell in D1-D2 was a 1-4 template clone medium to meet, some spells were ultra awesome and ultra helpful to the group, where balance was not considered, rather, the power and desire of having that class on your team was the priority! Balanced and sim is not the key with Diablo, it’s every class can bring something to the table and not everything was so perfectly simmed balanced. It was the utility of what you could bring to the table that mattered. Not everyone felt the same by meeting the curve of forced balance such as how D3/DI ruined the systems that we loved. Spells could be mapped to any key. What ever Project D2 was doing, was a good direction! They learned your D2 code and found out how the game could be continued feature wise, by shear love of the game, through the sum of knowledge. AKA listening to the direction of the community, and the biggest fans advice! Not just telling the biggest fans, this is it! They were receptive and experimental towards areas of fun. Granted, some of the spells got ruined by Pd2, like fireball, they did many other things properly, the spells were already great in D2 to begin with, it was like D2 was already perfected by Blizzard North genius’s. Even tooling like Mousepads maphack, and editors like Jamella Editor, simply made the game more fun to toy with on Open Bnet, not sapped any of the games fun what so ever!
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Classes like Amazon Bowzon, Javazon, and more are simply missing. The demon hunter added in d3 is a cut off feeling of anything that used to be possible. Bowzons simply were awesome! Feelings of freedom simply missing from D3 and beyond. Everything feels ultra templated. Remember being a strong Bowzon? Now that was a thrill!! Finding my first Buriza-Do Kyanon was a thrill! You felt powerful and useful to groups or solo! Normal, Nightmare, Hell. They had balance and meaning. The Diablo 3 hell 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc was a bit annoying, you did not feel like hell mode, you felt like all of these empty lairs that players simply wanted to enter the strongest content. Hell got harder per act, not per level. Hell mode would have felt useless in D2 had it had a Hell 2, 3, 4, etc. That would not have been fun. It was Ubers and the project d2 style of continuation that was fun. What ever got hell players together in games, not simply a all of the hell players went missing because they had to only be with the best in private rooms or else they were not efficient. Bad game design forces the best players to not need you unless you are the best, that is bad for everyone on all ends! In D2/D1, if you were the best player in hell, even with a lowbie, there was value to the grind for all players still. The best could have gotten a unique item, or even one of the most valuable rare items that had an uber set of stats. Uber was hard in D2, it had challenge, where as after D3 and beyond, the hardest content was the global standard of farmable, again this simmed like balance just sapped any challenge or desire and the best players had no reason to help you, they had to be with only the best players, that’s due to improper design or lack of understanding of how D1/D2 made we the biggest fans feel or thrilled. Redesign is key to most items, D4 now has potential to be the new best! It has to be redesigned in many areas and the workload will be an investment once the game is redesigned.
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Try to remember where all of the areas in D1/D2 where players spent time, we spent time in those areas because we loved the game, that was the value. Even single player D1/D2 had value! You simply loved it and there was a new challenge of what could you achieve. Open Bnet, what could you test also had value without ruining the game at all. Open Bnet, a separate unrelated mode as we all remember. Still fun to try!
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Items continued, remember that feeling of finding a Bloodletter Gladius in D2? It was so desirable and satisfying to find that you practically made a Barb just to equip it! That feeling is gone D3/DI/D4, everyone just gets uniques. If the system now is that poor of a design then why not just start the game with everyone having uniques and take away the satisfaction so we don’t look forward to it? That’s how bad we feel these days, we feel abused by this new poor design of D3/DI/D4 and D4 is now the time to fix all of this! We have the chance now to make Diablo great again! Try to remember how your favorite D1/D2 items made you feel. Like a hero and you could show off to the groups a bit or solo! The coolest thing about Diablo 1/2 was that you did not need to meet a medium standard, you had almost unlimited combinations. Barbs could survive with high armor/HP common items because they were that amazing in D2. Not everyone met this global medium curve of you are either standard with everyone else or you are not useful. D2 Barbarians had some awesome skills like Whirlwind, very creative and unique. The new spell system D3/DI/and D4, you just feel chopped. Like the coolest spells/skills that we remember are now this slow repeated 1-4 choice, no longer desirable just balanced, it’s really a kick in the face to your biggest fans! We can’t forget what we all loved, appreciated, and what made us love and remember Diablo 1/2 over other games. You were not choosing other games over Diablo 1/2, rather you were playing other games and also playing D1/D2 because it was satisfying as a part of gamer priority. There was a reason to play D1/D2 along with other games! In D4, I have all uniques at 25, what do we have to look forward to if it’s the same exact items later on, as well as paragon, with just essence transfer the whole time? That’s a chopped system bad design at all of the areas where players spent ‘time’. Again, the result of the new Diablo feels like a series of lawsuits, not a series of your biggest fans being thrilled. We have to remember, again, areas where players spent time. That was love for the game for a reason, because it was fun and non stop thrill, or desire to earn something of value. It seemed like the expansions of Diablo 1/2 were always something to heavily look forward to! D1/D2 were built at the design level, and continued properly because those that loved the games were designing the continuations! Met by the biggest fans thrill. Jump right into the game was the key, not slow repeated cut scenes.
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Difficulty scattered, and overly complex in D3/DI/D4. Simply put, Normal, Nightmare, Hell, was a good start. Hell 1-x was not a good design turn. Maybe adding another difficulty was ok to D1/D2 like Uber because it had scale. We did not need a Hell 9, hell 10, hell x, that’s wayy too many choices where most lairs had no use to 95% of all players. If a lair is added, my point being, D2 had value! Uber was the next level, it was not just called Hell 2. Hell was stronger per act. In Diablo 3, it felt the same defeating the end boss as it did on any other act, everything was just handed to you. Even the bad auction house system was worthless unless you spent $100’s of dollars for a tiny boost, or even worse, auction house was nescessary to even function at high levels. In D2, you needed a magic find character. Putting effort in with the chance of finding an item so rare that you could become rich was the thrill. Becoming rich and affording a hidden build such as Smiter Pally in D2 was a thrill, something for the collectors and rewarding in PVP or PVM both! Now a Smiter was something to look forward to if you had sold valuable items. Kind of like the class having some hidden routes to take. Classes in D2 had so many different routes, you could do your own style! In D3/DI/D4 it was all just there, no thrill at all, no uniqueness, just meeting a global balance. Very depressing, and nothing to look forward to. In D2, skills unlocked at higher levels and the skill trees were extremely valuable, stat per level for you to apply, where all stats were valuable in D1/D2. In D3/DI/D4, you don’t get to apply stats and there is some simmed best build online via a guide, very chopped of the previous features that spoiled we the biggest fans, as well as other gamers desire to play the game. D2 stats, you just felt so valuable and any stat you choose would benefit you in some way. Even the guide builds in D2, were ultra amazing. There was reason and desire to follow the guides. In D4, we just feel like well, there’s one way or the highway and a million other people have to do the exact same thing. Make skill trees and bring back stat applying, plus make them valuable again. Hidden combos, not templated to everyone, things that provide utility to the group or even stronger powers not necessarily a perfect balance. Frozen orb had value in D2, it was not balanced at all, and not one player ever complained. End game you could have a frozen orb build, it became uber strong!
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Solo or single player had value in D1/D2, in the latest you just feel sort of alone, no game lobbies and no team building nor players desiring to team up, then solo you feel like you could be helped if you had a team, somewhat of a feeling of something is missing. Again, heavy redesign where an MMO style for D4 could be the answer. Again, avoid anything from Diablo Immortal, very poor chopped design where they almost had something cool going until they released that. Not impressive and depressing one town. Not following the previous parts of the game that players considered fun, rather, all of the fun chopped and is missing in DI. Dungeons too small in DI, run to elite, done, repeat was a kick in the face to the biggest fans, as well as the design of our favorite games D1/D2. Not everything was 30 second satisfaction, rather playing D1/D2 was the satisfaction the whole time! Dungeon party maker is good in itself, however, if it’s all done in 30 seconds, run to elite, what is a game to play? That’s some broken design that got sold with the same name as “Diablo”, nothing like the parts of the game that made our favorite game. Again, D4 does have potential to be an MMO, if designed correctly! *Key word designed well. It will be a time investment to designers, designers really need to remember what they loved about Diablo, that D1/D2 is why they chose the job! To continue the love and passion that we felt back before we considered if it was fun, we never thought about is the game correct during D1/D2, we just wanted more!
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You had to beat the game to unlock Nightmare, in the D3/DI/D4 you now get these modes that make beating the normal mode useless. Why play normal ever, then why have it? If you can just start at nightmare equivalent. Normal mode had a purpose in D1/D2 and was satisfying to all players. Again, things in the new diablos after D3 just feel like 30 second challenges, what’s the point, I just started to get gamer focus and it was over? Why do any of the D3/DI style at all, it was considered a failed design that used the Diablo title. I know there are some features from D3 that are ok, but mostly not. Better to steer clear of anything designed after D3 and remember the areas of time spent in D1/D2.
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D3/DI was not scary at all, there was nothing scary about them! Felt like an arcade game that you don’t need to play beyond a few quarters inserted into the machine. in D1/D2 there was long term value and investment! D4 is scary so far keep up the awesome work! Just wanted to remember this was important to the game for the future!
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D4 feels a bit alone outside of the city, there is currently no logic to group with, find other players besides spamming local which is random players, using Discord to make a team should not be the best option that the game provides no options. Game should have the best options for team building, yet see the global community at the same time such as D2 having game lobbys. You could see what strong and new players were up to by scrolling the list of games. It just feels alone in the Diablo 3 and after. You feel lucky to find another player rather than a way to build teams or groups. Groups have no reason to stick around after the dungeon completes? That is a bit scatterish of gamer focus, and they don’t clearly see the goals with team building. It’s not understood what direction to go because you keep having to rebuild a team every dungeon, what gets players to continue, stick around. In D1/D2 players had reasons to stick around and continue even if it was making next game. You kind of feel dumped after the dungeon completes. You should not feel anything at all if someone leaves, it should be smoothened in the game design like D1/D2 where you could continue, MF, or solo even. 8x player games were an important feature of D2 that we should continue or continue through an MMO design. We want to see what’s going on in the world team wise, and not be so separated from other players. Making a good game lobby title in D2, that feeling of 7 players racing to join, now how can we take that design and expand it. 4 player groups is very unsatisfying. The challenge was 8 players, and bonus of 8 players was of value!
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No mercenaries? Where did my favorite merc go? Act 2 or my Flavie bowzon. In D4, it’s unknown why an NPC randomly follows you, then they can’t keep up, or they are gone by the end of a quest. Again design and remembering value of D1/D2.
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Town portal was insta click. Waypoints insta click, etc.
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The game speed, aka core engine speed. D1/D2 the game felt snappy fast! As fast as you could control your character with unnoticeable limitations. D3 and after feels slow and clunky and like everyone is on the same timer for skills 1-4. It’s just poor design or lack of completing a design, and not thrilling at all. The snappy teleport of D2 was satisfying and faster cast rate simply went missing. FCR also had nearly no limits in D2. It feels like you are rolling around some slow device in D3 and beyond that is just like this timed roll or else you are not providing value. In D2 spam was fun, spamming spells I mean! FCR had value! There was no timed animations per your click that stopped you from controlling your character. It was fast and snappy even with animations, assisting the game play not hindering it through an action so slow that you are forced to think about your mistake. It was cast the spell as fast as you can! Demon hunter was less than impressive in D3. It could have been amazing, however, due to chopped and limitedness and clone of other classes 1-4 skills, it was just a feeling of doing the same exact thing. Basically, design is again key to almost all of these items. Bowzon Amazon in D2 was satisfying, very much so with many routes. I see that D3 almost had success, it just needed to complete areas of the game where players could spend time and make designs satisfying to use, not feel templated with few routes. Also, in D3 and after, enemies dying just had this slow animation, it did not feel like you were doing anything important. It just felt like everything was handed to you such as the difference between Hell Cows in D2 vs Hell Ponies in D3, that’s not even the same feeling, D3 felt sarcastic, arcade’ish, and not scary at all. Slow animations as you defeat one pony, tired you out waiting for these, map felt tight, D2 hell cows had a huge map, you were not so careful with the walls, rather careful with the amount of mobs you aggro’d. The left to right feeling is not enjoyable in D3 and beyond, the potential was going in all directions with fast snappy feelings of maneuvering the map such as sorc tele or a pally charge. Gathering mobs felt bland in D3 and just the same unsatisfying feeling of you might get the same unique that you already found 100 times yet this time with a 3rd stat. There’s no thrill in the D3 designed loot system, do not inherit D3 style! Arcade’ish feeling could have been designed even better in D3 believe it or not! Again, I cried before D3 came out as the biggest hyped fan, and cried after it came out as the most let down fan. Items felt small in d3 and after, the sort feature, was just the same size item in every slot, all uniques was not satisfying for every level, just some design that made no sense to we the fans. Try to remember how Uber, added value to D2. That was the correct path to take when extending the game. Item value was never a cloned unique with a 3rd stat, it was that Unique was powerful once you could equip it. Someone can just hand me everything in D4 that satisfys all characters, that’s not exactly a challenge. I would prioritize more time towards fixing the design than towards graphics even, we never had graphics in D2 and did not even think about them, the game was so fun, our goal was to team up or solo the deepest scariest depths of hell. You did not know what was to come in those lairs, it could be chaos!
Design is key.
Best Regards
(Diablo 1 and 2 biggest fan)