yeah pretty much…
it’s evident that D4 is a copy-and-paste game…nothing new whatsoever
just better graphics
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also, there is one thing
it’s a Diablo game, but…no Diablo?
Diablo demon character should be part of the “Diablo” franchise no matter what
D4 is more D3.5 than 2.5 imo. The level scaling makes me almost want to compare it to Diablo Immortal tho lol
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People act like it’s 2.5 because it’s like they took the gameplay of 3, and the QoL from 2 and mashed them together to create something kinda worse than either 2 or 3 individually.
They tried to appeal to both fanbases and kinda made it appeal to no one. It’s too close to D3 in gameplay for the D2 players, and the systems are too needlessly complicated and archaic feeling for the D3 players…
It feels like the worst aspects of both worlds and captures the appeal of neither imo.
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There seems to be some selective blindness about some of the D2 design philosophy that went into D4.
They absolutely did pull from both D2 and D3(and immortal and added some new stuff that didn’t work out imo).
It resulted in an unhappy mix of things where the mechanics and design philosophy don’t really mix well. Leveling to max is a huge part of Diablo 2, it isn’t in Diablo 3(which is an at max level game) so mixing the level scaling with slower level progression ended up making lots of things feel jank. Though partially this is due to poor execution on the level scaling, plenty of games have done it well before.
If people were at max level within a day, level scaling wouldn’t be much of a focus. No level scaling also would’ve avoided the jank.
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Feels nothing like 2 to me. 2 was and is the gold standard. This is like the consolation prize for participating. It absolutely feels just like 3, with a lot of worse things, and some better things.
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Better than 3 how? The only answer I’ll accept is “visually” lol.
The issue with all these comparisons is that you’re right in a lot of ways. A lot of these systems have roots in D3. But it feels like rather than expand them and improve upon them in a natural, fun way, they chose to make them “hardcore” or something to try and coax D2 players back to the game.
That is why people say D2.5 imo. It feels like they took the whole of D3 apart, spray painted it black to appeal to D2 players, and then utterly failed to reassemble it in a coherent way.
I love D3. I’m the exact person that all you D2 players hate. I don’t like D2. I don’t like PoE. I like my colorful unicorns Diablo 3 and nothing will ever change that. So if D4 is so closely tied to D3… well then it must say something that even I have a lot of issues with D4, right? All of my gripes come back to lack of QoL, the poor implementation of scaling, shoddy itemization and non-existent balance.
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Can’t talk about the others, but I don’t hate D3 players. What I hate from some D3 players is the lack of empathy with D2 players when D3 was released and we got obnoxiously alienated, along with the common reasoning manipulation (this one in general, not tied to any specific game fans) in forums like these, Reddit, etc.
However, and limited to what I’ve read in this post of you, I’ve seen a honest opinion, not trying to be offensive, not trying to be manipulative, and giving your reasoning behind your claims.
My respects.
I think that it went both ways. I think there was a lot of animosity between fans of D2 and people who liked D3 for what it was. Who was right? Who was wrong? Who’s to say. I think there was a lack of empathy on both sides. And because it’s the internet, people took it too far and there’s still that wedge in the fanbase today. It’s sad really.
But if it’s any consolation, I think I finally understand and empathize with what ya’ll went through back in the day. It’s not fun. But at least ya’ll didn’t have D1 fans telling you how bad D2 was on top of D3 people 
Idk. We all love this game series. We might not all love it for the same reasons but we’re all Diablo fans at the end of the day and we should try to be nicer to each other. Idk. It’s hard sometimes. I know I’ve snapped at people before same as anyone else lol. but still. it’s a shame you know?
Sure it can work both ways. I believe that it lays down to:
- A single fan of “A” thing criticises “B” thing.
- Fan of “B” thing is pissed because of what he likes is criticised. However instead of talking to the single fan of “A” of the previous point, he answers blaming ALL the fans of “A”.
- Fans of “A” in general get triggered and blame all fans of “B”
- All fans of “B” also get triggered and blame all fans of “A”.
- Rinse and repeat from 3.
It can both be “A”=D2 and “B”=D3 or swap them, and it also applies to anything in life. I’m very familiarized with seeing it with soccer (European here) clubs, and hate and feuds starting between clubs this way just because of some not smart supporters.
And I think that the faults that lead to that are:
- If what someone says makes you upset, confront that person alone. Avoid collateral damage. If another person sharing his tastes didn’t make anything to you, don’t make anything to him.
- Empathy: I don’t think it’s that hard to try to be on the other guy’s shoes, no idea why nearly anybody even tries it. Same way it was a letdown to me when D3 was released so I felt the company turned its back on me, it’s easy to understand that it can feel bad for you the change in the artistic direction for D4. I’m honestly sorry.
- Corporate greed/lost know-how/etc. I think it’s the origin of the problem: Blizzard had a blockbuster (D2). Blizzard wanted to milk that blockbuster. Wanting to milk your properties is fine, it’s what companies do and the reason why they exist, however any act comes with its consequences. Want to expand to a younger audience with a more family friendly graphic style? It’s legit. But it’s also legit that the people who like the series because of its dark tone to get upset, especially if they’ve been waiting 12 years for a sequel. Also losing the former devs being replaced by others who did things very differently meant a huge change of paradigm in the game system between consecutive game entries. So there you have your old longtime fans and your also absolutely innocent new ones, both fighting for the same piece of meat like 2 angry dogs (and sadly not a clean fight, like stated above).
I don’t think that the current D3 is a bad game. In fact I think it’s a very good one. I’ve fired it sometimes in past seasons and had a lot of fun with it, so this thread it’s not a “D4 is bad because it copies a bad game”, as I don’t think that’s the case. I made it in response to many people allegating what title says, detaching it from whether or not it’s good or bad to have things similar to D3. Can’t imagine how, for example, I can be saying that “D4 item caches = D3 item caches” could be a bad thing. Same way with not-so-obvious ones, I’m finding fun Tree of Whispers, Keystone dungeons and so on, no matter what game they brought them from. What made me feel bad about D3 was that I was having fun in a very different way from D2, and I was missing D2 so much, so D3 was a roadblock which prevented me from having that D2-kind-of-fun.
Taking a careful look at the criticism towards D4, there’re continuous feuds between D2 and D3 fans, however the heavily criticised Diablo Immortal is not showing up much here. The thing is that Immortal was built in parallel to the numbered game series, so either being fan of D2 or D3, what happens there doesn’t affect you in any sense, only to the fans of Immortal. And I think that’s what it should be done back then with D3: a different “branch” of the franchise, for a different audience, and a different way of having fun, like they’ve done with Immortal (just talking in the pure bifurcation sense, not talking about mobile first nor pay2win). So both people have their game, none of them feel alienated and the company keeps profiting.
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I’m not gonna quote every line and applaud here despite wanting to a little, but I’ll just say that I think everything you’ve said here makes sense, and lines up with things that I’ve been saying (though you’ve put it much more eloquently here). I think you’re right about how that dividing animosity grew. I think what you stated in that second paragraph makes a lot of sense. I think the way you’ve described Immortal’s parallel development track makes sense.
I feel that people get so up in arms over this stuff (myself included, I’m not exempt, though I always try to argue ideas and do my best to respect opinions) that given the history of animosity people are apt to start throwing blame around without much thought.
But when I came to the forums to voice my criticisms about D4, I started seeing many players saying the same things I was feeling… D3 fans blamed D2’s influence for the issues (and I’m guilty of this myself) while D2 players blamed D3. But that’s when it dawned on me that if we’re all saying the same things, maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle. Being put in the same position as D2 players of the past certainly made me empathize a bit more too.
I was hopeful that D4 would be the game that reunited the fanbase. I don’t know if it will, or if we even can at this point in time. But I do think that we can use our shared experiences to empathize more with one another, and hopefully learn to be more respectful of one another despite our differences in opinion. And I’m glad to see that i’m not alone out there. So thanks for that 
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It’s fun, it’s definitely not a “great game”. 7/10 at best
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A great pleasure talking to you, sir.
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