Diablo zero to hero
This is my opinion on how to take Diablo 4 from Zero to Hero. I am a 25 year diablo veteran, diablo has always been my favorite franchise. It has it all, gritty dark theme, fast paced action, customization and roleplaying, replayability, and a good long endless grind that makes you love to just do the same thing over and over and over again. In this break down of D4 I will do my best to explain what I think D4 got wrong, and how to best navigate its development to the game you will never want to stop playing.
In the calendar year of 2023 I have played Diablo 1, 2, 3, and 4 all the way through to really get a good sense of how they differ, what was bad, what was good, and how I think that should culminate in D4. I have played every diablo release at launch (except immortal) I have done the end games fully. I have been around for hacked items in D1 (anyone else remember wearing a helmet as a ring?), the famous drop dupe, the D2 runeword dupe that circumvented the unique item tag to create permanent undetectable dupes, I have purchased items on D2 legit, on the real money AH and have spent countless hours running friends and strangers through the game in exchange for their forge. I have played many of the D3 seasons, and have killed uber lillith solo. I am not a hardcore player but I feel like I have seen the good the bad and the ugly throughout the franchise history. Every iteration of Diablo has needed changes and we have all seen it evolve over the years in response to many of the ugly spots along the road. I am not here to be a D2 andy shilling for D4 to just be that. D2 is its own game, itâs a fantastic game but there are many things I would change. I will only be comparing aspects of the previous games that I found to be good or meaningful in how they could impact the way that D4 plays. All of this is not meant to be taken as hatred for D4, this is a love letter to the Diablo series in general and my 2 cents for the devs to take or leave.
Below I will outline specific areas I consider needing a rework, I will try to be as brief as possible. I will outline direct problems as I see them, and try to give some possible solutions or at least ideas on how these issues could be solved. I am not a developer, Im not a pro gamer, I am a guy with a job that wants to enjoy the game, and always feel like there is something to work toward. At times I will repeat myself as I have typed this in my spare time over the last couple of weeks. You may disagree with me, and I welcome that criticism, but please if you are going to criticize explain what is wrong and how you would fix this. Detailed explanations are the only ones that matter. In the cacauphony of chatter that the devs have to wade through they need clear concise information on whats wrong and how to fix it.
From what I have seen since the Betas until now is Diablo 4 slowly getting better, but in some cases I think the vocal player base has been very noisy about the wrong issues. The general player base has been very upset about surface level symptoms but not the root issues underlying the symptoms. Heres a quick example to get things rolling. The players have been complaining about inventory space, somewhere along the line people started complaining about gems taking up too much space. The devs responded by changing how gems worked. The stash is still a mess, and I still have gems in my stash and as dust at the vendor. The players screamed, the devs responded by treating the symptom not the disease.
Gems donât really take up that much inventory space. Maybe if your running multiple characters every season you will need to keep tons of the highest level of gem. But all those chipped rubys you have in your stash to convert up one level are not worth the space. Trash that garbage, free yourself and just keep the highest tier of gem. The changes to the gems were needed, and I welcome them, but as I stated before they were not the issue that needed solving. I think the root of the issue is readability of loot, and legendary aspects dropping as more loot. You see, if the aspects dropped as aspects they would be very easy to check if itâs the one you want with a good roll or not. Youâd check the name, the orange text and the roll to see if it was decent. Instead they drop as items, so you start by checking ilvl, then in the case of weapons, you check the type, then the affixes, then the rolls, then after all that you still have to check the aspect.
If aspects dropped as aspects only, it would make it clear to new players that this can be added to an item and isnât locked in the item (I believe this is a common misconception) it would be immediately visible that the item in your stash is an aspect and not gear, and it would make sorting through actual gear easier as there are less factors to parse. When I find an aspect I like I donât run, extract it and then sash it. I just stash it, because maybe itâs a near perfect roll but not perfect, and if I make it an aspect then I cant easily move it in my normal bag, it goes in the aspect slot so I cant line them up with my gear in my bag and mix and match till I get the combination I want, I can only do that in my stash not my bag. So I leave it as a piece of gear in my stash, but now there are leggos in my stash that are good maybe with a good rare base or maybe its a bad rare base, and I only want it for the aspect. Theres a lot to be said about affix, aspect icon, player map dot, NMD sigils, paragon glyphs, etc readability. All of these and more are really lacking in the readability department.
These readability issues make sorting gear difficult and slow, it really takes your dedicated attention because some of the aspects are really rare you want to pay close attention to not miss one. The loot in the game is set in such a way that you are always looking for what you already have on, but just slightly better. So even if itâs a unique that you already are wearing you still have to check the details to see if its better or not. This gives players the fear of salvaging something they should be keeping. They just dump it all in the stash (which is criminally small btw) and they continue to do this, salvaging the obviously bad items as they go. It all stacks up until we start screaming about gems. The gems are the easy target, they really donât give much power, there really isnât any choice there every ruby is the same theres no roll issues so its easy to know if you want to keep it and the answer is you always do. So its easy for players to say âI want these gems to go, this other stuff is gear I need. I just havenât had a chance to go through it all, I need like an hour on my own to go do that. Iâll do that tomorrowâ blah blah blah. The readability is garbage, players can sort out whats good and whats trash, they go into analysis paralysis and then scream at the only thing they can for sure live without.
Devâs, if you are reading this. The problem with Diablo is that you are treating the symptoms rather than the root cause. Itâs the gear and aspects and readability that is consuming our stash space, not the gems. Its the restriction of not being able to choose to put the aspect in my general bag that makes me keep aspects as loot instead of just the aspect, and itâs the aspects being an item and not just going into the codex that makes matters even worse. If you really drill down into the core of the issues you can find one or two solutions that will solve a myriad of problems. I recognize that many of these seemingly easy changes I list below will be a nightmare for you to program. I am sure it will seem like a daunting task, but I think if diseases are cured the symptoms will follow and the the game will flourish. I think that D4 has the potential to be the best Diablo game in the series, and I am doing everything I can to try to aid in that process. Please donât take this as hate, this is a passion project.
Gameplay loop
- Nm dungeons
- Dungeon layouts are very basic, there is no joy of exploration. This was a key factor that made Diablo 2 so good. Procedural sprawling multi-level dungeons without annoying barriers made for a fun experience. You would constantly be trying to map hack with your mind to find that fastest route to the next level, to the next boss, to the next piece of gear. In diablo 4 this is lost, instead we have boring dungeon layouts that artistically look incredible. The devs focused on making the path more simplistic because we complain about back tracking, but back tracking isnât the issue. The issue is the annoying roadblocks stopping you from moving forward. We donât enjoy back tacking because the mechanic of finding a key or a stone is boring af, it stops you from doing what you want to do. All we want to do is kill demons, get loot, feel powerful. Instead, we are carrying stones, waiting for bosses to stop being immune to damage and dealing with whatever the annoying Nm dungeon one shot mechanic is.
- To fix this I propose reducing the door mechanics to only spawn 10% of the time, increase the dungeon size, complexity, and mob density. Just let us kill demons.
- The bosses at the end of the dungeons seem to always be the same guy, if there are other bosses they are so uninteresting that I cant tell them apart. The story bosses were much more interesting, chasing a boss riding a three headed demon hound was incredible. Why the f did I only do that once? Put that boss in these dungeons.
- To fix this, make the bosses more deadly, bigger health pools, but remove entirely boss immunity. It feels terrible to nearly one shot the boss down to 10% hp in one hit, only to then crit for the same amount of damage that took out 90% of their health, but for that second hit to do zero damage to the boss. It feels like a scripted event rather than a real living demon. Diablo 2 did not have any boss immunity phases and it felt really good. (D3 did have immunity phases and it felt terrible, 1 shot diablo, phase into dark arena, 1 shot that one, phase into diablo arena, immune for a few seconds, then 1 shot him.)
- I would work on making the bosses feel more distinct, simple one liner voice lines to chill your bones would help. Introducing bosses from the story would be good, adding in more bosses from d1, d2, d3 into the game in the same way the butcher is integrated would be fantastic. Its always exciting when the butcher arrives, but it would be great if once in a while it was Andarial, or Baal, or the Trav council. I will never forget the first time I played D1 and I heard âfresh meatâ we all have heard that thousands of times now, and it still doesnât get old. Mephistos laugh, Andarial stomping around Cathedral 4 when youâve died and she bursts through the door as your trying to get your corpse and she smokes you with poison. Diablo used to be scary in theme and scary in mechanics. The world felt alive, the bosses were tough. D4 is the best looking diablo to date, its poised to hit on all those other notes as well. I just hasnât yet. Its too âgameyâ more on this later.
- Nearly every single Nm dungeon has a first area with keys and stones, then a small room with a bunch of demons that spawn until you pull two levers or kill them all, followed by a hallway with some demons and then the boss arena. Changing the door key to a stone, or the dungeon art design from a castle to a cave does not make it interesting. We are blasting past all this as fast as possible, we need it to look, feel and PLAY differently.
- To fix this, I would suggest the changes listed above, as well as making the boss arena different. The boss AI smarter, and scarier. If we must have that event with the two levers and spikes in the floor, then maybe integrate all of the different overworld events in there. At least then we would have more variety. Im sick of the two levers just as much as im sick of âkill all monstersâ, carry the stone, stand under this bubble until lightning strikes etc. These âgameyâ things break immersion, the linear nature of the dungeons makes them all blend together. In D2 you would fear the lightning scarabs in the maggot layer, the tight corridors and scattered lighting was terrifying, so were demons with the right immunity, or the super fast fetishes in the durance of hate, or a horde of doom lords all juiced up with frenzy. We didnât need lock and key mechanics because were to busy trying to navigate the procedural dungeons without getting our faces melted.
- If the Nm dungeon is set outside, it feels bad when I cant hop on my mount. When the theme of the dungeon is set outside I instinctively hit my mount button to catch my friends. Its jarring when the mount is unavailable. Thematically if Im outside, my mount should be available.
- Make mounts available if the nm dungeon is set outside.
- While were working on mounts, let us do at least the first spur on the horse in town, any little amount of boost will better than âI cant do that hereâ
- Dungeon layouts are very basic, there is no joy of exploration. This was a key factor that made Diablo 2 so good. Procedural sprawling multi-level dungeons without annoying barriers made for a fun experience. You would constantly be trying to map hack with your mind to find that fastest route to the next level, to the next boss, to the next piece of gear. In diablo 4 this is lost, instead we have boring dungeon layouts that artistically look incredible. The devs focused on making the path more simplistic because we complain about back tracking, but back tracking isnât the issue. The issue is the annoying roadblocks stopping you from moving forward. We donât enjoy back tacking because the mechanic of finding a key or a stone is boring af, it stops you from doing what you want to do. All we want to do is kill demons, get loot, feel powerful. Instead, we are carrying stones, waiting for bosses to stop being immune to damage and dealing with whatever the annoying Nm dungeon one shot mechanic is.
- Constantly spawning mobs
- This is a common theme in D4, you will sprint past an area with no enemies, or click on a chest, or a pylon, or a weed and the next thing you know 10 demons crawl out of the earth. Why even have mobs that spawn or resurrect demons if literally everything you interact with in the game also summons demons. The devs made a big deal about how demon families will feel different from one another. The fallen shamans just feel like a resplendent chest but with a baby rattle. In diablo 1, and 2 all of the demons were in the area when you spawned in. They wouldnât despawn, they wouldnât suddenly materialize, they wouldnât rubber band back to their home If you accidentally brought them back to your portal and died you were in for a treat to get your corpse. This made the world feel alive. You would enter an area and if you werenât super OP you would pick your way through the demons, avoiding a demon type that was immune to your elements or that posed a serious risk to your health. In D4 the world feels like a video game rather than a living breathing world. I believe this is because of the demons showing up whenever they want as well as how checkpoints, immunities, lack of dungeon variety and how town portals work.
- To fix this, please have the demons respawn off screen, remove waves of demons unless it thematically makes sense e.g. events, summoning shamans, etc. If they spawn off screen its fine, they need to refresh for the next player. If itâs a trapped chest or something thatâs fine too, but it needs to be reduced to a much smaller chance. The trapped pylons and chests are greatly improved already, but I think there is more work to be done here. Specifically demons/overworld that spawn just from walking through the area.
- This is a common theme in D4, you will sprint past an area with no enemies, or click on a chest, or a pylon, or a weed and the next thing you know 10 demons crawl out of the earth. Why even have mobs that spawn or resurrect demons if literally everything you interact with in the game also summons demons. The devs made a big deal about how demon families will feel different from one another. The fallen shamans just feel like a resplendent chest but with a baby rattle. In diablo 1, and 2 all of the demons were in the area when you spawned in. They wouldnât despawn, they wouldnât suddenly materialize, they wouldnât rubber band back to their home If you accidentally brought them back to your portal and died you were in for a treat to get your corpse. This made the world feel alive. You would enter an area and if you werenât super OP you would pick your way through the demons, avoiding a demon type that was immune to your elements or that posed a serious risk to your health. In D4 the world feels like a video game rather than a living breathing world. I believe this is because of the demons showing up whenever they want as well as how checkpoints, immunities, lack of dungeon variety and how town portals work.
- Group finder/server
- There is no good way to find a group for this game while you are in game. Even in the overworld its difficult to find someone, you may see them ride past you doing the same thing youâre doing, you hop on your horse to go after them and see if you can invite them to your group, but they turn a corner and somehow are in a different instance and they are now gone, never to be seen again. More to that point, we have a local players tab in the social tab, but there is no ârecently played withâ tab. In the local players tab, there is no status to indicate what people are doing, or what they want to be doing. This is exacerbated by out leveling your friends.
- I think that adding a recently played with tab would be helpful, and being able to add a status would be great. I may be crafting in town, but I want to do helltides when it comes up next. Being able to set my status to LFG helltides, would be excellent. Some sort of group finder is sorely missed in this game, without it the game feels busy with players in the town but ultimately dead and lonely.
- Please add an option to toggle showing friends/clan mates on the overworld map even if not in my group.
- There is no good way to find a group for this game while you are in game. Even in the overworld its difficult to find someone, you may see them ride past you doing the same thing youâre doing, you hop on your horse to go after them and see if you can invite them to your group, but they turn a corner and somehow are in a different instance and they are now gone, never to be seen again. More to that point, we have a local players tab in the social tab, but there is no ârecently played withâ tab. In the local players tab, there is no status to indicate what people are doing, or what they want to be doing. This is exacerbated by out leveling your friends.
- Town Portal
- I think the town portal could use a bit of a rework. In D2 you could pop a portal, run around looking for the wp or the quest item, us the wp to go to town and then pop back through your portal. It was also a way for you to gate keep a friend just showing up somewhere. In D4 your portal is always open in town for your friends but not for you. In D3 we had our banners which we could customize, but in typical D4 fashion the readability is terrible, and you have to mouse over each portal to see whose portal it is. Whatâs worse, is the player may go by their account name in voice chat but be playing on a character with a different name. there is more to be said about player dots on the map so Ill touch more on that later. Although the portal is permanent for your friends it isnât for you, so you canât effectively âsave your spotâ in the world with a portal, hope over to a friend to help with something and then use your portal to jump back. There just isnât as much player control over their own portal. Im not saying I want scrolls back, but permanence of the portal may be worth looking into. Having to crack one open for a friend etc.
- Map/overlay
- Readability of party member dots is pretty bad. Each time you play or if the party order changes the player colours change. Theres no name or icon on the map just a yellow or blue dot. Other local players will show up as a smaller yellow dot and enemies marked for death will have a smaller red dot. Let us choose from a colour picker to have a permanent colour or an icon to represent ourselves in groups. You let us change our emblem, I have no idea why, but there are at least two options for some strange reason. But no customization of our map dots. This is frustrating. We also need a way to ping the map. This is especially important for console players. I know we can drop a pin, but being able to ping something while also following our pin would be handy. And now on to the controversy of the map overlay. I know youâve probably heard this before, but seriously, we need a map overlay. The game really really needs a map overlay. If you cant stop demons from randomly spawning everywhere and killing us with our pants down *cough I mean map open, then at least make it transparent. Seriously the way the map works now sucks. The mini map is especially trash on an ultrawide monitor. Let me explain why this matters so much. D4 I think everyone can agree is zoomed in too far. It feels claustrophobic, not in a good way either. It doesnât give me the same fear that I feel when I hear âfresh meatâ instead of fear I feel immense frustration that I was 1 shot by a corpse bow. At launch I played on a quad hd 16:9 monitor, It felt cramped and far too zoomed in. I have upgraded to a 49â monitor, the game world suddenly opened up for me, but only from east to west. It feels roomy, spacious, and honestly I get to see the art of the world in a whole new light. Its incredible how much better the game is on an ultrawide, It feels like im zoomed out. I can now see corpse bows long before they see me. Except when they are above or below me, my 3 man team were all killed instantly kicking us out of the tier 100nmd when a we opened a door and a corpse bow killed us all with one shot from off screen to the north. This never would have happened if the bow was to the left or right because I just have so many pixles in those directions. There is a huge downside to the ultrawide though. Its that tiny little itty bitty mini map in the far corner of my screen, I have to physically turn my head to see where the hell im going, following this tiny little red line and having to glance back and forth from my character to the corner of my screen.
- Please allow a transparent map overlay, enable some sort of customization to the party indicators on the map. Consider adding the option of showing friends and clan mates on the overworld map. Or at the very least let me resize and move the mini map.
- Readability of party member dots is pretty bad. Each time you play or if the party order changes the player colours change. Theres no name or icon on the map just a yellow or blue dot. Other local players will show up as a smaller yellow dot and enemies marked for death will have a smaller red dot. Let us choose from a colour picker to have a permanent colour or an icon to represent ourselves in groups. You let us change our emblem, I have no idea why, but there are at least two options for some strange reason. But no customization of our map dots. This is frustrating. We also need a way to ping the map. This is especially important for console players. I know we can drop a pin, but being able to ping something while also following our pin would be handy. And now on to the controversy of the map overlay. I know youâve probably heard this before, but seriously, we need a map overlay. The game really really needs a map overlay. If you cant stop demons from randomly spawning everywhere and killing us with our pants down *cough I mean map open, then at least make it transparent. Seriously the way the map works now sucks. The mini map is especially trash on an ultrawide monitor. Let me explain why this matters so much. D4 I think everyone can agree is zoomed in too far. It feels claustrophobic, not in a good way either. It doesnât give me the same fear that I feel when I hear âfresh meatâ instead of fear I feel immense frustration that I was 1 shot by a corpse bow. At launch I played on a quad hd 16:9 monitor, It felt cramped and far too zoomed in. I have upgraded to a 49â monitor, the game world suddenly opened up for me, but only from east to west. It feels roomy, spacious, and honestly I get to see the art of the world in a whole new light. Its incredible how much better the game is on an ultrawide, It feels like im zoomed out. I can now see corpse bows long before they see me. Except when they are above or below me, my 3 man team were all killed instantly kicking us out of the tier 100nmd when a we opened a door and a corpse bow killed us all with one shot from off screen to the north. This never would have happened if the bow was to the left or right because I just have so many pixles in those directions. There is a huge downside to the ultrawide though. Its that tiny little itty bitty mini map in the far corner of my screen, I have to physically turn my head to see where the hell im going, following this tiny little red line and having to glance back and forth from my character to the corner of my screen.
- Boosting friends
- Often I encounter an issue where a friend will be over or under leveled and I cant play with them. Yes the game scales to your level, but only marginally, in some areas, for some events, and within your world tier. Boosting your friends has always been a cornerstone of Diablo. I know this is possible, but there seems to be an issue with gearing. This will be addressed under itemization below, but I will outline the issue with boosting. Levels 1-50 are quite fast, especially with the season of blood doing blood harvest and whispers. However 50-60 is very slow, gear is dropping like crazy and the boosted player has leveled so quickly they cant keep up with the volume of loot, and the migraine inducing itemization. When you bring a boostee to tier 4 all the loot dropping is for lvl 60 and they have no choice but to bank it all, with a comically small bank and no item filter this is a chore. Adding in the stashes throughout the cities was a great help to this, removing gems also helped dramatically, but more needs to be done. Check itemization below for more details.
Items
- Stat priority on gear â Readability
- Readability is a huge issue in D4, This is part of the reason why boosting is difficult, the boosted player feels overwhelmed with the volume of gear dropped, and the time it takes to go through it all. If you are being boosted you may not even know what build you ultimately want to use because you havenât had a chance to test things, the game progresses quickly for those players and at Wt3 and WT4 everything that drops is an immediate upgrade, some are not able to be used due to level requirements. This makes people feel the need to inspect each piece of gear individually. Since the readability of the items is so poor this makes it very very slow and confusing for players to determine if itâs an upgrade or not. I think most players opt to just dump all the lvl 60 loot into their stash to then must spend an hour or more salvaging it all later because they kept a bunch of junk gear simply because it was level 60.
- To improve readability there needs to be a stat priority on gear, as an example critical hit should always be at the top of the list, followed by overpower, followed by main stat etc. I donât care what the order is, whether itâs alphabetical or whatever you want, it just needs to be constant. It needs to be clear with colours and bold text, etc. There have been many many posts about this over the last year so I donât want to go to deeply into this, but something needs to be done because even for a veteran Diablo player it makes us all go cross eyed trying to filter out what is an upgrade and what is trash. More on this later.
- Readability is a huge issue in D4, This is part of the reason why boosting is difficult, the boosted player feels overwhelmed with the volume of gear dropped, and the time it takes to go through it all. If you are being boosted you may not even know what build you ultimately want to use because you havenât had a chance to test things, the game progresses quickly for those players and at Wt3 and WT4 everything that drops is an immediate upgrade, some are not able to be used due to level requirements. This makes people feel the need to inspect each piece of gear individually. Since the readability of the items is so poor this makes it very very slow and confusing for players to determine if itâs an upgrade or not. I think most players opt to just dump all the lvl 60 loot into their stash to then must spend an hour or more salvaging it all later because they kept a bunch of junk gear simply because it was level 60.
- Item level vs upgraded item level
- Back to readability, I often get a piece of gear that is very similar to what I already have, maybe the roll of one stat is a bit lower than the piece of gear im already using. The item level of the new piece of gear is higher than what I have equipped, but I cant tell if itâs a true upgrade until I take that new higher Ilevel loot to the Blacksmith, upgrade that piece to tier 5 and check the values. Im literally just guessing because the detailed tooltip that shows the min-max value doesnât show what it could be when fully upgraded. I know this has been mentioned before, but it still hasnât been addressed and it needs to be. Another issue is not knowing what can roll on that gear at the occultist. ( I believe a fix is incoming for this soon) D3 had this figured out guys, go back and use the enchanter in D3 if you want to see how to do this correctly, the system in D4 is kinda trash.
- To fix this problem I would suggest showing us what the min-max value on the gear could have rolled and what It will be when fully upgraded, maybe make this a separate tooltip to enable? Or show us what that value will increase to when we take it to the blacksmith. Thematically you would be taking your gear to an expert, and they would give you an estimate on what their handiwork could contribute to the gear when fully maxed out. Just showing me what it will be after one upgrade doesnât help me determine if this is an upgrade over what Iâm wearing. Please also add in the ability to see what the possible outcome would be on the stat that I am rerolling at the occultist, without knowing what can be rolled, I donât know what I should replace. Having to go to a third-party website for this information is silly, clunky and breaks immersion.
- Back to readability, I often get a piece of gear that is very similar to what I already have, maybe the roll of one stat is a bit lower than the piece of gear im already using. The item level of the new piece of gear is higher than what I have equipped, but I cant tell if itâs a true upgrade until I take that new higher Ilevel loot to the Blacksmith, upgrade that piece to tier 5 and check the values. Im literally just guessing because the detailed tooltip that shows the min-max value doesnât show what it could be when fully upgraded. I know this has been mentioned before, but it still hasnât been addressed and it needs to be. Another issue is not knowing what can roll on that gear at the occultist. ( I believe a fix is incoming for this soon) D3 had this figured out guys, go back and use the enchanter in D3 if you want to see how to do this correctly, the system in D4 is kinda trash.
- Aspects
- Aspects seemed like a great idea to me at first, but in practice I have found them to be really annoying. If I find a perfectly rolled aspect I donât want to use it, even if I have an ilvl 925 piece of gear, I donât want to use the perfect aspect until I know I have the perfect rare to use it on. My stash just piles full of gear that I am saving to be used as an aspect. I donât want to turn them into aspects because then they canât be put into my backpack, they go into a different aspect tab in my backpack, which makes it difficult to keep things organized when trying to determine which slot I want to use that particular aspect on. They can be used on multiple gear slots, so I think most players will line up their gear in their bag (because their bank is full) and then line up the aspects and re-order them until we have it all figured out. The way it works now, itâs actually better to farm aspects in world tier 1, get a perfect roll and use that on your lvl 100 gear because the tier 1 aspect will be cheaper to use than an ancestral aspect from tier 4.
- To fix this, Aspects shouldnât be a piece of gear, we shouldnât need a special aspects tab in our bag, we shouldnât be restricted from putting those extracted aspects into our proper backpack. Instead, I propose aspects should be a drop that is added to the codex, this seems like a no brainer to me. Then the gameplay loop changes from mind numbing bank organization to PLAYING THE GAME, killing demons, and getting better aspects. If we get a perfect roll in the codex it should replace the poor roll that we found in world tier 1. Aspects rolls should increase if they are dropped in higher world tiers, I shouldnât be using a tier 1 aspect with a perfect roll on my lvl 925 gear because its cheaper than the same roll on an ancestral. The codex should also carry over season to season, and legendaries should drop less. We really need rares to drop in quantity not leggos. Rares are the bases with the sats that matter, leggos are just orange text to get dismantled, nothing more. ( I am aware you can replace the aspect on a leggo if its rare base is good, but to my point it means you cant just look at the aspect you have to assess the entire item slowing down looting)
- At this point aspects function like a single step runeword. You find a rare base, reroll one affix, add gem slots, put the gem in that makes sense because there really arenât tough choices to make here, and then put the aspect on it. Boom done, instant and easy runeword.
- The solution I listed above is an easy fix to the aspect problem, but I think making larger changes could be more beneficial. Perhaps moving many of the actual game changing aspects from the gear and moving it to the skill tree would make sense. The ball lightning aspect comes to mind here. Take that aspect and put it in the skill tree as another node to choose. Take all the aspects that are just %dmg boosts and turn those items into aspects, donât have them drop as loot, they should drop as an aspect. There really is no gearing variety in d4 with the current system. More changes are needed to rares to make them viable as a standalone item. I think the concept of leggos was good, but implemented poorly. I think that a runeword like system or more interesting gem/jewel choices and more gem slots could make rares more interesting. Then you have to choose, do I go with the rare and gem the crap out of it, the leggo for a %dmg boost or defence boost, or go with a unique that has some game changing or really strong stats on it.
- The aspects could even be a type of jewel that you craft. Maybe a chest piece has 4 gem slots. You can slot in 4 runes to make it a runeword, add 4 different gems to make it very strong in some way, or take up all 4 slots to put in the large aspect jewel. This would create the choice of gemmed up rare, runeworded rare which becomes maybe a set or unique piece, or leggo rare.
- The solution I listed above is an easy fix to the aspect problem, but I think making larger changes could be more beneficial. Perhaps moving many of the actual game changing aspects from the gear and moving it to the skill tree would make sense. The ball lightning aspect comes to mind here. Take that aspect and put it in the skill tree as another node to choose. Take all the aspects that are just %dmg boosts and turn those items into aspects, donât have them drop as loot, they should drop as an aspect. There really is no gearing variety in d4 with the current system. More changes are needed to rares to make them viable as a standalone item. I think the concept of leggos was good, but implemented poorly. I think that a runeword like system or more interesting gem/jewel choices and more gem slots could make rares more interesting. Then you have to choose, do I go with the rare and gem the crap out of it, the leggo for a %dmg boost or defence boost, or go with a unique that has some game changing or really strong stats on it.
- Aspects seemed like a great idea to me at first, but in practice I have found them to be really annoying. If I find a perfectly rolled aspect I donât want to use it, even if I have an ilvl 925 piece of gear, I donât want to use the perfect aspect until I know I have the perfect rare to use it on. My stash just piles full of gear that I am saving to be used as an aspect. I donât want to turn them into aspects because then they canât be put into my backpack, they go into a different aspect tab in my backpack, which makes it difficult to keep things organized when trying to determine which slot I want to use that particular aspect on. They can be used on multiple gear slots, so I think most players will line up their gear in their bag (because their bank is full) and then line up the aspects and re-order them until we have it all figured out. The way it works now, itâs actually better to farm aspects in world tier 1, get a perfect roll and use that on your lvl 100 gear because the tier 1 aspect will be cheaper to use than an ancestral aspect from tier 4.
- Uniques
- The most important part of the game in my opinion. Its exciting when you find one, thatâs why we play, we are gear goblins and we want uniques. We want interesting gear that is static and changes the way we play, we want it to make us feel like a god. In their current state Uniques feel decent, but there simply isnât enough of them. The increase in drop rates for these and the ability to target farm them is exactly what we needed to give us something to strive for, but finding the same trash unique sword for the 5th time is uninteresting and demoralizing.
- I think adding more uniques is an obvious fix for this, even converting some of the more interesting leggo aspects to uniques could help add to this pool. Not much else to be said here, more more more!
- âuberâ rarity uniques are such a tiny pool of items. As an example in D2 we had uber rarity runes, jewels, base white items used in runewords, and uniques. The pool of super rare stuff made farming it more interesting, because most of the gear wasnât class specific you could share it around between your alts. A super rare rune could be used in multiple rune words. 5 uber rare uniques is laughable, uninteresting and you cant even adjust any of the parameters on it other than 5 ambiguous level increases and a gem slot or two. In D3 every single item in the game could drop as an ancient or a primal ancient. This made every item have a potential to be more and more rare depending on roll and primal/ancient status. This will be mentioned more in the ancestral/sacred section but I think its relevant to the unique discussion since every single unique is pretty much ancestral and I am never ever going to wear a sacred item. Ancestrals drop like they are white items so they donât have the special rarity that a primal ancient item had.
- The most important part of the game in my opinion. Its exciting when you find one, thatâs why we play, we are gear goblins and we want uniques. We want interesting gear that is static and changes the way we play, we want it to make us feel like a god. In their current state Uniques feel decent, but there simply isnât enough of them. The increase in drop rates for these and the ability to target farm them is exactly what we needed to give us something to strive for, but finding the same trash unique sword for the 5th time is uninteresting and demoralizing.
- Paragon boards
- These feel very good. It was a smart way to add complexity at endgame while keeping things simplistic from 1-50 for new players. The glyphs are a bit annoying having to level each one. I think it would be better to level the glyph slot rather than the glyph. I also wish the glyph readability would be better, right now they just all look the same to me, except for the blue ones that you use for 5 minutes until you replace them with a yellow. D4 doesnât want you to allocate your stat points like we did in D1 and 2. Instead of stacking enough strength to be able to wear your armor, and then stack dex to get max block if you need it or reach an attack rating goal that you couldnât meet with gear. You would then stack life, or int if you needed mana. The system wasnât perfect, but it was a level of customization cut out in D3 and oddly added back in in D4. It was only added in for the paragon system however. And although the stat choices do have an effect on your overall build its not in any way that impacts your gearing or skill choices. The stat allocation on the paragon board is only determined by whatever that rare paragon node wants and what board you are using. If you are 50 strength shy from activating that second power on the rare node, and you add 100strength from a 2 handed weapon it has zero effect on the paragon board. So why tell us that allocating stat points is tedious and uninteresting only to add a system in that makes us add it from completely arbitrary reasons and then on top of it all, donât allow our gear to interact with it in any way.
- I think stats could use a rework, I think paragon boards while good, could use a little tweaking to make them make more sense. I donât think we need more complexity or big changes here, just QOL and readability changes. (thx for the respect button devs, big W!)
- These feel very good. It was a smart way to add complexity at endgame while keeping things simplistic from 1-50 for new players. The glyphs are a bit annoying having to level each one. I think it would be better to level the glyph slot rather than the glyph. I also wish the glyph readability would be better, right now they just all look the same to me, except for the blue ones that you use for 5 minutes until you replace them with a yellow. D4 doesnât want you to allocate your stat points like we did in D1 and 2. Instead of stacking enough strength to be able to wear your armor, and then stack dex to get max block if you need it or reach an attack rating goal that you couldnât meet with gear. You would then stack life, or int if you needed mana. The system wasnât perfect, but it was a level of customization cut out in D3 and oddly added back in in D4. It was only added in for the paragon system however. And although the stat choices do have an effect on your overall build its not in any way that impacts your gearing or skill choices. The stat allocation on the paragon board is only determined by whatever that rare paragon node wants and what board you are using. If you are 50 strength shy from activating that second power on the rare node, and you add 100strength from a 2 handed weapon it has zero effect on the paragon board. So why tell us that allocating stat points is tedious and uninteresting only to add a system in that makes us add it from completely arbitrary reasons and then on top of it all, donât allow our gear to interact with it in any way.
- Conditional stats
- All of these really complicated conditional stats need to go, they are uninteresting, too specific, over complicated and generally just boring. You will never hear someone say âI really want to make a build based on getting inside a demons personal bubble.â Sure its slightly different to play a sorc in close combat, and you could use that conditional stat to boost the dps, but man is that boring. There are many aspects in the game where there are 3 or 4 conditions that must be met for the ability to take effect. Not only does this dramatically slow down the process of elimination when choosing gear, its also very difficult to even know if it will work with your build. As an example Smiting aspect is absolutely ridiculous:
- âYou have 10-20% increased crit chance against injured enemies. While you are healthy, you gain 20-40% increased crowd control duration.
- Do you really expect us to A) notice this effect, and B) keep track of all that bologna? First the enemy must be injured, then I must be healthy, then my crit chance is increased,
- All of these really complicated conditional stats need to go, they are uninteresting, too specific, over complicated and generally just boring. You will never hear someone say âI really want to make a build based on getting inside a demons personal bubble.â Sure its slightly different to play a sorc in close combat, and you could use that conditional stat to boost the dps, but man is that boring. There are many aspects in the game where there are 3 or 4 conditions that must be met for the ability to take effect. Not only does this dramatically slow down the process of elimination when choosing gear, its also very difficult to even know if it will work with your build. As an example Smiting aspect is absolutely ridiculous:
- Storage
- Every piece of loot is the same size in the inventory, the loot tetris is gone, the feeling of an items size and weight is gone, seriously a ring is the same size and weight as a two handed axe in my inventory. Nightmare sigils are stored with uber mats, incense, elixers. Everyone I talk to is always avoiding doing inventory and stash management because its such a chore to do. Moving the stashes closer to the blacksmith was helpful, doing away with gems (sort of) was helpful, why was the consumables tab overlooked? Why donât sigils say there lvl on them, I have to mouse over each one to determine what the hell it is. There are a handful of different sigil icons, couldnât tell you what they mean because they are so samey.
- Yellow rare items
- These are just legendaries, and you cant change my mind on that. Itâs a base item with very little difference from one to another. There is no other choice, its not like we can use a blue instead, we cant add more than one leggo. And like I said in the leggo section, leggos should just be aspects not gear. So many noob players donât even understand that leggos can be extracted. I have had to explain this to people in world tier 4, Ive had to walk them through why they should stop picking up only leggos and start looking for good rares. Itâs a really ham fisted system that does not make sense to more casual players.
- Blue Magic items
- Blue items are basically just there for filler. I use them from about lvl 1-15 and then as soon as rares start dropping I never pick up a blue again. It took me ages to realize that elixers can actually drop in the world. I have trained my brain to not even read the blue text because the items are simply trash. It wasnât until I was farming living steel before I realized that I have been missing out on elixir drops.
- I think a possible fix for blue items would be as follows: make rares have an additional affix over blues but have the blues have a much much large roll range. So if you can find a blue with a god tier roll its actually worth using it as a base for a leggo. Maybe I would choose that blue if it was actually viable, it should be rare and you there should be a downside to choosing a blue over a yellow. Just give the blues something to do, they are lonely.
- Blue items are basically just there for filler. I use them from about lvl 1-15 and then as soon as rares start dropping I never pick up a blue again. It took me ages to realize that elixers can actually drop in the world. I have trained my brain to not even read the blue text because the items are simply trash. It wasnât until I was farming living steel before I realized that I have been missing out on elixir drops.
- Sacred, and Ancestrals
- Sacreds, they are only useful while leveling and in world tier 3. They donât feel special, and neither do ancestrals. There doesnât seem to be any ilvl restrictions for sacreds or ancestrals, the roll ranges seem to be similar, the number affixes are the same, they even look the same. The leggo aspects roll the same. What the hell is the point in these distinctions? In the current iteration I donât even look at sacred, it might as well be a blue. If an item isnât ancestral I donât even pick it up.
- Sacreds should feel better than a normal rare/leggo/unique. Ancestrals should be better than sacreds, should neve be below ilvl 900 and should either have larger possible rolls, or have more affixes possible.
- Sacreds, they are only useful while leveling and in world tier 3. They donât feel special, and neither do ancestrals. There doesnât seem to be any ilvl restrictions for sacreds or ancestrals, the roll ranges seem to be similar, the number affixes are the same, they even look the same. The leggo aspects roll the same. What the hell is the point in these distinctions? In the current iteration I donât even look at sacred, it might as well be a blue. If an item isnât ancestral I donât even pick it up.
- Gems
- I think gems are severely lacking in D4, it reminds me of the D2 launch. At launch D2 was pretty basic, tiny little stash, no runewords, no jewels iirc. Right now there isnât many options for gems. You choose your gem for resists in jewelery, or skulls if not needed. Then you pick youâre armor gem which is typically a ruby etc. I know there are variations, Iâm simplifying here. We need interesting interactions. I have mentioned a few ideas about this in other areas of this long winded word vomit I have been typing. Here are a couple more ideas.
- Have gems interact with one another in some way. Maybe amplifying each other in multi sockets or something else like this. Runes in D2 served two purposes, they worked like stand alone gems when slotted individually, or became powerful runewords if slotted in the correct item in the correct pattern. This opened up huge amounts of possibilities. Jewels added to the complexity by being a sort of gem with two modifiers regardless of what piece of gear it was slotted into, but those stats could roll higher or lower. What I am trying to say is that D2 had variety, and those socketable items were used to complete different tasks. Whether it was meeting a stat requirement to wear a piece of gear, or increase some other stat to meet a break point, or to simply to make a S tier piece of fine loot out of some scraps you had been collecting. We need something like this in D4.
- I think gems are severely lacking in D4, it reminds me of the D2 launch. At launch D2 was pretty basic, tiny little stash, no runewords, no jewels iirc. Right now there isnât many options for gems. You choose your gem for resists in jewelery, or skulls if not needed. Then you pick youâre armor gem which is typically a ruby etc. I know there are variations, Iâm simplifying here. We need interesting interactions. I have mentioned a few ideas about this in other areas of this long winded word vomit I have been typing. Here are a couple more ideas.
- Trading
- I think trading is largely controlled in D4 only as a hold over from d3. And I think d3 only had soul binding because of the real money auction house. D2 has thrived for two decades because it has completely unhindered trading. Not all of the gear is locked to a specific class, so depending on your build that helmet you found could be traded to an alt or to a friend or to a stranger. Whatever you wanted to do with your loot you could do and it made an entire economy. There is only one reason why I can see this restriction in D4, a complete lack of options when it comes to gear. There are so few uniques, and so many of the leggos are class specific that it makes the available item pool for you and your build super small. If these other changes I have suggested are implemented, and the number of viable pieces of gear is increased dramatically I really think the game would thrive by allowing unhindered trade.
- Remove account binding, transfer skill/class specific aspects to the skill tree, make rares and blues more interesting/viable, overhaul sacreds and ancestrals to feel meaningful and distinct, create more difficult choices in gems, create more rare jewels or runes to be socketed and let us trade freely!
- I think trading is largely controlled in D4 only as a hold over from d3. And I think d3 only had soul binding because of the real money auction house. D2 has thrived for two decades because it has completely unhindered trading. Not all of the gear is locked to a specific class, so depending on your build that helmet you found could be traded to an alt or to a friend or to a stranger. Whatever you wanted to do with your loot you could do and it made an entire economy. There is only one reason why I can see this restriction in D4, a complete lack of options when it comes to gear. There are so few uniques, and so many of the leggos are class specific that it makes the available item pool for you and your build super small. If these other changes I have suggested are implemented, and the number of viable pieces of gear is increased dramatically I really think the game would thrive by allowing unhindered trade.
- Overpower, Vulnerable, Critical Hit, Elements, Crowd Control
- Overpower and vulnerable are really cool and fun new mechanics for the diablo series, I think they are very much like critical hits. Crits have always been a staple in the arpg genre as it changes the way you play. Trying to increase your chance to crit and how much damage you do when you crit impacts your gearing choices. I think some changes to these systems would be good, but I also think that we need more systems like this. In d2 we had crushing blow, it ignored the targets defence and made smiters viable. Elemental damage types, like cold, poision and id even consider bleed in this category are good as well. Crowd control all sort of feels the same. It makes no difference to me if the target is frozen, stunned, dazed or whatever. I think some changes to this system could be good as well. In the end they all limit the demons and increase our damage.
- Overpower is good, although I think having a couple more ways of guaranteeing an overpower would be good. Most of the ways to do this are kinda unnoticeable like waiting for 30seconds. Ok, I do see the overpower but for all I know it could be just the 3% proc. Overpower isnât in a terrible spot right now, I do quite like its current system.
- Vulnerable, I think should be changed to interact only with the crowd control mechanics. For example, bosses have a stagger bar, once filled they should be vulnerable for a period of time. All demons should have a stagger bar, enough cc done to them should make them vulnerable. The idea that every class has to have some way of applying vulnerable is stupid, you just end up having 100% uptime. Thematically it doesnât make sense either. I hit you with this one spell so now youre just vulnerable. Hell, even exploiter on barbs functions differently than it does on a Sorc. On a barb just doing damage makes the enemy vulnerable. Boring, uninteresting no gameplay changes. My barb has 100% vuln uptime and he doesnât do ANY cc. I donât need it I just blast the enemy to death.
- CC/ elemental damage types. I feel like there needs to be a commonly known interaction between the elements. Maybe if an enemy is bleeding they will take more poison damage, maybe a frozen target should take increased damage from physical as they have a chance to shatter. An electrocuted enemy maybe will burn more because thematically they are not able to stop drop and roll. I just think a few interactions like this could make building characters to interact with your friends more interesting.
- Attack speed, currently its all about just get more. Even if youre playing a slow ability like upheaval, by endgame you spam it like crazy. Big slow attacks should hit harder and feel slower than fast small attacks. In the current system speed doesnât effect damage output other than faster is more, therefore its better. This is how diablo has always worked for players but not for demons. The demons telegraph their attack so you can dodge it, and if itâs a big slow attack you know its going to hit like a truck. Why isnât it the same for players. Having a heavy slow attack becomes a skill shot, better make sure it lands or your dmg output will drop. Attk spd should have some effect on slow attacks but I think the strong attacks should have different breakpoints than fast attacks.
- Life leech and mana leech just arenât what they used to be. I remember the old days of making a zealot pally with tons of zeal that would slowly chip away at a boss, leeching for all they were worth to keep alive long enough to slay that boss. Whereas some barb could roll in with bash and chunk the bosses life away while chugging potions. Mechanics like this make the classes feel different and give you more options. I know this exists in d4 but I donât think its really viable.
- Finally more interesting mechanics like this would be greatly welcomed. Crushing blows, intimidation, changes to attack speed with break points, more gameplay effecting changes that feel new and different.
- Overpower and vulnerable are really cool and fun new mechanics for the diablo series, I think they are very much like critical hits. Crits have always been a staple in the arpg genre as it changes the way you play. Trying to increase your chance to crit and how much damage you do when you crit impacts your gearing choices. I think some changes to these systems would be good, but I also think that we need more systems like this. In d2 we had crushing blow, it ignored the targets defence and made smiters viable. Elemental damage types, like cold, poision and id even consider bleed in this category are good as well. Crowd control all sort of feels the same. It makes no difference to me if the target is frozen, stunned, dazed or whatever. I think some changes to this system could be good as well. In the end they all limit the demons and increase our damage.
Purpose
- Endgame
- I see a lot of loud and vocal criticism of the game, and I think they are often either following the trend of the week or misguided in what they think the game needs. As an example of this there has been recent criticism over the living steel found in helltide chests. Everyone has been screaming for more living steel so they can farm Duriel more frequently. The devs have responded by making living steel more plentiful. This has not fixed the underlying issue it has only treated the symptom. The symptom is people hate how much time needs to be invested in helltides which are on a timer. They really only want to farm Dureil, not because hes difficult, not because hes fun, not because the fight is interesting, only because people griped about target farming and now hes the way to get uber uniques.
- Increasing living steel drops only makes the problem worse. People will still farm helltides which they donât want to do to get steel, then they will use the steel to kill greg which drops nothing of use, he isnât even endgame level hes trash, hes easy, whats the point? To get a chance at a shard for duriel, thatâs it, just kill, leave dungeon, rinse and repeat. This isnât endgame this is game ending. Then we will farm varshan, also a push-over, uninteresting and drops really nothing of use except for a ring and an egg. Chances of finding a ring for another one of your characters while farming on your strong one? Very very low. This is a problem too, but we will talk about that later.
- Now, after farming helltides (less than you used to have to now) and farming whispers for mats so you can farm varshan, and farming greg for shards, now you farm Duriel. Every single one of these bosses are using the exact same circle dungeon too, with the exact same summoning alter. The only thing in this entire process that is interesting at all is Helltides. So why do people not want to do the ONLY interesting thing? Itâs a big issue that no one is talking about. The game is too easy for lvl 100 characters, and itemization is really really boring.
- At lvl 100 on a reasonably strong character all of these âuberâ bosses are easy, and helltide in the overworld is far easier than that. I think we need a world tier 5 that makes the entire overworld as difficult as a Tier 80+nmd. This is a Diablo game after all, if there is no fear of death then you wont truly have the power fantasy fulfilled. And if all the steps along the way to Duriel is super easy and doesnât drop anything of value the players are going to hate it. And through there misguided cries for changes they will get more living steel. This will not change the root problem, this will only make the grind faster, make the uber uniques drop more quickly and make people burn out faster. Make it harder.
- Creating a world tier 5 will fracture the player base. So I have a possible solution for that as well. Perhaps world tier 4 and 5 could coexist, maybe tier 5 gives you a little insignia next to your name showing your on a harder difficulty, have the demons scale to a higher level and drop all lvl 900+ gear, but allow us to play with our friends in tier 4. It could be an opt-in player by player system that just juices the difficulty for you in endgame. No more experience gain, just stop dropping sacreds, stop dropping low ilvl loot, and make me fear for my life. I need the horror back in my horror game please. The fear of dying is gone for me in tier 4.
- There are further issues with the game that once again people are misguided on. We talked a bit about the boring dungeon design for the uber bosses earlier. This problem is not just with those dungeons its also rampant throughout all the dungeons. People have complained endlessly about back-tracking. And the devs have responded by making the dungeons more linear. The problem persists. The dungeons are boring, all feel the same (look different but feel the same) and they all seem to have tomb lord at the end. I know there are other bosses but they mostly feel identical. The dungeons have some annoying key mechanic. Then a transition room with a couple waves of enemies, always the same layout regardless of dungeon followed by a hallway/stairwell leading into another annoying key/lock mechanic, followed by the exact same boss arena, and typically tomb lord.
- Making the dungeons more linear to avoid back tracking is treating the symptom and not the root cause once again. Throughout the history of the diablo series procedurally generated dungeons have been at its core. There was a certain thrill trying to map hack the dungeons in your mind, speed running trying to find the fastest route to the boss with good loot. Fighting past hordes of deadly enemies, avoiding immunities, or finding a way to counter the immunity was a huge part of the D2 experience that has been replaced with annoying key mechanics. There is nothing different from finding a key, carrying a blood stone, carrying two round stones, or killing all enemies to unlock a door. Its annoying plain and simple and until the dungeons are overhauled people will keep asking for the dungeons to be made simpler since most players donât really know what they want. They arenât developers, they may not be diablo vets, they may not spend countless hours thinking about the underlying mechanics. They just know they hate what they are doing and want to like it.
- Diablo 4âs art design is absolutely amazing, the gameplay/action feels good too, but man some of these core mechanics are really bringing the game down. To fix the dungeon issues, I think the layouts need to be scrapped, procedural generation needs to be brought back, not all dungeons but some need multiple levels to drill down into, we need different boss arenas, we need different bosses. If we cant have a unique boss for every dungeon than we at least need the number of bosses to increase ten fold. You designed these incredible boss fights in the campaign but we never see them. WHY!? Where is the guy riding the fire dog, where is andariel? We get the butcher which is great by the way, add in more bosses like this, give us variety, let us have the joy of exploration, make speed running dungeons fun and please for the love of god STOP with the keys and lock mechanics. They have ruined the dungeon system, I absolutely hate the dungeons because of the keys, and making the dungeons more linear has only made them more boring, and less interesting. Yesterday I did a tier 100nmd, I got to the boss door and it was locked, I walked into the room beside the boss arena, opened a box and the key was right there, 10 feet away from the door. I unlocked and killed the boss, it was so freaking boring. Why even have the key if its stored 10 feet away. Blizzard please I beg you, stop listening to people that donât understand the game. Stop listening to the streamers that change with the flavour of the week. You need to start listening to the long time veterans that have a deep understanding of the entire series and have a strong passion for the game.
- All of these endgame activities are simply too easy, world bosses die in seconds, uber lillith you just skip her frustrating oneshot mechanics, nmdâs have super linear and boring mechanics and bosses, helltides are too easy, uber bosses for mats drop barely anything of use. (seriously I got an ancestral ilvl 90 item from varshan yesterday on tier 4.) and all of this just to get minor upgrades to glyphs ill never use, or a single uber unique that I will use for a week before end of season on content Ive done a thousand times and havenât died to in days (generally only while im in my map trying to port to the tree or something)
- Abatoire of Zir, and the new glyph for every build and every class. God am I so unhyped for this. Every single build is going to be running this. It reminds me of metamorphosis and tibults. Pretty much everyone is running this. It reminds me of enigma in D2. An item so good everyone has to use it for their build to be viable. Why even have other classes if we all run the same glyph and the same vamp power? I think a much more interesting mechanic would be to make the abatoire glyph be socketable with a leggo aspect. Let everyone choose an aspect to slot into the glyph, and have it ramp up based on levels. At least then we are all using the same glyph but it would have some different flavour and actually change our builds allowing for an additional leggo. Look at how OP barbs are because they have 2 more aspects compared to all other classes. It opens up interesting interactions and new ways to play. The current iteration of the abatoire glyph just seems lazy.
Bosses
Bosses currently have multiple phases, immunity phases, dmg mitigating phases, and other mechanics that draw the fights out for much longer than they should be for how hard we are hitting them. As an example when I hit duriel for 60million his health chunks down dramatically, that typically triggers the next phase making him immune as he scurries away. Ill still be hitting him during this time, and often Ill hit him for another 60million. It does zero damage. Maybe the first 60mill takes away 50% of his life, why does the next 60million only do zero or 2% of his life? Its immersion breaking all in service of duriel going underground, popping back up and getting killed instantly by my next hit. Sometimes the boss wont be immune but will be in a mitigating phase where im still doing damage but the 60mill hit is only taking tiny 1% chunks of health, then they will exit the mitigation phase and ill hit for lets say 10mill and ill take a bigger chunk of their life than I did when hitting for 60mill. This breaks immersion. World bosses handle this much better simply by having bigger health pools. Yes they have those immunity phases as well and I hate those phases very much too, but the huge health pool makes the world bosses feel like a world boss. âuberâ bosses in d4 are far from being uber. They are just loot pinatas with immunity phases and gear checks. This same sort of issue happens in the overworld as well, with the constantly spawning mobs and waves of enemies, with varying immunity phases. Stop this please, make the bosses feel like living breathing demons rather than a video game gear check/cinematic. D2 handles this well, when you enter an area the demons are already there. You enter their territory and need to either kill them or go around without dying if they are immune or super deadly. In diablo 4 you are never safe, even after clearing a room theres always a chance something else will spawn and murder you while at your map. Because lets be honest thatâs normally when you die, your in your map or inventory or typing to a friend and then you get jumped by something that wasnât there a few seconds earlier.
Seasonal content
- Season 1 and Season 2 were built around these small systems that were basically just passive procs. I guess you can call using Metamorph to get resource game changing, but really youâre still playing whatever build you were going to play. I think the focus of seasons should flip. Currently the devs add in complex systems that require many levels of interaction with multiple systems. The vampire powers are going to interact with paragon, gear choices, and skill choices. This can be good but it can also break a lot of things. Once you blitz past the blood harvest, you realize the only thing the season has to offer is a paid battle pass and a season journey title. This is why people are burning out. The focus is being put on adding complexity to the part of the game with the most complexity. There is almost zero focus and effort being put into the least complex part of the game â the game. We are in season 2 and we are still just doing helltides, and NMD till our eyes bleed from the repetition. All in service of the same loot we have had since launch, and the same transmogs (unless of course you want to open your wallet) I know that there were the uber bosses added, but man those are boring too. I have outlined this above already, but ill highlight it one more time here. ALL the uber bosses have the exact. Same. Dungeon layout. What is the point in the 4 enemies before killing duriel? Seriously Blizzard for the love of god, Season 4 add no mechanics to change our characters. PLEASE just add in content. Add in new game modes, add in more new events, hell just go back and add new bosses to the original dungeons. Even if they are just the campaign bosses, we just need variety of play.
- Maybe this could be an every other sort of thing. We get a gameplay season, followed by a content season, just something to mix things up. If the content has new and interesting challenges, players will find new builds to counter whatever the new content has to offer. I feel like the devs are always trying to reinvent the wheel, which makes them come up with one viable build for each class each season, forcing us to play how they want. This is an aRPg, let me RP.
I could probably type another 10k words about diablo if given enough time, but I fear no one will ever read this far anyway. If you did get here and you are a dev, I hope you found something useful. If you are a new player in the diablo series and you read this far, I hope you go back and enjoy the old titles someday, and if youâre a returning vet, I hope you agree with what I had to say.
on long walls.