I’ve been playing Diablo since the first game when I roamed the depths of hell with my Archangel’s Staff of Apocalypse… I sunk hundreds if not thousands of hours in Diablo 2 and Diablo 3, and was cautiously excited for Diablo IV. The landscape of gaming has changed such that I expected it would be materially different, but this feels like a different game entirely.
I played the closed and public betas and struggled to get into the game then, and now that it’s live I see some improvements but it just feels like the development team didn’t really understand what made Diablo… Diablo?
This isn’t a troll post, and while I wholly expect some people will criticize my takes, I’m earnestly asking: When does it get fun?
I don’t have time or enough interest to follow the dev updates and conversations, so if some of this has been covered there, please forgive my ignorance and let me know what’s already planned.
Some of the barriers to enjoyment I currently see are:
Storyline: Is Lillith supposed to be menacing or interesting in some way? Diablo storyline has always been very concise in my opinion and the long campaign and storyline feel very forced and a departure from Diablo’s style.
World: I know it’s all the rage to do open world, but Diablo is based on acts like a play, with portals moving you between them. Everything is far too spread out, there is a TON of excess walking/riding needed between quest interactions, and “leave dungeon” works 1/2 the time at best.
Quests: Too many, too many steps in them, poor rewards, not interesting. This isn’t World of Warcraft, please keep those designers away from Diablo IP. I do not give a hoot about side quests, and the player disrespect that they represent is abhorrent at best. I’m not interested in running around to click some NPC across a terribly designed map to get a crappy item and lacklustre experience or renown.
Mob density: Why am I moving through endlessly open fields with no mobs to kill? The A in ARPG is missing.
Fight mechanics: Again, this isn’t World of Warcraft. Why are there so many random and unnecessary mechanics? Affixes are generally where that comes into play in the Diablo franchise, with some originating from creatures and bosses. Too many phases, too many things to need to dodge, predict, etc.
Seasons: Absolutely not. Hated it in Diablo 3, hated it in Destiny 2, hate it in Overwatch, dislike it anywhere this comes up. If you need to strip players of progress to make your game interesting again, you’re doing something wrong with game design imo.
Is there a break point where these issues are mitigated? Is there a time when the game becomes… fun?
TL;DR: Veteran Diablo player struggling to find the fun in D4. Am I just too used to old gameplay styles and refusing to adapt?
I’ve been playing Diablo since the first game when I roamed the depths of hell with my Archangel’s Staff of Apocalypse… I sunk hundreds if not thousands of hours in Diablo 2 and Diablo 3, and was cautiously excited for Diablo IV. The landscape of gaming has changed such that I expected it would be materially different, but this feels like a different game entirely.
I played the closed and public betas and struggled to get into the game then, and now that it’s live I see some improvements but it just feels like the development team didn’t really understand what made Diablo… Diablo?
This isn’t a troll post, and while I wholly expect some people will criticize my takes, I’m earnestly asking: When does it get fun?
I don’t have time or enough interest to follow the dev updates and conversations, so if some of this has been covered there, please forgive my ignorance and let me know what’s already planned.
Some of the barriers to enjoyment I currently see are:
Storyline: Is Lillith supposed to be menacing or interesting in some way? Diablo storyline has always been very concise in my opinion and the long campaign and storyline feel very forced and a departure from Diablo’s style.
World: I know it’s all the rage to do open world, but Diablo is based on acts like a play, with portals moving you between them. Everything is far too spread out, there is a TON of excess walking/riding needed between quest interactions, and “leave dungeon” works 1/2 the time at best.
Quests: Too many, too many steps in them, poor rewards, not interesting. This isn’t World of Warcraft, please keep those designers away from Diablo IP. I do not give a hoot about side quests, and the player disrespect that they represent is abhorrent at best. I’m not interested in running around to click some NPC across a terribly designed map to get a crappy item and lacklustre experience or renown.
Mob density: Why am I moving through endlessly open fields with no mobs to kill? The A in ARPG is missing.
Fight mechanics: Again, this isn’t World of Warcraft. Why are there so many random and unnecessary mechanics? Affixes are generally where that comes into play in the Diablo franchise, with some originating from creatures and bosses. Too many phases, too many things to need to dodge, predict, etc.
Seasons: Absolutely not. Hated it in Diablo 3, hated it in Destiny 2, hate it in Overwatch, dislike it anywhere this comes up. If you need to strip players of progress to make your game interesting again, you’re doing something wrong with game design imo.
Is there a break point where these issues are mitigated? Is there a time when the game becomes… fun?
TL;DR: Veteran Diablo player struggling to find the fun in D4. Am I just too used to old gameplay styles and refusing to adapt?
Tough as many of the things you are describing are actually elements that others enjoy.
For example, boss mechanics and the requirement to learn fights etc is something I personally feel is a huge improvement - I would like to see more.
Open world is awesome IMO, you have a Mount and they are about to added a feature to teleport to NM
Dungeons.
Side quests, again something as a player o personally don’t have a problem with. However, I do hope the renown journey is improved on for seasons……again something Blizzard have touched on during the latest update.
If you don’t like seasons then you really are playing the wrong game, it’s been an ARPG staple forever……the upside is you can just play in the eternal realm and benefit from new features as they are added over time.
Mob density will change over time. If you are travelling on open roads it is low by design, try travel off the beaten path. Again, I prefer a little lower density if it means more engaging combat. To me it’s less about density and more about the rewards and dynamic combat interactions.
The story has been all over the show. Diablo 4 IMO has some of the most concise and compelling story in any of the Diablo games….D3 was probably the worst story but it was certainly concise. D2 you have to go out of your way to figure out what was going on.
I don’t think what you have described is going to go away for you. What you are describing are fundamental game mechanics….you want a different game and that just won’t happen. Things will evolve but the game isn’t going to get an overhaul in a new direction.
My advice would be to stop trying to fight against the tide and just find another game.
If you don’t like the early game you won’t like the late game. Nothing about it gets better. Classes are terrible. Itemization are terrible. There isn’t really anything exciting about the game.
Fun is subjective, even if I agree with you. I’m not sure what it’s missing, but it’s not holding my interest. Maybe because everything just feels like by the numbers, spreadsheet design, making it feel generic. I don’t know.
If you enjoy good stories, then probably the final part of the campaign.
If you enjoy D3-like endgame content, probably once you reach Tree of Whispers and NM Dungeons, as they’re similar to Bounties and GRifts respectively.
If you enjoy D2-like itemhunt, then probably never at all.
story is fine i liked it. but its not holding me. also seasons. the way they have set up the world theyve made it perfect for a living world. why cant they just ad a phasing mechanic like going up a dificulty you can progress into the seasonal story . keep your char no redoing everything over and over again. but actualy build your character over the whole game time . just fill the existing world up with more things to do .
i remember d3 with its Real money auctionhouse and severely reduced drop rates on gear to entise you to go buy. it made a comeback. hoping they do the same here in time. but for now. its just to boring. classes are boring builds are boring. and tbh the whole itemization is boring. why do i have to wait till 25 to tweak my build with legendaries.
i am disapointed i had hoped for more innovation. but the skill tree is just lazy. and to many modifiers. each class has liek 4 difrent builds building on 4 difrent main modifiers. then you can tweak them to gain more modifiers through parragon. its just dumb why do i need to do 5 quintilion damage whats wrong with a grounded dam nr system. once the nr goes over 100k i cant even see the nr propperly anyway so i dont care about it anymore.
also why cant i save skill sets. and paragons. kills all fun in trying difrent builds not that any of them are any fun
I have to wonder how someone that claims to be a Diablo Veteran then complains about story, quests, fight mechanics, and seasons in Diablo. These are not new features. They’ve all been a thing since at least D2 (I never played the original Diablo so I can’t speak on that).
