Agreed, let people break the game in fun and creative ways. Don't try too hard to keep it balanced when that's ultimately never what makes an arpg enjoyable.
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Diablo IV announced
- Thread starter NotLiquid
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You're talking about vanilla D3. Current D3, not anymore. They're all using wands (and certain sword/dagger) because legendary affixes are more important than the damage number of the weapon. Even then, a sorceror running around carrying a big melee weapon is not a problem by itself. PoE lets players who know what they're doing, build a witch who is melee attacker wielding two handed hammer crushing endgame, with the right setup.
One of the best POE players is next to him as well. Having both on the same vid giving commentary is great.
Why do I need to get screwed? Diablo 3 looked good, this looks good.
Enigma was broken purely because teleport was the best skill in the game. Teleport is not a skill that a class doesn't need, you know what I mean. There isn't any drawbacks to using teleport and it improves everything about whatever build was using it. Having that kind of mobility is just OP.
Physical builds didn't really want it. You needed some kind of faster cast rate for it to work well which depended on the class you used. Javazon is one of the more popular endgame builds and it doesn't use Enigma. At least not for Teleport.
This. They had different art directions, but that doesn't mean D3 looked bad by any means.
D3 didn't look bad, but it was too cartoonish considering it's roots. It didn't help that the whole tone of the game was very cartoonish. Cutscenes, characters and all.
Heck, if we ignore the difference in tech (lighting in D4 looks great), I think the art in D3 is better than D4 so far.
I never understood the hate toward D3 art.
I'm glad if they fixed it in D3. Though I'm curious if that's something that only really goes into effect once you hit endgame and start getting all the cool legendary's through farming? For instance, are you still feeling the need to use big 2handers while leveling a wizards when a new season rolls around because it's dps is higher and your spell dmg is tied to that weapon dps? Because then the fundamental stat issue is still there.
And D3 and PoE are two completely different beasts. Something like 2hander builds for a witch in PoE is the result of the game having an incredible amount of build freedom. In D3 it's the exact opposite where using 2handers was basically just a forced choice for you due to bad and restrictive game design
Exactly, the interplay between skills/items/passives is completely different with one giving you infinitely more latitude to create something weird but fun, whereas the other gives you almost none of that freedom.
No build really needs it. Teleport is just so good that it was the optimal armour choice purely because teleport is OP.
Hammerdin still works but tp made it OP.
Singer works but again, tp.
Javazon was a great cow build. You could get away without enigma because it didn't optimize the build which just ran around a highly populated area.
You can't really say you wouldn't want tp though. It was just so good for most things you did in the game.
Overall I am extremely happy with how the game looks and what they said about it in the various panels. No red flags going off for me and in terms of looks it is a huge improvement over Diablo 3. I liked Diablo 3 and would've loved to see more content being released for Diablo 3, but I am glad we are getting Diablo 4.
It definitely looks like they have their focus and priorities right for this game and I am looking forward to playing it when it comes out. For most other things it is way too early to tell.
So far no mainline Diablo game was a big letdown and they all improved with expansion packs and content updates (especially Diablo 3). I expect the same to happen to Diablo 4.
It definitely looks like they have their focus and priorities right for this game and I am looking forward to playing it when it comes out. For most other things it is way too early to tell.
So far no mainline Diablo game was a big letdown and they all improved with expansion packs and content updates (especially Diablo 3). I expect the same to happen to Diablo 4.
I can't seem to find a straightforward answer regarding map size; is the map in the demo 1 of 5 zones or is it the entire game?
Edit: Nevermind, they explain it in the World & Lore panel, it's the whole map, and there are 5 regions within it; would have been insane if there were 5 zones of that size.
Edit: Nevermind, they explain it in the World & Lore panel, it's the whole map, and there are 5 regions within it; would have been insane if there were 5 zones of that size.
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Figures... Hate when companies force online components into a game that's just as playable solo. And i bet offline play will not get patched in when the servers inevitably gets shut down.
Yea I was specifically referencing the Shaper and Elder items. Think they may have went a little too crazy with that. Not that I mind, I love breaking games, it's one of the reasons FF8 is my second favorite Final Fantasy.
Watching this currently. Really like these two guys. Just got to the point at around 45 minutes where they're talking about runes, and they're running through how the current runeword system could be cool if you have a 6 socket item. Then chat tells them that the devs have confirmed it's currently only a 2 socket system, and Llama immediate goes "okay well...we're gonna talk with them" lol
I thought D3 art was great. And I actually remember supporting D3 art style during the development of D3. However, I was wrong back then.
It was not the right tone and art direction for a Diablo game. The more colourful and satured game world did not capture me as effectively as the bleak darkness of Diablo 1 and Diablo 2.
I think the first few landscape shots in Diablo 4 gameplay trailer absolutely capture the essence of what Diablo is for me. And I see the links to Frank Frazetta paintings, which is another good sign.
That is quite honestly the best cinematic trailer I've ever seen for a video game. If the tone contained within that video is any indication as to the whole game proper, then holy fuck
Dead on. Frustratingly accurate. How can they think these are worthwhile design principles for a flagship arpg!?
That's not true though. When you take battle.net considerations out of the equation there are actually a lot of reasons not to use enigma.
For one thing, a lot of classes have a dreadful base casting speed and no other use for FCR so teleport isn't especially useful to them. The Amazon is a prime example of this because FCR is completely useless to them except in that it makes casting teleport less ridiculously slow. Accordingly, you can make better gear choices across the board by not having to get the FCR to make using enigma a reasonable choice. Assassins are in a similar boat and also have the advantage of having access to a pseudo teleport.
One underlooked issue with enigma is that the stats that it confers other than teleport are so good that even if it didn't give teleport it'd still be the best armor for some builds. I can't really deny that; however, the majority of classes/builds have something better to put in the armor slot when teleport is something less than absolutely essential. This is especially the case on hardcore, where chains of honor tends to get a lot of play (and enigma is even less important in general due to the inherently higher risk of teleporting around like a madman).
If you've only played on battle.net that's going to give you a highly skewed perception of the value of enigma.
Inevitably? I think Diablo 2 servers are still running 19 years later.
Diablo 3 looked nothing like it's predecessors, whether it looked good or not was not the point. It was clearly a shift towards the Warcraft style of art, which was a terrible decision. It pretty much removed all of it's trademark aesthetics. The dark, gory and gritty look of Diablo was a big part of why people liked the series.
Yeah. In fact, you can play the original Diablo online if you want to.
Not true at all. The casting delay is horrendous for a lot of classes without fcr investment, which is limited to a number of slots. Physical builds for example want Ravenfrost in one of the ring slots. It's simply ineffective and inefficient to teleport around and farm at the same time. I mean, I guess you could if you want to showboat how many throwaway Jahs and Bers you have.
2021 - 2022 with 2020 BlizzCon coming with beta access announcement + pre-orders.
Street Fighter 2 looked nothing like 1, 3 looked nothing like 2.
Continuity is usually thrown around as an argument ender and its really not. New games are allowed to look different and find new ways to explore themes and expression (most of the D3 art team moved to Riot after its release, btw)
I would prefer people not to take a tone that implies "real" fans prefer the darker look (or that theyre the majority) and people who dare to like something slightly different should screw themselves. A bunch of people who didnt like it were very vocal yes, but it doesnt make you any less of a Diablo fan for liking how 3 looked, we can have range and not be so tied to binary choices when it comes to this stuff.
What a weird, weird, comparison. Why not bring up a racing game or something? And I'm not even sure I agree with it. Street Fighter always had a more stylized than real look, something they maintained even after switching to 3D... A better comparison would be if Mortal Combat switched to Street Fighter art style... which would never happen.
We're talking about a game that DOES have continuity, in it's story, lore, etc, and switching it's art style made no sense.
I'm sure Blizzard decided to go "back to it's roots" solely because of their vision, and not because they were responding to the backlash and wanted to please the fans.
Also I'm not sure why you decided to quote "real" fans. I didn't say anything of the sorts.
I take your point about not playing the "real fans only like X entry" game. But I think the real issue is that Diablo 3's art style is just representative of a broader apathy towards the series' qualities in general. Accordingly, it's an easy thing that you can point to and say "look, these guys didn't really know what they were doing" rather than offering an in-depth analysis of the ways in which the minute-to-minute combat in Diablo 3 is fundamentally much different than its predecessors - it is, but to explain that exhaustively would require many more words than simply pointing at a picture.
In other words, if you call yourself a Diablo fan and Diablo 3 is the only game in the series you like, that can't help but say something considering the broader context of Diablo 3's reception as a whole.
I preferred Diablo III's art style to any of the other Diablo games.
That being said though Diablo IV looks fine and I will play it.
That being said though Diablo IV looks fine and I will play it.
Diablo 1 and 2 were plenty stylized with a lot of their art direction. Just cause you make things 80% black doesnt mean its realistic. Different teams come to different interpretations of similar concepts so thats what the team in charge of D3 decided a Diablo game could look like. Diablo 4 is made by a very different team, hell I have it on good authority it started as a Dark Souls clone anyways. It looks quite good, of course, but its a very safe approach.
And yeah, wasnt meant to quote you, meant that as a general sentiment. Apologies.
Edit: Asked Jason if he has heard anything about new reboots, this version is one from late 2016
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You have to keep in mind that this is a new engine, we don't know when they built it, and they clearly already have a ton of high quality assets already built. I imagine they spent a quite a while making big picture decisions about the game too.
True, a lot time must have gone to setting up tech and tools. Those now done and if they have set strong vision for the game they could push IV out pretty fast by just focusing on content and system design now.
Rhykker asked David Kim about it and I got the impression they're looking to do that, at least one anyway, there was another leak earlier that said paladin and amazon so who knows.
I'd argue making a Souls clone in a market with many Souls clone is safer than a top down hack'n'slash at this point.
It's not "very safe" to make it that much Destiny oriented either, there's more to perspective to a game.
Visually, there is one thing thing I would change in Diablo 4.
Highlighting enemies with red outlines, and having that yellow flashing effect on bigger monsters does not look good. Are these even needed? I think both of these effects look bad. There are more subtle ways of showing the player which enemy he or she is targeting.
What useful information does that yellow flashing effect on that big world event boss provide me? That multiple players are constantly hitting it? I know that already, I would rather look at the monster model without the effects that look out of place.
Highlighting enemies with red outlines, and having that yellow flashing effect on bigger monsters does not look good. Are these even needed? I think both of these effects look bad. There are more subtle ways of showing the player which enemy he or she is targeting.
What useful information does that yellow flashing effect on that big world event boss provide me? That multiple players are constantly hitting it? I know that already, I would rather look at the monster model without the effects that look out of place.
Something I noticed during the world & lore panel; they showed some footage where the lighting was closer to D2, with light emanating from the main character (casting dynamic shadows and all) and a dark vignette around that. I really hope they didn't remove the effect, it looks good imo and they should make it toggle-able.
You are not entirely wrong but there are huge benefits to having trading as well. Players are able to find niches in the market and it attracts certain type of players. It also makes items actually valuable... an item doesn't actually have value if you can't trade it. It also makes it that so you aren't punished by RNG if you can't find the uniques to make your build work.
That said there are many pitfalls of trade that Blizzard has not been able to solve. Making trading too convenient results in botting and sniping on auction houses or as you said "playing the AH more than playing the game." Making trading difficult and making it so that item drops are hard frustrates players even more because it's tough to get items in game and it's tough to get items from AH because they are either too expensive or its difficult to get a hold of a buyer (like what happens in PoE).
I would be fine with either self found or trading. They just have to fine tune the item drops well enough first. Right now they have much bigger issues that they need to solve right itemization, customization, mechanics and choices in end game.