EPTReviews of the PTR seem promising. Damn. Guess I'll give it a shot after all
Diablo IV - Page 125
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Harris1st
Germany6929 Posts
Reviews of the PTR seem promising. Damn. Guess I'll give it a shot after all | ||
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andrewlt
United States7702 Posts
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Harris1st
Germany6929 Posts
On May 10 2024 05:42 andrewlt wrote: Yup. It took 4 seasons but you can finally mount dash in town. You know you want to. This is soooooo good! There is so much less tiresome walking now IMO | ||
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Latham
9560 Posts
I think they made a lot of great decisions and the game is better than ever, however there still are some shortcomings, which I hope will be addressed in future seasons. The good: 1) They removed the majority of useless affixes. No more extra damage when it's raining on Tuesdays. 2) The codex of power now automatically upgrades powers when you disassemble legendary items. 3) Necro has viable minion builds 4) Paragon Glyph XP got increased by about 25%, which helps get you those 7-8 runes your build needs to 21 relatively quickly 5) Tempering and Masterworking is a huge hit & improvement over how we crafted before. 6) Horsie can now gallop inside the hubs, like someone stated above. 7) Better mob density in most places. The bad: 1) Yellows are now trash. They have only 2 affixes tops, while legendaries always have 3. 2) Everything is expensive to upgrade so you WILL run out of gold, eventually. 3) Balance is bonkers... WT3 and WT4 don't mean anything anymore. I've seen people get to WT3 @ level 27 and WT4 @ level 35... 4) I can't help but feel like getting to 100 in less than 24 hours feels... cheap. I guess it really is the ultimate casual ARPG on the market. For husbands that have 3 wives, 8 kids and 5 jobs. 5) Helltides still get boring after 3 seasons and 100s of helltides... | ||
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andrewlt
United States7702 Posts
Random thoughts: 1. They removed the majority of useless affixes but there are still quite a few and they show up way too often (*cough* life per second *cough*). Getting certain affixes (crit chance, cdr) still feels as difficult as ever, maybe even more so. I wasted so much gold enchanting for certain affixes. Even +armor on chest and pants is stupidly rare. I didn't get a halfway decent amulet until I was almost 100. 2. Gold is out of whack. You are too dependent on getting them from whispers caches. Other sources of gold (drops, selling items, dungeon completion rewards) are just terrible. I don't want to farm useless, non-nm dungeons just to have gold for masterworking but it's currently the best way to get whispers rewards. 3. Helltides can be fun, for a while. But it needs competition as a source of drops and materials. NM dungeons and the pit need to be more than just places for leveling glyphs and masterworking. | ||
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Amui
Canada10567 Posts
Got to the third tier of masterworking/pit, and I think I'm just about finished. Not particularly fun pushing through trash, and then playing bullet hell for a couple minutes to kill a boss. Half the time I don't even see what killed me on the darker tilesets. The enchanting weights definitely feel completely out of whack. I've tried enchanting for +skills on like 5 different pieces now, spent up to about 20M on each before giving up without finding it. Just seems impossible to roll, which makes sense given that I also don't see it drop either. I just look for +skill or greater affix gear now, and everything else gets trashed. | ||
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Harris1st
Germany6929 Posts
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Manit0u
Poland17257 Posts
On May 28 2024 18:21 Harris1st wrote: I tried it. Really did. Played for about 4-5 hours but this is just so incredible dull and boring... though a lot better than at release. Maybe it's just me though, maybe ARPGs aren't just for me anymore I think that's because the trend now is to focus on the "end game", which mostly boils down to just repeating the same thing over and over in an endless grind. And they're adding a gazillion different and unnecessary mechanics, seasons etc. For some reason I can play D1 and D2 any time, from scratch, doing the campaign over and over just for fun. D3 and D4 do not give me this fun. Campaign in them is just an afterthought, most zones and enemies aren't very interesting, they're simply there just so you can blow them up in a millisecond. In D1 and D2 you really get the sense of progression as each zone is vastly different with different enemies. I can hardly remember any enemies from D3 and D4, they are all bland and you pretty much find the same enemies everywhere so it's just one big blur. Somehow, by trying to do more they actually gave us less. That's why game design is not easy and firing people who really know how to do it is not a good idea. | ||
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True_Spike
Poland3423 Posts
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gdfsgdfasde
2 Posts
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Fleetfeet
Canada2555 Posts
On May 29 2024 04:08 gdfsgdfasde wrote: This is so wrong, but Nostalgia fucks every mind eventually Iunno, basically every enemy in Diablo 1 both attacks and does something 'unique'. They feel distinct. Goatmen are fast and randomly stop to consider their lives, imps run away when an ally dies, succubus kite you etc etc. They all feel like they have identity, and certainly part of that is the pacing of the game (modern ARPGs all lean towards speed clear) but it does feel like an element of Diablo that just disappeared. Seems like fair criticism to me. | ||
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Manit0u
Poland17257 Posts
D2 also had kinda unique zones and enemies which gave you the sense of wonder and progression. I still kinda prefer the simpler and more straightforward gameplay of D1. Would love to have something like D1 but with character progression similar to D2 with skill trees and what not (would keep the stat limits from D1 though, those were cool where you couldn't get your magic high on the warrior or strength/con on a mage). D4 looks kinda nice but it's at the same time extremely bland. Vast open spaces full of nothing, the same few enemies repeating over and over again everywhere... D1 had 21 different enemies within 18 different types (that's without even counting subtypes, Black Death still counts as 1 and 1 within the zombie category here). I don't know if D4 has 20 different enemies within 12 different types (and most differences will be just in skeleton and fallen variety). Considering the scale of both games D4 has pretty much no enemy variety at all. Edit: I think the biggest difference between D1 (to some extent also D2) and further entries in the series is that different enemies require different approach. Can't just run ahead and blast everything. Must be the reason why I still have D1 installed and play it from time to time whereas I got bored with D4 really fast, uninstalled and have literally zero desire to come back to it since even after all the updates the core problems are still there IMO which simply make it a bland and uninteresting game. Even D3 had more going for it and is actually an excellent game if you like this type of thing (mindless blasting power fantasy grinder). If they put D3 on Steam like they did with D4 I might even play it from time to time. Not going to touch the Blizzard launcher. | ||
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Fleetfeet
Canada2555 Posts
One, the direction Diablo has taken as a franchise, away from the moody, slow paced, atmospheric dungeon crawler and toward heavily affix-based loot explosions stems from INTENTIONAL CHOICE. They didn't accidentally make the games more arcadey. Two, sales figures seem to indicate that wasn't the worst choice. D3 is listed at 20m sales, d2 6m, d1 1.8m. Personally I think D1 is the best of the diablo franchise, but also that Diablo as a franchise has left behind parts of what made the first great, and they're very unlikely to return to those. | ||
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Manit0u
Poland17257 Posts
On May 29 2024 10:21 Fleetfeet wrote: I definitely agree, but I do think it is important to note two things: One, the direction Diablo has taken as a franchise, away from the moody, slow paced, atmospheric dungeon crawler and toward heavily affix-based loot explosions stems from INTENTIONAL CHOICE. They didn't accidentally make the games more arcadey. Two, sales figures seem to indicate that wasn't the worst choice. D3 is listed at 20m sales, d2 6m, d1 1.8m. Personally I think D1 is the best of the diablo franchise, but also that Diablo as a franchise has left behind parts of what made the first great, and they're very unlikely to return to those. I don't think there's much to be gleaned from D1 sales. Back then very few people were "gamers." I strongly believe though that if they released an updated version of D1 (modern graphics, more customization options, skill trees for characters - even just passives) it would be a smash hit. People would probably appreciate a game that you can finish in 1 day with high replay value. | ||
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Fleetfeet
Canada2555 Posts
On May 29 2024 12:20 Manit0u wrote: I don't think there's much to be gleaned from D1 sales. Back then very few people were "gamers." I strongly believe though that if they released an updated version of D1 (modern graphics, more customization options, skill trees for characters - even just passives) it would be a smash hit. People would probably appreciate a game that you can finish in 1 day with high replay value. If by "They" you mean "Someone other than Blizzard" and by "Smash hit" you mean "Success on the level of Kenshi / Fez / Cuphead" then yeah I'm with you! If you mean "Smash hit" like Diablo 3 / Terraria / Stardew / BG3 then I don't see it happening. Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to see it happen, it's just in that awkward space where it isn't worth it for a AAA studio to take a crack at it, and indies are making Hades or Caves of Qud or other interesting unique ideas that don't require the insane level of execution "Better Diablo 1" does. | ||
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Harris1st
Germany6929 Posts
On May 29 2024 12:20 Manit0u wrote: I don't think there's much to be gleaned from D1 sales. Back then very few people were "gamers." I strongly believe though that if they released an updated version of D1 (modern graphics, more customization options, skill trees for characters - even just passives) it would be a smash hit. People would probably appreciate a game that you can finish in 1 day with high replay value. That's only part of the truth though. Copying discs was a thing back then so not only were there less "gamers" those who were didn't often buy but copied. I played D1 I don't know when. I didn't have my own PC and pretty much every game I had was a copy... These days I would obviously buy a done right Remastered Diablo 1. They should tone down on hit recovery though lol. I remember my warri basically frozen in place with Succubi all around | ||
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uummpaa
238 Posts
D3 is the roflstomp kind of game (which can be great fun, but not much that sticks with you that way) D1 and D2 to a lesser extend are slow and are giving the player the time to actually see what enemies are doing and learning it. for example all enemies in all diablo games have custom sound they do, but if you run into 23 per screen (D3) its near impossible to process that compared to 2-3 at most (D1) for me D4 is a little bit trapped between the two extrems which sadly makes it the least enjoyable of all of them as for the uniquness its a little unfair for later entries since the former games did give us a setting that they have to comply with. there are only so many settings you can have (desert, jungle, dungeon, hell) so you cant just add stuff, unless you go to silly things like D6 in spaaaaaaaaace ^^ | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25337 Posts
On May 29 2024 14:03 Fleetfeet wrote: If by "They" you mean "Someone other than Blizzard" and by "Smash hit" you mean "Success on the level of Kenshi / Fez / Cuphead" then yeah I'm with you! If you mean "Smash hit" like Diablo 3 / Terraria / Stardew / BG3 then I don't see it happening. Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to see it happen, it's just in that awkward space where it isn't worth it for a AAA studio to take a crack at it, and indies are making Hades or Caves of Qud or other interesting unique ideas that don't require the insane level of execution "Better Diablo 1" does. I dunno if I can really be too critical of Blizz here, it feels what folks want from an ARPG has diverged pretty wildly over the years. I mean it was partly me being like, 7/8 and sucking (even more) at games but Diablo 1 was something of an actual challenge for me then to just beat the main quest line, and subsequently D2 in spots. I’ve somewhat longed to have that vaguely replicated and modern ones seem rather geared to the endgame loop, optimising and just blasting fools But then a ton of people like that loop too, so to have a game that caters to both is a tough one to deliver on. It feels D4 hasn’t super satisfied either with some of its design choices | ||
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Harris1st
Germany6929 Posts
On May 29 2024 16:41 WombaT wrote: I dunno if I can really be too critical of Blizz here, it feels what folks want from an ARPG has diverged pretty wildly over the years. I mean it was partly me being like, 7/8 and sucking (even more) at games but Diablo 1 was something of an actual challenge for me then to just beat the main quest line, and subsequently D2 in spots. I’ve somewhat longed to have that vaguely replicated and modern ones seem rather geared to the endgame loop, optimising and just blasting fools But then a ton of people like that loop too, so to have a game that caters to both is a tough one to deliver on. It feels D4 hasn’t super satisfied either with some of its design choices I second this! Had high hopes for "No rest for the wicked" (ARPG meets souls) but EA release was a bit of a drama. Just checked out their steam page again and it seems most stuff that made it bad/ unplayable is fixed now so I might check it out after all. Other than that I'll wait for PoE2 which seemed a lot more challening compared to the arcadiness of D3/D4. At least that was my impression of PoE when I dabbled a bit. The "money and trading" part put me off though. Tried to get into it at least 4-5 times but never played a character for more than ~15 hours | ||
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evilfatsh1t
Australia8652 Posts
gamers now are just better at games. ever since pro starcraft people have opened their eyes to what players could be capable of on a keyboard and mouse. i think for a while there was definitely a thought that increased speed = increased difficulty and the demand for higher difficulty existed because of sweatlords who wanted games that could test their mechanical limit. if you really go deep into psychology you could also make the argument that the world we live in now with instant gratification, short attention spans and everything being fast paced ties in to the psyche of the typical gamer now. its just what people want nowadays, not just in games. we look back at the slower paced d1 and d2 with nostalgia but even i have to admit that although i love to go back to d2 every now and then, i speedrun through all 3 difficulties. i cant help that ive also fallen victim to the impatient world we live in now and i probably couldnt bear to play d2 the way i first did when it came out. | ||
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