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it makes sense for them to put this stuff out for marketing / business purposes. but I agree it can be a bit irritating. Like when a movie trailer spoilers jokes or plot points
On April 11 2023 02:25 Manit0u wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On April 10 2023 18:35 Turbovolver wrote:
What I don't understand is how the reaction to some expansive skill tree is "aaahhh, I don't know what to do I'll need a calculator ugh I hate spreadsheets!".
The reaction should be "wow, all these possibilities!", not "Ahhh I might be 10% less than optimal!". I swear some of you just actually want a raw Skinner box with some demonic set dressing...
I think there is such a thing as "too many possibilities". Also, the huge PoE tree is kind of deceiving since a lot of it are basic nodes like +5 strength etc. Those could've just as easily be extracted into separate trees or incorporated into major nodes (with less points to spend). In other words, it's not really about the amount of possibilities but rather inaccessible way in which they're presented. Finding the key nodes you want, then tracing the optimal path to reach them, it's pretty much just busy work that doesn't really add anything of value, rather is a source of potential frustration. Every time you visit the skill tree you need to check your notes or other sources to double-check if you're doing the right thing etc. Sure, it might not be such a big problem when you've been playing the game for years and know the tree by heart but when you're just starting out it's pretty much overwhelming. D2 was actually very good in its skill tree design, it had clear paths to follow, all the information was presented to you nicely on a single screen etc. It's similar to difference between Civilization tech tree: ![[image loading]](https://www.civfanatics.com/images/civ3/tech%20tree/c3c_ancient.jpg) And FreeOrion tech tree: ![[image loading]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Freeorion_game_research.jpg)
I find it interesting you make this comparison with Civ - while Civilization is certainly simple for a 4X / Strategy game, for a lot of gamers Civ is super complex and dense. It mainly gets away with being accesible by having very generous difficulty levels, and stellar design that eases players into the decision making process.
D4 has the difficulty levels, will have to see if the design with the boards and skills and such is good enough.
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On April 16 2023 19:45 EchelonTee wrote:
D4 has the difficulty levels, will have to see if the design with the boards and skills and such is good enough.
Man I hope it's going to be hard from the start and until and after the end.
Also there is a good remark a french youtuber made it's something I often think about too in the A/RPGs, he said he's wondering but it looks like with so many tiers of powers for the items and the way they drop there is a risk that any farming that you do early on will be made completely irrelevant after you reach some threshold or endgame, and that he wished that the game made farming in the early levels rewarding, not only endgame farming, but at all levels. I super agree with that. I think D2 has this to a good extent btw thanks to MF, upgrading uniques/sets, and many things that have lowish requirements or may drop early having value until hell. Well HC mode also helps with that but wanted to mention. Oh also wow vanilla is quite good at this (because a lot of early items have value for crafting at high levels, and because gold values and item stats don't grow to outscale too much, also you're never really done upgrading your low level char till the end no matter how much you slow it down etc).
I know D4 works different cause the world scales up as you level up, but say you're in a previous Diablo and you just want to stay in Act1 or something and farm there for a while, maybe dedicate a char to that who knows, is that rewarding? (And, can that still be difficult, even when your character is quite "twinked" up?) Does D4 have that? (Such as, doing activities that won't necessarily level you up much but for which you may get stuff at low levels, which may matter for even the long run). I wonder.
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On April 16 2023 19:45 EchelonTee wrote:
I find it interesting you make this comparison with Civ - while Civilization is certainly simple for a 4X / Strategy game, for a lot of gamers Civ is super complex and dense. It mainly gets away with being accesible by having very generous difficulty levels, and stellar design that eases players into the decision making process.
Why I chose the Civ example was not really the complexity but rather how the information is being presented to the user. Where you can see all the relevant tech tree for the period on a single screen with clear paths between them, opposed by FreeOrion example where the design of the tree is still simple visually but then you can only see small parts of it and need to zoom out/scroll to see pertinent info (not to mention some complex relations between techs which can make tech paths unclear).
I guess it would be similar with D2 vs PoE for example. PoE tree itself isn't extremely complex but it is vast and it's pretty much impossible to see it in its entirety clearly all at once with all the info. Finding the correct nodes and tracing optimal progression paths on it becomes much more difficult for most users.
All about presentation, not actual depth or complexity.
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Yup, Civ 6 is really awesome right now. Lots of complexity but the UI is clean and understandable. I come back every now and then. There are so many things I forget between playthroughs but I only play on prince after long layoffs so mistakes are ok.
My complaint with the skill tree is how much empty space there is in the design. You have to go fullscreen with it and there is still some scrolling needed. And considering I was a teenager during D1/D2 and I'm 40 now, smaller icons are definitely not appreciated.
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We might be getting another beta....?
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May 12-14th Server Slam beta announced.
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SoCal8933 Posts
not really a fan of progress not carrying over from beta.
i've already done the opening leveling several times during several beta weekends and I don't think any cosmetics will motivate me to burn myself out before the game launches.
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Well this is the final build of the game according to the devs minus some bug fixes here and there. Now the question is if they fixed the massive Memory leak that plagued the previous betas...
Also think the trophy is a mount ornament not an actual mount.
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Yeah, I don't want to burn myself out repeating the first part of act 1 before the game launches. Played 2 chars during beta and I already know which one I want to start release with. I might try a 3rd one if I'm that bored that weekend but I have other games to play.
I wish they could make regional development be shared between characters though. I'm not interested in looking for all those Lilith shrines with the same character.
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This final beta weekend is Tears Of The Kingdom weekend, so I'll probably skip this additional D4 beta.
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Seems obvious, no? Isn't the very existence of Hardcore mode for those who want to play the game with Permadeath activated?
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On April 21 2023 18:30 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Seems obvious, no? Isn't the very existence of Hardcore mode for those who want to play the game with Permadeath activated? Certain other games (like PoE) don't have permadeath in Hardcore PvP instances.
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So, basically a Character Deletion bet in PvP...
Remind me, how does PvP work in D4? Is it open world or only in designated arenas? Opt-in or can you pretty much attack anyone you want? Duels yes/no?
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Wasn't there something like if you die with your HC character in a "season" you still could play that character in "endless" game. Or was that PoE?
EDIT1:
On April 21 2023 19:58 Latham wrote:
So, basically a Character Deletion bet in PvP...
Remind me, how does PvP work in D4? Is it open world or only in designated arenas? Opt-in or can you pretty much attack anyone you want? Duels yes/no?
I think if you go to these "Fields of Hatred" (PVP Area) it's a FFA. It's basically like a extraction zone if I remember correctly
EDIT2:
https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Fields_of_Hatred#:~:text=The Fields are found in,killing monsters in the zone.
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As long as I can completely and with full certainty avoid PvP, I guess that's ok, but it sounds brutal as hell
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I feel like it's great that there's a place for permadeath pvp in HC, but it would prob be better to also have a place for non-permadeath pvp in HC, because if not indeed you could call it a "character deletion bet" and something you'd probably want to just avoid most or all of the time. Assuming most of engagements result in the death of a character which isn't necessarily the case. Plus, having no place for pvp without permadeath in HC means you can hardly practice pvp in that mode, I suppose players would want to practice pvp in normal mode then come to HC with that experience to pvp there with dedicated chars, maybe. Which is a pretty specific playstyle.
Anyway I think for the permadeath pvp part, if all you get is a bit of cosmetic for success, it seems like a huge risk for little reward. I think it would probably be more interesting if the rewards were rather high for the pvp stuff (that would give a reason to more players to actually engage). Also this depends on how much a character can defend itself or run away.
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On April 18 2023 11:27 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2023 19:45 EchelonTee wrote:
I find it interesting you make this comparison with Civ - while Civilization is certainly simple for a 4X / Strategy game, for a lot of gamers Civ is super complex and dense. It mainly gets away with being accesible by having very generous difficulty levels, and stellar design that eases players into the decision making process. Why I chose the Civ example was not really the complexity but rather how the information is being presented to the user. Where you can see all the relevant tech tree for the period on a single screen with clear paths between them, opposed by FreeOrion example where the design of the tree is still simple visually but then you can only see small parts of it and need to zoom out/scroll to see pertinent info (not to mention some complex relations between techs which can make tech paths unclear). I guess it would be similar with D2 vs PoE for example. PoE tree itself isn't extremely complex but it is vast and it's pretty much impossible to see it in its entirety clearly all at once with all the info. Finding the correct nodes and tracing optimal progression paths on it becomes much more difficult for most users. All about presentation, not actual depth or complexity.
I don't disagree with you, but my point still stands. even the Civ example is too unclear for a lot of people. there's also a lot of hidden info w.r.t Civ (in tech tree: obsoleting, research inc / tech. outside tech tree: a LOT of stuff) and it's not obvious at all what you should do in a turn. Like yeah it obviously looks & reads better than FreeOrion, but there's a threshold of information density that is too much for some people. Likewise, there's a lot of people going into D4 who want a hack and slash romp who might be caught off guard by the end game systems and somewhat obtuse skill tree presentation.
I don't really have a stake in this debate, I just think its interesting how D4 has tension from two sides, one side wanting a fun, polished, but not sweaty game, the other side wanting something more meaty than D3. It's pretty challenging to try to address both sides.
just got around to seeing the endgame stuff. paragon board is more complex than I expected. there are a crapton of multipliers, if they are true multipliers (aka not additive) the scaling will be kind of insane. the order you go for each board matters a lot considering it seems like cost per point increases as your paragon increases (?)
did yall see the Harlequin Crest Unique? 20% DR and +4 to all skills, seems broken. I looooove +skills stuff, even if it gets nerfed to +3 I'd autoequip
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EPT
