Diablo III Catch-All 2.0

Middcore wrote:

Ah, the "Our fantasy game needs to be more realistic (?) and real is BROWN and brown is MUD" aesthetic.

Yeah it sucks. That is part of why I could never stick with PoE, the first area is just a wash of browns and greys.

I'm happy to see a return to a more grim aesthetic. I miss the original Diablo's threatening feel, so I'll be glad if they can recapture that. Diablo 3 was beautiful, but not very scary.

It sounds like runes are somewhat inspired by PoE. Or just inspired by pre-release Diablo 3. Where they add effects to each other based on position and such. Free-form Runewords was what they tried to sell it as in the first Diablo 4 panel.

Regarding skill trees. It is a bit different from D2.
You pick skills like in Diablo 3, the skill tree is more like D3 skill mods in tree format, as in passive changes to the chosen skills. Which sounds weird, because a skill tree, where most of the effects alters skills you dont have anyway, seems fairly limited and pointless. Screenshots seems to indicate that the skill tree stuff is skill-specific buffs, not more general passive effects like the PoE skill tree.
Of course it is Blizzard, and if D3 was an indication, basically nothing shown now, will exist when the game releases.

I like what I see. I think k they snuck in some pics of gender swapped characters. I could have sworn I saw at least one pic of female barb and druid as well as a male sorcerer. They had me worried for a bit.

I do have concerns. I'm not sure anyone asked for mounts, so meh. The combat is slower which does effect accessibility both positively and negatively. It also seemed hit or miss on the impact and epicness of skills. Some skills knocked enemies around while others looked more grounded and lacked the over the top effects of diablo 3's skills. (The lightning ones in particular)

They said they wanted skills to feel less epic and over-the-top, because it didnt fit the world. Which is a 1800 degree turn around from D3.
I think it is good not to have the skill animations be so extreme though. Because Diablo 3 in groups is a completely incomprehensible lightshow. But the idea that it should be bad for characters to feel strong and epic is a weird one.

Not sure combat is slowed down. Combat at lvl 10 in Diablo 3 is also a lot slower than at 70. I'd be really happy if combat was D3-fast, but more tactical and "challenging" (not necessarily difficult to play, just that what happens in combat actually matters, which it did in early D3, but in modern D3 combat is more of a spam-fest). Combat should be less about murdering 1000 monsters on a single screen.

Regarding character creation, it seems like you can choose gender, but also something resembling character creation, choosing between an amount of premade character designs for each class. Different races, different faces/hair etc. Which might not really fit the lore for some classes, but hey, couldn't care less.

That is true about level 10 combat.
The character customization sounds cool. Something like Guild Wars 2's presets would rock!

It is interesting that they want to go with more grounded combat at the cost of killing 1000 things on screen when Lost Ark seems to have accomplished both...

The absence of companions is a bummer. But that certainly is one way to take the bumpers off combat.

Apparently the D3 console dodge is in too.

In a much worse turn of events imo, it looks like it might be actual MMO'ish in some areas. Looking at a stream right now with 10 people - ungrouped - killing what is essentially a raid boss. I guess scaling can take care of that, but it would have to be WoW-style scaling, if people can just randomly show up or leave the area, rather than how it is in most A-RPGs, where the whole game scales up and down only when people join/leave the session.

fangblackbone wrote:

It is interesting that they want to go with more grounded combat at the cost of killing 1000 things on screen when Lost Ark seems to have accomplished both...

Just to clarify, I dont think they have said they don't want the game to be about killing 1000 things on the screen (if anything, they will do that, because it seems to be what most players want as seen in D3). That was me wishing they move away from that. Blizz only said they wanted it to be more grounded, and less epic/over-the-top than D3.

Or like Borderlands 3.

Didn't know Borderlands 3 was like that. It scales seamlessly up and down if more people attack a monster?

No, the enemy is your level to you and your group's level to them. So a level 5 can fight right alongside a level 50 and both will be challenged. And both will get loot appropriate to them

Yeah, but I'm thinking of, if you are 1 person attacking an enemy, vs 10 people attacking it. Unless the HP scales dynamically, it will either be impossible for 1 player, or die instantly with 10.
Since it is ungrouped people, the scaling needs to be per enemy, not the whole instance/server.

Going back to character customization, I guess that is an easy avenue for monetization. Though I wonder how the "grim dark or bust" fans will appreciate jester hat barbarian or chibi sorceress or beverly hills chihuahua druid running around in game.

I have to admit, I'd have a lot more faith in the direction they seem to be going with D4 if Josh Mosqueira were still leading the team. And/or since this seems to be a direct replacement for D3, it killed any slim hope that D3 going to the classic team would net more content for it.

fangblackbone wrote:

PSST, it was a joke ;P

Oh I know. I just was inside laughing about the too much color stuff from D3 and just how bad people behaved over a game.

I look forward to pays from certain people.

You, Ranalin, Garion, Robear and others always have a unique knack for entertaining and informing me.

fangblackbone wrote:

Going back to character customization, I guess that is an easy avenue for monetization. Though I wonder how the "grim dark or bust" fans will appreciate jester hat barbarian or chibi sorceress or beverly hills chihuahua druid running around in game.

I have to admit, I'd have a lot more faith in the direction they seem to be going with D4 if Josh Mosqueira were still leading the team. And/or since this seems to be a direct replacement for D3, it killed any slim hope that D3 going to the classic team would net more content for it.

I rest my case your honor.

I'm sure they wont mention it with a single word at Blizzcon. But cosmetics and microtransactions seems guaranteed.
On the other hand, it would be interesting to hear thoughts about post-release support. That is certainly one area where PoE has become totally dominant. And it kinda goes hand in hand with the monetization.

Sounds like D3 content development is speeding up these days, not slowing down, I guess they realized keeping your games alive, while working on a sequel, is not such a bad idea.

LeapingGnome, depending on when you last checked PoE, you may not have seen the newer graphics. More colors, more vibrant. Greens and yellows on the beach, as well as the others, and without that sort of haze.

If microtransactions and cosmetics help fund the game and give us more content in the future, then I'm all for it. I've played Diablo 3 since 2012 and still play every season. 2000+ hours so in all fairness, I'd be more than ok to give them more money for extra things if it meant more high quality improvement to the game for the years ahead.

I'm excited. Watched the trailer and the gameplay and it looks good. Granted, the original D3 trailer looked grim and dark too and is different to what it is today.

Wouldn't want to pay for anything cosmetic. But if a game can keep getting updates because others do it, what is not to like.
Only problem is if (or when) that monetization alters how the game is designed. Leading to worse game design, because it brings in more money.
Like, you make in-game items look worse, so you can sell cosmetics - that seems to affect a lot of microtransaction based games. Or you limit stash space so you can sell more of it, or keep adding new types of items with new stash bags to accompany it - PoE is guilty of that. I have bought stash space in that game, so I guess the strategy works.
D3 even sold extra character slots at some point.

Personally I'd be more inclined to support games through either subscriptions or small DLC's - like the Necromancer dlc for Diablo 3.

I'd be ok with both types.

I think you've also got to be aware that there are some gamers out there who treat microtransactions like a plague and have a sense of entitlement akin to going to the restaurant and buying a meal and suddenly becoming enraged when they realise that drinks cost extra and dessert is an additional cost too.

It's definitely a problem when you have to pay extra for your carrots or mashed potato on your main meal, but the other stuff, they're making the effort and should be compensated appropriately.

Pretty good stream with Rhykker going on, he got one of the lead designers to talk. Quite surprising how willingly they are to talk about stuff, before the official panels.
Sounds like they are outright taking the Map concept from PoE and adding it to the general world in D4. As in, you can find 'keys' for dungeons, but the keys alter the dungeons in various ways making them harder (and presumably more profitable). They will also be part of end-game, and they will be "endless" (scaling-wise) like in D3.
I like that they are trying to make it part of the existing world, and not something separate.

Also, something about monetization:
Plan is for a expansion/dlc model.
No power ups selling, but the way he said it made it clear that they certainly plan to sell other stuff.

In other unsurprising news, hardcore mode will be around.

There will be activities that require multiple groups.
Ugh, that is a huge turnoff for me.

Trading will be somewhat limited. Normal items can be traded freely. Other items will be tradeable only once. And some items will never be tradeable.
I like that very much, not a fan of what free trading tends to do to these games.

The trading is certainly a solid compromise.

That stream gives me lots of hope. The only concern is that like was mentioned before, this is Blizzard and what we see now could be nothing like what D4 will end up being.

Yeah, that is very likely. More or less nothing outside of the graphics, was unchanged between D3 announcement and release. Most game systems was completely revamped, multiple times.
I guess that can be both good and bad.

The D4 developers like Charms just as little as the D3 devs did Not unsurprising. While I would like to see a new take on Charms, they are one of those things that works better in D2 nostalgia than in reality imo.

No decision on mercenaries yet. "We will see"
There is still hope! :O Diablo games need mercenaries.

Robear wrote:

LeapingGnome, depending on when you last checked PoE, you may not have seen the newer graphics. More colors, more vibrant. Greens and yellows on the beach, as well as the others, and without that sort of haze.

Thanks for letting me know. However I'm trying to avoid Chinese companies these days, so I'll take a pass on that one.

Ugh. Endlessly scaling itemization. Same legendaries can continue to drop with better and better stats. That is not good design. That is just making the inherent treadmill design of A-RPGs too visible. Like GRifts does.
It is late-late end game stuff of course, so it can change a 100 times before release, but kinda worrying that they seem to be so focused on endless scaling, not only in the dungeon/map/grift design, but also in items.

Another interesting topic. Semi-lvl scaling. As mentioned earlier, they merge campaign and adventure mode. So lvl scaling is the obvious consequence of that. Sounds like they are aiming for a good balance, with minimum and maximum lvlings in the areas, so you cant literally walk into mordor at lvl 1.

Another interesting thing they talked about earlier.
There are both skill lvls (as in the abilities you use), and talent trees (passive stuff). Talents can be respecced freely. Skills can be switched around freely, D3 style, but the skill lvls cant. So you lvl up skills (how exactly was unclear, xp and skill books it sounds like), and those skill lvls are permanent. But if you switch to new skills, you have to lvl those up too.
I kinda like that approach. Having no way to respec can be too harsh and time consuming, but having absolutely no build permanency also takes away from character identity imo.
In D2 (and PoE etc). when you start a character, you might make a frost sorceress or whatever, in D3, you simply made a sorceress.

LeapingGnome wrote:
Robear wrote:

LeapingGnome, depending on when you last checked PoE, you may not have seen the newer graphics. More colors, more vibrant. Greens and yellows on the beach, as well as the others, and without that sort of haze.

Thanks for letting me know. However I'm trying to avoid Chinese companies these days, so I'll take a pass on that one.

?? GG is a New Zealand designer

Owned by Tencent. Like pretty much everyone these days

Shadout wrote:

Owned by Tencent. Like pretty much everyone these days :D

To be fair, as far as I know they just own Riot (LoL), Grinding Gear (PoE), and Supercell (Clash of Clans and other mobile). They do have minority stakes in a lot of other companies though, including Activision.

Tencent has invested significantly all over Silicon Valley and presumably tech in general.

Semi level scaling would be best done as tiers/acts. First tier/act is wide open like adventure mode with 10+ questing areas but after a certain amount of progress (level?) you start the path towards the finale. You can do an intermediate tier/act where you have say 3 routes to the finale path so that you can vary your approach to the boss fight/quest. But I think it would be diminishing returns or the same thing as having no acts as you increase the number of acts and the number of quest hubs within them.

You could also use a second act to revisit places in act 1 or the places you didn't visit in act 1 become tier 2 acts. In both cases, you could show changes/repercussions of what you did/didn't do in act 1. That would be a unique system.

If it is like adventure mode, do you have to complete all the bounties to progress? Do you just have to have a set amount of bounties completed to unlock the boss? Can you jump around the cities/hubs whether you need to complete all the bounties in an act or not? Are the area bosses locked away until you finish most/all of the bounties in the area?

Oh and I pray they use skill books to upgrade skills. It is the perfect hybrid of building, but with enough persistence, you can max out every skill a la D3...

Sounds like the world is just completely open, as in you can ignore the story and go anywhere. It is unclear if story bosses will be up before you activate their quest. But if they really want the campaign to be optional, they kinda would have to. I dont think there is anything resembling bounties in there, mostly just quests/events.

fangblackbone wrote:

Oh and I pray they use skill books to upgrade skills. It is the perfect hybrid of building, but with enough persistence, you can max out every skill a la D3...

Yeah, I like what they have said about skill lvls so far. It achieves some amount of character identity (although with enough playtime presumably you can max everything).
And depending on how they do it, it could reward going out in the world to find those skill books (of course that requires the books are not just random drops). Grim Dawn has a system, with stones around the world that gives skill points. So you have to go through the world, and not just find the perfect grind spot. I like that, though an improvement would be to make the spawn locations semi-random, like having a decent chance for one to spawn/drop in dungeons, to reward exploration.
Sounds like you can upgrade the skills through both xp and skill books though, so hard to know how it actually turns out (even in the unlikely event that the entire system is not replaced).