Diablo IV

[Ruin Explorer]

I have no intention of playing this game, but I like to poke my nose into this thread occasionally just to see what people are saying about it. This post of yours immediately put me in mind of this Viva La Dirt League sketch:

Yeah that's primarily mocking Path of Exile's skill tree which er... yeah:

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree

1325 passive skills. I will say it is true that in practical terms it's a lot less awful than it looks, but like a lot of these games, you have to know where certain things are ahead of time and work towards them, and that isn't something a new player is just going to be able to do undirected.

(The astrological sign thing is a pot-shot at a different ARPG - Grim Dawn, which has a fairly okay way of doing skills, and then this bizarre astrological layer which is extremely unhelpful unless you know about it beforehand.)

By comparison Diablo 4 is "relatively mild" (ahem) and adds elements one at a time in a pretty careful way to attempt to avoid overwhelming people. Attempt being the operative word!

At this point to be honest it's just part of the ARPG genre - I don't think any ARPG that goes for a genuinely simple/straightforward system is going to be longer-term successful. The whole idea is that the system is complex because people will be playing it for years. But equally in other RPG sub-genres this is way too complicated, because most people will only play them once or twice, so they have much more straightforward systems (which, ironically, people often complain about for being "too simple"!).

The worst is probably the Total War Warhammer series, which is only a quasi-RPG, primarily a wargame, but it's hideously complicated but 70% of the complexity is entirely secret rules that are never properly explained to the player (never explained at all in most cases) and in some cases completely non-visible to them, and the rest of the complexity is just very complicated and often counter-intuitive rules that, if you understand them, can make you drastically more successful.

 

[schneeland]

At this point to be honest it's just part of the ARPG genre - I don't think any ARPG that goes for a genuinely simple/straightforward system is going to be longer-term successful. The whole idea is that the system is complex because people will be playing it for years.

I don't think it's absolutely mandatory, because I still see room for more campaign-centered ARPGs (be it single player or coop). But they probably wouldn't have the production quality of a Diablo 4 since the development costs seem to require a longer period of revenue generation afterwards.

Also, I feel I have to add this video which perfectly summarizes my experience with the D4 item system:

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't think it's absolutely mandatory, because I still see room for more campaign-centered ARPGs (be it single player or coop). But they probably wouldn't have the production quality of a Diablo 4 since the development costs seem to require a longer period of revenue generation afterwards.

The issue you face is that the financial and time investment in making a campaign-based Diablo-style ARPG is pretty similar to the investment in making more long-term replayable Diablo-style ARPG, but the latter is potentially many times more profitable in the longer run. Because the campaign-based game needs just as many assets - art, animation, sound, music, props, levels, etc. - as the long-term replayable game. The "extra" is mostly design/rules/procedural level gen, which is, relatively speaking, incredibly cheap to develop - you also probably need to maintain servers etc. but the cost of that is a joke if people are spending really anything at all on your game. There are different ways to do this - you can sell expansions (Grim Dawn), you can sell cosmetics (Path of Exile), you can do both (as D4 is), but there's no real financial upside to designing a Diablo-style ARPG that isn't replayability-oriented.

That particular niche has been really squeezed by roguelikes which incorporate some Diablo-esque elements of randomization, but have much shorter play-sessions and more rewarding (in the short term) gameplay loops - Hades, Dead Cells, Gunfire Reborn, etc., and by games which are "action RPGs" in the broader sense, and which have much stronger storytelling, immersion, and so on, and usually ditch the Diablo-style loot/advancement - some of them Soulslikes, like Elden Ring. There's also competition from weird angles like action-y survival games

There have been attempts, but they've mostly been either outright bad (Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance, not to be confused with the earlier Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, for example) or just not very successful. One recent attempt is merging elements of Diablo-style and Soulslike with a campaign focus and a lot of visual flair - that's No Rest For The Wicked, which is extremely stylish and pretty fun but the company who owns the company making it are in financial trouble (not because of No Rest, but that kind of doesn't matter), so I worry for it a bit.

 

[Maxperson]

The entire Diablo saga would be different if people stopped saying "yep, I need to carry this rock containing a demon lord by myself."

I am nephalem and I can do anything!!!!!

 

[Maxperson]

At this point it seems like part of the symptoms of demon rock poisoning include feeling the need to carry the demon rock by yourself.

To be fair, the One Ring was extremely similar in how it operated - you became paranoid of others - in this it seems like maybe it leans on your self-sacrifice button a bit harder than your paranoia button though.

And/or overconfidence button.

"Me and my short existence can totally control and handle the most powerful prime evil that has existed since the dawn of time. You suck losers!"

 

[Aldarc]

My wife and I are the weirdos who like the story of Diablo, so we'll pick up the expansion and play through it once she's reached max level in the new WoW expansion (honestly, they should stagger these things better; there's a lot of crossover in the two audiences). So probably Christmastime.

I think that is part of the reason why Diablo IV is not clicking for me. As a filthy casual, I mostly play these games for story and class fantasy (particularly Paladin and Necromancer), and I don't really like how Diablo IV tells its story via its open world quasi-MMO design, particularly with so many freaking side-quests. So even if I didn't particularly care for Diablo III's story, it was easier for me to get into and through because of the game's world design and fairly straight-forward story-telling. Diablo IV feels designed to artificially consume your time and keep you in the game without the fun.

And this whole both hell and heaven being full of jerks is getting a bit tiring. And Blizzard is doing much the same in WoW, where the Titans, Naaru, and nearly everything else previously good-aligned cosmic forces are being depicted as jerks in a sort of false equivalence both-sides-ism, which has increasingly grated on my nerves and grown tiresome for me.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think that is part of the reason why Diablo IV is not clicking for me. As a filthy casual, I mostly play these games for story and class fantasy (particularly Paladin and Necromancer), and I don't really like how Diablo IV tells its story via its open world quasi-MMO design, particularly with so many freaking side-quests. So even if I didn't particularly care for Diablo III's story, it was easier for me to get into and through because of the game's world design and fairly straight-forward story-telling. Diablo IV feels designed to artificially consume your time and keep you in the game without the fun.

They definitely need to take a page from modern WoW and have a different kind of marker for important storyline quests versus "my cheating husband ran off with a woman demon." (Although that's a pretty memorable side quest.)

And this whole both hell and heaven being full of jerks is getting a bit tiring. And Blizzard is doing much the same in WoW, where the Titans, Naaru, and nearly everything else previously good-aligned cosmic forces are being depicted as jerks in a sort of false equivalence both-sides-ism, which has increasingly grated on my nerves and grown tiresome for me.

Now that Metzen is back, I suspect that's going to be dialed back some. The edgelord stuff seemed to be the old regime that was shown the door during Shadowlands for all of their gross behavior.

The draenei becoming intolerant Light fanatics on Draenor in the Mag'har quest lines was post-Metzen, I believe.

And the big reveal about how awful the Titans were during Dragonflight was that "hey, they did magical uplift on dragon eggs without fully looping the adult dragons in." Not great, but that wouldn't even register as bad behavior by the Greek gods.

My guess is that the Titans only think Azeroth is a titan, and that while Xal'atath knows more, they'll all be surprised that she's actually something different.

 

[Aldarc]

They definitely need to take a page from modern WoW and have a different kind of marker for important storyline quests versus "my cheating husband ran off with a woman demon." (Although that's a pretty memorable side quest.)

I think a bit to @schneeland's point, a lot of the game for me feels more like a shopping checklist than an epic quest. Building a character was easier in the earlier games. I leveled up, and then I assigned skill points or possibly ability runes. Clearing dungeons for certain magical properties makes it all feel more like a chore to attain baseline effectiveness.

The draenei becoming intolerant Light fanatics on Draenor in the Mag'har quest lines was post-Metzen, I believe.

But the draenei being retconned to Light/Naaru-venerating aliens whose people were corrupted by Sargeras in BC was all Metzen.

And the big reveal about how awful the Titans were during Dragonflight was that "hey, they did magical uplift on dragon eggs without fully looping the adult dragons in." Not great, but that wouldn't even register as bad behavior by the Greek gods.

My guess is that the Titans only think Azeroth is a titan, and that while Xal'atath knows more, they'll all be surprised that she's actually something different.

It's probably something along the lines that the World Soul can become anything based upon what sort of energies get pumped into it. If more arcane energies get pumped into the World Soul, it becomes a Titan. If more void energies get pumped into the World Soul, it becomes a Void Lord. And the "twist" will probably be that Azeroth is revealed to be super special because it's all colors of the rainbow.

 

[cbwjm]

They definitely need to take a page from modern WoW and have a different kind of marker for important storyline quests versus "my cheating husband ran off with a woman demon." (Although that's a pretty memorable side quest.)

They do have different markers for different quests in d4, yellow for main story, blue for side quests, green for seasonal quests.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

And/or overconfidence button.

"Me and my short existence can totally control and handle the most powerful prime evil that has existed since the dawn of time. You suck losers!"

Yeah but that's weird anti-teenager borderline incel stuff dude, and you should stay away from it. There's a ton of hate directed at the character because she's:

A) A teenager.

B) Female.

C) Asian.

In about that order. And people pretend like it isn't, but it undeniably is.

Curiously, Aiden, from Diablo 1/2, who was at least ten times as absolutely stupid, and barely older (early 20s), attracts no snarky comments about "overconfidence" or "young life" or whatever, even though they're just as or more applicable. Just an accident that he was a white male in his 20s, rather than an asian teenage girl. Just a coincidence. We shouldn't read anything into the extreme double-standard. Even though this guy was so dumb, he didn't just take the stone and run off alone, he jammed into his goddamn forehead. Also funny how Frodo (another white guy in his de facto 20s) doesn't really get any sneering for deciding to go it alone, instead people tend to direct their snark towards Tolkien. Very few people acknowledge, either, that Neyrelle has actually studied the lore around the stone very extensively, so even if she's making a dumb decision, it's a lot more informed of a dumb decision than the others.

I think if we drop the anti-teenager stance and vague, unformed racism/sexism, then we have to admit that the stones are clearly pretty good at convincing people to take them alone. And the lesson people should take from Aiden is that, no, they aren't "built different", and they'd absolutely be equally affected by it. It's probably a damn good thing the Main Character didn't take it, just like it's a good thing Galadriel or Boromir didn't take the ring, even though they were a lot "stronger" than Frodo.