Diablo IV

[Ruin Explorer]

(This is also how I treat NPCs as a DM, so it's my worldview.)

Brutal but true.

I have to say I am little done with Stranger Things myself because it really feels like the writers like the original characters a lot more than the audience does, or the characters deserve! It doesn't even quite seem to be a "can't kill your darlings" situation because they create other characters they know are going to be huge hits and then kill them off no probs.

 

[Bacon Bits]

It's more prominent as a subgenre than it was in the '80s and before, but there are a couple of things worth noting:

1) The default for fantasy was a lot darker back then. Fantasy, on average, has got lighter since the 1980s and earlier. Especially if you're looking at novels, TV and movies. Bridge to Terabithia isn't "dark fantasy", for example, no matter how upsetting it is.

2) All the stuff you list is the exception, not the rule, and you're listing stuff that's wildly successful next to stuff that's a moderate niche success, and stuff that's slightly dark - i.e. has some bad things happen - but isn't really darker than "normal" fantasy in the '80s, like Harry Potter - next to stuff that's nearly pitch black, like Berserk or the more downer zombie stuff.

My whole point is kind of that mainstream media now heavily includes dark fantasy in ways that used to be very niche. In the 80s, comic books, D&D, and fantasy in general were all niche. You could pick up The Dark Knight Returns or Watchmen in comics and it was refreshingly dark, or you could see Superman, Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, Batman '89, Star Trek: TNG, and they were campy or optimistic. Often both! If you wanted something dark, you had to seek it out. It was usually something in the horror genre, which was often campy itself.

Nothing is really campy at the moment. Comedies are not that popular unless they're animated. Comics are still largely dark, and a lot of fantasy novels are dark. But now TV and movies and video games are often dark, too! And not just the horror genre, either. Hell, even Star Trek is dark!

If you don't see it, I'm happy for you, but your disagreement doesn't really alter the root of my perceptions. It doesn't mean I'm any more interested in the stories that modern speculative fiction is trying to tell. It still feels too uniform to me to draw my interest. So when something specifically tries to aim for dark fantasy like D4, it doesn't excite me like it used to.

Like anti-heroes in the 90s, dark fantasy and dystopian elements just feel pretty boring right now. It makes me care less about whatever it is, while historically it drew me in. Noir and hard boiled are two of my favorite genres. Red Harvest is one of my top 2 favorite novels. Nope. Not interested right now.

And "the more recent Marvel movies"? No. Absolutely not. Of those only Multiverse of Madness could even arguably be considered dark, and I'd say that was balanced by the extremely light-side No Way Home (i.e. where MCU Peter Parker finally finds his real compassion and moral center, and where all the bad guys get sent home healed*, not murdered). Wakanda isn't dark, given the ending(s). Thor 4 wasn't dark - a character dying doesn't make a film "dark fantasy", for god's sake. Quantumania is, I presume, not dark - certainly no-one I know who has seen it has suggested it was - the main comparator has been Star Wars.

Sorry, that's my fault for poor phrasing. Recent meaning Phase 2-3. I haven't really been to a cinema since before the pandemic as the one close to me is now gone. I've seen a few post-Infiinty War films, partially because I wasn't interested in the story anymore. If it's less dark that's good, but I don't really care as my interest is already gone. As you can guess, it's been gone for awhile.

This is all on you, frankly.

Yes, my experiences and perceptions are on me. Whose should I be talking about?

Mentioning Hunger Games in the same breath as The First Law or GoT or even The Walking Dead is absolutely nonsense and illustrates a serious failure to engage with the themes and ideas of the works, and instead a focus on entirely superficial elements.

No, it merely indicates that I didn't watch past the first movie. I punched out early. I wasn't really interested in the premise as soon as I understood it, and while I did finish it, I don't really think the first film has particularly well-defined themes. The only solid theme I recall from the first one is "big tyrannical governments are bad." In retrospect, I should've guessed that's what it was going to be from the title, but I didn't really think about it before starting it since I got the movie for free on YouTube on a lark. Either way, I wasn't really interested in a YA Battle Royale, especially one that was 5(?) movies long.

Further, I reject the idea that disliking elements of the setting or plot means you don't understand the theme. One can understand the themes and still not wish to engage with the topics in the plot, the setting, or the premise. One can understand the themes and still be put off by other elements even if they are as broad and nebulous as "dystopian and dark fantasy tropes." After all, we can say that the theme of most published Dark Sun adventures is heroes surviving and overcoming the odds in the face of ubiquitous and pervasive evil -- quite hopeful! -- and still not be interested in playing the campaign setting simply because we don't want to deal with specific trappings of the setting itself.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Nothing is really campy at the moment.

Are you joking?

Both Multiverse of Madness and Thor 4 were unarguably campy.

Look it's in the headlines here:

‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ a campy letdown after the rewards of ‘Ragnarok’

The Avenger must team up with his newly empowered ex (Natalie Portman) in a disjointed Marvel mess.

chicago.suntimes.com

Sam Raimi delivers gleeful, campy horror with the uneven 'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness' - utpolunderground

I’m committed to a spoiler-free review, but this is a difficult movie to properly discuss without giving away certain plot elements. If you do care about spoilers, my first suggestion is stay away from Twitter, but also definitely go see this film. It has some serious flaws, but also an energy...

utpolunderground.com

I can find more examples if you want.

And nothing? This is on you. You are blinding yourself. Just look at Knives Out! and it's recent sequel - Glass Onion - that's high camp! That's not even just campy that's barely short of a Carry On movie! Even The Batman, which was kind of noir, bordered on camp at times (as Batman movies are wont to do).

Comedies are not that popular unless they're animated.

Comedies are absolutely still popular and successful, and comedic elements in movies, which sort of faded a bit in some genres '90s and '00s are back with a vengeance. Comedy movies, specifically, are a bit less common, but so are non-superhero action movies, thrillers, and so on. That's an impact streaming has had. There's a bit less of a clean line between comedy and other genres, today, perhaps that's an issue you're seeing?

If you don't see it, I'm happy for you, but your disagreement doesn't really alter the root of my perceptions.

It's not me "not seeing it", this is a genuine misperception on your part. One that is easy to show as a misperception, because you keep making examples that are trivially disproven, like the "campy" one.

Recent meaning Phase 2-3.

I mean, but that's not recent. That's pre-pandemic. That period happened, but that period is over. And you are specifically saying this is happening now. There was a period from like Civil War through Endgame - 3-4 years - where the MCU was on average, "kinda dark" compared to previous stuff, but it's course-corrected since then.

Yes, my experiences and perceptions are on me. Whose should I be talking about?

You were saying this was factual, not merely perception - that's my issue here - this is a perception on your part, and it's demonstrably wrong to assert it as a fact.

No, it merely indicates that I didn't watch past the first movie. I punched out early. I wasn't really interested in the premise as soon as I understood it, and while I did finish it, I don't really think the first film has particularly well-defined themes. The only solid theme I recall from the first one is "big tyrannical governments are bad."

It absolutely does have well-defined themes, and they go a long way beyond "tyranny = bad". There's whole lot of critique of celebrity culture, mass media, what people want to watch and so on, as well as points about dehumanization (including self-dehumanization). The first film is weaker than the second film, though.

Further, I reject the idea that disliking elements of the setting or plot means you don't understand the theme. One can understand the themes and still not wish to engage with the topics in the plot, the setting, or the premise.

Sure, but you're demonstrably misunderstanding the themes. You just demonstrated it with Hunger Games.

And you're changing your point here from "man the media is full of dark fantasy and dystopias" (demonstrably wrong - again 10+ years ago it would have been closer to true) to something different - perhaps "I only want to watch/read stuff that is immediately obviously not dark and doesn't contain dystopian elements". That's fine - but there's never been a huge glut of that stuff, given how broadly you're defining dark. That's also about you, not about how the media is, and obviously no-one can argue that you must like things you don't. But when put that as a claim that the media is doing stuff it isn't, rather than a simple desire for certain types of media, that's when idiots like me decide to argue the toss.

 

[Bacon Bits]

You were saying this was factual, not merely perception - that's my issue here - this is a perception on your part, and it's demonstrably wrong to assert it as a fact.

Sure, but you're demonstrably misunderstanding the themes.

So your interpretations are absolute, but mine need to be qualified because someone might mistake them as facts.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

So your interpretations are absolute, but mine need to be qualified because someone might mistake them as facts.

You were claiming them as facts - you were trying to argue them on a factual basis.

Further, you've changed your argument - "I don't like X" is not the same as "The media is making more/less of X".

And notice you've avoided responding on stuff you were obviously wrong about, like camp

 

[Kaodi]

A certain amount of angels have always been prone to being dicks. How could you ever empathize with an immortal being who just does the exact right thing all the time? More importantly - how in Hell would they ever empathize with you? If they cannot suffer, meaningfully lose, or go wrong how are they stakeholders in the world? How can a being be good when it meets out horrific punishments for crimes it would have no reason to ever commit itself because it does not have any reason to fear?

I am fine with both Inarius and Lilith going down but I could hope for them both to have moments where they are portrayed in a sympathetic light in addition to their selfish moments.

 

[Blue]

Getting back to D4. I missed the original Diablo, played the heck out of D2. But by the time D3 came around I just couldn't get excited enough about it. I played the free trail - up to lvl 20 I think of the various classes - and it didn't catch me. The recent Diablo Immortal I tried and it bored me after four days of play, even with friends on. My tastes have moved on from "the endless grind to incrementally improve gear", and I didn't see anything else in Diablo Immortal.

But I still remember fondly all the hours of D2. So, sell me on D4. What makes it more then just a grindfest with good cutscenes?

 

[Maxperson]

I definitely had the most fun playing barbarian. Shame I played it last.

Will definitely play it first this weekend.

Sorcerer and Barbarian are my two favorite. I played Sorcerer last week and I'll probably Barbarian on Friday.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

But I still remember fondly all the hours of D2. So, sell me on D4. What makes it more then just a grindfest with good cutscenes?

It's much more quest-centric than previous iterations. Even as recently as Diablo Immortal (I made it three days, I think), quests were mostly about "here's the reason you're going down the next stretch of road." In Diablo IV, it's much more like modern World of Warcraft, in that there are things to do all over the map (after the initial village encounter that sets everything up) and you can choose to go there or not.

Continuing the main storyline does require you eventually do certain quests, but you could in theory wait until level 50 to do them if you wanted to.

While it's not yet clear how many of these quests are required to advance the campaign, it appears to only be about a quarter of them at the moment.

Instead, you can do the quests that appeal to you (Demon-vampires? Yes, I will do those quests, thank you), ones that have good titles or ability boosts, ones that give you crafting materials, etc. The result is that it feels like less of a grind when you're choosing to help the Bear Clan barbarians against the goatfolk or participating in an exorcism of a possessed peasant kid.

If you just want to do dungeon after dungeon, you can do that, too, and I'm sure there are people who will just do that, but I liked running around, alternating advancing the storyline with quests that appealed to me (seriously, there's a bunch of stuff with demon-vampires that I loved).

Otherwise, the gameplay is pretty similar to Diablo II, including mini-dungeon "cellars" and small dungeons scattered around the map. But they're less random and generic than in previous versions and you can explicitly seek out dungeons that will unlock an account-wide improvement in the ability of a given class.

The achievement system is nice, too, and improves on how titles work from World of Warcraft by giving an adjective and a noun that people use to mix up and create their own titles. I'd say more than half of the people I saw running around last weekend were using them, so it was a pretty popular feature.

 

[Maxperson]

Brutal but true.

I have to say I am little done with Stranger Things myself because it really feels like the writers like the original characters a lot more than the audience does, or the characters deserve! It doesn't even quite seem to be a "can't kill your darlings" situation because they create other characters they know are going to be huge hits and then kill them off no probs.

Yeah. My wife and I really loved Eddie and were upset at what happened to him.

 

[schneeland]

In case you find yourself spending too much time waiting in queues this weekend, the new sound piece they have put up on Youtube is quite nice:

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I just spent several hours writing listening to their first such video:

 

[Ruin Explorer]

After having got 3 characters to 20 this weekend (don't think about how long that took, I forbid you!), I've got a few thoughts on Diablo IV in a totally random order.

1) They went too heavy on the quests. @Whizbang Dustyboots is right re: "a modern World of Warcraft", but the quests aren't actually as advanced or fun as WoW quests often are now, and there are just endless numbers of them. You don't have to do them, if you don't, they going to sit there acting like you should. They should have done half as many with twice as much effort put into them, frankly (and commensurately greater rewards), given that the game scales. Also the rewards being pretty much all boring, generic, and unspecified gear is not helpful - you can't even go "Oh this gives me something nice, I'll do it!", you just have to hope.

It's okay for an ARPG to be about killing stuff, Blizzard.

2) Scaling is a little excessive. It's definitely working, and well, but it's also managing to make it feel like you're not really getting much better, overall. Not ideal, imho.

3) The UI is awful. I hate it. It's ugly as sin (in a bad way), and anti-immersive in a way I've never seen before in an ARPG, so that's kind of an achievement. Plus very clearly designed for consoles - loads of stuff requires a key-press where it should obviously have a clickable element on PC (or the clickable element takes some finding - but sometimes it doesn't even exist!). It also makes the game feel like a mobile game.

4) There's a bit too much pure, unaltered Diablo 3 DNA in Diablo 4 generally, and not enough of Diablo 2, Path of Exile, and so on. It's almost like 4E's Essentials as a reaction to 4E. This manifests in a variety of different ways, like the very regularly-sized packs of monsters, the hideously neon-blue skeletons the Necro has (please for god's sake change it Blizzard, it doesn't remotely fit the new aesthetic), the crafting/gambling systems, and so on. Diablo 3 wasn't terrible, but it's sad to see none of these elements was innovated on in the way D3 innovated on D2, because it's been 11 years, and they could have done with innovating on.

5) The gameplay flows well and is very smooth, and most classes feel pretty interesting and different to play - it's certainly better at lower levels than any preceding Diablo game, and arguably better than most Diablo-clones in this regard.

6) There's a serious oversight in not giving us a "preview" mode for the skills - I know we can change them fairly easily at first, but it's dumb, and I feel like Diablo 3 had it (would have to check). It's especially annoying as a lot of skills do NOT work like their description would seem to imply.

7) Some of the systems/ideas feel definitely half-baked. For example, the Rogue take on Exploit Weakness requires way too much build-up and precision for a tiny, brief reward (ohhh 3s of free energy, likely at a time when it's totally unneeded!).

8) There are way too many abilities which are "just rubbish" unless you buy the enhancements AND get a piece of gear which makes them do something extra. That's not the right way to balance things, frankly.

9) The classes are hilariously, insanely, unbalanced at these levels. Maybe that'll be fine in the end, but it doesn't feel like it, given the Druid is approximately 10x harder to play than the Rogue which is itself like 3x harder to play than the Necro. You expect a bit of this in ARPGs, especially whilst levelling - pet classes are usually very easy to play - but the Necro also just totally destroys stuff.

10) The game is incredibly stable and good at alt-tabbing. I was astonished. That's not normally something you see in a beta. This is game built by people who definitely expect you to be alt-tabbing and stuff.

11) The classes are interesting and diverse - but I have to assume there's absolute ton of later-game or endgame gear which enables various builds not evident from the skill tree, because otherwise the number of builds is very, very limited (I've kind of heard there is, though).

12) This is possibly the most twitchy ARPG I've ever played - even including FPS ARPGs like Destiny 2 and Borderlands - I was surprised by that. I mean, Path of Exile has a lot of builds which require some serious reflexes, but it's not as keen on punishing you for not instantly reacting to oddly-timed boss animations with tiny reaction times - there are bosses here where you have to dodge in a 0.5s window which isn't necessarily as a telegraphed as I'd like, for example. It's also very much designed knowing you have that dodge - it isn't a bonus - it's a necessity, and if you blow it at the wrong time, you're going to get spanked. I've got mixed feelings about this. It keeps you awake but it also means I'm not sure it'll be as fun to play mindlessly as some ARPGs.

13) It runs astonishingly well for how detailed a lot of the graphics are. The characters particularly look incredible and wow it's wild to have fairly diverse outfits and so on again in an ARPG, something not present in most (including D3 and PoE). Aesthetically, as noted, I feel like it owes just a little bit too much to D3 (which made some serious aesthetic errors and I'm not talking about "not dark enough" or whatever) and the UI is godawful, but the characters and world look really, really good. Hopefully more areas will make it even better - kind of already looking forward to expansions which might take us to jungle or something (as my impression was that there isn't one here).

14) These bloody accents. I know, I'm British, and most of the characters are either British-accented or sound like British people doing bad Russian accents, but oooof. No. The female Rogue and Necro just have terrible voice-choices. They're not so noisy it's a huge problem but I honestly cringe every time the femRogue speaks - maybe I need to try a male one.

15) Enjoying how diverse the characters look body-shape-wise, even though it's triggering the hell out of the usual suspects (especially the misogynists) on the internet, but I really feel like they should have had more faces for everyone - indeed I thought in early vertical slices they showed like eight faces per gender per class. Four very similar ones ain't quite cutting it.

Overall, whilst I have a lot of questions and quasi-complaints, I am a big fan of ARPGs and the Diablo series, and I had a lot of fun, so I think I'll probably be getting Diablo IV when it comes out, so long as I hear they've listened to at least some feedback from the beta - particularly re: the ghastly UI - but it does seem like most people hate or at least dislike the UI so maybe Blizzard will.

 

[Scribe]

Argh, going to be harder to boycott this, than Wizards at this rate.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I have faith that Blizzard is going to change a lot of this stuff before June. This beta is weird in that it's an actual beta, where a lot of what they were testing, two Fridays in a row, is server stability.

But yes, if you get to play it before release, at the moment, sorcerer and necro are hilariously easier to play than the other classes. And given how much is shared account-wide, I suggest playing one of those two until you unlock horses and have a bunch of gear banked in the stash and then switch to whatever class you actually want to play. (I actually will be sticking with sorcerer, although I played a necro to test it out and to marvel at how committed they were to the aesthetic. There are going to be some death metal bands who find the necro too creepy for their tastes.)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Argh, going to be harder to boycott this, than Wizards at this rate.

But there is nothing like punishing yourself in order to get your message across....

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But there is nothing like punishing yourself in order to get your message across....

Boycotts can serve two purposes.

1) They make you feel better about yourself and the world. That's completely legitimate. If you individually boycott something - and realistically most people do consciously avoid buying at least one brand/product for reasons other than mere quality/price - that's valid. It's not really "punishing yourself". However it doesn't usually economically impact the company in a particularly meaningful way unless they manage to cause huge numbers of people to feel the same way.

2) Organised boycotts can draw attention to issues, and can make real economic impacts. However they're very rare, and usually only work in a fairly short term over a specific issue, unless you're a larger-scale investor.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I have faith that Blizzard is going to change a lot of this stuff before June. This beta is weird in that it's an actual beta, where a lot of what they were testing, two Fridays in a row, is server stability.

I certainly hope so.

The biggest takeaway from the whole thing is actually a sort of D&D-relevant one, weirdly enough. Previously the Diablo series has seen two previous sequels - Diablo 2, and Diablo 3.

Diablo 2 wasn't a huge change from Diablo 1, gameplay-wise or in terms of aesthetic. Fundamentally it was a very similar game, just a lot broader and deeper in terms of content/gameplay - one might compare 1E to 2E or the like.

Diablo 3 was a huge change, however, both visually and in terms of aesthetic. It's not a similar game except in being an isometric ARPG in the same setting. The gameplay loop is fundamentally different, the method of play is different, the endgame is different, even how you survive is different, and what is loot is and why it matters to you is different (and the gap was even larger at release). The comparison point would probably be going from 3E to 4E (Diablo skipped a 3E equivalent).

Diablo 4 isn't a huge change from Diablo 3, gameplay-wise. The aesthetic is a bigger change, but is still primarily drawing from D3, just a much darker, grittier, less '90/'00s comics-influenced take on the same visual ideas (partly enabled by the insane graphic fidelity - I could see a goddamn tear or sweat track glint on my character's face when she turned in one in-engine cutscene!). Gameplay-wise, including character-building-wise, it's about as different from D3 as D2 was from D1. It's still got a fundamentally different relationship to characters and gear to D2, and it is a very similar one to D3.

So that's interesting. I don't hate it, because I did, in the end, like D3 (after expansions and the huge rework with RoS), but I would have liked to see a bit more of a jump. Too late for that now though. I hope the endgame is a bit more fun and varied than the GRifts or death approach D3 took. Not that I didn't enjoy GRifts but they were kind of narrow experience for seriously hardcore players - not one I could share with friends like I can with other ARPGs.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So that's interesting. I don't hate it, because I did, in the end, like D3 (after expansions and the huge rework with RoS), but I would have liked to see a bit more of a jump. Too late for that now though. I hope the endgame is a bit more fun and varied than the GRifts or death approach D3 took. Not that I didn't enjoy GRifts but they were kind of narrow experience for seriously hardcore players - not one I could share with friends like I can with other ARPGs.

I think it's the same incentive as with 5E and The Force Awakens: "Hey, remember all the stuff you liked before that recent thing we're not going to mention? We're back, baby!"

That said, they clearly have a lot of tracks laid down for future expansions or big content patches, so maybe big swings will come in them.

 

[Mirtek]

I played the beta a couple of minutes at my brother's.

From a technical point of view the game needs a higher max zoom on PC. Way too close and too little overview.

From a personal point of view I don't think I will play it. D3 kindled my hatred for the high heavens and Reaper of Souls turned it into a roaring inferno.

Unless we get to invade the heavens and kick some angel butt, i am not interested in the story anymore. They must pay for their horrendous crimes toward humanity, they're worse than demons.

Moreover, I think that one problem that Diablo and other similar franchises* face when it comes to their tone is that when they depict everyone as being just as bad (angels included) then it creates a sense that the world isn't worth saving. That's one thing that I would like to see in Diablo 4. Give me a sense that this world and its people are worth saving. Don't just repeatedly show me how terrible the world is. Don't just repeatedly tell me that angels are just as bad as demons. (Hooray for false equivalances in fantasy games!)

But that doesn't mean the world isn't worth saving. It just means that saving the world requires the destruction of both the Burning Hells AND the High Heavens