Diablo 4 [XO, XBSX|S, PC, PS4, PS5, XGP]

[iroboto]

Playing a bit and so far, while it has better systems than Diablo III, it's still just as face rolling easy as D3 was. So far the only time I've died was while trying to figure out how a puzzle worked (you don't have to just walk over a plate in the floor you have to step on it and then dodge away and do the same for the next 2 plates in the floor).

Combat is just ridiculously easy with no real challenge thus far other than running into a spawned boss that someone 12 levels higher than me left behind (so it was 12 levels higher than me and almost killed me with one hit) that I had to run away from. Otherwise, basically just steamrolling all the dungeons and bosses. And I'm deliberately playing a build that avoids the OP powers of the class in order to try to artificially increase the difficulty without just not using any abilities at all.

They nailed the aesthetics of a Diablo game better than D3, IMO. Thumbs up for that. The voice acting is good. They main story is a bit, meh, so far, but I'm still only in Act 1 despite being relatively high level for just a few hours played. Which brings me to the part that I don't quite like about D4.

D4 is basically structured like an MMORPG or UBIsoft formula open world game (except without the tower climbing ) with constant side quests and side quest markers as you gain levels or progression through quests. Fetch quests (oh hey can you go and get X thing for me?), kill quests (oh hey hero can you go and kill Y number of things and bring back X number of things from their corpses for me?).

While some are relatively well done, after a while it sort of starts to kill the feel of a Diablo game. Combine that with the UBIsoft open world formula collectathon (for example, "collecting" statues that give minor stat boosts to all of your realm characters) and it starts to feel more like you are playing in a world designed to be a game rather than playing in a world designed to be a world.

I got immersed in the story, lore and world of D1, D2 and to an extent even D3 as the world felt well crafted such that I could imagine such a world existing in some faraway fantasy land or some distant ancient civilization on Earth where angels and demons really did exist. It's hard to feel that way about D3 with the constant quest starter markers, quest progression markers, collectibles, etc.

The game is still relatively engaging and for a first time ARPG player it's a very approachable and casual experience with an appropriate "dark" mood setting. I'm hoping the story gets better as I get into the later Acts. I suspect that I can already see the overall shape of the story but maybe there will a twist somewhere that I didn't see coming.

I don't yet know if I regret buying it. I certainly do regret having to use the Blizzard launcher as I had to wrestle with that for a few hours just to get the damn game to install even though the BETA installed with no problems. I'd likely enjoy this at least a little more if they'd allowed me to pick an actual difficulty level rather than forcing me to choose between [1] Ridiculously easy mode and [2] Easy mode with [3] Normal (IMO, at least hopefully IMO) difficulty mode being locked away until you finish the game.

Regards,
SB

Campaign is a tutorial though. Most people
Should be able to clear it relatively without breaking a sweat.

Some people need help though. I’ve had to help people out on discord that can’t get beyond certain bosses because of horrid choices and a general lack of itemization.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Campaign is a tutorial though. Most people
Should be able to clear it relatively without breaking a sweat.

Which, IMO, is a bad justification (choice of the developers) to lock away Normal and Hard difficulty modes until you finish Easy mode.

Some people need help though. I’ve had to help people out on discord that can’t get beyond certain bosses because of horrid choices and a general lack of itemization.

Yeah, I can totally see that if you ignore upgrading your gear the game could become too difficult. IE - hey I have this Unique that dropped 20 levels ago, it must still be better than this yellow that just dropped.

Regards,
SB

 

[iroboto]

Which, IMO, is a bad justification (choice of the developers) to lock away Normal and Hard difficulty modes until you finish Easy mode.



Yeah, I can totally see that if you ignore upgrading your gear the game could become too difficult. IE - hey I have this Unique that dropped 20 levels ago, it must still be better than this yellow that just dropped.

Regards,
SB

They didn’t though. There is WT2 from the get go, and you can blaze the campaign and go straight for the capstone dungeon in a couple of hours. You will be gear and build checked on the capstone dungeon however, but once you unlock it those renown reward apply to all your characters.

You don’t need to do side quests or anything, the games difficulty is scaled to your level, so you’re making the campaign much harder going higher on level if you didn’t gear up correctly.

You only need to complete the campaign once and adventure mode is unlocked for all of your characters on that account.

I don’t see anything wrong with what they did. Can you give me an example of a game that does it better? I think POE makes you replay the campaign every single time.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

You only need to complete the campaign once and adventure mode is unlocked for all of your characters on that account.

Yes, and IMO, that's a bad design choice. And I think it's rather insulting to call WT2 "normal" mode. It's far far too easy for that. Normal should present a reasonable challenge and WT2 provides no challenge unless you deliberately screw yourself. Hence why, just like D3, I consider Normal mode the one that is locked away as that is more in line with how Normal modes were traditionally implemented in games.

Basically, I'm hoping that WT3 is more similar in difficulty to D2's normal mode as WT2 is still easier than D2's easy mode.

Regards,
SB

 

[iroboto]

Yes, and IMO, that's a bad design choice. And I think it's rather insulting to call WT2 "normal" mode. It's far far too easy for that. Normal should present a reasonable challenge and WT2 provides no challenge unless you deliberately screw yourself. Hence why, just like D3, I consider Normal mode the one that is locked away as that is more in line with how Normal modes were traditionally implemented in games.

Regards,
SB

The game is scaled to your level though. Basically WT1 or WT2 is designed to provide difficult content for players up to lvl 50.

What is the point of allowing players access to difficulties that are far beyond level 50 when you are at level 1?

Diablo 4 World Tier 3 Capstone Dungeon Level Requirement And Tips

Your first Capstone Dungeon will unlock World Tier 3 in Diablo 4, but it is an incredible challenge.

www.gamespot.com

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The game is scaled to your level though. Basically WT1 or WT2 is designed to provide difficult content for players up to lvl 50.

What is the point of allowing players access to difficulties that are far beyond level 50 when you are at level 1?

That's what I'm saying it doesn't ... it's always scaled to Easy mode. There is Zero challenge in WT2 as long as you continue to equip level appropriate gear. At no point is there any difficulty in WT2 unless you deliberately or accidentally (new players maybe?) screw yourself over.

Regards,
SB

 

[Cyan]

Playing a bit and so far, while it has better systems than Diablo III, it's still just as face rolling easy as D3 was. So far the only time I've died was while trying to figure out how a puzzle worked (you don't have to just walk over a plate in the floor you have to step on it and then dodge away and do the same for the next 2 plates in the floor).

Combat is just ridiculously easy with no real challenge thus far other than running into a spawned boss that someone 12 levels higher than me left behind (so it was 12 levels higher than me and almost killed me with one hit) that I had to run away from. Otherwise, basically just steamrolling all the dungeons and bosses. And I'm deliberately playing a build that avoids the OP powers of the class in order to try to artificially increase the difficulty without just not using any abilities at all.

They nailed the aesthetics of a Diablo game better than D3, IMO. Thumbs up for that. The voice acting is good. They main story is a bit, meh, so far, but I'm still only in Act 1 despite being relatively high level for just a few hours played. Which brings me to the part that I don't quite like about D4.

D4 is basically structured like an MMORPG or UBIsoft formula open world game (except without the tower climbing ) with constant side quests and side quest markers as you gain levels or progression through quests. Fetch quests (oh hey can you go and get X thing for me?), kill quests (oh hey hero can you go and kill Y number of things and bring back X number of things from their corpses for me?).

While some are relatively well done, after a while it sort of starts to kill the feel of a Diablo game. Combine that with the UBIsoft open world formula collectathon (for example, "collecting" statues that give minor stat boosts to all of your realm characters) and it starts to feel more like you are playing in a world designed to be a game rather than playing in a world designed to be a world.

I got immersed in the story, lore and world of D1, D2 and to an extent even D3 as the world felt well crafted such that I could imagine such a world existing in some faraway fantasy land or some distant ancient civilization on Earth where angels and demons really did exist. It's hard to feel that way about D3 with the constant quest starter markers, quest progression markers, collectibles, etc.

The game is still relatively engaging and for a first time ARPG player it's a very approachable and casual experience with an appropriate "dark" mood setting. I'm hoping the story gets better as I get into the later Acts. I suspect that I can already see the overall shape of the story but maybe there will a twist somewhere that I didn't see coming.

I don't yet know if I regret buying it. I certainly do regret having to use the Blizzard launcher as I had to wrestle with that for a few hours just to get the damn game to install even though the BETA installed with no problems. I'd likely enjoy this at least a little more if they'd allowed me to pick an actual difficulty level rather than forcing me to choose between [1] Ridiculously easy mode and [2] Easy mode with [3] Normal (IMO, at least hopefully IMO) difficulty mode being locked away until you finish the game.

Regards,
SB

does the game have a difficulty level system like Diablo 2? Or is it more like Diablo 3? I had fun with both. But Diablo 2 had to be completed in Normal difficulty mode, until you unlocked the truly interesting difficulties, Nightmare difficulty and once you had beaten that, you unlocked Hell difficulty level.

Just 3 days to go for me until I have it.

 

[iroboto]

That's what I'm saying it doesn't ... it's always scaled to Easy mode. There is Zero challenge in WT2 as long as you continue to equip level appropriate gear. At no point is there any difficulty in WT2 unless you deliberately or accidentally (new players maybe?) screw yourself over.

Regards,
SB

But the point of the system is because it’s an open world universe. LVL1-50 does mob scaling by level because it cannot guarantee that everyone is the same level.
Once you complete the higher capstone
Dungeons everyone is more or less the same level, they can just scale difficulty.

It’s an online mechanism because everyone has to fight the same creature yet we need to separate weak characters from strong one. In my world boss fight during the beta I had a lvl 10. Waltz in there and make it harder for us.

But when I hit WT3, that won’t happen ever.

So I don’t think I want low level players in my tier if they can’t contribute.

Maybe we are looking at this differently, the campaign can be completed by level 30 -38ish.

WT2 capstone dungeon can be completed by mid40s.

The game gets harder as it scales closer to 50, which is the appropriate level for WT3 capstone.

 

[Malo]

I guess you folks are playing OP classes and builds. There's definitely more of a challenge in D4 compared to D3 for me, I've died a few times. Biggest issue is trying to output enough damage, especially on bosses.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I guess you folks are playing OP classes and builds. There's definitely more of a challenge in D4 compared to D3 for me, I've died a few times. Biggest issue is trying to output enough damage, especially on bosses.

I'm not. While I am playing necromancer, I'm avoiding one of the most OP skills of the class for crowd clearing (corpse explosion). Also avoiding other skills that control or make enemies easier to kill. IE - I'm basically playing a very self nerfed necromancer build and seeing how hard I can make it without just not using any skills period.

I'm actually half tempted to remove all skill points in actual skills and only put skill points into passives to see if that will make it even a tiny bit less easy.

Regards,
SB

 

[Cyan]

No MF in D4.

oh well, in the end the game has its internal workings to get items. Still, Magic Find in D2 cause a super strong captivation for everyone.

The only issue with MF is that your character became almost useless save for Mephisto and Pindleskin runs, 'cos of the -75% resistance to everything in Hell difficulty level. I liked to do runs just enjoying the game to monsters like the Ancient Kaa the Soulless, Frozenstein, Nihlatak -tough one-, etc etc. But to do so my gear was a mix, never a pure MF build.

 

[BRiT]

Diablo IV Patch Notes

We will continually update this article with all patches the development team implements for Diablo IV.

news.blizzard.com

 

[orangpelupa]

The nerfs... Does it feels good? Or it destroys the power fantasy, making you move to exploit other stuff to get the same power fantasy again?

 

[iroboto]

The nerfs will keep coming hard until release. Which they may have 1 more patch ready for

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Damnit, the Necromancer got mostly buffed, so Easy mode (WT2) just got even easier. /sigh.

This is one time I really wish it wasn't an always connected game. I can't keep using the non-buffed version of the class.

Regards,
SB

 

[BRiT]

Damnit, the Necromancer got mostly buffed, so Easy mode (WT2) just got even easier. /sigh.

This is one time I really wish it wasn't an always connected game. I can't keep using the non-buffed version of the class.

Regards,
SB

Just push forward to meet the requirements to hit WT3 already if you want more challenge.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Can you explain what you mean because this is a really ambiguous statement. Do you mean that you that you dislike Diablo so much that they will only play it when it's basically free?

Sure. I like Diablo as an 8/10 game, but I'm not into it enough to bother paying for it. Especially pre-patches.

I too am not fond of the decision to make you play through the game to get any sort of difficulty. I'm not planning to play it through more than once, but might have to.

 

[Cyan]

should have it available in an hour or so, in a while, before running off to bed. Can't wait. Ideally I can combine it with AoE2 DE -Return of Rome more than anything, since I am more into AoE1 than AoE2, though I love both-. This will be the last day one game I buy until the next Diablo, except for a major surprise -i.e. the new The Elder Scrolls-.

My idea is to start with either a pure archer -if that's possible with any current class- or a druid.

 

[AlphaWolf]

My idea is to start with either a pure archer -if that's possible with any current class- or a druid.

Rogue can be an archer.

 

[cheapchips]

Longer story, but linking a Blizzard account on someone elses Xbox was a pissy mess.

Also, only two local players. D3 had four. Boo Blizzard. Boo!