Diablo 20th Anniversary Event, The Nighthold Preview

[Dracullus]

Tomb of Sargeras (7.2?) and Argus (7.3) should both have increasing Legion presence.

They are too afraid to alienate people who get bored of the same theme / enemy type.

I distinctly remember on 6.2 (Hellfire Citadel / Tanaan Patch), they specifically changed plans and made it about Gul'dan and Legion presence because some people were "tired of orcs", and even then people were already complaining when they announced Legion (or even before?) because they were tired of demons and green.

And this is the right way. Do you want fight only with demons every tier? Nighthold have 3 demon bosses (Tichondrius, Krosus, Guldan), Tomb around 4 (or 5? I don't think we know what 9th boss will be) + demon only mini-zone + demon dungeon. So Legion have already big presence before Argus. At least demons are more diverse than orcs.

I hope that Argus will have different look than Broken Shore, I don't know why, but I always imagined this like white metropolitan city of Mac'Aree with violet environment.

[Lolsteak]

Wrong treasure goblin model in the pic isn't it? That's the pet from D3 collectors edition.

[Deleted]

Haha Class trials are not supposed to attract somebody. It's in to tryout specs. New players have level 1-20 to try the game. if thats not enough to keep somebody playing why should endgame content?

Well when i first tried Final Fantasy XIV with a trial account it was right in the middle of the first year annivesary celebration. Each and every content of the event was doable on a trial account. And I loved them all. And it convinced me to play the game. By the way thanks to the extreme ability pruning 1-20 is pretty horrible now. 2 button rotations, empty levels where you don't get skills for leveling up or useful gear for doing quests.

[Eleccybubb]

Haha Class trials are not supposed to attract somebody. It's in to tryout specs. New players have level 1-20 to try the game. if thats not enough to keep somebody playing why should endgame content?

Sorry but the first 20 levels are really not a good representation of the game. Considering they are scaling holiday events I see no issue with letting starter editions partake in them.

- - - Updated - - -

Well when i first tried Final Fantasy XIV with a trial account it was right in the middle of the first year annivesary celebration. Each and every content of the event was doable on a trial account. And I loved them all. And it convinced me to play the game. By the way thanks to the extreme ability pruning 1-20 is pretty horrible now. 2 button rotations, empty levels where you don't get skills for leveling up or useful gear for doing quests.

Pretty much this. 1-20 is shite.

[Serissa]

Haha Class trials are not supposed to attract somebody. It's in to tryout specs. New players have level 1-20 to try the game. if thats not enough to keep somebody playing why should endgame content?

How's my post related to class trials? JFYI class trials only available for Legion accounts. But if account is flagged for legion there's no problem to buy token and play. The problem is TRIAL account (aka starter edition) there's literally nothing to do. And that shit doesn't represen't endgame single bit.

[Icoblablubb]

How's my post related to class trials? JFYI class trials only available for Legion accounts. But if account is flagged for legion there's no problem to buy token and play. The problem is TRIAL account (aka starter edition) there's literally nothing to do. And that shit doesn't represen't endgame single bit.

show me any other MMO which have this kind of Trial ? oh ya there is none ... why should a new player care for events when he literally doesn't even know how to play or what the actual fuck Broken Shore is .. i believe a new player has other things to figure out than participate in *mostly* boring events which are done in 15 minutes

[Eleccybubb]

show me any other MMO which have this kind of Trial ? oh ya there is none ... why should a new player care for events when he literally doesn't even know how to play or what the actual fuck Broken Shore is .. i believe a new player has other things to figure out than participate in *mostly* boring events which are done in 15 minutes

We are not talking about that though. We are talking about the appeal of a trial to get a player interested in the game. Also as stated above the FF14 trial allows you to unlock your job and freely participate in events.

Also how will a new player figure anything out other than how to mash 2 buttons and do some of the piss easiest dungeons with 20 levels? I see no issues with Blizzard loosening up the starter restrictions.

[Kolvarg]

And this is the right way. Do you want fight only with demons every tier? Nighthold have 3 demon bosses (Tichondrius, Krosus, Guldan), Tomb around 4 (or 5? I don't think we know what 9th boss will be) + demon only mini-zone + demon dungeon. So Legion have already big presence before Argus. At least demons are more diverse than orcs.

I hope that Argus will have different look than Broken Shore, I don't know why, but I always imagined this like white metropolitan city of Mac'Aree with violet environment.

Didn't say it was or wasn't, just stated it for what it is.

Personally with Legion I do agree it's overall the right way to go, and it does make sense. Although personally there's a big momentum/pacing clash with Legion from the pre-xpac event to the actual expansion.

It goes from a full-blown nearly world-wide invasion with demons and demon ships falling from the sky and endagering some of our main hubs in Azeroth, and an epic encounter on the Broken Shore where we have to retreat to then discovering that no, they're not "really" here yet, only very few, and we're actually still in time to stop them from arriving them, we just have to fight pretty much un-related enemies that became their allies/servants.

I get it, lore-wise it makes sense (the "invasions" were a distraction so they could get a foothold in the Broken Isles), but actually playing through it the invasions had a bigger sense of danger and activity than we current have in most of the Broken Isles, personally. In-game it feels a bit disconnected and weird pacing (although that's mostly a flaw on execution, not on the philosophy of varied enemies).


Either way, I understand they want to make this, and for many players it does feel better, looking back they pretty much always did. I just don't think it justifies breaking the story like 6.2. WoD was already messy, but the worst part was we barely even got the good parts it was supposed to give (story and interaction with the so-called Warlords), and 6.2 only made it worse and pretty much ridiculous from a story and immersion point of view.


This trend of theme switches near the end of the expansion to introduce the next one (Garrosh becoming the big bad in MoP leading to WoD, Gul'dan and the Legion becoming the big bad in WoD leading to Legion) does somewhat work in making new expansions feel less "random", but it also has great potential (mostly in WoD, to be seen with Legion) to remove character from the expansion as a whole and make the final raid a bit underwhelming thematically and lore-wise.

[Galathir]

Has anyone already figured out what the SoJs are for?

[Eleccybubb]

Has anyone already figured out what the SoJs are for?

Just a fluff item it seems.

[Deleted]

They need to nerf the goblins' HP! BLizzard and their developers....
It is impossible to kill it with pug. Only 880ilvl+ team can kill it or you need hero.

[Heathy]

it does seem like ppl need to have somewhat moderate dps to kill the goblin, I did him this morning in a random heroic only 1 guy had less than 2m hp everyone else was probably over 865. hell i was healing and even i stood there spamming smites and chastise, looked like he died just as he started trying to escape.

as a side note as an old d2 player, the charms are one hell of a flashback to the days of inventory management i'm guessing they are only useful while the event is active..

[Dracullus]

This trend of theme switches near the end of the expansion to introduce the next one (Garrosh becoming the big bad in MoP leading to WoD, Gul'dan and the Legion becoming the big bad in WoD leading to Legion) does somewhat work in making new expansions feel less "random", but it also has great potential (mostly in WoD, to be seen with Legion) to remove character from the expansion as a whole and make the final raid a bit underwhelming thematically and lore-wise.

I don't think it will be case this time. For me MoP-WoD-Legion feels like trilogy about last Legion invasion on Azeroth, that's why they are all connected. Of course Blizz screw big time with Warlords story, it should really be more about Wrathion (he tried to bring united force that could defeat Legion to Azeroth, instead only Guldan came through the portal and started the invasion) and Kairoz (I was really hoping for Infinite Dragonflight origin). So anyway, Legion feels like last part in this story, I think that last big patch will be only about Argus and Legion, but we may get bridge patch between 7.3.5 and 8.0 - "medium" size 7.4 with dungeon and/or 1 boss raid that would be Old God/Naga/Pirate/whatever theme.

I really hope that next expansions will also be trilogy, imagine that:

1) Old God expansion, start like Pandaria, but on the South Seas, many years after defeating Legion in lore, so our hero will be old lorewise and someone will ask him to go back from retirement ;P, playable Naga or Vrykul/Ogre, tiers:
a)Zandalar+small pirate raid like Trial of Valor
b)Kul'tiras with crazy Jaina (and Kul'tiras like Suramar) - I think raid with humans that worship Old Gods could be amazing
c)Nazjatar - Azshara (duh)
d)Nylotha with N'zoth

2) Scourge expansion, where we end Sylvanas arc, leveling in the area north of Stratholme, later we will go to Old Kingdom and reveal some stuff about Void Lords
a) Necromancer class
b) Stratholme as neutral capital

3) Awakening of Azeroth/Void Lord expansion

a) leveling content in space
b) Tinker class (it would fit Titan theme)
c) final battle with Void Lords

Depend of the state of the game they can always invent new threat beyond 10.0, but I don't think they will drag Void Lords threat longer than 10 years.

[Deleted]

How's my post related to class trials? JFYI class trials only available for Legion accounts. But if account is flagged for legion there's no problem to buy token and play. The problem is TRIAL account (aka starter edition) there's literally nothing to do. And that shit doesn't represen't endgame single bit.

sorry, my bad.

[Nozuka]

I was excited for this Diablo event. I expected the town portal toy to open up an actual portal like the ones you see in D1, 2 or 3. Nope. No animation. Nothing.

I expected the guitar toy to have your character whip out a guitar and strum the Tristram theme song. Nope. You just play air guitar or something. Really lame.

The only things I found amusing were the diablo imps. I play a demo lock, so that was a pleasant surprise. The rest feels half assed.

Nighthold looks neat, though.

ohh too bad... was hoping for an actual portal too.

[splatomat]

ohh too bad... was hoping for an actual portal too.

Yeah, thanks for the heads up. My sub just lapsed and I was wondering if these Diablo items were cool enough to warrant resubbing a month. Sounds like they aren't.

[huldu]

That sucks, so you need to have the expansion to even be able to do the event? Would have preferred to see something a bit more global and scaled. This kinda feels like a step backward from what they've been doing the last half year.

[Queen of Hamsters]

People that don't wanna play the game expecting in-game events to be tailored to the people that aren't/don't want to be playing the game... That's a first for me at least to see.

Well when i first tried Final Fantasy XIV with a trial account it was right in the middle of the first year annivesary celebration. Each and every content of the event was doable on a trial account. And I loved them all. And it convinced me to play the game. By the way thanks to the extreme ability pruning 1-20 is pretty horrible now. 2 button rotations, empty levels where you don't get skills for leveling up or useful gear for doing quests.

... So it's like Max level Classic gameplay. At level 20 it shouldn't be expected to have everything... Although my last character to 20 seemed to have more abilities than 2 at 20...

Edit: as a Mage I count that I'll have 7 abilities to use by 20. Fire blast, Flurry, Blizzard, Ice Lance, Frost bolt being among those that are damage-dealing.

Edit 2: As a Warrior I count also 5 damage-dealing abilities by 20. Slam, Mortal Strike, Colossus smash, Victory rush, Execute. Not counting the alterations made once choosing spec of course.

[jettzypher]

This needs to hurry up and release in the US.

[Granyala]

They need to nerf the goblins' HP! BLizzard and their developers....
It is impossible to kill it with pug. Only 880ilvl+ team can kill it or you need hero.

The main problem is actually that 50% of the people instantly drop the group once they have their loot an the other half ist often half afk drooling over what just dropped.