Back to basics? (How to make Diablo 4 work)

[Stormcall]

There were lots of large communities on the old battle.net.

Yes. A handful of D2 communities who...pretty much kept to D2, a handful of SC communities who mostly stuck with SC...battle.net, no matter how you word it, was not some magic social interaction platform that lead all these people to try other games, it was a series of servers for several different games, full of people who primarily stuck with 1 of those games, and a handful who tried out the others, not because of bnet, but because they heard SC/WC were good games and wanted to check them out. It was NOT a source of social interaction beyond the specific game a person was on. In that regards, it's no different than general chat in D3. Actually, it was less functional than general chat in D3, cause there were multiple chat channels, filled with spam bots, and you were only in them while waiting to join your next game. And once you joined a game, unless you were playing with actual friends, "interaction" was usually limited to "tp plz", "sorc gogogo", "barb can you BO me?", and stuff like that. Every now and then you might get someone asking to see you gear, or asking "anyone have Jah/CoA/whatever for trade?". Very rarely, if you were a variant build, you might get someone asking how your build worked or more likely insulting you for using it("gay pally using bow wtf noob").

[Biomega]

Keep the rewards it currently has, but periodically (like every 50 or 100 levels of Paragon), you unlock a MAJOR reward.

This is a good example of one of the core problems of the game - balancing around reward structures. Since this type of game is and always has been an infinite loot grinding treadmill, how you structure rewards is the bread and butter of the entire thing. Early D3 fucked that up royally, with legendaries being super rare and thoroughly terrible, and the (RM)AH being the optimal way to farm meaning you turn into an investment banker who spams refresh on the AH all day. RoS did away with that, but had other issues. Paragon came in because people just needed more to do, and more progression than hoping to upgrade your +492 Strength item to a +500 Strength item sometime in the future. However, as you rightly identify, Paragon points are fairly bland and uninspiring (especially post P800), and they come with the added downside of turning endgame into a massive 4-man GR grind fest for XP (with extremely high incentives to bot, too).

Your solution is interesting to be sure, but it also has major problems. As with all such systems, it's a delicate balancing act between being boring and too minor, and being so good everyone thinks it's "mandatory" and that the game doesn't really start until you get there - a good example of that latter problem would be legendaries in current WoW, where rather than feeling powerful once you get the right one you instead feel gimped and handicapped because you haven't gotten it yet. In other words, rewards have to be good - but not TOO good.

Personally, I think there's two ways to solve this. One is making the rewards substantial in magnitude, but not in power. For example, you could reward people a loot box every 50 levels, with an even BIGGER loot box every 500 or every 1000 levels or whatever. The loot box should be truly epic, with a massive amount of materials and some random drops etc. much in the vein of bounty boxes. Obviously this would have to be tuned around existing acquisition rates (so you don't just drop the equivalent of fifty bounty boxes on a fresh seasonal character within 2 hours). While this may not be a long-term incentive to keep farming Paragon, it would be something to keep you going, and to measure your pace by.
The second solution would be to make the rewards unique, but not in terms of actual power. Maybe unlock special transmogs or pets, or even conveniences like extra stash space etc. Perhaps also make that a loot box so the contents are random (i.e. you don't always get the helm xmog at Para 200 and the chest at Para 300 or whatever), or possibly just combine it with the previous idea and give out both mats AND the special rewards, staggered across the progression curve in meaningful ways.

These suggestions would, of course, be something for CURRENT D3. For a future D4, I'd plan things differently from the onset.

For any potential sequel, my approach would be from the side of the player base, both staple and potential. You want a system that is resilient and flexible enough to cater to both the casual let's-rock-this-for-an-hour player and the I'm-grinding-10-hours-a-day enthusiast. This alone is a quite the challenge, but then you also want it to be consistent with existing lore, meshing well with the Diablo aesthetic, and having a story that's fun and engaging. Quite the task!
Personally, I believe the best way to achieve that is to mix elements from MMORPG and AARPG. That means one thing above all: encapsulated content. The best way to cater to a diverse audience is to have a series of building blocks people can rearrange as it suits their tastes - pick-and-mix being the stronger emphasis on lower levels, while the high-end users expect and possibly even demand mathematically backed optimization. Celebrate that, rather than trying to smooth it all out into a one-flavor-fits-all paste.
I'd divide content by various factors: most notably time invested and number of players. That means you can have some parts that come in 30-minute chunks you can knock off alone or with groups; and some parts that fill an evening and require more people. It's sort of like the WoW dungeon/raid system, but more streamlined owing to Diablo generally more dynamic combat. I'd absolutely preserve that, by the way - D3's biggest strength in my opinion has always been that combat feels great, both in terms of how many enemies you fight and how fast you progress. The MMORPG model of trinity etc. is out of place in this genre, though it can be adapted to some degree as we see in e.g. the 4-man GR meta. How far you take that should be stratified as well, with more difficult combat being more demanding in terms of composition.

Tying things together is, obviously, the progression system. Loot is at the core of it (this is a Diablo game after all) and I think the basic formula of D3 is generally sound. Have various qualities of items, some bland, some special. Build-defining legendaries are an okay direction, but I feel that more could be done depending on the actual skill system. Obviously this is a rough outline only, and much of the quality lies in fleshing out the details. One thing to note is that I would personally just do away with Set Items altogether. It's a historic concept with lore appeal, to be sure, but I'd rather divorce that from power. My solution would be to make cosmetic sets - rare items with amazing graphics that will add special effects when combined - think of D2's halo for IK or vampire transformation for TO, and so on. The options are limitless, and it's another collectible system of which there really aren't enough in D3. For power, instead focus on stats and specific effects. Without sets offering their ludicrous global multipliers, individual legendaries could be more streamlined and focused, and keep power inflation in check. Rather than adding power multipliers, I think it'd be better to do something along the lines of shifting D3's rune system onto items instead: have skills be base effects, with the effect of runed variants instead added through items. E.g. you could have Meteor as a base skill, and then have a staff that turns Meteor into Meteor Shower, dealing more damage and covering a larger area. That sort of thing.

Loot quality I would see as a sort of mix between D3 and WoW. Simplify it by not having quality tiers (like e.g. WoW's ilvl) but instead have items from higher difficulties simply have a higher chance of rolling better. Obviously this is another area where detailed testing would have to decide things, but as a general idea I like the thought of everyone having theoretical access to everything, but shifted in a way that those doing the highest difficulties have the best changes at getting the best loot. Since your goal is largely to keep difficulties separate via the various game modes (offering, of course, a progression path to improve through them) there shouldn't be direct power imbalances resulting from competition - while at the same time giving luck a chance for amazing moments, even at lower difficulties. It's possible that this would require a tier of especially rare items to work, something like the old rarity distribution (remember Wand of Woh?) but scaling up with difficulty. Alternatively, it could go more in the direction of current D3, where difficulty largely translates to non-gear rewards like gems or Paragon instead. This is a tricky issue to balance out, and it could go either way.

Speaking of non-gear loot, I'd definitely preserve some aspect of that. The legendary gems look to me like a fairly good system, but perhaps this could be expanded a bit. Rather than make it about items having sockets, bake the system in somehow - I'm basically thinking of progression trees for talents. Rather than level gems, you'd increase the level of specific talents you want to increase. Maybe this could replace the passive talents now found in D3, so you'd pick 3 or 4 and they'd have individual levels you can increase. Like legendary gems, it could be a good idea to have tiers there as well - maybe every 20 levels until say lvl 100 or whatever you unlock some added bonus. That gives an open-ended progression system scaling well with difficulty (since you could tune the effective maximum to the current difficulty cap you are operating at) outside of loot, and with enough gradual scaling that you can offer a steady trickle of rewards to keep people engaged.

The skill system of course would have to be radically different from the one D3 uses. I think we can all agree that the generator/spender system is flawed and just isn't working. Basically every build right now is operating under effectively infinite resources, and the only reason to use generators, really, is F&R. Ironically, I think a good way to approach things would be the non-elective mode of D3 - basically have a few fixed skill categories available to people that they can fill as they like from their spell selection. I think that 6 spell slots is a reasonable number, but perhaps with more complex content this could be increased to 8-10. I'd envision about 50% of slots being freely available, and the other 5 locked to specific categories. Those would be things like movement, or defense, or healing (put potion in that category). This allows people to play in more complex encounters without relying too much on party composition, i.e. a full glass cannon supported by the party would be something less viable. I realize this is controversial, but the alternative, in my mind, is a situation like we have right now with the top-tier 4-man meta where every party is essentially the same. Still, it shouldn't be TOO rigid, and there should be an option to go more heavily into defense or offense, just not all the way. This would also help with co-op play in terms of movement, as you no longer feel like everyone is running away from you all the time just because your particular build doesn't have space for a movement skill. It would also allow for a lot more customization, as you could have meaningful choices based on playstyle such as e.g. stronger potion with longer CD or group heal, or whatever - without those skills becoming meaningless because everyone farms in full offensive glass cannon setup.

Let me finish up with the story/lore part of things. Personally, I think that while it's a really shoddy contrivance for many franchises, Diablo could really do well with a PREQUEL. While departing a bit from the usual lonely adventurer paradigm, I think that with more MMO-aspects it would benefit from more cohesive storytelling, i.e. a large conflict with defined elements. A good candidate would be something like the Sin War, or the Mage Clan Wars, or - more recently - the Dark Exile. I don't think a faction divide a la WoW is necessary, but though a bit tropey it's a possibility (Heaven vs. Hell). I would like a story more focused on personal choice and customization - a linear progression with full scaling, but with a clear line centered on the individual character. I'd envision something like a a tree with many roots and many branches; various origin stories to choose from, leading to a number of possible centers of conflict visited in a chosen order (think something like 10 total and each character will visit 3 or 4 of their choice) and culminating in a number of possible end scenarios depending on what choices were made - think not only different endings, but also different locations. Outside of the story portion (which should be kept separate like in D3 so you can pick up where you left off at any time without it being compromised by other game modes) you could simply visit the locations you haven't seen (and those you have, of course) as part of non-story gameplay. You could even be in many of the same conflicts, just not as part of the events of your story. Think for example of a large battle taking place in Westmarch - during the story you might be at the heart of the campaign making choices with the leaders, while a non-story scenario would involve you simply roaming the battlefield fighting isolated events there (think something like bounties).

And finally (promise!) I'd put a lot into a microtransaction system with cosmetic or convenience rewards. No bought power, of course - XP boosts wouldn't affect max level grinding, for example, but would make leveling alts quicker and so on. Cosmetics should be a lot more than pets and transmogs, and include things like detailed character customization (tattoos, scars, lighting effects) and interface elements like stash tabs or character slots. Nothing truly functional, but Blizzard is not in the habit of doing that so I'm not worried. This isn't EA. I'd be happy to pump money into something good and make it better. I'd LOVE to be able to buy things in D3 if it means more budget for development, and I think that really is the future. I think a D4 game wouldn't have to be F2P, but perhaps a cheaper B2P with MTAs would be a good compromise.

[Inukashi]

D1+D2 was about the World/Story

D3 is about the Character. I'm tired of games that put your character in the focus. The Characters Story isn't even your story. In Fable you decide yourself what your character is. In D3 you have to play the Story of some Character that isn't 'you'.

In D1/D2 it wasn't about the development of your character what was ok, too!

Also I want back talent trees. I love the trees from Path of Exile. I liked the old wow trees.

in D2 you could make crazy combinations of skills and armour. In D3 you build everything around a Set.

D2: hey I'm a necromancer using this weapon, I use enigma, have this and this skill
D3: I'm a Rathma Necromancer with the standard Rathma Cookie Cutter build, because everything else doesnt work.

PLEASE remove Paragon Level. I hate grinding for Something that doesn't have an End. In D2 you were finished when you had your Items. In D3 you NEVER finish your character but need to keep playing because someone might just grind more.
Using 'playtime' to be able to scale the difficulty without any additions is the niveau of browser games from 15 years ago. Pretty sure blizzard can create something better.

[Stormcall]

D1+D2 was about the World/Story

D3 is about the Character. I'm tired of games that put your character in the focus. The Characters Story isn't even your story. In Fable you decide yourself what your character is. In D3 you have to play the Story of some Character that isn't 'you'.

In D1/D2 it wasn't about the development of your character what was ok, too!

Also I want back talent trees. I love the trees from Path of Exile. I liked the old wow trees.

in D2 you could make crazy combinations of skills and armour. In D3 you build everything around a Set.

D2: hey I'm a necromancer using this weapon, I use enigma, have this and this skill
D3: I'm a Rathma Necromancer with the standard Rathma Cookie Cutter build, because everything else doesnt work.

Your memories of D2 are...lacking. In D3, if you're a necromancer, you use one of 4 sets if you're playing and trying to be the strongest you can be. In D2, your gear was really not that much more "free" if you were trying to be as strong as possible. You used Enigma, no alternative to that if you are trying to be as strong as possible. Gloves? If you weren't using Trang's or Magefists, you were doing it wrong. Belt? Arachnid's Mesh. That's your choice, and literally your only choice. Boots? Here you have a LITTLE more leeway, but your choices are basically godly rares, Sandstorm Treks, or Marrowalks(if you were a summoner), or you risk being suboptimal. Shield? Spirit or Homunculous were your options, and if you planned on PvPing, Spirit was the ONLY option. Rings? You used BK, SoJ, or a good FCR rare(if you couldn't hit the FCR breakpoint without them). Amulet? Mara's or a good FCR rare. Again, no alternatives. Helm? You used Shako, CoA(if you were a PvPer), or a godly FCR circlet/Griffon's Eye if you were really needing extra FCR. Weapon, if you were a necro, your options were better than most. HotO was the standard, but a great White could be used as an option too, and if you were a poisonmancer, Death's Web was also an option. And the same setup was used by pretty much EVERY caster, with one or 2 minor changes depending on class(sorcs might use CoH or Vipermagi over Enigma and Eschuta's over HotO, elemental druids might go with Jalal's Mane or a +5 Tornado druid helm over shako, hammerdins might use HoZ over Spirit if they were strictly PvM, but the majority of gear was the same over ALL casters)

Melee wasn't much better off, your go-to's were Gore Riders(upped if you were a Kicksin), Drac's Grasp, Fortitude/CoH/Enigma, Verdungo's Hearty Cord, Highlord's Wrath, Ravenfrost, Grief or eBotD, CoA/Shako/Guillame's Face(Jalal's Mane or Arreats Face if you were a druid/barb), if you were a shield user who wanted block you went Stormshield if you weren't a paladin), HoZ(upped if possible) if you were a paladin, or you could go Phoenix if blocking wasn't a big concern, though it was rarely taken. Your biggest choice was "what do I use for my second ring", which was typically a good rare with mana leech/AR, a second Ravenfrost, a Wisp Projector(if gloams were giving you problems), or a BK ring. Give me the above "choice" of gear and I will make you a completely viable, players 8 soloable, cookier cutter WW or frenzy barb, smiter or zealot paladin, kicksin, or fury wolf druid...which accounts for the majority of melee builds you would encounter on b.net, outside of auradins/aura sorcs(which have their own "sets" of gear that nobody would really deviate from if they were trying reach maximum effectiveness).

[Inukashi]

-snip-

As I remember D2 you could play a Summoner, a Poison-Mancer, Bone-Mancer
Or a Paladin had like 5-6 viable builds that played completely different.
As a druid I could play Bear Summoner, Wolf Summoner, Fire or Ice Druid, Wolf Lyka or Bear. I could solo every content with every spec.

In D3 I always have the feeling, i need to build my char around the strongest set he has atm. I didn't play the last patch were they made a lot of balance changes, but before that, the only playable set on the WD for example was the Firebat-Style. Urg..

Well D2 was a lot of years ago and I didn't look into forums what is best and just played what I loved to play and I could solo everything or play good in a party (Summoner Necromancer was my fav!). Maybe that's the difference.
But in D3 if you aren't playing the best viable spec I feel like I get punished a lot. They bash it in your face.
"Look, that guy has the same paragonlevel like you, but he is much faster then you because he plays a totally boring spec." It wasnt like this in D2. A Frozen Zealot wasn't that far behind of a lightning zealot. If I would take such a small choice like that in d3 I would be 30 GR levels behind him.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Part of the issue they were always intrinsically going to face with keeping the horror up is that the "unspeakable evil" has been spoken. We know what Diablo is, we've killed him twice already. The horror you describe is fear of the unknown, and you lose some of that automatically in sequels with eponymous villains.

[Stormcall]

As I remember D2 you could play a Summoner, a Poison-Mancer, Bone-Mancer
Or a Paladin had like 5-6 viable builds that played completely different.
As a druid I could play Bear Summoner, Wolf Summoner, Fire or Ice Druid, Wolf Lyka or Bear. I could solo every content with every spec.

In D3 I always have the feeling, i need to build my char around the strongest set he has atm. I didn't play the last patch were they made a lot of balance changes, but before that, the only playable set on the WD for example was the Firebat-Style. Urg..

Well D2 was a lot of years ago and I didn't look into forums what is best and just played what I loved to play and I could solo everything or play good in a party (Summoner Necromancer was my fav!). Maybe that's the difference.
But in D3 if you aren't playing the best viable spec I feel like I get punished a lot. They bash it in your face.
"Look, that guy has the same paragonlevel like you, but he is much faster then you because he plays a totally boring spec." It wasnt like this in D2. A Frozen Zealot wasn't that far behind of a lightning zealot. If I would take such a small choice like that in d3 I would be 30 GR levels behind him.

Playing a druid summoner in D2 is like playing a D3 necromancer and refusing to use any sets. Sure, you can do content with it, but it's far from optimal, you will spend ages killing things in games with multiple players in it, and has no way to deal with many enemies. Playing a D2 summoner druid is like playing D3 on master, you can certainly do that without using your strongest set, or without even using a set at all.

And in current D3, there's like at least 4 builds for each class who are perfectly viable even at high tier content. That's more builds than you would find for many classes in D2. Freezealot most certainly is far behind a lightning zealot, I have one of each with top tier gear, the lightning zealot kills much faster.

[Ravenblade]

Diablo's original atmosphere lived from Matt Uelmen's style with a single leading instrument accompanied by percussions, flutes or eerie themes. Such as this one, this (also coincidentally used The Burning Crusade in Auchindoun) or this one. Without overanalyzing it, it is what carried the atmosphere in the first games. Lack of 3D technology and having to construct around low contrast 8 bit colour palette gave it a more darker impression than probably intended, since back in these days palettes were sort of defined first and then everything in the scene was forced to use these colours, these days with 3D HDR/true colour such a thing isn't needed anymore.

They should get back to the principles that made Diablo what it was at its core. The WoW-like structures which they created in D3 led,after multiple iterations,to a game that has too much of a power creep. The high dependency on set-oriented builds powered by cube were already mentioned. In general I am not even opposed to having skills with different runes, I just wished there more skills which also offer a significantly different playstyle and that there were synergies.

[glowpipe]

We need to stop looking back. We have been there, we did it, we moved on. We need to look into the future, not keep lapsing back. If we keep going back we may aswell just end gaming all together.

[MoanaLisa]

We need to stop looking back. We have been there, we did it, we moved on. We need to look into the future, not keep lapsing back. If we keep going back we may aswell just end gaming all together.

I kind of agree with this. There is a great deal of "Let's fix the game by making it like it was 10 years ago" with this and other titles. It doesn't work that way and won't make for a sustainable game over the long run.

Diablo III for better or worse was an attempt to redefine what an ARPG might be. I can't imagine that a D3 that had skill trees and was in most things a lot like D2 wouldn't be hit for being a lazy design. I think what people really wanted all along was a high-res D2. And that would be great. I would love that and play it. Meanwhile, I don't mind the idea that D3 is a very different animal. I would much rather have them freshen up D2 and add an expansion to that than doing a D4. I've enjoyed both games for years and years now. I still play them both.

The other sad fact is that ARPG's are not overly popular these days and for good reasons. Most of them are variations on the same design that's been around since D2. I think, like MMO's, someone really needs to come up with a fresh approach and stop retreading over the same ground over and over. I've tried really hard to like Path of Exile but I simply can't tolerate the combat engine. If D3 did anything right the combat engine is it.

Last note: when I play an ARPG these days it's usually Grim Dawn which I find to be a tolerable mix of old and new ideas. Developers are working hard too.

[adamzz]

Diablo 3 just had to copy and build upon Diablo 2.

Improve graphics, add spells, talents, items, gems, charms.

Add a couple of classes.

Further the story.

BUT NOOOOOOOOOO, they had to mess with core concepts and fuck with them and worst than that, absolute lack of meaningful content updates.

Meanwhile you got Path of Exile smashing them, as a f2p game, with a fraction of their resources, with bi-yearly -vast- expansions, content patches every 3 months, etc.

It's just sad.

Honestly, if they return to their Diablo 2 roots, expand on its features and add popular features from PoE\D3 like end game replayability (rifts\maps\wtv), Diablo 4 could be amazing, but i'm pretty sure they abandoned the franchise by now. They could test the waters with a Diablo 2 remaster (like they did Starcraft), and i'm pretty sure it would be a huge success.

The thing is, it's easier for a small company because they don't have investors breathing down their necks the same way a large company does. Their fanbase will also defend every shortcoming they have with "they are a small company, it's not like they are Blizzard." while Blizzard gets a huge backlash for every little thinf. Sure Blizzard did some bad things and did deserve backlash in some cases *cough* RMAH.

PoE has had problems with flicker strike since always, people still defend them though. Sure they kinda fixed it, if you enable an option that only works when you play alone. Imagine what would've happened if that happened in Diablo, what if blink rubberbanded you back if you used it a lot under a short period if you played with friends but it worked fine solo.

[Biomega]

I doubt the franchise is dead, there's too much potential there to just leave lying around. Currently not a high priority, though? That I can buy. But something is cooking, we know that from the job postings alone.

Also, and this is one of the biggest factors, Diablo has the highest potential of all Blizzard games outside of Overwatch to tap the console market. As we've seen with the D3 console release, the AARPG concept translates reasonably well. I would expect any future Diablo title to be on console 100%.

I also agree with the sentiment of not looking back. Diablo II was a milestone for many reasons, and there's fond memories in it for a lot of people. But the rehashing trend of recent years has to stop. We need NEW things, not going back to old things. People tend to forget the bad and focus on the good when it comes to nostalgia, and D2 had PLENTY of bad things about it - even in its original historic context. Many of the concepts just don't translate too well into mainstream games these days. PoE is a good example of what happens when fans take over. It has its audience, but it's far from mass market appeal - which is an absolute requirement for any potential Blizzard title.

That being said, I do think there's lessons to learn from the past, absolutely. And past glory can serve as inspiration for new achievements. But I don't want a remake of D2. I want something new.

[hulkgor]

The thing is, it's easier for a small company because they don't have investors breathing down their necks the same way a large company does. Their fanbase will also defend every shortcoming they have with "they are a small company, it's not like they are Blizzard." while Blizzard gets a huge backlash for every little thinf. Sure Blizzard did some bad things and did deserve backlash in some cases *cough* RMAH.

PoE has had problems with flicker strike since always, people still defend them though. Sure they kinda fixed it, if you enable an option that only works when you play alone. Imagine what would've happened if that happened in Diablo, what if blink rubberbanded you back if you used it a lot under a short period if you played with friends but it worked fine solo.

What you are ignoring in that argument about pressure, is the argument about infrastructure, experience, team size and overall budget. Most of those issues happened due to that, a very strict and short budget, and having to prioritize what to\when to fix. Blizzard spent millions more on Diablo and still failed miserably. More so, PoE's limitations were technical (rubberbanding fixed with the lockstep improvement, etc), whereas Diablos limitations are far more deep, in the game's philosophy. Guess which are easier to fix?

I am a diablo 2 hardcore fan, and would gladly pay for a Diablo 2 Remaster as they did to Starcraft. The game simply moved in the worst possible direction, turning completely away to what made Diablo and Diablo 2 masterpieces. Maybe it was a business decision, to reach more players and sell more boxes, but i'm pretty sure it hurt the franchise a lot more.

[Nihilist74]

The only thing i want them to change from diablo 3 is to make the world in diablo feel more like an open world. I would like blizzard to make the world a little more rpg-ish but still have fast paced combat and action.
I felt like the class design in diablo3 was really good but some improvements could be made. I would like blizzard to add a macro function like wow has so that we can macro all the cool-downs to one button.
I would like blizzard to add more classes. I would like to see a druid shape shifter class that fights melee and can shift into a bear and wolf form. I would also like to see a dual wielding rogue class that uses, stealth and dual wields daggers.

[Jaylock]

I think the UI has to change. Diablo 1 & 2 UI was much better in term of immersion into a dark themed RPG.

Story obviously needs something more macabre/gore/dark to go back to the same genre of D1/D2.

They hit the nail with D3 for the combat BUT other than combat pretty much everything from customization, loot system, endgame replayability and more, they got all of it wrong in my opinion.

Loot has a direct impact on endgame replayability and customization makes character depth more important which is the MAIN function in RPGs.

With that you can pretty much say if an RPG is good or not. And D3 doesn't deliver on those points.

I like Diablo 3, its a decent game but I agree on several of the points you and others are making.

I think Diablo 2 was awesome, and I spent many hours of my life playing it, and its actually the game that got me interested in a Warcraft RPG (little did I know that WoW was going to be a massively multiplayer sandbox open world rpg, and the combat would be much slower than diablo. Was an entirely different game as we all know.. but getting back to my point.

If they do indeed plan on making a diablo 4 (which I truly believe that they are currently in the process of creating right now), and if they plan to keep the game in the action rpg genera, then they do need to return to a little more dark and brooding atmosphere. I think they need to expand the amount of players that can be in the game at the same time (diablo 2 allowed for 8 players per game which i thought was awesome). They need to truly scare the player as they play, especially if they choose to play solo.

Thats one thing that diablo 1 did so well. Sometimes I didn't even want to play and go down into the cathederal because it was dark and there were horrors waiting me, and the unknown was just terrifying. I feel like Diablo 3 lacks in this department, especially because much of the game is so.. not random.

If they choose to go the route of an MMO, then they really could shine in this area. The graphics could be much improved, it could be something like a witcher game or a dark souls game where its just dark and brooding. They really need to bring back the item trading game as well. I loved the item trade game in Diablo 2 because it spurred a full economy, and people bartered and negotiated for items and certain things they needed.

Anyway, just some thoughts I had on the subject.

[edw]

I don't think it was a magic recipe that made D1 and D2 so popular, I think D3 is a good game and it is very popular, the two older versions bring back some nostalgia to the older crowd and they were created in a time where they fit some gaps in the industry. Today you have many other games that work like diablo or copy it, and in sometimes are better then it. Yes they could have done a lot of interesting things with D3, and expand even more on it, but for some reason they just drooped it completely despite a lot of the ides that were implemented in the game have found there way in to World of Warcraft.
So my idea is that they should develop Diablo further and not go back to the old times, because those time don't apply now, it's a different audience.
They sold 30 Million copies (this was in 2015) so the game has audience, Diablo 2 sold 4 Millions (more or less)

[Battlebeard]

I think telling people how Diablo 3 is a shadow of its original would be like beating the dead horse at this point but here's a question:

What can be done to make Diablo series have that eeriness and horror element that made the Original and to some extent the sequel popular?

Lets starts at the roots.

Diablo

The story was simple: descend into the cathedral and confront the evil that's been causing all the demons to spawn.
Of course the music was one of the prime elements that gave the game the atmosphere, but there's also something else.
The quests that led to confronting Diablo added a lot more to the atmosphere; the NPCs were talking about unspeakable horrors, constantly foreshadowing something far worse that awaits you below the dark dungeons.
Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e02G...1AB4DE39C3183C

Next comes in the gameplay.
I was a bit slow paced, but it worked since you were constantly in closed off space and the areas you were traversing were small and narrow. It also forced you to think quickly, when numerous enemies appeared, you had to make sure they wouldn't flank you and in case of ranged enemies, they would run away from you and in meantime you could be pelted with projectiles of others while you were chasing them.
To use magic, you had to upgrade your mana pool before you could learn it.
And finally, the graphics and it's probably one of the biggest components that added to the the eeriness of the game.
The claymation in itself looks creepy; nothing's more disturbing (at least in my opinion) than to have something that's capable of moving but is normally not supposed to without external visible force, move on its own, the creepy factor skyrockets with that.

Let's continue with its sequel:

Diablo 2

So the story continues from where it left off last time, but this time it adds more complexity: track down diablo and his brothers and kill them.

Music has not changed and still adds a lot to the atmosphere of the game.
The NPCs still foreshadow the horrors that await you just as in the original game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1IS...list=PL3DF9The gameplay620E

Gameplay however is where the biggest change happened and it detracted from some of the horror.
Since the story this time aground is grander than previously, the areas had to expand and this time they're no longer in a close off places but an open environment with no loading time.
As such they had to add the running option, since you cannot slow walk through the entire world as you could earlier (I mean you could, but you would become bored slow walking on open plains).
But more on the combat: since the open world was introduced, the environment became far different than before. Because you could no longer use narrow passages to your advantage to prevent enemies from flanking and swarming you (except in rare cases), the combat had to adjust accordingly to be more fast paced and things became more flashy as the result; in some cases you simply breezed through enemies that weren't bosses and I think this is where some of that tension from the original fell off.
But it also added more good complexity to the gameplay. Now your class had a specific skill roster that was meant only for you and you could choose the playstyle you wanted to pursue, while some skills even boosting other ones.
Another addition to the gameplay were the mercenaries which eased the game for you, even if they did become a bit useless in later difficulties.
And finally animation. I think the character animation became better to its original. Visuals are more detailed, but there's still a sense of uncanniness to it.

I probably shouldn't bother talking about the problems of the 3rd instalment, but I guess I should anyway:

DIablo 3

The story is complex, but also a mess at the same time: It takes place 20 years later, the iconic recurring character dies, the girl who was with him was a perfect replacement as the new generation to continue the Horadric legacy, which would be a good story development, until it's revealed that she's Diablo's daughter and ends up getting possessed by him and end up turning into him, while the angel become a human, even though there was never mentioned such thing is possible.
The music no longer adds to the atmosphere like it did in the previous 2 and it's easily forgettable.

The NPCs no longer add to the latter either, since there's no sense of dread in the dialogue, but I think it's also because your playable character has a voice of his/her own. In the previous games your character would be silent and would only speak at specific points in game, like entering a specific area or killing a quest boss, it was a joy to hear the character's outlook on the situation. Here however there's constant banter between you companion and whoever is tagging along during your adventure, which also breaks the atmosphere; were this a Bioware game like Dragon Age it would've been a different story.

Gameplay was honestly a downgrade.
It was made too simplistic. I think it was a time when Blizzard wanted to remove the skill trees because of the cookie cutter builds that have been set, including in World of Warcraft, and tried to replace it with something more meaningful. While it did work for WoW, the same cannot be said here. One of the big things in Diablo, especially the 2nd was the anticipation for the next level when you could finally unlock a new skill of your choosing, while here they simply decided to give you ALL the skils without focusing on specific specialization.

As for the animation, while it looks good, I think that's the problem: it looks good, it doesn't have that unsettling messy look nor the uncanny character movement of the previous games that resembled claymation.

In conclusion:
So what can be done to improve the sequel?

Well, for starters the story of course.

But the most important is recapturing the atmosphere,
The music and character dialogue that builds up the horror is really important.

I think the animation is the trickiest part, because it would take alot of thinking through how can you make visuals that inspire dread, while also keeping it modern so that peple don't call it "90s graphics".

As for the gemaplay... I'd rather hear it from the rest of you.
Actually, I'd like the heard your thoughts in general.

Or do you think D3 is so bad that that the franchise is perma dead?

Diablo 3 has one of the best gameplay I ever encountered in a video game.

Skills are so smooth here and they work so well.

I liked Diablo 3, but hated the skill system. It was all so complicated and poorly described COMPARED to how D3 is now. At the time it was okey, but D3 shattered D2 gameplay by miles. Besides, some things were a living hell in Diablo 2 (maybe thats what they went for in a game based around demons), such as the undescribeably bad stamina system as well as the potion system.

[Stormcall]

such as the undescribeably bad stamina system as well as the potion system.

Stamina is a total non-issue in D2 by the time you hit, like, lvl 15, tops? And what on earth was wrong with the potion system?

[Battlebeard]

Stamina is a total non-issue in D2 by the time you hit, like, lvl 15, tops? And what on earth was wrong with the potion system?

Running out of potions constantly when venturing into deep dungeons. Having to run back over and over again and restock up on them was not fun.

[Craaazyyy]

Running out of potions constantly when venturing into deep dungeons. Having to run back over and over again and restock up on them was not fun.

dont take unnecessary damage and use less potions..