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

[Afrospinach]

A developer cannot force social aspects of a game. Sure without any form of interaction its unlikely that any form of community will establish but everything else is up to the community itself. You act like its something the devs did in the past and has been lost today. Nonsense.

Shitty game aside. The forced social aspect of C&C4(added bonus of being 100% unnecessary) was just a mouthpeice for uh...the internets finest and it is one of the more enduring "will never touch that pile of shit game even out of curiosity" qualities. Multiplayer today is what it is and well...single player option please.

[deepr]

In D3 endgame progression is only possible with a few strong builds per class which rely totally on set bonuses and some specific legendaries... next to that it's nothing but an endless grind to get all the best possible gear and other stuff. It needs to be less of a lottery, less of a numbers game.

I think the graphics, music, atmosphere and story of D3 are all pretty decent, at least good enough for this type of game. I guess it could use some more personality.
But what's really needed is more diverse and customizable gameplay, with lots of options and flexibility in class, build and gear. I want to make my own unique character while still being able to make progress in the game. At the same time, progress shouldn't be all about numbers. It's going to take a creative approach to get rid of this "doing the same thing over and over again only with higher numbers". They should also focus on all kinds of cool synergy between classes to stimulate coop gameplay. Oh and max. 2 or 3 players per game. That should be enough.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I think if they just released additional maps, enemies, and loot types what they got is ok. Expansions that add classes and mix up the meta every couple years is nice too.

Improved graphics and that jazz too.

I am a little bit of a sucker for a stronger single player story as well to warm me up to the game. But it's pretty optional.

Oh... and don't have a legendary launch fail. That killed so much momentum.

[bufferunderrun]

My two cent:
- Bring back talents
- Bring back magic find
- Bring back specific loot tables for bosses
- Bring back spec changing legendaries
- Stop nerfing specs

[Tojara]

The problem with the game is that it's too simple, even if it makes a lot of sense.

As much as I hate to say it because it doesn't really add that much depth in the grand scheme of things, the game just needs more illusion of choice. Skill webs or giant trees even with 90% of it being effectively pointless, or not really meaningful is something they should probably do. For whatever reason people like clicking into things. It gives them the illusion they are customizing their characters and just feels like character progression, even if most of the choices don't really matter that much and only serve to reach the one node or choice that's actually interesting every once and awhile. There was noting remotely interesting about doing stats in Diablo 2, and honestly, as impressive as the skill tree is in PoE, a lot of the nodes just serve as filler until you get to something that's actually provides any impact.

I think PoE is a great game, but the build diversity in the game would be much more narrow if there was a competitive nature to it beyond just getting to max level fastest (which most people don't care about). There realistically isn't ladders in that game for all intent and purpose, and as such you don't feel forced to play anything, and as such anything is optimal even if it's shitty. Diablo 3 for all it's faults has a competitive element to it, and gets a bad wrap because people are so focused on meta, breaking the game down into an optimal spec for each class and an overall best build for each individual season (obviously there are more builds depending on group play solo, play and farm builds). If PoE truly had a competitive focus you would 100% see very narrow builds and everybody running the same thing.

Items make these games though and I feel Diablo 3 just doesn't do enough. On one side it's nice to be able to play and virtually get everything you need self found, on the other hand there really isn't any major moments of excitement in the game when something rare does drop either. Depends on what you like. Part of me likes trading, the other part of me realizes the end game of PoE is farming currency and trading just so you can play builds that you want to play.

Diablo 3 I think was mostly fine. The problem is the lack of meaningful updates. If every second patch had big game play changes like the patch they introduced the cube (which was an incredibly fun patch), I doubt people would shit on it nearly as much. The problem is they effectively abandoned the game, aside from introducing new maps. PoE just introduces new concepts fairly regularly, even if some of it's not that great, at least they try lol.

[Deleted]

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

I get some of what you're trying to say, but I find this sentence to be pure hyperbole.

The reality is that Diablo 3 is still a blast to play when I want to mindlessly wreck things without a care in the world. Given that the original Diablo was the first Blizzard game I played, I think the franchise is in a pretty good place. My sole complaint about Diablo 3, really, was the rather catastrophic launch that a great deal of players simply didn't forgive Blizzard for. What was released was akin to a mid-stage beta, with a couple of deeply flawed concepts that betrayed Blizzard's usual polish.

But they fixed it, and that's cool.

[The Stormbringer]

Diablo 2 HD will likely bring people's faith back that a Diablo 4 would be good.

- - - Updated - - -

Leveling was a huge part of D2, and they (kinda) removed that in D3 in favor of pushing people to max level. Then once people got to max level, they put them back into a pseudo-leveling system called Paragon, which at the time I felt was all kinds of weird but its good to innovate. From day 1 of Paragon, I always thought it had one huge flaw. The rewards per Paragon point were small and uninteresting. I would have added tiers of rewards. Keep the rewards it currently has, but periodically (like every 50 or 100 levels of Paragon), you unlock a MAJOR reward. The example I offered at the time was "map enhancements". The idea was born out of D2 and how many hackers especially loved maphack to give them more information. Since maphack was so desired, why not actually build a form of maphack directly into the game as Paragon rewards? So at level 50, maybe you can toggle an ability to show a certain monster type on the map. At level 100, you can toggle an ability to see some rare packs at further range. At level 150, you can toggle an ability to see stairs at further range. At 200, you can toggle an ability to see chests at a certain range on the map. I'd also toss in a percentage chance per Paragon level to unlock special rewards which can happen whenever you gain another point. Blizzard implemented Paragon points in a very dry and mundane way that makes them as boring as possible.

I considered something like this as well. The way it was, you basically needed to get fifty paragon levels to make any difference, which is seriously annoying.

- - - Updated - - -

Like StarCraft 2 did. On other hand, I don't think that colors should change much in the game (as it is in Diablo 3) because i don't think anyone would play game that has only one color styles in every zone.

Also, Path of Exile is shit.

A lot of people complained about SC2's story, though. Admittedly, I found it to not be as strong as the others, and the whole Amon thing felt silly, but the campaigns were a blast to play and had a ton of fun mechanics. I still like the campaigns, though I wish you could go back to old missions with upgrades purchased...

[Thimagryn]

The atmosphere of Diablo needs to be taken back a few notches to a smaller, grittier setting. The story has become too epic, to the point where we've gone to the heavens and fought alongside angels. That was supposed to be a secret war with mortals caught in the middle, not a prophecy-driven mess with all mortals being secret ubermensch.

Diablo should always be about driving away demons but never fully succeeding in stopping an all-encompassing evil. It needs to be more Warhammer End Times and less Age of Sigmar. Honestly, I don't know how they could turn back, and whatever direction we have moving forward only opens itself up to more messy power creep that make mortals god-like, and further push angels and demons into fodder.

[oplawlz]

The atmosphere of Diablo needs to be taken back a few notches to a smaller, grittier setting. The story has become too epic, to the point where we've gone to the heavens and fought alongside angels. That was supposed to be a secret war with mortals caught in the middle, not a prophecy-driven mess with all mortals being secret ubermensch.

Diablo should always be about driving away demons but never fully succeeding in stopping an all-encompassing evil. It needs to be more Warhammer End Times and less Age of Sigmar. Honestly, I don't know how they could turn back, and whatever direction we have moving forward only opens itself up to more messy power creep that make mortals god-like, and further push angels and demons into fodder.

I strongly agree with you, but I don't see it being as big of a problem to correct as you suggest. Set the game 50 years forward or a few hundred years back. It's not like the current story actually needs a sequal.

[apelsinjuice]

Diablo 3 lacks any form of customization, freedom, outside of the box thinking or theorycrafting. Blizzard pretty much gives every class 1 set that is far superior to everything else and then you only have very limited choices on what other different pieces and skills to use. The game is very restrictive in terms of freedom and creativity like when it comes to making builds, the only thing you do is stack crit% crit damage, IAS and some defence.

No special very hard to get farm items like chase legendaries, you just pretty much farm for the same item 100 times over to get the best rolled version.

Gameplay is kinda fun but the game is extremly shallow.

[BoycottAmericanWomen]

I uninstalled Diablo 3 yesterday. I finally had enough with Blizzard's bullshit.

You guys know that Blizzard fired Blizzard North and fired the original developers that created Diablo 2? That's why Diablo 3 sucked ass.

Fuck Blizzard, they're a money grubbing bastard sell out company. Boycott them!