What does Diablo 4 need?

[DesoPL]

Better devs, than D3 got.

[endersblade]

Diablo 4 just needs to be Path of Exile, but Path of Exile already exists. Blizzard are not going to make a better ARPG than GGG have, so D4 needs to be something different to the traditional isometric grinding game.

I disagree. I have both D3 and PoE installed, and I bounce between the two. Both of them scratch different itches. While yes, they're both ARPGs, they are different enough games that I get enjoyment out of both, frustrations out of both, and go to the other when I get annoyed or bored of one.

Instead of making a D4, call me crazy, but I would love to see a 'definitive edition' of the Diablo series. All three games made into one game. Start in Diablo and roll through the story up to Reaper of Souls. Flesh out the other classes from D2 that they haven't released in D3 yet, and give us that whole class pool to play the whole story with. I would love to see all of the Diablo series in the D3 engine, with updated HQ cinematics, I'd love to see the world of D2 in the D3 engine, and I'd love to play D1 with the inventory space of D3.

Granted, people would just blitz through it all, and then complain on the forums that 'there's no content' because the end game is still the same that we have now. Because all anyone cares about anymore is the end.

[sunxsera]

Good itemization and rare drops. I was happy for 2 weeks when i got a griphons eye in diablo 2, i never had this feeling in diablo 3.

Enough of the sets and super op rings / necks that use 8 slots and take all of your choices. Itemization in diablo 3 feels like a huge band-aid fix.

[Coldkil]

well if they did add Specific Zones with Specific drops, they could implement the Challenge system to it, and make it ever scaling difficulty with it dropping ever increasing gear if done within the time limit,

Yeah, makes sense. As i said, inifinitely scaling content is a good way to keep stuff always relevant and people playing for an upgrade, but the upgrade path needs to make sense first and the content has to be more meaningful than a "7 mintutes zerg dungeon with a shower of drops at the end".

This said, i don't want WoW-style 1 hour dungeons with sluggish combat. But a 20 minute run with 2-3 bosses that have actual mechanics and fast paced combat should be reasonable. At least for me - maybe i'm just brainfarting and no one wants something like this.

- - - Updated - - -

Because all anyone cares about anymore is the end.

Both agree and not. Agree because yes, player nowadays only care for the rush and endgame and getting fisrt, which is utterly detrimental. On the other side, i do care about endgame because story only brings you so far and i expect a game that can keep me hooked for years, like D2 did and like WoW did, and D3 only managed to do it partially.

Endgame is what make people continue playing and Blizzard has always been (long time ago?) the company that did games that lasted. I think people just miss those feelings. And i'm one of them.

[Kokolums]

Oh, what I said before!

If I had to take what I'm given with D3 and design something interesting out of it without rebuilding it, I'd probably copy "hellforge rushing" from D2. You would assemble a team of players and clear all 5 acts and at the end, you get one of a set list of special rewards. With hellforge rushing, you played the entire game, and at the end of act 4, you got something very special. I think that felt good because it was varied content, you had to do different things (unlike mindless rifts) and there is a big shiny thing waiting for you. The downside to this is that the story, settings and characters are middling to uninteresting to terrible.

If I could design what I wanted, I'd just create WoW style raids from the vanilla-BC era, but the core of the game is built around more monsters with less hitpoints instead of single mobs with huge health pools. Dexterity and herding over blunt tanking. Guilds would be further organized into leagues. Guilds would compete with each other for progression among rival guilds in their league. There would be league-wide notifications on progression and achievements. Top guilds in the league at the end of an xpac win something big. You'd also need a modernized meeting place beyond battle.net 1.0, a communal town everyone can join and meet in each other in a 3d world. And then I'd add split-screen and/or picture-in-picture so that you can observe your guild or rival guilds or other players play Diablo while you play. I'd envision a scenario where your guild is taking a crack at a boss encounter for progression of some kind, and then you could do a split screen and watch a rival guild try the same boss. And then I'd take an idea for Super Mario Kart and add a "ghost rider" feature where you can record a session of your rift run or leveling run or whatever, and then save it as a ghost that can be shared with others. And the most important part of sharing a ghost is you must meet them in game to share it (to help force social interaction).

But to expand upon it:

Raid Leagues

This idea can work for either WoW or D4.

Raiding guilds can sign up to be placed into a random league with 7 other raid guilds. You can designate your league as a casual league, expert league, or elite league before being randomly assigned to a league. Guilds that select casual will only be placed in a league with other casuals. Guilds that select expert will only be placed in a league with other experts. Guilds that select elite will only be placed in a league that select elite. Once you are placed in a league, your guild is locked to that league for that raid tier. You cannot change guilds to reroll a new league. You will compete with the other 7 guilds in your league for "league firsts" such as:

1. first league kill of each boss on each difficulty.
2. first raid clear.
3. least number of wipes for each boss.
4. least number of wipes for the entire raid.
5. least number of wipes for the entire tier.

For each category, there will be a gold trophy for 1st place in your league, silver for 2nd, bronze for 3rd.. Overall league winners in casual league get a minor reward. Overall league winners in expert league get a nice reward. Overall league winners in elite league get an exceptional reward.

Leagues would improve the social aspect as you are locked in with other guilds in your league. They could observe you play and you can observe them. In observer mode, everyone would get dumped into a chat and could talk about what they are seeing.

varied content

D2 had varied content:
1. hellforge rushing
2. farming runes from chests in kurast (which was more about dodging mobs that automatically kill you to pop chests than clearing the board)
3. farming and rerolling charms in kurast
4. climbing the ladder
5. building an enchantress to buff low level players to give them a boost
6. world pvp
7. uber diablo
8. uber tristram
9. crafting
10. building a gold farm char for super huge gold drops for gambling
11. hardcore vs softcore

D3 really pushed a lot of this to the background and its all about running rifts. some of the elements from d2 are still there, but its very minor activity that you don't spend much time on and they feel like sideshows. the overwhelming majority of your time is gonna be spent in rifts, whereas in D2 your time is spread out more evenly across all activities. that makes d3 feel very shallow. its kinda like pvp in vanilla wow vs pvp today. back in vanilla, you really needed to pour time into pvp. today, pvp still exists but its a sideshow that you can spent almost no time at all in compared to pve.

[Battlebeard]

Why does people hate on Diablo 3? I find that game absolutely amazing.

Not every game needs to be this new super game with 100000 things to do, like Path of Exile is trying to be.

The best part about Diablo 3 is that it isn't that time consuming. I LOVE that I can have other main games, like WoW Classic and Overwatch right now, and from time to time play D3. I play D3 one week each season to finish the journal and that is perfect. I don't get bored of it that way and still get to enjoy it from time to time.

I don't think Diablo SHOULD be a "main game" meaning something you need to spend 3 hours a day on to keep up with all the content, like WoW is.


I hope Diablo 4 is basically exactly like Diablo 3, but maybe a bit more focus on Campaign rather than Adventure mode, as well with a few more acts.

[horbindr]

honestly, at this point, diablo 4 needs to be "free" like diablo 3 was in order for me to check it out.

[bbr]

im expecting diablo 4 .. to be diablo 3 remastered... LOL

remasters wont get me to buy anything,.
remakes maybe.

Diablo 2 remake, modern graphics, more content, new zones, more acts, less bloaded itemization.
Darker themes than diablo 3 tbh.

path of exile does a good job at it, but it's a bit too gritty,. blizzard can learn a thing of two from them though - but at the same time they do a lot of weird stuff as well.

[Daedius]

Transition from isometric to 3rd person !

[kangusak]

I want a much smoother power curve + actual handcrafted endgame content with preset (hard) difficulty, like special bosses in PoE or bosses and zones from medianXL mod, infinite scaling pure random content like rifts doesn´t do it for me, at least not if it´s the only option

[Phurox]

It needs the D2 necromancer

[Pilek01]

1. slower game play than current D3.
2. better itemization. In D3 its stupid that equipping a set makes you jump 10 torment levels.
3. scraping the torment difficulty system and making 3 difficulty like in D2.
4. not forcing people to play with others for better loot and xp. Solo play should be as important as playing in group. Not everyone likes to play with others, but missing out on the xp and loot just makes you play public on D3.

[letssee]

imo diablo 4 needs to come out, thats what it needs

[Triceron]

TBH I'd be happier with a D2 Expansion.

You heard me right. Expansion.

[Unholyground]

The way D3 is currently with way more build diversity and more ways to mix and match end game sets to create more freedom. I would also like talent trees aside from the ability rune system for even deeper customization.

[NatePsy]

They could learn a lot from PoE honestly. They keep reinventing the wheel every season.

[Kyphael]

And by that, I mean Gul'dan. Diablo 4 needs Gul'dan invading the Diablo world to make it good.

Crossover, baby! Diablo vs. Warcraft in Diablo's realm! You know you want it.

YOU'RE WELCOME!

[Clozer]

This so much. PoE was everything I had hoped D3 to be. I'm not a huge Diablo fan, but I played D2 as a teenager and was massively diappointed by D3 for some reason. PoE filled that hole, that's for sure

Oh, and an old school cow level. I've missed that so much for a some weird reason. Probably nostalgia though

No, if you want POE then play POE. D4 wont be good if its trying to mimic another game.

[Hyral]

To be developed by Blizzard North.

[Bjay]

I'd like it to be far more solo-friendly. My biggest problem with d3 is that you always have the cloud of inefficiency hanging over your head if you play solo, and seeing people with +30 augments/gems not to mention thousands more paragon than you on the leaderboards isn't cool. There should be an incentive for people to group up, but the degree of efficiency that farming in groups provides plus thousands of extra mainstat should not be it.

Other than that they should just continue on the same course imo. D3 was clearly unfinished and shockingly greedy when it launched, but the expansion fixed everything and polished what turned out to be imo one of Blizzard's best games. It never really got the credit or momentum it deserves. So yeah just keep at it, I'm sure they can make a good game.

Exactly this. You can't realistically compete for #1 Europe hc ladder when you play duo/solo. It's just not numerically feasible. Therefore my ambition to play seasons drops alot.