What does Diablo 4 need?

[Zeta333]

With Diablo 4 potentially in the works, what overhauls does it need from Diablo 3 to make it successful? Or should Blizzard stick to the D3 formula with new, updated content?

to be everything diablo 2 was and diablo 3 wasnt.

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There is nothing wrong with the dev team and Diablo 3 is still a good game. There is just no reason to play it atm and I agree with the seasonal stuff.

when compared to what blizzardx of the north did with diablo 2 yeh there was plenty wrong with diablo 3.

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considering the d3 necro has all the abilities of the d2 necro what is your point

that diablo 3 was so bad even with the og necro it didnt save it.

[blahdiblah]

Blizzard must have something unique to bring to the table, otherwise they just get lost in the shuffle.

the Blizzard logo on the box largely prevents that actually. even despite everything thats happened i'd bet it still to be true aswell... that stupid blue logo means everything

[Icoblablubb]

There is nothing wrong with the dev team and Diablo 3 is still a good game. There is just no reason to play it atm and I agree with the seasonal stuff.

if you really think that D3 is a good game and the D3 dev team did a good job compared to d1/d2 welp.. D3 had NOTHING that made Diablo Diablo .. but i guess there are people out there who don't need much to get pleased even when they butcher an iconic IP like that

[babyback]

to be everything diablo 2 was and diablo 3 wasnt.

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when compared to what blizzardx of the north did with diablo 2 yeh there was plenty wrong with diablo 3.

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that diablo 3 was so bad even with the og necro it didnt save it.

Considering how influential D2 was D3 was bound to have issue before it even came out.

Either you go down the route of keeping it within the frame of what D2 was or you try something new, and Blizzard tried something new and it didn’t meet the standards.

With D2 they basically invented the wheel and it’s really hard to do that twice.

D3 still isn’t a bad game. I bet that most who try it out for the first time is having a fun time. It just isn’t as revolutionary that D2 maybe was.

[Gallahadd]

ACTUAL customisation. I want a full skill tree to craft around, stats to tweak, I want real ways to make my character MY character.

Also, leveling needs to be a thing... I'm fine with there being end game, post leveling progression, obviously. But it shouldn't be a case of "The real game starts when you hit max level" like it is in D3. Getting to max level should take more than just getting carried through one GRift...

More gear variety. Sets were cool, and I had fun with them... but it gets a BIT dull when they become the core of your whole build. Gear should complement, not create your playstyle. Your skills should be what decides HOW you play, your gear should just make you better at that.

A NON TIMED end game mode. GRift were built to encourage maximum efficiency. This totally killed any kind of defensive gearing and encouraged a playstyle of "get enough Toughness to not instantly die, then get ALL THE DAMAGE". I'd like to see a game mode, where it WASN'T all about glass cannon builds.

Oh, and bring back shapeshifters. Doesn't need to be a druid, per se, but it needs a focus on shapeshifting.

[Icoblablubb]

Everyone keeps asking for Diablo 4 instead of improvements to Diablo 3. I don't even think it will be an ARPG.

to improve D3 they would have to redesing the entire game so basically diablo 4 simple as that there is nothing that can save D3 after like 6 years of no content and a bad core design to begin with

[schwank05]

A perfect Diablo 4 for me?

Diablo 2's itemization and systems (runes, talents) with Diablo 3 graphics\animations.

i'd play that forever.

Beat me to it, this right here. Give us all the D2 classes as well I miss my Trapsin. Basically what most of us want is D2: Reforged. Give us D2 with D3 graphics, just like D3 should have been.

[Kolvarg]

+ War3, Starcraft, Diablo 2 all succeeded because they were all on bnet which provided a cutting edge social experience as a value add.
+ WoW succeeded because it provided strong social play as a value add with global chat and forcing people to talk and make friends on a single server. PvE Guilds were locked on one small server and raced each other like its a tournament.
+ SC2 failed because they ripped all the social elements out, it almost didn't have chat channels.
+ D3 failed because they ripped all the social elements out, it almost didn't have chat channels. Plus, Rifts were too much of the game which made it repetitive.
+ Hearthstone was a success because it had a value add in the fact that it was the ONLY card game that was pushed BOTH on PC and mobile. All competitors focused on one or the other.
+ Overwatch started strong but its failing as it really has no social elements. If something like Overwatch was released on a social platform like a modernized bnet 1.0, it would have crushed all competition and Forenite or PUBG never challenge them.

You can't just boil down the success or lack of thereof to a single simple reason. There's a lot of context and variables at play.

For instance, W3, SC and D2 didn't really have a lot of high-polish competition at the time, certainly not at the same level. I think the majority of purchases of those games, or at least a big portion of them, didn't engage in the online/social elements that much, or even engaged with the game for extended periods of time (ie most people only played through the story if that much), and any of those games would have been a huge success without any of the social features, simply because they were high quality games in popular or trending genres without that level high-quality competition.

WoW in special is an absolute outlier (despite still falling in a growth-potential genre with little high-quality competition), as its popularity pretty much resulted from a perfect storm of circumstances - not just the fact that it was a good social game.

By comparison when D3 and SC2 released their genres were not really relevant anymore. Even more than that, as years went by we've been having more and more game releases every year, and an increase in the overall quality/polish level in games even from small or indie studios.

Not to mention that not only the industry landscape changed a lot, the same is true for the player audience. I sincerely doubt SC2, D3 or Overwatch would have been significantly more successfully simply for having more/better social elements.

[Icoblablubb]

Considering how influential D2 was D3 was bound to have issue before it even came out.

Either you go down the route of keeping it within the frame of what D2 was or you try something new, and Blizzard tried something new and it didn’t meet the standards.

With D2 they basically invented the wheel and it’s really hard to do that twice.

D3 still isn’t a bad game. I bet that most who try it out for the first time is having a fun time. It just isn’t as revolutionary that D2 maybe was.

i mean sure they did try to create something new.. but i think the problem most people had atleast for me is they threw everything that made D2 great away instead of building ontop of it to improve upon the ARPG titan D2 was and still is

[Kokolums]

There is nothing wrong with the dev team and Diablo 3 is still a good game. There is just no reason to play it atm and I agree with the seasonal stuff.

Diablo 3 is terrible. There is very little to do outside rifts and it has absolutely zero value-add to distinguish itself from other games. As a result, the odds very heavily favored the game dying, which is what it did.

[Raven]

Shitloads of Horror, and no weak Horor, really scary horror that make you question if you dare log in again when you log out

[Kokolums]

WoW in special is an absolute outlier (despite still falling in a growth-potential genre with little high-quality competition), as its popularity pretty much resulted from a perfect storm of circumstances - not just the fact that it was a good social game.

Well, I'll completely disagree with you there. Vanilla/BC WoW had a massive value-add which was the in-game community of server play. People were absolutely hooked on the idea of being in a PvE guild and competing with rival PvE guilds on the same server for server supremacy. That was crack. When they destroyed server communities, the game went into a tailspin.

By comparison when D3 and SC2 released their genres were not really relevant anymore. Even more than that, as years went by we've been having more and more game releases every year, and an increase in the overall quality/polish level in games even from small or indie studios.

When D3 and SC2 were released, it was after they nuked the BNET social experience and turned BNET into a launcher. BNET was the value add. Without it, Diablo and Starcraft had no draw, no hook, to pull gamers in.

Not to mention that not only the industry landscape changed a lot, the same is true for the player audience. I sincerely doubt SC2, D3 or Overwatch would have been significantly more successfully simply for having more/better social elements.

Blaming the problem on "the industry changed" is too vague to really learn everything from. In truth, EVERY industry is the same in that to succeed in a competitive market, you need a value add. The proof that SC2, D3, and OW would have been more successful with strong social elements is Twitch and live streaming. These sort of things are the bleeding edge of entertainment and they are SOCIAL. People want SOCIAL. People wanted social in 2000 and they want it in 2019. The industry didn't change. What DID change was that Blizzard used to BE the provider of social in 2000 and today they let Twitch and live streamers steal it away.

Torchlight 2 is a very good ARPG. Its got lots of classes, its colorful and fun, its got lots of spells and abilities, interesting mechanics and innovative classes, great art and music. And it was a dud. Why? It had no value add. It just got lost in the sea of rival video games.

[Coldkil]

As I say, the problem is they need a value-add of some kind. Today, there are plenty of ARPG makers out there. There are plenty of video games out there. Blizzard must have something unique to bring to the table, otherwise they just get lost in the shuffle. Their value-add used to be a bleeding edge social network. But what is it today?

Agree. Hopefully with D3's outcome and many other games around, they found a way to deliver something fresh to players - instead of being it just more of the same or even worse a mixup of features taken here and there.

I like a lot of stuff from other ARPGs and always think "what if this was in Diablo", but it just cannot be a mosaic of disconnected stuff.

[tromage2]

Hope they learned alot from dark souls when it comes to difficulty level and gameplay.
Also change the camera point from diablo more into the back of the character like WoW so that you actually see the armor and the rewards you get.
Multiplayer with PvP is also a must for Diablo4.

[Inukashi]

I hope for some creativity in the classes.

I don't want cookie cutter classes or a character that has only one way to be played.

Either something like
"The way you skill your character decides what class you play" or
"Yeah we have 50 classes and everything plays a bit different" or
"You have a first and a second class where you can get creative" or
"Here are your three talent trees, now combine"

If I get another game where my choice is if I want to slap others with a red or blue glowing hand I get sad.

[Kolvarg]

Well, I'll completely disagree with you there. Vanilla/BC WoW had a massive value-add which was the in-game community of server play. People were absolutely hooked on the idea of being in a PvE guild and competing with rival PvE guilds on the same server for server supremacy. That was crack. When they destroyed server communities, the game went into a tailspin.

Correlation does not imply causation. I won't disagree that the community of server play did indeed help make WoW as special as it was, but it wasn't really a new concept either, many other games had similar mechanics, and many others included it since then. It wasn't even a gameplay feature, but a design necessity because of the hardware of the time. But regardless, that was one tiny reason among a sea of variables on why WoW became as successful as it did.

With that said, there was a general move in the whole industry away from fixed server/realms and more open/automatic queueing systems. Considering as a whole videogames have been generating more profit than ever, I would guess this is because the average player is more willing to play games on shorter sessions with as much ease of finding other people to play with as possible, and much harder to hook into one game for a considerable amount of time. I find that at least more plausible than basically every game developer being oblivious to the fact that they'd be more successful (and therefore making more money) if they had server communities instead.

When D3 and SC2 were released, it was after they nuked the BNET social experience and turned BNET into a launcher. BNET was the value add. Without it, Diablo and Starcraft had no draw, no hook, to pull gamers in.

So why was D3 (20M sales) more successful than D2 (4M sales)?

The hook was that they were good games. The BNET social experience might have added longevity and helped create communities, for sure, but are by no means what made them successful imho.

SC has indeed more sales than SC2, but personally it's just impossible to ignore that the RTS genre was much more prominent in the industry in 1998 and has greatly decrease in popularity since then. Not to mention the esports aspect which was already well established around SC and part of why it became so popular. Not saying those are the sole reasons, but it's definitely not just because the BNET social experience was not there.

People want SOCIAL. People wanted social in 2000 and they want it in 2019.

People want and will always want social. This doesn't mean people want social from their games always the same. In 2000 the internet as a whole was still in its infancy, and online games were for most people a novelty. Social networks weren't even a thing back then, not in any way close to what they are now.

There's a reason the "social competition" you mention is Twitch, and not just popular games like Fortnite. Because twitch IS a service that specializes on "social". Just like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and many many other similar social networks, forums, communities, you name it.

People started getting their online social interaction those from those services and not from videogames, which is in big part why as a general rule most players just want to play their game without having to be bothered with others too much, or at the very least that type of mentality becoming vastly more prominent even in online gaming.

Of course there are exceptions, and by no means am I saying that a non-social game is better than a social equivalent. But it does appear that generally the games that promote shorter sessions of easy/accessible gameplay tend to be more successful than the ones that are based around long-term investment and more fixed communities, which (imho understandibly) tend to me more niche.

The industry didn't change.
(...)
It had no value add. It just got lost in the sea of rival video games.

You hit the nail right there.

Look at:
2000_in_video_gaming#Notable_releases
And then at:
2012_in_video_gaming#Game_releases

When D2 released, 2000, you have 125 entries in the list. In 2012, when D3 released you have 719. Of course that's only wikipedia, but it does paint a picture that's not only very natural and expected, but observable in other data. For instance, the number of games released on Steam year by year. There were nearly 50x times more games released on steam last year than there were a decade before.

The "sea of rival video games", especially video games of decent to good quality/polish level is bigger than ever, and certainly much vaster than it was in the early 2000's.

So no, there's no way you can reasonably claim the industry hasn't changed.


All in all, yes those elements are important, and part of what made those games what they are. But they are by no means able to be singled out as "the" reason those games were successful.

[Pilek01]

endgame: less running rifts, more running in the world.

[Andonais]

Character choice and progression not over the top sets that do 5000% more damage and rubbish like that.

[MasterHamster]

Not turn into a seasonal game like D3.

[Vrinara]

Honestly? I don't know. I'd like a open world. I love exploring, it's why I am liking Classic WoW atm. It feels like an adventure. If Diablo 4 needs something, it needs to feel like an adventure.