Beta signup Diablo 4

[Kilpi]

Welcome to 2k23.

What you want is a time machine to send you back to 2000s. It just ain't gonna happen.

Ok? But there's a lot of singleplayer offline games, with the OPTION of having multiplayer stuff. But sure. And wanting singleplayer games (like D3) to not be always online isn't some early 2000s wishing, it's just common sense.

[Fencers]

Sure. I don't want them to be bad or irrelevant. I'd just rather they didn't exist at all.

That is a totally different argument though. Nothing wrong with the argument Diablo 4 should not be a cooperative game. However, that is a different argument from saying one desires the cooperative elements to be bad and irrelevant when the design is inclusive.

I'm not allowed to have a differing opinion on game design?

I think you should go back to the actual quoted conversation. Because it seems you are introducing a notion here that the original quote was not addressing.

Them all high and mighty gods of game design, who can't be wrong because "it's their game"?

Correct, they can't. You might not like what they do, but that is not the same as the designers doing something "wrong".

[Daedius]

Got D4 to run on my Steam Deck... have to say, playing Melee with a controller feels great.

[infinitemeridian]

I had a lot of fun but I'm still pretty concerned. Bugs and performance aside (Which was awful btw, constant rubber banding, invisible walls, etc., and that was all weekend, not just the first day), there are still too many unknowns.

1) Itemization and character progression. It seems to me that the bulk of how your character plays / builds is tied to legendaries. If drop rates remain as they are, then your progression is going to be pretty much done by the end of the campaign and what is left? Paragon boards, which is largely stat increases? I know there are uniques, but you can only equip one I believe. We know all the legendary skills for every class too, so there's no mystery unless they have an equal number of uniques waiting to be found (which I doubt).

The skill tree seems pretty small too. There aren't enough skills to choose from, and the nodes seem pretty basic. I like the structure, but D3's runes had more impact on how abilities worked than these, which are largely just damage modifiers.

2) Open world is pretty lifeless and shallow. I mean, I barely see how this is different than D3's map. The world boss was cool, but other than that I didn't really get the sense I was playing the next generation of ARPG.

3) UI is ugly and intrusive. No map overlay, chat on the right-hand side, etc. The visual design is basic and ugly, the font is laughable, there's barely any stylization and the areas like chat and the minimap feel too large, which compounds the feeling of playing a mobile game. I think this is also made worse by how zoomed in the camera is. I feel like it should be zoomed out another 25% at least.

4) Endgame still has too many unknowns. Will there be capstone challenges like PoE? What will seasons look like? The dungeons we played were pretty bad, constant backtracking, way too long, etc. If the nightmare dungeons are like this, then that's going to be a huge L. The bosses were pretty good, though I hope this is just a small sampling of what they have to offer there. They also seem pretty melee unfriendly, which is concerning.

[Nymrohd]

I have to say, I am confused, why did you all backtrack so much in dungeons? I barely had to.

[Makabreska]

I have to say, I am confused, why did you all backtrack so much in dungeons? I barely had to.

This Reddit thread explains dungeon issues:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comm...a_revision_to/

[Unholyground]

For those who say an offline option is not possible or doesn't matter is missing the point. There is nothing special about the game that cannot be done locally aside from world bosses but I am sure that could be made soloable for an offline mode.

They made D3 offline on Switch and it didn't hurt anyone, there is no good reason they can't have an offline mode with separate characters and progression.

[Aucald]

I have to say, I am confused, why did you all backtrack so much in dungeons? I barely had to.

I only ever remember backtracking in one dungeon, which was the Spiral Catacombs. Somehow I missed one of the side areas going down the proverbial spiral and had to go all the way back to destroy a necessary MacGuffin to open the door at the end. Wasn't too bad what with Teleport at my beck and call, but I was annoyed. It was my own fault, of course; the dungeon was laid out fine, I just somehow sped past an obvious fork.

[Gaidax]

Ok? But there's a lot of singleplayer offline games, with the OPTION of having multiplayer stuff. But sure. And wanting singleplayer games (like D3) to not be always online isn't some early 2000s wishing, it's just common sense.

You do realize that battle.net was released together with Diablo 1 and Diablo 1 was the first game to use it? And that was 1996. Yes D1 and D2 were still mostly offline experiences, but D3 already was full online one and that was a decade ago.

Offline games are a dying breed, so buckle up and enjoy the ride and hell, asking Diablo, of all things, to be offline is like a big "bruh" moment given the whole franchise is actually a progenitor of modern online games.

[prwraith]

The real problem with the open world / persistent world is so far the story is the opposite of tight. And while we've only seen up until the girl mercs the necro homie. There's no lone hero against the horde vibe. There's no hero's journey in a sense.

Nothing really feels like a threat, you could just not party with someone and both head the same way and combat won't correctly scale.

The skill system is arguably non-existent, while I hesitate to say deeper than D3; It's certainly not in the same league as its competitors. Combat itself is slow and bland (so far) you have faster combat in A1 of PoE.

I'm really hoping it fleshes out hardcore in the future. But it's got a long way to go.

- - - Updated - - -

You mean you are dumbing down your argument for yourself? That is bizarre.

I am saying, based on your quote, it's fine if no one makes another game like D4. Because people don't have to play the same game (D4 and potential D4-like games) forevermore. And they don't.

[Gaidax]

The fact that basic skills don't generate resources is rather asinine too. And while there are some passives that help a bit with mana regeneration it's either not a guaranteed type of deal or the amount regained is miniscule. Or both.

Necromancer may be more your street then. Its not regenerating resource, but instead generates it from basic spells.

I imagine it was done as a differentiator compared to sorc that mostly regens resource passively.

And then some lazy people, like me, just like it when vast majority of your resource simply regens no matter what - there is a merit in that when you're running around trying to not become fresh meat.


Speaking of which that Butcher moment. Pepelaugh. FRESH MEAT!

[Nymrohd]

I only ever remember backtracking in one dungeon, which was the Spiral Catacombs. Somehow I missed one of the side areas going down the proverbial spiral and had to go all the way back to destroy a necessary MacGuffin to open the door at the end. Wasn't too bad what with Teleport at my beck and call, but I was annoyed. It was my own fault, of course; the dungeon was laid out fine, I just somehow sped past an obvious fork.

I follow the right turn rule and it never fails.

[Gaidax]

The real problem with the open world / persistent world is so far the story is the opposite of tight. And while we've only seen up until the girl mercs the necro homie. There's no lone hero against the horde vibe. There's no hero's journey in a sense.

Nothing really feels like a threat, you could just not party with someone and both head the same way and combat won't correctly scale.

The skill system is arguably non-existent, while I hesitate to say deeper than D3; It's certainly not in the same league as its competitors. Combat itself is slow and bland (so far) you have faster combat in A1 of PoE.

I'm really hoping it fleshes out hardcore in the future. But it's got a long way to go.

Story is just shit so far frankly, anyway.

This feeling of tagging along mostly because story is just so ehhhh. First 10 mins were great and after that you may as well be replaced by random merc #321. You're just there to open the gate for the "hero". Heck you even have a cutscene telling you as much end of Act 1.

[prwraith]

Story is just shit so far frankly, anyway.

This feeling of tagging along mostly because story is just so ehhhh. First 10 mins were great and after that you may as well be replaced by random merc #321. You're just there to open the gate for the "hero". Heck you even have a cutscene telling you as much end of Act 1.

Which I guess is fine for an MMO, because you can't be the hero in a persistent world. But the storytelling takes a serious hit as a result.

[Gaidax]

Which I guess is fine for an MMO, because you can't be the hero in a persistent world. But the storytelling takes a serious hit as a result.

I think you're taking the MMO edge too hard mate.

Problem is not "MMO", problem is just shit story that's it. It's pretty obvious because you're not some random drone no.21123 due to how you were introduced to the game. It's just that story simply fizzles after that.

Now it's only Act 1, but they sure could do better. They even did in the beginning.

Like heck you literally get Leah 2.0, teenage prodigy down to details including circumstances and journey start event. That's not because "MMO", it's just a "really?" moment.

I certainly hope she's not going to be sprouting horns and tail by the end of Act 3, but I would not be surprised given she's practically a copy/paste job.

[Mehrunes]

On dungeons, the ones we are seeing aren't end game "dungeons" for lack of a better word. These are just instanced story areas for the most part. There are actual cap stone end game dungeons. I don't know exactly what those are going to be like, but I doubt they'll just be the regular hole in the ground areas that we've seen so far.

Wait, what? I mean, I know there are end-game specific dungeons, since that's the missing 23rd dungeon for the beta zone. But you're saying they're the only endgame dungeons? So, given 5 zones, whooping 5 of them? That's even worse than I thought. Especially since the additional content type of nightmare dungeons are, according to what I've read, just harder versions of the existing dungeons so even they aren't going to help out with dungeon variety.

[Makabreska]

Problem is not "MMO", problem is just shit story that's it. It's pretty obvious because you're not some random drone no.21123 due to how you were introduced to the game. It's just that story simply fizzles after that.

Dunno, it seems that the protagonist is the most random person in the history of the genre. Unless I didn't catch that, he is not send by some other party to investigate and just happens to stumble upon that village, where he gets marked. Now, the Wolf approaching him before that is kinda sus, like he knew the importance of the player character and that he will be fighting against Lilith".

[Mehrunes]

1) Itemization and character progression. It seems to me that the bulk of how your character plays / builds is tied to legendaries. If drop rates remain as they are, then your progression is going to be pretty much done by the end of the campaign and what is left? Paragon boards, which is largely stat increases? I know there are uniques, but you can only equip one I believe. We know all the legendary skills for every class too, so there's no mystery unless they have an equal number of uniques waiting to be found (which I doubt).

Regarding itemization, I think Mythic items are locked to just one per build. Though I'm not sure if they aren't just Unique items renamed, because I can't find any source on D4 itemization that mentions both, so maybe the name just changed during the development. As for legendaries, I did get one buffing the Avalanche keystone passive for Sorceress and I couldn't find it anywhere in the codex, so it looks like there are non-codex legendaries out there.

[Nymrohd]

Btw I was hoping we'd have gotten a lot of datamining out of this. Seems not?

[Delever]

Ok? But there's a lot of singleplayer offline games, with the OPTION of having multiplayer stuff. But sure. And wanting singleplayer games (like D3) to not be always online isn't some early 2000s wishing, it's just common sense.

The always online is done as an extra layer to prevent piracy.