what is procedural in d4?

[Proskill]

so what is procedural and what is not? diablo is a franchise known for using procedurally generated levels, but diablo 4 is making a different approach with the open world. is it gonna be like diablo immortal or something else?

[Aucald]

Diablo 4 appears to actually have a mix of "handcrafted" and procedural dungeons, in about equal quantity. It looks like plot-specific dungeons or instance-type areas are handcrafted and remain more or less static, whereas side quest dungeons or random dungeons tend to be procedurally created and are different in every game world. I think the overworld is basically handcrafted and static, as well; but I could be mistaken - it didn't seem to change in the Beta in my recollection.

[taishar68]

Diablo 4 appears to actually have a mix of "handcrafted" and procedural dungeons, in about equal quantity. It looks like plot-specific dungeons or instance-type areas are handcrafted and remain more or less static, whereas side quest dungeons or random dungeons tend to be procedurally created and are different in every game world. I think the overworld is basically handcrafted and static, as well; but I could be mistaken - it didn't seem to change in the Beta in my recollection.

This is correct, the overworld is static, but I think the events within it are randomized. The non story dungeons seem were said to be randomized, but I didn't repeat any to test them out.

[Aucald]

This is correct, the overworld is static, but I think the events within it are randomized. The non story dungeons seem were said to be randomized, but I didn't repeat any to test them out.

Events are randomly scattered throughout, that's for sure. But I don't remember the actual zone design changing to my knowledge - towns were always in the same places, and the terrain didn't change between sessions. It's possible the retail version may have some changing zones in some areas, of course; but I don't think the Beta's limited map did.

[chiddie]

Events are randomly scattered throughout, that's for sure. But I don't remember the actual zone design changing to my knowledge - towns were always in the same places, and the terrain didn't change between sessions. It's possible the retail version may have some changing zones in some areas, of course; but I don't think the Beta's limited map did.

The map is totally “static”, like whatever WoW map. Only the events into it do change.

Imagine whatever Dragonflight zone with the World Quests and teleports in place of flight paths: that’s the idea.

[mrgreenthump]

This is correct, the overworld is static, but I think the events within it are randomized. The non story dungeons seem were said to be randomized, but I didn't repeat any to test them out.

I did all of the dungeons and caves.. And the variety wasn't good. There were maybe 4-5 architypes of dungeons with them slightly mixing from one to next. But think I killed the same final boss 8 times during the beta on different dungeons for example.

Events are randomly scattered throughout, that's for sure. But I don't remember the actual zone design changing to my knowledge - towns were always in the same places, and the terrain didn't change between sessions. It's possible the retail version may have some changing zones in some areas, of course; but I don't think the Beta's limited map did.

The world does no change. Every subzone will be the same with same monster types. Events are indeed random though. But "super rares" have fixed positions I think. Only killed 2 during the beta though so can't say much on that.

Can't imagine they would want to change the world much if we have to find the altars every season to max out renown. I didn't really care to search for the altars but did everything else and was till missing 300 renown from maxing it. So you have to do the altars to unlock the extra paragon points. Though hopefully people complain enough and we wouldn't have to do the altars in seasons. Even doing all the dungeons felt kinda draggy in the end and probably wouldn't have done it if Sorc wasn't playing sorc and afk'd through dungeons pretty much.

[Tojara]

World is static, events are different and have a pool of which ones can appear in each area. The quest dungeons are static with the same bosses at the end.

The cave and dungeon system that you enter in the OW are different each time. They take you to the same general area with the same assets, but the layout is slightly different each time and the boss at the end of the dungeon can be different each time you do it.

The layouts don't change drastically though, but if you go back and look at other ARPGs (especially recent ones), the layouts are pretty fixed with very mild changes. PoE maps for instance have very few changes, and a lot of the maps can be summed up as squares with central area (Park, City Square, Mesa), circle with line in middle (Atoll) and then plenty of maps where you just go in one direction with no deviation (way too many to list). The maps that have more procedural generation are maps that are ones most people only do once per league, then never again. Simply stated though, most maps in modern ARPGs pull from a few assets, change a few tiles around and randomly generate things like chests, mobs, shrines etc, with the map barely changing. D2 had far more varying map generation, but it still had a lot of rules for finding exits/entrances, and it still had loads of fixed maps for certain areas (way more than you might think).

That said the bosses you fight in the dungeon pull from a pool of like 6-7? The bosses are varied enough and actually have mechanics, which you may or may not get to experience depending on how powerful your character is. D2 bosses don't really have mechanics, and PoE map bosses (aside from act bosses) rarely have abilities aside from the affixes you attach from the map.

Without advancing past Act 1 in the beta, I sincerely hope that the pool of bosses in Act 1 aren't the only ones we experience throughout the rest of the game. If each Act has it's own pool of bosses then I'll be pretty happy, but if it's literally the same pool for all of Act 1 to Act 5, that will grow tiresome pretty quickly.

Not a collector in any type of game, but I don't mind collecting the Lilith altars once. I sincerely hope that when seasonal play comes into effect that this aspect of off season play jumps to your seasonal account as well. For example if you collect them off season, you get the bonuses on seasonal anyway. Having to run around for a few hours at the start of every season would be a great way to damper the fun of a new season, much like it's annoying trying to get all your fucking corrupted maps done at the start of the season for map completion.

The good thing "I think" the game has going for it is that you can level however you want to max level, I just hope that everything is unlocked upon hitting level cap without having to go through the campaign. As fun as it is to start up a new season in PoE every 3-4 months, the worst part of it is having to go through that awful campaign over and over again. If they had a system where it was level adjusted and you just do maps right out the get go, I would 100% do it.

[chiddie]

I also really hope that when you finish the campaign once you unlock “adventure mode” or whatever they will call it and in seasons you’ll be able to wander around from the start. Honestly redoing the campaign EVERY single season would be a big no-go for me, even with the option to skip all dialogs and cutscenes it would take an insane amount of hours to finish it, even if they go the D3 path (Act 1 ultra long and then all the others progressively shorter). I mean, if the other 4 zones are as big as this the campaign can last forever. The mount should help a bit, though.

Also curious to see if they will come along again with a renewed version of weekly challenge rifts where you’ll have to play a dungeon with a dumb build.

[Gaidax]

As others said - overworld is static. Events are located in the same spots, but can be different.

Dungeons, seem to be mostly static and then they may or may not have generated events in them with some room changes. Sometimes they rotate the camera perspective (as in you go north-west instead of north-east for example), but layout is similar. They may or may not have extra room or so, depending on whether additional event spawned or not.

[Kumorii]

Overworld static.
Cellars are static.
Events are random.

Dungeons are procedural, though since they have the same objective and roughly a similar layout they can feel the same, but they are not fixed.
I think even some of the story dungeons are slightly randomized. Or my memory on that really messed with me.

[bbr]

so what is procedural and what is not? diablo is a franchise known for using procedurally generated levels, but diablo 4 is making a different approach with the open world. is it gonna be like diablo immortal or something else?

The overworld will probably be fairly generic - though with instances having up to 20 players, that still leaves room for random generation.
The dungeons will have more room for rng creation.