Diablo 4 feedback (From a former D2 No. 1 HC ladder player)

General Discussion
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From external source, I’ve ‘learned’ that we’re supposingly giving valuable feedback, and it’s collected by the devs. I currently can’t say that I’ve noticed any of it, but nevertheless, here are few point on statement of ‘endless endgame’ and ‘endless leveling’ and stuff mentioned in that interview.

Mind that I’ll touch ONLY balancing, which is disastrous in D3 (often straight illogical and good as work of average intern - I have much much experience in this field and deep understanding of mathematical base in it).

  1. Endless leveling? Say why, and say how - if you have any intention to do this. D2, a game with practically zero dedicated endgame, manage to keep players - often top tier ones - for years in relatively satisfying item-hunt based on very low drop-rates.
    D3, on the other hand, offered ‘endless progression’ - based on borderline insane idea that accumulating 10,000 Paragon levels gives satisfaction to players. Well, it doesn’t, at least for me - I never felt a warm feeling when getting Paragon - too basic, too small and everyone has those…

Another ‘Why?’ is based again on D2 - we had skillpoints, in fact limited number of, and lvl99 wasn’t covering all wishes/needs. D3 - lvl60 in WOW-ified progression style unlocks everything, and since there’s no skill upgrading, there’s very little to achieve after lvl60/70. Oh, there is ‘artificial sweetener’ - Paragons, but why? Late levels D2 upgrades came mostly from gear (often very, very hard to find) which largely surpassed +1 skill. Lvl 99 wasn’t even needed in most cases…

  1. Balancing basics - yes, after D3-style of massing insane numbers in ever-increasing manner (changelog - set item x is buffed by 50,000% - before seeing it repeatedly, I was ready to swear that that info is april-fools).

How it should be done? I’ll answer in several points/suggestions, not all of which are compatible and not all of them need to be followed. Each one reveals one of ‘thousand truths’ about balancing :slight_smile:

  • Balancing is done with most balancer control, if the numbers (damage, but also dps and similars) is the best with small numbers - was present in D2, in hierarchical order over difficulties - best control is if they progress with levels to 100-200 base damage (dps, perhaps - it’s bad if dps become 1000, and CC+CD% bring it up for 70% / 700% (so 7,000%) is even worse - at this point 95% damage comes from crits, they are mandatory and whole damage is generally based on crit-mechanic).

Why? It’s completely possible, or even easy, to control what happens in 200 dmg range, and in 7,000… well, not nearly so.

Number of multipliers. Comes from skills, from Paragons and from trifecta which very fast become maxed and natural for all characters. What’s perhaps worse, is that EACH item found carries governing attribute bonus, Paragon attribute bonus and there’s shiny-happy modifier of 15,000% which is COMPLETELY UNNEEDED. Why? If each item has governing attribute bonus, and each advanced player have account-wide Paragons aplenty, then seriously, WHY? Difference between ‘everyone has it’ and ‘none has it’ is kinda nonexistant, but multipliers are huge and increase damage to… what it is today in D3, and completely out of any form of control - with patch, huge bonuses are given to setX, in fact so large to assure its dominance, while not knowing how other items are performing.

This is going for years, and I would like to hear again of ‘mathematical base’ for this from Mr.Cheng [grins evilly]. Or explanation on current ‘trillion situation’ [grins even more evilly].

  1. Please consider that good balance foundation makes individual classes more or less in line regarding power, that escaping pitfalls D3 had and allows greater number of viable builds, all of which makes game open and with lots of individual creativity of players while developing specific build, the one they could call their own.

Looking to balancing process in D3, I see NONE capable of doing this right (and it’s not a brain surgery).

If you lack experienced balancers with experience and good result records, you can make a contract with me. I’m aware that this is never going to happen, put it here as a proof of concept.

Which doesn’t mean that art of balancing games is a secret lost in time. WC3 team is very competent. SC2 too. They know exactly what they’re doing and why - perhaps consider some solution where those teams or individuals can take advisory function in D4, or check the results or train someone.

  1. I did used D2 mostly as a positive example, and D3 as a negative and ill-conceived. It’s nothing like anti-D3 campaign, but is a truth - this very important part of development, and in D3 is infinitely worse executed than in D2. Yes, apart from this I like D2 much better, and have spent 15x more playhours in that game, but those are hard facts with proofs, so you may skip some venomous comments, concealed or not. I just want D4 balancing not to be given to random nobody who fails at nearly every process step, and fails worse when trying to ‘explain’ his logic, or appear publicly in doomed attempt to explain how it’s actually good.
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64

Well put
I’m replaying d2 and I forgot how low the drop rates are it’s fantastic

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David Kim’s biggest thing asking people is whether we want a finite system or infinite leveling system in Diablo 4. It seems like the majority want the Finite leveling system though but here is my take (For wanting a finite system):

.01% of players made it to 99 without botting in Diablo 2. I put around 1,000 hours into Diablo 3 before paragon and during 1.0 put another 800 hours in. When 2.0 was announced and implemented, I got to paragon 1400 and then ended up quitting. The thing as a player that I didn’t like was I had great gear, when the Necromancer released, I was in the top 50 on the Necromancer Leader Board with nearly perfect everything. The issue was 90% of the people in front of me were x3-x4 my paragon level and it was impossible to pass them and because I’m an adult who has to work, and I just could no longer play for insane amounts of time like I did while I was not working. I am now 90% disabled from the Army, but I don’t want to feel like I’m forced to sit in front of my computer for hours upon hours to be competitive just because someone else plays a lot. The focus should be about loot.

Earlier in 2019 was my latest No. 1 on the D2 Druid Leader Board, and the focus of myself and my other 7 friends was Loot. Find the loot, and the level comes with it. Once we obtained everything we needed and finally made the first enigma, then it was game on to have our characters atop above other Ladder characters by leveling. So there was a clear transition. If the game was all about getting to 10,000 paragon, it makes the item finding almost pointless because I will take less time farming items and then I’ll doing the tasks that give me the most exp and just do it all the time, every day, not leaving my pc.

With Diablo 2, the whole point of it was that level did not affect your power too much. A level 91 took some time and was not necessarily hard to get and the grind was fun, and compare that level 91 to a 99, there really wasn’t much of a difference. There was a few skill points, few attributes but the characters were almost equal. The big advantage was with a level 99 was you played for way over double the time than you did the 91. 1-98 is halfway to 99. That means hours and hours of more farming getting that perfect gear or at least the gear you need.

I personally don’t want to see my bar keep going rapidly and see myself level literally One Thousand Four Hundred times. To me, that’s just a redundant system. As a player, I want to work hard because getting from 96 to 97 felt extremely rewarding. It was a huge accomplishment to be like, Wow, I did this much work and I finally leveled. Playing for an hour each day and leveling a few times in Diablo III just didn’t feel rewarding and it got to the point where I just put the game down and never picked it back up

Edit: I’ve also noticed botting is rampant in Diablo 3. The Infinite paragon system almost welcomes botting because Diablo 3 is Levels (paragon) = Power. In Diablo 2 for instance, the thing that mattered was searching the world for the specific loot to drop (Some 1/10000 chance to drop) and when you finally found it, it was the holy grail and then you search for the next item, and while doing that, you leveled.

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66

im %100 agree with this dude.
and i want to add that i don’t want to see a “leave game/create game” cycle.
less RNG more Crafting/Questing.

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All gear should be tradeable like diablo 2 as it create more interactions in game, no trade kills that part of the game that is rpg. By the way i sincerely hope you do not intend to sell old classes as expansions in d4, i can tell you now i will take you to court for that, i am not going to stand for that greed crap anymore.

Locking tradeables down did not prevent gold sellers from doing their job, they just dragged players into their game instead, all you did with d3 was to punish the player.

As for class specific uniques i’m not a big fan of that system, you remember d2 if you got a paladin item as a necro for example you could trade that item to a paladin, now if all items are to your class then you are limited to trade with that class, it’s not a good system to be perfectly honest.

Trading was a serious part of the game in d2, with your fear of goldsellers you basically killed trading in d3, learn from that and bring it back in d4.

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68

Please make all Act bosses be farmable again like in D2, and make/have them drop some proper loot i miss doing some of these runs and feel like its part of Diablo too.

I been thinking about Diablo 2 3 and 4.
Diablo 2 was neat. Diablo 3 was worse.
Fine. I wont play it.
But. In Diablo 4 you still go with no attributes because its easier to upgrade Diablo 3 to a balanced pvp form.
With your current and reworked affixes and main power sources (attack defense). you even added a stupid dodge and dash function in D4 because of this. and just rework and calculate some legendary powers to work with your skills and talents.

I say just go with the master arpg plan it is time.
Which one idea of it is to make it a semi-mmo game. love you guys for that one in D4 to make it finally a open world.

Anyways you should have all these sources available by now.

Strenght,Dex,Int,Energy etc.

Then build and improve the fast hit rate, fast cast rate, fast hit recovery (THIS MECHANIC ALLOWS THE GAME TO GO SLOW OR FAST ITS REALLY ALL ABOUT REALISM SINCE YOU CAN ACTUALLY GO FAST OR SLOW IN REAL LIFE.)

And build skills and talents and items around that.

Hell you can still call it attack and defense to summarise it all up.

But in a dungeons and dragons game or >arpg< (roleplaying game)

There is magic and physical damage so there should be resistances too.

I dont even understand why you always wait and wait or just upgrade your broken diablo 3 game so diablo 4 will look better.

Yeah it will be better but not great.

Hell we can only go to level 40 because of your weak founded base of no attributes with that levels 1 = 2 attack and 5 defense level 2 = 4 attack and 10 defense bullshit.

Its like this. so just go with it. and make the Diablo name and the ARPG GENRE PROUD!

(And please do something about Ancient items incomparison to mythic with 4 legendary powers and ancients have only 1.)

Hell i only played Diablo 2 classic because it was an endless yellow rares grind which were very hard to find all maxed out gear for.

So please make more affixes and ones that are actually worthy of existing in this game.

So when i find a rare item ancient or mythic i dont wanna know the mythic item has 4 legendary powers min max damage only arranging in between 100 and 200 instead of 100 and 300 for example. make every item so they can be always better. but the legendary powers are fixed yeah duh.

Even our beloved Potions can be brought back by doing this.

I can really tell this game is founded by a dumb group of people >? Looks like a chinese game. and if this ''david kim guy or what else has trouble then recruit or hire some more skilled people!) but without hard feelings THANK YOU!

Edit, please make the townportals visible again not just the loadingbar.

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I agree with everything you said aside from stat allocations but your post was a very good read! But I’d also like to add in that I don’t think the Developer team is dumb. I think the biggest issue right now is the Developers lack ARPG knowledge. That is not to offend either. Obviously they can’t be subject matter experts in every single title they release. The big thing is Diablo 1 came out in the 1996 and Diablo 2 came out in 2000. I’m sure most developers working on the project currently were in their teens and just didn’t play the title or just didn’t make it to end game. They are taking most of their ideas straight from WOW because it’s the IP that makes them the most money, and ideas from Starcraft. The developer team should all play Diablo 1, 2, and 3, and reach end game on all 3 games since they are designing Diablo 4.

This however is the time for the Diablo 4 Developer team to listen to these Diablo subject matter experts. People who are the most hardcore fans and understand the game from more than just the surface of it. It wouldn’t happen, but I would love to see Blizzard say, hey, send us something that proves you are a Diablo subject matter expert, Leaderboard placements from Diablo 1, 2 or 3, maybe hours played if it were Diablo 3, Streamers who stream the game, and then once they narrow the number down to a Flight sized player base, then those players can give their opinion on very specific things Blizzard wants to know, while still maintaining contact with the community of casual and not so hardcore players. Will most likely never happen, but it’s a thought.

I really wished they changed the Word “Legendary” back to “Uniques” and changed “Mythics” to something like “Antiques” because their current tiers of gear sounds like a copy paste from World of Warcraft. Just my two cents of my side thought.

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trading doesnt work when every player is swimming in cash. it happened in diablo 2 and 3 and will most likely happen in 4.

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I just want to add that i wish skills had different visual based on skill level, i mean level 1 Fireball should have short range and small splash on impact, while level 20 travels far and nuke when it lands.

Having the same visual on all levels and just change some numbers instead of 100 damage i see 1000 on screen that`s kind of cheap.

Is funny because on attack speed you actually hit faster, the animation is shorter just like in movement speed.

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72

I am most likely not as hardcore diablo player as you DeathBringer, but I did play the whole diablo series starting from d1 aswell, playing HC from d2 and I would like to point out some my thoughts.

Well, not everyone. I for example love the paragon system. It gives me some feeling of accomplishment. I hated that white bar back in D2 when after the whole day of playing it barely moved by 1/10th. I understand that the paragon system is just bad for competing in ladder and leads to a repetitive paragon farming just because you want to be competitive. But I dont care about ladder and from this perspective the paragon is a very nice addition to the game. Maybe an unsolvable problem but this happen when you decide to make a game across all generations and for every kind of players…

My younger me would agree with you but now as a father of two kids I’d like to reach the end-game fun in a timely manner. D3 is perfect for this. Obtaining the gear needed for builds is simple and fast, but there is still a lot of room for exping (paragons), finding better stats on gear (ancient, primal), pushing GR.

Did you forgot about early days of diablo 3? There were 4 difficulty levels. Players could barely handle act 1 on infernal difficulty. Belial was really hard too. You had to grind and grind for gears to be able to sustain 2-3hits. And where is that now? Well, nobody liked it. Once in a time was Diablo 3 difficult, slow and grindy enough but it changed over the years to better suit the requirements of the playerbase. And no, we, handful of 35+ year old guys remembering the old times when we had to actually work for a progress are not the majority of playerbase. These games are not made for us anymore. They are made for a younger playerbase living in a different world with different taste…

But there are high GR at least so everyone can find his preferred difficulty.

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were talking about the game with the most succes not about the stupid paragon system

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I actually beat Inferno during 1.0 while Diablo 3 was in Vanilla form. my friend and I both used barbarians with IAS, Cooldown reduction, and life on hit so we would maintain max life and if things got really dicey, then we’d use Wrath of the Berserker.

Took 45 minutes to kill Diablo at the end of the game.

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Taita, i understand what you mean, and i asume that with the little time you have you like to feel you did end game and continue for some time with your character through different GR, just to drop it later. But you acomplish nothing more than beating a Golden Axe game, which is what you are playing in the end; predefined skills by the devs (in form of sets).

D3 vanilla challenge was fine, RoS is mindless button hitting. I didnt finish vanilla until much later on when i could change LoH to %LL because i had enough damage playing with monk.

Im also 35+, got a kid, a buisness and do national series sport; all homegrown from 0 (ok got help making the kid ;P). I like my games as challenging as a succesful life, to chill movies and series does the thing.

Do you not like to test builds, to learn and do it better; you prefer mindless paragon levels and hand guided builds? Then its not just less time is also lack of creativity and laziness, you know this deep inside.

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Play the game out in 3 days. That was the end of diablo 3. There was no point to play more than that. Diablo 1 take me almost 3 months to end. And Diablo 2 o man tons of hours into. The differences about it? That diablo 2 was harder to complete. And Diablo 3 is like you press 1,2,3 and 4 done. End of skill playing. Diablo 1 was more like put hp in it and win the game at the end. Or use OP skill books. D2 was way more complex than that. Set bonus and skill chain bonus. Way more chars way more differences how you want to build your char skills and runes and so fort. Diablo 3 in the other hand had 1 way to win the game. Have the set and your done playing. There is and was no point to go back to this game. So the made seasons… boring and no point to get the set. So now the are trying to make D4 with the idea to put World of Warcraft things in it. Open world < bad idea nr 1 / World bosses < bad idea nr 2 / Online connecting < bad idea nr 3… Are the forgetting why people bashed D3 so hard? No body like this. Go back to d2 or make it HD and forget all what blizzard says. If the Made d2 hd i will not consider to play d4. With the promise the already say. The just need to stop trying diablo in to world of warcraft and there fine. Using a dark skin over d3 wil not say the game is darker. Yes the cinematic look epic but its blizzard we know the can make that epic. But gameplay… no the can not. Those people are not blizzard NORTH. The are world of warcraft people. And thats there problem of it.

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77

Agree almost fully. Can’t really understand that idea of trying WOW-ify everything. Yes, WOW was a duck with golden eggs for Blizzard, but it fades, also for years. They’re even going ‘back to the roots’, with the Classic. So, why enforcing WOW-leveling to… everything? For second time in Diablo, and after it failed miserably?

Online all the time? WHY? I’ve played 7 years the same character in Self Found D2:LoD at home - no need for internet connection in this case, obviously. Why ENFORCING MMO in everything? IF I want to play in random or not so random groups, I can. Good. CAN. How about MUST? Not good. It was a reason why I signed a petition not to buy SC2 (and I didn’t), game that has little sense in solo mode - but still, I could’ve play it in LAN (meant to, in fact - most fun in WC3 that I had was home-LAN with bunch of friends and booze :wink: ). Yes, my decision made little sense, but I did that knowingly, showing great personal ‘tegrity’ (to add more, I own like 10 full WC3/TFT packs).

Yes, being always online is kinda normal today (BECAUSE it’s 2019th and that is about the ONLY reason where year-argument makes sense of using).

Rest was already said by Xex.

I only disagree with open world, and meeting players in it (IF online or chosen non-private game mode) - it might be good. IF executed right. And it may not be so - depends on execution.

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78

Yes agreed with the OP, they need to gameplay-wise return to the roots. Diablo 3 had a good engine/combat physics and that’s about it.

Otherwise Blizzard needs to forget about Diablo 3 elements in Diablo 4, they got rid of the cartoon gfx, now get rid of the rest D3 related which represents a huge drop in quality for Blizzard.

A true arpg-Itemization, a slower more rewarding character progression etc are requirements if Diablo 4 wants to be taken seriously again by their core audience(i.e not the casuals that pretend they know something about the genre). I so miss the Old Blizzard that could make these awesome addictive games, i.e D2/WoW vanilla/BC etc.

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79

Co-Creator of Diablo 1, Erich Schaefer, said this about DIablo 3 in a PCGamer interview:

“Yeah, I was the art director for Diablo and Diablo 2, and I did not like the new direction on Diablo 3. I’m always a little [bothered] that Blizzard tries to keep things more mass market family friendly. We had these fights with them all the time when we were working on Diablo 1 and 2.”

The developers need to remember that Diablo is supposed to be their rated M title. I feel the community needs to keep harping on that.

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80

I totally agree with Deathbringer.
I am also a huge fan of Diablo 1 and Diablo 2. I don’t know how many hours I spent with Diablo 2, it’s alot. Played all day long in hours. So fun to play! I also played Diablo 3, not so much because it felt so boring to play after weeks/months.

I didn’t get the feeling that I played Diablo “is this Diablo or another game?”. It’s more like WoW, and too cartoonish. Characters looks more real and alive in Diablo 2, less cartoon please. Many fans want max level back, 1-99 and make it more difficult. Just look back to Diablo 1 and 2, and you’ll see the problem with Diablo 3. Do not make the same mistake again.

Drop rates has to be lower, if it’s get too easy it’s really boring. Magic find is also a must, it felt like Diablo 2 is more balanced than Diablo 3.

Blizzard are awesome to make games, but please this is Diablo. Think what Blizzard North did in the beginning. It is like people are running away from Blizzard Entertainment because of failure of Diablo III and it’s like a re-copy of WoW but in different ways. Let the fans come back!

Thanks.

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81

All items should have there plus and minus side . Ofc rares in some cases should be better than blues . But if i find a rare with 20 life and some other non esential stuff on it and a blue item with 60 life gues what im equiping.???In diablo 2 there are evan some end game builds that use a blue life belt (80life) .thats just as a example

Evrey item should have meaning and make you take a choice.Legendaryes should be legendary not only by legendary mods but by there stats to.Ancient items please remove them theres no use for a other tier of LEGENDARY affixes.Bring back affixes like + 1 to all skills/talents / % chance of crusing blow / % faster hit recovery / % attack speed / % magic find / + 1 to class skill/talent. these are legendary afixes.Not '‘while equiping this item your teleport has no cdr or you do a nova or you milk a cow’'Cdr shouldent evan be in the game. leave that for WOW.
Tradeing should be free whit no restrictions period.Let us trade what whe want when whe want .

And please emphisise on the PLEASE dont force us to play your way.

Some like to only trade , others only to craft , others farm like crazy others only talk in game let us have the choice what to do.As long as whe pay you that 60-70 bucks for a game whe should have the choice of playing the game as whe want.

P.S idea for mithic items : insted of having tons of legendary affixes why dont you trow some stats there and 1 mod like % chance to cast lvl X Diablo lightning spire . or Baals cold wave or mephistos lightning ball etc etc etc. Mithic items with a skill from the fallen ones.(random skill , random stats) ofc.Think it whould be more interesting and build defining than ‘‘here take 5 legendary mods on 1 item’’

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Clan Wars PVP CLAN or NO PVP CLAN NEW HOSTILE FUNCTION.
Ive been thinking about endgame for you guys but it seems theres only finding loot killing monsters and killing eachother sort of as of right now. but for all the people who want to hostile eachother they could have a hostile function when you create a clan? just a thought.

That way both people that dont like to pvp can go pvp and the others can join a no pvp clan and enjoy the pve in the world. and the pvp zones only.