Hello everyone!
In this thread, I’ll try to analyze some stuff about the ARPGs I have experienced (Diablo 1, 2 and 3 and PoE), in order to try to see what makes stuff good or bad in order to try to put out there my worries and hopes about Diablo 4. I’ll add posts to this thread about other stuff about ARPGs that I haven’t spoken about in this first post.
All I post in this thread is my opinion, which is only that, an opinion, and it will contain a lot of obvious stuff, though it sometimes is good to be reminded of it.
The RPG part of an ARPG :
The levelling system ties in with the attachment to the Role : your character. There are multiple parts in character building, which can be commitment-based, non-commitment-based, and resource-based.
What do I mean by that?
A) Commitment-based means that this is a part that, when chosen, cannot be freely changed back. For example, when you spend an attribute point in Diablo 1 or 2, or when you read a Spellbook in Diablo 1.
B) Non-commitment-based means that this is a part that, when chosen, can be freely changed back. Examples of this are Diablo 3’s skill system and paragon points, or PoE’s Pantheon system.
C) And finally, resource-based means that you can freely change instances of a resource as long as you keep these instances, but you are expected to discard most of them. This is the equipment system in all ARPGs.
I wanted to clarify this, because I believe it’s important for the notion of investment in a character, that is to say the feeling that it is YOUR character, not someone else’s, thus making you more attached to it and the game.
I believe that, globally, A) increases your investment in the character, while B) reduces it and C) is neutral.
This is why I tend to go back to existing characters in Diablo 1 despite them being technically identical to any other character of the same class because they are already maxed out, but have no issue resetting a Diablo 3 character, because it’s not actually a character, but just a skill setting that I could play on anyone’s account. This is also why shared Paragon doesn’t feel bad, whereas shared character level does.
This being said, I really hope that there will be a strong A) in Diablo 4, and that any B) will not overshadow the A). I suspect that if the game had no A) at all, it would severely impact the players that like to be invested in their characters, so let’s hope this is done correctly.
Let’s talk about immunities :
All 4 of the ARPGs I played contain immunities, in various proportions, though Diablo 3 and PoE mostly stray away from it (I think I have encountered 1 monster immune to cold in Diablo 3, and PoE has a few bosses immune to specific negative effects).
I think that it’s very important to note that Diablo 2 kept the notion of immunities from Diablo 1, but the following titles tried to get rid of it as much as possible.
The reason, I believe, is that Diablo 1 did immunities right, and Diablo 2 did them very badly. The difference lies in the fact that Diablo 1 gives a vast array of tools to deal with immunities, which means that a mage encountering a monster immune to a damage type should be able to get its hands on something to deal with it (even triple-immunes, you could use Stone Curse to paralyse the monster and deal with it at melee range).
Diablo 2, on the other hand, pushes players to heavily specialize in a narrow subset of skills, which means that they might find themselves confronted to end-game lacking any proper solutions to deal with a good part of the content (and no way to correct the mistake). Even worse, even with 2 different elements, you can still find yourself incapable of harming some double-immunes (and even having a mercenary may not allow you to kill such a monster if it has sufficient regen).
The paradox is reinforced by the fact that playing with other players solves the issue, making the system inherently unfair to single players.
From there, you have two ways of dealing with the issue : either you continue with heavy specializations like PoE and drop immunities altogether, or you push players to use a diverse set of skills and keep immunities, which could have been an interesting choice for Diablo 3.
I don’t have heavy feelings about which solution to prefer, but I believe that people will prefer immunities entirely out of the game, despite the solution with the wider array of tools being a globally better gameplay.
Fanservice :
The Skeleton King, The Butcher, Izual and Adria are all examples of terrible fanservice in Diablo 3.
On the other hand, many items of Diablo 2 and 3 are good fanservice.
If you have played Diablo 1, then you have already encountered the Skeleton King and the Butcher as very good bosses, and Adria as a vendor NPC in town, and in Diablo 2, Izual was freed from his transformation into a demon. This means that the Skeleton King and the Butcher have both been slain at the end of Diablo 1, so when you meet them again in the third opus, your first reaction probably isn’t “Oh my god, it’s this monster, it’s gonna be so hard!”, it is rather “Wait, didn’t I already kill him in the first opus? Why is it alive?” or “Why is Izual a demon, AGAIN, I already freed him last time?”. This distracts from the plot and doesn’t reminisce those characters in a good way.
The same way, Adria is a very useful vendor in Diablo 1, and the way she is depicted in that opus seems inconsistent with the idea that she is a servant of Diablo, or even that she has any interest in acting on either side of the war, so all she does in Diablo 3 takes your attention away from the plot, when she could have easily have been incorporated asking for stuff that furthers the goals of the character without involving her in the war. She could even have resurrected Diablo through an accident in a ritual that wasn’t meant for that.
It is important to stay true to parts of the game that most players remember well, especially in the case of fanservice, as you are betting on the fact that players WILL remember them.
On the other hand, it’s very easy to make iconic items reminding players of slain monsters from previous games. It’s always nice to find a version of Leoric’s Crown. A particularly good fanservice item is Leoric’s Shield in Diablo 3. Not only is it a nice reminder of Diablo 1, but its location also has a very interesting subtext that may expand on the background of the game if intentional.
All in all, it’s fine to do fanservice, but please make sure to be faithful to the stuff we are supposed to reminisce about.
Implicit storytelling :
There is a lot more to storytelling than just what texts or characters tell you. Diablo 3 is often attacked for having bad storytelling, and the issue comes a lot from the way the narrative is built.
First, let’s compare the Butcher in both Diablo 1 and Diablo 3.
In Diablo 1, you hear of the butcher from a dying man at the entrance of the dungeon. This allows the player to understand that the monster is a boss, and will be much tougher than the rest. Then, you see his room, noticeably full of blood and corpses, which sets it apart from the rest of the level. The room is clearly dangerous, and very coherent with the monster itself. Then, when you open the door, you hear his iconic phrase “Aaahh, fresh meat!”, which clearly means he’s out for your blood (or rather, your meat). Then, he walks straight towards you and rips you apart. An extremely memorable opponent.
On the other hand, when you play Diablo 3, the first time you hear about the Butcher is when you encounter him. He is introduced by the current antagonist, and used as a distraction while she goes back to her plans. All this screams mid-act boss, rather than act boss. Add to that a room that has nothing to do with it, and cartoonish phrases, and you just have an incoherent mess.
But it wouldn’t be that hard to improve the narrative by a lot. Change the boss’s phrases and add a few bloody bodies dangling from the ceiling, and you’ve got something a lot more coherent.
This kind of thinking could have easily been applied to Belial and Azmodan.
Let’s take Belial. He is supposed to be the master of deceit, but the way he is treated makes his identity very unsurprising.
- The first time you encounter him, he starts a fight. This clearly makes him an enemy.
- There is no other character that would fit being him.
- He is way too knowledgeable, free of his movements, and extremely arrogant.
This could be corrected through a very little change in the plot twist : Adria was killed before you freed her, and Belial had taken her place. The act 2 boss was actually one of his servants, and Diablo is made of only 6 of the lords of hell. That’s a lot more unexpected plot twist, and you can hint it (subtly) through some of Adria’s actions.
Azmodan has a similar issue : he is supposed to be a master strategist, yet, from the moment you arrive, you win all battles, drive him back to hell, then go chase him in hell while he is always flaunting how you stand absolutely no chance. How do you expect anyone to take him seriously?
This could be solved just as easily. Instead of having the battle expanding away from the castle, you could have it expand towards the insides of the castle. Have the battle start at the Bridge of Korlic, then, despite each victory, have the opposing troops progress towards the center of the castle, until the player has to light the beacons to signal the remaining soldiers need to leave the castle. Then, the last battle happens at the hub, with everyone leaving the hub, and Azmodan casting a spell to cut the hero’s retreat right before he leaves. Azmodan, overconfident, battles the hero but loses, ending the siege. And no Azmodan taunts unless it’s specifically there to slow the hero a few seconds (during the retreat, right before casting the spell to block the exit), any information that the player needs should be told by allies hurrying the character to the next point where Azmodan just made a breach.
Diablo 4 doesn’t require a stellar story, it “just” needs to have all parts of the narrative cohesive.
Ouch, that’s quite a wall of text. Long text is long, I guess. I hope that you’ll agree with most of what I said, and that you’ll be constructive when pointing where I made mistakes.
Have a nice day everyone!