Diablo IV

[ChrisB]

With Diablo IV now officially announced, and the new villain revealed I thought that it might be a good time to remind everyone who Lilith is. Rhykker has a great series talking about the lore, and her story is a huge part of that.
So, if you're interested I've linked to series below, and the trailer as well because its pretty cool.




The history of Lillith is really interesting, and her return in Diablo IV is something I am looking forward to.

I love this series and am even a big fan of Diablo III (in particular post loot 2.0/Reaper of Souls). Diablo IV is looking like it might be the course correction many think it needs. I am just happy that the sequel has been announced and has proven the idiotic unfounded statements about the game to be untrue.
Obviously there is plenty of time to **** it up, but until the point where Blizzard make and release a bad game I will give them the benefit of the doubt about what Diablo IV will be.

[Thunderstorm]

Blizzard has already stuffed up D4 because D4 will only have 4 man team parties as confirmed by Rhykker , it really needs to have 8 like D2. Such a disappointment that you can only team up 3 of your friends instead of 7 like the Diablo 2 days.

Project TL will end up being better.

[Bobs]

Yeah I like the art style more this time around. Hopefully you can play solo without seeing anyone else. Nothing breaks immersion more than seeing some guy running around named "AssCracker69"

[dr.m0x]

Will wait and see. I've become so jaded by poor quality AAA releases and loot box crap that I'd rather not get my hopes up.

Sent from my VOG-L09 using Tapatalk

[matt8485]

Yeah I like the art style more this time around. Hopefully you can play solo without seeing anyone else. Nothing breaks immersion more than seeing some guy running around named "AssCracker69"

If that's the only problem with the game, then it's definitely not a dealbreaker for me.

I'm pretty excited for this

[ChrisB]

Yeah I like the art style more this time around. Hopefully you can play solo without seeing anyone else. Nothing breaks immersion more than seeing some guy running around named "AssCracker69"

That is also my hope. A forced shared overworld is a problem for me. Not so much after my first playthrough, but I want my first run to be completely solo so I can immerse myself in the world, lore, and story without distraction.

[serious>klown]

so far it just looks like d3 with a skin

looks a bit doubtful as the game will be rounded down for console style play and casual players

[Rii]

so far it just looks like d3 with a skin

looks a bit doubtful as the game will be rounded down for console style play and casual players

Diablo 3 on console is brilliant. I'm PC fan through and through but they did a great job to have the game play like it does on console.

And "D3 with a skin" seems like a stupid thing to say. Diablo has always been an isometric ARPG title. How different can you make the game before it isn't that genre?

[|icED-e@RtH|]

Still can't beat Diablo 1 for the dark visuals and atmosphere.

[serious>klown]

Diablo 3 on console is brilliant. I'm PC fan through and through but they did a great job to have the game play like it does on console.

And "D3 with a skin" seems like a stupid thing to say. Diablo has always been an isometric ARPG title. How different can you make the game before it isn't that genre?

When you cater towards console players as well, a lot of things will get cut out.

how did you interpret "D3 with a skin" into "well it can't get better unless it turns into another genre"? literally looks like it was made with d3 engine, just has new art.

obligatory lost arc trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcE2k108RkE

[GeneralZod]

Looks like a Paladin and Amazon been recruited to fight the forces of hell. Go get'em Alexa.

[Valeyard]

Apparently the long rumored Diablo 2 remaster has been cancelled.

https://www.dsogaming.com/news/rumou...ter-cancelled/

[geneterror]

That is also my hope. A forced shared overworld is a problem for me. Not so much after my first playthrough, but I want my first run to be completely solo so I can immerse myself in the world, lore, and story without distraction.

It looks like there is shared world areas including world bosses. Don't know how it would affect your first playthrough.
This is probably the most in-depth video I have seen on the game so far:

[yeahboiwahoo]

https://us.diablo3.com/en/blog/23220...019-11-13-2019

A Letter from our Game Director – BlizzCon 2019

Dear Diablo family,

Thank you all for a great BlizzCon. We unveiled Diablo IV with our announce cinematic, establishing the tone for our overall creative vision moving forward. We hope you all dug that.

We also showed you our gameplay trailer, showcasing our classes, monsters, and open world, and invited you to take the first step in this journey toward Diablo IV together. We can tell from all the questions and excitement we’ve seen online and in-person that you are eager to find out more.

The lines to our demo stations and Dark Gallery were packed all weekend long and we were floored by the overall reception—especially from long-time Diablo players. We were blown away by how often we met people who came back to play the demo again and again. The stories you shared with us about Diablo and what this series means to you moved us and inspire us to do our best.

We’ve been taking this week to assess and discuss our takeaways from BlizzCon, and we love all the deep discussions happening around the art, features, systems, and world of Diablo IV. We’re also excited about a cool update we’re planning for you in February of next year. It will be the first in a series of quarterly updates where we’ll share behind-the-scenes looks at our progress going forward.

We also know that one topic is burning hotter than the rest. We want you to know that we are having the same conversations about items and stats that you are having—whether on the official discussion threads or external sites, we read it all! Getting this right is at the top of our minds, and in the coming weeks our lead systems designer David Kim will provide a few clarifications, share some of his thoughts, and address some of your open questions. We hope you check it out and let us know what you think.

Once again, on behalf of the entire team, from the bottom of our hearts we want to thank you all for a fantastic and unforgettable BlizzCon 2019.

Hail Lilith and see you in Hell!

Luis Barriga,

Game Director, Diablo IV

Will be interesting to see how the quarterly updates turn up

[GeneralZod]

Blizzard has already stuffed up D4 because D4 will only have 4 man team parties as confirmed by Rhykker , it really needs to have 8 like D2. Such a disappointment that you can only team up 3 of your friends instead of 7 like the Diablo 2 days.

Project TL will end up being better.

More gameplay footage. Maybe a spoiler its a world boss so avert your eyes....



Looks like 8 players wailing on the boss.

[Rii]

Awesome to see scaled up bosses.

I loved the Belial fight.

[IST]

Weirdly, I still have the sealed box Reaper of Souls collection for PS4 sitting in my unplayed games: somehow I never got round to playing Diablo.

I think I may need to rectify this leading up to IV after seeing some game footage!

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

[Bloody]

well, as an old school mmorpg player, that looked boring? they just clicky potions and revives and hit auto attack until boss died? I assume eventually the gear stacking will render bosses like these easy mode.

[BURN_BABY]

well, as an old school mmorpg player, that looked boring? they just clicky potions and revives and hit auto attack until boss died? I assume eventually the gear stacking will render bosses like these easy mode.

Most of them died though, and they admitted that the devs put the checkpoints far closer to the boss for the purposes of the demo. IIRC the checkpoints aren't nearly as close in D3.

[Markuchi]

Thats not new, same boss as they had in blizzcon

[yeahboiwahoo]

https://us.diablo3.com/en/blog/23232022

System Design in Diablo IV (Part I)

I have learned over years of experience that the player community is an incredibly valuable resource to draw upon when designing and refining a game. By working together, we can achieve great things. The biggest challenge with parsing community feedback is that with so many opinions, the takeaways are rarely unanimous. Diablo IV is still very much in active development, but we plan to keep you in the loop as we continue to design and iterate so that you can be a part of what we’re building. I am so incredibly appreciative for all the feedback we’ve received so far and I’m eager to dive into some of the most talked about topics.

Itemization
We’re still working through all the feedback that came in regarding itemization and we’re actively discussing ways to add more depth and complexity to base items (including Rares), ways to add greater variety to item affixes to make those powers interesting and your choices meaningful, and ways to give players more freedom to choose how to customize items, so you can have fun exploring a wide range of effective gameplay possibilities instead of just looking up “the optimal build” online.

We’ll go into way more depth regarding itemization in a separate post soon, but we don’t want to leave you hanging until then—so we’re going to update you on a few other topics now.

These are some of the topics that we’re seeing come up most often, but if we’re missing something, please let us know and we will try to share our thoughts on those subjects as well in future updates.

Elective Mode in Diablo IV
There’s a misconception that Diablo IV will lock skills to specific slots because of the BlizzCon demo user interface. Like many other things in the demo, the UI is not final and we will support Elective Mode-style skill selection. Skill selection and assignment will always be completely open for all players.

Ancient Items
We completely agree with the community sentiment—Ancients as they are don’t really serve a clear purpose in Diablo IV. We should have done a better job of explaining the role of Ancient Items in Diablo IV. We had a preliminary direction to share, but you’ve brought up some great points, so we’re revisiting our designs with your feedback in mind. We hope to have more details to share in the follow-up itemization update.

Endgame Progression System
We haven’t decided whether the character leveling and experience system should be finite or infinite. We’ve been discussing the pros and cons of both and would love to hear your thoughts. There seems to be some concern around infinite being worse because it will eventually overshadow all the power granted by other sources. However, we can control how much power each system gives, whether it’s infinite or finite.

For example, say we’re talking about thousands of hours of gameplay . . . within those thousands of hours, we could choose to create a finite system that grants 1,000,000 times more power than an infinite system, making it practically impossible for the infinite system to catch up in power.

Also, power increase doesn’t need to be linear throughout the ranks—it can slow down as players reach higher levels. We believe the more important question is what experience feels best for players, and we can playtest various approaches to tuning to find the power curve that makes the most sense.

We have a couple reasons for having a different experience system in addition to a level cap. A level cap gives us the ability to grant players a sense of completion. But for players who want to go deeper into the game, a second experience system allows us to capture the fun of achieving those really difficult endgame goals and ranks. We can also introduce additional depth through this system, because players will be more experienced with the game at this point. Ultimately, our goal is to create a meaningful system that provides clear choices depending on your preferred playstyle in the endgame.

Sources of Power
The community has shared many good points on the topic of power sources and we’re reevaluating how much power comes from each source at any given time.

However, we want to clarify that in Diablo IV, power doesn’t come mostly from items. We want to have a good mix of power sources: characters naturally get stronger as they level up, skills have ranks that increase power, talents provide specific playstyle choices and additional character power, and of course items grant power and meaningful choices as well.

Something else to keep in mind is Legendary powers are just one part of an item’s power, and they won’t invalidate all other Affixes due to how powerful they are. For example, two to three normal Affixes are currently equivalent in power to a Legendary power on most items.

Keyed Dungeons
A big question that’s come up is exactly how Keyed Dungeons are different from Rifts. Keyed Dungeons introduce greater challenges as their tiers increase through Dungeon Affixes. The majority of dungeons are real places in the world, and players will know some information about them including what types of monsters, events, and layouts to expect. With this information, as well as the specific Dungeon Affixes being displayed on the key, players will be able to strategize their approach before going into the dungeon. We believe this is the biggest change from Diablo III Rifts: the added planning and strategizing that takes place before you decide to run a Keyed Dungeon.

Please continue to share your thoughts—we want you to be involved in the Diablo IV design process. I personally believe in making the best decisions for the game based on the strongest design ideas, no matter where they come from. My biggest hope is for us to be able to constructively discuss and iterate on the topics that are most important to the community—so keep the feedback coming!

See you in Hell,

David Kim

Lead Systems Designer

The Diablo IV Team

[Black Plague***]

No Ancient Legendaries

[Edward Diego]

Diablo lost me with Diablo 3. Grim Dawn has been scratching my grimdark ARPG itch since.

[Valeo]

Quite insane the difference in hype between D3's release and D4's. Could not care less about D4, while I scoured the internet for any D3 information for years before it came out.

D3 ended up being a really fun game; D4 just seems like they took all of the boring D3 criticism (it's too bright etc.) to heart and made a game for the reddit whiners. Boring.

[Weegee]

I think part of the hype train for D3, is that it was 12 years since D2.. so the diehard D2 players had all these expectations.

Despite it's simplicity in comparison, I enjoyed D3 overall and ended up making a little bit from the AH back then. still kept playing for some time after with a fun clan.. even went on the piss with a Blizz employee from the Sydney office. good yarns. but I stopped when they introduced seasons. now that I dont game as much it was really pointless.

I'll be back on the D4 bandwagon though