Diablo 4 Design Discussions

There is a LOT of busywork in the game in the form of sidequests. You really gotta make a concerted effort to only follow the main quest to finish the "game" quick. After getting to level 50 and having barely started Act 2, I'm going to go ahead and put my personal set of blinders on just to get to Act 4 (which I think is the final act) simply to unlock a horse for my account. So much roaming around back and forth for sidequests.
 
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It's weird that they implemented mounts but make you wait that long before you can get one. Does the horse carry over into subsequent playthroughs?
 
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Yes, once you unlock the mount it's account bound.

@SirJames, that's a very positive review. Unfortunately I'm not so positive on it. There's a lot of things that are irking me.
But besides the game having some issues, I think I might be again at the point where I'm just considering giving up on these sorts of games.
Honestly I again had the feeling of being on a treadmill for character progression.

Usually I play for story and the narrative, but unfortunately while I liked the first act, I'm finding act 2 and 3 to be kind of boring.
I liked act 1 and loved the interaction with Inarius. And the moments Lilith shows up.
But in act 2 and 3, honestly, it feels like we're back to generic villain behavior. The whole setpiece in act 2, with Lilith introducing the demon that we're gonna fight.
(as a side note, really? now we're just gonna use soulstones for everything? soulstones used to mean something in D1/2, now I guess they're just generic soul trapping devices?)
I find it again falls prey to the same generic writing that we've seen in Diablo 3. But at least without too much melodrama.

I think I'm around the middle of Act 3 when I'm suddently feeling a lack of motivation to push through. Does it get considerably better? I heard some opinions that act 5 really drags?

Also, is it me or are all the acts so short if you just count the main quests. Now that I'm level 50, and probably burned myself out on fully clearing Fractured Peaks, I decided to basically mainline it through the main quest only. And they're shockingly short. The fights are easy as pie, since I'm probably overleved (though not sure how that works, since it should scale to my level).

Another gripe of mine, is that I'm really noticing how generic the itemization is. I mean, all items seem to have mostly the same template affixes. The only interesting ones are the legendaries, but those also seem to be simply built on top of regular rares; they seem to have the same categories of affixes, with a legendary aspect on top. It really gives of feeling of lack of handcrafting, and generic mass item generation. This might also be because I'm really getting tired of filling up my inventory with 90% rares and then wasting time comparing each one to my current items, looking for marginal improvements. I swear I should only pick up legendaries; but then I'd have no money, since it seems the bulk of the money you make is by selling rares at the vendor.

Anyway, as you can see i'm certainly more negative than usual. But as I said, it might be driven by the fact that, as I was playing I again suddenly felt like I was basically wasting my time, grinding for power in a game that scales content to my level.
I might just be done with this sort of looter game, like Diablo. They might not be for me anymore. I might just have an emotional bond to it, since I played it when I was a lot younger and had way more time to waste. And now I'm feeling like I really don't have that time.

I might just push through, to at least complete the campaign. But then again, I'll have to return when they release expansions.
I'll have to see what I do about it, if I'll continue. But it really feels like a huge time-waster. And not even in the sense that I could be doing more productive things than gaming. Even playing some solid rpg from my endless backlog of games would probably be a better use of my time.

EDIT: oh, another thing that's a real shame. The landscape and open world is so beautiful, and would be nice to have a reason to explore. But since it's all "empty" in the sense that all content is simply a trigger object for dropping items or spawning enemies, it's hard to find a reason to explore. I'd love to explore the whole world in a 3rd person rpg, like Gothic or something. Would be nice.
 
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@danutz_plusplus How much time have you put into the game so far?

The inventory grind is something I feel in many games. It must be really hard to make it motivating for a long time during the gameplay. In Expeditions: Rome, I just started ignoring most the new items at some point, at least until significantly more powerful items appeared, and it's hardly a looter game. In the Pathfinder games and in D:OS1&2, I felt it too.
 
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@danutz_plusplus How much time have you put into the game so far?
Really not sure, but I made a rough estimate and maybe between 20-30h so far?

@SirJames: in your opinion does the game get significantly better storywise in the following chapters? 4, 5, 6.
That would probably be my one reason to push through if you think it's worth it.
How did you find chapters 2 and 3? Did you also feel they were very short and rushed?
 
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In other news, this is kind of worrying imo

I can understand working on two seasons at once, to have seasons ready to be shipped as soon as one ends, but how does this work for expansions?
This really gives the feeling that they're gonna piecemeal every little bit of content in it's own micro-expansion, each charged separately. I hope I'm wrong.

Even moreso, since each season will introduce some mechanics and extra content that will generally be removed at the end, it makes it fine to work on multiple in parallel since one season won't depend on another.
But I'm assuming expansions will build on the foundation laid out by the last released expansion. So how are they working on two without hamstringing themselves.
Or maybe when they say two expansion, the second is mostly in ideation and no actual content is produced. Anyway, we'll have to see. This'll definitely be interesting to see how and what they'll be able to ship.
 
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Ok... people play Diablo for story?!

I mean, I thought the general atmosphere of D1 was amazing but I never thought story is a strong point of Diablo...

I play it for co-op with hubby and items/build
 
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For story? I doubt it. But want the story to be good along with enjoying the gameplay? Absolutely. I never played Diablo 1, but something tells me the story was considerably worse/flimsier in a game made 20 or whatever years ago.

I always, always want story elements. If there weren't any, I wouldn't play. Context matters to me when I'm going through my hundredth dungeon.
 
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I've reached act 5, and really there's nothing here worth mentioning. So far act 1 is still the highlight of the game in terms of story. And the start of act 2, with the druid chained to the tree, and the whole blood theme. that was kind of cool
Also, what's worst, they completely got rid of the awesome pre-rendered cinematics Diablo games featured inbetween each act.
And the in-engine cinematics, while some are nice and all, are no replacement for the pre-rendered, out-of-engine, ones of old. And these in-engine ones, at least so far, seem to cap off at act 1 in terms of quality. No other ones even got close to the quality of the two cinematics from act 1.
Also, it's still impressive how short each act is. No wonder some reported to finish the campaign in under 10 hours. Really feels put together in a rush.
So it seems they likely spent a lot more time and effort into the world itself, and all of the systems they introduced as end-game mechanics. They seem to have had a lot more work put in.

Anyway, I think I might just have unfair standards and expectations for a Diablo game. I think that might be the issue.
And I think the most annoying thing is how often the nostalgia bait moments and themes are used. There's constant references to D2, which some people might regard as fun. I just find it pandering.
 
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Ok, I've finished D4. I have to admit, the story improved significantly in the last act. And even act 5, aside from a few tiring quests, had a few good moments.

To end on some final notes:
+ decent story, told in an pretty entertaining way. It's not the greatest thing, but compared to D3 it's masterful. I'm honestly curious where it will head next.
+ great visuals and audio/music; the world is also gorgeous. and so much of it is unused to its full potential
+ great combat mechanics and general gameplay

- the itemization is slightly better than D3, but still pretty poor. you can still see the templates that most items are generated from; also, it's really tiresome to keep comparing items for minimal improvements. I also wish they would generate a whole lot less items, but more handcrafted.
- i also don't like the skill tree very much. it's too distilled to the template of skills they seem to have landed on: one resource gainer, one main spender, loads of auxiliary and an ultimate.
- i was curious about the paragon boards, but unfortunately it's pretty lackluster. it's definitely good for min-maxing, but unfortunately you don't even get the reward of having new skills. it's again, minor to medium increments on top of the other systems.
- the enemy scaling, in the open world, really levels out all combat encounters, and you rarely feel neither overpowered nor significantly challenged.

Anyway, I think I'm done with the game. At least for now. I really rushed the last few areas in the game, as I was really tired of grinding through so many boss fights that were mostly huge damage sponges.
I may try a different class, but we'll see. Maybe I'll try it without the campaign. And I probably will return for the expansions.
 
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@danutz_plusplus

The main campaign is very easy, probably designed so anyone with any rubbish build can get through it, but you should find some challenge in the end-game. That's where the game really starts. See how fast you can get to world tier 4. There are new affixes, legendary, unique items. High tier nightmare dungeons can be pretty hard.

Do the capstone dungeon to unlock the next world tier.
 
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Yeah, I'm not sure I can continue playing the endgame. I constantly end up in combat situations where the whole screen is filled with monsters, and I'm just grinding through the waves of enemies, pretty much going through the motions of the same abilities pattern. And in those situations I always feel like I'm having an out-of-body experience where I see myself just mindlessly doing that. For some reason it's addicting, but it's also tiring and gets boring really quick. So I quickly feel like I'm just wasting time.

I think I need to uninstall it.
 
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Yeah, I'm not sure I can continue playing the endgame. I constantly end up in combat situations where the whole screen is filled with monsters, and I'm just grinding through the waves of enemies, pretty much going through the motions of the same abilities pattern. And in those situations I always feel like I'm having an out-of-body experience where I see myself just mindlessly doing that. For some reason it's addicting, but it's also tiring and gets boring really quick. So I quickly feel like I'm just wasting time.

I think I need to uninstall it.
In general good Diablo like have builds allowing more diversity, but also in general, Diablo like have many builds like that, Path of exile being almost a caricature of it when most playable builds use 2 active skills. But even in poE there's builds using about 8/10 active skills (well the only example I saw was related to buff/debuff with various durations but still 8 to 10 active skills I don't remind the exact number.

EDIT:
I don't want mean that only builds matter, design of combats matter a lot too, and perhaps D4 has a serious problem with that, but it would be surprising when on this aspect Diablo series was more a good value, even if at least behind Torchlight 2 in y opinion.

EDIT:
That would be interesting that comments would be related to something else than Diablo 2/3 or PoE. For example Torchlight 2 or Grim Dawn obviously, but also Last Epoch, eventually Titan Quest (never enjoyed much with too static combats that is not enough skills involving movements) but is still a comparison point, more.
 
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I unlocked world tier 4 at level 60!

The boss took a dark souls amount of deaths. Had to go repair twice then I thought I'd just go all out and upgraded everything to max, added all the sockets I could and put rubies in the armor and diamonds in the jewellery, rerolled the armor affixes and drank a 900 armor potion...

Then beat him after a few more deaths.

1686144252863.png
Look at this weird armour he dropped. Reckon I should wear that? :)

edit: I should be able to save that for my barb, right? Account bound? :D
 
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