Diablo 4 - Steam Page Up

[Silver]

The Steam page for Diablo 4 is now up.

The gates of the Burning Hells have opened once more, welcoming more of Lilith's children home.

Diablo IV is a game about slaying nightmarish creatures and acquiring powerful gear, but also about forging memories with new and old friends. We want to break down barriers to make it easier for wanderers everywhere to defend Sanctuary.

Which is why we're honored to announce...Diablo IV will be available to play on Steam starting

live now, and the game is available to wishlist.

Diablo IV's presence on Steam is in addition to Battle.net, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation 4, so wanderers playing the game on any existing platform need not make any changes. Those wanting to play on Steam will need to first purchase the game on that platform, then connect Diablo IV to a Battle.net account (as we require for all platforms). This enables cross-platform play and more. Players using Steam will have access to features specific to that platform, such as Steam achievements, their Steam friends list, and the option to invite those friends to play in-game. We're looking forward to seeing more defenders of Sanctuary band together and welcome any feedback you may have.

The timing of Diablo IV's launch on Steam couldn't be better! It coincides with the release of Season of Blood, our second Season, which introduces a new Questline for you to uncover, Vampiric Powers to wield with terrifying lethality, 5 additional endgame bosses, and more. To get a full overview of the upcoming Season of Blood, visit Developer Update Livestream that occurred today.

More information.

 

[txa1265]

I'm contemplating grabbing it at some point, but no rush ... wonder if this move can salvage the game?

 

[Heckle]

Some of the changes (like the new bosses with loot tables) they just announced seem like baby steps in the right direction, but the seasonal mechanics still sound weak to me. Reskinned enemies, a reskinned helltide, amore crafting materials, a few vampire powers, and some quality of life features don’t really seem like enough yet. Perhaps the next livestream discussing itemization and character changes will be better, but I think it’s gonna take a few more seasons before this game starts to feel like more than a Diablo clone. Itemization is boring, and giving me more or slightly stronger boring legendaries or uniques wont fix that. Where are the sets, rune words, or uniques with actual impactful modifiers? Where are cool drops for another class that makes me want to roll an alt character? Where is that drop that actually gives me that “wow” moment. I swear this game has ruined the fun of legendary/unique drops since they are 99% vendor trash, 1% small stat upgrades, and 0% exciting.

Adding steam seems like a desperate grab for more new players and sales. But getting people to buy and play the game never seemed like the issue. Giving players enough to do so that they stay is the issue. Without significant fixes they will lose Steam players too. And add in steam reviews and some actual traceable metrics for further judgement and fodder for the “Diablo is bad” crowd.

I really want this game to develop into something good as I love the Diablo franchise. I really hope they figure it out soon.

 

[Thiraury]

Couldn't agree more. Enjoyed the campaign and leveling to about lvl 80 then quickly lost all interest.

 

[Vickery]

I think the base game itself is excellent, and as a platofrm for growth there is great potential. The world is well designed, and the combat is fun, and with skill and imagination I can easily see D4 building into a great ARPG. However almost all the citicism aimed at D4 in its current state is correct; poor itemisation, no point IDing anything past L70, little variety in end game, no competitive element.... the list goes on.

Like D3 this game is going to need a major upgrade to take it to the next level. ROS did it for D3, so I would hope/expect that the same will be true for D4. However without something really quite significant happening D4 is dead.

 

[Thiraury]

I think the base game itself is excellent, and as a platofrm for growth there is great potential. The world is well designed, and the combat is fun, and with skill and imagination I can easily see D4 building into a great ARPG. However almost all the citicism aimed at D4 in its current state is correct; poor itemisation, no point IDing anything past L70, little variety in end game, no competitive element.... the list goes on.

Like D3 this game is going to need a major upgrade to take it to the next level. ROS did it for D3, so I would hope/expect that the same will be true for D4. However without something really quite significant happening D4 is dead.

I actually enjoyed D3 more in the beginning when it was alot harder and items more scarce (abit too scarce, granted). When you finally got that set-item it felt amazing.

 

[Redglyph]

I don't like the mandatory online and monetization components (among other things), and I found that Grid Dawn was a great alternative.

 

[Vickery]

I don't like the mandatory online and monetization components (among other things), and I found that Grid Dawn was a great alternative.

They're completely different games. There is no mandatory monetization either, only for cosmetics.

 

[Redglyph]

They're completely different games. There is no mandatory monetization either, only for cosmetics.

It's not mandatory but it's a very visible component. And there's this big, red button that directly subscribes you to premium without asking for confirmation (ref).

You must confuse Grim Dawn with something else, here's their homepage. They're exactly the same genre, except Grim Down also works in (offline) single-player. But in a way, yes, the spirit behind those games seems completely different.

 

[txa1265]

I don't like the mandatory online

Oh yeah forgot about that - complete non-starter for me. I'd be playing on Steam Deck and am in a hotel for work most weeks this year with WiFi that doesn't work for the Deck. So impossible. Such typically stupid crap.

 

[Redglyph]

To clarify, I don't like the MMO feeling where other people are running around with weird name tags in parts of the game, and (if it's the same as PoE) the fact you can't choose any character name because all names must be unique.

The fact you need a constant connection is not great either, especially if there are queues and you can't even play when you want. I don't know if they solved that problem. If you just need to connect once in a while for the DRM, and if you can play temporarily offline in case of server problem, I don't mind too much, even if there are privacy concerns.

 

[purpleblob]

I actually enjoyed D3 more in the beginning when it was alot harder and items more scarce (abit too scarce, granted). When you finally got that set-item it felt amazing.

Early D3 was all about RMAH... nothing else...

 

[Thiraury]

Early D3 was all about RMAH... nothing else...

Not for me it wasn't. I didn't touch it.

 

[basharran]

After trying the open beta I never looked back at D4. Always online and MMO mechanics are not for me, also the hefty new standard asking price of €70 is a bit too much if you ask me.

Looking into the m(i)(a)cro transactions in this game makes it even more a no go for me, I don't like that squeezing of every ounce of the customers worth. This also pisses me of with the current World of Warcraft situation (pay for the game, pay for a sub, pay for services, pay for ingame items, influence game economy with real money).

So in short: no more Blizzard games for me.

 

[Vaelith]

The fact you need a constant connection is not great either, especially if there are queues and you can't even play when you want. I don't know if they solved that problem. If you just need to connect once in a while for the DRM, and if you can play temporarily offline in case of server problem, I don't mind too much, even if there are privacy concerns.

This wouldn't float, because the point is that if you're not playing, you're freeing server load for others to play. Even in 2023, the technical challenges of keeping a large number of players connected and sending information back and forth to the server and between themselves is not trivial, much less so with such a large number of clients involved. When you allow more players than the servers can handle online, lag spikes begin to happen, and ultimately constant disconnects, and then nobody can play at all.

Most popular mmo's even have an auto-afk feature that kicks you off the server if you stay idle for too long, precisely for this reason, and it's generally clever enough to detect "cheaters" that try to stay logged overnight with automated key-pressing macros and such, to not have to log on next morning, potentially waiting in a queue.

The queuing in Diablo 4 hasn't been a problem since the first launch weekend anyway, other games, especially popular mmo's, have it for weeks, and every time there is a major content patch. In general, it feels to me like it makes sense that they wouldn't invest the resources necessary to maintain an unrealistic number of players that will only happen during a couple of days out of the many years that the game will be operational. At least in Diablo's case, which happened only for a couple days, as I said. Games that get this issue constantly, that's another matter.

 

[Shattermind]

The upcoming patch actually looks promising (is supposedly over 40 pages long). I'm considering diving back in when season 2 drops (I think I need a break from Starfield anyway).

 

[Redglyph]

This wouldn't float, because the point is that if you're not playing, you're freeing server load for others to play.

What wouldn't float? I'm not sure I see how it relates to what I wrote.

I'm aware it's challenging for a server to handle such a load, but that's exactly why they shouldn't do it like that to begin with. Players who just want to play alone require an active connection, but if they didn't need one, the server would be more available for MP.

Anyway, if they found a solution since then, good for them.

 

[SSIGuy]

The online requirement is asinine. There are so many scenarios where someone might want to play, and can't because they're not online.

Beyond that, what does being on Steam mean in regards to Battlenet? Do you still need an account there, and need to login there too I assume?

 

[Vaelith]

What wouldn't float? I'm not sure I see how it relates to what I wrote.

I'm aware it's challenging for a server to handle such a load, but that's exactly why they shouldn't do it like that to begin with. Players who just want to play alone require an active connection, but if they didn't need one, the server would be more available for MP.

Anyway, if they found a solution since then, good for them.

I literally quoted it.

You thought that queues is a problem they need to solve, (as said, it was only a "problem" for a couple of days), and you suggested that if you could just connect once in a while for the DRM to bypass queues it would be fine, but that's not how server connections and queues work

That's why I explained that the reason you need to log on every time you play, regardless of DRM, is to not overload the servers while you're not even playing so that others can play, since server capacities are not infinite, and every person who is online and not playing is taxing everyone else who is actually trying to play.

There was never a problem or a solution to be found, they just invested the resources necessary to maintain an adequate amount of players, and not the unrealistic amount of players that rushed in to play the first weekend and never happened again. There will always be queues and lag on every massively played online game launch, devs know that, they account for it. They shoulder it the first few days and apologize because there is nothing they can do about it, and then everything goes back to normal forever. If any massively multiplayer online game ever launched without lag or issues or queues the first couple of days, then that's a bad sign, because it means not many people were actually playing it.

Whether they should allow the game to be played offline or not, I'm not arguing any of that. I wish too there was an offline-only version of the game, but they don't want that, I mentioned before it's probably to get rid of piracy and shove microtransactions in your face in one fell swoop, but there's nothing to be done about it, that's their choice, not really a problem either. At that point it's up to people to decide whether they want to play or not.

 

[Redglyph]

I literally quoted it.

You thought that queues is a problem they need to solve, (as said, it was only a "problem" for a couple of days), and you suggested that if you could just connect once in a while for the DRM to bypass queues it would be fine, but that's not how server connections and queues work

That's why I explained that the reason you need to log on every time you play, regardless of DRM, is to not overload the servers while you're not even playing so that others can play, since server capacities are not infinite, and every person who is online and not playing is taxing everyone else who is actually trying to play.

You said 'This wouldn't float, because the point is that if you're not playing, you're freeing server load for others to play', which sounded contradictory to me, but now I see where the contradiction is coming from. I think you misunderstood what I meant and got the principle backwards: it's not that you're freeing the server load when you're not playing, but that you simply don't add any load when you're not playing.

And that's my point: if people don't have to connect at all when they play alone in SP, there's no load on the server for those people. The server is normally only useful for people who play MP, because they interact and connect together via the server (for different reasons I won't elaborate). But the way they have done it requires everyone to connect, which leads to those recurrent load problems and bigger server requirements to overcome them. So they must have increased their server capacity indeed, unless it was just a bug or lack of optimization.

They want everyone to connect as a DRM technique, but I suspect they may also use it to inject events and handle other game features, since they have an MMO background and are used to do it like that.