All of them are deeply flawed or otherwise lacking in one way or another. I think it shares the strength profile of Diablo 3 enough while being broadly speaking better to take D3 out of contention, but D4 isn't obviously better or worse than modded D2, Grim Dawn, Last Epoch, or PoE.
Pros: >Story that is actually quite decent rather than offensive >Better atmosphere >Far better build system that enables nontrivial synergies rather than being 101% about getting 10000% to skill sort of bonuses from sets and legendaries, and that actually allows "working on your build" rather than being able to assemble full BiS-setup within a few hours of starting a new seasonal character >Some of the systems are quite elegant and even clever, like stagger mechanic making CC valuable even against bosses, or yellows being potentially valuable as imbue bases, or badly rolled legendaries being valuable for extracting the power (kinda like how Last Epoch in which you can harvest good affixes, and then reroll items to limited degree using those affix shards) >Far more reasonable difficulty system than 20 difficulty levels (out of which only T16 really matters)
Cons: >While base skill combat works more nicely in D4, I think most set builds in D3 feel better, especially in early game (to the extent D3 has anything like "early game"), since in D3 it takes a long while for you to solve cooldown and resource constraints and builder-spender playstyles tend not to flow that nicely >D3 has more builds that feel potent >D3 companions and player characters are actually highly personable and fun (Azula in particular) >An assortment of small things, like overlay map
I think D4 pros clearly outweigh the cons, and it's worth noting that the two of the listed cons are exactly the sort that you would expect to resolve automatically as power levels increase with patches and seasons
>D3 has more builds that feel potent >D3 companions and player characters are actually highly personable and fun (Azula in particular)
I'm not sure about builds, since in the begining few build where able to tough torment, and the power creep only came in later, whereas in D4 right now, you can make plenty of working build for each classes. Not as much as d3 toward the end, but d4 just released.
I'm a bit pissed at not having companions, but the pc is quite customisable. I don't get why we can't change our hair color after cc though.
Can't speak for current D3 but absolutely not launch D3 up through and including launch RoS.
I think the conversation about launch D3 as the years have passed has become about the terrible launch and not the trainwreck that was the game itself >complete garbage itemization, most legendaries were useless and the only items every build of every class wanted were rares with main stat + vitality and crit chance/damage >unless you were a god gamer or carried by other people, Inferno was unplayable for Monk and Barb past Act 1 because common mob projectiles would 2-shot you >endgame had less going on than launch D2, all builds had basically nothing to work towards once you hit 60 aside from getting marginally better aforementioned rares
I'm really not a big fan of remaking characters when a new season starts. I'm hoping it's not that time-consuming. That will completely kill any interest I have in the game.
You don't have to moron you can play on standard.
ARPG characters have a shelf-life - eventually you'll trivialize all content by having best in slot gear. Seasons keep things fresh.
yeah but for most people their ladder characters were only really there to make money for their non-ladder dueling characters - there is never going to be an equivalent for that in d4
Also if anybody is having trouble launching the game, do it in windowed mode and make the window smaller than full screen. I get every time that way while in full screen I dont
Core gameplay being fun is of critical import, but another pillar of Diablo2likes is working on improving your character, and the longer you play, the less there is to improve. Once at max level you can no longer gain levels, if you get a perfectly rolled item then you no longer can benefit from items to that slot, etc. And besides character advancement opportunities being ever fewer in themselves, that also means the carrot involved in grinding gets eaten up, too.
For that matter, if you want to try new builds, supposing you're not playing solo self found style in which case this doesn't matter, new characters will never be able to catch up to players who have been playing for a while now which is profoundly unfun... unless you have been building up alt-gear with your extant build, in which case you don't get to experience the aspect of working on your build. Right, you could in principle just delete your stash, but it's also profoundly unfun to self-handicap. Also, if you DO play with other people, player numbers start dropping after a while as they start getting bored with their characters, and non-ladder starts turning into a ghost town. Seasons solve the coordination problem: everyone starts new characters at the same time so they have peers to play and discuss the game with.
even though i love me some PoE autism, my bias is clearly for kurazy shit, because my favourite was actually Marvel Heroes when it was peak speed, and Diablo3, yes even vanilla before expansion. i liked the comicbook story and nice characters like Enchantress. for me the genre is best when its big dumb screen explosions at 500MPH.
for that reason, D4 is pretty disappointing to me. it's quite beautiful, with good music. but the builder-spender design and lack of visual spectacle/impactful abilities is a buzzkill to me. like you unlock DROP A FRICKIN' METEOR skill on Sorc, you excitedly run out to try it - and you drop a tiny circle on the ground that does 100% weapon damage...
the game barely even has any major evils in it, not to mention Diablo himself. it's all so fricking lowkey, from gameplay to story. i can gather they want to sell all the seasons and expansions to dripfeed us this shit. the game has 100 dungeons but you only fight like 3 major bosses in the story and then you never can again unless you make a new character, instead they are all "collect the 3 doodads" and MAYBE you get to fight a simple midboss like "werewolf but bigger" as a treat - but most dungeons don't even have one.
>builder-spender design and lack of visual spectacle/impactful abilities is a buzzkill to me
I havent use a ressource builder in a while, since level 40 at least. Did you try going fireball+frozen orb? you throw tens of elemental bubbles at your foes and they explode in a fiery death.I just switch my fireball enchantment on the fly when i face off against a boss.
I haven't tried to build Meteor but you can certainly get Firewall, Chain Lightning and Blizzard to work such that they're the only skill you use, completely dropping builders from the build. Diablo 3 works the same in a sense, it's just that the problems are solved with legendary affixes alone and you can get BiS setup within 2 hours of starting a new character, so it's not really noticeable. But you can't play Multishot without generator unless you have Yang's Recurve, or Meteor without The Grand Vizier, etc. Same shit, except that in D4 it takes a lot more than one leggo to solve the issue.
how do you make those three work together? more damage against chilled with blizzard(plus mana regen from lucky hit), but you don't really get bonuses from firewall. Or does killing an enemy with it count as killing a burning enemy for the mana regen node?
Or do you mean separately? becausae honestly, you can do that with almost any skill. I found a nice ring the give 25 mana on cd use, i just spam frozen orbs and conjurations.
I meant separately, having all 3 would be kinda redundant anyway. But regen issues are solved using exactly the type of tools you listed: you can get mana regen sources like talent to get a lucky hit chance to get mana when hitting vulnerable enemies, or static mana from using cooldowns or paragon board effect to get mana from stunning enemies (combined with arc lash enchantment that stuns enemies for .15s after using cooldown), etc, and then you just get enough -resource cost affixes and +resource generation affixes until the books are balanced and you're mana-neutral. Some builds manage with just skill points and codex of power affixes, others might need unique items, but I would imagine all endgame builds can drop generators, unless they're explicitly generator-builds.
It's somewhere between a 6 and 7/10
For me, the main problem is that there is no variety at all in any aspect of the game.
Every dungen, cellar, event, loot and even overworld area seems like the same thing with only very minor differances.
In Diablo 2 or PoE, as you progress through the levels, they change drasticly.
Each level looks and feel distinct, with enemy types, architecture/nature and music all being thematicly similar.
In D IV the overworld seems like it is all the same, with only minor differences like the grass being dry, or less shrubs. The enemies are just the same 4 types randomly placed throughout the entire map. The dungeons all have the same layout, and the tileset is never fitting to the area you find it.
The loot is another major problem, as there is only upgrades in different ways of doing damage. And even the legendary aspects feel more limiting than previous games. There is no item that change your build, only items that fits certain builds. No item that let's you go melee sorc or cast rate barb, like in D2.
The actual gameplay feels nice, but it get's stale way to fast. So I'll likely not play seasons, at least not more than the first one, unless they change the game on a fundamental level.
It's a turd game. It is highly built around cosmetics, because I could see how buying something cool looking could make you want to play the game. As it stands, the items are bad and worthless, being easily replaceable as each new tier comes along, and the builds lack variety. The game is boring in Nightmare dungeons because it becomes too long of a boring slog to level up. The game is boring mostly because of the bad items. If this were Diablo 2 where I had to farm Mephisto or Diablo over and over again for the nice items, this would be a fun game, but this isn't Diablo 2
>is this the best ARPG of all time?
Give me a minute, I'll check. >Log in to battle.net >Open Diablo IV >Attempt to log into servers >Unable to find a valid licence >Money stolen
Sasuga always online!
>AAA game so forgettable people dont even bother replying to the bait threads
this a Ganker first?
Not even genuine shitpost bait threads, unironic corpo PR bait threads
All of them are deeply flawed or otherwise lacking in one way or another. I think it shares the strength profile of Diablo 3 enough while being broadly speaking better to take D3 out of contention, but D4 isn't obviously better or worse than modded D2, Grim Dawn, Last Epoch, or PoE.
it's definitely worse than D3
Pros:
>Story that is actually quite decent rather than offensive
>Better atmosphere
>Far better build system that enables nontrivial synergies rather than being 101% about getting 10000% to skill sort of bonuses from sets and legendaries, and that actually allows "working on your build" rather than being able to assemble full BiS-setup within a few hours of starting a new seasonal character
>Some of the systems are quite elegant and even clever, like stagger mechanic making CC valuable even against bosses, or yellows being potentially valuable as imbue bases, or badly rolled legendaries being valuable for extracting the power (kinda like how Last Epoch in which you can harvest good affixes, and then reroll items to limited degree using those affix shards)
>Far more reasonable difficulty system than 20 difficulty levels (out of which only T16 really matters)
Cons:
>While base skill combat works more nicely in D4, I think most set builds in D3 feel better, especially in early game (to the extent D3 has anything like "early game"), since in D3 it takes a long while for you to solve cooldown and resource constraints and builder-spender playstyles tend not to flow that nicely
>D3 has more builds that feel potent
>D3 companions and player characters are actually highly personable and fun (Azula in particular)
>An assortment of small things, like overlay map
I think D4 pros clearly outweigh the cons, and it's worth noting that the two of the listed cons are exactly the sort that you would expect to resolve automatically as power levels increase with patches and seasons
>D3 companions and player characters are actually highly personable and fun (Azula in particular)
Bad take.
>D3 has more builds that feel potent
>D3 companions and player characters are actually highly personable and fun (Azula in particular)
I'm not sure about builds, since in the begining few build where able to tough torment, and the power creep only came in later, whereas in D4 right now, you can make plenty of working build for each classes. Not as much as d3 toward the end, but d4 just released.
I'm a bit pissed at not having companions, but the pc is quite customisable. I don't get why we can't change our hair color after cc though.
Can't speak for current D3 but absolutely not launch D3 up through and including launch RoS.
I think the conversation about launch D3 as the years have passed has become about the terrible launch and not the trainwreck that was the game itself
>complete garbage itemization, most legendaries were useless and the only items every build of every class wanted were rares with main stat + vitality and crit chance/damage
>unless you were a god gamer or carried by other people, Inferno was unplayable for Monk and Barb past Act 1 because common mob projectiles would 2-shot you
>endgame had less going on than launch D2, all builds had basically nothing to work towards once you hit 60 aside from getting marginally better aforementioned rares
You literally can't even play it right now
It has the potential to be very very good down the line if they refine certain aspects and add end-game or more content.
Hopefully the seasons will be meaty enough that it will have a consistent player count.
I'm really not a big fan of remaking characters when a new season starts. I'm hoping it's not that time-consuming. That will completely kill any interest I have in the game.
You don't have to moron you can play on standard.
ARPG characters have a shelf-life - eventually you'll trivialize all content by having best in slot gear. Seasons keep things fresh.
>Seasons keep things fresh
Zoom zoom
Zoom zoom i'm a 33 year old boomer who played Diablo 2 (which had seasons called Ladders)
Surely, people in their 30's absolutely love fomo GAAS games with Billie Eilish songs advertising the game.
yeah but for most people their ladder characters were only really there to make money for their non-ladder dueling characters - there is never going to be an equivalent for that in d4
Sooooo boring. Already uninstalled.
I'm slowly levelling 5 different characters playing them depending on the mood im in, so it will probably be a year for me to max them
worth the price
nobody can even log in right now for the past 16 hours lmao so no its not good at all
Also if anybody is having trouble launching the game, do it in windowed mode and make the window smaller than full screen. I get every time that way while in full screen I dont
how can we make it windowed if we cant launch the game to begin with ?
You can launch the game, then open options with ESC
nobody can get in well at least a large ammount the DDoS in still going on
The game "launches" as in starts to main menu and logs in just fine in EU, problem was "launching" the actual game at least for me
Even PoE was better 8 years ago.
its trash
>new season begins
>forced to create a new character
>people are fine with this
Can someone who enjoys these games explain this one to me?
um you can make non seasonal chars dude
Core gameplay being fun is of critical import, but another pillar of Diablo2likes is working on improving your character, and the longer you play, the less there is to improve. Once at max level you can no longer gain levels, if you get a perfectly rolled item then you no longer can benefit from items to that slot, etc. And besides character advancement opportunities being ever fewer in themselves, that also means the carrot involved in grinding gets eaten up, too.
For that matter, if you want to try new builds, supposing you're not playing solo self found style in which case this doesn't matter, new characters will never be able to catch up to players who have been playing for a while now which is profoundly unfun... unless you have been building up alt-gear with your extant build, in which case you don't get to experience the aspect of working on your build. Right, you could in principle just delete your stash, but it's also profoundly unfun to self-handicap. Also, if you DO play with other people, player numbers start dropping after a while as they start getting bored with their characters, and non-ladder starts turning into a ghost town. Seasons solve the coordination problem: everyone starts new characters at the same time so they have peers to play and discuss the game with.
I never saw any appeal on ladders
if I wanted to start a new character I just started right away
explain them to me
even though i love me some PoE autism, my bias is clearly for kurazy shit, because my favourite was actually Marvel Heroes when it was peak speed, and Diablo3, yes even vanilla before expansion. i liked the comicbook story and nice characters like Enchantress. for me the genre is best when its big dumb screen explosions at 500MPH.
for that reason, D4 is pretty disappointing to me. it's quite beautiful, with good music. but the builder-spender design and lack of visual spectacle/impactful abilities is a buzzkill to me. like you unlock DROP A FRICKIN' METEOR skill on Sorc, you excitedly run out to try it - and you drop a tiny circle on the ground that does 100% weapon damage...
the game barely even has any major evils in it, not to mention Diablo himself. it's all so fricking lowkey, from gameplay to story. i can gather they want to sell all the seasons and expansions to dripfeed us this shit. the game has 100 dungeons but you only fight like 3 major bosses in the story and then you never can again unless you make a new character, instead they are all "collect the 3 doodads" and MAYBE you get to fight a simple midboss like "werewolf but bigger" as a treat - but most dungeons don't even have one.
Also a good post but I appreciate them taking the time to dripfeed us the Prime Evils or whatever if Lilith was rendered with such care.
>builder-spender design and lack of visual spectacle/impactful abilities is a buzzkill to me
I havent use a ressource builder in a while, since level 40 at least. Did you try going fireball+frozen orb? you throw tens of elemental bubbles at your foes and they explode in a fiery death.I just switch my fireball enchantment on the fly when i face off against a boss.
I haven't tried to build Meteor but you can certainly get Firewall, Chain Lightning and Blizzard to work such that they're the only skill you use, completely dropping builders from the build. Diablo 3 works the same in a sense, it's just that the problems are solved with legendary affixes alone and you can get BiS setup within 2 hours of starting a new character, so it's not really noticeable. But you can't play Multishot without generator unless you have Yang's Recurve, or Meteor without The Grand Vizier, etc. Same shit, except that in D4 it takes a lot more than one leggo to solve the issue.
how do you make those three work together? more damage against chilled with blizzard(plus mana regen from lucky hit), but you don't really get bonuses from firewall. Or does killing an enemy with it count as killing a burning enemy for the mana regen node?
Or do you mean separately? becausae honestly, you can do that with almost any skill. I found a nice ring the give 25 mana on cd use, i just spam frozen orbs and conjurations.
I meant separately, having all 3 would be kinda redundant anyway. But regen issues are solved using exactly the type of tools you listed: you can get mana regen sources like talent to get a lucky hit chance to get mana when hitting vulnerable enemies, or static mana from using cooldowns or paragon board effect to get mana from stunning enemies (combined with arc lash enchantment that stuns enemies for .15s after using cooldown), etc, and then you just get enough -resource cost affixes and +resource generation affixes until the books are balanced and you're mana-neutral. Some builds manage with just skill points and codex of power affixes, others might need unique items, but I would imagine all endgame builds can drop generators, unless they're explicitly generator-builds.
Most ARPG's aren't the type of game where you pay 70 dollars and yet can't play.
It's mid, it will be worth the actual price maybe after 500 patches and expansions.
Summon Necro fricking sucks due to moronic AI, no real way to direct minions, and post-beta nerfs making skeletons a joke, so no.
It's somewhere between a 6 and 7/10
For me, the main problem is that there is no variety at all in any aspect of the game.
Every dungen, cellar, event, loot and even overworld area seems like the same thing with only very minor differances.
In Diablo 2 or PoE, as you progress through the levels, they change drasticly.
Each level looks and feel distinct, with enemy types, architecture/nature and music all being thematicly similar.
In D IV the overworld seems like it is all the same, with only minor differences like the grass being dry, or less shrubs. The enemies are just the same 4 types randomly placed throughout the entire map. The dungeons all have the same layout, and the tileset is never fitting to the area you find it.
The loot is another major problem, as there is only upgrades in different ways of doing damage. And even the legendary aspects feel more limiting than previous games. There is no item that change your build, only items that fits certain builds. No item that let's you go melee sorc or cast rate barb, like in D2.
The actual gameplay feels nice, but it get's stale way to fast. So I'll likely not play seasons, at least not more than the first one, unless they change the game on a fundamental level.
It's a turd game. It is highly built around cosmetics, because I could see how buying something cool looking could make you want to play the game. As it stands, the items are bad and worthless, being easily replaceable as each new tier comes along, and the builds lack variety. The game is boring in Nightmare dungeons because it becomes too long of a boring slog to level up. The game is boring mostly because of the bad items. If this were Diablo 2 where I had to farm Mephisto or Diablo over and over again for the nice items, this would be a fun game, but this isn't Diablo 2
>Repetitive skinner-box simulator with forced MMO-lite elements
No.
It is a bad ARPG
It is a bad game
It is bad.
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no its definitely still diablo 2
>is this the best ARPG of all time?
Give me a minute, I'll check.
>Log in to battle.net
>Open Diablo IV
>Attempt to log into servers
>Unable to find a valid licence
>Money stolen
Sasuga always online!