So the announcement everyone knew was coming has arrived. Diablo 4 was announced a couple hours ago at Blizzcon, and the trailers are here:

Cinematic:


Gameplay:


The cinematic trailer does nothing for me, but the gameplay trailer has me mildly intrigued. I like the look of the druid in there, seems like it could be a great deal of fun.

The problem is that there's nothing in either of these that indicates Blizzard has properly learned from its mistakes with Diablo 3, and even less of an indicator that their recent trend of totally ruining all of their games won't continue. So I'm really not expecting much, but hoping against hope that something worthwhile comes from this.

Anyone have any thoughts here? Or even just interest in playing it?

 

I predict Blizzard's hard on for esports will turn this game into something fans won't appreciate.

 

I actually really liked the trailer. Diablo lore has always fascinated me and this seems to be building on that.

What we saw in the gameplay also looked great, but honestly I don't see myself buying anything from them as long as they keep sucking China's dick and sacrificing their employees on the altar of nicer shareholder reports.

Warcraft III Reforged was the last of my money they'll get until they fix up their act, there's plenty of other video game companies making great work that I find at least slightly less repulsive.

 

Well, here's hoping that the game is an actual Diablo 2 clone rather than a PoE clone.

 

The cinematic itself shows Blizzard are learning from their mistakes. All the creators I follow that are invested in Diablo pretty much agree that the biggest thing D3 lost was the correct horror 'tone.'

I don't even care about gameplay at this point. D3's gameplay is pretty much best-in-class for ARPGs, so I'm not concerned. Loot trading seems to be coming back too, which is another feature those in the community really want.

I played D3 pretty hardcore until the seasons got too repetitive for me, which wouldn't have been a problem if they hadn't scrapped the expansion and started on D4. My biggest issues with D3 were the social (Guild) aspects and the story/tone. Other than that I think it's a fine game, so it'll take little to get me back in.

 

I was watching Kripp play it a bit ago, and it 'felt' like a mashup of Diablo 2 and Diablo 3. The aesthetic and art design borrowed heavily from 2, moving away from 3's more exaggerated and bright style back toward a more gothic feeling that made me think of high-res Diablo 2 more than anything else. Skill system seemed fairly limited, but we're at early public demo stages, so that's not a huge surprise. Everything I've seen has looked very promising.

Kinda? The biggest issue with D2 was the RMAH and the loot system that was created purely to feed into that. They corrected it in Reaper of Souls, which definitely made the game pretty great, but Activision, and by extension Blizzard, has been getting increasingly unsubtle with their need to monetize as much as possible and just how stingy they can be.

There is very good reason to suspect that they're gonna make D4 a subscription model, or shoehorn in some ridiculous set of microtransactions, or any of a million other things that will signify that no, they didn't actually learn anything from Diablo 3's mistakes, and/or forgot those lessons in their desperation for cash. It's the biggest knock against the game, and I really, really hope it's never realized.

 

Listen, I'll wait for any impropriety before I actually get mad. I don't have time to fret over hypotheticals, lol.

 

I wish they would bring back creating rooms and slimline the torments as well so there isn't so many. Basically you are either at max torment or somewhere in between on a new season, and if you're in between, good luck finding anyone on a par torment that is a good fit for both. I liked the old chaos runs and baal runs and key runs and pvp rooms etc, these quick queues and no trading destroyed any sense of community. If they can bring that community feeling back from the old D2 with the gameplay of D3 it might be worth something, but the gameplay trailer was meh.

As for the trailer overall a pass I guess? Visually great as usual, but it felt slow overall. Could be condensed a few minutes I think. Lilith design was sick.

I'll play it of course to give it a go, but these trailers didn't build any sense of hype in me.

 

The trailer's cool, but honestly, I think the key here is what PoE 4.0 looks like, and that's 2-ish weeks away.

 

Loved the r/pathofexile thread about it:

Top comment - "Alright GGG, get ready to rev up your engines"

Chris Wilson (lead dev) - "No problem. Two weeks!"

 

Yeah. I mean, if one compares PoE to Diablo 3, then Diablo 3 loses haaaard. It started off being better looking and sleeker, but honestly, PoE even has that going for it nowadays. Then they charged full price for a new class and some minor changes to the game, while PoE laughed at them and launched 6 new frickin' acts.

Honestly, if Blizzard has just thrown together a team of interns and had them put together ideas for new set items, maybe some new minor concept, and tossed those into the game, then the replay value would've been so much higher. It would barely have costed them anything, and this lack of effort I feel like, is why PoE is awesome and Diablo 3 is just a pretty okay game.

Maybe Blizzard have learned, maybe not. As Chris said, we'll see in two weeks.

 

Everything that wasn't directly taken from D2 and D3 reminded me of Destiny. The aesthetic was clearly D2. The skill usage and itemization was D3. But the mmo mechanics, the world events where you wait for the event to start with other people running around, silent co-op... the shallow and narrow skill system and character customization, the long cooldown, flashy transformation or aoe ultimate ability was clearly Destiny.

Aesthetic fron D2, mechanics from D3, online from popular mmos like Destiny. That's what the game is.

It looks a lot better than D3, of course. But I doubt it'll be the magical experience D2 was.

Also, I'm expecting the monetization to be a hybrid of PoE and Destiny. Cosmetics, stash tabs like PoE, mounts like WoW, and rapid fire, shallow yet expensive dlc/'expansions' like Destiny. On top of being a full price game, of course.

 

I have to say, I'm shocked they're putting runewords back in. As if the set balancing isn't hard enough for them as it is without them.

 

When a company is happy to lick the boots of China, nothing should surprise you. Blizzard games have always felt poorly balanced, and since Blizzard will now stop at nothing to gobble down every possible avenue for profit, whether rune words will be hard to balance is probably not something they're concerned about.

 

Got to admit, I've seen the gameplay trailer a few times now and it does keep looking that little bit better each time.

 

I think it will struggle with the 'downgrade' impressions given it's much less flashier than D3, and I'm sure you'll get close-up texture shots that look crappy, completely taking the isometric design of the game out of context etc, but I agree.

I think the animations will sell it. They looked pretty good from what I saw, but it's still early.

 

I bought Diablo 3 quite recently on the switch and I think divorced of the expectations from D2 it's actually a really good game. I pretty much prioritise fun gameplay above all else and I think it pretty much nails that 15 minute gameplay loop when I play on the go as well as having enough meat to be fun for a longer session. At this point I think I'll probably get Diablo 4 pretty much no matter what.

Also I absolutely couldn't stand PoE when I played it a few years ago, the terrible server issues combined with the exp punishments on death made it pretty much unplayable for me.