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    Sunday, November 10, 2019

    Diablo My Lilith Fanart!

    Diablo My Lilith Fanart!


    My Lilith Fanart!

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 09:06 AM PST

    The #1 gripe I have with recent years of ARPGs

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 03:35 PM PST

    I know that some people are not going to agree with this at all, I'll say that now. I like moving at a slower or moderate pace, I hate it how in PoE and D3 its all about moving as fast as possible and obliterating content. Teleports, extremely fast move speed, etc. Yes this stuff can be fun as hell but it sets an unhealthy standard. Those movement skills? You need them to keep up. This hurts build diversity and makes people withl slower move speed builds not able to keep up with high move speed builds. This hurts group play a lot and that's a big reason why a lot of the best players will either group up with max speed builds OR play solo.

    submitted by /u/ChromeEagle
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    Feedback: Enemies flashing when hit looks bad!

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 12:26 PM PST

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uij9ysBKs4w&feature=emb_logo

    Enemies flashing white when hit imo clashes with the artstyle, and just doesn't look very good.

    submitted by /u/CyberInsaneoHD
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    The treasure goblin is looking pretty good in Diablo IV (Credit to Jairo Sanchez).

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 01:10 PM PST

    I upscaled some Diablo II screenshots using Gigapixel AI

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 07:05 PM PST

    Although it's full of artifacts and far from perfect, some of the added detail is impressive. Makes you wonder what a D2 remaster could be.

    I upscaled the original screenshots (1068x600) to 6x the size (6408x3600). Added some sharpening and other little things in PS and then resized them to 1920x1080.

    If anyone wants to try it, Gigapixel AI has a 30 day free trial: https://topazlabs.com/gigapixel-ai/

    Results: https://imgur.com/a/5mHa9th

    submitted by /u/_megazz
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    Last summer after 6000+ cbaal runs with t2 topping I hit level 99 for the first time on USwest

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 02:37 PM PST

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLmPDcLtOjI

    This is my level 99 Druid named Pride on USWest Ladder. It's the only character I've hit level 99 with after patch v1.09 (cow level .09 doesn't count), I've been playing this game for almost 15 years since elementary school. I took advantage of the nightmare ancients exp bug to hit that last bit of experience. I also show all of my items after if you want to see how great Diablo 2 itemization was. I hope you guys enjoy

    submitted by /u/hvppy
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    Red Shirt Guy, aka April Fool's Joke's thoughts on Diablo 4

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 12:58 PM PST

    Our thoughts and impressions of Diablo 4

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 07:24 PM PST

    Several members of the mod team had a chance to try the Diablo 4 demo available at Blizzcon as well as watched via the Virtual Ticket. This is our thoughts and impressions of the game.

    /u/ibleeedorange
    We all knew the trailer was coming, but as the countdown started the mod team made jokes that we should yell whenever there was a number 4, and I thought hey it'd be neat if they stopped on 4 and said something about diablo. But I didn't expect them to actually release the trailer. This was my 4th Blizzcon (ha) and this trailer was the best one I've seen yet. It didn't pull at your heart or inspire you, but I was dumbstruck through the entire trailer, until that is the video feed in Hall D (the main hall at blizzcon) glitched and we missed 30 seconds of the trailer. Regardless, it really was epic. Blizzard hasn't ever made a trailer like that.

    I played the demo at least 10 times and my general impressions of the game are that it's far away from completion, but it already has what I look for in an ARPG. The demo felt that way, the devs made it clear every time we asked questions and we got a "we aren't sure yet" or "we haven't decided yet", etc. Despite that, the game looked and felt so good. I'm sure most people have seem streamers play it, but in person it just felt clean. There were a few things that felt like they may need more polish, but for the first public demo this game is going to feel amazing. Which IMO is the most important part of a game. If a game's graphics suck, has crap itemization, a garbage story...but if it feels good, I'm going to love it. Blizzard games have always "felt" the best to me in that regard, and D4 is not going to be any different.

    Thankfully though, the graphics are absolutely amazing. D3 looks good, but D4 is on a whole other level. It really is dark, gloomy, and gothic. You feel like you're apart of the world, and that this really is a big world, unlike d3 where you're only in small areas. The demo area alone felt bigger than any singular place in D3, which feels more like d2 when you could follow the map for what felt like forever back then. The depth of the world + the detail is a game changer. The world isn't flat, when you walk over a half upheaved grave your character steps into it the grave a bit and you notice it. The little things here make the difference, when it rains your character gets wet, and when you go under a roof/inside you dry off and there's a puddle below you. When you kill a monster you can get bloody, (and if you transform the blood stays on your transformed state and your human state when you go back). The druid Cataclysm spell changes the weather, if it's sunny now it's raining, if it's raining, now it's raining harder. These things immersed me into the game.

    Each character felt good, but it was clear they aren't done yet. The sorc had mana/CD problems and felt the weakest IMO. The barb relied heavily on positioning and CD skills, and the druid felt the strongest with the leg that proc'd damage every time you shape shifted. The spells/animations were on point for each class though, they looked more like a continuation of d2 than d3. They weren't as bright but it was clear where/how you were casting them.

    Obviously the game is far away, not even blizzard soon. But I think people need to be clear with their exceptions, and understand that everything that everyone wants isn't going to make it into the game if for nothing else than that people want different things. Diablo 3 sold 30 million copies, RoS sold 10million. For some people, Diablo is either of those games, and for others it's D2 or even D1. Maybe even D1: Hellfire. While it's nice to "take" some things from all previous games, I don't want D1, D2, or even D3, I want a new game. I know a lot of people have been talking about itemization, but for me the items are just a tool to do what I enjoy most in Diablo games, killing monsters and in D4 that feels better than ever. So if you're like me and just want to log on and kill monsters you're going to like D4.

    I know that most people don't care for Diablo Immortal, but for those who are open to trying it out when it comes out, you should. It looks great, basically D3 on a phone. It plays smooth and feels good. Though, personally I couldn't see playing it "competitively" like D3, it will feel fun to play through a newish diablo story and to kill stuff.


    /u/chaosteil

    Intro

    This is probably my favorite Blizzcon that I had the chance to attend. Due to the leaks, we pretty much knew what was coming, so we made various jokes on how they should announce it, including stopping a countdown at 4. We were even reading leaks while sitting there. After J. Allen Brack addressed the elephant in the room, a countdown started, and my mind went wild after I saw the hall light up red when the 26 appeared. Finally concluding with a slowdown and the start of the trailer when the 4 should appear, the whole mod team was screaming "fouuuuuuuur" and a great time was had. It definitely had everything and still more a fan could want from a Diablo cinematic and it set a truly brutal tone for our expectations. The gameplay demo shown afterwards also didn't disappoint, and we went straight to the demo station after the opening ceremony (and panel). Luckily, there were an untold amount of computers ready, so we didn't have to wait long to get our hands on the filthy demo.

    Diablo 4

    I've tried all classes multiple times, as the lines were quick and you could get into a game pretty fast. I'm sure most of you have already seen all the gameplay demos, so there's nothing much I can possibly add, so I'm going to go over the subjective more than the objective. The style is really dark, but visibility in gameplay is not impacted by a bit - the graphics were crisp and clear during an encounter and I never felt that it was overwhelming. It shows that they've learned a lot from Diablo 3, and they are not afraid to take ideas that worked and are incorporating them into the game. Boss battles are fun, and while the staggering mechanic wasn't entirely clear to begin with, it's crazy to see 10 people hitting a boss and coming out victorious. Towards the final demos that I played I started exploring the hardest dungeon which I found to be the best looking one - a nice throwback to the Barracks in Diablo 3 Act III.

    However, of all the demos I ever had the lucky chance to play at Blizzcon, this definitely felt like the earliest I've ever seen a game being presented. As a slight example, I was not completely sold on the cutscene, which, while gruesome, felt a tad out of place. The style of D4 is really really nailed, but there is still a lot to flesh out. I absolutely expect we won't see Diablo 4 released for a long time. However, this means we can theorycraft, share ideas and leave feedback very early on in the development process, which will help shape the game, so I'm really excited about that!

    Diablo Immortal

    While the focus of this Blizzcon was all about Diablo 4, Diablo Immortal also had a small spotlight with its own demo station. I've tried this demo also several times to get a feel on how it has improved from last year, and boy must I tell you that I'm impressed. While last year it really felt like a clone of an unnamed mobile ARPG, the game has gotten a thick layer of polish in the meantime. The fidelity of the graphics is absolutely crazy - it looks and feels like an expansion pack of Diablo 3. You have a proper story, quests to go through, cutscenes (unskippable for now - please let us skip them in the future?), and I swear you could even forget you're playing this on your phone. While I'm not a fan of on-screen joysticks (I have somewhat philosophical differences) - for what it is, it works great. Targetable skills feel nice, the gameplay moves fast and overall it feels really well. At this point I could really see myself actually playing this during any downtime I might have. Now it's really crazy to think that the game is still in full production and won't be releasing anytime soon (unlike the rumors), so I'm sure that this will be a quality Blizzard product once it's out and therefore I'm hopeful and cautiously excited.

    Closing Remarks

    Overall I had a great time, and I've met a lot of great people with whom I could spend time with at this Blizzcon. For a Diablo fan this was the ultimate Blizzcon - there was so much Diablo content I barely found the time to check out the other games. The panels were a great deep dive into the game, and I really recommend to check them out if you have a chance. (I've typed up a storm if you want to just read a hastily typed transcript.) I can't wait to see what the future for Diablo holds, but it's going to be a bright (dark?) one for sure.


    /u/Mujarin
    Wow, I honestly wasn't sure if it would ever happen and now here we are, I didn't get to make it to Blizzcon (boo living in Australia) but was glued to my screen for every announcement over the virtual ticket. I've been a Diablo fanboy since the release of Diablo 1 and it's dominated my gaming life since, and I have to say what I saw at Blizzcon has me really excited, the trailer oozed oldschool Diablo gothic horror vibes and the environments looked very dark and gritty (though the way they were emphasizing DARKNESS kinda made me cringe a bit).

    I was concerned it would be more of the same (I personally hate the current state of Diablo 3, hot take i know, mostly because of how sets force you to play certain ways), but it sounds like the D4 devs are really trying to learn from the mistakes of D3 and listen to player concerns, although some things did make me worry a little like their statement saying they were going to focus on "showcasing" legendaries every season to encourage and change the "meta", which is fine as long as the showcased items/builds don't force you to play a certain way or get left behind, but it's too early to really pass judgement yet.

    • The 3 classes all look great, though I'm not sold on the rapid shape-shifting of the druid, I've always loved playing as a werewolf druid in D2 and the rapid shape-shifting looks super weird to me, and looks like it would kinda hurt like hell for the poor druid and ruins the class fantasy for me a little (I'm a hardcore lore fan and a stickler for details when i engage in fantasy).
    • The mention of "built with pvp in mind" gets a big meh from me, never been interested in pvp (even used bobafetts trainer in the D1 days to make me immune to player damage so i could pve in peace), but diversity is great for the game and I think it will only add to it for the people who are into it.
    • The focus on an open world with lots of player interaction is pretty cool I think, it seems like they are trying to bring ARPGs into the modern age rather than just sticking to the same formula every arpg has stuck to since the 90s, and again the socialization is great for the health of any good ARPG because everyone wants to show off the cool stuff they found, and I'm KEEN to see the features they'll be putting into the game in the months/years to come.
    • The big dreaded MTX question, I have mixed feelings on this because I've been a bit of an MTX addict over the years and can't always control my spending, but I think if it's purely cosmetic it will be good for the game in the long run because it will motivate them to pump out content to keep people playing, it's not the future i wanted but it's the future we have and if it gets me more Diablo i guess i can live with it.

    Long story short, I'm pretty hyped, concerned about some things, but my stance for now is MORE INFO NEEDED.


    /u/thunderclaww
    I had the chance to play the demo around five times, playing each class at least once and exploring every nook I could find. Everything I saw made me think D4 is headed in the right direction for me. It's a long ways off from being complete, but I can feel comfortable come next BlizzCon that I'm going to see some cool stuff.

    Things I loved:

    • UPHEAVAL. That animation was so good, I spent my last run through just watching that animation.
    • The Druid had some sweet ground controlling abilities. Being able to boulder enemies where I wanted them, charging at them as a werewolf, then ground pounding as a werebear was super slick.
    • Quest items are actually physical items. Having them actually take up an inventory slot and have a description really makes them feel real, rather than just some clickable object in the game. Maybe we'll even be able to use some of them, like the Horadric Staff from D2.
    • Not being able to cast skills in town. Just makes it a little more real that you probably shouldn't be summoning lightning storms in town. People get angry.
    • The heft of skills. Skills actually had a wind-up and wind-down that you could feel. Upheaval has the Barbarian shifting himself backwards for a split second and swinging his weapon through the ground before it actually does any damage.
    • Killing the passive animals with abilities. It may be cruel, but hey, sometimes you just gotta become the werebear.
    • The interesting class systems they're coming up with. The Arsenal system for the Barbarian to quickly switch between weapons (e.g 2H bludgeoning for Upheaval, dual wielding for whirlwind), the Chilling mechanic for the Sorceress, and the designated shapeshifting forms for specific skills for the Druid are exactly the kind of innovations that I'm interested in seeing in Diablo 4.
    • The philosophy change in making sets a stepping stone to legendaries. I think that's a perfect way to teach players about synergizing skills and items while still giving the freedom to make more powerful builds with additional knowledge.
    • The pace of combat. I'm okay with slowing the game down a little from D3, making it more important to take it slow and position properly rather than just constantly mash all the buttons.
    • The character selection screen. There really is something to seeing all your character options sitting around a campfire, exhuding their personality and strength rather than reading about it from a list.
    • Did I mention that I really liked Upheaval?
    • The lighting was gorgeous. Dungeons were actually dark, but having your skills light up the dark corners of the game made it look alive. The weather effects looked really nice and I'm interested in seeing how the different regions look depending on the weather (rain in the desert?).
    • From what I understand of them, I think the skill and talent tree implementation is really neat. Skills eventually all become unlocked through enough work and progression, but the initial skill points you put into Upheaval are really going to matter. Meanwhile, talent trees can be changed around (hopefully for some cost), but you'll always be limited by the maximum number of points you can unlock.

    Things I'm looking forward to:

    • More story and lore details. The mystery of what happened to Tyrael, Leah's soul, the souls trapped in the Black Soulstone, and so much more is going to keep me wondering. And how's Inarius going to get involved? Will Trag'Oul make an appearance? Did Lorath and Kadala get it on? Too many questions, not enough answers.
    • The last two classes. For my guess, we'll definitely get a ranged character like Demon Hunter/Amazon/Rogue, and very likely a holy character along the lines of Paladin/Crusader/Cleric.
    • The crafting system. I would love to have something more interesting than the D3 system, where you craft 50 versions of the same items, hoping you get a good version. I don't know if I've encountered a crafting system that I really loved, but I'll have to think on it. It's not a game-breaking feature, but it would be nice.
    • More on the rune system. A conditional system is interesting and I want to see more. I think having specific rune pairing unlock secret abilities would be really awesome and bring back some of the fun of runewords from D2.
    • The keystone dungeons. They seem like an evolution of Mythic keystones from WoW, which were my favorite thing from Legion. I like that the idea of greater rifts went from D3 to WoW, evolving along the way, and now is reaching a new evolution in D4.
    • Mythic items seem cool. I want to see more of them. I like that they will be limited to one equipped. Really opens up a lot of options depending on what items you get.
    • I am interested in the mounts. Are they going to be solely for transportation, or is there a more combat focus? What's the interaction like? I think I would prefer to only be able to mount inside a town hub or specific spots, but I'm not sure.
    • The iconic bosses of Andariel and Duriel are coming back! It will be interesting to see how they compare to D2 and how they end up integrating with the story.
    • How stash space is implemented. Are we going back to individual character stashes, or a shared stash, or maybe both? Will there be consumable specific pages (I think PoE does this)? How often will we be going back to town to sell/salvage/store?

    Things I'm reserving judgement on:

    • The non-linear story. I like the ambition here, but I'm a little concerned about how this is going to play out. I'm a firm believer in having a strong, hand-crafted story told in a linear fashion so that the player can enjoy it as it was intended. A non-linear one may give the player too much freedom, causing misunderstanding and confusion. If they can pull it off, I'll be really impressed.
    • World Bosses. I'm just really not sold on them yet. I fought against Ashava in the demo, and I wasn't really feeling the impact my character was having. The unlocking of the camera threw me off; I didn't really play any local co-op for D3, so I was not used to having my character away from the center of the screen. The one-shot deaths, respawning, and coming right back in also felt weird, but that may have been demo specific. There were way too many people and way too many Cataclysms going off.
    • Other players in the overworld. I just don't know about this yet. I guess it will depend on how much content occurs outside vs in dungeons, but I'd want to control when and where I see other players. Town hubs are totally fine, but the rest will depend on how it's implemented.
    • The Conduit skill on the Sorceress felt a little weird. I didn't quite get how to control it consistently or how much damage it actually did before the time was up and I'd have to wait for the cooldown again.
    • The in-game cutscenes. The character customization is cool, but I don't really care if it's specifically my character in a scene or not. I'd rather have a premade, handcrafted scene rather than one that uses my specific character model, because it's not going to look as good in the end. Hopefully they either get better or are minimal in volume.
    • Trading system, but not for the common reasons. I really think that trading systems have the ability to ruin the progression that players enjoy and come to play ARPGs for. If you start out with nothing and then suddenly a friend comes in and gives you all this gear, you have essentially short-circuited a ton of fun out of your experience. It's a bit like cheat codes and it's the reason why I'm generally unhappy with Haedrig's gift in D3 seasons. YOU should be the one killing monsters and getting loot as a reward. I like that at least the most powerful items will be Bind on Pickup and maybe the slower drop rate of legendaries will make the above worry a non-issue, but I'll just have to wait and see. Real money trades is also likely going to be a problem that Blizzard hopefully works hard to minimize.

    Things I would really like to see:

    • More of an emphasis on NPCs. I want to connect and understand the stories of the individuals in the game. Give me a monologue, gossip, unique voice lines based on which class they're talking to.
    • A more impactful social system. Sure, there's a guild system in D3, but it's very bare-bones and all but lacks any meaningful ways to interact with fellow guildmates beyond chat. The guild bank seems like a cool start, and I'd want to see more.
    • An emphasis on gold balancing. I've been playing WoW Classic recently and the constant tug of war for my money between consumables, crafting skills, gear, and combat skills really makes me invested in the small things and changes my gameplay choices in interesting ways. Gold has never been a strong point of the Diablo franchise, so if this doesn't happen, it's fine. It would be a nice improvement though.
    • Some really unique and distinctly Diablo music. People always point to Matt Uelmen's music as the iconic Diablo music and I completely agree. It doesn't have to be him, but I would love something that I could recognize from just a single guitar, rather than the epic, grandiose music that we've all grown accustomed to in epic movies.
    submitted by /u/menagese
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    Flashing enemies on hit vs Hit animation

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 03:34 AM PST

    As you probably saw in the gameplay trailers, the current state of the game is that enemies flash weird colors on hit like in D3, which imo doesn't fit the tone of D4 which tries to go back to a more realistic, dark atmosphere and slower paced gameplay. In previous iterations of the game enemies had a hit animation which seems to be more fitting in Diablo.

    I also saw a lot of feedback against the current state of flashing enemies, claiming it hurts the look and feel of the game. Are we expecting the devs to scrap the idea of enemies flashing?

    submitted by /u/p0lyamorous
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    Playing Diablo II nowadays

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 05:56 PM PST

    So, I'm willing to buy Diablo II, but I don't know how it runs in Windows 10 etc. Like, can I just buy the game, install and then use something to run the game on 1920x1080 and I'm good to go? Is there any problem to play with the latest bnet patch? Thanks in advance!

    submitted by /u/brumone
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    Important thing to know when looking at Diablo 4's monetization model.

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 07:32 PM PST

    I was watching Quin's stream and they had big debate over this and I didn't notice anyone actually do the math so I wanted to provide it here. If anyone has more relevant numbers than what I could find please correct me!

    There's typically 2 sides.

    • People who like cosmetic MTX (typically because it incentivizes continued support of the game)

    • People who dislike cosmetic MTX (typically because it negatively affects how much character customization would have been in the base game otherwise)

    I think most people are OK with MTX in a F2P game, obviously the game needs to generate some income, but the divide happens when you have a full priced game and full priced expansions with MTX in addition to that.

    To the people that believe MTX incentivizes continued support of a game, I agree. A company will definitely pay more post launch attention to a product that keeps a steady stream of income rolling. The part I'd like to clear up is the notion of "companies need to sell MTX to keep seasons/content updates/servers online" This is likely a bold face lie, but it sounds intuitive so I can see why it fools so many people.

    In 2017 Acti-Blizz made ~4 Billion from MTX

    As of August 2015, Diablo 3's number of sales had grown to over 30 million I don't have data from the past 4 years of sales, nor am I sure about discounts or people buying the game full price and then buying it's follow up expansion, I'm going to ballpark about ~2 Billion in sales to date.

    A list of the most expensive games ever to develop Diablo 3 isn't here, maybe because it wasn't that expensive, maybe because we didn't have the data, but I'll error really high and say it cost 100 million to develop.

    If we guess high and say Diablo 3 cost 100 million to develop, and we make a conservative estimate at it's lifetime sales of ~2 Billion, that means that Diablo 3 paid for it's development costs 20 times over. From the sale of Diablo 3 alone, Blizzard could make enough full sequels of the game for the rest of your life without ever charging for anything else ever again.

    I just want that information to be at the front of everyone's mind when they say Blizzard needs to sell MTX in order to double the spawn rate of treasure goblins for 3 months....

    submitted by /u/EventHorizon182
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    The Last Epoch: the best take on the skill tree to date.

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 06:14 AM PST

    As a long time D2 fanboy, I've tried many ARPGs and found none of them with a skill tree that could really compare. When you leveled up a skill, it would gain noticable power. Some skills would even have visual changes (eg. Charged bolt). Leveling felt so fun! You also could not max out all skills so your character felt unique. Some people built skelemancers while others built bonemancers etc. I've only seen one game with a skill tree that actually captures this level of quality in these areas and in my opinion, improves on it.

    The Last Epoch has a severely underrated skill system. I don't understand why more people aren't talking about this.

    Trees within trees: you have the same broad skill tree like D2, then it goes further. Each skill then has it's own skill tree that let you customize it with subskills either leveling aspects of the skill (eg. Damage, dot, aoe, duration) or changing the way it works entirely. For the latter example, if you prefer your meteor to deal massive damage at once in a concentrated area, you can level up one set of subskills. If you want it to hit a broader area and rain as a shattered star, you can spend a point doing that.

    They also have a mastery system where you can choose which skill will be your primary focus. The skill then gains buffs and levels with use! This can allow you to define your character around a basic skill if they choose and makes a greater variety of builds viable.

    What do you guys think? Would D4 benefit from a system like this?

    submitted by /u/ccg08
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    Hey, Diablo Community: would you rather have ONE character of each Class that you invest in endlessly, or start brand-new ones focused on specific builds?

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 06:22 PM PST

    That's a super long title, but honestly, I think it's a very important question.

    For all my fond memories of Diablo 2, something I was not crazy about was having to completely start from scratch every time I wanted to try out a new build.

    At the same time, however, I can appreciate that it made me feel more invested in each character. I can remember a sense of pride when I finally got my D2 Druid to a point where it felt like "oh yeah, all this hard work has finally paid off".

    The downside, of course, what that I would NEVER be able to play him any other way than the exact way he had been designed.

    Because of that, I could see Seasons being a great opportunity to enjoy a fresh start, much the same way Seasons work in D3. The characters become so specialized, though, that in many ways, they become a bit "throw-away" because of it.

    Now, let's compare that to a slightly different idea.

    What if, instead of creating loads of new characters, you essentially had a single character of each Class. Your Druid would be your Druid, one you would pour hundreds or even thousands of hours into. Instead of "restarting" with a new Druid, you would instead slowly build yours out. Have you focused entirely on Bear form, but now you want to try more of a "nature-caster" build? It might take time, but you could start "improving" your character in that particular direction.

    Look at D2's Attributes for example. Even the most hardcore damage builds would have you occasionally allocating attributes in your other stats. That's because, while they didn't necessarily have "scaling stats", they effectively had diminishing returns simply by way of comparison (ie. "raising my Strength from 105 to 110 won't have as profound an effect as raising my Vitality from 30 to 35).

    Coupled with a similar concept as D3's Paragon system (while it has some flaws, I do like the feeling of progressing, even when I don't get loot upgrades), if those attributes were now permanent, I could see where it might be enticing to have a single character, in which you can slowly but surely work towards experiencing different builds with.

    So, instead of having a lvl 45 Werebear Druid and a level 37 Caster Druid, you might instead have a level 60 Druid, who you've shaped to be slightly better at Werebear but can also switch to a Caster build if you want.

    These are two radically different approaches, and I don't know that either one could be called "better" than the other. What I AM asking, though, is which direction YOU would prefer to see the Devs go with D4?

    Do you prefer characters to be a little more "specialized" to a specific build, to create alts for each new play style?

    Or do you prefer the idea of having a single character of each class, that you adventure with for years, slowly progressing them in different ways?

    submitted by /u/Jcorb
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    [D4] The idle monster behaviour doesn't fit well with the new graphics.

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 03:13 PM PST

    In the Diablo series idle monsters have always had a pattern of walking straight lines in random directions. However with the new more realistic graphics in D4 I find this has a jarring, almost uncanny valley effect. It'd be a lot of work, but if prefer to see more interesting/realistic idle behaviors.

    submitted by /u/ShardPhoenix
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    Make dying actually matter in D4!

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 04:58 PM PST

    Death! Diablo is about death and dying. Diablo 1 was fun because dying meant your gear dropped on the ground and you had a hell of a time running naked back to try and get it. Sometime you couldn't and you were just SOL. Sometime someone would kill you and steal all your gear. The fact was, death mattered and you were fucking scared to die. It made the hardest areas of the game scary, and being scared and on edge was the point and made the overall atmosphere of the game fun and exciting.

    D2 took this to a whole new level by making death cause massive xp losses at high level. Getting to 99 wasn't hard because of the xp required, it was hard because if you died after level 95, even once, it wiped out literally weeks of progress. It was super impressive to see a level 99 char because it didn't just mean they had a lot of time on their hands, but that they had the gear and skill necessary to not die. Adventuring into the hardest places in D2 to get the best gear was terrifying because if you died, welp, goodbye xp progress. This constant fear is what made leveling in D2 so fun and gave you legitimate bragging rights for being high level.

    And then we have D3. Infinite paragon. Level forever with no penalties, each level just requires a bit more xp. No one cared what paragon level you were. Dying didn't mean anything, just spam the highest level GR as much as possible and watch your paragon grow. The fact that dying didn't mean anything made the entire game repetitive and caused build diversity and play style to become stagnant quickly. The entire game was "kill shit as quick as possible ignoring all else". Previous games you actually had to have a strategy and prepare before entering rooms with high level monsters that would tear you apart. "TP clear" ya'll?

    D4 deaths need to matter. or the game just won't be as fun as it can be. The game should punish death, otherwise D4 wont be terrifying and won't feel like a proper Diablo game. Diablo is all about death and dying and we should always be terrified.

    submitted by /u/hugcub
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    Finally beat D3

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 05:19 PM PST

    I finally did it!

    I've been kind of chilling out on D3 since I got it on PS3 to play with my wife. We're both just casual players and we just really like the lore and art of Diablo.

    I never finished act v before and I'm excited to keep playing. I hope D4 isn't mtx garbage bit once Activision is involved I'm apprehensive.

    Was really hype for D4 so I decided to play through D3 and try to beat it this time.

    submitted by /u/BlueCap01
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    Bring back 8 players!

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 06:34 PM PST

    D2 had some of the best lan-party play and i would love to see 8 player back. Even if its too hard to balance for the ladder seasons i still think 8 players was one of the best things about d2.

    submitted by /u/fraservalleyguy
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    Small, Positive Tweaks to Diablo 4

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 08:20 AM PST

    Hello everyone, how are you faring?

    The most pressing matters (skills, itemization, progression, etc) are being discussed in length, and it is going great! There are few rather minor/secondary things I'd like to point out though, which I feel might impact the final experience positively a bit, and some even relate to the design philosophies developers choose.

    I'd appreciate any kind of input on these points, and please, add your "minor positive tweaks" below as well, I'm sure there are other subtle design details that bother you greatly too.

    (I am in no way absolutely correct in any this, and am clearly biased towards another era of gaming.)

    So...

    1) Keep numbers "small", avoid absurd scaling.

    This got out of hand quickly in D3, and seems to be an inheritance from WoW: HP/Damage/Armor/Gold from player and enemies are around the dozens/hundreds during the first hours of gameplay, and on the millions/billions after a while.

    While I understand this problem is an echo of the failed itemization/balance, I fear part of this might have become "intentional", because there might be a flawed design mentality of "bigger numbers are cool and make the player feel stronger".

    On Diablo 2, this number-scaling curve was much smoother;

    • Damage numbers kept on the hundreds for a long, long time. Pretty much until the end of Nightmare (Early-Mid game). By level 50+, you'd start getting a few spells' damage getting to the thousands-range, because of synergies multiplying damage. At the absolute endgame, depending on your class, you'd be seeing numbers on a few dozen thousand range, and that was it.

    • Player Health would be something between 200-600 by midgame and 1000-3000 by endgame. Mostly because Life stats were rarely percentage-based. 99% of life stats would be: +XX Life. A flat amount. Getting a % increase to Life, as from the Oak Sage summon, was a HUGE deal. Life % should'nt be a banal stat put on any Magical item.

    • Endgame item weapon damage ranges were like 200-500 Damage and the whole game was balanced around this. There was a linear, lateral progression on item numbers across Early-Mid-Endgame which felt coherent. The same applies for "Armor/Defense" stats from Armor.

    This "big numbers" issue leads us directly to my next point...

    2) Keep the visual experience of combat "clean", immersive; turn off combat text by DEFAULT (make it toggle-able on the menu, of course).

    • Alongside the design mentality of "always making the player feel more powerful with larger numbers" comes this idea of displaying numbers all the time. If you leave it off by default, most casual players (and me, not a casual!) will simply enjoy the gameplay for what it is, the great, responsive combat. My mind won't hooked with that constant "I need to keep watching these numbers pop up" rush. Diablo 2 didnt have any combat text at all. Wanna check your damage? Check your character sheet and/or skilltree. It takes 2 seconds. Wanna measure if you're more powerful than before? Go whack something, see if it blows up faster. That was the real fun in D2. Actually testing your character progress, not relying on numbers.

    This also comes with another hidden benefit: Every single enemy in Diablo 2 had its own Elemental Resistances (ignore Immunities for this argument, which were a BAD thing), which made things somewhat interesting and some situations very dangerous when you had different types of enemies stacked together. In Diablo 3, enemy Elemental Resistances seemed to be inexistant, maybe because you felt players wouldnt want to feel "Less effective against X enemies" from time to time. Well, if you remove damage numbers by default, this feeling of powerlessness is greatly reduced and "reading" the enemy becomes more of an adventure; "Let me pay attention if enemies are more resistant to this or that", you know, just through observation and experimentation. Then, you can implement complex, coherent enemy resistances to make the game experience richer.

    • Hide enemy levels. Make the "difficulty scaling" seamless. I'd rather not know how, when and where the game is bumping up monsters level to give me a fun experience, and honestly, I don't think players should even know this. It will become predictable real quick.

    If need be, when the player is underleveled for some encounter/exploration, for example, 10 levels below some monter(s) on the area, place a skull besides a monsters name, when hovered over. That should be enough.

    Thank you for your attention.

    submitted by /u/Askon
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    The Five Playable Regions of Diablo 4 over the map of Sanctuary

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 03:31 PM PST

    Excuse the paint shittiness, but after comparing in-game Diablo 4 map from the Blizzcon demo with an actual map of Sanctuary and the zones given at the panel, I believe these are the five announced playable regions in Diablo 4

    Act 1 takes place in Scosglen, at the top of the map like in the demo, with dark, gloomy atmosphere to compare with Tristram from previous games, act 2 is further south in the Dry Steppes because it's tradition in Diablo at this point to have act 2 be a desert, Act 3 is in Kehjistan because the devs have confirmed it's in the game, act 4 is mentioned at the panel Fractured peaks which must be the mountains between Kehjistan and "the Swamp", and the Swamp is Hawezar, diseased, poisonous and witch infested swamplands.

    Assuming we do start in the north I'm very confident with acts 1 and 2 but with how wide the Dry Steppes are it's possible that the order of Kehjistan and Hawezar could be reversed and Hawezar would be act 3 and Kehjistan act 5, with Fractured Peaks acting as the passageway between them in any case.

    And it looks like they're using the big river at the south as the deliniating point since, if you compare in-game map with the white shade that represents off map areas with darker shade that represents unexplored areas, it seems to follow the course of the river perfectly. Only thing there I'm not sure about is is Kurast in or not.

    Edit: concept art of Scosglen, Dry Steppes, Kehjistan, Fractured Peaks (looks like where much of the gameplay trailer took place, besides Scosglen), Hawezar

    submitted by /u/nrrp
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    Hopefully Diablo 4 contains more fun statistics, how many clears, perhaps even a legendary check-off list

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 04:10 PM PST

    It's always interesting to see how busy you have been, and with there being 100s of dungeons in D4, there's potentially a lot of interesting data to track like how many times you cleared a dungeon, how many monster/elite/boss kills, how far you have run on foot/mount, how many times you have died, how many legendaries you have found, crafting, etc.

    WoW has a ton of really interesting stats and it would be neat if D4 gets to see some of these as well.

    In d2, people loved to count how many pindle or mephisto runs they did. Lots of people use what they call a grail list, and when they encounter a new legendary, they will check it off the list with the goal to see how many they could potentially check off (eg link). A lot of this was done manually but some people created tools to assist with this offline.

    In D3, they tracked some stats like elite kills, but I think it was tracked to your character online, and with the rebirth limit (or the want to not rebirth) made statistics kind of iffy and much to be desired. Kanai's cube is definitely a fun check off list, but it's kind of hard to track when it filters items per class.

    submitted by /u/Revolyze
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    Why do so many feel like being forced to make a ton of characters is better?

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 05:24 AM PST

    Just because it is a thing in other, older ARPGs?

    Personally, I hate the idea of being forced to restart after making any small mistake or if I want to try new builds.

    I don't understand why so many are against options and choice, beyond simply forcing an entire new character?

    Tradition? Masochism?

    With the D4 system, it seems like it is kind of a "best of both worlds" sort of idea, where you need to choose wisely your skills during the leveling process and stick with them and be lucky enough to find tomes if you want to advance further. That leaves the option open for people who like to keep a few characters and continuously progress them vs those who would rather just reroll a new character and choose new skills right away.

    Is that not good enough? I see tons of people still asking for punishing mechanics and forced rerolls and I just don't get it.

    submitted by /u/Araleus
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    My Diablo IV Charms idea

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 09:00 AM PST

    A pretty basic idea, with optional solutions.(Yes I have mock-up pictures in the thread)

    Thoughts?

    https://www.diablofans.com/forums/diablo-forums/diablo-iv-return-to-darkness/239784-the-talisman-and-the-charms-of-old-2013-idea?comment=4

    Edit: Did you know charms were part of Diablo III at one point?"Charms" at 1:13 here, followed by the talisman; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIbg-dpuYNE More of the talisman, new style around 0:31 here and continued with the tetris shapes and the talisman as a puzzle grid at around 1:24; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBVyvPIFL7Y

    Edit 2: I love the idea some of you have mentioned about having a Belt that actually can carry potions and charms.

    I would like to add throwable potions as well, and perhaps additional 2 runes if we so choose that can be combined. The belt could have many different slots with a cap of what, 6? 8? Allowing you to combine. If there would be a potion I would not have a cool-down on it, but rather ways to manage it, and refill the flask as I kill my enemies, visit shops and find health outside. Anti-venom things etc could be something for the belt as well, and other interesting things.

    submitted by /u/Enkeria
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    D4 Map Comparison (Blizzcon 2019 Demo vs World Map)

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 12:18 PM PST

    I've made some pictures to compare the map from blizzcon demo vs the world map we know. To give a rough estimate how big the world will be in D4.

    Imgur Album: https://imgur.com/a/r8GomHz

    Haven't seen any post regarding the size and an actual comparison.

    I tried my best with my bad paint skills.

    Hope some people enjoy it!

    submitted by /u/sh0k0
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    Lore Movie

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 12:20 PM PST

    Okay hear me out. The Diablo lore is amazing and creative. It is so in depth and goes way beyond the game play. In the wake of Diablo 4, Blizzard should team up with annother movie producer and create a Diablo movie. One that starts with the birth of the universe through the death of Anu and his evil counterpart, through the eternal conflict and the creation of sanctuary. This movie would go well beyond fans of the game! Who's with me??

    submitted by /u/jamz0531
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    What is unique to D3 that you would like to see in D4?

    Posted: 10 Nov 2019 01:12 PM PST

    I'm really having a tough time here.

    I did not appreciate the atmosphere, story or skill system.

    The only thing I really preferred compared to D3 were the QoL changes and the fleshed out endgame (which, apparently, PoE does better).

    I really liked some of the class concepts. I'd love a new take on the Demon Hunter or Witch Doctor!

    submitted by /u/ccg08
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