• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Diablo IV |OT| Blessed Mother... Save Us

Shtef

Member
I am new to diablo, can you explain to me how are you playing this season? You start new game and play campaign and it will have new quests and items and stuff? Or you skip it and play online quests with other people? How does it work if you dont have subscription for online play? Also if you skip camping how do you level?
 
Last edited:

TheSHEEEP

Gold Member
Lol I just spent the last 2 hours afk holding down the raise skeleton button.

EZ
Reminds me of my Ultima Online experience in the late 90s.
Was standing in front of a training dummy over night, with a heavy weight keeping some key down to continuously attack the dummy.
Next morning, I had arms of steel. Well, my character had.

This is how you recognize peak game design.
 
Last edited:
I am new to diablo, can you explain to me how are you playing this season? You start new game and play campaign and it will have new quests and items and stuff? Or you skip it and play online quests with other people? How does it work if you dont have subscription for online play? Also if you skip camping how do you level?
Have you finished campaign once?

If yes then you can skip campaign, make a new character in this season and play. Seasonal content is a small story 5-10 hrs, then some long quests that will mostly involve clearing some dungeons.
 

Arsic

Loves his juicy stink trail scent
Strange how D2 didn’t need that to pay for development…
Because it came out at a different time, with different costs, and developed with different scope.

D4 has seasons, patches, and expansions being worked on by teams of people. So yes, it needs some kind of money funnel to get that.

ARPGs now compete against path of exile which follows a seasonal formula to bring back players each season to engage with new mechanics and hopefully spend $ on their loot boxes, skins, passes, stashes, and much more.

Diablo 2 was made to be this addictive game for its time and at that time expansions were the only form of “dlc” or extra content. If D2 launched today it would absolutely be viewed through the lens of PoE, and people would feel the game falls short in build variety, balance, hyper repetitive, no true end game, etc etc.

Times have changed and so has what players expect from this genre as it evolved.

All that said I play D2 weekly because it’s my turn off my brain comfort game.
 

gothmog

Gold Member
Got to level 30 with a Sorc last night. The loot is simplified and there's some good quality of life updates which is great. I'm just not sure who this game is meant for: the casual or the hardcore? There seems to be a tug of war between making this game meaningful and fun. Unfortunately it falls short on fun often.
 

DavidGzz

Member
Ended with Level 45 barb for the night. Tried Necro and that class just isn't for me. D3 Necro is more fun. Blood nova for the win.
 

Arsic

Loves his juicy stink trail scent
Got to level 30 with a Sorc last night. The loot is simplified and there's some good quality of life updates which is great. I'm just not sure who this game is meant for: the casual or the hardcore? There seems to be a tug of war between making this game meaningful and fun. Unfortunately it falls short on fun often.
Ultimately the core/hardcore want more path of exile like games.

That’s the loudest voice they are listening to.

Diablo IMO needs to follow a WoW approach. Casual, easy to get into, fun from the jump, and then once you reach end game there’s plenty for giga nerds to do.

I don’t think the current dumbed down distilled hyper blast approach is good for anyone. Give it another day or two , and you’ll see those same people who hype it up once again complain that d4 bad.

Leveling up 25 times in one hour is idiotic. If the journey to 100 is so bad you have to blast through it, then there is 99 levels of shit in there. I don’t need a grind but I do need a sense of satisfaction and excitement when I level up.
 

Antwix

Member
I am new to diablo, can you explain to me how are you playing this season? You start new game and play campaign and it will have new quests and items and stuff? Or you skip it and play online quests with other people? How does it work if you dont have subscription for online play? Also if you skip camping how do you level?
So first thing, if you haven't played thru the campaign I recommend you do once. I thought it was pretty fun. I'm not sure you can check the skip campaign button if you haven't played it (could be wrong tho).

But this is what I did and it was pretty fun and quick...

-Skip campaign and start progressing the seasonal quest line
-Basically do helltides (they're tied into the seasonal quest) as well as legion/world boss events all the way until you're strong enough to make it to world tier 3
-then while in world tier 3, I started knocking out a bunch of random stuff like any side quests/dungeons that I want to do, any renown stuff (waypoints, strongholds, etc), and started doing nightmare dungeons in addition to any legion/world bosses and helltides to keep some variety.
-im not in wt4 yet but once at world tier 4, it basically more of the same with an emphasis on nightmare dungeons until you can become strong enough for the endgame bosses and "the pit"

I'm sure there's a specific meta for super efficient leveling but fun and variety is more important imo
 

sankt-Antonio

:^)--?-<
What development besides the expac? I don't remember new voice acting, new cut scenes, new pets, new skills, etc in D2. You can tell it doesn't have paid cosmetics by the zero support it has gotten lately.
Patches and Server costs for over a decade.

They made billions of dollars on release. Money is not the problem, greed is.
 

amigastar

Member
I think i've played to level 50 (finished the campaign) at launch. Now i've played a little bit with Loot Reborn and i still don't know if i like the game, will have to play it more.
 

amigastar

Member
You can really start working on your build at that point and you start getting sexy loot. Let us know if you need any pointers. This season is also coming with a proper endgame called the pit which was badly missing before
Will do, thx. Proper endgame sounds good.
 

shoplifter

Member
I still think a lot more needs to be done but S4 is definitely doing a lot of things right and correcting massive issues such as aspect management and a more streamlined loot. I'm not there yet so I can't give a proper opinion but it all looked much better on paper.

Fully randomized dungeons would have gone a *long* way. When a large part of the endgame involves running nightmare dungeons/vaults, having them be the exact same thing 30 times causes the boredom to set in.
 

Mortisfacio

Member
Really enjoying the Helltides. For once, they actually feel like what they hyped Helltides to be. Just demons everywhere and lots of death. I'm sure WT4 will just steamroll everything, but WT2 is hilarious watching people get blown up again and again by the summon boss.
 

NickFire

Member
Got up to the mid 30's last night after work. Hard to judge all the changes in such a short time frame, but so far everything feels really good. The helltides in particular are much more fun than before. And the ability to roll some specs is making me want to level up asap.

Another observation - I pre-ordered the expanded edition last year. Between tokens and in game currency from battle passes that I saved, I just got my 4th battle pass without spending a penny since the pre-order. I don't think any other game comes close in terms of hours played in relation to amount spent in the last year.
 

dispensergoinup

Gold Member
Loving it so far, muuuuch better experience than when I left mid-Season 2.

The Helltide hate system is amazing and hectic.

Codex all in one and tempering is great too. I'll probably play through this season and actually make a few builds!

All the QOL stuff finally, thank you!
 

Mortisfacio

Member
Hasn't negatively impacted me, but just an FYI for anyone hopping in "Salvage all items" now salvages all items. It used to salvage all non-legendary/unique items. It now salvages EVERYTHING unless you have it marked to not salvage. Have had a few friends accidentally salvage legendary upgrades since this wasn't the case prior to this patch.
 
I wish this game and any game like it had extensive stat explanations from the devs. There is so much shit, especially with this new update, going on that I have no idea how some of it would interact with each other. I want to be able to define an attack type and have every point of damage broken down.
 

S0ULZB0URNE

Member
Have you finished campaign once?

If yes then you can skip campaign, make a new character in this season and play. Seasonal content is a small story 5-10 hrs, then some long quests that will mostly involve clearing some dungeons.
I have a lvl 69 character that stopped before season 1.
Should I get em to 100 and start a new character for this season?
 

DavidGzz

Member
Patches and Server costs for over a decade.

They made billions of dollars on release. Money is not the problem, greed is.

That was cheap AF compared to today's seasons.

It was so replayable because there was nothing like it or anywhere near as good for a decade plus. Gaming is different now. People aren't going to farm bosses over and over anymore without PoE like seasons. That costs money. Plus, competition is fierce. Now we have instant gratification survivor games to take us away from this grind as well.
 
Last edited:

DavidGzz

Member
Hasn't negatively impacted me, but just an FYI for anyone hopping in "Salvage all items" now salvages all items. It used to salvage all non-legendary/unique items. It now salvages EVERYTHING unless you have it marked to not salvage. Have had a few friends accidentally salvage legendary upgrades since this wasn't the case prior to this patch.

But now at least it also puts the leg powers in your codex unlike before. You used to have to go to the occultist for that. Nice change imo
 

Mortisfacio

Member
What happens when you reach lvl 100? Is there enough incentive to play further on lvl 100?

NM+ dungeons and uber bosses (for uber unique loot) was pretty much it for S3 start. There's the gauntlet for leaderboard stuff if you're into that. They've also added tormented bosses, which are harder uber bosses. Then The Pit which is mostly meant for endgame/level 100 to then masterwork your items. It's pretty much now at the point where if you thought D3 endgame was good enough (after RoS and updates, not launch D3), D4 is now the same + tormented bosses.
 
Last edited:

RaptorGTA

Member
Reminds me of my Ultima Online experience in the late 90s.
Was standing in front of a training dummy over night, with a heavy weight keeping some key down to continuously attack the dummy.
Next morning, I had arms of steel. Well, my character had.

This is how you recognize peak game design.

Dude..macroing over night hoping the dialup connection doesn't drop. Damn that takes me back
 

Neolombax

Member
Great experience so far. Managed to level up to 35 within 2 hrs, I think that's pretty fast. The updated helltides happening at lower world tiers make levelling a breeze. Using bone necro + minion feels really good. Enemy density in Helltides feel amazing now. Managed to defeat the Blood Maiden a few times since there were a lot of players summoning her plus the new Hellborne enemies, these additions are good fun. I want to try and see if I can level up to 100 this time around and defeat those uber bosses.
 
I have a lvl 69 character that stopped before season 1.
Should I get em to 100 and start a new character for this season?
Taking your lvl 69 character to lvl 100 is quite a bit of grind. Not fun to me. Upto you.

But for this season you can start a new character and skip campaign. You will level up pretty fast doing seasonal content. I would do this instead.
 

DavidGzz

Member
I was ignoring tempering because I thought it was a late game thing. Holy shit, it's OP. Just increased dmg and size of my dust devils by like 150 and 200% respectively. It costs peanuts at low levels.

Here is what I've got so far for the season journey. Missing the boots and helm but I like the armor set. The horse and portal are also awesome.

umsY0oW.jpeg
 
Last edited:

Bry0

Member
Ive been doing necro. Its hilarious. Rushed to wt3 at level 35. Got all aspects I wanted by 45. I’ve been spawning blood maidens in the helltide and then going AFK and letting my minions and other players take care of it. Tab back in to a massive pile of cinders and loot. Overall the game feels a little simplified and incredibly blasty like Diablo 3 now. So far I’m fine with that. It’s fun and thats what matters. I’m surprised by how cheap tempering is too. Applying aspects has been the only bottle neck so far but a quick helltide run and vendoring gear gets me the gold I need extremely quick. Over all this is certainly a better base to build from than launch d4 with a mountain of questionable design decisions. Launch felt like the game loop was almost entirely designed around the battle pass progression speed where as now it feels completely decoupled.

Still there are things I would like to see improved but I’m sure future expansions and seasons are intended to build upon this, so it’s important to get the core game loop into a spot where people are generally positive about it. I’ll be interested to see what people think in a month from now.
 
Last edited:

Arsic

Loves his juicy stink trail scent
I highly recommend if you’re on the fence on these changes to make an extra character that is hardcore specific.

It’ll change your whole outlook on the game. The changes and events with no potion/scroll to prevent death now is just sweat inducing. Even Helltide you are shitting bricks haha.

Idk if I can do normal anymore now.
 
Last edited:

DavidGzz

Member
I highly recommend if you’re on the fence on these changes to make an extra character that is hardcore specific.

It’ll change your whole outlook on the game. The changes and events with no potion/scroll to prevent death now is just sweat inducing. Even Helltide you are shitting bricks haha.

Idk if I can do normal anymore now.

More power to you but I play on a cell phone hot spot in the middle of the country at work. Ain't no way. Glad you like it though!
 

Moonjt9

No Silksong? = Delivering the pain.
Got to level 75, found a frozen orb unique amulet at level 60 and made the switch. Found a 925 weapon at level 52 from first world boss.

We cruising now. Frozen orb is amazing.
 
Got to level 30 with a Sorc last night. The loot is simplified and there's some good quality of life updates which is great. I'm just not sure who this game is meant for: the casual or the hardcore? There seems to be a tug of war between making this game meaningful and fun. Unfortunately it falls short on fun often.
The Casuals, All the hardcore types play POE because they hate themself's.
 
So started barbarian how do u control leap as a barbarian on a controller ?
Leap goes and above walls and skips enemies instead of leaping on the enemies, is there a setting where I can like control leap ?
 
Top Bottom