Diablo IV - The Real Official Thread

It doesn't matter what launcher any Blizzard title is on. If the game is garbage, what difference does it make?
 
GoldenTiger said:
I was answering his question, not arguing about whether the game's any good :D.
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Fair.

In other news, Blizzard has announced what Season 2 will be like. Most notably it will have a 40% increase to exp and will have faster exp past lvl 50.

Hrmm, obvious change is obvious? Still doesn't change the fact that there isn't really anything in the end game worth grinding for and the itemization for legendaries being completely garbage. Still, I know the workers are still trying even if the management is braindead.

A ton of Seasonal skills etc too, which as a very long playing D3 player is what keeps you in the game. But is any of this enough? As I last reported there is basically no viewership on Twitch and the people on servers is way down. Not sure how much this will even move the needle.

https://www.thefpsreview.com/2023/1...season-of-blood-including-40-faster-leveling/
 
It's funny that D4 is coming to Steam. The game doesn't need more players. In fact it's not very player dependant even though there are world bosses in game.
It's just trying to reach a wider audience to earn more money from sales :ROFLMAO:
Whatever the current population is doing, they are not spending enough money. Start buying those €25 cosmetics folks!

With all that being said, S2 seems to be a step in a very good direction. Lots of additions in end game and that's my main complaint. Shitty endgame but the game has base in form of visuals and combat. The rest are tweaks that will come over time. I just wish there was a T5 as I feel there's a large item level gap as I can get top tier weapon at lvl 65 if I go to T4.
But I suppose it's coming in an expansion.

The amount of changes is impressive and it will get me into playing S2 (and paying for season pass). And I was HIGHLY sceptical of playing S2. I haven't touched the game since August. Not once.
https://www.icy-veins.com/d4/news/diablo-4-season-2-season-of-blood-stream-summary/

Diablo 4 is actually the only ARPG I can see myself playing in the future besides Wolcen.
Call me crazy for liking Wolcen but it has AMAZING combat and the only game that comes close to it is Diablo 4. And I've tried them all.
PoE 2 might be interesting but I need to see more. I don't like PoE 1 or Last Epoch.
 
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Comixbooks said:
I hope we can migrate from Blizzard to Steam. Like they did with Destiny 2
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All your progress is tied to your Blizzard account, and you need to sign in with it to play the game on Steam. There is no migration process needed.
 
Steam Deck verified.

https://nitter.privacydev.net/PezRadar/status/1712525922400895457
https://x.com/PezRadar/status/1712525922400895457
1697201237836.png
 
Well, I'll probably be end up skipping this season regardless. Did a Windows update & Nvidia update at the same time the other day, and now my system is freezing intermittently to the point gaming is impossible. Now, it could also be that some hardware went bad, but to happen just to coincide with the update?

The issue here now is to track down what's causing the problem. (I typically play HC, and freezing for 1 minute every 15 minutes is just not acceptable. And the system isn't blue screening, it's just freezing and a minute later unfreezes. But this happens constantly.)
 
Nebell said:
It's funny that D4 is coming to Steam. The game doesn't need more players. In fact it's not very player dependant even though there are world bosses in game.
It's just trying to reach a wider audience to earn more money from sales :ROFLMAO:
Whatever the current population is doing, they are not spending enough money. Start buying those €25 cosmetics folks!

With all that being said, S2 seems to be a step in a very good direction. Lots of additions in end game and that's my main complaint. Shitty endgame but the game has base in form of visuals and combat. The rest are tweaks that will come over time. I just wish there was a T5 as I feel there's a large item level gap as I can get top tier weapon at lvl 65 if I go to T4.
But I suppose it's coming in an expansion.

The amount of changes is impressive and it will get me into playing S2 (and paying for season pass). And I was HIGHLY sceptical of playing S2. I haven't touched the game since August. Not once.
https://www.icy-veins.com/d4/news/diablo-4-season-2-season-of-blood-stream-summary/

Diablo 4 is actually the only ARPG I can see myself playing in the future besides Wolcen.
Call me crazy for liking Wolcen but it has AMAZING combat and the only game that comes close to it is Diablo 4. And I've tried them all.
PoE 2 might be interesting but I need to see more. I don't like PoE 1 or Last Epoch.
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You're a true believer. More power to you, but I tend to agree with more or your statements earlier that there is no end game.
 
Nytegard said:
Well, I'll probably be end up skipping this season regardless. Did a Windows update & Nvidia update at the same time the other day, and now my system is freezing intermittently to the point gaming is impossible. Now, it could also be that some hardware went bad, but to happen just to coincide with the update?

The issue here now is to track down what's causing the problem. (I typically play HC, and freezing for 1 minute every 15 minutes is just not acceptable. And the system isn't blue screening, it's just freezing and a minute later unfreezes. But this happens constantly.)
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I’ve noticed similar random stutters. I’m willing to bet it is Windows (10?).
 
Do you mean just during Diablo 4, or doing anything? I'm on the latest Windows 10 update and on the latest Nvidia driver and I'm having no stutters or anything of any sort... *knock on wood*

I decided to randomly look at this thread to see if Diablo 4 was worth grabbing yet, but doesn't seem like it yet. I was semicompetitive in Diablo 3 for a good while, and kind of enjoyed the mixture of grinding and trying out different sets and playstyles, but from what this thread is saying, doesn't look like Diablo 4 has hit that balance quite yet. I guess I'll grab it some other time. I played it with my friend during its "slam the server" thing, but I wasn't particularly enthralled by it.

Though, I usually didn't play seasons in D3. Seasons were just too much grind most of the time. Usually I would just start them to play around with whatever gimmick they had going on, then go back to nonseason for any "pushing". The problem with season gameplay is paragon. I don't know if they solved it in D4, but essentially you have to know people that are all going to push and basically play like nolifers all the time to be competitive in seasons. Once you're behind the curve at any point, you have a much harder time placing on leaderboards. Not to mention at some point, the "high tier trash clearers" get established early on and just keep getting stronger and stronger, so you're basically only ever going to be called in if it just so happens that they're all not available. You can play support, but support has its own downsides (more than you would think). It got too annoying for me. Non season was more reasonable because of the cumulative paragon providing a little cushioning. Paragon differences started to sort of plateau past a certain point (~2.5-3k paragon), so you could at least expect reasonably good performance, even if you couldn't measure up to the ridiculous 10k paragon people at all.

Of course, then there was also the botting problem. The automated split bounty "pizza" that all of the high rank players were using to deck themselves out in all primal gear. Wonder if D4 has solved that. Oh, and Turbohud lmao. God thinking back on it there was just so much shit that you had to do to even try to actually be competitive in seasons...
 
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Disappointed in paid battle pass items but those store (surprise!) costmetics look really good.
I might buy the necro and sorc one, also looking at the king outfit for barb.
 
They should of carried it over to Steam not alot of people want to play the entire game again let alone purchase it again. If it launched on Steam at the same as the Battle net that would if fixed the problem.
 
Tried booting it up my install doesn't even work anymore Season of Blood is glitched anyway so going to uninstall it. Update: It wouldn't let me uininstall due to permissions so reformatted the drive to get rid of it.
 
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GoldenTiger said:
No, they reduced the amount of xp needed to level I think.
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You are right but that’s the cycle or power creep d3 had. Level up faster and higher, hit power ceiling. Next season raise item damage and speed to make end game higher tier. Users bitch they have to now play longer in higher tier so they give more xp. Cycle continues.

I don’t remember the season but D3 had a server test for a patch so the game could compute the gigantic damage numbers power creep created.
 
That_Sound_Guy said:
You are right but that’s the cycle or power creep d3 had. Level up faster and higher, hit power ceiling. Next season raise item damage and speed to make end game higher tier. Users bitch they have to now play longer in higher tier so they give more xp. Cycle continues.

I don’t remember the season but D3 had a server test for a patch so the game could compute the gigantic damage numbers power creep created.
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At what point in D3's cycle is this? Maybe its much earlier patches

Diablo 3 was nothing but high level greater rift speed running for quite some time already. Torments level weren't even relevant for gaining paragon, you would just use T6/10/13/16 (it kept going up) rifts to get more legendaries and greater rift keys (they did used to have a trial system for specific level GR keys but that was obsoleted at some point). There also isn't really any level cap, you just kept getting more paragon by running more greater rifts. Also hitting the power ceiling was incredibly difficult for anyone except bounty botters, because there were so many modifiers on a set and its legendaries that you often needed primals (and primals with perfect rolls) to be viable... along with the paragon. Also there was a PTR for every patch that I'm aware of.

There is a cap on the greater rift levels, though. That's 150. This last season was so ridiculous that I made a wizard and geared it up just half decently yet was able to do gr150 in 2 player (and 3 player) without too much issue even at low paragon. Didn't really matter at 4 player, though, no one would really take you, they would just take one of the wizards with like 3000-4000 paragon that did nothing but sit there and do gr150 (with Turbohud zbarbs and zDHs...)
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
At what point in D3's cycle is this? Maybe its much earlier patches

Diablo 3 was nothing but high level greater rift speed running for quite some time already. Torments level weren't even relevant for gaining paragon, you would just use T6/10/13/16 (it kept going up) rifts to get more legendaries and greater rift keys (they did used to have a trial system for specific level GR keys but that was obsoleted at some point). There also isn't really any level cap, you just kept getting more paragon by running more greater rifts. Also hitting the power ceiling was incredibly difficult for anyone except bounty botters, because there were so many modifiers on a set and its legendaries that you often needed primals (and primals with perfect rolls) to be viable... along with the paragon. Also there was a PTR for every patch that I'm aware of.

There is a cap on the greater rift levels, though. That's 150. This last season was so ridiculous that I made a wizard and geared it up just half decently yet was able to do gr150 in 2 player (and 3 player) without too much issue even at low paragon. Didn't really matter at 4 player, though, no one would really take you, they would just take one of the wizards with like 3000-4000 paragon that did nothing but sit there and do gr150 (with Turbohud zbarbs and zDHs...)
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Been there since season 3. Over the course of D3 progression they had to add Torment. Then Torment 1-6, then up to 10 then up to whatever they are at now....16? All that is, is constantly raising the challenge level to match the constantly empowered gear and sets. Same with Grifts. When it first came out, only the top tier players could get to G40 when it started, then it was around 60 and so on until its capped at 150. The only challenge left in D3 is who reaches the milestones and conquests the fastest for the record books. Or who hasnt found the rainbow wings yet. I remember the fanfare of the first player to Paragon 100 and then P1000 in a season. Bot players or really dedicated ones. Now you can readily find P6000+ regularly. All products of artificially making the game more difficult solely for rapid XP gains with no real content changes. I think the highest damage numbers in D3 vanilla was around 10k? Little fuzzy on that history. Now? you can see 100 trillion damage counts.
 
D3 was a pretty slow game at launch. There weren’t a ton of good items and no +5000% damage set bonuses. Crit chance/crit damage rares were some of the best you could find.

I stopped playing for a while and when I came back after the removal of the real money auction house it was way easier with the seasonal set they basically hand to you along with crazy damage bonuses and high loot drops. That game had huge power creep.
 
That_Sound_Guy said:
Been there since season 3. Over the course of D3 progression they had to add Torment. Then Torment 1-6, then up to 10 then up to whatever they are at now....16? All that is, is constantly raising the challenge level to match the constantly empowered gear and sets. Same with Grifts. When it first came out, only the top tier players could get to G40 when it started, then it was around 60 and so on until its capped at 150. The only challenge left in D3 is who reaches the milestones and conquests the fastest for the record books. Or who hasnt found the rainbow wings yet. I remember the fanfare of the first player to Paragon 100 and then P1000 in a season. Bot players or really dedicated ones. Now you can readily find P6000+ regularly. All products of artificially making the game more difficult solely for rapid XP gains with no real content changes. I think the highest damage numbers in D3 vanilla was around 10k? Little fuzzy on that history. Now? you can see 100 trillion damage counts.
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I mean, yes, but no. The higher stats during the grifts meant that you had to play completely differently depending on your class. Raekor boulder toss barbarian was quite a thrill at higher difficulties, and there was the lightning archon wizard of ages past. Those builds still work today (just not to that high of a level), and that's part of what kept me coming back. Diablo 3 still had a nice action system and there was a huge variety of different builds and combinations you could attempt. While you wouldn't necessarily end up on leaderboards with them, you could use whatever build you wanted at whatever level you felt comfortable using it. I managed to theorycraft some number of semi viable alternative builds in my time, and it was great for that. What sucked is its competitive scene being eventually tied to botting, turbohud usage, etc.

That's why I never understood why people were so obsessed with seasons. The only reason I played seasons was to try out the gimmick of the season at the time. But if you had to ask me which was actually more friendly to a casual player, the answer is by and for "Non Season." The effect of paragon and base stat bonuses tapered out after a certain point, so in non season after you got to a certain paragon you could at least experience almost any build, playstyle, etc to a reasonable degree. With season play, there were many builds which were basically not viable unless you no-lifed basically the entire season doing support builds in 4p content to get your butt up to around 2-3k to get the requisite toughness/damage bonus that's needed from the stat total. I guess people just either didn't understand that, didn't care, or perhaps it was just a ritual for some. Who knows? Their time to waste as they wish. My first experience with Diablo 3 coming back after a long time was I think firebird wizard and I had a demon hunter that was using a "Slowball" spec with that bow that let you generate from elemental arrow. People kept telling me I was unusually well geared for my paragon level lol.
 
That_Sound_Guy said:
You are right but that’s the cycle or power creep d3 had. Level up faster and higher, hit power ceiling. Next season raise item damage and speed to make end game higher tier. Users bitch they have to now play longer in higher tier so they give more xp. Cycle continues.

I don’t remember the season but D3 had a server test for a patch so the game could compute the gigantic damage numbers power creep created.
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This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the history.

D3 was designed to be an unplayable slog in order to push people to the RMAH. They made it so that no one could hit cap without grinding for 3 months. When someone did it in one, they were "shocked". That guy basically sacrificed his life to do so though, as in playing D3 like it was his job/life all day and night.

So if you like shitty unplayable games that are impossible slogs, then I suppose you could refer to what the game eventually became as "power creep" or it could be more accurately looked at as balancing to make the game playable and fun.

The damage numbers literally don't matter at all. Would it help you if they just divided all of them by 1 million so you would see "3" damage instead of 3 million? The number doesn't make a difference. If anything though the higher number is easier to balance, because it leaves significantly more granular control. 1-30 damage is harder to balance than 1-50 million. It really took an expansion and about 7-8 seasons for D3 to actually become fun/playable. And I was around for it since nearly the beginning including the beta.

D4 they have not learned their lesson again. It turns out if you make a game a boring grind that takes forever to complete, people don't want to play your game. That isn't challenging. It's just boring. People play games to have fun, not to do homework. The player numbers reflect this. If when you play an FPS game, you want it to take 40 clips of ammo to kill one enemy, is that an actual challenge or is that artificial difficulty that isn't even fun?

Eventually in every aRPG the point is to get geared to feel like a god. That's what balance is and looks like. There isn't much of a point in creating a challenge that isn't possible for 99% of your gamer base to defeat. In fact even in making these statements, a majority of D3 players can't even finish the season journey every season. Let alone clear a GR150. The percentage of players that clear all the content is minuscule.
In WoW, which is a very different game, back in the WotLK days it was near impossible for more than 1-2 clans a server to clear all the Heroic content and get the special mounts. While that may make some players feel "elite", what's the point in developing content in general that 99.99999999% of your player base will never see? Why design a game that people can't accomplish unless they play it like it's their job?
 
Started playing d4 again when season 2 started.... it's much more fun than launch but the itemization is still what is lacking. Targeted/char lol loot is trash. The fun of D2 was it wad just a slot machine of gear. You would find something not for your character, that would make you roll a new character just to use that item. That aspect is nonexistent here and what kept d2 Alive for multiple decades...
 
UnknownSouljer said:
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the history.

D3 was designed to be an unplayable slog in order to push people to the RMAH. They made it so that no one could hit cap without grinding for 3 months. When someone did it in one, they were "shocked". That guy basically sacrificed his life to do so though, as in playing D3 like it was his job/life all day and night.

So if you like shitty unplayable games that are impossible slogs, then I suppose you could refer to what the game eventually became as "power creep" or it could be more accurately looked at as balancing to make the game playable and fun.

The damage numbers literally don't matter at all. Would it help you if they just divided all of them by 1 million so you would see "3" damage instead of 3 million? The number doesn't make a difference. If anything though the higher number is easier to balance, because it leaves significantly more granular control. 1-30 damage is harder to balance than 1-50 million. It really took an expansion and about 7-8 seasons for D3 to actually become fun/playable. And I was around for it since nearly the beginning including the beta.

D4 they have not learned their lesson again. It turns out if you make a game a boring grind that takes forever to complete, people don't want to play your game. That isn't challenging. It's just boring. People play games to have fun, not to do homework. The player numbers reflect this. If when you play an FPS game, you want it to take 40 clips of ammo to kill one enemy, is that an actual challenge or is that artificial difficulty that isn't even fun?

Eventually in every aRPG the point is to get geared to feel like a god. That's what balance is and looks like. There isn't much of a point in creating a challenge that isn't possible for 99% of your gamer base to defeat. In fact even in making these statements, a majority of D3 players can't even finish the season journey every season. Let alone clear a GR150. The percentage of players that clear all the content is minuscule.
In WoW, which is a very different game, back in the WotLK days it was near impossible for more than 1-2 clans a server to clear all the Heroic content and get the special mounts. While that may make some players feel "elite", what's the point in developing content in general that 99.99999999% of your player base will never see? Why design a game that people can't accomplish unless they play it like it's their job?
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I agree, especially with the bold part.
However they did breathe some new life in Diablo 4 in season 2.

In pre-season I got a rogue to 75 and barb to 55 before season 1.
Season 1 was so bad I only got a sorc to lvl 54 before quitting.
In season 2 I have another sorc at lvl 74 and I can't wait to get back in the game. I've even rewarded Blizzard by buying €100 worth of platinum :rolleyes:
Now they just need to release a rogue skin that I like and a bunch of weapons and I'll be set. I took November off for myself. Can't be arsed with the outside world anymore, I'm just going to eat, sleep, go to the gym and play video games.
 
It's just a sad state of affairs with this game. I'm glad there is an improvement but I haven't logged back in since launch. That said, last epoch is freaking amazing.
 
TheToE! said:
It's just a sad state of affairs with this game. I'm glad there is an improvement but I haven't logged back in since launch. That said, last epoch is freaking amazing.
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I don't really like that game, or Path of Exile as I find both games to lack in visual style.
LE doesn't have satisfying combat. Hitting air and monsters feels the same. No impact.
PoE doesn't have any likeable characters. I get they wanted a dark and gritty world but it turned out to be very ugly. At least in my opinion. I can't find a character I'd like to play and I stare at my character the entire time.
That's why I'm the target audience for Diablo 4. Amazing looking characters, world and animation and have disposable income (although not a whale) so I don't mind spending €25 on a costume, even if I'm not happy about it.
I can wait for them to fix the game, s2 gave me hope. Leveling speed is just fine now and there's almost enough to do and it will get much better with the next expansion.
 
Lvl 94 on my sorc. I couldn't get past 75 (rogue) on pre-season and 55 (sorc) in season 1.
This season is much much better. Leveling feels so good now. It's not too fast and not too slow.
Helltides could use improvement, that's it.
 
Nebell said:
Leveling feels so good now. It's not too fast and not too slow.
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Adding Whispers to the seasonal content really beefed up leveling. I distinctly remember 60-70 being an atrocious slog last season.

They still have quite a bit of work to do with itemization, but it's nice to see they can nail seasonal content and progression.
 
Comixbooks said:
How long does it take to level for one level?
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To go from 1-100, about 20-30 hours, depending on the class. This beats the 100-150 hours.

Every nightmare dungeon, I was gaining at least 1 paragon point, even at Level 99. In the Pre-Season, as well as Season 1, it was taking near 6 Nightmare Dungeons per paragon point.

*EDIT*

To give a real demonstration:


View: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1963075376

I gained 1.8 million xp in roughly 4 minutes solo, at level 77. So, this is roughly 30 minutes to gain a level compared to the old 2 hours.
 
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Nytegard said:
To go from 1-100, about 20-30 hours, depending on the class. This beats the 100-150 hours.

Every nightmare dungeon, I was gaining at least 1 paragon point, even at Level 99. In the Pre-Season, as well as Season 1, it was taking near 6 Nightmare Dungeons per paragon point.
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That's... insane.
Did they change the end-game to compensate? What happens when you reach 100?
 
Comixbooks said:
How long does it take to level for one level?
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Took me about an hour to get from lvl 94-95. It's pretty fast now and it feels fast because you get paragon points inbetween levels.
And I'm not a level grinder. I hate grinding, but I feel it's perfect now at least for me. It's not too fast to feel bored but enough to feel like I put some effort to get there. I would even accept some 10-20% slower leveling.
 
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