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Diablo IV - Information Thread, update: "Season of the Construct" announcement trailer (January 23)

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BloodyHell

BloodyHell

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On 3/18/2023 at 8:50 PM, legend said:

This stuttering is killing me. "Stutter" is kind of the wrong work. It locks up for like a quarter second at random times at least once every 10 seconds regardless of what's happening. I'm enjoying the game except that that made the last boss fight I did extremely annoying! (I still won though)

Same problem I had. The game is incredible, but this needs to be fixed. And this is happening way too much on PC lately. At this point, is it EVERY dev, or is it a hardware issue? Stuttering is out of control. The RE4 beta was full of it. 

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legend

legend

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13 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

Same problem I had. The game is incredible, but this needs to be fixed. And this is happening way too much on PC lately. At this point, is it EVERY dev, or is it a hardware issue? Stuttering is out of control. The RE4 beta was full of it. 

 

My uninformed guess is for Diablo it's a network issue. It's always talking to the game server to keep things in sync on your cloud character and they were not prepared for this open beta. Then, whenever there is a blip, its locking the whole game up. It even does this funny thing where when it unlocks my character's cape goes flying forward because it just auto advanced me forward when it synced back up :p 

 

For RE4, I'm guessing it's just a bad port of the game engine rather than network, but I didn't play any of the RE4 beta and I'm assuming it didn't have network troubles, but I could be completely wrong!

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TwinIon

TwinIon

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18 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

After spending many hours with the beta this weekend and getting my Sorceress to level 23, I can safely say that Diablo IV is an MMO.  It may be a a "light" MMO compared to WoW, FFXIV, or TESO, but make no mistake: it's an MMO.

 

This video does an excellent job of reflecting my feelings about the game:

 

 

I'm not sure I would describe level scaling as something indicative of an MMO, but it is interesting that this game is so much more MMO like.

 

I disagree with the video in thinking of Diablo as a single player first game. I've also been playing the series from the beginning and I've spent a ton of time across the games playing by myself, but it's been clear since the second game that multiplayer was the focus.

 

I also think that he's focusing way too much on queues and downtime. Maybe that was a big issue with this limited beta, but I doubt it will be a significant issue when the game goes live. He seems very concerned about queues as a matter of principle when it comes to Diablo. He also brings up pay to win issues, but from what I've read that won't be an issue (at least at launch).

 

I do find it a bit funny that he complains about repetitive content in MMOs and especially in Diablo. It's just the nature of these games that you do the same thing over and over again. Also, level scaling is meant as something to reduce repetition because it makes all the content level appropriate rather than just the small selection that might be without it.

 

I am curious how the overall online mechanics change the feel of Diablo. I played through D3, but didn't spend much time with it after launch. Are you constantly running into people as you're adventuring? Are all dungeons instanced, or can people follow you everywhere? Is there incentive for people to follow you if you're not in a party?

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Dexterryu

Dexterryu

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1 hour ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

After spending many hours with the beta this weekend and getting my Sorceress to level 23, I can safely say that Diablo IV is an MMO.  It may be a a "light" MMO compared to WoW, FFXIV, or TESO, but make no mistake: it's an MMO.

 

This video does an excellent job of reflecting my feelings about the game:

 

 


For the most part this is accurate except that it's not a full MMO. More of a live service game in the vein of Destiny 2. Which I think is actually great. It's missing the Massively in MMO in that it doesn't have 100's or 1000's of people sharing the same world instance.

Really the only part of the multiplayer part that doesn't really seem to fit is that the games narrative & general vibe is more that of a single player game.

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Commissar SFLUFAN

Commissar SFLUFAN

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Some media reactions to the beta:

 

diablo-4-beta-lilith.jpg

Diablo 4's beta shows a gripping, if self-conscious, revitalisation for the series

WWW.ROCKPAPERSHOTGUN.COM
The Diablo 4 closed beta shows off a game that wants its dad to take it very seriously - a revitalisation with little obvious opportunity for monetisation. Yet.

 

Quote

 

As you’ve probably realised, Diablo 4 is a noticeably darker game than its predecessor. From dilapidated streets, villagers murmur portents of doom. They whisper of demons and prophecies. Those villagers! What are they like, eh? Damned. Is the answer to that. Someone at Blizzard got the memo that Diablo 3 was too colorful, and took it very seriously indeed. The result is a game that, atmospheric as it is, feels as self-conscious about being taken seriously as 14 year old me did when I got stroppy with my mum because she wouldn’t buy me that Cradle of Filth t-shirt. You know the one.

 

As I continue to prove to this very day, however, you can be an edgy tryhard and still win people over with dazzling drip, and Diablo 4 is dressed to the nine (circles of hell) in blasphemous finery. While still a bit too focused on readability and UX to evoke the same foreboding claustrophobia as the earlier titles, this is a genuinely gorgeous, often richly atmospheric take on Diablo’s world. Every cavern, corpse and cobblestone feels as if it could tell tales of the torment that took place in its vicinity, and even daybreak feels like some cruel joke as it further illuminates the despair and carnage that litters the landscape. Sebastian Stępień’s influence here is palpable. Think The Witcher 3’s Velen, minus the agreeable climate and at least occasionally funny locals.

 

 

 

aBs5632Fh32RDtQFZdwhiZ-1200-80.jpg

Diablo 4 convinced me that skill trees rule, actually | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM
The heart of Diablo 4 lies in one brilliant system.

 

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Skill trees are easy to make fun of because nobody can seriously insist there's a thrill in having 3% extra critical strike chance on your fire bolt. Incremental progress was the way of the classic RPG: you level up, you gain points, and you spend them on skills that slightly increase your power. Do that enough times and the numeric increases add up to something that actually has an impact. But in the short term, skill trees were only ever an illusion of meaningful choice.

 

Diablo 4(opens in new tab)'s skill tree is the modern solution to an age-old problem. It includes loads of incremental upgrades, but they sit at the end of their own branches for each major skill. And it doesn't require that many points to dig deeper into your class tree, which encourages you to focus on the skills that mean the most to you. 

 

 

 

ev8xLFqa8a8q7A58t3BR5i-1200-80.jpg

Diablo 4 players react to the beta test: 'Seems to be Blizzard back in their old form' | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM
The Diablo 4 early access beta got off to a rough start but once it started working, players were genuinely excited by what they saw.

 

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But even more important than basic functionality, the general feeling seems to be that the beta was good. Like, really good. Diablo 3 took a lot of heat for its auction house, but it also faced pointed and persistent criticism for its bright, colorful visual style, which stood in sharp contrast to the shadowy bleakness of the first two games. Diablo 3 lead producer Keith Lee told MTV(opens in new tab) in 2008 that the "stylized" new look was "sort of a Blizzard philosophy," and "pushing the envelope in terms of the visuals so that everyone is excited about how everything looks." It was definitely a bold move, but it didn't look much like Diablo, and that left a lot of fans cold.

 

 

ev8xLFqa8a8q7A58t3BR5i-1200-80.jpg

I didn't expect Diablo 4 to be my next MMO | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM
Blizzard is still calling Diablo 4 an action-RPG but there's no denying its very shared world.

 

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I was not looking for a new MMO to enter my life. I'm a healthier person when I'm not obsessively dungeon grinding for legendary gear and logging in to stand about digital towns every evening. With Diablo 4 approaching and Blizzard hyping up its slightly more shared world, I thought perhaps it could be a lite MMO: A diet-style, low-fat-but-all-sugar form of my usual obsessions. Not, y'know, a complete disaster for my free time. But after playing in the Diablo 4 beta it's quite clear: Diablo is my next MMO.

 

I've never Diabloed in my life, but everything I knew about the online qualities of the series led me to expect it could fill the long empty hole in my life left by the original Guild Wars. I've been craving a map to clear and that old blend of shared towns but instanced combat zones that so far only Path of Exile has ever managed to give me. But Diablo 4 is a lot closer to wholesale MMO Guild Wars 2 than yon instanced online RPG I expected.

 

 

 

 

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JPDunks4

JPDunks4

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10 hours ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

I do wish the Barb's dodge refreshed quicker, maybe by about 3 seconds. 

 

I got an item that gave me am extra dodge charge, was a huge help.

 

I'm sure as we level with better gear we will get more charges and potentially quicker cooldowns too.

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Keyser_Soze

Keyser_Soze

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9 minutes ago, JPDunks4 said:

 

I got an item that gave me am extra dodge charge, was a huge help.

 

I'm sure as we level with better gear we will get more charges and potentially quicker cooldowns too.

 

Yeah watching Jeff Gerstmann's video, he was also a Barbarian and had the same complaint but I had the same thoughts as you. Obviously it's a base thing once you upgrade or get higher level then your dodges are going to be as crazy as Hades or something.

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JPDunks4

JPDunks4

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1 hour ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

Yeah watching Jeff Gerstmann's video, he was also a Barbarian and had the same complaint but I had the same thoughts as you. Obviously it's a base thing once you upgrade or get higher level then your dodges are going to be as crazy as Hades or something.

 

Yeah I got it with my Barbarian.  Maybe class specific, since the Melee class is by far the most difficult based off what I've seen.

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Remarkableriots

Remarkableriots

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3 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

All the people who thought POE's skill tree was intimidating are totally fine with the skill tree here!

I had no problem with the skill tree in POE. What I hated about the game was that the map would reset after a few minutes. So if I found two interesting points on a previous map I had just visited, when I returned, the map was refreshed, and everything I had just cleared was gone. At least with Diablo, you have to leave the current game for the area to reset.

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Remarkableriots

Remarkableriots

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diablo-4-tree-of-whispers-2x.webp

Diablo 4 Whispers of the Dead · Rarest reward? · Mythic Drop

MYTHICDROP.COM
Learn about Diablo 4's new end-game system, Whispers of the Dead, which gives players routine objectives to complete for crafting materials, experience, and powerful items.
Quote

There's around 150 dungeons in Diablo 4. According to Blizzard, the type of dungeon you're in increases the drop rate of certain items, which may incentivize you to seek out specific dungeons. The example given was a dungeon with an increased chance of dropping helmets:

"A dungeon might be biased towards helmets, which is great if I'm looking for a particular legendary helmet. There's certain dungeons you can go to to target what type of loot you're after. This change allows me agency as a player -- to say what's weak about my build and find which dungeon is, say, dropping gloves."

 

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Commissar SFLUFAN

Commissar SFLUFAN

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Posted

Between this article and their Redfall preview, PC Gamer appears to be in a grumpy mood today.

 

gUuNr6kCxv5TyUSb4TJpPB-1200-80.jpg

The Diablo 4 beta makes it feel like Blizzard hasn't learned anything about action-RPG combat in the 11 years since Diablo 3 | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM
My time in the beta so far has me seriously doubting that the long-awaited sequel is going to deliver.

 

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After the wild superheroics of Diablo 3, it's clear Blizzard's intention here is to create something a little slower and more grounded. But it doesn't seem to have any idea how to do that without just literally taking Diablo 3's combat and making it slow. Enemies have spongier healthbars, and attacks take their time coming out. Key skills that should be your satisfying finishers are stuck on super long cooldowns that prevent you from getting into any kind of good rhythm. Even your active dodge takes 5 seconds to recharge, making your character feel sluggish and unresponsive during hectic boss fights. 

 

Though the skill tree tosses some of Diablo 3's more obnoxious hand-holding, it's essentially still in the same format, offering very few real choices and combo opportunities. Skills are slotted into different categories that very strongly define their role, pushing you to take one of each in the exact configuration Blizzard wants you to. The game literally tells you: this one is for defence, this one is for repositioning, etc. Those long cooldowns and tight constraints on what generates and what spends resources all discourage experimentation or unusual combinations. 

 

The result is it doesn't feel like you're creating a build, it feels like you're scanning through the skills trying to find the builds Blizzard wants you to use. Playing a Barbarian with the bleed attack as your basic skill? Well then you're going to want to take all the subsequent skills that mention bleed. Your only ability to break the mould is via legendary abilities assigned to items—to Blizzard's credit, those are now earnable almost right from the start, instead of being endgame goals, but all they do is give you more set templates of what goes with what in the developer's eyes. Theorycrafters will have these classes 'solved' in weeks. 

 

 

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Keyser_Soze

Keyser_Soze

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2 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

Between this article and their Redfall preview, PC Gamer appears to be in a grumpy mood today.

 

They are in a grumpy mood this YEAR. They absolutely blasted Hi-Fi Rush and any game after that so I think they are on some kind of hate trip or something.

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  • Commissar SFLUFAN changed the title to Diablo IV (06 June 2023) - Information Thread, update: Class Build Guide videos from Fextralife
Dexterryu

Dexterryu

Posted
Posted
On 3/21/2023 at 2:43 AM, Remarkableriots said:

I had no problem with the skill tree in POE. What I hated about the game was that the map would reset after a few minutes. So if I found two interesting points on a previous map I had just visited, when I returned, the map was refreshed, and everything I had just cleared was gone. At least with Diablo, you have to leave the current game for the area to reset.

 

Honestly even that reset was annoying. On the Barb I was trying out I hit level 10 while almost at the boss of a dungeon. I fought him and was getting him to like 5% and dying. At which point I remembered at L10 you can get a potion upgrade so I left, upgraded, come back and the whole thing was reset.

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osxmatt

osxmatt

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52 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

Tomorrow's queue times are gonna be something to behold :p

 

 

IGC_InariusIntro_RS_01_png_jpgcopy.jpg

Diablo 4 beta players can expect ‘lengthy queue times,’ Blizzard says

WWW.POLYGON.COM
Don’t be in a hurry to go to Hell...

 

 

I'll be entering the queue at 9am when I leave for work, that way I'll only have a few hours left when I'm off at 5pm.

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Firewithin

Firewithin

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1 hour ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

Tomorrow's queue times are gonna be something to behold :p

 

 

IGC_InariusIntro_RS_01_png_jpgcopy.jpg

Diablo 4 beta players can expect ‘lengthy queue times,’ Blizzard says

WWW.POLYGON.COM
Don’t be in a hurry to go to Hell...

 

yah im sure tomorrow will be a clusterfuck.  maybe they will get it good for the weekend though........maybe......lol

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BloodyHell

BloodyHell

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Posted
15 hours ago, JPDunks4 said:

Rog Fergusson confirmed that drop rates on loot was tuned higher than it will be on full release.

Good. A treadmill of loot is great, but I don’t want to get powerful too fast. I remember D3 being a bit quick in throwing overpowered loot at me. 

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