Something to keep in mind is while Diablo 4 is a big deal to many of us in this thread, they had an hour to show off a lot of stuff, and can’t be expected to show everything off right at the top of the hour. I think some of what folks like @KevinC want to see are being shown on the playable demo (like during this stream) such as character selection/creation. Some of it may not be ready to show off/finalized as well, I have a feeling we are pretty early in development, even though they said it’s been under construction for some time. I bet we finally get a late 2020 release date next summer, and then it gets delayed until Q1 2021, and then Q2 2021. :)
Oh yeah, I wouldn’t expect it until 2021 at the earliest. I remember Diablo 3 took frickin’ forever.
Maybe this is dumb but the first positive thing I noticed was the use of actual damage values instead of that awful “170% weapon damage” garbage in D3.
Percent damage was the one thing that made sure things scaled correctly over time.
I wouldn’t say Grim Dawn added anything, but in my view it perfected what had been done before. Great balance and options, excellent controls (M&K and controller), good variety of enemies and settings, great itemization, etc.
It’s probably still weapon damage behind the scenes, just translated into actual damage so it’s understandable. As KevinC said, that was a great idea that holds up.
And yeah, exactly, PoE and Grim Dawn didn’t change the core gameplay to any meaningful degree, so I’m not sure what people are expecting from D4. How do you make a fundamental gameplay change and still have it play like Diablo? That could be dangerous.
I mean, do you want stealth levels in your Diablo?
I’m aware, almost every RPG works like that even if it doesn’t explicitly tell you so. But the UI in D3 was very confusing, especially when some skills deal multiple hits, some are over time, some are one shot, but the only values you have are DPS and %weapon damage.
I agree but I’d still like to see mage spells get better scaled with a stat rather than the equipped weapon. I’m not sure what I want, but I never really liked how equipped weapon influenced the spell damage of my mage. I liked that you dumped points into skills and they got better, but only with regards to spells - special attacks, like Rend, from Barbarians absolutely should be based on equipped weapon.
Why, though? Just imagine your staff is covered in runes that grant power to your spells.
I get it thematically, for sure. I can’t put my finger on it at the moment, but something about finding a “Sharpend Scimitar with 20 more DPS” and so equipping it was a no brainer to make my frost nova more powerful felt off to me. Maybe there should have been more distinction about what classes can equip what weapons?
As I recall it initially felt weird to me too, but that was like 7 years ago and I got over it quick. YMMV obvs.
They ran into this problem over and over in games like WoW. Everything is nice and dandy, where Fireball is based on level and scales with Int or whatever. It’s in balance with the various swords in the game. But then they add a new tier of content and now there’s new staves, wands, and swords. That means the barbarians base damage that everything is multiplied by just took a jump while nothing did the same for spells, they just got a little more Int.
Variety? Making different item types meaningful? If a broadsword works exactly like a dagger for gameplay mechanics, then who cares about the weapon type at all? Might as well just call everything “main weapon”
(In reality D3 did at least care about attack speed, but it was obfuscated in a lot of cases)
That’s right, it did matter in D3, and your weapon choice changed how the game played, but the player wasn’t required to understand the underlying mechanic to play. That is, IMO, good design.
Unlike the Strength stat in PoE increased damage for all spells/abilities and all classes, this one never clicked with me. :)
@KevinC yeah, basing things off equipped weapon really is a fine solution, no argument here. And I always loved the imagery of my sorcerer with a cool sword in one hand, all glowey and icy! So maybe I’ll just shut up. :)
I did feel this was missing in Diablo 3. I’m perfectly happy with spell damage scaling off of items just like physical classes are but I didn’t like that there was no difference between running around with a mage staff vs a 2-handed axe vs a bow. It made them feel too much like stat sticks instead of weapons.
Agreed. At least the music was cool. But I’d bet that’s not in the actual game :(
Oooh! 2% fury generation per point. I’m sold now. 😏
The screenshot up above implies some positive change in this direction, at least. (The skill highlighted requires a slashing weapon)
Hopefully they can figure out some way to make elemental damage relevant to combat again as well - that’s one of the easiest ways to push players to play around with more builds and skills, as Monster Hunter can attest.
Yeah, various elements make a big difference in games like Path of Exile. I enjoy games that include them as almost sub-specs for other builds. You might go a crit build in PoE but what you get out of it is pretty different depending if you’re using Fire or Ice.