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Diablo

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Re: Diablo

#21

Post by haunter »

>Poor character-building choices or a general lack of skill can, in other words, always be compensated for with patient grinding.

This is why I fell in love with JRPGs. Generally most of them allow endless grinding and for me, and for a lot of people, grinding itself is relaxing and on top of that it's fun being strong. It's fun being a demi-god and just kill every boss in 5 seconds or less. And even better when you can exploit some janky game mechanic to become strong (which nowadays would be patched 1 week later by the devs...)

Re: Diablo

#22

Post by ecshafer »

musha68k wrote: post #18

Diablo is the original "anti-souls" game. The slot machine mechanics, the lacking of significant strategic elements and sense of hollow progression have always been key factors for my dissatisfaction with it. That said, the beautiful / dreadful / horror vibe and simplicity of the first game to this day regularly pull me in – only to ultimately dissatisfy me greatly. Each time. To me there is just "no there there" - a…

There is a lot of strategy in Diablo 1. Unlike Diablo 2, you are much less able to just wade into hordes of monsters. Your health doesn't restore, you have less mana, you have fewer abilities and they don't just upgrade. In Diablo 2, some characters get abilities that can clear a whole pack of monsters by level 6 or 12, which you get to relatively quick. Diablo 1 you are much weaker. If theres a pack of monsters, knowing where to position yourself to filter them, or what scrolls to use and when to use them, and rationing your potions is more important. Its closer to traditional roguelikes.

Re: Diablo

#23

Post by giantrobot »

ecshafer wrote: post #9
strictnein wrote: post #3

Really a great, well written article. They've got the "Town" them embedded in the page and every time I hear that song it really brings me back. In Diablo 1, going deeper and deeper into the dungeon was meaningful. Coming back out of the dungeon, barely alive, to the peaceful yet gloomy music was impactful. I've played all the Diablo games when they were released. I'm sad about what they created for Diablo 4. It's ob…

I love Diablo 1 and Diablo 2, I don't care much for what the genre has become though (Diablo 3/4, Path of Exile, Grim Dawn, etc). The genre of loot focused ARPGs really took after the worst aspects of Diablo 2 LOD end game. An extreme focus on grinding and optimizing builds to maximize your ability to grind, so you can get gear to beat end game content that is otherwise impossible, to repeat the process. The genre to…

I'm in the same boat. I loved Diablo 1 and 3, but Diablo 3 is just meh and I haven't even bothered with 4. The first two games it could be fun going through loot you'd found and try to optimize your character. There were only a few dimensions to each piece of equipment so finding the "best" a relatively easy. Even if you didn't have the absolute best stuff you could still play the game. The character optimization was an emergent part of the game, not the core focus of the game.

Diablo 3, especially with real money used to buy equipment, turned the CharOp into a core aspect of the game. If you didn't pay attention to that aspect the game could be mercilessly hard. So I couldn't just mindlessly play, I had to pause half way through the dungeon to go further tune all my gear across a dozen different dimensions.

The extra cognitive load means there's more steps between me sitting down and engaging something fun. If I have an hour to play a game having to spend ten minutes out of that time dealing with loot is just a tax on fun. It's bad enough that unless I play every day I have to wait some unbounded amount of time waiting for updates because of the forced online component.

Re: Diablo

#24

Post by ohashi »

troebr wrote: post #16
ecshafer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Diablo 1 and Diablo 2, I don't care much for what the genre has become though (Diablo 3/4, Path of Exile, Grim Dawn, etc). The genre of loot focused ARPGs really took after the worst aspects of Diablo 2 LOD end game. An extreme focus on grinding and optimizing builds to maximize your ability to grind, so you can get gear to beat end game content that is otherwise impossible, to repeat the process. The genre to…

I think the loop that hooked me on game such as Diablo 1, Valheim, Subnautica, etc, is that cycle of safe place -> adventure -> "safe place, recharge, upgrade". The grindey aspect of Diablo 4 totally turned me off and if I buy the game it'll only be for the couch coop aspect.

The latest patch is an abomination to make it even slower, grindier and less fun. Save your money.

Re: Diablo

#25

Post by duskwuff »

kzrdude wrote: post #15
wk_end wrote: post #12

Even Diablo 2 felt a little bloated to me - it's so much longer, and I burned out on all the click-click-click way sooner than most people. It felt like slog. But the original Diablo...man. What a game. It feels "perfect" to me, in the same way that Scheme (the programming language) feels "perfect". Tight, hugely playable and replayable, atmospheric, unbelievably compulsively addictive. I maintain an personal list of…

Diablo 2 is the only one I played deeply, it seems fresher since it has many acts/environments. Even though any single one of them could have boring parts.

> Even though any single one of them could have boring parts.

The jungle areas in Act 3 were a particularly weak section, IMO.

Re: Diablo

#26

Post by strictnein »

troebr wrote: post #16
ecshafer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Diablo 1 and Diablo 2, I don't care much for what the genre has become though (Diablo 3/4, Path of Exile, Grim Dawn, etc). The genre of loot focused ARPGs really took after the worst aspects of Diablo 2 LOD end game. An extreme focus on grinding and optimizing builds to maximize your ability to grind, so you can get gear to beat end game content that is otherwise impossible, to repeat the process. The genre to…

I think the loop that hooked me on game such as Diablo 1, Valheim, Subnautica, etc, is that cycle of safe place -> adventure -> "safe place, recharge, upgrade". The grindey aspect of Diablo 4 totally turned me off and if I buy the game it'll only be for the couch coop aspect.

Just an fyi - the couch coop for Diablo 4 is a little more work to get going than Diablo 3. Requires that the second player sign into their own PSN/XBL account and have that account tied to a Battle.net account:

https://www.dexerto.com/diablo/diablo-4-couch-co-op-platform...

Re: Diablo

#27

Post by ghastmaster »

> They knew that multiplayer deathmatches had made DOOM what it was, and they knew that, long after players had finished Warcraft II‘s single-player campaign, it was multiplayer that kept them going there as well, turning the game into a veritable institution

This is what kept me playing for so long. I eventually played solo trying to find better loot when bnet dried up. There is now an active community on discord and plenty of people playing devilutionx. If you have a hankering for Diablo 1 community nostalia, I have over 700 links to current and archived Diablo 1 fanpages on my website https://mgpat-gm.github.io

Re: Diablo

#28

Post by Goronmon »

ecshafer wrote: post #22
musha68k wrote: post #18

Diablo is the original "anti-souls" game. The slot machine mechanics, the lacking of significant strategic elements and sense of hollow progression have always been key factors for my dissatisfaction with it. That said, the beautiful / dreadful / horror vibe and simplicity of the first game to this day regularly pull me in – only to ultimately dissatisfy me greatly. Each time. To me there is just "no there there" - a…

There is a lot of strategy in Diablo 1. Unlike Diablo 2, you are much less able to just wade into hordes of monsters. Your health doesn't restore, you have less mana, you have fewer abilities and they don't just upgrade. In Diablo 2, some characters get abilities that can clear a whole pack of monsters by level 6 or 12, which you get to relatively quick. Diablo 1 you are much weaker. If theres a pack of monsters, kno…

There is a lot of strategy in Diablo 1. Unlike Diablo 2, you are much less able to just wade into hordes of monsters.

Sure, you camped at doorways and killed monsters as they pathed in front of you individually.

Though, I'm not sure I'd classify that as "a lot of strategy".

Re: Diablo

#29

Post by carlisle_ »

musha68k wrote: post #18

Diablo is the original "anti-souls" game. The slot machine mechanics, the lacking of significant strategic elements and sense of hollow progression have always been key factors for my dissatisfaction with it. That said, the beautiful / dreadful / horror vibe and simplicity of the first game to this day regularly pull me in – only to ultimately dissatisfy me greatly. Each time. To me there is just "no there there" - a…

This is a strange post to me. You can immediately see that you value soulslike as a superior genre, yet to me I see those games are just as grindy. Die to a boss a million times to learn the timings -> finally you beat it. Not that much different than ARPGs where you kill lots of stuff and die infrequently. It's just two sides of the same coin.

Really these posts that call one kind of game time wasting or drug-like but not another just miss the brutal irony.

Re: Diablo

#30

Post by nntwozz »

ecshafer wrote: post #9
strictnein wrote: post #3

Really a great, well written article. They've got the "Town" them embedded in the page and every time I hear that song it really brings me back. In Diablo 1, going deeper and deeper into the dungeon was meaningful. Coming back out of the dungeon, barely alive, to the peaceful yet gloomy music was impactful. I've played all the Diablo games when they were released. I'm sad about what they created for Diablo 4. It's ob…

I love Diablo 1 and Diablo 2, I don't care much for what the genre has become though (Diablo 3/4, Path of Exile, Grim Dawn, etc). The genre of loot focused ARPGs really took after the worst aspects of Diablo 2 LOD end game. An extreme focus on grinding and optimizing builds to maximize your ability to grind, so you can get gear to beat end game content that is otherwise impossible, to repeat the process. The genre to…

And now you have "seasons" on top of that grindfest that reset every three months.

Endlessly repeating one-armed bandit gameplay, throw battle passes on top and boom Bobby Kotick can show shareholders how successful the game is.

Why gaming sucks in '23 …it's the money.

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