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Diablo

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Re: Diablo

#31

Post by aidenn0 »

giobox wrote: post #7

Jimmy Maher's writing on old PC video games continues to be some of the best around, at least if you are of a similar age to Jim. When the site recovers, I highly recommend reading his back catalog - one of the best collections of articles on 90s PC gaming I've seen. The site is especially great because Jimmy writes so well and he has obvious passion for the period.

He also covers a lot of 80s PC gaming. I find the periods I'm unfamiliar with as (or more) enjoyable than the periods I'm intimately familiar with.

Re: Diablo

#32

Post by WhereIsTheTruth »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #19
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…

> the lacking of significant strategic elements Planning for your gear and doing sims / optimizing are strategic elements, though potentially a meta-strategy?

That was a thing in Diablo 2 and that's when the IP peaked, this got lost with Diablo 3 and, i believe even more so with Diablo 4.. all the builds are all discovered and in front of you, there is no tinkering with incredible skill interaction possible like we used to do in Diablo 2

It's kinda similar to how Bethesda manages the Elder Scrolls IP, ~ a decade between titles and they casualize(? is it a word)/simplify mechanics that made them popular, they became a shadow of themselves, as a result their titles, while successful, doesn't give the same satisfaction, and I don't think it's due to nostalgia, there are specific design decisions that emphasis with my point, lvl-scaling and simplified damage/defense stats in D4 for example

The story and world building are both nailed, hence the commercial success, but the gameplay... what a let down.. exactly like Oblivion -> Skyrim transition

I don't think the game would have been a success if "Diablo" wasn't attached to the name, I'm pretty sure it sold less than Diablo 3

Hopefully they evolve the genre/IP with Diablo 5, perhaps focus as a single player game and explore new gameplay mechanics

This "game as a service" ruins this IP

Hopefully Bethesda don't fall into the same trap and actually move the IP forward, similar to how Fromsoftware evolved their Souls like genre

Dark Souls -> Elden Ring, that's what I expect from both Blizzard / Bethesda, they both play too safe and ends up becoming the shadow of their past..

Re: Diablo

#33

Post by themagician »

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…

I've always loved this series.

The problem, as I see it, is that the focus is always on tweaking the "endgame." I just find this to be silly. Once you get to the endgame it's pointless, and people basically blaze through the base game on purpose. And once you get there it really is no more than a slot machine that caters to people with serious gambling addictions. You run the same dungeons over and over again, sometimes thousands or even tens of thousands of times, all for an item with slightly different numbers. In Diablo 1 and 2 the item often doesn't even look different.

But I've always found the base game to be excellent. Fun, exciting, and a blast with 4 people.

I feel like, particularly with the new Diablo 4 they could make the leveling curve on the base game last MUCH, MUCH longer and it would actually be far more enjoyable for far more people. It would piss off the endgame crowd though, because all they want to do is get to max level as fast as possible so they can start farming.

Re: Diablo

#34

Post by themagician »

carlisle_ wrote: post #29
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 b…

You can find a balance. Diablo 3 tried. You had a game that you could make significantly hard, and because respecs were essentially unlimited you could reroll your character for any particular fight that was too hard to try and find a new way to beat it. I enjoyed that part.

Re: Diablo

#35

Post by musha68k »

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…

True, D1 involves strategy and resembles traditional roguelikes, yet its tactical breadth feels limited..

So in absolute comparison to other roguelikes it's all mere coating, even on the tactics / strategy side - it tends to be more about positioning and resource management.

This is a highly subjective take of course and its appeal varies player by player..

I'd be in full agreement that Diablo 1 is the "most worthwhile" of the Diablo games and I do have a love / hate / on / off relationship with it (really glad that I'm not a smoker).

Re: Diablo

#36

Post by hirundo »

This game murdered me. I discovered Diablo a few months after it came out and played obsessively for a few weeks. I had lots of cool stuff. Then one day wandering through a dungeon minding my own business, someone invisible killed me. Boom you're dead. Then they resurrected me. Then they killed me again. Then they resurrected me. Then they killed me again. Then they just went away.

I really felt murdered. I read mystery books with murders in them all the time, but the punch never connected like that. Video games really are a uniquely expressive medium. I closed the game and never went back to it.

Re: Diablo

#37

Post by nullindividual »

WhereIsTheTruth wrote: post #32
PartiallyTyped wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the lacking of significant strategic elements Planning for your gear and doing sims / optimizing are strategic elements, though potentially a meta-strategy?

That was a thing in Diablo 2 and that's when the IP peaked, this got lost with Diablo 3 and, i believe even more so with Diablo 4.. all the builds are all discovered and in front of you, there is no tinkering with incredible skill interaction possible like we used to do in Diablo 2 It's kinda similar to how Bethesda manages the Elder Scrolls IP, ~ a decade between titles and they casualize(? is it a word)/simplify me…

> casualize(? is it a word)/simplify mechanics

'streamline the fun out of'

Re: Diablo

#38

Post by fishtoaster »

duskwuff wrote: post #25
kzrdude wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's what immediately sprang to mind when wk_end mentioned slogging. I was never a serious player, but played through it a number of times and that was always my least favorite section. So repetitive, and the river maps often included long sections of back-tracking if you got unlucky with the procedural generation.

Re: Diablo

#39

Post by shultays »

carlisle_ wrote: post #29
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 b…

I guess the difference is grinding against a challenge and grinding against RNG

Re: Diablo

#40

Post by jnovek »

WhereIsTheTruth wrote: post #32
PartiallyTyped wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the lacking of significant strategic elements Planning for your gear and doing sims / optimizing are strategic elements, though potentially a meta-strategy?

That was a thing in Diablo 2 and that's when the IP peaked, this got lost with Diablo 3 and, i believe even more so with Diablo 4.. all the builds are all discovered and in front of you, there is no tinkering with incredible skill interaction possible like we used to do in Diablo 2 It's kinda similar to how Bethesda manages the Elder Scrolls IP, ~ a decade between titles and they casualize(? is it a word)/simplify me…

> all the builds are all discovered

Isn't that more a feature of the community than the game itself, though? You're always free to experiment and roll your own builds. That's what I'm doing with Diablo 4 and I'm having a blast. I don't care if I push the highest nightmare dungeon or even reach max level. I just want to see what I can do with a build that I come up with out of my own head.

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