Out of the entire game she was the one interesting thing that they ruined. All the side characters were a snoozefest. Also I've been saying it was bad from the onset and beta. Where's my early enlightenment sticker? I've seen many opinions change over the time since launch. It's kind of hilarious watching people steadily come to the realization that the game is bad. It takes a while for some of the veils to be lifted from their eyes. It's like they can't admit something because of the hours they invested into the game. They're defending it through some sort of notion of sunk cost fallacy. Once you understand the gear you've obtained and items are trash, just like the game, it's easier to move on.

Blizzard has this problem in their recent games where they can't let evil win, they have to wrap up everything nicely with a bow. D2 had a huge cliffhanger before LoD was released. The same thing with the ending of D1. Diablo 4 acts like antagonist has no power and is scurrying away like a rat though. It doesn't setup something to be feared. It just kind of ends on a wet fart tone involving something we've already dealt with. That's not scary, that doesn't build hype, even on the level of a story they completely failed. Reminds me of a rushed ending like S8 game of thrones.

This post was edited by BlakeXeal on Sep 8 2023 04:55pm

Diablo 3

This is pretty much an impossible question because each game did different things at the time and so many a lot of people have forgetful memories. The poll could look like this:

D1 - Ground breaking and legendary at the time. The original of the genre.
D2 - An evolution of D1 when other games were starting to pop on the scene.
D2 LoD - A complete game changer and set the precedent to be matched for a decade.
D1 (Bnet) - People jumped back to Diablo 1 for nostalgia for quite a while when it was available on Bnet 2.0. Probably the most openly hacked online game ever though.
D2 v2 - Uber Diablo (Some major changes also)
D2 v3 - Pandemonium (Huge changes and was the game that people played for many years after)
D3
D3 Rebuild
D3 Expansion and Major Updates (Someone will have to fill in this gap as I took a 4-5 year hiatus on diablo)
D2R
D2R Terror Zones
D4

There was an enormous amount of changes on D2 through patches. Mana potion purchase, runewords being useless, HUGE XP changes, skill tree complete rebuild. The game that people know as D2 took about 5 years to develop from release.

This post was edited by SamTheGuru on Sep 8 2023 08:32pm

I can tell just one thing for sure.
Find an unique item here on D4, feels me like i was in d2 in the past.
Obv all the uniques are garbage, but it is a thrill of the hunt for me.
D3 hasn't such sensation.

Ofc this game has some things to fix, but i want to be hopeful.
Complete free trade can be helpful, but it will never happens.
Pvp need to be a thing here in d4, just to help the longevity of the game.

You’re gunna be seriously let down

The objective way to think about it is how fun and exciting they were on release and the months/years after imo.

D1 was insane because there wasn't a game like it at the time since it was a pioneer of the industry. I still remember the day my friend gave me a copy of clone before I purchased the game.
D2 was amazing, doing practically everything in D1, but better with the exception of not feeling as dark in tone. On launch the game was like crack for ARPG players all the way up until the expansion and only got better.
D3 felt different but player expectations were through the roof because of LoD being such a success and the time between sequels had players foaming at the mouth for more. The amount of interest in the game didn't last as long as it's predecessors. The RMAH did cause players to invest hundreds of hours or even thousands, until it's removal because being paid to find gear was addicting. The expansion caused a moderate amount of hype and interest, but no where near LoD expectations. Reaper was alright, but they made the game too fast paced to have longevity. The patches made the gameplay last the equivalent of a weekend on a season due to rift lords being loot pinatas.
D4 Well, we have several players that can attest to their own experiences, I didn't purchase it.

This post was edited by BlakeXeal on Sep 8 2023 09:14pm

You might be right

Lol, rip Diablo 4

Lilith has a top notch design; but yeah, they wasted her.

Andariel was another one. She has this new badass first form and they could have done a lot with that; but the woke creative turned her into a random nobody.
In other words, what was the point of the design? They could have dressed Andariel in a walmart employee outfit and it would have been the same nothing experience.

And as someone who wanted to have a hand in video game creation; seeing that this is what they finalized for millions of people; it's an insult to those with talent.
I could have done so much more with Andariel AND Duriel. Duriel was another nothing boss. I could make up something better than what they did in a week.
But then again, I wouldn't even touch this game until they corrected the camera perspective.




Pac-Man had a more compelling story, and offers a greater challenge.

What comes to my mind when reading this is the atmosphere seems wrong in the game. Even if some of the art style in the game is good the overall tone is repetitive and they don't comprehend the concept of a good dungeon dive. Look at how bad the design is of nightmare dungeons and the lack of randomization to them. There's a post somewhere on reddit that shows how they approached random dungeon level generation. Those aren't even real dungeons. Instead of getting lost in them you're just given specific goals and having to double back via some key mechanics or number of monsters left to kill which is immersion breaking.

Part of duriel and andariel's original experience was that you fought your way down through the depths to get to them. One in a sharply designed tomb with a nice undead theme of creatures and it originally acts as part of a puzzle. Another involves fighting your way through the monastery jail and catacombs culminating with a terrifying first time experience of being chased by a demon with very satisfying voice acting to add to the level of horror. Diablo questing never really felt like a chore either prior to 3. It was just part of an epic adventure and cataloging what your character was already doing for the most part.

Comparatively D4 has this sort of, what i like to call, factory assembly arpg experience just shuffling along from objective to objective. Not having an interesting enough story or points of interest, or randomness to it for a unique experience (level generation deficiency from static open world and dungeons). D2 may have come out over two decades ago but the masterful design is still far beyond something they probably dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into, the d4 experience.

One of my theories is the only way having a static overworld would help a Diablo experience is if the game was an actual mmo like wow, but then you'd have a different genre of game attracting different players. They went for this hybrid design that just doesn't work. Randomly generated maps are part of the allure of ARPGs imo. You can have small hubs that aren't very random, and certain levels, but the majority of the gameplay should be cycling through one of many different map designs for each area to increase replayability, and I'm not talking about rifts, those sucked for the most part.

This post was edited by BlakeXeal on Sep 11 2023 04:02pm