too be fair, it's nothing like D2.. D4 is D3 mechanics, itemization, mixed with Diablo Immortal gameplay on top of a World of Warcraft open world map, and a dark textured overlay. Nothing innovative here, just missing key staple features, reduced co-op to 4x, another shitty release from modern BlizTardz
the problem with these games nowadays is the gameplay loop. I feel like I'm the kid that has to do his chores before he can go outside and play. if you have a bunch of tiring gameplay loops in your game that prevent you from actually having fun, the games flawed severely. the reason why D2 was so great is there wasn't anything preventing you from just going out and killing things. nothing was mandatory to do in order to just play the damn game.
You've basically described every ARPG. Including D2, where the gameplay loop is finish campaign and do Baal runs. You D2 stans are fucking insufferable, you're aliens.
this is spot on. that’s why i haven’t bought a AAA game in like ten years. i’ve bought a few indie games here and there, but when it feels like i’m forced to play a certain way, or have to play and do “dailies” just saps all the fun out of the game.
Nostalgia was something that they said when some players didn't like Diablo 3, I think it's moreso a shift in art design, itemization, and game mechanics with timed cooldowns etc
Agreed they can't argue that nostalgia doesn't keep a game player base strong for more than 20 years. If that were so, then there would be so many nostalgic games (like 007 Goldeneye that Llama mentioned) that would have huge playerbases (and never would have lost the player bases). But that's not the case, those games DID die out. Nostalgia did not save them. Just because they re-released them doesn't mean that players are playing the game in droves constantly. Nostalgia is a surge and then dies quickly. But good gameplay is timeless. Chess is still one of the biggest games ever played. Nostalgia isn't why it's scene is as strong as ever. Nothing about the games rules have changed. It's just a good game with interesting outcomes.
I had a damn blast playing diablo II casually back in the day and I knew full well a ton of the game's content (ladder, nightmare and hell difficulty, holy grail stuff) was hardcore shit and not up my alley. Knowing that those things existed didn't ruin the game for me, in fact I find that games containing things that you know you're not going to experience can make a game more exciting. I played world of Warcraft when I was a kid and I always marveled at and admired the people who did raids, rep grinds and PvP. It made the game something larger and more mysterious. Thinking that everything in a game should be made specifically for you is really entitled.
Dude, these are all opinions. Its normal that a nerd that is fairly technical, intelligent and has multimedia culture would expect more from a high level francize. If you want to release "Hand holding for casuals" just name it something else. The issues comes from them trying to milk the francize by saying its a Diablo game and in fact being just a glorified borderline-generic game.
@@alinn.4341 What makes it 'not' a Diablo game? Either Diablo is a concept, or a franchise, because I doubt many people here played D1, and those that did recognize that it's not worth playing today outside of nostalgia or checking out the roots.
@@localneo-graphic4647 I played D1 back when I had a PS1, the game was really good back in the day but not so much today. I played D2 a few years later and D2 was better without a doubt. I also happened to play D3 back in 2013~ and D2 was better. I also play D4 now and D2 is still better. He's got a valid point when he says companies stick their household name to something that doesn't have the original intent in it. D2 is simply too good of a game, the scaling, all acts and the different places you go to, the story. Sure, D4 has made some improvements like a "larger inventory" since things ocupy only one slot, mounts that allow you to move quickly even though you're not a teleporting mage, but that doesn't make D4 better than D2 overall. Cooldowns? all the waiting to regenerate your mana? A "hero's journey" kinda type of story? Weird "same level everywhere" enemies quirk? D2 had none of that, and was better for it.
It’s not nostalgia. I picked up D2R for the first time 2 months ago. Diablo 4 and it’s beta were my first experiences with the franchise. The beta left me wanting more so I picked up D2 since it was like $10, just to hold me over. I haven’t stopped playing since. I may not even get D4 at this point, waiting to see end game. D2R scratched the itch and then some, even for a brand new player in 2023
Yeah the argument that D2 was only good because of "nostalgia" is such a cope. I love how these people can never explain why D2 is a bad game, they just dismiss anyone who likes it as nostalgic. Meanwhile D2 players can explain EXACTLY why D4 is inferior.
@@TravisH-nm9fy They cannot explain why D2 is a bad game because they never played it. They bought the new shiny Diablo game and they dismiss all criticisms from actual fans of the older games. Post-purchase rationalization is why the big companies make the big bucks.
Just wanted to say, big props for the Dungeon Siege praise at around 19:30 . Such a great fuckin game dude, the idea of playing an action style game, with a full party, with pause, and classless skill-system was just insane back in the early 2000's . IMO the sequels didn't hold up as much, but dude....DS1 was something. Plus, there was a Chicken Gun, a machine gun that fired chickens
Smart loot is probably my biggest problem. In D2, if I were playing an Amazon and got some sick Necro loot while farming, I'd heavily consider trying out a Necro to see if I'd like a build with the gear that dropped. I wouldn't be disappointed getting loot from a class I don't play in D4. If anything, it's just legendary salvage mats for my future good loot. Overall I love D4 thusfar, but smart loot is probably my biggest gripe
I feel the opposite, I always hated getting a legendary in d3 that got me excited for the class I was playing, and instead it's some barb weapon I can't use. Nothing was more deflating when legendaries weren't yet raining from the skies. I want to check out the other classes in D4 not because I found an item, but just because the theorycrafting is fun, and the gameplay is killer smooth.
D2 is all about the loot mechanics and that's what keeps bringing us back. The cut scenes and general story are amazing but so are the ones in D3 and so far D4. The movement and the way you traverse is the same in all 3 minus teleport which is kinda broken in D2 but also adds a thing to strive to build if you're not a sorc. D2 is all about pushing to find the loot to get your character to broken mode where you can clear any area without coming close to dying. In the process you find items that make you want to build different chars or niche builds for fun. The way D3 and D4 just vomit upgraded loot at you every few minutes makes it very uninteresting until you are end game min maxing, there are way too many stats on the items now to where it takes so much time to figure out if it's even a benefit to your build that you could have played 10 mins longer and found another upgrade. In D2 you had to struggle a bit to find early gear to be able to push you to the next area and at times you couldn't even farm an area because of immunities. The fact that most unique items could be equipped by any class made them memorable, some easier to find than others, and then the opportunity to have best in class items that weren't even unique added another element for those players committed enough to find them. The payoff from trading was big too, if you found something amazing you could trade it to enable you to finish off your build. D3 and D4 will always fall short on staying power no matter how "cool" they make the skills, battle sequences, items look, or how much new content they add to the game. I hop on for a couple days, finish off the campaign, level up a bit until I get bored of the loot, and then shut it off for a few years until I feel like doing another char or checking out the campaign again.
What do you mea loot mechanics?? First time i played diablo 2 ressurected and i read a guide i farmed mephisto for 10 days and got alot of unique items finished my immortal king set and finished the game well in titan quest doe way way harder game and harder to get legendaries
They changed skills to be anly be effected by item damage. By doing this they had to change how items effect skills and it ruined most of the RP by doing this. Diablo 4 is diablo 3.5 and it is so boring to play. Also the boss battles get boring as well. Do you like killing a boss? Well now you can't damage them until you kill monters or pilers. That might be fun the first few times but it gets old fast. During boss fights health orbs still drop into the fire and you take damage having to pick them up.
D2 is all about the loot mechanics? D2 doesn't have any particularly interesting loot mechanics. How do I know this? Explain to me exactly what you mean when you say that. Nothing about the loot mechanics is particularly interesting, in fact I would argue that it's loot mechanics are rather shallow, and yet the game was and is still successful. So my argument would be, D2 is successful DESPITE the lack of a particularly deep loot mechanic. In fact most areas of the game are extremely outdated and would never fly in a new game. Imagine they released D4 with bosses that die within 5-10 seconds after being encountered. People would cry "dogshit game" immediately. Yet, for D2, that kinda boss mechanic somehow doesn't matter. So what exactly is it about D2 that makes people keep coming back? In my opinion, it's flair. Diablo 2 had a great and intriguing storyline, amazing visuals, rememberable monster design and art, and most importantly phenomenal music. These four main factors make up diablo 2's flair. All the other areas in the game (which are extremely lacking when compared to a game like path of exile), are irrelevant to why the game is still being played. The flair was just something else, and nostalgia keeps bringing us back to enjoy some of that flair. That's why a game like path of exile works. There are hundreds of diablo clones, with very deep itemization systems, yet most of those games become forgotten rather quickly. Not so with path of exile. Because like diablo 2, it has its own unique flair. It has a pretty interesting story, nice music, nice visuals, distinguished monster design and that's why it simply works. You remember all bosses and most monster types, you recognize the visuals, the music triggers Nostalgia, the story means something, thus the world universe means something. It's alive. It has flair. Diablo 3 had no flair, that's why it is ultimately completely irrelevant how you change the itemization. You could make the itemization exactly the same as in D2, and people would rather play D2 than D3. Flair of a game is important.
Played every diablo game to date, Pre-purchased diablo 2, 3, d2r and 4. I have enjoyed every diablo game to date. They aren't meant to be the same game. Even when diablo 2 came out, there were things from diablo 1 I missed (Like how every class can learn any move, technically). It's a different game with same continuous storyline. Played the hell out of (no pun intended) every iteration to date and I'm sure 4 will be the same.
I'm with you man. I watched my dad play D1 and D2 when I was pretty young. Then in 7th grade which would have been around 2002/2003 my dad went on a work trip and let me go with him on a Friday. On the way back home from the trip that day. He let me use his laptop to play D2 in the car on the way home. I instantly fell in love with the game and series. I had no idea what I was doing. I was basically trying to beat the game with a necromancer, bashing people in the face with whatever weapon I had. It didn't matter that I was complete shit at the time. It was just fun. I anticipated the release of D3 for what seemed like forever, only to find out when the beta came out that the CPU in my laptop wouldn't support the game. It was actually powerful enough as for as specs were concerned but it wasn't supported. I almost went and financed a laptop from Best Buy that day, but decided not to. I waited a while until a summer job and saved up like 400 dollars for a cheap prebuilt gaming PC just so I could play. I have played the shit out of D2 and D3. I think I did one play through of D1. I love the games because I love the series. I don't want them all to feel the exact same. And as much as D3 is my favorite and most played, I don't want D4 to just be D2 again with new maps and prettier graphics. I'll just play D2R if I want that.
to me unnequiping a staff on a sorc and lose all meteor dmg is stupid, i just can't, could not in D3 and won't in D4. unnequip and lose dmg on a melee weapon dmg based barb is ok, but on a caster is "not ok".
@@banishedbr In fantasy world like "harry potter", if a caster loses their weapon (wand), they lose ability to attack proficiently. In a way, it makes a lot of sense.
@@definitelynotchadfish if you use your weapon on a barb skill to HIT then not having the weapon should matter, but the hydra or fireball don't use the weapon . . . not weird in anyway, most rpgs are like that.
There are some things D2 did really well but people like that guy always ruin their credibility when they start talking about how the PvP could be an esport and how rune words/enigma were so awesome and balanced.
Lets be honest with ourselves here. The only reason doing Mephisto runs is fun is because there is a waypoint right before the bossfight itself. There is no friction between you and pulling the slot machine as many times as you like.
First, I totally wanted to play D4, it's the new Diablo game! But slowly I've lost interest. New Blizzard sucks, they have the brand names, but not the vision, nor the skill of the original developers. I'm not gonna feed them with my money.
I'm sure the developers are pretty cool dudes. It's really just the bureaucracy that ruins it I bet. The original trio, Brevik and the Shaefer brothers famously bluffed their resignations in the company to KEEP creative control over the Diablo franchise. Their resignations, to everyone's shock, was accepted. The new owners of the company did not mind axing the geniuses responsible for Diablo 2 because they would have more creative control which they probably hoped would ensure that they had less financial risk. It was what killed the original franchise. But I'm sure even the new developers who were hired were really cool guys. But no developers had control after that, it became the gross bureaucracy we see even today.
D2, a Game released at a time when gaming was so new people dreamt about how a game should look and play to be an enjoyable game. D3 and d4, games released to collect funds. How much better can them fundcolletors be compared to something created to be played and have fun with.
Just the fact alone, that every Item rarity in d2 can have its very own purpose does make the game superior to most other games. In most modern games its just to simple. Take magic over whites, blend out whites with a filter when fully Magic. Then take rares over magic and so on
I agree completely. The fact that white, grey, blue, yellow, brown, and green items each have their own purpose is mind blowing. And I didn't realize that until years into playing the game. I thought to myself, wow...how many yellow tiara's have I passed up that might have been godly. How many white or grey CV's or Giant Thresher's did I just leave on the ground just because I had the naive foresight that certain colors are more important? Once I started understanding the games itemization better, it blew my mind how genius it all is. I've never seen that in any other game, and it seems that Diablo 3 and 4 have leaned more into the simplistic "different colors DEFINE how important the item is", which is problematic because you just end up ignoring items of different colors completely. In that system, once I get into the later parts of the games I would just look for certain colors and my eyes will ignore everything else. In Diablo 2, you just never know what kinds of treasures are laying about in cow games. People who don't realize the potential of what looks like a garbage item, makes another person rich.
@@JamCamAbreu What are you on about? Knowing that certain socket/white items are valuable doesn't make D2 a magically better game, it's just more work/playing with arreat summit open on a second monitor. Blues actually have no purpose in D2, and only certain types of rares/uniques are worth picking up as well. D2 was an amazing game for its time, but its mechanics haven't aged well at all. It's a great game for a teenage kid with all the time in the world to mindlessly grind, but D3/D4 are far better for working adults.
@@MrWendrew lol working adults. Your probably younger than me. But regardless, I don't play with any guides on my other monitor, I just use my instincts. Blue items ARE valuable for some things. Blues have the highest stat point range despite having the smallest number of total attributes. Useful early on to collect attributes like magic find. Additionally, blue is the color of charm drops, which are very exciting. There are so many great charms, but you have to roll well with the ranges. So blue has value as well.
@@JamCamAbreu Possible, but unlikely given that I played this game in high school. My point is that D2 LoD already had a loot tier system, even if it wasn't explicitly sorted by color. I wasn't including charms in my previous reply because they're all blue anyways (minus one). Once they added runewords, the tiers became even more pronounced since runewords > everything.
@@JamCamAbreuI had the exact same experience. The itemization in this game is fantastic. Playing HC singleplayer, certain items/item types get that much more weight to them. I've never experience another game like I have D2.
Yeah, I totally agree with ya Llama: repetion is important in RPGs, and it's present in other types of games too. If u are "a little" older, u punched a lot of bad-but-looking-the-same guys in Beat them ups. The only thing that changed was the color pallete. The same u can see in games like Diablo, Path of Exile and many others. Repetition is good, but is only good when u're having fun. No fun factor, trash game and go to the other. Simple equation, like life. :)
Omg you have no idea the .zip file you uncompressed in my brain saying "u punched a lot of bad-but-looking-the-same guys in Beat them ups" suddenly a stream of memories from my childhood flooded my head. From the coin ops to the console days with streets of rage, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs and so on. Just Epic days, having fun with nothing. Thank you!
For me it comes down to Monster Level Scaling. Diablo 3 wasn't the best game when it came out but I played it and even enjoyed it until they added that to it. I was so hyped for Diablo 4 when they said they were taking features from Diablo 2 until I played the beta and found out the monsters scaled to your level. What a major let down. Makes leveling feel so pointless and redundant.
That's such a weird stance. What makes leveling exciting are the points you get to expand your skills, not shitting on weak monsters. Everyone always wants to be playing monsters of at least an equal level so that you're getting the best items/drops, all that level scaling does is make all the content always meaningful.
@@xenikos99 But then what's the point of leveling at all? Why not just put my level 1 ass up against a level 1 diablo? How do people not see this system (Scaling Monster Level to Player Level) as flawed?
@@xenikos99 i disagree. Theres no point to levelling up if youre not more powerful relative to lower level stuff. Otherwise theres no power trip, no feeling of progression. It turns level up into a time gate mechanic rather than growing in power.
@@ShellShocks14 So you think level 50 with maxed out skills feels the same as level 2, when you only have one basic attack? Absurd. Having static levels locks you into a linear play experience where you have to just progress through the campaign again and again. That was tedious in D2 (oh I get to assemble the staff of kings again? yaay....), and like 99% of players switched to leveling in the level scaled adventure mode in D3 when it came out and never looked back.
My favorite thing about D2 is making a unique build that is unique to that character. It gives the character an identity. So a Blizz sorc instead of just a sorc. Then farming areas specific for that build. If you want to farm somewhere else, either rebuild your character and gear from the ground up. Or roll a new character, new build, new identity, new zones to farm.
Unfortunately in D2 there are only a handful of endgame viable builds. D2 Resurrected team has done a good job of making this better, but for me it's a bummer that every character has a bunch of skills that are almost completely useless and are, therefore, never used. Still a fun game though.
@@drkaeppel You are right but only from the perspective of a player that wants to clear hell. I as an experimenting casual player love goofying around with the weirdest builds and stop at around hell act2 and that is completely fine for me. This game is amazing when it comes to supporting the player's creativity and shines in many dimension where d3 and mostly likely d4 can't even lay a foot. I love my bowbarian or my only passive and magic skill axe wielder amazon who is even hardcore. I find this hilerious and really entertaining even without clearing hell or reaching the real endgame of D2.
only issue is D2 has only a few actually viable builds, and no real endgame at all. To me, grinding better gear to clear content that i already have played through just faster is really not an endgame in my eyes. It's just endless grind with no goal, no new difficulty to get to, no new enemies etc. I really doubt D4 will have an actual endgame where the story still continues and we get fresh new content.
@@stonaraptor8196 Well back in the day, gear was much more valuable as there weren't runewords (vanilla) and runewords introduced in LOD till 1.09 were balanced. So you would gear up one character and grind for your other characters. Then came 1.10 which kinda made more specialized builds with introduction of synergy, however, it also added lot of unbalanced runewords so there's really no point in grinding for unique or set gear anymore. If we go back even further, D2 classic 1.0 was helluva lot harder game, because you didn't have charms, jewels, you couldn't respec or buy mana potions, mercs could not have gear and couldn't be resurrected or be permanent (they will not move to next act with you) and lot of items didn't exist (basically all elite unique variants as elite items weren't existing from what I remember), so game was helluva lot harder on HELL and you couldn't power-creep like you can now. Sure, we get D2 "classic mode" with Resurrected, however it's still not that authentic version.
As someone who played the game since day one, one of the things that got me excited last patch was the enchant bowsorc. If that wasn't a thing I might not play. The guard rails are unnecessary and make the game less "fun"
Yes, player freedom. That's what's missing in modern games. They design them so tightly and funnel the player into how they want them to play, not give them tools and say "here are the tools we provided, now go play."
@@OkosHugPillow Why the shit would a sorc use a bow? Its your own wicked illusion of playing a sorc... a sorc should throw massiv magic.. its not 1996 anymore. Players tent to cheat the crap out of games. How should blizz balance D4 with your kind of freedom? They could go back to D1 where every class can use every item and spell if you want your freedom... that kind of games would/do suck hard nowadays.
@@wiLdchiLd2k because I don't start out that way? i start as a squishy mage who has to guzzle mana pots. or i could just socket gems into a three socket bow and kill everything without running out of mana spamming spells that don't do a lot of damage? A bow with 1 blue + 2 green gems is enough to carry any class through act 1 at least without the annoying potion chugging. just because you aren't adaptive, doesn't mean you have to be a jerk. i can play the way i find most efficient and enjoyable, and so can everyone else. i've been playing for twenty years and have managed just fine thanks. I'll just quote you to demonstrate the irony of what you said. "Its your own wicked illusion of playing a sorc." What you are saying is, my way is the best and only way to play and you shouldn't play it any other way. That's exactly the attitude that makes games so stale. Don't tell me how to play. I can figure out my own system that I enjoy.
well, to be fair commando sorc using fire enchant bow shoot everything to oblivion was fun as hell in D2. too bad with smart loot and class lock we can't do something like that anymore in D4...
Was so excited when I heard ice blades in d4 cause I thought it was gonna be a melee enchant that encouraged a build around it, then I saw you just summon flying swords I was depressed
@@LastAphelion honestly, at first I'm okay with ice blades as sorc can somewhat play as "summoner" but still that just one skill and nothing more (and nerfed)... it seems that D4 dev really has grudge against possible summoner classes whether its necro or sorc xD
@@deldalus there is an entire branch on the sorc skilltree called "summoning" and it has more than just ice blades on it, you're just completely wrong^^
@@S1nwar by summoning I mean summons that stay forever until it dies not for short duration like what ice blades, hydras, etc does... or at least make it stay longer for about 30s or something :( imagine sorc with living sword flying around you that you can imbue them with different element which provides different status effect (burn,stun,freeze,etc). or perhaps a familair that does coordinate attack with you like in D3.
@@deldalus but then the summons would be too similar to the ones from other classes that stay alive very long and they want the classes to feel different. dont worry about stuff like that i bet there will be some kind of unique in the future that makes ice blades stay longer etc
I tried to finish your sentence for you: "Running 1000 Mephisto runs in Diablo 2 is..." and I said soul-crushing. I was honestly blown away when you instead said super fun.
just comes down to what people like in these games. originally it was grinding for those chase items. but these games arent built that way anymore and the people who grew up on the newer stuff as opposed to the older stuff (and vice versa) have a different associated identity to what makes these games fun. obligatory "doesn't apply to everyone", yes i'm aware people like both. im generalizing a % of the arpg playerbase.
@@tarrantwalter524it’s also that the idea of anything dropping didn’t really exist in other games. Nobody ever thought of end game yet. So Diablo 2 was the first time the idea of making builds and benchmarking bosses became a core staple of the genre. It’s what’s actually missing in Diablo 3. I don’t have anything to test my build against except a number. Like “oh, I cleared GR 137” That’s great, but to a normal player - they don’t care. But if you told a casual Diablo 2 player that you farm Ubers… they’re blown away by that.
@@Sphynx00 says who? the vast majority of people i talk to that play d2r love grinding and farming items. just because you don't doesn't mean all people are like that
font is absolutely super important, I think you're a hero for preaching that kind of stuff. When I play a game I want to be able to get lost in it for a few hours and forget about the world. D2 text is amazing and it's part of the immersion. Llama, you and I are so alike, very glad for your content. Cheers
100% with loot being locked to classes is detrimental to the game. I remember one of the things that got me hooked and impressed with PoE back in the days was learning that a marauder could be a spellcaster or that I could make a crazy bow build on a witch using a low level unique.
Path of Exile is built to allow for that though, starting class doesnt determine your build. Diablo is not built like that. Each class has its own separate skill trees
I think a key to making repetition enjoyable is agency. For example, farming in PoE is almost always spamming the same map/content over and over, but a player is choosing which content/map that is based their on goals and preference. Sometimes its picking a specific layout to maximize a farming strategy, sometimes its about the zone/content specific rewards they want to target, or maybe its because their build is tailored toward certain content. Basically having nuance matter creates variety and that means players have to choose where/what/how. It's a like a casino where the different games have different rewards. It isn't fun for long if the player is stuck doing the same thing everyone else is because there isn't any reason to do anything else.
Have to add that PoE had no real endgame content early, was in dev for 5 years before 1.0 and the first "endgame" content came with Atziri, which was not much. All PoE has now is something that came from alot of feedback from the community and over 10 years of dev time. That being said, its no excuse for other games to start of like that aswell. They have a lot of sources to get inspired from, even their own systems.
This is an incredibly smart take, a gem in the internet :) Completely agree with you here! Sadly the video in question entirely misses the mark. Hopefuly D4 gives the same amount of agency as D2 did (and D3 did not)
I'm not sure if you have heard of project Diablo 2 but it basically does that. It creates maps for players to do that aren't just the usual baal meph runs. In the video llama posted where he watched Rob play, I could have sworn they had something similar where the dungeons had affixes on them as well
Visual immersion realy makes D2R stand out from D4. From the D4 clip you showed, the player character is glowing blue around their character and the enemy is glowing red i think it was. The Frozen Orb was not just shooting icebolts, it was having a blue circle/ball inside it to light up its damage area. Blizzard was also getting this blue circle/ball to show where the spell is hitting. While i agree with Lama that the spells themself just looks bad, my biggest issue is the immersion breaking part. I remember in the beta testing, i watched someone play a necromancer and all their skeletons was glowing with teal colors as is so popular from game studios these days to portay the living dead. Meanwhile in Diablo 2, a skeleton is just skeleton visualy. Differences like that is what causes me to love the summoner necromancer in D2, but just looking at D4, i feel repulsed.
D2R looks definitely better, especially the spell effects are weak in D4 :/. Even the UI doesnt look very good in D4, and overall the game is too grey.
I like the look of D2R overall more than D4, but not by a lot. That said, the red outline glow on monsters comes from D1, which is still to me the most immersive Diablo game in the series so that is a good throwback more than anything. The player character blue glow is an optional setting you can turn on or off. A lot of the visual displays have setting customization which is actually a big improvement over previous games.
ARPG players and designers seem to forget how much RNG maps that provide some level of challenge navigating actually add to games. Skill Builds, Items, and combat mechanics are all very important, but doing the same map over and over definitely takes away a dimension of gameplay.
For real. It's that feeling of exploration. Feeling around in the dark, not knowing what you'll see when you turn the next corner. Really hoping for some great new ARPG that really takes advantage of spatial randomness.
Yahtzees (from ZeroPunctuation) "core game loop" and Bungies "30s of fun" are a an important concept here. You can always make a game look boring by describing the meta gameplay. Both Yahtzee and Bungie say, that the small, repetitive task needs to be fun to carry the other stuff of the game. I think Diablo 2 got it right (more accidently than academic discipline) with it's combat system, that is "needlessly" complex. Sure, Stamina is not a fun mechanic, but in the early game when you don't have many spells and enemies it's another thing to manage. You don't have to manage stamina later, except when you suddenly have to fight mosquitos and a fanatism, extra strong zakarum priest. Suddenly combat becomes different. Sure, running with 1/3 deffense should be explained more, but the act of actively changing between running and walking (and saving Stamina) is moment to moment decision based on surroundings. It's very similiar with the doors and stair ways and Act 2, while we hate the maggot lair and the arcane sanctum, they are undisputabley a unique aspect of the game, that forces some classes to play different. A summoners thinks the maggot lair is the worst level ever and a bonemancer goes :) ---> ---> ---> The level architecture has actually impact on the core game loop. Animation lock (block lock, dodge lock, stun lock) are another great aspect, that forces the player to thing about the surroundings. Some modern ARPGs have streamlined mechanics, because they felt clunky, when used badly.
@@TBrod The "Knowledge barrier" would amount to "find level 2," or "find the golden staff." Would you rather stand in a field and click while enemies fly at you? Would you want to play pac man without the maze?
@@PapstJL4U Maggot lair is definitely an issue for some builds. But take something more generic like the Jail and catacombs. I cannot say D2 would be a better game if those dungeons were the same every time. I would guess it would be worse. As for stamina I can't say I have a strong philosophy one way or the other..
I like D2LOD, D3, and D4 (so far). I also play POE, Last Epoch, and others. I go where the game leads me I guess. The good thing is there is room for all of them to exist, and I don't feel forced to pick sides.
Can we all just accept that they will never make a game as good as Diablo 2 ever again? Blizzard isn’t an ambitious up-and-coming game developer with something to prove anymore, they’re a well established developer with clout who can stand to lose one dedicated fan-base in favor of more marketable zoomer casuals who don’t have the attention span for the subtle intricacies of Diablo 2 style mechanics. I think the main reason D4 doesn’t appeal to D2 players is simply because it’s not D2, nothing will ever be D2, Blizzard doesn’t have it in them to make something as good as D2 ever again.
Well, for those players of course nothing can be as good as D2 because any changes are, by definition, bad. It's a sort of No True Scotsman. The good news is they'll always have D2 to play.
What's super interesting is your comments against jsp. I remember as a kid getting ripped off constantly on ladder, but it wasn't until jsp where I learned the relative value of stuff and started getting fair value for my stuff. Think there are pros and cons.
personnal feeling but about the smart loot. In D2, yeah you can create some intersting things like wearing a "crescent moon" on a sword on your sorc just for the "-% resist" affixe. At the base, the weapon was designed for a melee character (IAS, % dmg, open wounds ect). This part of "itemization creativity" is really cool. But... Sometimes, it's reaching a point of lack of identity class. You finish by seeing everybody with enigma, griffin, shako, blablabla, whatever the character he is playing. I don't really like this part of the common loot. I would prefer to see a paladin with a big armor and big shield. Not with the same enigma as the assassin and the shako as the sorc :/ Even enigma is a pbl for me. You finish to see everybody teleporting as a sorc. Right ok. But you finish to play like a sorc but you're not a sorc. I would prefer a "move skill" indentity. An assassin dashing like the D4 rogue, a barb charging the monster with his head ect. It's more immersion for me than telestomping with every character, every build Then there is pro and cons
I don't really see gear as "class identity" or can even fuck up identity. Why are necros the only one who can use shields when they aren't even melee characters? Shouldn't barbs be heavily trained in using shields?
When you were talking about how pretty the fire looks in Diablo 2 you couldn't have been more spot on, because even map assets in game that have fire looks beautiful. Like the torches in The Pandemonium Fortress. Just my 2 cents.
Omg that comment about the over marketing hit hard. I was watching hot ones earlier today and they sponsored a segment of it. I was like, "really blizzard? Hot wings now?"
The fun with d2, when you kill diablo in hell its HARD (with little gear or no gear early game, generalizing) but as you get better gear you can genuinely feel the increased power. Its satisfying. If diablo 4 has bosses, with 9 mechanics, and the fights take 5 minutes, who wants to do that 1000 times? So you can get a random nameless leggo? Finding a griffons feels incredible because you KNOW what that is. Finding the lethargic arm of elmdormar (or whatever they will name shit in d4) is boring as shit.
I fundamentally disagree with the "replayability" and "new experience every time you log in". 1. It is a farm! So what that the dungeon looks different? You are still doing the same thing, using the same 2-3 skills! It is exactly the same experience EVERY time you log in! 2. the fact that a good item suddenly drops for me does not give me any sense of accomplishement. It is RNG not my skill that made the item drop! Sense of accomplishement can be felt if you get rewarded for doing something difficult, not when something drops randomly.
In life in general, if you try to please everybody, you won't ever succeed. This statement is true no matter what you apply it to, so it stands to reason that D4 won't ever be as successful as it could be. I doubt D4 will have the longevity that D2 has and maybe that's the intention. Not a good or bad thing it just is what it is.
I actually like that weapons are more class specific. One thing i disliked about d2r is so many builds use hoto,spirit,shako, and enigma. How many sorcs in d2r actually use a wand or a staff? You see some wands and almost 0 staffs.That to me is emersion breaking. Same if a assassin/rogue weilded a two handed hammer which is probably bigger and heavier than the character. Or a barb with a wand.
@mrllamasc I'm gonna be heavily relying on you and your community to judge if I get this game. Do you intend to produce a full review video of D4? About when do you think you'd release it?
You already know what Llama is going to say. "D4 is fine/bad, it ain't D2." Think for yourself man, look at a variety of sources, not just 1 of the most biased sources you could possibly ask.
Anytime i hear someone mention the word "repetitive" when comparing diablo 2 to diablo 4... i scratch my head. The D4 beta dungeons were repetitive, and they probably still are, even with improvements. However.. i remember spending hours doing Lower Kurast runs for a chance of a ber rune. Runs that took less than a minute before resetting the game and going again. I just dont understand how D2 players can use that as an argument when comparing the games.
Even if they're comparing it from one ARPG franchise to the Other. The entire Genre is literally RPG casino You just pull the slot lever over and over..
It’s interesting, I loved Diablo 2 so much in the past, but the full randomness of it now leaves me frustrated because I don’t have the time to grind like I did back in the day. So now I feel like I can play for two hours and not really accomplish anything, but in say D3 I do feel like I knocked some things out.
Hmm.. By accomplishing anything what do you mean?? Because this game is doable using self-found items.. Unless you're referring to fully-decking out your character then I guess that should be expected... Only thing you'll probably need to grind are Runes and Bases for them in Hell Difficulty.. The easiness of fully decking out your character is what divided the fanbase overall... and each people in the both side of the argument has a point imho..
but the point isn't to become super stacked, it's to run through the game with rag tag gear. That's what makes the experience unique. Otherwise you're just a copy paste character like everyone else.
@@lemonke8132 I understand that, and when I was younger and had more time to play I loved that. Now I don't, because I feel like I spend a ton of time playing and not finding any better gear just feels like a grind, not good use of my limited time to play games.
@@lemonke8132 The goal is what you want it to be. The OP is saying you can spend 2 hours farming and get absolutely nothing and feel like you haven't progressed your character.
@@vivid8979so I used to have this opinion back when I did play the game. Except I’m older now and I have time to play every so often in the week. When I was grinding D2 it would feel good initially when I was progressing to hell. But when I started my ancient tunnels grind - I quickly realized I hated it. There were some nights I logged on and came out nothing to show for it. Imagine coming home from your day, grinding for 3-4 hours. And making zero progress. Atleast in diablo 3 I’d have something outside of RNG to target. Felt a lot better.
I think that there is going to be a sweet spot for pvp. In dark souls 3 (not the same genre and stuff I know) level 120 is where it's at for pvp. I'm not knowledgeable about d2 pvp and correct me if I'm wrong but I think pvp happens with lvl 30 builds. Maybe the community is going to come up with something similar for d4.
check cooley's last video that shows how pvp is fcked up just as expected due to insane dmg figures that make the game impossible to balance (both for life/dmg ratio and in between classes). Exactly what caused the inexistant pvp on D3. low lvl duel could be a thing on D2 due to private games, but here it is an open world where anyone can join and if a high level char wants to mess with your lvl 30 char, there s nothing you can do about it right?
I felt the 120 pvp scene in DS3 was a bunch of uncreative kids copying meta min max builds with cheese play. PVP was beautiful at 20-80. 120 was designed to be inclusive with minimal sacrifice because dweebs wanted to still have INT on their 3 attribute scaling weapon. It didn’t even make sense with infusions. Needless to say, I didn’t think highly of the “competitive” dark souls scene, which I think the concept is ridiculous in itself. Diablo should never be designed around balance in PVP. There’s MOBA and others far more fleshed and mature.
Just started playing Diablo 4 and I already need to vent about something that has me fuming. There is no way of knowing if an item is one handed or two handed. I just wasted my gold purchasing a weapon, not realizing it was a two handed weapon. This is the f’n stupidest oversight from a developer that has already made 3 other diablo games WTF!!!
i cannot get over him saying runewords require an incredible amount of testing while displaying one of the most broken items in the history of gaming lmao
"Blizz can't do expansions" ;) runewords (and the runes themselves and charms and overloaded items (charges of alien spells)) broke D2LOD While i still played D2 classic in a LoD client - LoD farm meta = let a friend bus your new char though the Hephaistos quests so you get the free runes, delete and a new hero … m/
rune words are an optional way to gear your character, it requires a lot of grinding, you could farm for years and not have a single jah or ber drop, not everyone is rocking enigmas.
Xtimus is probably far more of a Diablo 2 "extremist" than most people who are hardcore D2 players, such as MrLlama. I would say that the gameplay loop of Diablo 2 is quite outdated. Diablo 3 used to be good, but it has been powercreept constantly after 1.8 (even before RoS), and unique items have been revised to be as hand-holding as possible. And I hate it. PoE is now, perhaps, the best "Diablo 2 clone" I play. The map system in PoE is IMO really good for the "unique experience". Even though I already don't like some of the gameplay mechanics of Diablo 4 (like the really bad rune system), I'm far more worried about the monetization of it.
Borderlands and BL2 had some of that RNG experience with the weapons and enemies. Maybe not quite to the same level, but they had a similar feeling. Sure you could loot a gun with a similar name as another, but the parts were all randomized. Not only could you see it in the stats but you could feel it in the recoil, spread and accuracy. You could identify different parts simply by looking at it and some parts could make or break a weapon. Enemies were randomized. There were some hidden mechanics to discover with some enemies. Anyone could playthrough it, but there was quite a bit of depth if you wanted to look. It had a lot of replayability and the repetition ....didn't always feel like repetition. They're fun games that I still revisit now and then. I didn't play a lot of BL3 but I never had that same feeling while playing it as I did the first two.
What they don't understand is that with personal loot you also effectively kill a large majority of excitement that you could have getting a good unique. If an item isn't for your class or one you plan on making eventually, it will just be junk to you. No trade is a mistake in a Diablo ARPG. Diablo 3 didn't have it, and i spent most of my time getting items that I didn't need for myself as an upgrade and it was left on the ground.
I love the guy, but I will say the bias he has for D2 is really annoying. I played D2 to death back in the day and play it a good bit now, but I'm not going to blindly praise the game as the best ARPG ever made when it clearly has many MANY flaws.
@@NonEmployee Don't get me wrong, I still love D2 and it'll always hold a special place in my heart, but holy fuck, 1000 Andariel or Mephisto runs is not fun. LOL
One thing i love about D2, which ive been on and off since 00'.is that with every class. You have SO MANY OPTIONS! you can makes DOZENS of builds with each class making the replayability that much higher.
19:00 I'd argue nostalgia is an indicator of success. But you're only going to know that later. Perhaps the current way to know you will find something nostalgic, later, is when you get lost in that world; the mystery, exploring, adventuring, excitement, and that sense of achievement all while making friends. It's the wandering and the wondering, and sharing that experience with others that makes something so special. I'm not going to get a sense of nostalgia playing D3.
Does anybody know if the campaign doable in party? Im curious if everyone gets the quest progress because if I remember correctly only the leader got the progress and when the rest left the party they continued their story from where they left off. This would be a bummer on start.
I've tried a bunch of games since D2 first came out and none were anywhere near the caliber of that game . The programming that went into it was breakthrough genius at the time and it has set my standards way too high ... LoL !!!
Amen! The scaling BLOWS! But also, the downtime. The game essentially boils down to waiting for your big skills to get off cooldown and bursting them...Then waiting again....Kinda lame.
Well Im a avid d2 player and I dont hate d4 personally, but then again and I think this is important I wasn't expecting this to be the next d2 anyway. I went into this with the notion that it would be a revamped d3 and I wasn't disappointed besides I really don't want them to make something that replaces d2 anyway.
To me what killed d3 was the removal of points and the skill tree. If i unlock a skill and can swap back and forth whenever i want then there is no weight to my descisions because i can just change right back. When everyone has the same gear what seperates us is our build and our understanding of the game and how we implement our skills. the quality of item also keeps us playing since finding a 28 Maras makes you want to get right back to farming for that 30 roll.
Being able to quickly swap skills in D4 was extremely appreciated as I was able to deeply learn all of the mechanics of the Druid without having to make entirely new characters. Which was very appreciated, I don’t have the time to remake my character like I did as a kid.
@TekEffekt I'm not saying quality of life changes can't be made, I personally would kill for more words in the title of games so I can trade more effectively. But when you make new characters your playing the game and learning the game from a different perspective with each build which keeps you playing. D2r does it correctly. They added essences from 4 different bosses that can be farmed for re-specs or traded in game for runes which also adds things to do in the end game. Taking away stuff like this is why the newer d3 and d4 won't have people playing it 15+ years like D2/D2r.
What most people don’t seem to be getting is that there is no incentive to do an equivalent of 1000 mephisto runs in D4 because of bad itemization and lack of trading.
All you need is some kinda of lotto loot feeling where people can hunt for hard to find tradable items and you will be in business. People love making new characters with higher lvl loot they found on other characters too
I'm a bit confused how any D2 LOD player can complain about how D3 and D4's gameplay is too repetitive when all they do is the same Lvl 80 zone runs over and over in D2 hoping to get something to drop, exiting, and the starting a new game to do it again.
Keen to get feedback/ideas on “smart drops”: They could skew drops for your character until lvl 70 or so, and taper off from there to lvl 100. So lvl1-70 it looks like a normal distribution but from lvl70-100 it gradually gets flattened towards a uniform distribution. That way your farming character is farming for anything, but your leveling character regularly finds items that help you get through the game.
@@MrLlamaSC 100% agree on the character specific items. Crossbow barb runs should be a thing. Also there’s a few things they could throw into a list of toggles (like a single player toggle), so this could make sense as a tab in the menu 👍
The real reason "smart loot" is "the" solution (not that I like it either) it's because anything you drop is specific to a class, boots are not boots, they are barbarian boots. If items were generic like D2 then smart loot wouldn't be needed. Try adding smart loot in D2, other than the 1 piece specific to each class, orb to sorc, shield to paladin, etc, there is nothing specific or stopping you from using it on any class. Leaf is for fire "sorc" but it's still works on ele druid and trapsin. The smart loot isn't flawed, the loot is flawed.
@@MrLlamaSCif you give an option and one of the option is better, it's not really a choice. Look at goldpickup from D2R, anyone playing without it? No because it's faster to just autopickup.
Honestly the biggest problem with skills is they are too homogeneous. Every single skill in d4 is basically a circle, rectangle , or cone that just does damage. The skills blizzard and frozen orb are the perfect examples. Because they are supposed to be kinda the same thing( I don’t see why they would name them the same thing if they weren’t supposed to be similar.) frozen orb in d4 is a circle that moves in a straight line that does damage to anything in its path, and explodes in a bigger circle at maximum range, it will always do 1-2 frozen orb damage. While in d2 frozen orb is a much smaller circle that moves in a straight line that does damage, but it launches independent projectiles that damage enemies as they proceed along their path. Along with the explosion at the end being a ring of these same projectiles. The amount of damage frozen one does in d2 is more based on your positioning, and aim of the frozen orb making the skill cap for the skill way higher in d2 as the most skilled player in d4 can always get 2 frozen orb damage on the enemy that they want to get the damage on. While in d2 the amount of damage a frozen orb can do can range between .5 frozen orb and 3 frozen orb, by just knowing the distance of the projectile and getting the orb to just slightly pass through the hit box of the monster and then explode all the final projectiles inside the hit box of the monster and making it a much higher damage single target ability, there is just way more skill potential in d2. Blizzard is the other example. In d4 blizzard is a instantaneous circle that you place down and anything inside that circle takes X damage over Y time as long as you keep the monster inside the circle. Blizzard in d2 is a rectangle that after a short delay has individual projectiles that fall randomly inside the rectangle and even if you keep a monster inside the rectangle you might get .5 blizzard damage and you might get 2 blizzard damage. Also in d4 blizzards don’t stack You will always do X damage over Y time so any overlap of your circles is wasted. While you are rewarded for keeping monsters in the multiple rectangles because the damage is increased because you have more projectiles falling in the same area, allowing your mastery with the skill to dictate if you want more focused damage or more spread out damage.
I like D2 Frozen Orb better but D2 Blizzard is clunky to the point of being frustrating. Enemies will just walk through your blizzard and take no damage. Whirlwind is another skill that was completely nonsensical in its D2 implementation.
What is capturing fun of repetition is that when you exit town in Diablo 2 you pick up perfect grey 15/15 ed socketed item, also some godly rares and even some mega good uniques (Hi high runes=)). On top of that you can trade it all. In Diablo 4 you skip everything except that 1 unique you never obtained. You can NOT even gamble it nor trade for it. Where is fun in that? Diablo 2 is really a masterpiece.
I hate the d4 "skill tree" since its pretty much watered down d3 with different presentation. I understand what their idea was, but its still linear and braindead. Is so sad because the visuals of D4 and the gameplay just feels good and can get pretty addictive. All that d2 and d3 players wanted is some sort of complexity, instead we got a barebones game, that makes the community come up with the most complex theories on why that is the case lol.
It’s great that d2 has monster type rng but 90% of time players just teleport besides them just to get to mephisto or throne of destruction .etc so unfortunately monster rng doesn’t matter that much. This was improved with terror zones where it makes sense to stop and kill elite packs. The most interesting part of d2 in my opinion are the items and the thrill of getting that godly drop which d4 kind of failed to bring (at least in the beta) but we’ll see how it plays out.
Teleporting was also the quickest way to do something. Teleporting was not necessary, but the random paths in Durance of Hell made teleport the only viable way of reaching it -- but only because the loot from Mephisto isn't likely to be worth solving the maze and fighting the dolls and mummies if you walk; You'd do Andariel, Diablo and Baal instead, without teleport. Teleport was never necessary, loot was just too little from most bosses without teleport, and thus -- without teleport, chests around bosses and/or the bosses themselves would need much improved rune drops or better quality drops. I'd take 10 Mephisto runs that take 10 minutes each over 100 runs that take 1 minute each, if the quality of loot was slightly better in the 10 runs.
Nostalgia actually doesn't play a role in why I love D2. Yes, I played the tits off of D1, but I didn't get D2 until 4 or 5 years after it was released; and even then I only played through it on Normal mode and then didn't go back to it for a while. Every now and again I would get the itch to get in to D2 proper-wise, but I would play through Normal mode and then quit. It wasn't until about a year before D2R was released that I finally started playing toward D2's endgame. Since D2R's release I have been absolutely obsessed with the game to the point where D4 is the 1st Diablo game that I'm not really excited to play, and that makes me a little bit sad. I'm also a lot older now than I was when I 1st played D1, but the idea of a new Diablo game or expansion would always fill me with child-like excitement. I think D2R is mostly to blame for this, so it's the real jerk on all this if you think about it. If I'm being totally honest I would much rather see D2R get more endgame content similar to the Ubers, maybe even with a unique endgame item like the torch and anni charms. I know this is just a lead pipe pipe dream of mine, but I will die on the hill of wanting "Old Tristram" to be added as a lvl 85 quest where you have to run through the original Diablo''s 16 dungeons and defeat an Uber version of a D1 boss or sub-boss on every 4th dungeon before you can progress to the next 4 levels. For instance, on the 4th level you might fight Uber Butcher. The 8th level might be Uber Skeleton King. Level 16 would obvioulsy be Uber Diablo, but the original incarnation which is still my favorite version.
I do see calling someone a casual player as an insult and there's a good reason for that: Casual players ruin video games. Developers will sacrifice the quality and personality of a game in order to be more wide reaching to casual players to make more money. It was described in this video for d4, and the exact same thing is happening with other video games such as COD. cod used to be amazing and I do not believe there was a single bad cod game until MW came out in 2019 where they put a huge focus on appealing to casual players and putting most of the content behind MTX that those casuals would fall into buying. The games became terrible because of it. Games from the 90s and early 2000s were great because gaming was more underground and "casual gamers" wasn't really a thing, it was just a community of people that loved games making games for other people that loved games. Now it's all about corporate greed and appealing to the endless casual playerbase to suck money out of them.
@@ambridge6645 That was savage, but unfortunately true. Games should be balanced around and primarily focused on the dad/mom that just came home from a long day at work and only has an hour or two to play before the kids get back from school and they gotta get off. Not the RUclipsrs/Streamers or the average no name, no life, basement caveman that plays games for 20 hours a day, 7 days a week. That person definitely is a gatekeeping elitist and should have no place in any gaming community.
As a 20 year old D2 veteran I believe what makes diablo 2 fun is its hard in the correct way. In d3 you either can beat a rift or you cannot. In D2 you can run chaos, but you gotta be careful all of the time. Although we pretend that the game is solved and no one ever dies in D2, we all know that you can die no matter how "OP" your items are. In the modern ARPG games you either blow up the screen or you dont, that is what determines whether you can run certain content or now. While in D2 you can run Chaos Sanctuary with basic gear but you need to be careful. And even if you get your final items, you have to make sure you dont get cursed and slapped by some random elite death lord.
Diablo 2 still has a significantly better online multiplayer UX than Diablo 3. Not sure why they never added a lobby system where you can name games. D4 doesn’t have anything like that either, yet 😢
unfortunately the casual andy’s would lose their mind if blizzard implemented a trade site (even though i wish they did make one). all they would associate it with is the D3 RMAH.
@@manilowgamer that's not due to the game's design though, that's due to lack of designed content to begin with. its saying something when we're comparing shallowness between two games, one of which has significantly less content to the other
@@manilowgamer i'd say the original statement is very generalized and doesn't necessarily hold true for every game trying to broaden its audience as much as possible. but based on my own preconceived notions about how blizzard has been lately, i would be inclined to believe it will generally lean toward "shallow". doesn't mean it will be bad though, even if that turns out to be true
IMO they can make it more casual while still making the "true" fans happy. The issue with D3/4 is they took the fun out of loot. Just make items rare and exciting to find again and ditch the 50 versions of the same item crap. Also, ideally, add something interesting/challenging to the end-game to challenge yourself with a well built character instead of endless greater rifts. Almost nothing else needs changed.
I think a core difference between D3 and D2, was that the general experience of D3 was "diluted". You gain hundreds, even thousands of levels in D3, whereas you can only go up to lvl 99 in D2. Similarly, you get tons of unique drops in D3 compared to the fewer unique drops in D2. You do billions of damage in D3, you can go up to Torment XVII, you gain thousands of Strength, HP, etc. As a result, I felt that every level, every stat, every drop just mattered less in D3 than in D2. I study Animal Behaviour, and we know that humans and animals are MOST motivated when they are given "rewards" (i.e., food, money, dopamine rush, etc.) at random intervals of doing something (known as intermittent reinforcement). This is why gambling is so addicting to so many people. In D2, we have a limited number of VERY valuable unique items (e.g., a unique amulet could be a Mara's) - this makes the game very rewarding. In D3, due to the "dilution" of the entire gaming experience, the "rewards" doesn't feel as such, making the game very stale and repetitive after a couple hours of playing. Not to mention, every character in D3 kind of does the same thing. These are just my thoughts though.
Saying Diablo 2 isn't repetitive is kind of ridiculous. I've been playing this game for 20 years, but it's incredibly repetitive. Even with changes to D2R such as terror zones, it's still incredibly repetitive. The "RNG" Of Diablo 2 is basically 5 - 10 (if that many) map configurations with maybe 5 - 10 different types of combinations of monsters. The item drop experience is great for sure, however there's a gigantic library of items that are completely useless. There's a ton of rune words which are completely useless. I'm saying this and I LOVE D2 and D2R. At the end of the day Diablo 2 is a 20+ year old game that is still incredible. But let's not look at it through rose colored glasses when comparing it to D4 or other similar games.
Nah, I already sent D4 back to blizz. They can choke on it. I don't get what's so hard about making a sequel to d2. I don't want d3's "set of the season" bs, I don't want d3's "unicorn land" and rainbow pallate, I don't want completely generic classes and limited abilities bar, I don't want a cooldown based system. I don't want d4's "permanent world" where, upon leaving the first town another player walks by and my hardcore character get one tapped instantly from the goatman chasing them. I don't want d4's pre scripted locked in boss battles where you are trapped playing a bullet hell for no reason with "don't stand here" warnings and artifical contrivances. I don't want d4's limited party size or 'uber mega super boss battles' I just want an expansion to d2. That's it. Well, honestly, I'm beyond frustrated with blizzard in general. Haven't paid a dime for anything since overwatch came out and I watched that ship burn into the ocean, ow2 debacle, and now cancelled ow2 pve promises. F blizz. I'll go dig up some indie games that are actually quality. Wildermyth was a ton of fun.
@@tylr3669 no one cares what you want you think you not paying them will even matter the game will be amazing and thank god we don't have a Diablo 2 sequel don't wana kill a single boss for shako 100000 times
@@NikhilGupta-lf4yu lol, angry much? Trust me I'm aware that blizz doesn't care what the d2 community wants. Or me in particular. But hey, guess what? that's why they are missing near $1k from me for the last idk 6 years? The game will be ass, and 90% of the player base will be looking elsewhere within a year. That's my prediction. 1 bc pvp will be bullshit, I don't think blizz can do it. 2 bc within 6mo-1year the pay to win battlpass changes will drop, and all the partners will rally around blizz to tell us all it just aint so. This isn't the blizz that made d1 and d2. It's activision, its a mega corp. They don't give a toss about the game except will it sell and will people promote it. Thats it. Thats why llama rpg will be better, even if it sells less. lol, cries about shako...bro, just trade for it if you don't find it, fucks sake it's everywhere. All the bots farm it, run countess like 15 times and trade the rune off her for it, or the keys, wtv. I STILL haven't found a zod naturally. lol...this guy and his shako...hahahaha...hooooooo.....
I tell people in diablo 1 and 2 felt like your success was inspit of the game trying to kill you. Diablo 3 and 4 it feels like the game is actively trying to make me successed.
It’s likely choice, And the removal of creativity. Its all to avoid some form of the paradox of choice. But by limiting the various routes one can take it makes the game dull and less repeatable. So you can’t mess around and try a bunch of random builds, using various equipment. It creates more a guided tour than a discovery experience. Just like in life a guided tour can be a nice short experience, but not as rewarding or engaging as a discovery experience.
Running Meph a 1000 times (or any boss for that matter) is tedious. I think TZ are a godsend for diversifying the game a little. Let's face ir, as great as D2 is *and I am still playing it to this day) its endgame is pretty weak.
I beleive D3 has a better endgame than D2 and I think this is a generaly accepted thing but I will be roasted because of my following statement; I HATE trading in D2 and not just for the sites that sell items for real money, I hate trading because I want to be able to play D2 solo, so not ever interacting with other players. Because D2 does not have smart loot and I do not want to trade, the grind is very long and hard to swallow. For the rest of the game D2 is definetely superior to D3.
As much as it would be convenient, I think it would break the economy. It's impossible for the economy to not get ruined over time, this is why seasons are so important. That's what makes day 1 in a season so much fun. Items simply just don't exist right away in the economy. But I think an auction house speeds up the ruined economy. I disagree with Llama on this one. I think ladders would have to be like a month long tops if they implemented an auction house. The trading mechanic being tedious to find someone to trade with slows down the game in a way that allows it to last as long as it does. You probably know this too, I'm guessing you've played the early and late season and know how items devalue over time. Imagine how bad it would be with an auction house?
Auction houses devalue the fucking shit out of gear. Easy access to finding what you need destroys gear progression and makes only the nearly perfect gear worth anything. you do not want auction houses.
Totally agree about repetition! The whole life itself is repetitions of same routines over and over again. Sometimes it’s fun, the other time it is not. The more fun the repetition is to you the more happier person you are. Great job Llama
To sum it up. They hate it as it’s more like D3 not D2.
👍
Thanks for saving me an hour
too be fair, it's nothing like D2.. D4 is D3 mechanics, itemization, mixed with Diablo Immortal gameplay on top of a World of Warcraft open world map, and a dark textured overlay. Nothing innovative here, just missing key staple features, reduced co-op to 4x, another shitty release from modern BlizTardz
@@AlexB-cn2lo cope
@@Mike-wc3jo cope
the problem with these games nowadays is the gameplay loop. I feel like I'm the kid that has to do his chores before he can go outside and play. if you have a bunch of tiring gameplay loops in your game that prevent you from actually having fun, the games flawed severely. the reason why D2 was so great is there wasn't anything preventing you from just going out and killing things. nothing was mandatory to do in order to just play the damn game.
You've basically described every ARPG. Including D2, where the gameplay loop is finish campaign and do Baal runs. You D2 stans are fucking insufferable, you're aliens.
this is spot on. that’s why i haven’t bought a AAA game in like ten years. i’ve bought a few indie games here and there, but when it feels like i’m forced to play a certain way, or have to play and do “dailies” just saps all the fun out of the game.
Nostalgia was something that they said when some players didn't like Diablo 3, I think it's moreso a shift in art design, itemization, and game mechanics with timed cooldowns etc
This and nothing else! Thanks you!
Agreed they can't argue that nostalgia doesn't keep a game player base strong for more than 20 years. If that were so, then there would be so many nostalgic games (like 007 Goldeneye that Llama mentioned) that would have huge playerbases (and never would have lost the player bases). But that's not the case, those games DID die out. Nostalgia did not save them. Just because they re-released them doesn't mean that players are playing the game in droves constantly. Nostalgia is a surge and then dies quickly.
But good gameplay is timeless. Chess is still one of the biggest games ever played. Nostalgia isn't why it's scene is as strong as ever. Nothing about the games rules have changed. It's just a good game with interesting outcomes.
d3 has less players than a 24yo game, only bli$$ could fk up that hard.
Of course. As Llama said, pulling the nostalgia card is a cheap and insincere cop-out.
@rick mel is that all you do in Diablo 2? You have literally no other experiences in the game? I guess if I was playing like that I would agree? 🤔
I had a damn blast playing diablo II casually back in the day and I knew full well a ton of the game's content (ladder, nightmare and hell difficulty, holy grail stuff) was hardcore shit and not up my alley. Knowing that those things existed didn't ruin the game for me, in fact I find that games containing things that you know you're not going to experience can make a game more exciting. I played world of Warcraft when I was a kid and I always marveled at and admired the people who did raids, rep grinds and PvP. It made the game something larger and more mysterious. Thinking that everything in a game should be made specifically for you is really entitled.
Dude, these are all opinions. Its normal that a nerd that is fairly technical, intelligent and has multimedia culture would expect more from a high level francize. If you want to release "Hand holding for casuals" just name it something else. The issues comes from them trying to milk the francize by saying its a Diablo game and in fact being just a glorified borderline-generic game.
12 year old me got to Hell difficult and noped the fuck out.
@@alinn.4341 What makes it 'not' a Diablo game? Either Diablo is a concept, or a franchise, because I doubt many people here played D1, and those that did recognize that it's not worth playing today outside of nostalgia or checking out the roots.
@@localneo-graphic4647 I played D1 back when I had a PS1, the game was really good back in the day but not so much today. I played D2 a few years later and D2 was better without a doubt. I also happened to play D3 back in 2013~ and D2 was better. I also play D4 now and D2 is still better. He's got a valid point when he says companies stick their household name to something that doesn't have the original intent in it. D2 is simply too good of a game, the scaling, all acts and the different places you go to, the story. Sure, D4 has made some improvements like a "larger inventory" since things ocupy only one slot, mounts that allow you to move quickly even though you're not a teleporting mage, but that doesn't make D4 better than D2 overall. Cooldowns? all the waiting to regenerate your mana? A "hero's journey" kinda type of story? Weird "same level everywhere" enemies quirk? D2 had none of that, and was better for it.
@@alinn.4341 You're so full of shit.
RNG has been present in gaming for loooong before D2 even existed.
Yeah the emphasis on RNG here feels kinda sophomoric
Games like rogue and nethack certainly were a formative influence on all early RPGs and they were the most RNG influenced of all.
It’s not nostalgia. I picked up D2R for the first time 2 months ago. Diablo 4 and it’s beta were my first experiences with the franchise. The beta left me wanting more so I picked up D2 since it was like $10, just to hold me over. I haven’t stopped playing since. I may not even get D4 at this point, waiting to see end game. D2R scratched the itch and then some, even for a brand new player in 2023
Yeah the argument that D2 was only good because of "nostalgia" is such a cope. I love how these people can never explain why D2 is a bad game, they just dismiss anyone who likes it as nostalgic. Meanwhile D2 players can explain EXACTLY why D4 is inferior.
Great to hear D2R is gaining new players! Welcome!
@@TravisH-nm9fy They cannot explain why D2 is a bad game because they never played it. They bought the new shiny Diablo game and they dismiss all criticisms from actual fans of the older games. Post-purchase rationalization is why the big companies make the big bucks.
Just wanted to say, big props for the Dungeon Siege praise at around 19:30 . Such a great fuckin game dude, the idea of playing an action style game, with a full party, with pause, and classless skill-system was just insane back in the early 2000's . IMO the sequels didn't hold up as much, but dude....DS1 was something. Plus, there was a Chicken Gun, a machine gun that fired chickens
Smart loot is probably my biggest problem. In D2, if I were playing an Amazon and got some sick Necro loot while farming, I'd heavily consider trying out a Necro to see if I'd like a build with the gear that dropped. I wouldn't be disappointed getting loot from a class I don't play in D4. If anything, it's just legendary salvage mats for my future good loot. Overall I love D4 thusfar, but smart loot is probably my biggest gripe
I feel the opposite, I always hated getting a legendary in d3 that got me excited for the class I was playing, and instead it's some barb weapon I can't use. Nothing was more deflating when legendaries weren't yet raining from the skies. I want to check out the other classes in D4 not because I found an item, but just because the theorycrafting is fun, and the gameplay is killer smooth.
90% of legendary loot in 3/4 goes to salvage anyways, coz it runs too many random factors that barely ever fall into a good item worth keeping.
@@mininovaq yep
I get enough crap for my own class that I dont need, why would I want other class stuff?
@@chc2650 To trade it make a new class with. Are you new?
D2 is all about the loot mechanics and that's what keeps bringing us back. The cut scenes and general story are amazing but so are the ones in D3 and so far D4. The movement and the way you traverse is the same in all 3 minus teleport which is kinda broken in D2 but also adds a thing to strive to build if you're not a sorc. D2 is all about pushing to find the loot to get your character to broken mode where you can clear any area without coming close to dying. In the process you find items that make you want to build different chars or niche builds for fun. The way D3 and D4 just vomit upgraded loot at you every few minutes makes it very uninteresting until you are end game min maxing, there are way too many stats on the items now to where it takes so much time to figure out if it's even a benefit to your build that you could have played 10 mins longer and found another upgrade. In D2 you had to struggle a bit to find early gear to be able to push you to the next area and at times you couldn't even farm an area because of immunities. The fact that most unique items could be equipped by any class made them memorable, some easier to find than others, and then the opportunity to have best in class items that weren't even unique added another element for those players committed enough to find them. The payoff from trading was big too, if you found something amazing you could trade it to enable you to finish off your build. D3 and D4 will always fall short on staying power no matter how "cool" they make the skills, battle sequences, items look, or how much new content they add to the game. I hop on for a couple days, finish off the campaign, level up a bit until I get bored of the loot, and then shut it off for a few years until I feel like doing another char or checking out the campaign again.
bro you killed it , best comment in here.
i have exactly the same thoughts.
What do you mea loot mechanics?? First time i played diablo 2 ressurected and i read a guide i farmed mephisto for 10 days and got alot of unique items finished my immortal king set and finished the game well in titan quest doe way way harder game and harder to get legendaries
They changed skills to be anly be effected by item damage. By doing this they had to change how items effect skills and it ruined most of the RP by doing this. Diablo 4 is diablo 3.5 and it is so boring to play.
Also the boss battles get boring as well. Do you like killing a boss? Well now you can't damage them until you kill monters or pilers. That might be fun the first few times but it gets old fast. During boss fights health orbs still drop into the fire and you take damage having to pick them up.
@@FKYT Diablo 2 bosses aren't exact fun to fight either my dude. You're not setting a high bar on that one.
D2 is all about the loot mechanics?
D2 doesn't have any particularly interesting loot mechanics.
How do I know this? Explain to me exactly what you mean when you say that.
Nothing about the loot mechanics is particularly interesting, in fact I would argue that it's loot mechanics are rather shallow, and yet the game was and is still successful.
So my argument would be, D2 is successful DESPITE the lack of a particularly deep loot mechanic.
In fact most areas of the game are extremely outdated and would never fly in a new game.
Imagine they released D4 with bosses that die within 5-10 seconds after being encountered. People would cry "dogshit game" immediately.
Yet, for D2, that kinda boss mechanic somehow doesn't matter.
So what exactly is it about D2 that makes people keep coming back?
In my opinion, it's flair.
Diablo 2 had a great and intriguing storyline, amazing visuals, rememberable monster design and art, and most importantly phenomenal music.
These four main factors make up diablo 2's flair.
All the other areas in the game (which are extremely lacking when compared to a game like path of exile), are irrelevant to why the game is still being played.
The flair was just something else, and nostalgia keeps bringing us back to enjoy some of that flair.
That's why a game like path of exile works. There are hundreds of diablo clones, with very deep itemization systems, yet most of those games become forgotten rather quickly.
Not so with path of exile.
Because like diablo 2, it has its own unique flair.
It has a pretty interesting story, nice music, nice visuals, distinguished monster design and that's why it simply works.
You remember all bosses and most monster types, you recognize the visuals, the music triggers Nostalgia, the story means something, thus the world universe means something. It's alive. It has flair.
Diablo 3 had no flair, that's why it is ultimately completely irrelevant how you change the itemization. You could make the itemization exactly the same as in D2, and people would rather play D2 than D3.
Flair of a game is important.
Played every diablo game to date, Pre-purchased diablo 2, 3, d2r and 4.
I have enjoyed every diablo game to date.
They aren't meant to be the same game. Even when diablo 2 came out, there were things from diablo 1 I missed (Like how every class can learn any move, technically).
It's a different game with same continuous storyline.
Played the hell out of (no pun intended) every iteration to date and I'm sure 4 will be the same.
I'm with you man. I watched my dad play D1 and D2 when I was pretty young. Then in 7th grade which would have been around 2002/2003 my dad went on a work trip and let me go with him on a Friday. On the way back home from the trip that day. He let me use his laptop to play D2 in the car on the way home. I instantly fell in love with the game and series. I had no idea what I was doing. I was basically trying to beat the game with a necromancer, bashing people in the face with whatever weapon I had. It didn't matter that I was complete shit at the time. It was just fun.
I anticipated the release of D3 for what seemed like forever, only to find out when the beta came out that the CPU in my laptop wouldn't support the game. It was actually powerful enough as for as specs were concerned but it wasn't supported. I almost went and financed a laptop from Best Buy that day, but decided not to. I waited a while until a summer job and saved up like 400 dollars for a cheap prebuilt gaming PC just so I could play.
I have played the shit out of D2 and D3. I think I did one play through of D1. I love the games because I love the series. I don't want them all to feel the exact same. And as much as D3 is my favorite and most played, I don't want D4 to just be D2 again with new maps and prettier graphics. I'll just play D2R if I want that.
to me unnequiping a staff on a sorc and lose all meteor dmg is stupid, i just can't, could not in D3 and won't in D4. unnequip and lose dmg on a melee weapon dmg based barb is ok, but on a caster is "not ok".
@@banishedbr weird take but okay. I hate that weapon damage basically doesn’t matter in D2 for most builds
@@banishedbr In fantasy world like "harry potter", if a caster loses their weapon (wand), they lose ability to attack proficiently. In a way, it makes a lot of sense.
@@definitelynotchadfish if you use your weapon on a barb skill to HIT then not having the weapon should matter, but the hydra or fireball don't use the weapon . . . not weird in anyway, most rpgs are like that.
Randomized dungeon layout would be a MASSIVE improvement
The randomized areas was the reason D2 is still fun imho. Would love to see that added in D4
There are some things D2 did really well but people like that guy always ruin their credibility when they start talking about how the PvP could be an esport and how rune words/enigma were so awesome and balanced.
Lets be honest with ourselves here. The only reason doing Mephisto runs is fun is because there is a waypoint right before the bossfight itself. There is no friction between you and pulling the slot machine as many times as you like.
First, I totally wanted to play D4, it's the new Diablo game! But slowly I've lost interest. New Blizzard sucks, they have the brand names, but not the vision, nor the skill of the original developers. I'm not gonna feed them with my money.
I'm sure the developers are pretty cool dudes. It's really just the bureaucracy that ruins it I bet. The original trio, Brevik and the Shaefer brothers famously bluffed their resignations in the company to KEEP creative control over the Diablo franchise. Their resignations, to everyone's shock, was accepted. The new owners of the company did not mind axing the geniuses responsible for Diablo 2 because they would have more creative control which they probably hoped would ensure that they had less financial risk. It was what killed the original franchise. But I'm sure even the new developers who were hired were really cool guys. But no developers had control after that, it became the gross bureaucracy we see even today.
D2, a Game released at a time when gaming was so new people dreamt about how a game should look and play to be an enjoyable game. D3 and d4, games released to collect funds. How much better can them fundcolletors be compared to something created to be played and have fun with.
Just the fact alone, that every Item rarity in d2 can have its very own purpose does make the game superior to most other games. In most modern games its just to simple. Take magic over whites, blend out whites with a filter when fully Magic. Then take rares over magic and so on
I agree completely. The fact that white, grey, blue, yellow, brown, and green items each have their own purpose is mind blowing. And I didn't realize that until years into playing the game. I thought to myself, wow...how many yellow tiara's have I passed up that might have been godly. How many white or grey CV's or Giant Thresher's did I just leave on the ground just because I had the naive foresight that certain colors are more important? Once I started understanding the games itemization better, it blew my mind how genius it all is. I've never seen that in any other game, and it seems that Diablo 3 and 4 have leaned more into the simplistic "different colors DEFINE how important the item is", which is problematic because you just end up ignoring items of different colors completely. In that system, once I get into the later parts of the games I would just look for certain colors and my eyes will ignore everything else. In Diablo 2, you just never know what kinds of treasures are laying about in cow games. People who don't realize the potential of what looks like a garbage item, makes another person rich.
@@JamCamAbreu What are you on about? Knowing that certain socket/white items are valuable doesn't make D2 a magically better game, it's just more work/playing with arreat summit open on a second monitor. Blues actually have no purpose in D2, and only certain types of rares/uniques are worth picking up as well. D2 was an amazing game for its time, but its mechanics haven't aged well at all. It's a great game for a teenage kid with all the time in the world to mindlessly grind, but D3/D4 are far better for working adults.
@@MrWendrew lol working adults. Your probably younger than me. But regardless, I don't play with any guides on my other monitor, I just use my instincts. Blue items ARE valuable for some things. Blues have the highest stat point range despite having the smallest number of total attributes. Useful early on to collect attributes like magic find. Additionally, blue is the color of charm drops, which are very exciting. There are so many great charms, but you have to roll well with the ranges. So blue has value as well.
@@JamCamAbreu Possible, but unlikely given that I played this game in high school. My point is that D2 LoD already had a loot tier system, even if it wasn't explicitly sorted by color. I wasn't including charms in my previous reply because they're all blue anyways (minus one). Once they added runewords, the tiers became even more pronounced since runewords > everything.
@@JamCamAbreuI had the exact same experience. The itemization in this game is fantastic. Playing HC singleplayer, certain items/item types get that much more weight to them. I've never experience another game like I have D2.
Don't forget the RNG of gambling, rolling runewords, re-rolling diadems, crafting etc
Yeah, I totally agree with ya Llama: repetion is important in RPGs, and it's present in other types of games too. If u are "a little" older, u punched a lot of bad-but-looking-the-same guys in Beat them ups. The only thing that changed was the color pallete. The same u can see in games like Diablo, Path of Exile and many others. Repetition is good, but is only good when u're having fun. No fun factor, trash game and go to the other. Simple equation, like life. :)
Omg you have no idea the .zip file you uncompressed in my brain saying "u punched a lot of bad-but-looking-the-same guys in Beat them ups" suddenly a stream of memories from my childhood flooded my head. From the coin ops to the console days with streets of rage, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs and so on. Just Epic days, having fun with nothing. Thank you!
Speaking of breaking immersion, can all the flashing numbers be turned off? It makes it look so arcadey.
Yeah, they should be off by default but turned on optionally instead of the other way around.
For me it comes down to Monster Level Scaling. Diablo 3 wasn't the best game when it came out but I played it and even enjoyed it until they added that to it. I was so hyped for Diablo 4 when they said they were taking features from Diablo 2 until I played the beta and found out the monsters scaled to your level. What a major let down. Makes leveling feel so pointless and redundant.
That's such a weird stance. What makes leveling exciting are the points you get to expand your skills, not shitting on weak monsters. Everyone always wants to be playing monsters of at least an equal level so that you're getting the best items/drops, all that level scaling does is make all the content always meaningful.
@@xenikos99 But then what's the point of leveling at all? Why not just put my level 1 ass up against a level 1 diablo? How do people not see this system (Scaling Monster Level to Player Level) as flawed?
@@xenikos99 i disagree. Theres no point to levelling up if youre not more powerful relative to lower level stuff.
Otherwise theres no power trip, no feeling of progression. It turns level up into a time gate mechanic rather than growing in power.
@@ShellShocks14 So you think level 50 with maxed out skills feels the same as level 2, when you only have one basic attack? Absurd.
Having static levels locks you into a linear play experience where you have to just progress through the campaign again and again. That was tedious in D2 (oh I get to assemble the staff of kings again? yaay....), and like 99% of players switched to leveling in the level scaled adventure mode in D3 when it came out and never looked back.
@@xenikos99 Spoken like a true casual.
My favorite thing about D2 is making a unique build that is unique to that character. It gives the character an identity. So a Blizz sorc instead of just a sorc. Then farming areas specific for that build. If you want to farm somewhere else, either rebuild your character and gear from the ground up. Or roll a new character, new build, new identity, new zones to farm.
Unfortunately in D2 there are only a handful of endgame viable builds. D2 Resurrected team has done a good job of making this better, but for me it's a bummer that every character has a bunch of skills that are almost completely useless and are, therefore, never used. Still a fun game though.
@@drkaeppel You are right but only from the perspective of a player that wants to clear hell. I as an experimenting casual player love goofying around with the weirdest builds and stop at around hell act2 and that is completely fine for me. This game is amazing when it comes to supporting the player's creativity and shines in many dimension where d3 and mostly likely d4 can't even lay a foot. I love my bowbarian or my only passive and magic skill axe wielder amazon who is even hardcore. I find this hilerious and really entertaining even without clearing hell or reaching the real endgame of D2.
Yea but this isn’t a thing anymore with sunder charms. Now blizz sorc can go anywhere anytime lol
only issue is D2 has only a few actually viable builds, and no real endgame at all. To me, grinding better gear to clear content that i already have played through just faster is really not an endgame in my eyes. It's just endless grind with no goal, no new difficulty to get to, no new enemies etc. I really doubt D4 will have an actual endgame where the story still continues and we get fresh new content.
@@stonaraptor8196 Well back in the day, gear was much more valuable as there weren't runewords (vanilla) and runewords introduced in LOD till 1.09 were balanced. So you would gear up one character and grind for your other characters. Then came 1.10 which kinda made more specialized builds with introduction of synergy, however, it also added lot of unbalanced runewords so there's really no point in grinding for unique or set gear anymore.
If we go back even further, D2 classic 1.0 was helluva lot harder game, because you didn't have charms, jewels, you couldn't respec or buy mana potions, mercs could not have gear and couldn't be resurrected or be permanent (they will not move to next act with you) and lot of items didn't exist (basically all elite unique variants as elite items weren't existing from what I remember), so game was helluva lot harder on HELL and you couldn't power-creep like you can now.
Sure, we get D2 "classic mode" with Resurrected, however it's still not that authentic version.
As someone who played the game since day one, one of the things that got me excited last patch was the enchant bowsorc. If that wasn't a thing I might not play. The guard rails are unnecessary and make the game less "fun"
Yes, player freedom. That's what's missing in modern games. They design them so tightly and funnel the player into how they want them to play, not give them tools and say "here are the tools we provided, now go play."
@@OkosHugPillow Why the shit would a sorc use a bow? Its your own wicked illusion of playing a sorc... a sorc should throw massiv magic.. its not 1996 anymore. Players tent to cheat the crap out of games. How should blizz balance D4 with your kind of freedom? They could go back to D1 where every class can use every item and spell if you want your freedom... that kind of games would/do suck hard nowadays.
@@wiLdchiLd2k because I don't start out that way? i start as a squishy mage who has to guzzle mana pots. or i could just socket gems into a three socket bow and kill everything without running out of mana spamming spells that don't do a lot of damage?
A bow with 1 blue + 2 green gems is enough to carry any class through act 1 at least without the annoying potion chugging. just because you aren't adaptive, doesn't mean you have to be a jerk. i can play the way i find most efficient and enjoyable, and so can everyone else. i've been playing for twenty years and have managed just fine thanks.
I'll just quote you to demonstrate the irony of what you said. "Its your own wicked illusion of playing a sorc." What you are saying is, my way is the best and only way to play and you shouldn't play it any other way. That's exactly the attitude that makes games so stale. Don't tell me how to play. I can figure out my own system that I enjoy.
@wiLdchiLd2k yeah Elden Ring sucks, I agree. 😂
well, to be fair commando sorc using fire enchant bow shoot everything to oblivion was fun as hell in D2.
too bad with smart loot and class lock we can't do something like that anymore in D4...
Was so excited when I heard ice blades in d4 cause I thought it was gonna be a melee enchant that encouraged a build around it, then I saw you just summon flying swords I was depressed
@@LastAphelion honestly, at first I'm okay with ice blades as sorc can somewhat play as "summoner" but still that just one skill and nothing more (and nerfed)... it seems that D4 dev really has grudge against possible summoner classes whether its necro or sorc xD
@@deldalus there is an entire branch on the sorc skilltree called "summoning" and it has more than just ice blades on it, you're just completely wrong^^
@@S1nwar by summoning I mean summons that stay forever until it dies not for short duration like what ice blades, hydras, etc does... or at least make it stay longer for about 30s or something :(
imagine sorc with living sword flying around you that you can imbue them with different element which provides different status effect (burn,stun,freeze,etc). or perhaps a familair that does coordinate attack with you like in D3.
@@deldalus but then the summons would be too similar to the ones from other classes that stay alive very long and they want the classes to feel different. dont worry about stuff like that i bet there will be some kind of unique in the future that makes ice blades stay longer etc
I tried to finish your sentence for you: "Running 1000 Mephisto runs in Diablo 2 is..." and I said soul-crushing. I was honestly blown away when you instead said super fun.
just comes down to what people like in these games. originally it was grinding for those chase items. but these games arent built that way anymore and the people who grew up on the newer stuff as opposed to the older stuff (and vice versa) have a different associated identity to what makes these games fun.
obligatory "doesn't apply to everyone", yes i'm aware people like both. im generalizing a % of the arpg playerbase.
repetitive.
@@tarrantwalter524it’s also that the idea of anything dropping didn’t really exist in other games.
Nobody ever thought of end game yet. So Diablo 2 was the first time the idea of making builds and benchmarking bosses became a core staple of the genre.
It’s what’s actually missing in Diablo 3. I don’t have anything to test my build against except a number. Like “oh, I cleared GR 137”
That’s great, but to a normal player - they don’t care. But if you told a casual Diablo 2 player that you farm Ubers… they’re blown away by that.
@@Sphynx00 like i said, doesn't apply to everyone
@@Sphynx00 says who? the vast majority of people i talk to that play d2r love grinding and farming items. just because you don't doesn't mean all people are like that
font is absolutely super important, I think you're a hero for preaching that kind of stuff. When I play a game I want to be able to get lost in it for a few hours and forget about the world. D2 text is amazing and it's part of the immersion. Llama, you and I are so alike, very glad for your content. Cheers
D1 font text and D2 font text is exactly the same, which is a good thing.
Some people simply have no care for the aesthetics and immersion, and I pity them.
100% with loot being locked to classes is detrimental to the game. I remember one of the things that got me hooked and impressed with PoE back in the days was learning that a marauder could be a spellcaster or that I could make a crazy bow build on a witch using a low level unique.
Path of Exile is built to allow for that though, starting class doesnt determine your build. Diablo is not built like that. Each class has its own separate skill trees
@rick mel last league spellcaster zerker was one of the late meta builds with the most damage lol
@rick mel pretty sure kripparian played one for quite some time.
I only play these characters, singbarb, enchant sorc, dagger necro, etc. Not being able to do creative stuff like that will kill D4 for me.
@rick mel chieftan had a ton of caster or totem casting builds through the years
I think a key to making repetition enjoyable is agency. For example, farming in PoE is almost always spamming the same map/content over and over, but a player is choosing which content/map that is based their on goals and preference. Sometimes its picking a specific layout to maximize a farming strategy, sometimes its about the zone/content specific rewards they want to target, or maybe its because their build is tailored toward certain content. Basically having nuance matter creates variety and that means players have to choose where/what/how. It's a like a casino where the different games have different rewards.
It isn't fun for long if the player is stuck doing the same thing everyone else is because there isn't any reason to do anything else.
Have to add that PoE had no real endgame content early, was in dev for 5 years before 1.0 and the first "endgame" content came with Atziri, which was not much. All PoE has now is something that came from alot of feedback from the community and over 10 years of dev time.
That being said, its no excuse for other games to start of like that aswell. They have a lot of sources to get inspired from, even their own systems.
This is an incredibly smart take, a gem in the internet :) Completely agree with you here! Sadly the video in question entirely misses the mark. Hopefuly D4 gives the same amount of agency as D2 did (and D3 did not)
I'm not sure if you have heard of project Diablo 2 but it basically does that. It creates maps for players to do that aren't just the usual baal meph runs.
In the video llama posted where he watched Rob play, I could have sworn they had something similar where the dungeons had affixes on them as well
Haven't started this video yet but I just know it's going to be A+ entertainment. Thank you.
Visual immersion realy makes D2R stand out from D4. From the D4 clip you showed, the player character is glowing blue around their character and the enemy is glowing red i think it was. The Frozen Orb was not just shooting icebolts, it was having a blue circle/ball inside it to light up its damage area. Blizzard was also getting this blue circle/ball to show where the spell is hitting. While i agree with Lama that the spells themself just looks bad, my biggest issue is the immersion breaking part. I remember in the beta testing, i watched someone play a necromancer and all their skeletons was glowing with teal colors as is so popular from game studios these days to portay the living dead. Meanwhile in Diablo 2, a skeleton is just skeleton visualy. Differences like that is what causes me to love the summoner necromancer in D2, but just looking at D4, i feel repulsed.
D2R looks definitely better, especially the spell effects are weak in D4 :/. Even the UI doesnt look very good in D4, and overall the game is too grey.
I like the look of D2R overall more than D4, but not by a lot. That said, the red outline glow on monsters comes from D1, which is still to me the most immersive Diablo game in the series so that is a good throwback more than anything. The player character blue glow is an optional setting you can turn on or off. A lot of the visual displays have setting customization which is actually a big improvement over previous games.
The biggest immersion breaker in D4 is all the text popping up all over the screen showing damage numbers, evade, miss, critical hit, etc.
ARPG players and designers seem to forget how much RNG maps that provide some level of challenge navigating actually add to games. Skill Builds, Items, and combat mechanics are all very important, but doing the same map over and over definitely takes away a dimension of gameplay.
They add a knowledge barrier. They don't add engaging gameplay to a hack and slash game.
For real. It's that feeling of exploration. Feeling around in the dark, not knowing what you'll see when you turn the next corner. Really hoping for some great new ARPG that really takes advantage of spatial randomness.
Yahtzees (from ZeroPunctuation) "core game loop" and Bungies "30s of fun" are a an important concept here. You can always make a game look boring by describing the meta gameplay.
Both Yahtzee and Bungie say, that the small, repetitive task needs to be fun to carry the other stuff of the game. I think Diablo 2 got it right (more accidently than academic discipline) with it's combat system, that is "needlessly" complex.
Sure, Stamina is not a fun mechanic, but in the early game when you don't have many spells and enemies it's another thing to manage. You don't have to manage stamina later, except when you suddenly have to fight mosquitos and a fanatism, extra strong zakarum priest. Suddenly combat becomes different.
Sure, running with 1/3 deffense should be explained more, but the act of actively changing between running and walking (and saving Stamina) is moment to moment decision based on surroundings.
It's very similiar with the doors and stair ways and Act 2, while we hate the maggot lair and the arcane sanctum, they are undisputabley a unique aspect of the game, that forces some classes to play different. A summoners thinks the maggot lair is the worst level ever and a bonemancer goes :) ---> ---> --->
The level architecture has actually impact on the core game loop.
Animation lock (block lock, dodge lock, stun lock) are another great aspect, that forces the player to thing about the surroundings. Some modern ARPGs have streamlined mechanics, because they felt clunky, when used badly.
@@TBrod The "Knowledge barrier" would amount to "find level 2," or "find the golden staff." Would you rather stand in a field and click while enemies fly at you? Would you want to play pac man without the maze?
@@PapstJL4U Maggot lair is definitely an issue for some builds. But take something more generic like the Jail and catacombs. I cannot say D2 would be a better game if those dungeons were the same every time. I would guess it would be worse. As for stamina I can't say I have a strong philosophy one way or the other..
I like D2LOD, D3, and D4 (so far). I also play POE, Last Epoch, and others. I go where the game leads me I guess. The good thing is there is room for all of them to exist, and I don't feel forced to pick sides.
Can we all just accept that they will never make a game as good as Diablo 2 ever again?
Blizzard isn’t an ambitious up-and-coming game developer with something to prove anymore, they’re a well established developer with clout who can stand to lose one dedicated fan-base in favor of more marketable zoomer casuals who don’t have the attention span for the subtle intricacies of Diablo 2 style mechanics.
I think the main reason D4 doesn’t appeal to D2 players is simply because it’s not D2, nothing will ever be D2, Blizzard doesn’t have it in them to make something as good as D2 ever again.
Very well said
Well, for those players of course nothing can be as good as D2 because any changes are, by definition, bad. It's a sort of No True Scotsman. The good news is they'll always have D2 to play.
Blizzard hasn’t made a good game in 10 years, expecting this one to be good is laughable
exactly this
@rick mel >Balance = fun
Braindead take, especially since you probably play Diablo 3
What's super interesting is your comments against jsp. I remember as a kid getting ripped off constantly on ladder, but it wasn't until jsp where I learned the relative value of stuff and started getting fair value for my stuff. Think there are pros and cons.
personnal feeling but about the smart loot. In D2, yeah you can create some intersting things like wearing a "crescent moon" on a sword on your sorc just for the "-% resist" affixe. At the base, the weapon was designed for a melee character (IAS, % dmg, open wounds ect). This part of "itemization creativity" is really cool. But... Sometimes, it's reaching a point of lack of identity class. You finish by seeing everybody with enigma, griffin, shako, blablabla, whatever the character he is playing. I don't really like this part of the common loot. I would prefer to see a paladin with a big armor and big shield. Not with the same enigma as the assassin and the shako as the sorc :/ Even enigma is a pbl for me. You finish to see everybody teleporting as a sorc. Right ok. But you finish to play like a sorc but you're not a sorc. I would prefer a "move skill" indentity. An assassin dashing like the D4 rogue, a barb charging the monster with his head ect. It's more immersion for me than telestomping with every character, every build
Then there is pro and cons
This a great way to look at this. Thank you for that perspective.
Nah bruh. Cookie cutter builds and running baal over and over again is peak gameplay to llama
@@oyeahisbest123 except he kind of spoke completely against this in the video.
and yet everytime he plays he does exactly that.
I don't really see gear as "class identity" or can even fuck up identity. Why are necros the only one who can use shields when they aren't even melee characters? Shouldn't barbs be heavily trained in using shields?
25:59 “have you ever heard of a player that doesn’t like trading” I legit don’t like trading. Switched to offline because I dislike it so much.
It was cool to hear you talk about Dungeon Siege, I don't know anyone who has even heard of it. I grew up playing that game and Diablo 1 & 2.
A couple of minutes into his video, and he is a metaphysical guru
Ok asmon
When you were talking about how pretty the fire looks in Diablo 2 you couldn't have been more spot on, because even map assets in game that have fire looks beautiful. Like the torches in The Pandemonium Fortress. Just my 2 cents.
Omg that comment about the over marketing hit hard. I was watching hot ones earlier today and they sponsored a segment of it. I was like, "really blizzard? Hot wings now?"
Reminds me of Cyberpunk 2022. Spent more time and effort trying to deceive consumers than actually making a good game.
I don't understand their damage inflation. Like just use smaller numbers?
This this this. Bethesda is HORRIBLE for this and i hate seeing it in games. Capcom and D2 dont do this shit and its awesome
I like it. Just let it be a toggle on/off, because I like big numbers.
But bro I have 5 million combat power!!!! You should pay for dinner!! /s
Mrllamasc & xtimus Collab 2023
XDXD
The fun with d2, when you kill diablo in hell its HARD (with little gear or no gear early game, generalizing) but as you get better gear you can genuinely feel the increased power. Its satisfying. If diablo 4 has bosses, with 9 mechanics, and the fights take 5 minutes, who wants to do that 1000 times? So you can get a random nameless leggo? Finding a griffons feels incredible because you KNOW what that is. Finding the lethargic arm of elmdormar (or whatever they will name shit in d4) is boring as shit.
If you play Diablo 2 you know what X is talking about. He does not have to elaborate because we understand exactly what he’s saying.
I fundamentally disagree with the "replayability" and "new experience every time you log in".
1. It is a farm! So what that the dungeon looks different? You are still doing the same thing, using the same 2-3 skills! It is exactly the same experience EVERY time you log in!
2. the fact that a good item suddenly drops for me does not give me any sense of accomplishement. It is RNG not my skill that made the item drop! Sense of accomplishement can be felt if you get rewarded for doing something difficult, not when something drops randomly.
16:12 Mephisto is a free lootbox. MrLlamaSC 2023
In life in general, if you try to please everybody, you won't ever succeed. This statement is true no matter what you apply it to, so it stands to reason that D4 won't ever be as successful as it could be. I doubt D4 will have the longevity that D2 has and maybe that's the intention. Not a good or bad thing it just is what it is.
I actually like that weapons are more class specific. One thing i disliked about d2r is so many builds use hoto,spirit,shako, and enigma. How many sorcs in d2r actually use a wand or a staff? You see some wands and almost 0 staffs.That to me is emersion breaking. Same if a assassin/rogue weilded a two handed hammer which is probably bigger and heavier than the character. Or a barb with a wand.
@mrllamasc I'm gonna be heavily relying on you and your community to judge if I get this game. Do you intend to produce a full review video of D4? About when do you think you'd release it?
You already know what Llama is going to say. "D4 is fine/bad, it ain't D2."
Think for yourself man, look at a variety of sources, not just 1 of the most biased sources you could possibly ask.
Anytime i hear someone mention the word "repetitive" when comparing diablo 2 to diablo 4... i scratch my head.
The D4 beta dungeons were repetitive, and they probably still are, even with improvements. However.. i remember spending hours doing Lower Kurast runs for a chance of a ber rune. Runs that took less than a minute before resetting the game and going again. I just dont understand how D2 players can use that as an argument when comparing the games.
Even if they're comparing it from one ARPG franchise to the Other. The entire Genre is literally RPG casino You just pull the slot lever over and over..
It’s interesting, I loved Diablo 2 so much in the past, but the full randomness of it now leaves me frustrated because I don’t have the time to grind like I did back in the day. So now I feel like I can play for two hours and not really accomplish anything, but in say D3 I do feel like I knocked some things out.
Hmm.. By accomplishing anything what do you mean?? Because this game is doable using self-found items.. Unless you're referring to fully-decking out your character then I guess that should be expected... Only thing you'll probably need to grind are Runes and Bases for them in Hell Difficulty..
The easiness of fully decking out your character is what divided the fanbase overall... and each people in the both side of the argument has a point imho..
but the point isn't to become super stacked, it's to run through the game with rag tag gear. That's what makes the experience unique. Otherwise you're just a copy paste character like everyone else.
@@lemonke8132 I understand that, and when I was younger and had more time to play I loved that. Now I don't, because I feel like I spend a ton of time playing and not finding any better gear just feels like a grind, not good use of my limited time to play games.
@@lemonke8132 The goal is what you want it to be. The OP is saying you can spend 2 hours farming and get absolutely nothing and feel like you haven't progressed your character.
@@vivid8979so I used to have this opinion back when I did play the game.
Except I’m older now and I have time to play every so often in the week. When I was grinding D2 it would feel good initially when I was progressing to hell. But when I started my ancient tunnels grind - I quickly realized I hated it. There were some nights I logged on and came out nothing to show for it.
Imagine coming home from your day, grinding for 3-4 hours. And making zero progress.
Atleast in diablo 3 I’d have something outside of RNG to target. Felt a lot better.
I think that there is going to be a sweet spot for pvp. In dark souls 3 (not the same genre and stuff I know) level 120 is where it's at for pvp. I'm not knowledgeable about d2 pvp and correct me if I'm wrong but I think pvp happens with lvl 30 builds. Maybe the community is going to come up with something similar for d4.
check cooley's last video that shows how pvp is fcked up just as expected due to insane dmg figures that make the game impossible to balance (both for life/dmg ratio and in between classes). Exactly what caused the inexistant pvp on D3.
low lvl duel could be a thing on D2 due to private games, but here it is an open world where anyone can join and if a high level char wants to mess with your lvl 30 char, there s nothing you can do about it right?
I felt the 120 pvp scene in DS3 was a bunch of uncreative kids copying meta min max builds with cheese play.
PVP was beautiful at 20-80. 120 was designed to be inclusive with minimal sacrifice because dweebs wanted to still have INT on their 3 attribute scaling weapon. It didn’t even make sense with infusions.
Needless to say, I didn’t think highly of the “competitive” dark souls scene, which I think the concept is ridiculous in itself.
Diablo should never be designed around balance in PVP. There’s MOBA and others far more fleshed and mature.
Just started playing Diablo 4 and I already need to vent about something that has me fuming. There is no way of knowing if an item is one handed or two handed. I just wasted my gold purchasing a weapon, not realizing it was a two handed weapon. This is the f’n stupidest oversight from a developer that has already made 3 other diablo games WTF!!!
i cannot get over him saying runewords require an incredible amount of testing while displaying one of the most broken items in the history of gaming lmao
"Blizz can't do expansions" ;) runewords (and the runes themselves and charms and overloaded items (charges of alien spells)) broke D2LOD
While i still played D2 classic in a LoD client - LoD farm meta = let a friend bus your new char though the Hephaistos quests so you get the free runes, delete and a new hero … m/
rune words are an optional way to gear your character, it requires a lot of grinding, you could farm for years and not have a single jah or ber drop, not everyone is rocking enigmas.
I'm sure they'll implement level scaling for PVP. I can't imagine anything worse so that means they'll definitely do that.
The world tiers kinda of make sure the level gaps aren't huge.
@@doshta dont like it? Don't play it.
Xtimus is probably far more of a Diablo 2 "extremist" than most people who are hardcore D2 players, such as MrLlama.
I would say that the gameplay loop of Diablo 2 is quite outdated. Diablo 3 used to be good, but it has been powercreept constantly after 1.8 (even before RoS), and unique items have been revised to be as hand-holding as possible. And I hate it.
PoE is now, perhaps, the best "Diablo 2 clone" I play. The map system in PoE is IMO really good for the "unique experience".
Even though I already don't like some of the gameplay mechanics of Diablo 4 (like the really bad rune system), I'm far more worried about the monetization of it.
Borderlands and BL2 had some of that RNG experience with the weapons and enemies. Maybe not quite to the same level, but they had a similar feeling. Sure you could loot a gun with a similar name as another, but the parts were all randomized. Not only could you see it in the stats but you could feel it in the recoil, spread and accuracy. You could identify different parts simply by looking at it and some parts could make or break a weapon.
Enemies were randomized. There were some hidden mechanics to discover with some enemies. Anyone could playthrough it, but there was quite a bit of depth if you wanted to look. It had a lot of replayability and the repetition ....didn't always feel like repetition. They're fun games that I still revisit now and then.
I didn't play a lot of BL3 but I never had that same feeling while playing it as I did the first two.
What they don't understand is that with personal loot you also effectively kill a large majority of excitement that you could have getting a good unique. If an item isn't for your class or one you plan on making eventually, it will just be junk to you. No trade is a mistake in a Diablo ARPG. Diablo 3 didn't have it, and i spent most of my time getting items that I didn't need for myself as an upgrade and it was left on the ground.
MrLlama you are way to D2 Bias.😂😂
MrLlam is like that grandpa that yells at kids that play on his lawn. He's stuck in his ways and tries to gatekeep everything in the Diablo realm.
I love the guy, but I will say the bias he has for D2 is really annoying. I played D2 to death back in the day and play it a good bit now, but I'm not going to blindly praise the game as the best ARPG ever made when it clearly has many MANY flaws.
@@NonEmployee Don't get me wrong, I still love D2 and it'll always hold a special place in my heart, but holy fuck, 1000 Andariel or Mephisto runs is not fun. LOL
@@NonEmployee the mods have fixed them. Go play PD2 its awesome.
One thing i love about D2, which ive been on and off since 00'.is that with every class. You have SO MANY OPTIONS! you can makes DOZENS of builds with each class making the replayability that much higher.
Loved the Dungeon Siege nod. I played the crap out of it when it came out with friends.
Definitely think he was too hard on Llama, Llama’s criticism of diablo has been very on point.
I think D2 has a lot of things people overlook for itemization that are also very well done. I dont like D3/4 for many many reasons besides items
19:00
I'd argue nostalgia is an indicator of success. But you're only going to know that later.
Perhaps the current way to know you will find something nostalgic, later, is when you get lost in that world; the mystery, exploring, adventuring, excitement, and that sense of achievement all while making friends. It's the wandering and the wondering, and sharing that experience with others that makes something so special.
I'm not going to get a sense of nostalgia playing D3.
Does anybody know if the campaign doable in party? Im curious if everyone gets the quest progress because if I remember correctly only the leader got the progress and when the rest left the party they continued their story from where they left off. This would be a bummer on start.
I've tried a bunch of games since D2 first came out and none were anywhere near the caliber of that game . The programming that went into it was breakthrough genius at the time and it has set my standards way too high ... LoL !!!
That's how I feel about souls games, lots of copycats but nothing compares.
Ever tried PoE?
Feel the exact same way. I tried PoE but nothing captured the magic like d2 at the time.
I think scaling is one of the biggest problems D4 has along with items, but there are others so I dont see it being fixed.
Amen! The scaling BLOWS! But also, the downtime. The game essentially boils down to waiting for your big skills to get off cooldown and bursting them...Then waiting again....Kinda lame.
Well Im a avid d2 player and I dont hate d4 personally, but then again and I think this is important I wasn't expecting this to be the next d2 anyway. I went into this with the notion that it would be a revamped d3 and I wasn't disappointed besides I really don't want them to make something that replaces d2 anyway.
To me what killed d3 was the removal of points and the skill tree. If i unlock a skill and can swap back and forth whenever i want then there is no weight to my descisions because i can just change right back. When everyone has the same gear what seperates us is our build and our understanding of the game and how we implement our skills. the quality of item also keeps us playing since finding a 28 Maras makes you want to get right back to farming for that 30 roll.
Being able to quickly swap skills in D4 was extremely appreciated as I was able to deeply learn all of the mechanics of the Druid without having to make entirely new characters. Which was very appreciated, I don’t have the time to remake my character like I did as a kid.
@TekEffekt I'm not saying quality of life changes can't be made, I personally would kill for more words in the title of games so I can trade more effectively. But when you make new characters your playing the game and learning the game from a different perspective with each build which keeps you playing. D2r does it correctly. They added essences from 4 different bosses that can be farmed for re-specs or traded in game for runes which also adds things to do in the end game. Taking away stuff like this is why the newer d3 and d4 won't have people playing it 15+ years like D2/D2r.
@@TekEffekt💯
What most people don’t seem to be getting is that there is no incentive to do an equivalent of 1000 mephisto runs in D4 because of bad itemization and lack of trading.
Win for blizzard. They got your money but they don’t need to keep servers up for long…
Dungeon siege is amazing played it back in sophmore year. Check out throne of darkness too
All you need is some kinda of lotto loot feeling where people can hunt for hard to find tradable items and you will be in business. People love making new characters with higher lvl loot they found on other characters too
I'm a bit confused how any D2 LOD player can complain about how D3 and D4's gameplay is too repetitive when all they do is the same Lvl 80 zone runs over and over in D2 hoping to get something to drop, exiting, and the starting a new game to do it again.
Keen to get feedback/ideas on “smart drops”:
They could skew drops for your character until lvl 70 or so, and taper off from there to lvl 100.
So lvl1-70 it looks like a normal distribution but from lvl70-100 it gradually gets flattened towards a uniform distribution.
That way your farming character is farming for anything, but your leveling character regularly finds items that help you get through the game.
I think just having a toggle. Personally I don't like smart loot but I also don't like how many items are character specific either
@@MrLlamaSC 100% agree on the character specific items. Crossbow barb runs should be a thing.
Also there’s a few things they could throw into a list of toggles (like a single player toggle), so this could make sense as a tab in the menu 👍
The real reason "smart loot" is "the" solution (not that I like it either) it's because anything you drop is specific to a class, boots are not boots, they are barbarian boots. If items were generic like D2 then smart loot wouldn't be needed. Try adding smart loot in D2, other than the 1 piece specific to each class, orb to sorc, shield to paladin, etc, there is nothing specific or stopping you from using it on any class. Leaf is for fire "sorc" but it's still works on ele druid and trapsin. The smart loot isn't flawed, the loot is flawed.
@@MrLlamaSCif you give an option and one of the option is better, it's not really a choice. Look at goldpickup from D2R, anyone playing without it? No because it's faster to just autopickup.
@@kingheenokgaming4783 I’d keep it on while leveling, you’d definitely keep it on while speedrunning. One is certainly not always better 🤷♂️
Honestly the biggest problem with skills is they are too homogeneous. Every single skill in d4 is basically a circle, rectangle , or cone that just does damage. The skills blizzard and frozen orb are the perfect examples. Because they are supposed to be kinda the same thing( I don’t see why they would name them the same thing if they weren’t supposed to be similar.) frozen orb in d4 is a circle that moves in a straight line that does damage to anything in its path, and explodes in a bigger circle at maximum range, it will always do 1-2 frozen orb damage. While in d2 frozen orb is a much smaller circle that moves in a straight line that does damage, but it launches independent projectiles that damage enemies as they proceed along their path. Along with the explosion at the end being a ring of these same projectiles. The amount of damage frozen one does in d2 is more based on your positioning, and aim of the frozen orb making the skill cap for the skill way higher in d2 as the most skilled player in d4 can always get 2 frozen orb damage on the enemy that they want to get the damage on. While in d2 the amount of damage a frozen orb can do can range between .5 frozen orb and 3 frozen orb, by just knowing the distance of the projectile and getting the orb to just slightly pass through the hit box of the monster and then explode all the final projectiles inside the hit box of the monster and making it a much higher damage single target ability, there is just way more skill potential in d2.
Blizzard is the other example. In d4 blizzard is a instantaneous circle that you place down and anything inside that circle takes X damage over Y time as long as you keep the monster inside the circle. Blizzard in d2 is a rectangle that after a short delay has individual projectiles that fall randomly inside the rectangle and even if you keep a monster inside the rectangle you might get .5 blizzard damage and you might get 2 blizzard damage. Also in d4 blizzards don’t stack You will always do X damage over Y time so any overlap of your circles is wasted. While you are rewarded for keeping monsters in the multiple rectangles because the damage is increased because you have more projectiles falling in the same area, allowing your mastery with the skill to dictate if you want more focused damage or more spread out damage.
TLDR
@@phreaqq d4 sux
@@martinivanov1319 got it, thx champ
I like D2 Frozen Orb better but D2 Blizzard is clunky to the point of being frustrating. Enemies will just walk through your blizzard and take no damage. Whirlwind is another skill that was completely nonsensical in its D2 implementation.
What is capturing fun of repetition is that when you exit town in Diablo 2 you pick up perfect grey 15/15 ed socketed item, also some godly rares and even some mega good uniques (Hi high runes=)). On top of that you can trade it all. In Diablo 4 you skip everything except that 1 unique you never obtained. You can NOT even gamble it nor trade for it. Where is fun in that?
Diablo 2 is really a masterpiece.
I hate the d4 "skill tree" since its pretty much watered down d3 with different presentation. I understand what their idea was, but its still linear and braindead. Is so sad because the visuals of D4 and the gameplay just feels good and can get pretty addictive. All that d2 and d3 players wanted is some sort of complexity, instead we got a barebones game, that makes the community come up with the most complex theories on why that is the case lol.
It’s great that d2 has monster type rng but 90% of time players just teleport besides them just to get to mephisto or throne of destruction .etc so unfortunately monster rng doesn’t matter that much. This was improved with terror zones where it makes sense to stop and kill elite packs. The most interesting part of d2 in my opinion are the items and the thrill of getting that godly drop which d4 kind of failed to bring (at least in the beta) but we’ll see how it plays out.
Teleporting was also the quickest way to do something.
Teleporting was not necessary, but the random paths in Durance of Hell made teleport the only viable way of reaching it -- but only because the loot from Mephisto isn't likely to be worth solving the maze and fighting the dolls and mummies if you walk;
You'd do Andariel, Diablo and Baal instead, without teleport.
Teleport was never necessary, loot was just too little from most bosses without teleport, and thus -- without teleport, chests around bosses and/or the bosses themselves would need much improved rune drops or better quality drops.
I'd take 10 Mephisto runs that take 10 minutes each over 100 runs that take 1 minute each, if the quality of loot was slightly better in the 10 runs.
@@AndreDW1983 This is a pretty great take actually. I just hope its not too far that direction, and loot feels too easy to get vs effort put in.
"failed to bring" in a "beta" Huh?
man before u spam baal run there is a game before
Yes teleport is the worst thing about diablo 2. Its why bots are so successful
Nostalgia actually doesn't play a role in why I love D2. Yes, I played the tits off of D1, but I didn't get D2 until 4 or 5 years after it was released; and even then I only played through it on Normal mode and then didn't go back to it for a while. Every now and again I would get the itch to get in to D2 proper-wise, but I would play through Normal mode and then quit. It wasn't until about a year before D2R was released that I finally started playing toward D2's endgame. Since D2R's release I have been absolutely obsessed with the game to the point where D4 is the 1st Diablo game that I'm not really excited to play, and that makes me a little bit sad. I'm also a lot older now than I was when I 1st played D1, but the idea of a new Diablo game or expansion would always fill me with child-like excitement. I think D2R is mostly to blame for this, so it's the real jerk on all this if you think about it.
If I'm being totally honest I would much rather see D2R get more endgame content similar to the Ubers, maybe even with a unique endgame item like the torch and anni charms. I know this is just a lead pipe pipe dream of mine, but I will die on the hill of wanting "Old Tristram" to be added as a lvl 85 quest where you have to run through the original Diablo''s 16 dungeons and defeat an Uber version of a D1 boss or sub-boss on every 4th dungeon before you can progress to the next 4 levels. For instance, on the 4th level you might fight Uber Butcher. The 8th level might be Uber Skeleton King. Level 16 would obvioulsy be Uber Diablo, but the original incarnation which is still my favorite version.
I do see calling someone a casual player as an insult and there's a good reason for that: Casual players ruin video games. Developers will sacrifice the quality and personality of a game in order to be more wide reaching to casual players to make more money. It was described in this video for d4, and the exact same thing is happening with other video games such as COD. cod used to be amazing and I do not believe there was a single bad cod game until MW came out in 2019 where they put a huge focus on appealing to casual players and putting most of the content behind MTX that those casuals would fall into buying. The games became terrible because of it.
Games from the 90s and early 2000s were great because gaming was more underground and "casual gamers" wasn't really a thing, it was just a community of people that loved games making games for other people that loved games. Now it's all about corporate greed and appealing to the endless casual playerbase to suck money out of them.
@@ambridge6645 That was savage, but unfortunately true. Games should be balanced around and primarily focused on the dad/mom that just came home from a long day at work and only has an hour or two to play before the kids get back from school and they gotta get off. Not the RUclipsrs/Streamers or the average no name, no life, basement caveman that plays games for 20 hours a day, 7 days a week.
That person definitely is a gatekeeping elitist and should have no place in any gaming community.
As a 20 year old D2 veteran I believe what makes diablo 2 fun is its hard in the correct way. In d3 you either can beat a rift or you cannot. In D2 you can run chaos, but you gotta be careful all of the time. Although we pretend that the game is solved and no one ever dies in D2, we all know that you can die no matter how "OP" your items are. In the modern ARPG games you either blow up the screen or you dont, that is what determines whether you can run certain content or now. While in D2 you can run Chaos Sanctuary with basic gear but you need to be careful. And even if you get your final items, you have to make sure you dont get cursed and slapped by some random elite death lord.
Imagine if they put legendary gems in Diablo 4. The amount of chaos to consume would be legendary
what made diablo 2 great was that it was very social for a game in 1999. it wasnt the random replayability or anything like that.
Diablo 2 still has a significantly better online multiplayer UX than Diablo 3. Not sure why they never added a lobby system where you can name games.
D4 doesn’t have anything like that either, yet 😢
yah, saying that its the best game in the world because you can replay it for 20 years and not get tired of it is stupid. ... its definately not
unfortunately the casual andy’s would lose their mind if blizzard implemented a trade site (even though i wish they did make one). all they would associate it with is the D3 RMAH.
thank u so much to bring the orb thing on point
Games being more "for everybody" always end up being incredibly shallow :C
D2 you literally run the same boss hundreds of times lol. It doesn't get much shallower than that.
@@manilowgamer that's not due to the game's design though, that's due to lack of designed content to begin with. its saying something when we're comparing shallowness between two games, one of which has significantly less content to the other
@@tarrantwalter524 One has been out for 20 years and the other isn't even out yet. So what does that say?
@@manilowgamer i'd say the original statement is very generalized and doesn't necessarily hold true for every game trying to broaden its audience as much as possible. but based on my own preconceived notions about how blizzard has been lately, i would be inclined to believe it will generally lean toward "shallow".
doesn't mean it will be bad though, even if that turns out to be true
True. This is exactly what happened to both Mass Effect and Dragon Age. Terrible sequels.
Quantum physics 💀💀
Great video!
IMO they can make it more casual while still making the "true" fans happy. The issue with D3/4 is they took the fun out of loot. Just make items rare and exciting to find again and ditch the 50 versions of the same item crap. Also, ideally, add something interesting/challenging to the end-game to challenge yourself with a well built character instead of endless greater rifts. Almost nothing else needs changed.
I think a core difference between D3 and D2, was that the general experience of D3 was "diluted". You gain hundreds, even thousands of levels in D3, whereas you can only go up to lvl 99 in D2. Similarly, you get tons of unique drops in D3 compared to the fewer unique drops in D2. You do billions of damage in D3, you can go up to Torment XVII, you gain thousands of Strength, HP, etc. As a result, I felt that every level, every stat, every drop just mattered less in D3 than in D2.
I study Animal Behaviour, and we know that humans and animals are MOST motivated when they are given "rewards" (i.e., food, money, dopamine rush, etc.) at random intervals of doing something (known as intermittent reinforcement). This is why gambling is so addicting to so many people. In D2, we have a limited number of VERY valuable unique items (e.g., a unique amulet could be a Mara's) - this makes the game very rewarding. In D3, due to the "dilution" of the entire gaming experience, the "rewards" doesn't feel as such, making the game very stale and repetitive after a couple hours of playing. Not to mention, every character in D3 kind of does the same thing.
These are just my thoughts though.
Well said
Does d4 have runewords or charms for inventory on skills ?
I enjoyed the video greatly and think it was well informed!
Saying Diablo 2 isn't repetitive is kind of ridiculous. I've been playing this game for 20 years, but it's incredibly repetitive. Even with changes to D2R such as terror zones, it's still incredibly repetitive.
The "RNG" Of Diablo 2 is basically 5 - 10 (if that many) map configurations with maybe 5 - 10 different types of combinations of monsters. The item drop experience is great for sure, however there's a gigantic library of items that are completely useless. There's a ton of rune words which are completely useless.
I'm saying this and I LOVE D2 and D2R. At the end of the day Diablo 2 is a 20+ year old game that is still incredible. But let's not look at it through rose colored glasses when comparing it to D4 or other similar games.
Nah, I already sent D4 back to blizz. They can choke on it. I don't get what's so hard about making a sequel to d2.
I don't want d3's "set of the season" bs, I don't want d3's "unicorn land" and rainbow pallate, I don't want completely generic classes and limited abilities bar, I don't want a cooldown based system.
I don't want d4's "permanent world" where, upon leaving the first town another player walks by and my hardcore character get one tapped instantly from the goatman chasing them.
I don't want d4's pre scripted locked in boss battles where you are trapped playing a bullet hell for no reason with "don't stand here" warnings and artifical contrivances.
I don't want d4's limited party size or 'uber mega super boss battles'
I just want an expansion to d2. That's it.
Well, honestly, I'm beyond frustrated with blizzard in general. Haven't paid a dime for anything since overwatch came out and I watched that ship burn into the ocean, ow2 debacle, and now cancelled ow2 pve promises. F blizz.
I'll go dig up some indie games that are actually quality. Wildermyth was a ton of fun.
@@tylr3669 no one cares what you want you think you not paying them will even matter the game will be amazing and thank god we don't have a Diablo 2 sequel don't wana kill a single boss for shako 100000 times
@@NikhilGupta-lf4yu lol, angry much?
Trust me I'm aware that blizz doesn't care what the d2 community wants. Or me in particular. But hey, guess what? that's why they are missing near $1k from me for the last idk 6 years?
The game will be ass, and 90% of the player base will be looking elsewhere within a year. That's my prediction. 1 bc pvp will be bullshit, I don't think blizz can do it. 2 bc within 6mo-1year the pay to win battlpass changes will drop, and all the partners will rally around blizz to tell us all it just aint so. This isn't the blizz that made d1 and d2. It's activision, its a mega corp. They don't give a toss about the game except will it sell and will people promote it. Thats it.
Thats why llama rpg will be better, even if it sells less.
lol, cries about shako...bro, just trade for it if you don't find it, fucks sake it's everywhere. All the bots farm it, run countess like 15 times and trade the rune off her for it, or the keys, wtv.
I STILL haven't found a zod naturally. lol...this guy and his shako...hahahaha...hooooooo.....
who is saying d2r is not repetitive?
"You're not putting bows on a paladin and doing crazy things like this."
Coooley enters the chat with a grip of 451s
I tell people in diablo 1 and 2 felt like your success was inspit of the game trying to kill you. Diablo 3 and 4 it feels like the game is actively trying to make me successed.
It’s likely choice, And the removal of creativity. Its all to avoid some form of the paradox of choice. But by limiting the various routes one can take it makes the game dull and less repeatable. So you can’t mess around and try a bunch of random builds, using various equipment. It creates more a guided tour than a discovery experience. Just like in life a guided tour can be a nice short experience, but not as rewarding or engaging as a discovery experience.
Running Meph a 1000 times (or any boss for that matter) is tedious. I think TZ are a godsend for diversifying the game a little. Let's face ir, as great as D2 is *and I am still playing it to this day) its endgame is pretty weak.
Only real "end game" in original D2LOD was cows, uber's, dclone, getting to lvl 99, and maybe pvp
Pvp is still a blast if you are on jsp and do tourneys / fpk
@@hillwin10 only reason I said maybe is because lots of players, myself included, dont go for Pvp in d2
I'm excited to see what they do for D4 pvp
But the maps change. You could have some crazy new endgame world, and if the map remains the same or very similar, you lose out a lot of gameplay.
@@hillwin10 it is for people who like pvp to begin with. Yjere are also way better games to pvp in in my opinion but to each its own.
I have been searching Tal Rashia armor in Nightmare.... Hello? How do I get to hell with Sorc Cold Immune?
I beleive D3 has a better endgame than D2 and I think this is a generaly accepted thing but I will be roasted because of my following statement; I HATE trading in D2 and not just for the sites that sell items for real money, I hate trading because I want to be able to play D2 solo, so not ever interacting with other players. Because D2 does not have smart loot and I do not want to trade, the grind is very long and hard to swallow. For the rest of the game D2 is definetely superior to D3.
In game trading in d2 with an auction house much like wow would be nice.
As much as it would be convenient, I think it would break the economy. It's impossible for the economy to not get ruined over time, this is why seasons are so important. That's what makes day 1 in a season so much fun. Items simply just don't exist right away in the economy.
But I think an auction house speeds up the ruined economy. I disagree with Llama on this one. I think ladders would have to be like a month long tops if they implemented an auction house. The trading mechanic being tedious to find someone to trade with slows down the game in a way that allows it to last as long as it does. You probably know this too, I'm guessing you've played the early and late season and know how items devalue over time. Imagine how bad it would be with an auction house?
Auction houses devalue the fucking shit out of gear. Easy access to finding what you need destroys gear progression and makes only the nearly perfect gear worth anything. you do not want auction houses.
Totally agree about repetition! The whole life itself is repetitions of same routines over and over again. Sometimes it’s fun, the other time it is not. The more fun the repetition is to you the more happier person you are. Great job Llama
they hate it bc they are going to lose players playing d2 :( why is no one talking about this
@@Burningwoodz not necessarely. People can play both d2 and d4 and love them both in a different way
@@dnslbr6898 more ppl will play d4 tho since all these bots dont want to do public baals
Heh! Would almost be as repetitive as chaos or Mephisto runs over and over again! That’d be crazy!
@@Burningwoodzhopefully the remaining d2r people do the smart thing and play PD2