just wanted to say thanks for your contributions to diablo 3, the game i played for over 10k hours across 10 years with so many friends. legendary game. 💙
Need that infinite growth. Ironically, I checked out of the whole genre, partially, because of what Diablo became (and Blizzard). Meanwhile, Last Epoch has sucked my back in.
and that's the thing. The first Diablo had no "audience" so to speak, and Diablo 2 gathered what might be called "outside audience" based wholly on its quality. I really expected the same at the time when Diablo 3 came out. I wanted to be as blown away as I was when I first played Diablo 2 after playing 1 for years. But it just wasn't on that same level at all.
Exactly the problem with Blizzard still now, they can't seem to accept that different games may have a different audience. Instead with D3 and beyond the target audience became the millions that were already playing WoW. As a result you have a uniformity accross their games that was utterly banal. I get having a "house style" but D3 was barely distinguishable from WoW. They have corrected this a little with D4 but they have persisted with a general low opinion of their audience, resulting in a game with no intelligence. At least they increased the age the story was aimed at. With that said, if the audience is willing to pay money for in game cosmetics then it isn't surprising they look down upon their players so much. It's baffling that with WoW the age of the average player has clearly increased but the game has only become more juvenile and cartoon like over the years. It's a shame because as mentioned the moment to moment gameplay in D3 is stellar but otherwise it was let down by lack of a clear vision beyond "mass appeal".
@@seagullphilosopher2173 And that's why they sell millions of copies of their game and you make snarky comments. If you don't like their games and don't consider yourself their target audience then walk away and play something "worthy of your time". But don't get upset at the company or their player base.
It's crazy to think that about 7 years ago someone on reddit made a post saying "looking for people to help out with a passion ARPG project" and this is what happend since. Now EHG have made their place in the world with LE as their first game, its pretty damn scary to think of what they're going to do in the future. Great video Andrew, really appreciate your perspective and insight :)
@@Forthelulz01it's actually mostly true. I like LE, I bounce between that and poe currently. Its about a 7 out of 10 for me but not for the reason you think. They have a solid CORE. Foundation is set. However many things like end game content are not present. 1. Monolith none reset other then a rediculous shade boss. For me not a deal breaker as i always over optimize my builds but for casuals i can see how you can get bricked on monoliths. 2. Campaign which is quite a shallow joke. The story is empty and uninteresting. 3. Music needs adapted completely for combat areas there's absolutely no intensity in the music it's a very draining feeling of when you get that adrenaline flow in an arpg like poe for example. 4. Monsters are very linearly made. When a monster pack attacks they're not AS lifelike. The arena monolith are a great example of cut and dry. There's others but the point is they do have work to do, for me the only ones that effect the game are monoliths and music but I still love it for other aspects. But yes it does have it's negatives but I believe the devs will get it right.
They are going to do better than you think they are doing now. Once they complete the damn game properly. Do they have great systems?! YES! Do they have a great game? No, not really. Quite n00bish really.
@@1000byakuyagood insight. You can see with what they got right that they will get it right in the long run I think. - if they keep the team & focus on the right things.
I think LE's skill system is just-right. The issue isn't the complexity of the system, but how it is introduced. For example, PoE introduces you to its skill forest without really any attempt to make it digestible. In LE's case, the complexity is broken up inherently by having separate trees for each base and mastery class, along with each skill having its own separate tree.
The progression pacing with the different systems that D3 had was done well as Andrew mentions in his video.. LE's issue for me was how you get dropped off towards end of campaign. Each of the systems for me was at least an hour each to really play around with, learn and grasp.. The UI needs tons of work in the presentation and more guidance through the design to ease us into each of the systems.. maybe a decent attempt was made for the factions but even then LE got us started only to be dropped off after the initial intro.
The difficulty of Poe is not at all in the size of skills, but in the complexity of mobs. For a beginner, they are too strong right from the start of the game, although ye don’t even have equipment.
I think LE is great for like majority of arpg gamers, unfortunately there are even more players simply just want to play without thinking much. LE skill systems are very complex and deep despite its relative simplicity because so many interactions between skills and items. In my opinion, anyone likes d4 new itemization likely also likes LE. LE isn’t that much indigestible and punishing as Poe. Poe simply is a monster. It’s no doubt a good game but definitely meeting its limit after a decade. LE likely accelerates its demise, forcing Poe to change or focus on poe2.
@@vyktorzhuravlev8304 the difficulty of Poe to me is when I realize that I need to reroll 10k times for some specific affixes combination for my build, and it’s totally random, it’s soul crushing. The possibilities. It’s a job to play the game, it’s not a game, it’s a job. Planning the build itself is more fun. And campaign is Fking BS, let alone the lab, not fun at all. Mobs aren’t difficult, not even remotely challenging.
Tbh, the beauty of Last Epochs skill system is how approachable they have made that seemingly complex system. There is one skill tree pr skill. With 5 possible skills to specialize in, that becomes quite a alot. And then you have 4 different passive trees to spec into as well. Yes, that all sounds complicated. But it really isn't when you are playing. You only get to specialize in a new skill every few levels. So there is no rush for you to read up on a bunch of different skill trees, just pick something as you go. The skill specialization system is very forgiving, so you never feel like you've bricked your character if you go too deep into a skill you might not want as you can respec single points and get that back quickly. You level up abilities by playing the game, in any way you want. Not by doing some specific activity or using some bs currency. E.g it encourages you to experiment and try out new things. What I also love about is how much it alters skills and your gameplay. Like all these very interesting effects and perks are available to anyone at any time. No farming for 10h to get a special unique that lets you turn your skill into lightning damage instead. You get it by just leveling up. I love that. Hate when devs hide all the meaty fun behind rare items and uniques. Now that is demoralizing. You've thought out a build, then you realise the amount of grinding needed to simply get it off the floor. Na The passive trees i cant really speak for. Not super fond of being locked into a mastery class and i think most of the passives are pretty bland. But thats fine, makes for an easy way to gain some free power while leveling.
Im a moba player thats gotten into arpgs with D4 and LE and honestly i didnt think it was hard to fgure out at all. It was a lot of things to learn as i played but at no point did i ever feel very confused
i didn't know you could spec into multiple passive trees until 100 hours into the game~! LOL.. I thought once u lock in a mastery u couldn't go into the other passive trees. I dislike that I can't use Ring of Shields on Sentinel for example.. while being a Paladin as chosen Mastery.. but i do understand it.
@@onyxcitadel9759 yeah, that happened to me as well, i think they could've done a better job explaining that. i only found out when i was looking into some builds later on into the game and i saw that you could do it.
I disagree that LE's pacing is overwhelming, you get 1 passive tree at the start, and get into the skill's spec system 1 by 1. Later systems come into place as you progress.
@@hondsdollekat Tell me you don't watch asmongold without telling me you don't watch asmongold. So what its about you hate that Slob dirty roach infest goblinoid?
I really want to challenge the notion that for a game to appeal to a broader audience it should minimize complexity - to the extend that it is willing to give away depth for convenience. My experience with diablo 3 (and later diablo 4) was that the games in their pursuit of appeal ended up letting go of the identity they were build on. Especially in the character progression and item identity. I feel an open emotional wound seeing how the inventory UI has been a downgraded to the point were items background color matters more than the artwork itself. I think you touch on so many right points in this video. Especially how LE gets that interesting character progression is important. And that it is important to consider how the games depth is presented to the player - and I think this is where the real design space lies when it comes to making a game appeal to a broader audience without uprooting its existing fans. Building a onboarding process that introduces the depth at the pace that is appropriate to the new target audience without removing the intrigue and complexity that spellbinds the existing fanbase. I have no doubt it is a difficult task, but it is also what I want to see excellent game-designers strive to achieve! I don't mind the games changing things up, but it is a dreaded experience to play a game in the franchise you love only to realize the franchise forgot who you are... and what it itself once was. Btw, when playing a thorns druid build in LE I noticed something was missing. Enemies doesn't have audio on their attacks. That is one more thing D3 does better.
Diablo 1 - 4 has sold over 100 million copies, now compare that to a much better game series imo like Dark souls 1-3 which has sold over 27 million. D1 and D2 I think where made for a specific audience, D3 and D4 was made for everyone, its the WoW thinking, make it accessible for everyone ie The famous Blizzard Mum test. When you make something for everyone you generally end up pleasing know one really. Dark Souls Knows who its audience is and is unapologetic about it, something I miss in entertainment not just video games.
I don't fully agree with the notion either. There is a fine balance and I think we can see D4 went too far in the casual department and for a live service game isn't able to even keep the casuals attention. This is the similar issue in D3, but yes their animation is top notch but D4 is still pretty good, I don't see an issue with animation in D4 and is not one of the issues.
@@dragonsieu76 I don't really agree that D4 went "too far" in the casual department. If that was their goal, they didn't go far enough. Have you seen the mess that was secondary and tertiary stats on gear? Making a build before end-game was (I say "was" since I haven't played past season 2, no idea if that changed now) nearly impossible because gear meant almost nothing outside the main stat. Just slap on the highest main stat piece and ignore everything else. Gems, the crafting and upgrade system, all of these are functionally useless before the end-game. This isn't casual-friendly, it's poor design and balancing. People too often use complexity, difficulty and depth interchangeably which leads to confusion. Even casual players like depth. They want their choices to matter and feel impactful. D4 failed on that front. It was needlessly complex with too many stats, the aspects were tied to specific dungeons which were in specific regions meaning some specs/classes would activate sooner than others making some playstyles bland/useless until you reached the right point in the story. Mobs aggressively scaling with level meant you would never truly feel powerful. in fact, you'd actively feel weaker as you leveled up with minor power spikes here and there, that would almost immediately become irrelevant again. The Lilith altars were a cute idea, but then they made 100 of them and spread them around the world , making it frustrating to go collect them all since they're tied to power progression. The only thing I'd "count" as made easier is the streamlining of specs/builds into elements/playstyles, and that's the worst part to streamline in the entire game, especially when coupled with the aspects. Casual's like to fiddle around and try and find interesting builds too. As an example, as a Sorcerer, being forced to go all in on Frost/Fire feels bad. Maybe that changes at end-game with more skill points, but going through the story, I had to focus all points in one direction to be effective. None of these aspects are "casual friendly". As someone that played D4 "casually" I can tell you D4 was probably the worst experience out of all Diablo games I played. I played D2 for months, I played D3 for months, I uninstalled D4 as soon as I finished the story.
I do think it is important that there are games for both markets. While I agree that D4 has issues I don't think it is a horrible game and has been improving. But it is definitely much more approachable that POE. I've played POE for years and honestly sometimes I log on to a new league level up and look at that passive skill tree and realize I just want to chill and not have to plan out a build. D4 pretty much just lets you do that. I'm hoping that POE2 will have the complexity that people love about POE1 but make it a bit more accessible.
@@vtxshiva Those are other design issues I agree they have but they definitely went casual compared to what is available in todays technology. If you break down all the damage on tuesday stats, it's simply all the same, just named differently, so there really was no complexity in that, it was just an illusion. I'm a fan of level scaling if done right. The player can still feel powerful with level scaling. They simply needed to add additional legendary skills for high difficulties. Leveling scaling as a difficulty setting(damage sponge) is not fun, but level scaling to keep from one shotting everything and still be a danger based on a mobs skill(cc,trap,debuff) is more interesting to me. Games were simpler back them simply because the technology(both end user and game design) was not there yet. At the end of the day we all have our opinions on what we prefer in a game design wise. I've gone in deep discussions on reddit forums before, but it all boils down simply for me from playing D2,D3 is it is too casual IMO and not interesting. A bit more depth but not POE levels of complexity would be just about right. I know many say Las Epoch is that and I may try it in the future, but I'm burned out for D4 and have no interest in ARPG's current design model. I'm not a fan of seasons lets put it that way.
The Last Epoch skill system is complicated!? What are your thoughts on the PoE skill system? The LE skill system for me has been the first that is straight forward while giving me impactful options.
@@gringoboy701D4's skill "branch" is pretty terrible. There are only a few viable builds for every class. Definitely one of the worst if not the worst skill trees I have ever seen in an ARPG.
to be fair, while you can build yourself in LAst Epoch, you really want to at least follow a guide 80% in LE after the campaign. There is a lot of min maxing to the talent tree that gives defense and there is a lot stats and item combos that go with the build.
My god this was a hard watch. First the auction house and no point on real money trade fiasco. Second saying that people did not want Diablo 2. Getting to know how you think about games realy explains why most games suck now.
Step 1 - Remove all the things people loved about D2 from the sequel. Step 2 - People don't like the sequel. Step 3 - D3 devs: "Well, it seems like people don't like D2 anymore." It really explains a lot. They still don't get it after all those years.
I absolutely loved D3's story. Sure, it has flaws, but the way it was told , with the cinematics (which are still absolutely fantastic btw) , is epic. the production value is insane on that front.
Great video, I can appreciate what it took to voluntarily post a video like this that takes a critical look at your own prior work. I'm greatly enjoying Last Epoch, but I also have extremely fond memories of my time playing Diablo III. It's a great time to be an ARPG player between D4, Last Epoch, Grim Dawn, Path of Exile and it's upcoming sequel, as well as No Rest for the Wicked right around the corner, there really is an ARPG out there for each type of player. Or, if you are like me, there are multiple ARPGs out there for one type of player. Feeling quite spoiled recently! Thank you for your work on D3. With the exception of the RMAH. Still salty about that!
well.. that was also the reason it wasn't great.. bc Blizz catered to "console" casual crowd.. when previously it was more PC gamer niched in the past series titles. We can still see the same issues today with D4. Some gamers want it to be more challenging.. others think it's still too complicated hard.. bc reaching such a broad and diverse set of gamers will have these challenges. I still think D3 did a great job putting it together and it definitely was an easy to pick up game.
@dutchmilk that's not true at all. D3 is and was very approachable. I wouldn't have gotten into arpgs if it wasn't for that game. You just want to disagree
The fact that the hindsight solution to the auction house is bind on equip or bind on trade shows that Diablo 3 never had a chance when it's developers are so out of touch.
In LE you take any skill, go in whatever direction on a skilltree tickles your fancy, try and get some ok gear, slap some nice passives on top and the result will be at least decent. If something doesn't feel right I can easily respec with a little gold and a little time. Isn't this like a textbook example of "accessible for a broad audience"? Edit: misprints.
Well, you were absolutely right about the rune system being an inventory nightmare as we now see with aspects for the codex in IV sort of being something you find but not something you need to individually hold. This is also what makes crafting in Last Epoch so integral to the game by finding and growing a cache of affix shards.
Andrew, D3 at launch was a bit of a mess, but after the patches that first brought us ubers and paragon the game was great. No joke, there was a ton to do in the end game. The character builds felt fun and smart, like you were breaking the game with ice nova or whirlwind. Building wealth in the auction house through gold or real money compelled me to play in the best way. Farming ubers encouraged team play, resurrecting a friend during an uber battle made me feel like a real hero. D3 a year after launch was awesome. Wish there could be a D3 classic tbh
the moment to moment gameplay is the best on D3 IMO, you absolutely nailed it with the feeling of the skills and the feedback, a level 1 skills feels as good as a fully leveled up skill in last epoch
woah. This is a good source of knowledge for gamedevs and players alike. I hope the author of the channel will be successful with ideas for the videos.
Regarding complexity turning players off, I think of something I've was told while learning how to write; you need to trust your readers. You don't have to spell everything out for them, set the scene, show the action, and they'll pick it up. I think the same is true for games.
eeeh in recent years I've come to feel that is a very archaic belief to the point I feel who says it should touch some grass. Social medias have destroyed the media literacy of many ppl and will parade the show don't tell rule while also generally misunderstanding stories and missing the show. It happens alot and is honestly not so easy to trust readers anymore
I enjoy your perspective a lot. I remember back in 2011 trying to figure out what the best skill system would be in an ARPG, but all the interesting ones we've seen since then in games like PoE, D3 and D4, Last Epoch, and Grim Dawn all show really interesting perspectives on what makes a game fun. The fact that every one of these games has fans means that there isn't a 100% perfect system, and each has its merits
Interesting to get this insight. Thanks for sharing, Andrew! Last Epoch truly revolutionized itemization and crafting + trading/SSF imo. PoE is great, but it's too unaccessible for most people. LE hit that sweetspot right in the middle of PoE and D4. D3 felt more like a slot machine in terms of itemization and hitting that perfect item. Meanwhile in PoE you need a PhD and 16 spreadsheets, PoB, online calculators etc to truly craft mirror / god tier gear. It's strength is the ability to boycot it completely and just buy all the gear. Something neither D3 nor D4 allows. While LE's crafting is so easy to learn, and has everytihng in-game. In essence no outside tools is required to use it is LE's biggest strength imo. And the fact that you can create so much amazing gear, then re-use it into your next item... Perfect. They all feel different, but LE has something special. It just needs the polish of PoE and D3/D4. Also, I can imagine the difficulty balancing a game, and honestly the iterations from vanilla to RoS was remarkable. By the end the game was truly polished and fantastic. It sadly lacked more content and honestly? I wish Diablo 4 was just Diablo 3 with more content at that point. I am a die hard D1 / D2 fan and played since they first came out. I can appreciate D4 and enjoy it for what it is, but it lacks the soul of Diablo 2. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I personally prefer experiences like Souls Borne, Witcher 3 etc where you can just explore and things unfold. You don't have 1500 checkmarkers (I do this via mods in Witcher 3 to only see main quest via right MB) and things to check off. It feels more like a ubisoft RPG than a true Diablo. But hey, that's just me!
"Wildly complicated"...I think this is a view that many movie and tv directors feel towards their audience, and why they make decisions to include scenes "explaining" obvious things to them. You need to give your audience a little more credit. The idea you outlined at the start actually sounds interesting to play, and far better than we got. The skill "system" we got may as well have not been in the game, honestly, and was severely hampered by the itemization as well. EDIT: I am making notes as I watch the video. Your comments on "challenge" fall flat, as Diablo 3 was never designed around "challenge". It was designed around "gear walls". There was no challenge in progressing, simply a gear check: either you had the numbers you needed, or you didn't. There was no real amount of skill that you as a player could inject into the game that could progress you realistically in the game beyond getting the gear. And there was no actual challenge in obtaining that gear. As far as the endgame, it's also that the game wasn't designed for an endgame at all. You lost the thing that set the Diablo series apart: the procedural generation of levels. This makes it so repeating content is a lot less monotonous. D2 had this, which is why, despite the limited gameplay of the game, it was still played years later. It is also the same problem D4 has right now. The focus on the "endgame" and not focusing on making the game repeatable is going to be the downfall of D4, and was why D3 was bad. With the gameplay, Diablo 3 was a game trying to be an action game, without all the stuff that makes an action game good. Active Blocks, dodges, parries and interactive actions. It was far too simplistic to be a good action game in that respects, and just not good from an aRPG point of view. The D3 story was probably the worst part about Diablo 3, compared to the rest of the series, honestly. It was such a detriment compared to how well D2 was done, and even now, how D4's is done. It lost a lot of the feeling of being a Diablo game. Truthfully, D3 could have been released as a completely unrelated game and it would have been accepted a lot more, but it was not good as a Diablo game. I think aiming for a mythical "broader audience" completely sacrificed what made the franchise desirable to be played. And it ended up being a below average game that no one really wanted to play. You don't reach a broader audience by ignoring your current audience, and I think that is the biggest failure of both D3 and D4 currently. You are trying for an audience that doesn't exist at the expense of the audience that actually wants to play the game.
Agreed. To add to this, it wasn't just the plot itself that took a hit, but also the storytelling and tone. D3 adopted this goofy tone that completely killed the Diablo game feel from its predecessor. The only voice acting that had a decently fitting tone was Zoltun Kulle. Everyone else was talking as if the audience was 5. Bring back the dark grittiness from D1/D2. Personally, I'd wish they would strike the story from D3 onward and start anew, though that would never happen.
@@w4nch4n That's because the developers were WoW devs and brought with them the WoW vibe. D1 and D2 creators Blizzard North weren't a part of the picture anymore
He's probably leaving out the fact that he had superiors breathing down his neck about bringing in a broader audience. Which is respectable, because he is just taking his own accountability, and leaving the accountability of others in their own hands.
@@AzoTheRed He DID NOT say we could have done better but then also goes to say last epochs skill system was “complex”. There is nothing complex about it, these guys just do not care about their core audience and it shows in the D3 artstyle change and gameplay.
Saying that LE has put together anything less than an incredible game is really underselling it. Its not the goat arpg, its a solid fun game with a lot of potential that can really be enjoyed by everyone right now and no one should be contesting that
Weirdly enough the most interesting point I think you mentioned is the enemy families - I never thought about it that way, but when you explained it, that system really does give groups of enemies some more personal identity and thus give story acts more identity. I think Last Epoch's act 1, which is the most recently made/remade act, does enemy theming very well - wildlife fights with the Osprix/Rahyeh invaders so it feels like a three way free for all (Nature (defending itself) vs Rahyeh (invading the world) vs the player character (invading nature and trying to stop Rahyeh)). I also think the newly made 1.0 enemy models for the Immortal Empire (the different kinds of skeleton necromancers, new skeleton archers, new skeleton monstrosities) and the Void really help acts 2 and 3 with their own themes - it shows that they're heading in the right direction, theme-wise. The other acts really do lack that polish - the Lagon areas have sea creatures but only some of them feel connected to each other, while others just fit the theme but "don't fit in" always, if that makes sense. Fun video, very informative, cheers.
Thank you so much for your honesty and transparency. I loved D3 and D4 and was very disappointed with a lot of the decisions that were made that you covered here. Nice to know about the thought process that got us where we are today.
Jay Wilson took my disappointment for Diablo 4 and doubled it, btw what was up with the PvP?? That was for the lolz 😂😂 they showcased it like it was gonna be something phenomenal then on release when I played i was like wtf???
Great video! I still find that the gameplay and fast pace of D3 where all the skill casting and movement etc feels the best out of all the ARPGs out there. It was just so smooth and never clunky.
Thank you for this video. As an older gamer, i've been through the whole ride, from Diablo 1 to 4 , and everything in between. It's always nice to see things in retrospect with a fresh perspective, and a look behind the scenes is very interesting. Thank :)
Learning from mistakes and acknowledging and sharing how the thought process led to those mistakes is valuable. Thanks for taking the time to share. Very first section nails the failings of D3 and D4. It's surprising that D4 is still making that same mistake, and even with the new item system, it's still failing the depth check because the base stats are SO limited. I thought the difficulty in the final difficulty was because it was balanced, and then someone said 'make it 10x harder'. At least that's the interview I saw. Don't need crafting when the barb can ONLY drop strength items. But can't get excited about drops if everything is technically good/enough. "Hey you need to come back later" Is an issue for a lot of devs to solve nowadays.. Players (even myself) don't think like that most of the time anymore because games have been designed further and further from that. I think the fear for complexity is a perplexing idea. Especially in an RPG. The point of building a character is to use the systems available to create the best character possible. However not all of the systems need to be put in front of the player from level 1 (Even PoE doesn't do this considering how many passive interactions and item specific mods there are). But just like in an MMO or adventure game, you introduce more interactions or skills or stats as you go.
Neither D3 nor D4 are failures, they've both made way more money than any other ARPG did. Now if we're talking GOOD ARPGs, well... they are both out of question here.
Great video. I feel like saying "trying to appeal to a broader audience" is corporate talk for let's make the most money possible instead of trying to make the best game possible.
It is quite interesting to hear that you relied on people playing like it was D2 to cover design choices but made most of your design choices for players that specifically WERE NOT hard core Diablo franchise players and I'm really curious if these two things were ever thought about in conjunction or if it was just sort of an obvious misstep?
Oh my god, what you said are so incredibly on point and insightful. I wish Diablo 4 devs could talk about the game in as much details as you did because this is what players would love to hear. (I know it’s probably not possible.) The current D4 campfire chats consist of 50% bullet points and 50% of saying things without saying anything. There are too many things I agree with in this video but I’ll just bring up two things: Skill Feel and Story. The feel of impact when casting skills is always the best part of the Diablo series. I think both D3 and D4 did it very well. In LE it’s still somewhat lacking even though they improved quite a bit in 1.0. The story and theme in Diablo is unbeatable. There might be some nostalgia at play cuz I still remember reading the Diablo 2 booklet at school with friends 20 years ago. The quests make you feel like you’re part of the story, the hero that’s indispensable. In LE, I felt like a mercenary that can be replaced. (And we quite literally are replaceable because of the multi-timeline theme!) I think these are the two things that makes me keep looking back at Diablo (4) even though LE is a much better game in terms of mechanism and QoL. I played D1 and D2 for years. For D3, I had quit early during the real money auction house mess, and came back years later on console but only played casually. For D4 I quitted after season 2 cuz I couldn’t stand the poor itemization and hours of sifting though yellow items, but from the PTR it looks like there’s light at the end of the tunnel, and I’ll definitely be back for season 4. I don’t know if you’re willing or even allowed to talk about Diablo 4, but players would love to know your insights at the current Diablo 4 and the upcoming changes. This was just a comment of my thoughts but you made too much sense I had to make it a super thanks. Thank you!
Great analysis! One thing that should be mentioned is the loot filter, and the ability to import filters other Class Builders have made. Then you can tailor it down as your character progresses. Also slamming godly exalted items into Legendaries. This, and the crafting affix shard system makes Magic, Rare, and Exalted items still relevant into the endgame. It also provides more endgame. You find a 1 Legendary Potential BIS Legendary item, and get one of your preferred affixes onto it from slamming. Great start, but now you can you can focus on finding a 2LP of that Legendary, and finding more godly Exalts to Slam. And this is for every gear slot. I really love this gear hunt. And the stash tabs allow you to hoard a ton of items, not just for your build, but for future alts. Stash tabs also provides a great gold sink for those that are doing the self-found route (Circle of Fortune) that didn’t want to mess with the Auction House path (Merchant Guild). The first cycle did run into a RMT and gold duping problem which they are actively working to fix. This cycle might be a bust for MG, but a cycle reset should correct most of those economy problems.
D3 was an ARPG made by WoW developers for WoW audience, design and marketing wise ("Hey, buy a 1-year WoW subscription and get D3 for free!"). This is the biggest problem of D3, D4 seems to be following in its footsteps unfortunately, MMO/Moba developers making an ARPG, making some mistakes uncharacteristic for ARPG devs, lack of experience is pretty obvious.
The difference the developers of Last Epoch actually listen to their customers. Pretty much everything that makes Last Epoch great are things that players have been asking for Blizzard to put into Diablo.
Which players? And which Diablo? ~0% of the Diablo 1 team is at Blizzard. And there was a huge quality of life jump from there to D2, and then more than a decade between D2 and D3. The people who remember playing D1, and were old enough to understand system mechanics are now encroaching on their 40s or 50s. The people who were too young to really grasp D1 at a technical level, but got D2 have at least entered their 30s, and are probably half-way through. So which opinions are they supposed to listen to, and which team of 40-70 year olds should be working on implementing them, and how does Blizzard get them back? Last Epoch carries none of the baggage or the brand legacy. They don't even have to have the same conversations about "is this 'Diablo' enough?", because... well, it's not Diablo. They could have done anything they wanted.
@@SeanJMay nice logic dumbo. you do realize every game thats hack n slash after diablo 2 CARRIES that DIABLO 2 BAGGAGE AND LEGACY bcuz its immediately compared to diablo 2 or POE (post 2013). how can you be so....close minded and short sighted? why do ppl buy LE and why do ppl even care about LE? BECAUSE ITS A BETTER HACK N SLASH BCUZ IT CONTINUES THE D2 LEGACY OF HACK N SLASHES, BECAUSE ITS BETTER THAN D3 AND D4. holy fuck dude no wonder there are still so many blizzard supporters. you lack critical information and cant think rationally
@SeanJMay I was mainly talking just about D4. Many of the issues people have had with D4 have been pointed out over and over again since Beta. I'm not trying to be a dick or anything, I'm simply telling you how things feel from the customer's perspective. We feel like you guys don't listen to us and use the Diablo brand simply to milk money from the franchise. You talk about Last Epoch not needing to care about "is it Diablo enough" but the odd thing is that it feels more like an actual successor to D2 than D3 or D4, especially if playing a Sentinel.
I started playing d3 in 2019 as my first arpg, so I didn't know about all of the pre-reaper of souls stuff which was interesting to learn about. Very refreshing to hear a game dev's retrospective on a work as big as d3. I've played LE, poe, and d4, and I think that you're completely right about the "snappiness" of d3's combat. When you click a button, the ability happens - no delay if any at all, and you can weave abilities and move wherever you click. It's so satisfying! Despite d3's lack of itemization and customization compared to the other arpgs, I really appreciate the straightforwardness since it lets me get right back into the combat. My only complaint with current d3 is that there is unfortunately is not enough endgame for me to want to keep coming back for each season(mainly because it's in maintenance mode too, so no new seasons). BUT, the amount of time and seasons I've played in d3 will be some of my best gaming experiences ever, and if you have not played d3, I highly recommend giving it a shot. The community for it is great too
What an amazing video, thanks for sharing! Such a pleasure to listen to your insights and how you compare it to a more modern release like LE. Would love to hear your take on Diablo4, from its initial launch to the fundamental rework they're doing on itemization & crafting, and how its compares to LE's core systems.
A big thing for me with ARPG's is the feedback you get from attacks, getting it wrong can make a game feel lifeless. Do you feel that the team got it wrong killing off Deckard Cain in such a piss poor way?
Ahh yes that choice. I thought he needed to die but man Maghda, I just wish they made her look more frightening like they did with Adria. Adria was pure evil looking.
Thanks to Andrew that came forward and engaged with the gamers, this is exactly what we want to see more of, the problem here in the design philosophy i think is Blizz try to cater to everybody, that may of been valid once, but gamers have evolved and fractured, we have casuals, streamers, hardcore ARPG players, those that want complex and those that don't, you have noobs and veterans of ARPG's the young and the old. Gaming expanded massively to encompass all, the devs did not think around that issue. The Trading System in Last Epoch is a useful example, devs being pulled in two directions because of the difference in target players, and a innovative system resulted which tried to cater to both. You could go several routes in my opinion; 1. Come up with innovative ideas like the Trading System in Last Epoch. 2. Target a specific type of players and make it more target focussed like POE complexity caters to veterans. 3. Blizz already did this in a way, it brought out Classic WoW, so you now have two versions of the same game, but catering to different players.
I always assumed the D3 auction house was a Blizzard mandate to make billions of dollars because they took percentages of everything sold? You didn't mention that at all
I usually don't comment on RUclips, tends to get dicy. But I wanted to first thank you for owning for some of your mistakes in D3, it shows maturity and it's a healthy way to learn and grow. Now because of that, I can't be too mad at you for taking some of those bad decisions that directly impacted my enjoyment of D3. It's also quite saddening to learn you were such a small team for such an important game, and I can't help to feel that something similar happened/is happening for D4. I agree with most of what you said, LE has definitely areas of improvements, story telling being part of that. But I have to challenge you on the story telling of D3, because that death of Deckard Kain was both anti-climactic, unwarranted, and a detriment to good narration. I mean, Deckard survived D1, D2, and then is killed by a butterfly lady in his own house? Come on man... You know you could have done better than that :)
That was far from the only issue with the story and narrative, in my opinion. The story was ok, pretty standard, but the narrative was insultingly bad at places (most famous example might be Azmodan almost literally telling you what to do next in Act 3). I am a person who likes a good story with their gameplay and I almost dropped the game then and there.
Please make a PoE analysis vid that ranges from early game to endgame/ubers. I haven't seen anyone on the modern Diablo teams give any real take on the game.
@@hail_2_u321 What he meant was "modern" Diablo team. The original D2 team doesn't even exist anymore. Truth is, the guys making diablo now, haven't ever made, or thought of any Arpg concepts ever. you can tell from this video the team was very inexperienced, and clearly had no idea of what the playerbase expected in terms of systems.
I actually quite liked the D3 crafting system. From a casual player perspective, it prevented the case where you have one piece of gear lagging massively behind the others, and I alway felt it allowed me to become more porwerful, and it was ever better with rerolls having access to it immediatly. You could start from scratch on Torment just with Paragon points and regularly update your main weapon to go through the ealry levels. I imagine it would fall behind once you start looking for top gear, but I never reached this point despite playing quite a lot os seasonal content.
Loved the insight! One thing I’m not sure I agree with is the degree of fear that a broad audience would be turned away by complexity. It depends how well it’s presented and executed, and the pacing like you mention. I think complexity can drive social engagement these days more than in the past.
I’ve been playing Diablo since part one. Me and my brothers and my dad have faithfully played these games since I was 10 years old, I’m 36 now. And out of all the Diablo games we’ve played, the only one that doesn’t have long term playability and frustrates us the most is Diablo 4. The only downside we had with Diablo 3 was the limitless overpowering mechanics. Like you said in the video, you lose the journey, then suddenly isn’t fun anymore. Still, it is an ARPG that me and my family cherish. Thank you for what you have done Andrew. You have enriched so many lives with your contribution to the franchise. And thank you for making this video.
What a fantastic video. Thank you, sir, for sharing your experiences with us. As someone who played Diablo 3 for 8,000+ hours, thank you for making a game that's been such a big part of my adult life! It really is a blast of a game if you just jump in and play. This video was so awesome to watch. I learned a lot! P.S. I still play D3 to this day -- a few hours a week usually. It's still fun all these years later! Edit: Also wanted to say, your personal thoughts on skill feel in a game like D3 vs. D4 or even LE makes so much sense to me. Pressing buttons in D3 just feels incredible! I concur with you, the feel just isn't the same in D4, nor is it as good in LE. I can't stick with LE, despite it being SO fantastic in so many ways. Maybe, like you said happened to you, the skill feel of D3 has kind of 'ruined' other games for me xD
Fascinating insights. Thank you for your openness. I do understand a lot of the decision making at the time. Catering to an entire playerbase is impossible so you have to pick sides in the end.
Really enjoyed the perspective, thanks for sharing. One of the clear differences to me seems to be that the team over at Blizzard have a deep and clear understanding of storytelling and it shows in all the things you outlined - and for the LE team their core systems design is more dialed in and the focal point. I've always thought that catering to more than 1 audience, if done right, was the ideal approach. LE is on to that and hope to see it flourish even more. I'd love more design discussion like this , thanks again!
Wonderful video! I couldn't agree more when it comes to the feel of skills in D3. D4 brought to light how different skills feel and how much smoother the gameplay of D3 is. I love Last Epoch, but I agree with this point, nothing beats D3 for skill responsiveness and flow.
Really interesting point of view. While it's fine to broaden an audience, it shouldn't be done in a way it alienates the core player base though. Because in the end, the ones who will keep coming back and keep a live game on the front spot are these core players. They are the ones who make other players look forward to the build/loot/pinnacle boss.
Both Diablo 3 and 4 are great examples of how designing for mass appeal can end up with a game that appeals to no one. That's not to pretend the games didn't sell well, but intricate design systems isn't what sells games nowadays.
Honestly I do think D3 and D4 are great examples that appeal to the mass market. Both sold A LOT of units and have a non vocal majority that just don't play that much to begin with. Yes both are not THAT popular in our bubble, but the majority of D3/D4 players do want a rather simple systems so exactly what we see happening to D4 now
The problem with looking at D3 and D4 is that Blizzard products will inherently sell well no matter what. There is a large enough Blizzard fanbase and people with nostalgia for certain IPs that if they just throw enough money at marketing, the game will pay for itself regardless of quality. I feel that is what happened with D3 and more recently with D4. The games are not good, but they sell well. Sure, some people are going to enjoy them but that is probably because they simply do not explore the market.
I'm curious on your opinion on the simplified skill system with the reach of D3 audience vs the complex skill system of LE but much more limited audience appeal. Do you think the design choice for D3 systems directly led to those absurdly high sales in the genre or could the more complex system also have reached as many players? Additionally, do you think the broader audience appeal was a direct influence on D4 not going the route of a more complex system even though it seems clear some amount of players desire the complexity?
The feel and endgame of D3 with all the gear and skill systems of Last Epoch... That would be quite something. Really enjoy these insights, thank you for the video!
Quick correction: there are no level or reputation requirements to list items for sale. Just the favor cost associated. You can only purchase certain item types based on the reputation rank you have with the trade faction. An important part of this discussion is that there is not true free trade between players. You cannot just give items to a mule account for example. To gift items to a player you have to play with that player. Overall it's a very well designed system that incentivizes playing the game rather than sitting in the bazaar trading.
This is not personal, because respect where respect is due for talking about this. But this is a good example that alot Gamedesigners nowadays(and in case of d3 even 12+ years ago) are disconnected with their fanbase/playerbase. Its sad. "we thought" got "we realised" way to often for a Designer in such a big franchise.
Diablo 3 was/is my favourite game, I know I’m in the minority with this opinion but I played every season for 8 to now, I loved this game, the team did a great job.
Hot take: auction house was the best part of D3, but needed improvement. Worst part was items with -lvl requirement, which meant it was literally impossible to find competing gear at your own level. Being level 20 with a blue level 36 weapon just beats every lvl20 weapon 🤷♀️
something d3 did better than any other arpg i played was the leveling process. i was constantly unlocking cool new things to do and new ways to play my class. i think if it wasn't a diablo game, or wasn't expected to be a "forever" game, it would have been very well received perceived
For some reasons when Diablo 3 released it was the opposite for me. I don't mind in most games but I felt held back and bored while leveling because most of the runes I unlocked were useless. I'm talking a rune that make your skill shoot randomly and miss everything.
Great video and thank you. As someone who still plays D2, I played d3 a lot. My reaction to vanilla D3 is that the items were underwhelming and unfun. I spent a lot of time farming act 1 inferno as you pointed out was the intended path, I distinctly remember finding a legendary amulet and I was so excited, all unique amulets from Diablo 2 are so cool. It was a kymbos gold and was basically useless, really took the wind out of my sails I played a lot but I did not advance past act 1 until the nerfs came. Diablo 4 I feel had the same issue where 99.9% of items are garbage but you gotta pick em up anyways because you need to salvage. Feels bad.
the RMAH was genius tbh. there was ALWAYS going to be black market trading for items and gold. providing a safe market for that to exist was a really solid system, IMO. The itemization, difficulty scaling, and drop rates being tuned towards the AH were what really broke the back of d3. diablo 3 was great for what it is. A shallow pool that's really fun to take a quick dip in. It had the best ARPG engine still to date now. "The moment to moment just feels amazing." I agree with you 1000%. The best compliment that I can give diablo 3 is just that it was GENUINELY fun to play the game, run around, and kill mobs. People who really love ARPGs could tell the game wasn't really catered to us, though. I don't doubt that it would've been a monumental task to keep both hardcore players of the genre and the wow/mmo crowd happy though. I think the game would've been better served by picking one side and really focusing on them. I mean no disrespect to you at all, but this is why experience within that genre and consistency matters so much. Hardcore players of the genre could've told you a lot of these mistakes prior to having to experience them live. And i have no doubt if the same team were allowed to go on and make d4, yall could've put those experiences into making a truly great diablo 4. They have a ton of mistakes they're having to learn from in diablo 4 that could've been prevented with consistency in teams. All respect for the video.
They tried in D3. I remember the “leaks” or goldmines or whatever. They gave excuses about accomplish the same thing with different systems. The truth is the limited stash space and no skill trees in D3. Everything was already decided by gear. So no reason to make a system change gear when you swap gear depending on what your doing already
Diablo 3 feels amazing to play. It`s almost addictive - So well done. Hope they will polish the gameplay in Diablo 4 to the same level. Gameplay feel is such an important part of a game. Extremely well done guys! Cheers!
ofc its hearted. buzzwords and delusional copium. "polish the gameplay" you do realize d4 has bad foundations? its core is bad and too shallow to please todays hack n slash players. sure normies and casual players will play this game for like 50h and they will forget it exists. LE small dev team made more fixes and changes than 1000+ dev team with 20 years of experience and legacy has done in half a year.
Thanks for the insightful video, I really enjoyed it. I love Last Epoch and have given their systems praise for over a year now, but Diablo 3 made a much bigger impact in my life. I think you nailed most points and also confirmed the obvious lacking points at the time with the focus on reaching a broader audience with Diablo 3. My biggest problem with Diablo 3 was that there wasn't continued development for it after Reaper of Souls, it just had a skeleton crew keeping it going. I wanted them to improve the stash, the end game systems, the seasons and itemization (I still do!). I just saw all the improvements being made to Path of Exile and was really upset because I couldn't get into Path of Exile and just wanted to play Diablo 3 for that amazing gameplay feel. It took years before seasons truly started becoming more interesting, ramping up to Diablo 4 and now it likely won't be getting any new content or the sorely needed optimizations to reduce lag with huge packs and stuff. I still think the game will have a decent amount of players in seasons going forward kind of like Diablo 2. The combat feel, sound design, enemy design, world building etc. are all way better in Diablo 3 compared to Last Epoch and Path of Exile, and in my eyes even Diablo 4 in multiple ways. Obviously a huge complaint for Diablo 3 was the aesthetic compared to Diablo 2, but I didn't really care that much. And while Diablo 4 tries to aim for an aesthetic closer to Diablo 2 it doesn't do much for me personally. I just like colors and clear visibility, the game clearly communicating with me what is happening. In that regard Lost Ark is actually way ahead of these games. This could just be a discussion on why Diablo 3 couldn't be Path of Exile held 10 years ago. Path of Exile was made for the gamer by the gamer and is still seeing huge success for that reason, while Diablo 3 was made for the wider audience and still holds a negative reputation because of it. Now with Diablo 4 and Last Epoch we have the same story being repeated.
It was a very interesting video. Thank you for explaining what happen behind the scene. It's just a bit sad to see all your perspective and the experience you got on D3 not used of the team who worked on D4. It's like they doing it from scratch, again.
you are so honest and nice, and thanks for the good information , past is the past and mistakes can get fixed ;) i hope D4 will be a better game day by day and season by season , also i think casual players will always go through campain and they are done anyway , so with adding Good Endgame like Map systems and other things from other games , you can generally satisfy hardcore gamers too , no casual player will play endgame for more than 1 day anyway! you are brave and so cool, thanks for the video
I disagree with last epoch’s systems being complicated. They have a lot of depth but are presented in an extremely simple and easy understand manner with excellent pacing.
Greeeeeat video! Got here from DarthMTX. And yes i would like to see more like this, haha. Thanks for the honesty, would you also care to admit that the goal to expand the audience came mainly from a profit perspective? And that alienated the old player base? (Old sour D2 player here, haha)
Thanks for the video! I agree about D3's actions responsiveness and moment to moment gameplay felt so good, its what kept me with the game. Yeah the launch was rocky but D3 turned into a really good and fun game!
Not gonna lie I was very disappointed with diablo 3. They took everything out of the game which made diablo 2 great, every complexity was completely removed from the game, everything that made an arpg out was just removed. Diablo 3 felt more like an arcade mobile hack&slay game which pushed a lot of people to path of exile.
The rune system where you could add modifiers like crit chance doesn't really sound like it would add that much. In PoE, you have choices of gems which literally modify how the skill behaves, rather than just add static modifiers like crit chance, and that's what allows people in PoE to create truly unique builds that nobody has thought of.
He undersold it. The system was just like what PoE has. Worth taking a look to see what could have been. The issue with the system was that there were tiers of the same item. So it's like the current issue with aspects in d4, it clogs up your stash. PoE solved this by having them level up, and making them less rare overall. LE solved it by having the system in the skill's tree itself. D3/D4 said they can't trust a person's intelligence and they shouldn't make it so in depth.
Great video Andrew! There's always this thing I thought about - Diablo III class systems were made for players to decide HOW they wanna play, while f.e. Path of Exile class systems (the tree, skill systems, etc.) were designed as a skill check itself. I thought Last Epoch fell in between those, but frankly LE is closer to PoE in terms how a mistake in the passive tree can impact your gameplay. Thanks for the insights. I definitely agree on the Game Feel! I actually refunded LE while in early access because of how much I care for a game to feel good. I bought it back after they refined it, as it is a great game, but the lack of tactile-ness made me bounce back at first.
19:31 I'd say sound effects too. I feel combat sound effects can literally carry an entire game. I still enjoy creating a level 1 barb in D3 to hear that slap.
![[Last Epoch] 15 things I wish I knew earlier - Tips & tricks - Stream Highlights #26](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/lM4aDhpgU4I/mqdefault.jpg)
Be nice 😂
Design a game around the player-base that enjoys them, not profiteering on people that pick up a game for a week and drop it.
just wanted to say thanks for your contributions to diablo 3, the game i played for over 10k hours across 10 years with so many friends. legendary game. 💙
😂😂😂 1st thing I thought going to comments
@@Digitalstorm007 now try to guess which one of those 2 makes more money
I love all of the Diablo games for what they are. I never got my single arpg purity ring or tribe invite 😂
"We didn't want to just capture the Diablo audience." Explains probably every issue I have with Diablo 3 and 4.
Need that infinite growth. Ironically, I checked out of the whole genre, partially, because of what Diablo became (and Blizzard).
Meanwhile, Last Epoch has sucked my back in.
and that's the thing. The first Diablo had no "audience" so to speak, and Diablo 2 gathered what might be called "outside audience" based wholly on its quality. I really expected the same at the time when Diablo 3 came out. I wanted to be as blown away as I was when I first played Diablo 2 after playing 1 for years. But it just wasn't on that same level at all.
And it's exactly why I love them.
Exactly the problem with Blizzard still now, they can't seem to accept that different games may have a different audience. Instead with D3 and beyond the target audience became the millions that were already playing WoW. As a result you have a uniformity accross their games that was utterly banal. I get having a "house style" but D3 was barely distinguishable from WoW. They have corrected this a little with D4 but they have persisted with a general low opinion of their audience, resulting in a game with no intelligence. At least they increased the age the story was aimed at.
With that said, if the audience is willing to pay money for in game cosmetics then it isn't surprising they look down upon their players so much. It's baffling that with WoW the age of the average player has clearly increased but the game has only become more juvenile and cartoon like over the years.
It's a shame because as mentioned the moment to moment gameplay in D3 is stellar but otherwise it was let down by lack of a clear vision beyond "mass appeal".
@@seagullphilosopher2173 And that's why they sell millions of copies of their game and you make snarky comments. If you don't like their games and don't consider yourself their target audience then walk away and play something "worthy of your time". But don't get upset at the company or their player base.
It's crazy to think that about 7 years ago someone on reddit made a post saying "looking for people to help out with a passion ARPG project" and this is what happend since. Now EHG have made their place in the world with LE as their first game, its pretty damn scary to think of what they're going to do in the future.
Great video Andrew, really appreciate your perspective and insight :)
It is like 6/10 game at best currently.
@@softcoreplebgaming9674 You're delusional lol. It's a fantastic game, currently. And it's very likely to get better with time.
@@Forthelulz01it's actually mostly true. I like LE, I bounce between that and poe currently. Its about a 7 out of 10 for me but not for the reason you think. They have a solid CORE. Foundation is set. However many things like end game content are not present.
1. Monolith none reset other then a rediculous shade boss. For me not a deal breaker as i always over optimize my builds but for casuals i can see how you can get bricked on monoliths.
2. Campaign which is quite a shallow joke. The story is empty and uninteresting.
3. Music needs adapted completely for combat areas there's absolutely no intensity in the music it's a very draining feeling of when you get that adrenaline flow in an arpg like poe for example.
4. Monsters are very linearly made. When a monster pack attacks they're not AS lifelike. The arena monolith are a great example of cut and dry.
There's others but the point is they do have work to do, for me the only ones that effect the game are monoliths and music but I still love it for other aspects. But yes it does have it's negatives but I believe the devs will get it right.
They are going to do better than you think they are doing now. Once they complete the damn game properly. Do they have great systems?! YES! Do they have a great game? No, not really. Quite n00bish really.
@@1000byakuyagood insight. You can see with what they got right that they will get it right in the long run I think. - if they keep the team & focus on the right things.
I think LE's skill system is just-right. The issue isn't the complexity of the system, but how it is introduced. For example, PoE introduces you to its skill forest without really any attempt to make it digestible. In LE's case, the complexity is broken up inherently by having separate trees for each base and mastery class, along with each skill having its own separate tree.
Totally agree. The skill progression made it very easy to learn. It’s a great design even non-ARPG players can pick up easily.
The progression pacing with the different systems that D3 had was done well as Andrew mentions in his video.. LE's issue for me was how you get dropped off towards end of campaign. Each of the systems for me was at least an hour each to really play around with, learn and grasp.. The UI needs tons of work in the presentation and more guidance through the design to ease us into each of the systems.. maybe a decent attempt was made for the factions but even then LE got us started only to be dropped off after the initial intro.
The difficulty of Poe is not at all in the size of skills, but in the complexity of mobs. For a beginner, they are too strong right from the start of the game, although ye don’t even have equipment.
I think LE is great for like majority of arpg gamers, unfortunately there are even more players simply just want to play without thinking much. LE skill systems are very complex and deep despite its relative simplicity because so many interactions between skills and items. In my opinion, anyone likes d4 new itemization likely also likes LE. LE isn’t that much indigestible and punishing as Poe. Poe simply is a monster. It’s no doubt a good game but definitely meeting its limit after a decade. LE likely accelerates its demise, forcing Poe to change or focus on poe2.
@@vyktorzhuravlev8304 the difficulty of Poe to me is when I realize that I need to reroll 10k times for some specific affixes combination for my build, and it’s totally random, it’s soul crushing. The possibilities. It’s a job to play the game, it’s not a game, it’s a job. Planning the build itself is more fun. And campaign is Fking BS, let alone the lab, not fun at all. Mobs aren’t difficult, not even remotely challenging.
Tbh, the beauty of Last Epochs skill system is how approachable they have made that seemingly complex system.
There is one skill tree pr skill. With 5 possible skills to specialize in, that becomes quite a alot. And then you have 4 different passive trees to spec into as well. Yes, that all sounds complicated. But it really isn't when you are playing.
You only get to specialize in a new skill every few levels. So there is no rush for you to read up on a bunch of different skill trees, just pick something as you go. The skill specialization system is very forgiving, so you never feel like you've bricked your character if you go too deep into a skill you might not want as you can respec single points and get that back quickly. You level up abilities by playing the game, in any way you want. Not by doing some specific activity or using some bs currency. E.g it encourages you to experiment and try out new things.
What I also love about is how much it alters skills and your gameplay. Like all these very interesting effects and perks are available to anyone at any time. No farming for 10h to get a special unique that lets you turn your skill into lightning damage instead. You get it by just leveling up. I love that. Hate when devs hide all the meaty fun behind rare items and uniques. Now that is demoralizing. You've thought out a build, then you realise the amount of grinding needed to simply get it off the floor. Na
The passive trees i cant really speak for. Not super fond of being locked into a mastery class and i think most of the passives are pretty bland. But thats fine, makes for an easy way to gain some free power while leveling.
Im a moba player thats gotten into arpgs with D4 and LE and honestly i didnt think it was hard to fgure out at all. It was a lot of things to learn as i played but at no point did i ever feel very confused
i didn't know you could spec into multiple passive trees until 100 hours into the game~! LOL.. I thought once u lock in a mastery u couldn't go into the other passive trees. I dislike that I can't use Ring of Shields on Sentinel for example.. while being a Paladin as chosen Mastery.. but i do understand it.
@@onyxcitadel9759 yeah, that happened to me as well, i think they could've done a better job explaining that. i only found out when i was looking into some builds later on into the game and i saw that you could do it.
The passive trees are just right for me. They’re pretty general so very flexible.
I hope they allow skills to be swapped out while maintaining level.
Agreed, it's the qunitessential example of a great Complex system vs and Obtuse Complicated system (Diablo 4 stats)
I disagree that LE's pacing is overwhelming, you get 1 passive tree at the start, and get into the skill's spec system 1 by 1. Later systems come into place as you progress.
Asmongold will make a 3 hour video on this video.
With barely any facial expressions or commentary
I will watch both. I dont play video games.
@@hondsdollekat Tell me you don't watch asmongold without telling me you don't watch asmongold. So what its about you hate that Slob dirty roach infest goblinoid?
@@hondsdollekat which asmongold do you watch? 😂😂 That's literally his selling point
God I hope so
I really want to challenge the notion that for a game to appeal to a broader audience it should minimize complexity - to the extend that it is willing to give away depth for convenience.
My experience with diablo 3 (and later diablo 4) was that the games in their pursuit of appeal ended up letting go of the identity they were build on. Especially in the character progression and item identity. I feel an open emotional wound seeing how the inventory UI has been a downgraded to the point were items background color matters more than the artwork itself.
I think you touch on so many right points in this video. Especially how LE gets that interesting character progression is important. And that it is important to consider how the games depth is presented to the player - and I think this is where the real design space lies when it comes to making a game appeal to a broader audience without uprooting its existing fans.
Building a onboarding process that introduces the depth at the pace that is appropriate to the new target audience without removing the intrigue and complexity that spellbinds the existing fanbase. I have no doubt it is a difficult task, but it is also what I want to see excellent game-designers strive to achieve!
I don't mind the games changing things up, but it is a dreaded experience to play a game in the franchise you love only to realize the franchise forgot who you are... and what it itself once was.
Btw, when playing a thorns druid build in LE I noticed something was missing. Enemies doesn't have audio on their attacks. That is one more thing D3 does better.
Diablo 1 - 4 has sold over 100 million copies, now compare that to a much better game series imo like Dark souls 1-3 which has sold over 27 million. D1 and D2 I think where made for a specific audience, D3 and D4 was made for everyone, its the WoW thinking, make it accessible for everyone ie The famous Blizzard Mum test. When you make something for everyone you generally end up pleasing know one really. Dark Souls Knows who its audience is and is unapologetic about it, something I miss in entertainment not just video games.
I don't fully agree with the notion either. There is a fine balance and I think we can see D4 went too far in the casual department and for a live service game isn't able to even keep the casuals attention. This is the similar issue in D3, but yes their animation is top notch but D4 is still pretty good, I don't see an issue with animation in D4 and is not one of the issues.
@@dragonsieu76 I don't really agree that D4 went "too far" in the casual department. If that was their goal, they didn't go far enough. Have you seen the mess that was secondary and tertiary stats on gear? Making a build before end-game was (I say "was" since I haven't played past season 2, no idea if that changed now) nearly impossible because gear meant almost nothing outside the main stat.
Just slap on the highest main stat piece and ignore everything else.
Gems, the crafting and upgrade system, all of these are functionally useless before the end-game. This isn't casual-friendly, it's poor design and balancing.
People too often use complexity, difficulty and depth interchangeably which leads to confusion. Even casual players like depth.
They want their choices to matter and feel impactful. D4 failed on that front.
It was needlessly complex with too many stats, the aspects were tied to specific dungeons which were in specific regions meaning some specs/classes would activate sooner than others making some playstyles bland/useless until you reached the right point in the story. Mobs aggressively scaling with level meant you would never truly feel powerful. in fact, you'd actively feel weaker as you leveled up with minor power spikes here and there, that would almost immediately become irrelevant again.
The Lilith altars were a cute idea, but then they made 100 of them and spread them around the world , making it frustrating to go collect them all since they're tied to power progression.
The only thing I'd "count" as made easier is the streamlining of specs/builds into elements/playstyles, and that's the worst part to streamline in the entire game, especially when coupled with the aspects. Casual's like to fiddle around and try and find interesting builds too. As an example, as a Sorcerer, being forced to go all in on Frost/Fire feels bad. Maybe that changes at end-game with more skill points, but going through the story, I had to focus all points in one direction to be effective.
None of these aspects are "casual friendly". As someone that played D4 "casually" I can tell you D4 was probably the worst experience out of all Diablo games I played. I played D2 for months, I played D3 for months, I uninstalled D4 as soon as I finished the story.
I do think it is important that there are games for both markets. While I agree that D4 has issues I don't think it is a horrible game and has been improving. But it is definitely much more approachable that POE. I've played POE for years and honestly sometimes I log on to a new league level up and look at that passive skill tree and realize I just want to chill and not have to plan out a build. D4 pretty much just lets you do that. I'm hoping that POE2 will have the complexity that people love about POE1 but make it a bit more accessible.
@@vtxshiva Those are other design issues I agree they have but they definitely went casual compared to what is available in todays technology. If you break down all the damage on tuesday stats, it's simply all the same, just named differently, so there really was no complexity in that, it was just an illusion.
I'm a fan of level scaling if done right. The player can still feel powerful with level scaling. They simply needed to add additional legendary skills for high difficulties. Leveling scaling as a difficulty setting(damage sponge) is not fun, but level scaling to keep from one shotting everything and still be a danger based on a mobs skill(cc,trap,debuff) is more interesting to me.
Games were simpler back them simply because the technology(both end user and game design) was not there yet.
At the end of the day we all have our opinions on what we prefer in a game design wise. I've gone in deep discussions on reddit forums before, but it all boils down simply for me from playing D2,D3 is it is too casual IMO and not interesting. A bit more depth but not POE levels of complexity would be just about right. I know many say Las Epoch is that and I may try it in the future, but I'm burned out for D4 and have no interest in ARPG's current design model. I'm not a fan of seasons lets put it that way.
The Last Epoch skill system is complicated!? What are your thoughts on the PoE skill system? The LE skill system for me has been the first that is straight forward while giving me impactful options.
I mean look how simple D4 is yet most players cant even make a build themselves.
@@gringoboy701D4's skill "branch" is pretty terrible. There are only a few viable builds for every class. Definitely one of the worst if not the worst skill trees I have ever seen in an ARPG.
to be fair, while you can build yourself in LAst Epoch, you really want to at least follow a guide 80% in LE after the campaign. There is a lot of min maxing to the talent tree that gives defense and there is a lot stats and item combos that go with the build.
@@Kevfactor idk, you can just go with the flow and think about that when you hit the wall. Never assume what other people should do.
"Trying to capture a broader audience" - Is what I've noticed a lot lately, and it's made some game series I love feel lifeless, to me personally.
My god this was a hard watch. First the auction house and no point on real money trade fiasco. Second saying that people did not want Diablo 2. Getting to know how you think about games realy explains why most games suck now.
Step 1 - Remove all the things people loved about D2 from the sequel.
Step 2 - People don't like the sequel.
Step 3 - D3 devs: "Well, it seems like people don't like D2 anymore."
It really explains a lot. They still don't get it after all those years.
Defending the story of Diablo 3 is wild not gonna lie
Probably contributed more to the miss feel of the game than the visuals
I'm so glad I'm not the only one who thought this.
I absolutely loved D3's story. Sure, it has flaws, but the way it was told , with the cinematics (which are still absolutely fantastic btw) , is epic. the production value is insane on that front.
Great video, I can appreciate what it took to voluntarily post a video like this that takes a critical look at your own prior work. I'm greatly enjoying Last Epoch, but I also have extremely fond memories of my time playing Diablo III. It's a great time to be an ARPG player between D4, Last Epoch, Grim Dawn, Path of Exile and it's upcoming sequel, as well as No Rest for the Wicked right around the corner, there really is an ARPG out there for each type of player. Or, if you are like me, there are multiple ARPGs out there for one type of player. Feeling quite spoiled recently! Thank you for your work on D3. With the exception of the RMAH. Still salty about that!
I think the biggest strength of d3 is that for a lot of people it was a gateway to the larger arpg space, it was super approachable and understandable
well.. that was also the reason it wasn't great.. bc Blizz catered to "console" casual crowd.. when previously it was more PC gamer niched in the past series titles. We can still see the same issues today with D4. Some gamers want it to be more challenging.. others think it's still too complicated hard.. bc reaching such a broad and diverse set of gamers will have these challenges. I still think D3 did a great job putting it together and it definitely was an easy to pick up game.
Not approachable nor understandable, it is simply crap.
@dutchmilk that's not true at all. D3 is and was very approachable. I wouldn't have gotten into arpgs if it wasn't for that game. You just want to disagree
The fact that the hindsight solution to the auction house is bind on equip or bind on trade shows that Diablo 3 never had a chance when it's developers are so out of touch.
This Video is about to get a lot of views.
In LE you take any skill, go in whatever direction on a skilltree tickles your fancy, try and get some ok gear, slap some nice passives on top and the result will be at least decent. If something doesn't feel right I can easily respec with a little gold and a little time. Isn't this like a textbook example of "accessible for a broad audience"?
Edit: misprints.
Well, you were absolutely right about the rune system being an inventory nightmare as we now see with aspects for the codex in IV sort of being something you find but not something you need to individually hold. This is also what makes crafting in Last Epoch so integral to the game by finding and growing a cache of affix shards.
Andrew,
D3 at launch was a bit of a mess, but after the patches that first brought us ubers and paragon the game was great. No joke, there was a ton to do in the end game. The character builds felt fun and smart, like you were breaking the game with ice nova or whirlwind. Building wealth in the auction house through gold or real money compelled me to play in the best way. Farming ubers encouraged team play, resurrecting a friend during an uber battle made me feel like a real hero. D3 a year after launch was awesome. Wish there could be a D3 classic tbh
the moment to moment gameplay is the best on D3 IMO, you absolutely nailed it with the feeling of the skills and the feedback, a level 1 skills feels as good as a fully leveled up skill in last epoch
woah. This is a good source of knowledge for gamedevs and players alike. I hope the author of the channel will be successful with ideas for the videos.
Regarding complexity turning players off, I think of something I've was told while learning how to write; you need to trust your readers. You don't have to spell everything out for them, set the scene, show the action, and they'll pick it up. I think the same is true for games.
eeeh in recent years I've come to feel that is a very archaic belief to the point I feel who says it should touch some grass. Social medias have destroyed the media literacy of many ppl and will parade the show don't tell rule while also generally misunderstanding stories and missing the show. It happens alot and is honestly not so easy to trust readers anymore
I enjoy your perspective a lot. I remember back in 2011 trying to figure out what the best skill system would be in an ARPG, but all the interesting ones we've seen since then in games like PoE, D3 and D4, Last Epoch, and Grim Dawn all show really interesting perspectives on what makes a game fun. The fact that every one of these games has fans means that there isn't a 100% perfect system, and each has its merits
Well, for starters, it needs to be interesting. That's somethings diablo 3/4 failed on.
Interesting to get this insight. Thanks for sharing, Andrew!
Last Epoch truly revolutionized itemization and crafting + trading/SSF imo. PoE is great, but it's too unaccessible for most people. LE hit that sweetspot right in the middle of PoE and D4. D3 felt more like a slot machine in terms of itemization and hitting that perfect item. Meanwhile in PoE you need a PhD and 16 spreadsheets, PoB, online calculators etc to truly craft mirror / god tier gear. It's strength is the ability to boycot it completely and just buy all the gear. Something neither D3 nor D4 allows. While LE's crafting is so easy to learn, and has everytihng in-game. In essence no outside tools is required to use it is LE's biggest strength imo. And the fact that you can create so much amazing gear, then re-use it into your next item... Perfect. They all feel different, but LE has something special. It just needs the polish of PoE and D3/D4.
Also, I can imagine the difficulty balancing a game, and honestly the iterations from vanilla to RoS was remarkable. By the end the game was truly polished and fantastic. It sadly lacked more content and honestly? I wish Diablo 4 was just Diablo 3 with more content at that point. I am a die hard D1 / D2 fan and played since they first came out. I can appreciate D4 and enjoy it for what it is, but it lacks the soul of Diablo 2. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I personally prefer experiences like Souls Borne, Witcher 3 etc where you can just explore and things unfold. You don't have 1500 checkmarkers (I do this via mods in Witcher 3 to only see main quest via right MB) and things to check off. It feels more like a ubisoft RPG than a true Diablo. But hey, that's just me!
I loved the unique monster hunting when they added those materials for legendary crafts. Hope they never removed them.
"Wildly complicated"...I think this is a view that many movie and tv directors feel towards their audience, and why they make decisions to include scenes "explaining" obvious things to them. You need to give your audience a little more credit. The idea you outlined at the start actually sounds interesting to play, and far better than we got. The skill "system" we got may as well have not been in the game, honestly, and was severely hampered by the itemization as well.
EDIT: I am making notes as I watch the video. Your comments on "challenge" fall flat, as Diablo 3 was never designed around "challenge". It was designed around "gear walls". There was no challenge in progressing, simply a gear check: either you had the numbers you needed, or you didn't. There was no real amount of skill that you as a player could inject into the game that could progress you realistically in the game beyond getting the gear. And there was no actual challenge in obtaining that gear.
As far as the endgame, it's also that the game wasn't designed for an endgame at all. You lost the thing that set the Diablo series apart: the procedural generation of levels. This makes it so repeating content is a lot less monotonous. D2 had this, which is why, despite the limited gameplay of the game, it was still played years later. It is also the same problem D4 has right now. The focus on the "endgame" and not focusing on making the game repeatable is going to be the downfall of D4, and was why D3 was bad.
With the gameplay, Diablo 3 was a game trying to be an action game, without all the stuff that makes an action game good. Active Blocks, dodges, parries and interactive actions. It was far too simplistic to be a good action game in that respects, and just not good from an aRPG point of view.
The D3 story was probably the worst part about Diablo 3, compared to the rest of the series, honestly. It was such a detriment compared to how well D2 was done, and even now, how D4's is done. It lost a lot of the feeling of being a Diablo game.
Truthfully, D3 could have been released as a completely unrelated game and it would have been accepted a lot more, but it was not good as a Diablo game. I think aiming for a mythical "broader audience" completely sacrificed what made the franchise desirable to be played. And it ended up being a below average game that no one really wanted to play. You don't reach a broader audience by ignoring your current audience, and I think that is the biggest failure of both D3 and D4 currently.
You are trying for an audience that doesn't exist at the expense of the audience that actually wants to play the game.
Agreed. To add to this, it wasn't just the plot itself that took a hit, but also the storytelling and tone. D3 adopted this goofy tone that completely killed the Diablo game feel from its predecessor. The only voice acting that had a decently fitting tone was Zoltun Kulle. Everyone else was talking as if the audience was 5. Bring back the dark grittiness from D1/D2. Personally, I'd wish they would strike the story from D3 onward and start anew, though that would never happen.
@@w4nch4n That's because the developers were WoW devs and brought with them the WoW vibe. D1 and D2 creators Blizzard North weren't a part of the picture anymore
This guy is basically saying "it's too much work, so we decided to make something really simple that our audience didnt want".
He's probably leaving out the fact that he had superiors breathing down his neck about bringing in a broader audience. Which is respectable, because he is just taking his own accountability, and leaving the accountability of others in their own hands.
@@AzoTheRed He DID NOT say we could have done better but then also goes to say last epochs skill system was “complex”. There is nothing complex about it, these guys just do not care about their core audience and it shows in the D3 artstyle change and gameplay.
@@AthulMijuBlizzard changed the art style of D3 _at least_ two times. They didn’t understand their core audience.
Saying that LE has put together anything less than an incredible game is really underselling it. Its not the goat arpg, its a solid fun game with a lot of potential that can really be enjoyed by everyone right now and no one should be contesting that
Weirdly enough the most interesting point I think you mentioned is the enemy families - I never thought about it that way, but when you explained it, that system really does give groups of enemies some more personal identity and thus give story acts more identity.
I think Last Epoch's act 1, which is the most recently made/remade act, does enemy theming very well - wildlife fights with the Osprix/Rahyeh invaders so it feels like a three way free for all (Nature (defending itself) vs Rahyeh (invading the world) vs the player character (invading nature and trying to stop Rahyeh)).
I also think the newly made 1.0 enemy models for the Immortal Empire (the different kinds of skeleton necromancers, new skeleton archers, new skeleton monstrosities) and the Void really help acts 2 and 3 with their own themes - it shows that they're heading in the right direction, theme-wise.
The other acts really do lack that polish - the Lagon areas have sea creatures but only some of them feel connected to each other, while others just fit the theme but "don't fit in" always, if that makes sense.
Fun video, very informative, cheers.
Thank you so much for your honesty and transparency. I loved D3 and D4 and was very disappointed with a lot of the decisions that were made that you covered here. Nice to know about the thought process that got us where we are today.
Jay Wilson took my disappointment for Diablo 4 and doubled it, btw what was up with the PvP?? That was for the lolz 😂😂 they showcased it like it was gonna be something phenomenal then on release when I played i was like wtf???
Great video! I still find that the gameplay and fast pace of D3 where all the skill casting and movement etc feels the best out of all the ARPGs out there. It was just so smooth and never clunky.
This is a great video, thank you for putting it out and for being honest, really appreciate it.
I wish you would talk more about what made D3 feel so responsive, I would love to learn more about it.
Thank you for this video. As an older gamer, i've been through the whole ride, from Diablo 1 to 4 , and everything in between. It's always nice to see things in retrospect with a fresh perspective, and a look behind the scenes is very interesting. Thank :)
Learning from mistakes and acknowledging and sharing how the thought process led to those mistakes is valuable. Thanks for taking the time to share.
Very first section nails the failings of D3 and D4. It's surprising that D4 is still making that same mistake, and even with the new item system, it's still failing the depth check because the base stats are SO limited.
I thought the difficulty in the final difficulty was because it was balanced, and then someone said 'make it 10x harder'. At least that's the interview I saw.
Don't need crafting when the barb can ONLY drop strength items. But can't get excited about drops if everything is technically good/enough.
"Hey you need to come back later" Is an issue for a lot of devs to solve nowadays.. Players (even myself) don't think like that most of the time anymore because games have been designed further and further from that.
I think the fear for complexity is a perplexing idea. Especially in an RPG. The point of building a character is to use the systems available to create the best character possible. However not all of the systems need to be put in front of the player from level 1 (Even PoE doesn't do this considering how many passive interactions and item specific mods there are). But just like in an MMO or adventure game, you introduce more interactions or skills or stats as you go.
Neither D3 nor D4 are failures, they've both made way more money than any other ARPG did. Now if we're talking GOOD ARPGs, well... they are both out of question here.
Really appreciate this video, I loved where D3 got to and respect the journey you all took. Thank you for sharing.
Great video. I feel like saying "trying to appeal to a broader audience" is corporate talk for let's make the most money possible instead of trying to make the best game possible.
It is quite interesting to hear that you relied on people playing like it was D2 to cover design choices but made most of your design choices for players that specifically WERE NOT hard core Diablo franchise players and I'm really curious if these two things were ever thought about in conjunction or if it was just sort of an obvious misstep?
Oh my god, what you said are so incredibly on point and insightful. I wish Diablo 4 devs could talk about the game in as much details as you did because this is what players would love to hear. (I know it’s probably not possible.)
The current D4 campfire chats consist of 50% bullet points and 50% of saying things without saying anything.
There are too many things I agree with in this video but I’ll just bring up two things: Skill Feel and Story. The feel of impact when casting skills is always the best part of the Diablo series. I think both D3 and D4 did it very well. In LE it’s still somewhat lacking even though they improved quite a bit in 1.0.
The story and theme in Diablo is unbeatable. There might be some nostalgia at play cuz I still remember reading the Diablo 2 booklet at school with friends 20 years ago. The quests make you feel like you’re part of the story, the hero that’s indispensable. In LE, I felt like a mercenary that can be replaced. (And we quite literally are replaceable because of the multi-timeline theme!)
I think these are the two things that makes me keep looking back at Diablo (4) even though LE is a much better game in terms of mechanism and QoL.
I played D1 and D2 for years. For D3, I had quit early during the real money auction house mess, and came back years later on console but only played casually.
For D4 I quitted after season 2 cuz I couldn’t stand the poor itemization and hours of sifting though yellow items, but from the PTR it looks like there’s light at the end of the tunnel, and I’ll definitely be back for season 4.
I don’t know if you’re willing or even allowed to talk about Diablo 4, but players would love to know your insights at the current Diablo 4 and the upcoming changes.
This was just a comment of my thoughts but you made too much sense I had to make it a super thanks. Thank you!
Thanks for the support and the comments, means a lot.
Great analysis! One thing that should be mentioned is the loot filter, and the ability to import filters other Class Builders have made. Then you can tailor it down as your character progresses.
Also slamming godly exalted items into Legendaries. This, and the crafting affix shard system makes Magic, Rare, and Exalted items still relevant into the endgame. It also provides more endgame. You find a 1 Legendary Potential BIS Legendary item, and get one of your preferred affixes onto it from slamming. Great start, but now you can you can focus on finding a 2LP of that Legendary, and finding more godly Exalts to Slam. And this is for every gear slot. I really love this gear hunt.
And the stash tabs allow you to hoard a ton of items, not just for your build, but for future alts. Stash tabs also provides a great gold sink for those that are doing the self-found route (Circle of Fortune) that didn’t want to mess with the Auction House path (Merchant Guild). The first cycle did run into a RMT and gold duping problem which they are actively working to fix. This cycle might be a bust for MG, but a cycle reset should correct most of those economy problems.
D3 was an ARPG made by WoW developers for WoW audience, design and marketing wise ("Hey, buy a 1-year WoW subscription and get D3 for free!"). This is the biggest problem of D3, D4 seems to be following in its footsteps unfortunately, MMO/Moba developers making an ARPG, making some mistakes uncharacteristic for ARPG devs, lack of experience is pretty obvious.
The difference the developers of Last Epoch actually listen to their customers. Pretty much everything that makes Last Epoch great are things that players have been asking for Blizzard to put into Diablo.
Which players? And which Diablo? ~0% of the Diablo 1 team is at Blizzard. And there was a huge quality of life jump from there to D2, and then more than a decade between D2 and D3. The people who remember playing D1, and were old enough to understand system mechanics are now encroaching on their 40s or 50s. The people who were too young to really grasp D1 at a technical level, but got D2 have at least entered their 30s, and are probably half-way through.
So which opinions are they supposed to listen to, and which team of 40-70 year olds should be working on implementing them, and how does Blizzard get them back?
Last Epoch carries none of the baggage or the brand legacy. They don't even have to have the same conversations about "is this 'Diablo' enough?", because... well, it's not Diablo. They could have done anything they wanted.
@@SeanJMay nice logic dumbo. you do realize every game thats hack n slash after diablo 2 CARRIES that DIABLO 2 BAGGAGE AND LEGACY bcuz its immediately compared to diablo 2 or POE (post 2013). how can you be so....close minded and short sighted? why do ppl buy LE and why do ppl even care about LE? BECAUSE ITS A BETTER HACK N SLASH BCUZ IT CONTINUES THE D2 LEGACY OF HACK N SLASHES, BECAUSE ITS BETTER THAN D3 AND D4. holy fuck dude no wonder there are still so many blizzard supporters. you lack critical information and cant think rationally
@SeanJMay I was mainly talking just about D4. Many of the issues people have had with D4 have been pointed out over and over again since Beta. I'm not trying to be a dick or anything, I'm simply telling you how things feel from the customer's perspective. We feel like you guys don't listen to us and use the Diablo brand simply to milk money from the franchise. You talk about Last Epoch not needing to care about "is it Diablo enough" but the odd thing is that it feels more like an actual successor to D2 than D3 or D4, especially if playing a Sentinel.
I started playing d3 in 2019 as my first arpg, so I didn't know about all of the pre-reaper of souls stuff which was interesting to learn about. Very refreshing to hear a game dev's retrospective on a work as big as d3. I've played LE, poe, and d4, and I think that you're completely right about the "snappiness" of d3's combat. When you click a button, the ability happens - no delay if any at all, and you can weave abilities and move wherever you click. It's so satisfying!
Despite d3's lack of itemization and customization compared to the other arpgs, I really appreciate the straightforwardness since it lets me get right back into the combat. My only complaint with current d3 is that there is unfortunately is not enough endgame for me to want to keep coming back for each season(mainly because it's in maintenance mode too, so no new seasons). BUT, the amount of time and seasons I've played in d3 will be some of my best gaming experiences ever, and if you have not played d3, I highly recommend giving it a shot. The community for it is great too
What an amazing video, thanks for sharing! Such a pleasure to listen to your insights and how you compare it to a more modern release like LE. Would love to hear your take on Diablo4, from its initial launch to the fundamental rework they're doing on itemization & crafting, and how its compares to LE's core systems.
A big thing for me with ARPG's is the feedback you get from attacks, getting it wrong can make a game feel lifeless. Do you feel that the team got it wrong killing off Deckard Cain in such a piss poor way?
Ahh yes that choice. I thought he needed to die but man Maghda, I just wish they made her look more frightening like they did with Adria. Adria was pure evil looking.
Thanks to Andrew that came forward and engaged with the gamers, this is exactly what we want to see more of, the problem here in the design philosophy i think is Blizz try to cater to everybody, that may of been valid once, but gamers have evolved and fractured, we have casuals, streamers, hardcore ARPG players, those that want complex and those that don't, you have noobs and veterans of ARPG's the young and the old. Gaming expanded massively to encompass all, the devs did not think around that issue.
The Trading System in Last Epoch is a useful example, devs being pulled in two directions because of the difference in target players, and a innovative system resulted which tried to cater to both. You could go several routes in my opinion;
1. Come up with innovative ideas like the Trading System in Last Epoch.
2. Target a specific type of players and make it more target focussed like POE complexity caters to veterans.
3. Blizz already did this in a way, it brought out Classic WoW, so you now have two versions of the same game, but catering to different players.
Last Epoch skill system is really between Diablo and POE. I would think that is the best spot. Not complicated, yet complex enough.
What was the attitude like at Blizzard at the time?
That would take a whole other video.
@@AndrewChambersDesign We're here for it.
@@AndrewChambersDesign I will be waiting for that video :B
I always assumed the D3 auction house was a Blizzard mandate to make billions of dollars because they took percentages of everything sold?
You didn't mention that at all
I usually don't comment on RUclips, tends to get dicy. But I wanted to first thank you for owning for some of your mistakes in D3, it shows maturity and it's a healthy way to learn and grow. Now because of that, I can't be too mad at you for taking some of those bad decisions that directly impacted my enjoyment of D3. It's also quite saddening to learn you were such a small team for such an important game, and I can't help to feel that something similar happened/is happening for D4.
I agree with most of what you said, LE has definitely areas of improvements, story telling being part of that. But I have to challenge you on the story telling of D3, because that death of Deckard Kain was both anti-climactic, unwarranted, and a detriment to good narration. I mean, Deckard survived D1, D2, and then is killed by a butterfly lady in his own house? Come on man... You know you could have done better than that :)
Totally agree. The D3 cinematics looked good, but the story was silly. Joseph Anderson did a great job detailing all the issues a few years back.
This!!!
That was far from the only issue with the story and narrative, in my opinion. The story was ok, pretty standard, but the narrative was insultingly bad at places (most famous example might be Azmodan almost literally telling you what to do next in Act 3). I am a person who likes a good story with their gameplay and I almost dropped the game then and there.
Please make a PoE analysis vid that ranges from early game to endgame/ubers. I haven't seen anyone on the modern Diablo teams give any real take on the game.
Because no one from the Diablo team has ever played PoE 😂
David Brevik and his wife sometimes streame PoE
He will never do this
@@hail_2_u321 What he meant was "modern" Diablo team. The original D2 team doesn't even exist anymore.
Truth is, the guys making diablo now, haven't ever made, or thought of any Arpg concepts ever. you can tell from this video the team was very inexperienced, and clearly had no idea of what the playerbase expected in terms of systems.
@@DoctorStrange01you are so correct. Think when Poe was released and when d3 was released😏
I actually quite liked the D3 crafting system. From a casual player perspective, it prevented the case where you have one piece of gear lagging massively behind the others, and I alway felt it allowed me to become more porwerful, and it was ever better with rerolls having access to it immediatly. You could start from scratch on Torment just with Paragon points and regularly update your main weapon to go through the ealry levels. I imagine it would fall behind once you start looking for top gear, but I never reached this point despite playing quite a lot os seasonal content.
Blizzard makes a Colplay album when Eleventh Hour Games makes a Radiohead album. It's a commercial product vs art.
Very well articulated
id say . oasis album and radiohead album. oasis are industry plants who copy beatles in every aspect, copy someone's legacy.
That is a crazy analogy, and i love it.
Coldplay? One of the best live bands. Most dumb comparison.
@@Venvaneless Live performances aren't even part of my comparison. The comparison was about albums.
"A game for everyone is a game for no one"
- Arrowhead, Helldivers 2
I can't speak for Arrowhead as I don't know it , but Helldivers 2 definately is not a game for everyone.
Thank you for this video. Really interesting and you put it across well.
Thx for the honest Video. It's intersting to see the Story from your point of view. Hopefully it minimizes the hate you probably often have to face.
Loved the insight! One thing I’m not sure I agree with is the degree of fear that a broad audience would be turned away by complexity. It depends how well it’s presented and executed, and the pacing like you mention. I think complexity can drive social engagement these days more than in the past.
I’ve been playing Diablo since part one. Me and my brothers and my dad have faithfully played these games since I was 10 years old, I’m 36 now. And out of all the Diablo games we’ve played, the only one that doesn’t have long term playability and frustrates us the most is Diablo 4.
The only downside we had with Diablo 3 was the limitless overpowering mechanics. Like you said in the video, you lose the journey, then suddenly isn’t fun anymore. Still, it is an ARPG that me and my family cherish.
Thank you for what you have done Andrew. You have enriched so many lives with your contribution to the franchise. And thank you for making this video.
thank you for making this video
thanks for working on diablo 3, its one of my favorite arpgs
Refreshingly candid peak behind the curtain, much appreciated
What a fantastic video. Thank you, sir, for sharing your experiences with us. As someone who played Diablo 3 for 8,000+ hours, thank you for making a game that's been such a big part of my adult life! It really is a blast of a game if you just jump in and play. This video was so awesome to watch. I learned a lot! P.S. I still play D3 to this day -- a few hours a week usually. It's still fun all these years later!
Edit: Also wanted to say, your personal thoughts on skill feel in a game like D3 vs. D4 or even LE makes so much sense to me. Pressing buttons in D3 just feels incredible! I concur with you, the feel just isn't the same in D4, nor is it as good in LE. I can't stick with LE, despite it being SO fantastic in so many ways. Maybe, like you said happened to you, the skill feel of D3 has kind of 'ruined' other games for me xD
Fascinating insights. Thank you for your openness. I do understand a lot of the decision making at the time. Catering to an entire playerbase is impossible so you have to pick sides in the end.
Really enjoyed the perspective, thanks for sharing. One of the clear differences to me seems to be that the team over at Blizzard have a deep and clear understanding of storytelling and it shows in all the things you outlined - and for the LE team their core systems design is more dialed in and the focal point. I've always thought that catering to more than 1 audience, if done right, was the ideal approach. LE is on to that and hope to see it flourish even more. I'd love more design discussion like this , thanks again!
Wonderful video! I couldn't agree more when it comes to the feel of skills in D3. D4 brought to light how different skills feel and how much smoother the gameplay of D3 is. I love Last Epoch, but I agree with this point, nothing beats D3 for skill responsiveness and flow.
Really interesting point of view.
While it's fine to broaden an audience, it shouldn't be done in a way it alienates the core player base though.
Because in the end, the ones who will keep coming back and keep a live game on the front spot are these core players. They are the ones who make other players look forward to the build/loot/pinnacle boss.
VERY TRUE.
Well you need to get new people playing the game no? New people = broader audience = new core players.
Both Diablo 3 and 4 are great examples of how designing for mass appeal can end up with a game that appeals to no one. That's not to pretend the games didn't sell well, but intricate design systems isn't what sells games nowadays.
Honestly I do think D3 and D4 are great examples that appeal to the mass market. Both sold A LOT of units and have a non vocal majority that just don't play that much to begin with. Yes both are not THAT popular in our bubble, but the majority of D3/D4 players do want a rather simple systems so exactly what we see happening to D4 now
The problem with looking at D3 and D4 is that Blizzard products will inherently sell well no matter what. There is a large enough Blizzard fanbase and people with nostalgia for certain IPs that if they just throw enough money at marketing, the game will pay for itself regardless of quality.
I feel that is what happened with D3 and more recently with D4. The games are not good, but they sell well. Sure, some people are going to enjoy them but that is probably because they simply do not explore the market.
@@RealnoMisI play literally every ARPG released and I love Diablo IV…..
@@omegasybers1110I enjoy games with a high complexity like PoE but also love Diablo IV…..
There are a lot of no one’s playing Diablo IV every time I log in.
I'm curious on your opinion on the simplified skill system with the reach of D3 audience vs the complex skill system of LE but much more limited audience appeal. Do you think the design choice for D3 systems directly led to those absurdly high sales in the genre or could the more complex system also have reached as many players? Additionally, do you think the broader audience appeal was a direct influence on D4 not going the route of a more complex system even though it seems clear some amount of players desire the complexity?
The feel and endgame of D3 with all the gear and skill systems of Last Epoch... That would be quite something. Really enjoy these insights, thank you for the video!
Quick correction: there are no level or reputation requirements to list items for sale. Just the favor cost associated. You can only purchase certain item types based on the reputation rank you have with the trade faction.
An important part of this discussion is that there is not true free trade between players. You cannot just give items to a mule account for example. To gift items to a player you have to play with that player. Overall it's a very well designed system that incentivizes playing the game rather than sitting in the bazaar trading.
This is not personal, because respect where respect is due for talking about this.
But this is a good example that alot Gamedesigners nowadays(and in case of d3 even 12+ years ago) are disconnected with their fanbase/playerbase. Its sad.
"we thought" got "we realised" way to often for a Designer in such a big franchise.
Pretty good insight ty for sharing your side of view
Than you so much for this vid. It was a great insight and loo behind the scenes at ARPG design. Great work.
You are absolutely right.
Diablo 3 was/is my favourite game, I know I’m in the minority with this opinion but I played every season for 8 to now,
I loved this game, the team did a great job.
Thank you for the video!!! I'm a big fan of ARPG's and even tried a few times to create my own, so this video is very informative and fun for me!!! ❤
Such a humble dude. Great person 😊
I love D3, but it's story is terrible. No one's really replays the main story. Love your video.
Yeah the campaign is crap. NPCs exist mainly to open locked doors. Thank-god for _Adventure Mode_ so we can skip this garbage.
Hot take: auction house was the best part of D3, but needed improvement.
Worst part was items with -lvl requirement, which meant it was literally impossible to find competing gear at your own level.
Being level 20 with a blue level 36 weapon just beats every lvl20 weapon 🤷♀️
One thing that I always wondered about: Were there fans of D2 on D3 dev team?
Didn't really look like it based on Jay Wilson's interviews.
something d3 did better than any other arpg i played was the leveling process. i was constantly unlocking cool new things to do and new ways to play my class. i think if it wasn't a diablo game, or wasn't expected to be a "forever" game, it would have been very well received perceived
As someone who had no expectations for it I loved Diablo 3 and will never totally understand why people dont like it.
For some reasons when Diablo 3 released it was the opposite for me. I don't mind in most games but I felt held back and bored while leveling because most of the runes I unlocked were useless. I'm talking a rune that make your skill shoot randomly and miss everything.
Great video and thank you. As someone who still plays D2, I played d3 a lot. My reaction to vanilla D3 is that the items were underwhelming and unfun. I spent a lot of time farming act 1 inferno as you pointed out was the intended path, I distinctly remember finding a legendary amulet and I was so excited, all unique amulets from Diablo 2 are so cool. It was a kymbos gold and was basically useless, really took the wind out of my sails
I played a lot but I did not advance past act 1 until the nerfs came. Diablo 4 I feel had the same issue where 99.9% of items are garbage but you gotta pick em up anyways because you need to salvage. Feels bad.
the RMAH was genius tbh. there was ALWAYS going to be black market trading for items and gold. providing a safe market for that to exist was a really solid system, IMO. The itemization, difficulty scaling, and drop rates being tuned towards the AH were what really broke the back of d3.
diablo 3 was great for what it is. A shallow pool that's really fun to take a quick dip in. It had the best ARPG engine still to date now. "The moment to moment just feels amazing." I agree with you 1000%. The best compliment that I can give diablo 3 is just that it was GENUINELY fun to play the game, run around, and kill mobs.
People who really love ARPGs could tell the game wasn't really catered to us, though. I don't doubt that it would've been a monumental task to keep both hardcore players of the genre and the wow/mmo crowd happy though. I think the game would've been better served by picking one side and really focusing on them.
I mean no disrespect to you at all, but this is why experience within that genre and consistency matters so much. Hardcore players of the genre could've told you a lot of these mistakes prior to having to experience them live. And i have no doubt if the same team were allowed to go on and make d4, yall could've put those experiences into making a truly great diablo 4. They have a ton of mistakes they're having to learn from in diablo 4 that could've been prevented with consistency in teams.
All respect for the video.
Why do you think the d3 and d4 teams have not used a runeword system like d2's?
They tried in D3. I remember the “leaks” or goldmines or whatever. They gave excuses about accomplish the same thing with different systems. The truth is the limited stash space and no skill trees in D3. Everything was already decided by gear. So no reason to make a system change gear when you swap gear depending on what your doing already
Diablo 3 feels amazing to play. It`s almost addictive - So well done. Hope they will polish the gameplay in Diablo 4 to the same level. Gameplay feel is such an important part of a game. Extremely well done guys! Cheers!
ofc its hearted. buzzwords and delusional copium. "polish the gameplay" you do realize d4 has bad foundations? its core is bad and too shallow to please todays hack n slash players. sure normies and casual players will play this game for like 50h and they will forget it exists. LE small dev team made more fixes and changes than 1000+ dev team with 20 years of experience and legacy has done in half a year.
They wont. Simple as that
Would love to hear a critique or comparison from your POV as a designer of Diablo 4 and Path of Exile.
Thanks for the insightful video, I really enjoyed it.
I love Last Epoch and have given their systems praise for over a year now, but Diablo 3 made a much bigger impact in my life. I think you nailed most points and also confirmed the obvious lacking points at the time with the focus on reaching a broader audience with Diablo 3.
My biggest problem with Diablo 3 was that there wasn't continued development for it after Reaper of Souls, it just had a skeleton crew keeping it going. I wanted them to improve the stash, the end game systems, the seasons and itemization (I still do!). I just saw all the improvements being made to Path of Exile and was really upset because I couldn't get into Path of Exile and just wanted to play Diablo 3 for that amazing gameplay feel. It took years before seasons truly started becoming more interesting, ramping up to Diablo 4 and now it likely won't be getting any new content or the sorely needed optimizations to reduce lag with huge packs and stuff. I still think the game will have a decent amount of players in seasons going forward kind of like Diablo 2.
The combat feel, sound design, enemy design, world building etc. are all way better in Diablo 3 compared to Last Epoch and Path of Exile, and in my eyes even Diablo 4 in multiple ways. Obviously a huge complaint for Diablo 3 was the aesthetic compared to Diablo 2, but I didn't really care that much. And while Diablo 4 tries to aim for an aesthetic closer to Diablo 2 it doesn't do much for me personally. I just like colors and clear visibility, the game clearly communicating with me what is happening. In that regard Lost Ark is actually way ahead of these games.
This could just be a discussion on why Diablo 3 couldn't be Path of Exile held 10 years ago. Path of Exile was made for the gamer by the gamer and is still seeing huge success for that reason, while Diablo 3 was made for the wider audience and still holds a negative reputation because of it. Now with Diablo 4 and Last Epoch we have the same story being repeated.
It was a very interesting video. Thank you for explaining what happen behind the scene. It's just a bit sad to see all your perspective and the experience you got on D3 not used of the team who worked on D4. It's like they doing it from scratch, again.
you are so honest and nice, and thanks for the good information , past is the past and mistakes can get fixed ;) i hope D4 will be a better game day by day and season by season , also i think casual players will always go through campain and they are done anyway , so with adding Good Endgame like Map systems and other things from other games , you can generally satisfy hardcore gamers too , no casual player will play endgame for more than 1 day anyway!
you are brave and so cool, thanks for the video
I disagree with last epoch’s systems being complicated. They have a lot of depth but are presented in an extremely simple and easy understand manner with excellent pacing.
Their focus was more on sales "make the game more accessible" than actually making a fun game.
Fact!
Greeeeeat video! Got here from DarthMTX. And yes i would like to see more like this, haha.
Thanks for the honesty, would you also care to admit that the goal to expand the audience came mainly from a profit perspective? And that alienated the old player base? (Old sour D2 player here, haha)
Thanks for the video! I agree about D3's actions responsiveness and moment to moment gameplay felt so good, its what kept me with the game. Yeah the launch was rocky but D3 turned into a really good and fun game!
Also, can you please share your thoughts and any insight you have around the journey from d3 to d4 and all the mess in between?
Thank you!
Not gonna lie I was very disappointed with diablo 3. They took everything out of the game which made diablo 2 great, every complexity was completely removed from the game, everything that made an arpg out was just removed. Diablo 3 felt more like an arcade mobile hack&slay game which pushed a lot of people to path of exile.
The rune system where you could add modifiers like crit chance doesn't really sound like it would add that much. In PoE, you have choices of gems which literally modify how the skill behaves, rather than just add static modifiers like crit chance, and that's what allows people in PoE to create truly unique builds that nobody has thought of.
He undersold it. The system was just like what PoE has. Worth taking a look to see what could have been. The issue with the system was that there were tiers of the same item. So it's like the current issue with aspects in d4, it clogs up your stash.
PoE solved this by having them level up, and making them less rare overall.
LE solved it by having the system in the skill's tree itself.
D3/D4 said they can't trust a person's intelligence and they shouldn't make it so in depth.
Great video Andrew! There's always this thing I thought about - Diablo III class systems were made for players to decide HOW they wanna play, while f.e. Path of Exile class systems (the tree, skill systems, etc.) were designed as a skill check itself. I thought Last Epoch fell in between those, but frankly LE is closer to PoE in terms how a mistake in the passive tree can impact your gameplay.
Thanks for the insights. I definitely agree on the Game Feel! I actually refunded LE while in early access because of how much I care for a game to feel good. I bought it back after they refined it, as it is a great game, but the lack of tactile-ness made me bounce back at first.
19:31 I'd say sound effects too. I feel combat sound effects can literally carry an entire game. I still enjoy creating a level 1 barb in D3 to hear that slap.