I agree with the review llama... as soon as they started pushing D4 info and it still looked like D3.... I said they could take it and shove it. It should have been first person point of view and 100% mmo with housing like an upgraded WoW for the win. They just made this for money, but not gonna work. D3 sucks and will always suck, even if they call it D4.
I had high hopes for this game but when I tried the D4 early access I noticed it was D3 reskinned with a darker ambiance. Maybe after 2 years D4 is in a better state?
I wish he'd make a review like this for PoE, and maybe for D2 as well, and make some comparisons. I'd also like to hear which changes and additions he'd make to D2 now that we're over 20 years away from its launch.
Well... d2 is frequently being updated and he is always giving his points and opinions and usually they hear him and put in many changes he suggests. I was in doubt about getting d4 but after this I am definetly not! D2 is my jam for sure! I fucking hated d3 and d4 seems a lot like it
@@rohsouto i couldn't say it any better! Thank you! I had such high hopes for d3 and gave it so many chances, but no! There was no way I could like or love this game. Same for the d4 beta and the twitch streams I watched. Its just diablo 3 with addons, but not sufficiant.
@@rohsouto d4 is a lot better than d3. D2. Has a special magic. That honestly I don't think can be recaptured. Without copy pasting the game which. Honestly as a big d2 fan myself. I wouldn't want a copy pasted Diablo 2/4 There are a couple things from d2 I wish we're in d4. But all in all. D2 has nostalgia. Which no new game can have. D4 is good man. If you don't watch streamers and just play the game
Lammas, I loved this review so much, and I think the coolest thing would be if you graded D2 and PoE on this exact same scale, to see how they all stack up.
I think Itemization is key in an RPG, especially the Diablo series. I don't kill monsters just because, I do them because there's the hope for finding that GG drop - Jah rune, Griffons, whatever. Itemization is the central piece that makes the game replayable and addicting.
@@DoubleMeatpalace Sure, but like you said, "the perfectly rolled yellow" is nowhere near memorable as a Jah rune, Shako, gull dagger, SOJ, and many of the awesome items D2 had... Like MrLlama said, I feel like the items with D3 and D4 essentially got rid of the "uniqueness" of items because of the over-complication with useless stats and the introduction of stuff like "item power". For example, I've played hundreds of hours of D3 but still can't remember a single name of any legendary item.
@@Kai-oh7se I've been pretty stoked to find some of the uniques. I'm pretty sure when people find the shako in d4 they'll be super pumped and it will be memorable. The things from d2 are so memorable because it was one of the first times experiencing it for a lot of people. If you look at the loot system in d2 from an objective take its pretty trash. You can argue it was a long time ago but most people are comparing d4 to d2 when they talk about it the state of the game. I'll agree the itemization in d4 is pretty clunky, it can be hard to figure out what is actually good atm, and there is still more to be desired from it. But d2's wasn't better.
Excellent thoughts and worth the watch. I've been on D2 since launch and I am looking forward to D4. Played the Open and the Slam, enjoyed it a lot. I'm going in with no bias except what I've seen myself and going to give it a worthwhile shot! Thanks for this info and opinions!
Question for you all. After we killed lilith in the end of d4, is she all the way dead dead? or can she slowy gather her power like andarial, druial, and all the other evils after they were "killed".?
The best escort quest in gaming history was probably Ocarina of Time where *we* were the ones being escorted through the desert by a ghost who didn’t give a rat’s ass if we could keep up or not.
You're totally right for cinematics... Blizzard spent so much time to make them... but you can only see them once? Why? Why cant we watch them whenever in the main menu?
@Yettee0201 but why doesn't the coding team put a theater in the gsme?game? Edit: there has been theaters in game as far back as at least 2001 (I'd say 2000 but I don't know og d2 had it and idk how many games before it had one but ffx has one)
Another thing I was thinking: Tree of Whispers should be *actual* bounties against Named targets that may even have a scrap of lore attached to them. Why do they owe the tree? What did they do with the deal they made with the tree? Some of these could just be slightly more interesting elites. Some of them could be whole ass bosses with more lore connections.
It’s really hard to compare modern games to say d2r, the progression feels great in that game because of how massively restrictive progression feels in that game because of how 75% of the gear isn’t viable and immunities are a hard wall have to overcome, but once you finally find that little ladder on that massive wall it feels great to finally breeze through content. Compared to modern games where upgrades are small but frequent it’s hard to replicate the feeling.
It's an "MMO" so that you can see other people wearing cool cash-shop cosmetics. They don't care about actual player interactions beyond driving cash shop sales.
The moment I get to level 70 and realized what will come next, I wanted to post on blizzard forum that item system needs a complete rework. But I figured they won't listen ,glad MRlamaSc rated it similar.
Was it too easy to get? Damage reduction is all damage not just one type hence resistant is deemed less valuable, big critical are good, conditions that make you do more damage are good, d2 is simple and people like it it's the ultimate casual game the second you have to think people just scream d2 is the greatest
Question on "bad affixes" as someone who hasnt played the game yet, how does this compare to D2? Like, sooooo many useless affixes (defence, light radius etc). which i feel like adds to the gambling aspect of getting items. It would be good to pick that difference apart a bit more, if someone could help me understand?
When I think of Diablo 2 music, I think of the hauntingly beautiful Palace Cellar music and the atmosphere that it adds to the area. That singing gives me chills.
Tbh most music of D2 were fuckin insane. Act 1 camp, land, cimetery, desert, palace, tomb, sewers, arcane sanctum then jungle, kurast, pandemonium, chaos sanctuary, harrogath, path, ancients. I mean I almost remember all of them
They have the same issue with alot of modern musical pieces. It's easier for players to remember simpler melodies, so things like 8bit sound tracks are thoroughly remembered while complex theme songs are more vaguely remembered. For example, basically everyone remembers the melody of the Halo theme sound. But not so much Halo 3's more complex version. Or The original pokemon village theme songs, verses the newer pokemon themes.
This is awesome, thanks for the video llama. Actually taking the time and going through each point in depth, fairly evaluating, and putting it all in data form is awesome. Hopefully the devs check this out
Actually I was disappointed by the lacking in-depth evaluation of each point. If you listen carefully, MrLlama does not give a whole lot of reason for his ratings. Makes the entire video feel a little D4-bashing like unfortunately
I really hope you consider doing more videos like this in the future. I thoroughly enjoyed this type of “review/breakdown” system you used. I’d never seen anything like it before and, yeah, just really thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks!
Cant you make your own opinion? Do you need someone to tell you whats good about a game? He is a D2 player thats stuck in the past... he is literally in every single other game on this planet. He had one/1 char at 80+ when makin this video.
Fark I just bought the game earlier today and just watched this vid I have a lot of the same concerns as you not so sure with my 110$ purchase now... the monster levelling is a big concern. Would you prefer d2 to d4?
Sir, Thank you so much for this rating scale and putting this much thought into a franchise I truely enjoy(ed?) You have given me a lot to think about.
Thank you MrLlama, I feel the same on some of the scores you gave. Mostly I play because my brother and I play together, Ill playthrough and see if I catch the bug. Though if its anything like Diablo 3, Ill hop on every season, play briefly, wait until next season, that is if they can keep it interesting.
@@Kianwan not when seasons started with diablo 2. So maybe learn what they talking about. Poe is a diablo clone. Not a original concept lol. Poe is one of its own things but 10 years aint long. I was alive during diablo 2 hay day and i am only 24. So yea. It aint that long ago.
Good honest review. I agree with some points. Disagree with some others. D4 definitely has room for improvement. I would love to see your detailed review of D2 with a view as to why it's so good in 2023.
@@willnox1 two bald men keep heading east to awaken the demon lords. They awaken and you stop them. Thats very complex. 10/10. Puts The Godfather to shame.
@@123nicanor You confond convulated with complexed. To be delivered, art needs a clear message and coherence to bring emotions. D2r is a simple story with emotional depth. D4 overall feels like patchwork of ideas boosted on steroids like in d3. No world coherence, we don't identify to the character, world or story. The game still has this mainstream and bland art style
Haven't really played the endgame, yet. So far I see a platform with lots of potential. I'm curious to see, where the game will be in a year or so. With every ARPG I've ever played, they've evolved a lot in the early stages. Just think about Vanilla D2 when it first came out. At this point it's a decent game to spend 2 or 3 weeks with, if you want to try different classes. If you're aiming at playing every day for months, I think it will get tedious rather quickly. Overall, I'd say you get your money's worth, if you manage your expectations.
@@6foot8jesuspilledpureblood82 I started with A sorc, beat the campaign with it and levelled a bit to 47. Then I parked her and started a Rogue. That character is now 62. When I wrote the original comment it was in the early 50s, I think...
11:00 Regarding the aspects, I ran into this even just leveling and equipping drops. As I found aspects that were useful/relevant I'd swap to those items... and ended up with the same aspects on multiple equipped items, basically negating thier usefulness, because they don't stack. Your higher version of an equipped aspect remains active. Any other will be grayed out. So divide the # of useful aspects for your class/build, by the number of items you can equip those aspects with... and it becomes an exercise in checking boxes and *maybe* farming for better rolls.
On the spreadsheet 24 Graphics Overall and the areas looking the same or gray this can be fixed using the Brightness setting in options menu. Its funny that changing this actually is more a color slider than a brightness slider. Want it more dark and grey everywhere turn it down. Want the word more colorful and see more details turn it up. So its a slider to make the world a bit more scary like D2 or more colorful like D3.
Great review , thats how i feel it too right now. Also i have an important question to myself that i can’t answer . Why blizzard bet into auditory that play game for two weeks instead of ones who play it 20 years ? Where i miss something? What is the reason to spend years and millions on cinematics and graphic , same time not hiring experienced game designers ? Is there some hidden reason for this ?
My thinking is that they built exactly the game they wanted to build, with finances being the most important part. They are a big company, so they don't have the energy that a small indie studio is capable of. I think any project/game dev company with over 23~30 employees are going to lose that effect. Brevik and the Schaefer brothers were able to really create something they were passionate about, without worrying about massive teams and shareholders. Blizzard probably had hundreds of people working on Diablo IV, and though they were able to make something impressive, it doesn't mean they can create something passionate. I'm sure that the people working on it themselves are passionate, but that passion gets lost or misconstrued when there is such a large community of people working on things like that.
Because people who played D2 for 20 years likely are a small minority compared to the larger audience that just wants to play through a cool looking single player game once? And the game is a standalone purchase with no monthly sub so it doesn't matter that much for how long people are gonna play. Seasonal pass is the closest thing to sub and I doubt hardcore D2 nerds are interested in that.
@@scifi_shop D1 7/10, D2 7/10 and 8/10 after LoD. D3 was 4/10 on release and made it 7/10 after RoS. These are the average across multiple mainstream reviews. Player reviews were roughly the same. D4.... Mainstream reviews 9/10 10/10... Player reviews 4/10 so clearly there's a disconnect between devs and players that wasn't as drastic in previous titles.
I ended up doing the pre-order and buying it mostly because I've been in the franchise playwise since the first one, after so many years I didn't want to miss out on being in it with everyone, but D2 still has my heart..... I've been poking at a Druid but it just doesn't keep me up to stupid hours chasing down a drop or wanting to hit a certain level etc....
Well, at the same time, D4 is a franchise AAA title game from one of the largest game development companies that's released Q3 2023, with an enormous library of examples on what to do, what not to do, what other companies have done in similar titles and predecessors to learn from. Virtually nothing in Diablo 4 is a brand new concept, it has all been done in a another game previously. Diablo 2 released 23 years ago and was pretty much innovating not only the ARPG industry, but the entire video game industry, consisting almost entirely out of concepts that had never been seen in a game before, apart from some core mechanics that were kept from it's own predecessor. And D2R is essentially a fancy overlay running on top of original D2 architecture. Naturally a lot of issues are going to remain that simply cannot be judged as simply being not an older, but an ancient game.
@@Gofex1337 sure, but we all still love d2r. I keep going back over it over and over. I dont need it to be compared to other games. Just want the breakdown of comprehensive ratings like this since llama is the person to talk to.
I totally agree on pretty much every aspect of the review, I just hit 70 on my rogue and have been cruising in WT4. It basically feels like i've been doing the same grind since level 50. Hopefully they develop more boss mechanics, it would be cool if they could check out lost arks legion raid bosses for reference, the perfect mixture of dodging, phases, mechanics etc. I'm hopeful they can do some big things to address all of the low scores per your review, and hopefully do it faster than they had with diablo 3.
@@tragikk03 I said check it out for reference. If something is done well in a game, referencing ideas from something successful is literally just progression in the industry. I'm not saying do it exactly, but using some elements of a game acclaimed for its boss mechanics is something every good developer does. D4 boss fights are bland as hell.
@@kegosan7622 level ~50 is essentially the end of normal and the story mode, while level 30 in d2 was the end of normal and story mode. Game time wise they're probably about the same amount of time when you know what you're doing. Also I never even made a comparison to Diablo 2.
I love pretending that diablo 2s endgame system wasn't a predatory mechanism based entirely on rng endless loot box style chest opening/boss killing or that there were more meta builds than just the blizzard sorc which, while naked was 5x better than most of the characters unless you spent 200 hours on blizzard sorc to become rich
The problem is that the modern devs have no clue on how to make a great game with replayability. They would butcher D2 if they made a new expansion. Look what they did to wow classic SOM and warcraft 3.
@@toreq1127 you also love pretending that "endgame" even existed before d2. nightmare and hell were substantial add-ons to the d1 formula. there wasn't "endgame" as a place to play the game to death, as a concept before WoW/d2/ect. nobody who grew up when d2 came out expected to play the game to death, the people who got into nightmare/hell (without strategy guides or wikis) were considered to be massively wasting their time in life and "overdoing it". d2's basic mechanics are more enjoyable. it's pleasurable evaluate the worth of randomly generated items, it's pleasurable to fill up your character with good gear and run against mobs that could kill you at any moment (but probably won't). it is pleasurable to decode the randomly generated map, you have to engage with the world the character is in. it is tense and chill experience at the same time. d3 is just spamming 1,2,3,4 on your keyboard until you fall asleep. there is zero reason to think or engage with the game. if you just want to tick the box "game complete" in d2 with a strong character then blizzard sorc, go ahead. some of us enjoy the game and don't want to exit it as fast as humanly possible. d4 was supposed to be better, but it's even more zzzzz.
yea i have to agree with the paragon board. kind of reminded me of FFx2 IZJS, it looks like you have options, but you already know what your gonna end up getting
They don’t care, they focused on the gameplay. Which sounds like a great choice, but it makes for a good 12-100 hour game in reality if there isn’t enough hook, chase and loop. Diablo 2 probably doesn’t play as well if I take the glasses off, but it has hook, chase and loop on lockdown, only missing deep endgame… but you can make your own endgame grail or whatever.
tell what was the ITEMisation for D2 since you can litterally pass the game with leaf and crappy gear ... I mean I dont understand what 'GEARING' system you want ... cause its been bad since forever in my opinion.
@@cestor chase items that are memorable and drop moderately often but the variation of stats on those unique items is what made the fun to chase for me. Each season chasing for the items you want for your build. Often you find a super rare from another class and then switch classes to build around that find and so on. Often trading items or runes to build iconic things. But really in D2 when a unique drops in hell, the item type matters and that it is unidentified is an awesome mystery which becomes a knowledge test in you head to remember the different uniques that base type can become. Farming lore significant bosses that even if the fight isn’t epic, you are killing the lord of hatred! Not some giant goatman… I could go on forever about what’s missing and what makes it great… but I’m not willing to waste the time. Mr llama or someone would take the time to explain it I’m sure..
I would give itemization a weight of 5. It really kills this game for me. Also I hate the level scaling with the monsters and the items. D2 was great because you could fight as far as you could get and if it got too hard you farmed bosses to gear up so you were powerful enough get further. This has none of that.
Couldn't agree more, the fact a level 10 character can fight on the same screen as a level 40 character is idiotic AND in some instances kill things faster! Plus without the item hunt there really is a lack of replay value imo
I find myself with the same internal debate, keep or refund. I have real concerns that the number of items you can get in game don't even come close to what you saw in d2 & d3. So they are pay walling those unique looking sets, after paying for the ultimate edition, it really feels like a slap in the face. I have only played end game for about a day or so, but I'm finding the loot drops to be kind of boring. Are there legendary sets even anymore ? Asking because I haven't seen any.
World bosses are such a small part of the game that idk why would it be a deal breaker for you. They are literally made for casual players to kill something big and be happy.
you have to keep in mind that the game was set to release in december, so from that point they have skimmed the content to be able to release, then they have withheld content from release to have content to drop periodicly
As someone who has played A LOT of D2 and a decent amount of D3 as well, I could not have been less excited about this game for some reason. Without even looking at a bunch of stuff I just knew that it would be a polished blah mess with all the homogenized scaling items/powerlevels etc. Atleast with D3 Reaper of Souls they were daring enough to completely go off the wall with crazy passive abilities on items, droprates etc. to a point where it was super enjoyable to play for a few weeks when a new season started and trade was not needed.. With D2 you have a reasonable challenge when you play self-found and a lot of super-rare items to grind or trade for. This seems like it hits neither of those fantasies. Why is it so hard for them to get something right that was already figured out 20 years ago
Your issue is that you feel D2 was perfect, but it was not by any means whatsoever. You see through rose tinted glasses when looking at anything NOT d2. This is a common issue with diablo right now. Everyone who played D2 refuses to call out how terrible the games overall system and balance really is because DURRRR D2 BEST GAME IN SERIES DURRR mindsets. Objectively LOOK at how dated diablo 2 systems are and you might see why they did NOT want to have a D2 clone.
@@Am4t3r4su somewhat true but d2 is actually a very well put together addictive loop. D4 doesn't have a feeling of depth or something to sink your teeth into, something the majority of arpg players look for. If poe didn't require a degree to get into, it would be #1 by far.
@@Am4t3r4su I don't think D2 is perfect. There is a reason why people still come back to it but if I were to make something like it today I would totally not just 2 active skills but have multiple and work with cooldown. I also think that some of drop rates and item powers are a bit ridiculous, where there are so rare that you will never find them and they make some builds overpowered to the extreme. There are also an insane amount of just unviable skills. They remedied some of that with the recent D2r updates but still massive imbalance there. But still with all the flaws it has such a great satisfying gameloop so people come back to it. The biggest problem is that everyone knows the world by heart so there is just no new content. And both with D3 and D4, they don't just improve on the formula, they make completely different game loops
Totally agree with the coloring. Some of the towns I have a hard time navigating because the area has no contrast. My horse never wants to move. Half my party is half a screen away most of the time before I can actually get the horse to start moving.
Change the brightness slider in options. Its more of a color slider and adds more details and color into the world. Lower on the slider more the world is gray and sad. Go higher and its bright and colorful world more like D3.
I think diablo 4 looks nice but my biggest problem with this game is the lack of offline mode, do you think blizzard will ever add offline mode for d3 and d4 one day? servers wont last working forever so it would be good to eventually release offline mode
Life long D2 player, skipped D3 (for obvious reasons) played PoE for like 6 or so years, really deep... On D4 now, Really enjoying my time with this game, yes they played it safe, but its a great entry in the series I think. You didnt include atmosphere? I would say this game is dripping with atmosphere and detail that sells the gothic horror fantasy. I think that should be a category. The production design is world class.
I agree but there are way better games for that. Diablo gameplay was paramount to there brand. D3 played clean at least. D4 is POE sloppy. You don’t feel connected to the character at all. Where as each teleport in d2 was a heart beat.
Dunno about the atmosphere, most of the zones looked like dirt or wet dirt or stony dirt or evil dirt. Music was okay, but yeah, not very memorable. I'm semi-joking but everything did feel very samey to me throughout most of the game including dungeons.
Great review, I really respect your opinions, and since I align pretty closely with your mindset of what makes DII such a good game, I trust what I see here. I will probably hold off in getting D4 for now. I almost feel like Itemization should be upped to be the only 4 weight piece from this list. Loot is one of the only goals at end game, and the endorphins released on finding sick drops with insanely rare rolled affects are just SO GOOD.
@@abrasivepartyc5416 I can't see any way that could actually work and feel good. Also that's hardly a social system anyway. Playing with other players doesn't mean it's social. If you just party with random people just to do a run it'll be just like d2/d3 where no one actually socializes and just tries to clear as far as possible. Clans at least offer a community which actually adds to the social aspect of the game.
@@Stavroization oh shut up. Its 2023, no excuse to not have some sort of matchmaking. If i want to play a single player experience I’ll buy a playstation game.
@@abrasivepartyc5416 I didn't say anything against matchmaking specifically. Just that I don't see how it could feel good in d4. If you or someone else has a good idea then great, I'd like to hear it. The main point here is a social system though and I've never experienced any matchmaking that has ever added a social element. It's more just to check a box so you can farm better. If farming solo vs farming in a group had the same benefits, no one would ask for matchmaking for the social aspect.
Why dont they have flat damage numbers, like an item gives +100 or +1000 damage to whirlwind / second ? Everything is a multiplier, +30% +50% etc, so you end up with overscaled damage.
I believe I have seen enough of this game now that I can safely say -- Diablo II remains the undeniable pinnacle of the Diablo franchise. Llama - I would love to see you conduct an in-depth review and analysis of Diablo II: Resurrected. Similar to what you did here. Cheers mate.
D2 is an easy game you need like 4-5 rune words and all your skill points into one major skill it never gets harder there is no way to scale monsters higher than hell its the ultimate casual game people speed run 1 to ubers in like 4 hours and I've loved diablo since d1 but I accept how dated d2 really is d3 was a wreck sure but it had some good points that began to outweigh d2 due to its dating
@@PhonePhone-sf8te how do you think itemization as far as affixes could improve in d4? What would he add and what would he remove? Is what I was looking for
@@wyatttrombley I would like him to explain that to me ... Has for a D2 fanatic myself ... I dont get why ppl are saying D2 was way better in Itemization when you can do anything and still get by everything quite EASY ... While newer kind have some 'GAP' to understand... Id love to see him get deeper in that regard myself
@tig leclerc same here, 99 percent of d2 drops are hot trash when I play and the best items have little competition. I don't quite understand what they mean
That rare weapon item power complaint reminds me of the 'Black' Weapons in D3, remember i rolled a 1204 blk wpn dmg sword. I was so excited lol. This was all in the early months after launch. Deffo hit the jackpot that day.
Appreciate the honest review. I think a separate score for “aesthetic” would have been a good addition for the darker themes of the game which I think they nailed.
@Gimil38 said: "don't get butthurt over it...the game isn't that good. As expected." - I agree with you, but what about my comment made you think I was butthurt? That's a hasty asumption and not a very good one.
I seen something in options... while looking for mini map settings.. I read it as a type of loot filter. Seemed like you good set it so you only see magic and higher or so on
I appreciate the critique, and there was more positive in here than I expected. I'd love to see a return review later in the year from you, maybe after season 2, seeing how much has been improved. One category that I think could be a sneaky candidate for bumping the number is monetization. We'll see how extensive they're able to get with seasons. How cool are the systems? Will there be additional cinematics? New monster types, etc. If seasons are major content, it may justify whales funding them.
Perfect so me waiting 6 months or so to see what changes wasn’t a bad decision. Been watching streams and for me I just don’t see itemization the way I’d hoped for. Your going to play this build or that and that’s the end it’s seems.
Playing for the first time, and while I agree the music is not memorable yet (that depends on how long you play) it's very good and sets the tone of the game. Whoever did the audio for this game deserves a raise overall. Way higher than 6.
Hey ! I really did enjoy the concept of an advanced overall review of the game, and i don't know i you've already done the same before with Diablo 2 and 3 or even with POE or any other diablo like. Just saying that the way you are developing every aspects of Diablo 4 could be really interesting with other games as a comparison. Sorry for the english, frenchie's there :D Thanks for the video ;)
Diablo 2s itemization is truly what makes it such a long standing game in my opinion. Yes there are several other systems that are done extremely well which add to it, but the dopamine hit you get from items dropping in D2 is unmatched. It's not for everyone ill agree, it takes a lot of patience and time..but seeing a grey flail..or a grey monarch drop when you're in search of one with 4 os is such an exciting feeling. Building on that and seeing a useful unique or a HR drop is just an explosion of happiness and gratification that no other game really makes me feel. Its what makes starting over in D2 perpetually engaging and rewarding. You seek out ALL item types in this game, and because of that you get these small, constant and sometimes large hits of excitement seeing them drop.
Even if D4 seems slightly better than D3 to me, this review and the gameplay I've seen so far reminds me too much of D3 overall for my liking. I played D3 for approximately 5 months (up until they closed the RMAH) and it wasn't a game that I was seeing myself grind for years like D2 (or D2R currently). I might eventually buy D4, but I'm not in a rush to play it and that's unfortunate with how hype I was for it around New Years.
@@phil-l Exactly like I've been saying, people will have fun with this game for a couple months (like D3) and then just go back to D2 for the RNG and build customization.
I mean do you prefer d2 gameplay tho? Cuz I play Barb and Shapeshift druid all the time back then, and all you actually did was spam whirlwind and Fury (werewolf) on all enemies. Now in early levels, I don't even have WW and Fury. I just spam the attack button on everything for tons of hours until I get Fury or WW. Now if you reach level 30, you'll be spamming ur favorite attack until hell. I played d3 for less than 10 hours cuz I didn't liked the artstyle, but I don't think it had inferior gameplay to d2 at all. Itemization and balance are another new topics, but if we're talking about the gameplay, the one thing you'll do most of the time, the killing demons aspect of it and how fun it is, you guys are telling me the d2 design is superior to d3? Nostalgia glasses are hard to take off, I know the feeling.
i think the base game is great but there's a bunch of small but important things they need to work on. like itemization and end game content. i don't doubt they will continue to improve these things with each season though.
Or they could give it the ol' D3 treatment and just flush it down the fuckin toilet and forget it exists except for having 1 dude named Devon that flips the "new season" switch once every few months.
@@SearedBite Hopefully so! I would say they really need a win, but unfortunately Diablo Immortal was gangbusters for them... so probably gonna do more of that I guess.
If u compare it with all the big arpg end games on release Diablo 4 has the most tho, which is an incredibly good start… just think of what it could be after a few seasons when d2 had make ur own endgame, Poe only simple 1-16 maps which most people did not see the maps past tier ten until the first or second league and d3 has a single difficulty level making u replay the game as “endgame” lol
I don’t know it’s been pointed out yet but I was playing campaign with my friend and because I wasn’t party leader my progress in the campaign didn’t save so I have to do it again by myself. I think its pretty ridiculous you have to do the campaign solo
Forespoken dungeon crawler when it comes to bosses. I think you nailed it. In the back of my mind it felt like they would go this route. I want to love it, but they went too mellow and too simple with game play and bosses. There is No weight to the enemy, just sponges. They made it pretty and threw blood on it. They hit the bullet points on what the masses wanted, but still had some big misses and that keeps it 6 out of 10.
this is the only review of the game i've seen so far with reasonable weights (or really any weighting) for different aspects of the game in a fair way. personally (if a mediocre game AAA game is a 5/10 and a fantastic game that comes out maybe 1-2x per year is a 9/10), i'd give d4 a 6/10 if you are a hardcore player and a 7.5/10 if you are a casual or 10-15 hours a week sort of player.
I was waiting for the game to get downloaded today and I hopped on d2r for an hour to spend some time while waiting. I found a Lo rune and I know I won't get even close to this feeling of getting a good drop in this stupid d3 reskin. What I hate the most in d4 is itemization. Today I looted about 60 items and they were all so forgettable. The was not point even checking the stats. In d2r I get a yellow with 30 on fire resist and I know this is a valuable item cause it fixes my fire resist on normal difficulty. In d4 I got an item with 1% reduced dmg among other meh stats. If I unequip it, it won't make a difference.
@@jamesdean4349 bruh idc if he has the time to sit there all day lolol he skipped the story and gave it a low score. Anyone can be good at the game it’s not hard. This why I don’t understand why people need build videos
@@jamesdean4349 he is one of the top d2 players, dont mistake that for being a top player in all of them. Hard to value his opinions on d4 when he has been.half hating on the game for long before release and then in my eyes makes his honest review invalid by saying he can't rate the campaign coz he rushed it.
Wait, people play this game for the story line? I snoozed D3 story line into the ground and hit multiple season leaderboards before reverting back to Diablo 2. The dmg scaling alone concerns me -- I think game mechanics are severely flawed if you can have players swinging for 4B damage ticks. How is that supposed to work in pvp? Itemization is another very valid point. Devs literally went back on what they said they'd do. I'm going to play this game for the sake of first hand experience - but I highly doubt this game will have the magic Blizz used to deliver.
bad for you to skipped campaign so the review wasn't actually complete/fairest... but good on you for skipping campaign story.. your final rating would be lower if including campaign story. as Diablo lore nerd I can says its underwhelming, bad writing, nonsense NPC decision, and forcefully try to throwback or "pay homage" to old diablo games plot but with bad execution. voice acting was great, cinematic quality was top notch, just the story writing that was awful.
![MURDER DRONES Series Finale [TRAILER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/p6mhC5Iatns/mqdefault.jpg)
Copy and create your own review here!: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OveicSDWdKC_4zW09zhbQgEK6i7jw62kj7BPdG4Fm5U/edit?usp=sharing
I think ILLUSION of CHOICES sum it up nicely, same problem of d3, ence we all call it d3.5
CLICK BAIT TITLES IN ALL CAPS ARE ANNOYING!!! SEE WHAT I MEAN?!?!?!?
@@Neblooo How is it clickbait? The video is exactly what the title says...
I agree with the review llama... as soon as they started pushing D4 info and it still looked like D3.... I said they could take it and shove it. It should have been first person point of view and 100% mmo with housing like an upgraded WoW for the win. They just made this for money, but not gonna work. D3 sucks and will always suck, even if they call it D4.
I had high hopes for this game but when I tried the D4 early access I noticed it was D3 reskinned with a darker ambiance. Maybe after 2 years D4 is in a better state?
Best escort mission ever: "Decard Cain you've got to get out of there"
Deckard Cain: *goes through a portal back to base*
Done
lol. I really do think that's how his mind works.
Tbf I've never played any game where an escort mission didn't feel slow and boring.
Truth.
If he had town portal why he didn't use it.. what a incompetent
@@turbo_brian True
"1 escort is enough for me...50 just kills me" - MrLlamaSC 2023
Death by snu snu?
@@YewTo0b the spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised....
Would kill anyone Llama, don't be ashamed!
He's already escorting his baby for the next 18 years, so I get it
i thought the desert scene was really cool… very unique break and an important part of the story if you read it
I wish he'd make a review like this for PoE, and maybe for D2 as well, and make some comparisons. I'd also like to hear which changes and additions he'd make to D2 now that we're over 20 years away from its launch.
D2 is 10/10 because it's what d3 fan based ratings on
Well... d2 is frequently being updated and he is always giving his points and opinions and usually they hear him and put in many changes he suggests. I was in doubt about getting d4 but after this I am definetly not! D2 is my jam for sure! I fucking hated d3 and d4 seems a lot like it
@@rohsouto i couldn't say it any better! Thank you! I had such high hopes for d3 and gave it so many chances, but no! There was no way I could like or love this game. Same for the d4 beta and the twitch streams I watched. Its just diablo 3 with addons, but not sufficiant.
@@rohsouto d4 is a lot better than d3. D2. Has a special magic. That honestly I don't think can be recaptured. Without copy pasting the game which. Honestly as a big d2 fan myself. I wouldn't want a copy pasted Diablo 2/4
There are a couple things from d2 I wish we're in d4.
But all in all. D2 has nostalgia. Which no new game can have. D4 is good man. If you don't watch streamers and just play the game
I've been following him for a while, he has plenty of trash talk for d2 lol but doesnt stop his d2 addiction
Lammas, I loved this review so much, and I think the coolest thing would be if you graded D2 and PoE on this exact same scale, to see how they all stack up.
D2 was fun as Necro. At least you could summon what you defeated (much better than just skeletons and golems).
Diablo 2 is a amazing game for it's time, poe is the true successor of diablo 2 for sure.
You're definitely correct about the social rating. It's crazy that there's just NONE of it. Like, at least give us some way of forming parties!
why need a chat, when this game is made for console with many controllers (video game party) on the same screen :P.
I think Itemization is key in an RPG, especially the Diablo series. I don't kill monsters just because, I do them because there's the hope for finding that GG drop - Jah rune, Griffons, whatever. Itemization is the central piece that makes the game replayable and addicting.
It's almost like these D4 developers purposely completely ignored everything that makes a real Diablo game great and replayable.
Exactly, people kill monsters because they want the rewards not because they like to kill monsters endlessly
You can still farm for that perfectly rolled yellow that you can make into a legendary or that perfectly rolled unique.
@@DoubleMeatpalace Sure, but like you said, "the perfectly rolled yellow" is nowhere near memorable as a Jah rune, Shako, gull dagger, SOJ, and many of the awesome items D2 had...
Like MrLlama said, I feel like the items with D3 and D4 essentially got rid of the "uniqueness" of items because of the over-complication with useless stats and the introduction of stuff like "item power". For example, I've played hundreds of hours of D3 but still can't remember a single name of any legendary item.
@@Kai-oh7se I've been pretty stoked to find some of the uniques. I'm pretty sure when people find the shako in d4 they'll be super pumped and it will be memorable.
The things from d2 are so memorable because it was one of the first times experiencing it for a lot of people.
If you look at the loot system in d2 from an objective take its pretty trash. You can argue it was a long time ago but most people are comparing d4 to d2 when they talk about it the state of the game.
I'll agree the itemization in d4 is pretty clunky, it can be hard to figure out what is actually good atm, and there is still more to be desired from it. But d2's wasn't better.
Excellent thoughts and worth the watch. I've been on D2 since launch and I am looking forward to D4. Played the Open and the Slam, enjoyed it a lot. I'm going in with no bias except what I've seen myself and going to give it a worthwhile shot! Thanks for this info and opinions!
Question for you all. After we killed lilith in the end of d4, is she all the way dead dead? or can she slowy gather her power like andarial, druial, and all the other evils after they were "killed".?
The escort missions where they walk slowly to three different points as monsters summon…truly the most game thing ever.
Order and chaos vibes
The best escort quest in gaming history was probably Ocarina of Time where *we* were the ones being escorted through the desert by a ghost who didn’t give a rat’s ass if we could keep up or not.
@@m0002856 Or escorting pigs in Witcher 3, at least it had a meme vibe
It was awful in D3 and it is even worse in D4.
@@m0002856 best game ever... along with Diablo 1 and 2
You're totally right for cinematics... Blizzard spent so much time to make them... but you can only see them once? Why? Why cant we watch them whenever in the main menu?
Well in all fairness that’s a different team that works on those. You wouldn’t have a cinematics team work on coding.
Dude, the Lilith Rathma scene gave me chills
“…but I would have saved your place… just the same…”
@Yettee0201 but why doesn't the coding team put a theater in the gsme?game?
Edit: there has been theaters in game as far back as at least 2001 (I'd say 2000 but I don't know og d2 had it and idk how many games before it had one but ffx has one)
@@jeremy4ags the Lilith/inarius battle in hell was fkin amazing, especially the 2nd half we didn't get to see till now.
i think its because they’re “in engine” and not just video files that play. but yeah we should have a way to rewatch them. thatd be nice.
Another thing I was thinking: Tree of Whispers should be *actual* bounties against Named targets that may even have a scrap of lore attached to them. Why do they owe the tree? What did they do with the deal they made with the tree? Some of these could just be slightly more interesting elites. Some of them could be whole ass bosses with more lore connections.
That's a good idea for the future content :)
Did they end up putting color into the game, or is it still has drab as it looked in pre-release?
I'd love to see you do this for D1-D3 so we have a reference for how your thoughts for the game compares to the others
Dogshit 3 doesn’t even deserve the time
It’s really hard to compare modern games to say d2r, the progression feels great in that game because of how massively restrictive progression feels in that game because of how 75% of the gear isn’t viable and immunities are a hard wall have to overcome, but once you finally find that little ladder on that massive wall it feels great to finally breeze through content. Compared to modern games where upgrades are small but frequent it’s hard to replicate the feeling.
@@JT-mt6ku d2 OG progression was trash.
East. D2 10/10
MrLlamaSc the type of guy to give Dialo2 a 7.5 after spending 10k+ hours on it probably lol
Thank you for this thorough review. Really helps me make up my mind.
It's an "MMO" so that you can see other people wearing cool cash-shop cosmetics. They don't care about actual player interactions beyond driving cash shop sales.
Which dungeon would be the one you mentioned gives the best experience at the moment? Thanks
Great review. We’ll done. Very comprehensive.
The moment I get to level 70 and realized what will come next, I wanted to post on blizzard forum that item system needs a complete rework. But I figured they won't listen ,glad MRlamaSc rated it similar.
Was it too easy to get? Damage reduction is all damage not just one type hence resistant is deemed less valuable, big critical are good, conditions that make you do more damage are good, d2 is simple and people like it it's the ultimate casual game the second you have to think people just scream d2 is the greatest
Just a hidden nugget but when you first meet dog mephisto and he takes you to Tristram you hear the old Tristram music. Very nostalgic
Question on "bad affixes" as someone who hasnt played the game yet, how does this compare to D2? Like, sooooo many useless affixes (defence, light radius etc). which i feel like adds to the gambling aspect of getting items. It would be good to pick that difference apart a bit more, if someone could help me understand?
When I think of Diablo 2 music, I think of the hauntingly beautiful Palace Cellar music and the atmosphere that it adds to the area. That singing gives me chills.
I think the Kyovashad theme can stand with the D2 OST.
No way. No one is even talking about it. People use d2 music even in path of exile videos!
Matt Uelmens music in D2 is unmatched. Complete Masterpiece.
Tbh most music of D2 were fuckin insane. Act 1 camp, land, cimetery, desert, palace, tomb, sewers, arcane sanctum then jungle, kurast, pandemonium, chaos sanctuary, harrogath, path, ancients. I mean I almost remember all of them
They have the same issue with alot of modern musical pieces. It's easier for players to remember simpler melodies, so things like 8bit sound tracks are thoroughly remembered while complex theme songs are more vaguely remembered.
For example, basically everyone remembers the melody of the Halo theme sound. But not so much Halo 3's more complex version.
Or The original pokemon village theme songs, verses the newer pokemon themes.
This is awesome, thanks for the video llama. Actually taking the time and going through each point in depth, fairly evaluating, and putting it all in data form is awesome. Hopefully the devs check this out
Actually I was disappointed by the lacking in-depth evaluation of each point. If you listen carefully, MrLlama does not give a whole lot of reason for his ratings. Makes the entire video feel a little D4-bashing like unfortunately
@@lakritz1987 I stopped after he gave the music a 5.5 because it is bot memorable enough for him.
@@lakritz1987 So you dont like it, because he didnt like it... Not sure how much more in depth he could possibly have been
Llama wants people to play less D4 and watch his D2 streams, let's be honest.
They won’t, the game is fine for 99% of the players, old Diablo players can’t enjoy modern arpg
I really hope you consider doing more videos like this in the future. I thoroughly enjoyed this type of “review/breakdown” system you used. I’d never seen anything like it before and, yeah, just really thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks!
Cant you make your own opinion? Do you need someone to tell you whats good about a game? He is a D2 player thats stuck in the past... he is literally in every single other game on this planet. He had one/1 char at 80+ when makin this video.
and what game reviews can he make if he only plays d2?
Fark I just bought the game earlier today and just watched this vid I have a lot of the same concerns as you not so sure with my 110$ purchase now... the monster levelling is a big concern. Would you prefer d2 to d4?
Sir, Thank you so much for this rating scale and putting this much thought into a franchise I truely enjoy(ed?) You have given me a lot to think about.
Thank you MrLlama, I feel the same on some of the scores you gave. Mostly I play because my brother and I play together, Ill playthrough and see if I catch the bug. Though if its anything like Diablo 3, Ill hop on every season, play briefly, wait until next season, that is if they can keep it interesting.
isnt that how most people play every ARPG in history though?
@@Kianwan No... the history of "seasons" is not that old tbh
@@rajidahae4220 first season of POE was 10 years ago .. thats not a long time?
@@Kianwan not when seasons started with diablo 2. So maybe learn what they talking about. Poe is a diablo clone. Not a original concept lol. Poe is one of its own things but 10 years aint long. I was alive during diablo 2 hay day and i am only 24. So yea. It aint that long ago.
@@pride2184 that amount of stretching you have to do to try and prove your invalid point is crazy.
Good honest review. I agree with some points. Disagree with some others. D4 definitely has room for improvement. I would love to see your detailed review of D2 with a view as to why it's so good in 2023.
If this simp would make a D2 Review it would be on x*amster cause he would fk his monitor with the d2 logo on it.
Regarding Burning damage: If I increase Fire damage, it doesn't raise the Burning damage?
I'd honestly love to see something like this for D2 as well to compare your thoughts
D2 storyline 10/10?? D2 is tho most basic Story ever
@@janundsoo basic? Did you play the game? It’s in-depth af
@@willnox1 two bald men keep heading east to awaken the demon lords. They awaken and you stop them. Thats very complex. 10/10. Puts The Godfather to shame.
@@123nicanor You confond convulated with complexed. To be delivered, art needs a clear message and coherence to bring emotions. D2r is a simple story with emotional depth. D4 overall feels like patchwork of ideas boosted on steroids like in d3. No world coherence, we don't identify to the character, world or story. The game still has this mainstream and bland art style
@@123nicanor Youre being disingenuous
Haven't really played the endgame, yet. So far I see a platform with lots of potential. I'm curious to see, where the game will be in a year or so. With every ARPG I've ever played, they've evolved a lot in the early stages. Just think about Vanilla D2 when it first came out.
At this point it's a decent game to spend 2 or 3 weeks with, if you want to try different classes. If you're aiming at playing every day for months, I think it will get tedious rather quickly. Overall, I'd say you get your money's worth, if you manage your expectations.
What level are you?
@@6foot8jesuspilledpureblood82 I started with A sorc, beat the campaign with it and levelled a bit to 47. Then I parked her and started a Rogue. That character is now 62. When I wrote the original comment it was in the early 50s, I think...
11:00 Regarding the aspects, I ran into this even just leveling and equipping drops. As I found aspects that were useful/relevant I'd swap to those items... and ended up with the same aspects on multiple equipped items, basically negating thier usefulness, because they don't stack. Your higher version of an equipped aspect remains active. Any other will be grayed out. So divide the # of useful aspects for your class/build, by the number of items you can equip those aspects with... and it becomes an exercise in checking boxes and *maybe* farming for better rolls.
On the spreadsheet 24 Graphics Overall and the areas looking the same or gray this can be fixed using the Brightness setting in options menu. Its funny that changing this actually is more a color slider than a brightness slider. Want it more dark and grey everywhere turn it down. Want the word more colorful and see more details turn it up. So its a slider to make the world a bit more scary like D2 or more colorful like D3.
Great review , thats how i feel it too right now. Also i have an important question to myself that i can’t answer . Why blizzard bet into auditory that play game for two weeks instead of ones who play it 20 years ? Where i miss something? What is the reason to spend years and millions on cinematics and graphic , same time not hiring experienced game designers ? Is there some hidden reason for this ?
My thinking is that they built exactly the game they wanted to build, with finances being the most important part. They are a big company, so they don't have the energy that a small indie studio is capable of. I think any project/game dev company with over 23~30 employees are going to lose that effect. Brevik and the Schaefer brothers were able to really create something they were passionate about, without worrying about massive teams and shareholders. Blizzard probably had hundreds of people working on Diablo IV, and though they were able to make something impressive, it doesn't mean they can create something passionate. I'm sure that the people working on it themselves are passionate, but that passion gets lost or misconstrued when there is such a large community of people working on things like that.
Because people who played D2 for 20 years likely are a small minority compared to the larger audience that just wants to play through a cool looking single player game once? And the game is a standalone purchase with no monthly sub so it doesn't matter that much for how long people are gonna play. Seasonal pass is the closest thing to sub and I doubt hardcore D2 nerds are interested in that.
Great vid. Would be cool to see you use this rating system on D1-3 as well. I would be curious to see it for sure.
D1 10/10, D2 10/10, d3 5/10, note the ratings reflect their time
@@scifi_shop D1 more like 6/10
Please do it and also include PoE
yes please! I bet d2 would be 9.5 for him at least^^
@@scifi_shop D1 7/10, D2 7/10 and 8/10 after LoD. D3 was 4/10 on release and made it 7/10 after RoS. These are the average across multiple mainstream reviews. Player reviews were roughly the same. D4.... Mainstream reviews 9/10 10/10... Player reviews 4/10 so clearly there's a disconnect between devs and players that wasn't as drastic in previous titles.
Did you go from 1 -> 50 in WT1 or WT2?
Yo MrLlamaSC can we point out that it would be ok to have Couch co-op on PC with the same battlenet account? Can you persuade the devs about it?
It would be interesting to know how much they're holding back and saving for seasonal content
I ended up doing the pre-order and buying it mostly because I've been in the franchise playwise since the first one, after so many years I didn't want to miss out on being in it with everyone, but D2 still has my heart..... I've been poking at a Druid but it just doesn't keep me up to stupid hours chasing down a drop or wanting to hit a certain level etc....
Very in-depth; thank you. I am curious to see if you'd do the same for d2r without chalking issues for being it an older game.
Well, at the same time, D4 is a franchise AAA title game from one of the largest game development companies that's released Q3 2023, with an enormous library of examples on what to do, what not to do, what other companies have done in similar titles and predecessors to learn from. Virtually nothing in Diablo 4 is a brand new concept, it has all been done in a another game previously.
Diablo 2 released 23 years ago and was pretty much innovating not only the ARPG industry, but the entire video game industry, consisting almost entirely out of concepts that had never been seen in a game before, apart from some core mechanics that were kept from it's own predecessor. And D2R is essentially a fancy overlay running on top of original D2 architecture. Naturally a lot of issues are going to remain that simply cannot be judged as simply being not an older, but an ancient game.
@@Gofex1337 sure, but we all still love d2r. I keep going back over it over and over. I dont need it to be compared to other games. Just want the breakdown of comprehensive ratings like this since llama is the person to talk to.
I think all the cutscenes are skippable, it's a bug where you have to alt tab and back before the option to skip appears again
I totally agree on pretty much every aspect of the review, I just hit 70 on my rogue and have been cruising in WT4. It basically feels like i've been doing the same grind since level 50. Hopefully they develop more boss mechanics, it would be cool if they could check out lost arks legion raid bosses for reference, the perfect mixture of dodging, phases, mechanics etc. I'm hopeful they can do some big things to address all of the low scores per your review, and hopefully do it faster than they had with diablo 3.
stop telling developers to copy other games you personally liked please. We need good devs, not copycats
@@tragikk03There's not much new going on in D4.
It feels repetitive with lvl 50? Well that is at least a lot later than in D2, where it started with lvl 25-28 as you completed normal.
@@tragikk03 I said check it out for reference. If something is done well in a game, referencing ideas from something successful is literally just progression in the industry. I'm not saying do it exactly, but using some elements of a game acclaimed for its boss mechanics is something every good developer does. D4 boss fights are bland as hell.
@@kegosan7622 level ~50 is essentially the end of normal and the story mode, while level 30 in d2 was the end of normal and story mode. Game time wise they're probably about the same amount of time when you know what you're doing. Also I never even made a comparison to Diablo 2.
They should honestly just make another d2 expansion
I love pretending that diablo 2s endgame system wasn't a predatory mechanism based entirely on rng endless loot box style chest opening/boss killing or that there were more meta builds than just the blizzard sorc which, while naked was 5x better than most of the characters unless you spent 200 hours on blizzard sorc to become rich
Theyre litterally retarded
Yeah but thats a given that Blizzard is the best skill because its the name of the Company 😅
The problem is that the modern devs have no clue on how to make a great game with replayability. They would butcher D2 if they made a new expansion. Look what they did to wow classic SOM and warcraft 3.
@@toreq1127 you also love pretending that "endgame" even existed before d2. nightmare and hell were substantial add-ons to the d1 formula. there wasn't "endgame" as a place to play the game to death, as a concept before WoW/d2/ect.
nobody who grew up when d2 came out expected to play the game to death, the people who got into nightmare/hell (without strategy guides or wikis) were considered to be massively wasting their time in life and "overdoing it".
d2's basic mechanics are more enjoyable. it's pleasurable evaluate the worth of randomly generated items, it's pleasurable to fill up your character with good gear and run against mobs that could kill you at any moment (but probably won't). it is pleasurable to decode the randomly generated map, you have to engage with the world the character is in. it is tense and chill experience at the same time.
d3 is just spamming 1,2,3,4 on your keyboard until you fall asleep. there is zero reason to think or engage with the game. if you just want to tick the box "game complete" in d2 with a strong character then blizzard sorc, go ahead. some of us enjoy the game and don't want to exit it as fast as humanly possible. d4 was supposed to be better, but it's even more zzzzz.
Any mews about bleed being broken? Cant damage enemies after full bleed.
yea i have to agree with the paragon board. kind of reminded me of FFx2 IZJS, it looks like you have options, but you already know what your gonna end up getting
I’m just here hoping for a Grim Dawn 2 or that they add content to D2 Res
Damn Itemisation is extremely important for me. Its the main reason why I play those games. It should be Nr1 priority for a Diablo game.. WTF
They don’t care, they focused on the gameplay. Which sounds like a great choice, but it makes for a good 12-100 hour game in reality if there isn’t enough hook, chase and loop. Diablo 2 probably doesn’t play as well if I take the glasses off, but it has hook, chase and loop on lockdown, only missing deep endgame… but you can make your own endgame grail or whatever.
tell what was the ITEMisation for D2 since you can litterally pass the game with leaf and crappy gear ... I mean I dont understand what 'GEARING' system you want ... cause its been bad since forever in my opinion.
@@cestor chase items that are memorable and drop moderately often but the variation of stats on those unique items is what made the fun to chase for me. Each season chasing for the items you want for your build. Often you find a super rare from another class and then switch classes to build around that find and so on. Often trading items or runes to build iconic things.
But really in D2 when a unique drops in hell, the item type matters and that it is unidentified is an awesome mystery which becomes a knowledge test in you head to remember the different uniques that base type can become.
Farming lore significant bosses that even if the fight isn’t epic, you are killing the lord of hatred! Not some giant goatman…
I could go on forever about what’s missing and what makes it great… but I’m not willing to waste the time. Mr llama or someone would take the time to explain it I’m sure..
@@cestor and there is no chance you can beat hell with leaf AND crappy gear.
Which one would you say is better in your opinion D2R or D4 ?
Are there still queues? Was that a temporary thing? I'm assuming it was super temporary if performance = 9.
Itemization isn't complex. It's convoluted. That's how i would describe the mechanics in D4 in general.
This.
you nailed it
Yep this.
Agreed. I don't know what 'vulnerable' does, or 'overpower'. It references itself without being clear about what it all does.
I would give itemization a weight of 5. It really kills this game for me. Also I hate the level scaling with the monsters and the items. D2 was great because you could fight as far as you could get and if it got too hard you farmed bosses to gear up so you were powerful enough get further. This has none of that.
I hate the itemization too. Its so boring. This needs a complete rework to save the game i think.
Couldn't agree more, the fact a level 10 character can fight on the same screen as a level 40 character is idiotic AND in some instances kill things faster! Plus without the item hunt there really is a lack of replay value imo
The Dude being escorted around the Desert was Meshif! The Guy who was Captain of the Boat that took you from Act II to Act III in D2! :-D
What's the best dungeon to exp farm he's referring to?
I find myself with the same internal debate, keep or refund. I have real concerns that the number of items you can get in game don't even come close to what you saw in d2 & d3. So they are pay walling those unique looking sets, after paying for the ultimate edition, it really feels like a slap in the face. I have only played end game for about a day or so, but I'm finding the loot drops to be kind of boring. Are there legendary sets even anymore ? Asking because I haven't seen any.
Youll see the legendary sets in the shops soon 😂😂✌️✌️
Pretty much what I was worried about that the world bosses would be easy might be a pass for me or buy later
World bosses are such a small part of the game that idk why would it be a deal breaker for you. They are literally made for casual players to kill something big and be happy.
you have to keep in mind that the game was set to release in december, so from that point they have skimmed the content to be able to release, then they have withheld content from release to have content to drop periodicly
Huh? D4 was never planned to be released in Winter 23 and it currently has way way more Content than D2 and D3 at their releases.
if the itemisation was like an 8 or 9 out of 10, would you see yourself playing this full time on the side, like alongside D2?
Great review! This is exactly what I was searching for. Thanks Llama
As someone who has played A LOT of D2 and a decent amount of D3 as well, I could not have been less excited about this game for some reason. Without even looking at a bunch of stuff I just knew that it would be a polished blah mess with all the homogenized scaling items/powerlevels etc. Atleast with D3 Reaper of Souls they were daring enough to completely go off the wall with crazy passive abilities on items, droprates etc. to a point where it was super enjoyable to play for a few weeks when a new season started and trade was not needed.. With D2 you have a reasonable challenge when you play self-found and a lot of super-rare items to grind or trade for. This seems like it hits neither of those fantasies. Why is it so hard for them to get something right that was already figured out 20 years ago
Your issue is that you feel D2 was perfect, but it was not by any means whatsoever.
You see through rose tinted glasses when looking at anything NOT d2.
This is a common issue with diablo right now. Everyone who played D2 refuses to call out how terrible the games overall system and balance really is because DURRRR D2 BEST GAME IN SERIES DURRR mindsets.
Objectively LOOK at how dated diablo 2 systems are and you might see why they did NOT want to have a D2 clone.
@@Am4t3r4su somewhat true but d2 is actually a very well put together addictive loop. D4 doesn't have a feeling of depth or something to sink your teeth into, something the majority of arpg players look for. If poe didn't require a degree to get into, it would be #1 by far.
@@Am4t3r4su I don't think D2 is perfect. There is a reason why people still come back to it but if I were to make something like it today I would totally not just 2 active skills but have multiple and work with cooldown. I also think that some of drop rates and item powers are a bit ridiculous, where there are so rare that you will never find them and they make some builds overpowered to the extreme. There are also an insane amount of just unviable skills. They remedied some of that with the recent D2r updates but still massive imbalance there. But still with all the flaws it has such a great satisfying gameloop so people come back to it. The biggest problem is that everyone knows the world by heart so there is just no new content. And both with D3 and D4, they don't just improve on the formula, they make completely different game loops
Game is great. Your a fool.
@@Am4t3r4su bro, he didn’t say it’s perfect lol. Way to start a counter-argument with throwing words in homie’s mouth lol.
I wonder...
Scaling vs no scaling world ?
How do they like work with builds, items, overall experience of players ( casual vs pro ),... ?
Totally agree with the coloring. Some of the towns I have a hard time navigating because the area has no contrast. My horse never wants to move. Half my party is half a screen away most of the time before I can actually get the horse to start moving.
Change the brightness slider in options. Its more of a color slider and adds more details and color into the world. Lower on the slider more the world is gray and sad. Go higher and its bright and colorful world more like D3.
I think diablo 4 looks nice but my biggest problem with this game is the lack of offline mode, do you think blizzard will ever add offline mode for d3 and d4 one day? servers wont last working forever so it would be good to eventually release offline mode
No. They can't farm stats for investors this way.
The next nintendo console will get an offline port. Id bet money on it.
Life long D2 player, skipped D3 (for obvious reasons) played PoE for like 6 or so years, really deep... On D4 now, Really enjoying my time with this game, yes they played it safe, but its a great entry in the series I think. You didnt include atmosphere? I would say this game is dripping with atmosphere and detail that sells the gothic horror fantasy. I think that should be a category. The production design is world class.
I agree but there are way better games for that. Diablo gameplay was paramount to there brand. D3 played clean at least. D4 is POE sloppy. You don’t feel connected to the character at all. Where as each teleport in d2 was a heart beat.
If you're enjoying d4, you're no diablo fan lol. Or you're under 25 yrs old. You do not have the connection of good gaming in the 90s and 2000s
Dunno about the atmosphere, most of the zones looked like dirt or wet dirt or stony dirt or evil dirt. Music was okay, but yeah, not very memorable. I'm semi-joking but everything did feel very samey to me throughout most of the game including dungeons.
it's kitsch not true gothic,I hate it lol, the writing is awful, it's like horror pretending to be horror
D2 is real Diablo . Not this d4 crap lol
Yes, it's OK to have different opinions. To each their own... Thanks for the overview. Also, D1 Lore Run when?
Would you go over doing the exact same type of video about Diablo 2?
Great review, I really respect your opinions, and since I align pretty closely with your mindset of what makes DII such a good game, I trust what I see here. I will probably hold off in getting D4 for now.
I almost feel like Itemization should be upped to be the only 4 weight piece from this list. Loot is one of the only goals at end game, and the endorphins released on finding sick drops with insanely rare rolled affects are just SO GOOD.
* BER DROPS * from random vase
Yeah, itemization is why a lot of us play. The game is definitely disappointing there. I'm glad I decided to wait after playing the beta
Im glad you hit on the largest point that kills it for me, no social system. I can’t find anybody to play with.
Clans exist
@@Stavroization this game needs matchmaking
@@abrasivepartyc5416 I can't see any way that could actually work and feel good. Also that's hardly a social system anyway. Playing with other players doesn't mean it's social. If you just party with random people just to do a run it'll be just like d2/d3 where no one actually socializes and just tries to clear as far as possible. Clans at least offer a community which actually adds to the social aspect of the game.
@@Stavroization oh shut up. Its 2023, no excuse to not have some sort of matchmaking. If i want to play a single player experience I’ll buy a playstation game.
@@abrasivepartyc5416 I didn't say anything against matchmaking specifically. Just that I don't see how it could feel good in d4. If you or someone else has a good idea then great, I'd like to hear it. The main point here is a social system though and I've never experienced any matchmaking that has ever added a social element. It's more just to check a box so you can farm better. If farming solo vs farming in a group had the same benefits, no one would ask for matchmaking for the social aspect.
Why dont they have flat damage numbers, like an item gives +100 or +1000 damage to whirlwind / second ? Everything is a multiplier, +30% +50% etc, so you end up with overscaled damage.
Agree, and thanks for the review. But im curious on your take on the dungeons.
I believe I have seen enough of this game now that I can safely say --
Diablo II remains the undeniable pinnacle of the Diablo franchise.
Llama - I would love to see you conduct an in-depth review and analysis of Diablo II: Resurrected. Similar to what you did here.
Cheers mate.
D2 is an easy game you need like 4-5 rune words and all your skill points into one major skill it never gets harder there is no way to scale monsters higher than hell its the ultimate casual game people speed run 1 to ubers in like 4 hours and I've loved diablo since d1 but I accept how dated d2 really is d3 was a wreck sure but it had some good points that began to outweigh d2 due to its dating
Llama can you elaborate on what you mean by "Modern ARPG's do RPG poorly" and give some more specific examples for points of impartment?
diablo3 is a pretty good example of exactly what he stated.
@@PhonePhone-sf8te how do you think itemization as far as affixes could improve in d4? What would he add and what would he remove? Is what I was looking for
@@wyatttrombley I would like him to explain that to me ... Has for a D2 fanatic myself ... I dont get why ppl are saying D2 was way better in Itemization when you can do anything and still get by everything quite EASY ... While newer kind have some 'GAP' to understand... Id love to see him get deeper in that regard myself
@tig leclerc same here, 99 percent of d2 drops are hot trash when I play and the best items have little competition. I don't quite understand what they mean
@@wyatttrombley for me personally, I just dont like the item system at all since d3.
That rare weapon item power complaint reminds me of the 'Black' Weapons in D3, remember i rolled a 1204 blk wpn dmg sword. I was so excited lol. This was all in the early months after launch.
Deffo hit the jackpot that day.
How's the map? World is too big, too small? Dungeons randomized well?
Appreciate the honest review. I think a separate score for “aesthetic” would have been a good addition for the darker themes of the game which I think they nailed.
This was the review I was waiting for. Now I dont feel bad holding off for a while. Maybe get outside and enjoy the summer.
More power to you. Have fun!
@Gimil38 said: "don't get butthurt over it...the game isn't that good. As expected."
- I agree with you, but what about my comment made you think I was butthurt? That's a hasty asumption and not a very good one.
Just for the fun of it could you do this same review style for D2?
I seen something in options... while looking for mini map settings.. I read it as a type of loot filter. Seemed like you good set it so you only see magic and higher or so on
I appreciate the critique, and there was more positive in here than I expected.
I'd love to see a return review later in the year from you, maybe after season 2, seeing how much has been improved.
One category that I think could be a sneaky candidate for bumping the number is monetization. We'll see how extensive they're able to get with seasons. How cool are the systems? Will there be additional cinematics? New monster types, etc.
If seasons are major content, it may justify whales funding them.
Perfect so me waiting 6 months or so to see what changes wasn’t a bad decision. Been watching streams and for me I just don’t see itemization the way I’d hoped for. Your going to play this build or that and that’s the end it’s seems.
Playing for the first time, and while I agree the music is not memorable yet (that depends on how long you play) it's very good and sets the tone of the game. Whoever did the audio for this game deserves a raise overall. Way higher than 6.
How do you refund something that you haven't bought already?
Hey !
I really did enjoy the concept of an advanced overall review of the game, and i don't know i you've already done the same before with Diablo 2 and 3 or even with POE or any other diablo like.
Just saying that the way you are developing every aspects of Diablo 4 could be really interesting with other games as a comparison.
Sorry for the english, frenchie's there :D
Thanks for the video ;)
If he did D2, it would just be 10 ratings and 3 weights all the way down. ;-)
@@kenturkey1971 You don't know how weight works.
@@oli201 As an engineer, I assure you I do.
Honestly a pretty fair ranking and review, good stuff!
Diablo 2s itemization is truly what makes it such a long standing game in my opinion. Yes there are several other systems that are done extremely well which add to it, but the dopamine hit you get from items dropping in D2 is unmatched.
It's not for everyone ill agree, it takes a lot of patience and time..but seeing a grey flail..or a grey monarch drop when you're in search of one with 4 os is such an exciting feeling. Building on that and seeing a useful unique or a HR drop is just an explosion of happiness and gratification that no other game really makes me feel. Its what makes starting over in D2 perpetually engaging and rewarding. You seek out ALL item types in this game, and because of that you get these small, constant and sometimes large hits of excitement seeing them drop.
Same with any kind of polearm early on when you're starting to feel the mana squeeze
Even if D4 seems slightly better than D3 to me, this review and the gameplay I've seen so far reminds me too much of D3 overall for my liking. I played D3 for approximately 5 months (up until they closed the RMAH) and it wasn't a game that I was seeing myself grind for years like D2 (or D2R currently). I might eventually buy D4, but I'm not in a rush to play it and that's unfortunate with how hype I was for it around New Years.
This
Ya, and without massive massive redesign to the itemization of the game, the whole thing won’t be played for much long
No free trading kills this game for me which is sad.
@@phil-l Exactly like I've been saying, people will have fun with this game for a couple months (like D3) and then just go back to D2 for the RNG and build customization.
I mean do you prefer d2 gameplay tho? Cuz I play Barb and Shapeshift druid all the time back then, and all you actually did was spam whirlwind and Fury (werewolf) on all enemies. Now in early levels, I don't even have WW and Fury. I just spam the attack button on everything for tons of hours until I get Fury or WW. Now if you reach level 30, you'll be spamming ur favorite attack until hell. I played d3 for less than 10 hours cuz I didn't liked the artstyle, but I don't think it had inferior gameplay to d2 at all. Itemization and balance are another new topics, but if we're talking about the gameplay, the one thing you'll do most of the time, the killing demons aspect of it and how fun it is, you guys are telling me the d2 design is superior to d3?
Nostalgia glasses are hard to take off, I know the feeling.
i think the base game is great but there's a bunch of small but important things they need to work on. like itemization and end game content. i don't doubt they will continue to improve these things with each season though.
Or they could give it the ol' D3 treatment and just flush it down the fuckin toilet and forget it exists except for having 1 dude named Devon that flips the "new season" switch once every few months.
@@GC_Rallo maybe in a few years lol but theyre clearly going all in on this game
@@SearedBite Hopefully so! I would say they really need a win, but unfortunately Diablo Immortal was gangbusters for them... so probably gonna do more of that I guess.
Yea? Same treatment to d2r and it's only been out for like 2 years. Full of bugs and bots cuz they dont wanna do shit
If u compare it with all the big arpg end games on release Diablo 4 has the most tho, which is an incredibly good start… just think of what it could be after a few seasons when d2 had make ur own endgame, Poe only simple 1-16 maps which most people did not see the maps past tier ten until the first or second league and d3 has a single difficulty level making u replay the game as “endgame” lol
Is there any speed run potential in the game? Doesn't really sound like it.
I don’t know it’s been pointed out yet but I was playing campaign with my friend and because I wasn’t party leader my progress in the campaign didn’t save so I have to do it again by myself. I think its pretty ridiculous you have to do the campaign solo
I want to pickup D4 but I'm going to give it a month before I buy in. I want D4 to do outstandingly well!
I was planning to wait till it's like $20. Haven't decided on it yet though.
Maybe next Christmas 😂
I say wait for d5, in 2043
Forespoken dungeon crawler when it comes to bosses. I think you nailed it. In the back of my mind it felt like they would go this route. I want to love it, but they went too mellow and too simple with game play and bosses. There is No weight to the enemy, just sponges. They made it pretty and threw blood on it. They hit the bullet points on what the masses wanted, but still had some big misses and that keeps it 6 out of 10.
I really want to see this! Does it have campaign story spoilers?
No. He didn't play the campaign, skipped through it
The only spoiler is that the campaign is Stupid and Boring as Hell)))
this is the only review of the game i've seen so far with reasonable weights (or really any weighting) for different aspects of the game in a fair way.
personally (if a mediocre game AAA game is a 5/10 and a fantastic game that comes out maybe 1-2x per year is a 9/10), i'd give d4 a 6/10 if you are a hardcore player and a 7.5/10 if you are a casual or 10-15 hours a week sort of player.
I was waiting for the game to get downloaded today and I hopped on d2r for an hour to spend some time while waiting. I found a Lo rune and I know I won't get even close to this feeling of getting a good drop in this stupid d3 reskin.
What I hate the most in d4 is itemization. Today I looted about 60 items and they were all so forgettable. The was not point even checking the stats. In d2r I get a yellow with 30 on fire resist and I know this is a valuable item cause it fixes my fire resist on normal difficulty. In d4 I got an item with 1% reduced dmg among other meh stats. If I unequip it, it won't make a difference.
Guess llama is going to do another 500,000 pindle runs
Well, pindle runs are like potato chips, you can't just have 100,000.
Whats the weight for again? I flunked statistics in highschool
I mean D4 is a step in the right direction! It can be made better later with time and patches
Preach. Thank you for telling it like it is. You going to continue covering D4? Curious about your plans with regard to this game + streaming.
This guy knows nothing bro. Don’t just listen to anyone.
@@xiNurzz one of the top Diablo players in the world knows nothing?
@@jamesdean4349 bruh idc if he has the time to sit there all day lolol he skipped the story and gave it a low score. Anyone can be good at the game it’s not hard. This why I don’t understand why people need build videos
@@jamesdean4349 he is one of the top d2 players, dont mistake that for being a top player in all of them. Hard to value his opinions on d4 when he has been.half hating on the game for long before release and then in my eyes makes his honest review invalid by saying he can't rate the campaign coz he rushed it.
Wait, people play this game for the story line? I snoozed D3 story line into the ground and hit multiple season leaderboards before reverting back to Diablo 2. The dmg scaling alone concerns me -- I think game mechanics are severely flawed if you can have players swinging for 4B damage ticks. How is that supposed to work in pvp? Itemization is another very valid point. Devs literally went back on what they said they'd do. I'm going to play this game for the sake of first hand experience - but I highly doubt this game will have the magic Blizz used to deliver.
bad for you to skipped campaign so the review wasn't actually complete/fairest...
but good on you for skipping campaign story.. your final rating would be lower if including campaign story.
as Diablo lore nerd I can says its underwhelming, bad writing, nonsense NPC decision, and forcefully try to throwback or "pay homage" to old diablo games plot but with bad execution.
voice acting was great, cinematic quality was top notch, just the story writing that was awful.
What’s different between legendary and unique
So was it a buy it or ? I'm kinda waiting , 35 or 40 $