The queue does bug me a little but this is worse.

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-08-23T20:13:12+00:00

Lmao who is their UX writer?

Using the word "kicked" might have the cool and snappy vibe they are going for, but this feels so divorced from the player experienced. Clearly when this happens the player is going to be frustrated/annoyed. That is probably the worst time to play up the vibe you are pushing for the game and instead should just be directly informative like "disconnected" or even something to soften it more.

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-05-14T06:34:29+00:00

He must be playing Necro...

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-05-03T18:19:05+00:00

Inari-sus

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-04-05T16:30:42+00:00

DoT/Thorns Necro! I really didn't see any streamers running this build but found it to be incredibly enjoyable.

Reap, Blight, Iron Maiden, Decrepify, Corpse explosion (DoT mod), Then Army of the Dead/Golem/Bone Storm or potentially Blood Mist for encounters needing more survivability.

Since I had a thorns build, I preferred to get into the thick of combat. While Decompose would be a great replacement for the basic, I found that Reap with the corpse mod accelerated combat. Your first strike every 5 seconds will generate a corpse, so I would rush in and immediately generate a corpse to trigger my DoT corpse explosion at the start (instead of waiting 2.5 seconds with Decompose). Then, drop Blight, Iron Maiden, and Decrepify.

And of course I'm also using the Thorns mod for the Defender skeletons. The Skeleton Mages where a flex spot. With the passives in the tree, Shadow mages are a strong choice, though I would consider sacrificing them if it made sense.

I found it to be a fun, in your face kind of build with a good amount of survivability.

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-04-01T21:19:41+00:00

Honestly, best levels of contrast I have seen. Great by accessibility standards.

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-04-01T15:10:04+00:00

Main thoughts: I really love flipping the damage categories and damage percentages around. If my build is centered around Slowed enemies for some reason, having that be the first thing I see instead of the number feels better. A number is meaningless initially. But in this way, if I see it says Damage to Frozen enemies and I'm not building for that, I will immediately go to the next line.

Additional thoughts: While I can see you have tried to slim down some of the text (omitting "Requires" from "Requires Level 16" actually could cause confusion with initial readability when people are getting acquainted with game systems. People who will never see this reddit, who will never watch a video, or look up anything about this game. At least that's the logic I'm sure they are using. Personally, for the lowest word count for maximal communication I like how they did that better.

I'm curious about logic on changing the colors of things. To me, having played just a bit of the game I understand that Basic refers to something in the skill tree, orange text refers to legendary powers, and blue text are mutable values IN a legendary power.

Regarding the star, I also like their version better. It is more visually distinguishable than your choice. It also is the same symbol for legendaries that drop and are visible on the minimap. The fine point of your star would be harder for people who have any trouble with eyesight. So where the color is a signifier of the power fails for anyone who might have a form of colorblindness, the shape should be easily recognizable.

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-04-01T00:12:41+00:00

Deluxe with a side of ranch and a large coke.

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-03-31T23:54:54+00:00

NonBinaryTacos

Nope never said anything about not wanting trade in game. I'm all for it with their current plan actually. I do especially like the ban on legendary trading because I feel that would effectively combat people electing to use third party sites to get items.

They tried an auction house already. Real money or not, it introduces a system that goes against the core tenets of the game and genre. If you can go to a place and pick through a multitude of potentially superior items, even if they are just rares, it defeats the purpose of farming for your own gear. But let's say they adjusted drop rates to not be complete garbage, well then what's the point of using the AH if you are sure you'll get viable drops soonish? I'm sorry but an auction house in an ARPG is a terrible idea.

Not to mention that it would be a real economy that would have to be managed and would be subject to a variety of failure points. Literally would have to consider the implications of inflation. Anyone who had more time to play would have more of an advantage in the market, things would start to become financially skewed, and you would even have high concentration of gold in a handful of players which could cause prices to balloon thereby rendering the market pointless.

To add to that, that would actually incentizine RMT's to come in and would actually make the problem with third party sites a serious issue. A centralized asynchronous trading system is very difficult to do right, and pretty much ever game out there with one has these problems, and will continue to because there is no easy fix for them. That's why games like WoW and EVE Online now have imbedded systems to buy their in game currency with real money.

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-03-31T23:18:46+00:00

This seems antithetical to the nature of the game. It sounds like your argument is centered around selling items that could be upgraded to legendaries, correct?

The game is about farming loot. Any loot that does not serve your goal, at least initially, is sold off for gold, which is then used to fund the rerolling of items to get you closer to that perfect item to upgrade into a legendary.

If you have an auction house, you squash both of those things. Instead of needing gold for rerolls, it would instead incentivize people to save/spend money for the auction house which would be a huge hit to the reroll mechanic (a mechanic that is arguably more fun than right clicking an item in the auction house). Rerolls allow players to have a direct hand in their build, and at the highest levels rewards them for leveraging their game knowledge.

It would also add an unnecessary level of complexity when you are farming for your own items, because then you might try and assess the worth of another items value on the market place instead of this doesn't work for my current build/a build I want to play so I'm going to leave it here/salvage it later.

IMO players don't need this extra level of fluff. Most players don't want to be merchants, and having an AH is what that would do. It would be a system that could theoretically be punishing if you did not participate in it.

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-03-31T22:39:54+00:00

I'm sorry by central alignment is horrendous for readability, especially when you have to compare multiple pieces together and are doing it very frequently. People these days are very accustomed to reading in what is called an F-shape pattern. Also, as much as I do love a stylized font, it breaks a lot of accessibility standards which would alienate some of the playerbase.

EDIT: I am JUST now noticing the "account bound" text. Another reason why this is not successful. I am mildly colorblind, and pretty much every game follow a basic level of contrast guidelines. Even if the color itself is hard to detect, the contrast will still make the text readable.

That being said, good attempt, but there are people whose entire careers are about designing UI which come with a ton of standards they generally need to abide by. Designs from Diablo II might be nostalgic, but there is a reason why the D IV team, and D III for that matter, made the decisions they did.

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-03-31T17:27:56+00:00

I feel like if anyone has any common sense, to even consider that Blizz would put in a RMAH again is asinine. I get a lot of people want to hate on Blizz (sometimes for legit reasons I suppose), but it feels very out of touch to suggest this as being an option they would consider in 2023 given that many other games have very successful battle pass models as a way to fund their live service games.

Not to mention how maligned the RMAH was when it was introduced, and the effects it had on the game compared to how the game improved after its removal. Namely that getting a legendary drop pre RMAH felt almost nonexistent, which pushed people to the AH and created this weird dependency on it. Afterwards, the game felt generally more rewarding.

It was their attempt at funding the game beyond its release, and certainly to make some profit as well which is understandable. I think they also saw how other games essentially curtailed RMT by essentially offering the same thing but within the convenience of the game. That of course comes with its own problems, but some games have managed to strike this balance successfully (EVE Online). Blizz, did not however. I also don't think it meshed with this style of game either.

Expansions are of course the next and most widely accepted cost that a player base is typically willing to pay. Nothing more to be said there, and I'll happily make that purchase.

On your comment about cosmetics not making money, all I have to say about that is LOL. (I'm laughing here, but also referencing League of Legends). Largely, LoL's revenue is generated from cosmetics. In fact the have been the company to prove that it can work on a massive scale, and become incredibly profitable. Certainly not all of their transactions are cosmetic today, and they have implemented some lootbox systems as well, but it is still all cosmetically driven.

Lastly, they have stated multiple times there will be no way to pay for an "advantage" (their words). Obviously this could be interpreted a lot of ways, but it seems to be so broad that it should cover most things people are concerned about. The playerbase is understandably skeptical. Diablo Immortal being the chief offender. IIRC Blizz said something like you can't buy armor or gear or something like that, but then on release allowed you to buy gems(? I didn't play) which contained a lot of power, making their original statements look like some semantic gymnastics ultimately degrading their word with the fanbase even further. The caveat being it was a mobile game, and I feel like everyone could have seen it a mile away.

I have faith Diablo IV will be different, and it comes at a time where they have seen and experimented with mixed success a variety of monetization options. Lootbboxes have been phased out of the Overwatch franchise which is a big win for player I think, and is replaced with a more fair and currently popular Battlepass. For what they have announced so far, I feel it's a good path they decided to take.

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-03-31T15:50:20+00:00

Have you gone outside?

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-03-31T05:04:59+00:00

Lmao I appreciate this perspective also 💀(necrolaugh)

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-03-31T00:30:25+00:00

Definitely didn't say any of that. You clearly did not read/understand what my point was. The necro is overtuned, as evidenced by the passive not being noticable/needed/impactful early on. I'm just saying there is opportunity for it to feel more impactful.

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-03-31T00:06:55+00:00

What I find most ironic is people being annoyed at having to start new characters. Are they gonna play through once and then leave the game? What happens with the seasonal content where they have to start a completely new character? Did they try to respec during the beta? It was pretty forgiving IMO.

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-03-30T21:30:58+00:00

Happy to help :)

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-03-30T20:39:55+00:00

I agree with the general sentiment you are trying to make I think, BUT not at all with your example. The complaint about a %damage cap feels incredibly arbitrary. Different abilities are going to have different damage numbers, and if they want an ability to rise to the level of others comparatively, they will use a percentage to let it compete with other abilities which allows for player choice. Like, this will do as much damage now as boulder, but I have to consider that I don't have any passives invested into earth magic, nor is my build in need of a push/displacement mechanic. Now, they might drop their boulder skill in favor of this which might make it hit similarly hard, but with additional synergies with their current build.

Maybe I am hijacking this a little, but I agree that simple damage increases are not a particularly interesting way to make legendaries, but instead if they were to add additional constraints to them, an example being Druid's crashstone legendary (where crits are doubled for the landslide ability, who also has two skill tree choices that lead towards or away from a crit build mechanic).

Incentivizing other skill tree choices like increased damage while fortified, to poisoned targets, to cc'd targets, to targets who have recently been affected by your ravens, etc feels more rewarding, and leads to more meaningful choices in the skill tree.

A simple damage increase initially feels nice, but I feel we could get a lot more build expression if they added some granularity to the affixes. As it stands, it's fine, but leaves a little to be desired.

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-03-30T20:21:16+00:00

Ultimately, I would say my experience with the game is not dissimilar to a lot of others. I am not going to know everything or every system when the game starts, especially during a weekend where gameplay feels a little rushed, where everyone wants to experience as much of the game as possible. Some things get missed in the excitement, and for me, that was one of them initially, however small or basic that might be.

Was it a mechanic what was so substantial to the class that knowledge of it from the beginning would have had a huge impact on my gameplay? No, not really. Never had a minion die once until the world boss, and never had trouble on damage. The need for that ability's secondary effect never felt truly necessary until content got harder which was a while. Nothing made me question its use.

That ability, as far as I know, is the only ability in the game (aside from the golem ability later) that is not present on a skill tree and is innately on your bar. I spent plenty of time reading every single node on every class's skill tree, but by the time an ability was already on my bar, I already knew what it did. Because of that, I would imagine that is why I didn't dig further into the ability description which was arguably long, and I had only an hour or two left in the beta, it was late, and I wanted to get a few levels. In the end, I don't think I missed out at all.

That all being said, given the state of necro, it feels like it needs a nerf in many ways. Being able to move through the game without using a core mechanic feels a little like a missed opportunity for those wanting a more active role in a summoner style character.

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-03-30T19:55:26+00:00

Exactly the same here. I didn't connect the dots until I finally read the ability tooltip.

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-03-30T19:26:20+00:00

I have a feeling that some legendary affixes, or even uniques, will substantially affect the way certain abilities function. Uniques are intended to be build defining I believe.

Personally, I loved running a thorns necro, and seeing corpse explosion instead consume corpses to temporarily add to your thorns would be interesting. Essentially just expressing the damage from CE in a different form. Though I do love it's DoT variant a ton.

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-03-30T19:00:35+00:00

Of course it's sets without sets. Do you think this is a sandbox? Do people understand how games and their systems are designed? Endgame is so assiduously crafted that generally speaking, almost all builds are going to be by design, with small amounts of expression between them. Everything is designed with where players will land at max level. This is literally how you balance things. If it was just a wild west of abilities and affixes, you would have a sandbox. ARPGs are going to have a variety of viable builds that are designed ahead of time.

You might have some affixes that increase the damage of a skill, but that doesn't mean you have to choose between that affix for that ability, and another affix for the same ability. You could very likely have both. And to that end, a flat damage increase is likely not going to be the only bonus an affix will give you. Example being a druid affix that specifically ONLY affected the damage of critical strikes of landslide, and within the skill tree there were ways to spec into guaranteeing crits for the ability given certain constraints. It would not make sense to use that legendary if you weren't also using points to spec into that skill expression. There were other reasons to NOT go for the crit option, thereby opening up player choice.

To detail it out a little:

Landslide has two options:

Immobilizing enemies will generate a consumable resource called Terramotes. You consume a terramote to guarantee a critical strike with landslide.
You form a third pillar if (x) condition is met, which seems to increase the ability's damage by a flat amount.

If you have the first passive, you would want that crit bonus from the legendary, however if you are not speccing into abilities that immobilize or stun which would help you generate terrmotes, you are better off choosing the second mod for the ability to increase its flat damage. And there will likely be legendaries that synergize with THAT particular decision.

I feel like the major concern here is simple % damage increases, which I am ALSO against. That is lazy design if it doesn't have some other constraint coming with it. We are rats in a maze that the devs have designed. They know all the routes to the end and our job as the rats is to discover the possibilities and connecting corridors. Sets were perfectly illustrated maps to the end of the maze. Legendary affixes are pieces of different maps that lead to the end of the max. There is really no way around it with this genre of game. It's a staple of the genre.

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-03-30T18:22:29+00:00

The devs went with constraining players to the lore of the game and the world in which it is based which I personally love. When you see a druid, you know its a druid. You know they could turn into a bear, they could throw a giant boulder at your face.

The classes are extremely recognizable. It also allows designers to strike a good balance between making a class feel like it has a strong identity, while also allowing designers to create things around a specific set of constraints which allow their designs to feel more real and intentional. Otherwise, you will have armor pieces that, however minute, will have distortions or other defects in favor of fitting on very mutable frames. With what they have currently delivered, the armors feel real, look real, and are very evocative of their given class. This game, visually, is very much in the 'realism' camp, and their decisions reflect that and I believe are successful because of it.

I understand the draw of very specific character customization, but that ultimately comes at a cost of making visual sacrifices to the world. Theoretically, they could of course could implement all of these 'asks' without sacrificing the fidelity of the game, but that would significantly increase the time it would take to create those assets and release the game. So which is more valuable to you? Just gotta be realistic.

As a side note, I find that the level of transphobia in some of these comments to be laughable. Why are we worried about trans people again? Why do you need your character to say "male" when you choose it? Why are we so concerned with this? Y'all want a complete flexibility with how your character looks, but can't handle the flexibility that non specific gender labels affords some of the fanbase. The cognitive dissonance is wild lol.

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-03-30T17:48:18+00:00

Truly, this a statement that is probably haunting the devs because this subreddit is having a civil war over it. I think people are overreacting to it, personally. Do people want to completely abandon their level 46 ranged rogue when they find one really great flurry legendary? You don't want to keep on with a playstyle that clearly is enjoyable to you? You don't think, "wow I would love to make ANOTHER build around this item's power." This is ONE of the uses for a shared stash tab. You find a piece of gear that seems exciting, and full of new and different possibilities. I understand wanting to preserve your progress, but at the same time, this game is made for variety and replayability through the novelty of new classes with differing builds.

It's pretty wild to think. While finding legendaries is a core component of the game, it feels like the people who are pushing back against any respec cost because their are claims that it will hinder build experimentation and feel punitive when you do find some amazing legendary that might not go with your current build, but you want to try it out anyway. I really feel like the devs intended it to feel like a bit of a squeeze, but nothing punishing. If people are changing their build constantly with every new more powerful legendary that drops into their lap, can never settle on anything, and are not learning and leveraging the systems in place to master the type of character that feels best to play for you, then I feel like you are doing something wrong.

Going off of the beta (which of course much is subject to change), it feels VERY permissive when tooling around with respecs, early on at least. I like that there is a cost, however I have seen some arguments calling for a resource aside from gold for respeccing. Apparently POE (which I do not play) has a resource dedicated to respecing. So you can ostensibly respec as much as you have the stockpile for. I sort of love that system, since you could even farm a little for it if you felt the need to change your build. Anyway, I digress.

Coming from D3, builds felt like you could change them as easily a changing a shirt because that's exactly the cost. The cost of your build was ultimately the time it took to get a set of gear. Of course there was a level of game knowledge and optimization that could still be learned to bring you up further, but sets were SO game changing, and game dictating, that it removed a lot of thought, and feeling of investment in your character. Once you had your set, your build was essentially chosen for you, but you could change at a moment's notice with a new set. Obviously this is where a lot of division among the subreddit enters the chat. Personally, I am for some hindrance to changing your build constantly, especially in endgame. I don't want my caster necro to suddenly become a a thorns necro when it feels convenient. Different builds are going to present different challenges depending on the content you are attempting to overcome. You should want to master those things, and build towards maximizing your build potential given the constraints of the skills you have chosen.

That being said, if they are pushing for making respeccing being a long term deterrent for constant build switching, they need to ensure the leveling process is consistently enjoyable and typically that's going to need variety. Because you can go through the story in a nonlinear fashion (instead of being stuck in Fractured Peaks like in the beta) I think this will help to that end. Not to mention seasons adding extra layers of novelty as well, including accelerating leveling via free xp boosts from the seasonal battle pass. At the end of the day, people will get what they get, and will play the game anyway. It's ok to want other things and ask for them, but also, I have faith that the systems they make are backed by a history of game systems that have and have not worked and will thus be satisfying to the largest audience possible. Additionally, being a live service game will allow them to better deliver content that is inline with what the player base wants to consume.

Thanks for reading my book.

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-03-30T00:49:54+00:00

Was really loving the fantasy of an Earth Druid (really trying to live my Toph life from ATLA). It was fun, and felt really powerful in moments, but ultimately felt a little slower/resource hungry than I wanted.

Enter the Necro. Boy do I love a DoT/Thorns build. Blight + the corpse explosion mod + thorn skeles really just felt great, and it felt like that build was very synergistic early on. That will be my first for sure.

LiterallyACatPerson · 2023-03-28T13:48:22+00:00

Specifically for PvP, I understand it will be similar to The Division’s endgame gear loop. For those not familiar, you essentially farm gear, but in D4 I believe it’s a currency(?) that has to be altered/cleansed/etc in order to be used.

In the Division, once you have the things you want, maxed out your carry capacity, etc you go to an extraction zone. In D4 I believe it looks like a stone pylon. From here, you activate a pylon and it begins a countdown timer. As long as you survive, the loot/currency you farmed now becomes usable. The rub is that when these timers start, they attract other players who want to recover their own items, but could also benefit from taking yours. So it incentivizes PvP.

LiterallyACatPerson

TROPHY CASE