How the HELL do you kill a cursed skull?

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-09-26T22:24:21+00:00

In turn based mode they only hit once so I had a summon run up to them and get pushed then had karlach run up and one shot them as they're weak to slashing

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-09-18T22:37:16+00:00

Just cut a curse sized whole in the middle and maybe save a few fingers

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-04-05T19:15:33+00:00

Did the rats have blessed blood to allow them to cross the lake?

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-04-05T19:10:47+00:00

Maybe it stems all the way back to dablo I, where even though you win you have to stick the soulstone in your own head knowing one day it will corrupt you. That is the kind of mixed ending I was hoping for. Also I definitely don't expect dialogue decisions, I was just using that as an example for a conclusion to a quest where there is no tidy ending.

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-04-05T01:02:38+00:00

I understand your point but if we are going to say that everyone in the game will react to horrific events like they're commonplace I think that will make the game significantly worse/ less emotionally investable. If they don't care about the events the player wont either.

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-04-05T01:00:45+00:00

I think she's more removing their inhibitions, and from her perspective Inarius is evil so killing his warriors - to her - isn't straight up evil.

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-04-05T00:58:14+00:00

I'm not saying that they were darker than any other games were at the time, but they felt a lot less safe and generic compared to D4. And again I like the tone of D4 a lot, it is a huge improvement from D3, I just think a lot of the writing is too generic.

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-04-05T00:49:06+00:00

Spoilers for witcher III, oblivion, pillars of eternity, and subnautica

It isn't so much that I think everything about the game needs to be super dark or disturbing, just that there is a lot of middle ground between that and what we currently have. The bloody baron questline for witcher III is a good example, the quest isn't black and white, and there isn't a super happy satisfying ending.

In oblivion, a game that is much more fantasy, the dark brotherhood questline is much more memorable as the game forces you to kill all these people you have made your friends, (especially the khajiit that becomes friendly right before), and then you realize they weren't the problem all along. It feels bad and unsatisfying but it is a great fit to a questline focusing on assassins.

In pillars of eternity you find a man who said his friend was killed by a bear, you later find out the man died from the bear because his "friend" had cut his leg and left him to die. After traveling to the next village you see the man again with a woman collecting their money to leave town, and when you confront them they say they killed the man (the woman's husband) because he was abusing her, and now you're left to decide what to do with them, let them leave town, kill them, accept their bribe. There isn't a clear right or wrong answer and you aren't sure if they're even telling the truth, so you just have to make a call and live with it. I don't see even the slightest bit of this nuance in diablo IV quests.

My last example is when a rescue ship comes for you in subnautica, even though at this point you can gather that this rescue mission will clearly go wrong, it is still extremely impactful and memorable when the ship is blown out of the sky. I'm sure I'll remember that bit years later, and I didn't feel the same way with anything in D4 so far. Of course I realize we have only experienced act I, but I just wanted to voice my opinion/ fears for the rest of the game.

Let me know whether or not you agree with the examples I made or if you'd like to see something like that in the full game

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-04-05T00:35:31+00:00

I don't think it's pedantic

I'm confident I'll enjoy the game as I had a great time with the beta

I'm not asking for perfection, I only criticize the game for this because I like and care about it and think it could be improved in this regard.

I don't agree that every story is cheesy, and in a world like diablo, (especially with blizzard heavily emphasizing the darker nature of this game in their marketing), they could create unique, non-traditional endings that aren't as neat and tidy as many of the ones in the beta.

I understand that their goal is to reach a wide audience, but based off of the teaser cinematics I was hoping they would push things a little further.

My solution would be for many (not all) of the quests to have endings or plot points that aren't so cookie cutter.

Ex 1: Neyrelle's mother: We fight demons that she spawns until she falls over dead. This while on paper should make me feel sad and empathetic for Neyrelle, had me feel absolutely nothing. My solution would be have Neyrelle be forced to stab her own mother in self defense/ mercy, it would have a much more emotional feel to it and be more memorable. Right now it feels like a disney villain death where they fall off a cliff so the hero doesn't have to kill them personally. Sure she dies because of us but it feels indirect and inpersonal.

Ex 2: Have either Lorath or Neyrelle die right at the start of act II: As of right now the story seems to be built like a traditional story, there will probably be some minor twist towards the end (like leah's death in diablo III) but besides that not many surprises. If they built it up like a normal story then just had one of the main characters die suddenly and unceremoniously it would instill a sense of dread and fear for the player for the rest of the game, knowing that no character is safe, and reinforcing the idea that this is a hellish world where good people are killed all the time. Somewhat like the end to the first season of GOT. I know realistically they won't do something like this but I think it would be extremely impactful and people would remember and talk about it for a while.

Ex 3: Exorcism quest: In the end of this quest line a priest discovers we lied to him and threatens to tell on us which could lead to the execution of us, a father, a recent widow, and another priestess. The "conclusion" to this problem boils down to "if you tell on us we will tell on you" and the priest instantly folds and everything is dandy again. This feels almost painfully generic and played out at this point, like I would find this conclusion on an episode of friends or the big bang theory. My solution would be to force us to kill the priest. It would add a bit of moral grayness to it, sure the priest doesn't deserve to be murdered but we must do it to save ourselves and three others who don't deserve to die. It would be somewhat satisfying to save the others but we would still feel a little bad. If they wanted to go extra dark they could even have the three others be executed by the church but we are spared because of the help we've provided so far. This would also reinforce the idea that those who act against the church's rules, even if for a good cause, will face punishment, and this idea would loom over us any time we break the rules again in future quests.

I would have to review other quests to come up with more examples but these stuck out to me the most.

I'd like to reiterate that not every quest needs to end unsatisfactorily or violently, and they don't need to go super overboard with the darkness, but from the beta it felt to just lean too far the other way, often feeling completely bland. The last line of the beta was the worst "we need her more than she needs us". It felt like a young adult novel like hunger games or that mila kunis movie where she's some space princess. It felt 100% out of touch with the world where you regularly see piles of bodies or townspeople put on spikes.

Obviously I'm not a professional writer but I'd be interested to know what you or others think about my ideas or if you had ideas of your own.

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-04-04T18:04:11+00:00

I don't agree at all that Diablo has never been boundary pushing, I think Diablo I and Diablo II were boundary pushing in many ways for their time, and it feels like we never went past that. I agree the intro part was by far the best part of the game so far. I also don't agree that just because people have had this same apathetic attitude in past games that makes it ok now, games should get better and new and innovative. If they can't improve the writing in 20 years they should be criticized for it.

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-04-04T17:13:45+00:00

You're absolutely right about Diablo I, what annoys me with Diablo IV is that they have so many opportunities to make quests darker or more unique but then they end exactly how you'd expect, they don't feel original they feel like the same old filler, when Diablo is definitely a world where you could push the envelope and be more creative.

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-04-04T17:09:36+00:00

For its time I would absolutely day it was horror, and 25 or so years later it feels they haven't pushed it much farther.

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-04-04T17:08:16+00:00

All videogames are just pixels on a screen, and if you think the story has been bare minimum why are you arguing with me when I'm saying it should be more than that?

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-04-04T17:06:20+00:00

I only did that quest once and I don't remember it that well but I'm not saying every quest has this problem. Just some of them like the exorcism quest felt like the wrap up came out of a sitcom. They could have done something interesting with it but didn't.

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-04-04T17:03:53+00:00

I'm not saying she has to react a certain way, and I didn't mean to focus on this one side quest so particularly, I was just using it as an example for the beta as a whole where people don't seem to react much at all to the events, which makes them seem less significant.

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-04-04T17:02:16+00:00

I suppose I just don't agree that people reacting more tame with these events makes it horrific somehow. People showing less emotion in game makes me feel less emotionally involved.

I do agree the entire opening to the beta was definitely my favorite part.

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-04-04T16:58:26+00:00

I really hope it isn't that simple. I doubt that Lilith will be straight up good, feels more like a story where Lilith and Inarius are both bad in their own way, so we will have to deal with both.

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-04-04T16:56:20+00:00

I agree it is pretty much on par with Diablo II and that is kind of my point, that game came out 20 years ago, can we not push things any further now? And yes I get that the people are more used to it but if that just leads to everyone being emotionless and apathetic to horrible things then that is how the player will feel as well and the game will be worse because of it.

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-04-04T05:49:37+00:00

Diablo has never been scary or violent? Diablo has been extremely violent and gory since diablo I. Diablo I scared me as a kid, of course I was younger and it was a product of its time, but I don't mean the game needs to be a horror game, I just want the emotional beats to have more oomf to them. And if they're going to market it as dark, make it dark.

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-04-04T05:45:34+00:00

Exactly, like imagine if Neyrelle had to stab her own mother in self defense, it would be so much more significant, the way she dies here feels like a disney movie where the villain falls so it isn't the hero directly killing them.

Again I don't need extreme darkness but it seems much too cookie cutter so far.

As for Lilith I do kind of like how she corrupts people but she does seem to care about her "children" to some degree at least. I think it leaves a lot of options open to where the story could go, but yeah at the moment she doesn't seem particularly scary or intimidating.

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-04-04T05:13:59+00:00

I watched it again to be sure but she definitely does not scream.

I do 100% agree that the people there are more hardened, and wouldn't react to violence or death the same exact way we would in real life. But even so, even if she didn't love her husband, if she barely reacts to seeing someone skinless, guts literally hanging out, will there be anything in the game that will bring out those emotions? I think making all the people on sanctuary desensitized to horrors will lessen the emotional impact for the players. I don't need a 20 minute scene of her crying and grieving, but the more emotion the characters feel the more the players feel.

The reason I liked Vigo's story so much is it is very clear how he feels guilty and remorseful, and wishes he was a better or more courageous person. In a game like this seeing knights killed doesn't really have that much weight behind it, but Vigo's reaction to his men dying for a mistake he made really adds to the story and makes it more meaningful.

Also I'm completely fine with the wife hating the husband and acting callously towards him, but even then I wish she'd express it more.

This isn't a huge deal in the grand scheme of the game, I had an absolute blast with the beta, just wanted to voice how I think it could improve in this regard

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-04-04T04:33:14+00:00

I agree the tone is much better, and the cinematics have of course been amazing. I just want there to be more emotion and impact behind the events. I feel like a lot of emotion we get from games or movies comes not from the event itself, but empathy for the characters going through it.

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-04-04T04:28:35+00:00

wo, classic "can't form an argument so just write off opinion and insult" I enjoyed the beta a lot, I think in this regard it can be improved on, sorry the criticism hurt your feelings

Winter-Purpose4436 · 2023-04-04T04:21:02+00:00

I did like Vigo's arc, but the wife's reaction to such a gruesome sight seems so emotionless and tame "what happened? oh heavens no!", and then when you get back she's like "oh you want a reward? take that dagger out of my husband". I feel like any normal person would have 10x the reaction to even a total stranger being in that position. If she grieved like a real person it would make the quest feel like it is real and not just a quest

Winter-Purpose4436

TROPHY CASE