The fact that someone is doing this, that actually knows what they are talking about is good enough for me. Of course not everyone will agree, but I do believe most do agree and that's what is important. If I had to pick any streamer to have a voice it would be you. You are the most knowledgeable diablo streamer hands down. Plus, you are really good at getting your point across. Keep it up bro!
ty! And yea not everyone will agree and I'm not always right. I'm definitely biased towards a D2 style system and can't always relate to the casual player. But hey, at least it starts good discussion imo
@Held der Spiele the idea I like is he is deeply explaining how and why D2 had such great depth to the game. I don't think he wants every aspect of D2 to go into D4, but I really hope these types of videos open the devs eyes to see how such little things he's explaining make the game fun. The example of resource management for double swing was spot on.
@@MrLlamaSC im just happy someone took this role from the content creator side. Literally every stream that I was watching who did interview with the devs at blizzcon asked questions about how things will differ from diablo3. I'm more interested in what actually will we see coming back from diablo 2, things that worked there. Not a single dev said anything like: "you know how that worked in diablo 2? well thats exactly what we will recreate if not something really close to that experience" and it saddens me. I'm really hoping that they are not totally disconnected from what you explain in these videos, because this is what made diablo 2 great, and to be honest they can give me the same colorful shit that they have done in diablo 3, if the depth is more like diablo 2 I couldn't care less about the shiny items and spells.
Dear Blizzard. PLEASE hear our Llama. He is so correct in all of these points. Whenever you think "no, that's too complex for a casual audience", remember this: Diablo 2 was the highest selling game of all time for a period. Diablo 2 is still alive and well today. Diablo 2 was accessible to me as a dumb, casual 10 year old and I loved it and could understand it. Diablo 3? Well, you know what happened there. Please take all of this into consideration and do not go the D3 route. Thanks for caring enough to make this video, Llama. I can't wait to hear what you have next. Pease do one on items! You touched on it in a great way in this video, but perhaps directly compare some D2 to D3 items? Or even just discuss some D2 items and explain why they specifically are great!
This is the exact feedback i had in mind, hive five to those who understand the meaning of diablo. Please make Review and improvement video on type of combat we want in diablo 4.
Nice video, please keep it up! When you talked about charms and being a separate bag, a solution could be that these bag could drop with in different tiers from small to bigger and bigger charm bags. Possibly add affixes and suffixes to the bag that somehow affect the charms as well for more rarity in the bags.
Dear Consumer, Push for things you want to see in the game and we'll do the opposite just to spite you. PS - Aren't you thankful? Your friends at Blizzard
Thought I wanted a D3 that would be more great content like in D2. That didn't happen. Now that D4 is announced and it looks pretty decent, I realize all I really want is more D2. I'm glad I got away from D2 but I would pay money to get that authentic D2 experience for the first time again. Great video, Llama.
That's exactly what I've been telling my friends over the years, blizzard has the pattern to sucess with diablo and it's Diablo 2, Just polish it and possibly improve in some areas. That's exactly what I'd pay full price for without any hesitations. Unfortunately after seeing devs interviews from blizzcon I'm affraid in diablo 4 we are going to get more diablo 3 than diablo 2, I'm not hyped at all. That's such a shame as I've been a huge diablo and arpg fan in general since diablo 1.
Don’t forget about Diablo 1 I think that the Diablo 1 books have their place as the way to learn and upgrade talents Every classes have the same talents and you need a book to learn/upgrade them. Attributes is the requierment for learning and upgrading This would bring so much build customization
@@Lekthor without the likes of David Brevick who knows what we'll get in the hand. I'm not so optimistic either, but we'll see, let's hope it's decent enough
If you want more Diablo 2, go play Median XL with the multires mod. It's really an amazing take on Diablo 2. Changes almoast everything and it's arguably a better experience. Also finding loot, it itself is not fun. FInding "good" loot is fun. The mountains of garbage you find? That's not fun at all. At least in Diablo 3 Blizzard turned the garbage loot into a resource through crafting materials. So would you rather find more garbage or less garbage? The amount of good loot dropped will not change. Blizzard even tweaked Diablo 3 to drop less garbage loot. I think it all boils down to if the garbage has a value as a resource or not.
They need to hire you man. Thanks for taking your time and putting your well-thought opinions out there, doing a great job for both the community and for the future of this game in my opinion.
Keep on with these series MrLlama! If the developers wanna make a great diablo game the opinions of diablo 2 players should be heard as well. I couldn't name a better spokesman for this.
Thanks for actually highlighting what made d2 great, and why d3 was lacky and casual.. Something very few Diablo content creators talk about for some odd reason. Just found my first Griffon's Eye in D2, and i just sat there looking at it for a solid 5 minute before i identified it. Nothing is more exciting than finding rare loot.
None of the 3 Diablo games were tacky/lacky and/or casual. Each of them is just very different. Diablo 1 though was the scariest of the 3 and had the best atmosphere. Not Hellfire though, best to pretend Hellfire does not exist.
@@MayhemTyphone I know you said that. Secondly we're all allowed to have our own opinions. I just personally disagree with people who think D4 should be A D2 clone. D1 and D3 both have good points too which should be incorporated into D4. If someone wants to play A D2 clone, go play Median XL with the multires mod. Many people feel that's actually better than vanilla D2.
@@the8thark Alright, yeah we definitely are. I never said i wanted D4 to be a D2 clone though.. On the contrary, i would like to see it be it's own thing, but without losing the dark and exciting feeling that comes with a dungeon crawler rpg. I just expressed that they could learn a lot from D2's loot system. As a hardcore Diablo fan/player, yes, D3 is casual trash, and i hope they divert from it as much as possible. P.s, i have over 1,5k hours in D3. - Median sucks.
The statement that stats such as all res, MF, life, half-freeze, faster cast, faster hit rec and etc, are all subjective to the context of your spec, gear and personal choice, killed it! This kind of varied use of interesting suffixes and prefixes on gear makes the players engaged into doing an endless balancing act between different pieces of stats and gear. Finally, it makes the loot hunt all the more feverish when you know that a rare item can have this very small chance of being a god tier piece of gear beating sets, uniques and runewords altogether....brilliant!
I listened to all 58 minutes and 4 seconds of this video in its entirety. I hope the development team for D4 will as well. This is extremely informative, and provides great insight on making development decisions that effect the overall arching gameplay design of a video game. WELL DONE Llama !! -MrBubzTV
not everyone is the same player, but I agree with almost 100% of the things you said in this. my favorite, most accomplished, memory of diablo 2 since beginning in 2001 has been my first Lilith kill. I was a level 80 hammerdin. I had some end-build runewords, but I was far from GG status. Hammerdins aren't super well suited for the fight, and after an hour of failing I came up with a plan to alternate concentration/cleansing auras, constantly switched to my CTA for prevent monster heal and battle cry application. It took maybe a solid 10 minutes, but I did it! none of that would have been doable with the way itemization and resource management is trending
My man! This is awesome. It is the strands of all of these little decisions on gear, on space, on time and build, that create immersion in the game mechanics. Immersion is a multitude of things - obviously aesthetics, story and pace, but also these two excellent points that you make: choices (ressource management) and learning. I've actually written a philosophical essay on the educational value of games; they coach choices both on an instrumental level i.e. ressources and sometimes in a moral way in story and roleplaying. Green and red arrows instead of differentiated types of stats, all adding to defence and attack break immersion in the instrumental way. The story will still be the story, but when you've experienced the story a bunch of times, there is no immersion in that ether. So... The point is - if Blizzard want a game, that players will immerse themselves in for years, they should not make a dumbed down item system. Instead they should listen to what you (and others) are saying and give players a myriade of mirco choices like in D2. I like that you point of the "math" that you as a player make - Blizzard is afraid that math will tire people. But the math here is not real math. It is decision. Blizzard talk a LOT about the math (maybe because the math in D3 was bonkers), and that they just want people to play, not do math. But this simple math IS playing. For me FHR or FCR in D2 was not math when I was younger, it was rhythm. I stacked FCR until I could 'feel' the spells coming in the sequence I wanted. I stacked FHR until I could teleport or run away without getting stun-locked. I was 11 or 12 years old back then and I promise you, that "math" was NOT boring. When I got older I studied the break points, but come on.. Reaching 65 FHR is not an overly complicated math problem, and when I did, I felt proud to have built an FHR melee sorc!
Jesus man that chaos sant scenario really had me in the feels there. You took me back when i use to do chaos runs in vanilla D2 back when Lord De Seis use to knock the potions out of your belt with his fireballs and beyond, where my necro would just be forever stunned locked in all of its 56k glory.
-the choice of id an item or not plays a huge role in d2 trading (importance of having the choice to id an item) -good point on cooldown and use of resources.. -they should get away from items showing if they are better than the current equiped (green arrow up or red arrow down) some of the endgame gear in d2 were rare (yellow) or even magic (blue items) or even socket gear (used for rws) -the identity of a character in diablo is essential -rune system brought a whole new level into diablo2 -also i think its nonsense to make those dmg numbers like in d3 where it went up to gazillions of dps (simplicity is the key) Thanks for your thoughts and videos they bring back nostalgia :)
Hello Llama, i personally have about 5000+ hours of D2 LoD. Mostly Softcore Ladder Resets with lots and lots of trading and PvP. I probably made a good 200 characters above lvl 90 and enjoyed every single minute of playing. You're speaking out of my heart. It's rather difficult to grasp all of these concepts from D2 LoD and make sense of them, quantifying and analyzing their qualities. Thank you for that! Hopefully the devs will have time to watch all of your Feedback Videos, or like the entire Feedback Series... I am looking forward to a D2 Remaster. However if they consider all of your, and of many other people's great ideas, advices i'd even pre-order D4. Sure early stage of development currently, but we all want a true successor to D2. Not another D3 Arcade game... Edit: We all know that game producing costs have increased immensely, but If we get a true D2 Successor i, and probably alot of other diehard fans would be willing, not to pay the regular 50-70 Euros but probably 200-300€ for a game that'll last multiple decades due to it's depth.. Please hear us out.
Dude diablo 4 should be paying you. You should ask them to get involved. Your d2 following is huge. Your feedback will make them hundreds of millions. Make sure you get paid. Get on it!!!
seing your subscriber count growing since D4 announcement is heart-warming, hope you'll get even bigger, it'd be convenient, considering the amount of work and knowledge you put out. Go go MrLlama !
I'm not all the way thru the video yet, but this video so far really made me realize that ALL the good things about D2 really all boil down to Risk vs. Reward. It seems like EVERY THING in D2 was somehow tied to a risk/reward system... This kept the game fresh and allowed players to feel much more in control at all times.
You know what ? Beside the fact that I like your content (especially sorc ubers and speedruns), when I first saw you in your diablo IV demo and heard you telling all that was not like diablo II, I thought you were a bit too diablo II obsessed ... But you just explained it all in a way a game designer would, and you are right. I could'nt have said better. You just nailed it, not by the examples you took, but the principle to make so that making decisions actually matters and makes you regret or be proud. That's the exact thing that is missing in Diablo III, more than that gritty atmosphere imo. Thank you, I really hope you're wrong when you say they won't care your opinion anyway ...
D2 really was perfect in so many ways. The only thing that could make me happier is balancing the character's damage a little more and then all they would need is to act act 6-10, add new items, and raise the skill cap
Yes, we should really hope that the Diablo IIII team gets the revelation/thought "why is Diablo II being praised by the ARPG community (or atleast why is Diablo II being praised by the Diablo community) and what was it/what is it that worked so good in that game?" I read something that someone wrote in this context: "Why invent a wheel again if you already have invented a wheel before?" Perfect metaphore because - a wheel doesn't have to look perfect to function - it only needs to be a wheel to function. Same thing with a Diablo game - it just needs the originality of "the wheel". It should also be mentioned; this particular Diablo II "wheel" has proven to be a very steady and stabile type of wheel - it should be taken into consideration.
In order to have a charm pouch you can't be allowed to place charms in your inventory. If not you'll have charms on both places at endgame. Which means you need to start the game with one. Smaller or not is something for the Devs to decide.
You sound out the deep thoughts of so many of us, that has had hard times explaining our thoughts to actual words. Thank you, so nice to hear someone who really knows this stuff inside out. I'm not saying it all has to be exactly as you said, not at all, but the bigger thing that I gathered from this was, that you drew out really well the FEELING that those mechanics give us, and THAT is the important part. I love how much you emphasized the player's identity, reason and meaning. For me personally, the potion mechanics is by far the biggest mystery, I can't seem to come up with any good solutions. I love the D2 skill style where your resource is mana instead of cooldowns, and you actually need mana because A: you don't one shot monsters, and B: some skills are pretty mana heavy. But then again, I don't like crazy potion spam. One solution could be finite potions in one stack that you need to collect (or not?), and potion inventory (as was in D4 demo), also for mana/resource. Have like a 10 second cooldown on the potions, but the cooldown can stack usages up to like 5-10 potions each (depending how powerful they are) before actually going back to "can not use, wait a moment". Then you could engage risky situations knowing you have few potions to use before panic. Then again, that would make less risky situations and "slow pace" feel too safe and easy.
MrLlamaSC It's awesome to see your channel growing! I've been popping in here and there and its GREAT to see you're at over 60k subs now! I played Diablo 2 religiously from it's release until about 2009. I just got out of 8th grade. It was summer time. I had about 100 bucks to go to the beach with a friend and his family. We went to best buy for some forgotten reason, but I saw Diablo 2 there and I absolutely had to buy it. Needless to say I had about 30 bucks for the beach. Best allocation of funds ever. That beach trip came and went but Diablo 2 gave me thousands of hours of entertainment(in the decade I played). Brand new Diablo game and summer time just hit. It was all too perfect.
Amazing video. Everyone working on diablo 4 NEEDS go into a big meeting room and watch this video along with your future vids of this sort. Its the ONLY way they can save the diablo legacy.
Funny thing they said Diablo IV was going to be about darkness, world and legacy. Funny thing they said they wanted to honor what Diablo II was/is. Still we are here with so many questionmarks about so many things regarding Diablo IV. Will they honor the true legacy of Diablo or just make another game like Diablo III?
If the best items in the game are bind on pick up, then blizzard doesnt understand shit. Everyone shouldnt be able to find every item in the game. That makes searching for loot pointless and just a boring task you have to do for endgame. And it sounds like items dropping in higher "quality" the higher you go, makes running things below it pointless. You need to be able to find very good items that you will use for a long time at any point in your progress. Also, this whole transmog thing has to go. Badass looking items should actually be badass. The greatest part about getting a very rare item is finally equipping it and being proud of how dope you look. Visual progress is an important element that transmog takes away from. If everyone is running around with glowing insane looking weps that they achieved thru no merit of their own, it takes something away from the whole process. If crafting isnt a true end game activity, its an epic fail.
Thanks Llama for putting in the time to think about and articulate your thoughts. It's made me also think more about where I derive value/intrigue/enjoyment in games rather than it being artificially dictated. Even just comparing LoD and Median XL, there's things I like more about each. Hope we both get a D4 we love, keep doin your thing :)
Once again MrLlama, 10/10 talk about diablo content. I really hope Diablo 4 devs are watching your videos. You need to be hired by blizzard ASAP. I'm looking forward to future content.
Dear Blizzard: If you want to pay homage to Diablo 2 and bring the game back to its roots, then a darker atmosphere is NOT going to cut it. Take a serious listen to what this dedicated veteran has to say about the things that once gave this series an incredible degree of depth and creativity. ***I cannot sit by and watch blizzard give D4 this scuff ass skill system from D3 and then have them tell me that they brought the game back to its roots.*** Sincerely, Everyone who was disappointed by Diablo 3
david kim! listhen this guy and change things! D4 items and stuff going to rong direction. No etherials, no use for whites, no use for blues, no magic found, no lvl req no durability! we need more diablo 2 or diablo 2,5 game with better grafics, just listhen to this guy is the voice of the community!!
TL;DR cooldowns are a bad limitation that makes no sense. PS : I miss 90s/earlier 00s RPG's exactly because they had no cooldowns, no handholding, no railroading, etc. M&M VII was my first RPG
For me the most fun part of diablo 2 was the usefulness of magical (blue) and rare (yellow) items. Even in "late game" there were some best in slot rare items (gloves, rings, amulets, boots etc), however the chance to get these rare items with perfect stats was pretty low. This makes player feel excited about every item in the drop, not only uniques/legendaries. In Diablo 4 Blizzard are making the same mistake they made in Diablo 3 (considering information from system and feature panel). Legendaries are better in every way than the rare items AND they have an additional affix. In my opinion it would be better to have 4 affixes on every rare item like was shown in presentation, but legendaries should have 3 regular affixes instead of 4 + 1 unique legendary affix. This will make rare items much more valuable and player for example could decide does he want to have 3 fireballs per cast instead of 1 from legendary item OR additional +1 to all skills from rare item and sacrifice some damage/armor numbers. Also new runewords look boring and unoriginal. In my opinion to make them better Blizzard should add both condition AND effect affix to every rune. In that case we could make some awesome combinations where 1 rune procs the others. For example we can make KoVexPulThul runeword, where rune Ko gives you a %chance to stun an enemy when you deal fire damage, rune Vex gives you chain lighting spell proc every time you stun an enemy, rune Pul gives you %lifesteal of you lighting damage spells and rune Thul increases your resistances when you lifesteal. Maybe it's not the best example but I think you got the idea... Sorry for my bad English, just wanted to share this with somebody.
Great video. I think the most important topics you touched on imo are the cooldowns on skills and the complete lack of permanency of character build/identity. Both of which have me really concerned about D4. While I think cooldowns can have a place if used very sparingly and short, for the most part I dont think they belong in an arpg and from what I saw of the D4 gameplay many skills have a ~10 second cooldown if not more. And the fact that they said you can max all skills on your character and respec talents at any time means there wont be a reason to have 2 or more of any one class. Very underwhelmed so far.
I agree with the resource management thing, pretty good point. But what I agree the most is the characters with personality, SO important! How many barbarians I created, and how different they were in D2. So much fun.
When you started talking about your actions it made me think about chess, if you move a piece your opponent reacts to that and you have many options when it's your turn to counter. If you had rules like you can't move that piece again for 3 turns, that cooldown only has a negative impact when you need to move that piece again next turn. Combat becomes simple when you can't choose your strategy in the moment.
It does honestly depend on the game. I absolutely agree that cooldown have little place in an arpg. But for example Divinity Original Sin, would have to be completely reworked without cooldowns on abilities. Another example which is not technically cooldown but it still limits your options in a similar way is something like spells in Baldurs Gate. You can only cast so many spells until you rest so you really need to consider if its actually worth using right now which means you might not have it later.
This is such a great video, thank you for doing this Llama, we're really lucky to have you as the figurehead of our community ! :) That's exactly what is needed right now, constructive ideas and breakdown of "things that make things great". When you think about it, it's SO hard to get what *actually* makes things good in a game. It reminds of the Wow Vanilla case. Anyway, great video and thanks again :)
Thanks MrLlama for the great video! I hope the devs will start to appreciate the things, that are not necessary for an ARPG to sell or to be short fun! Only with them in the game, people will play it for centuries like D2.
I've been telling my friends over the years, blizzard has the pattern to sucess with diablo and it's Diablo 2, Just polish it and possibly improve in some areas. That's exactly what I'd pay full price for without any hesitations. Unfortunately after seeing devs interviews from blizzcon I'm affraid in diablo 4 we are going to get more diablo 3 than diablo 2, I'm not hyped at all. That's such a shame as I've been a huge diablo and arpg fan in general since diablo 1.
They should just change Diablo 3 and 4 to World of Warcraft w/ Diablo characters. That's what D3 feels like to me. From the boss fights, to the graphics, to the general 'co-operative' gameplay (like having healers, tanks, etc), the weird hit points (numbers) that appear when you hit monsters, how fights look on screen. So many elements. I never played WOW, but watched a friend play it many times, and it hit me on the head hard when I saw it, comparing it to Diablo3, noticing the overlap between them. When you're using a team that has WOW devs / programmers / designers / management on it, not Diablo 1 or 2, then what do you expect I suppose? I guarantee D4 will still be far more like D3 than it will be like D2. I predicted D3 would be very different to / nothing like D2 (was easy prediction, since they kept on announcing alot, and various comments from devs suggested so even real early on, Jay Wilson barely played D2). And I predict same with D4, it will be far more like D3 than D2. D3 is fresh on their mind, many even worked on D3 and are still there. Many wouldn't have even played D2, let alone worked on it (none of them). D4 won't be exactly the same as D3, the WOW devs will implement new changes, but it will still be far more like D3 than D2. Rather easy prediction imo, as sad as it is to say. Better people realize this now, and accept it, rather than get their hopes up over the next few years. It isn't going to happen.
Hello from the future, MrLlama!! Loved this whole video on resource management and I think I have another idea(and it might be a stupid idea but I'll leave it up to YOU to decide that). I really like the idea of having "break points" for your stats as well as IAS/FCR etc. SO, here's my idea: Take "Frenzy" for example. You get your skill up to lvl 20(ala Diablo2 style) but now you have an option to assign your attribute points to hit certain break points on frenzy(or skill X). So, if you focus on strength and hit that break point(that you can easily hit for a casual), you would get increased damage for frenzy. If you focus some points in to DEX, you would get increased attack speed ON FRENZY, VIT could give +%healing and %life on hit, and INT could give you +3 stacks of frenzy. There would have to be some serious tuning, of course because you don't want to be locked to best in slot skill/attribute points, BUT it would be really cool if you could have the base frenzy but have increased attack speed(and the attack rating/defense) based on my increased DEX. I really liked the idea of the "angelic/demonic/whatever" items they brought for D4, BUT I don't think it would work as well. I think if you tied attribute break points to skills, you could come up with some really funky builds. Just my opinion but I would LOVE to see that extra customization. It would be super cool to have a barb that wasn't all brawn, but instead focuses on DEX and INT for extra speed and more stacks. But it would come at a cost of raw damage and would be tough to hit those break points. It would require some serious skill planning. Thanks for reading this, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this idea. I'm here to answer any questions if I didn't explain something correctly.
Before you read through this - this is just my opinion. I played thousands of hours of D2, D3, Grim Dawn etc. Instant heal no CD potion: The limit is how much time you spend farming them ... is that really resource management? Or "go away if you don't spend the first hour playing, farming something" - I completely disagree on that point. Inventory Space: It is total BS for the normal player. You don't make decisions - this is only relevant for the speed-run, for everyone else "Inventory full" means: Stop Fun -> Port home -> Sell stuff -> Port back. For charms though, tetris-inventory would be fine. Spell CD: Even in a game with CDs there are always a few skills without which are resource generators / filler spells that will usually do around 20-70% of your damage depending on the spec. It's not like you never press anything between CDs when you want to optimize. When we look at the D4 Sorc, do you want to stay in the dangerous spot to get one additional icebolt off (no mana) so that you have enough mana for the next fireball, or could you die bc of that decision? So instead of doing Fire->Fire->Fire->Fire-Fire, you go Fire->Ice->Ice->Ice->Fire. Than you can make the Fireball actually look better and give it a bit more oomph. People still click all the time though, nothing changes in that respect. Simply speaking though, if you make all spells into filler spells, they will look boring and you will spam them 5 times before clicking the other one 5 times instead of making one of them stronger also visually more appealing, put a CD on it and now you could do a 3 vs 7 in the same time while it makes it a question of skill if you use the 3 times effectively. Items: It may be that they are afraid of a WoW situation - having to pay external websites to discover what items are best. Stats/respec: In Grim Dawn you put all into one stat and the rest where you need it for gear. I dislike that a lot. If you can't reset them often, it's actually a reason for me not to buy the game. This is very important. If simple respeccing were not possible and I found something I want to play but can't before I put another 10hours in leveling with shit I've already done millions of times, oh god no. I love trying new stuff, change a few points, try again, change again, try again - I spend whole days doing that. I'm not a teenager anymore. I have 3 hours at home every day. I don't want to use that leveling the same Sorc grind I've already done 2 times just to respec. I would not be able to compete at all, and (as I said, I played those games for thousands of hours) this would not be enough for me. I'd watch your stream about it, but never would spend money on it because I don't have the time. If you think that still will get you more sales - sure, I don't mind, times change, I do - me playing D4 is not necessary, I will find something else. So even if someone thinks "fuck off casual" I will even if you wouldn't have told me. This is in fact the most time I will ever invest anymore into this game before it releases. And if it's not for me, probably my last post about it.
I can honestly say i agree with exectly every word you say Mr.Llama. I really hope that the devs will take notes:) I feel that we need more ARPG to diablo going forward and less mmo and rts elements. Keep up this amazing work!
Nail on the head with this llama. I really don't understand this contrived fascination with cooldowns in ARPGS, while simultaneously instilling resources bars. What's the point in expending resources to cast the skill, when the resource isn't the limiter to facilitate it's use. In diablo 2, certain skills have longer cast/uptimes, and basically serves as the cooldown (you can't re-cast the skill again until the animation has completed). Blizzard could even integrate some of the limitations they feel are necessary, by getting creative with the actual spell animations themselves. With that said, I wouldn't mind if there were different tiers of skills that operated differently- like perhaps you have basic skills like fireball that are limited only by your resource (mana), and in fewer scenarios- "ultimate" final-tier type abilities that have greater AEO/DPS, requiring blunt cooldown timers for balancing reasons (PVP), but the main priority should absolutely be to ensure that the resources remain not only relevant, but the main focus.
I would be for Darksouls like potions - set numbers of potions per game, per dungeon or something like that. Also the Dodge mechanic would be great if it would work as in Darksouls.
Great Video. One other great point which you could have touched on is Upgrading items in D2 which was introduced I believe with patch 1.10. Upgrading items made those lower tier unique items worth something again in NM and Hell difficulty e.g. Upgrading the weapon to a higher base to gain higher damage (Ribcracker) or upgrading a decent low tier belt to gain more Potion slots (e.g. Goldwrap). Keep up the good work!!
Great job MrLlama!! Blizzard would be lucky to have someone as passionate as you. Mr Blizzard, hire MrLlama and make the diablo franchise amazing again.
I'm still trying to figure out what about this game is actually derived from D2. The more I think about it, the more it's pretty much only the aesthetics. "But it's three years away!" Yes, but why is their starting points for pretty much every system rooted in D3 and not in D2 then? That gets me really worried... To me, you can't just take the aesthetics, "darkness" and mood of D2 but ignore the rest. It's a complete system where the other components also adds to how oppressive and "dark" it feels. It's like you have to fight and learn how things work to get results, and nothing is served on a silver platter to you. If you eff your build up on your first character, for example, you should be punished. Having every mistake you make be correctable isn't "dark" at all. There's gotta be consequences for screwing up. Right now it feels like they want a game where the average player can't screw up on any part. Equip whatever item that has a green arrow on it, spam your generators and then your burners, pop your cooldowns, the monsters scale to your level so you don't have to worry about walking into the wrong area, etc etc. Which to me is so boring and un-"dark". EDIT: The fact that they're releasing it simultaneous on PC and consoles is also a massive red flag to me. Sorry guys for being a Debbie Downer, but it's not looking good right now. The aims and current targets of this project are just not aligned with what us D2 fans want.
Agree 100% This is why i cant get more than 15 minutes into D3 before I zone out and "let the game tell me how to play" Followed by a quick alt-f4 as i realize there is no fun in this
You are so right in so many aspects! I would like to add to your thoughts about health. They took away the DII way of using potions, since it's hideous going to town to get more, right? What if you increase the hp-recovery rate, and then only use health potions for immediately gain health like the rejuvenation potion. But this could only be found after drops, and is quite scarce. Or by it for insane amount of money (maybe scaling price, depending on how many you buy or how much money you/your party have). And the belt is good in DII. Should be same in D4, but skip regular potions, instead add ability to gear/runes to heal faster and so on. Really liked the potion/book store in DI, should bring that which back, selling all kinds or rare potions increasing your stats for a few minutes. Maybe, you should have infinite space in the belt but just keep adding slots to more kinds of potions as you get a better belt?
hey mr llama your biggest fan blue4 here. i agree with you on cooldowns. but i got my version of balancing it and i want to hear your opinion on it. lets take blizzard spell for instance: if you spam it, it is OP. make it so you can have only one blizz at a time (like armagedon in d2). you can spam it but you only reset timer and change position. and it have relatively high mana cost so if you spam it you run out of mana pretty fast. no potions so you have to use some other spells that dont cost mana or mana generator spells (like in d3). its a good way for skill/spell resource management/balance.
Haven't watched the whole this yet. But I think the most important thing to keep from DII is the skilltree. For replayability you should not be able to change the skilltree, at all! (Not only-in-town or so...) Maybe ok changing once, as in the DII expansion.
Love the ideas, most of them I share (especially a charm bracelet/necklace/bag that can only hold X amount). My big ones: D2 stamina was not implemented the way I think they wanted but they left it in which was a bad decision. I like the Stamina system Wolcen currently has, (start with 4-5 and can be gained from passives and items) and it is used for dodge rolls. Maybe evasive skills in D4 will be tied to a stamina system like that so you can't always be dodging; making the game a rolly polly farce. Also, in pvp as D4 has declared they want, knowing your opponent has limited dodge rolls can be a factor you watch for while fighting. With how D3 made smart loot, items dropping for specific classes, I feel as though each class should be able to have it's own skill management resource like fury, mana, spirit etc. Items can drop with a "resource management" affix that will roll for a specific class. If the game goes with shared loot then that can increase trading potential. I agree with the CD problem. For me, ARPGs should have very limited cooldowns and probably limited to Ultimate skills and maybe small CDs (under 1-2s) for some strong CC skills. Because ACTION is built right into the name, if the most effective way to kill monsters is to use CD linked skills then once your skills are on CD you have to just run around. I don't think we need TP scrolls anymore, but I loved the process of having to ID an item you find out in the wild. You could run back to town, or if you have some on you then you can discover this epic item on the go. Stash space shouldn't be a hinderance. If items are all going to be the same size then you don't need a very large inventory space, varied sizes of items would warrant a large player inventory. But I do think you should be able to have a large storage space in town (and be account wide since the game is online) and maybe you can increased stash size via in-game currency or quests. I think that is all for now. Loved the video! Can't wait for D4!! **one edit: where you said "make things go sideways" when it comes to choice, this is huge! Horizontal depth is just as important as damage/defense increase in these games. It makes the game cool.
A thing which I love about the D2 inventory is how bulky it is. Every piece of gear is visually represented well in size which gives you a bit of immersion. But other than that, the whole graphic of the gear is much bigger and more visually impactful, which also make it more memorable
I so strongly disagree with you about using potions as a resource. They're essentially unlimited in D2. It's one of the things that makes that game bad.
You use one resource (gold) to buy potions, you open a chest/poppable to find a potion and you kill a monster and find a potion - is that really that awful? If there are things that make Diablo II a bad game (which it really isnt - it might have some bad elements in it but its not a bad game overall) - the potions surely isnt one of those things.
I'm a new viewer and I love the fact that at the start of your video you admit that "I don't believe I am always correct, I don't think that the D4 developers need to hear this to make a great game... etc". A lot of people would never admit those things and honestly do wholeheartedly believe their way is the best and only way to make games good. Thumbs up just for that!
In my opinion, what made D2 great were the hard skill trees (allowing for many different builds), set items/rune word combinations, dark atmosphere, great story line, STATIC loot tables, and most importantly, the ability to TRADE items found in the world with other players. The last part is the most important IMHO. As you farmed NM/Hell Mephisto for certain drops that YOU wanted, you were more than likely also going to find items that you didn't need, but could use to trade for items you wanted. That's what helped take some of the RNG out of the game and allowed people to form fully built characters quicker than if everything was 100% self found. IF D4 can include these things, like static loot tables, trading items, and hard skill trees. It will be great.
Awesome, I think one thing worth mentioning as a resource is the player's attention spam. The first iteration of D2 and D3 were very different in this. While D3 you would just fly through the game and pretty much learned everything there is to learn in the first hour of playing, D2, on the other hand, made sure that new players use their first few normal runs to get knowledge and learn the concept of character creation/progression ( I know now everyone just google builds, but it wasn't always like that :). That's key because you are rewarding the player by allowing them to complete the game, while also enticing that they have to step up their game in order to survive the next difficulties. Like you said, If you have to think to make decisions your brain will be caught in a reward cycle.
Good points. Every decision should have a consequence. Giving people the ability to have it all with very little decision making gives your character no personal identity. I think the inventory tetris is important because it makes items feel like real possessions instead of little boxes with rarity color.
In regards to charms. How would you feel about having the ability to convert them into permanent. Like, find a rare ass shrine that converts 1 chosen charm into a permanent buff, giving you the inventory space back without losing the buff Edit for clarity. These shrines would be super super rare and maybe cost a high end crafting material or unique item sacrifice. Like those skill tomes they were speaking of. Trade off the extra skill for charm buff and inventory space. Points on respec. 100% spot on.
A point to the "One Item, one slot": If you scale the needed inventory space with the 'actual' size of the weapon, lets say 8 slots for a scythe and 2 for a dagger creates a prioritisation of smaller items over larger ones. When you play with a dagger, you can collect like 10 in your inventory, can compare and then decide what you want to play with, maybe store one or two for later. With the scythe it is only two or three. You can compare them, at the moment, but store? You need 4 times the space in your chest to do so. Over time this shrinks the possible choices to create builds, since you can stash fewer weopons and will eventually drop them, to make room for 4 daggers, which you can use in 4 different builds. So you are less likely to play a build with a scythe, since you have fewer scythes in your stash to test with and you will rather play a build with a dagger, since you have 4 times the options lying around in your stash. In making all items 'the same size' you compensate that. Wanna play dagger? Fine, 2 slots. Wanna play scythe? Fine, 2 slots. The aesthetic aspect of the 'actual' size is not worth that flexibility. Have a nice day :)
Just wondering what you thought about this idea I had for D4. The idea is the user can choose whether a certain skill could be cooldown, or resource cost. So your hydra could have a 5 sec cooldown or cost 20 mana or something like that. That way, the user has the flexibility and you could take away any cooldown if you want.
the potions cooldown makes sense. its like drinking a pint of beer. one pint can be done very quick, but try to put 7 large glasses to your lips at the same time. you may empty all glasses, but it will be all over your tuxedo.
Every point you made just solidifies my opinion that d2 is a masterpiece. I don't know how much of it was deliberate, but man they did so many good decisions it's crazy.
He talks BS for an hour, then if you actually play the game it’s get grushed to level 80 and then every class teleports around with enigma spamming the same skill vs everything they fight.
@@Applest2oApples exactly, taking d2 as the base for anything is ridiculous. It's a shit game in the grand scheme of things. If anything they need to take Poe into consideration.
@@gh0un Guess what poe was made to be like? Diablo 2. The devs show it in their work and openly discuss the process of how d2 molded their view of what could be a good arpg. Poe is the successor to d2 (not d3) in my opinion, but saying d2 is trash is just an objective falsehood and you'd be saying poe is trash by proxy. And about talking bs for an hour, lol. If you play cookie cutter builds which I'm sure you also do in poe, then sure you don't see the intricacies. Like llama said, you decide how well or how thoughtful you want to be while playing the game. That's the beauty. You may be able to kill hell baal on your crappy hdin but I can tell you anyone on gm pvp today would 50-0 you straight with ease. Then you'd see what actually playing the game looks like.
22:30 when you talk about action recovery in the Chaos Sanctuary, I am SERIOUSLY reminded of how the Diablo series was originally made to be a turn based game.
@@The-cyber-imbiber D2 was designed as a real time ARPG from the beginning :) only D1 was initially turn based. However probably some of the ideas went into D2 as a result of D1 starting out like that. D1 also had even more action recovery in place.
@@The-cyber-imbiber Do it with energy shield sorc with merc using insight, so your mana constantly regenerates. Or do you mean no items as in no gear also? lol.
@@yamchadragonball6983 25 frame and breakpoint limitation in D2 is not because it was turn based and then sped up. It was the game engine. Only D1 was turn based and even then only during the initial phase, before they removed the turns and sped it up.
I think the best mechanic regarding a shared stash is that you have to "earn" it somehow for each character. Maybe like the Horadric Cube in D2, some end-game quest, or maybe by a kind of crafting mechanic. The reason being that I don't think it's good for a newly created character to have immediate access to all of your other available uber equipment, and it also creates a goal for the player to reach a specific point in order to gain that access.
i agree with everything you said... though one other way to replace skill cooldowns is having diminishing returns on effect if used over short periods of time... it gives a lot of depth when deciding if u want to spam or not... (e.g. a fire dot that doesn't stack, but you can still spam for the impact damage)... having very short cooldowns on SOME skills can also provide depth if you can decide whether to use fcr or not depending on what skills you use (e.g. frozen orb). a third way to create cooldowns is to have multiple resources to manage instead of just mana or equivalent (e.g. sin charges or perhaps even a new use for stamina)
Charms were unique, because they didn't have to equipped to have effect, but you have to give up some inventory space. The bracelet would be a good idea, but only if it functions like an inventory. Because if it itsn't, then charms basically just become equipment. If it's a little inventory, like a 3x2 one, then it would be a good compromise because +you can't fill up your main inventory with charms, causing a lot of hassle. (because if you can, you would) +there is still a small level of inventory management because you have to decide whether you use 1 grand, 1 large, 1 small, or just 6 small charms.
Quick thought: I think what you’re really talking about here is the importance of diverse resource interactions and having those interactions be balanced by cost rather than by force (i.e. a cooldown). For instance in Diablo 2 you can have as much manna as you want, basically, as long as you are willing to pay the gold and use the inventory slots for manna potions. So, essentially, you are able to turn your gold and inventory slots into something that helps you fight monsters faster and more sustainably. If you don’t want to spend the gold or sacrifice the inventory slots, you can still fight, but you won’t have access to the large amounts of mana and will have to take a more cooldown-like approach. Another example: being able to spam 7 rejuvenation potions in three seconds seems OP but the cost of acquiring those rejuvenation potions and the space they fill in your inventory, help balance out the crazy power the potion offer. So the main point I am seeing here is that the game is more fun win you are asked to manage a diverse number of resource types, but you are able to convert one type of resource into another type in interesting ways in order to boost your power in a fight or give yourself a higher chance of finding magic items or increase your inventory space. And these interactions are balanced by COST instead of some arbitrary limiting factor like a cool down. It’s these kinds of interactions that make Diablo 2 fun and that get diluted in a lot of diablo knockoffs. Rich resource interaction is what we’re looking for. And the beauty of it is that you get a lot of depth without pushing away casual players. Casual players can still play and have fun without optimizing their resource interactions.
PoE's flask system for health and mana management is one of the best I've seen. Sure, at later stages the game speeds up so much it gets almost redundant but the flasks themselves are a great system. Pros: -No mandatory shoping time that does not impact economy. Cons: -Can't fill whole backpack with potions.
I don’t know, I’ve been thinking about the town portal scrolls. I have vivid memories of having to manage my open portals and scrolls. Especially in the beginning in act 1 and 2. Having to decide wether I want to buy the tome or risk it and hope I find some so I can repair my gear! Or I die and left open a portal in Duriels lair!
The fact that someone is doing this, that actually knows what they are talking about is good enough for me.
Of course not everyone will agree, but I do believe most do agree and that's what is important.
If I had to pick any streamer to have a voice it would be you. You are the most knowledgeable diablo streamer hands down.
Plus, you are really good at getting your point across.
Keep it up bro!
ty! And yea not everyone will agree and I'm not always right. I'm definitely biased towards a D2 style system and can't always relate to the casual player. But hey, at least it starts good discussion imo
@Held der Spiele the idea I like is he is deeply explaining how and why D2 had such great depth to the game. I don't think he wants every aspect of D2 to go into D4, but I really hope these types of videos open the devs eyes to see how such little things he's explaining make the game fun. The example of resource management for double swing was spot on.
we agree.
@@MrLlamaSC im just happy someone took this role from the content creator side. Literally every stream that I was watching who did interview with the devs at blizzcon asked questions about how things will differ from diablo3. I'm more interested in what actually will we see coming back from diablo 2, things that worked there. Not a single dev said anything like: "you know how that worked in diablo 2? well thats exactly what we will recreate if not something really close to that experience" and it saddens me. I'm really hoping that they are not totally disconnected from what you explain in these videos, because this is what made diablo 2 great, and to be honest they can give me the same colorful shit that they have done in diablo 3, if the depth is more like diablo 2 I couldn't care less about the shiny items and spells.
@@Khealim D3 is only something, because D2 was everything.
Words of wisdom.. I suggest Blizzard to stay a while and listen.
D3 cooldowns make it impossible to break the wall of time.
In d2, actions per minutes and SKILL matters and improve the efficiency.
Dear Blizzard.
PLEASE hear our Llama. He is so correct in all of these points. Whenever you think "no, that's too complex for a casual audience", remember this: Diablo 2 was the highest selling game of all time for a period. Diablo 2 is still alive and well today. Diablo 2 was accessible to me as a dumb, casual 10 year old and I loved it and could understand it. Diablo 3? Well, you know what happened there. Please take all of this into consideration and do not go the D3 route.
Thanks for caring enough to make this video, Llama. I can't wait to hear what you have next. Pease do one on items! You touched on it in a great way in this video, but perhaps directly compare some D2 to D3 items? Or even just discuss some D2 items and explain why they specifically are great!
Not going to lie...they should hire him to help make this game.
For goodness sake, at least let him be an advisor -- someone to bounce ideas off of with no promises.
This is the exact feedback i had in mind, hive five to those who understand the meaning of diablo.
Please make Review and improvement video on type of combat we want in diablo 4.
Nice video, please keep it up! When you talked about charms and being a separate bag, a solution could be that these bag could drop with in different tiers from small to bigger and bigger charm bags. Possibly add affixes and suffixes to the bag that somehow affect the charms as well for more rarity in the bags.
Dear Blizzard
Plz listen to Mrllama!!
Thank :D
amen
Preach
Dear Consumer,
Push for things you want to see in the game and we'll do the opposite just to spite you.
PS - Aren't you thankful?
Your friends at Blizzard
Thought I wanted a D3 that would be more great content like in D2. That didn't happen. Now that D4 is announced and it looks pretty decent, I realize all I really want is more D2. I'm glad I got away from D2 but I would pay money to get that authentic D2 experience for the first time again. Great video, Llama.
That's exactly what I've been telling my friends over the years, blizzard has the pattern to sucess with diablo and it's Diablo 2, Just polish it and possibly improve in some areas.
That's exactly what I'd pay full price for without any hesitations.
Unfortunately after seeing devs interviews from blizzcon I'm affraid in diablo 4 we are going to get more diablo 3 than diablo 2, I'm not hyped at all. That's such a shame as I've been a huge diablo and arpg fan in general since diablo 1.
Don’t forget about Diablo 1
I think that the Diablo 1 books have their place as the way to learn and upgrade talents
Every classes have the same talents and you need a book to learn/upgrade them. Attributes is the requierment for learning and upgrading
This would bring so much build customization
@@Lekthor without the likes of David Brevick who knows what we'll get in the hand. I'm not so optimistic either, but we'll see, let's hope it's decent enough
If you want more Diablo 2, go play Median XL with the multires mod. It's really an amazing take on Diablo 2. Changes almoast everything and it's arguably a better experience.
Also finding loot, it itself is not fun. FInding "good" loot is fun. The mountains of garbage you find? That's not fun at all. At least in Diablo 3 Blizzard turned the garbage loot into a resource through crafting materials.
So would you rather find more garbage or less garbage? The amount of good loot dropped will not change. Blizzard even tweaked Diablo 3 to drop less garbage loot. I think it all boils down to if the garbage has a value as a resource or not.
@@Sexcalibure D1 is simply not comparable, no matter what way you want to swing it.
Man, you just summarized reasons why I love D2 sooo much.
Thanks for awesome content.
They need to hire you man. Thanks for taking your time and putting your well-thought opinions out there, doing a great job for both the community and for the future of this game in my opinion.
Keep on with these series MrLlama!
If the developers wanna make a great diablo game the opinions of diablo 2 players should be heard as well.
I couldn't name a better spokesman for this.
Lets sign a petition for Blizzard to hire this guy as a consultant
referees don't play the game ;)
Let's do it
Thanks for actually highlighting what made d2 great, and why d3 was lacky and casual.. Something very few Diablo content creators talk about for some odd reason.
Just found my first Griffon's Eye in D2, and i just sat there looking at it for a solid 5 minute before i identified it. Nothing is more exciting than finding rare loot.
None of the 3 Diablo games were tacky/lacky and/or casual. Each of them is just very different.
Diablo 1 though was the scariest of the 3 and had the best atmosphere. Not Hellfire though, best to pretend Hellfire does not exist.
@@the8thark I disagree.. hard. And i said lacky.
@@MayhemTyphone I know you said that.
Secondly we're all allowed to have our own opinions.
I just personally disagree with people who think D4 should be A D2 clone. D1 and D3 both have good points too which should be incorporated into D4.
If someone wants to play A D2 clone, go play Median XL with the multires mod. Many people feel that's actually better than vanilla D2.
@@the8thark Alright, yeah we definitely are.
I never said i wanted D4 to be a D2 clone though.. On the contrary, i would like to see it be it's own thing, but without losing the dark and exciting feeling that comes with a dungeon crawler rpg. I just expressed that they could learn a lot from D2's loot system. As a hardcore Diablo fan/player, yes, D3 is casual trash, and i hope they divert from it as much as possible. P.s, i have over 1,5k hours in D3.
- Median sucks.
The statement that stats such as all res, MF, life, half-freeze, faster cast, faster hit rec and etc, are all subjective to the context of your spec, gear and personal choice, killed it! This kind of varied use of interesting suffixes and prefixes on gear makes the players engaged into doing an endless balancing act between different pieces of stats and gear. Finally, it makes the loot hunt all the more feverish when you know that a rare item can have this very small chance of being a god tier piece of gear beating sets, uniques and runewords altogether....brilliant!
I listened to all 58 minutes and 4 seconds of this video in its entirety. I hope the development team for D4 will as well. This is extremely informative, and provides great insight on making development decisions that effect the overall arching gameplay design of a video game. WELL DONE Llama !!
-MrBubzTV
you manage to mention so much important details what makes D2 so amazing, thank you llama
not everyone is the same player, but I agree with almost 100% of the things you said in this.
my favorite, most accomplished, memory of diablo 2 since beginning in 2001 has been my first Lilith kill. I was a level 80 hammerdin. I had some end-build runewords, but I was far from GG status. Hammerdins aren't super well suited for the fight, and after an hour of failing I came up with a plan to alternate concentration/cleansing auras, constantly switched to my CTA for prevent monster heal and battle cry application. It took maybe a solid 10 minutes, but I did it!
none of that would have been doable with the way itemization and resource management is trending
I love it! Super fun way to be creative and enjoy the game
My man! This is awesome. It is the strands of all of these little decisions on gear, on space, on time and build, that create immersion in the game mechanics. Immersion is a multitude of things - obviously aesthetics, story and pace, but also these two excellent points that you make: choices (ressource management) and learning. I've actually written a philosophical essay on the educational value of games; they coach choices both on an instrumental level i.e. ressources and sometimes in a moral way in story and roleplaying. Green and red arrows instead of differentiated types of stats, all adding to defence and attack break immersion in the instrumental way. The story will still be the story, but when you've experienced the story a bunch of times, there is no immersion in that ether. So... The point is - if Blizzard want a game, that players will immerse themselves in for years, they should not make a dumbed down item system. Instead they should listen to what you (and others) are saying and give players a myriade of mirco choices like in D2. I like that you point of the "math" that you as a player make - Blizzard is afraid that math will tire people. But the math here is not real math. It is decision. Blizzard talk a LOT about the math (maybe because the math in D3 was bonkers), and that they just want people to play, not do math. But this simple math IS playing. For me FHR or FCR in D2 was not math when I was younger, it was rhythm. I stacked FCR until I could 'feel' the spells coming in the sequence I wanted. I stacked FHR until I could teleport or run away without getting stun-locked. I was 11 or 12 years old back then and I promise you, that "math" was NOT boring. When I got older I studied the break points, but come on.. Reaching 65 FHR is not an overly complicated math problem, and when I did, I felt proud to have built an FHR melee sorc!
Jesus man that chaos sant scenario really had me in the feels there. You took me back when i use to do chaos runs in vanilla D2 back when Lord De Seis use to knock the potions out of your belt with his fireballs and beyond, where my necro would just be forever stunned locked in all of its 56k glory.
-the choice of id an item or not plays a huge role in d2 trading (importance of having the choice to id an item)
-good point on cooldown and use of resources..
-they should get away from items showing if they are better than the current equiped (green arrow up or red arrow down)
some of the endgame gear in d2 were rare (yellow) or even magic (blue items) or even socket gear (used for rws)
-the identity of a character in diablo is essential
-rune system brought a whole new level into diablo2
-also i think its nonsense to make those dmg numbers like in d3 where it went up to gazillions of dps (simplicity is the key)
Thanks for your thoughts and videos they bring back nostalgia :)
I love this kind of videos.
Hello Llama, i personally have about 5000+ hours of D2 LoD. Mostly Softcore Ladder Resets with lots and lots of trading and PvP. I probably made a good 200 characters above lvl 90 and enjoyed every single minute of playing. You're speaking out of my heart. It's rather difficult to grasp all of these concepts from D2 LoD and make sense of them, quantifying and analyzing their qualities. Thank you for that! Hopefully the devs will have time to watch all of your Feedback Videos, or like the entire Feedback Series... I am looking forward to a D2 Remaster. However if they consider all of your, and of many other people's great ideas, advices i'd even pre-order D4. Sure early stage of development currently, but we all want a true successor to D2. Not another D3 Arcade game...
Edit: We all know that game producing costs have increased immensely, but If we get a true D2 Successor i, and probably alot of other diehard fans would be willing, not to pay the regular 50-70 Euros but probably 200-300€ for a game that'll last multiple decades due to it's depth..
Please hear us out.
Damn that’s a lot of time spent on a poor game, or are you counting your bot hours as well?
@@Applest2oApples Hi, i think you're kind of salty here, no? ^
Dude diablo 4 should be paying you.
You should ask them to get involved. Your d2 following is huge. Your feedback will make them hundreds of millions. Make sure you get paid. Get on it!!!
how do we make this possible. whose twitter do we need to blow up as a community
This @blizzard
@@haysrobicheaux5412 I would blow anyone's twitter for it gachiHYPER
seing your subscriber count growing since D4 announcement is heart-warming, hope you'll get even bigger, it'd be convenient, considering the amount of work and knowledge you put out.
Go go MrLlama !
I'm not all the way thru the video yet, but this video so far really made me realize that ALL the good things about D2 really all boil down to Risk vs. Reward. It seems like EVERY THING in D2 was somehow tied to a risk/reward system... This kept the game fresh and allowed players to feel much more in control at all times.
Blizzard should listen to Mr Llama on how to build D 4 because he is our voice.
Certainly
You know what ?
Beside the fact that I like your content (especially sorc ubers and speedruns), when I first saw you in your diablo IV demo and heard you telling all that was not like diablo II, I thought you were a bit too diablo II obsessed ...
But you just explained it all in a way a game designer would, and you are right. I could'nt have said better.
You just nailed it, not by the examples you took, but the principle to make so that making decisions actually matters and makes you regret or be proud. That's the exact thing that is missing in Diablo III, more than that gritty atmosphere imo.
Thank you, I really hope you're wrong when you say they won't care your opinion anyway ...
it just shows how good d2 game is.. its just perfect! :] d4 should have all things from d2 that worked for all these years.
D2 really was perfect in so many ways. The only thing that could make me happier is balancing the character's damage a little more and then all they would need is to act act 6-10, add new items, and raise the skill cap
Yes, we should really hope that the Diablo IIII team gets the revelation/thought "why is Diablo II being praised by the ARPG community (or atleast why is Diablo II being praised by the Diablo community) and what was it/what is it that worked so good in that game?"
I read something that someone wrote in this context: "Why invent a wheel again if you already have invented a wheel before?" Perfect metaphore because - a wheel doesn't have to look perfect to function - it only needs to be a wheel to function. Same thing with a Diablo game - it just needs the originality of "the wheel".
It should also be mentioned; this particular Diablo II "wheel" has proven to be a very steady and stabile type of wheel - it should be taken into consideration.
In order to have a charm pouch you can't be allowed to place charms in your inventory. If not you'll have charms on both places at endgame. Which means you need to start the game with one. Smaller or not is something for the Devs to decide.
Your logical thinking and communicating your thought process is great even for those who don't agree with you.
You sound out the deep thoughts of so many of us, that has had hard times explaining our thoughts to actual words. Thank you, so nice to hear someone who really knows this stuff inside out.
I'm not saying it all has to be exactly as you said, not at all, but the bigger thing that I gathered from this was, that you drew out really well the FEELING that those mechanics give us, and THAT is the important part. I love how much you emphasized the player's identity, reason and meaning.
For me personally, the potion mechanics is by far the biggest mystery, I can't seem to come up with any good solutions. I love the D2 skill style where your resource is mana instead of cooldowns, and you actually need mana because A: you don't one shot monsters, and B: some skills are pretty mana heavy. But then again, I don't like crazy potion spam.
One solution could be finite potions in one stack that you need to collect (or not?), and potion inventory (as was in D4 demo), also for mana/resource. Have like a 10 second cooldown on the potions, but the cooldown can stack usages up to like 5-10 potions each (depending how powerful they are) before actually going back to "can not use, wait a moment". Then you could engage risky situations knowing you have few potions to use before panic.
Then again, that would make less risky situations and "slow pace" feel too safe and easy.
I was just searching youtube/reddit while dying for more diablo 4 content and you drop this baby!! Thank you!
MrLlamaSC It's awesome to see your channel growing! I've been popping in here and there and its GREAT to see you're at over 60k subs now! I played Diablo 2 religiously from it's release until about 2009. I just got out of 8th grade. It was summer time. I had about 100 bucks to go to the beach with a friend and his family. We went to best buy for some forgotten reason, but I saw Diablo 2 there and I absolutely had to buy it. Needless to say I had about 30 bucks for the beach. Best allocation of funds ever. That beach trip came and went but Diablo 2 gave me thousands of hours of entertainment(in the decade I played). Brand new Diablo game and summer time just hit. It was all too perfect.
Very well executed MrLlama ! These are good base-ideas they should consider.
Amazing video. Everyone working on diablo 4 NEEDS go into a big meeting room and watch this video along with your future vids of this sort. Its the ONLY way they can save the diablo legacy.
Funny thing they said Diablo IV was going to be about darkness, world and legacy. Funny thing they said they wanted to honor what Diablo II was/is. Still we are here with so many questionmarks about so many things regarding Diablo IV. Will they honor the true legacy of Diablo or just make another game like Diablo III?
If the best items in the game are bind on pick up, then blizzard doesnt understand shit. Everyone shouldnt be able to find every item in the game. That makes searching for loot pointless and just a boring task you have to do for endgame. And it sounds like items dropping in higher "quality" the higher you go, makes running things below it pointless. You need to be able to find very good items that you will use for a long time at any point in your progress. Also, this whole transmog thing has to go. Badass looking items should actually be badass. The greatest part about getting a very rare item is finally equipping it and being proud of how dope you look. Visual progress is an important element that transmog takes away from. If everyone is running around with glowing insane looking weps that they achieved thru no merit of their own, it takes something away from the whole process. If crafting isnt a true end game activity, its an epic fail.
Thanks Llama for putting in the time to think about and articulate your thoughts. It's made me also think more about where I derive value/intrigue/enjoyment in games rather than it being artificially dictated. Even just comparing LoD and Median XL, there's things I like more about each. Hope we both get a D4 we love, keep doin your thing :)
Once again MrLlama, 10/10 talk about diablo content. I really hope Diablo 4 devs are watching your videos. You need to be hired by blizzard ASAP.
I'm looking forward to future content.
Dear Blizzard:
If you want to pay homage to Diablo 2 and bring the game back to its roots, then a darker atmosphere is NOT going to cut it.
Take a serious listen to what this dedicated veteran has to say about the things that once gave this series an incredible degree of depth and creativity.
***I cannot sit by and watch blizzard give D4 this scuff ass skill system from D3 and then have them tell me that they brought the game back to its roots.***
Sincerely,
Everyone who was disappointed by Diablo 3
This is the absolute best feedback I have seen by any youtuber. please blizzard listen to this advice!!! it is spot on!
david kim! listhen this guy and change things! D4 items and stuff going to rong direction. No etherials, no use for whites, no use for blues, no magic found, no lvl req no durability! we need more diablo 2 or diablo 2,5 game with better grafics, just listhen to this guy is the voice of the community!!
TL;DR cooldowns are a bad limitation that makes no sense.
PS : I miss 90s/earlier 00s RPG's exactly because they had no cooldowns, no handholding, no railroading, etc. M&M VII was my first RPG
For Blizzard to have streamers like Llama to help them with ideas for D4 is gonna help this game so much.
Learned a lot about game design from this. Thank you.
For me the most fun part of diablo 2 was the usefulness of magical (blue) and rare (yellow) items. Even in "late game" there were some best in slot rare items (gloves, rings, amulets, boots etc), however the chance to get these rare items with perfect stats was pretty low. This makes player feel excited about every item in the drop, not only uniques/legendaries. In Diablo 4 Blizzard are making the same mistake they made in Diablo 3 (considering information from system and feature panel). Legendaries are better in every way than the rare items AND they have an additional affix. In my opinion it would be better to have 4 affixes on every rare item like was shown in presentation, but legendaries should have 3 regular affixes instead of 4 + 1 unique legendary affix. This will make rare items much more valuable and player for example could decide does he want to have 3 fireballs per cast instead of 1 from legendary item OR additional +1 to all skills from rare item and sacrifice some damage/armor numbers.
Also new runewords look boring and unoriginal. In my opinion to make them better Blizzard should add both condition AND effect affix to every rune. In that case we could make some awesome combinations where 1 rune procs the others. For example we can make KoVexPulThul runeword, where rune Ko gives you a %chance to stun an enemy when you deal fire damage, rune Vex gives you chain lighting spell proc every time you stun an enemy, rune Pul gives you %lifesteal of you lighting damage spells and rune Thul increases your resistances when you lifesteal. Maybe it's not the best example but I think you got the idea... Sorry for my bad English, just wanted to share this with somebody.
THIS :-)
Great video. I think the most important topics you touched on imo are the cooldowns on skills and the complete lack of permanency of character build/identity. Both of which have me really concerned about D4. While I think cooldowns can have a place if used very sparingly and short, for the most part I dont think they belong in an arpg and from what I saw of the D4 gameplay many skills have a ~10 second cooldown if not more. And the fact that they said you can max all skills on your character and respec talents at any time means there wont be a reason to have 2 or more of any one class. Very underwhelmed so far.
I agree with the resource management thing, pretty good point. But what I agree the most is the characters with personality, SO important! How many barbarians I created, and how different they were in D2. So much fun.
character personality is insanely important!! One of my favorite parts of D2
When you started talking about your actions it made me think about chess, if you move a piece your opponent reacts to that and you have many options when it's your turn to counter. If you had rules like you can't move that piece again for 3 turns, that cooldown only has a negative impact when you need to move that piece again next turn. Combat becomes simple when you can't choose your strategy in the moment.
Great analogy
It does honestly depend on the game. I absolutely agree that cooldown have little place in an arpg. But for example Divinity Original Sin, would have to be completely reworked without cooldowns on abilities. Another example which is not technically cooldown but it still limits your options in a similar way is something like spells in Baldurs Gate. You can only cast so many spells until you rest so you really need to consider if its actually worth using right now which means you might not have it later.
@@gamergeek494 Divinity is turn based. It makes sense
Blizzard please hire this mans
These videos have been a gold mine of feedback for the D4 devs, let's just hope they are tuning in.
Nokkternal i agree!! Hope they they do something with it.
I really hope they don’t just listen to feedback from the community like this but actually change the game for the better. Great video
This is such a great video, thank you for doing this Llama, we're really lucky to have you as the figurehead of our community ! :) That's exactly what is needed right now, constructive ideas and breakdown of "things that make things great". When you think about it, it's SO hard to get what *actually* makes things good in a game. It reminds of the Wow Vanilla case. Anyway, great video and thanks again :)
Thanks MrLlama for the great video! I hope the devs will start to appreciate the things, that are not necessary for an ARPG to sell or to be short fun! Only with them in the game, people will play it for centuries like D2.
nice brainstorming!
D
I've been telling my friends over the years, blizzard has the pattern to sucess with diablo and it's Diablo 2, Just polish it and possibly improve in some areas.
That's exactly what I'd pay full price for without any hesitations.
Unfortunately after seeing devs interviews from blizzcon I'm affraid in diablo 4 we are going to get more diablo 3 than diablo 2, I'm not hyped at all. That's such a shame as I've been a huge diablo and arpg fan in general since diablo 1.
They should just change Diablo 3 and 4 to World of Warcraft w/ Diablo characters. That's what D3 feels like to me. From the boss fights, to the graphics, to the general 'co-operative' gameplay (like having healers, tanks, etc), the weird hit points (numbers) that appear when you hit monsters, how fights look on screen. So many elements. I never played WOW, but watched a friend play it many times, and it hit me on the head hard when I saw it, comparing it to Diablo3, noticing the overlap between them. When you're using a team that has WOW devs / programmers / designers / management on it, not Diablo 1 or 2, then what do you expect I suppose? I guarantee D4 will still be far more like D3 than it will be like D2. I predicted D3 would be very different to / nothing like D2 (was easy prediction, since they kept on announcing alot, and various comments from devs suggested so even real early on, Jay Wilson barely played D2). And I predict same with D4, it will be far more like D3 than D2. D3 is fresh on their mind, many even worked on D3 and are still there. Many wouldn't have even played D2, let alone worked on it (none of them). D4 won't be exactly the same as D3, the WOW devs will implement new changes, but it will still be far more like D3 than D2. Rather easy prediction imo, as sad as it is to say. Better people realize this now, and accept it, rather than get their hopes up over the next few years. It isn't going to happen.
Hello from the future, MrLlama!! Loved this whole video on resource management and I think I have another idea(and it might be a stupid idea but I'll leave it up to YOU to decide that). I really like the idea of having "break points" for your stats as well as IAS/FCR etc.
SO, here's my idea:
Take "Frenzy" for example. You get your skill up to lvl 20(ala Diablo2 style) but now you have an option to assign your attribute points to hit certain break points on frenzy(or skill X).
So, if you focus on strength and hit that break point(that you can easily hit for a casual), you would get increased damage for frenzy. If you focus some points in to DEX, you would get increased attack speed ON FRENZY, VIT could give +%healing and %life on hit, and INT could give you +3 stacks of frenzy.
There would have to be some serious tuning, of course because you don't want to be locked to best in slot skill/attribute points, BUT it would be really cool if you could have the base frenzy but have increased attack speed(and the attack rating/defense) based on my increased DEX. I really liked the idea of the "angelic/demonic/whatever" items they brought for D4, BUT I don't think it would work as well. I think if you tied attribute break points to skills, you could come up with some really funky builds.
Just my opinion but I would LOVE to see that extra customization. It would be super cool to have a barb that wasn't all brawn, but instead focuses on DEX and INT for extra speed and more stacks. But it would come at a cost of raw damage and would be tough to hit those break points. It would require some serious skill planning. Thanks for reading this, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this idea. I'm here to answer any questions if I didn't explain something correctly.
Before you read through this - this is just my opinion. I played thousands of hours of D2, D3, Grim Dawn etc.
Instant heal no CD potion: The limit is how much time you spend farming them ... is that really resource management? Or "go away if you don't spend the first hour playing, farming something" - I completely disagree on that point.
Inventory Space: It is total BS for the normal player. You don't make decisions - this is only relevant for the speed-run, for everyone else "Inventory full" means: Stop Fun -> Port home -> Sell stuff -> Port back. For charms though, tetris-inventory would be fine.
Spell CD:
Even in a game with CDs there are always a few skills without which are resource generators / filler spells that will usually do around 20-70% of your damage depending on the spec. It's not like you never press anything between CDs when you want to optimize. When we look at the D4 Sorc, do you want to stay in the dangerous spot to get one additional icebolt off (no mana) so that you have enough mana for the next fireball, or could you die bc of that decision? So instead of doing Fire->Fire->Fire->Fire-Fire, you go Fire->Ice->Ice->Ice->Fire. Than you can make the Fireball actually look better and give it a bit more oomph. People still click all the time though, nothing changes in that respect. Simply speaking though, if you make all spells into filler spells, they will look boring and you will spam them 5 times before clicking the other one 5 times instead of making one of them stronger also visually more appealing, put a CD on it and now you could do a 3 vs 7 in the same time while it makes it a question of skill if you use the 3 times effectively.
Items: It may be that they are afraid of a WoW situation - having to pay external websites to discover what items are best.
Stats/respec: In Grim Dawn you put all into one stat and the rest where you need it for gear. I dislike that a lot. If you can't reset them often, it's actually a reason for me not to buy the game. This is very important. If simple respeccing were not possible and I found something I want to play but can't before I put another 10hours in leveling with shit I've already done millions of times, oh god no. I love trying new stuff, change a few points, try again, change again, try again - I spend whole days doing that. I'm not a teenager anymore. I have 3 hours at home every day. I don't want to use that leveling the same Sorc grind I've already done 2 times just to respec.
I would not be able to compete at all, and (as I said, I played those games for thousands of hours) this would not be enough for me. I'd watch your stream about it, but never would spend money on it because I don't have the time. If you think that still will get you more sales - sure, I don't mind, times change, I do - me playing D4 is not necessary, I will find something else. So even if someone thinks "fuck off casual" I will even if you wouldn't have told me. This is in fact the most time I will ever invest anymore into this game before it releases. And if it's not for me, probably my last post about it.
Thanks for making these videos. You are the guy who got me back into Diablo 2 last year. We really appreciate it
I can honestly say i agree with exectly every word you say Mr.Llama. I really hope that the devs will take notes:) I feel that we need more ARPG to diablo going forward and less mmo and rts elements. Keep up this amazing work!
Nail on the head with this llama. I really don't understand this contrived fascination with cooldowns in ARPGS, while simultaneously instilling resources bars. What's the point in expending resources to cast the skill, when the resource isn't the limiter to facilitate it's use. In diablo 2, certain skills have longer cast/uptimes, and basically serves as the cooldown (you can't re-cast the skill again until the animation has completed). Blizzard could even integrate some of the limitations they feel are necessary, by getting creative with the actual spell animations themselves. With that said, I wouldn't mind if there were different tiers of skills that operated differently- like perhaps you have basic skills like fireball that are limited only by your resource (mana), and in fewer scenarios- "ultimate" final-tier type abilities that have greater AEO/DPS, requiring blunt cooldown timers for balancing reasons (PVP), but the main priority should absolutely be to ensure that the resources remain not only relevant, but the main focus.
Loved the thumbnail haha. Greetings from philippines! Who plays diablo2 still right at this moment
Always and forever. Greetings from Cebu bro.
I would be for Darksouls like potions - set numbers of potions per game, per dungeon or something like that. Also the Dodge mechanic would be great if it would work as in Darksouls.
I hope they listen. God I hope they listen. I love D2 and still play it but boy would I love a real replacement.
Are you not aware that Path or Exile exists? And that it’s............ FREE???
Juxi _Path of Exile_ and _Grim Dawn_ are spiritual successors but we want a proper sequel.
@@RichieI played it. felt like clunky trash and I didn't enjoy the lore at all
Upvoted for respect!
Great Video. One other great point which you could have touched on is Upgrading items in D2 which was introduced I believe with patch 1.10. Upgrading items made those lower tier unique items worth something again in NM and Hell difficulty e.g. Upgrading the weapon to a higher base to gain higher damage (Ribcracker) or upgrading a decent low tier belt to gain more Potion slots (e.g. Goldwrap). Keep up the good work!!
Great job MrLlama!! Blizzard would be lucky to have someone as passionate as you.
Mr Blizzard, hire MrLlama and make the diablo franchise amazing again.
I'm still trying to figure out what about this game is actually derived from D2. The more I think about it, the more it's pretty much only the aesthetics. "But it's three years away!" Yes, but why is their starting points for pretty much every system rooted in D3 and not in D2 then? That gets me really worried...
To me, you can't just take the aesthetics, "darkness" and mood of D2 but ignore the rest. It's a complete system where the other components also adds to how oppressive and "dark" it feels. It's like you have to fight and learn how things work to get results, and nothing is served on a silver platter to you. If you eff your build up on your first character, for example, you should be punished. Having every mistake you make be correctable isn't "dark" at all. There's gotta be consequences for screwing up.
Right now it feels like they want a game where the average player can't screw up on any part. Equip whatever item that has a green arrow on it, spam your generators and then your burners, pop your cooldowns, the monsters scale to your level so you don't have to worry about walking into the wrong area, etc etc. Which to me is so boring and un-"dark".
EDIT: The fact that they're releasing it simultaneous on PC and consoles is also a massive red flag to me. Sorry guys for being a Debbie Downer, but it's not looking good right now. The aims and current targets of this project are just not aligned with what us D2 fans want.
Agree 100%
This is why i cant get more than 15 minutes into D3 before I zone out and "let the game tell me how to play"
Followed by a quick alt-f4 as i realize there is no fun in this
This. When I listen to the devs I hear Jay Wilsons voice way to often.
Absolutely true. I dont see the true Diablo mechanics, and nothing of what made D2 the banger it is.
You are so right in so many aspects!
I would like to add to your thoughts about health. They took away the DII way of using potions, since it's hideous going to town to get more, right? What if you increase the hp-recovery rate, and then only use health potions for immediately gain health like the rejuvenation potion. But this could only be found after drops, and is quite scarce. Or by it for insane amount of money (maybe scaling price, depending on how many you buy or how much money you/your party have). And the belt is good in DII. Should be same in D4, but skip regular potions, instead add ability to gear/runes to heal faster and so on. Really liked the potion/book store in DI, should bring that which back, selling all kinds or rare potions increasing your stats for a few minutes. Maybe, you should have infinite space in the belt but just keep adding slots to more kinds of potions as you get a better belt?
hey mr llama your biggest fan blue4 here. i agree with you on cooldowns. but i got my version of balancing it and i want to hear your opinion on it. lets take blizzard spell for instance: if you spam it, it is OP. make it so you can have only one blizz at a time (like armagedon in d2). you can spam it but you only reset timer and change position. and it have relatively high mana cost so if you spam it you run out of mana pretty fast. no potions so you have to use some other spells that dont cost mana or mana generator spells (like in d3). its a good way for skill/spell resource management/balance.
I think that's a great idea. Honestly "refreshing" is a much better concept than cooldown in my opinion.
That “dodge” thing can use stamina. Also if there are any (passive) skills with block or dodge or avoid - they could use stamina as well.
Haven't watched the whole this yet. But I think the most important thing to keep from DII is the skilltree. For replayability you should not be able to change the skilltree, at all! (Not only-in-town or so...) Maybe ok changing once, as in the DII expansion.
Love the ideas, most of them I share (especially a charm bracelet/necklace/bag that can only hold X amount).
My big ones:
D2 stamina was not implemented the way I think they wanted but they left it in which was a bad decision. I like the Stamina system Wolcen currently has, (start with 4-5 and can be gained from passives and items) and it is used for dodge rolls. Maybe evasive skills in D4 will be tied to a stamina system like that so you can't always be dodging; making the game a rolly polly farce. Also, in pvp as D4 has declared they want, knowing your opponent has limited dodge rolls can be a factor you watch for while fighting.
With how D3 made smart loot, items dropping for specific classes, I feel as though each class should be able to have it's own skill management resource like fury, mana, spirit etc. Items can drop with a "resource management" affix that will roll for a specific class. If the game goes with shared loot then that can increase trading potential.
I agree with the CD problem. For me, ARPGs should have very limited cooldowns and probably limited to Ultimate skills and maybe small CDs (under 1-2s) for some strong CC skills. Because ACTION is built right into the name, if the most effective way to kill monsters is to use CD linked skills then once your skills are on CD you have to just run around.
I don't think we need TP scrolls anymore, but I loved the process of having to ID an item you find out in the wild. You could run back to town, or if you have some on you then you can discover this epic item on the go.
Stash space shouldn't be a hinderance. If items are all going to be the same size then you don't need a very large inventory space, varied sizes of items would warrant a large player inventory. But I do think you should be able to have a large storage space in town (and be account wide since the game is online) and maybe you can increased stash size via in-game currency or quests.
I think that is all for now. Loved the video! Can't wait for D4!!
**one edit: where you said "make things go sideways" when it comes to choice, this is huge! Horizontal depth is just as important as damage/defense increase in these games. It makes the game cool.
A thing which I love about the D2 inventory is how bulky it is. Every piece of gear is visually represented well in size which gives you a bit of immersion. But other than that, the whole graphic of the gear is much bigger and more visually impactful, which also make it more memorable
I think Blizzard really need to take advices from D2 players if they want D4 to be good. Not those D3 boys!
I so strongly disagree with you about using potions as a resource. They're essentially unlimited in D2. It's one of the things that makes that game bad.
You use one resource (gold) to buy potions, you open a chest/poppable to find a potion and you kill a monster and find a potion - is that really that awful? If there are things that make Diablo II a bad game (which it really isnt - it might have some bad elements in it but its not a bad game overall) - the potions surely isnt one of those things.
I'm a new viewer and I love the fact that at the start of your video you admit that "I don't believe I am always correct, I don't think that the D4 developers need to hear this to make a great game... etc".
A lot of people would never admit those things and honestly do wholeheartedly believe their way is the best and only way to make games good. Thumbs up just for that!
In my opinion, what made D2 great were the hard skill trees (allowing for many different builds), set items/rune word combinations, dark atmosphere, great story line, STATIC loot tables, and most importantly, the ability to TRADE items found in the world with other players.
The last part is the most important IMHO. As you farmed NM/Hell Mephisto for certain drops that YOU wanted, you were more than likely also going to find items that you didn't need, but could use to trade for items you wanted. That's what helped take some of the RNG out of the game and allowed people to form fully built characters quicker than if everything was 100% self found.
IF D4 can include these things, like static loot tables, trading items, and hard skill trees. It will be great.
Awesome, I think one thing worth mentioning as a resource is the player's attention spam. The first iteration of D2 and D3 were very different in this. While D3 you would just fly through the game and pretty much learned everything there is to learn in the first hour of playing, D2, on the other hand, made sure that new players use their first few normal runs to get knowledge and learn the concept of character creation/progression ( I know now everyone just google builds, but it wasn't always like that :). That's key because you are rewarding the player by allowing them to complete the game, while also enticing that they have to step up their game in order to survive the next difficulties. Like you said, If you have to think to make decisions your brain will be caught in a reward cycle.
Good points. Every decision should have a consequence. Giving people the ability to have it all with very little decision making gives your character no personal identity. I think the inventory tetris is important because it makes items feel like real possessions instead of little boxes with rarity color.
Blizzard, give this man a job
Comparing choices in arpgs to killing characters off in other games was the best comparison I’ve ever heard.
In regards to charms. How would you feel about having the ability to convert them into permanent. Like, find a rare ass shrine that converts 1 chosen charm into a permanent buff, giving you the inventory space back without losing the buff
Edit for clarity. These shrines would be super super rare and maybe cost a high end crafting material or unique item sacrifice. Like those skill tomes they were speaking of. Trade off the extra skill for charm buff and inventory space.
Points on respec. 100% spot on.
A point to the "One Item, one slot": If you scale the needed inventory space with the 'actual' size of the weapon, lets say 8 slots for a scythe and 2 for a dagger creates a prioritisation of smaller items over larger ones. When you play with a dagger, you can collect like 10 in your inventory, can compare and then decide what you want to play with, maybe store one or two for later. With the scythe it is only two or three. You can compare them, at the moment, but store? You need 4 times the space in your chest to do so. Over time this shrinks the possible choices to create builds, since you can stash fewer weopons and will eventually drop them, to make room for 4 daggers, which you can use in 4 different builds. So you are less likely to play a build with a scythe, since you have fewer scythes in your stash to test with and you will rather play a build with a dagger, since you have 4 times the options lying around in your stash.
In making all items 'the same size' you compensate that. Wanna play dagger? Fine, 2 slots. Wanna play scythe? Fine, 2 slots. The aesthetic aspect of the 'actual' size is not worth that flexibility.
Have a nice day :)
I think the solution is to just add more stash space instead.
Just wondering what you thought about this idea I had for D4. The idea is the user can choose whether a certain skill could be cooldown, or resource cost. So your hydra could have a 5 sec cooldown or cost 20 mana or something like that. That way, the user has the flexibility and you could take away any cooldown if you want.
the potions cooldown makes sense.
its like drinking a pint of beer. one pint can be done very quick, but
try to put 7 large glasses to your lips at the same time.
you may empty all glasses, but it will be all over your tuxedo.
I think every dev working on the game needs to see this vid and Noxious' vid
Every point you made just solidifies my opinion that d2 is a masterpiece. I don't know how much of it was deliberate, but man they did so many good decisions it's crazy.
d2 is trash
He talks BS for an hour, then if you actually play the game it’s get grushed to level 80 and then every class teleports around with enigma spamming the same skill vs everything they fight.
@@Applest2oApples exactly, taking d2 as the base for anything is ridiculous. It's a shit game in the grand scheme of things. If anything they need to take Poe into consideration.
@Karol Palazej d2 was trash
@@gh0un Guess what poe was made to be like? Diablo 2. The devs show it in their work and openly discuss the process of how d2 molded their view of what could be a good arpg.
Poe is the successor to d2 (not d3) in my opinion, but saying d2 is trash is just an objective falsehood and you'd be saying poe is trash by proxy.
And about talking bs for an hour, lol. If you play cookie cutter builds which I'm sure you also do in poe, then sure you don't see the intricacies. Like llama said, you decide how well or how thoughtful you want to be while playing the game. That's the beauty. You may be able to kill hell baal on your crappy hdin but I can tell you anyone on gm pvp today would 50-0 you straight with ease. Then you'd see what actually playing the game looks like.
So very well put. I was gunna try to give d3 another chance, but now I just wanna play d2 again. It is the standard or what an arpg is and should be
22:30 when you talk about action recovery in the Chaos Sanctuary, I am SERIOUSLY reminded of how the Diablo series was originally made to be a turn based game.
This video is motivating me to finally do a no items (including potions) hell play-through just to see what the game is like without those resources.
@@The-cyber-imbiber D2 was designed as a real time ARPG from the beginning :) only D1 was initially turn based. However probably some of the ideas went into D2 as a result of D1 starting out like that. D1 also had even more action recovery in place.
Diablo 1+2 Are sped up turn based. D2 is 25 turns or frames per second. Thats where break points Come from too
@@The-cyber-imbiber Do it with energy shield sorc with merc using insight, so your mana constantly regenerates. Or do you mean no items as in no gear also? lol.
@@yamchadragonball6983 25 frame and breakpoint limitation in D2 is not because it was turn based and then sped up. It was the game engine. Only D1 was turn based and even then only during the initial phase, before they removed the turns and sped it up.
U are the best UA-camr❤️
It was really enjoyable to watch all of it. Keep this series going. Hope bliz can take some notes
I think the best mechanic regarding a shared stash is that you have to "earn" it somehow for each character. Maybe like the Horadric Cube in D2, some end-game quest, or maybe by a kind of crafting mechanic. The reason being that I don't think it's good for a newly created character to have immediate access to all of your other available uber equipment, and it also creates a goal for the player to reach a specific point in order to gain that access.
i agree with everything you said... though one other way to replace skill cooldowns is having diminishing returns on effect if used over short periods of time... it gives a lot of depth when deciding if u want to spam or not... (e.g. a fire dot that doesn't stack, but you can still spam for the impact damage)... having very short cooldowns on SOME skills can also provide depth if you can decide whether to use fcr or not depending on what skills you use (e.g. frozen orb). a third way to create cooldowns is to have multiple resources to manage instead of just mana or equivalent (e.g. sin charges or perhaps even a new use for stamina)
Charms were unique, because they didn't have to equipped to have effect, but you have to give up some inventory space.
The bracelet would be a good idea, but only if it functions like an inventory. Because if it itsn't, then charms basically just become equipment.
If it's a little inventory, like a 3x2 one, then it would be a good compromise because
+you can't fill up your main inventory with charms, causing a lot of hassle. (because if you can, you would)
+there is still a small level of inventory management because you have to decide whether you use 1 grand, 1 large, 1 small, or just 6 small charms.
Everything you said was spot on. I sincerely hope Blizzard is taking notes...
Quick thought: I think what you’re really talking about here is the importance of diverse resource interactions and having those interactions be balanced by cost rather than by force (i.e. a cooldown).
For instance in Diablo 2 you can have as much manna as you want, basically, as long as you are willing to pay the gold and use the inventory slots for manna potions. So, essentially, you are able to turn your gold and inventory slots into something that helps you fight monsters faster and more sustainably. If you don’t want to spend the gold or sacrifice the inventory slots, you can still fight, but you won’t have access to the large amounts of mana and will have to take a more cooldown-like approach.
Another example: being able to spam 7 rejuvenation potions in three seconds seems OP but the cost of acquiring those rejuvenation potions and the space they fill in your inventory, help balance out the crazy power the potion offer.
So the main point I am seeing here is that the game is more fun win you are asked to manage a diverse number of resource types, but you are able to convert one type of resource into another type in interesting ways in order to boost your power in a fight or give yourself a higher chance of finding magic items or increase your inventory space. And these interactions are balanced by COST instead of some arbitrary limiting factor like a cool down.
It’s these kinds of interactions that make Diablo 2 fun and that get diluted in a lot of diablo knockoffs. Rich resource interaction is what we’re looking for. And the beauty of it is that you get a lot of depth without pushing away casual players. Casual players can still play and have fun without optimizing their resource interactions.
Really well said, I'll probably make a video about this to explain it in this way as well because yep I super agree
@@MrLlamaSC Please do! Would love to hear you expand on this.
PoE's flask system for health and mana management is one of the best I've seen. Sure, at later stages the game speeds up so much it gets almost redundant but the flasks themselves are a great system.
Pros:
-No mandatory shoping time that does not impact economy.
Cons:
-Can't fill whole backpack with potions.
Disclaimer: not a follower on twitch or anything so this isn't a fan based post.
I've watched his D4 videos, and this man is correct.
I don’t know, I’ve been thinking about the town portal scrolls. I have vivid memories of having to manage my open portals and scrolls. Especially in the beginning in act 1 and 2. Having to decide wether I want to buy the tome or risk it and hope I find some so I can repair my gear! Or I die and left open a portal in Duriels lair!