[kosei]

It was a different time: “Condor plans to spend one year in the development of Diablo. Personnel will consist of: one designer, one chief programmer, 2 junior programmer, 2 art director/artists, 1 illustrator/sculptor, 3 pixel artists, and 1 sound FX person”

So, 11 people for a year for Diablo. Meanwhile Diablo 4 took 300+ people 6+ years. So over 150x the cost, not accounting for the fact that game developers are paid much more now as well. People pretend it’s the same industry but it’s evolved dramatically.

[eek2121]

Yet I have to say this:

Diablo was more fun.

Diablo 2 is pretty great. My only complaints about it surround harder difficulties. Those of us with accessibility issues (like me with a gimped hand) found hell to be super challenging.

Diablo 3 sucked when it launched, however, right now, it is absolutely amazing. Blizzard has absolute gold with the tiered difficulty/rift/season design. Unsure why they didn't improve upon it...

Diablo 4 has potential, but many of the great systems developed in 1-3 are gone.

What made previous diablo games great:

A fixed level/difficulty system

Randomly generated levels

A way to measure yourself against both yourself and others. Potential for multiple unique build paths for every class. An awesome loot/gear system that eventually makes you feel overpowered until you aren't.

Diablo 4 has none of those.

Diablo 1-3 have some combination of those.

[bob1029]

> A fixed level/difficulty system

This is the central aspect of fun for me in an ARPG. When I come back through that starting story area at level 40, I expect to absolutely melt the enemies I run into. If I get super fucking lucky on a roll and pick up a legendary (i.e. against the story/balance team's wishes), I should be able to have a goddamn romp through the world for quite a bit. This emergence of potentially-unintended gameplay outcomes in an ARPG results in the fun for me.

Maybe there's a way to do the multiplayer-friendly scaling thing that my dopamine loop would enjoy but I haven't seen it yet. Ultimately, it feels like Blizzard tried to solve a cursed problem and walked right into the predictable outcome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uE6-vIi1rQ

[logicchains]

Diablo 4 has no sense of progression because enemies level up as you do. In fact they increase in power faster than you, under the assumption you'll be itemising optimally, so if you level up but don't update your items fast enough, you'll find that mobs actually get harder and harder to defeat as you increase in level.

[nvarsj]

The level scaling is a really bizarre design choice. Every game with this feels bad. There is no sense of progression as your character gets punished for levelling up.

Some game designers think it’s a great idea though - hence it’s in D4. I’d love to hear their take.

[kaoD]

I've come to terms with this.

Even though it still feels weird I can see why they did it: since the game is not linear at all (I think you can even do the first 3 acts in any order) compared to other Diablo games (didn't play 3) they kinda need to do this so you don't breeze through zones. It also helps when playing with under/over leveled friends since they just use the same system to prevent you from rushing them.

Personally I prefer linear narrative and gameplay for Diablo (it's like making linear games is a sin nowadays) but it's probably a wise choice given other design choices? Or at least understandable. It allows them to send you back and forth across regions and still present a challenge.

Anyways: I'm liking D4 (I'm surprised to say this of a Blizzard game in 2023) so not the worst design ever.

[YurgenJurgensen]

Level scaling isn't necessary for a nonlinear game. Plenty of games have nonlinear areas and no level scaling because they have relatively flat progression curves. D4 only 'needs' level scaling because it also 'needs' to be Cookie Clicker and Lootbox Simulator with an ARPG wrapped around it, and neither of those systems work with flat progression curves.

[kaoD]

Sorry I don't see what you mean with flat progression curve or how it solves anything here.

If I'm level 70 and I go to a level 15 area, how would that solve that I'm just going to cut through the area like butter?

[nvarsj]

Thinking about it more, one cool thing about level scaling is I can play with my friends at whatever level they are. It doesn't really matter for the endgame at all, but when you're leveling up early on it is pretty nice.

[avereveard]

It's the lazy way out to world design for non linear games.

Why put any effort in making sure player locality influences the surrounding quest level, if player can go anywhere, let's put level appropriate enemy everywhere.

Dungeon siege approach was so much better, even if the game was not as solid: minibosses or higher difficulties quests barred the access to higher difficulties areas. Within a zone, progression and choices were non linear. Item and enemies and xp reward were leveled to the zone, so the player had an incentive to not stick around in low level zones farming aimlessly.

[detaro]

To a degree you can also "hide" it in places where it is logical. E.g. if a game has an enemy faction that goes out of its way to attack the player, it does make sense that these attacks get stronger - if someone causes a faction more trouble, he gets more attention and stronger assets are sent to take them out, guards are reinforced, ... And maybe in reverse, weaker intelligent enemies make a point of avoiding the player (would some badly-equipped bandits really ambush a party that's clearly better prepared for combat than them?). That's then somewhat satisfying: clearly those enemies are stronger, and you now can beat them!

What makes little sense is if wildlife you've encountered before suddenly can take 4x more damage, or the same badly equipped guard suddenly fights back a lot better.

[filoleg]

> Why put any effort in making sure player locality influences the surrounding quest level, if player can go anywhere, let's put level appropriate enemy everywhere.

That's not how it works in Diablo 4, enemy scaling only comes into play if you go to an area that is naturally lower level than yours. Looking at the world map and hovering over areas shows their minimum "recommended" level, and enemies there will start at that level.

So you absolutely can go as a lvl 10 character to an area that expects you to be 40+ and get smacked down in a few hits by a basic lvl 40 minion.

[ordinary]

I believe (with zero supporting evidence) that Blizzard implemented level scaling reluctantly, in order to better facilitate ad-hoc group play. Unfortunately, they kind of screwed it up.

When you move around in the overworld, you sometimes run into another player. They're fighting some enemies, you jump in to help (or vice versa) and it's amazing. Those are some of my favourite moments in the game, and the only reason it works is because of the level scaling. Even if my character is only level 10 and theirs is level 40, we can fight the same enemies and have roughly equal impact, because for me those enemies are level 10, and for them those same enemies are level 40! It's really clever, and I think they felt the sense of progression was an necessary sacrifice to enable that kind of improvised cooperative play.

"But ordinary, you said they screwed it up!" Yeah, they did. Because what happens when the enemies are dead? You continue towards your quest, and they continue towards theirs, and poof, you're all alone again. These brief moments are tantalizingly close to true pick-up experience: you start playing, meet a few people, team up, and have a blast together for an hour or so, just like you could in Diablo 2.

Oh, and even if you do happen to have the same quest, unless you took the relatively scary step of formally inviting them to your (1-person) party, the moment you enter a dungeon, you each get your own instance, and you're torn apart.

And finally, there's no global chat, so the only real way you have of communicating with people you meet prior to inviting them to a party is a Hearthstone-style emote wheel. There are at least 3 quests that require you to use the emote wheel, so they really wanted you to know it's there and to learn to use it, but in practice no one does and it's useless.

Taken together, it just barely doesn't work and it's really unfortunate. And counterintuitively those brief moments of comradery make the game feel more lonely than if you never met anyone at all. Because time and again, you're confronted with the fact that people are out there! Having fun, kicking ass, taking names. Just... you know, not with you.

The only thing I can't quite figure out is why they didn't attempt to 'matchmake' players of similar levels together. There are literally millions of people playing Diablo 4 at any one time, surely there's someone who's doing the same quest at about the same level as me? Why don't I meet those people? Or maybe the odds just don't work out, even at that scale.

[bob1029]

This combined with a few other balance issues is what makes hardcore entirely pointless for D4 in my view. The second you find respite, the balancing mechanics will take it all away from you. Anything that moves will be able to kill you in approximately the same amount of time no matter what.

D4 HC mode might as well just be a waterboarding simulator with regard to the player's experience.

[nemo44x]

That’s what great I think. Levels give you skill and paragon points which eventually makes you stronger so you can go to higher tiers where better gear drops. They give you many ways to customize your gear (affix modifications, aspects, gems) with your build and paragon board. That’s what it’s all about.

[logicchains]

> Levels give you skill and paragon points which eventually makes you stronger so you can go to higher tiers where better gear drops

Paragon points are only granted around level 50, and skill points stop making much difference around level 20-30 when all the core skills are unlocked. I got so bored of combat I stopped playing at around level 40. Particularly annoying is after getting a few items with good aspects, it's rare to find another item with the same or better aspect, so I have a choice of either sticking with the old item with bad stats and the good aspect (and dying really quickly due to low armor), or picking a new item with better stats but no good aspect. Yes it's possible to extract the aspect from an item and use it on another, but that can only be done once.

[nemo44x]

You can change the stats too. There’s a lot of room for customizing. Also you need to play on nightmare or higher and you’ll see legendary items far more frequently. The game opens up big time then. The story gets you into the endgame and the endgame opens it all up.

But different strokes for different folks. :)

[drexlspivey]

Can’t you extract the aspect and put it in a better item?

[vultour]

As he said, once.

[nottorp]

Can't say D3 had any sense of progression either because you simply did the same rifts with a bigger number attached to them. You got bigger numbers on your gear and then added some numbers to the rift level.

Compare that to finally reaching hell Diablo in Diablo 2... or scratch that... finally getting past the blacksmith in act 1 hell :)

[Sakos]

I just can't agree. There is clear progression from first reaching the level cap and clearing T6 and eventually getting good enough gear to finally clear T16. Then continuing to improve your build and gear until you do GR70, 100, 130. Like, I'm never wondering if I'm actually getting stronger, because I know that if I try T6 on a fresh capped character, I'm going to get demolished. If I clear T6 successfully, I know that I've gotten stronger and the stronger I get, the easier T6 will continue to become and the easier it'll be to clear higher difficulties.

Nothing ever automatically matches your power level. You choose what difficulty to challenge yourself with. You choose whether you just want something easy (for your power level) to farm, or something difficult to see if you can clear it or how long it takes you. You always know the challenge you're going to get and how strong you are compared to it over time. That's something that level scaling fundamentally breaks and there's no way to avoid that.

I don't know how you can equate D3 with D4 in any way and say that D3's system had no progression or was in any way worse than what's in D4. It's just false, a complete misrepresentation of what the game is like.

[nottorp]

So you're happy with bigger numbers? Because the content is absolutely identical from T1 to T2484... and there's absolutely no other way to increase the x in Tx except grinding lower levels to increase some stat on your gear by a small amount.

Like my other comments about PoE, I'm talking about what passes for endgame. Where you have all the recommended gear and can do mostly everything.

I know that you first need to acquire the epic set that matches what build you want to play and matching non set items. I've done it a couple seasons.

But afterwards it's exactly what I described.

[Sakos]

> So you're happy with bigger numbers? Because the content is absolutely identical from T1 to T2484... and there's absolutely no other way to increase the x in Tx except grinding lower levels to increase some stat on your gear by a small amount.

So ... like PoE? I'm not sure what you want here. Every game in the genre is like this. PoE doesn't do it any better. What you described is just wrong.

[nemo44x]

You didn’t need a gimped hand to name hell super challenging! =)

Diablo 4 is unbelievable imo. Easily the pickup where Diablo 2 left off. It’s super complex while being simple. Really good game!

[hourago]

The results are also vastly different as the expectations, the number of platforms to support, the quality of the cut-scenes, ... and the revenue.

But there are still indie games developed with such small teams. So, that is still a viable possibility.

[mikepurvis]

And there's a massive trickle-down in terms of what very small teams are able to accomplish now by leveraging modern tools, engines, and art pipelines. It astonishes me to this day that Hollow Knight was basically developed by three people, including all the writing, art, design, and programming— there's definitely more content in that game than what passed for triple-A in the PSX era, maybe even PS2.

[hypertele-Xii]

It's easy to say "oh this modern indie game was made by only X people!" forgetting that the [open source] stack it was developed on has hundreds if not thousands of contributors.

So no, Hollow Knight wasn't developed by three people "including all the programming". It uses Unity. Unity is worth billions and employs thousands of people, many of them certainly programmers.

I agree though that very few people are needed nowadays for the art. With generative AI, even less. (But that's also sort of an [open source] giant to stand on the shoulders of with countless contributing artists.)

[malermeister]

Well if you see it that way, the original diablo was also written by the hundreds of people that wrote windows, the GPU drivers etc etc.

Almost no software is written in a vacuum, but it doesn't really make sense to always include all preexisting dependencies in work estimates.

[rozularen]

we can go that route too when talking about EV batteries production emissions vs ICE but sure we don't because that's not the point, right?

[fermentation]

The downside of this is of course that there are so many high quality games to compete with now

[ricardobayes]

Definitely. This complexity creep is very visible with certain franchises which churned out a new game steadily every 3-4 years but not a peep for 10+ years now. (Elder Scrolls, Grand Theft Auto etc)

[Cthulhu_]

Said franchises - well, mainly GTA and now D4 - also are a live service though, in that they have recurring income from in-game purchases - in the case of GTA 5, it paid off to spend hundreds of millions on development, given it's earned the company billions ($6bn according to wikipedia).

[vancroft]

Elder Scrolls kinda falls under that umbrella, given that Elder Scrolls Online is a subscription-based MMO that I believe is still receiving content updates. Unfortunately that's probably a lot more profitable and safe than developing a new single-player game that has to surpass the bar set by previous games.

[Cthulhu_]

Counterpoint: indie games, they will often have similar sized teams or smaller and come out with great games. AAA games build on top of gameplay mechanics from either older games or indie games, but need the extra staff and investment due to higher quality (and quantity) assets.

To generalize, indie games focus on the core gameplay loop, AAA games on high effort visuals.

[enkid]

This is why I've been playing indie ges almost exclusively lately. The core game play is just so much tighter in a small game vs. AAA games where they implement a huge amount of features.

[fennecfoxy]

Whether a modern game turns out to be fun or not is besides the point, the answer is fidelity, fidelity, fidelity.

I think it's fair enough that modern games take much more effort; we have much higher expectations as gamers/consumers than we used to.

[jayd16]

AAAs are paying for consistency. The marketing budget is fixed. This makes the goal something that's certainly good enough and hopefully great.

[YurgenJurgensen]

They may pay for consistency, but they're not really getting it. There hasn't been a year since 'AAA games' were a concept that hasn't had multiple high-profile titles that failed to deliver.