I’ve played the diablo franchise since the first game that was released back in 1997. Each iteration of the game improved upon the last, both in graphics and game mechanics. Each had it’s flaws, but as the franchise wore on, the developers listened to their community and fixed things the next go around.
Diablo II was released in the year 2000 and offered the first good multiplayer experience where up to 4 players could player either in PVE (Player Versus Environment, or, cooperatively) and PVP (Player Versus Player). I spent countless hours farming bosses to get a particular item I needed. The secret cow level was fun (that they continued in Diablo III) and once you had beat the story (which was excellent) you could continue to progress your characters for better spells and gear.
What sort of ruined Diablo II was the exploits and marketplace. Gold was worthless in the game, you collected so much that you couldn’t buy anything with it. Instead, an object in the game, a ring, became the de facto currency, the Stone of Jordan.
The Stone of Jordan was a special ring that was a very rare drop. The gear drops normally all had a unique identifier to stop them from being duplicated as only one could exist in the world. But the SOJ, as it was referred to, was one of the few that didn’t. Soon, exploits were created to duplicate the ring and for those with the means, they could suddenly become very wealthy if they knew the hacks. THe hacks usually involved trading with another player, if you had a buddy you trusted, you could sith in game and make as many SOJs as you wanted.
But this exploit wasn’t just for SOJs, as there was also a way to take what was normally a trash item without a unique ID and turn it into a godly weapon. Say, if you found a common bastard sword with three gem sockets, you could insert specific items into that sword and using a device called a horadic cube, you could transform that piece of trash into one of the best weapons in the game for a whirlwind barbarian.
Then, with future expansions they introduced runes, which made things even worse.
But I played that game for years. Good thing it was entertaining, as Diablo III wasn’t released until 2012.
With Diablo III, the game took a bit of a departure from the previous games and became a much more simple, streamlined (some say, dumbed down) version. They turned off player trading, allowed unlimited storage in your gear stash, simplified the spell trees and mechanics, and vastly improved the gameplay. As a testament to the success of the game, it’s still being played by diehard fans today. They also introduced their version of seasons, where every three-four months they would come out with a new season that featured a unique game mechanic and revamped gear to play for during the season. You start fresh with a new seasonal character, but that was ok because getting the next armor sets or gear was relatively easy to complete character builds to make your way up the ladder of what was called torment levels. The highest level, 150, I never attained, the highest I ever got, with a group of players, was 143. But it was fun trying. To give you an idea of how well supported the game is, they are currently on Season 29.
Now, we come to Diablo IV, which was released this past year. At first it was a big success, but as time went on, there was a massive fall off of players. The biggest complaints was lack of top tier variety of gameplay, incredibly rare drops of the better gear, and slow level progression. They introduced their own version of seasons, but because of a lack of a variety of things to do, it turned off many players, especially ones bored by the endless grind just to gain a level running the same dungeons over and over. To give a perspective of what was wrong with the level progression, if you managed to grind your way to level 85, you were exactly halfway to level 100 as far as XP and time needed. I quit at level 72 halfway through the season. I felt my character was underwhelming at the level I was at, which made grinding even harder.
So, in advance to Season 2, the developers listened to the complaints that most users shared and made some major changes. First, they reportedly boosted the XP rate by 40%. It’s hard to judge if this is better at the higher levels this early in the season, but I can report that in about a week I was able to get my new character to level 52 in probably about 12 hours of game time. Even if it slows down, it just feels less grindy already.
Second, loot drops are much improved. I’ve never seen so many legendary items drop just by fighting random mobs. While most of it is trash, there is enough that it seems like I am gaining higher quality gear at a faster pace than before.
Third, it’s so far not nearly as boring. The season game mechanics where they introduced vampires as a storyline is an improvement over last season’s malignant quests, at least to me. In addition, the vampire skills you aquire makes your character a little overpowered. There is more things to do. World events seem to occur at a much faster pace, which is a welcome change Having the season of blood events change every hour to new locations also helps with pacing. There are even five new dungeons to explore with (what I understand) more defined drop lists of gear specific to each dungeon. The rarity of items haven’t really changed, but limiting an item to one dungeon makes it much more likely to drop simply because of the limited amount of items to choose from. This makes grinding for that one piece you need feel less boring.
So, I’m giving the game another shot. We’ll see if the changes the development team were enough to keep their player base around for season 3 and beyond.
Do you still game? If so, what is your favorite style? If not, did you play in your youth and just grow out of it?
The original Diablo is to this day is my favorite, maybe it was just that in those years it was the pinnacle of graphics and design; maybe it was just sort of that time in my life. To me it doesn’t matter, no Diablo game since has captured that atmosphere. I even play the mobile version immortal.