Hey guys, just throwing in my 2 cents.
Reading the comments I think its time to clearify some things here. I've been following Diablo news (especially D3) since...forever? There are some details you might have missed the last few weeks and days.
Diablo 3 has been moved to classic games on the Bnet site, and all the previous job postings for the new unannounced Diablo project have been removed from the site. Just one job posting popping up, for the Diablo franchise in general, with C++ knowledge, and at this point speculations have gone wild as D3 may very well be in maintenance mode for good. So a new class or even an new Expansion for D3 is very unlikely at this point. It could be, but I am not betting on it anymore, since the game got moved to classics on the site. This means, in my personal opinion, that the game is done, seasons will go with the newly announced themed seasons for as long as it takes and new content will probably be just some bugfixes and patches throughout D3's lifespan that is.
What is coming next then?
Well D4 is innevitable. A Diablo 3 Eternal Collection Port for the Nintendo Switch may be a realtity too. A mobile game in the Diabloverse is likely too.
If you look all the job postings and all the news that have been online since there was the first job posting in 2015 for an unannounced Diablo Project, you may be understanding my suggestions.
If D4 will come in the next 1-2 years, it will unite MMO elements such as Lost Ark or similar games, with Microtransactions for cosmetics, stash, pets and so on, the playstyle I believe would be very similar as that what we know today, but there will be improvs to this. (See Wolcen)
They will probably going the Road that PoE has it going maybe...
Thanks, and have a nice day.
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Runes and runewords provide a LOT of different, good things to the game.
End game chase items, some very very rare so something to look forward to dropping.
A form of trading currency, since some were so rare and they'd be taken out of the economy by being used.
Could have potentially been a form of mystery, with a new runeword being something to hunt for.
Had another use besides being used as a whole runeword - gave player options for adding small stat increases in their gear.
I'm personally pretty disappointed in how their systems are being developed so far. I think they got the art right, and I'm sure combat feels good, but that's about it. I don't want to get all hyperbolic, but I'm REALLY insulted they are choosing to call this system 'Runewords'. A trigger and effect system? Sure. But they chose to cannibalize such a beloved part of D2, and something people have been begging for?
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Not to be all negative but there are a couple worrisome things I've seen so far;
Minor things;
Not super stoked about 3 tiers of legendaries; Legendary, ancient and mythic or whatever they were. That's essentially the exact same system as what's in D3 currently, and while I didn't catch whether a legendary can drop in all 3 states or not, it still creates the same problem of 'a leg dropped, however it's not mythic or at least ancient so that sucks'. Also SOJ has been dropping as a regular legendary in the demo, so if it can't be mythic then that's just wasted potential.
More major things;
Very, very small amount of stats on items so far. Not a fan of an item just giving more 'attack' and 'defense', and hey it's got 3% attack speed. If that's really how it's going to be stat-wise, they've made it on par with D3, yet even more boring. Armors just have 'Attack' and 'defense', Weapons don't have damage ranges, or attack speeds, just a single 'weapon attack' rating. Didn't see anything about resistance stats on gear, let alone anything defense wise such as dodge / block / parry / resistance. Worrisome as a whole so far for actual items.
Runewords! God damnit I have to say this one just really irritates me. They ALLLMOST got it right, one of the funnest gear / drops from D2, because man when I saw runes drop in the demo I actually cheered. However they've said a couple times that 'runewords' exist, but really what they mean is you can socket a trigger and an effect. That is NOT runewords my dudes, and what's frustrating is you can have both this new rune system, while STILL creating hidden items found through using specific runes in a specific order. The existence of this system almost certainly means there wont' be extremely rare runes for chase drops either.
No character stat screen currently. I haven't found anything saying this is just a WOP which means that currently, D4 is the LEAST complicated game out D2 / 3 / 4 by miles. The 'stat screen' so far is literally 3 stats at the bottom of the character page, attack defense and life. I'm pretty there's mobile games with more then that.
The MMO aspect. It's one of those ideas that sounds cool at first, but doesn't hold up after you talk about it. Can you turn it off? What about any sort of community created challenges, which will be ruined by the rng of having random players just in your game world? Giant outdoor bosses are awesome, but HAVING to have a party / random players just personally sucks. Make the bosses super difficult, I'm for that 100%, but not mandatory party bosses.
Crafting. Unless I'm just 100% wrong about how stats will be at launch, I don't see crafting in D4 being good at all. Hell, as it stands now, D3's crafting is better simply because of more stats to choose from / balance.
Drop rate and rare gear. Again, if things stay the course we'll once more have a Diablo game where rare items are absolutely worthless in the end game, and serve only as gold / crafting mat fodder. With such few stats, there won't be any 'downsides' to wearing only legendaries, and with 3 tiers of legendaries plus sets, I just can't believe them when they say they won't be raining constantly.
No mimimap overlay, just a full map and a small corner one. Do I have to say more?
So I'm excited D4 finally got an announcement, but now I'm anxious to see how it turns out.
Edit; Rhykker's video states that it sounds like max level will be 40 currently. That's just... I mean there's a proven formula that's worked for years; Max level 99 or 100, and the last 10 or so are for the hardcore people who play the most, because you end up in the end game around 70 +. Cmon Blizz, dont' 'leave room' for expansions, this isn't WoW and we don't need level increases for expansions.
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I forget how I found this site. According to my account that was 7 and a half years ago. Man, I checked this site multiple times a day, for YEARRRRSSSS. Getting drip-fed information was excruciating. I won a closed beta key from here, and I remember being absolutely stoked. I remember getting into some heated arguments as well haha. Hell, I defended stuff like the RMAH for awhile even.
I've said my thoughts on D3 awhile back, so no need to re-hash them here. Suffice it to say, my views on Blizzard as a whole have done a 180. It IS very sad to watch your favorite hobby, your favorite pastime wither. And I'm definitely surprised to see Diablofans going away.
I pretty much stopped frequenting this site about two years ago, when I picked up PoE. But it always held a spot in my chrome bar, and once every couple of months it felt like, I'd check in, only to see the latest threads have their last reply be days old.
Sad to see you go Dfans, you will be missed. (Bleu42 on poe / steam).
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The fact that Blizzard is so god damned scared to talk about ANYTHING related to a 'diablo 4' is fucking frustrating. Wow Blizz, yea D3 on switch so god forbid you talk about anything else otherwise zomg less sales right? If they've been working on a D4 for years, as has been speculated, then they absolutely COULD have done an announcement this Blizzcon.
Brevik is right, Blizzard is being consumed by activision. They're more worried about some god damned switch sales of D3 then they are letting us know diablo isn't dead.
I'm so done being disappointed in Blizzard.
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Either way, yes I still check here once in awhile. I DID spend a couple thousand hours on Diablo 3 since closed beta after all. But yes, PoE is better. Diablo 3 is bad and Blizzard should feel bad.
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I also come back once in a great while to see if anything is stirring.
I'm willing to bet there's never going to be another actual meaningful update to Diablo 3 again. Of course I hope I'm wrong, but the writing's on the wall man.
Literally all it takes is to look at Path of Exile, and you know that D3 lost, a long time ago. It it absolutely MINDBLOWING how GGG from PoE can not only continue to deliver NEW content every couple of months, but how they are actually willing to change / add / tweak existing content right after it's release. When's the last time you've seen something from Blizzard that was borked, and they changed it quick? Blizzard has drowned themselves in too much red tape. Look how long it took to get the Necro.
Hell, at this point if Blizzard DID do a Diablo 4 reveal, there's no way I could get excited. It would release with minimal content, and it would take YEARS to get more.
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Lol yep I read all those listed ridiculous buffs. Really? Sets into the THOUSANDS of percent more damage?!
I'm so bummed I've been wasting my time with POE instead /s
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Path of exile is absolutely better than Diablo 3 in every single area that counts.
To your question OP; Yes, D3 is finish the campaign, then do nearly the exact same content while slightly upping the difficulty by a few % (greater rifts).
Actually, if you want a quick rundown;
Farm one area until level 70 with massacre bonuses.
Craft armor and weapons because who needs to rely on item drops in an ARPG.
Immediately skip a couple of the 17 difficulties and put it on T1 because then sets can drop.
Now stand in town and do regular rifts or bounties.
Spend a couple hours at most doing the Season Journey and then get handed your 6p set.
Upgrade rare weapons that you craft and get your sets' mandatory unique weapon.
Now skip even more difficulty levels and move on to T6.
Now do greater rifts until you run out of stones, then do regular rifts.
And now, because a game that's supposed to be around hunting loot instead just hands you everything, the only thing of worth is trying for leaderboards. So get ready to use 1 set for your class that's far better than the others, and have no choice in items because there's multiple mandatory legendaries that your set requires.
But don't worry, having all the items drop all the time just means you get to hunt for the same pieces with just slightly higher stats!
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Maybe sets should stop increasing damage by thousands of percent in the first place.
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One of the reasons I'm having a blast playing Diablo 4. Strange they chose to name it poe.