Diablo IV - The Bear and Badger

pc71

Had a wee check and the answer is yes and starting from scratch.

Chazmano

Anyone on tonight

stormyskiesahead

Finally got to watch that 8 minute cinematic people have been going crazy over during our last co-op session, and man, what an incredible spectacle. Fucking love the Blizzard Cinematic Modeling team.

Chazmano

stormyskiesahead wrote:

Finally got to watch that 8 minute cinematic people have been going crazy over during our last co-op session, and man, what an incredible spectacle. Fucking love the Blizzard Cinematic Modeling team.

I legit think they should do a movie

Blocks100

They're doing a cartoon series.

stormyskiesahead

It's been a couple of years since I heard anything about the Diablo and Overwatch TV shows, but if I remember correctly they were gonna be Castlevania style animations by an outside studio. I mean, they could be good (if they ever see the light of day) but I'd love to see their in-house cinematics team given the resources needed to do it themselves.

Blocks100

Oh, they've already done a Diablo movie too:

Spoiler:

Blocks100

stormyskiesahead

That costume and makeup design though.

stormyskiesahead

Finished the campaign with my Rogue tonight and thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. Got it all done in co-op, ended up at level 52 and had played around with Flurry, Twisting Blades, and Barrage builds. I genuinely don't know which one I prefer and I still have Penetrating Shot to look into now I have the legendary aspect.

Both looking forward to and a little intimidated at starting the endgame content, there's so much game here.

afgavinstan

Level 49 & a half. Can taste that sweet sweet paragon. Had to change about things last night, Foot Stomp out, Kick in. Had my fill of obols and couldn't hold any more so spent my lot on maces due to my choice of expertise bonus, got 4/10 legendary, two of which had aspects I now use, one of which explodes enemies affected by Kick if slain within two seconds of Kick. I can happily oblige. So, slightly out my comfort zone but infinitely more powerful.

Tonight I'll be clearing Dry Steppes of things. Folks I've enabled quick join to my party at any time, don't be shy and just join me if you like.

stormyskiesahead

Did our first proper end-game session last night.

Would tier 3 - Nightmare Dungeons, Helltides, a World Boss, plenty of stuff for the tree, and I'm making progress on the Paragon Board towards my first custom glyph.

There's some good stuff here, and you can really feel the difference from world tier 2 which we completed the campaign on, particularly the amounts of incoming CC, DoT, and AoE to go with some tanky as fuck elites that hit like trucks. I must've died half a dozen times not including the World Boss.

Edit: Thinking about it, dying a lot was probably to do with switching to a Penetrating Shot build that has low survivability and nothing to make me unstoppable. I may need to rework some skills.

stormyskiesahead

Man, The Butcher is horrible. I never encountered him while levelling but he's appeared in regular and nightmare dungeons four times since hitting the end-game. Managed to beat him for the first time last night, and yeah that felt good, but knowing he could be around any corner in any dungeon is doing a fine job of adding entire levels of apprehension to things. Kudos, Blizz.

I'm actually really digging the difficulty of world tier 3 end-game activities. It adds a whole new dynamic to my build crafting, as a squishy rogue I need to spec into survivability and stun break in a way I didn't feel I had to while levelling in tier 2 - or I'm just road kill.

afgavinstan

Damn, I gotta catch up my WTL. Made lvl 50 last night. Time to finish the campaign and start upping difficulty.
Dunno if I'm feeling the Kick part of my build.

stormyskiesahead

afgavinstan wrote:

Dunno if I'm feeling the Kick part of my build.

Yeah I get that. I've been messing around with my build quite a bit lately after struggling to settle on something that feels good to play and does the job it needs to at this point in the game.

I think my build's finally in a good place though - barrage rogue with poison and shadow imbuements for good AoE and single target damage, loads of vulnerable application, poison trap for CC, an unbreakable movement ability for when I get CC'd, and even some decent healing when I'm in the thick of it.

Now I just need to focus on getting better gear.

FranticPea

afgavinstan wrote:

Damn, I gotta catch up my WTL. Made lvl 50 last night. Time to finish the campaign and start upping difficulty.
Dunno if I'm feeling the Kick part of my build.

I'd be interested to know if upping the difficulty makes it more interesting, and as such makes the initial slog worth it, please Gav.

I've not had the slightest urge to turn this back on tbh since the first few sessions.

Blocks100

Yeah I wasn't feeling the love for it for a while. I mean, it's gorgeous to look at, if that's the right word, but also so very soulless. I can see why Edge only gave it a 7. But things are clicking for me a bit more now. Gone rapid fire rogue (and maybe that's why I was getting bored, because I always go rogue) but spicing it up a bit more with a few legendaries that are getting me to experiment with other skills like Twisting Blades.

Can people on different WTL play together?

afgavinstan

No, everyone in a party needs to be on the same WTL.

Djornson

Got this now, it's great so far

Coopers Green

The graphics are good... but it's all very brown. And samey. Every cellar layout is the same. Just not as much visual variety overall as I expected from Diablo.

And boss fights can get to fuck. I've dropped down a level because fuck getting instakilled.

Needs a lot more way points. I don't always have time to see a dungeon all the way through in a session.

A lot of side quests are channeling WoW hard, and I hate how they make me feel manipulated into grinding. But it's somehow worse because a quest picked up at lvl 20 keeps scaling difficulty with the character's level. I never feel like I've gotten over the hump of an area and can feel like a powerful sorcerer to those poor plebs, 20 levels later.

It's a 6/7 for me so far. Admittedly disappointed as I loved D3.

Kow

Sorry Chaz, i tried to accept your friend request but it said there was some error. It may be because I didn't see it for ages, there wasn't any pop up or notification

Blocks100

Broodguard boss can fuck right off.

Speedhaak

Coopers Green wrote:

The graphics are good... but it's all very brown. And samey. Every cellar layout is the same. Just not as much visual variety overall as I expected from Diablo. And boss fights can get to fuck. I've dropped down a level because fuck getting instakilled. Needs a lot more way points. I don't always have time to see a dungeon all the way through in a session. A lot of side quests are channeling WoW hard, and I hate how they make me feel manipulated into grinding. But it's somehow worse because a quest picked up at lvl 20 keeps scaling difficulty with the character's level. I never feel like I've gotten over the hump of an area and can feel like a powerful sorcerer to those poor plebs, 20 levels later. It's a 6/7 for me so far. Admittedly disappointed as I loved D3.

All good points. I delayed picking this up as I was playing Street Fighter VI and this year so far I haven't really been gaming much. It's Diablo, it's Live Service, it's Blizzard. There is nothing revolutionary here, it's their usual polish something to death approach with little risk taken in any one area.

Maybe 10 years ago I would have lapped this up and no lifed it but I just can't be arsed any more. It's definitely good, and I will try to see it through to finish but I doubt I will be a seasonal player. The thought of having to do everything again every three months is sickening.

Blocks100

I think they were hoping that the usual addictive drive to find ever-better-loot would spur players on to return again and again. But as a somewhat jaded older game, that's a relatively easy habit for me to kick these days.

I'm guessing it's an absolute riot in multiplayer though. Might try it some day.

stormyskiesahead

I played the demo solo and didn't get on with it at all, picked up the game on release because a couple of friends were getting it and we've had a blast in co-op. Not sure how long it'll hold my attention, but I am still a total sucker for loot and build crafting so I'd say some time yet.

Speedhaak

Yeah see I am actively avoiding the crowd I play with, not that it matters as they have all stopped now anyway after maxing their characters... Fucking animals.

afgavinstan

I can't get enough of this. Just wish I had the hours of the day to do sit and rattle it!

Paul the sparky

Dirty boy

Coopers Green

Strongholds can get to fuck.

At this point I persist with the game because I spent so much on it. :-(

afgavinstan

I'm still loving it. Strongholds are really not made for solo runs tbh.

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