Hi all! I have read a lot of good opinions on this matter, just highlighting the one that I think of as a fine example of analysis:
Bisso's full post with picture samples.
Also the OP is explaining these things pretty good aswell.
I work as a photographer so i know a thing or two about lighting, color tones and contrast...and i have to tell you, you guys are perfectly right about the matter at hand!!
These things just wont change, it's a given fact how 99% of the people see a picture, how they focus on a given composition, like when the frame of the picture is dark and something's happening in the middle that is lighter...like in Diablo general. Ofc it's darker if its more contrasty and less glowy-unicorny. Ofc most of the horror elements can come from someone's nostalgia, let's not talk about that.
BUT....BUTTTT...the problem roots elsewhere I think.
You almost all concerned about visuals, and forget about the fact that developers are playing and studying other games aswell. They even said it in Blizzcon and some summaries also include a point saying this. Meaning: they have to live up -to some degree- to other games.
There are monsters that need to be hit, even targeted sometimes, loot that needs to be picked up. As a QoL change, in many games they highlighted key elements to be more easy to process for your eyes.
THIS is what's happening that's all. The devs just tuning the game for an average player, and they go straight against the face of what they wanted to do. Horror = contrast. it doesnt matter if it's TOO MUCH LIGHT or TOO DARK, what's important is the ratio. Easy game, no crying children = highlight everything, make it rewarding, progression in an instant.
They have to decide if they want to make a Dark Souls game or Sims 2 withe weapons and demons.
Horror can come from the feeling of desperation aswell. If you don't see what need to be hit in the first 1 second for example.
Imagine if in Alien movie, you could see the monster in 1 second.... peace.
I am totally for the darkness in storytelling, voice acting, music, graphics and the world. However what some people are longing for is the more hardcore feel of the old Diablo games, basically the feeling of being less powerful, compared to the things around you. For many people, myself include, this would be a negative thing. The aspect that makes Diablo III combat so satisfying in some cases (Uliana's set is a great example) is that you are that incredibly powerful being. This doesn't mean, that the game should be super easy, that there should be no challenge. But if we make the game so difficult, that you feel genuinely threatened by monsters, would create a great atmosphere, but as an ARPG it would not be satisfying to play.
BUT what I would LOVE, is a "true hardcore" mode where, should you choose it, the game becomes more challenging and the atmosphere more hostile. Maybe the area that your character lights up could be smaller, monsters not flash when hit, and maybe it could be it bit more zoomed in. Everything you need to make it more immersive. As an optional experience I feel this would be great.
Something similar to the modes in some horror games, where key objects don't get highlighted, hints and tutorials, maybe some helpful HUD elements are disabled.
To me the diablo 3 gameplay and the feels of the atmpshere kills me. im not even exited to diablo 4 until they fix their engine for a proper dark diablo game. they need to reset their game visual wise and ingame depht as well the demo lacked complicated runewords ( Not that complicated but actually just that u can missplay and fuck up ur item if u dont place them correctly) Basically i just want a real sucessor of diablo 2 not another D3 with darker graphics that its not even scary still. or hard to play. diablo was never an easy game before diablo 3 came out and ruined everything blizzard needs to stay to the roots of the base of the foundation of the game u can't just make the game super easy mode out of nowhere when the game has always been Normal - Difficult with time the game gets harder and harder but with d3 u just feel unstoppable during ur entire playthrought and its really not fun to play
To me the diablo 3 gameplay and the feels of the atmpshere kills me. im not even exited to diablo 4 until they fix their engine for a proper dark diablo game. they need to reset their game visual wise and ingame depht as well the demo lacked complicated runewords ( Not that complicated but actually just that u can missplay and fuck up ur item if u dont place them correctly) Basically i just want a real sucessor of diablo 2 not another D3 with darker graphics that its not even scary still. or hard to play. diablo was never an easy game before diablo 3 came out and ruined everything blizzard needs to stay to the roots of the base of the foundation of the game u can't just make the game super easy mode out of nowhere when the game has always been Normal - Difficult with time the game gets harder and harder but with d3 u just feel unstoppable during ur entire playthrought and its really not fun to play
Not sure why people keep saying this about D3. D3 was only “easy mode” if you purposefully made it easy. They allowed you to adjust the difficulty to whatever you wanted from the start. If it felt too easy? Immediately switch to Hell difficulty or higher to make it more challenging. Except this isn’t what most people did. Most people kept it easy or just barley hard enough to find good gear and then slowly ramped up difficulty so it never felt “hard”. But that was their choice.
You’re talking about the game forcing you into it being challenging from the beginning, without choice. Like D2 did. The Problem is Blizzard wants to cater to a larger audience, so they have to make at least an optional “easy mode” for that crowd from the start. If you like the game to be harder, just ramp up the difficulty in settings. *thumbs up*
To me the diablo 3 gameplay and the feels of the atmpshere kills me. im not even exited to diablo 4 until they fix their engine for a proper dark diablo game. they need to reset their game visual wise and ingame depht as well the demo lacked complicated runewords ( Not that complicated but actually just that u can missplay and fuck up ur item if u dont place them correctly) Basically i just want a real sucessor of diablo 2 not another D3 with darker graphics that its not even scary still. or hard to play. diablo was never an easy game before diablo 3 came out and ruined everything blizzard needs to stay to the roots of the base of the foundation of the game u can't just make the game super easy mode out of nowhere when the game has always been Normal - Difficult with time the game gets harder and harder but with d3 u just feel unstoppable during ur entire playthrought and its really not fun to play
Not sure why people keep saying this about D3. D3 was only “easy mode” if you purposefully made it easy. They allowed you to adjust the difficulty to whatever you wanted from the start. If it felt too easy? Immediately switch to Hell difficulty or higher to make it more challenging. Except this isn’t what most people did. Most people kept it easy or just barley hard enough to find good gear and then slowly ramped up difficulty so it never felt “hard”. But that was their choice.
You’re talking about the game forcing you into it being challenging from the beginning, without choice. Like D2 did. The Problem is Blizzard wants to cater to a larger audience, so they have to make at least an optional “easy mode” for that crowd from the start. If you like the game to be harder, just ramp up the difficulty in settings. *thumbs up*
While i do agree with what you say about the difficulty, Diablo 3 (and the whole series really) does not scales difficulty in a good way for my taste.
Why do i say this? well, the whole series as far as i remember (been a long while since i played D1 and D2 though), scales mostly along the lines of %, like, OK so on this difficulty you have X% less resistance than before, X% less dodge, receive X% more damage, etc... For me, as much as i love all the Diablos, it's a bad way to do it, as far as the system for not getting hit, has never really been skill based, you have dodge and blocks %, but a lot of the time, there is no skill to not receiving damage. So, i don't really like the mix of getting one shoted and dif goes up, while not being able to evade that damage... I'm not a particularly good player, neither a fan of the souls game, but i would love to se a Diablo game that approaches combat in a more tactical way, something closer but not exactly like god of war maybe, as it is moire tactical (PS4 God of War BTW) but still no too dark souls like.
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Hi all! I have read a lot of good opinions on this matter, just highlighting the one that I think of as a fine example of analysis:
The devs just tuning the game for an average player, and they go straight against the face of what they wanted to do.
Bisso's full post with picture samples.
Also the OP is explaining these things pretty good aswell.
I work as a photographer so i know a thing or two about lighting, color tones and contrast...and i have to tell you, you guys are perfectly right about the matter at hand!!
These things just wont change, it's a given fact how 99% of the people see a picture, how they focus on a given composition, like when the frame of the picture is dark and something's happening in the middle that is lighter...like in Diablo general. Ofc it's darker if its more contrasty and less glowy-unicorny. Ofc most of the horror elements can come from someone's nostalgia, let's not talk about that.
BUT....BUTTTT...the problem roots elsewhere I think.
You almost all concerned about visuals, and forget about the fact that developers are playing and studying other games aswell. They even said it in Blizzcon and some summaries also include a point saying this. Meaning: they have to live up -to some degree- to other games.
There are monsters that need to be hit, even targeted sometimes, loot that needs to be picked up. As a QoL change, in many games they highlighted key elements to be more easy to process for your eyes.
THIS is what's happening that's all.
Horror = contrast. it doesnt matter if it's TOO MUCH LIGHT or TOO DARK, what's important is the ratio.
Easy game, no crying children = highlight everything, make it rewarding, progression in an instant.
They have to decide if they want to make a Dark Souls game or Sims 2 withe weapons and demons.
Horror can come from the feeling of desperation aswell. If you don't see what need to be hit in the first 1 second for example.
Imagine if in Alien movie, you could see the monster in 1 second.... peace.
Art director Diablo 4 is the same Diablo 3 John mueller https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/John_Mueller. i think "badass mechanics "Bringing marvel cinematic Universe in D4.
Agreed
To me the diablo 3 gameplay and the feels of the atmpshere kills me. im not even exited to diablo 4 until they fix their engine for a proper dark diablo game. they need to reset their game visual wise and ingame depht as well the demo lacked complicated runewords ( Not that complicated but actually just that u can missplay and fuck up ur item if u dont place them correctly) Basically i just want a real sucessor of diablo 2 not another D3 with darker graphics that its not even scary still. or hard to play. diablo was never an easy game before diablo 3 came out and ruined everything blizzard needs to stay to the roots of the base of the foundation of the game u can't just make the game super easy mode out of nowhere when the game has always been Normal - Difficult with time the game gets harder and harder but with d3 u just feel unstoppable during ur entire playthrought and its really not fun to play
Not sure why people keep saying this about D3. D3 was only “easy mode” if you purposefully made it easy. They allowed you to adjust the difficulty to whatever you wanted from the start. If it felt too easy? Immediately switch to Hell difficulty or higher to make it more challenging. Except this isn’t what most people did. Most people kept it easy or just barley hard enough to find good gear and then slowly ramped up difficulty so it never felt “hard”. But that was their choice.
You’re talking about the game forcing you into it being challenging from the beginning, without choice. Like D2 did. The Problem is Blizzard wants to cater to a larger audience, so they have to make at least an optional “easy mode” for that crowd from the start. If you like the game to be harder, just ramp up the difficulty in settings. *thumbs up*
While i do agree with what you say about the difficulty, Diablo 3 (and the whole series really) does not scales difficulty in a good way for my taste.
Why do i say this? well, the whole series as far as i remember (been a long while since i played D1 and D2 though), scales mostly along the lines of %, like, OK so on this difficulty you have X% less resistance than before, X% less dodge, receive X% more damage, etc... For me, as much as i love all the Diablos, it's a bad way to do it, as far as the system for not getting hit, has never really been skill based, you have dodge and blocks %, but a lot of the time, there is no skill to not receiving damage. So, i don't really like the mix of getting one shoted and dif goes up, while not being able to evade that damage... I'm not a particularly good player, neither a fan of the souls game, but i would love to se a Diablo game that approaches combat in a more tactical way, something closer but not exactly like god of war maybe, as it is moire tactical (PS4 God of War BTW) but still no too dark souls like.