Redpill me on the Diablo franchise

WTF is diablo
Explain it please anons

I have never played diable, I have played diablo like dungeon crawlers in the 90s, well I remember games like that but I always found them mediocre and boring.
I never touched Diablo because of the grim dark loot and crawling in isometric view always seemed shit to me.
Anyway after the recent diablo immortals debacle news and then seeing the diablo 4 gameplay I decided to look at gameplay on YT of the franchise.
Diablo 1 is ancient so I would never play it. Diablo 2 "remaster" looked OK but with old mechanics.
Then Diablo 3 looks like some shitty MOBA tier crap with pop ups and bright flashy lights trying to raise your dopamine levels.
But diablo 4 looked pretty good, plus I like open world games so that is an appeal to me.

How can I get into diablo?
If I started with 4 do I need to have played the previous games?
What do diablo anons think of 4? Does it look good or shit?

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Other urls found in this thread:

opendiablo2.com/
plugy.free.fr/en/index.html
slashdiablo.net
github.com/diasurgical/devilutionX/
moddb.com/mods/diablo-the-hell-2
mod.diablo.noktis.pl/
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

Diablo hits my nostalgia on such a huge level. Originally i had seen glimpses of my brothers play the games, solo, online, through LAN with their friends that came over.

i could immediately just go online very intuitively. i quickly befriended others, fought my way through the game with various strangers. one day someone let me in on how duping works, and then that because just a feature of the game to me. one of my favorite things to do was to dupe my expensive items and sell them and litter money on the ground, and go spend it at Wirts, and if he sold me bunk shit i duped it and sold that.

Diablo 1 became like my home base, i beat the game several times with different classes, loaded up trainers and item injectors and accessed all the best gear some of which doesn't spawn normally in-game and was only accessible through cheating. played as a magic using warrior or a weapon swinging sorceror, just for kicks. long story short though, fuck Wirt, he never has anything good, and gambling is for chumps. i don't know where he got the stuff, but i can certainly tell you where he should put it.

the open source implementation is
>opendiablo2.com/
the singleplayer must have mod is PlugY
>plugy.free.fr/en/index.html
and the private server with a cool community and playerbase is
>slashdiablo.net

there's still quite a long time between us and the open source Diablo 2; DevilutionX equivalent, but there's already plenty of options to go about playing the 'best' version of D2 already, and it only gets better as time goes on and we draw closer to that project releasing.
honestly that remaster that came out last year, Resurrected, it's really good and totally worth playing on a console with a controller on a huge high definition television with surround sound. but if that's not your bag, then just follow the slashdiablo tutorial and jump online with the original, free of charge, enjoy.

>numbers go up
>fiddling with stats
>sorting inventory for hours
>grinding bosses for loot
>gacha in disguise
it's fun for the campaign but watch out if you have addictive personality because the enndgame is predatory cancer. i have accidentally started grinding for hours and only later had power to stop. it's not even fun.

diablo and its clones are tedious chore-games that only autistics can appreciate. don't waste your time

**the open source implementation is
>github.com/diasurgical/devilutionX/
the singleplayer must have mod is Hell2 and belzebub
>moddb.com/mods/diablo-the-hell-2
>mod.diablo.noktis.pl/

Skip 1 if you aren't interested.

D2R literally is the original game with an optional improved graphics mode and native resolution mouse support

D3 + Expack is good

>If I started with 4 do I need to have played the previous games?
Diablo 1, 2, and D2R operate on entirely different lore and game design from 3, DI, and 4. The former were made by an entirely different dev teams -- the former by Condor Inc (later renamed Blizzard North) with the remaster by Vicarious Visions who tried to stay faithful to the old game, and the latter is by Blizzard Entertainment, specifically members of the WoW team. When D3 launched, Blizzard Entertainment also released a book of retcons to show how none of the prior games' lore matters and only the new stuff they worked on matters.

In short, you only need to go back as far as D3 if you really want to understand the setting and lore for D4. Playing D2R would actually muddy the waters for you. However, the lore is so simplistic that even if you skipped D3, you wouldn't be lost at any point. "Heroes good, Evils bad, details inside."

>What do diablo anons think of 4? Does it look good or shit?
For reference, I have ~500 hours in D1, ~15,000 hours in D2 and D2R, ~200 hours in D3, and 0 hours in DI. I rate the games D2R > D2 > D1 >>>> D3.

My opinion on D4 is that it looks visually looks appropriate, but the displays on the skill system and loot is a continuation of D3's subpar systems. I also expect the story to not be as absolutely cringeworthy as D3's sunday morning cartoon shit, which is not exactly a high bar to exceed. In short, I think it looks mediocre, but probably worth a few dozen hours to see all the content and story. I'll be getting it because I will always get Diablo.

>How can I get into diablo?
There's no answer to that. The genre has such a massive variety of offerings. D1, 2, and 3 play insanely different, with different design goals and rewards for your time investments. In D2, it's rewarding to make multiple characters of the same class. In D3, that's retarded. I can't predict what aspects you'd like and point you in the right direction.

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>Diablo 1 is ancient so I would never play it
It's actually really solid

>playing on a console with a controller on a huge high definition television with surround sound
I don;t have surround sound but I am primarily a console player. I have no interest in playing online. It is expensive like full price on PS4 but I can pirate it on nintendo switch

I would say 2 is objectively the better game but 1 is still very solid and it has terrific atmosphere. To me the game felt like a horror game when I played it as a kid, it absolutely spooked me.

That image is exactly what I meant by D3 looking like some shitty moba game. Even me not really knowing what diablo is knows that D3 shit is not diablo.
From this andThese anons advice I think I might grab DR2 on sale or pirate it
My issue is that I grew up playing atari and spectrum games, going back to games from the early 90s aesthetics and crappy visuals really just feels shit to me, I personally love that vidya has come along so much and despite that vidya now has reached a visual peak with last gen games, I only ever go back past the PS3/360 gen for very specific timeless games like aLttP or OoT sonic from the 90s or mario54

The diablo games, all of them, are basic hack-and-slash games that start out just being about the grind and about BIGGER NUMBERS, but the more you progress, the more you discover the potential for personal expression.

The entire game series is about loot, about finding loot to kill monsters to find better loot.
And in the beginning, "better loot" does just mean "more damage". But when you get towards the endgame, pure damage levels off, and loot tends to get more interesting effects, which is where the game's *real* fun begins, as you start to master the mechanics and deep dive into the game's systems.
It's not just about finding better loot, it's about finding loot that does new and interesting things. That's what makes it fun and addicting.

And basically every Diablo game has that, and that's why both Diablo 2 and 3 have such massive legs, even today.

Purists might look down their nose at D3, but there really isn't a bad place to start the series, D3 included. They're all great games in their own way.

There's also completely separate games that have the same basic gameplay loops but put their own twist on it, like Torchlight (only Torchlight 2 is good), or Path of Exile

Basic gist is that Diablo 2 was a genre-defining game. It's worth a playthrough, the story is enjoyable and while the combat doesn't really get good until higher levels (all the cool spells are level 20+), it's enjoyable enough to get you through acts 1 to 5. I highly recommend playing it with someone else, because one of the bigger reasons why Diablo 2 became such a phenomenon was the online aspect. Diablo 3 feels more modern (duh) but they really missed the biggest things what made Diablo 2 such a great game, mainly the itemization. Diablo 4 feels like it's going to be more of the same but this time you're playing with other people whether you wanted or not (in Diablo 2 you had to specifically join multiplayer lobbies if you wanted other people), and the MMO aspect might be its saving grace, we shall see. Quarterly dev updates have me concerned about other aspects of the game so I'm not the most hyped person about Diablo 4. It's good to remember that almost no one who made the big games for Blizzard are working there anymore. Does Blizzard have any talented game designers left? I don't think so, and if there are, they're repressed by some of the greediest people in the business.

>Diablo 1 is ancient so I would never play it.
Then why even make this thread with Diablo 1 as the OP image? Just to bait and switch to shill for Diablo 4? You rejected the first three games in your opening post, and there's only 4.

>but there really isn't a bad place to start the series,
Sorry, I should fix that.

There isn't a bad place to start the series, EXCEPT DIABLO IMMORTAL.

For the love of god, don't touch that game with a ten foot pole

>These anons advice I think I might grab DR2 on sale or pirate it
It really is the best of the bunch right now. More importantly for you, since you thought the old gameplay was dated, they added an option (called Quick Cast) to instead bind skills to hotkeys. IE, pressing 1 (or F1) would directly cast a skill, rather than the old system of F1 switches your Rclick ability to a skill, then you have to Rclick to use that skill. It feels much more modern with that system enabled. It also plays fucking great on a controller. I plug in mine to my PC sometimes just to relax.

Basically, you play as a single character in a medieval fantasy world loosely based on Catholicism.

The main game play involves you moving a character around with your mouse. attacking enemies with abilities and than looting items to make yourself stronger.

The main selling points of the series that make it stand out from other Arpgs are
1) Music and sound design is 10/10
2) dark atmosphere and tone make you feel like you are having an adventure
3) bartering and trading systems are extremely in depth and make for interesting player interactions (except diablo 3)
4) you can play with other ppl easily
5) the itemization in diablo 2 specifically is deeper than any other game to date and the amount of autism and mechanics involved is staggering enough to make ppl still play it 20 years later

diablo 1 is kinda boring, diablo 3 is extremely boring since theres no trading - diablo 2 is a perfect game with some imperfect UI and limitations - however modded versions of diablo 2 have made it an actual 10/10 masterpiece game - see project diablo 2 or Path of diablo

>in the beginning, "better loot" does just mean "more damage". But when you get towards the endgame, pure damage levels off, and loot tends to get more interesting effects, which is where the game's *real* fun begins
feels like you're sucking the joy out of the game
with the whole spiel about bigger numbers, varied effects and synergies spurring bigger numbers in the context of a class

it's a game, yes more damage more fun, like come on
it's a gamey game, it immerses you in the action and doesn't let up, it's FUN

>10 million downloads in a couple days
i reckon that means you all had phones

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WTF are you talking about.
Because I am asking anons on their opinion of the franchise not just one game.
I didnt write off 2 or 3 either and I only write off 1 because it is dated not because it is a bad game
I prefer to play with a controller in anything that I can unless it needs a KB&M which diablo looks like it doesn't really need one

Diablo 2 is one the most addictive and best games ever made. Diabo 2 ressurected so far, is even better

Diablo 1 is the best game lore-wise, it's important to play it if you want to get into Diablo. It doesn't even take much time, and "gear walls" like in subsequent games barely exist.
Diablo II is very important for the story as well, but its main appeal is character building and collecting loot.
Diablo III is where it goes to shit. I'd say it's worth playing once, but game complexity is really shallow, so better watch a playthrough on YouTube.
Diablo Immortal tells the story of what happened between 2nd and 3rd game. I am not interested in it, I've heard people saying that there are high gear checks (paywalls), so past a certain point the game becomes incredibly unfun.

and best in all fronts:

>production value
>voice acting
>graphics quality and variety, animations

and most importantly

>d2 is still the best action-rpg gameplay to date, by FAR.

Most action-rpgs that follow diablo 2 were more rpg than action. Diablo has done perfectly mixing action with rpg for isometric view

Yeah I downloaded it

And played it for about an hour
And promptly deleted it.

No shame in trying things out

Rpgs used to be all baldur's gate, and other d&d emulators. Then diablo took the isometric perspective and made its version of an "action" game out of it. Because it has rpg dna unlike lots of hack n slash games it has an emphasis on stats, items, and classes.

Well Diablo 2 was a highly ubiquitous among gamers, action RPG with kind of watered down roguelike mechanics.