I have played the campaign of Diablo 4 - I did not have much expectation but I got bored fairly early in the game. With each new game, franchises are supposed to get better, but I am not sure that is the case with Diablo.
Here are all the points where I think D4 is actually worse than D1, even though it was released 27 years later
Variety of enemy in terms of gameplay
In D4, there are more or less 5 archetypes of enemies:
- melee who runs fast and chase you but are weak
- melee who walks slow and are more sturdy and hit harder
- ranged who does nothing but shoot
- ranged who circle strafes and shoots
- enemy spawner that you must usually kill first
Enemies end up having different bodies of course, but in essence that's really all they give and you update your gameplay based on which of them you face.
In D1, there are many more:
- fallen ones who hit you then retreat when one of them dies
- skeletons that are almost "typical" melee except that they hesitate and don't engage instantly
- bats that teleport to you when you hit them
- goats (melee or archers) that try their best to surround you by circling you
- scavengers and gargoyles that heal up (on carcass for scavengers) when you stop chasing them
- mages that teleport around and flash you if you get close
- balrogs that cast inferno, making it dangerous to escape (if you escape in the same direction as inferno you get a ton of damage) and tricky to beat
- vipers that can rush toward you and double strike you
In D1 there are so many enemies to get to know, you really need to change your playstyle based on the enemy you face (unless you are high level enough of course) which makes it all the more thrilling and interesting to play the game. In D4 I just played the same way for each enemy really, more or less.
Variety of dungeon layout
That one is easy. In D1 you have no idea where the stairs can be. Or where rooms are. You can find anything anywhere. The labyrinth can take endless shapes (well, up to 32 bits anyway). You are always hyped to enter a new level because you don't know exactly what shape it's going to be or how enemy packs will be organized. Sometimes you get a really nasty selection of enemy and you get a hard time. Some other times it's a breeze. The randomness of enemy selection further increases the thrill of getting there.
In D4 almost all dungeons are : do something on the left of the dungeon. Do something on the right of the dungeon. Press on to the boss area. It's boring and I think that's part of why I just stopped doing side quests after a while.
Oh, I did forget one other possible thing to do in a dungeon: "Look at all clues in a room". I'm not sure it has a place in a game like Diablo where it's supposed to be hack'n'slash ; not hack, look around, and slash.
Difficulty progression
In D1 you get a progression wall at each new zone. Church is fairly easy albeit with difficulty spikes on Butcher and Leoric. Catacombs is where players start to struggle with all the goat men, nasty dogs ; vicious monsters start to get introduced. Caves is another ramp up in difficulty as you are forced to fight in a mostly open area with little cover and tons of elemental damage. Hell is the ultimate test, you need to single out most enemies to beat them (until you get strong enough at least).
In D4 it's all.. the same? I never got the impression "Wow that content is harder now". All acts have been more of the same in difficulty. The only exception is the Capstone dungeon because I tried it at clvl 46 (I was too eager to ramp up the difficulty, I could not set myself to wait to clvl 50).
Character progression
Again, in D1 you do have strong character power spikes. Like getting that first tier 2 armor (changing your look). Or getting a good weapon. Or getting that nice +40% fire resistance ring. Such drops allows you to kill monsters more easily, and you do feel the difference!
In D4 it's "Oh cool I have +3% crit damage" and it's unnoticeable. The only noticeable effects are from legendary items (I only speak of the items you get through the campaign) but it's not like a big power spike neither, it's more like a cool gimmick. Also, you never really say "I used to have trouble killing these monsters and now it's easy" because it's always easy.
I keep hoping that one day, there will be a game that surpasses Diablo 1. But so far, D1 remains the best experience I ever had in the genre.
The Act Man on YouTube did a review of the game and hit all the same points you did.
He explained Diablo 4 as being as big as an ocean (content wise), but as deep as a puddle. I think that is spot on.
Loved the game for the first 15 or so hours, but it’s getting kind of boring and many things seem like chores instead of fun gameplay.
Don’t get me wrong, I still think it’s a decent game, but for me it’s nowhere near D2(played mostly single player and easily my fav) and is the polar opposite of D1.
It is however, much better than D3. I hated that game. I put 3-4 hours into that game and just couldn’t do it anymore.
"as big as an ocean, but deep as a puddle" is becoming a meaningless cliche for me at this point. People just repeat it as an almost a standalone argument.
It especially doesn't feel useful when comparing the various Diablo titles, when the first and second game have so little content to play it comparison. So you can easily describe them as "as big as a puddle, and as deep as a puddle" which I have a feeling people fans would disagree with reflexively.
That’s the point though. There is tons more content, but what little content was in Diablo 1 for comparison was very rich and deep. I agree, cliches mean nothing without context so I’ll gladly provide some.
An example of this is this: who’s Griswald?
I bet you instantly know who that is, some of his lines, and where he was and his story.
Now name one vendor in Diablo 4.
Now, I’m not saying Diablo 4 should be like Diablo 1, because that also wouldn’t work in 2023. But having tons of content seems to have been traded for depth. While I liked the story and feel in Diablo 4, besides about 4-5 characters in Diablo 4’s story at the beginning and at the end, most were forgettable.
It’s like Blizzard forgot why NPCs such as Deckard Cain and Griswald and places like Tristram are so iconic.
They forgot why grinding was fun in 1&2. Getting my ass kicked by the Butcher, Duriel, etc. early on… then going back and leveling a couple more times and getting some better gear to kick their ass was rewarding and fun. Made it all worth it.
Between that and stats you can’t feel in the game. Because everything scales with you, to me after you get your ultimate, you don’t feel your character get stronger.
To me, Diablo 4 is a good game worth playing but it’s not nearly as good as 1&2, and I won’t dump thousands of hours into it like I did with LOD. I can go back to LOD and it’s as fun as it was 20 years ago despite playing the same content over and over.
LOL, now I'm imagining what D4 would be like if it was just a copy/paste of D1's content. Millions of players would be complaining that the game is only a few hours long and there's no "end game". :D
Right? Like I say obviously that wouldn’t work today either. Imagine how PACKED those levels would be.
I do wish however you didn’t have to be online to play, puts you at the mercy of the servers.
Nah, imagine how much better Diablo IV would be if the whole game was just that first town and the first dungeon, and you just ran it over and over again to get better gear.
The vendors were memorable in the early games because the games were so simple and straightforward there wasn't anything else to them other than a handful of named NPCs.
And you haven't really explained how the earlier games had more depth other than apparently fewer characters and more basic storylines equates to "depth".
We played the crap out of those games back then because we were younger, games were worse, and there were vastly fewer games to play as alternatives.
Edit: Not to mention the Butcher being a poor example due to how many people get destroyed by him in a Diablo IV the first time they meet him. I know he got me real good.
Re: the vendors, that instantly made me think of Baldur's Gate. There are lots of vendors! And I can remember some of them!
But...there's the guy in the Friendly Arm Inn. And the cranky mage in the forest. The smith in Beregost. Names? Dialog? Well...I remember the party members better, TBH. You spend a lot less time interacting with any one vendor in BG than in Diablo 1.
tl;dr you make a good point about only having a handful of named NPCs.