Diablo 4 - New Game Director

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Blizzard has announced that Diablo 4 had a new game director, Joe Shely (reported by Polygon).

Diablo 4 has a new game director

Designer Joe Shely steps up to lead next Diablo

Joe Shely is the new game director of Diablo 4, Blizzard Entertainment revealed Thursday. Shely replaces former Diablo 4 game director Luis Barriga, who exited Blizzard in August in the wake of a lawsuit against the company alleging a toxic workplace environment that subjected female employees to gender discrimination and sexual harassment.

Shely has been a member of the Diablo 4 development team since 2017, Blizzard said in his official developer bio. His responsibilities include "guiding efforts to deliver the deep, compelling systems and visceral combat Diablo is known for, and has been the overall caretaker of the combat experience," Blizzard said, and he led the team responsible for the first playable demo of Diablo 4 at BlizzCon 2019.

"I'm honored to continue the vision of Diablo IV as its new Game Director, and I'm humbled to represent the team pouring their hearts into this game," Shely said in a blog post published Thursday. "Like many of you, our team has been reflecting upon recent events. A lot has happened since our last blog and the hard work of practicing the values we aspire to must continue. In parallel with that important work, development of Diablo IV continues too."

Shely has been with Blizzard since 2005, and has served as designer on World of Warcraft, senior designer on Diablo 3, and contributed to the development of StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty.

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Nice, I'm glad they went with someone from the current team. If I'm not mistaken the dude was a game systems designer on D3 and lead game designer on D4. It's likely that the game also doesn't need very much guiding when it comes to direction, since it's pretty much a merging of the best of D2 with D3, and some other improvements.

I'm still excited for D4. And even though I said I would not waste any more time on D2R, it's just too addicting to give up, and I constantly get dragged back into it. It's shocking how better it is compared to D3. There's less experimentation with builds, but you also have a stronger character identity.
 
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As I suspect this will likely require some online components, as well as giving Blizzard/Activision money, it'll garner a hard pass from me. Gone are the glory days of Diablo, unless great old games keeps the franchise coming along in acceptable terms.
 
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There's less experimentation with builds, but you also have a stronger character identity.

I think respec is a good option to have. It's one of those things you may as well leave up to the player. Give them a chance to experiment and develop an identity from experience and let the player settle naturally on what they like using. I also think it should be free to use so I was pretty happy with the way D3 handled things. I did try all the skills and runes and ended up with a build that i enjoyed the most which was rarely what I thought I'd like the most to begin with.

I remember back in early days of WoW I could never save up enough gold for mount training because I would respec so often so charging a fee to respec can be pretty game breaking. There's really no need to punish people for wanting to experiment or refine.

Who has enough time to reroll the same class multiple times just to try lightning bolt instead of fireball, anyway?

As for Shely, can't say I know him but if he joined in 2005 that was the start of the WoW days, the beginning of the end of Blizzard being an innovative company, but the lessons learned from WoW do translate well to Diablo. I always suspected D4 would have an endgame similar to Rift Keys or Mythic Keys so I think he'll be a good director that will go with whats been working in WoW. Modern Blizzard style.

I'm definitely looking forward to it even if I doubt it can compete with the amount of content PoE has.
 
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I've never liked the concept of respeccing in RPGs. I don't think it should be an option unless it comes with consequences, but it almost never does.

To me, character creation and planning is an integral part of the experience, and being able to simply respec any time you want diminishes it.
 
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There is very little respeccing in D2R. I think you can do it at least once, or something like that. They introduced it very late, in a patch. I think that sounds fine. And I'm generally for less respeccing than more. I'm also of the opinion you should live with your choices. When I played D3 I never had any attachment to any character, since they could easily shift to any other build.
 
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To me, character creation and planning is an integral part of the experience, and being able to simply respec any time you want diminishes it.

This reminds me of how a friend once said I always finish games before I start them.

Planning, when done thoroughly, can go as far as learning every single encounter and being ready to exploit weaknesses by that point. You need to know what rewards you get and when. If you're lazy you could look up a guide but the only other way to really plan out an effective character is to wiki the whole game before you start playing.

He was right, though. In order to plan out a perfect character I completely spoiled the game by knowing everything before I actually discovered it.

If you really don't care at all about spoilers then it is possible to properly plan out a character, but if you want to just enjoy the game and learn as you go then respec is great for just enjoying yourself without fear you gimped your character.

That said, I am very fond of hardcore mechanisms like permadeath and a lot of what I play is just roguelikes. I do think modern RPGs can be a little too forgiving and even too understandable. Overly complicated stat systems that are poorly explained can often be more fun than a simple system where you can instantly work out the best build without doing any fun theorycrafting.

For example, you roll a Fighter in a new Pathfinder game. What weapon will you specialize in? Do you just pick one that sounds good and hope there's a good one at some point or do you look up all the weapons in the game before you play and specialize in the best one? It all depends on how much you want to spoil the game.

Being able to respec means you can avoid spoilers without gimping your character or needing to starting over.
 
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Planning, when done thoroughly, can go as far as learning every single encounter and being ready to exploit weaknesses by that point. You need to know what rewards you get and when. If you're lazy you could look up a guide but the only other way to really plan out an effective character is to wiki the whole game before you start playing.

He was right, though. In order to plan out a perfect character I completely spoiled the game by knowing everything before I actually discovered it.
I'm guilty of this. I use guides and wikis all the time. I hate spoilers for story, so I try to avoid those as much as possible. I do it because I have too many games and not enough time, so I want to experience as much as I can in a single playthrough, including achievements. On respeccing: I never do it myself, but I don't have a problem with option being there. I'm all for different gameplay toggles in an options screen so we can play the game any way we want.
 
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Yeah, I think its a great option to have. Sort of like being able to save and reload is open to scumming. Sometimes you can even reroll the loot in chests. But its a feature most people can't do without.

I think playing a sort of Ironman mode without save/reload while using respec is more hardcore than redoing failures by reloading while not using respec.

Sometimes I respec a lot, like in D3 or WoW when a lot of hours are involved getting to max level and I want to freshen things up with some new spells because I'm bored of the same rotation. Other times, most recently the new Pathfinder, I don't respec or reload for a better outcome because I'm still getting new spells leveling up which keeps things fresh and I can get more out of a replay by getting a better outcome next playthough.

It definitely depends on a lot of things, but over-all I think the respec option is great and a lot of people love it.

Also, with Pathfinder, I'm lucky I didn't respec there because I'm playing as a Lich and apparently things got bugged later on for people who did respec. :)
 
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Planning, when done thoroughly, can go as far as learning every single encounter and being ready to exploit weaknesses by that point. You need to know what rewards you get and when. If you're lazy you could look up a guide but the only other way to really plan out an effective character is to wiki the whole game before you start playing.

That's complete nonsense. Planning your character has nothing to do with spoilers or reading wikis unless you make it that way. What you're describing is power-gaming. Very few games require anything even close to that.
 
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I'm more of a fan of planning out my characters and sticking to that route, should I make any poor investments along the way, I'll just find a way to deal with them. I can see why options would be appealing to some, though.
 
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I suppose my only comment is I hope they find the best talent possible to make the best game possible. Everything else is unimportant to me.
 
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That's complete nonsense. Planning your character has nothing to do with spoilers or reading wikis unless you make it that way. What you're describing is power-gaming. Very few games require anything even close to that.

It's far from nonsense but I'll accept that it's power-gaming.

I put it to you that character creation is merely a decision but planning a character over time requires looking ahead and doing research. Doing thorough research can be taken as far as you please.

Even if you just look up the feats before you start to make sure you have enough DEX or something you're already dipping into power-gamer territory and at this point you couldn't claim to be going in blind.
 
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I have a feeling that I will have a helpless addiction to Diablo4 when it releases. I don't know how long it will last, but it's one of those games I feel I'll be binging and procrastinating duties until I feel satisfied.

Only two other games I feel similar anticipation for right now - Baldur's Gate 3 and The Elden Ring.
 
Yeah, me too. I've played all the Diablo games to death.

I wish they'd go back and make a more roguelike game like Diablo 1. Like, instead of copying wow go and copy Angband or something and give us a more oldschool style big list of races and classes to play rather than those set characters that you might see in a brawler game.

But, yeah, still looking forward to D4. I like the darker style. :)
 
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