Blizzard recently stressed that using any mods in Diablo IV is forbidden. All mods, no matter how benign their effects, are treated the same as cheating, and...
Blizzard says that modding Diablo IV can result in a permanent account ban::undefined
It's GaaS, you didn't buy Diablo 4, you bought a platform on which they can control the content they want you to play, so they can charge you what they want to charge for it.
You can still try the earlier Diablo games. Diablo 1 with Belzebub mod is pretty fun (or get DevilutionX if you want a more authentic experience but with some modern QoL stuff), Diablo 2 with Project Diablo 2 mod is even more fun (probably the best Diablo variant IMO), and there's also Blizzard's official Diablo 2 Resurrected, if you can't tolerate old school graphics.
Yeah, if you've never stepped foot in the Diablo world don't bother. I had a good time with the D4 campaign, I actually think that part shines but it's maybe 30 hours of gameplay at best, even if you take a few detours along the way. Pretty steep price to game ratio.
They also recently admitted to loading other players entire profile including their stash, and other content that they "have" which you would have zero access to, into memory on your PC, anytime that user loads into your zone.
It's why you can't have more than four stash tabs, because other people's computers would be negatively affected.
My developer friend tersely summarized this as "lazy programming". To put it as briefly as I can, in his view, it's likely that all of your stuff including inventory and stash are all part of your character object/class/whatever, so to load other players, your client has to load that character object, complete with everything they're carrying and everything that they have in their stash.
IMO, this means you can mod the game to dump a list of everything another player is carrying/holding in their stash.
Seems like they have minimal, if any, separation between clients, other clients, and by proxy, their servers. So rules need to be enforced at the client level, so the other users and the servers can stay protected.
I feel like people are acting a little TOO hurt in this thread... debate on games being moddable vs not aside, this was obviously always going to be the case for a live service game like D4. D3 was (but wasn't really) a live service game and also was not moddable at all, even after the auction house got canned. Same for Overwatch 1, I'm quite sure OW2 as well. There should be no surprise here, and cheaters absolutely knew this would come.
Hey, I support you voting with your wallet then, and you should hold out for Starfield and GTA VI. Maybe play some Cyberpunk or NMS. Hogwarts Legacy too.
But if moddability is a prerequisite for you on full price games, you're probably due a lot of disappointment going forward as games continue to shift to GAS models (and honestly, if you've been beating this drum you've been real disappointed for the last decade anyways). Mods are a great experience for a single player game, but invite rampant cheating in competitive multiplayer games that need to be fair and balanced for all players. You're just not going to see moddability in multiplayer games. And one certainly doesn't have a right to interrupt or destroy other players' enjoyment of a game because they want to cheat.
To be clear, I am not arguing against modding being allowed in games. I ran a VERY heavily modified UI in World of Warcraft, and have had a blast with tons of mods in games like Skyrim and Minecraft. It's just not a hill I'll die on either. Not every game can or should be modded.
And I didn't even need any more reasons to not get this game!
Diablo was dead after Diablo 2. Resurrected was pretty good but I really dislike the always online BS. And at the end of the day, it's still the same old game with a facelift. Recently started playing Diablo 3 again and I realize why I never really got into it. It's more like gauntlet than Diablo.
Resurrected was pretty good but I really dislike the always online BS.
It's not always online, the single player can be played offline, just start the binary directly I think.
What it lacks compared to the original is a way for private realms (not that these were ever officially supported in the original game). Still got the game on offer for $20 and think it's been a great remaster, I had a blast. If you still l want to play D2 in 2023 is a different question though. It was great in its day but a lot of the concepts show their age.
I'm just gonna say it... Diablo 3 was not a great game. I probably played 6k hrs of diablo 2 and maybe 50 of diablo 3 before I realized I hated it and was only playing it because I liked the first two games.
I can't speak for Acti-Blizz but Ubisoft regarded people finding and using exploits or even power imbalances as cheating and a banhammering offense if they got too much loot for their efforts.
Modding (as long as it's not hacker modding in like RDR2) makes the game personalized and so much more fun.
I wanted to play Diablo but Blizzard support hasn't taken off the keyfob authenticator off my account, despite repeated requests. So I guess I don't get to play anyway. Now I really feel like I'm not missing out on anything.