As the rumors about Blizzcon go through the roof, we've heard everything - from patch 2.5, over an expansion, D4, Diablo as a mobile game, Diablo as an MMO, Diablo in an Overwatch engine. What I found interesting about this is that everyone seems to have a different opinion on this and there isn't one thing that would please everyone. For example, people always asked for seasons, but now that seasons are there it's not enough; it also needs to have tons of new content in every season and even a new stash tab, wings, and a portrait frame is not enough. (In the super awesome D2 that everyone praises there's absolutely nothing new after a ladder reset, not even a cosmetic thing.)
Similarly, a lot of people ask for more balance, more sets, more classes, just more more more. We have 6 classes with 4 sets and LoN, so about 30 different builds, of which 20+ are viable for GR80+ or higher. Yet people act as if the game was as badly balanced as Diablo 2 (while in reality it's miles ahead of any "balance" that D2 has ever seen). Also, people don't seem to *want* to play more than one class/cookie cutter build, as I realized after posting the guide for the two conquests that are meant to showcase D3's diversity. Only a handful of people have done either of those conquests in one week after the season, despite both of them being relatively easy.
Therefore, I'm curious what people want. Let's see if this poll works out, where you can rate a few metrics that I came up with on the fly. I just realized I can't edit the poll, so I can't edit something - if you think something's missing just add it in your reply to this thread. I'm really interested to see the results of this (though I know, obviously, that this will be not at all representative).
Essentially what would make me personally happy while also not being out of the question and relatively easy to do would be to keep improving on D3, with these changes;
Drastically reduce drop rates.
Number crunch the game hard, and reduce sets power.
Implement trading and a gold AH.
Cap paragon / remove power from paragon. Either make it completely for fun and no cap / prestige, or a hard cap. Also character specific again since there isn't any MF.
Reworked legendary gems. I'd vote to just remove them, but they at least need a cap.
Get rid of the ridiculous amount of difficulties. There's what, 17? Going back to normal/NM/hell and inferno would work really well with how the game now dynamically scales with player level. Hell/ inferno would essentially be equal to today's torment 13 / and what T15 might feel like.
Add more drops to search and lust after other than weapons and armor; jewels charms and runes would be a great start.
Just implement how hostile worked for pvp, and give the leader of the game the ability to toggle hostile on or off, and let people 'duel' each other.
There's a lot more but that's the basics in my opinion. All the hard caps I mentioned would be there to promote more builds and playstyles, because if you have a theoreticaly infinite difficulty in greater rifts, then you're actually forced to play the spec that does 5% better if you want a chance at leader boards.
Well, i can say the item hunt and character building, both aspects that were butchered patch after patch in RoS.
In Diablo 2 and PoE i can enjoy the leveling process because each time i know the build i envisioned (read: copied) is shaping up and at key level i get the talent that gives my character a nice boost.
Then i can always find a good item in the lower levels to keep me company instead of tossing away 2-3 levels after, which requires 10 minutes if you are slow, because the damage stats increase so much.
That's why i was happy for seasons but D3, in this state, doesn't bring the good feeling of journey while starting a new character because everything is the same and it doesn't matter until you reach max level, while i never reached the cap in D2 or PoE but i enjoyed farming while leveling up.
Basically, i never had an endgame in Diablo 2 and i never felt the need for one.
So, what i want from Diablo? The rpg and character building that was lost when it was decided that the game had to be build around max level and items dictating how your character has to be played, which lead to the loot hunt to being almost removed completly because base spells are terrible without augumentations and the insane difficulty stack lead to give everyone a fast way to experience the "endgame", which became a paragon grind and gem leveling.
For me, it's always been about story and characters, D2 was amazing with story, but most of the characters did not receive any development. D3 had an alright story that I believe was implemented poorly and in a very juvenile way (boss dialogue before act V) but the characters have been wonderful with great voice acting. (Lyndon/followers and player characters come to mind).
If I could have literally anything I wanted, I'd want a Dragon Age Inquisition style sandbox game with tons of lore and quests and zones and an overarching story, but I know I won't receive such a thing, haha. There is SO MUCH un-utilized story material. I just want more content and more zones and more story. Expansions basically, haha, and everything else is secondary to me. I love end game gear grinding and rifts/bounties etc, but I really just want to see more of Sanctuary.
The combination of character progression and itemization. While I enjoy D3, I've always been a bit sad that they decided to place all of the character progression to items, specifically legendary and set powers.
In the OP, Bagstone talks about the viable builds in D3 and the diversity that actually exists in the game, despite most players thinking that only the Rank 1 build is viable. It's absolutely true, I mostly just dislike the manner in which that balance was achieved, and the way a player obtains that power, aka by using set items. It makes the progression extremely jagged, even when you aren't using the seasonal gift set. For me, it's that the journey is now missing something that I've always enjoyed in other RPGs, and that's getting gradual power from the character while also obtaining items that can enhance your build.
Slightly off topic, but as an example, if you took the 2 set bonus from might of the earth (decrease certain cooldowns for each X resource spent), you could have a system which allows you to choose to be able to lower the cooldown of those skills for some resource amount, and place points decrease the resource spent requirement or increase the cooldown reduction. This helps to create the same playstyle, but allows the player to start immediately investing in becoming a leapquake barb. That's just a simple example of a change that wouldn't impact the end result of the designed build, but would create a smoother progression curve and allow the player to choose their desired playstylefrom the start (or level 70 or whenever the system kicks in and starts accumulating XP).
This is a very well done poll, I must say. Would be nice to have a larger sample size.
One thing not on the list: pushing GRs. I like the rush of that, the focus it requires. But maybe to some that's just grind, hah
But I dunno, man. Pushing GRs gets me excited in ways no other ARPG can, where most just devolve into drooling while you collect loot, at least D3 offers those rare moments of a genuine rush.
As for my vote, I favored loot and build diversity, which probably contradicts my preference for pushing GRs. I don't mind the pigeon hole, but I would like them to work on making more of the sets fun to play. A lot are quite mundane.
Essentially what would make me personally happy while also not being out of the question and relatively easy to do would be to keep improving on D3, with these changes;
Drastically reduce drop rates.
Number crunch the game hard, and reduce sets power.
Implement trading and a gold AH.
Cap paragon / remove power from paragon. Either make it completely for fun and no cap / prestige, or a hard cap. Also character specific again since there isn't any MF.
Reworked legendary gems. I'd vote to just remove them, but they at least need a cap.
Get rid of the ridiculous amount of difficulties. There's what, 17? Going back to normal/NM/hell and inferno would work really well with how the game now dynamically scales with player level. Hell/ inferno would essentially be equal to today's torment 13 / and what T15 might feel like.
Add more drops to search and lust after other than weapons and armor; jewels charms and runes would be a great start.
Just implement how hostile worked for pvp, and give the leader of the game the ability to toggle hostile on or off, and let people 'duel' each other.
There's a lot more but that's the basics in my opinion. All the hard caps I mentioned would be there to promote more builds and playstyles, because if you have a theoreticaly infinite difficulty in greater rifts, then you're actually forced to play the spec that does 5% better if you want a chance at leader boards.
This post should be the schoolbook for d3 devs.
guys, learn from it.
A couple of people have mentioned what they would change to D3 to make it better (or, really, either more like D3 vanilla or D2). That isn't the purpose of the poll to me - it's what about DIABLO that you really and truly love! "Low drop rates" is not something about Diablo you love. But maybe having truly rare items that you just have to force RNG to give you is!
For me, it's pretty simple - I love the loot hunt. I really enjoy the feeling when an items drops and I know it could possibly be an upgrade. It brings a little excitement back. I like the idea of truly "rare" items that you just have to farm and farm and farm and hope it drops. That's the main allure of Diablo, finding that one item you've been hunting for. I also enjoy mindlessly slaying demons, but hey, who doesn't?
The second most important thing for me is the story. The story in Diablo 1 was pretty simple, yet done well enough. The story in 2 was really strong, and the story in 3 was...ok. Not great, but not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. In whatever the next installment of this game is, I'd love to see a really strong story, maybe tied to the return of some very powerful nephalem.
I'm indifferent to trading. I feel like it takes away from the loot hunt (a lot) and if you can just buy/trade to get your pieces then what is the point of playing the game? But I understand that some people don't want to do the loot hunter all day every day so I'm not against it. I don't have to participate if I don't want to trade. But if Blizzard has to make drop rates SO bad for the AH to function properly (see: Vanilla D3) then I think it's more detrimental than helpful.
I'm indifferent to PvP. I have no interest in it and think Nephalem fighting Nephalem when Diablo is out there makes no sense, but if they can work it in as more of a Nephalem training thing then I'm fine with it.
I like to play solo, and grouped with friends. I usually don't pug a lot though, and I resent games that have mechanics that pretty much force pugging due to loot/xp bonuses like D3.
Too me what makes a good ARPG is the loot grind, finding exciting loot, and sometimes finding loot so good that you want to reroll a new character just to use that loot. Also, I like a complex skill system that creates tons of replayability by exploring every nook and cranny of the skill tree. I really thing GD and PoE beat the pants off D3 in that aspect.
As far as the story, it is pretty irrelevant in a game with a lot of replayabiility, because the only time I pay attention to it is the first playthru, so I definitely don't want story elements to feel intrusive the 10th or 100th or 1000th playthru, like it does in D3s case with their cutscenes in mid boss fights, or progression gated for some meaningless dialogue.
im just gonna say people who want PvP already left diablo community long time ago.
PvP is super important. maybe not for the ones remain in here but for the total of potential players. many friends of mine didnt even touched the game after blizzard said they will not bring any form of PvP to d3. hell, 2 of them even started boycotting blizzard and they still didnt spend a penny on a blizzard game.
Too me what makes a good ARPG is the loot grind, finding exciting loot, and sometimes finding loot so good that you want to reroll a new character just to use that loot. Also, I like a complex skill system that creates tons of replayability by exploring every nook and cranny of the skill tree. I really thing GD and PoE beat the pants off D3 in that aspect.
Unfortunately, atm there is less or no loot...and everything involves grinding exp/pl.
So sad, especially if we remember that at launch there was the exact opposite, too much item grind/AH and nothing else.well, I miss those moments T.T. not the bad part when all loot was trash and there were 2builds per class, but when perfect items were the final goal.
Unfortunately, atm there is less or no loot...and everything involves grinding exp/pl.
So sad, especially if we remember that at launch there was the exact opposite, too much item grind/AH and nothing else.well, I miss those moments T.T. not the bad part when all loot was trash and there were 2builds per class, but when perfect items were the final goal.
Had the loot been better at launch, with uniques being actually interesting, and better affix tables so bows wouldn't roll with strength, etc, vanilla would've been a whole lot more fun. All ARPGs have some measure of grind, but grinding for loot is more exciting than grinding for +5 mainstat.
im just gonna say people who want PvP already left diablo community long time ago.
PvP is super important. maybe not for the ones remain in here but for the total of potential players. many friends of mine didnt even touched the game after blizzard said they will not bring any form of PvP to d3. hell, 2 of them even started boycotting blizzard and they still didnt spend a penny on a blizzard game.
I still don't think PvP is a huge part of ARPG games just looking at other games like PoE that have PvP, but the PvP areas are ghost towns and tumbleweeds. It's a vocal minority that really wouldn't change numbers all that much.
As long as balancing for PvP doesn't ruin the PvE, however, I don't see anything wrong with it, but I hate when they mess up interesting PvE spells just because they are OP or unbalanced in PvP.
Honestly, I liked D3 the way it came out in 2013. Legendary items super rare and generally shit rolls, looking for items with the 6 best affixes. I also enjoyed solo more than grouping, even though I started D3 along with a groups of friends when D3 came out, most of us preferred to solo instead of group. Even when we would voice chat while playing, we'd be playing in our own games.
I especially dislike things like infinite paragon leveling as well as how sets turned out. I'm the type of player that likes hybrid builds, like N6M4 for example. Sets could have turned out better if they made the sets require less pieces so sets can be mixed and matched to preference.
Another thing I really dislike is showing builds on the leaderboards. I loved the leaderboard, probably my favorite addition to the game, but showing the builds just didn't feel acceptable to me. It was bad enough that I've decided to stop progression at some points just to not show up too high on the boards. Just not really the FotM type of player, I guess similar to how I always liked to do my own thing in games like WoW/StarCraft.
TBH I really switched to D3 for the challenge, since I've pretty much progressed all I could in games like WoW/SC2. D3 was hyped as a challenge, and at the time for my friends and I (was playing SC2 before D3 came out) D3 just seemed like the next game to go to.
Till now I've played all 8 seasons, but usually only for a couple weeks to a month. I always finish the season journey, hang out a bit, then leave. unfortunately with D3 being such a group game and me being a solo player, playing long term simply does not work due to paragon and gem leveling.
Interestingly, the Diablo Anniversary Panel started with a video of the Diablo team (including former members like Brevik, so that's why he was at Blizzard recently) stating what Diablo is to them. Here's what they said:
Action, constant action
Atmosphere/stories
Loot, magic loot, phat loot
Epic, dark, gothic, scary fight between heaven and hell
When they went on to elaborate on the roots of the game, they elaborated that you don't need to play this game for "millions of hours" to get into the story, but "you play it for millions of hours because it's fun". And what is fun? "What makes Diablo fun is getting that awesome piece of gear" - "the first time you saw that amazing item" - "with the stats you're looking for" - "you know, it completely changed how you thought about your character". They then go on and elaborate on the fun of PvP, in particularly PKs (I don't like it, but apparently some of the developers).
Brevik: "I think that there were a lot of things that took a while for people to discover and find".
What I find interesting is that most of those things don't exist in the game anymore. There is nothing that keeps you playing for more than 100+ hours besides paragon/augments. You have every item at that time (the way how I play this I have everything after 30 hours on the season opening weekend). But most importantly and most disappointingly, the loot hunt is entirely gone, and nothing I've seen so far indicates that this comes back at all. Necro, armory, challenge rifts, new zones, anniversary dungeon - all of those are interesting tidbits and QoL changes, but none of them address the core aspects of Diablo that the developers themselves highlight as being the favorite things to do in this game.
I hope that someone at the panel asks them about if (and if yes, how) they plan to bring back the loot hunt. A more direct question that wouldn't go by the bouncer would be: How come that D3's proposed changes are so far away from the Diablo developers' own perceptions of what this game should be?
What I find interesting is that most of those things don't exist in the game anymore. There is nothing that keeps you playing for more than 100+ hours besides paragon/augments. You have every item at that time (the way how I play this I have everything after 30 hours on the season opening weekend). But most importantly and most disappointingly, the loot hunt is entirely gone, and nothing I've seen so far indicates that this comes back at all. Necro, armory, challenge rifts, new zones, anniversary dungeon - all of those are interesting tidbits and QoL changes, but none of them address the core aspects of Diablo that the developers themselves highlight as being the favorite things to do in this game.
I hope that someone at the panel asks them about if (and if yes, how) they plan to bring back the loot hunt. A more direct question that wouldn't go by the bouncer would be: How come that D3's proposed changes are so far away from the Diablo developers' own perceptions of what this game should be?
Well, just looking at your poll it looks like most players just want all the items. I mean it does have a 4.288/5 right now. I was never too into getting great gear myself, I sold direct upgrades pretty regularly on the AH when it existed.
I mean based on the general response of loot it seems most people just like the loot handouts. Smart loot and loot 2.0 were overall positively received by players as well.
If they wanted players playing 100+ hours in a season, they easily could have done it via season journey by making it longer and more difficult.
That means, those players do not have everything after 30 hours. They have everything after maybe a hundred hours. And they put those hundred hours into the game over the course of many months.
Keep in mind that the "Diablo 3 problem" is a problem for powergamer. If you're burned out after a few days in the new season, well, that's your problem, because most players don't reach that point where you rush to after weeks or months. It's a selfmade problem.
Personally, I don't want that endless grind. Fuck that shit. I don't want to find crap after crap after crap just so that I can still find an upgrade after a year. I'd rather play this game for 20 hours and have the time of my life and move on to the next game, than grind like a zombie. And fuck trading. Grinding to hoard currency? It's supposed to be a game, not a job.
I don't want all that grind you hate, like you. Still, it's an online arpg, and a bit is required.
it doesn't imply all the boredom deriving from endless, brainless paragon stacking, though. The issue here, imho, is not "having anything". it's that there's nothing to do, even for casuals. it bores both hardcore grinders and someone looking for fun and exploration and lore..like me.
I prefer currency farm...and hoping in rng/ item hunt/ trading/ build experimentation...than endless exping for main stat.
As the rumors about Blizzcon go through the roof, we've heard everything - from patch 2.5, over an expansion, D4, Diablo as a mobile game, Diablo as an MMO, Diablo in an Overwatch engine. What I found interesting about this is that everyone seems to have a different opinion on this and there isn't one thing that would please everyone. For example, people always asked for seasons, but now that seasons are there it's not enough; it also needs to have tons of new content in every season and even a new stash tab, wings, and a portrait frame is not enough. (In the super awesome D2 that everyone praises there's absolutely nothing new after a ladder reset, not even a cosmetic thing.)
Similarly, a lot of people ask for more balance, more sets, more classes, just more more more. We have 6 classes with 4 sets and LoN, so about 30 different builds, of which 20+ are viable for GR80+ or higher. Yet people act as if the game was as badly balanced as Diablo 2 (while in reality it's miles ahead of any "balance" that D2 has ever seen). Also, people don't seem to *want* to play more than one class/cookie cutter build, as I realized after posting the guide for the two conquests that are meant to showcase D3's diversity. Only a handful of people have done either of those conquests in one week after the season, despite both of them being relatively easy.
Therefore, I'm curious what people want. Let's see if this poll works out, where you can rate a few metrics that I came up with on the fly. I just realized I can't edit the poll, so I can't edit something - if you think something's missing just add it in your reply to this thread. I'm really interested to see the results of this (though I know, obviously, that this will be not at all representative).
Essentially what would make me personally happy while also not being out of the question and relatively easy to do would be to keep improving on D3, with these changes;
Drastically reduce drop rates.
Number crunch the game hard, and reduce sets power.
Implement trading and a gold AH.
Cap paragon / remove power from paragon. Either make it completely for fun and no cap / prestige, or a hard cap. Also character specific again since there isn't any MF.
Reworked legendary gems. I'd vote to just remove them, but they at least need a cap.
Get rid of the ridiculous amount of difficulties. There's what, 17? Going back to normal/NM/hell and inferno would work really well with how the game now dynamically scales with player level. Hell/ inferno would essentially be equal to today's torment 13 / and what T15 might feel like.
Add more drops to search and lust after other than weapons and armor; jewels charms and runes would be a great start.
Just implement how hostile worked for pvp, and give the leader of the game the ability to toggle hostile on or off, and let people 'duel' each other.
There's a lot more but that's the basics in my opinion. All the hard caps I mentioned would be there to promote more builds and playstyles, because if you have a theoreticaly infinite difficulty in greater rifts, then you're actually forced to play the spec that does 5% better if you want a chance at leader boards.
red flagged cya
Well, i can say the item hunt and character building, both aspects that were butchered patch after patch in RoS.
In Diablo 2 and PoE i can enjoy the leveling process because each time i know the build i envisioned (read: copied) is shaping up and at key level i get the talent that gives my character a nice boost.
Then i can always find a good item in the lower levels to keep me company instead of tossing away 2-3 levels after, which requires 10 minutes if you are slow, because the damage stats increase so much.
That's why i was happy for seasons but D3, in this state, doesn't bring the good feeling of journey while starting a new character because everything is the same and it doesn't matter until you reach max level, while i never reached the cap in D2 or PoE but i enjoyed farming while leveling up.
Basically, i never had an endgame in Diablo 2 and i never felt the need for one.
So, what i want from Diablo? The rpg and character building that was lost when it was decided that the game had to be build around max level and items dictating how your character has to be played, which lead to the loot hunt to being almost removed completly because base spells are terrible without augumentations and the insane difficulty stack lead to give everyone a fast way to experience the "endgame", which became a paragon grind and gem leveling.
For me, it's always been about story and characters, D2 was amazing with story, but most of the characters did not receive any development. D3 had an alright story that I believe was implemented poorly and in a very juvenile way (boss dialogue before act V) but the characters have been wonderful with great voice acting. (Lyndon/followers and player characters come to mind).
If I could have literally anything I wanted, I'd want a Dragon Age Inquisition style sandbox game with tons of lore and quests and zones and an overarching story, but I know I won't receive such a thing, haha. There is SO MUCH un-utilized story material. I just want more content and more zones and more story. Expansions basically, haha, and everything else is secondary to me. I love end game gear grinding and rifts/bounties etc, but I really just want to see more of Sanctuary.
The combination of character progression and itemization. While I enjoy D3, I've always been a bit sad that they decided to place all of the character progression to items, specifically legendary and set powers.
In the OP, Bagstone talks about the viable builds in D3 and the diversity that actually exists in the game, despite most players thinking that only the Rank 1 build is viable. It's absolutely true, I mostly just dislike the manner in which that balance was achieved, and the way a player obtains that power, aka by using set items. It makes the progression extremely jagged, even when you aren't using the seasonal gift set. For me, it's that the journey is now missing something that I've always enjoyed in other RPGs, and that's getting gradual power from the character while also obtaining items that can enhance your build.
Slightly off topic, but as an example, if you took the 2 set bonus from might of the earth (decrease certain cooldowns for each X resource spent), you could have a system which allows you to choose to be able to lower the cooldown of those skills for some resource amount, and place points decrease the resource spent requirement or increase the cooldown reduction. This helps to create the same playstyle, but allows the player to start immediately investing in becoming a leapquake barb. That's just a simple example of a change that wouldn't impact the end result of the designed build, but would create a smoother progression curve and allow the player to choose their desired playstylefrom the start (or level 70 or whenever the system kicks in and starts accumulating XP).
This is a very well done poll, I must say. Would be nice to have a larger sample size.
One thing not on the list: pushing GRs. I like the rush of that, the focus it requires. But maybe to some that's just grind, hah
But I dunno, man. Pushing GRs gets me excited in ways no other ARPG can, where most just devolve into drooling while you collect loot, at least D3 offers those rare moments of a genuine rush.
As for my vote, I favored loot and build diversity, which probably contradicts my preference for pushing GRs. I don't mind the pigeon hole, but I would like them to work on making more of the sets fun to play. A lot are quite mundane.
guys, learn from it.
--- Kev ---
A couple of people have mentioned what they would change to D3 to make it better (or, really, either more like D3 vanilla or D2). That isn't the purpose of the poll to me - it's what about DIABLO that you really and truly love! "Low drop rates" is not something about Diablo you love. But maybe having truly rare items that you just have to force RNG to give you is!
For me, it's pretty simple - I love the loot hunt. I really enjoy the feeling when an items drops and I know it could possibly be an upgrade. It brings a little excitement back. I like the idea of truly "rare" items that you just have to farm and farm and farm and hope it drops. That's the main allure of Diablo, finding that one item you've been hunting for. I also enjoy mindlessly slaying demons, but hey, who doesn't?
The second most important thing for me is the story. The story in Diablo 1 was pretty simple, yet done well enough. The story in 2 was really strong, and the story in 3 was...ok. Not great, but not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. In whatever the next installment of this game is, I'd love to see a really strong story, maybe tied to the return of some very powerful nephalem.
I'm indifferent to trading. I feel like it takes away from the loot hunt (a lot) and if you can just buy/trade to get your pieces then what is the point of playing the game? But I understand that some people don't want to do the loot hunter all day every day so I'm not against it. I don't have to participate if I don't want to trade. But if Blizzard has to make drop rates SO bad for the AH to function properly (see: Vanilla D3) then I think it's more detrimental than helpful.
I'm indifferent to PvP. I have no interest in it and think Nephalem fighting Nephalem when Diablo is out there makes no sense, but if they can work it in as more of a Nephalem training thing then I'm fine with it.
I like to play solo, and grouped with friends. I usually don't pug a lot though, and I resent games that have mechanics that pretty much force pugging due to loot/xp bonuses like D3.
Too me what makes a good ARPG is the loot grind, finding exciting loot, and sometimes finding loot so good that you want to reroll a new character just to use that loot. Also, I like a complex skill system that creates tons of replayability by exploring every nook and cranny of the skill tree. I really thing GD and PoE beat the pants off D3 in that aspect.
As far as the story, it is pretty irrelevant in a game with a lot of replayabiility, because the only time I pay attention to it is the first playthru, so I definitely don't want story elements to feel intrusive the 10th or 100th or 1000th playthru, like it does in D3s case with their cutscenes in mid boss fights, or progression gated for some meaningless dialogue.
im just gonna say people who want PvP already left diablo community long time ago.
PvP is super important. maybe not for the ones remain in here but for the total of potential players. many friends of mine didnt even touched the game after blizzard said they will not bring any form of PvP to d3. hell, 2 of them even started boycotting blizzard and they still didnt spend a penny on a blizzard game.
So sad, especially if we remember that at launch there was the exact opposite, too much item grind/AH and nothing else.well, I miss those moments T.T. not the bad part when all loot was trash and there were 2builds per class, but when perfect items were the final goal.
--- Kev ---
I still don't think PvP is a huge part of ARPG games just looking at other games like PoE that have PvP, but the PvP areas are ghost towns and tumbleweeds. It's a vocal minority that really wouldn't change numbers all that much.
As long as balancing for PvP doesn't ruin the PvE, however, I don't see anything wrong with it, but I hate when they mess up interesting PvE spells just because they are OP or unbalanced in PvP.
Honestly, I liked D3 the way it came out in 2013. Legendary items super rare and generally shit rolls, looking for items with the 6 best affixes. I also enjoyed solo more than grouping, even though I started D3 along with a groups of friends when D3 came out, most of us preferred to solo instead of group. Even when we would voice chat while playing, we'd be playing in our own games.
I especially dislike things like infinite paragon leveling as well as how sets turned out. I'm the type of player that likes hybrid builds, like N6M4 for example. Sets could have turned out better if they made the sets require less pieces so sets can be mixed and matched to preference.
Another thing I really dislike is showing builds on the leaderboards. I loved the leaderboard, probably my favorite addition to the game, but showing the builds just didn't feel acceptable to me. It was bad enough that I've decided to stop progression at some points just to not show up too high on the boards. Just not really the FotM type of player, I guess similar to how I always liked to do my own thing in games like WoW/StarCraft.
TBH I really switched to D3 for the challenge, since I've pretty much progressed all I could in games like WoW/SC2. D3 was hyped as a challenge, and at the time for my friends and I (was playing SC2 before D3 came out) D3 just seemed like the next game to go to.
Till now I've played all 8 seasons, but usually only for a couple weeks to a month. I always finish the season journey, hang out a bit, then leave. unfortunately with D3 being such a group game and me being a solo player, playing long term simply does not work due to paragon and gem leveling.
Interestingly, the Diablo Anniversary Panel started with a video of the Diablo team (including former members like Brevik, so that's why he was at Blizzard recently) stating what Diablo is to them. Here's what they said:
When they went on to elaborate on the roots of the game, they elaborated that you don't need to play this game for "millions of hours" to get into the story, but "you play it for millions of hours because it's fun". And what is fun? "What makes Diablo fun is getting that awesome piece of gear" - "the first time you saw that amazing item" - "with the stats you're looking for" - "you know, it completely changed how you thought about your character". They then go on and elaborate on the fun of PvP, in particularly PKs (I don't like it, but apparently some of the developers).
Brevik: "I think that there were a lot of things that took a while for people to discover and find".
What I find interesting is that most of those things don't exist in the game anymore. There is nothing that keeps you playing for more than 100+ hours besides paragon/augments. You have every item at that time (the way how I play this I have everything after 30 hours on the season opening weekend). But most importantly and most disappointingly, the loot hunt is entirely gone, and nothing I've seen so far indicates that this comes back at all. Necro, armory, challenge rifts, new zones, anniversary dungeon - all of those are interesting tidbits and QoL changes, but none of them address the core aspects of Diablo that the developers themselves highlight as being the favorite things to do in this game.
I hope that someone at the panel asks them about if (and if yes, how) they plan to bring back the loot hunt. A more direct question that wouldn't go by the bouncer would be: How come that D3's proposed changes are so far away from the Diablo developers' own perceptions of what this game should be?
I mean based on the general response of loot it seems most people just like the loot handouts. Smart loot and loot 2.0 were overall positively received by players as well.
If they wanted players playing 100+ hours in a season, they easily could have done it via season journey by making it longer and more difficult.
it doesn't imply all the boredom deriving from endless, brainless paragon stacking, though. The issue here, imho, is not "having anything". it's that there's nothing to do, even for casuals. it bores both hardcore grinders and someone looking for fun and exploration and lore..like me.
I prefer currency farm...and hoping in rng/ item hunt/ trading/ build experimentation...than endless exping for main stat.
--- Kev ---
Well