To be fair, Primal Ancients on its own is not a bad idea. It's just not a good or great one, and definitely one that isn't meeting our expectations for what the game needs. In the current state, they're just another layer of 'ooh shiny' loot that can drop, something that adds to the thrill of finding ancients.
Their rarity makes them comparable to Ramaldni's gift. The gift itself isn't a very interesting concept, only adding a socket to weapons which essentially lets you have another stat. The power of these drops is necessary for any end-game build, but no so much that you can't function without them. Yet despite being uninteresting and necessary for end game, no one specifically farms for them, and we still get a momentary feeling of excitement when they drop considering their rarity. Since they upped the drop rate recently, now they're just things you put in the bank, and that feeling is gone because they're no so rare any more.
That's where ancient Primals come in. They're the new Ramaldni's gift. They're not interesting at all, and an AP rolled on a useless legendary is still useless, but you'll get that brief feeling of excitement every time you see them drop just because it happens so rarely. That's their only true purpose for the long term of this game. After a while, you're going to forget they even exist, but the rare chance that they drop will give you a brief feeling of excitement because it's something out of the ordinary, just like when a Unique drops in Diablo 2 even though most of them are shitty.
People are just mad not because of what primals are, but because of what primals could have been. If you only look at what primals are, it's a neat idea. It's not much and it won't change anything for most players, but it can be exciting to find a "perfect" item. Even if doesn't have perfect affixes, for some it might be "perfect enough".
The first iteration of primals was a lazy try to keep players in the treadmill. It boggles my mind that people don't mind a new layer of the same items with just higher numbers, again. I don't know if my standards are too high or if D3 players are just too content starved and grasp after every little thing that looks kinda like content... I just can't understand how people can defend such bullshit.
There are many levels to criticizing Primal Ancients.
I recognize that the system is flawed and underwhelming. Primal Ancients don't solve the critical issues we have with gearing and progress. This is an underlying statement which I want to state clearly before I continue.
What I'm pointing out is that despite its flaws, the addition of primal ancients is an overall positive to the game. Yes, it falls flat when compared to what they could have been, but it's still giving us quality of life changes.
The problems with the Legendary system (ie useless Legendaries = souls) should not be blamed on Primals. The person I replied to made a point that Primal Ancients are a joke even when noting the extra souls you get from them. I'm making a point that Primal Ancients were never meant to fix the problem of having items useless to us. Simply having access to more Forgotten Souls is good enough when you consider our current system where we don't have any option of getting more souls, and it's not a 'joke' just because Primal Ancients happen to be underwhelming.
We're at a stage in the game where most of what's being given to us comes in the form of bandaids and painkillers. We're not going to get a massive overhaul which changes how we see the game ala Loot 3.0. I do personally think expectations run too high, and that gets in the way of being critical of what without immediately faulting the system for not being what it was never meant to be.
It requires the same polish that we'd come to expect from a Blizzard product. This includes all facets of the character, from visuals of armor to spell effects to all the voice acting required from act 1-5. Anything less is unacceptable.
As for games like Heroes of the Storm, a lot of their heroes have been in development for much longer than we know. Characters that are being released now like Zul'jin and Varian were in development since the alpha. It was also the reason why we ended up getting like 7 Warcraft Assassin types in a row. It's not like they could toss out a SC2 or Diablo hero in between, because the work for their heroes was already planned out ahead of time.
Even if it takes similar time to develop as what we'd expect from an expansion, that's generally what goes into game dev considering all the iterations and internal approvals that need to be made. It doesn't take much less time to make one sausage link than it does a whole package.
I'd like an Amazon but I don't see how they could retrofit them into D3 with them being exclusively female. I don't want a male Amazon, but I don't want a generic alternative for such an iconic class either.
but removing the time it takes to manually swap out that gear, gems, paragon, skills, passives and cube items is itself a QoL change, whether it saves space or not. Even something simple like swapping +goldfind and movespeed in rifts was a pain when someone decides to change the pace with a Grift run. It should be as simple as set and forget, not a constant fear of getting locked into a GR wearing your boon of Hoarders or having nemesis still cubed by accident.
'Why not another expansion?' There's no clear answer for that.
My personal suspicion? If they're working on Diablo 4, they're not going to split their resources into devoting the time and effort on a full expansion. DLC and patch updates are their compromise for adding new content without affecting time spent into D4 development. I'm sure they've weighed the choices internally, and it's probably a team (and corporate) decision that they focus on something fresh.
There's greater draw in a new game. D3 is not old by any means, but it's aging. Take a look at some of the ARPGs coming out (not Grim Dark and PoE, but new ARPGs) and D3 is starting to pale in comparison. Let's keep in mind that Blizzard aims globally, and there are a lot of Korean/Chinese ARPGs in direct competition with Diablo 3. Same can't really be said about their other franchises. Of course there are other MMO's out there, but WoW continues to be successful mostly due to a large installed fanbase that is still invested in the characters they've made since 2004. D3 however doesn't have this kind of investment, considering it's gameplay is built around making new characters and power leveling them.
It's very likely that D4 is in production, at least in its conceptual/brainstorm phase where they're exploring which direction to take the new game. There's no real need for sweeping changes to D3 at this point; there's not enough interest in the game to begin with to draw back a large enough crowd that would care about 'Loot 3.0'. It's not as if an expansion is being made.
So, we should blame Activision Blizzard , but not the Dev Team. They do as much as they can.
That could be true. But let's see how this works out: (made-up numbers)
Necro DLC. (1 class-2 stash - a pet.) 20-25 $.
2 million people buy it. totalling 40-50 million $.
Is it gonna be the Dev team who is gonna receive it for, as you told, using the resources to work at a better pace?
Or is it gonna be Activision Blizzard getting the cash, who ,then, is gonna invest this money in OW and WOW because their Return of Investment is better?
See what I did here? If we don't protest with our wallets, we are accepting the situation. Or even prolonging it, making it harder to solve.
Abut NO CONTENT hyperbole: Yeah, no content is an exaggeration. But reusing old skills, adapting d2 old models and animations to d3..., there's nothing NEW in here. Reused aint new. Content , following your logic, would be changing all skill coefficients; rendering old builds useless, creating new ones. Reusing.
What I call content is NEW CONTENT. And in over a year , there's been none.
There's a working example of that right now with what they're doing with Starcraft 2. It's a 'dead game' as far as overall Blizzard Fans are concerned. Most people are playing WoW, Overwatch and Hearthstone. SC2 sales aren't even as high as when it first launched, and less people care about the game now considering its current age. Yet they're opting towards a DLC business model, and it works for them. They don't need a 3rd and 4th expansion to keep the game running. At the same time, part of the team is likely working on developing the next RTS, be it Warcraft 4 or Starcraft 3 or something else completely.
I think it's a concious choice that the Diablo team is moving towards Diablo 4, but at some point there were plans to make a second D3 expansion and part of it was already developed. I think what's happening now is that some of that is being cut up and released as DLC or future patch content, but they don't have the full design team available to crunch out enough content to be a full expansion or provide story DLC because they're focused on developing the sequel. What we're getting is the stuff picked up from the cutting room floor, polished and packaged for consumption. I don't think they'll be putting effort into providing NEW stuff (ie story campaign, another act); only content that supports what we already have in play.
1
None of this adds up, so I'm gonna assume you were playing on console, and the guy you ran with was running with modded/hacked gear.
1
To be fair, Primal Ancients on its own is not a bad idea. It's just not a good or great one, and definitely one that isn't meeting our expectations for what the game needs. In the current state, they're just another layer of 'ooh shiny' loot that can drop, something that adds to the thrill of finding ancients.
Their rarity makes them comparable to Ramaldni's gift. The gift itself isn't a very interesting concept, only adding a socket to weapons which essentially lets you have another stat. The power of these drops is necessary for any end-game build, but no so much that you can't function without them. Yet despite being uninteresting and necessary for end game, no one specifically farms for them, and we still get a momentary feeling of excitement when they drop considering their rarity. Since they upped the drop rate recently, now they're just things you put in the bank, and that feeling is gone because they're no so rare any more.
That's where ancient Primals come in. They're the new Ramaldni's gift. They're not interesting at all, and an AP rolled on a useless legendary is still useless, but you'll get that brief feeling of excitement every time you see them drop just because it happens so rarely. That's their only true purpose for the long term of this game. After a while, you're going to forget they even exist, but the rare chance that they drop will give you a brief feeling of excitement because it's something out of the ordinary, just like when a Unique drops in Diablo 2 even though most of them are shitty.
2
There are many levels to criticizing Primal Ancients.
I recognize that the system is flawed and underwhelming. Primal Ancients don't solve the critical issues we have with gearing and progress. This is an underlying statement which I want to state clearly before I continue.
What I'm pointing out is that despite its flaws, the addition of primal ancients is an overall positive to the game. Yes, it falls flat when compared to what they could have been, but it's still giving us quality of life changes.
The problems with the Legendary system (ie useless Legendaries = souls) should not be blamed on Primals. The person I replied to made a point that Primal Ancients are a joke even when noting the extra souls you get from them. I'm making a point that Primal Ancients were never meant to fix the problem of having items useless to us. Simply having access to more Forgotten Souls is good enough when you consider our current system where we don't have any option of getting more souls, and it's not a 'joke' just because Primal Ancients happen to be underwhelming.
We're at a stage in the game where most of what's being given to us comes in the form of bandaids and painkillers. We're not going to get a massive overhaul which changes how we see the game ala Loot 3.0. I do personally think expectations run too high, and that gets in the way of being critical of what without immediately faulting the system for not being what it was never meant to be.
2
They're not mutually exclusive. It's a nerf to paragon AND an increase in power creep.
1
It requires the same polish that we'd come to expect from a Blizzard product. This includes all facets of the character, from visuals of armor to spell effects to all the voice acting required from act 1-5. Anything less is unacceptable.
As for games like Heroes of the Storm, a lot of their heroes have been in development for much longer than we know. Characters that are being released now like Zul'jin and Varian were in development since the alpha. It was also the reason why we ended up getting like 7 Warcraft Assassin types in a row. It's not like they could toss out a SC2 or Diablo hero in between, because the work for their heroes was already planned out ahead of time.
Even if it takes similar time to develop as what we'd expect from an expansion, that's generally what goes into game dev considering all the iterations and internal approvals that need to be made. It doesn't take much less time to make one sausage link than it does a whole package.
1
I'd like an Amazon but I don't see how they could retrofit them into D3 with them being exclusively female. I don't want a male Amazon, but I don't want a generic alternative for such an iconic class either.
Druid is definitely a must though.
1
but removing the time it takes to manually swap out that gear, gems, paragon, skills, passives and cube items is itself a QoL change, whether it saves space or not. Even something simple like swapping +goldfind and movespeed in rifts was a pain when someone decides to change the pace with a Grift run. It should be as simple as set and forget, not a constant fear of getting locked into a GR wearing your boon of Hoarders or having nemesis still cubed by accident.
1
'Why not another expansion?' There's no clear answer for that.
My personal suspicion? If they're working on Diablo 4, they're not going to split their resources into devoting the time and effort on a full expansion. DLC and patch updates are their compromise for adding new content without affecting time spent into D4 development. I'm sure they've weighed the choices internally, and it's probably a team (and corporate) decision that they focus on something fresh.
There's greater draw in a new game. D3 is not old by any means, but it's aging. Take a look at some of the ARPGs coming out (not Grim Dark and PoE, but new ARPGs) and D3 is starting to pale in comparison. Let's keep in mind that Blizzard aims globally, and there are a lot of Korean/Chinese ARPGs in direct competition with Diablo 3. Same can't really be said about their other franchises. Of course there are other MMO's out there, but WoW continues to be successful mostly due to a large installed fanbase that is still invested in the characters they've made since 2004. D3 however doesn't have this kind of investment, considering it's gameplay is built around making new characters and power leveling them.
1
It's very likely that D4 is in production, at least in its conceptual/brainstorm phase where they're exploring which direction to take the new game. There's no real need for sweeping changes to D3 at this point; there's not enough interest in the game to begin with to draw back a large enough crowd that would care about 'Loot 3.0'. It's not as if an expansion is being made.
1
I think it's a concious choice that the Diablo team is moving towards Diablo 4, but at some point there were plans to make a second D3 expansion and part of it was already developed. I think what's happening now is that some of that is being cut up and released as DLC or future patch content, but they don't have the full design team available to crunch out enough content to be a full expansion or provide story DLC because they're focused on developing the sequel. What we're getting is the stuff picked up from the cutting room floor, polished and packaged for consumption. I don't think they'll be putting effort into providing NEW stuff (ie story campaign, another act); only content that supports what we already have in play.