DiabloFans

Their sources still confirm that they are working on Diablo 4, but that it still has a long road ahead.

What a great way to cover themselves by moving the goal posts almost indefinitely without having to show any proof.

Quote from Detruncate»

"There weren't many memorable poison skills [...]" Sure there were. There was poison nova and - poison nova and...? Hmm...

One thing I can say about D3 is that I enjoyed their scripted, comic-like videos.

That's like 20% of the Necro content for free though.

Quote from SPARXS»

There is no such thing as a free to play game. Path of Exile... It's only free to play because other people are buying those visual things via micro transactions so you can play it for free but without those people it wouldn't be free. These game companys don't give a flying f*ck about your feelings. The only important thing for them is the profit and the rest is just a marketing bullsh*t.

You're right about whales but Grinding Gear Games has a lot of respect for their fans. They're transparent with their decisions, they reach out to the community with development blogs or Q&As, promote players, continuously release content and actively engage the community through their official forums as well as the PoE sub-reddit through all levels of management.

If anything, F2P is a two way street where success is measured based on how well the developers treat their players and there's a reason why PoE is often credited as having the best F2P structure in gaming. If they treat the players like idiots and release poor quality content then they won't see anywhere near the return they're seeing but if they treat the players with respect and release quality content then the whales will continue to ensure costs are covered while giving the rest a free ride.

Seeing as how they have a major updates about every six months and are working on their sixth expansion along with everything in between like challenge leagues and developing an Xbox client, I'd say it's working for everyone. The Necromancer is free too.

Since there's likely a high number of players who own both World of Warcraft and Diablo 3, I'm willing to bet the farm that the Necro pack will cost $15 since you can now trade your wowtokens for 15 BlizzardBucks.

As for the Necromancer? The potential was there but there's only so much you can do with a busted game and a skeleton development crew at this point. Not only is it taking waaaay too long but it also feels like they're somehow cutting corners along the way.

When was Poison Nova ever as popular as some make it seem? It was a dumpster-tier skill which no one used outside of meme builds like Throwing Barbarians.

Before clicking on the link, I said to myself "Wow, five? That's a surprise!"

I'm not surprised now.

Quote from oldgom»

I have trid it! I don't think it's a good game..

For the first: I don't like the graphic, animation is very weak, atmosphere horrible..

But which is really important in a h&s game: skill system is a joke nothing like d2 or d3.

Honestly the only thing is good in that game it is that free.

IMO in D3 we need balance, and as we see in the next patch the dev team direction is good but still not enough. They really need to hire some players who says to them what to do

If the only compliment you have towards PoE is that it's free then you likely didn't play long enough to understand the appeal. While the topic of fun is entirely subjective, the amount of content, diversity, community and support PoE has is objectively better than anything D3 has seen since the release of Reaper of Souls.

New seasons in D3 have essentially become aesthetic rewards with heavy-pendulum "balance" and stale content whereas each new League in PoE has an entirely new gimmick, items, cards, and skill gems which offers not only an economy reset but keeps it fresh as well which is foreign to D3 since the developers assume we're all RMT scumlords. That's not even including their expansion and mini-expansion content cycles which have no end in sight as far as free content is concerned whereas Diablo 3 fans are looking forward to paying for a Necromancer pack with two zones sometime in 2017.

So, what, new portraits and maybe some balances to rotate the meta? Maybe?

Meanwhile, Path of Exile just pushed out their Breach league.

This is absolutely pathetic if this is what they were hyping.

Necromancer doesn't even have enough power to bring this game back from the dead. If they weren't going in to announcements with a new expansion, at the least, then they've thrown this game under the bus for an HD gimmick which won't last and a new class which they won't know how to balance any more than they know how to balance the current state of the game.

I'll play the Diablo 1 inspired content, I'll play the shit out of it, but I really doubt it's going to hold my attention for a very long time before realizing the game is still essentially built on a swamp.

I'm not sure I'd want a Diablo 4. Honestly, I'm not sure I'd even want a Diablo 2 HD release because they'd probably find a way to break it too. Removing the battle.net lobby, removing stats, reworking Gheed, 'balance' skills and kill trading are some of the things I suspect and fear will be thrown under the bus in order to fit the mmo-theme which has poisoned the very core of Diablo 3.

If all this hype and mystery is to announce another expansion pack, I'll roll my eyes even if it comes with a Necromancer or, to a lesser extent, Druid but seeing as how they're unable to balance anything now I doubt they want to strain the developer any more than he is.

I really hope it's not an expansion but I also think it's a little soon for a fourth entry. Personally, I am surprised there is anyone left on the team to even have a conversation with let alone create further content for this entry.

If it's an expansion, they better have a unicorn up their sleeves in regards to changes, improvements, and support. A Necromancer wouldn't hurt either.

Quote from jrsmith1684»

Quote from lMarcusl»

Why should there be hype? After the way D3 ended up, they will just churn out a new game instead of improving the not so old one? So all the farming you've done is now invalid and you can start again from scratch, until 5 years down the line they release D5 and the entire clown fiesta starts again.

If D3 was a thoroughly solid game like D2 was at its time, there would be a reason to anticipate the next one. But D3 is in a pretty sorry state, considerably worse than the plethora of ARPGs on the market such as Grim Dawn or Path of Exile and has now been abandoned by devs who just recently seemed dedicated to making it better. I guess that enthusiasm left with Josh Mosqueira. If that's how they treat the Diablo franchise, then why even bother buying the next one? Where's any guarantee it won't end up the same?

But hey, at least in the meantime we can farm stash tabs for a game we won't play anymore. That feature was put in, I assumed, because they intended for the game to go on. Instead, the sets are grossly imbalanced despite the dev's claims they want all sets as close in power as possible (try playing 6pc Tal Rasha, Natalya or Roland). D3 didn't even get a proper story ending (that hand drawn bullcrap isn't the kind of thing Blizz games used to end with, let alone the final line being "Diablo is free"...yeah, see you 5 years later in a sequel).

As an avid Diablo fan since childhood, having spent close to 12 years playing D2, I feel no desire to play D3 (aka "Level Up Gem Simulator 2016") again. The only thing that ever kept me playing were the new things introduced in patches and the satisfying combat. Once the influx of new stuff stopped, it became clear how goddamn bland D3 is, how predetermined your builds were, how pointless and spoulless progression was. It's now to the point where even introducing something new into the game would barely get me to notice. Yes, building the game anew from scratch is needed for Diablo to become good again. But not when the previous game is still relatively recent, in poor state, and unsupported.

I thought the point of ARPGs was to start from scratch and farm the same shit over and over again. Isn't that why people cried for seasons at the top of their lungs?

Diablo 3 has no economy to reset so seasons aren't really that big of a deal. Maybe once Blizzard stops assuming we're all hacking eBay sellers we'll see at least the return of the trade/barter system which gives a much higher incentive to play rather than undermining the game as a whole by continuously buffing the drop and gambling rates of legendary items. It doesn't help the community either but I wouldn't say Diablo 3 really had one in the first place especially with that mmo-inspired chat system.

I also never realized just how janky this forum is when creating a post. Random load times, delayed typing, hit-or-miss app loading and highlighting issues. Oh my!

Quote from Daveismyhero»

I'm definitely looking forward to the new cosmetics, especially if you don't have to jump through a million flaming hoops to obtain the wings. Can't wait to hunt for the new goblins!

Know that only the most dedicated nephalem are destined to rock these special cosmetic items!

Rebuild the game with the Star Craft 2 engine, bring back the battle.net 2.0 lobby, and don't 'reinterpret' the gameplay systems to reflect MMO-style rules and balance that undermines ARPGs.

Hell, just push an official 1080p resolution patch which also addresses the frame rate and cursor lag and I'd be happy. Game runs horrible on modern machines.

This would go a long way towards restoring my faith in Blizzard after they took a dump on the franchise with Diablo 3.