I already had very little reason to go back to Diablo IV after completing the story missions, because of how ludicrously grindy the endgame was... and now I have even less reason thanks to these...
I already had very little reason to go back to Diablo IV after completing the story missions, because of how ludicrously grindy the endgame was... and now I have even less reason thanks to these class nerfs, and them removing power-leveling (which was already incredibly slow!). Well done, Blizzard!
As an aside, why do developers always default to nerfing things that are potentially overpowered, instead of lifting up other aspect of a game to compensate? I know it's easier to nerf, but it feels like all that does is piss people off, make them less likely to keep playing your game, or return to it later... since now they can no longer play it in the way they are used to, expect, and prefer.
Agreed, and especially in this case why nerf all of the classes? Clearly it's not an issue where one class is massively outperforming the others, so why just make all of the classes weaker for no...
As an aside, why do developers always default to nerfing things that are potentially overpowered, instead of lifting up other aspect of a game to compensate?
Agreed, and especially in this case why nerf all of the classes? Clearly it's not an issue where one class is massively outperforming the others, so why just make all of the classes weaker for no reason? People play games like Diablo to "do big damage", why make the game less fun for them for no reason? If the players are too effective against enemies, buff the enemies rather than nerfing players.
It's possible the difficulty curve was petering out too quickly. Part of the fun of games like Diablo is building a character that feels like a god, but the impact of that feeling is lessened if...
It's possible the difficulty curve was petering out too quickly. Part of the fun of games like Diablo is building a character that feels like a god, but the impact of that feeling is lessened if the game becomes too easy too fast.
Possibly to make it more difficult for players that maxed out their characters in the first 2 or 3 weeks after release. Streamers and gamers that play constantly seem like the target for the...
Possibly to make it more difficult for players that maxed out their characters in the first 2 or 3 weeks after release. Streamers and gamers that play constantly seem like the target for the nerfs. Make them take the whole season to max out a new character. It's only hurting casual fans like myself that don't won't any part of the time required now. I won't be playing anymore.
My conspiracy theory is that this is the power level they intended classes to have all along, and they temporarily buffed all the classes for release to maximize launch day hype. Now that the...
My conspiracy theory is that this is the power level they intended classes to have all along, and they temporarily buffed all the classes for release to maximize launch day hype.
Now that the seasons are starting (which as I understand you have to create a new character to take part in) they want to slow down how long it takes for players to "finish" to keep them playing longer.
This is the same company that removed portals from WoW to "make the world feel big," because what people really want to do when playing an MMO is wait for the taxi/mount to bring them to the thing they're wanting to actually do.
They don't care if it makes the game less enjoyable if it keeps you playing longer.
Given that there were nerfs across the board here, I don't see how there is a functional difference between nerfing the classes and lifting up (for example) enemy health by a similar percentage. I...
As an aside, why do developers always default to nerfing things instead of lifting up other aspect of a game to compensate?
Given that there were nerfs across the board here, I don't see how there is a functional difference between nerfing the classes and lifting up (for example) enemy health by a similar percentage.
I will admit that I don't have much experience with Diablo, but this is an industry-wide issue that has to be dealt with. In the case that they balanced the game around clearing dungeon X at Y times per hour with developer testing, and it turns out that players have optimized their loadouts and abilities to clear the dungeon 1.5Y times per hour, you have basically these options:
Raise the health of all enemies by 50%
Nobody was "nerfed" but kill times end up taking half again longer. Players complain about making things slower but not making them more interesting
Other dungeons can be fiddled with similarly, in the case that there are dungeon-specific reasons that players are clearing it faster
Lower the damage output across the board by 50%
This only makes sense if players are clearing all dungeons at a roughly similar rate higher than developer testing (which it seems is the case here?)
Lower drop rates by 50% for the token loot
Making loot rarer for players is never fun
Makes getting your token loot feel significantly more "grindy" even if it's the same overall time as the previous options
Leave it as-is and only take the feedback into account for future dungeons
The dungeons don't stand up to future updates and end up becoming trivial much faster with gear progression, as the next dungeon released will have significantly higher stats to compensate for the new tech
There isn't really a good solution for this that hits all of the marks. I think the "nerf everyone across the board" strategy tends to be the right decision if it's done as soon as everyone is aware of the "issue" as it allows for the rest of the game to stay at the same difficulty ratio.
I don't think the issue actually is "difficulty" though. D4 was never really difficult to begin with, even on tier 4. IMO the major issue is how insanely grindy the game is. And by nerfing every...
I don't think the issue actually is "difficulty" though. D4 was never really difficult to begin with, even on tier 4. IMO the major issue is how insanely grindy the game is. And by nerfing every class, and removing power-leveling, they have simply made it even more grindy, and likely made a whole bunch of popular builds totally unviable at end-game now.
Yes, that probably also significantly slows down progression, but at what cost? I am certainly a hell of a lot less likely to ever go back now, as are all my friends who reacted similarly when they saw these patch notes. And when progression already required >150 hours (per character) to reach max level, and another 100+ hours to get the gear you need to optimize certain builds (which they have now nerfed!), that seems insane to me to try to slow it down even further for everyone.
They did the same thing with a bunch of dungeons recently too. When one was found that was slightly faster XP/hour than others, they nerfed the absolute shit out of it, making it totally unviable. Which they then repeated half a dozen more times as the next best dungeon was found. Which is what caused me, and a bunch of my friends, to finally stop playing the game entirely.
I understand the principle behind nerfing, but I just don't think it's usually worth doing it, especially if you care about people continuing to play your game.
I don't know anything about D4 (boycotting Blizzard), but that certainly sounds like it has a difficulty problem. Diablo games are always balanced so you have to have near perfect gear from...
I don't think the issue actually is "difficulty" though. D4 was never really difficult to begin with, even on tier 4.
I don't know anything about D4 (boycotting Blizzard), but that certainly sounds like it has a difficulty problem. Diablo games are always balanced so you have to have near perfect gear from countless hours of grinding to reach end game content
Most people aren't reaching endgame content in Diablo. If for example in D2 you consider endgame to be Uber Tristram and not Nightmare mode. Normal difficulty in Diablo 2/3 is very easy, it's a...
Most people aren't reaching endgame content in Diablo. If for example in D2 you consider endgame to be Uber Tristram and not Nightmare mode.
Normal difficulty in Diablo 2/3 is very easy, it's a casual run-through that prepares you to tackle harder challenges after if you want to.
Ahh, so you're saying Tier 4 isn't end game, but maybe more akin to Nightmare difficulty? Really don't know anything about D4's scaling. The above post made it sound like Tier 4 was the highest...
Ahh, so you're saying Tier 4 isn't end game, but maybe more akin to Nightmare difficulty?
Really don't know anything about D4's scaling. The above post made it sound like Tier 4 was the highest difficulty. I wouldn't think nerfing would even matter until you hit late game grinding
Sorry to be clear I haven't played Diablo IV. It has more difficulties than D2, just like D3 did, so there's more of a gradual difficulty curve. But I don't know if Tier 4 is the highest, I think...
Sorry to be clear I haven't played Diablo IV. It has more difficulties than D2, just like D3 did, so there's more of a gradual difficulty curve. But I don't know if Tier 4 is the highest, I think it is.
Regardless even in D2, getting to Hell is still not necessarily endgame content to some people. It just depends on how you view it. Is the endgame in D2 Nightmare Onward? Aka once you've finished the story? I would say yes personally. But to some people endgame is running bosses on Hell and doing Uber Tristram. I've been playing D2 again recently and hitting Hell itself only took me up to level 60 or so.
I understand why this is upsetting to D4 players so I'm not trying to downplay this update, but it is funny to me as a PoE player to see this comment about Diablo that has been happening to use...
I understand why this is upsetting to D4 players so I'm not trying to downplay this update, but it is funny to me as a PoE player to see this comment about Diablo that has been happening to use exiles for the last decade.
Your question is exactly how I've felt about the ARPG genre as a whole for a while now.
Another PoE vet here. The thing about PoE was at least that GGG nerfed the shit out of some ascendancies and classes, but buffed others which lead to a new meta every league. The nerfs sucked...
Another PoE vet here. The thing about PoE was at least that GGG nerfed the shit out of some ascendancies and classes, but buffed others which lead to a new meta every league. The nerfs sucked sometimes of course and some leagues sucked altogether, but the biggest problem I see with D4 is, that none of the classes felt really good in the first place and imo all of them needed buffs to really feel fun, I can’t imagine how sluggish the game will feel now after the nerfs. We‘ll see I guess but I’m quite wary.
Well, you said it yourself, it's easier to nerf. What the power distribution tends to be that both within a class, and within the classes, there's one or two options that are just WAY better than...
Well, you said it yourself, it's easier to nerf. What the power distribution tends to be that both within a class, and within the classes, there's one or two options that are just WAY better than the others. It's much easier to adjust one thing than to adjust 4 or 5 things and try to everything level.
I think it's also useful to contextualize the patch. This is preparation for the first season; the seasonal mechanics represent a boost in power to all classes. It does suck for the eternal realms players, but it's hard to say what the overall power level is going to be in season 1 without seeing how the malignant hearts works out.
The leveling change is a bit weird. They need to add in more rungs on the ladder between 50 and 100. The PoE grind is arguably longer but your power does scale with time investment more.
Funnily enough, mobile games tend to do this part "right" (or at least, not wrong? I'm not against nerfs, but a global nerf 1 month into a full release is very drastic). They will try at all costs...
why do developers always default to nerfing things that are potentially overpowered, instead of lifting up other aspect of a game to compensate?
Funnily enough, mobile games tend to do this part "right" (or at least, not wrong? I'm not against nerfs, but a global nerf 1 month into a full release is very drastic). They will try at all costs to avoid nerfing characters because the nature of how obtaining characters work is tied to players spending real money, potentially hundreds. Imagine spending that much to get a new character and then they get nerfed a month later, it'd be a trainwreck (and every example I can find has indeed been so).
But seeing the other side, the grass isn't necessarily greener. Consider a few points:
if you can't nerf, you either need to buff old units, create newer stronger units (or units to counter the current OP units) or introduce different content that makes the OP unit unviable.
Many mobile games tend to naturally powercreep over the course of the game. Very few people expect a launch character to still be the best 5 years later. At least not without a bunch of investment in a bunch of new, grindy systems. So this isn't doe as likely for games that want to incentivize pulling newer units anyway. Even if you could; it is extremely hard to balance character rosters in the hundreds, so it's a Herculean effort bound to fail. There will always be some relevant characters and some forgotten, abandoned, or in some very small, specific niche.
Now for new characters, you tend to get 2 results. One is that the new character simply becomes the very OP character it sought to counter. The other is that you have a character who's purpose more or less revolves around that OP character remaining relevant. Which as established above, is a ticking bomb to irrelevancy. So if/when the meta changes, you now have 2 irrelevant units instead of 1. This kind of character design in addition to limiting developer creativity tends to also feel stifling to any non-meta players.
Content updates tend to be the best of both worlds, at the cost of being the most costly to develop and balance. So it's not quite as band-aid a solution as character creation/re-balancing, but it's always something to consider. New game modes mean you can encourage or discourage playstyles, and have a new meta form without disrupting the old. The main risk is of course, player interest in said mode.
So it can vary. I've seen metas go on for years trying to not nerf when a few select nerfs could have made things better. But nerfs should never be the first thing in mind without a lot of real world testing and overall player empathy.
Or in Genshin Impact case literally thousands of dollars trying to pull for a character. And with Chinese gacha games, since real life money is involved, thus gambling, it is illegal to change the...
They will try at all costs to avoid nerfing characters because the nature of how obtaining characters work is tied to players spending real money, potentially hundreds.
Or in Genshin Impact case literally thousands of dollars trying to pull for a character. And with Chinese gacha games, since real life money is involved, thus gambling, it is illegal to change the characters in a way that makes them worse before.
Good ones don't, but anything like activision/blizzard, there's a few things going on - The grind/MTX is now just part of the money funnel. Get through the content too fast or too easy and you...
As an aside, why do developers always default to nerfing things that are potentially overpowered, instead of lifting up other aspect of a game to compensate?
Good ones don't, but anything like activision/blizzard, there's a few things going on -
The grind/MTX is now just part of the money funnel. Get through the content too fast or too easy and you might not buy those powerups. Now i haven't paid attention to D4, i feel like it might not have that kind of MTX, but if so...this looks to me like they plan to eventually. If they already do...well then there's your answer.
It's easier. Buffing up might break something else that you didn't think of. Nerfing usually won't.
It's even easier than that. On top of that, you can probably just adjust a number in a spreadsheet somewhere. I can't get into games like diablo because they feel like giant math equations (cookie clicker with movement that barely matters and a plot that's rarely good) , and I think that's because they mostly are. Dropping power by 15% is literally just changing some numbers. Upping power by 15% risks breaking things as before and might not actually do what was needed if there's more complex issues (all the power in the world won't solve a mobility/defensive problem for example).
Ahhh, I see people were on track to blasting through their season pass too quickly so Blizzard had to reign everyone in for that steady mtx drip. So glad I didn't buy this game.
Ahhh, I see people were on track to blasting through their season pass too quickly so Blizzard had to reign everyone in for that steady mtx drip. So glad I didn't buy this game.
Honestly, I am just glad that people can still play Diablo III still considering what Blizzard had done with Overwatch's servers when the sequel had launched. And I am glad that I did not get into...
Honestly, I am just glad that people can still play Diablo III still considering what Blizzard had done with Overwatch's servers when the sequel had launched.
And I am glad that I did not get into the Diablo series before this. Mostly because it was before my time and I did not want deal with Blizzards bs.
I was going to put it as a "Free Update" but decided against it because I did not want people to think I was being superior to other people for playing it. And honestly I did not play Overwatch,...
I was going to put it as a "Free Update" but decided against it because I did not want people to think I was being superior to other people for playing it. And honestly I did not play Overwatch, just felt sorry towards to the people that had spent money on Overwatch, and having it closed completely.
All the OW1 content is still there, it's not nearly as apocalyptic as the memes make it sound. The biggest change to the game was the move to 5v5, which I think most long time players agree was a...
All the OW1 content is still there, it's not nearly as apocalyptic as the memes make it sound. The biggest change to the game was the move to 5v5, which I think most long time players agree was a net improvement. 6v6 is still playable in custom games.
A lot of people were upset that the free lootboxes went away, but they replaced it with earnable credits which can be used to buy all OW1 items (including formerly event exclusives) from the hero gallery. The only stuff you have to pay real money to get are new OW2 cosmetics distributed through the shop and seasonal battle passes.
Aren't some of the heroes behind a paywall or grindwall? My understanding (never played OW) is that this is something that OW1 gave you with the box price.
Aren't some of the heroes behind a paywall or grindwall? My understanding (never played OW) is that this is something that OW1 gave you with the box price.
New heroes are in the battle pass for about a month, after which they can be unlocked by using their abilities for a few minutes in the practice range. They are in the free tier of the battle pass...
New heroes are in the battle pass for about a month, after which they can be unlocked by using their abilities for a few minutes in the practice range.
They are in the free tier of the battle pass about a third of the way through, so it's not much of a grind even if you play casually.
OW2 was basically an excuse to change the monitization structure to needing to purchase/unlock each hero, where in OW1 when a new hero was released everyone could play them. They said they were...
OW2 was basically an excuse to change the monitization structure to needing to purchase/unlock each hero, where in OW1 when a new hero was released everyone could play them.
They said they were going to release some new PvE content as well but that ended up not happening.
I was going to say the same thing but with much less gentle tones. I really despite the modern Blizzard... especially remembering the times of Blizzard North.
I was going to say the same thing but with much less gentle tones.
I really despite the modern Blizzard... especially remembering the times of Blizzard North.
I was really hoping to play a sorc for the new season... Who thought a change like that was acceptable? Almost a 50% decrease in damage? May as well remove the class from the game. I understand...
I was really hoping to play a sorc for the new season...
Devouring Blaze bonus Critical Strike damage to Immobilized reduced from 25/50/75% to 10/20/30
Who thought a change like that was acceptable? Almost a 50% decrease in damage? May as well remove the class from the game. I understand all classes got nerfed but sorc nerfs are not even on the same level as the other classes.
I would have been fine with this if they actually improved other abilities in a meaningful way. Devouring Blaze is basically required for any build. That's arguably bad design and bad for build...
I would have been fine with this if they actually improved other abilities in a meaningful way. Devouring Blaze is basically required for any build. That's arguably bad design and bad for build diversity. But killing it and giving no replacement is just dumb.
My experience with these type of games that have a focus on single player progression and light mmo elements is that they manipulate the player base to maximise engagement. When I played Destiny 2...
My experience with these type of games that have a focus on single player progression and light mmo elements is that they manipulate the player base to maximise engagement.
When I played Destiny 2 regularly I started to notice a cycle for each season / DLC. At first I thought it was unintentional, but it’s repeated more than enough time to see the pattern.
Before release:
Pump up the hype, over promise.
Initial release:
The grind is harsh, the new features aren’t as enjoyable as advertised and only committed players engage with it. There were a lot of preorders. Community managers take the heat and promise improvements, but nothing substantial changes.
Some time after release:
Commited players have burnt out, the player base is angry and starting to leave en mass.
The devs finally patch the game and the grind is reduced, feedback has been taken on and suddenly things seem fun. Players come back and trust is restored.
Now, time to announce the new DLC…
D4 will get a nice patch before the end of the season. Loads of good balancing and buffs, better drop rates etc. and soon after than will come the S2 announcement.
So not that I'm defending blizzard, but the idea of the nerfs is to bring the min-max damage more in line with casual damage Casual players don't knowingly stack multiplicative damage, and...
So not that I'm defending blizzard, but the idea of the nerfs is to bring the min-max damage more in line with casual damage
Casual players don't knowingly stack multiplicative damage, and blizzard didn't like how much damage the top end players were doing. The heaviest nerfs came to the highest impact damage scalers (e.g., vulnerable and crit damage). If you weren't stacking that anyway your damage probably wasn't hit too noticably.
Again, I'm not a fan of these changes as I think you should be rewarded for gearing properly instead of randomly, but I think that was the intention and why they felt they had to nerf everything
Pissing off your most dedicated players by rending their high-level builds completely useless (which they spent countless hours developing, perfecting, and gearing up), in order to bring those...
Pissing off your most dedicated players by rending their high-level builds completely useless (which they spent countless hours developing, perfecting, and gearing up), in order to bring those builds closer in power to the absolute most casual players' builds, who don't even understand the very basics of ARPG stat stacking mechanics, and who likely won't be playing for long no matter what you change, sounds like a reeeeeeeally great idea!
What could possibly go wrong with that strategy?
(sees player numbers plummeting, and every major ARPG streamer stop playing the game, telling people it's shit and recommending they avoid it, and going back to playing other, better, less aggravating ARPGs with devs who aren't actively undermining viable high-level builds and player enjoyment at every opportunity)
Meh. I'd give you that if it was pissing off the most dedicated players (which it did a bit, but hear me out), but that's not what happened. It pissed off all the...
Meh.
I'd give you that if it was pissing off the most dedicated players (which it did a bit, but hear me out), but that's not what happened. It pissed off all the casuals-masquerading-as-diehards-because-they-all-copy/paste-build-guides and now those aren't as powerful. The actual dedicated players find fun in the min/maxing, they're the ones that find the unintended bugs, synergies, buckets, and theorycrafting. A new patch to them is a new start on finding where the min/max meta sits.
Ultimately the devs don't think anyone should be in NM80+ dungeons at all this soon after release. This is a widespread nerf patch, we all played too well and they don't want people clearing NM100 or Uber Lilith in two weeks every season. They probably want Level 75 characters in NM 30-40, the average Level 90-100 to be clearing NM75, and the best geared 0.1% players to be pushing higher than that.
They just don't have the guts to say they accidentally all gave us too much power and it will always hurt when that's taken away. We've all got this mental image that characters should be easily mowing down monsters more than 25 levels higher than our character. But they probably only see us fighting monsters like 5-10 levels higher than us. NM100 and Uber Lilith should be an accomplishment, not something anyone in a Diablo trade Discord with 100M gold can do because they just buy all the BIS rares, apply aspects, and faceroll their way through.
When players are running NM dungeons at such high tiers the viability of builds naturally comes down to a very few (a constant complaint). If the best build can only clear +5-10 NM levels from the average then we have more variety. Before the patch I tried a whole ton of Level 75 Sorc builds. Ice Shards/Blizzard was clearing 15 more NM levels easily than any Fire Build I tried and 10 more levels than Lightning. So they've crushed that variation down so all the builds will clear NM 30-50 so it's doesn't feel so bad to run something that isn't Ice Shards. Yes, they could have buffed the other builds so they can clear higher NM. But the designers don't want to just keep adding power, then adding difficulty and ending up with Torment 3000 which is the D3 approach. The designers want the game to hard end at Uber Lilith and NM100 (for now, because they don't have any other endgame which is its own, very valid, complaint), so the only balance to maintain that was to crush everything down about 20-30NM levels until they can actually create new endgame content.
Unfortunately, they elected to do so after the cat was out of the bag, players were already accustomed to doing things they weren't supposed to be doing. Perhaps widespread nerfs wasn't the best course of action, but just tripling all monster life wasn't a solution either. The power curve needed to be brought under control, perhaps buffs to under utilized skills (which they did do in some cases) while also increasing monster life/resistances is a better solution, but it's too late for that and people are throwing a fit because they don't like the idea of being nerfed while also not actually being one of the dedicated players that figures out all the min/maxes.
I feel like this is a design problem with the game itself. They probably just should not have this many multiplicative buckets of damage sources in the first place, and information such as that...
but the idea of the nerfs is to bring the min-max damage more in line with casual damage
Casual players don't knowingly stack multiplicative damage, and blizzard didn't like how much damage the top end players were doing.
I feel like this is a design problem with the game itself. They probably just should not have this many multiplicative buckets of damage sources in the first place, and information such as that should be taught to players, or players need to be allowed to actually experiment with minimal cost, neither of which is there. I remember when I was still playing my damage can range from 12K to 700K depending on if the stars align or not, that is just nuts. And unless they re-design the entire thing, no amount of nerfs is going to do what they want to do, assuming their intent is to bring things more in-line between one another.
This is me. I have a level 56 Druid that I built up just how I like to play. Haven't read a single guide or anything for the game, just playing it like it's a fun RPG. None of these changes hurt...
This is me. I have a level 56 Druid that I built up just how I like to play. Haven't read a single guide or anything for the game, just playing it like it's a fun RPG. None of these changes hurt my build, in fact they boost several of the skills I'm specked into.
I get the sentiment from the hardcore fans, I've been one (FFXI, FFXIV, WoW), but the idea that they're nerfing everything across the board, they're just making casuals a bit better and hardcores a bit worse.
It's already been weeks since I played, but I went ahead and uninstalled it after reading the patch notes. I honestly can't see any way that I'll ever be back. I jumped back on to D3 for a bit...
It's already been weeks since I played, but I went ahead and uninstalled it after reading the patch notes. I honestly can't see any way that I'll ever be back.
I jumped back on to D3 for a bit earlier, for the first time since D4 dropped. The vast majority of my huge old social clan are currently online so it looks like I'm not the only one who has jumped ship.
I stopped playing as well about 3 weeks ago. When I played the first open beta I already kinda knew the game was going to boring. Heck the first dungeon I walked into I almost fell asleep, that...
I stopped playing as well about 3 weeks ago. When I played the first open beta I already kinda knew the game was going to boring. Heck the first dungeon I walked into I almost fell asleep, that should not happen 10 minutes into a brand new game. But I bought the game anyway (the cheapest option, because I knew the game wasn't worth the premium pricing of $100 US) because wife wanted to try. I did level a barbarian to around 80, so I suppose I did get my money's worth some what.
To me the biggest problem with this latest round of patch is the fact that they touched the gear that players had already acquired, that players had spent time and effort and gold to roll for. That is ultimate disrespect for me as a player, and it's something I will not tolerate coming from any gaming company. Needless to say I will not be playing season 1, if ever at all.
I broke my personal rule about not pre-ordering games with Diablo IV--and I strongly regret doing so. Granted, I'm not the most hardcore ARPG player, but do have quite a few hours put into Path of...
I broke my personal rule about not pre-ordering games with Diablo IV--and I strongly regret doing so.
Granted, I'm not the most hardcore ARPG player, but do have quite a few hours put into Path of Exile/Grim Dawn/Last Epoch and a fairly decent understanding of those games' systems. For me, D4 breaks the power fantasy that is pretty much fundamental to the genre. You never actually feel powerful. Sure, you're getting new abilities and new items. The numbers go up just like you want them to... but it never feels like you're getting anywhere. Enemies take just as long to kill at level 50 as they do at level 25. My level 50 rogue felt nearly identical to my level 25 rogue when I unlocked the majority of the abilities I was using in my build.
I didn't play too far into the "endgame" of D4 because it was actively not fun. I don't think I've had that feeling with any other ARPG that I've played. Yeah, the Path of Exile endgame (which is really the actual game) is grindy as all hell. The difference is that mapping is actively fun. Numbers are going up, and you actively feel stronger. You can focus on zooming through maps, focus on bosses, or focus on one of a plethora of mechanics. There's big goals to work toward in gearing up, and despite Path of Exile having a... unique crafting system, you can still make good progress toward those even as a fairy casual player.
After seeing the details of this patch, I have zero interest in returning to D4. I uninstalled it last night, and will wind up using that space on my SSD for Baldur's Gate 3. Which, admittedly, I also pre-ordered ages ago... but I have infinitely more trust for Larian than Blizzard. Shame on me for thinking Blizzard might not royally fuck up D4, I guess.
I remember arguing on Reddit about D4. I was never going to buy it, even if the beta was good. Because even if D4 was good, I can never trust Blizzard to not fuck me over again. I'll love D4, and...
I remember arguing on Reddit about D4. I was never going to buy it, even if the beta was good. Because even if D4 was good, I can never trust Blizzard to not fuck me over again. I'll love D4, and the I'll discover how the D4 devs punched a baby in the face, or are making their players swear allegiance to the CCP, or something dumb.
I'm just done. They could make the best games in the world and I don't care anymore. There are plenty of other good games where I don't have to watch my back like this.
I'm honestly trying my best to not bring my reddit based negativity here to Tildes but holy hell Blizzard is trying my resolve. So many massive mistakes that any layperson could tell you is a...
I'm honestly trying my best to not bring my reddit based negativity here to Tildes but holy hell Blizzard is trying my resolve. So many massive mistakes that any layperson could tell you is a terrible idea, yet a team of hundreds of developers working at one of the largest, most well funded studios in the world continues to make them over and over and over and over.
I don't know how this even serves the corporate interests through some sort of shady greedy design choices, this just feels like pure ignorance or even malice towards their players. Really just baffling decisions.
That's honestly how I felt a few weeks ago when they spent over a week nerfing every dungeon players found that had marginally better XP/hour than the rest, higher mob density, and/or more...
or even malice towards their players
That's honestly how I felt a few weeks ago when they spent over a week nerfing every dungeon players found that had marginally better XP/hour than the rest, higher mob density, and/or more convenient run pathing.
Like, I could at least understand if they nerfed them to be a bit more in line with most other dungeons... but they went so far beyond that, rendering those dungeons completely fucking useless and never worth visiting ever again, that it genuinely felt like whoever is in charge just wanted to spite all the players that discovered and were enjoying playing in those dungeons.
And the fact they did it over and over again, nerfing the most popular dungeon into oblivion, waiting until the next best was found then nuking that one, repeat ad nauseam, genuinely pissed me off (which is why I stopped playing). It was like the devs were saying "Fuck you, stop playing the game how you enjoy playing it! Play it how we want you to (by grinding for 150+ hours to reach max level) in the slow, boring, low mob density, overly large, and confusingly laid out dungeons we intended you to grind in!"
I genuinely don't understand what they're trying to accomplish with all these bullshit, aggravating, counterproductive changes. Every change they have made since launch has just made the game less fun/enjoyable, and far more tedious, annoying, and grindy.
Started playing 2-3 weeks ago and was actually hyped for Season 1, no reason for me now to get back. The grindy, sluggish feel was already not my thing coming from PoE, even though I loved the...
Started playing 2-3 weeks ago and was actually hyped for Season 1, no reason for me now to get back. The grindy, sluggish feel was already not my thing coming from PoE, even though I loved the slower pace of D2 and D2R. GGG had a phase like this too, where everything needed to be super hard and super grindy, they did come off it at some point, I hope blizz does too. I don’t need a D3 with better graphics, D4 can and should feel different, but it just didn’t feel good imo
I don't mind grind when it means a ton of individual/quick encounters or questing. I do mind grinding when it boils down to just giving enemies absurd amounts of HP and beating them is just a...
I don't mind grind when it means a ton of individual/quick encounters or questing. I do mind grinding when it boils down to just giving enemies absurd amounts of HP and beating them is just a matter of time, rather than skill. Sitting there for 10 minutes going through my rotation over and over until the boss dies is just boring. The final stretch of the campaign was just so dull to get through because of it despite the story being compelling and the environment being super interesting. I shouldn't be getting bored in the middle of the final boss fight.
I'm finding myself, after getting to level 30 and not having played D4 for 2-3 weeks now, that playing D2/D2R is still far more fun as a game. It's pulling me in way more than D4 ever did. I don't...
I'm finding myself, after getting to level 30 and not having played D4 for 2-3 weeks now, that playing D2/D2R is still far more fun as a game. It's pulling me in way more than D4 ever did. I don't even hate D4, and enjoyed some of the bits I did play, but after leaving it for weeks... i never got an itch to play it again, like I do other ARPGS? It's strange. I feel the itch to do D2/R, PoE, Grim Dawn... D4 just doesn't have that draw
I think it's mainly because there's no real reward in playing yet. The end game right now is so shallow, that I just don't see any sense in grinding for days just to get a better piece of gear. In...
I think it's mainly because there's no real reward in playing yet. The end game right now is so shallow, that I just don't see any sense in grinding for days just to get a better piece of gear. In PoE a better piece of gear sometimes meant a new map level, or being way more efficient at current map levels, in D2/R, even with the almost non-existent end game there, at least you had to grind and fight to get through the highest difficulty. With D4, you have your most basic skills available by lvl 20, after that they never change and almost all items aren't powerful enough to really change the playstyle so there's no need to get them. The game is just in a very weird spot right now imo
I see these "nerfs" simply as a way to extend the required playtime. People were likely getting to 100 too fast, which means they stop playing, or it discourages more casual players from trying...
I see these "nerfs" simply as a way to extend the required playtime. People were likely getting to 100 too fast, which means they stop playing, or it discourages more casual players from trying seeing all these maxed out players already.
Luckily for me, I got to 70 with a barb and called it quits. Felt like I had seen the majority of what the game had to offer. Creating new characters just to use different abilities inside the same exact content is not "replayability" at all.
Yea, it likely does just simply come down to them wanting to extend playtime (because they didn't actually make enough content for end-game). But I feel like the opposite of what you said about...
Yea, it likely does just simply come down to them wanting to extend playtime (because they didn't actually make enough content for end-game). But I feel like the opposite of what you said about how players have been reacting is true. IMO a lot of people (myself included) quit because they saw how stupid long it took to get even a single character to 100, and/or because every patch has only made that time even longer, and leveling less fun, due to them constantly nerfing classes, skills, gear, and dungeons that actually gave decent XP and had higher mob density. And now they have even removed power leveling too, so you can't even get your alts or more casual playing friends up to decent levels in a reasonable time anymore either.
Maybe other classes are fun but playing through that campaign a second time is not something I can stand to do. It was incredibly tedious and boring outside of a small handful of bosses and set...
Maybe other classes are fun but playing through that campaign a second time is not something I can stand to do. It was incredibly tedious and boring outside of a small handful of bosses and set pieces.
No point of the campaign reacts to your character class. I played as a Necromancer and there are parts that make me think, “did you even read my resume? Commander of the living dead. We don’t need this frivolous side quest to perform this ritual. I performed this ritual 30 times just walking up to the door just now, hell there’s a corpse right there I could do this right now no cooldown or anything. But fine, sign your right to death away to a tree.”
I'm a middle aged casual player who has been playing since shortly after launch and have a level 59 Barbarian. I like the game and don't find it too "grindy" (like PoE). The mechanics are a bit...
I'm a middle aged casual player who has been playing since shortly after launch and have a level 59 Barbarian. I like the game and don't find it too "grindy" (like PoE). The mechanics are a bit complicated for my tastes and I constantly find myself wondering what a stat really means and like I need to consult an encyclopedia(also PoE influenced). I am not bored yet and I've barely scratched the surface of the in-game content and haven't even tried any of the other classes yet (my next goal). I feel like I live in a alternate reality to what I see on Reddit and on this thread.. Everyone posting is complaining, about everything. It makes me want to not read the subreddits anymore regarding the game because I find them a negativity echo chamber. My only gripe is that this new season is coming too soon and I don't really like the season stuff in general which devalues your prior characters and incentivizes starting over from scratch to experience some over-baked new mechanic and a few new items, which feels very PoE. I wish Diablo would drop trying to be PoE and just be more like oldschool D2X.
Diablo 2 had Ladders, not the same as seasons. Ladders is a reset of the leaderboard so people could race to be at the top again. Seasons introduce new gameplay mechanics for that season.
Diablo 2 had Ladders, not the same as seasons. Ladders is a reset of the leaderboard so people could race to be at the top again. Seasons introduce new gameplay mechanics for that season.
To each their own. I don't begrudge people that are still playing and enjoying Diablo IV. However just a heads up: That's probably because you have only just started to hit the grindy part of the...
To each their own. I don't begrudge people that are still playing and enjoying Diablo IV. However just a heads up:
have a level 59 Barbarian. I like the game and don't find it too "grindy"
That's probably because you have only just started to hit the grindy part of the level curve. It starts ramping up exponentially at 70+, and "fun" fact... level 85 is technically half way to 100 in terms of XP required.
My favorite ARPG, right besides Titan Quest. It honestly gets so many things right about this genre. The narrative design is great, while in Diablo 4 it is mostly an afterthought. The classes are...
My favorite ARPG, right besides Titan Quest. It honestly gets so many things right about this genre. The narrative design is great, while in Diablo 4 it is mostly an afterthought. The classes are all interesting, there's many ways to play & experiment with synergies. The combat never feels dull, it's full of easter eggs and secret areas, which makes exploration really interesting and worthwile.
Too bad it's not on Playstation, so I can't play couch coop like I do with Diablo 4.
The main thing I don't like about Grim Dawn is that the "correct" way to level is to spend your points on stats instead of fun abilities. I'd prefer if your stats leveled automatically and you...
The main thing I don't like about Grim Dawn is that the "correct" way to level is to spend your points on stats instead of fun abilities. I'd prefer if your stats leveled automatically and you just got less points to spend.
Last Epoch is a good ARPG that scratches the Diablo itch. Each ability has its own talent tree that lets you modify how it behaves, so there are a lot of customization options.
I already had very little reason to go back to Diablo IV after completing the story missions, because of how ludicrously grindy the endgame was... and now I have even less reason thanks to these class nerfs, and them removing power-leveling (which was already incredibly slow!). Well done, Blizzard!
As an aside, why do developers always default to nerfing things that are potentially overpowered, instead of lifting up other aspect of a game to compensate? I know it's easier to nerf, but it feels like all that does is piss people off, make them less likely to keep playing your game, or return to it later... since now they can no longer play it in the way they are used to, expect, and prefer.
Agreed, and especially in this case why nerf all of the classes? Clearly it's not an issue where one class is massively outperforming the others, so why just make all of the classes weaker for no reason? People play games like Diablo to "do big damage", why make the game less fun for them for no reason? If the players are too effective against enemies, buff the enemies rather than nerfing players.
I'd guess the answer is to incentivize microtransactions - that's the only real reason to deliberately make a game less fun.
As far as I'm aware, Diablo has no microtransactions that affect power whatsoever, like at all. So I can't even figure out what the idea was here.
Apparently Diablo has a time-based season pass, perhaps it's to slow down peoples' progression compared to the season pass duration?
Yet.
But even if there won't be any mtx affecting gameplay, there can always be expansions, etc.
It's possible the difficulty curve was petering out too quickly. Part of the fun of games like Diablo is building a character that feels like a god, but the impact of that feeling is lessened if the game becomes too easy too fast.
Possibly to make it more difficult for players that maxed out their characters in the first 2 or 3 weeks after release. Streamers and gamers that play constantly seem like the target for the nerfs. Make them take the whole season to max out a new character. It's only hurting casual fans like myself that don't won't any part of the time required now. I won't be playing anymore.
My conspiracy theory is that this is the power level they intended classes to have all along, and they temporarily buffed all the classes for release to maximize launch day hype.
Now that the seasons are starting (which as I understand you have to create a new character to take part in) they want to slow down how long it takes for players to "finish" to keep them playing longer.
This is the same company that removed portals from WoW to "make the world feel big," because what people really want to do when playing an MMO is wait for the taxi/mount to bring them to the thing they're wanting to actually do.
They don't care if it makes the game less enjoyable if it keeps you playing longer.
Given that there were nerfs across the board here, I don't see how there is a functional difference between nerfing the classes and lifting up (for example) enemy health by a similar percentage.
I will admit that I don't have much experience with Diablo, but this is an industry-wide issue that has to be dealt with. In the case that they balanced the game around clearing dungeon X at Y times per hour with developer testing, and it turns out that players have optimized their loadouts and abilities to clear the dungeon 1.5Y times per hour, you have basically these options:
There isn't really a good solution for this that hits all of the marks. I think the "nerf everyone across the board" strategy tends to be the right decision if it's done as soon as everyone is aware of the "issue" as it allows for the rest of the game to stay at the same difficulty ratio.
I don't think the issue actually is "difficulty" though. D4 was never really difficult to begin with, even on tier 4. IMO the major issue is how insanely grindy the game is. And by nerfing every class, and removing power-leveling, they have simply made it even more grindy, and likely made a whole bunch of popular builds totally unviable at end-game now.
Yes, that probably also significantly slows down progression, but at what cost? I am certainly a hell of a lot less likely to ever go back now, as are all my friends who reacted similarly when they saw these patch notes. And when progression already required >150 hours (per character) to reach max level, and another 100+ hours to get the gear you need to optimize certain builds (which they have now nerfed!), that seems insane to me to try to slow it down even further for everyone.
They did the same thing with a bunch of dungeons recently too. When one was found that was slightly faster XP/hour than others, they nerfed the absolute shit out of it, making it totally unviable. Which they then repeated half a dozen more times as the next best dungeon was found. Which is what caused me, and a bunch of my friends, to finally stop playing the game entirely.
I understand the principle behind nerfing, but I just don't think it's usually worth doing it, especially if you care about people continuing to play your game.
I don't know anything about D4 (boycotting Blizzard), but that certainly sounds like it has a difficulty problem. Diablo games are always balanced so you have to have near perfect gear from countless hours of grinding to reach end game content
Most people aren't reaching endgame content in Diablo. If for example in D2 you consider endgame to be Uber Tristram and not Nightmare mode.
Normal difficulty in Diablo 2/3 is very easy, it's a casual run-through that prepares you to tackle harder challenges after if you want to.
Ahh, so you're saying Tier 4 isn't end game, but maybe more akin to Nightmare difficulty?
Really don't know anything about D4's scaling. The above post made it sound like Tier 4 was the highest difficulty. I wouldn't think nerfing would even matter until you hit late game grinding
Sorry to be clear I haven't played Diablo IV. It has more difficulties than D2, just like D3 did, so there's more of a gradual difficulty curve. But I don't know if Tier 4 is the highest, I think it is.
Regardless even in D2, getting to Hell is still not necessarily endgame content to some people. It just depends on how you view it. Is the endgame in D2 Nightmare Onward? Aka once you've finished the story? I would say yes personally. But to some people endgame is running bosses on Hell and doing Uber Tristram. I've been playing D2 again recently and hitting Hell itself only took me up to level 60 or so.
I understand why this is upsetting to D4 players so I'm not trying to downplay this update, but it is funny to me as a PoE player to see this comment about Diablo that has been happening to use exiles for the last decade.
Your question is exactly how I've felt about the ARPG genre as a whole for a while now.
Another PoE vet here. The thing about PoE was at least that GGG nerfed the shit out of some ascendancies and classes, but buffed others which lead to a new meta every league. The nerfs sucked sometimes of course and some leagues sucked altogether, but the biggest problem I see with D4 is, that none of the classes felt really good in the first place and imo all of them needed buffs to really feel fun, I can’t imagine how sluggish the game will feel now after the nerfs. We‘ll see I guess but I’m quite wary.
Well, you said it yourself, it's easier to nerf. What the power distribution tends to be that both within a class, and within the classes, there's one or two options that are just WAY better than the others. It's much easier to adjust one thing than to adjust 4 or 5 things and try to everything level.
I think it's also useful to contextualize the patch. This is preparation for the first season; the seasonal mechanics represent a boost in power to all classes. It does suck for the eternal realms players, but it's hard to say what the overall power level is going to be in season 1 without seeing how the malignant hearts works out.
The leveling change is a bit weird. They need to add in more rungs on the ladder between 50 and 100. The PoE grind is arguably longer but your power does scale with time investment more.
Funnily enough, mobile games tend to do this part "right" (or at least, not wrong? I'm not against nerfs, but a global nerf 1 month into a full release is very drastic). They will try at all costs to avoid nerfing characters because the nature of how obtaining characters work is tied to players spending real money, potentially hundreds. Imagine spending that much to get a new character and then they get nerfed a month later, it'd be a trainwreck (and every example I can find has indeed been so).
But seeing the other side, the grass isn't necessarily greener. Consider a few points:
if you can't nerf, you either need to buff old units, create newer stronger units (or units to counter the current OP units) or introduce different content that makes the OP unit unviable.
Many mobile games tend to naturally powercreep over the course of the game. Very few people expect a launch character to still be the best 5 years later. At least not without a bunch of investment in a bunch of new, grindy systems. So this isn't doe as likely for games that want to incentivize pulling newer units anyway. Even if you could; it is extremely hard to balance character rosters in the hundreds, so it's a Herculean effort bound to fail. There will always be some relevant characters and some forgotten, abandoned, or in some very small, specific niche.
Now for new characters, you tend to get 2 results. One is that the new character simply becomes the very OP character it sought to counter. The other is that you have a character who's purpose more or less revolves around that OP character remaining relevant. Which as established above, is a ticking bomb to irrelevancy. So if/when the meta changes, you now have 2 irrelevant units instead of 1. This kind of character design in addition to limiting developer creativity tends to also feel stifling to any non-meta players.
Content updates tend to be the best of both worlds, at the cost of being the most costly to develop and balance. So it's not quite as band-aid a solution as character creation/re-balancing, but it's always something to consider. New game modes mean you can encourage or discourage playstyles, and have a new meta form without disrupting the old. The main risk is of course, player interest in said mode.
So it can vary. I've seen metas go on for years trying to not nerf when a few select nerfs could have made things better. But nerfs should never be the first thing in mind without a lot of real world testing and overall player empathy.
Or in Genshin Impact case literally thousands of dollars trying to pull for a character. And with Chinese gacha games, since real life money is involved, thus gambling, it is illegal to change the characters in a way that makes them worse before.
Good ones don't, but anything like activision/blizzard, there's a few things going on -
The grind/MTX is now just part of the money funnel. Get through the content too fast or too easy and you might not buy those powerups. Now i haven't paid attention to D4, i feel like it might not have that kind of MTX, but if so...this looks to me like they plan to eventually. If they already do...well then there's your answer.
It's easier. Buffing up might break something else that you didn't think of. Nerfing usually won't.
It's even easier than that. On top of that, you can probably just adjust a number in a spreadsheet somewhere. I can't get into games like diablo because they feel like giant math equations (cookie clicker with movement that barely matters and a plot that's rarely good) , and I think that's because they mostly are. Dropping power by 15% is literally just changing some numbers. Upping power by 15% risks breaking things as before and might not actually do what was needed if there's more complex issues (all the power in the world won't solve a mobility/defensive problem for example).
Ahhh, I see people were on track to blasting through their season pass too quickly so Blizzard had to reign everyone in for that steady mtx drip. So glad I didn't buy this game.
Honestly, I am just glad that people can still play Diablo III still considering what Blizzard had done with Overwatch's servers when the sequel had launched.
And I am glad that I did not get into the Diablo series before this. Mostly because it was before my time and I did not want deal with Blizzards bs.
Overwatch didn't really get a sequel, it got a 2.0 patch.
I was going to put it as a "Free Update" but decided against it because I did not want people to think I was being superior to other people for playing it. And honestly I did not play Overwatch, just felt sorry towards to the people that had spent money on Overwatch, and having it closed completely.
All the OW1 content is still there, it's not nearly as apocalyptic as the memes make it sound. The biggest change to the game was the move to 5v5, which I think most long time players agree was a net improvement. 6v6 is still playable in custom games.
A lot of people were upset that the free lootboxes went away, but they replaced it with earnable credits which can be used to buy all OW1 items (including formerly event exclusives) from the hero gallery. The only stuff you have to pay real money to get are new OW2 cosmetics distributed through the shop and seasonal battle passes.
Aren't some of the heroes behind a paywall or grindwall? My understanding (never played OW) is that this is something that OW1 gave you with the box price.
New heroes are in the battle pass for about a month, after which they can be unlocked by using their abilities for a few minutes in the practice range.
They are in the free tier of the battle pass about a third of the way through, so it's not much of a grind even if you play casually.
OW2 was basically an excuse to change the monitization structure to needing to purchase/unlock each hero, where in OW1 when a new hero was released everyone could play them.
They said they were going to release some new PvE content as well but that ended up not happening.
I was going to say the same thing but with much less gentle tones.
I really despite the modern Blizzard... especially remembering the times of Blizzard North.
I was really hoping to play a sorc for the new season...
Who thought a change like that was acceptable? Almost a 50% decrease in damage? May as well remove the class from the game. I understand all classes got nerfed but sorc nerfs are not even on the same level as the other classes.
I would have been fine with this if they actually improved other abilities in a meaningful way. Devouring Blaze is basically required for any build. That's arguably bad design and bad for build diversity. But killing it and giving no replacement is just dumb.
My experience with these type of games that have a focus on single player progression and light mmo elements is that they manipulate the player base to maximise engagement.
When I played Destiny 2 regularly I started to notice a cycle for each season / DLC. At first I thought it was unintentional, but it’s repeated more than enough time to see the pattern.
Before release:
Pump up the hype, over promise.
Initial release:
The grind is harsh, the new features aren’t as enjoyable as advertised and only committed players engage with it. There were a lot of preorders. Community managers take the heat and promise improvements, but nothing substantial changes.
Some time after release:
Commited players have burnt out, the player base is angry and starting to leave en mass.
The devs finally patch the game and the grind is reduced, feedback has been taken on and suddenly things seem fun. Players come back and trust is restored.
Now, time to announce the new DLC…
D4 will get a nice patch before the end of the season. Loads of good balancing and buffs, better drop rates etc. and soon after than will come the S2 announcement.
So not that I'm defending blizzard, but the idea of the nerfs is to bring the min-max damage more in line with casual damage
Casual players don't knowingly stack multiplicative damage, and blizzard didn't like how much damage the top end players were doing. The heaviest nerfs came to the highest impact damage scalers (e.g., vulnerable and crit damage). If you weren't stacking that anyway your damage probably wasn't hit too noticably.
Again, I'm not a fan of these changes as I think you should be rewarded for gearing properly instead of randomly, but I think that was the intention and why they felt they had to nerf everything
Pissing off your most dedicated players by rending their high-level builds completely useless (which they spent countless hours developing, perfecting, and gearing up), in order to bring those builds closer in power to the absolute most casual players' builds, who don't even understand the very basics of ARPG stat stacking mechanics, and who likely won't be playing for long no matter what you change, sounds like a reeeeeeeally great idea!
What could possibly go wrong with that strategy?
(sees player numbers plummeting, and every major ARPG streamer stop playing the game, telling people it's shit and recommending they avoid it, and going back to playing other, better, less aggravating ARPGs with devs who aren't actively undermining viable high-level builds and player enjoyment at every opportunity)
p.s. And now I'm suddenly reminded of Harrison Bergeron.
Meh.
I'd give you that if it was pissing off the most dedicated players (which it did a bit, but hear me out), but that's not what happened. It pissed off all the casuals-masquerading-as-diehards-because-they-all-copy/paste-build-guides and now those aren't as powerful. The actual dedicated players find fun in the min/maxing, they're the ones that find the unintended bugs, synergies, buckets, and theorycrafting. A new patch to them is a new start on finding where the min/max meta sits.
Ultimately the devs don't think anyone should be in NM80+ dungeons at all this soon after release. This is a widespread nerf patch, we all played too well and they don't want people clearing NM100 or Uber Lilith in two weeks every season. They probably want Level 75 characters in NM 30-40, the average Level 90-100 to be clearing NM75, and the best geared 0.1% players to be pushing higher than that.
They just don't have the guts to say they accidentally all gave us too much power and it will always hurt when that's taken away. We've all got this mental image that characters should be easily mowing down monsters more than 25 levels higher than our character. But they probably only see us fighting monsters like 5-10 levels higher than us. NM100 and Uber Lilith should be an accomplishment, not something anyone in a Diablo trade Discord with 100M gold can do because they just buy all the BIS rares, apply aspects, and faceroll their way through.
When players are running NM dungeons at such high tiers the viability of builds naturally comes down to a very few (a constant complaint). If the best build can only clear +5-10 NM levels from the average then we have more variety. Before the patch I tried a whole ton of Level 75 Sorc builds. Ice Shards/Blizzard was clearing 15 more NM levels easily than any Fire Build I tried and 10 more levels than Lightning. So they've crushed that variation down so all the builds will clear NM 30-50 so it's doesn't feel so bad to run something that isn't Ice Shards.
Yes, they could have buffed the other builds so they can clear higher NM. But the designers don't want to just keep adding power, then adding difficulty and ending up with Torment 3000 which is the D3 approach. The designers want the game to hard end at Uber Lilith and NM100 (for now, because they don't have any other endgame which is its own, very valid, complaint), so the only balance to maintain that was to crush everything down about 20-30NM levels until they can actually create new endgame content.
Unfortunately, they elected to do so after the cat was out of the bag, players were already accustomed to doing things they weren't supposed to be doing. Perhaps widespread nerfs wasn't the best course of action, but just tripling all monster life wasn't a solution either. The power curve needed to be brought under control, perhaps buffs to under utilized skills (which they did do in some cases) while also increasing monster life/resistances is a better solution, but it's too late for that and people are throwing a fit because they don't like the idea of being nerfed while also not actually being one of the dedicated players that figures out all the min/maxes.
I feel like this is a design problem with the game itself. They probably just should not have this many multiplicative buckets of damage sources in the first place, and information such as that should be taught to players, or players need to be allowed to actually experiment with minimal cost, neither of which is there. I remember when I was still playing my damage can range from 12K to 700K depending on if the stars align or not, that is just nuts. And unless they re-design the entire thing, no amount of nerfs is going to do what they want to do, assuming their intent is to bring things more in-line between one another.
This is me. I have a level 56 Druid that I built up just how I like to play. Haven't read a single guide or anything for the game, just playing it like it's a fun RPG. None of these changes hurt my build, in fact they boost several of the skills I'm specked into.
I get the sentiment from the hardcore fans, I've been one (FFXI, FFXIV, WoW), but the idea that they're nerfing everything across the board, they're just making casuals a bit better and hardcores a bit worse.
It's already been weeks since I played, but I went ahead and uninstalled it after reading the patch notes. I honestly can't see any way that I'll ever be back.
I jumped back on to D3 for a bit earlier, for the first time since D4 dropped. The vast majority of my huge old social clan are currently online so it looks like I'm not the only one who has jumped ship.
I stopped playing as well about 3 weeks ago. When I played the first open beta I already kinda knew the game was going to boring. Heck the first dungeon I walked into I almost fell asleep, that should not happen 10 minutes into a brand new game. But I bought the game anyway (the cheapest option, because I knew the game wasn't worth the premium pricing of $100 US) because wife wanted to try. I did level a barbarian to around 80, so I suppose I did get my money's worth some what.
To me the biggest problem with this latest round of patch is the fact that they touched the gear that players had already acquired, that players had spent time and effort and gold to roll for. That is ultimate disrespect for me as a player, and it's something I will not tolerate coming from any gaming company. Needless to say I will not be playing season 1, if ever at all.
I broke my personal rule about not pre-ordering games with Diablo IV--and I strongly regret doing so.
Granted, I'm not the most hardcore ARPG player, but do have quite a few hours put into Path of Exile/Grim Dawn/Last Epoch and a fairly decent understanding of those games' systems. For me, D4 breaks the power fantasy that is pretty much fundamental to the genre. You never actually feel powerful. Sure, you're getting new abilities and new items. The numbers go up just like you want them to... but it never feels like you're getting anywhere. Enemies take just as long to kill at level 50 as they do at level 25. My level 50 rogue felt nearly identical to my level 25 rogue when I unlocked the majority of the abilities I was using in my build.
I didn't play too far into the "endgame" of D4 because it was actively not fun. I don't think I've had that feeling with any other ARPG that I've played. Yeah, the Path of Exile endgame (which is really the actual game) is grindy as all hell. The difference is that mapping is actively fun. Numbers are going up, and you actively feel stronger. You can focus on zooming through maps, focus on bosses, or focus on one of a plethora of mechanics. There's big goals to work toward in gearing up, and despite Path of Exile having a... unique crafting system, you can still make good progress toward those even as a fairy casual player.
After seeing the details of this patch, I have zero interest in returning to D4. I uninstalled it last night, and will wind up using that space on my SSD for Baldur's Gate 3. Which, admittedly, I also pre-ordered ages ago... but I have infinitely more trust for Larian than Blizzard. Shame on me for thinking Blizzard might not royally fuck up D4, I guess.
I remember arguing on Reddit about D4. I was never going to buy it, even if the beta was good. Because even if D4 was good, I can never trust Blizzard to not fuck me over again. I'll love D4, and the I'll discover how the D4 devs punched a baby in the face, or are making their players swear allegiance to the CCP, or something dumb.
I'm just done. They could make the best games in the world and I don't care anymore. There are plenty of other good games where I don't have to watch my back like this.
I'm honestly trying my best to not bring my reddit based negativity here to Tildes but holy hell Blizzard is trying my resolve. So many massive mistakes that any layperson could tell you is a terrible idea, yet a team of hundreds of developers working at one of the largest, most well funded studios in the world continues to make them over and over and over and over.
I don't know how this even serves the corporate interests through some sort of shady greedy design choices, this just feels like pure ignorance or even malice towards their players. Really just baffling decisions.
That's honestly how I felt a few weeks ago when they spent over a week nerfing every dungeon players found that had marginally better XP/hour than the rest, higher mob density, and/or more convenient run pathing.
Like, I could at least understand if they nerfed them to be a bit more in line with most other dungeons... but they went so far beyond that, rendering those dungeons completely fucking useless and never worth visiting ever again, that it genuinely felt like whoever is in charge just wanted to spite all the players that discovered and were enjoying playing in those dungeons.
And the fact they did it over and over again, nerfing the most popular dungeon into oblivion, waiting until the next best was found then nuking that one, repeat ad nauseam, genuinely pissed me off (which is why I stopped playing). It was like the devs were saying "Fuck you, stop playing the game how you enjoy playing it! Play it how we want you to (by grinding for 150+ hours to reach max level) in the slow, boring, low mob density, overly large, and confusingly laid out dungeons we intended you to grind in!"
I genuinely don't understand what they're trying to accomplish with all these bullshit, aggravating, counterproductive changes. Every change they have made since launch has just made the game less fun/enjoyable, and far more tedious, annoying, and grindy.
Started playing 2-3 weeks ago and was actually hyped for Season 1, no reason for me now to get back. The grindy, sluggish feel was already not my thing coming from PoE, even though I loved the slower pace of D2 and D2R. GGG had a phase like this too, where everything needed to be super hard and super grindy, they did come off it at some point, I hope blizz does too. I don’t need a D3 with better graphics, D4 can and should feel different, but it just didn’t feel good imo
I don't mind grind when it means a ton of individual/quick encounters or questing. I do mind grinding when it boils down to just giving enemies absurd amounts of HP and beating them is just a matter of time, rather than skill. Sitting there for 10 minutes going through my rotation over and over until the boss dies is just boring. The final stretch of the campaign was just so dull to get through because of it despite the story being compelling and the environment being super interesting. I shouldn't be getting bored in the middle of the final boss fight.
I absolutely agree with you, that is exactly what I dislike about the direction D4 (and for a time even PoE) is taking.
I'm finding myself, after getting to level 30 and not having played D4 for 2-3 weeks now, that playing D2/D2R is still far more fun as a game. It's pulling me in way more than D4 ever did. I don't even hate D4, and enjoyed some of the bits I did play, but after leaving it for weeks... i never got an itch to play it again, like I do other ARPGS? It's strange. I feel the itch to do D2/R, PoE, Grim Dawn... D4 just doesn't have that draw
I think it's mainly because there's no real reward in playing yet. The end game right now is so shallow, that I just don't see any sense in grinding for days just to get a better piece of gear. In PoE a better piece of gear sometimes meant a new map level, or being way more efficient at current map levels, in D2/R, even with the almost non-existent end game there, at least you had to grind and fight to get through the highest difficulty. With D4, you have your most basic skills available by lvl 20, after that they never change and almost all items aren't powerful enough to really change the playstyle so there's no need to get them. The game is just in a very weird spot right now imo
40% vulnerable damage reduction? So long viable Sorceress builds, that were already underpowered compared to the main druid and barb builds.
I see these "nerfs" simply as a way to extend the required playtime. People were likely getting to 100 too fast, which means they stop playing, or it discourages more casual players from trying seeing all these maxed out players already.
Luckily for me, I got to 70 with a barb and called it quits. Felt like I had seen the majority of what the game had to offer. Creating new characters just to use different abilities inside the same exact content is not "replayability" at all.
Yea, it likely does just simply come down to them wanting to extend playtime (because they didn't actually make enough content for end-game). But I feel like the opposite of what you said about how players have been reacting is true. IMO a lot of people (myself included) quit because they saw how stupid long it took to get even a single character to 100, and/or because every patch has only made that time even longer, and leveling less fun, due to them constantly nerfing classes, skills, gear, and dungeons that actually gave decent XP and had higher mob density. And now they have even removed power leveling too, so you can't even get your alts or more casual playing friends up to decent levels in a reasonable time anymore either.
Maybe other classes are fun but playing through that campaign a second time is not something I can stand to do. It was incredibly tedious and boring outside of a small handful of bosses and set pieces.
No point of the campaign reacts to your character class. I played as a Necromancer and there are parts that make me think, “did you even read my resume? Commander of the living dead. We don’t need this frivolous side quest to perform this ritual. I performed this ritual 30 times just walking up to the door just now, hell there’s a corpse right there I could do this right now no cooldown or anything. But fine, sign your right to death away to a tree.”
I'm a middle aged casual player who has been playing since shortly after launch and have a level 59 Barbarian. I like the game and don't find it too "grindy" (like PoE). The mechanics are a bit complicated for my tastes and I constantly find myself wondering what a stat really means and like I need to consult an encyclopedia(also PoE influenced). I am not bored yet and I've barely scratched the surface of the in-game content and haven't even tried any of the other classes yet (my next goal). I feel like I live in a alternate reality to what I see on Reddit and on this thread.. Everyone posting is complaining, about everything. It makes me want to not read the subreddits anymore regarding the game because I find them a negativity echo chamber. My only gripe is that this new season is coming too soon and I don't really like the season stuff in general which devalues your prior characters and incentivizes starting over from scratch to experience some over-baked new mechanic and a few new items, which feels very PoE. I wish Diablo would drop trying to be PoE and just be more like oldschool D2X.
Diablo 2 had seasons too.
Diablo 2 had Ladders, not the same as seasons. Ladders is a reset of the leaderboard so people could race to be at the top again. Seasons introduce new gameplay mechanics for that season.
To each their own. I don't begrudge people that are still playing and enjoying Diablo IV. However just a heads up:
That's probably because you have only just started to hit the grindy part of the level curve. It starts ramping up exponentially at 70+, and "fun" fact... level 85 is technically half way to 100 in terms of XP required.
Meanwhile Grim Dawn is as fun as it always was. Highly recommended alternative to Diablo and Path of Exile.
My favorite ARPG, right besides Titan Quest. It honestly gets so many things right about this genre. The narrative design is great, while in Diablo 4 it is mostly an afterthought. The classes are all interesting, there's many ways to play & experiment with synergies. The combat never feels dull, it's full of easter eggs and secret areas, which makes exploration really interesting and worthwile.
Too bad it's not on Playstation, so I can't play couch coop like I do with Diablo 4.
The main thing I don't like about Grim Dawn is that the "correct" way to level is to spend your points on stats instead of fun abilities. I'd prefer if your stats leveled automatically and you just got less points to spend.
Last Epoch is a good ARPG that scratches the Diablo itch. Each ability has its own talent tree that lets you modify how it behaves, so there are a lot of customization options.