D4 - another perspective

General Discussion
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Hi

Since D4 was announced the forums here have been full of speculation about it. However, one perspective/attitude that I have not seen much is ambivalence.

Given that these are D3 forums, that is to be expected, nevertheless, I wanted to post this to get a feel for how many people don’t really care about D4.

This is not an invitation to be toxic about D4 - I hope it is a great game for those that want to play it. Currently , I don’t see myself buying it for the following reasons.

1 —-> I play D3 on PS4 and never played the first 2 games. I have played D3 for hundreds of hours over the last year and still find it fun.

2—-> From the hype about it, it seems the game will lean much more toward playing with others online than it does currently. I played one season and then the rest of my experience has been single player offline, and it’s been a lot of fun, better than most games.

So, I hope it is a ‘great’ game because players need great games, as so many AAA games these days are far from ‘great’. I am just not hyped about it at all.

I wonder how many others share my ‘ambivalence’ about D4.

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I for one can’t wait until D4 is released. The amount of fun I had and continue to have from the Diablo franchise will be worth the anticipation. If D4 fails or does not meet my expectations, it will still be worth the money I spent on its release. Just my opinion.

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Its not really that the AAA games arent great, its that the evolution of the internet has eliminated all sense of adventure and mystery from these titles.

These games release in a state where everyone already knows everything about them. There is no adventure. There is no mystery. Those major aspects of gaming are 100% dead, and causes games to feel lackluster compared to a time when we did have those aspects.
Streamers bring alot to the gaming community, but they also rob it of alot at the same time. Hard to say if its worth it.

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I played all 3 Diablo titles. Enjoyed them all. My take on D4 - it will be released when it is released. I don’t spend my time, angst filled, anxious about any new updates or speculating in my head what will (or won’t) make or break the game.

I don’t get into long winded arguments on the forum about D4 MUST HAVE TRADING OR ELSE!!! (and vice versa). If it does have trading, fine; if it doesn’t have trading, fine.

I don’t sit on pins and needles at the keyboard with baited breath wondering when the next quarterly update is due out.

Long story, short - it’s a video game, not the end all and be all of existence. I will buy it when it is released and I am sure I will enjoy it. In the meantime I have something else to occupy my time, it’s called a life

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Curious, how have you found years of gameplay, non groupcomp online meta, playing solo d3, for years?

Like, what is there to do? Achievs? Beat the game on T16 or w/e it’s at?

Like, there def are not any new, rare items to hunt for like D2, only copies of old items with maxed stats, so nothing new about the items in the D3 item hunt.

So, hunting rare items is out for solo play in d3, one of it’s biggest mistakes obviously, if not it’s biggest.

So, what have you done for hundreds of hours, solo, in d3, like d3’s non greater rift endgames are what…achievs, beating T16 campaign, um, butterfly hunting, like, that’s it.

So, D4, just like D3, and unlike D1/2, is all about online group play otherwise read as ‘play what youtube figures out as best’ or you’ll piss off your group mates bc you’ll be less than perfect / slow down their gameplay / affect their gameplay for not going meta.

However, D3 doesnt provide anything besides achievs and bfly hunting for ‘non youtube meta group content’. So, im curious, is that what you spend hundreds of hours on achievs and butterfly hunting? If not, what?

D2 provides non-youtube solo play gaming in many ways, unlike d3, and is why d2 is so much better. For example, hunting super rare items, of various types, cubing things, pvp if that’s your thing, beating a static difficulty not meta style, beating a static diff meta style the fastest also known as speedrunning, none of this is possible without set difficulty, which d3 only provides slide difficulty which is not chosen for you bc they were too nervous to ‘set a game out’ for us to overcome.

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I hope D4 is great, but right now I’m hooked on PoE and thinking “this is how a D2 successor should have been.”. It really seems like an updated version of Diablo 2 in a lot of ways and it’s what Diablo 3 should have been. I used to think PoE graphics didn’t look good (and was frustrated after a hc death or two from unknown damage) but wow, the graphics are amazing now. Not sure when it happened.

If D4 is great, good I will have another game to play and get to play Diablo again.

If D4 is more of the same type of D3 type stuff, thank god PoE exists and PoE2 will be coming out. Glad I have an adequate substitute and will be able to vote with my wallet. PoE has enabled me to not care as much which is great. If D4 is a $60 Gauntlet Legends version again that’s fine, I’ll just save some cash and spend it on PoE2 for a cool pet or deploy that $60 for a continuously compounding 10% rate of return.

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I think there are many people like that.
Releasing the game without an offline mode is a mistake.

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Don’t worry, I have that one covered for you. Some of us are actually excited about the D4 updates. We want to see what is coming, not rehash the same old mundane comments about D2.

D2, D2, D2, blah-blah-blah.

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I have fun.

Solo players, for the most part, haven’t “beaten the game”. I define that as completing GR150 with each character class. Group play is everyone rushing as fast as possible to endgame. I don’t see that as being fun. Group/Meta play looks an awful lot like Diablo Immortal.

I just got my 1st primal ancient set piece. (Added bonus, I now understand what the group folks are griping about :rofl:)

I don’t play for “efficiency”, I play to grind for whatever strikes my fancy. One day, all of my characters will have primal, ancient sets, and weapons. I am enjoying the journey, and I don’t care about group. Groups don’t play the game, they just trip the rifts.

I play each season long enough to grind out a new set (because Hadrieg’s gift has NEVER given me a new seasonal set), and then move back to non-seasonal play. I may hit 1,000 paragon by the end of the year. If I don’t, who cares? I certainly don’t.

Group play is like a hot dog eating contest.

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Sure, how did you get your gems up high enough to do 150?
Did you have to use metagroupcomp from youtube play to get your gems up?

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That’s how I feel too. In the end these are just games to be played. All the minutiae we debate here doesn’t really mean much in the grand scale of things. D1 was fun despite its flaws. D2 was fun despite its. D3 was fun despite its flaws. D4 will be fun despite any flaws it may have. Like Nintendo, Blizzard knows how to make fun games.

So we can continue to argue about the affixes, stats, inventory, icons, builds, skills, online, shared world, story, and monetization until the end of time. Everyone here is buying and playing D4. I don’t buy for a second those that say they aren’t yet still post regularly.

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I do what I have done since D3 launched, or any of these isoARPGs for that matter. I play through the campaign on my preferred character class. Grind out some gear or what ever else the game has to prepare for endgame(higher difficulty), and repeat until I’m bored or finished the game if there is a hard finish line.

Then I repeat the process on every other character class I’m interested in. If I like the game enough I’ll try other classes I’m less interested in. I never like ranged or casters before D3. The game was so fun and smooth to play I’ve tried them all out. I have a better appreciation for them but still prefer melee.

Once I’m done with playing all the classes through the game until I’m bored or done, I’m done until new content is released, be it expansion, content patch, or a new season. Then I start it all over again.

All of this solo. Just like I did in D1, D2, and every other ARPG I play, I’ve only completed the campaign once in PoE, but I always play solo. Leveling, GRs, bounties, challenge rifts, set dungeons, and seeing how far my build can go. See, I don’t go to these sites to find a build and do what they tell me to do. I play how I want. I look to see what changes to items and sets before the season. If i like something I may go for that new set, but I choose what I like to use not what some spreadsheet guy says is the best.

So it is entirely possible that someone can spend hundreds even thousands of hours in this game solo and still have fun. I know the poster you quoted and myself are not the only ones. We are the majority and always have been.

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Well said - that’s very close to my experience and attitude to D3 and gaming in general.

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Well, the strange thing is you’d have to select a difficulty, since the game has a slider option which is super incorrect to not force a barrier on everyone equally to overcome as gamers.

So, how did you select which difficulty to go for?
And, do you see how whatever difficulty you selected is not what anyone else has to play since the devs don’t have static diffs since they goofed up really bad?

Also, your item hunt wasn’t for rare items or targeting areas for specifics bc, the itemization is just 2h weaps for leving n some rings and w/e simple choices.

So, you played, at a sliding difficulty, not item hunting, and completing a campaign, that really doesnt sound like diablo 2 in any way, sounds very like max payne or something bc d3 was made so slider difficulty and low itemization. D3 slider difficulty no comparison to others no item hunt bc they botched it, it sounds, so console mid to late 2000s the dark ages of console gaming when they botched every console out there almost with gigantic huge 48-hour ish cutscenes in games, they did that initially to diablo 3 too that’s the funny part well no its actually sad they goofed that bad. Unfort tho they’re goofing d4 already so its like lol minus well get into game dev and start up a different company to make a correct choiced game for vets not for youtubers.

Like, remember those lava pits that like ppl used to walk over barefoot or w/e?
Id rather cross like 2 of those back to back than play d3 slider campaign no loot hunt just complete the cutscene campaign looking for no loot and not playing a forced diff just playing a slider. Its like, playing a group youtube dev’d comp game, solo, is way worse quality and a lower score than playing a solo devd, youtube optional, item hunting game like d2. Like d3 is so groupcomp focused from youtube that this is the result if you want to play it solo, it doesnt even involve item hunting, or rare things, its like, a slider, with no purpose or cool thing going on. Just sliiiide it to easy, that’s how you can ‘overcome’ a tough monster or big map, no need to like think and overcome it right that’s the big bad prob w slider difficulties.

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Not sure what a difficulty slider has to do with anything since your post was asking how solo players enjoyed D3 and were able to spend hundreds of hours in game.

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