So basically you have no proof at all. You just conclude what serves your argument best.
The fact is that the vast majority of people who bought D2 no longer play, and haven’t been playing it for a very long time. So arguments that go “D4 doesn’t need this because D2 didn’t have it and people still play it today” or the opposite with “D4 needs to have this because D2 had it and people still play it today” is deeply flawed.
Character level is the key mechanic that is used to distinguish people who have paid for an expansion. This mechanic allows the designed to release new items, zones, etc and etc in to the existing population while still allowing the natural mechanics of the games to distinguish readily who and who has not bought the expansion.
Taking WoW as a simple example, if you don’t buy the expansion, you character is capped at XX level. Expansion player goes in to the new zone, gets a level XX+1 drop, and plops it on the public auction house.
Player who has not bought the expansion can see, and buy the item on the AH, but can not use it because they are not the correct level.
Mechanics like this keep the system simpler as new enforcement mechanisms don’t have to be added throughout the game to enable/disable those who have/have not purchased the new expansion.
They could simply flag the account “hasExpansionYYY”, but then you have to test for that everywhere, vs something like item level which is tested anyway “for free”.
This is one reason why character levels are raised during expansions.
Only because you define them to be the key distinction.
You can do all of that without increasing the level cap.
You can release new items, zones, skills etc, parallel to “the old”, instead of on top of “the old” and making them redundant.
WoW is a bad example.
Diablo revolves around seasons, reagardless of how long they are. 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, 6 month, does not matter, but you will want to start again anyway in every new season anyway, so you need to refarm your items anyway. You do not need a level cap increase on top of that,
Or maybe they have the correct level, but since they do not have the expansion they get a message that says “You need to have Expansion so and so to be able to equip this item”. It does not has to be character level.
That is what seasons are for.
Yeah, and it also comes with the drawbacks I mentioned in my original post.
Why can’t we have the Diablo 2 leveling system in Diablo 4? The level cap should be 100 and scale with each level. The expansion should not increase the level cap. It should add new classes, items, areas, and bosses. Diablo 2’s system works so well. Giving a skill for each level and capping them at 20. This allows the casual and the hardcore players to simultaneously be happy. The casual player will have all the important skills maxed while the hardcore player will have a few bonus skills to put into. Why did diablo 3 change it? Diablo 3 does not feel like a sequel to Diablo 2 at all when it comes to game mechanics. They are different in so many ways. Please make Diablo the way it’s supposed to be.
I am starting to wonder whether or not you’re weak minded, or you’re trolling for the sake of trolling.
You’re asking for an unreasonable amount of proof. I would have to literally become a criminal and hack into Blizzard’s servers in order for me to be able to give you the exact number of active players on D3. I’m obviously not going to do that.
Based on my estimation, we have maybe 12K active players on the EU region… and that’s at the start of the season…
Back in 2016 when the first major ban waves happened, I eded up on the ladder after merely doing Seasonal Journey. If that’s not indicative, that there are not many active players, then I don’t know what is.
But if you somehow believe, that this game has a large player base, then I can safely say, that you’re delusional.
Again, you make me wonder whether or not you’re weak minded.
D2 is a game from a different era, it came out 20 years ago. I can tell you that even in 2007, 2011, 2014 there were many people who were playing the season and actively trading… hell, I even played back in 2017 and the game was awesome.
But yes, it is normal for a 20 year old game to has less engagement nowadays, even though it’s still a solid game for today’s standard (aside from the graphics).
You on the other hand are comparing that to D3. The game came out back in 2012 and it was heavily criticized.
In 2014 RoS was released and it’s almost a completely different game.
Again, back in 2016 when the first big ban waves happened, I wasn’t really competing in that particular season, but did the seasonal journey, I think for an extra stash tab… and I ended up on the ladder. Again, if that’s not an indication as to the level of engagement and active players, I don’t kow what is… and that was merely 2 years after RoS released.
Do you honestly believe, that the number of active players has vastly increased since then? Because I highly doubt it.
No, it is not, because people playing D2 20 years after it’s release is impressive;
people barely playing RoS 2 years after it’s release is indicative, that most fans of the genre are getting their hack & slash Action RPG fix in other games.
If you can’t differentiate between the two, the problem is entirely yours.
And also, just look at D4. If you think, that people would enjoy their progress being invalidated every 12-15 months or so and no item permanence whatsoever, I promise you – the fans of the franchise don’t enjoy that.
If you’re a fan of that – World of WarCraft is the game for you… and was noobified throughout the years due to players like you, to the point, that people asked for WoW Classic.
With D4 Blizzard are already taking a turn for the better… with the exception of the low lvl cap. If their plan is to release expansions often, and instead of selling something solid like LoD in terms of content, but merely a zone or two and a 5-10 lvl cap increase, that will only sabotage the game instead of contribute in any way for player retention.
You are right, D2 did tha-oh wait, they didn’t.
You don’t need to increase the level cap to add new skills, passives, etc.
For example the new D3 skills that came with RoS (Black Hole, Avalanche, Vengeance, etc) could simply be unlocked at level 35 or whatever for everyone who has the expansion.
And for D4, they can simply add new skills to the Skill List (it is more like a Skill List than a Skill Tree like in D2).
Any just because D2 didn’t do anything like that does by in no way mean that it can’t be done.
The title of this post should be "Diablo sure has influenced my fantasy gaming!"
Every fantasy style of game I play either ARPG or RPG is always a gear hunt.
I just tend to lose interest when the loot hunt is complete, even games that aren’t loot hunt games! Ha!
Yep the Diablo series has really biased my gaming experiences.
That is why, I suppose that the itemization is so important to me (anyway) in the upcoming Diablo IV release. Maybe everything else that concerns me is a strongly weighed want, but itemization is a must.
You’re whole post is again, D2 is played a lot more than D3, with zero evidence beyond your feelings.
You see what you want to see.
I am not saying that the best in slot gear should be easy to get or that you can get all of the BiS items within a single season. Not at all. Maybe people have to deal with only having the second or third best items in a certain season.
I am saying that the loot hunt shall reset with seasons or a ladder since that is what keeps people to come back, not just every new expansion. And in new seasons, the loot hunt continues.
My thought on this, is that it’s kinda redundant on D4 from what I’ve heard. The only thing a level up would get you is more skill points and talent points. Depending on how the skills are unlocked then a level limit should be meaningless (it would be bad to have to wait till level 40 to unlock the option of putting a skill point in a skill, although if they added a new subset of skills… then maybe sane?). The biggest impact on the level limit should be the number of talent points that you should acquire to have an interesting character at the end. This of course is a matter a balance and also dependant upon the number of talents that you can put points into. If you can reach the bottom of a branch with 35 points, and with a new expansion, you then need 45 points, then a level limit increase of 10 would be acceptable.
Regarding the Items, it gets a bit more problematic, since if we kept adding more affixes, it could make it difficult to put them in the loot pool without bloating it, meaning we could get a large difference in power level of items dropped at any level, making scaling difficult. It would be better to have a range large enough so that new items can be added without effecting the power difference of similar levelled items. Personally, since I see the issue of level limit with regards to talent trees, I would just allow the different monster families to have different loot pools, where certain affixes are prioritised over others (i.e. cannibals could have the best fire resist affixes of 70%-80%, whereas no one else could get 50%). This would then allow new monsters to offer new affixes at strong levels, and allow the older monsters to drop slightly stronger affixes without affecting the number of levels needed for progression.
I wouldn’t like to see a BiS item at level 20 mind, if only because it would feel as if the item is overpowered or the developers just didn’t think to add powerful high end items for that slot.
Might as well get rid of character level and item level too while you at it. 
You know something Clueso, I’m getting really absent minded in my old age! Ha! I put this post in the wrong thread, I meant to put it in the second quarter update! Gad! I’m embarrassed! Funny too though.
The title meaning is not about your thread but how Diablo games have biased my play over the years.
Your thread is still relevant in my opinion too.
Sorry for my confusion…
Ah, okay, sure, no problem.
In the ideal case, you should get skill points, talent points and also attribute points from leveling up. Furthermore, character levels give you a sense of progression, which is a good thing.
According to the devs, you will be able to max out all skills, but not not talents.
There will be skill tombs that drop in the world that will give you additional skill points and there will be so many that you can max out all skills.
That is imo not a good thing, because it turns D4’s skill system into a worse version of D3’s skill rune system. In the end it is basically D3’s skill ystem without the runes.
I would like that legendaries drop in tiers, like in Median XL, a popular mod for D2.
Let’s say there are 10 Tiers.
A Tier 1 Legendary has a required level of 1.
A Tier 2 Legendary has a required level of 10
A Tier 6 Legendary has a required level of 60
… etc …
You can upgrade them with e.g. a cube recipe from one tier to the next, with increasing costs.
With each tier, the power of the affixes increase and in some cases even more affixes get added to the next tier.
Some Legendaries mayb only be able to start to drop at Tier 8 or even Tier 10, so that you don’t see them until later in the game and these probably also should be very, very rare.
why attribute points? if you don’t need an attribute system, then then points themselves are meaningless.
The only thing that a level limit increase would do for skills is either allow you to pick up more skills (skill bar limited to 6, so they act as backup) OR require an increase of the max level of skill, possibly with added benefits. The talent tree seems more… fragile with the way it works, so ensuring the talent tree has proper balance should be the main aim of a level limit increase.
Regarding the skill tomes, I feel it could be okay if the tomes themselves are rare enough to prevent instant max level skills. If you found 1 a week it would still take years to max every skill. Personally giving the players the option to hunt for them sounds far more enjoyable, although I don’t think they should drop easily in any way.
This to me sounds similar to D3 item level scaling, that is a legendary can drop at level 1 with level 1 stats and the same legendary can drop at level 70 with level 70 stats. All this method does is try to make legendary items useful at all levels with a bit of crafting thrown in.
There should be an attribute system. Of course, not like the one from D2, but an improved version of it. I would like something like this here:
https://imgur.com/Jv9oLO8
https://imgur.com/0SQy5QP
https://imgur.com/4z4p36B
https://imgur.com/6IGljFT
Also items should not have an attribute requirement.
Why should there be an attribute system?
And how and why is this a bad thing?
Just to clarify:
There can be legendaries that start to drop at Tier 1 and some of them can be very useful in the early game, but less useful in the late game.
Other items can be very powerful in the midgame, but not so good compared to others in the late game or early game.
And some items may only start to drop at tier 8 or even at tier 10 and they are very, very rare and very powerful, even more powerful than other tier 10 legendaries.
No.
My post is:
D2 was actively played for many, many years and was well received. D2 was a solid game with some minor issues.
D3 has piss poor player base, it wasn’t well received. D3 is only a solid game compared to new games (cause games nowadays are trash for the most part), but compared to D2 it brings minor quality of life improvements, but overall doesn’t have much substance.
If you think D3 has a large active player base, then you’re a crazy person.
Also, as to what you say about evidence:
unless you work for Blizzard, you don’t have access to that information.
However, you can make reasonable estimations.
Back in 2016 the player base was piss poor. I ended up on the ladder after a ban wave, without competing. It’s not about “feelings”, it’s estimation based on a fact, that any reasonable person would take into account.
If you claim, that the player base is larger in 2020 than it was back in 2016, the demand for “evidence” falls on you… and you would never be able to provide it unless you work for Blizzard and have access to that data, or you hack them and become a criminal.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence…
You somehow believing, that D3 has a solid player base (which it doesn’t, even during a global pandemic) doesn’t mean, that D2 was a bad game, therefore Blizzard need to imitate RoS or WoW and add new lvl caps with every expansion.
Most of Blizzard did with D3 alienated fans of the franchise… so they should be avoiding it, instead of repeating the same crap and ruining D4.
When did I ever claim this?
This is just you believing what you want to support your argument.
You are legitimately trolling me at this point… or you’re unable to track a conversation.
The entire argument started, when another player and I explained to you, that lvl cap increase is not needed (and most likely will alienate fans of the franchise), and D2 was well received and actively played for many years with an expansion, that didn’t raise the lvl cap.
You proceeded to “counter” us with “Like 1% of D2’s playerbase still plays the game regularly”.
I told you, that : D2 was actively played for years, listed years in which I played Seasons on D2 which had a lot of players;
I also told you, that the situation with D3 is not much better, only it took 2 years after the release of RoS for the player base to shrink so much to the point, that after a ban wave, I end up on the ladder automatically without competing.
This in and of itself should be sufficient indication that the player base is poor, and that D3 shouldn’t be used as an example as to how D4 is handled (in regards to lvl caps or… anything really).
You then proceeded to cry “no evidence”, even though you should be well aware, that unless I work for Blizzard, I can’t provide you with the exact number of active players, but obviously it’s pretty low.
Then you keep on crying no evidence… so I said “If you believe D3 has a large, healthy player base, then the demand for evidence falls on you”.
Now you say “when did I ever claim this?”
You have some serious issues to comprehend what you write, what is written to you, to follow a conversation or a train of though.
What are you even doing here?
I want the max level to be 100 where each level scales starting from 1. Diablo 2’s leveling system was perfect. I don’t think that an infinite leveling system is a good design. Having a max level that takes a really long time to get to but a short amount of time to look like you are 90% to the max level when in reality the time it would take to get to max is only 10% complete. When you have an infinite leveling system then what is the point of leveling anymore? There is no end goal to strive for and that does not feel rewarding at all. It’s a treadmill. I hate running on treadmills and would rather run from point A to point B. In Diablo 3 when I get to the soft max level of 70 I only feel satisfied because I actually get to play the game at that point. Only to start running on the infinite treadmill. In Diablo 2 I feel like I am playing the game the whole time. There is no I can’t wait to get to 70 so I can actually start playing the game(though another part of this is that the items in Diablo 3 drop based on your character level and the damage scales with each level as well which is also a bad design, but lets get back to talking about levels). With a max level that scales similar to Diablo 2 there is an end goal in mind and when someone finally completes it. The satisfaction is huge compared to a soft level cap followed by the infinite level. They get the real feeling of complete. At that point they can find more awesome gear or level up their next character to max if they choose. The thought of maybe getting to max level one day is enough reward in itself. I already do not like the way levels are looking in Diablo 4. They say the max level is 40 as of right now. That sounds like a soft cap where if there is an expansion and they decide to increase the max level to 50. This would be very unfortunate if items scale based on your character’s level. Every item you found prior to the expansion would become obsolete. I absolutely hate this design and think Diablo 4 needs to have its old leveling and item system back. Why was it changed? It worked so well.