[D4] Progress for interested casual player

General Discussion
1

I find it irritating when elite players (streamers / influencers) who play 10 hours a day request a game pace for D4 matching their play style. They represent only a tiny (though loud) fraction of the player base. The game revenue comes from the much larger fraction of more casual players who play it as a - game, an thus the progress should be balanced to their needs.

What does “interested casual player” mean?

  • A player who works and has other interests besides gaming, and thus spends 10 hours per week playing D4.
  • Player wants to experience the content of this brand new game and so talks to NPCs, does side quests, listens to lore and so on. In other words, play, not just min-max.
  • Player keeps playing on regular basis
  • Player plays softcore and mostly solo (most items self found), no items from trading through external places

What progress should such a player accomplish in the time frame until the first expansion pack comes out (2 years maybe)?
Let’s say:

  • Complete campaign and level to max all 5 classes. Some of them through seasonal characters if seasons come out before expansion pack (they make no sense on launch).
  • Have 10 meaningful (A-C tier level) builds for 3 classes with mostly legendaries, capable of doing end game content (not at max level of course). Items with medium stats.
  • Should have seen 80-90% of the legendaries of the 3 classes.
  • Should have seen 90% of ingame events.

To take a quick look at super casual player (plays campaign twice with 2 characters before moving on). Possibly a similar part of player base. (Blizzard surely has much better numbers on customer behavior):

  • Should find about 5 legendaries while playing one campaign and leveling.
  • These should be not necessarily game changing, but fun, and wake interest for more. Like the items we saw in the demo.

I believe this is about the order of magnitude around which drop rates and progress should be balanced.
Once expansion comes out, similar progress up to the next expansion.
Elite players still have a lot to do getting all high level items, playing more builds, pushing higher endgame levels, playing hardcore…

5 Likes
2

The problem lies in that streamers are a gaming company’s free advertisement, so they listen to them the most.

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Honestly, I believe this is gonna be a casual friendly game. That’s Blizzard’s entire market niche. And it actually has been for a long time. The whole “easy to learn, hard to master” thing.

Blizzard makes casual games, with the exception of their RTS games. Classic WoW is considered hardcore today, but it was a baby mmo compared to Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies and other stuff that preceded it. Diablo has always been, since the first installment, a game any casual player can complete (providing a normal difficulty which is very accessible for people who just wanna see the story and experience the game’s content without commiting to actually spending a lot of time learning the game). And their other big titles, Hearthstone, Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm, are all beginner-friendly approaches to their respective genres.

4

Blizzard’s entire thing since the 90s has been casual friendly gaming, and they’ve only been doubling down on that in the last decade or so.

So I would fully expect Diablo 4 to be a game more tailored to casual play than anything else. Probably with a few mechanics to keep players infinitely grinding for stuff so they can keep those daily/monthly user counts up.

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“i’m gonna play 1 hour a week, and will not be much of anything to the community. it’s going to be as if i’m not even playing. but please make the game for me ! instead of people that dedicate their time on studying a game and learning it.”

"i want to be able to kill a few monsters and be as strong as the people killing mobs for 100 hours a week "

yeah ok. very smart !

3 Likes
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You honestly think Blizzard doesn’t cater to the mass of casual players? Seriously? Have you played D3?

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I sure hope they do. Problem is the loud minority calling out again and again with their D2 hyping. They got the second D3 expansion canceled (although the first fixed most of the problems and the second could have built well upon it), and now we are already having things in D4 that will be problematic or even game breaking - trading and pvp.

8

How is this thing a huge issue?!!!

This kind of “problem” is exactly why most games have difficulty setting. Or New game+.
Someone please explain me why does this not solve the issue? I’m totally sincere here.

9

Easily the most reasonable requests I’ve seen on this forum the last few days. And honestly, I hope you get your wish.

These are fair expectations to help stretch out the enjoyment of a title for a few weeks or months. Hopefully longer. It doesn’t alienate the hardcore crowd either, they can still pump in a full-time job’s worth of hours a week if they so choose.

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10

In general, you can’t really “difficulty mode” an open world. Instanced dungeons, however? Sure.

Of course, the rub is what changes with the difficulty. The moment you start attributing unique rewards to a difficulty increase is the moment you risk alienating players not for a lack of knowledge or skill, but time required to build themselves up to that point. And if that time is further rooted in poor drop rates mandated by trading (with social media influencers then “trend setting” in-game), the argument that casuals are going to get heavily burned by the system is a very valid one.

So, this really goes back to what changes take place in difficulties.

  1. Changes in monster stats.
  2. Changes in monster behavior.
  3. Changes in drops.
  4. Changes in EXP gains.
  5. Changes in map design/length.
  6. Changes in dungeon effects (Less healing, slower move speed, etc.?).

And probably another category or two I’m not thinking of off the top of my head. If you’re the sort that believes the highest difficulties should yield the best rewards, then the aforementioned conflict sparks.

Frankly, the casual/hardcore gap is one of those reasons why I believe Seasons are and forever have been a terrible system, with D4 seemingly taking the concept and making it that much worse with unique aspects returning and the pressure of a few short months being where the game is at for people. By default, we know this splits players, just like we know someone with p800 will be looked over if someone with p1800 is available, everything else equal. Demanding a game somehow be a social experience, but at the same time introducing polarizing mechanics comes off as contradictory to that end. If the goal is to create an “Us vs. Them” system rooted in controversy, then mission accomplished, I suppose. On the other hand, if the intent is more that players of all skill levels should be able to come together and have a good time, you’re going to fail spectacularly when the goalposts move more and more away from some pretense of reasonable play.

If I had to point out a root problem among some players, it’s that they believe one game should be able to hold their time indefinitely. This is not a reasonable request, even for games like ARPGs where you have multiple classes and multiple builds to be found within. Not everyone is going to like all of these variants. I would further argue that lengthening the grind is not what maintains interest, but instead a steady development of new content and adjustments to existing builds found lacking or even glaringly overpowered. The hardcore are then more likely to take advantage of multiple characters for their respective variety, while the casuals can better focus on the one or two their schedule permits without worry they’d fall behind. And hoping Blizzard avoids the MMO trapping of “raids” having unique and the most powerful loot, everyone will otherwise at least have a level playing field instead of hoping you can form a static and run whatever every time you can because if you don’t you’re screwed by time gating, never mind RNG.

So, yeah, for everyone that likes to sling terms like EZ Mode, Fisher Price, Kids Game, or whatever slur about D3 or even what’s been seen of D4, those are the sorts of people I’d encourage Blizzard to not listen to. They’re not so much interested about building a community or expanding a fandom as they are presenting themselves at the top of it because of self-perceived greater knowledge, skill, or no-lifing. Just good luck getting them to admit they’re consciously being jerks because you can bet they’d justify it all through what Diablo truly is or some hogwash. Game devs they are not, and often ignorant of the broader spectrum of gaming they tend to be. Which goes back to that problem of hyper-focus on one game being their be-all.

1 Like
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Thank you. I’m starting to get the picture here. So basically this actually stems from the fact that people are afraid that the devs get the idea of difficulty wrong (like in D3 sadly). This is a worry we actually share. Locking content behind a 100 hour grindwall is just… #¤ #¤&¤% (&)**=!"#!!!

I have always wished that the level and loot cap was at hell difficultys last act (by the least). Then the inferno difficulty would be just late game content, and should really not unlock anything that is not possible in hell.

This way we give everyone all the content, and the elite players get their end game.
I’m actually tempted to differentiate between elite players and loot addicts. They sometimes overlap, but I’m myself a player who rather wants a game that makes me load a single boss fight 100 times, than a game that needs no loading at any point during a playthrough. (Mayby extreme player is a netter term.) Loot is just something nice that keeps things interesting (changes the gameplay) and adds to the sense of progression.

When I finish a game, I loose all interest in it. Endless rifts? No ty. Endless farming to no foreseeable end? No ty. What am I to use the new gear for? To get more new gear?

Creating a new character? If it offers a different experience, sure, why not.

12

Yeah, pushing GRs never really interested me since it was pretty much just the same thing with higher numbers. Seeing new items and builds always excited me way more than power creep, but as a DH main, sometimes it was more famine than feast for new toys there. ;_;