Not to be negative or anything
But “We hear you” have to be one of the most meaningless sentences around, in sharp competition with “Thoughts and prayers”.
Especially when the “you” consists of millions of people wanting wildly different things.
So, again, doesn’t exactly say much. Blizzard cant, and more importantly shouldn’t, try to make a game that adheres to every single one of those different voices. Since it would be pretty impossible.
Much more interesting if Blizzard tells us what they are hearing, what they are doing, and for what reasons.
No they cant. If anyone post any idea on the forum, Blizzard could take that idea and the poster could do nothing.
Not that I said they should take ideas from the forum (and much less call out who they took ideas from, that would be quite horrible), rather the opposite, be better at telling us what they do, and why.
How? I mean, maybe he gets a donation or two from fellow players… nobody cares.
I have been posting on these forums pretty regularly throughout the last 9 years out of passion for the game. It never occurred to me to try and “monetize” my thoughts or ideas. If I wanted to make money, I would have uploaded on youtube and I would have made account on one of those donation platforms…
only I don’t wanna make money from little kids, donating to me with their mom’s credit card.
Besides, I am pretty sure making suggestions here and there as to what fits an already existing franchise from the position of an end user is not the same as actually working on sorting through the good suggestions and actually implementing them…
But yes, Blizz should have definitely picked few real fans as consultants, it would have resulted into much better Blizzard games throughout the last 10-11 years. Everything since the end of Wrath has been rather disappointing… and Wrath itself was far from perfect.
Why? The games aren’t out yet. I will not be trusting any game until after I have seen enough of it to judge whether to buy it or not. They said many things about D3 before it launched, and look how that turned out. I don’t plan on preordering either of their new Diablo games until something more concrete is out there.
I think they are taking all info from us as they can already, to guarantee a polished product at launch or correct our complains about bugs ASAP after launch.
-Just like this happened after OUR reaction at the D3 launch.
-just think what the PTR is for.
Which is what they said when the D3 Alpha and Beta runs happened as well. They did not address any of the concerns brought up beyond the most surface of glitches. What we saw in the Beta was exactly what we got on release. And it went rapidly downhill from there.
Vindicated ?, definitely NOT, pleased and calmed down ?, surely so
Been more on the “neutral” side of things cause kinda tended to critique D3 for what it became down the line and how it got “trapped” at the end rather than criticize it for not being D2 (or “insert any other” expectation)
And yes, must say I’m super pleased that they’re doing their best to take best of multiple (D and other non/RPG) worlds and also pleased with the confidence (one does not come out with PvP this early if having a sucky system) overall…
It’s an open world and there were things like World Bosses announced already but personally prefer narrower and smaller but tricker fights (could be me IDK)… I guess each with a preference of their own
Narrower, doesn’t have to be against bosses, can be even against elites of just trickier class regular mobs… Love it when can easily ab/use the terrain to my advantage or the opponent can double-screw me if I fail to
IDK if it’s just me but “open world” fights just seem like:
Step 1: pull a bunch
Step 2: CC
Step 3: AoE
Step 4: Kite or embrace impact
Step 5: If easier opponent reset to Step 1, if harder and not yet killed run a bit and proceed from 2
In narrower parts it’s harder to do the “rotation” due to not always being able to execute “5” in proper manner and things become less predictable but also more manageable (i.e. it’s not a full 360 surround, for the most part, on failure)
Yeah, I guess all can work but thing about open spaces is there has to be some sort of “event” for it to not get boring, something like parts of the ground catching fire periodically or you get “stuck” when not moving fast enough (quicksand open for example) or even things like fighting a group of elite flyers, THAT can work
The “level asian” (jk) part should have some flyers attacking while attempting to reach the end, or a dude with an axe at the end that you have to CC periodically to not cut down the path lol
they set out to try and make us feel vindicated, which is clear. D4 looks a lot like Path of Exile, which explains WHY they are trying to make us feel vindicated (competition). That being said, I don’t think the devs are really big fans. If you’re a big fan of something, you don’t need to read a script onstage. You’d be able to talk off the cuff about what’s exciting and what’s not. You would be nerding out so hard talking about this and that. It’s a product at this point. And that’s fine. I just remember playing Diablo and going down to the burning hells and seeing little effigies or whatever and I was like “wow thats an awesome detail that the demons are setting up little altars for their religion” It was also frickin scary because the animation was creepy as hell and I’d play in the dark. The butcher was terrifying. This element I think is lost on Blizz because they don’t understand horror. They think “oh lets just throw blood everywhere and gore and then make things pretty” – this is wrong. A good effort, but wrong. If D4 really was to replicate the FEELING of playing Diablo in the beginning, going down into one of those dungeons would be like “ok wait am I going to frickin die down here” and “gross what the f#&@ is that omg die” and then the satisfaction of the “light shining through the darkness” in the cave. This is what Blizzard North understood at it’s core Diablo is about killing EVIL, not just hitting loot pinatas.
At this point, Diablo is a “style of play” and not an experience. We know the enemies, we know the mechanics, we get all the spells and lets level to 99999 with wings and pets and achievements. That wasn’t what diablo was about for me in the beginning. It was about cleansing evil – that stuff which is gross and cruel to people you care about and took pleasure in ruining everything good. This is lost at this point. Nobody is creeped out by Diablo. He isn’t scary or unbearably cruel. He’s just a piñata that you hit a billion times for loot.
Loot piñatas don’t make you hate them (storyline), they don’t gross you out (art), they don’t intimidate you (difficulty of strategy), they are just there to be hit and run through.
Great villains make great stories. Great stories make you feel something. When you feel something you want to feel more of that something. And that is why you play.
if the loot hunt plateaus, the options for build customization become stale, the mechanics become predictable and boring, then playing the game for the game’s sake dries up. The story and atmosphere and world building keeps it fresh.
My hope for D4 is that they write diablo (or whoever the big bad may be) as such a god damned bastard that you are hacking through everything just to spite him, just to get at him and beat the snot out of him because he takes everything good and right and innocent in sanctuary and defiles it. Remember wirt? Remember wanting to talk to characters in the game?
“AVENGE US! FIND THIS BUTCHER AND SLAY HIM SO THAT OUR SOULS MAY FINALLY REST…”
See, that is true but wasn’t the case so on release date on neither the vanilla nor the expansion… The problem really became obvious the next year when “more of the same but now you can “browse through” more and faster” was given, i.e. the Paragon 2.0 and GR introduction
Sure we can analyze what lead to such bad decisions (my personal guess is super-bad/terrible class-attribute system where there was primary-damage stat and vitality and rest soul of every other stat, AND more importantly having THAT combined with the introduction of “Smart” Loot/2.0)
Those 2 things lead to the “loot pinnattas” everywhere fiasco, and yes since that’s been identified and concluded don’t think we’ll see more of ()
