Do you guys feel vindicated?

General Discussion
42

I definitely feel vindicated, in a very similar fashion to people, who asked for Classic WoW.
At first they were told “you think you do, but you don’t” and were ridiculed by phonies. Later Blizzard realized, that the people actually knew exactly what they wanted, and eventually gave it to them.

Hell, even if you look at something like Overwatch 2, you can see a similar trend. I was told for years by phonie shills, that D2 style skill trees are dumb, and yet in OW2 we’re getting D2 style talent trees. Maybe they weren’t so dumb after all.

Whether or not you should feel vindicated or not depends very much on whether you’re a genuine fan of the Blizzard franchises, or whether you shilled against Vanilla WoW, a Remaster of D2 and things like that.

What’s a gamer bro? I am 33 years old, I’ve played Blizzard games for the last 21 years. Does that make me a gamer bro?

Blizzard have always tried and made their games to be popular. They always keep the requirements rather low, so that as many players as possible can buy their games.

Now, in their attempts to sell as much as possible, they have (at least from my PoV) made some mistakes. WoW became a really dumb game post WotLK, and especially with Legion, where the structure of the game became perpetual farming for artifact power. The way I understand it, the same structure remains in subsequent expansions, which is why I am not playing.

D3 was a dumb game in many regards (and in some it still is, very much so). I believe that had a lot to do with them having a dev team, that never understood the previous games and what made them successful in the first place.

However, I like the overall direction of D4 and D2 Resurrected (aside from the D2R character models, I think they are really bad for the most part), from what I’ve seen so far, that is. That view of mine can change in time. We’ll see.

Now, I don’t know what’s your take about “the vendetta” and “the gamer bros”, but feel free to elaborate.

2 Likes
43

I’m of two minds on this. The first being that going off-script, so to speak, got us the whole, “You don’t have phones?!” misstep. The second is that, for the most part, the devs aren’t public speakers, or with that, feel comfortable putting themselves out there for the world to review and criticize. If you ever felt nervous about making a presentation in school, this is pretty much top-tier Hell mode of that. On that note, staying on script can be a significant boon, even if it is obvious their confidence is lacking. That’s also not to be confused with a lack of confidence in their work. Involving streamers is something I could do without, but that’s more or less media changing over time.

I know from my perspective, adding a PR perspective to things tends to make them feel fake. If you got a guy up there saying, “This will be the best ARPG ever!” among other spin, it’s going to ring especially hollow. Something like D2R also has the disadvantage of people knowing precisely what to expect with little variation from the original. Certainly, the QoL is nice and long needed, but for those of who know there isn’t really an endgame for people who don’t have an interest in PvP or Trading, I’d argue there’s still a pretty lacking motivation to pick the game short of your hardware not being able to play the original anymore and you just so happen to get the itch.

From the preservation perspective, I’m cool with the remaster. Ultimately, it doesn’t change my stance on the flaws the game had (or even internet gaming at large) or why I’d generally lean toward D3 if forced to make a choice on what to play. I’m also quite understanding of the hesitance people have toward D4, as I have my own concerns relative to overzealous “fans” having “too much say” in the development process turning what could be fun into a soulless chore as a common consequence of pandering to hardcore elements. It’s also not uncommon, having expressed this in the past, that I’d be accused of never understanding the game, not actually played, or just being too stupid. And really, all that does is affirm my belief that such gatekeepers should not be given an ear.

More on topic, I’m not really sure “vindication” is the right word choice, either, as it feels a hop, skip, and jump away from teasing D3 fans. An unfortunate practice that has been way too common here over the years, but on the flip side, they can actually get the game they want (again). Whether or not that abates the trolling remains to be seen, but I have no doubt it’ll invigorate some of the more historically problematic posters now that they have an inkling Blizzard is “listening” to whomever.

44

See attitude like that is what got us into this mess to begin with.
The “Endgame” of D2 is killing zilliards of things in a flash and having FUN.
Mostly HAVING fun - if you can’t have fun with that - then go to EVE Online or something that is akin to real life simulator.
Also discovering new builds, flipping the character idea on its head and having fun with it.
Id rather mindlessly kill BAAL run after run after run, or grind UBERS than grind paragon(endless paragon - the bottom tier dumbest idea ever) or higher GR knowing how broken the entire core of D3 is.
D3 had a moment of hope and fun in the way D2 did it for a brief period- 1.7-1.8 - around Feb-July 2013 - sadly Mosqueira took the game and drove it 60 feet underground.

45

I wouldn’t call that a disadvantage. I guess it really depends on how you look at it.

You mean the exact same way there isn’t really endgame in D3 for people, who don’t have interest in:

  1. the perpetual farm for Paragon points in D3;
  2. the quasi-competition called Greater Rifts, that are dominated by cheaters;
  3. are sick and tired of every season having some major exploits in it, that are reported during testing and never fixed on time (and sometimes blue stonecold lies and says, that the exploits are “working as intended” when they are clearly not;
  4. are sick and tired of farming for Primal Ancient items, only to get the item like 5 times with a broken, unusable roll (which is exactly what happened to me in my attempt to get primal boots for my set, only to get them 5 times without all resistances)…
    Is that what you mean?

Quoted for truth!

1 Like
46

[quote=“Volfer-2267, post:44, topic:26991, full:true”]

See attitude like that is what got us into this mess to begin with.
The “Endgame” of D2 is killing zilliards of things in a flash and having FUN.
Mostly HAVING fun - if you can’t have fun with that - then go to EVE Online or something that is akin to real life simulator.
Also discovering new builds, flipping the character idea on its head and having fun with it.
Id rather mindlessly kill BAAL run after run after run, or grind UBERS than grind paragon(endless paragon - the bottom tier dumbest idea ever) or higher GR knowing how broken the entire core of D3 is.

[/quote]I dont know yet if that is the same fun for me… Last night, or during anouncement of D2 remake in chat it was said only a few builds could make it through some hard places in D2. That doesnt sound very promising either…

1 Like
47

Part of the fun in D2 is exactly, that not all builds are good at everything.
Part of playing the game is building characters for specific purposes and having them good and ready for when you need them… kinda like building a deck of cards.
And once you have a bunch of characters equipped in BiS, if you can’t have fun with that, then I don’t know what you want out of a game.

Probably the most fun I’ve had in video games is playing in WoW or D2 in full BiS, doing whatever activity I want. And let me tell you a little secret.
If you can’t have fun like that, and you need some sort of perpetual progression system like Paragon 2.0 in order to be able to enjoy the game and keep you interested, that means you don’t enjoy the base game and the franchise is not for you… and never has been.

3 Likes
48

Yeah but not like literal 180% immediate Brickwalls

NM Firewall Sorc: Everything dies in 3 seconds, maybe 4
Hell Firewall Sorc: Can’t kill a single fallen, heck even a Zombie that isn’t supposed to be resistant to fire doesn’t die to it lol

No ofense, there’s good and there’s bad and there’s simply ridiculous, there’s a reason why D2 has been imbalanced for so long and will continue to be, but that doesn’t make the case that it doesn’t have flaws

The real question to ask is whether or not people want to address those, I certainly would but could easily see most not wanting it to be the case so

1 Like
49

No offense, playing games in it’s essence is overcoming challenges and obstacles… and in your scenario, there’s clearly a way around fire immunity.

Since you can farm Nightmare, farm Andariel on Nightmare, get several SoJs, sell them, buy Infinity for your Mercenary and it will break the immunity on fallens and zombies. There are certain high level areas where this is not going to work, but those are typically done in a group, as well as the mercenary can kill what you cannot…

And if that’s not enough, you can invest some skill points into having a skill with a different type of elemental damage.

Again, part of D2 is knowing what and where to farm with your appropriate build. If I am playing a Cold Sorceress and I don’t wanna invest any points into the other elements, Eldritch is not going be a part of my MF run, since he’s always Immune to Cold.

Also, Static Field?!

50

What if I want a melee Sorc with my merc to be the Rogue with the Arrows as opposed to the D2 act dude ? :P, no ofense, just cause some things “have” an answer doesn’t make the right game decisions…

I get it, never underestimated (and never will) fanaticism on the internet and “armies” of followers, but then doesn’t make it (gameplay/design-wise) the right decision

Just because someone wanted to try a Fire/Melee Sorc fighter with a Ranger merc and actually grinded their way to a certain point via good/smart positioning/gameplay doesn’t mean they should be 100% slapped in the face cause they didn’t read “premeditated” online instructions

Simply bad game-design decision, now whether or not a culture comes out of it that’s a different matter…

51

On some level I agree.
But on the other hand, how do you have a fail state in the game, an opportunity to lose, if everything is good and viable everywhere?
I am not saying, that Blizzard have achieved the perfect balance in D2, far from it…

But also, knowing where and what to farm is where the engaging part of the game comes into play… because the basic gameplay is poor and simplistic. It’s not like MMO, where you juggle 30+ hotkeys, it’s not intense RTS, it’s not FPS where you have to be very precise and tactical… it’s a game, where the gameplay is easy and the engaging part is making the right decisions, knowing what to do, where and when.

What culture?

52

By being bad at combat or simply too safe/wasteful ? :thinking:

I’d guess if I were to make a D2 mod just out of pure curiosity I’d make the ManaPot at vendors cost 10 fold (maybe even 15x or 20x even, but probably starting from Act 2/3 onward, 10x would probably be enough for Act 1 IMO)

Curious to see how players come out with “proper”/optimal in-combat strategies cause I doubt the name of the game would be “kill X dude 100 times until drops Y” and would imagine that ManaPots cost is no longer viable to spam/“zerg” until X happens (i.e. largely repeat certain parts of) progression

I mean, MAYBE would be able to, but if I were to imagine any other game I’d feel w.t.f. in that regard tbh… Like say you visit a site for DooM:Eternal (cause that’s some stuff I’ve played recently, well, beside GD), and read things like:

  • You gotta play up to level 4, and then kill the DoomHunter over and over until drops the “super plasma ammo box” with 10k plasma ammo and then just skip with Ballistas as much as possible until Nekravol part 2 where you’d use the Microwave Beam to fast-kill the Archvile/s… If you do it right you’ll have enough Ammo (8k+) until the end of the game from where with only/mostly plasmagun you can kill all the parts of Icon of Sin…

And the moment one reads that kind of “gameplay recommendation” can’t help but think, W.T.F. did I just read, or, w.t.f. how has this not been patched yet ? :stuck_out_tongue: (or whatever of some similar fashion)

I’d certainly be W.T.F. (and would imagine most people would also)… Could see some people/communities might accept that as the standard for “right way to play” but again, don’t think that makes it necessarily a gameplay/developer-wise a good game-design decision

The “do X or die trying” share of information on the Net tends to create “cultures”… Reddit, IcyVeins, similar sites and otherwise where “guidelines” or builds are shared… And to be fair, people tend to become “salty” (at best) or even fanatic at worst when you give a feedback of type “X is bad, tried it 100 times over barely made it and had to play 99% perfectly just to beat the X” to which the reply would be “you silly goose, just take X weapon from X spot and s/he dies in 3 shots…” :stuck_out_tongue:

That’s why I was referring to “culture” as a phenomenon (or aftermath) and often bad game-design decisions can lead to higher-community praise/standards (just think of glitches/bugs from SC:BW for ex.) BUT still think it’s at least fair to point-out/note those kinds of “disfunctions” to a system overall

Either way, again, I’m fine with the community having preferences to define standards i.e. follow faithfully the “do X or die trying” kind of standards/preferences, just stating isn’t my preferable mindset for a game-design perspective overall, and just cause something WITH TIME became popular down the line (certainly wasn’t at the start/release of things, was it ?), doesn’t also make it the developer/design-wise the right decision :thinking: :slight_smile:

53

Only the combat in D2 is not and was never difficult. The basic gameplay has always been easy, which is why I’ve always said, that if you take away trading and the knowledge of what drops where, the basic gameplay needs to be spiced up a lot for the game to be interesting.

It really comes down to whether “do x or die” is reasonable enough for you, and I guess it’s more of a personal preference and something we can debate.

But again, if you wanted combat to be the main part of the game and where the difficulty comes from, something like D2 is not for you, because the combat in D2… or Diabo games in general, has always been easy, easier than most other genres anyways.

I am not saying one has to play 100% meta, but there also a line between making a well rounded build, despite not being 100% meta, and making a dumb build, that is meant to result in a failure. Sometimes, trying to push a square peg though a smaller, round hole simply does not… and should not work.

As to reddit, it’s probably the dumbest site I’ve ever seen in my entire life. You can go there, be 100% factually correct about something, and there’s always going to be this dumb person to dislike you and give you - karma or some dumb mod to not approve your post. No sane person should participate or care what transpires there.

Icy Veins was also dumb, because it was showing what were considered best builds for WoW, but wasn’t really giving you a proper explanation and context as to why… and people would blindly be copy and pasting builds, without truly understanding them.
I remember back at the time of Wrath, I used to play with this priest, that was blindly copy pasting builds. It took me some time to be able to convey as to why he should take different talents than the ones, that were recommended… he eventually listened and was more successful for it.

54

Want close combat?
Not this please:

55

What patch is that?

And also, I’m not sure what your point is.

56

Yeah. Like this.

Except we should not be able to cast instant portals and escape combat, of course

1 Like
57

So what if he ports back to town in order to heal? Later on the game is not about if he’ll beat the act boss, but rather about efficiency.

58

Some builds can beat all, except this boss, without fleeing to heal.

59

Still silly gameplay. Face the boss, and beat it or die. Dont run back and forth to town.

Note: Not saying this should change in D2 / D2R. Just that it should not be repeated in any other Diablo games.

60

To be fair the genre was in it’s infancy at the time and even more fair we kinda have to admit that the Paladin as a class was broken…

Often feels like a Cheat-Code, hence one of the reasons I’m not as hyped/high on the idea of it’s re/addition

Kinda remember “rocking” the Sigon (was it ?, set of 3 pieces with 50%+ attack speed with a super attack speed flail, don’t think it was necessary to even use a “special attack” to break almost-everyone’s bones :stuck_out_tongue:

Yeaah, think this is bad, and hopefully most of us agree on this one… I kinda want to see the game being designed to be a challenge, not a “farmfield” for players to do

With the abscence of HC as a mode (at least so far) hope the devs don’t consider that it’s “mandatory” to make it that everyone should be beatable and only efficiency being the thing in question :thinking:

Yes, if there are places to get “stuck”, give us more “routes”/choices at the surroundings/routes, but “hard” spots should be kept as such where things can’t just be zerged (or boosted for that matter) overall

1 Like
61

That really came out wrong in their end, didn’t it? lol. Not to that extent, but I still consider him somewhat right and I am right in that it wasn’t necessarily vanilla WoW was a better game than any current expansions, but more the nostalgia rambling. If it weren’t, they wouldn’t be asking for tBC really (and they will be asking for WotLK as well, not necessarily about how good the expansion was, but re-living that nostalgia). I’m fine with Blizz doing it btw. They get the money for their effort/investment spent, players get to re-live that moment.