Care to post some numbers? The gaming market is magnitudes larger today than it was around D2’s release. D3 had to sell more just by virtue of markets.
Do you think D4 will shatter sales records like D3 did? I don’t.
But at any rate, I don’t actually care about sales numbers, only about how good the systems are.
Who cares if it sells 40 million copies if the systems suck?
D3 had all these sales yet it’s still plagued by issues.
Fine. So be it.
Does it change the fact that there’s still more Diablo 3 fans today, then there are Diablo 2 fans, again, today?
The difference is orders of magnitude.
Even if Diablo 2 was, as you suggest it, bigger game for its time - that doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is that catering to Diablo 3 playerbase is much more profitable than catering to a dwindling number of Diablo 2 fans, most of whom grew adult, had family, and aren’t interested in gaming anymore.
If anything, your distaste for Diablo 3 only proves my point. Your individual opinion as a consumer doesn’t matter. It is still one of the most successful games of all times.
And what does your sudden aptitude for seeing future has to do with reality of this dicussion?
YOUR definition of good. Not quite the developer definition of good.
See, here lies an intrinsic problem to your opinion. You don’t see a larger picture.
YOUR definition of good is based on how well YOU like something.
But the DEVELOPER definition of good is based on how many OTHER PEOPLE likes something. Be they filthy casuals, hardcore fans of the series, neckbeards with bear-belly or housewives.
Developer still has his own tastes. But they discard them in favor of making a better game that more people can enjoy.
Yes obviously my definition of good, which is why I made this topic, because it’s related to my opinion and my decision to buy or not buy.
I don’t care if developer X likes infinite paragons man, Blizzard’s sales and their developer’s personal opinions views don’t impact my choice to not purchase, but what makes it into their product will.
You’re just re-stating obvious things at this point then acting outraged when people use Blizzard’s forums.
Still waiting on those numbers. Plenty of Diablo 2 fans play Diablo 3 and plenty of Diablo 2 fans also quit Diablo 3.
Google them.
They have been given like a hundred times on these very forums to people like yourself - and yet you keep requesting every time you disagree with something.
Google what? D3 vs D2 sales numbers? We already pointed out to you why that’s irrelevant by virtue of 10 years of separation and the growing gaming market.
Your claim is that there’s more D3 fans than D2 fans, by “orders of magnitude”;
Where’s the numbers on that? Plenty of Diablo 2 fans play Diablo 3 and plenty of Diablo 2 fans also quit Diablo 3.
didn’t you get d3 with something like wow sub?
anyways almost everything related to d4 is guessing atm…
I find it ironic that you attempt to lecture people on basic economics when you don’t even grasp it yourself (this is where you chime in with your diploma).
I say this because of how recklessly you use sales to form some sort of arguement.
D3 is a good casual game, of that you are right They have branched out and tried to attract a wider audience, this is also true. But it does not in any way shape or form mean that the game is better. It just means that it made more money.
If you want, I can provide you with 10 examples of where money != quality but I’m sure you’re well aware of this. Which begs the question, why are you using these terrible arguements to begin with?
This is not a case of entitlement, save that frustration of yours for situations where it makes sense.
Until you get people soloing GR150 naked this is obviously not true.
Oh, okay, let me qualify it for you to make it true:
Infinite systems infinitely provide power out of nowhere independent of the limitations placed by developers on item Statistics. So in time the quality of your gear becomes 100% irrelevant, and by that time it is not not really a Diablo game, it’s just a clicker game with numbers in the Trillions, Quadrillions, Quintillions, and so on.
That is not to say that you’re going to clear content naked, but that the loot hunt and finding well-rolled item stops mattering.
If a weapon has a cap of 1,000 Strength, eventually Paragon will give you 45,000 Strength.
Not entitled no. But if they want to sell a game it might be a good idea.
Yeah I would think this was obvious.
The argument that high sales = quality is pretty bad.
Plenty of high-selling games are of low-quality. There’s HUGE mobile franchises with super low quality art and garbage mechanics in them that rake in the $$$$$$, more than any Blizzard game for that matter.
First, D3 vs D2 sales numbers DO matter, and I explain why.
Let’s assume that everyone who bought D2 - loved it. Which is obviously not the case, but for now, let’s assume that all of them are hardcore D2 fans.
Then they bought Diablo 3. All of them bought it.
And then, after that, Diablo 3 was bought by tens of millions of other players who are NOT Diablo 2 fans, because they DIDN’T buy or play it. They Bought Diablo 3 at its own merit.
Of those Diablo 2 fans, as you say yourself, plenty of them quit D3, which is fair enough. The same is true for non-D2 fans. That’s natural for every game.
But plenty of them KEPT PLAYING.
In the end, you have this odd little picture in front of you.
That Diablo 3 has sold several times more copies than Diablo 2 did - in other words, only small percentage of Diablo 3 playerbase consists of Diablo 2 fans.
Even if all Diablo 2 fans HATED Diablo 3 with a passion (which they obviously didn’t) - then Diablo 3 would still come out ahead of D2 by merit of simple logic.
Sales Do Matter. They show us, if nothing else, how much D3’s success can be attributed to D2 goodwill.
No one will give you exact numbers, because there obviously aren’t any. Asking for such numbers only hurts your argument because you demonstrate that you are ready to knowingly “ask for impossible” as means of supporting your position.
But the numbers that we DO have, while admittedly not definitively - support my stance far better than they support yours. That’s why you’re so adamant about dismissing them outright.
Thanks for admitting that you don’t know what you’re talking about, and that your argument is based on pure speculation.
And even if D3 sold more than D2 did, sales quantity is not equivalent to quality. It’s pretty obvious. Some of the top-grossing games on the market right now are of atrocious quality (see mobile gatcha games) yet they sell more than D3 and D2 combined.
At any rate, the point of this topic isn’t sales numbers, it’s finite vs infinite design. Even if infinite scaling sells more I still consider it an inferior design.
Hey Ulma and also Dev:
They could build some infinity paragon with power “in control”
There are plenty of bounded increasing function.
For example: S-curve.
y’ = y (K - y)
The S-curve make the power increasing (y’) more reasonable.
So, I strongly recommend dev consider this.
In the begining you have a exponential like growing curve.
in the middle it is more like linear.
in the end, it grows like a log function.
Thanks for admitting that that’s the only thing you cared about in the entire post.
You dismiss everything that is inconvenient to you, grapsing for that single straw with all your might.
I rest my case.
Not at all-- you’re the one bringing in sales figures into a discussion about game mechanics as if they were relevant.
If you don’t want your irrelevant sales argument dismissed then stick to the topic at hand, because even if D3 or D4 sell “more” thanks to infinite design, you still have not addressed my point, which is that infnite scaling is bad design, regardless of sales.
As I said before and others pointed out to you above, sales figures are not always indicative of quality.
The way to address that issue isn’t imposing a level limit, it’s to not go overboard with multipliers. It’s to provide more things to spend points on (elemental damage for instance, or buffs to specific skills).
If a paragon point in D3 gave you only 1 Strength instead of 5, you’d need 45000 paragon to reach that same level of power instead of the 9000 you need now.
Even items could be adjusted. 1000 Strength on gear may pale in comparison to 45000 from paragon, but that’s why there are other stats on gear like CHR, CHD and so on.
Honestly, most stats on gear are pretty boring (and this is something that is common in all Diablo games), the Legendary and Set bonuses are far more fun to play with to me.
That stagnation becomes the main concern actually. Whatever they may come up with infinite scaling will come up at top as the pure endgame option. Even if infinite progression gives a millionth of progress compared to the usual loothunt, it will be the only reward that you may offer to the player.
What else can you come up with when infinite progression is just there?
Absolute numbers don’t matter. It can give you 1, 5 or 500 strength - the question is how many player power does it give you. And that’s a question more about the damage formula than anything else.
IMO, Paragon levels don’t give you so much as to become any problem at all.
Regular updates with buffs.
Expansion packs with new level caps that effectively wipe all gear.
Ok, cap Para (or mainstat from para) at 2000 if you find that so important, I don’t.