I'm really glad that the current team is listening to the community, but are they listening to the right community?

As amazing as it is that the team is actually listening to feedback, there are a few worrisome facts to consider:

– They’re primarily listening to D3 players, and the D3 playerbase is tiny. Issues that seem like they’re “nuanced” or “something the community doesn’t agree on” are massively misrepresented, because D3 players are a very specific breed.

– It’s strange that it took them this long, after such a huge amount of discussion, to arrive at these conclusions. I honestly don’t think they have actually played the previous Diablo games, outside of a brief stint with D3. The flaws in D3 are huge and glaring, while most of them weren’t even present in D1 or D2.

– They clearly don’t have any sort of true build path, as far as game design. They don’t know what makes ARPG’s good, and they don’t know what made D3 bad. All they know is that people complained about the game being too kid-friendly (not dark enough), a lack of PVP, and a lack of trading. But in terms of solid build design, they don’t seem to have a clue.

Essentially, we better hope that the 20 people who still play D3 and visit the forums, are great video game developers. Because if they aren’t, this game isn’t going to be any good.

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Nevermind the 20 people who still play D3, you can’t even troll properly.

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Not trolling at all, these are legitimate concerns. They aren’t getting feedback from the potential D4 playerbase, especially since they deleted all of the comments from the blog posts, and stopped allowing them altogether.

You think it’s trolling because you think facts that reflect badly on D3, reflect badly on you as a D3 player. You’re free to play whatever you want, but I promise you, the last thing they want is another D3.

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The right community to listen to is the people who will be playing the game.

It is not a group you have imagined is much larger than another. Nor is it the group that you personally would prefer if they listened to.

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What Facts / Numbers do you have to backup this statement.

What you see as flaws , players might see as innovation its completely subject to a matter of opinion.

So you think its bad , I think its fantastic. Again subject to opinion not FACT at all.

You have made it subjectively clear you dont play D3 anymore and thing personally the game is bad. I have played D3 since day 1 and think its amazing.
Your concerns are limited to yourself and a handful of forum posters. Lets D4 be D4 not anything like D1/D2 or D3.

The right community to listen to is the Playerbase thats going to Play it . That more then likely contains people who are playing D3 currently just so you know. Just cause someone likes D2 or D3 or D1 or POE doesnt make there feedback any less valid or incorrect. Feedback is Feedback

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i dont really see them, only reacting to the D3 fans
as i understood their approach, they are trying to make the game complex and “difficult” for us and still contain some “easy to learn” for the new players, to not be turned off
a balance in the force

Believe me, they will be listening to the RIGHT community. I.e. the one that promises more players and money.

But it is an entirely different question if your vision of the right side matches theirs. You - are just one of millions of players interested in d4, and it is natural for you to have an opinion. And naturally you feel that your opinion is the correct one.

The truth is, D3 was more successful than D2. It isn’t perfect at all, but is better in many ways.
What you should expect is that D4 will be improving on the core mechanics of D3, while fixing things that were universally criticized.
For example, almost everyone thought that D2 darker and grittier atmosphere was better than slightly wanky theme park of D3. And so they are working to bring it back.
But when it comes to the core gameplay loop - D3 version feels almost universally better and much more versatile. So you can expect D4 to be closer to that.

Whether you like it or not.
It is one thing what one person wants as a player. But it is a different thing entirely what the market in general likes, accepts, is willing to tolerate and expects from the game in 2020+

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basically the only thing, that you can consider, being better in D3, is the fluid combat, due to the technological advance in this time, although it went so far, even just being ridiculous by times
and ofc, graphics over all, which is again, just a matter of age
the overall system and gameplay goes to D2 at any day

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Second, we agree with the feedback that Diablo IV shouldn’t just mimic the itemization in our previous Diablo games. Our plan is to take the best parts of previous games and improve upon them while introducing new elements to make Diablo IV unique. We don’t want to create an exact copy of Diablo II or Diablo III. It’s worth calling out that, on this subject, there was a lot of mixed feedback and differing opinions, and we acknowledge that means there’s no single approach that everyone in the community will agree on.

Pulled this quote from part two of the system design blog.

David Kim seems to have a gauge on the overall consensus with itemization. We’re no where close to release but the current iteration feels like the right direction.

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Simplifying things even further to dumb it down to be as idiot proof as possible isn’t a good thing. Complexity is depth and a game without depth or too little depth to its systems, especially in an ARPG, is not good.

Let’s discuss it. Which systems do you think are better in d2? Only not in short vague terms like “loot” or “stats” - explain in detail how they are better.
Tell me exactly which systems do you think are better in d2 and why.
I could do the same for you, but I think it is better that you start so we have a starting point.

And, ahem, I hadn’t played d2 in many years, so specifics about items may elude me.

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Every time I read a blog or something from the developers they talk about reading the feedback. This last one clearly stated they are not going to make a clone of D2 or D3. You have take their word for it and hope for a reasonably good game. Hey, at least they are listening and have altered the game design accordingly.

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Yeah, I am glad that they are not going to clone D2 and D3 in D4. Good thing that they cleared it for us so we don’t have to keep speculating whether it will be D2 or D3 itemization level.

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This thread is as hot as the burning hells where the soulstones were smashed;

Angelic/demonic/ancients is a system that comes from diablo2:

  • prerequisites
  • breakpoints that are plateau to reach to activate a specific value.

These are stuff that Diablo2 fans suggested and that could be iterated in a different form. I’m glad they listened, and I’m glad the d3 community embrace these ideas that come from diablo2.

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i love D1 , i love D2 , i love D3 and i will love D4 what ever they do . Big Fanboy of D5

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There is an actual skilltree, you can allocate attribute points, there are runewords, you have a very high but finite level system that is hard to finish but gives u a goal, enemies are more threatening, in smaller numbers, you can see items from far and actually remember them in your inventory, ofc, the dark atmosphere of the game fits better to the story

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And the only way to accomplish that is to actually update the D4 website. Posting these updates on the D3 website merely exposes the 20 people who happened to jump onto the latest ladder.

These are the same people who defended the game vehemently as Jay Wilson destroyed it right from the beginning. He was fired, and Blizz is still trying to get the original players back. That’s why they’re claiming to get back to their roots, they know D3 is a failure, just like the 99% of the playerbase that quit in the first month.

D3 and RoS sold 30 million copies together. If D4 sells that much, the amount of feedback they’re getting on these forums is completely null.

So yes, they need to listen to people who will play the game, but they aren’t getting a realistic representation on this forum.

The fact that they aren’t “copying” systems from previous games is actually a problem.

Optimally, when a specific area is great, they leave it alone for the sequels, and simply improve areas that need it. Franchises generally don’t start to fall off until they try to “fix” things that don’t need it, and change them for the worse. It usually takes longer than two games in a franchise, but Blizzard didn’t have a good team on D3, and it happened on their third game in the franchise.

Ideally, they would copy the things that were great about previous games. The problem is that they didn’t play D1 or D2, so they’re convinced they need to start from the ground up, because D3 was aweful.

I am certainly thankful they’re listening to the community though.

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Did you not get the hint that this line wasn’t funny last time you posted it?

I prefer Diablo 2 and I still play Diablo 3.

Even goofy Lolli saw through your trolling.

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They should make an actual Diablo 4 forum but it wont change anything for the people who are utterly convinced of their own rightness despite there being literally zero evidence of it.

I bet they could do an actual D2 Remastered and if it didn’t sell amazingly sell, people would be lining up to make excuses for it and blaming the D3 community for it somehow.