First, I love Sadhguru but this wouldn’t translate to good game design.
I understand your reasons for wanting this but keep in mind that this is a video game and it is meant to be enjoyed. I think the road to level 99 should be long but you should be able to do it within a month maybe a little longer with enough dedication and hard work.
Although, not gonna lie, I would like to see a game like this designed where this is a design choice. Diablo is not that game since it’s now have a massive casual base.
You don’t get to decide someone’s tone through text For me it sets a standard have high quality feedback that’s easy to read and pleasing to the eyes.
I finite lvling system on top of the current one might not be too bad.
Let’s say 1-40 is equivalent to 1-90 in D2 and 90-99 would be the second lvling system for those interested, but only providing a minor advantage while requiring a lot of time to reach.
Then make a less of a statement next time. “I think this comes off a bit disrespectful.”
If I was developer, I would be happy that someone took this much time into feedback.
Also about your statement… It’s dumb. Diablo is a franchise. Yes it’s a new game but it doesn’t mean you get to throw everything out of the previous game or else… it wouldn’t be a franchise. They should 100% look at the previous game and look at improving the franchise while also trying new things.
I like the rune system in Diablo 3. I like that skills had different variations but they shouldn’t have taken a pre-existing system that was completely adored and loved by the community and trash it to make something completely new.
And for Diablo 4 it seems like once again they changed the rune system instead of just going back to the original design and improving it. I could be wrong but it seems like it was just mimicking PoE which I think is the wrong decision because it’s too far from the original designs of rune words.
Again, a system that was loved and adored by fans. And if you think not admitting that Diablo 2 had a superior rune system to 3 and the current design of 4 is sign of a mature and good developer. Yikes.
This! A thousand times, this. Ever since the likes of Everquest, the term “endgame” in computer games (coined by players, not devs) has always meant one thing: A game too weak to stand on its own, that it needs a second one. But then WoW sold gangbusters and so every game must has “endgame”, it’s like devs aren’t even trying to respect our time anymore.
I know this is really difficult to design for, but the “endgame” notion is one that reinforces that there is a portion of the game (the pre-endgame) that is meaningless and just a necessary chore to the final part, the endgame. For some people it means they spend only 0.1% or less in that part as they only play endgame (for example, paragon farmers who hit 4000 in a season). For some it means they spend 100% in the non-endgame, because “the path is the goal” and once you’re in endgame you’re more or less “done” and enter the rather boring and repetitive grind. That’s why so many people only play D3 for a day or a week: you level to 70, you get your Haedrig set, you get your basic gear for your desired build. Maybe some set some arbitrary goal like GR100, but then there’s really nothing meaningful to hunt rather than increasing your numbers.
Resolving the endgame issue will also resolve many other issues - most importantly: itemization. In D1 and D2 (and PoE, for that matter) there are items that are rather low-level but used by high-level characters; prime example will always be SoJ. It’s not like… first you go to level 85, and then you replace all your gear with 85+ gear.
Many of the elements in D3’s level cap/endgame design are very closely related to WoW. But D3 is not an MMO. One could write an essay about how the mechanics and game design from one game does not transition into the other. I believe this is one of the many reasons why Diablo 3 feels so different to D1/D2. In D3, every newcomer is told “just level to 70 and then come back”. The campaign, the first 70 levels, all of that doesn’t matter; any item you find pre-70 is meaningless, everything you do will have zero impact on whatever happens after you reach that number. It’s a tutorial, but one that doesn’t work, because the pre-70 experience and playstyle does not prepare you at all for the set-guided, crazy number crunching game of one-shots from quadrillion HP mobs in the “endgame”.
Can you imagine that about D1 or D2? “Yeah just skip the Butcher and stuff, just rush to Diablo and kill him so you can start endgame.” The entire endgame concept of a max level and some GRs/keyed dungeons/maps/… is not one that fits into the Diablo game. It doesn’t fit the lore. It doesn’t fit the atmosphere. It’s reminiscent of MMO’s dungeons. If you want to make a true Diablo game, follow JangBahadur’s advice and make the “endgame” start at level 1. It is super difficult to achieve, but this is what would make this game really stand out. It’s what made the Butcher in D1 the most memorable encounter for all of us who experienced it first hand 20 years ago.
Reading some of the responses in the thread, I’d defuse this sentence or clarify that you want D4 not to be a copy of D1/D2, because many people do not understand what you meant. D1/D2 had lots of flaws, and we want to see those addressed. If we meet somewhere in the middle between D2 and D3 we might get the perfect game, it’s just up for debate which elements to pick from which game. In terms of leveling experience and progression though, D2 was unmatched.
Let me tell you a story:
A long time ago David Brevik and team created a whole new genre of gaming.
It was highly addicting, it won numerous awards, hall of fames etc. It was copied by untold developers in creating their games. These were Diablo and Diablo 2.
Yes they are dated as compared to modern games but are still being copied today.
Along comes Jay Wilson, he exploits the heritage of the IP, modernizes it. It sold millions and broke numerous sales records. But it was broke on a fundamental level - Itemization, the core of the genre.
Josh Mosqueira comes along and band-aids the game to make it playable. He then creates ROS which further improve on the replay ability. Sales are not as good as expected. Further expansions are cancelled.
A new team takes over and starts development of Diablo IV. Which itemization structure makes more sense to gain insight and inspiration from? D1/D2 or D3? Maybe a hybrid of both? Time will tell. All I know from my perspective, and I don’t speak for the community, just myself - If they don’t get itemization right they will be right back to cancel the expansions and go back to the drawing board.
I’ve though long and hard about this, and maybe I’m just getting old and should just go find something else to do, some say I’m living in the past, the game has to evolve. Evolve how I say! Make two decisions? What class to play, what set to wear, man I want a little more complexity than that!
Ok. Please read my post again before putting words in my mouth. I made no statements about NOT looking at the previous games, in fact I implied that D2 is in fact relevant… hence why i wrote…Its not all about D2, its D4.
To clarify, I am not judging his excellent way of formatting nor his view. I am simply making the statement that it’s disrespectful. Whether you take my statement as a fact or opinion is up to you.
I want to touch on a term nobody has really seemed to bring up from what I’ve noticed so far… “power creep.” (Unless I somehow missed it) I can’t stand it when new patches or expansions come out and all the new gear increases in stats and there are new levels to gain for our characters to the point that it trivializes all previous content. Numbers really shouldn’t be the priority in the end game should they? There should be something more “tangible” so to speak.
Perhaps it should be about the new content being added. i.e. New monsters/bosses/events/items etc. (to clarify… not items with increased stats as I’ve been stating, but with new effects that change up the way a character is played). All of these new things should be balanced around what is already in the game rather than inflating all of our stats to match the new content. When you have to create new difficulty levels or create an “uber” version of a boss that literally does exactly the same thing as a previous version of the boss, but the numbers are just higher, that really just seems like lazy game design to me. Not all “uber” bosses are like this, but hopefully the point is clear enough.
Be creative with the content to make it new and interesting like bosses for example. Figure out new mechanics to add that are challenging rather than just making the numbers bigger to increase difficulty. I just find it really odd when the game is called Diablo and now you never fight him/her because the numbers and the loot from this boss are too minuscule to even bother. (In D3 at least)
It just seems to be more rewarding when a new piece of gear you’ve been searching for is finally attained in some way or a boss that you’ve been striving to take out is finally killed. So what does one do once achieving these goals? Surely not an endless number grind. You could always just roll another character. How about seasonal achievements with cosmetic rewards like some games currently do? PvP perhaps? Anything aside from just inflating numbers and making all content trivial.
Well I’ve sat here for a little while writing this and I want to take a break. I’m sure some of these thoughts can be refined and expanded upon. Maybe after some more comments these can be revisited or clarified further.
The current state of Starcraft, World of Warcraft, and Diablo 3 proves that developers don’t know what they’re doing.
The current shareholders which has dropped over what, 40/50% now resulting in losing of billions of dollars lost in value proves that they don’t know what they’re doing.
And your “tone” of your response what lead me to believe that you think D1/2 aren’t superior to the design choices of 3 and the current beta of 4.
To be fair, not even David Brevik fully knew what he was doing, as he says things like “No idea why I thought a stamina bar was a good idea”, when the stamina bar was good for PvP to prevent kiting melee characters endlessly.
They need to take feedback like this into consideration. The community is obviously very passionate about having a Diablo game worthy of the name. I’m somewhat optimistic now that I see real communication.
If left to his own devices Brevik would have made Diablo a turn based game too. Thankfully Blizzard bought up Condor and made them change that aspect of D1
So what exactly do you want? Farm gear in the base game and then have that last forever?
When an expansion is released, there needs to be new stuff to look forward to, and a big part of that is new items to farm and new abilities.
Lets not forget that, for better or for worse, the gaming business is far different today. Publishers aren’t content with just the price of the base game and a couple of expansions. They want money from microtransactions, and for that they need to keep players intereted with new content and items. Contrary to popular belief, D3 wasn’t put on the backburner because it “failed”, it was discarded because it didn’t generate a constant revenue stream like WoW, Heartstone or Overwatch.
I don’t quite agree with you here, if Blizzard wanted additional revenues from MTX et all, they could have just as easily put that into the next expansion.
Why not? That’s worked for Diablo 2 over ten years with millions of players. In fact, Diablo 2 still has a pretty decent player count.
No, players need to stop demanding more casual games that makes the games way too easy so players blow through content more quickly and forcing the developers to put out content faster than the casual crowd can blow through.
Don’t act like the MTX models weren’t some what the fault of players when they keep demanding games to made easier but also demand more content when they blow through the content.
Make a hard game with the goals hard to reach and you’re game will last way longer, so you don’t have to constantly put out more content.
Today’s rapid consuming of entertainment is partly to blame.
Some gear could possibly last forever, yes. If that piece of gear is a legendary/unique that allows you to play your character in some specific way that you desire. Not entire sets like D3 though.
I didn’t say don’t add new things. On the contrary, I said there should be new things added to the game with patches/expansions, but that these new things should not vastly increase the stat numbers to the point that all previous content is rendered obsolete.