Hope Blizzard will address these three issues with Diablo IV somehow.
In order of importance
Quality of Life. Diablo 3 is too hard to play physically. It relies on too much button smashing which is very exhausting. You have to play with 11 fingers and constantly be activating literally every second.
It is daunting, it even prohibits me to sit and play because it exhausts my brain very quickly and stresses me out or leaves me with a burnout in just of an hour in-game. A video game after all needs to help you relax.
In fact I have a theory that the bots were developed mainly because it was too physically demanding stressful to farm on yourself.
See Dark Souls is a hard game but it is not a hard game to play. You know what I am saying ?
The screen is a mess. I cannot see my character anymore in these thick mobs. I cannot even say where I am.
I read Blizzard is putting effort to beautify the characters in next Diablo, but if the character doesn’t stand out then it is wasted effort.
Lack of motivation to play. Once you beat the campaign and do some rifts extra content, there is hardly reason to keep playing. Blizzard has done much to address this issue, with seasons, with drops, with leaderboards, with level design in adventure mode and what not, but I still feel lack of motivation. I place this last because it is somewhat personal preference.
The list can go on but I’d say these are the top 3
Regardless D4 will be a buy but good to see these issues addressed in earnest.
As for button clicks, I dont see a problem in having to handle a lot of buttons, and D3 doesn’t even have that many. But some abilities are spammy (and lead to people using numlock tricks and what not), that part should go away. Each button press should have purpose, and a “cost” (even if it is just opportunity cost). Which the spammy abilities in D3 clearly do not.
I think this comes down to enemy variety/situations, and skill usage mechanics. Cooldowns and such.
D3 combat could be a lot of fun at times, but was a tad shallow and cooldowns hampered play style, while the pacing (timers and such) forced you to play a certain way.
We can have a system where it is action oriented and you have many skills you use, some more often than others, but also keeps a nicer pace and requires more tactics.
There are only 6 skill slots. What are your other 5 fingers doing? You can always use the numlock glitch, it dosen’t considered as cheating. Or look up lazy builds, Filthy Casual is a good source on youtube.
When I play on PC I play using only a mouse. I don’t need 11 fingers nor am I constantly button mashing. Me thinks you are using hyperbole or don’t know how to play.
They mentioned in 2019, that spell effects are toned down combined with slower paced combat and not having dozens of enemies on screen at a time should make things easier in the eye.
I don’t care if there is a reason to play or not. I don’t buy or play games based on longevity or endgame systems. I played D2 bead Diablo 3 times then quit. I played D2LOD and beat Baal 3 times then quit. There was no reason for me to continue but it was money well spent.
Of course we are all expecting a diverse endgame since that is what they said they are going for. Do those activities need to last the entire length between content drops? Nope. For D3 my motivation is to see if I can push my personal beat with whatever build I’m using. I’ll get bored after a few weeks and stop. But that’s fine. I don’t need a gsme to hold my attention for every gaming hour I have available.
Also, the game should make it interesting to make new characters rather than just keep going on a single character, further reducing the “need” to keep a single character going for the entire duration.
Diablo 3 is way too intensive. The devs really need to sit and play on their own. Not just sitting behind desks and modifying formulas and gear etc, but they really need to sit and play for themselves and see how intensive and unplayable it has become.
I remember the times I would play Diablo 2 with my friends and it never felt so intensive, we could all the time play simultaneously and talk and joke. But nowadays you can’t even talk, it has become so demanding and hard to play builds variety.
Fast paced game play is a good thing. You want something that engages you and keeps your attention. You should be issuing a lot of commands between moving and attacking. I’ll typically be giving 90-120 meaningful actions per minute between my 6 skills, movement, and looting. There are times where I am concentrating hard and clicking so often, it does become physically tiring. And it’s definitely mentally tiring to do for long sessions. But I’ve seen gamers do more than that. I’m very much a “casual” player. I could literally play all day with WoW’s system with the global cooldown and a focus on rotations because I have more time to think, prepare, and react. That’s WoW, an MMORPG. It’s NOT Diablo, an ARPG.
I don’t want to work harder than this to play the game. I’d rather work smarter. The D4 combat system could be designed for this, and I’ve gone into some depth about how in other threads: slower pace of combat, more enemy hps, more emphasis on battlefield movement and positioning. You’re still interacting a lot, but your button presses become more strategic. You need active defensive skills and smartly targeted CC. I’d very much prefer this to the speed run style D3 currently encourages.
And regarding spam builds, if you have to bend the rules by numlocking auto-cast, there’s a problem. Either the developers need to put an auto-cast option directly into the game like in some of their older RTS’s, or they need to not design builds that require such repetitive, short-duration, spam. In fact, if they got rid of “stacks” mechanics nearly entirely I’d be a very happy camper. It sucks like hell to be penalized if you just happen to hit a patch of low monster density.
A lot of games have this problem with overly flashy animations being spammed. Blizz does use technology that mutes the effects of other player’s visuals, but I think we’ve all been caught by frozen circles or other ground effects you never even saw before you were dead. Especially as they try and make characters more visually complex, they need to keep this in mind and not overwhelm the player’s ability to process the information on the screen. Slowing down combat and making less spammy and more tactical would help with this.
The story (any story, no matter how long) will only be fun for a few times and occasionally for nostalgia’s sake. I’m hopeful, there’s enough vignettes and side content to keep things interesting in the open world a bit at least til we hit max level. Reaching max level should feel like a real goal and achievement, not a 30 min tutorial to the game. More like D2 lvl 99 here, and less like D3 lol 70 (pun very much intended). If the game “starts at max level,” the only real content we have is the procedurally generated stuff, and no one wants to just spam rifts.
There should be an item hunt, but I’m still quite wary of power creep. I don’t want to see a repeat of … well, everyone has legendaries, so here’s legendary gems to grind - oh everyone has gems, here’s primal legendaries with a 1/10x drop rate - oh everyone has those, here’s primals with a 1/100 (or more?)x drop rate - oh everyone has those, here’s augments that’ll take you hours to farm for each item you have - oh everyone has those, here’s… infinitely scaling paragon or some other treadmill or hamster wheel to run on.
Real endgame is going to need:
world events
fun world bosses
special events (like holidays, where certain content is available for a limited time)
some sort of competitive race-type endgame challenge
some sort of competitive hold-out as long as you can endgame challenge
robust opt-in, ideally structured PVP
And even then, it won’t entertain everyone forever. At some point, we need to get out, see the sun, and breathe fresh air =)
Hey Joat thank you so much for your comprehensive reply. That was great read I enjoyed it very much reading it
Unfortunately I have made my mind. I gave Diablo 3 a try and I feel too exhausted playing it. Not my cup of coffee in video gaming. I really enjoyed your analysis especially paragraph two about game speed and mechanics which only touched the surface of Diablo’s gameplay problems.
Well, I guess I am more of an RPG player and I find better suited products out there for my lazy dumbass. I just can’t play this game and all its intensive builds, it looks outdated to me
Diablo 3 is a breeze! Have you ever played some RTS, like LoL or even Starcraft?
If you think Diablo 3’s gameplay overwhelming, you should consider to play things like Solitaire. Not Freecel, because it has animations that would “disorient” you…
You can always use the numlock glitch, it dosen’t considered as cheating. Or look up lazy builds, Filthy Casual is a good source on youtube.