So, I’m going to do a proper write-up soon because I’ve played alot of S6 and overall having fun. So D4 is trending in the right direction. I have some issues, but overall the new features are quite enjoyable. Pit, MWing, NM dungeons, and overall the difficulty of the endgame is adequate.
My comment is on the Devs inability to understand “seasonal content.”
For those that played WoW in dragonflight there was an event called a superbloom. You followed around this trent, killed adds, and then big fight at the end. You got reputation, and got cosmetics. Sound familiar?
This realmwalker event is eerily close to a copy/pasta of a WoW seasonal feature. I sincerely hope the Diablo 4 business model is not designed around making a “sidegame” for WoW fans in off times.
Seasonal features neeed to be the highlight of a season not doing the same thing for seaspns that worked. S7 seems like S2 reskinned, and S6 is the most dull pice of content I’ve ever seen.
I feel like D4 is using “seasons” as a way to introduce large scale updates for flawed QoL parts of the game, balancing, and adjustments to existing systems. Then then shove a seasonal feature in as a highlight, but it’s just a chore for grinding out some cosmetics. It’s ok to just release a large patch to adress issues.
The deliberate copying of a WoW seasonal feature is making me worried that the ship is not going to be corrected, but it’s headed exactly where they want it.
A. Different teams different games
B. The super bloom event you speak of is get ready for this just an escort mission now does that event have similarity’s with the realmwalker event sure it does but it shares the same simalritys that it does with escort missions all over gaming
Season 6 should be the standard for what NOT to do regarding seasonal content. I have posted it over and over again they simply do not get seasonal content in the least. They do not get this is something that they want players to do at every restart. The paragon grind, ridiculous loot drops and weighted RNG are driving many (not all) away.
Large patches are too much of a risk. One wrong decision and people start losing their jobs. It is easier to copy stuff from other games as they have some statistics that shows it was a good idea at the other game even if it is a manipulated statistic. Goblin event pointng you towards Nahantu anyone? This is how we get the mediocrity we have now. As long as it meets its revenue goals little else matters.
The realm walker would have been awesome if it had been like an outdoor infernal hordes. All Mephisto’s realm of hatred has in it for an invasion is a bunch of snot minions and some Balrogs? That’s it?
Imagine a huge outpouring of demons and elites and it’s chaotic and epic. That is what they should have been going for. That way you’re not wanting it to hurry up and be over so you can get inside. You’re wanting to kill as much as possible before it does end for exp and loot.
Re-introduce the realm walker in the future. But my version.
It’s a copy-pasta of Realmwalker from D3, down to its name, mob design, spawning adds, and resulting portal into a compact dungeon for limited loot/quest objective. They just buffed its relative HP + added invulnerable phases, because the original Realmwalker was instakill/ the dungeon a quick Bounty, and that wasn’t enough for a season theme… so they extended the creature’s humiliation, and Rod thought “Good to go. Ship that mofo.”
I thought seasons were a way to introduce more power and do things they otherwise couldn’t do outside of that. I don’t think Realmwalker fits in with that idea. The only reason why I’m not trippin on S6 as much is because of the expansion.
…game is drifting to grinding boring game when you need tons of time to collect tons of materials and spend them for nonsense tempering without luck.
Game is one click button from one point to another.
The game is changing from its original vision of do Nightmare Dungeons and play in World Tier 4 while maybe killing Lilith to a totally different version now. It’s going to likely be a rough road getting there while we get seasonal content to compliment that new vision. I think it’s cool we get to see what a season 2 styled season feels like after Loot Reborn and the changes that came with VoH. So when they used to say seasonal powers are going to feel broken, well now they really can feel broken on top of everything else we likely can do. Also a lot of this content was likely in the works and planned before even Loot Reborn came out so we’re catching up to VoH.
And therefore I do say oreo cream pie is delicious.
Speculative… but the point is, there isn’t enough testing in that place (they don’t budget for it, b/c Rod’s top priority is budgetary efficiency, whereas OG game heads used to prioritize quality). As a result, how it feels to play the “ideas” you allude to, doesn’t factor into each release.
That step, somewhat synonymous with game development itself, is an afterthought at this studio. People who actually play the game, and play it specifically to test out how ideas feel when implemented… isn’t in the current job criteria (thanks to Rod IMO).
It doesn’t matter how many interesting ideas they can come up with (not an impressive list so far, given the ton of missing features, outshined by even the forum’s brainstorming)… if it’s not thoroughly tested for ‘fun’, it probably won’t be very engaging or have legs.
However, I would try Oreo cream pie. I imagine it’s hard to screw up.