After playing games from this franchise since Diablo 1 i have to say, i miss this feeling of a balanced progression for my char and the feeling, to have earned something.
Even in Diablo 3, you did a activity and you got to some degree the feeling, that you made progress in gear, charlevel and materials. And that all of this, was somehow on the same level of progression. You ran a rift lvl 70 and you had in some way the feeling, that your materials, your level, your gear and your jewels where all on the same overall level.
For me, i had this feeling the most in Diablo 2. Maybe this is, why i like this game the most of the series. By far.
In Diablo 4 i seldom have this feeling. And yeah, maybe it is only a feeling with no logical explanation or factual basis to back this.
You level so fast and you get your gear so fast, that other aspects, like glyphs, runes (numbers and variety) and gems are seriously fall behind. And yeah, maybe this has a lot to do with the point, that skills do not really matter. What your char can do or not is to 95 %, in my eyes, gear dependent and not skill dependent.
And to pull these aspects to the same level as gear and char level is more work than fun. It is borderline repetitive. It is not even necessary, but on one hand it is the “only” thing you can do, because you have to do it, to maybe reach deeper pit levels and on the other it feels so incomplete to have super gear, dominating T4 difficulty but “only” the second hightest gems in it.
The overall progression is too spiked for me. You find your first matching unique for a build or char, that does not give you overall 1-5 % more power, no it gives you 400% more power. The next item gives you 200% and then better gear only improves you by this 1 %.
and you get these items so fast, there is no feeling of “yeah, i earned this item”. This earning comes with the aquisation of a better item with more GA then the previous. But why i get this earned feeling only at the point, where it improeves my char to 1-2 % and not at the 400% by aquiring the item type?
People want to reach the end game more faster. For me, end game is like, the game ended here, because there is nothing important to achieve. I understand, that others feel this achievment by reaching a pit lvl more but for me, it only offers me to option to do one repetitive dungeon more with nor real reward.
To some degree, i would really like to enjoy the way from 1-60 more but even that i can’t. You level so fast, even on normal, it is a question of hours and not weeks. So starting over and over again with a new char also becomes this repetitive loop.
And another thing, that really bothers me is the paragon system for the account and not the char. Why has my new Sorc, if he reaches lvl 60 150 extra points, he can spend? He has no gear or gems or glyphs, that matches his level but he gets an enourmes spike in levels. No linear progression, no a forced spike, that i do not want.
Why? This is so dumb. Yeah, i could ignore the points and decide for myself to only put one point every hour/day in my board but then you have this annoying button, that reminds you, that you have unspent points. And it really feels unearned. And yeah, this bothers me.
In Diablo 2, i also did Baal way before lvl 99 but after this, you could play in areas and you knew, it is not a cakewalk. You can die and the exitement of beating a elite with difficult affixes felt really good.
In Diablo 4 you have more or less the scenario, that you reach a point, where most of the game gets trivial. At one point, you one shoot lair bosses (ok, not any more, but only because of annoying invul phases of bosses), you can’t die if you do not act intentionally stupid or gets hit by a one shoot mechanic and no enemy is a real threat any more. This is 95% of the end game. The other 5 % is the pit and this feels so borderline stupid implemented in the lore and game. Why is a normal monster on a high pit level more resilient, than a lord of hell?
Maybe one way to balance at least the last issue could be, that the pit level you reached, determines the level of all monsters in the game for you. You did pit 110, yeah, that good luck with a pit lvl 110 Duriel. I think, that could be great. A 20 min fight, that maybe give me back this feeling, that i earned a potential victory here.
Maybe one way could be, to implement the aspects into the skill tree and to massively tone down the item power and skill alteration of uniques. Let for example the bloodwave pants (i believe, it was the pants) give only 2-3 ranks to that skill with maybe another little (!) extra effect and let the double wave be a part of an high lvl skill tree reward or a paragon board. That could also encourage to play different builds and i think, it would also be easier to balance things then. Because you do not have this overall multuiplier, no you have a skill multiplier. Even if i would personally like it, that thre were no multipliers in this game and all would be more or less additive.
I’m a Diablo fanboy and it’s very likely, that i will always be this. And therefore i want to enjoy this game series. Don’t like the word franchise.
And maybe i’m not alone with some of my thoughts. Maybe i am. I don’t know.