I sense that there are two communities trying to play this game: committed gamers and casual gamers . From reading the forums, it seems these two groups have little in common. I shall refer to the first as ‘hardcore’, although I just mean those that like their games to be REALLY challenging, and the second as “casual” gamers, who prefer a more relaxed, character-development driven game-play experience.
I am a casual gamer. I’m over 50. I have a stressful job IRL and like to come home and relax for limited amounts of time playing computer games. I enjoy the campaign (D1-D4). I enjoy the cool artwork in the shop and the seasonal content, I enjoy the traditional character progression through the skill tree, but characters I create can never beat Uber Lilith at lvl 100. With the addition of lvl 200 Lilith, I just feel like the game is going in the wrong direction for me personally. It adds stress to my life rather than helping me relax.
Is there any interest in a “Casual” checkbox in character creation for those that can’t be bothered with all the ‘hardcore’ competition driven game play? I’d love a version of D4 that doesn’t end skill tree development, but actually allows us to keep earning skill points beyond level 50. So much of it is currently unexplorable due to the limited number of points given. I’d love a version where players are free to actually explore character creation and development rather than being forced into ever more similar and constrained character builds to survive the end game challenges. I want to build characters that make sense to me, not the pre-fab ones that are best suited to survive the end game I find on the internet. And I want to just kill monsters without dying all the time due to lack of resources and stingy point allocation options.
This would also benefit ‘hardcore’ players. Developers could just make that part of the game so difficult that nobody would ever complain. You could attain perfect conformity and competition. Meanwhile, the casual players could keep focusing on character development. Who knows, what develops out of casual play might also provide helpful feedback to the game in general and open up new options.
These two statements directly contradict each other.
When I was at a certain point in my life were my career was extremely demanding of me, I didn’t have the luxury of time. Especially gaming. Let alone RPG’s like Diablo which are notorious for how time consuming they are by design.
Game is for casuals from 99%. You can enjoy 99% content with any build with very limited time investment. What exactly you think is not for casuals here?
If you can´t, and I don´t want to be rude, but you are not casual but really bad player.
Do you really think it is problem you can´t beat hardest version of hardest boss in game? Like for real?
Some of them should be committed. The hardcore gamers want something exclusive to them, Sorta like bragging rights. I find it best to just do my own thing and let them have at it. Most of the time it’s not worth the time investment or effort. As you stated you want to enjoy and relax, Well do just that and don’t be concerned with the trivial stuff.
I played all the seasons, I’ve done Duriel tormented, Gregoire and Varshan. I never killed Lilith, there are no rewards and almost always my buildings were for group control and area damage. I wasn’t going to change my buildings because of her. Today I have well as a challenge I’m in 104 and I’ll see where I can get without Ubers. And I’m ok with that.
This game is super casual to the point there is no motivation for hardcore players to push past pit 100 for the achievement.
No PIT leaderboards = game is super casual.
Hell D3 is way more competitive than d4.
The game is already extremely casual friendly. Doing regular games sessions after work should quickly allow you to have a build that can safely travel through Diablo 4 world killing monsters. You don’t need to follow any build creation guide for that but it can speed up the progression if you choose to do so. You may just have to be a bit careful when venturing in the Helltides.
There is in fact very limited content directly targeted to hardcore gamers. Sure, Lilith is one of them. Tormented bosses are challenging and maybe not for casual players if they can’t afford to spend time on their gear. And there is the Pit.
Diablo games are not ever challenging. You just out gear enemy defenses and damage. The end. If they were challenging, they’d get the kind of press FromSoft games get.
There is no reason a game should stress you out just because you cant beat the hardest content it has to offer. You already said you dont aim for that stuff but others do. If you really are over 50, this should all be quite obvious to you.
No, they are are not going to create an EZ mode version for people that cant complete season journey. 99 percent of this gane is easy if you are half way paying attention to what you are doing. Uber bosses and pits are the only challenging parts of the game. We dont need a seperate mode of pushover bosses just to satisfy bad players.
Forum posts on this topic tend to either be hardcores complaining that casuals somehow ruin the game or casuals complaining that the game is geared too heavily towards hardcores. These two groups want different things from gaming and have different motivations for playing as evidenced by the player above that thinks calling me out as a “bad player” is some sort of argument-winning insult. Both sides are frustrated. There’s no way to address the concerns of both groups together, so much like hardcore characters and seasonal content get separated from the eternal realm at character creation, let people choose what they want from the game and then address these groups separately. Both sides would get more of what they want, be more satisfied with their experience and there’d be a larger group of paying customers for the game. How would that be a bad thing?
Honestly just add leaderboards for features like the PIT which is similar to greater rifts and hardcores will have a reason to keep pushing the gearing.
I agree with your take on two perspectives completely. For me, D3 allowed more even competition in that gear upgrades were accessible to all players. Leaderboard placement was directly related to paragon level, which favored group play disproportionately. D4 S4 is more difficult in that there are many more choices to make to gear up and much less flexibility to make changes. A lot more research and study is required if you want to move up in the endgame activity. D4 is also very much a work in progress. Hopefully S5 will be a step forward.
Gamers lost the war to casuals back in the mid 2000s. We played games during the greatest time in online gaming. While those casuals took to the forums to ruin everything. And that is why all games suck now. The End.
Agreed. There’s a reason I play single player games on Casual or sometimes Story mode.
I don’t care about the challenge. At the very least, I never want to struggle. I’m happy if I could through the entire game with zero deaths. I’d be delighted to be able to clear ALL the content with my limited skills.
I want to max out my character to the pinnacle of what’s possible, then do it again with a new class. Ideally, I could do this several times in one season.
One of the fundamental flaws of this game, and there are multiple, is what they’ve done with the difficulty settings. They aren’t actual difficulty settings but progression settings, which can evidently leave everyone dissatisfied. Gaming communities at this point have become so mindless that there is no coherent pressure on developers and designers and those people themselves appear rather dim. So really what you have to do is make of the game you’re given what you can, or play something else. Amusingly, there may not be much else to play that you’d be interested in. I think the gaming market is at a stale point right now awaiting someone to innovate. I would imagine there is a lot of pent up demand for something different and/or better. I think that perhaps instead of waiting for the losers who work in this industry to come up with more interesting things it may be AI that shakes things up, whether more on its own or by giving outsiders more opportunities. We’ll see. Ironically the dimwits at Blizzard may have the first shot given they’re under Microsoft.
The delta is very small though. Casual but geared with 1 GA gamers in eternal probably can clear Pit 101 in say 3-4 minutes. More dedicated players can clear in maybe 2-2.5 minutes without holy bolt and 1-2 minutes with holy bolt. It’s really not a material difference in gap with the casual gamer that focuses on real life.
It’s more like players that don’t want D4 trying to make itself the only game they’re able to play and those that are willing to beat their head against a brick wall just to maybe make a small crack in it.
I think the reason a lot of players get upset is that the endgame systems are designed around that 1% or so that is willing to bash their heads in no matter what just for the smallest gain, but essentially leaves the rest staring at a point where their progression falls off a cliff simply because the endgame is designed in such a way. A way to alleviate some of this would be to allow upconversion of materials from the pit so that if your build doesn’t make it into Neathiron territory you aren’t suddenly stonewalled and that’s that. Basically, alternate means of progression via the gear systems put into season 4 is what players are seeking. Having a single avenue of progression that leaves the majority out in the cold just leads to frustration and burn out because once your progression stops, so does the fun in most cases.