Let’s rephrase this one a bit better cause it’s closer to what actually happens in the game:
Step 1 - Place a bet (pay a currency of some sort)
Step 2 - Do a round of cardio (5-10 min. of something that resembles a gameplay)
Step 3 - Pull the RNG lever
Step 4 - if a 0.0005% chance to drop what you’re looking for didn’t happen go to Step 1
I mean it’s exploding of fun doing that cycle 50 times every now and then, awesome gameplay design right there 
I mean…. This is why people play these games, people play d2 for that rare chance at a ber rune, Poe for that mirror drop, etc
Wish there was a way to highlight this. A bit long but worth reading.
Unironically my favorite arpg fun and forum dweller has a post right below that says: loot hunting is all that arpgs are about. Take it or leave it.
That guy is becoming my N1 reason to leave the game.
TL;DR separating the loot grind from the “fun activity” is definitely not the answer (for the bulk of playtime).
“Based around” is doing a lot of work, that’s the problem here. It’s not a coherent argument until you break down what “based around” means.
For example, if you “base” the game “around” one of the activities you listed offhandedly, you’d come to the logical conclusion that an incentive for doing those activities must include a reward of some kind. Titles & leaderboard placement quickly become repetitive (sound familiar?) or unattainable for 99% and therefore incentive-free. So the reward inevitably becomes… oh, say… items, cosmetics, materials, reputation, experience of some kind. 3 out of 5 of those = “loot”.
So the lesson is, imo: loot grind is just a facet of such games, and the goal should be to make the loot grind (or rep grind/ xp grind/ mat grind) fun.
As long as they 1) include interesting “loot”, 2) make it “drop” from fun activities, and 3) test the heck out of it for thousands of collective hours before daring to release it… then they’re onto something.
By extension: If the loot grind isn’t fun, check #1-3 above.
A teeny tiny example from personal experience…
I’m 99% pve & only occasionally pvp. An optional season objective in D4 was to grind those pvp mats. I remembered how fun (relatively) the pvp zone mobs were in beta, including the roaming elite, so that incentivized me to go do it - but my initial incentive was the season journey & the stuff you get from it.
Getting there, I realized how quick & easy it is to grind 10k of that stuff, while interacting with an environment that was ‘different’. I then looked at the pvp vendor & saw some horse armors. Looked one up & it was pretty handsome…
So I ground (grinded?) more of that stuff, and now I had probably my favorite horse armor up to that point, and this was very near the end of the season.
(I remember similar pvp incentives in WoW. That black war ram though… 
)
The fish needs both the excitement of “catching” that dangling bait and the calories from it.
What in this list does not need to interact with items and how different are these from current rare mods in monsters???
I mean you really believe any of these would even appear on the screen when you are hitting trillions???
Edit: I am not stuck in increasing hp, but apparently you are stuck in the idea that you can blind your eyes for itemisation or have it as it is now and stack gameplay mechanics praying it will work. As I said, most of your list is already present in the game in some form, but the current itemisation and balance creates a gameplay that eventually nothing of this matters…
I don’t understand how people can get so out of touch with the concept of game genres that they make a thread like this. This isn’t the first example I’ve seen either. Like where have you gone wrong to make this happen? One of the names for the genre is even “looter,” hence why the FPS variant is typically called a “looter shooter.” The two key components are RPG mechanics and random loot, the core of the “endgame” is always grinding for perfect loot, that’s what makes the genre what it is. Many of these games in a more basic form have no special endgame, you just finish the “last boss” then continue to run around the world killing stuff looking for gear upgrades, for no other reason than to find gear upgrades. If that sounds “repetitive and mundane” to you, you are playing the wrong genre.
No…only the wrong loot system is not as fun.
Like in D3 & D4 f.e. where you have your full build after few hours in a new season and facroll all content the rest of the time without the need to find better stuff to play 99% of the game (the 1% are higher Pits).
In good ARPGs you strave for the 1 build defining staff that didn’t drop for 1 week…Or for the 1 white base to finaly craft the desired runeword after 4 weeks farming…Or for the well rolled rare item that can be crafted in a super endgame item with a very high chance to brick it.
And the feeling if you drop such items…Priceless.
Items are only interesting if they are rly impactful but rly rare and deserve the wording “Legendary”, in combination with a challanging environment that requires to develop your character further even after weeks of playtime.
But your statement is true in games like D4, where you practicaly get all your stuff within a short time and only hunt for exact the same stuff, only with GA stats on them but without any “higher goal”. 
You would think different if you have not got anything you grinded for since release.
I understand that if you grind every season for nothing then you hate rng.
But ppl who grind and get what they want just say everything is fine. And just mention the excuse rng is rng.
Hate it.
1 - Who says you’d still be hitting trillions ?
2 - Use your imagination buddy
The game would “transform” from the “bet - cardio - RNG” cycle into something less repetitive and less predictable
Let’s say that one in 200 mobs or whatever the rate has some kind of an immunity (a single Knight that is immune to Overpower, or a Succubus that denies Lucky hits), and then one of those 200 mobs has some additional bonus from another mob nearby - you’ll have a rare encounter that is designed to be tricky
Sure - you may opt out to not fight that fight specifically, BUT - you also risk not getting a loot designed specifically for empowering your own build
When that happens - the game will also contain some
That also can allow opportunities for some memorable loot (especially with loot tables reorganized - for example that Nangari Oracle with high regen rate and Armored-up dropping a “Thorns applied on DoT” piece)
When you design the game in a way to have less frequent but still tricky fights in nature and they affect a specific person/build differently - the game may also:
1 - be memorable for a change
2 - impact different people differently
Right now ? - you have nothing (literally), all there is is just 2 numbers chasing one another (stacking to infinity)
No TY, I don’t need PvP trash on my pve game
Any and all ARPGs or RPGs even, are based entirely around progression. Whether that be progression of character, progression through loot, or progression of a story. The moment progression stops, the moment the game ends.
Adding anything else is a gimmick that won’t hold player attention. While progression should not be infinite (there should be an end), there needs to be multiple pathways. It is very limited in Diablo 4. Paragon is a cheap representation of the AA system from Everquest 25 years ago, just with a different UI…
Well, I think what you are saying is not wrong, but it looks like you can’t see it is very close to what I am saying. You are just looking at it from a perspective that is limiting the full sight of the proposal (or any basically) in these kind of games.
I won’t proceed with this discussion anymore. You have the right to have your opinion, I will keep mine in this one.
You have to imagine continuously incorporating open-world elements, raids, team dungeons, 3D modeling, and MMO features, yet the gatekeepers still spread rumors that D4 is an ARPG. Changing the UI/UX is just re-skinning it as D3 2.0. Since D3-ROS, it’s no longer a loot-based game; it’s merely a map and materials grinding game, and leek players love it!
This isn’t to say that MMOARPGs are bad, but Team 3 has maliciously shrunk the interesting and high-quality content that should be in an MMOARPG down to an ARPG scale, while continuing to spread rumors that this is an ARPG to deflect blame for the overall lack of content and boredom, comforting themselves that the game they designed is already a high standard within the ARPG genre!
Let’s just say you caught me up in a bad attempt to talk to you about a “promised land” and I failed, as predicted 
I have yet to see a Tyreal’s might in S2 after 1000s of hour.
I dont always get what I want but I also dont play trade. Right now its easier to play trade to get 3ga items.
Its not an excuse tho. RNG is the core element of arpgs. They are essentially slot machine casino games.
I disagree, the more appropriate description would be Poker
Yes you get “dealt” cards by a RNG but your “hand strength” is not a slot machine randomized outcome, it’s a rank designed by previously-defined system of values, and that rank based on some synergies or anti-synergies can be bigger or smaller than the sum of it’s parts as well
You can say that the Poker is indeed some RNG in it’s nature and the cards you get dealt by the dealer is RNG, but that does NOT mean that the entire experience of playing Poker is
Please stop with the spread of stupid ideas and dumbing down of the entire game based on statements that are (at best) only partially correct
Diablo has always been a slot machine. Thats all rng is.
Perhaps understand what RNG is?
false statement
Perhaps understand that there’s an entire tier ABOVE the RNG that decides whether the game is good or not and ultimately it is not the RNG that decides the outcome
You can argue that D&D is RNG - but ultimately it is not the RNG of each roll individually that decides the outcome of the game, the outcome ultimately depends whether the player has good or dumb decision making themselves
Same with every other game for that matter that uses any RNG mechanism to decide an outcome of a single run but that does not make the whole game a RNG by itself
So please stop being so ignorant and excuse bad design and development
Where have you been? Right now it is pushing higher and higher Pit levels.