Yeah, I actually was typing a response myself lol.
Q: Below is in response as to why I don’t just ignore the hyperbole.
But I am interested in the conversations going on here. And I have partaken in several where they were being critical. I have made many critical statements myself. As well as impassioned ones that have been hidden or earned me a vacation.
I suppose if I did not enjoy the forums as much as I do, I would just leave it to become an echo chamber of hyperbole. But I do enjoy my time here. I enjoy reading other peoples thoughts, participating and also joking and (gasp) sometimes trolling. So I point things out. I don’t do it for an award or a title or a trophy (I can’t even earn the privilege to post videos lol). I do it because I want to have a decent conversation not deal with another rant. It seems as if the desire to want to talk is less appreciated than the ability to rant.
Ultimately, I am just me and nobody special. Just another forum goer expressing their opinion.
I attempted to post this and then noticed it would not let me so I saved it. But I am glad that Iggi brought this up.
I think it’s totally fair for him to say that. The only gripe I have is the maddening inconsistency from the D4 team.
On 1 hand they keep tooting the “power fantasy” philosophy is king in their view. Which, as far as I understand it means a broken, easy mode game is what they want. I clearly don’t agree with this but fine. I can accept it and move on.
BUT, at the same time they say they want players to feel challenged by choosing their difficulty and claim that’s why they reworked the entire difficulty system. They then proceed to change the drop rates from the absolute meme it was in previous seasons to something I’d consider manageable. Add to that the changes to aspect acquisition and you have a game that’s quite different to previous seasons.
What is this constant bait and switch? Do they actually want a meme game like previous seasons for players that find the “power fantasy” fun, or a game for most players? If they truly want the “power fantasy” crowd then most changes in S6 make 0 sense. If they want more gamers to like the game, then their choice in keeping the game broken and power creeping it also makes 0 sense.
I saw the gameplay for other classes, looked great in all honesty. I hope what I find to be fun is viable late game, but I wish that for any ARPG really. The bosses also looked good, reminded me of Lost Ark, where you had to pay attention to mechanics and couldn’t just blitz your way through, at least not initially anyway.
That being said though, will these bosses be present after the campaign? Will they have something akin to Tormented Bosses later on? Obviously I’m just asking questions not expecting answers at this point, things I keep in my head until I get more information.
I can agree with that to some extent. I currently like the combat of D4, I think it needs some tweaks, and definitely needs some balancing, but to me it feels good for the most part. I wish they would add the ‘hold a button down to spam an ability’ from controller to the keyboard/mouse people, maybe some day.
Obviously I have a whole laundry list of other things I want changed in D4, but I do like a good amount as well. Enough to keep me playing until I get bored of the season anyway.
Hmm that worries me a bit. It’s typically one of the deciding factors if people want to keep playing or not in PoE 1. It can be very overwhelming seeing it the first time.
Yea PoE 1 has this, not only do you need to find the skill-gem, you need to have the right colored socket in your gear to use it. Each color of the skill-gem was associated to its stat requirement rather than category of skill/passive. For example Red = Strength, Green = Dex, Blue = Int. However the categories could range from abilities, to summons, to passives, to auras, etc.
You also leveled up these skill gems along side yourself, and if you didn’t meet the requirements to level them up (such as not having enough str), they would just stay at whatever level you stopped at. Also made you pay more attention to the gear you wore as well, especially if it added stats.
I had many times where I forgot I was wearing a +20 int piece of armor for example, I upgraded to something else, and now all of a sudden I can’t use the skill I was using because I don’t meet the int requirements anymore. I can easily see this being very off putting for some people.
Your whole post just makes me want to poke your brain and ask you questions, obviously I know you can’t, but you got me even more curious lol.
Sounds pretty close to the same then. I think the difference maybe is you can assign weapons and stuff. Geeze now that Im thinking about it, they might have made it even more complicated that PoE1 lol. They have some tutorials in game how the stuff works. Maybe thats what they mean when they say more casual. I dunno but its definitely more complex than D4 and sounds the same as PoE1 so far. Wish I had played that to compare.
how are you guys are not tired with any constructive conversation about D4.
Absolutly pointless, how much more time do you think this game need to become good?
(spoiler: it will never become good.)
I think this is another example of them setting dangerous precedents as well.
Let’s say S7 is more in line with S5. To what end? By that point they would have reversed a decision and then re-reversed it, so why would have ANY faith that they won’t just do it again on a whim?
Much like itemization changes and how it affects eternal players especially - they’ve shown callous disregard in the all of the redos, the legacies, the “stat squish” that ended up with the expansion loot really just getting people back to the power level of where they were. At one point they said “this is how items will work now” and it wasn’t - and the gulf between 750 and 800 was almost far worse than it is now, to the point that builds as S4 and S5 defined them would essentially cease to exist without an insanely long grind for ancestrals.
While the gameplay still remains, to me, fun, it’s become a game so obviously without long term design goals, without any faith that once a good decision is made it will be maintained, that I am reticent to put significant time into it, let alone put further money towards it.
The biggest takeaway I have from POE2 development is they are learning about what worked and what didn’t from POE1 and using the new game to implement changes that they couldn’t in the previous title.
In contrast, D4 often times feels like someone got the Diablo lore and tried to make a new game from scratch. D4 has struggled to both define itself and implement and improve upon systems from its previous titles.
You can really see this watching the respective dev interviews. One set passionately talks about and plays their game. The other looks like they’re only there so they don’t get fined by the NFL.
S1 was a barber heart disaster but it least had a season feel even if busted OP.
S2 with the blood thing was great. IT felt like an actual season. It too though had super op powers like metamorphosis.
S3 with the pet I was not a fan. Vaults were a disaster. Traps and design dint work. They nerfed them into the ground after a week.
S4 was just items reborn. This was a terrible season idea naming it this way. This does not make sense for a season.
S5 was infernal hordes. A nice addition but not enough for a season and did not affect player power.
S6 Just a rep board is not a good theme. The theme this season could be season of dupes or season of SB, or season of grind to 300.
S7. Lets get back to basics with an actual season theme. I like the ones where you gain power on your character. Im not a fan of the pet thing or merc thing or non player power things. By the power of Greyskull I want the power!
They need to get dupes solved. We cant have this happen every season. Figure it out with the billion $ you made. At least get it under control. IT was the worst of all time in S6.
In my view they have done poorly after S1 and S2 with season design and implementation.
IF season 7 is season of the armory or some other such nonsense then I might have to finally skip an entire season.
They won’t be able to tell where the gas will leak next if they turn it off. And if they shut the whole dev cycle down and just work on “fixes” it n a vacuum, they will release more unbalanced stuff.
The way to fix it is to keep working and keep holding PTRs so that the worst balance issues can be addressed without ruining the game at the start of each season.
If they stop adding content the game will just die, because almost no one wants to come back for a season that changes nothing.
They need to think big here or take some examples from POE because they had some insane seasons. The bare minimum should be Blood harvest and special items and such from season 2. That was the most success they had.
They won’t take the same risks that POE does with their leagues. It’s really hampering them, too, not only in regards to seasonal themes but endgame activities. It’s not that there aren’t different endgame activities to do, it’s that they all feel so similar.
Poe 2 will explain more of what’s going on is all. They won’t simplify it much complexity is what Poe fans want. The poe 2 skill tree is prob double the size of the original game.
It’s beta anyway,I’m not sure when it will release.
This is what concerns me. While I enjoy the complexity of PoE 1 I know the constellation style passive tree is what turns off a lot of people from the game. It’s overwhelming with so many choices to make and plan out well before you get into the game.
They also made it difficult to completely respec if you so choose (in PoE 1). You’re typically better off making a brand new character. Which I don’t personally agree with as I feel the most fun in ARPGs is being able to experiment with various things, not be punished for it. Especially if you’re brand new.
PoE from my perspective allows the player to pretty much home brew their way through the campaign, but then hard stops once you get into the endgame content. It’s obvious if you built incorrectly that you won’t be going too far. To make matters worse you can’t exactly tweak your build too much without a lot of work involved.
This doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy PoE, it’s a great game for what it does, but overtime I gradually found myself drifting away from it. I just hope the same doesn’t happen for PoE 2, for me personally.
Well beta is out in a few day,time will tell. If they can explain skill interactions well enough for you not to waste to much time making builds it will work well.
