That’s called marketing. Graphics don’t make a game, it’s one component of a game. Gameplay will always beat out graphics. This is why games like Grim Dawn, PoE and Halls of Torment are seeing a spike right now and why D4 is seeing a large drop-off. You can say “It’s not happening” all you want, but it’s evident from population in towns in-game right now. It’s evident during helltides and legion events. World bosses even. And yet, sales are going up in those other games.
Charms were just one of the many end game chase items. And they already have the technology to have multiple inventory tabs (we have Equipment, Aspects, Consumables, Quest) there’s no reason they couldn’t expand it to 5 and have a charm inventory.
I know you weren’t replying to me in your comment, but what I said above about taking meaningful systems and iterating on them is what they should be doing, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel and coming up short.
D2 is vastly better than d4. It’s not even close, at least at this point.
D4 sadly has it’s core from D3 and that is the real issue. I believe that it is possible that it’ll become better than D3 with time, but it is not at this point. It looks better. The world is better as well. The real problem is that it lacks a legitimate endgame. Something that both D2 and D3 had. There is no real incentive to really do high dungeons and even Lillith. They don’t give you anything that a lvl 30 dungeon does not.
Diablo, starting even from D1, was always a grind for gear and a pleasant grind at that. The itemization in D4 is absolute trash.
It has a cheap artificial difficulty affix that will basically kill you in anything past high 50s dungeons, and not give you a chance at all. This tells me that the devs don’t seriously play their own game. If they did, this would not be in it.
There are other annoyances but frankly, the 1st one to me makes the game just something to play for a few weeks and that’s pretty much it.
I do have hope for the future of this game, but I’m not keeping my fingers crossed. Blizzard today is not the company it was 20 years ago, or even 10.
I’m not really sure what you are trying to bait me into. But what are you like expecting to have all the top tier gear in a 2hour session on a single weekend?
The thing is, it is clear to me that D2 is being romanticized due to people’s broken expectations (some of mine have been broken too), to the point that all flaws get forgiven and forgotten.
I will just remind you (you in general) of how horrible and inconvenient it was to respec your character was, the stash space, gold lost when you died, or dying and finding yourself naked (just to fight the monsters that killed you when you were fully geared), the lack of a proper valuable currency (gold quickly became useless). What about that stamina bar? Items occupying grid spaces? Scrolls to be able to teleport.
Combining gems process?
Diablo 2 had worse mobs and models even by the time it was released, to be fair.
Just on QOL features, D4 is already ahead of D2 by a long shot (as it should be, mind you).
hmm if there was a lack of a proper currency, what did it matter if you dropped it when you died?
Going to go get your body is something I actually miss, and thought that, that player engagement was an interesting mechanic. I actually miss the moments that part of the gameplay would bring. There was a reason why portals were scrolls. That was your way out of moments that kept you from dropping that gold. You were supposed to be preemptive with them. It was also a shortcut to get your body back. Also you had to do some interesting things to get those mobs away from your body, unless you went all Leeroy into everything.
Now the stamina bar, well running negated all defenses (brought them to zero). So technically you should be walking while fighting. Stamina pots also stacked so you could pop a bunch and do you long jog, stamina is only really kind of a prob at very low levels.
Running to your dead body (which is almost the same with D4 with its restarting point so far from where you died), having to use a scroll for tp and having a stamina are all actually very very annoying…
The D2 cult really isn’t dealing with reality, they are dealing with how they think D2 made them feel when they were 13. (of course they always claim to still play it).
Sets just aren’t a good thing. I know people like collecting them and such but by design they’re bad for pretty much any game. They pigeon hole build diversity I feel like D3 would made this painfully obvious.
Still games use them to control balance of their games. I remember very early WoW you could do some fun silly stuff like the Arcane all robe Hunter dropping Arcane Arrow bombs. NeverWinter Online pretty much ruined their PvP scene with PvP sets. Only good quality about the game.
The recent topics of BG3 brings up Larian’s last update to DOS2 which added set items that hurt the game. Though Larian didn’t even do that. They didn’t do most their updates. It was outsourced. Larian was against set gear.
It’s not a question of better gear. Great gear by D4 standards is laughably easy to get. I have excellent gear. The problem is that the standards of what is good gear or gear in general in D4 are garbage. Basically, a bunch of rares with an aspect attached and becoming legendary because of that? All the gear slots basically look and feel almost the same. One’s slightly better than another. So what? Where is the fun in that? Uniques either being total trash for late game or being unobtainable and even if lightning strikes and you get one, it’s just one item. The rest are not really that special.
No sets to make different builds.
No runewards, so even if you already have great gear, you still want to find that high rune and that makes the game more exciting.
No easy trading like in D2. Basically, no communication between players.
No real incentive to keep running dungeons.
My gear’s been set since mid 90s. I’ve found a few pieces that would be small upgrades, but so what?
Endgame in this game has no real purpose.
I’m not yet giving up on this game and will play season 1. However, if it is basically the same game, I see no reason to continue afterwards.
Items occupying grid spaces? Scrolls to be able to teleport.