tldr: Lore, story and immersion is a competitive advantage Diablo 4 will always have. For casual players Blizzard should focus on better loot management and end game build diversity. If this is done I will have no reason to consider PoE.
Dear Community,
I have been a Blizzard fan/lover since 1994 when as a 14 year old I would play Warcraft with my siblings. (Got into RTS post the Dune (Frank Herbert’s epic lore) game. Diablo was my first ARPG love. The lore struck my soul, I remember feeling actual fear as I first descended Tristram and having the skeletons come towards me and one of my eternally lasting gaming memories was figuring out you can kill the Butcher (as the Warrior - later to be revealed as Aidan) using a strategy of criss-crossing firewall scrolls because I figured out the intersections led to multiplicative damage which burnt the Butcher to a crisp.
I love immersion and character customization. I played WoW fanatically from 2005 till 2022. Eventually work responsibilities (i run a fintech in Pakistan) family etc meant that I could not stay up till 2am to raid with my European guild (spent most of my life in London). I like to live an alternate life through my gaming characters and my IRL responsibilities limit the time I can spend on gaming to max 10 hours/week (if I’m lucky). Diablo 4 was an exciting opportunity to switch.
I got a Barbarian to level 55 on launch, another Barbarian to level 80 season 1 (managed to finish season journey) and now have a lightning storm Druid level 100 and have nearly finished season journey. (need to finish Hunter acclaim to lvl 18 and purify more seeds).
I think I’ve spent about 150 euros on skins and also purchased Activision Blizzard Shares (which was a good trade after acquisition got approved). I think of myself as an above average “monetary value” customer.
I follow a few content creators and there is this constant chatter about PoE. This is creating angst for me as I am wondering whether I should change to PoE (for me it’s binary as I only have time for one game). The mixing spells feature in PoE 2 seems amazing.
Ultimately the character customization and lore and emotional attachment to Diablo will prevail but I would please like to see the following implemented (this will remove any seduction/ temptation from PoE):
- Better loot management
- Less annoying stash space management particularly when it comes to aspects
- More than one build that does not capped out at NM 100 + Uber Lilith + AoZ - seems like there is only PetNado/ Stomstrike viable for casual players. Would be cool if there ways to enhance well designed builds. I don’t want to use guides I want to improve my build as that matches the fantasy of my character.
- Would absolutely love spells to interact with each other. the whole tornado + fire becoming a fire tornado would be fantastic. Appreciate lots and lots of work to do on this but this would be insanely fun and kill any appeal of PoE 2.
- Some kind of memory portal where you can see the videos/ ingame footage of campaign. The campaign was beautiful and immersive as was the cinema footage. Shame that you only see it once when you do campaign. Want to rewatch the stuff with my character. Also if you are emotionally attached to a character please implement rebirth function
- Storing multiple builds like D3. Happy if there was a farmable material cost to this or a quest or indeed an end game function that allows this.
- Would be unbelievable if our mogs/ earned mogs from Diablo 3 achievements and collections somehow transfer over to Diablo 4.
The above is a wish list. Thank you for your time reading my story and your consideration to this post. and most importantly thank you for making an amazing game.