I found this dev stream to be very disappointing to say the least.
The whole thing felt rushed, like they were trying to get away from it as fast as possible.
Most questions (that have been asked every dev stream) were met with the same “we’re aware, we’re discussing it, no news right now” answers that they give every singe time they have one of these streams.
Besides nerfing some crazy overpowered builds the details shared on Class and Build Balancing are underwhelming. Buffs to Charge? Several other things no one asked for?
They are so stuck on this idea of class/build balancing where “each class, some other build gets a chance to be top dog” they completely forget that real class and build balancing comes from creating distinct strengths AND weakness to each class/build you choose, making them all unique in their own way. THAT is balancing and IMO way more fun than “oh look our build is finally the broken one after a whole year”.
They could have fixed itemization by now, they’re just more concerned with cash grabs to fund development they should have done in the first place.
Most of the content is copy/paste. The “new” dungeons are copy/paste of existing dungeons, the new mech monsters are reskin copy/paste of existing monsters, using existing monster skills/attacks. The gauntlet is copy/paste dungeon with copy/paste monsters and bosses at high level. Copy/paste, copy/paste, copy/paste, copy/paste, copy/paste, copy/paste.
Everything is still focused around farming Duriel.
No major bugs talked about. Sure the patch notes aren’t out yet but there are bugs that have been present since pre-season that they still haven’t addressed.
QOL improvements are SUPER minor. Like almost irrelevantly minor.
Eh I’m kinda happy they buffed charge, but if Rupture is still broken - especially considering the Seneschal can inflict Bleed - then that’s just inexcusable.
Like seriously how has Rupture been broken since beta, what the hell.
Can you provide evidence for this, that itemization should be fixed? And where is your money grab proof, or are you just throwing stuff at the wall to see if something sticks?
They’re having to bring in outside individuals to get this fixed. I honestly doubt it is close to ready yet if they actually do a complete overhaul of the system which is what should be done right now. It doesn’t need to be “cleaned” or “tweaked” but torn down and built up.
Of the ones we saw:
Meteor, Golem (overall minion), “Bow” and Rabies are all things I have seen requested on class boards
I didn’t feel they were rushed, but spent too much time on the season mechanic not giving Adam much time on balance.
As for the answers they give to q/a, people need to ask better questions. The snapshotting was a good one. The pet build one no… They’ve talked about it before and if you understand what they’re saying, is that the work required is basically expansion level work.
Did you ever play Destiny 2? Because that’s the game they’ve patterned Diablo 4 balance off. All of this should seem very familiar to any former or current Destiny 2 player.
Here’s the nuts and bolts of it. If you go in to a new season as the developer, with a pre-made decision that one class is going to dominate this season, the entire conversation around balance suddenly becomes much, much easier, which you should read as costs less money.
If one class is going to dominate, then the only balancing needed is making sure the other classes don’t equal or exceed that one. The level of effort involved to do this is orders of magnitude less than actually balancing the classes.
What Bungie discovered is that not only does this lazy mode form of balancing work, it actually drives player engagement. Every new season the Bungie forums and Reddit are awash with players foaming at the mouth over this change or that, can’t think about anything other than Destiny for 3 weeks. You’d think the people who got the nerf bat upside the head would just quit, but they don’t, not in any real numbers. What finally put a dent in Destiny’s dominance was bad content, not lazy balancing.
I think it lacks inspiration and hence disappointing. I won’t be surprised if it’s rush because of the holiday season. There’s less manpower to work on things.
Yep, the Q&A felt like more a politician trying to give safe answers and open ended possibilities.
I think the problem lies with the lead class designer, Adam. It’s better if there’s a group that reviews these design decisions instead of having just one lead person dictate the design flow of the game.
In this stream and also back in S1 and S2, he keeps saying oh we don’t wanna change this because we are afraid of the consequences. Then suddenly switches to okay let’s give them what they want and pray it doesn’t get broken because we don’t know what’s gonna happen. The issue is he lacks the capability to foresee or at least get a good estimate of the outcomes of each decision he will make. So to counter that, he goes on the safe side by being too conservative and gets extreme when he gets cornered. At the end of the day he has no idea of the ramifications.