It has become very clear that D4 and WoW both suffer from a fear internally at the upper management level and C-suite of innovation in both gameplay systems and in change in general.
Speaking directly here to D4, I know and can tell you had more classes lined up for release. But we have had no new heroes at all.
Spiritborn is literally the Monk. Literally an exact copy/paste rebranded with some limited particle effects and some redone animations. But his skill sets and gameplay are quite literally the same in 90 percent of his kit.
Much as the Rogue was. And how the Barbarian was the D1 Warrior.
D4 also lacks any clear support path, and no healer hero, which is going to come back to bite you guys hard as your competition is going to be releasing their title soon and is learning from you releasing before them.
Your systems have been minorly updated to fix some QoL issues with the DLC, but there are some extreme problems with meta builds, and with lack of diversity in late game builds. Its a real problem guys. and you arent handling it well.
My only message in this, as a professional who does a lot of work with companies of Blizzards size is this, “A corporation that stops moving forward, drowns like a shark.” You need to stop listening to stakeholders and stock holders. You need to get back to your WoW Vanilla ambition and drive and fearlessness- and you need to start making real changes, putting in real innovation, investing in out side the box class creation, expand class skill trees at least double what they are now.
And you need to do it as soon as possible.
I have been gaming since the Sega Base System. I have been a part of Blizzards player base with contacts all over the entertainment and gaming industry for years now in one form or another…
You guys need to be good little corporate sharks, and start swimming again.
Your portfolio of games is drying up or going stale.
Your failures publically and projects canned internally FAR outreach your successful new titles.
And D4, which is a staple mark game for your company, is at risk of being damaged by lack of innovation in content, and forcing you to rely on WoW again to sustain. And your recent numbers show that WoW is continuously falling off more and more each expansion in faster attrition rates post release.
That means you will only become less and less likely to innovate and create new and unique and modern games- or make changes to existing games with quality and vast changes to systems- in the future. As you are locked to your revenue source. Which currently consists of limited gaming contributions to that overall profit margin according to your numbers this year and last year, and the year before.
Innovation in D4, is important.
D4’s team internally has always been known as your kind of RnD team, and your systems development experiment team. Use this game, innovate, expand it, and stop playing it safe. The player base here wants new and interesting- the repetition should be in the combat skill cycle, NOT in what is available to be used and selected in your game.
Innovate, Blizzard Devs…
Starting with giving all heroes the ability to use all body types.
Then expanding your skill trees to at least double to expand builds and more ultimates.
Maybe start giving us companion heroes we can travel and fight along side with good AI and travelling dialogue. Building NPC/traveller relationships along the way to RP the way through it. IDEAS… thats what these are, and should be literally experimented with to engage players beyond the mind numbing combat after 40 hours.
Then get into making the game less repetitive in its character structures and roles- by giving us classes that are outside the box, not seen before in Diablo franchise, and do things like heal like priests, or support directly. And thats just to start.
There are infinite ideas that were rolled around internally, of this im sure. And you went safe… which worked. But now safe is becoming stale. INNOVATE.
what else would you expect from Blizzard at this stage?
that’s exactly what the other 5 classes are. 4/5 are direct copy/pastes from D2, while the Rogue is a severely fun-sanitized version of the Demon Hunter. without any of the fun that went with it.
and this was supposed to be a NEW game btw…
Yes well it was very noticeable at the start. But I have a strong feeling for various reasons that during alpha there was considerably more classes involved in ideas for release that they simply didnt do.
And they are just sitting there as drawings and half done models on a computer somewhere now.
I would say probably, they could release two heroes a year easily and run for several years. That would be my estimate.
And thats what is so frustrating. Not just classes, cuz thats not the only issue here. There are systems and ideas from current AARPG and MMOs all over the industry they could be adapting ideas from and creating more depth. But they are literally terrified to make any modifications to the system- and its going to catch up to them negatively soon for this title.
D4 gave them a great opportunity to expand their game development portfolio, and expand and play with ideas in their franchises much more extreme. A lot of financial space. And instead, they are just listening to those stock portfolios and stakeholders on the yachts.
I know what its like, I work in a field and for companies where I deal with those guys on both sides. But its realistically not necessary. Its just laziness for lack of a better word. Blizzard has the ability to innovate in great ways.
Specifically D4, their dev team is considered to be a super elite team in Blizzard. In fact, some of the systems developed in the Diablo team side originally, were adapted by other games like WoW, from them.
So the team is supposed to be pushing cutting edge and creating new and unique ideas. And this game IS considered Next gen in its coding and graphics. So there is little to no excuse for playing it this safe, outside of straight up fear.
But as I said above, they have scrapped some extremely good projects internally over the past decade, that other companies released versions of that were from similar franchises- and made a billion on… and Blizzard constantly gets left standing there holding its junk- and going back to the safe mode to preserve the WoW and D4 income, cuz they are afraid to look at their stakeholders and say, “were making a move.”
And D4, to me as a professional- last night looking at the expansion… I saw it all there. The whole problem really clearly in the first scene and first hour of combat.
They need new managers and Upper and divisional managers, and some new fire in C-suite. They need some guys who want to make their games alive again. Not just existing.
what exactly led you to believe that?
as soon as they started naming classes, they showed skill trees that were pretty much identical to D2’s. and that was at least 2 years before release. and as time went on…that never changed.
D4 has had at least 4 different game directors from start of development to now, and none of them made any effort to make the classes more unique. or at least more interesting, to make you feel as if you’re not literally playing the same ancient trash from 20 years ago that you’ve already played for 5000 hours each.