“I think that ARPGs in general have started to lean into this: kill swaths of enemies all over the place extremely quickly,” "I just don’t find killing screen-fulls of things instantly and mowing stuff down and walking around the level and killing everything, very enticing. I just don’t feel like that is a cool experience. I find it kind of silly.”
“Your build is killing all sorts of stuff so you could get more drops, you can level up, so you can like, and the screen is littered with stuff you don’t care about.” “When you’re shortening that journey and making it kind of ridiculous. You’ve cheapened the entire experience, in my opinion.”
The market disagrees with David Brevik it would seem. If his style of game was still super popular, it would exist. This is an open market capitalist system. If there was really a deep desire by players all over the world to go back to Diablo 1 style gameplay, it would happen. David Brevik himself works for an indie studio. Why hasn’t he capitalized on it? Probably because the opinion he is sharing here is actually unpopular.
D4 and PoE are the way they are because of the players in combination with the studios. This is the style of game the market wants
I never claimed it sold well. David Brevik actively makes video games for his career. If there was a market gap, he would fill it. It just doesn’t exist at a level that warrants serious investment like Diablo or Path of Exile. My argument is that capitalism would fill this gap if it existed.
Also, D4 made over a billion dollars. It’s doing just fine
Really, did you read the article? Brevik doesn’t mention Diablo 1 other than stating the high monster count (for the time) was a direction many continued. He prefers the more drawn out gameplay of Diablo 2.
Today the younger generation buys what they are offered, they can’t decide because of the lack of offering of D2 style game play… So which is it? the majority don’t want it or only the minority know what it is and seek it out?
D3 was a commercial success. PoE1 was a commercial success. D4 was a commercial success. None of those follow a slow methodical pace. They have redefined the genre for almost 15 years now. You can not like that, but why are we acting like a D1/D2 type of game would be a huge success today. It simply wouldn’t. That’s why these games always pivot because that’s what people actually play.
Try product development some time professionally if you ever get the chance. You will learn quickly that what people say they want and what they actually want are 2 different things. This is one of those scenarios.
And to be clear because I know you will nitpick this to death, I’m not making a definitive argument here that claims I am 100% correct. I’m just pointing out that there have been no commercial successes for the type of game he is advocating for within the past ~15 years within the genre. He, the “creater of modern ARPGs”, has all of the tools to fill that gap and make a killing, but it hasn’t happened. He is an indie dev now for a reason. It’s a niche audience (and there is nothing wrong with that but let’s stop trying to trash current ARPGs as if the developers are dumb when they are making billions using a different formula for the past 15+ years across multiple companies - the audience for the type of game you want is much smaller than the audience for the current style of game)
I think the issue is more so people disagree with his opinion and therefore feel the need to attack him for it. There’s nothing wrong with his opinion about not liking the game Just as there’s nothing wrong with people who currently like the game.
I find myself to be in the middle. I don’t like everything about D4, but I do enjoy it. However I believe what he would prefer versus what we have now can exist simultaneously. Now he obviously won’t be the one to do it, but maybe some time in the future we’ll see something more along the lines of what he envisions.
Whether or not it’ll be successful is a whole other topic.
I used “Diablo 1” almost as a proxy for “slower pace”. I shouldn’t have referenced D1 specifically but that was what I was trying to convey. I did read the article and since he was the creator of D1, I just used it as an example but I can see how that’s not super clear.
Everyone chooses between the options in the market. My argument is the lack of option in the market is because the audience doesn’t exist at the level needed to support it. If it did, someone would fill that gap. Why hasn’t an indie dev done something in the past 15 years to dominate Blizzard and GGG if there is the desire to return to that type of gameplay? It’s because it’s way more niche than most old school fans want to admit. Again, so I’m not misinterpreted, I am not saying any of this as objective fact. It’s just my perspective.
Okay didn’t uderstand your post assos as d2 is a game where endgame is zoom zoom.
But brevik talked about a slower sense of progression which l fully agree. Poe and LE are good in that department it is just the news diablos that suck there.
Here are some others quotes from the article
« As gamers urge for rapid progression and instant satisfaction and fight hordes of mobs every second, Brevik believes that some substance has been lost. »
“I don’t find that as kind of personal and realistic as like Diablo 2. The pacing on Diablo 2, I think is great,” he explained. “That’s one of the reasons it’s endured. I just don’t find killing screen-fulls of things instantly and mowing stuff down and walking around the level and killing everything, very enticing. I just don’t feel like that is a cool experience. I find it kind of silly.”
I think a successful take on this could design openly for fast or slow gameplay so you can pace it however you want. If you want to zoom zoom there are optimal ways and locations to, but if you want slow methodical grinding and perhaps a bit targeted you can do that too. And maybe in some spots there are even chests that always have certain upgrade types per new game. Lots of ways to do this that many games have done, and perhaps new ideas not many have done yet.
This might also require the game to not be drm based, but maybe for periodic checks for updates or whatever. Give more options to players to make their content, run their own servers for whatever purpose, power over the way the world is generated, the settings of the game, and perhaps more as well.
Yes, this is capitalism 101. What aren’t you understanding? There is no law preventing anyone from making the type of game Brevik is asking for. If it was as popular as you think, it would exist because there is money to be made there (according to you).
And once again, because you are determined to misinterpret me, I’m not saying his personal preference is wrong. He can like whatever he wants to like. I’m saying the market doesn’t exist at the level you seem to think it does so that opinion isn’t that popular.
