This is what happens when you listen to speedrunners and design a game around speedrunning with a timer in D3. The entire game just becomes zooming to beat a timer and a boss.
If you think about it from a selling MTX point of view it makes little to no sense to design the game to be blasted through super fast. The faster they’re in and out the less likelihood of players sticking around and seeing anything in the mtx shop, the bonus events, or any other advertisements. Only the more die hards will still be playing while the casuals you attract will be long gone and on to the next game in under a week. They’ll just copy a build, maybe buy some gear from trading, and zoom through to the highest pit they can reach until they get bored and leave.
I do also agree with Brevik that it being slower and about the loot mattering while you fight monsters is important, but the current Blizzard has no idea how to make that work. Hell even GGG is having a hard time making that exciting funny enough. D3 when it started had fairly tough monsters and even elites that would reset and I think enrage but the loot was garbage, death even had a hell of a timer if you kept dying.
There’s a sweet spot to hit in relation to monster design and difficulty, density, and finding loot that feels good to get and makes slaying monsters even more satisfying (thus smoothing out your killing speed and feeling more powerful). There’s also a sweet spot in the talent/paragon progression system in relation to how this plays into the loot as you progress in a game like an arpg. If you hit it right people will keep coming back naturally cause it feels very good.
You should be able to farm out an insane build eventually in this subgenre, but the monsters should still feel like they matter (You had this kinda right on the old Tormented Duriel and Andariel imo in regards to design on WT4). Skill should still come into play and also no cheap gimmicks like blue flame orbs under your feet on Lilith…yikes.
D4 released with every possible monetization practice. Multiple battle passes, box price, expansions, cash shop, it had it all from day 1. Do marketing people go to the developers and demand game pacing to be changed for profitability reasons? I think there’s next to 0 chance for this to be the case.
It did for many people but in the end of the day I can only speak for myself.
Idk what “competent people in analysis” find fun or not but imo the game was much better on launch compared to now.
I find the whole “game changed due to marketing” and “according to metrics” and this and that when in fact none of us have any tangible clue on what’s happening, quite hypocritical. Just say what you prefer and leave the jargon at the door please.
Just because you have it doesn’t mean you’re achieving it.
And yes I think daily, weekly meeting do happen that include accounting and marketing. Marketing does have a hand on the pulse to what they can sell and what tends to be the latest trends.
Be all nostalgic if we like but without players….
Same here but at this point it’s probably percentages of players groups. Anyways it seems their outcome was probably correct.
If you don’t like it, don’t respond. I won’t change to suit you. So stop being an idiot
Yep. Spot on. S7 was the worst yet (for me and my arpg needs). I’m at a point now where I don’t even check up on news about the game, I don’t care about the forums anymore (I still check in every now and then, but I only check one post and then leave again). Yep, the game went to sheit and I have moved on, I just don’t realize it fully yet.
I agree, there’s a lack of role in recent ARPGs. At least in D1 and D2, you had the role of defeating hell and kicking Diablo’s butt. Though starting with D3, you had childish, rainbow-colored short acts. Your role was to defeat a female Diablo that talked too much and could be beaten in less than five minutes (acts included), which wasn’t that great. Not to mention fighting a spider-woman in a suit. In D4, I don’t know, it’s just an open world with events. You don’t have any other purpose than to farm. Okay, there’s a season “story”, but who cares? Who doesn’t press the “esc” key…
They released years ago; and both did fail.
Hellgate: London
Marvel Heroes
Dave Dohrmann (Gazillion/Marvel Heroes CEO after Brevik left) lost his Marvel license because he was shady, sleezy, and had the inappropriateness such that Disney couldn’t be associated with him.
As for Brevik himself, he’s now founded Greybeard Games. The main website 404’s to unavailable, and his self description of the company says it all - “Graybeard Games is a one-man game company founded by industry veteran David Brevik. Located in San Francisco, California, we are committed to making fun, high-quality, unique products…”.
One-man company
“We”
The only title produced (It Lurks Below) was abandoned, with most citing it as unfinished and unpolished. Only 44k copies sold.
There’s many way to add more “role” play in an arpg, for example, having a reputation system that change depending our choices, yep having choice is probably the best thing to add more roleplay. In Diablo, it could be choice to help or kill, mostly
Thank You. This is an accurate description of where the man is at today. Why anyone would take his opinion as anything or than that “his opinion” is beyond me
Is Brevik involved with the new “original d1 and d2 developers formed studio” ? Moon something?
Asking sincerely, I don’t feel like looking it up.
Also his opinion on this is pretty much “forum goer” until he re-establishes himself with some current product.
Not saying he is wrong or I don’t agree.
I think he has opinions. And I also think his insight into D2 framed in the contemporary time period in which it released is also relevant.
But is it applicable to today’s environment? I personally don’t think so, otherwise he’d have future successes after Diablo 2.
I just don’t see nor do I subscribe to the hero worship here. D2 was literally lightning in a bottle; it hasn’t been nor can it be replicated today without change.
He is relevant enough that media interviews him. Being the creator of the franchise, his opinion holds on its own either you like it or not. It is what it is.
The fact that many of us Diablo fans can resonate with his opinion, also speaks volumes. You just got to hold it I suppose.
If they re-designed D2 to get rid of the idiotic stamina bar & the need to collect Town Portal & Identify scrolls & potions, without charms taking up inventory slots, without the “need” for the Cube to extend your inventory, I might go back to re-playing it. But I’m not sorry to say that keeping that nonsense in the UI makes that game an ancient, decrepit relic that isn’t worth playing any more.
Stamina bar
Potions taking inventory space
Scrolls
Inventory Tetris
Endgame was spammy and boring
Even though these are still very subjective that list pales in comparison with what D4 did bad. To the point I don’t even want to bother writing it down; just casually check the forums I guess.
