I believe the biggest problem facing the developers for S8 is that they now find themselves in a no win situation. If they don’t make significant changes they alienate much of the player base, if they make changes, they alienate the rest of the player base. Whatever happens now, season 8 will be rough on many people - including the Devs I’m afraid.
13 Likes
Damned if they do damned if they don’t. No matter what they do some people will complain about it.
They just need to make a decision and run with it they will never be able to make everyone happy.
17 Likes
I don’t think the issue is as black and white as choosing one side over the other. The real problem lies in the game not catering to the middle ground—finding the right balance between challenge and fun. The current design feels like it forces players into one extreme or the other, when there should be a more nuanced approach.
For example, we can still have scarcity in resources and items, but the drop rates could be adjusted to feel more rewarding. It’s important to maintain the thrill of the hunt without feeling like it’s an endless grind with little payoff. Similarly, we can have more challenging leveling mechanics, but that shouldn’t come at the cost of making other aspects, like masterworking gear, feel unnecessarily difficult. Masterworking should be challenging but not so tedious that it becomes a frustrating bottleneck for players who want to progress.
Ultimately, the issue is one of balance. We can have strong, powerful skills that make us feel like we’re earning our power, but it shouldn’t feel like the only way to gain that power is by enduring extreme difficulty in every aspect of the game. There doesn’t have to be a choice between two extremes—challenging gameplay and a sense of accomplishment can exist together. What we need is a system that rewards effort without making every aspect of the game feel like a never-ending grind.
16 Likes
Masterworking and enchanting both have an associate cost in gold and mats and are basically when, not if mechanics. The one time I got a triple crit on the first try and the one time I hit +2 passive within 10 attempts do not make up for the time I spent 45 minutes trying to roll a passive or had to reset a level 12 MW three times in a row because the last crit was the same useless stat each time.
Both of these mechanics should allow picking exactly what is wanted with a cost commensurate with the average expected to reach it under the current system.
Then the time is spent gathering mats, ostensibly the “fun” part of the game, and not clicking a button over and over and over again.
This alone would make me far more likely to play more because they are two hurdles to me even wanting to find upgrades for my gear, knowing that I’ll have to do this another time per slot.
(Not that upgrades ever drop beyond the first 1 or 2GA, mind you.)
5 Likes
The solution is simple:
1] Admit a mistake in saying you want 10% of players in tier 4.
2] Add mind cages as an additional difficulty for those that want it with improved loot and xp.
3] Make new content in the game that is the aspirational content like revamped AoZ giving another way to level glyphs as well.
A big alternate solution is add torment 5 to the game but this does not offer more loot or xp. Instead it offers cosmetic items, achievements, titles, and so forth.
There are so many other solutions to this than potentially alienating 90% of the players if what they want happens.
10 Likes
It’s going to be interesting to see how the season rolls.
I’ve read a lot in the s8 commentary. There’ a range of views and a range of levels of paying attention to the info available and what others are having to say, including when it is and when it’s not matching their preconceptions.
One things for sure, we’ll see soon enough.
This. Take a direction and bare with the positive and negative consequences.
Game will be slower but still much easier than S0-S4…
1 Like
the way you put this assumes the devs still have a sense of shame and can feel dilemma.
i don’t think they do.
why?
they committed to squishing numbers but then bloated them to trillions, even higher than before in seasons 6, 7, and ptr 8.
then they just reuse old code: insert a gem, upgrade a mini skill board.
alternating these to create seasonal content. all you get is different slime colors, purple and green, swapping every season.
no worker feels any dilemma following this lifeless implementation.
3 Likes
I agree that would have the right way to present S8 from the beginning - and yes, those suggestions are obvious! But now, having backed themselves into a corner they have put themselves in a no win situation with S8
For 99.99% of developers, I’d very much agree. For Blizzard however since; 1. They are notoriously greedy and want every type of player under the sun and they’re not willing to compromise, evidently and 2. They have the cash and manpower to please everyone.
The answer is quite simple but expensive and labour intensive; Make 2 different modes or servers. Candy Crush Mode and ARPG Mode. Done. Keep your cake and eat it.
2 Likes
People have been complaining about something since day 1. And yet a lot of those complainers still play the game. To think that just doing something people don’t like will alienate the player base, means you have not been on the internet very long lol.
People will get used to changes, even if they resist them. At the end of the day, many of the players like what is at the core of Diablo’s game play.
When a company is as big as blizzard they have to deal with, and react to a lot. I am willing to bet all the praise Path of Exile 2 got for the slowed down combat and pace, led some of the higher ups to start asking them why isn’t our game like that. Even though it was at launch, and they changed it because of people complaining. And now they have been pushed to slow it down again.
They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. But because it is such a large and visible franchise, they have to keep swinging the pendulum to react to what people say or think they want. I think they need to stop doing that, and realize players are not game designers.
1 Like
None of this is rough on the devs as long as there are people who continue to buy cosmetics. 
As for players, if you can’t tell that you are not enjoying something…that is on you.
There is no ‘dilemma’. I think going into s8, if the boss powers were tuned accordingly so that they’re not the main build pretty much, should end up like they’re ‘extensions’ of your build. Still powerful, still something you build around, just not obscenely overpowered such that your class and skills mean little. S8 should feel good enough that the other changes aren’t quite so bad.
On the other hand, Eternal is just straight up nerfed. It’ll be harder to ‘live’ there next season. With the new scaling, every build gets knocked down such that you might not ever max your glyphs out. Before, you could play off meta and hit t4. You might not get very far in the Pit but you’re in the world tier at least. In s8, you might not make it out of t2 or 3.
Ultimately, the developers thought that these changes were the best course of action. I hope it works out, I’ll be along for the ride. Good or bad. I hope that the underperforming builds can be looked at so that they too can be played in this new meta.
5 Likes
That won’t be easy because the strength of each power varies greatly by class. They can’t just turn the dial down three notches and call it good.
Which part of this patch is the good part? It’s a very unpopular patch at the moment.
There is a way:
Leave everything as it is, and build new things on top.
It’s an unpopular idea, but only on the forums. The truth is that players either don’t care about new things or get excited about them.
2 Likes
Yep
Babycore - candy crush
Softcore - arpg mode
Hardcore - arpg mode with consequences
Babycore they can give mobs 1hp and give no neg armor or res effects between difficulty.
2 Likes
Best thing they can do is have a vision and stick to it.
Listening too much to all the randos on the forums will only lead to chaos.
5 Likes
They have a vision and they’ve been following it VERY closely since launch; It’s money.
They had a vision, but the casual base hated it and stopped playing. They panicked and rapidly changed their vision to something more palatable to the masses.
Now the vision is changing to something closer to the original vision, probably because they feel they have enough dedicated players to weather any downturns.
Or that’s my guess.
2 Likes
I hope they mantain the difficult and scaling of the PTR. It can be worse for the first playthroughs for some people but in the long run, having a more challenging game. will pay off. Even for those people, just persist a bit
1 Like