Season 2, and especially Season 5, were truly awesome. The drop rates for Ancestral items, mythics, and uniques were fantastic. The game was enjoyable, and our clan members were genuinely excited to log in and play every day. When Season 5 ended, we thought, “Wow, what a great season. How is the expansion going to top this off?”
Boy oh boy, what a letdown VoH was. Let’s address the first elephant in the room: The Pit. Funneling all players into the pit to level glyphs? This burnt out players, and the player base took a hit… Half of mates don’t even play D4 anymore after Season 6. Then, there’s Nahatu—constantly red and the never ending bugged Undercity, the Spiritborn being overpowered beyond reason and then being overly nerfed beyond reason, one extreme to the other. The tier levels before VoH were great, but now we have the new 750 junk loot that drops all over the map in T4 and the constant crashing of the game. No loot filters. The storytelling has also taken a hit, with Neyrelle crying endlessly in the VoH expansion.
Season 7 brought a few fixes, including the incorporation of the armory, some old and new witch powers, but they also over-nerfed three classes and decided to focus on only three classes this season. This brings us back to the biggest issue: class balance and The Pit. Realistically, for casual players, Pit 100 is not achievable unless you use a meta build or play the most overpowered class of the season. This wasn’t the case with levelling up glyphs in Nightmare dungeons. The headhunts are fun but felt like a cookie-cutter repeat of previous seasons. But give credit where it’s due, they took something that worked before and optimized it. So that’s a good start.
I believe this game needs a complete overhaul, and the Blizzard teams needs to focus on some basic principles in design and development: testing, testing, testing… Optimizing the hell out of what works, and removing what doesn’t. The class imbalance and the divide of opinions on the forums stem from a lack of proper testing and optimizsation. Many of us have been playing Diablo since D2 or D1 and have always respected Blizzard, but the quality and direction this game is going in doesn’t look promising or exciting. It’s a two-fold issue: players either become overpowered and get bored too quickly, or they underperform, burn out from the difficulty, and quit the game.
While others may not agree with my perspective, this is merely my observation, perception, and opinion. What I’ve noticed is that the team at Blizzard doesn’t do a good job of listening to their audience. I cringed when I watched the Season of Witchcraft trailer and heard Blizzard employees talking about a cute poisonous frog and firebats, and another employee mentioning how he’s going to be playing a druid. This was cringeworthy because, as my college professor emphasized during my interaction design studies, assuming that your player base thinks like you and sharing your opinions as a designer or marketing professional is one of the rookiest mistakes a game designer can make. You are not your target audience; listen to what your players are saying and tune into what they’d like.
The game still has potential. But there is allot of work that needs to be done.
For starters, I’d like Blizzard to address the biggest issue: leveling up glyphs. Make it more accessible to all classes, just like you made obducite possible through various parts and activities in the game. Don’t restrict it to The Pit only; leave it there for those who enjoy hardcore play, but consider that not everyone has meta godly gear and enjoys The Pit. Add some variety to the game. Also stop over nerfing classes.
