This is a valid point.
I understand the general sentiment on the forums is that D2 has been kept alive for so long and that D3 has the ladders as well as POE.
The issue isn’t the fact that ladders and seasonal releveling is being introduced, it’s the fact that they’ve nerfed content until it’s a slog, introduced backhanded methods despite having a successful trackrecord with the remnants of D3 by introducing a fun arcade farming simulator, and garnered the attention of new players all over the world who are in the midst of everything being destroyed.
It cannot be healthy for a game to have a new farming video for exp every other day.
Combine that with the fact that moderators and developers purposefully obfuscate their nerfs and there’s a series of loud mouthed echo-chambered man children who can’t accept the fact that chase items so rare that you’re likely to win a lottery in your life time before obtaining one is bad in a game where those things CANNOT be traded, and you get this garbage.
I have played D2 and 3 and have stood behind Blizzard for decades.
I’m not going to pretend that ladders are the only way and I’m not even in favor of removing them. But why can’t older players understand and see that the actions of Blizzard leading up to the preseason have caused this absolute mess of an opinion where now new players dread the idea of touching seasons?
And yes, I know there’s exceptions to that statement but my irl group of friends – small sample size – all more or less quit after the nerfs and revelation of leveling new characters. On the other hand, I run one of the largest XIV guild/RP discords and the brute of people there are back on XIV or playing 16.
If they had not nerfed the fun out of the game and continued to promote enjoyment regardless of their garbage vision, people may have been happier to try ladder.
Considering the fact that they’re monetizing season passes, this is a big L for Blizzard.
Stop blaming new players and casuals for garbage implementations. As if this game does any favors to respect your time in the slightest.
Edit:
And for those that want to make claims about respecting time – look at the systems. Stevie freaking Wonder can see how much they do not do this: They made legendaries untradable (which they could have kept the age old system of them being tradable at least in parties you’re in)), they’ve bloated the ever living heck out of aspects and you can’t remove imprints. God forbid you imprint incorrectly then you’re sacrificing the item. I have only ever had 4 Umbral rings. I’ve got 2 almost 3 level 100 characters – so don’t talk to me about obol farming because I’ve sunk more obols into the game than most people can divide by.
Furthermore, the inventory space forces you to do unnatural things such as create alts. The cost of respeccing and refarming aspects becomes a huge hindrance later on. The average person is not saving up hundureds of millions of gold. If you get a good item you’re at the whim of luck before hitting downright disgusting levels of reroll costs.
My BIS gloves on Barbarian, absolutely perfect in every way were TWENTY FREAKING MIL per reroll before I got +4 HOTA.
I speed farm NM 80 on my Rogue and Necro within 3-4 minutes and have maxed out every glyph to 21 on those two characters. My barb is heading to 100 and I’ll do the same there. Do you want better gear? Farm freaking Burrows. NM has dropped me dog crap. I’ve got NM 100 clear on Rogue AND on Necro.
I was in sale groups for Uber Lilith for three freaking days and got not a single piece of usable gear.
When your end-game doesn’t even respect your time with better drop rates, increase aspect % stats being favored higher. When the best way for you to farm gear is to literally go to Burrows/Demise – not even HELLTIDE. Helltide Mystery Chests are a garbage waste of time. Do the events, farm the obols, and get your EXP then open chests for rerolls/upgrades.
They don’t respect your time.
They want to drip feed you the QOL changes and get praise for listening to you.
Edit: Just take a freaking look at the Sanctuary discord, which is infested with EpicNPC/G2G/PlayerAuction RMTers. Look at all the people “buying” boosts instead of “playing” the game.
At some point they’re going to realize “this isn’t what I want to do.”
The moderators on Sanctuary discord can’t even be arsed to include a base level or two requirement for trading because the traction into the game from the Discord is a positive and they’re happy it’s “so successful.”
I tried to sell some items I found and the sheer amount of “I’ll cashapp you $” and so I reported with pics and guess what? The guy is still in the Discord.
This is the reality new players face.
