I skipped season7 for no particular reason, but I gave Season8 a shot because I liked the idea of boss powers to play around with. The season has been live for exactly a week from the day I’m writing this and I feel like I’m already done. This being my main problem with D4…there is nothing to accomplish once you finish your build.
Everything that we do at ‘end-game’ we are also doing while leveling with very few exceptions. This leaves me with a feeling of nothing to do once I finished gearing my build for a season. While I admit I’ve been kinda lucky this season (3GA Azure wrath and already have a Ring of Starless for Shards sorc), what else is there to accomplish for this character? I’m not interested in farming bosses or the pit until I’m blue in the face. I found the class and build that I wanted to make this season and I finished it. I’m not interested in starting a new character or grinding 300 paragon just to say I did it.
I wish this game had some sort of meta game progression system that allowed me to advance my specific build after I hunt the items for it. Face rolling the pit with just higher health numbers isn’t it; especially with no leaderboards attached to them until sometime in 2026.
I do enjoy Diablo 4 for the little gameplay I get out of it, but for a player like me there isn’t enough content to keep me engaged for a single character. Sure…I know lots of other players like to make multiple characters after they feel like they’ve finished one, but that’s not me. Now I have to wait 3 months for another season just enjoy 1 week worth of content again. These seasons definitely don’t have enough content justify 3 month seasons.
I just wish I had something to grind for that only started once you reach max level or a certain paragon.
Ive seen this issue pop up a lot across arpgs no matter if its D4,LE or POE2 eg:Everything becomes redundant, nothing new etc. Im just curious, what game has what people refer to as good endgame?
This… 100 times this… people don’t want to hit “the end” but unless they plan to hunt for perfected gear or gear for alts to try different builds in a loot arpg, then they are playing the wrong game.
What did people do in d2? farm gear for a build to… farm more gear… so that they could… farm more gear/try different build/gear an alt.
Everyone seems to want MMO in arpgs. D2 is the champion of all arpgs and the end game was endlessly grinding Baal then going to pvp. I think the main difference is d2 skill tree allowed so many builds and synergy and d4 skill tree is pure trash. I had more fun trying random builds every weekend as a teen than anything.
In Diablo 2 making new characters was fun, though we also had different standards for games 25 years ago. They didn’t have that much content so you made do with what you had. I’m not sure it’s really possible to re-capture that aspect of D2 because it wouldn’t be as fulfilling now as it was then.
Trade accessibility is another thing that could extend the life of ARPG seasons. People who trade finish their gearing goals faster, yet I expect they actually play the game longer than people who don’t trade because they have something to do after they gear a character. You can continue to sell items and quickly gear an alt to try any build without having to do the grind for that alt/build. Most people aren’t willing to enter the third party trade site cesspool though. In-game accessible trade would likely extend the duration of seasons for many players despite being able to gear faster.
The D3 team had a lot to say about the importance of the “reward loop” when they killed the D3 AH, but trade itself creates a different kind of reward loop that likely has more longevity than RNG fishing for yourself and then having nothing to do once you’ve finished the season journey or whatever content you cared about.
More PvP side-game content could also keep some players around longer but I think it would require some instanced queued battleground style PvP content and some kind of balance system that eliminated or lowered the gear power gap in PvP.
Itemization needs improvement. 3 GA/4 GA items should have special manual ranges, the same could happen with the unique ones. For example, Penance Strikes 10 to 25% with 1 GA, with 2 GA 10 to 30%, 3 GA 15 to 35% and with 4 GA 20 to 40%. Just this small change would give more value to 3 GA and 4 GA items.
The rarer items should almost always be an improvement. We have a lot of access to 1 GA items, so we almost always get the near-maximum roll in the temper, but 2 GA or 3 GA items will be very rare and have a high risk of crashing, so if the second temper roll is the lowest, it will not be an improvement.
I believe that the items should go beyond 800 power and 12 MW. Maybe a mechanic, of joining a gem and a spark, we could go up one more level and gain a little power with a chance of the item becoming intact forever. So we could have items 801…802 IP or 13 MW. We need these elements.
I would like the content to be more fun, which of course is super subjective (and going to run out eventually, no matter what.)
But for me, games like this, the fun is in progression. It just ends so quickly. I hop into T1/2, get a round of Ancestrals, nothing better ever drops.
I’m not saying I want that first round pushed out just because - but a smoother progression that felt longer term rather than just feeling like it doesn’t exist at all would be nice.
There’s games that are more flexible and less repetitive in the content they provide within the genre. Between its core game and DLC, Borderlands 3 is huge. I typically rush to level cap fighting a specific boss (Graveward) after clearing base campaign and unlocking level scaling, then I have four sizable DLCs to do at max level, gaining (that game’s equivalent of paragon levels) while receiving good items on a regular basis, raising my endgame difficulty tier as I can while keeping the same campaign progress and continuing to get upgrades for my items.
Weapons are easy to find, the chase is in super-specific mods and artifacts.
It’s rewarding every step of the way, and while there are some minor stuff like “raids” and “raid” bosses and multi-round arenas, none of it is actually necessary because the campaigns provide more than enough varied content. I don’t need to repeat any of that ad infinitum to progress through difficulties and gearing.
While not post-campaign the way I do it, it is endgame in that all endgame mechanics are in play the whole time.
In LE you can customize your endgame. Everything ties together. You can decide what type of map you want to run, what types of enemies, encounters, loot etc. drops in that map. The crafting options give you a lot to chase in the endgame.
All these systems are customized through various progression systems. It’s infinitely more engaging than anything in d4 currently.
I haven’t played PoE but I understand it has that too.
That’s the difference with regards to endgame. But it’s true for other aspects like skill trees, loot quality etc. too.
I enjoy D3’s Bounty & Adventure mode. It’s stupid fun demon blasting that doesn’t “feel” like a repetitive grind, even when you’ve done the same dungeons & bosses multiple times.
Seasonal Whispers, Helltides, etc., are fun – at first – but quickly become grindy, not because you’re doing the same things repeatedly, but because building the faction for higher level rewards is extremely grindy, at least IMO. I get that other people don’t see it like I do, & I also get that boss farming gets you reputation faster than incursions & what not.
I haven’t grouped up yet in Star Wars: The Old Republic, but I look forward to getting to the level cap, joining a guild, & doing raids. Meanwhile, the storyline quest for my class is a lot of fun, never feels grindy, & quite often makes me “feel” like a Sith Lord. I feel well compensated, instead of drowning in loot, & I even feel occasionally like buying some silly cosmetics from their MTX store. I realize I’m comparing an MMO to an ARPG, not a fair comparison, but I just wanted to highlight a significant difference, here. I mean, if Blizzard wants to make a quasi-MMO, maybe Blizzard should consider going a bit harder on the MMO-style rewards.
For example, we get scads of gear, but we have to pay for cosmetics. I’d much rather get the reverse – enough gear to get me through the content, but quite a few items that are solely cosmetic. But I guess then they couldn’t charge us $28 for a “skin.” Oddly, SW:TOR gives out quite a bit of cosmetic-only gear as mob drops, & still manages to sell “skins.” Go figure.
Sorry. Lotta words. I was bored, but thanx for asking a good question.
It’s cool that you mention these kind things like mapping etc. Fun fact, the original form of mapping came from the first Torchlight 1/2 was created by most of the team from Diablo 2 after they left. And then of course other games took that notion and refined it. No real point to this but, its fun to think of an alternate world where the original creators of D1/2 didnt leave and mapping was introduced in Diablo 3 instead of Torchlight. Would have been interesting to see.
feel you there. I dont neccessarily agree with every point of your post, but with the sentiment. So far s8 is still a win for me, especially compared to s7, but i also wish there was more to grind for in many ways.
As of now im back with my 6/10 rating for d4. Got my first character pretty much optimized, might start an alt today, so itll end up being 2-3 weeks of a solid time i spend.
Compared to the 5 days it needed to be absolutely through with s7, thats at least a step into the right direction for me.
Sadly the epitome of all games, there must always be a Lich… wait. wait… wrong franchise… END! ahem End… yea that’s what I meant. As humans we crave to consume and over the years it has become harder and harder for companies to accommodate( yes companies can be lazy and predatory).
The sad truth is, that no matter how big and vast a company makes a game, there will always be an end. And in that end, a forum of players to complain about it. ( not point at you all I mean like in general )
Lmao. That honestly is probably the reason tbh. I’m hoping they are able to introduce some more meaningful content in seasons, but it sounds like they’re going to hold back the bigger changes for the next expansion.
It’s come up a few times here but doesn’t seem to get a lot of traction.
It could partly be because a fair portion of readers actively engaged in the forum here haven’t engaged that actively with that part of the other two titles, if playing them at all.
So with that, there isn’t a great understanding of the difference it would make for their d4 experience. Leaving readers without a position on it one way or the other.
I’ve often thought the game would be better off if it did take longer to level. And so Blizzard delayed the “I don’t have anything to do” point by making it take longer to get there.
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