I guess some lessons were learned after all

PC General Discussion
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I wrote this 2 years ago during the beta:

11 years later zero lessons were learned
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d4/t/11-years-later-zero-lessons-were-learned/7259

I picked up the game recently, so I wanted to share few thoughts and impressions. I’ll mention what I liked, as well as where I believe the game could use more work.

A fair warning. Just, because I liked some things, that in no way means I am shilling for Blizzard. The things, that I like… well, I like them. The thing I dislike, I dislike. I just want to be honest.

Also, mind you, I have experienced the game in what is a relatively small window of time. I am largely unaware of what has transpired throughout the last couple of years. I am also unaware of what the community perceives as major problems.
I assembled an off-meta build (and I am well aware it’s not meta, wanted to see how far I’d get with what essentially is an extension of my leveling build), with which I am clearing T4 comfortably, although some bosses can be problematic.

Without further delay, here is what I thought of the game so far:

  1. I enjoyed going through the campaign. Mind you, I am not focusing that much on the story, but rather what I found to be a smooth, decent experience. Rather long for a Diablo game, it reminded me of the campaign in Lost Ark. Much better experience than the D3 campaign anyways.
  2. I enjoy this version of Paragon. I also particularly like the glyphs and the fact, that you don’t have to socket them into your gear (like the gems back in D3). I like, that there is a cap, which is achievable in what I find to be a reasonable time frame.
  3. I enjoy the various activities, such as farming bosses, infernal hordes, pits and so on. I find them to be an improvement to spamming GR in D3.
    Especially farming boss lairs and infernal hordes. They remind me of the good, old Baal runs.
    But what I like most of all is that the game feels somewhat structured. I can target what I want and I know where to go. I am making a choice, in other words I am playing, rather than watching tv where my actions don’t matter.
  4. I enjoy, that there is trading.
  5. I like the style and the graphics. I believe they suit Diablo very well.
  6. I also like, that the color and the contrast is back (as back in the beta the game looked borderline black and white at certain times, at others too dark, almost as if I am partially blind), as well as, that there are options to have your character highlighted at all times.
    I also like, that there are options such as, that you can make it, so that the monsters don’t constantly blink upon being hit or receiving a critical strike damage.
  7. I like the improved controls. Options for toggling channeled skills and so on.
  8. I like, that there’s monster density. The game doesn’t feel empty.

Now, here are couple of very much connected things that I dislike right at the top of my head:

  1. Lack of class balance and build diversity.
  2. Certain aspects of the itemization.

Although one can argue, that I am still rather noob when it comes to this particular game, it doesn’t take a veteran genius to notice, that there’s a disparity when it comes to the performance of many builds. That, from what I can tell, is clearly connected to the itemization and the affixes on certain unique items.

Let’s take the rogue as an example. You can get an item with up to 4 skill points to a particular skill or a group of skills, which can later be masterworked up to 8. I’d say this is more or less fine in theory.

Then again, you can see items, that can grant 300% increased damage to traps. When masterworked, it’s even more. Insane damage multipliers to ultimate skills, such as 400%+. Cooldown reductions, that allow people to spam ultimate abilities.

My first reaction would be to say this is crazy and needs to be looked at, because it reminds me an awful lot of the D3 set items with insane damage multipliers.
The devs should take the time to analyze why players are resorting to this type of play styles.

Mind you, that’s not to say, that such a play style should necessarily be nerfed to the ground and/or completely eradicated… but it should definitely be something the devs should look into.

They should also consider solutions. Few stupid ones at the top of my head (although I’m certain professional developers can think of something better). Either introduce more items with such multipliers for other groups of skills, or allow such affixes to be changed (rerolled) at the mystic/occultist to other groups… even at a somewhat reduced value… so that people can have more options to play a decent, viable build, without having to resort to playing the same build.

As to the players, feel free to tell me what I am missing and what are Your experiences with the game.

8 Likes
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It is obvious you have not played much and see much of this as fairly new. I am not coming down on you but showing you what many of us have experienced that have played during the time you were away.

You haven’t done the same things over and over and over again season after season. Borrowed powers are the same recycled/renamed theme every time. Nothing new. Anything added is copy/paste content. No effort put into the game.

Game is full of bugs and exploits. Takes 5 patches to almost fix ONE ring yet when there is an issue with the new battlepass it is fixed within hours. This is their only priority.

Trading is a whole different conversation. RMT, duping and bots are blatantly rampant and completely out of control with no sign of it slowing down. Prices for mediocre items are insane. NO mention of doing anything about it anywhere.

Try this post again after playing 3 or 4 more seasons. I would bet the post will be much different.

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To be fair he did say:

So I mean he knows he is ignorant to what is currently going on, and fully admits it.

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The can, do you know where Blizzard can find some? :hamster: :popcorn:

Thank you for sharing what you liked, sometimes it is easy to overlook for those of us that play every season…and objectively it needs to be stated.

I think what you listed as “did not like” is pretty much what bothers me and is the biggest issue(s).

It is funny you use Rogue as an example because Rogue is more broken than people realize. The Death Trap issue they have tried to address since S8-PTR and failed. The changes they make don’t impact what makes it broken. In s9 they said again they would address it…but well… it was the same during ptr… Let’s see what s9 brings.

They are trying to bring the gap between builds closer, they are just not good at it.
But across seasons more and more builds have become viable. Just the existance of BROKEN/OP builds makes it hard to notice this. The more they remove the outliers people will see that the overall rest of the builds are pretty balanced.

Some of the things you did not list in the cons sections are:

  1. MWing resets, they need to be in tiers.

  2. A lot of people don’t like Tempering…but I think it is fine, just remove the obviously garbage weighting system they have, RNG should feel like RNG, not getting the same unused skill related roll 5 times in a row. (So the problem here is really the game is designed to waste your time.)

  3. While there are many activities in the end game they mostly feel shallow and repetitive across 4 torment tiers.

  4. Changes from season to season are minimal.

  5. Challenge level…this is getting better in s8 and s9…but they do need to gauge their audience and make this “non-trivial but attainable” for the majority. This only happens with internal testing, which it is clear they are not doing to the proper degree.
    They surely test functionality and even there, there are some bugs still. But there is little QA being done based on actually playing the game to determine how the gameplay feels.

Honestly if they just address 3 and 5 and continue to pursue balance with less outliers, this game would be in a very good state.

6 Likes
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Right on spot on @OP

You do miss the a few bad things that you’ll notice only after you play a long time though

1 = The Pit is a terrible long slog with no inspiration to play further
2 = Boss fights need a bit of improvement instead of one-shotting and having mountains and mountains over mountains of HP
3 = Monsters become completely pointless in the endgame. The only way they evolve is HP increase and damage numbers (similar problem with the Bosses but goes further)

And yes, you did correctly see the disbalance between builds where Traps can get to thousands of damage multiplier and some other builds can’t which basically means the game is either “blast everything” or “swim in mud” based on how high you aim, there’s nothing that makes one experience or the other vary (not even a little)

And the WORST PART of all that is that the players are “required to know” before they even start the game, that is by far the worst design decision IMO. Better have everyone struggle with some chances to become strong if play/farm for longer than have a “FotM” mechanism that gates builds on rotation (that again = the player is REQUIRED to know before they even start playing at all)

If you blast you blast all mobs (including bosses), if you struggle you struggle vs all mobs (including a spiderling summon), I mean, that’s just uninspiring, monsters need some evolution and taken another look at (IMO)

Now, I DO have a long/er list of fixes I’d personally like to see here: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d4/t/4-easy-fixes-to-fix-the-games-biggest-issues/225043, but even doing just #4 would be enough for a while

That is to rework the Pit that:

1 - it doesn’t take away 15 minutes of your life
2 - it does feel refreshing on completion (at least for a while)

The way to do it is:

1 - Reduce timer to 6 minutes
2 - Vary the way how to complete (once kill 50 elites, another time kill 100 summoners, another time kill 30 elites while burned or frozen, another time kill 30 silenced or stunned or frozen Summoners, another time just kill 300 burning or poisoned mobs no matter what kind, e.t.c.)
3 - Drop several already pre-leveled Glyphs in the range of [pit-level-minus-3 - Pit-level] you’re fighting currently
4 - All of the Pre-leveled Glyphs have an additional affix at random

Done :slight_smile:

That alone would fix problem #1 IMO

As for #2 I’m gonna only say nerf strong builds, nerf Boss HP, and then introduce perimeter damage penalty so when you get “scratched on the edge” you don’t get one-shot (or at the very least introduce anti-boss hazards and mechanics in the boss room such as a Ballista that gets channeled for ~2 seconds that can take away ~5-8% boss HP)

#3 requires a bit of extra work and analysis but I do have some ideas how to fix that the link above (if care to read it all)

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Isn’t it awesome that summon necros have the same bugs pop up every season especially with their best item over and over again. As for RMT and inflation this has been the worst season yet by a mile. I thought last season sucked with usual 2 GA items that were like 5b-10b going for 25b+ but this season really took the cake

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The older I get, the more objective I try to be. It’s easy to vent on the forums, so in a way I tried to be… not even constructive, but at least civil.

I can see how it can be a problem. I was just incredibly lucky. Good items are already rare, ruining one would be a sad occasion.

That doesn’t bother me all that much. Diablo has always been like that.

This… sadly is nothing new to me. I’ve seen it in other Blizzard games throughout the last decade.

Thanks.

It doesn’t take deep analysis. It is, or at least it should be, obvious.

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My problem with the Pit is that it’s overloaded with massive packs of mobs, all of which seem to have both Damage Resistance & Enhanced Health. I have to kill so many mobs before the boss portal opens, but I have no idea at any point how many I still need. It feels like I end up wasting lots of time burning through trash.

The worst part is that I have to turn my game difficulty down to Normal to have any chance at all. I usually play on T1, where my Barbarian is a Walking Death Cloud that mows through any other content with no difficulty. But not The Pit. If I turn the Pit difficulty down low enough so that I have a chance, I probably won’t get more than 2 upgrades to my glyphs. But if I turn it up high enough to get a good chance, I probably won’t make it in time.

I get that maybe my build isn’t good enough. It just seems weird that it feels almost OP doing anything else, & at T1 to boot.

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The problem with the Pit is that it’s 15 minute of waste of your life when failing (and even close win with a close roll because of the chance to fail, if need be)

Literally

Reduce that down to 6 minutes, make an interesting objective to open the portal, no timer at boss, die at boss fight = fail (done)

And fix the worst mechanic in all of a/RPGs combined and that is Glyph leveling

It is THAT simple, any change will do no bad to the Pit, throw in the “kitchen sink” if you like and won’t do or hardly would do any harm really. It is literally the worst possible version of a “time attack” feature in a game there can be

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I don’t mind the length. It’s the ridiculous number of mobs with Extra Health that is the problem. If they’re going to cut the timer down by more than half, they need to do something about that.

I like where you’re going with the different objectives; frankly, I’m a bit flummoxed the devs didn’t think of that. But IMO, keeping that loathsome Extra Health on even the trashiest of trash is just bad, especially when there are seemingly hundreds of such mobs.

But here’s the kicker: Extra Health & Damage Resistance appear on trash in NMDs, in IHs, in really every content in this game. So why is it that I have no issues with them on T1 in any other content? Why is it that only The Pit causes me to tear my hair out? I’m at a loss.

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Even with high HP “Minions” (yes, those are “Minion” type of monster, the ones that have “Increased Health”, a feature coming from D2 to shake up the game where not all “tough” monsters are elites)

They were (or at least should’ve been) intended to “shake up” the game in D2-esque way, and they’re “alledgedly” supposed to deal more damage b.t.w. (if implementing that as intended)

The release state of the game was supposed to be more D2 than D3, hence the “Minion” augmentation of certain monsters, hence the 4 World Tiers, e.t.c.

But here’s the problem, somewhere half the way people not realizing what that is supposed to look like or function took over and did what they did…

They “improvised” with what they inherited (not realizing why things were as they were in the first place) and it’s not that hard to fix but here’s the real issue:

It is “deliberate” by design now, i.e. they really want the “endgame” to be a bunch of “test your might against time” runs, thanks to all those that wanted (or at the very least preferred) “blasting” to be the theme :stuck_out_tongue:

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Yea, I get why they did it, & mostly it doesn’t bother me. It just feels like there’s something “off” about The Pit, but OTOH, since so many other people seem to have no issue, it makes me feel bad that I do. So, instead of feeling bad, I just ignore The Pit in favor of other content I find much more enjoyable.

Which would be fine, except I need to do The Pit to progress the seasonal journey. So I guess I’ll just not worry about getting past Chapter 4. It’s all good.

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I mean the sad part is that it doesn’t require too much effort to fix

THAT is what just mostly aggravates me

How hard is to “shake up” the objective to open the portal, reduce the timer to more reasonable amount, remove timer from boss, and make the reward more random-ish (as opposed to having an entire feature affect an increase of a number already picked)

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Which pit tier are you plateauing at? Your build has a lot of room to grow. A solid homegrown non-meta build can farm bosses in T2 or T3 and definitely farm everything else in T3, without exploiting overpower.

Make a new thread and share details about your build. We’ll help you understand what you’re missing and get you on track.

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We’re not talking if it’s doable or not, we’re talking if it’s terrible (hint: it is)

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It’s good you like the game but seeing your original post from 2 years ago, the meat and bones of your criticism remains the same.

Skills didn’t change much, except maybe ultimates. Skill dmg is still mainly affected by your weapon. Skill points behave exactly the same. The general feel of the game didn’t change at all since Beta except maybe better overall performance. Character customization is literally exactly the same. BUT, they did make the game slightly more colorful.

So, I have to ask. What gives? Almost none of your issues were fixed.

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Yesterday, I failed opening T2. On Normal difficulty. Killed a bunch of mobs on the first level, then frantically slaughtered mobs on the second level while watching the timer run out. Finally just bailed, changed back to T1, & did overland map stuff for a bit.

P135 Barbarian. Bash & Whirlwind on the mouse; Ground Stomp, Death Blow, CotA, & War Cry on the hot bar. Lots of passives intended to either bolster 2H bludgeoning or defenses. All gear MW’d to at least 4/8. Main boss power is Grig’s Lightning Square; I have Varshan’s as a support power, I think Zir’s also & then one of the apparition boss powers for the final one.

It’s a fun build, easy to play, & is effective – even feels OP – on T1, anywhere but the Pit.

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The first thing to know is that the World Tier Statue doesn’t affect the pit. The difficulty of the pit scales to the tier you’re on, no matter what difficulty you’ve selected outside of the pit.

If you enter pit 10, you’re doing Torment 1. If you enter pit 25, you’re doing Torment 2. Pit 39 is Torment 2+14 (not Torment 16). Etc etc.

If you’re stuck in Torment 1, you’re just missing part of the puzzle for progressing your build. Make a new thread. Tell us the 6 skills on your bar. Tell us your aspects for each gear slot. Tell us where each of your points are spent. Give us the short version of your paragon boards.

This’ll help us know what you’re not doing.

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They tried objectives with NMDs when the game first came out. People didn’t like it because as often as not the objectives involved backtracking to find objective items you missed, deposit keys you picked up, or other tedious nonsense. Most of the dungeons were also bigger, less linear, and more spread out at launch; they’ve streamlined the internal layouts over time.

Based on how that was received at launch, I wouldn’t expect them to backtrack. People trying to power level glyphs as quickly as possible will be annoyed if you slow them down with non-combat mechanics. There was a similar backlash to the trapped Vaults in S3, such that they nerfed the traps partway through the season.

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First of all I’m not advocating for “slowing down with non-combat mechanics”, where exactly did you see me do this ? :person_shrugging:

Secondly, the reason why NMDs were bad was because of 2 reasons

One of them being because it was the only thing people could play for quite a bit (in fact NMDs were essential to prevent your character growing weak when reaching high levels like 90)

The other being the “hazards” were (and still tend to be) really on the higher eschalon of BS (drifting shade, lightning dome, the crystal thing that everyone hates and salvages)

Can’t compare a much more developed game to S1, S1 had its flaws but frankly even you were to be frank as well, you’d admit that “backtracking” was by far one of the lesser issues actually (I mean for ex. PoE2 has TONS of backtracking and noone is even bothered by it)