The real insane thing is they are too busy working on future seasons like their job for the base game is over! No way seasons are more important than balance, horse fixes, hardware optimization, gem tab, UI rework, making systems have depth, grouping incentive, pvp system overhaul, itemization, so many things. How many years of development? And this game has Steam early access levels of content. There’s more content in BG3 ea with 1 act available than the whole of Diablo 4. The game makes a great first impression then takes a massive nose dive.
In no way were our expectation too high. We expected a competent ARPG. Instead we got a 10 hour campaign and 30 hour endgame but hey, at least they got that battlepass in.
They saw people were more than willing to bend over and take it after all the Diablo 3 nonsense (always online. RMAH, terrible itemization, lack of end game). They made a killing off of that, exact same process here. It works, makes the shareholders happy and people line up and ask for more of the same. Hell, even the reviews were praising this beta product with 8s and 9s without ever touching the meat of the game, the end game. It’s all a scam and everyone is colluding for the perks and profits.
You as the consumer should just keep bending over and prepare for Diablo 5 which will repeat the exact same process in 10 years.
My hype train with ActiBlizz games has come to a full stop. It will be waiting at the station being refurbed. Next game I think about purchasing from them will be a 1 month wait after the release.
Hurts me to say this as someone who never liked D3 because of how it burned me at launch… I must say, D3 is more Diablo game than D4 atm. D3 feels more like a proper ARPG than D4 as well. D3 is more rewarding for completing difficult content. Why couldn’t they just build off of good aspects of previous games instead of trying to reinvent the wheel without actual innovations?
Their base game with a wonderful campaign couldn’t last 3 months for most players. But that’s what seasons are, they have a strong player base at the beginning then it drops off, people go play other games. then the next season comes out and rinse and repeat. it’s ok to have this ebb and flow of players. Sure, it would be nice if the game was engaging enough to make players want to stay the whole 3 months. However,I don’t want to have to commit 3 months worth of playing to feel like I accomplished all that my goals were set to. and everyone plays at different paces too so my 3 months will be vastly different than your 3 months. The trouble to watch out for is when people stop returning for the start of seasons. They should have went very hard in season 1 to establish a baseline of “yeah our seasons are going to be awesome with a bunch of changes and additions” but instead it feels more like they’re just adding a tiny bit of some stuff that should have probably been in the base game anyways. D4 could have used another 2 years of development IMO.
From what I can tell most of the designers of D4 were D2 fans and played a ton. Except for Rod, if you look up his Wiki his gaming history is with Gears of War - and he is known as a “closer” who gets production back on track and ensures games are launched on time and within budget.
Thus, my assumption is that he made the executive decision on many feature cuts within the game to ensure it launched on time and within budget - resulting in the plain yogurt mess we currently have.
If you watch the developer live streams, you can clearly see through facial expressions and the way the team reacts to him there is considerable tension and animosity.
It’s also clear that his primary character is a thorn’s necro, which is a completely passive and low power overall playstyle - which also explains why so many other classes are getting nerfed into averageness, on par with a thorns necro.
Look people, its sad but this is the world we live in now. I feel sorry for you younger folks that missed out on what I consider the golden age of gaming before the internet created these monstrosities called live service games. They always launch with no endgame, are repetitive, and tend to lose their player base quickly unless the devs act fast with new creative ideas that are actually what the players want. Blizzard will not act fast. Draw your own conclusions from that previous statement.
It seems that many people already have season 1 battle pass because they pre-ordered. They want to make sure to get more money out of people so theyre holding fixes and improvements until people will actually have to spend money to enjoy things that shouldve been non issues to begin with. Atleast thats what it looks like to me.
Neither did D3 seasons. Diablo is a dungeon grinding game but people expect it to be an MMO or something. Majority of D3 seasons died off within 2 weeks.