I was gonna let this slide, but I read this comment at the wrong time. Im referring to the article on Rock Paper Shotgun titled “Players have no patience”, says Blizzard president - “They want new stuff every day, every hour”
Oh where to begin on this gem. So you’re blaming us now? WOW
This will never reach who it should but what the heck, here we go anyways. Diablo 2 took 40 people and 3 years, and it kept us captivated for nearly 20 years. Diablo 4 took 9,000 people and 9 years and kept us captivated for 2 weeks. You spent all your time and effort designing the ultimate slow drip of content, testing every limit of micro transaction hell, working every page of buyer psychology research and said “gee, how far can we take hype and promise and still get paid for it?” and you have the nerve to blame us for that? You launched this steaming pile with the idea items define builds then gave us 5 items per class for a total of what 25? 30? Diablo 2 launched with 386 or so. There was no interesting itemization, the game clearly wasn’t tested, and basic mechanics like freaking resistances didn’t even function. And you have the nerve to say we expect too much?
I could go on for a while listing the many many reasons why this was the most insulting and ridiculous deflection I’ve heard since the glory days of J Allen Brak’s non-apologies. I really hope Phil Spencer can turn this ship around because this is just embarrassing and insulting.
Nice opinion Mike, you know where to shove it. No one wanted a live service except your shareholders, leave us out of it. Our demands are reasonable, with the resources you guys had, this should have been the most expansive and nuanced Diablo experience to date, instead it was a rough draft at best.
He’s not blaming players, but it’s the reason current Blizz works extra fast (to fulfill players’ appetite) and putting monetization everywhere (to make the work possible).
For example, D4 has 90000000 people working on it consisting of 2 teams each working on odd and even seasons, one team for expansion, one team for the current/live game, and probably more. I’m sure that the microtransaction team stands on its own.
This is the heart of the problem right here. Games as a service is absolute cancer. Blizzard is the one insisting all their games are unfinished, over monetized, minimum viable products. Not us.
Maybe, but the concensus at Blizzcon was a lot of the panels were decent except the Diablo one. And it seems the most logical damage control at that point is just to say “its not us, the players just expect too much”
He isnt wrong. Players want new stuff as fast as possible. Its Bliz job to balance giving players what they want with what is possible and makes sense. A job they have not done well but are improving on with season 2.
Agreed. Except usually players get new stuff as they play cause theres a ton to discover in the game. Instead we exhausted the content in less than a month. And then started waiting again… yikes. 9 years and 9,000 people should have been able to put more upfront than that, unless they didnt want to on purpose. I mean seriously, look at what PoE 2 is going to launch with. Literally exponentially more content than D4 will have at the END OF ITS LIFE lol
I mean i don’t think he is “blaming” anyone Per se, but he is not wrong about the instant gratification that is desired in today’s society.
It isnt anyone’s fault, but just look at some of the posts on these forums. Demanding this, that and the other things. All one needs to do to prove what he is saying is read these forums.
I am not saying i agree with everything blizz does, but there are serious issues with this game….and some of the issues are the some of the players
They force this always online, MMO time-gated garbage on us, then whine that we expect a live service?
Has anyone bothered to tell this Blizzard genius that Helltides, the main gatekeep to Season two has been bugged the whole time? There is no hope for this game under this team. put Shely in charge.
No I get that, I agree. But im saying you can compare the games side by side, this game is literally a fraction of previous or like titles, its LITERALLY far less. WOLCEN launched with more unique items, WOLCEN!!! And again, there is no excuse for resistenaces not working, thats like oh I dunno, melee damage not working. Its a core part of the core experience and its just not there. Then to say we exepct to much? I agree with you, but this instance is just too much of an exxageration.
EDIT: Maybe im old? lol. Are you guys just used to less now? I mean I played D1 when it launched o.o… So I been around a while. I was around when things worked and were completed at launch(I know crazy right?) Am I just out of touch? haha
Players have no patience because the games industry has pushed them to that point. The greedy, AAA corporations have spent billions trying to perfect games, not from a fun or quality perspective, but to extract as much time & money from them as possible. They have collected more data than consumers will ever comprehend to meticulously design systems to farm engagement for no reason other than to get their audience addicted.
Gamers weren’t impatient until these systems became the norm:
FOMO
Time-gating
Paid early access
Broken launches
Fixing the game over time
These massive corporations have taken the wonders of technological innovation and twisted and abused them to exploit and manipulate consumers. Receiving post-release content was supposed to be a way for games to continue telling a story or giving players more of the world, or character progression, but instead already developed content gets cut prior to launch only to be sold to consumers later as post-release content (e.g., Uber Bosses).
Of course gamers are impatient now. They’ve been trained to be hyper-engaged, terminally entertained, and addicted to the point they will give as much of their paycheck to game companies as they can without going homeless or starved. The sad thing is there will be gamers on this very forum defending this predatory behavioral approach to game development. They’re so content with being farmed for all their time and money because they’re “having fun🤘” and can’t be bothered to wake up and realize they’ve been turned into livestock.
No he’s absolutely wrong. Player’s don’t want new stuff as fast as possible. They want satisfying gameplay that entertains them.
Look at BG3 as an example, they advertised a D&D game and delivered a D&D game. They don’t have to invent all new gameplay loops or endgame activities because people are happy with what they got. Bugs and act 3 issues aside it’s a finished game that delivers on the content that Larian promised. They have been patching out bugs and adding things based on community feedback.
D4 at launch had non of this. We had no endgame gameplay loop. We had nothing to grind for once we hit level 100. Most people didn’t even make it to 100. Our builds were locked behind items that some people wouldn’t even see drop for all of season 1.
What we did have was a fully functioning store and battlepass system.
What Ybarra is doing now is blaming us for Blizzard creating problems and then expecting us to pat them on the back when Blizzard makes solutions to the problems they created.
I wish the D4 team had a presentation that was even half as good as what the WoW and Overwatch team had. I think WoW is heading in the right direction and Overwatch is finally listening to their player base.
The problem with D4 isnt that it dint launch with enough in it as this can be fixed in time. The real question and problem is that it dint launch with what should have been and was in D3. It doesnt even have the same amount or types of goblins. Less stash space. Less multiplayer QoL. 1 step forward of version number and 10 steps backwards in function. The only thing it really excelled at was graphics.
And even then, most of the hype was the style choice, not the quality.
In all fairness, IMO, the real triumph of the game was somehow making an ARPG work amazingly well on a controller. If youd have told me years ago I could play Diablo on a controller id have called you crazy, but man did they nail that.
Players have access to a plethora of guides that tell them how to do everything as quickly and efficiently as possible. No secrets, no trial-and-error, no learning required: every game launches as a solved product.
I have my own gripes with modern game devs and design, but the speed that consumers…consume is out of control.
I think the issue is, when you level in most ARPGs, you feel power as you grow. Out the gate in this game with some classes you feel powerful for 5 minutes than gone. Between 50 and 80, it was a slog and for a long time I felt powerless and that is not fun. Than I hit 80 and all the sudden max level items start dropping. It should not be this way, instead I should feel gradually more powerful as the game moves on.
That is the main problem with this game, the lack of real power as you grow. And this is also why there is so much niche meta. I should be able to play how I want and at least be able to complete the content. Now they want to make a mode that if I don’t want to play a sorc or some other class meta, forget it. Game has it all wrong.