Perfect example - this lightning storm mechanic in NM dungeons is mind blowing. So you want me to basically stop playing the game, run to the bubble, …wait… until it hits, and then continue playing. And have this go on ad nauseum until you complete the dungeon. That is the opposite of fun.
Another example is all these side quests, which almost totally derailed the campaign experience for me until I realized I totally didn’t need to do so many of them. I would even suggest not having them available as part of the campaign which on it’s own is pretty awesome. I mean, to each their own, and thanks for trying to keep us engaged, but for me most of these side quests are just painful and not worth it…ultimately taking away from the gaming experience.
I’m sure there are so many more examples.
We’re constantly being bombarded with Simon says “do this” and now Simon says “do that”. I don’t want to hop on my left foot, touch my right ear, close my eyes, and fart at the same time.
I suggest giving the players more breathing room to just play the game.
Maybe it’s a generational thing, but Diablo 2, espeically its endgame, felt way more self-autonomous. I want to try this build…now I want to get these super rare items and runes to make this build shine…now I need to find socketable items for the rune setups for some of those items…let’s farm Meph for a bit for these items…let’s now farm Diablo for a bit for those items…let’s now farm Pits for a bit…let’s now farm Baal for a bit…Cows…Pindle…etc…and there were no dungeon affixes…you just knew that certain areas could have monsters and bosses with modifiers and mechanics that could wreck you in the build you’re running and certain areas where you had the upper hand.
And I totally understand it’s my choice to run the NM dungeon. I could’ve salvaged it and picked another one, just like I didn’t have to go to a location in Diablo 2 that doesn’t work for me. But I shouldn’t have to because of something being ANNOYING as opposed to being DIFFICULT. It’s demotivating.
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Everything you’re describing is what happens when interns from World of Warcraft take over projects. Which is what happened about 2 years ago with D4. They don’t have ideas of their own. Rod Ferguson has been around a while and is also a big problem with design direction. The guy doesn’t know anything about making a good game.
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I agree that several of the nightmare dungeon mechanics are more annoying than they are challenging. Or even really alter the gameplay experience much. The storm, chasing stone and shadow spectre are basically the same kind of zoning gameplay. Perhaps if for instance the chasing stone also damaged enemies around it you would have some risk Vs reward gameplay being added. In general with sigils I feel like I am just looking for anything that breaks my build, which feels like a chore itself, and if it isn’t there I run it. I am guessing they are meant to take inspiration from the PoE map system. At least there you had - options to reroll, benefits for choosing to run harder affixes, and no individual affix was likely to stop your specific build dead.
Even most of the boons aren’t going to make me change how I play. Forget that half of them don’t affect my class, it’s not as if I can easily change up my build to take advantage. Maybe if I could have a few specs to switch between I would then have a reason to make use of them.
Some of the side quests are really good, and I feel add to the lore of the world. But yes many feel like busy work, and because of the renown system feel necessary to do (and I know you don’t have to do all of them to reach max renown). But like a lot of open world games I feel like they are just there to justify space, and allow someone from marketing to say the world is X big and has Y hours of content, rather than letting good elements of the game stand on their own.
What is Simon Says? Hear that always from americans but have no clue what that is. And at this point i’m lazy to google it.
It’s mispurposed IMO, i.e. doing the exact opposite of what it was originally intended to do:
Think they envisioned it as a “fight under an umbrella where everywhere else is dangerous and see how far you get”, but instead it became: “stop fighting and come back here” mechanic for whatever reason
I’d say if they make it so that the dome expands only when detecting 2 or more elites under it would achieve it’s purpose, but some affix balance on the elites should be done first though 
It is a game typically played by younger children. One person says commands like simon says pat your head and everyone does it. Sometimes they don’t say simon says, and they just say jump or something and people who follow lose. So, you only follow along if the person says simon says x, and you don’t follow if they don’t say simon.
Strange game indeed. But hey. We have f**d up child games here to. So it’s okay 
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But to his credit he did a great job with Diablo 2 Resurrected. That’s the strange part. Staying true to the core of Diablo 2 was a very important criteria for the success of the game and both the old school / hardcore D2 gamer fanbase and the casual / Diablo 3 fanbase all loved it. And it worked out stupendously well, even in the current era and huge generational divide. Maybe that’s saying something? Maybe he should’ve looked into this further? It should have been eye opening for him that some “old” and “simple” designs and mechanics just work extremely well to keep the gamer perpetually engaged. And that if you give the gamer more free reign, a la Diablo 2, they will probably want to stick around more and not get so quickly burned out a la Diablo 3.
But surprisingly he decided to go almost completely with the Diablo 3 approach and design for Diablo 4. Especially now with the battle pass, where you want players to stick around more to buy more cosmetics, I would think Diablo 2’s approach is something that should’ve been more seriously investigated in terms of why it works so well.
I’m really curious if there are statistics that show how often after the season or towards the end of one does the player move onto the non-ladder for Diablo 2 compared to Diablo 3. I know I for one went back to non-ladder constantly with Diablo 2…