One thing I hope D4 could do better on is give a higher level overview of their product roadmap/vision within the next 6-12 months so there’s more clarity on what they’re working on. There is most likely a vision being set at least fiscal quarter ahead if not more.
They don’t have to reveal anything super specific but it would help communicate what some of their priorities actually are.
Sometimes it does feel a bit too in the dark and announcements are more on the fly and sporadic.
Example would be something like:
S4: itemization updates
S4 mid season: … tempering uniques
S5: larger and more variety for endgame dungeon maps and bosses
I don’t understand the cash shop comment people always make. It usually just a small aside at the end of pages and pages of other changes not related to the shop at all.
Is it because you’re all too broke to afford anything in the shop so you get triggered by it?
I don’t think that they are able or want to give players such a thing.
That we get a complete overhaul of the itemization (this certainly can’t be on the roadmap) tells us they are continually working on the game with players’ response and feedback.
Comes from ignorance pure and simple. They see advertisements for the cash shop upon logging into the game and just assume it’s all they’ve been working on for the past 3 months.
Of course if they did any research they’d know most if not all of the cosmetics found in the shop are done by third parties, then sent back to Blizzard for approval and finally put into the game, which then gets priced by a completely separate team not working on content for the game.
The more hilarious part though, these people still play the game, despite all of the complaints about the shop, thus just reiterating the fact they are ok with the cash shop being in the game by association. They may not support it through their wallets, but they definitely support it by playing the game. If it was that important to them, they wouldn’t play the game at all in protest.
I think itemization in S4 was mentioned back in S2 though, so I still feel like it’s not impossible.
Roadmap can always change based off user feedback. But building or completely overhauling roadmap from scratch for an entire half would lead to a lot of churns — things released more slowly, players not able to give feedback sooner for them to iterate on. I do see the marketing aspect of saying minimal things just to keep the surprise element when they reveal anything new.
Yea I also think it’s a bit of cognitive dissonance. Surely they can’t see all the changes that happen and then think 3 new cosmetics is the majority of the changes.
I don’t think that they have a roadmap so granular like in your example.
Even if they have, they certainly don’t want to share it with players because that means that they need to stick with it, which I think they won’t be able to.
Also remember about what Rod said in an interview about tempering players’ expectation. They felt that their fault lies in promising or telling players too much.
Its not coming from ignorance. It is coming from the fact that a cash shop ,which is used to fund FTP games, is in a B2P game like Diablo. The game itself sold 10 million copies, the revenue of which should be more than enough to fund the live service. The fact that so many here are willing to defend it is frankly sad.
And to the previous poster who made the ignorant comment of players being too broke, I could swipe one card and buy every single item available and not break a sweat. But do keep staying classy.
I can sort of understand why they don’t. If they publish a high-level roadmap, it sort of locks them into it. By not publishing such a roadmap, it gives them the freedom to change their minds whenever they want.
That said, I’d still like it if they could tell us about a few things they’re working on, even if it’s not a full roadmap.
I think you misunderstand, I’m not defending the shop. I’m telling people how it works. Huge difference. If I tell you how they make guns, I’m not defending the making of the guns, I’m literally just telling you how they make them. However if I buy products by gun makers that aren’t actually guns, I am in fact supporting gun makers by association of buying their products.
Now I haven’t paid for anything in the shop since launch. I spent my money purchasing the game, that was it. I don’t like cash shops, but I’m a realist, I know they won’t be going away either. I fully know this going into the game, I endorse it through association of just playing the game. If I felt so strongly about not wanting a cash shop in the games I played, I wouldn’t play them.
I don’t play F2P games, not because of their cash shops, but because of the manipulation to get the players to buy their in-game currencies to spend on a variety of things. Oh you ran out of energy, you ran out stash space, you can’t upgrade your gear as efficiently, you can’t do this or that, here’s a shop where you can buy all of this stuff and more.
You almost always hit a brick wall in these games, that has a tiny hole you can squeeze through that would take years, or you can buy a bulldozer and just plow through instead. I will say I do not like cash shops in any game, but if I had to choose, I’d pick the lesser of the two evils. Which is why I play D4 and not D:Immortal.
"Over the next few months, we’ll be sharing more details about our launches coming later this year, including World of Warcraft: The War Within and Diablo IV’s first expansion, Vessel of Hatred."
Sounds good in theory but would be a nightmare for them.
Players are like children and when something changes they flip out and act like the world is ending.
What they are doing right now is taking onboard player feedback and reworking core systems. Not to mention working in an expansion.
In my view they do a reasonable job of keeping us informed, while also leaving themselves some flexibility to adapt based on player feedback.
One of the real challenges I think the developers face is that it appears lots of the feedback and complaints are aimed at moving Diablo away from being an ARPG. That’s obviously not compatible with the games design and direction.
