For games that are always online, as many of them are now, we should expect there to be more effort from developers to avoid wasting players’ time and money on “endless grinding”. I realize that’s a thing in Diablo. But, it’s not fun even in the slightest. Here are some examples of pretty bad development habits that are killing the replay value of this game:
For starters, there are at least a half dozen obscure “Stats” with poorly described functions and or usefulness that appear a lot on loot but are better off re-rolled at the Occultist (assuming it’s only one stat, but often is not).
Then that creates countless RNG conditions on stat values because of the various combinations of #1 and their numerical thresholds.
Further complicating things are the RNG on types of equipment that drop (such as Uniques) that, even if players get the item type they want, #1 and #2 almost ensures that at least one stat will be useless, regardless of threshold value of the unique/legendary property offered.
And all of the above, 1-3, create impossibly annoying situations where a player is often forced to change their skill build throughout the “adventure”, due to the eventuality of having to use weapons or gear that are higher rated (e.g. ilvl 850 vs 900), but not even remotely part of their chosen build. If I’m using a legendary lightning staff build but get a unique fire staff that’s more powerful, I’d be better off switching skills around.
However, because players cannot save multiple skill/paragon templates for the purpose of ‘switching’ back and forth, #1-4 force players to have to re-allocate or at least re-distribute skill/paragon points, manually, which is extremely time consuming and not fun at all.
The way I see it, the developers didn’t seem very concerned about how much time all of this takes from actually playing the damn game, in addition to the significant amount of item farming required, which wasn’t nearly as bad in previous Diablo games! Comparatively, Diablo 4 much more work, even casually. It’s really not fun to play like this. ‘Sacred’ equipment dropping during an ‘Ancestral’ Sigil run? Completely pointless. Winning over a tougher boss, but rewarded with a lower item level of something you already have (especially uniques)? Ridiculous.
It’s a bit crazy how much a player’s time is wasted on the ‘classic RNG’ model but with the unfortunate burden of modern loot complexity stacked on. Tbh, it has kind of ruined Diablo 4 for me.
At this stage I have 100s of hours of game play and will probably have a few hundred more days bet the next year. I’d say that’s fantastic value for money and not a waste.
I have a bunch of games I bought and played for 2 hours and never went back to because it wasn’t fun. If you’re not liking the game just take the hit and move on.
Also from the perspective of some one who clearly didn’t play the PTR, or bother to look at the changes coming. His points 1 through 3 are pretty much addressed in S4. Point 4 is down to personal choice of the player, and point 5 is in the works.
I’m going to guess it’s a brand new game pass player who has played the game for a couple of weeks and is voicing their opinions. Also why it looks so familiar from a few months ago to people complaining about similar things.
Unfortunately this is the average consumer, first impressions are important, but so is educating yourself on the upcoming changes. The information is there and not hard to find either. I imagine we’ll get more posts like this before S4 hits.
Oh I have no issues with people taking the reins for TL:DR’s at all. One of the best times this happened was the most recent campfire and someone made a big post of all the highlights when I went to make lunch right after the stream. I was honestly relieved lol.
I saw this post too and was going to respond with a Tl;Dr but I was making dinner, so didn’t have time to thoroughly go through it. So I appreciate it. Nothin but love on this end.
Don’t buy any loot based game, those are all RNG based. They have little content, so they have to use rng to make you repeatly do the same thing to drag the game to make up the total play hours. As players nowadays expect a modern game can be played at least 100 hours.
You really need to do some research before your purchase. You get to refund if game time not exceed two hours.
So you don’t like grinding and RNG then bought a game that has grinding and RNG? Then demand that they take those elements of the game out? Even better, you knew it was a thing for Diablo games. You still bought it anyways and now you’re unhappy that the game is doing what it is supposed to do.
If you’re not happy with the game, don’t play it especially if it’s core gameplay is something you didn’t like to begin with.
Most of your points are addressed in PTR and are upcoming changes. We don’t know if the final product will do it justice but we are moving in the right direction.
I will wholeheartedly agree with the respec thing about switching builds and such.
i mean aarpg is mostly about grinding and RNG …so…you took the wrong genre i guess ?
i mean i agree with some of your points : being able to save some build/loadout would be great and the devs intends to add this option.
so i agree about having some QOL that reduce this kind of actual waste of time.
but the RNG / grinding part aren’t “waste of time” they are the fundamental of aarpg.
and some of your “problems” could easily be avoided.
For example : Weapons is the one item slot you’ll be switching quite often : just , while leveling , don’t put your important legendary effect on your weapon but on amulet instead.
if you must do it , just switch to another effect with the codex of power.
