I’m a casual player. I only play on the eternal realm, because if I want to gather some decent gear I have to focus on one character only.
With this hyper focus I can actually make a dent.
But after every season my spec gets nerfed into the ground. First I did somewhat well with HOTA, then with HOTA overpower and then with Bash.
But as it looks right now Bash will be nerfed into the ground as well.
Does Blizzard realized how annoying this is for casual players? When you get to a point that you start working towards Uber Uniques, you get smacked in the face and you can start over.
I just want builds to play which are fun but also viable. I want a Mealstrom build… But that never has been viable and they are nerfing it… Why? Same goes for upheavel…
Just try to take our perspective into consideration before taking out the nerfbat.
It’s not encouraging in any way for me too continue investing time in Diablo 4 if I need to start over grinding for new gear after every season.
My time as a dad is scarce. I don’t want to grind for new gear ever season because you nerfed it.
I don’t really get Blizzard’s flavour-of-the-season approach to balance.
They make something super powerful for a season, then nerf it so badly no one plays it the season after.
Sure, Bash was probably too good - but that doesn’t mean no one should be able to play Bash barb ever again. I don’t really get it. Couldn’t instead of Bash being S++++ tier it just be like A+ tier?
thats actually a complaint i can fully understand. just refered to that in another thread
i mean, stuff will of course change overtime for eternal realm as well, as new stuff gets added, but i do agree that class balancing is a sensitive topic there.
That said, for some of these builds to become decently viable, they might still need a 90%+ nerf. There are just a lot of builds that need those nerfs.
Nerfing into the ground is not a problem. The problem is that Blizzard then buffs other builds to be broken again, that is what makes it flavor of the month design, rather than just balancing. Intentionally making the game unbalanced, again and again.
imo, too many cooks in the kitchen now, too much axing and reshaping the game to appease everyone, with no clear direction anymore, undoing their own direction as it was hated, social media influence and appeasing, trying to be D3 to appease, so sets without sets seasonal balancing in a unbalanced chopped up and rebranded game.
None of this matters, if the game makes enough money from casual credit card kids on consoles, only nerds and geeks are going to notice, balance changes. Everyone else is just hulk smashing monsters and buying cosmetics and having a good time.
There is more to it and more detail, but that i think has been the bulk of the rollercoaster since launch and the rejection of it not being like D3 OR d2 or even properly functional and fun for what D4 is doing, they say trust us, but they don’t even trust their own game, if they did, they would have worked it, and presented the vision, after having time to properly finish stuff, instead it seems like i said now there are many cooks in the kitchen and things are copy pasted in and out, mechanics like capstone curses ignorable and irrelevant, most of the core game is now ignored content to play the new GR experience seasonally, which i think is a massive disappointment.
I will try S5, but yeah those are some reasons i think this game will be battling for years to maybe be good or great. Also depends what core changes and improvements are coming with VOH, if any. No pre-order for me, i will let others be disappointed first this time.
I fully agree with this, as I myself hate this part, where a build is viable one season and obliterated in the next. However, one problem that I see with this and maybe a potential solution is that majority of the people play the most broken builds, which almost inevitably are result of unintended bugs. Examples are ball lightning, HOTA and rapid fire-tibault, all in S2. In S4 - victimize double dipping (by definition is a bug), immortal sorcs, and barb was just in the next galaxy on almost every build - bash, flay, wirlwind, rupture, not to mention that they could also become immortal via martial vigor… I bet that even after the HOTA nerf, with the new itemization if I wanted I could make a HOTA barb and still hit harder than any of my rogue builds! And I am absolutely sure of it! See? People tend to play the most broken and bugged builds and then cry when they get fixed or brought down to earth. It doesn’t make much sense to me. Now, a potential solution for this that I can think of is the armory - a way to save builds and just switch between them. That way, you can make 1 character with 5 different builds and when one or two get fixed, you still have 3-4 viable that you can play immediately.
That being said, I agree that sometimes the fix is way too harsh. Example is the ball lightning. Sure, it was unintended, but why nerf it to pre-season 2 values and make it unplayable again. Instead of 200%, just nerf it by 50% and make it scale by 100% of the attack speed. That’s what I don’t like in fixing the bugs. It’s one thing to fix it it’s completely different thing to just kill it entirely. I am glad that at least this time, maybe, hopefully, they took that into consideration and that was the reason for providing the unique sword for the basic skill builds. At least this is some good sign that they can actually listen from time to time.
i mean, they did, but people ran havoc all over the place.
id personally prefer if d4 would for now finally have a direction that eventually excludes players, cause they might not like it. just because you purchased a game, it doesnt mean that every change has to appeal to you. thats impossible to achieve as a company.
right now i consider the decision to not remove temper limits rather unpoular on the forums (tho i also assume many of them are credit card warriors) a good decision.
d4 doesnt have to appeal to everyone, its fine if people quit. le tried to start through, it kinda of failed.
we have yet to see what poe2 looks like, but heck, they are redoing stuff due to d4.
in the end, blizzard changed in the past, we can all agree on that.
we (as customers) complained about communication. i think the d4 team is really getting into that. lets not forget, all these campfire chats, videos, etc etc, cost money.
im glad they finally take the diablo crowd serious to be honest. it really hasnt been this way since… forever?
Now with the PTR they will decide what the meta will be. That was the bad part of the PTR. Before there were bugs with new powers and season powers, we don’t have that anymore.
-So they have control over everything again. And that’s the problem. New items tend to be the meta, which should be the case of the Sorceres’ pants with Chain Lighting for example. The game needs to have crazy things again per season, even if simpler or we will always be playing the same builds.
It’s clear from the way they’re handled D4 so far that they don’t really want people playing on eternal. They want you playing seasons and buying battle passes and cosmetics from the shop. They know the flavor of the month approach is annoying for eternal realm players - they just don’t care.
It doesnt make any sense. Ive said before that i think they intentionally make certain classes and certain skills overpowered each season because thats exactly what theyve been doing instead of balancing them. Horrible design.
fair point. It more my dissapointment, since i was a fan of alot of ideas that didn’t get the chance to shine, but i could see that it could. Oh well.
The rest i pretty much agree with you, i will still follow the game and watch it improve and evolve, i have less time to game atm, so yeah, its a privilege just to have a chance to play some S5 and that’s how i think i will look at it going forward, i have reached that point in life i guess or choosing to see it.
I still praise the work being done and the efforts it all leads to trying to improve a game i want to enjoy, so yeah bring on S5 and VOH and hopefully its a good step forward.
There is no reason to play this crap at this point. D4 will be playable seriously in a few years, after 2-3 expansions and a MILLION hours of additional work and balancing. D3 took a decade to get into a decent state, and D4 is MUCH more complicated and harder to balance.
Just ride the cycle. Your playing eternal anyway. Make one of each of the 4 characters and play whatever is OP at the time, then move on to next one. Easy for you.
None of the builds or classes that have been the best in a season have been intentional creations of the devs. They have mostly been bugs, with the exception of barb last season. Barb in S4 was vastly overpowered across the board because they have so many more temper slots and tempering was new.
So the devs have two choices: (1) make changes so slowly and carefully that nothing can get out of hand; (2) be responsive to player feedback and allow some changes to get out of hand.
If they do (1), people complain that they don’t listen or they mock changes like giving hydra +2% damage and basic skills +2 resource gen. If they do (2), people complain that the swings are too large.
There’s an old rule in game design that I’d like to see them apply more often: if something isn’t working, double it or halve it. The extension of that rule being that if you know value A is too high and value B is too low try a value exactly between the two. Over time, you can narrow in on the right scale, but you never make a small tweak to something that needs a large one. The problem a live game faces is that new mechanics and new items are being added all the time to keep the game fresh. That means that whatever you knew from the previous season’s balance is at least somewhat suspect going into a new season.
this time.
. D3 was notorious for it now its the methodology of D4.