This is a serious question. I’m honestly very curious.
I typically think of D4’s endgame as when you’ve come close to achieving GA BIS items, can defeat all the applicable content (not talking about pit 150), and generally become bored with your character that you either start a new one or just finish for the season.
What do you want added to the game, at the end, to make you feel like it has an endgame? I’ve only tinkered with LE and have not played POE 2, so if they have good examples what are they?
More than the same 4 pit layouts and 3 enemy combinations that they populate them with.
More ways to level glyphs other than the pit.
Rewards that are on par with the effort for killing multi phase bosses.
More control to tailor the difficulty of the content I do like to engage with similar to mind cages from prior seasons.
All of the previous seasons mechanics added to the game (vamp HT, vaults, AoZ, etc) with currency as a reward to be able to enable temporary boosts that stack with potions.
I don’t care about the “end game,” when the 1-60 portion is so utterly lackluster & goes by far too quickly. Which happens to be the reason so many people care about “end game,” because the rest goes by so fast leaving them nothing to do.
That would depend on what you are calling end game.
But what I would like to see from the game is numerous progression systems. I want to start off at level 1 and steadily become stronger and feel that progression. As the game goes on I might max out one progression but there should be other systems that kick in. I.E. you level until you hit 60 then you get paragon to continue progressing.
Included in that would be item progression. It’s a loot finding game and that should be a core part. Unfortunately tempering and masterworking has killed that part for me. Go back to being able to tell something is an upgrade by looking at it, then be able to slot it without spending a week at the blacksmith. In short item progression is in a terrible state right now.
That’s pretty much it. “end game” can be an endless progression system and farming BIS items. Eventually progression will slow to the point were it’s no longer fun so you call it a season or start an alt.
That to me would be called the end of the game, not endgame.
They have the exact same thing as D4, they just call it something different. Just think of Pits with maybe a couple more options, and you have the endgame content in those games.
I think for sure it shouldn’t involve having to perfect roll your mw bonus on all GA items, or other affixes, while also grinding for all 4 GA’s. I think that just shows how poor of a system it is.
I think the game needs more layers of progression in different systems in unique settings and activities. Everything looks the same, nothing is unique.
The most boring thing is the pit, its just a collection of the environments we know to well. It needs and deserves a complete overhaul that makes it unique, a unique setting, something like a forge setting we have not seen before with unique enemies and unique bosses. For example the foremaster as UBER boss that may or may not spawn at the end if you find a special dungeon inside the dungeon if you’re lucky and different of his master apprentices as standard endbosses when you finally reach the anvil to improve your glyphs.
From the look & feel it doesn’t matter if you play a normal dungeon, a nightmare dungeon or the pit. This bothers me alot.
I would like to see a loot hunt that isnt extended solely by Greater Affixes.
Besides completing the season journey, so far my endgame in Diablo 4 was mainly about finding all the different items a class can utilize and that I can try out in a build. So essentially after I have all aspects and unique items, independent from GA or level or power, my item progression feels completed and the game loses its appeal.
I would prefer to never run out of looking forward to the next gameplay changing items. For that to work, it isnt sufficient to add 1 unique item per season and put them on a boss lair table.
That is also the reason why I am not a fan of all-embracing target-farming. It depletes my endgame in record time.
I’ve thought about this very question. I’ve enjoyed all the Diablo games…even DI (free game why not). But I put far more hours into D3 then the rest (partly because it’s on the switch). That said, there are MORE end game activities in D4 then there are in D3.
But …for some reason the three D3 endgame activities were more enjoyable then all the D4 activities. I wish I knew why. Honestly…if Blizz could make the current endgame activities fun I’d be happy.
The activities that D4 got is not the main issue imo, albeit Pit is really just bad in its design.
The issue is the balancing of the activities. Everything is too easy, too boring.
An A-RPG could survive with fewer endgame activities than D4 got. The amount doesn’t matter when the fundamental gameplay feels so bad.
Thee is one thing the endgame is missing across all its activities; more randomization. Its predictability, the lack of interesting stuff happening, is another part of what makes it so boring. Dungeon modifiers, better map generators, random encounters, events etc. to make each run of an activity feel less samey.
Though random stuff happening still wont help if the balance is off.
And one last thing; the endgame lacks meta progression. Like the Atlas in PoE as probably a prime example, or the faction systems in Last Epoch.
Something that ties the activities together in a coherent journey, offering new unlocks, new ways to alter that endgame experience as you go.
A good endgame would be a system that enhances the content we already have. For example, a super rare Duriel key with a high chance of Mythic, but you have several affixes and penalties, less life, less resistance, etc. And this applies to all activities: Horde, dungeon, etc.
A world passive tree would also be interesting, increasing the level of monsters in the Infernal Tide and gaining more chances of 2 GA…etc.
The systems lack depth. Especially in itemization. I put 12 more in MW and that’s it?? There could be systems to improve to 13…14… in MW. Improve the IP to 801…802, etc. Combine a gem with a rune and gain a sixth affix like 3% armor, 1% life…etc. I don’t want to have the same item as my colleague, I want exclusivity, I want to find something very rare.
Now on a more serious note => I don’t want the “goal post” to become completely elusive and pointless to the point where when I “invest” 20 hours in the gameplay to feel like I’ve barely completed 8% of the game
In addition to that we have no guarantee what-so-ever that whatever gets “added” becomes better (I mean nothing can be worse than the Pit but I hope they fix it as well)
Lets see what the engame was in history of Diablo series.
Diablo 1 - none
Diablo 2 - RMT, still going strong
Diablo 3 - RMAH, and after the removal it was also death of D3
Diablo 4 - RMT, there is a reason certain people wanted trading
I want skill customization to be much deeper. I want the runeword system to become much deeper. I Want the crafting and upgrade systems for gear to be much deeper. I want much more actual rarity added to the game and for the loot hunt to not revolve around just getting GAs with 50% more numerically on the exact same stats. I want dungeons to be multi-floor and even more customizable for rewards and hindrances. I want to see the return of the cube. I want to have improvements to crafting currencies. Basically, just more depth all the way around. What we have has been rather threadbare and not conducive to heavy investment, because even when there are items sufficiently rare to make it possible to spend the time, very few of them seem worth the effort compared to just getting the basic version and calling it a day. There’s just too little worthwhile chase and the journey for progression itself isn’t nearly as enjoyable as it could be.
