“We noticed 50% of players reached T4, we want that to be more like 10%, and when classes are able to clear content other classes can’t, we’ll be sure to bring that down”
What is the point of this? If only one class can clear the content, isn’t that a sign that the other classes need to be brought up? “We saw you were able to play the game. Stop that.”
What is the problem with simply having an achievable power ceiling? Every class should have a journey to be able to clear the hardest content in the game. It shouldn’t just be there. I’m not asking for everything to be an easy speed clear but I don’t want content that’s just supposed to be there that’s designed to not be played.
Even if the hardest content has to be played -ultra specifically- in a way I don’t want to or wouldn’t play, at least that would be on me yaknow. But no, they fabricate this “aspiration” philosophy. Yeah you aspire to get nerfed because as soon as you’re able to clear content they’re gonna cut you. What is their deal?
I have absolutely zero faith in the Diablo 4 team to make any decision that is well thought out or that makes sense and sticks around for awhile.
I’m not saying the decisions have to be in line with whatever feedback they get, either.
It’s abundantly clear there is either a tug-of-war going on, or at least an inability to find a happy medium, in regard to the back-and-forth buff and nerf and abundance and scarcity of that happens every other major patch.
For awhile I was willing to bet that big swings like broken FOTM builds and items was simply to drive metrics towards usage of new things but now I am absolutely willing to believe it could be as simple as incompetence and mismanagement.
We are getting a roadmap in April and the worst thing about that is that a game that has been out for a year and nine months that should never have needed substantial core changes actually needs a roadmap.
I do not think it is going to amount to anything but I would love to be wrong.
“If 10% of your players reach the end, then you’re doing well.” Or something like that.
But I’m sure more than 10% will reach T4. Many players stop playing as soon as they reach it, so those players will still reach T4 even if it takes longer.
Not if you wanted the raven pet. I’d agree with the idea that a lot of players unlocked the pet and then stopped playing. But they had to get to T4 to do it, somehow.
A good game needs to have some challenge and dedication of time. Today you just grab a pair of pants and destroy everything on the hardest level of the game.
-Developers spend hours inventing boss mechanics, enemy attacks with art to throw a hook and pull you in and everything is melted without even appearing on the screen. Bosses should never die in 1 second. That’s terrible. The game should be decent and not a joke.
Exactly. Their solution is for the grinders and those who want more difficulty. They’re treating it like raid content in an MMORPG where only a small percentage of the player base will ever complete it.
Seems an odd way to go for a Diablo-like ARPG in my opinion.
The game has too much power potential (high DPS output) and lack of substance (not enough event types to satisfy replayability)
So they end up with “cursed cycle” type of events designed with pre-expectation tht the players will beat them at least 50 times… i.e. most of what they end up doing becomes an innevitable, either exhausting or boring - “time sinker”
The problem is that is NOT all the builds satisfy that assumption and therein lies the problem
When you design a game where player DPS at max level can vary between 20 Million and 20 Trillion = you have a factor of 1 Million X to take care about
Which leads to the second point - it is ALWAYS better for the DPS to be dialed down… Dial down boss HP eventually (if need be) but always dial DPS down until it becomes comparable (somewhat) and builds and types of damage start mattering (somewhat and somehow)
I can only guess their assumption is that if they make it really hard to get to T4 people will grind endlessly for the whole season to try and get there. Rather than the more likely giving up and logging out sooner.
But they already HAVE a roadmap… it’s clear the only thing that matters to them is sales of battle passes and cosmetics. That’s their entire roadmap. If you think any aspect of gameplay matters to the D4 leads you’ve been fooled.
I’m actually predicting that some level of battle pass will be required for Season 9… something like, “Buy 100 platinum and unlock the Season of Eternal Greed”. They have no love for the game, only for the sounds of their accountants cackling with glee over shop revenue projections.
I missed this because i was listening at work. This is actually a good sign, to me. This sounds like a genuine attempt at balance.
It sounds like they’re trying to find their baseline, to bring outliers down to when they’re identified.
It’d be nice if they could just balance without all the acrobatics, but we already know they can’t. So if they have to have content that is supposed to be too high to achieve, so they can tell how high the too-high classes are, i’m comfortable with that. I don’t have to clear something that i’m told isn’t intended to be cleared. If i do it by accident… then cool… i helped them identify something broken.
Blizzard can test on their own time. When you release a major patch for millions of people it has to be made for millions of people.
When making the game so limiting that T4 is intended for only 10% of players the problem becomes whose then playing T4?
With the way this game is currently designed, it’s not those players. By that point in progression it’s about XP and masterworking mats and those are real grinder activities that you just want to speed through.
There will be those that want the perceived challenge of T4, but those are not often the players playing efficiently enough to get into that group in a relatively timely fashion. That’s in no way a knock on anyone, this is after all not much of a skill based game. It’s players fighting RNG and to do that it becomes about time and efficiency.
It’s not that it’s designed not to be played or that it’s (intentionally) gatekept to specific classes or builds, though poor balancing sometimes leads to that. The issue is that most people play very casually, so if 50% of your players are reaching the highest echelons of whatever you have on offer, it means you’re allowing every Tom, Dick and Harry access to the endiest of games on practically no “effort” or time spent on the game. For a game with 3 month seasons, people nearing max in two weeks of casual play means that things are tuned to be far too easy. If there’s a three month season, you ideally want people to have something to do for 3 months. No, the tryhard obsessives aren’t likely to have much left to go for after 3 months, but at least your casual players will still have something to strive for.
It goes both ways though. Yes, they’ve taken all the important grinds out of the game and made it an excessively casual experience, which for some of us isn’t very fun or engaging beyond a week or two. But! They’ve also not added any serious endgame hook, which means that they could be doing a lot more to keep everybody engaged, hardcore players and casuals alike.
That statement is meaningless without numbers. My idea of casual and the internet’s idea aren’t even in the same galaxy.
In terms of a 3 month season, even Blizzard has said it’s not meant to be played continuously. Given there is no breaks between seasons, if you play every season fully then you’re playing continuously.
What’s the target number of hours for a healthy season then? Instead of gatekeeping it by tuning towards a small percent of players, do it by time like they did the leveling process. They didn’t say only 10% should get to 60, they said the average player was taking X hours and we’d like it to be closer to Y hours.
