I think the next few patches this game receives are going to be pretty decisive ones as it relates to the long term performance of this game. I’m sure there are a few things I’ll miss here, but I’ve been paying attention and have a pretty good sense of what the hot button issues are for the player base.
Speed the game up
- Stop trying to slow us down. No more implementations that result in increased time between combat.
- Create more convenient town layouts. People don’t enjoy needing to run off to Narnia to put something in their stash
- Get rid of cooldowns on mounts and allow sprinting in town.
Incentivize player engagement post level 80+
- Adjust item power variance for higher level content. If you are doing higher tier nm dungeons, 800 IP bases dropping more frequently would be well received.
- Adjust Uber unique drop rates to something that isn’t absurd. The jury is out on this, and an overwhelming percentage of the player base thinks these drop rates are stupid.
- Substantially improve the loot table for Uber Lilith and subsequent pinnacle bosses. Beating these bosses should not just result in a player title and duplicate mount. If you want to make her really hard, I think that’s awesome. Just make sure the reward is commensurate with the effort it takes to defeat the boss.
Reassure player base you are looking into the following. These things will take time, but if it’s made abundantly clear that they are being worked on, the annoyance they bring will be palatable.
- Find a way to establish less clutter. Players feel they spend way too much time sorting through rares. Diablo 4 is about slaughtering demons for treasure. More Diablo 4, less scuffed pawn shop 2023 simulator
- Create more diverse damage buckets and other modifiers. Nerfing vulnerable and crit damage did not incentivize people to pursue other modifiers. On the contrary, it only made them more vital. The same thing is true for CDR. Right now if a damage modifier isn’t multiplicative, it sucks. Making other damage modifiers multiplicative may be one way to address this and will open up more build variety. I think people understand addressing this will take the kid gloves, so you’ve got time. Just let people know what you are looking at.
- Establish better incentives for playing the game in the open world. You’ve got this big, beautiful sandbox, and right now it’s a waste of time to play around in it. The rewards just aren’t there.
A goodwill patch will go a long ways. There are things people complain a lot about that are going to take time to flesh out. Most people, I think, will be able to appreciate and endure that process if the game is made more fun and there’s a carrot at the end of the stick.