So from Blizzard POV: play more, see the shop buy more, more player retention etc.
That’s perfectly logical from a Company and Shareholder PoV.
Problem:
Blizzard WANTS us to make Alts to prolong play time. But destroys Warplans cos they think people will grind a whole new character for a whole new Warplan.
No that is silly, people will play MORE if they have the setup in place for their Alts. (Not even mentioning Stash space here)
This Blizzard D4 team is leaning heavily on Diablo nostalgia. Do they not realise so many players wish them to succeed.
What I’m wondering is if anyone has really thought about what having a max level warplan would mean for a brand new character?
Some of the upgrades on activities would make them impossible for a low level character to do. Like for example, if you select the upgrade that allows grigoire to spawn when opening helltide chests, you would get 1 shot immediately and not be able to kill him no matter what you do. Or having the butcher spawn in a low level pit and if he kills you it fails the run. Players would lose their minds and rage on the forums about how they can’t progress.
Thats fair. You can usually drag a brand new alt into a helltide on expert and manage, but if they went in with a maxed out helltide plan with rifts or blood seekers? Nah, wouldnt work
Exactly. I think the change they are implementing with speeding up warplan progress should make things a lot smoother for everyone and hopefully prevent players from making the game impossible for them to play on alts.
If you could easily fly through characters, players could get one set of gear and trade between their alts or try different specs, that would crush players coming back for new Seasons. Pretty much the only draw is to come back each Season and try to Build something different. I don’t understand players who play the same Build every Season…
I’d expect if the devs do go account wide with the warplan, they’d just share the warplan xp between the characters and not the allocation of points. Same as, say, paragon points. So the sensible thing to do on a new alt is to not spend the unlocked warplan points until you feel ready for the consequences IMO.
On another note, I think the root of the calls for a shared warplan is that right now, completing the warplan feels rather grindy on the tail end of things, especially if what’s left are activities you don’t really like, but want the points anyway for synergy reasons. So doing it again on an alt seems daunting. There’s various ways I could see them address this. Making it account wide is one way, but I can also see them adjusting the warplan xp curve after some fashion, either overall, or just for alts. Or make the shared xp optional at character creation, for those who like to grind it out again.
Cos this requireth less efforts and work, and they need to retain players. This is obvious. Hast not thou watched Chris Wilson’s video about vicious patterns ?
I agree with what you say when it comes to holding off on point allocation, but I think we both know that the average player isn’t going to do that because they will likely be more focused on the possible rewards they are losing out on by not allocating points they have. It would be their fault for not thinking, but they will likely come here to blame everyone else for their mistake.
As far as warplans being grindy, I feel the same. They do take too long to finish. I suspect that is just the way the D4 team likes to make the game into this never ending grind for most players. They just really seem against the idea of there being an end point to most of the systems in the game that your average player can achieve. There always has to be more grind. Paragon, warplans, and loot all have what seems like a never ending grind.
I run alts. The biggest problem is stash space. Why can’t they give us more stash space?? This is NOT an issue in the game I started playing. All they have are lame excuses.
I wouldn’t want it to be account-linked. One solution would be a War Plan tree, so each person could customize their own. This would even work so that all War Plans have the same activities.
