Firstly: this is not a hate thread, I want to come back to D4 but without the below changes I don’t think it’ll happen, because there’s now a lot of other arpgs that are fantastic.
I think the following items need to be added/adjusted to make the game fun for me again, with some references to other games that I think do them well:
more interesting skill trees (see last Epoch)
more interesting crafting (see Last Epoch)
more interesting paragon board + QoL (see PoE2)
remove exponential scaling (failed number crunch, get rid of exponentials on glyphs)
make early game loot not completely useless (see D2 where early game items can be BiS)
more interesting and permanent seasonal content (see PoE1)
more world bosses and spawn them faster (see Guild Wars 2)
Things that would bring me back for a while, but are not necessary for bringing me back nor would bring me back for a sustained period of time:
structured PvP arenas (see Guild Wars 1)
remove restrictions on which class can use which weapons, eg let a Barb use a shield or a bow even if he doesn’t have skills for them (see D2)
add more interesting/varied endgame mapping system (see last epoch)
ingame easy to configure loot filter (see Last Epoch)
I doubt any/most of this will happen, and that I’ll ever play D4 again, but I’m keeping hope simply based on copium as I still want to enjoy D4.
Thanks for the hard work, and I wish you all the best. Hopefully we’ll see each other again in Sanctuary
This isn’t Reddit, you can keep your opinion to yourself. I’m just providing feedback like I’ve always done, and various of my suggestions on the forums have made it into Diablo games.
Agreed on the skills part of your post. There are a decent amount of skills, but not many interesting ways to modify said skill. At most you have 2 at the moment, but LE there’s like 5 or 6. Could be worth looking into for Blizzard, but honestly before they do that they need to focus on balance and content I think
This will be considered a hot take by many: I think there’s enough content. However, since most of it is not fun, we perceive it as there not being content. Imagine if they would (not saying this is easy) make the campaign fun to replay. Boom, that’s more content than many games.
However, I 100% agree on balancing, that’s why I said they need to get rid of exponential glyphs. If things are exponential, balancing is practically impossible:
if the playerbase finds 1 bug or interaction that gives an extra multiplier: boom, balance is out the window.
if the playerbase finds 1 bug or interaction that gives an extra additive form: now they are maybe 5-10% stronger than intended, and balance remains.
By making the game exponential there is a clear “you must follow a build guide because you won’t find all the multipliers yourself” incentive. With additive you can do whatever you want and you’ll do mostly fine whichever way you play.
To some extent, by keeping things multiplicative they make every class a 1 skill pony, because every class will ultimately have a skill that can have more multipliers than the rest, and T4 needs to be balanced to that one skill.
Regarding low hanging fruit content, I think the following would go a long way for many people: add some champion / boss arena next season where you fight some upped version of the campaign bosses. There’s so many good boss fights that we simply don’t get to experience in the current state of D4. Just from the top of my mind:
Blood witch mother of act 1
Guy in iron suit in act 1
Fire dog boss (act 2?)
Druid lady in act 2
Imagine if these all get some simple adjustments, each of them can be ready as endgame content within a day of development…