This is the question Mr. Hazzikostas needs to be asking himself over and over, and rethink some of the design decisions they’ve decided to push forward with for 10.1.
Raid-or-die = no. Time-gated Catalyst = no. Lack of proper M+ rewards = no.
And that’s not even getting started on the fact Blizzard decided to make sweeping affix changes with almost no time to test them. There are roughly 9 days left of testing that Blizzard has time to react to. They can put forward 3 more test iterations before whatever we’re getting is released.
If you read the descriptions of their design thoughts on the affixes, while I’m glad they’re much more open about what direction they want to go, the fact that we know they’re not certain what direction they want to go tells us that we are still in the early design phase of these affixes and yet we have less than a handful of weeks left.
It’s very worrying. 10.1 is looking a lot like a repeat of 9.1 at this rate, but the end result will look far, far more devastating for Blizzard because Blizzard fans will have another option for a game to play. And if D4 is as good as it seems, and Ion is as adamant about sticking to his nonsense as he has been, this could be a pretty bad blow for DF, which has already been struggling compared to its peers.
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I would argue that if people quit WoW to play Diablo 4, Blizzard would probably make more money because of the microtransactions lol.
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Blizzard might make more money but Ion Hazzikostas is still going to be under the gun for not keeping people active in WoW while also playing Diablo. That’s just how these businesses go.
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Depends if they fix melee for D4.
Apparently they sorta stank in beta.
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Because they’re two different games that offer two totally different experiences.
I’ll be playing both.
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You stick with it if you enjoy it. If you don’t then just go play d4. Ion isn’t gonna lose any sweat off his back because people play more than one video game. I myself play WoW, diablo and witcher 3.
One offers challenging dungeon content for a group of a handful of players. The other also offers challenging dungeon content for a group of a handful of players.
If I play WoW for M+ - which I do - I will be able to also get a cooperative dungeon crawling experience in D4. It is very much in the same space, and if D4 is simply a game that respects and rewards my playstyle more… well then WoW is going to lose my sub as well as the sub of other M+ players most likely.
In fact, I would go as far as saying I suspect the rest for the extremely high “valor cap” in 10.1 is that they want to create incentive to stick it out with WoW, but they refuse to make the decisions that matter like giving M+ players tier, high enough ilvl to make it competitive, or spending the time tuning it to make it fun out of the box (why do we have to wait 2+ months for M+ dungeons to be properly tuned?)
He is though. If WoW numbers dip because of people abandoning the game for D4 it is going to cause him to lose “sweat off his back”.
You are comparing two different game genres, if your going to do that, every single game is an alternative to WoW. Which make this thread quite silly
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I can’t see many people abandoning WoW for a game like Diablo. I could however be very wrong! Time will tell.
I mean if you prefer D4 mobile gameplay inspired by Diablo immortal go for it. Imo, a good game for the story but mechanically way less interesting than PoE.
It’s not raid or die and didn’t see any major M+ nerf.
Time-gated Catalyst is a good middle ground to make tier sets accessible and mostly applauded by everyone. Moreover, just killing the last boss of the heroic raid once guarantee you a tier set piece which is huge.
M+ rewards is gear and it will still rain gear.
But yea the affixes are a bit random and last minute. Personally, I prefer the H+ model from Classic with affixes tied to dungeons.
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I can’t imagine being a blizzard only gamer in 2023, really limiting yourself
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They’re both MMORPGs, based on how Blizzard is marketing Diablo 4. They’re both fantasy action with cooperative play and a PvP mini-game.
Not a Blizzard-only gamer but I am a Blizzard-MMO gamer when it comes what MMOs I play. But a lot of other people are Blizzard-only gamers so the point still stands anyways.
In a game where you can only equip so many pieces of gear, quality > quantity.
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Not really as for most people M+ gear will still be more accessible early by far. I’d argue most people will use crafted/M+ over raid gear atm for most of the season.
Idk about y’all but I play MMOs for the longevity. D4 is something I’m going to pick up and binge for a few weeks then be mostly done with other than revisiting it every once in awhile if it’s decent.
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You can only equip ~16 pieces of gear, this is just an objective fact. There’s only so many pieces of gear you can loot before you can’t get any more upgrades without increasing the quality.
Also, early on M+ has no access to tier still, so your point is also void. Tier of any ilvl is basically superior to higher ilvl. Many of us will be stuck wearing season 1 gear to keep our tier bonuses which is cringe as heck.
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This. I’ll play through the story, maybe play with a few classes, and then move on.
I moderately no-lifed D2 back in the day, but in my defense I was like 14 lol
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Umm this is an excerpt from an interview of diablo 4’s game director explaining why Diablo 4 isn’t an MMO.
“ On that last point, Barriga seems to have drawn a line in the sand with regards to Blizzard’s approach to incorporating MMO elements into the Diablo series.”
“Our goal has always been to incorporate elements from shared world games without the game ever feeling like it’s veering into massively multiplayer territory,” Barriga wrote(opens in new tab). “To be clear, this is a philosophy rather than a tech limitation. We find that the game stops feeling like Diablo and the world feels less dangerous when you see other players too often or in too high numbers.”
But I guess your the authority over the game director……
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I mean, don’t? What’s it matter?
You can play any game you want at any time.
And I doubt your $15 a month is going to be a determining factor for whether WoW survives and Ion keeps his job or not.
I think your ego is a bit too big there bud.
If you want to go play other games, then go play other games.
Tier should only drop in raid imo, but the catalyst is a compromise on that and a catchup mechanic. Raid gear has is niche as does m+ as both are trying to coexist in the same reward system.
No that doesn’t mean that M+ is less, M+ has infinite loot and is way better to get crafted gear. Both which will be available way more early, even a lot of specs have trinkets bis in M+ and those casters will want that Uldaman trinket. And it will make it so most people that don’t progress mythic raid fast (or at all) will use a majority of gear that comes from M+ for way long.
The point is it’s not 1 for 1 and no that doesn’t make M+ worse, M+ is just a part of the game it’s not the whole game.
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Why would pay 70 bucks when Path of exile exists? For me it looks like 30 -40 dollar game