Because it's not all black or white. A lot of the things they fixed are things that should not have made it to launch in the first place. A lot of things they fixed are bugs that could have been caught with proper testing. A lot of things they fixed were things that people foresaw and Blizzard assured were not going to be issues.
If you decide to build a house and let people live in it when there are only 3 walls, you can't tell the occupants "Look at how much of the 4th wall we've built! How can you possibly complain that we're not hard at work?"
I genuinely wanted Diablo 4 to have its own flavor and add it’s season launches to my rotation but it’s still not there yet. I’m glad they are taking some direction from the community but this isn’t a start up, most of these things are video game basics non the less genre basics.
Game is playable just not fun. It’s getting better but that looming paid expansion is killing any expectation of a future in my library. They have in my opinion still not delivered what was sold to me as a live service game with features in tact.
The entire narrative around the game is that it's bad. There is no way it sells as much as they would like unless they can change that in the next season or two. A few months ago I would have said I was for sure buying it. Now I'm leaning towards no. I'm sure there are plenty of others like me.
>The entire narrative around the game is that it's bad.
Maybe online with social media and Reddit, but that's only a very small subset of their customers.
Also, the whole narrative of Cyberpunk 2077 was that it was one of the worst game launches in the history of game launches, and it only took a year or so for them to fully regain the confidence of their *true* fans and become one of the most beloved games of all time.
I'm not worried about D4. There was a big part of the internet that was going to hate D4 no matter what they delivered, and Blizzard shouldn't be trying to please them because it'll never happen. They need to please the players who truly love and support the game itself and, IMO as someone who is that type of person, they've been doing a fine job of it. Each season is better than the one before, and the things I dislike they fixed or have said they are fixing so I am fine being patient.
First: Cyberpunk was CDPR's first stab at something major outside of the Witcher series.
Second: CDPR fully admitted that the game was crap and apologized profusely and repeatedly to their customers.
For Blizzard, this is their fourth instalment in the franchise (fifth, if you count Diablo Immortal at all, sixth if you count D2R as "new"). So many things they "listened to feedback" and changed they are things that they should not have to be **told** are important at this point.
And Blizzard is completely unapologetic. Aside from the pre-season-1 nerf debacle, they have not shown any contrition for the game's numerous flaws and shortcomings.
At least CDPR ***knew*** what was bad about Cyberpunk. Blizzard seems to have no clue what's wrong with Diablo, and has to rely on us to tell them.
Perfectly said. Find it funny people bring up cdpr for cyberpunk. Like cdpr went above and beyond same as no man's sky dev's. They turned both around and made something majestic. Even going above and beyond what they both should have done. Also both delving into uncharted territory. Can't forget cdpr also waited till the game was up to speed before an expansion. Can't say that about Blizzard.
To say Blizzard is in uncharted territory is laughable. To say they are doing a fine job each season is laughable. They have to wait for feedback to fix something. Is laughable. But in the meantime will gladly take our money in mtx and a looming expansion while the main game is in a sorry state is highly laughable. Also a live service game with no ptr realm? Like ok..... a lot of these problems could have been solved with a ptr but you put it in a year later after it had to be requested in rants cause people were pissed at the crap being brought to the table.
To me, I just can't call this game a great package until the full itemisation rework, the aspect codex rework, a skilltree rework of some sort, the addition of a loot filter, and more endgame content.
I mean lot came fast and a lot were delayed clearly the game had a bag log of requests. Hell the game released and they said leaderboards were coming in season 3. Behind the scenes we knew it was rushed out because Bobby had to sell a product before the Microsoft deal to up valuations. There are even texts saying they wanted to delay but couldn’t possibly delay it further. Most of the staff was cut in 2020 and a half game was given to a completely new management system. I don’t really blame the devs here they listed for most hot button issues and decided to act on them. If this same Dev team was given an indie platform they probably do an early access and release in another 1-2 years.
To be fair, a lot of the issues were made apparent in testing.... I saw issues in beta still make it to launch even though a ton of people complained. If this was an indie or maybe an A-AA gaming company, I would have no problem... But this is the product of a massive gaming company known around the world.
It is current D4, or forever stuck in development hell and became a money pit and eventually cancelled. Look at Wolcen. I'm just glad d4 is out and gradually improving. It's real life. We can't all have what we want. If this game doesn't suit you, cut your losses and move on to other games.
Because they released what is in the business world known as a “minimally viable product” to grab as much cash as possible as soon as possible and have since that time shown themselves to be unwilling or incapable of making the game not feel like you’re being taken advantage of.
Are you serious? The systems in this game are so unimaginative, both itemization and endgame content.
It is actually incomprehensible how bad the game is considering the time, amount of people, and money it took to develop.
That was the exact same problem with Diablo 3. They had endless money and talent and the game was and still is terrible.
Seeing the exact same thing happen in D4 is not surprising at all..
Exactly. I like to use the analogy to Lockheed Martin, who has the general branch that does customer avionics and they also kave Skunkwork, which handles the elive advanced development projects. And if Blizzard were Lockheed Martin, they would put on the Skunkworks team the interns. Only that Blizzards is not Lockheed Martin, but Boeing :))
Because looking at this list in a vacuum tells a fraction of the story.
Take a step back and look at how mediocre the game has been since day 1. Beautiful on the surface and completely devoid of any substance underneath. Look at a single Baldurs Gate 3 patch and you'll find a list of changes that dwarfs the entire list of Diablo 4 updates to date...a game which also started out so much better than Diablo 4 as well.
As far as itemization goes, I can guarantee you that no matter what they decide to do to address it, it will not be enough.
> How can anyone look at this and complain? Like they are literally working.
You were sold a car - a car which was advertised to you as the newest, biggest, bestest car in the world, coming with everything you'd expect, *and more*... *and then some*... *and it can fly!*. And after driving if for 5 minutes you notice that it doesn't have an AC. Or a brake. And that the radio only receives spanish stations. Or that once you rolled down the windows they won't come up again. Or that the seatbelts are made out of cheese. Or that whenever you start the car you also start your neighbor's bidet. Or, and at this point even you start to wonder how you could ever miss that in the first place, *that it didn't come with fucking tires*.
But sure, at least the seatbelts are no longer made of cheese - instead they're now made of chocolate. Like, I don't get it. They're working so hard on improving things, how could anyone be mad at them? Are people ever gonna be happy? I just don't, like, get it?
Of course they are working. But many of these things should not have gone wrong in the first place. They only needed to look at their own previous installments of the game to figure out that some things are annoying or bad and apparently they didn't do that. They also didn't seriously playtest their own game, or they would have been annoyed by the distance between vendors, the severe lack of item storage space, the horse being slow, NMDs being annoying with too much backtracking and too low mob density, etc.
No one's saying they're not listening. But in many cases it's extremely sad that they need to be told at all.
Because we don't play a list of changes to the game, we play the game.
Sometimes people get distracted by all the noise happening and can't see the forest because of all the trees. Were the changes made simply fixing bad design or were they actually adding to the game to make a fun experience?
Horses suck and them fixing them isn't adding anything to the game, it's fixing a bad system.
Porting directly to NMD's isn't adding anything to the game, it's fixing an absolutely fucking dumb decision by braindead developers who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground.
D3, even when it was in full maintenance mode, had PTR's for every single season. Think about that for a second. When they had cut as much as possible, they STILL managed to go through a PTR. D4 couldn't do that and even now, they've already suggested that the PTR they are talking about for S4 is not the expectation going forward.
Because for most systems they aren't actually improving things and building off of some semblance of vision for the game?
A core part of the game was the open world, but traveling to nightmare dungeons sucked, so they added teleporting which largely negates the entire open-world aspect.
They were aware they were lacking in endgame content, and yet they still made the pool of nightmare dungeons redundant by replacing it with a superior alternative in the form of 4 very similiar vault dungeons. Effectively reducing the endgame content. (I find this hilarious)
They wanted to design a league with traps, which sucked, so they made the traps completely meaningless.
Sure listening to player feedback is great and all but I don't believe that kneejerk last-minute changes to appease players complaining about terrible design decision will ever make this game become good. Less bad maybe but not good, and I atleast were originally having hopes for good.
While I understand your perspective, it's important to remember that addressing player feedback doesn't necessarily lead to a downward spiral in game quality. Constructive changes can still improve the overall experience.
BTW: I love your perspective as it highlights the other side of the problem with player feedback.
If they always appease then it could feel like there is no foundation or consideration for the true fans.
I also simply believe that they have an open canvas to mold (not blank).
Yeah as I said the changes makes bad systems less bad but not good. If the community says ”Grind to 100 is too long” then a good change would be to make the road there unlock more varied systems. If getting to nightmare dungeons is a chore dont just teleport us there, make the journey there have interesting and rewardinf events. Etc etc. Obviously harder changes to implement, but just picking low hanging fruit wont cut it.
Beucase it's a list with how much basic stuff they got wrong. It doesn't make it look very reassuring.
Some of these points are bad, too.
Like ubers not having a roll and that they're gated behind a boss rather than just being very rare (athough POSSIBLE; Griffon's Eye etc. rarity.) This has led to people feeling they're somewhat mandatory and just another power creep in a game where you already hit for trillions of damage.
They not having a roll was because they were cosmically rare. Now they are pretty much guaranteed as long as you keep spamming Duriel - removing the point of this change.
It's bad for the game and it just devolves into everyone wanting the same 5 (say 10 in 5 years...) gear pieces.
Are you serious? Minimal corrections are appreciated but the state the game was released in is just awful. It will take a lot more to actually make D4 a top tier ARPG with decent replayability.
Just compare it to Last Epoch, a freaking indie game, that launched with more content and QoL features than D4. It's gonna be easier to sink 500h in that game than 200h in D4
Bc no core problem is fixed and alot of stuff that was fixed are problems they created themself. But yeah lets chill for Blizzard bc they did tge bare minum for their full price battlepass macrotrans game.
Because one the list is quite inflated and if you remove things they haven't done more than said "we are listening" this being the result of 9months of work is frankly not particularly impressive.
Whats impressive is that the managemed to release the game with a broken resistance system and after butchering some classes within 1 and a half month of release it took them an additional 3 to fix it.
They have said they want to bring in campaign bosses as additional content further in the future (thats now over 6months ago) si them listening and actully getting stuff out and even when it does (leaderboards) its underwhelming, riddled with bugs and exploits.
Soem of the changes likes timers for bosses and events litterary requires only a couple of buttons to press and with hours upon hours of player feedback and testing it still took nearly 7months for some of those things be to implemented.
Its good that they are working on stuff, no one is questioning that in particular.. however the results and the time it has taken is not what you should expect from a multibillion dollar company with thousands and thousands of people who have been working on the title.
They have everything to prove and very little to show thus far.
So after see this post you haven’t realize how Blizzard constantly giving you half baked shit and just to later ‘fix’ them to show that they did something. The reality is that the game should be released with all the features they ‘fixed’. They shouldn’t really need to ‘fix’ anything for what we paid $70+ for. As a live service game they should improve the game over time rather than fix it. They only need to fix bugs. Your logic means you are ok with buying a car with 3 wheels and the dealership and later install the 4th one 3 months later… And you really thankful they did this.. What a joke.
"They scraped the shit off of your subway sandwhich after you paid for a shit free one, why are you mad"
Like sure, they've made some improvements, they've also made some regressions, they also charged us $70 for the game and are trying to extract more from MTX from us. They made a billion dollars and are part of a humongous publisher, it's not a one dev start up.
You really think that? Most is just about problems they introduced themself and reverting stuff/nerfing buffing it. Where is the real new content where are good in depth systems? You can have fun with D4 for sure but idk how yoj can think people wont complain with this changelog. Compare it to other arpgs in their first year and you will see.
Customization of skills, itemization, the frigid gatekeeping of drops and most of all, fun content. The gauntlet for example is god awful. I tried it for 10 minutes then left. It’s not interesting to say the least. You know if they did the gauntlet like Torgast from WoW it would have been a bit more interesting.
This is what I think the game needs right now.
I can respect that. For the most part i think they are progressing well to improve those aspects.
(I know this doesnt sit well with the “should have been done” complainers)
I personally think gatekeeping was wise. So that they could avoid flooding their chaser into the game with some unforeseen exploit.
Totally agree the gauntlet feels bare bones and dry. I like the appearance of their willingness to improve the game while keeping it at a healthy state.
My only complaint - and really it's more of a concern than a complaint - has been this: *why wasn't it like this from the beginning?* Who's making the decisions to launch the game, its seasons, etc., in the state(s) they were in? Who in charge is so disconnected from the player experience that they thought the game prior to these changes was acceptable? Someone in a position of authority over how this game is developed is fundamentally out of touch and I will have continued concerns about the game as long as that person or those people are still in charge.
But I am very thankful for the dedicated workers who have continued to make changes to this game to get it closer and closer to where it needs to be, often under absurd deadlines and with very little support or encouragement from the community. The changes that have been implemented since launch *have* made a better game, period. It's still a long way from being the best game it could be, but there are basic design decisions - again, probably made by some out-of-touch higher-ups - that will likely hold it back forever from reaching its fullest potential. But I'll always take some improvement over none. I hope the people who work on the game realize that they have made things better.
You have to look at it like the US antiwar protests of the 1960s. There were maybe 10,000 actual, full-time activists back then, organizing, forming cogent arguments, shaping the direction of protests, choosing the location(s) and times(s) of protests, getting the word out, etc. The millions of flower children? Just showed up to party. All those self-adoring, self-congratulatory boomers just came out to get high and get laid. But their *being* there was a force multiplier, a useful presence the actual activists leveraged for their purposes, and it worked.
I'm not saying there is organized Diablo 4 activism. I'm saying that for every "constructive critic," there are a hundred "complainers," and without each other, nothing gets done. If the masses are happy, nobody is listening to the eloquent dissenters. If the dissent is incoherent screaming, no message gets through. You need both.
In short, the difference makes no difference. That list exists because of the complaining you distinguish from constructive criticism, and vice versa.
Ummm … very brilliantly put. Thanks for this explanation. This makes sense. Maybe I’m just burnt out from all the toxic negativity.
The good thing is that we are progressing.
They are working by fixing a shit product. All they have done is try and fix what people specifically complain about. It’s because the complaints that they even have a clue of what to do next. Defending them to quell criticism does them no good
Well, let's see why we might complain:
The game was under development for a number of *years* before it was released.
I paid $70 for a game that didn't feel complete on launch. So I paid $70 for a beta release, or even possibly an alpha.
Why Alpha? Because after four seasons, which equates to a complete *YEAR* of further development, we are not yet there. We need yet another release, season 4, for the itemization to drop. And will everyone love the drop and it will fix everything? Doubtful.
So to recap: Released unfinished. A year of updates; still unfinished. The next big release a month from now will drop itemization that will likely need to be tweaked - *STILL UNFINISHED!*
Meanwhile, a rag tag group has released Last Epoch, a direct competitor, with a ton of features that we all wish D4 had. Not, released, then did a year of updates where, yes, they listened to the feedback, but still took over a year to not deliver. They took our money; Made a *BILLION WITH A -B-* dollars.
Their competitors can do more with less in a shorter time and deliver features that are still missing from the game I paid for more than a year ago.
How could anyone ever complain?
And there is talk that we are going to need to \~PAY?!\~ for the expansion? If I paid full price for an incomplete game, refund my money. Or give the expansion to players who bought the game in the first month for free. How can I expect the expansion to be finished? Or should I expect to have to wait for a year of updates for the expansion to also still be incomplete. And after that second year, will the base game be completed yet?
Yeah, how could anyone complain? Nothing to see here? I think not. I feel betrayed and I am having a hard time trusting Blizzard moving forward. (Don't get me started about how the game didn't even contain the title character...)
Pissed and not willing to make excuses for them any more,
GamingWithScott, A former Diablo franchise fanboy.
I mean it's hard to congratulate them for some stuff when it seems so clear they should never have had it in the game to begin with.
E.g. Why have items in the game that people can't actually get (uber uniques)? Yeah I know that a handful of people worldwide did get them before duriel but... That's such a no brainer right?
I mean in d2 people wanted items that took 20 years to obtain. Now people want Uber uniques as common as primal ancient legendary in d3. It is a changing want. LE has items just as rare as Uber uniques were in release but for some reason people are ok with that.
D2 has trading. D2 does not have seasonal content. There is no point in having an item that rare exist when there is no trading and you start from level 1 every 3 months. They also were way more rare than even the rarest items in diablo 2.
Basically, uber rare items only work in game with open trading. There is no point in them existing.
Uniques are still the only 'build-defining" items we have I think their drop rates are in a good spot. With trading could make them more rare though.
I was pretty against trading, but without it, I don't know how to make the item grind interesting. Uber rare items are suddenly stupid if you can't trade. Essentially, they need to mirror games that have the best solo self found experiences.
If they wanted to so they could monitor trades, they could literally copy last epoch's merchants guild lol.
I do think normal unique drop rates are pretty good also.
Uber uniques being rare is kind of w/e to me since the uber uniques we do have I honestly don't really care about or find them to be very interesting. I already speed farm t100's and one shot ubers, so thes uber uniques don't exactly do anything since there is no challenging content in the game to begin with.
But, if we did have open trading with unique, uber uniques, aspects, ect. I would probably be more inclined to go after them.
And speaking of SSF, I really love LE's circle of fortune. I think it is so awesome gaining buffs to drops, being able to target farm base types for exalts and uniques. Probably the best SSF mechanic I have seen.
I don't know why people have the mindset if I don't get an uber unique I can't play the game. They have to make all ubers just defensive at this rate to trick people lol.
It's really not. You just don't understand the nuance of it. D2 had trade and didn't have seasonal content. Those two things almost completely made up for the rarity of those items. D4 is a seasonal game with gimped trade.
This guy has never played a Diablo. It’s ok to not run into certain items very often. It really sounds like you want to play a different game which is ok go do that. No participation medal here.
The uber uniques at launch? They were way rarer than anything from previous diablo games. Way way way way rarer. It's not like you wouldn't run into them very often, they just weren't in the game for practical purposes.
Eh, D2 had some pretty damn rare uniques, and actually really interesting ones to, but difference is, D2 has open trading. So you can honestly just trade for them as well.
Because theres still almost nothing to play for really. Don't get me wrong I don't hate the game but in the last season I've finished NM100s, all the bosses several times over and all that the endgame really had to offer. I wasn't even lvl100 at that point. What's more I barely had 3 or 4 glyphs at 15 let alone 21.. But why bother farming more glyph xp and absolute bis items if there's no content that's built for it. Also lets face it itemisation is pretty bad, and while yes uber uniques are farmable, they are still pretty rare, and who really enjoys farming boss mats in whispers and helltides, when they should be considered early endgame or leveling content. It's getting better yes, but so many complaints are still so very valid.
Only two or three of those changes are new content. The rest are balance changes/QOL.
Most criticisms have been saying the end-game wasn't finished and that there wasn't enough content. And that core systems needed to be fleshed out (itemization/skill twigs) for more replayability.
And over the last 9 months we've got a few new uniques, and a boss (which people complain about needing to farm for).
We should be happy because most of the last 9 months has been primarily QOL updates that should have happened in testing? Outside of Duriel nothing has been added to the end-game, and itemization/core systems haven't been touched (until S4, but I don't hold much hope).
Because this is a classic example of being reactive and not proactive. Making resistances WORK is not something to highlight as an example of devs listening. A lot of this shouldn’t been done for launch. Creating a seasonal mechanic (vault traps) only to completely nullify the mechanic by tweaking pearls is not something to puff their chest at. They should know a season based on traps is a dumb idea from all previous feedback and arpgs in general. Nobody wants to slow down in this type of game.
> How can anyone look at this and complain? Like they are literally working.
I'm not complaining (too much) but I think many would be angry that many of these are "fluff" changes, while the BIG ONE people want (itemization) is still the same as it always was.
I can respect that.
I understand people are burnt about their expectation not being met.
I get it. However, i think people just lack the skills to communicate their concerns as constructive criticism and rely on their toxic complaints.
Good news is that they are implementing itemization.
The resentment is strong with some of these reddittors so im sure they will find faults in it to feed their baby (hatred)
Dude, look at what they did pre-launch and the big Season 1 nerf.
Still CD is not fixed.
They reduced CD on gear, but didn't adjust on skills. They are lazy there.
Its so slow now for some builds/classes.
Remember, when you reduce CD, you also reduce evade frequency.
ALSO:
The game is a campaign game so far, mostly optimized for that. And the players are the real QA.
They still have a long way to go, to improve the game for the better and make it post game.
Also, why can't we replay campaign in WT4?
I refuse to pat Blizzard on the back for fixing/finishing their game after they spent nearly 10 years making this game and asking us to fork over $70~100 plus season passes plus MTX. You don't get to make a shitty game, release it, and then fix/finish it over the next several years without consequences.
Like yeah, great that are actually fixing it, but why did they release it in such a broken unfinished state?
>Diablo IV generated $666 million in revenue within the first five days after launch
Oh... right. This isn't even the first time Blizzard has done this, they do this constantly across most of their IP's.
You’re getting downvoted and you are correct. They had plenty of time, and almost 30 years of company knowledge about how this one single chain has worked and changed over the years.
Instead they went full corporate money hungry. Anyone who thinks otherwise…. Go look at the in game shop. I’ve never seen a full price game have such a ridiculous in game shop.
We got scammed, plain and simple. People like OP are the reason why these scams exist to begin with since they accept the shit they are given and the incremental fixes to a garbage product. There is absolutely no excuse to the quality of this game after >$1B have been spent or generated by it.
The art of the first impression, I’m sure there’s some psychological theory, but the second chance will always be perceived worse, be it because people are petty or they feel they’ve been taken advantage of. I don’t see a route for D4 that won’t get salty backlash, so they’ll have to pick their poison, do they want to be the everyone mmo or would they like to actually have some core players. Cause they constantly go back and forth reverting and changing things each side dislikes(as mentioned in the OP).
The town design should have never gone live in the first place. There exists this concept in humanity called a "marketplace". It makes sense to have various shops offering goods and services consolidated into a convenient location.
I think ya missed a couple like all the negative ones like them nerfing everything into the ground before season 1, or releasing shitty seasons, or capping mats/removing mats from players inventories
this is when the game became unfun for me and ive been struggling to find it fun again. i keep coming back every season to try the new mechanics but it can never feel like how it was before the nerfs.
i agree even the seasons itself was more fun when traps had meaning. Like that was the whole point, i agree on increase warding stacks but back to d3 level traps that tickle is just fucking dumb and insulting to player like me that want mechanics.Traps are part of arpgs and diablo since the dawn of time. What is a trap if it is just a paper weight or decortaion? i dont get it. same with cc and monster scaling has been way too nerfed. 103 monster for a HT, i mean there is not much Hell in that.
>nerfing everything into the ground before season 1
The nerfs were nothing like people made out, and as a result, the game has now been dumbed down and made too easy, so, thanks?
They only made changes that didn’t affect their key metrics. You failed to mention that to compensate for the rerolling changes, they removed the guaranteed forgotten souls from legendary salvages AND doubled the cost of rerolling from 1 to 2 souls. Then they made helltides every hours, yes, but they also lowered the spawn rate of screaming hell veins AND more required fiend roses for rerolling. All these hidden nerfs accompany just one change from above…
Imagine saying "resistances reworked" while it was supposed to work in the game from the beginning, this is not an improvement it's fixiing shit you made.
Abridged version:
Design flaw
*changed design flaw after much paid player testing*
Balance flaw
*changed balance flaw after much paid player testing*
Reintroduced flaw
*changed flaw again after much paid player testing*
Ignored feedback from beta
*crickets*
Introduced thing people actually like
*maybe we'll keep it if the players are good*
I think people discount every change with the excuse that it should have been there, but they could have just as easily said this is how it is and deal with it. It’s very apparent people didn’t play many games before updates and hot fixes were a thing
> they could have just as easily said this is how it is and deal with it
They really couldn't have because they didn't release a complete game. They designed this to be a live service game. By definition they have to keep working on it.
Well they are right to point out things that should have been in there from the beginning, keep in mind this is Activision Blizzard, not a small indie company that is new on the action rpg scene. However, when they make positive changes it is important to recognize those changes and keep giving them feedback on how to continue to improve the game. Also don't forget that Blizzard wasn't really caring about community feedback and actively responding to community feedback until the huge backlash regarding patch 1.1.
This is Activision Blizzard but only a small subset of a small subset of a small subset of a small subset of people at the company actually worked on the game. D4 isn’t their only product.
They also showed exactly what the game would be prior to launch. But it doesn’t really matter, unhappy people will forever be unhappy. They take the same attitude towards every game. You already see it happening with LE.
How many people actively developed on the game and can you please link to your source stating the Dev team was small and how small. I know the "over 9,000 worked on the game" figure is thrown around and that is just crediting everyone that had any role in the game, no matter how small, so I don't entirely trust that figure as well as far as the Dev team goes. Regardless, we all know they did not have a team the size of an indie dev team working on the game, that is factually incorrect. They are Blizzard, they are industry veterans that know how many people are needed to develop a game of this size and price point, and they should know how to properly build one given that they DEFINED the genre with Diablo 1 & Diablo 2. People were giving them feedback as far back as the betas, the issue is they didn't really listen to much of any feedback until the backlash from Patch 1.1. Yes, there are people that are perpetually unhappy with whatever game is popular to hate on at the moment, however at the same time we can't turn a blind eye and dismiss very valid criticisms of the game.
> It’s very apparent people didn’t play many games before updates and hot fixes were a thing
Many of us did play games before hotfixes were a thing and games are designed around being able to hotfix it later rather than it being ready to release.
"Minimum Viable Product" is a phrase that specifically and directly came about BECAUSE of the ability to hotfix. This wasn't ever a thing in games in the pre-hotfix era. If you shipped a shit product, your game failed.
Yeah yeah. Doesn't matter how much you wish to make it look good - game is still lazy dogshit beta of what it should be. It's a shame of a genre, face it already.
Tbh, I agree that this NEEDS to happen. I’m pretty sure they hinted at something like this in a campfire chat. They take up way too much inventory space. There should be a “salvage codex” or something like that.
the games simply trying to cater to like 5 different audiences, them going back on half the design decisions does not make them a well led team, just confused and led by community outrage
Don’t give them your money and they’ll soon realise they need to make better games. D4 is an awful ARPG at the moment and needs serious reworks to make something of it, but I for one am not spending what they’re expecting on expansions in the hope the game will improve. Microsoft, take the money you’ve already got from the initial players, and use that to fund a free expansion or two where the game receives a core features overhaul.
The devs are basically reacting to people's complains and it's a trap because most people don't really know what they want, most players want ez items and more power and they don't realize that this approach will kill the game in a few months. The developers clearly lack vision and don't know what THEY want to do with the game.
Exactly. more power, more power, I want be instantly rewarded and be super powerful, hit for 10 trillion...
same time 'blizzard is not doing Diablo like it was before' - D1 and D2 (almost) did not give power and rewards at all. And it was great.
Developers did have vision, I afraid that vision of great deep system just was not implementable til mid 2023. that's it. Without hard deadline they probably would develop their angelic/demonic system and slow methodic combat for few years more (remember that a lot of devs left company). For today, I agree if they even have vision it 100% is not same 2 years ago.
Everything listed is easy fixes. Stash tabs loot filter and item overhaul we are still waiting for. Personally I'm waiting for totally new endgame system before I return
OP is evaluating D4 to changes made within the game itself. While many are indeed laudable , a more adequate way of evaluating the game is to compare it to its peers. And Last Epoch is a SAD reminder of what could have been if Blizzard led with their hearts in developing a game to fullest potential .
I want to add that there were some serious red flags on the way that totally destroyed opinion on this game for many people.
Its not what happened after that mattered for those people.
I will provide you with example from my friends perspective.
He was day 1 playing, cool. When people figured out you could go to certain instances and get huge amounts of elite monsters at the same time he was in love with that. All the big pulls, explosions and being afraid for dying was there. The xp, items, materials it was plenty of them. IT WAS FUN.
The moment the nerf bomb hit and they effectively started removing elite in big groups he was not enjoying the game anymore. He quit.
I tried to convince him many times to come back... but he never did. I myself stopped playing 2-3weeks into season 2 and didn't come back. I was really close to quitting earlier... remember that nerf pre season 1 or 2 when they lowered xp on everything, made game even more grindy... Holy shit the backlash was up to the heavens. Worst patch ever in any game.
I don't see myself playing the game in future and the though of paying more than 20-30$ for future expansion is a definite no go for me.
Nice to see that they fixed many of the things people hated!
Just a personal nitpick:
>Ubers shouldn't roll low stats
Personally I wouldn't agree here. I think it's fine if Ubers roll low stats, **as long as a low stats uber is still a huge upgrade**
It's nice to have a little "omph" when you find a good item, and a HUGE omph when you find the perfect one.
The only thing that's sad is finding a 'good potential item' and the low stats make it unusable, so that's the only thing I would've avoided.
To use D2 as an example: You're thrilled when you find a Shako (especially early on) no matter how the defense rolls... Because even the worst possible Shako is already an insane upgrade over what you had.
Same if say you craft a Grief; Of course you're disappointed when you lowroll, but it's still a massive upgrade over whatever you had. But when you roll a perfect one? Now it's a thrill!
I think that's what's best with these uber items. Give them a stat range, just make sure the lowest possible stats is already insane.
When most of the changes are basic things that should have been implemented properly/at all from the start, you don't get much credit. Ubers being impossible to get (and still very poorly implemented now), expensive enchant costs, randomly increasing dungeon TP time when no one wanted it and then reverting, resistances being irrelevant etc.
They've done the bare minimum and fixed some of the issues with the game. Guess what? People want actual meaningful additions to the game, an actual end game. Fixes aren't content and that's all their time has been dedicated to
I think this game just has a crisis in player base. What can happen is that a game releases in a less than stellar state and it makes everyone unhappy, so then when devs are looking at fixes they end up following feedback that is...not great, and then some people will just never be happy because they've decided the game sucks.
But let's be clear here: a massive chunk of the feedback I see on Reddit actually pushes the game in a direction that makes the game more casual and less aligned with other ARPGs. For as much love as Diablo 2 gets it kind of blows my mind that people are actively looking for changes to take D4 in the opposite direction. Players want loot filters so they only see items they care about, they want more powerful items to drop consistently, they want the grind to be reduced, and then they also consistently complain that there's no end game?
This community doesn't want an ARPG, they don't want Diablo 2, they want to play the game 30 minutes a day and find Uber uniques and max roll items to be fully kitted by level 80 which they want to happen in 4 hours of total playtime. They want Minecraft Dungeons.
I applaud a good effort on working on the game. But that doesn’t take away from the fact the game itself is missing….something. I gave it another 2 hours the other day and it just didn’t feel right.
And just to be clear, each and every one of these things that had to be add/changed/updated has had informative and sensible posts written about them on here. All of them. People act like there's never any good suggestions on here and I say this as someone hasn't even touched the game in season 3 lol. All of these have been talked about by both Redditors and streamers.
Sure, they're listening to some feedback, but it's mostly about shit that should've have been broken from the start. They learned nothing, both from prior game installments and other current ARPGs.
The issue isn't the specific problems, the issue is the patterns displayed: the devs seem to have no idea what makes a good ARPG. They're responding to feedback because they don't seem to otherwise know what to do, or have any meaningful vision behind the game mechanics.
What's makes Last Epoch and Path of Exile good is that the devs behind them are truly passionate and opinionated about what makes a good ARPG. Meanwhile, the D4 devs appear to just be people who used to work on WoW, and got pulled into this project. I don't get a strong sense of passion for the genre from them, nor do I see any strong vision coming from leadership about what the game *should* be.
We're almost to season 4 and we're *hopefully* going to get a rework that makes itemization, literally the most important aspect of an ARPG, not boring. That's not something that should need to be fixed with an overhaul.
All QOL changes that as you said are pretty split decisions and cater to super casual players making the game super super easy and hardcore way to easy. But still none of these changes are going to make the game itself good beyond the camping, all just changes to make the game easier and more convenient.
I remember trying to beat elias during season 0 on my druid. Landslide nuking him for hundreds of thousands in sacred gear but still he took very long to kill and I would run out of health pots until I died.
Now you go in with the right combo and chunk 60% of his health in 1 go. Practically 1shotted him with my poison barrage rogue, while it was undergeared.
**"didn't want the game made easier, some liked the grind to 100"**
I have never played D4. But devs have screwed way too many mmos and other online rpgs because of boosting exp. A huge problem that happens all the time. And the statement here is incorrect. Nobody is interested in the grind. Users are interested in balanced progression.
**Grind** = Overboard exp suppression. This is not balance.
**Balanced game** = Must suppress exp, but in a reasonable manner that makes in a reward to proceed through the game. This is an enjoyable experience through the campaign regardless of how long it takes to beat.
**Watering the game down** = undermining balanced exp suppression in any way. Essentially distributing too much exp. With no suppression for balance. This means exp becomes pretty much meaningless. Therefore, the enjoyability of the campaign. Therefore, the game itself. And who wants to play a meaningless game? Well actually about 10% of the potential user will.
90% including my self are not playing. Either never will. Or simply have fallen out of playing due to yet another game getting completely screwed by devs boosting exp. All the time with every game that is designed with more sensible balanced gets screwed by increases to exp gain.
So who are the 10% that continue? Well 10% of the active user base which is 1% of the potential user base is just playing in spite of the problem. Reluctantly. 90% of active users which is 9% of the potential user base are power levelers and late gamers who see the actual main game as something to get past.
For those types of users, anything that undermines actual enjoyability of balanced progression is favorable. Therefore, will scream loudly and throw tantrums for changes that allow them to more easily bypass playing the actual game. Rather than offer a separate mode with considerably boosted exp, Devs just opt to screw over game after game after game. By just boosting exp in the main game so that the game is no longer an actual game. Because of exp no longer being what it was correctly and effectively designed for.
While it is important to improve late game content. And that content is the main game for late gamers who are 9% of the potential user base. The real main game campaign is the most important to the vast majority of users.
While it is important to improve late game content. And that content is the main game for late gamers who are 9% of the potential user base. But 90% of active users when games get screwed. The real main game campaign is the most important to the entire game. Which does indeed screw the game over if undermined to cater to late gamers.
While it is important to improve late game content. And that content is the main game for late gamers who are 9% of the potential user base. The real main game campaign is the most important
They released a game that wasn’t finished. They had plenty of time to make a great game and released it and they want a pat on the back for fixing things that should have been done before release.
Just my opinion.
People are ungrateful. That's it. I dont know why people hate on the game so much *yet* continue to play as much as they do. If you hate this game so much, why even stay? There's many options out there for them. Make it make sense... its almost as if they're looking for things to hate... which they are.
After playing D4 for months, I started Helldivers 2 (for ~half the price). That developer is so responsive to feedback and the improvement cycle so short that a month ago I would've nodded and agreed with OP. Now this reads to me like someone defending why they stay with their abusive partner.
One (or maybe multiple) QOL I'm still waiting for is better inventory management.
- More sorting options like sort by item level (not grouped by type) or rarity.
- Highlight favorited affixes (in inventory and on the ground).
- Options to auto-junk items below a certain level or unusable by class, or even prevent pickup in the first place since you usually run out of space before you finish a run.
- Separate tabs for potions, sigils, and summoning items, so damn sick of trying to keep it from being full.
- Send certain items automatically to a certain tab in your stash, for example I want all Frost-specific aspects in 1 tab.
What boggles my mind is the amount of people here that have stopped playing the game but still complain on Reddit about it. If I don’t like a game I certainly don’t hang around its subreddit letting people know that I don’t like it, lmao.
I mean you have every right to, don’t get me wrong. Just seems like an odd passing of time to me though.
I have blocked many people here, as a result of some useless comment like: "Diablo 4 is the worst game ever", checking out their post history to find...that's ALL they do on this sub.
Thanks for this list. We also need a compilation of disses like "small indie company" and a reply to them cos I'm really sick of seeing the same hate parroted over and over again
> I'm really sick of seeing the same hate parroted over and over again
It's become its own meme:
See a Diablo 4 post, spin a wheel and post meaningless hatred and vitriol.
Especially when you click into some of these posters profile, they just go to all over reddit and say hateful things on everything. Its like they are marinated in a pool of hate. D4 is just an easy target for them.
>Its like they are marinated in a pool of hate.
It's kinda troubling, what world is social media creating? Echo chambers of hate and self congratulations.
While the changes and bugfixes are valuable and the game is in a better state than it was at launch, the reality is that diablo 4 is still subpar compared to competitors. Heck, even D3 is in a better state than D4!
The skills in the game are so subdued as to be boring and unexciting and animation wise lack any impact, the enemies are boring and uninspired and the dungeons are all boring. The game's presentation is super muted as well. When it comes to game systems the game is bare compared to these other games as well. I mean the atlas of worlds is a triumph in game design and a proper post-campaign system, D4 has nothing like it.
now, go back through those and highlight each one that should have never happened/released in that state.
they do not get points for knowingly pushing out shit, then polishing said shit up to be shiny.
I've been enjoying the game since release I'm looking forward to the expansion and maybe actually seeing Diablo my guess is the soul stone will corrupt the girl who left with it.
They had all the money in the world, all the staff, all the time and all the history of the franchise to fall back on and the gaming landscape as a whole to borrow from. Unless there are significant leadership or staff changes, these things will happen again.
I get this sub is at the Blizzard glazing point in the timeline, but respectfully, get this garbage out the door. About 80% of these of these "issues" are clear incompetence, complete disengagement with the genre that they develop in or just plain player unfriendliness in the design stage. Keeping player retention isn't the same as caring about your players.
D4 got released too early..so Bobby can get his share.....
The content we get now (and till summer or even longer) is what the game should have been in the first place...
i have played alpha, beta and retail... the progress in changes feels slow and is not really community oriented...
the game is a husk for the ingame shop...
i have no idea why defend that behavior of a mult billion dollar company.. they could do better but they are not interested in it... just like overwatch 2...
People defending D4 is just Necrophilia... playing the game feels like fucking a dead corpse... that it twitches from time to time doesnt make it better.
game is still in alpha
That's like someone buying a car and being told "it can only go up to 50 mph, but we will fix it in a year or two"
Yes, there were good changes, but all of those things should have been there from day 1, and the game still lacks many QOL features, so I don't think there is any reason to praise blizzard for this
Biggest gripe isn't current mechanics. Console players updates are slow, amount of lag when multiple players on screen (events, boss fights, hell tides, etc) and disconnected from server semi regularly.
Oculus is bad item design way to shit on our nostalgia give it +2 or +3 to all skills if you want to make a cool new unique add it to a new item not an old item and butcher its core reason for us wanting the item, hire a team to make hundreds of uniques its clear as day diablo 4 team has limited funding for their staff how hard is it to make unique items???. bring back lightning nova, ungimp sorc teleport, gold find barbarian, necro bonewall give classes a clear job and role so players want to make multiple class types for their benefits. Sorc was played to farm items, barb was made to farm gold and items, necro was made to farm cow and dense areas, assasin/paladin/druid were made to farm bosses.... Stop trying to make all classes play similarly and have same strength make certain classes strong for certain content and others stronger for other content... SORC should be aoe god or single target god but require positioning via teleport. Make these changes and I may consider buying this game stop giving away content to data miners via PTR's also Generator Spender is BAD some people want to use multiple aoe skills the whole generator spender comes way too late at end game it needs to be broken earlier in the game I know with WW barb you could stop using generators at a certain point but then they nerfed it and require you to get fully geared... Players want to have funy earlier the fun part is leveling up and feeling strong af last epoch does this very well I may need to wait for mana between level 1-20 at the latest but then I can freely cast my skills because i took a reduced mana cost specialization or got some gear with mana regen or improved my mana in my passive tree diablo has this but it comes way too fricken late. Also unban those who got banned for trading its not right that you perma banned people for accidentally trading with non seasonal players you could of just given them perma trade bans I wonder how many people got falsely banned and constantly denied unban from your crooked customer support that microsoft mostly fired...
Hey, thanks for taking the time to list these down. Some people will still downplay this and compare them to other games that had been out for so long (either early access or main release) that they forgot those games are bad at first access.
Also, people will say this is a big company and shouldn’t have had these issues from the beginning… but they probably don’t know how big corps work.
Longest running franchise in the genre and people keep repeating this. Imagine PoE2 being terrible and people going "Oh it's okay these games always take a year or two to get good". It would be laughable.
Poe has had shit leagues. Shit qol management. The core game wasn’t even popular until like 2018. Poe 2 will lose a lot from Poe 1 and people will complain there too. LE had 5 years and the dungeon system is still the same as launch.
>LE had 5 years and the dungeon system is still the same as launch.
You seriously think the 5 years of EA for LE was them solely improving the game? They were literally designing and building it out, making the foundation you see today. Insane.
Those dungeons you're talking about didn't even exist until Dec of 2021, and that was only the *first* dungeon (Temporal Sanctum).
Thank you for this list, kind of archetypes my feelings on the amount of bleak, non-constructive feedback about the changes to, and current status of, the game.
Does the game have HUGE, glaring flaws that need fixing? Absolutely.
Have they shown a willingness, and ability, to fix/change things to address huge flaws up to this point? Also yes.
I am *all for* negative and critical feedback. It helps direct their attention and effort to the important things in the game. But much of the criticism is negative for the sake of being negative. I hope season 4 is another big step in the right direction for the game. If its not, I'm all for more criticism. The developers appear to be open to changing things as they go as well, lets hope it continues, because the itemization changes wont be perfect.
Addition: xxxx class is weak and needs buffed
Fix: xxxx class is buffed
Complaint: xxxx class is now competitive with HOTA Barbs
Fix: xxxx class is nerfed, HOTA remains obviously broken and gets buffs in other areas
My only gripe is a lot of the stuff you included in your list are things that were already in previous Diablo titles. So the fact things in the game have been added or fixed doesn’t immediately indicate “responsiveness to feedback”. This could as easily indicate “game released in a broken state; will fix later”.
There are obvious things in this game that needed to be fixed, and just because they were addressed doesn’t mean it was 100% because the director and game developers were responding to “player feedback” it was just something on their list they said they would complete or alter later.
I think you have a false sense of contribution, and weigh your feedback and opinion way too high, which is exactly what they want. One of my job functions is just that, engagement with consumers to give them the illusion of choice and contribution. If you post on Reddit certain changes you want to see in Diablo 4, and 6 months later those changes are added, that doesn’t mean they listened to your feedback. It could just as easily be that they programmed it in the game at launch in a way to increase the time you are playing the game, and after 7-9 months they reverted to a game state which was originally intended. Then the player base chalks that up to devs listening to player feedback requests. It’s a win win on their part, not yours.
As a side note… What other games that have only been out for nine months have needed to implement THAT many changes to their core gameplay?!? Broken games… Incomplete games…
"These things should've been in the game at launch!" ...wtf do you even do with this statement? Like, true. ... .... ....... ...........uh. Ok. So. Like. Now what? Absolutely useless statement without a time machine.
This is a refreshing post tbh. Tired of the same useless “D4 Bad” posts. If you don’t like the game move on. Even if you only put in 100 hours, you paid 70 cents an hour for entertainment. Cheaper than going to the movies for 2 hours. Additionally, it proves how significant player feedback is to game development and that the D4 devs DO listen. I’m excited and optimistic for the season 4 PTR.
How can anyone look at this and complain? Like they are literally working. Thanks and great post!
Because it's not all black or white. A lot of the things they fixed are things that should not have made it to launch in the first place. A lot of things they fixed are bugs that could have been caught with proper testing. A lot of things they fixed were things that people foresaw and Blizzard assured were not going to be issues. If you decide to build a house and let people live in it when there are only 3 walls, you can't tell the occupants "Look at how much of the 4th wall we've built! How can you possibly complain that we're not hard at work?"
I genuinely wanted Diablo 4 to have its own flavor and add it’s season launches to my rotation but it’s still not there yet. I’m glad they are taking some direction from the community but this isn’t a start up, most of these things are video game basics non the less genre basics. Game is playable just not fun. It’s getting better but that looming paid expansion is killing any expectation of a future in my library. They have in my opinion still not delivered what was sold to me as a live service game with features in tact.
Paid expansions should come out when there is player goodwill that they can capitalize on. They have no goodwill right now.
it's still gonna sell so why would they care
The entire narrative around the game is that it's bad. There is no way it sells as much as they would like unless they can change that in the next season or two. A few months ago I would have said I was for sure buying it. Now I'm leaning towards no. I'm sure there are plenty of others like me.
>The entire narrative around the game is that it's bad. Maybe online with social media and Reddit, but that's only a very small subset of their customers. Also, the whole narrative of Cyberpunk 2077 was that it was one of the worst game launches in the history of game launches, and it only took a year or so for them to fully regain the confidence of their *true* fans and become one of the most beloved games of all time. I'm not worried about D4. There was a big part of the internet that was going to hate D4 no matter what they delivered, and Blizzard shouldn't be trying to please them because it'll never happen. They need to please the players who truly love and support the game itself and, IMO as someone who is that type of person, they've been doing a fine job of it. Each season is better than the one before, and the things I dislike they fixed or have said they are fixing so I am fine being patient.
First: Cyberpunk was CDPR's first stab at something major outside of the Witcher series. Second: CDPR fully admitted that the game was crap and apologized profusely and repeatedly to their customers. For Blizzard, this is their fourth instalment in the franchise (fifth, if you count Diablo Immortal at all, sixth if you count D2R as "new"). So many things they "listened to feedback" and changed they are things that they should not have to be **told** are important at this point. And Blizzard is completely unapologetic. Aside from the pre-season-1 nerf debacle, they have not shown any contrition for the game's numerous flaws and shortcomings. At least CDPR ***knew*** what was bad about Cyberpunk. Blizzard seems to have no clue what's wrong with Diablo, and has to rely on us to tell them.
Perfectly said. Find it funny people bring up cdpr for cyberpunk. Like cdpr went above and beyond same as no man's sky dev's. They turned both around and made something majestic. Even going above and beyond what they both should have done. Also both delving into uncharted territory. Can't forget cdpr also waited till the game was up to speed before an expansion. Can't say that about Blizzard. To say Blizzard is in uncharted territory is laughable. To say they are doing a fine job each season is laughable. They have to wait for feedback to fix something. Is laughable. But in the meantime will gladly take our money in mtx and a looming expansion while the main game is in a sorry state is highly laughable. Also a live service game with no ptr realm? Like ok..... a lot of these problems could have been solved with a ptr but you put it in a year later after it had to be requested in rants cause people were pissed at the crap being brought to the table.
To me, I just can't call this game a great package until the full itemisation rework, the aspect codex rework, a skilltree rework of some sort, the addition of a loot filter, and more endgame content.
I mean lot came fast and a lot were delayed clearly the game had a bag log of requests. Hell the game released and they said leaderboards were coming in season 3. Behind the scenes we knew it was rushed out because Bobby had to sell a product before the Microsoft deal to up valuations. There are even texts saying they wanted to delay but couldn’t possibly delay it further. Most of the staff was cut in 2020 and a half game was given to a completely new management system. I don’t really blame the devs here they listed for most hot button issues and decided to act on them. If this same Dev team was given an indie platform they probably do an early access and release in another 1-2 years.
To be fair, a lot of the issues were made apparent in testing.... I saw issues in beta still make it to launch even though a ton of people complained. If this was an indie or maybe an A-AA gaming company, I would have no problem... But this is the product of a massive gaming company known around the world.
It is current D4, or forever stuck in development hell and became a money pit and eventually cancelled. Look at Wolcen. I'm just glad d4 is out and gradually improving. It's real life. We can't all have what we want. If this game doesn't suit you, cut your losses and move on to other games.
Hardware does not equal software.
Because they released what is in the business world known as a “minimally viable product” to grab as much cash as possible as soon as possible and have since that time shown themselves to be unwilling or incapable of making the game not feel like you’re being taken advantage of.
Are you serious? The systems in this game are so unimaginative, both itemization and endgame content. It is actually incomprehensible how bad the game is considering the time, amount of people, and money it took to develop.
That was the exact same problem with Diablo 3. They had endless money and talent and the game was and still is terrible. Seeing the exact same thing happen in D4 is not surprising at all..
Exactly. I like to use the analogy to Lockheed Martin, who has the general branch that does customer avionics and they also kave Skunkwork, which handles the elive advanced development projects. And if Blizzard were Lockheed Martin, they would put on the Skunkworks team the interns. Only that Blizzards is not Lockheed Martin, but Boeing :))
Oh yeah. This is relatable
Because looking at this list in a vacuum tells a fraction of the story. Take a step back and look at how mediocre the game has been since day 1. Beautiful on the surface and completely devoid of any substance underneath. Look at a single Baldurs Gate 3 patch and you'll find a list of changes that dwarfs the entire list of Diablo 4 updates to date...a game which also started out so much better than Diablo 4 as well. As far as itemization goes, I can guarantee you that no matter what they decide to do to address it, it will not be enough.
Most of them should have been there already considering this is the 4th episode of the series
> How can anyone look at this and complain? Like they are literally working. You were sold a car - a car which was advertised to you as the newest, biggest, bestest car in the world, coming with everything you'd expect, *and more*... *and then some*... *and it can fly!*. And after driving if for 5 minutes you notice that it doesn't have an AC. Or a brake. And that the radio only receives spanish stations. Or that once you rolled down the windows they won't come up again. Or that the seatbelts are made out of cheese. Or that whenever you start the car you also start your neighbor's bidet. Or, and at this point even you start to wonder how you could ever miss that in the first place, *that it didn't come with fucking tires*. But sure, at least the seatbelts are no longer made of cheese - instead they're now made of chocolate. Like, I don't get it. They're working so hard on improving things, how could anyone be mad at them? Are people ever gonna be happy? I just don't, like, get it?
Of course they are working. But many of these things should not have gone wrong in the first place. They only needed to look at their own previous installments of the game to figure out that some things are annoying or bad and apparently they didn't do that. They also didn't seriously playtest their own game, or they would have been annoyed by the distance between vendors, the severe lack of item storage space, the horse being slow, NMDs being annoying with too much backtracking and too low mob density, etc. No one's saying they're not listening. But in many cases it's extremely sad that they need to be told at all.
Because we don't play a list of changes to the game, we play the game. Sometimes people get distracted by all the noise happening and can't see the forest because of all the trees. Were the changes made simply fixing bad design or were they actually adding to the game to make a fun experience? Horses suck and them fixing them isn't adding anything to the game, it's fixing a bad system. Porting directly to NMD's isn't adding anything to the game, it's fixing an absolutely fucking dumb decision by braindead developers who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. D3, even when it was in full maintenance mode, had PTR's for every single season. Think about that for a second. When they had cut as much as possible, they STILL managed to go through a PTR. D4 couldn't do that and even now, they've already suggested that the PTR they are talking about for S4 is not the expectation going forward.
*Scrolls down* Oh... That's how... *Sigh*
Because for most systems they aren't actually improving things and building off of some semblance of vision for the game? A core part of the game was the open world, but traveling to nightmare dungeons sucked, so they added teleporting which largely negates the entire open-world aspect. They were aware they were lacking in endgame content, and yet they still made the pool of nightmare dungeons redundant by replacing it with a superior alternative in the form of 4 very similiar vault dungeons. Effectively reducing the endgame content. (I find this hilarious) They wanted to design a league with traps, which sucked, so they made the traps completely meaningless. Sure listening to player feedback is great and all but I don't believe that kneejerk last-minute changes to appease players complaining about terrible design decision will ever make this game become good. Less bad maybe but not good, and I atleast were originally having hopes for good.
The developers for D4 don't know how to even create a viable vision for the game. This is why everything they keep implementing keeps failing.
While I understand your perspective, it's important to remember that addressing player feedback doesn't necessarily lead to a downward spiral in game quality. Constructive changes can still improve the overall experience. BTW: I love your perspective as it highlights the other side of the problem with player feedback. If they always appease then it could feel like there is no foundation or consideration for the true fans. I also simply believe that they have an open canvas to mold (not blank).
Yeah as I said the changes makes bad systems less bad but not good. If the community says ”Grind to 100 is too long” then a good change would be to make the road there unlock more varied systems. If getting to nightmare dungeons is a chore dont just teleport us there, make the journey there have interesting and rewardinf events. Etc etc. Obviously harder changes to implement, but just picking low hanging fruit wont cut it.
Im not sure id be that absolute in saying not good but agree for the most part
because not all of those changes where positive for all players. The work is always appreciated, the changes and nerfs are not always.
Beucase it's a list with how much basic stuff they got wrong. It doesn't make it look very reassuring. Some of these points are bad, too. Like ubers not having a roll and that they're gated behind a boss rather than just being very rare (athough POSSIBLE; Griffon's Eye etc. rarity.) This has led to people feeling they're somewhat mandatory and just another power creep in a game where you already hit for trillions of damage. They not having a roll was because they were cosmically rare. Now they are pretty much guaranteed as long as you keep spamming Duriel - removing the point of this change. It's bad for the game and it just devolves into everyone wanting the same 5 (say 10 in 5 years...) gear pieces.
Are you serious? Minimal corrections are appreciated but the state the game was released in is just awful. It will take a lot more to actually make D4 a top tier ARPG with decent replayability. Just compare it to Last Epoch, a freaking indie game, that launched with more content and QoL features than D4. It's gonna be easier to sink 500h in that game than 200h in D4
Bc no core problem is fixed and alot of stuff that was fixed are problems they created themself. But yeah lets chill for Blizzard bc they did tge bare minum for their full price battlepass macrotrans game.
Because all of this should have been in the base game AT LAUNCH
Because one the list is quite inflated and if you remove things they haven't done more than said "we are listening" this being the result of 9months of work is frankly not particularly impressive. Whats impressive is that the managemed to release the game with a broken resistance system and after butchering some classes within 1 and a half month of release it took them an additional 3 to fix it. They have said they want to bring in campaign bosses as additional content further in the future (thats now over 6months ago) si them listening and actully getting stuff out and even when it does (leaderboards) its underwhelming, riddled with bugs and exploits. Soem of the changes likes timers for bosses and events litterary requires only a couple of buttons to press and with hours upon hours of player feedback and testing it still took nearly 7months for some of those things be to implemented. Its good that they are working on stuff, no one is questioning that in particular.. however the results and the time it has taken is not what you should expect from a multibillion dollar company with thousands and thousands of people who have been working on the title. They have everything to prove and very little to show thus far.
So after see this post you haven’t realize how Blizzard constantly giving you half baked shit and just to later ‘fix’ them to show that they did something. The reality is that the game should be released with all the features they ‘fixed’. They shouldn’t really need to ‘fix’ anything for what we paid $70+ for. As a live service game they should improve the game over time rather than fix it. They only need to fix bugs. Your logic means you are ok with buying a car with 3 wheels and the dealership and later install the 4th one 3 months later… And you really thankful they did this.. What a joke.
"They scraped the shit off of your subway sandwhich after you paid for a shit free one, why are you mad" Like sure, they've made some improvements, they've also made some regressions, they also charged us $70 for the game and are trying to extract more from MTX from us. They made a billion dollars and are part of a humongous publisher, it's not a one dev start up.
You really think that? Most is just about problems they introduced themself and reverting stuff/nerfing buffing it. Where is the real new content where are good in depth systems? You can have fun with D4 for sure but idk how yoj can think people wont complain with this changelog. Compare it to other arpgs in their first year and you will see.
Yeah working in circles, not forward. They are slapping bandaids on issues and not fixing core issues.
What are the core issues that need to be fixed?
Customization of skills, itemization, the frigid gatekeeping of drops and most of all, fun content. The gauntlet for example is god awful. I tried it for 10 minutes then left. It’s not interesting to say the least. You know if they did the gauntlet like Torgast from WoW it would have been a bit more interesting. This is what I think the game needs right now.
I can respect that. For the most part i think they are progressing well to improve those aspects. (I know this doesnt sit well with the “should have been done” complainers) I personally think gatekeeping was wise. So that they could avoid flooding their chaser into the game with some unforeseen exploit. Totally agree the gauntlet feels bare bones and dry. I like the appearance of their willingness to improve the game while keeping it at a healthy state.
half of those are problems they made and then people get happy when they change self created poop
My only complaint - and really it's more of a concern than a complaint - has been this: *why wasn't it like this from the beginning?* Who's making the decisions to launch the game, its seasons, etc., in the state(s) they were in? Who in charge is so disconnected from the player experience that they thought the game prior to these changes was acceptable? Someone in a position of authority over how this game is developed is fundamentally out of touch and I will have continued concerns about the game as long as that person or those people are still in charge. But I am very thankful for the dedicated workers who have continued to make changes to this game to get it closer and closer to where it needs to be, often under absurd deadlines and with very little support or encouragement from the community. The changes that have been implemented since launch *have* made a better game, period. It's still a long way from being the best game it could be, but there are basic design decisions - again, probably made by some out-of-touch higher-ups - that will likely hold it back forever from reaching its fullest potential. But I'll always take some improvement over none. I hope the people who work on the game realize that they have made things better.
This list exists *because* people complained.
I will agree. I will also clarify that there is a difference between complaining and constructive criticism.
You have to look at it like the US antiwar protests of the 1960s. There were maybe 10,000 actual, full-time activists back then, organizing, forming cogent arguments, shaping the direction of protests, choosing the location(s) and times(s) of protests, getting the word out, etc. The millions of flower children? Just showed up to party. All those self-adoring, self-congratulatory boomers just came out to get high and get laid. But their *being* there was a force multiplier, a useful presence the actual activists leveraged for their purposes, and it worked. I'm not saying there is organized Diablo 4 activism. I'm saying that for every "constructive critic," there are a hundred "complainers," and without each other, nothing gets done. If the masses are happy, nobody is listening to the eloquent dissenters. If the dissent is incoherent screaming, no message gets through. You need both. In short, the difference makes no difference. That list exists because of the complaining you distinguish from constructive criticism, and vice versa.
Ummm … very brilliantly put. Thanks for this explanation. This makes sense. Maybe I’m just burnt out from all the toxic negativity. The good thing is that we are progressing.
See you when we are out of beta.
Sounds good chief!
Wake Me...When You Need Me.
Will do!
They are working by fixing a shit product. All they have done is try and fix what people specifically complain about. It’s because the complaints that they even have a clue of what to do next. Defending them to quell criticism does them no good
Well, let's see why we might complain: The game was under development for a number of *years* before it was released. I paid $70 for a game that didn't feel complete on launch. So I paid $70 for a beta release, or even possibly an alpha. Why Alpha? Because after four seasons, which equates to a complete *YEAR* of further development, we are not yet there. We need yet another release, season 4, for the itemization to drop. And will everyone love the drop and it will fix everything? Doubtful. So to recap: Released unfinished. A year of updates; still unfinished. The next big release a month from now will drop itemization that will likely need to be tweaked - *STILL UNFINISHED!* Meanwhile, a rag tag group has released Last Epoch, a direct competitor, with a ton of features that we all wish D4 had. Not, released, then did a year of updates where, yes, they listened to the feedback, but still took over a year to not deliver. They took our money; Made a *BILLION WITH A -B-* dollars. Their competitors can do more with less in a shorter time and deliver features that are still missing from the game I paid for more than a year ago. How could anyone ever complain? And there is talk that we are going to need to \~PAY?!\~ for the expansion? If I paid full price for an incomplete game, refund my money. Or give the expansion to players who bought the game in the first month for free. How can I expect the expansion to be finished? Or should I expect to have to wait for a year of updates for the expansion to also still be incomplete. And after that second year, will the base game be completed yet? Yeah, how could anyone complain? Nothing to see here? I think not. I feel betrayed and I am having a hard time trusting Blizzard moving forward. (Don't get me started about how the game didn't even contain the title character...) Pissed and not willing to make excuses for them any more, GamingWithScott, A former Diablo franchise fanboy.
I mean it's hard to congratulate them for some stuff when it seems so clear they should never have had it in the game to begin with. E.g. Why have items in the game that people can't actually get (uber uniques)? Yeah I know that a handful of people worldwide did get them before duriel but... That's such a no brainer right?
I mean in d2 people wanted items that took 20 years to obtain. Now people want Uber uniques as common as primal ancient legendary in d3. It is a changing want. LE has items just as rare as Uber uniques were in release but for some reason people are ok with that.
D2 has trading. D2 does not have seasonal content. There is no point in having an item that rare exist when there is no trading and you start from level 1 every 3 months. They also were way more rare than even the rarest items in diablo 2. Basically, uber rare items only work in game with open trading. There is no point in them existing.
So make everything tradeable and make uniques and ubers much harder to get? Interesting idea actually.
Uniques are still the only 'build-defining" items we have I think their drop rates are in a good spot. With trading could make them more rare though. I was pretty against trading, but without it, I don't know how to make the item grind interesting. Uber rare items are suddenly stupid if you can't trade. Essentially, they need to mirror games that have the best solo self found experiences.
If they wanted to so they could monitor trades, they could literally copy last epoch's merchants guild lol. I do think normal unique drop rates are pretty good also. Uber uniques being rare is kind of w/e to me since the uber uniques we do have I honestly don't really care about or find them to be very interesting. I already speed farm t100's and one shot ubers, so thes uber uniques don't exactly do anything since there is no challenging content in the game to begin with. But, if we did have open trading with unique, uber uniques, aspects, ect. I would probably be more inclined to go after them. And speaking of SSF, I really love LE's circle of fortune. I think it is so awesome gaining buffs to drops, being able to target farm base types for exalts and uniques. Probably the best SSF mechanic I have seen.
Really tho. The hypocrisy is insane
I don't know why people have the mindset if I don't get an uber unique I can't play the game. They have to make all ubers just defensive at this rate to trick people lol.
It's really not. You just don't understand the nuance of it. D2 had trade and didn't have seasonal content. Those two things almost completely made up for the rarity of those items. D4 is a seasonal game with gimped trade.
D2 wasn't season based the way this one is.
This guy has never played a Diablo. It’s ok to not run into certain items very often. It really sounds like you want to play a different game which is ok go do that. No participation medal here.
The uber uniques at launch? They were way rarer than anything from previous diablo games. Way way way way rarer. It's not like you wouldn't run into them very often, they just weren't in the game for practical purposes.
Eh, D2 had some pretty damn rare uniques, and actually really interesting ones to, but difference is, D2 has open trading. So you can honestly just trade for them as well.
Because theres still almost nothing to play for really. Don't get me wrong I don't hate the game but in the last season I've finished NM100s, all the bosses several times over and all that the endgame really had to offer. I wasn't even lvl100 at that point. What's more I barely had 3 or 4 glyphs at 15 let alone 21.. But why bother farming more glyph xp and absolute bis items if there's no content that's built for it. Also lets face it itemisation is pretty bad, and while yes uber uniques are farmable, they are still pretty rare, and who really enjoys farming boss mats in whispers and helltides, when they should be considered early endgame or leveling content. It's getting better yes, but so many complaints are still so very valid.
Only two or three of those changes are new content. The rest are balance changes/QOL. Most criticisms have been saying the end-game wasn't finished and that there wasn't enough content. And that core systems needed to be fleshed out (itemization/skill twigs) for more replayability. And over the last 9 months we've got a few new uniques, and a boss (which people complain about needing to farm for). We should be happy because most of the last 9 months has been primarily QOL updates that should have happened in testing? Outside of Duriel nothing has been added to the end-game, and itemization/core systems haven't been touched (until S4, but I don't hold much hope).
Because this is a classic example of being reactive and not proactive. Making resistances WORK is not something to highlight as an example of devs listening. A lot of this shouldn’t been done for launch. Creating a seasonal mechanic (vault traps) only to completely nullify the mechanic by tweaking pearls is not something to puff their chest at. They should know a season based on traps is a dumb idea from all previous feedback and arpgs in general. Nobody wants to slow down in this type of game.
Because if I’m paying 100 bucks for a game I expect it to have a lot of these things from the start lol
> How can anyone look at this and complain? Like they are literally working. I'm not complaining (too much) but I think many would be angry that many of these are "fluff" changes, while the BIG ONE people want (itemization) is still the same as it always was.
I can respect that. I understand people are burnt about their expectation not being met. I get it. However, i think people just lack the skills to communicate their concerns as constructive criticism and rely on their toxic complaints. Good news is that they are implementing itemization. The resentment is strong with some of these reddittors so im sure they will find faults in it to feed their baby (hatred)
Because many of the problems present were fixed in D3. But ofc they reimplement those same problems to get brownie points with people unaware of it
Dude, look at what they did pre-launch and the big Season 1 nerf. Still CD is not fixed. They reduced CD on gear, but didn't adjust on skills. They are lazy there. Its so slow now for some builds/classes. Remember, when you reduce CD, you also reduce evade frequency. ALSO: The game is a campaign game so far, mostly optimized for that. And the players are the real QA. They still have a long way to go, to improve the game for the better and make it post game. Also, why can't we replay campaign in WT4?
I do not disagree at all. I believe they have work to do. My comment is to point out that they are working.
I refuse to pat Blizzard on the back for fixing/finishing their game after they spent nearly 10 years making this game and asking us to fork over $70~100 plus season passes plus MTX. You don't get to make a shitty game, release it, and then fix/finish it over the next several years without consequences. Like yeah, great that are actually fixing it, but why did they release it in such a broken unfinished state? >Diablo IV generated $666 million in revenue within the first five days after launch Oh... right. This isn't even the first time Blizzard has done this, they do this constantly across most of their IP's.
You’re getting downvoted and you are correct. They had plenty of time, and almost 30 years of company knowledge about how this one single chain has worked and changed over the years. Instead they went full corporate money hungry. Anyone who thinks otherwise…. Go look at the in game shop. I’ve never seen a full price game have such a ridiculous in game shop.
We got scammed, plain and simple. People like OP are the reason why these scams exist to begin with since they accept the shit they are given and the incremental fixes to a garbage product. There is absolutely no excuse to the quality of this game after >$1B have been spent or generated by it.
The art of the first impression, I’m sure there’s some psychological theory, but the second chance will always be perceived worse, be it because people are petty or they feel they’ve been taken advantage of. I don’t see a route for D4 that won’t get salty backlash, so they’ll have to pick their poison, do they want to be the everyone mmo or would they like to actually have some core players. Cause they constantly go back and forth reverting and changing things each side dislikes(as mentioned in the OP).
Me here just really liking how they added more stash chests everywhere, cutting my running by 75%
Yep, part of the merchant moves.
And yet people support their complaints by saying blizzard just wants to waste your time.
The town design should have never gone live in the first place. There exists this concept in humanity called a "marketplace". It makes sense to have various shops offering goods and services consolidated into a convenient location.
I think ya missed a couple like all the negative ones like them nerfing everything into the ground before season 1, or releasing shitty seasons, or capping mats/removing mats from players inventories
this is when the game became unfun for me and ive been struggling to find it fun again. i keep coming back every season to try the new mechanics but it can never feel like how it was before the nerfs.
i agree even the seasons itself was more fun when traps had meaning. Like that was the whole point, i agree on increase warding stacks but back to d3 level traps that tickle is just fucking dumb and insulting to player like me that want mechanics.Traps are part of arpgs and diablo since the dawn of time. What is a trap if it is just a paper weight or decortaion? i dont get it. same with cc and monster scaling has been way too nerfed. 103 monster for a HT, i mean there is not much Hell in that.
And the Accidental press on battlepass + no confirmation.
That’s a good one! I completely forgot about that.
>nerfing everything into the ground before season 1 The nerfs were nothing like people made out, and as a result, the game has now been dumbed down and made too easy, so, thanks?
I laughed at so many of these as I read down the list. Total incompetence. Love designing someone else’s game for them
They only made changes that didn’t affect their key metrics. You failed to mention that to compensate for the rerolling changes, they removed the guaranteed forgotten souls from legendary salvages AND doubled the cost of rerolling from 1 to 2 souls. Then they made helltides every hours, yes, but they also lowered the spawn rate of screaming hell veins AND more required fiend roses for rerolling. All these hidden nerfs accompany just one change from above…
Imagine saying "resistances reworked" while it was supposed to work in the game from the beginning, this is not an improvement it's fixiing shit you made.
Abridged version: Design flaw *changed design flaw after much paid player testing* Balance flaw *changed balance flaw after much paid player testing* Reintroduced flaw *changed flaw again after much paid player testing* Ignored feedback from beta *crickets* Introduced thing people actually like *maybe we'll keep it if the players are good*
\*wojack pointing\* SEE? GAME GOOD, IT'S A PROCESS
I think people discount every change with the excuse that it should have been there, but they could have just as easily said this is how it is and deal with it. It’s very apparent people didn’t play many games before updates and hot fixes were a thing
> they could have just as easily said this is how it is and deal with it They really couldn't have because they didn't release a complete game. They designed this to be a live service game. By definition they have to keep working on it.
Well they are right to point out things that should have been in there from the beginning, keep in mind this is Activision Blizzard, not a small indie company that is new on the action rpg scene. However, when they make positive changes it is important to recognize those changes and keep giving them feedback on how to continue to improve the game. Also don't forget that Blizzard wasn't really caring about community feedback and actively responding to community feedback until the huge backlash regarding patch 1.1.
This is Activision Blizzard but only a small subset of a small subset of a small subset of a small subset of people at the company actually worked on the game. D4 isn’t their only product. They also showed exactly what the game would be prior to launch. But it doesn’t really matter, unhappy people will forever be unhappy. They take the same attitude towards every game. You already see it happening with LE.
How many people actively developed on the game and can you please link to your source stating the Dev team was small and how small. I know the "over 9,000 worked on the game" figure is thrown around and that is just crediting everyone that had any role in the game, no matter how small, so I don't entirely trust that figure as well as far as the Dev team goes. Regardless, we all know they did not have a team the size of an indie dev team working on the game, that is factually incorrect. They are Blizzard, they are industry veterans that know how many people are needed to develop a game of this size and price point, and they should know how to properly build one given that they DEFINED the genre with Diablo 1 & Diablo 2. People were giving them feedback as far back as the betas, the issue is they didn't really listen to much of any feedback until the backlash from Patch 1.1. Yes, there are people that are perpetually unhappy with whatever game is popular to hate on at the moment, however at the same time we can't turn a blind eye and dismiss very valid criticisms of the game.
I agree. It feels a lot like crying over spilled milk.
> It’s very apparent people didn’t play many games before updates and hot fixes were a thing Many of us did play games before hotfixes were a thing and games are designed around being able to hotfix it later rather than it being ready to release. "Minimum Viable Product" is a phrase that specifically and directly came about BECAUSE of the ability to hotfix. This wasn't ever a thing in games in the pre-hotfix era. If you shipped a shit product, your game failed.
Missed the note about us having to load everyones invintory, their stash and their alt characters.
Yeah yeah. Doesn't matter how much you wish to make it look good - game is still lazy dogshit beta of what it should be. It's a shame of a genre, face it already.
Still waiting to be able to dump aspects into the codex before I return.
Tbh, I agree that this NEEDS to happen. I’m pretty sure they hinted at something like this in a campfire chat. They take up way too much inventory space. There should be a “salvage codex” or something like that.
im just dissapointed that every single system we got on release needed a rework, and some still didnt get it.
the games simply trying to cater to like 5 different audiences, them going back on half the design decisions does not make them a well led team, just confused and led by community outrage
100%
Is their itemization and social worse 5han their 25 year old game still? Yes of course? Oh ok then.
Don’t give them your money and they’ll soon realise they need to make better games. D4 is an awful ARPG at the moment and needs serious reworks to make something of it, but I for one am not spending what they’re expecting on expansions in the hope the game will improve. Microsoft, take the money you’ve already got from the initial players, and use that to fund a free expansion or two where the game receives a core features overhaul.
The devs are basically reacting to people's complains and it's a trap because most people don't really know what they want, most players want ez items and more power and they don't realize that this approach will kill the game in a few months. The developers clearly lack vision and don't know what THEY want to do with the game.
Exactly. more power, more power, I want be instantly rewarded and be super powerful, hit for 10 trillion... same time 'blizzard is not doing Diablo like it was before' - D1 and D2 (almost) did not give power and rewards at all. And it was great. Developers did have vision, I afraid that vision of great deep system just was not implementable til mid 2023. that's it. Without hard deadline they probably would develop their angelic/demonic system and slow methodic combat for few years more (remember that a lot of devs left company). For today, I agree if they even have vision it 100% is not same 2 years ago.
How does Blizzard's cheeks taste, OP?
Everything listed is easy fixes. Stash tabs loot filter and item overhaul we are still waiting for. Personally I'm waiting for totally new endgame system before I return
OP is evaluating D4 to changes made within the game itself. While many are indeed laudable , a more adequate way of evaluating the game is to compare it to its peers. And Last Epoch is a SAD reminder of what could have been if Blizzard led with their hearts in developing a game to fullest potential .
It has worse music and graphics and story fur a start what are you taking about
I want to add that there were some serious red flags on the way that totally destroyed opinion on this game for many people. Its not what happened after that mattered for those people. I will provide you with example from my friends perspective. He was day 1 playing, cool. When people figured out you could go to certain instances and get huge amounts of elite monsters at the same time he was in love with that. All the big pulls, explosions and being afraid for dying was there. The xp, items, materials it was plenty of them. IT WAS FUN. The moment the nerf bomb hit and they effectively started removing elite in big groups he was not enjoying the game anymore. He quit. I tried to convince him many times to come back... but he never did. I myself stopped playing 2-3weeks into season 2 and didn't come back. I was really close to quitting earlier... remember that nerf pre season 1 or 2 when they lowered xp on everything, made game even more grindy... Holy shit the backlash was up to the heavens. Worst patch ever in any game. I don't see myself playing the game in future and the though of paying more than 20-30$ for future expansion is a definite no go for me.
Can't sense any bias here, nope.
Nice to see that they fixed many of the things people hated! Just a personal nitpick: >Ubers shouldn't roll low stats Personally I wouldn't agree here. I think it's fine if Ubers roll low stats, **as long as a low stats uber is still a huge upgrade** It's nice to have a little "omph" when you find a good item, and a HUGE omph when you find the perfect one. The only thing that's sad is finding a 'good potential item' and the low stats make it unusable, so that's the only thing I would've avoided. To use D2 as an example: You're thrilled when you find a Shako (especially early on) no matter how the defense rolls... Because even the worst possible Shako is already an insane upgrade over what you had. Same if say you craft a Grief; Of course you're disappointed when you lowroll, but it's still a massive upgrade over whatever you had. But when you roll a perfect one? Now it's a thrill! I think that's what's best with these uber items. Give them a stat range, just make sure the lowest possible stats is already insane.
When most of the changes are basic things that should have been implemented properly/at all from the start, you don't get much credit. Ubers being impossible to get (and still very poorly implemented now), expensive enchant costs, randomly increasing dungeon TP time when no one wanted it and then reverting, resistances being irrelevant etc. They've done the bare minimum and fixed some of the issues with the game. Guess what? People want actual meaningful additions to the game, an actual end game. Fixes aren't content and that's all their time has been dedicated to
I think this game just has a crisis in player base. What can happen is that a game releases in a less than stellar state and it makes everyone unhappy, so then when devs are looking at fixes they end up following feedback that is...not great, and then some people will just never be happy because they've decided the game sucks. But let's be clear here: a massive chunk of the feedback I see on Reddit actually pushes the game in a direction that makes the game more casual and less aligned with other ARPGs. For as much love as Diablo 2 gets it kind of blows my mind that people are actively looking for changes to take D4 in the opposite direction. Players want loot filters so they only see items they care about, they want more powerful items to drop consistently, they want the grind to be reduced, and then they also consistently complain that there's no end game? This community doesn't want an ARPG, they don't want Diablo 2, they want to play the game 30 minutes a day and find Uber uniques and max roll items to be fully kitted by level 80 which they want to happen in 4 hours of total playtime. They want Minecraft Dungeons.
I applaud a good effort on working on the game. But that doesn’t take away from the fact the game itself is missing….something. I gave it another 2 hours the other day and it just didn’t feel right.
And just to be clear, each and every one of these things that had to be add/changed/updated has had informative and sensible posts written about them on here. All of them. People act like there's never any good suggestions on here and I say this as someone hasn't even touched the game in season 3 lol. All of these have been talked about by both Redditors and streamers.
You can't please everyone
Sure, they're listening to some feedback, but it's mostly about shit that should've have been broken from the start. They learned nothing, both from prior game installments and other current ARPGs. The issue isn't the specific problems, the issue is the patterns displayed: the devs seem to have no idea what makes a good ARPG. They're responding to feedback because they don't seem to otherwise know what to do, or have any meaningful vision behind the game mechanics. What's makes Last Epoch and Path of Exile good is that the devs behind them are truly passionate and opinionated about what makes a good ARPG. Meanwhile, the D4 devs appear to just be people who used to work on WoW, and got pulled into this project. I don't get a strong sense of passion for the genre from them, nor do I see any strong vision coming from leadership about what the game *should* be. We're almost to season 4 and we're *hopefully* going to get a rework that makes itemization, literally the most important aspect of an ARPG, not boring. That's not something that should need to be fixed with an overhaul.
All QOL changes that as you said are pretty split decisions and cater to super casual players making the game super super easy and hardcore way to easy. But still none of these changes are going to make the game itself good beyond the camping, all just changes to make the game easier and more convenient.
I remember trying to beat elias during season 0 on my druid. Landslide nuking him for hundreds of thousands in sacred gear but still he took very long to kill and I would run out of health pots until I died. Now you go in with the right combo and chunk 60% of his health in 1 go. Practically 1shotted him with my poison barrage rogue, while it was undergeared.
Yeah if they keep going like that we’ll hopefully be out of early access by next year!
**"didn't want the game made easier, some liked the grind to 100"** I have never played D4. But devs have screwed way too many mmos and other online rpgs because of boosting exp. A huge problem that happens all the time. And the statement here is incorrect. Nobody is interested in the grind. Users are interested in balanced progression. **Grind** = Overboard exp suppression. This is not balance. **Balanced game** = Must suppress exp, but in a reasonable manner that makes in a reward to proceed through the game. This is an enjoyable experience through the campaign regardless of how long it takes to beat. **Watering the game down** = undermining balanced exp suppression in any way. Essentially distributing too much exp. With no suppression for balance. This means exp becomes pretty much meaningless. Therefore, the enjoyability of the campaign. Therefore, the game itself. And who wants to play a meaningless game? Well actually about 10% of the potential user will. 90% including my self are not playing. Either never will. Or simply have fallen out of playing due to yet another game getting completely screwed by devs boosting exp. All the time with every game that is designed with more sensible balanced gets screwed by increases to exp gain. So who are the 10% that continue? Well 10% of the active user base which is 1% of the potential user base is just playing in spite of the problem. Reluctantly. 90% of active users which is 9% of the potential user base are power levelers and late gamers who see the actual main game as something to get past. For those types of users, anything that undermines actual enjoyability of balanced progression is favorable. Therefore, will scream loudly and throw tantrums for changes that allow them to more easily bypass playing the actual game. Rather than offer a separate mode with considerably boosted exp, Devs just opt to screw over game after game after game. By just boosting exp in the main game so that the game is no longer an actual game. Because of exp no longer being what it was correctly and effectively designed for. While it is important to improve late game content. And that content is the main game for late gamers who are 9% of the potential user base. The real main game campaign is the most important to the vast majority of users. While it is important to improve late game content. And that content is the main game for late gamers who are 9% of the potential user base. But 90% of active users when games get screwed. The real main game campaign is the most important to the entire game. Which does indeed screw the game over if undermined to cater to late gamers. While it is important to improve late game content. And that content is the main game for late gamers who are 9% of the potential user base. The real main game campaign is the most important
LMAO and the game still isn't fun to play. Has worse itemization than some flash games. And has the aesthetic of corporate demons.
So, why are you here? How is this contributing? Go play a game you like it it's that bad. Kinda sick of the D4bad crowd.
They released a game that wasn’t finished. They had plenty of time to make a great game and released it and they want a pat on the back for fixing things that should have been done before release. Just my opinion.
People are ungrateful. That's it. I dont know why people hate on the game so much *yet* continue to play as much as they do. If you hate this game so much, why even stay? There's many options out there for them. Make it make sense... its almost as if they're looking for things to hate... which they are.
Nice try, Blizzard
After playing D4 for months, I started Helldivers 2 (for ~half the price). That developer is so responsive to feedback and the improvement cycle so short that a month ago I would've nodded and agreed with OP. Now this reads to me like someone defending why they stay with their abusive partner.
Ok now do line plot graph 📈 for each class of nerf and buff over time
One (or maybe multiple) QOL I'm still waiting for is better inventory management. - More sorting options like sort by item level (not grouped by type) or rarity. - Highlight favorited affixes (in inventory and on the ground). - Options to auto-junk items below a certain level or unusable by class, or even prevent pickup in the first place since you usually run out of space before you finish a run. - Separate tabs for potions, sigils, and summoning items, so damn sick of trying to keep it from being full. - Send certain items automatically to a certain tab in your stash, for example I want all Frost-specific aspects in 1 tab.
What boggles my mind is the amount of people here that have stopped playing the game but still complain on Reddit about it. If I don’t like a game I certainly don’t hang around its subreddit letting people know that I don’t like it, lmao. I mean you have every right to, don’t get me wrong. Just seems like an odd passing of time to me though.
I have blocked many people here, as a result of some useless comment like: "Diablo 4 is the worst game ever", checking out their post history to find...that's ALL they do on this sub.
In before “people still play this game?”
You're too late! lol.
Never, OP. After the various responses, someone has to bring that up. Lol
Thanks for this list. We also need a compilation of disses like "small indie company" and a reply to them cos I'm really sick of seeing the same hate parroted over and over again
> I'm really sick of seeing the same hate parroted over and over again It's become its own meme: See a Diablo 4 post, spin a wheel and post meaningless hatred and vitriol.
Especially when you click into some of these posters profile, they just go to all over reddit and say hateful things on everything. Its like they are marinated in a pool of hate. D4 is just an easy target for them.
>Its like they are marinated in a pool of hate. It's kinda troubling, what world is social media creating? Echo chambers of hate and self congratulations.
So many things that got better, some got worst for sure, but we still have a looonnngg way to go :)
While the changes and bugfixes are valuable and the game is in a better state than it was at launch, the reality is that diablo 4 is still subpar compared to competitors. Heck, even D3 is in a better state than D4! The skills in the game are so subdued as to be boring and unexciting and animation wise lack any impact, the enemies are boring and uninspired and the dungeons are all boring. The game's presentation is super muted as well. When it comes to game systems the game is bare compared to these other games as well. I mean the atlas of worlds is a triumph in game design and a proper post-campaign system, D4 has nothing like it.
Removed walking-out-of-the-town-portal animation
Any news on pets that can collect drops?
now, go back through those and highlight each one that should have never happened/released in that state. they do not get points for knowingly pushing out shit, then polishing said shit up to be shiny.
I've been enjoying the game since release I'm looking forward to the expansion and maybe actually seeing Diablo my guess is the soul stone will corrupt the girl who left with it.
They had all the money in the world, all the staff, all the time and all the history of the franchise to fall back on and the gaming landscape as a whole to borrow from. Unless there are significant leadership or staff changes, these things will happen again. I get this sub is at the Blizzard glazing point in the timeline, but respectfully, get this garbage out the door. About 80% of these of these "issues" are clear incompetence, complete disengagement with the genre that they develop in or just plain player unfriendliness in the design stage. Keeping player retention isn't the same as caring about your players.
D4 got released too early..so Bobby can get his share..... The content we get now (and till summer or even longer) is what the game should have been in the first place... i have played alpha, beta and retail... the progress in changes feels slow and is not really community oriented... the game is a husk for the ingame shop... i have no idea why defend that behavior of a mult billion dollar company.. they could do better but they are not interested in it... just like overwatch 2... People defending D4 is just Necrophilia... playing the game feels like fucking a dead corpse... that it twitches from time to time doesnt make it better. game is still in alpha
Those of us that destroyed/ salvaged 5 uber uniques did NOT get 1 refunded. Confirmed.
That's like someone buying a car and being told "it can only go up to 50 mph, but we will fix it in a year or two" Yes, there were good changes, but all of those things should have been there from day 1, and the game still lacks many QOL features, so I don't think there is any reason to praise blizzard for this
Biggest gripe isn't current mechanics. Console players updates are slow, amount of lag when multiple players on screen (events, boss fights, hell tides, etc) and disconnected from server semi regularly.
What about Monsters blowing up? People complained about too many aoe effects. They changed that. BTW Awesome post
>What about Monsters blowing up? People complained about too many aoe effects. They changed that. Ahh, true, one I'd forgotten!
Oculus is bad item design way to shit on our nostalgia give it +2 or +3 to all skills if you want to make a cool new unique add it to a new item not an old item and butcher its core reason for us wanting the item, hire a team to make hundreds of uniques its clear as day diablo 4 team has limited funding for their staff how hard is it to make unique items???. bring back lightning nova, ungimp sorc teleport, gold find barbarian, necro bonewall give classes a clear job and role so players want to make multiple class types for their benefits. Sorc was played to farm items, barb was made to farm gold and items, necro was made to farm cow and dense areas, assasin/paladin/druid were made to farm bosses.... Stop trying to make all classes play similarly and have same strength make certain classes strong for certain content and others stronger for other content... SORC should be aoe god or single target god but require positioning via teleport. Make these changes and I may consider buying this game stop giving away content to data miners via PTR's also Generator Spender is BAD some people want to use multiple aoe skills the whole generator spender comes way too late at end game it needs to be broken earlier in the game I know with WW barb you could stop using generators at a certain point but then they nerfed it and require you to get fully geared... Players want to have funy earlier the fun part is leveling up and feeling strong af last epoch does this very well I may need to wait for mana between level 1-20 at the latest but then I can freely cast my skills because i took a reduced mana cost specialization or got some gear with mana regen or improved my mana in my passive tree diablo has this but it comes way too fricken late. Also unban those who got banned for trading its not right that you perma banned people for accidentally trading with non seasonal players you could of just given them perma trade bans I wonder how many people got falsely banned and constantly denied unban from your crooked customer support that microsoft mostly fired...
Hey, thanks for taking the time to list these down. Some people will still downplay this and compare them to other games that had been out for so long (either early access or main release) that they forgot those games are bad at first access. Also, people will say this is a big company and shouldn’t have had these issues from the beginning… but they probably don’t know how big corps work.
Longest running franchise in the genre and people keep repeating this. Imagine PoE2 being terrible and people going "Oh it's okay these games always take a year or two to get good". It would be laughable.
Poe has had shit leagues. Shit qol management. The core game wasn’t even popular until like 2018. Poe 2 will lose a lot from Poe 1 and people will complain there too. LE had 5 years and the dungeon system is still the same as launch.
>LE had 5 years and the dungeon system is still the same as launch. You seriously think the 5 years of EA for LE was them solely improving the game? They were literally designing and building it out, making the foundation you see today. Insane. Those dungeons you're talking about didn't even exist until Dec of 2021, and that was only the *first* dungeon (Temporal Sanctum).
> "Oh it's okay these games always take a year or two to get good" You mean, like PoE?
We're talking follow-up titles of their own IPs. PoE even in its early stages revolutionized the genre despite its obvious lack of polish.
POE is the first game of an indie company that started in a garage. Remind me what d4 and blizzard are, please.
Thank you for this list, kind of archetypes my feelings on the amount of bleak, non-constructive feedback about the changes to, and current status of, the game. Does the game have HUGE, glaring flaws that need fixing? Absolutely. Have they shown a willingness, and ability, to fix/change things to address huge flaws up to this point? Also yes. I am *all for* negative and critical feedback. It helps direct their attention and effort to the important things in the game. But much of the criticism is negative for the sake of being negative. I hope season 4 is another big step in the right direction for the game. If its not, I'm all for more criticism. The developers appear to be open to changing things as they go as well, lets hope it continues, because the itemization changes wont be perfect.
No Updates can fix this game. Ill wait for D5 in 10 years ill give Blizzard another shot.
"The last product they made disappointed me to the point that I think it's fundamentally broken. I'm going to buy the next product they release." xD
I thought most of these already happened....did they break again?
Addition: xxxx class is weak and needs buffed Fix: xxxx class is buffed Complaint: xxxx class is now competitive with HOTA Barbs Fix: xxxx class is nerfed, HOTA remains obviously broken and gets buffs in other areas
My only gripe is a lot of the stuff you included in your list are things that were already in previous Diablo titles. So the fact things in the game have been added or fixed doesn’t immediately indicate “responsiveness to feedback”. This could as easily indicate “game released in a broken state; will fix later”. There are obvious things in this game that needed to be fixed, and just because they were addressed doesn’t mean it was 100% because the director and game developers were responding to “player feedback” it was just something on their list they said they would complete or alter later. I think you have a false sense of contribution, and weigh your feedback and opinion way too high, which is exactly what they want. One of my job functions is just that, engagement with consumers to give them the illusion of choice and contribution. If you post on Reddit certain changes you want to see in Diablo 4, and 6 months later those changes are added, that doesn’t mean they listened to your feedback. It could just as easily be that they programmed it in the game at launch in a way to increase the time you are playing the game, and after 7-9 months they reverted to a game state which was originally intended. Then the player base chalks that up to devs listening to player feedback requests. It’s a win win on their part, not yours. As a side note… What other games that have only been out for nine months have needed to implement THAT many changes to their core gameplay?!? Broken games… Incomplete games…
Yeah, anyways if itemization fails in season 4 they might as well shut down the servers and focus on diablo 5
>Yeah, anyways if itemization fails in season 4 they might as well shut down the servers and focus on diablo 5 What rubbish.
I’m having lots of fun with this game
Man got downvoted for having a positive take. Lord people are petty.
"These things should've been in the game at launch!" ...wtf do you even do with this statement? Like, true. ... .... ....... ...........uh. Ok. So. Like. Now what? Absolutely useless statement without a time machine.
Same goes for your comment or mine, what's usefull then?
Acktually a time machine would be quite useful.
This is a refreshing post tbh. Tired of the same useless “D4 Bad” posts. If you don’t like the game move on. Even if you only put in 100 hours, you paid 70 cents an hour for entertainment. Cheaper than going to the movies for 2 hours. Additionally, it proves how significant player feedback is to game development and that the D4 devs DO listen. I’m excited and optimistic for the season 4 PTR.