They took an already addictive personality appealing ARPG system in that of Diablo, added a bunch of MMO type "keep you playing all day for FOMO" mechanics, then added a battlepass AND cash shop on top of a 70$ game.
Its entirely designed to be predatory in all the worst ways, after the RMAH from D3 failed to give them free money. Its probably a fine game, most people are saying it is, but its also a terrible practice to enable both in general and from Blizzard.
It's amazing to me how people were suckered into the $70 meme. Pretty much every $70 game has not been worth the price. Yes, I include TotK for basically being BotW with GMod stapled to its ass.
1 and 2 specifically. Everything I've heard of past that has been shit and developed by an entirely different company so it's effectively skin suits. 1 and 2 were developed by people who worked on Diablo 2 and it shows in the games' polish and overall excellent design.
Let's see.. there's the part where they're adding WoW Coin to Classic.. then there's the other part where they admitted that the PvE mode for Overwatch 2 has been dead for a year, making the entire reason it exists a sham to make the game more predatory.
That's just the past month.
Blizzard should not be trusted and its behavior should not be encouraged.
This requires investment into the lore of a game I have no plans on ever playing. I can be outraged plenty over asinine monetization that filters me long before that.
There is the "believe the lawsuit" side, where you think the California government investigation wasn't full of women throwing fake accusations around. In which case its stuff like stealing breast milk from the fridge, inviting girls up to a "Cosby Suite" for obvious Weinstein shit, and then spreading nudes of said girls around the company until one killed herself.
Its one of those things that it sounded believable enough, but they kept piling on more "absurdly" evil sounding shit to the point now it just seems completely unbelievable.
Alternatively, they have actively ruined all of their IPs through various Woke politics/incompetence through the years that most people have a personal attachment to at least one. As well as many controversies throughout that people have personal lines on (Blitzchung, Overwatch 2, all of Diablo 3).
inviting girls up to a "Cosby Suite" for obvious Weinstein shit, and then spreading nudes of said girls around the company until one killed herself.
You're mixing thiings up. Cosby Suite was fangirls at Blizzcon and none of their nudes were spread. Suicide girl wasn't even Blizzard, but Activision (or King don't remember).
And I do believe the Cosby Suite stuff. Blizzard devs saw themselves as rockstars (see Metzen's behaviour at Blizzcons, though I don't think he was involved with the CS).
But it's the women's fault. "Hey girl, you seem nice. Want to join me and some other fellow devs in our suite for a more private party?" And when you show up it's only male devs and female fans. Everyone with half a brain knows what this is about. And the women agreed to everything.
Just like fangirls and bands/musicians.
Ah fair, its hard to keep track because the sheer amount of accusations that people came out with. Which is why I stopped believing from that point on.
I still remember the Hearthstone Hongkong guy(I think he was known as blitzchung) who got booted off of the tournament because he said something pro Hongkong. It feels like it was the beginning of the end for me. I also played the open beta test of the game due to curiosity and it just feels like diablo 3 which I'd disliked. I loved Diablo 2, 3 just wasn't for me and 4 feels the same. So ignoring all the political idiocy they did not even the game could hold me
I ended up getting a free copy of the game as a promotion, and so far (6hrs in) its better than I was expecting. Almost all of the major issues I had with Diablo 3 have been fixed. I haven't seen an item auction house and all the items I pick up are for my class instead of for a random one. There seems to be less gear dropped overall, so each pickup is more impactful and inventory management is easier. The 1st playthrough of the game lets you start on difficulty 2, instead of being forced on difficulty 1. Its still a bit easy, but no where near the game journalist mode that D3 forced you into. I've been playing D4 on PC with a controller and it works well, I much prefer it over the keyboard/mouse controls. I found it baffling when D3 didn't allow that. The art style and plot seem to have a much more serious tone, which I think fits much better than D3's attempt at being wacky/cartoony.
So far the game looks great visually, lots of interesting details and it fits the atmosphere well, going with a less saturated color pallet and has slower atmospheric music which works for the starting winter villages and the lingering demon threat. I'm don't know how well this will carry over into lategame, as things will need to ramp up. The game also has a lot more focus on the open world, which is filled with side quests and small dungeons. Occasionally a mini-boss will spawn in an area and multiple players can all join up to fight it, I guess this is the justify the always online requirement.
Aspects of the gameplay seem to be simplified a bit. Each skill has a choice between 2 effects, and the differences and modifiers aren't nearly as large as before. For the necromancer, the skeleton spawns are on a different skill tree than your abilities, so you end up leveling up both evenly instead of picking one. I suspect that a well planned build will not be nearly as gamebreaking, and players will end up with a lot more viable builds but with each option feeling similar. Items are a bit simpler, with 3 max upgrades per item, no need to use identification scrolls, potions limited to max of 4 in your toolbelt, can teleport back to base without a scroll, all items using 1 inventory slot.
Is the game woke? So far I've only seen 1 minor instance, in the character select screen they show you the female characters when you pick a class instead of the male ones. That and picking between body type A and B. Ingame ~90% of the characters are white, which makes sense for a setting that I assume is based on medieval north europe (99% is more accurate, but 90% is close enough) and character morality doesn't seem to have any connection to skin color or gender. I haven't seen any mentions of anything related to woke ideology anywhere with the characters or plot. Maybe it changes later on, but so far I see no issues. Rather, I think the game design is largely influenced by various market trends, mainly the open world and 'cinematic gameplay' from other AAA games and the dark fantasy themes from game of thrones, with monetization being mainly through trying to see cosmetics.
Is the game woke? So far I've only seen 1 minor instance,
It's not the absolute worst, but it's definitely there a lot.
Some examples are:
Nearly every single 'leader' you run into, happens to be a woman. There are exceptions, but - by and large - it holds true.
Every character that is a fuckup is a male, with the exception of maybe Neyrelle's mother, but even she is portrayed in mostly sympathetic light?
They have an obligatory "surprise! they are gay lovers" big reveal moment in there, and it's every bit as eyerolling as it always is. Spoiler: basically, you'll get to this point where a female thief knows of someone that can help you, and when she suggests that you go find her, Lorath makes some sort of comment along the lines of "It seems like you have another motive for looking for her...". The second I heard it, my eyes literally rolled, and I thought, "HmMMM!!! I wonder what that reason is going to be???". As soon as the cutscene of you bringing her back to camp rolls, sure enough... I just don't understand at what fucking point will the developers stop patting themselves on the back for this trope??? It's just gotten so fucking tiresome. Are gay people really this desperate for this exact same scene to play out over, and over, over???
The girl - Neyrelle - takes all the power out of your hands, and makes the final world deciding decision in the game. In fact, I can't really think of any decisions you were allowed to make. Neyrelle is basically the main character, and you just play your part of being the guy who kills stuff.
The supposed "big-bad" in this installment - Lilith, who just so happens to be "female" (so much as a demon can claim to be?) - is basically portrayed in the most sympathetic light possible, and you are essentially chastised for not siding with her. In what previous Diablo game was the big-bad portrayed as being anything other than the most horrible thing possible? The fallen angel guy here - Inarius (male) - is characterized in an incredibly negative light; way worse than any of the demons.
So, anyway - yeah - it could obviously have been worse, but there is still plenty of it there. None of it really stopped me from enjoying the game (other than the constant feelings of, "Fuck, I'm so tired of this being the current-day reality...". My bigger problems are with the gameplay itself.
From what was available in D3, they have seriously cutback on the number of skills you have access to: both active, and passives. On top of that, the itemization just hasn't been that exciting. Everything feels like just plus a couple percent to this, plus a couple percent to that. The only exciting items that change up gameplay much are the oranges and now the uniques, and those just don't seem to have a big enough pool of affixes to pick from.
If I were pressed, I'd probably rate the game a 7 out of 10, or something like that. It just needs "more" to flesh it out / make it more enjoyable.
Are gay people really this desperate for this exact same scene to play out over, and over, over???
Yes, yes they are.
Normal people will typically criticise poorly done hetero relationships, ALL the time. There's no shortage of complaints if something is thrown into a piece of media where it doesn't belong, or where people feel that the characters have no chemistry.
In the world of faggotry, they don't care. It doesn't matter how little sense it makes, they latch onto it because in their mind it validates their fetish and that's all that matters. So long as the ESG funds keep flowing, you will keep seeing the same horrible writing regarding this over-used trope in every type of media out there.
all the items I pick up are for my class instead of for a random one
I feel like this is a negative.... One of the bright spots of D2 was picking up interesting and/or powerful items for another class and wondering about how to make it work on that other toon. Then you'd start that character up, and they'd find some things for themselves, but also for other classes, and pretty soon you'd have a stable full of different characters. Some would be stronger and further along than others, but you'd be exploring the game much more and challenging yourself to build and play in different ways successfully.
Removing this aspect feels like putting the game on rails even more than it already is. If everything you get is tied only to your class, not only is that immersion-breaking, but it actively keeps you in the rut of your current character....
Maybe it was different for D2, but I found the random class loot to be a huge issue in D3 since it seemed designed to force players into using the auction house. Once the auction house was used you could easily get gear far surpassing what you would find naturally, which turned all loot collecting into a number crunch for getting ingame currency. Even if you only share to your other characters it makes those runs easier in a game that was already very easy at start, which doesn't help when figuring out that class's limits. D2 had a much higher baseline difficulty than D3, so getting high end gear from your other characters might have made a lot more sense there.
Did not see anyone mention this but all monster levels scale to your level and max out based on difficulty. (First two level sync until 50, Nightmare caps at ~70, and Torment caps to 95.) Higher difficulty, better loot. The difficulties do not unlock until after you complete a Capstone dungeon.
Letting people play with their friends, regardless of level. It really is the antithesis of an ARPG if you look under the hood. The game literally bases damage on a percentage base while giving the players damage numbers that are meaningless. Higher levels mean the percentage of the player’s true damage go down instead of up but the shown damage keeps the illusion of progress. This keeps the player in the Skinner box while making the game easier to program and to balance.
It isn’t worth buying anything from Blizzard anymore, they treat their consumers like crap. That isn’t even going into culture war bullshit.
Free to play Path of Exile is the way to go, even though I’m pretty sure Tencent is involved with that game somehow.
Tencent published PoE, and has a 93.33% ownership of the development studio.
Yeah, in China.
Thanks. Will check it out
Path of Exile was the way to go several years ago but the developers are even more hostile to the players than Blizzard is now.
They took an already addictive personality appealing ARPG system in that of Diablo, added a bunch of MMO type "keep you playing all day for FOMO" mechanics, then added a battlepass AND cash shop on top of a 70$ game.
Its entirely designed to be predatory in all the worst ways, after the RMAH from D3 failed to give them free money. Its probably a fine game, most people are saying it is, but its also a terrible practice to enable both in general and from Blizzard.
Kill me.
It's amazing to me how people were suckered into the $70 meme. Pretty much every $70 game has not been worth the price. Yes, I include TotK for basically being BotW with GMod stapled to its ass.
At least most 70$ games you can wait out a drop in price.
TotK is a Nintendo game, which means it will be 70$ until the Switch stops getting support. So at least 5-7 years.
Don't pay, just play. Yuzu with mods fixes the game and the aging switch graphics.
Also that. I don't plan to either way as I hate most open world games AND crafting systems games. So its the least appealing possible to me.
Just play Grim Dawn.
Torchlight series also is excellent.
1 and 2 specifically. Everything I've heard of past that has been shit and developed by an entirely different company so it's effectively skin suits. 1 and 2 were developed by people who worked on Diablo 2 and it shows in the games' polish and overall excellent design.
I actually did not even know there were more Torchlights after 2, so yeah I can't speak for those.
Torchlight 2 is stellar though. I don't recall a single microtransaction in it.
I’ll check it out.
Yup, Path of Exile and the Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing are also worth it if you're into ARPGs.
Internets say its good, gameplay vids look OK and the open world aspect is intriguing
blizz isn't getting another dime from me so if I ever do play will be after it goes f2p
but really what could it offer that path of exile doesn't?
What did blizzard do? Or are they being like everyone else with woke garbage
Let's see.. there's the part where they're adding WoW Coin to Classic.. then there's the other part where they admitted that the PvE mode for Overwatch 2 has been dead for a year, making the entire reason it exists a sham to make the game more predatory.
That's just the past month.
Blizzard should not be trusted and its behavior should not be encouraged.
Thanks for the heads up.
You missed one Overwatch character (Pharah) "suddenly" being a lesbo just in time for pride month.
This requires investment into the lore of a game I have no plans on ever playing. I can be outraged plenty over asinine monetization that filters me long before that.
Wait, they turned Pharah gay, too?
Depends on which side you want to take.
There is the "believe the lawsuit" side, where you think the California government investigation wasn't full of women throwing fake accusations around. In which case its stuff like stealing breast milk from the fridge, inviting girls up to a "Cosby Suite" for obvious Weinstein shit, and then spreading nudes of said girls around the company until one killed herself.
Its one of those things that it sounded believable enough, but they kept piling on more "absurdly" evil sounding shit to the point now it just seems completely unbelievable.
Alternatively, they have actively ruined all of their IPs through various Woke politics/incompetence through the years that most people have a personal attachment to at least one. As well as many controversies throughout that people have personal lines on (Blitzchung, Overwatch 2, all of Diablo 3).
You're mixing thiings up. Cosby Suite was fangirls at Blizzcon and none of their nudes were spread. Suicide girl wasn't even Blizzard, but Activision (or King don't remember).
And I do believe the Cosby Suite stuff. Blizzard devs saw themselves as rockstars (see Metzen's behaviour at Blizzcons, though I don't think he was involved with the CS).
But it's the women's fault. "Hey girl, you seem nice. Want to join me and some other fellow devs in our suite for a more private party?" And when you show up it's only male devs and female fans. Everyone with half a brain knows what this is about. And the women agreed to everything.
Just like fangirls and bands/musicians.
Ah fair, its hard to keep track because the sheer amount of accusations that people came out with. Which is why I stopped believing from that point on.
IMO their original sin was requiring a battlenet login to play SC2 purely in single player mode.
Then its wokeness in everything.
I still remember the Hearthstone Hongkong guy(I think he was known as blitzchung) who got booted off of the tournament because he said something pro Hongkong. It feels like it was the beginning of the end for me. I also played the open beta test of the game due to curiosity and it just feels like diablo 3 which I'd disliked. I loved Diablo 2, 3 just wasn't for me and 4 feels the same. So ignoring all the political idiocy they did not even the game could hold me
No. I cut ties with Blizzard after the Blitzchung controversy.
Reminder that Blizzard died back in 2005 when they closed Blizzard North.
North used to make the games, and Blizzard South used to do the CG and marketing.
there's only 3 Diablo games
Diablo, Diablo 2 and Lord of Destruction
Don't give money to people who hate you.
My response to that is Taiwan Numbah One, Free Hong Kong!
I refuse to play games that try to turn what should be a fun hobby into a second job. They turned Diablo into an obligation, so Blizzard can fuck off.
I played the open beta about a month back and was not impressed for a couple of reasons:
A) My tolerance for "grind/optimize/repeat" is not what it once was
B) I played with a friend who is very much a "grindset mindset" player, so the pressure to keep up was offputting
C) Although new, it does not feel different from so many games in this genre that already exist
D) Blizzard is asshole
Not to say that you would not enjoy it. If you enjoyed Diablo 3, you will probably enjoy this.
I ended up getting a free copy of the game as a promotion, and so far (6hrs in) its better than I was expecting. Almost all of the major issues I had with Diablo 3 have been fixed. I haven't seen an item auction house and all the items I pick up are for my class instead of for a random one. There seems to be less gear dropped overall, so each pickup is more impactful and inventory management is easier. The 1st playthrough of the game lets you start on difficulty 2, instead of being forced on difficulty 1. Its still a bit easy, but no where near the game journalist mode that D3 forced you into. I've been playing D4 on PC with a controller and it works well, I much prefer it over the keyboard/mouse controls. I found it baffling when D3 didn't allow that. The art style and plot seem to have a much more serious tone, which I think fits much better than D3's attempt at being wacky/cartoony.
So far the game looks great visually, lots of interesting details and it fits the atmosphere well, going with a less saturated color pallet and has slower atmospheric music which works for the starting winter villages and the lingering demon threat. I'm don't know how well this will carry over into lategame, as things will need to ramp up. The game also has a lot more focus on the open world, which is filled with side quests and small dungeons. Occasionally a mini-boss will spawn in an area and multiple players can all join up to fight it, I guess this is the justify the always online requirement.
Aspects of the gameplay seem to be simplified a bit. Each skill has a choice between 2 effects, and the differences and modifiers aren't nearly as large as before. For the necromancer, the skeleton spawns are on a different skill tree than your abilities, so you end up leveling up both evenly instead of picking one. I suspect that a well planned build will not be nearly as gamebreaking, and players will end up with a lot more viable builds but with each option feeling similar. Items are a bit simpler, with 3 max upgrades per item, no need to use identification scrolls, potions limited to max of 4 in your toolbelt, can teleport back to base without a scroll, all items using 1 inventory slot.
Is the game woke? So far I've only seen 1 minor instance, in the character select screen they show you the female characters when you pick a class instead of the male ones. That and picking between body type A and B. Ingame ~90% of the characters are white, which makes sense for a setting that I assume is based on medieval north europe (99% is more accurate, but 90% is close enough) and character morality doesn't seem to have any connection to skin color or gender. I haven't seen any mentions of anything related to woke ideology anywhere with the characters or plot. Maybe it changes later on, but so far I see no issues. Rather, I think the game design is largely influenced by various market trends, mainly the open world and 'cinematic gameplay' from other AAA games and the dark fantasy themes from game of thrones, with monetization being mainly through trying to see cosmetics.
It's not the absolute worst, but it's definitely there a lot.
Some examples are:
So, anyway - yeah - it could obviously have been worse, but there is still plenty of it there. None of it really stopped me from enjoying the game (other than the constant feelings of, "Fuck, I'm so tired of this being the current-day reality...". My bigger problems are with the gameplay itself.
From what was available in D3, they have seriously cutback on the number of skills you have access to: both active, and passives. On top of that, the itemization just hasn't been that exciting. Everything feels like just plus a couple percent to this, plus a couple percent to that. The only exciting items that change up gameplay much are the oranges and now the uniques, and those just don't seem to have a big enough pool of affixes to pick from.
If I were pressed, I'd probably rate the game a 7 out of 10, or something like that. It just needs "more" to flesh it out / make it more enjoyable.
Yes, yes they are.
Normal people will typically criticise poorly done hetero relationships, ALL the time. There's no shortage of complaints if something is thrown into a piece of media where it doesn't belong, or where people feel that the characters have no chemistry.
In the world of faggotry, they don't care. It doesn't matter how little sense it makes, they latch onto it because in their mind it validates their fetish and that's all that matters. So long as the ESG funds keep flowing, you will keep seeing the same horrible writing regarding this over-used trope in every type of media out there.
Thanks! I’m honestly shocked at the 90% mark.
I feel like this is a negative.... One of the bright spots of D2 was picking up interesting and/or powerful items for another class and wondering about how to make it work on that other toon. Then you'd start that character up, and they'd find some things for themselves, but also for other classes, and pretty soon you'd have a stable full of different characters. Some would be stronger and further along than others, but you'd be exploring the game much more and challenging yourself to build and play in different ways successfully.
Removing this aspect feels like putting the game on rails even more than it already is. If everything you get is tied only to your class, not only is that immersion-breaking, but it actively keeps you in the rut of your current character....
Maybe it was different for D2, but I found the random class loot to be a huge issue in D3 since it seemed designed to force players into using the auction house. Once the auction house was used you could easily get gear far surpassing what you would find naturally, which turned all loot collecting into a number crunch for getting ingame currency. Even if you only share to your other characters it makes those runs easier in a game that was already very easy at start, which doesn't help when figuring out that class's limits. D2 had a much higher baseline difficulty than D3, so getting high end gear from your other characters might have made a lot more sense there.
Did not see anyone mention this but all monster levels scale to your level and max out based on difficulty. (First two level sync until 50, Nightmare caps at ~70, and Torment caps to 95.) Higher difficulty, better loot. The difficulties do not unlock until after you complete a Capstone dungeon.
Level scaling is antithetical to these kinds of games. Wtf is that choice about....
Letting people play with their friends, regardless of level. It really is the antithesis of an ARPG if you look under the hood. The game literally bases damage on a percentage base while giving the players damage numbers that are meaningless. Higher levels mean the percentage of the player’s true damage go down instead of up but the shown damage keeps the illusion of progress. This keeps the player in the Skinner box while making the game easier to program and to balance.
A friend of mine that was extremely hyped for the game talked me out of playing it with him. I take that as huge bad sign.
Yikes!! I do too. That would be like me saying I have no intention of playing ES6
I was in the Beta for a couple of weeks but got bored