I feel like these guys are making terrible assumptions about the playerbase of modern Diablo games. They write in the article, near the end, that a 16-year-old in the D2 days is now pushing 40, and thinking that's still the playerbase of D4. Why is it not possible that their audience is is just the modern day zoomer who expects epic items very quickly, and rejects this "old school" grind? How likely is it that their core audience is made up of those 40-year-olds still?
Does D4 even play as well as D2 does/did? I finally quit WoW after nearly 14 years because the BfA expansion made every class I touched feel so terrible to play. I liked hitting my buttons and when they ruined that I felt there was nothing left for me to enjoy. If D4 feels awful to play, D2 vets wouldn't stick around and would just go back to D2, leaving a younger generation trained on paying MTX fees to skip timesinks.
BfA was when I quit as well. Every class felt the same. The XP squish and ability pruning was a fucking death blow to the fun. It also didn't help that Legion was up there with my favorite xpac, so it was just night and day unfun. The in-your-face BfA timesinks, recycled mechanics, loss of... everything was too much. I didn't even hit the level cap. They were too stingy on giving you any new abilities, talents, ANYTHING.
Everyone gotta stop making excuses for D4. It looks nice, but it has no legs. There's not enough choice, there's very little mastery, out of the big 3 themes a game needs, it only scores somewhat high on immersion. (choice, mastery, immersion are key to the best games)
Anyhow BfA popped up in a random convo I had the other day, and I saw you mention it here. I am still salty about it haha! I tried the Shadowlands beta but, meh. I was just done. The love was lost.
I feel like these guys are making terrible assumptions about the playerbase of modern Diablo games. They write in the article, near the end, that a 16-year-old in the D2 days is now pushing 40, and thinking that's still the playerbase of D4. Why is it not possible that their audience is is just the modern day zoomer who expects epic items very quickly, and rejects this "old school" grind? How likely is it that their core audience is made up of those 40-year-olds still?
Does D4 even play as well as D2 does/did? I finally quit WoW after nearly 14 years because the BfA expansion made every class I touched feel so terrible to play. I liked hitting my buttons and when they ruined that I felt there was nothing left for me to enjoy. If D4 feels awful to play, D2 vets wouldn't stick around and would just go back to D2, leaving a younger generation trained on paying MTX fees to skip timesinks.
BfA was when I quit as well. Every class felt the same. The XP squish and ability pruning was a fucking death blow to the fun. It also didn't help that Legion was up there with my favorite xpac, so it was just night and day unfun. The in-your-face BfA timesinks, recycled mechanics, loss of... everything was too much. I didn't even hit the level cap. They were too stingy on giving you any new abilities, talents, ANYTHING.
Everyone gotta stop making excuses for D4. It looks nice, but it has no legs. There's not enough choice, there's very little mastery, out of the big 3 themes a game needs, it only scores somewhat high on immersion. (choice, mastery, immersion are key to the best games)
Anyhow BfA popped up in a random convo I had the other day, and I saw you mention it here. I am still salty about it haha! I tried the Shadowlands beta but, meh. I was just done. The love was lost.