“We know it is bad. We know it is not fun. We ourselves know it’s not the greatest play experience for players out there,” Blizzard said.
…and released the patch anyway
I like how they said they also intended to lower the lower level of NM dungeons but that part didn’t make it into the patch. Like their hands were completely tied.
“Hey we removed the seat belts from your car, but don’t worry we should have airbags ready in the next couple months.”
Ah yes, the Tesla development approach.
Didn’t they hotfix that in yesterday?
Because they know their playerbase will ultimately muster no real consequences for such a fuck-off patch, tailor made to encourage one to buy the pass.
In my opinion, the biggest problem Diablo IV has is very similar to the problem Diablo III faced: A large majority of the offensive and Defensive power for your character comes from items.
In Diablo II this wasn’t nearly the case. Offensive power came mostly from skills and Defensive power came mostly from items. This isn’t to say that all offensive or defensive power came from just those sources, because DII did a really good job of mixing and matching, but mostly they pushed the user through a series of progression. For example:
- Normal mode: the user is free to acquire as much offensive from skills and defensive from items as they want to play and beat the game
- End of Normal, early Nightmare mode: the user is pushed towards prioritizing defensive (resistances) power from items, but once the user has achieved defensive (resistance) equilibrium, they again free to acquire as much offensive from skills and defensive from items as they can
- End of Nightmare, early Hell mode: the user is pushed towards prioritizing defensive (resistances) power from items, but once the user has achieved defensive (resistance) equilibrium, they are once again free to acquire as much offensive from skills and defensive from items
As I said, not all offensive or defensive powers came from their singular respective sources. Many items in the end-game provided both, but it wasn’t a 100% dependency on items like DIII and DIV. Both DIII and DIV divide out some of the power towards the later stages with paragon and other systems, but ultimately it is all sitting and focused on items…
You simply aren’t going to progress in DIV unless to swap out your gear for higher item power and in Diablo III you have to focus on weapon damage upgrades mostly.
They’ve tried implementing Smart loot, which helps to a degree, but in the end, smart loot can’t fully overcome the overbearing dependency that was created and it promotes
“We nerfed cooldown reduction because it was too important”
Uh, hey genius, you just made it more important by making it less effective. Now instead of people being content with having it in 2 slots, they’re going to need/want 3 or more slots with it.
To make it less valuable to players you should have made it easier to acquire, then players could focus on adding other things in their build.
Doubt
Press X to doubt
X
I believe!
The reaction to this was pretty overblown IMO but :shrug:
After seeing that twitch chat I am so disappointed with the Diablo community. It’s fine to express your opinion on the patch but I saw death threats, people who have got 100’s of hours of playtime spamming for refunds, insults toward the way developers physically looked, and basically no one attempting to be civil or approach this situation with a level head. I’m a longtime Diablo player but only recently started watching their streams and following various related socials and it’s so sad that this community seems to be as toxic as wow or destiny. Blizzard needs to be better but apparently so do many of its players.
I’ll never be able to understand just how addicted some of the people posting vitriol about this game actually are to video games.
Reading through reddit today, I couldn’t help but feel overwhelming pity and then sadness.
I really feel bad for those types of people. Games are supposed to be fun, but these complaints read with so much hate that I can’t help but think they are hopelessly addicted to video games and it’s affecting their actual happiness.
I get the impression that some of these people were expecting that Diablo 4 was going to allow them to build a meaningful and fulfilling life around playing it at least 4 hours everyday 7 days per week. And now they are desperately sad and angry and having an existential crisis.
I personally disagree. I haven’t posted about it anywhere but the changes were enough to stop me from bothering with season 1, which I was previously looking forward to. I was looking forward to fun not more of a grind. I’m glad for folks who are still having fun though.
I agree, buncha crybabies. If you don’t like the nerfs go play Hello Kitty Island Adventure.
If you think it’s a difficulty based complaint vs. a turning the game into a not fun slog with no end goal complaint. You’re understanding people’s complaints about the patch incorrectly for the most part.
I think any point those people are trying to make is lost in the hyperbolic shitstorm of vitriol they type around it
I think perhaps we can come to some middle ground between those two sentiments though! The nerfs were a bit heavy, but the game is still new, no one should really be so upset at major changes dropping before the start of the first season. People acting like Blizzard stole their money and slept with their mother… The game isn’t even unplayable.
No one should ever really be that upset about a video game
Fr, of all things to get upset about, video games can rank pretty low in the grand scheme of things.
Will we get frustrated with video games? Yeah, we will - we’re human, we get frustrated with everything. Should we actually get upset about them? Fuck no, it’s such a dumb low-stakes thing to be mad about.
I say with utmost respect but fuck off. Everyone has at least one passion in their crummy lives. For some it is football. Others might be basketweaving or jogging or vlogging or cave painting. Gaming can be someone’s hobby and you sound like a 70 year old boomer tut tutting about dem Pacmans.
People don’t issue death threats and otherwise act like the sky is falling over changes to basketweaving techniques.
There was the great “over-under-around massacre of 1907” where that one weaving community slaughtered the other.
I am unironically hyped for Hello Kitty Island Adventure. I just hope they port it to PC or Switch, because I can’t justify getting into the Apple ecosystem for one game, no matter how cool it looks.
…and in case you were joking and didn’t know, Hello Kitty Island Adventure is now a real thing.
I don’t even care about the nerfs. The things that get me are the FOMO pass (like the whole fucking concept of it), the vram issue, and the fucking rubber banding which somehow got ten times worse since the season start, and it was not great to begin with. How and why does this not get addressed? Why do we proceed with starting the season when the game is in such a terrible state? Even the seasonal content is pretty garbage and boring. It looks like the whole point is just the FOMO pass, to make money, and the new cosmetics in the store, again, to make money. How does one not feel like a cash cow when it is like this?
I have to believe they’ll put out a patch soon to make it fun again. Despite what everyone else seems to think I think overall it’s a good fun game (or at least it was before 1.1.0).
You know, they did what they needed to do here. Marched out the smart people, got straight into meat and potato’s and put their hands up owning the mess.
Games gonna be great around season 6 or 7 when they get some content added, figure out what they are doing for balance, and figure out how to shape the wants of players+devs into a game.
Just feels like shits all over the place with no clear direction of what the game devs want the game to be vs. what the players are looking for.
It will be great after they fire everyone and rework it with a new team focused on customers/players just like D3.
This whole team gets a huge no confidence vote at this point.
I really don’t think they’ll replace the team nor do I think that’s the cause anyway. This patch was rushed for the season which was rushed to grab cash. Aggressive monetization remains the most toxic factor in game development and it usually comes from upper management rather than your hands on developers.
I think they should consider doing ptr just before each season, just like they did with D3.
people seem to forget d2 got updated a lot too, it wasn’t the balanced game people know right from the start, and we had to wait for litteral years after d1
Yeah after all these years and owning the code base no reasonable person would expect them to have learned anything or use their own successes and best practices. /s
