Diablo 4 does not have a chance to compete....

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Synopsis wrote:

Blizzard is aiming for a such large audience now that it's even hard to put both games on the same line as competitors, even if both try to get as many people in they just don't target the same people : poe would deter most of people from the great public while probably retaining many of the former Diablo 1/2 fans and/or people who seek a certain complexity, while D4 is supposed to retain as many people as possible generally speaking, no matter their preference, which of course ends up in the oversimplification of the game's mechanics and stripping off its identity to please everyone.

Definitely. I think of it like ice cream. Since D3, Diablo has been more of a vanilla flavor. PoE is something more substantial like Rocky Road. Vanilla is the general crowd-pleaser, but Rocky Road has the more invested and fervent following.

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cesmode wrote:

On the surface, one would agree with you.

However, there is such a thing as too much bloat, too much in the game. And GG doesn't seem to mind that.

There are probably lot of people that get turned off by POE because of the sheer amount of systems in the game an they have no idea where to start. I myself have been playing off and on for 5-6 years and whenever I return, I feel overwhelmed to the point where I think to myself "Is it worth it? Do I want to spend hours upon hours for a week or two reading up and catching up JUST so I can experience the game in its fullest and enjoy?

Dont get me wrong, Diablo devs are falling into the same traps they always have: Knowing better than their players. But theres a middle ground to be had where complexity meets simplicity. D3 and POE are on opposite extremes. A game like Last Epoch meets somewhere in the middle.

This game has way too much bloat. Diablo doesnt have enough.

I definitely agree that this game is very bloated and that the ideal game for me would be snug between D2 and POE.

D4 should be targeting that sweet spot but they've decided they want to be between D3 and D2. That seems very unambitious and frankly a mistake. They are on track to make a generic ARPG that many developers could match in everything but polish.

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DreadLordAvatar wrote:

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Aynix wrote:

Was Diablo even called ARPG back in the days. I remember we used to call these games HnS (hack and slash).

Son, sit down and listen carefully.

HnS , dungeon crawler are derivatives of the ARPG genre.

Diablo paved the way and shaped the ARPG genre for what we have to this very day. Countless diablo imitations since have inspired but failed. Back in 1998, Diablo was the industry leading ARPG and still is considered today by many purists. D1/D2 both radically popularize the ARPG genre.

PoE is without a doubt the greatest ARPG we have today but the distinction with being a racer is blurred and unfortunately, PoE glides on a razor’s edge....

I'm pretty sure Gauntlet was a hack and slash and preceded Diablo by quite a bit.

And we called Diablo "Hack & Slash" back in the day. At least in my group of friends. Can´t remember "ARPG" already being a category back then.

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camar1s wrote:

And we called Diablo "Hack & Slash" back in the day. At least in my group of friends. Can´t remember "ARPG" already being a category back then.

I think its because they wanted to pretend that they had a story like other rpgs but with better combat, a marketing gimmick essentially ^^

I still use hack n slash as the descriptor if i'm talking to friends/players over a certain age because its what they were called *shrug*

Same. "Old" players, when they pkayed Diablo 1 or Diablo 2 were calling it HnS. To me ARPG is something like Dark Souls. PoE is HnS.

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Aynix wrote:

After Diablo 3 appeared we can say, without any doubts, that Diablo is directed to "super casuals" that will never play PoE because its too coplex for them.

I beg to differ. I am willing to bet that MANY people play both.
I know it's that way for me.

I know there are people like that. Thats why we see on the Forum bs like "They need to make leagues 4 months, I dont have enough time to beat the game in 3!" or "They need to make the game easier because I want to beat the entire game w/o any effort!"

I agree with you.

POE has gotton too much extra content from leagues over the years. What they actually need imho is for each mechanic some kind of tutorial, that summarizes the mechanic in < 1 minute (in form of a video), optional of course, accessible ingame.
When I restarted playing this game after a long break of several years, I was also too lazy to read for example how to utilize betrayal properly. So I just ended up interacting in whatever random way with the Syndicate members.
Also, the effort/reward ratio is not up to date. For example Metamorph can be quite tough. When u first do that, assuming you are new to the game, it can seem like a huge wall. And when you finally kill the monster, what do you get? Only garbage. Similarly with betrayal, the content can be extremely tough on certain maps. With for instance extra damage they can always one shot you.

I do like complexity in games, in particular the cusomization, the skill tree etc. But in POE there is too much. Another example is the Heist members. Why do I have to level each one of them, and equip each one of them, for maximum profit? Isn't it enough to have one sort of mercenary? Why have so many? The devs clearly overstated their case imho.

I am not sure, but on my part it would be fine if they took the time for a new league to just balance out exisiting content, and maybe add a few or only one additional boss encounters (something like uber diablo in d2 would be cool, randomized world events..), and some skill gems.
Not every single league has to be revolutionary in terms of new content. The only thing people need is a new challenge every time.

The thing is, they also have to feed the long-term elite players, who want to have as much new content as possible. I believe this comining expansion is really nice in terms of new content and rebalancing old one. So let's see how it turns out.

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cesmode wrote:

On the surface, one would agree with you.

However, there is such a thing as too much bloat, too much in the game. And GG doesn't seem to mind that.

There are probably lot of people that get turned off by POE because of the sheer amount of systems in the game an they have no idea where to start. I myself have been playing off and on for 5-6 years and whenever I return, I feel overwhelmed to the point where I think to myself "Is it worth it? Do I want to spend hours upon hours for a week or two reading up and catching up JUST so I can experience the game in its fullest and enjoy?

Dont get me wrong, Diablo devs are falling into the same traps they always have: Knowing better than their players. But theres a middle ground to be had where complexity meets simplicity. D3 and POE are on opposite extremes. A game like Last Epoch meets somewhere in the middle.

This game has way too much bloat. Diablo doesnt have enough.

LoL ! Clearly they have no imagination, D4 is dead born.