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pipboy_warrior t1_j96p61i wrote

Reply to comment by Mr_Otingocni in Diablo IV’s open beta starts next month by Sorin61

Diablo 3's expansion was the best time for me. The whole endgame process of grinding bounties, rifts, greater rifts, and all the gear was really fun for me.

But with 4 having battle passes, I'm expecting the worst.

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jerekhal t1_j97oad8 wrote

That was all I needed to hear to have absolutely no interest.

Didn't know it was planned to come with a battlepass and I won't be engaging with it at all due to that. Live service design philosophy tends to work directly against enjoyable and complete baseline gameplay.

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FrugalityPays t1_j98gq13 wrote

They’ve said it’ll only be for cosmetics, but I think there lots of doubts on that

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jerekhal t1_j98pj24 wrote

Honestly it wouldn't matter to me if it was just cosmetics. Part of the enjoyment of a game like Diablo is looking like a badass while you're going through the game destroying hordes of creatures. A battlepass that's cosmetic only just incentivizes lazy and unappealing cosmetic designs in the base game.

I'd rather that aspect of the game not be piecemealed out and used as incentive to pay for a battlepass or stay engaged. Just sell a complete game. Start working on DLC that will incentivize future purchases or an expansion of the game. Leave it at that.

Fairly confident their player base would be infinitely happier with that methodology. At a bare minimum I would.

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Helivon t1_j99akl8 wrote

I'm personally comllety OK with certain cosmetics being purchasable only. Almost any game these days that actually survives has continued income. Only making money off an initial purchase guarantees a shortened life cycle, especially for a game like diablo that really needs continued development. Cosmetics are the only way to do that without completely fucking over game play (see immortal)

BUT, when I look at overwatch 2, I feel so snubbed from being able to earn loot boxes that I lost all interest in playing. I hate unlocking loot that everyone else gets at the same intervals.

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jerekhal t1_j99d5mv wrote

More power to you I simply don't share that sentiment.

Diablo would have a perfectly fine lifespan without live-service bullshit imo. It doesn't need a constant and regular update cycle if they just produced bulky and well developed content drops and sold them as DLCs as that would tide people over for a good bit with each. Besides, games don't need to have perpetual development for years on end, the quality inevitably drops pretty significantly as time goes on. But again that's only my opinion.

More importantly you highlighted something that I think a lot of my distaste comes from. Modern live-service design is contemptuous of the user's time and effort, is designed to be psychologically addictive, and gives the absolute bare minimum possible to keep people begrudgingly coming back. That's not something I think is healthy for the game or a net positive regardless of slow content drips that come with.

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Mr_Otingocni t1_j96tfbz wrote

I might check out the expansion then. It wasn't the glory days of 2 but I liked it enough to play through the story line. I will say the graphics were beautiful.

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B0BsLawBlog t1_j993uq1 wrote

3's biggest problem for me was how they forced the hardness for the first go through. Normal was easy, I usually switch every RPG I play to hard.

You could trivially buy (if you weren't the first set of players) weapons way stronger than you could get in game in the auction house. Cheaply. Giant damage gems too.

So either you banned yourself from those items by willpower, or you just had to play the game the first time on what was basically story mode. Which wasn't fun for me.

I just want a hard (but not Souls hard, I have a job and kids I ain't got time for that) playthrough please. With multiplayer so I can hang with my bro like the old days.

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