I mean, in theory sure, but the industry also knows that angry gamers are way more talk than they are walk. For the majority of them it takes a lot more than a week or two of server kablooies on launch to override a desire to play a game enough to refund it or not buy it at least eventually. And it also knows that gamer outrage is often loud but also some combination of small, short lived, or without any meaningful impact.
So really… For the most part they have no incentive to solve the problem of launch week/beta weekend server issues. It happens infrequently, it goes away quickly, and doesn’t hurt profit. The pain point is taken on entirely by the customers, not the company.
Yeah I’m not sure about that. If the overloading is a temporary problem then there’s a lot of walking going on. If you could create an experience that is so good that it causes the normies who are normally done with the game as soon as it doesn’t load or the launch hype is over with to stick around, there certainly would be benefits if you then sold them more content and had them on social media pushing your game to new users. If traffic tomorrow is 80% less than traffic today, that’s customers trying your product and then leaving.
One of the absolute best examples I can think of in this regard is Among Us. Because the online worked well enough for everybody to jump on to it and it had social media staying power, it became an overnight runaway hit. At the end of 2022 their active users per month was still going up. Any game could reproduce that model if it had both the viral friend group appeal of that game and an online mode that could let every Facebook or Tiktok encouraged impulsive install in to play. And this is only going to become more relevant as more and more people start coming to the internet as their primary source of entertainment.
Addendum: Ask Valve if they scale up their servers significantly for major launch days to make those games accessible. Ask them if it matters to their bottom line if people can get in and play those games. I’d be positively shocked if they told you “no.” Incidentally, this has been a thing for several decades in telecommunications. Other industries are only just now having to deal with it.
I honestly don’t think that there is. It’s been a common thing for so long that at this point that we’ve all come to expect and accept that launch weeks are unlikely to be smooth. People who genuinely aren’t willing to deal with rough server waters on launch week, I’d put money on the table that overwhelmingly they’re not walking away from the game, they’re just waiting until it settles down to play it. That, or they’re over the top intolerant and were always going to ragebail at the first reason they find. Like, it’s better now but for how many years did WoW have a total shitshow of a launch week and still set sales and profit records? People complain about Day 1 patches and bad launches but the fact that it still happens all over says to me that the industry knows they can get away with it more often than not.
Yeah, I mean, I’d be shocked if they told me “No” too. I’m not saying that how I see it to be is how it should be.
You let go of a game that makes mony with MTX and instead play a game that makes money with even more MTX? Well that’s funny .
What do you mean, Macknum? I’m not sure, i got your point - as i don’t think (or have read), that LE will be even more MTX-based than PoE or D Immortal (and most probalby D4).
Also, I don’t have a problem with MTX as such - if they are decent and purely cosmetic, i’m fine . But if they are all “in your face”, offensively placed and accompanied by “get your free daily whatever”-doses, than i find them most annoying.
Despite what Bliz says, I am still worried they will be shoving down their dlc and cosmetics on every screen we see. Time will only tell, but god, I hope they dont.
So far LE offers more cosmetic slots then even PoE and comes with a box price. So far I can see nothing wrong with D4 because everything you can buy there is as optional and cosmetic as it is in LE. I think it’s unlikely D4 pulls a p2w store of because the community would rip them a new one ^^.
So far and with what was spoilered (if this will be 100% true) LE is the far more MTX heavy game. Well at least LE didn’t cost 70 bucks ^^.
I’m no-lifing D4’s beta as I write this, trying the druid and necromancer out, and I’m bored already. Sure, there’s less content than in LE’s 0.9 which I guess could be considered a beta too, but it’s not a matter of content, it’s a matter of design. D4’s only redeeming features are the establish IP and the atmosphere as far as I’m concerned. Other than that, it feels like a mobile game / MMO hybrid to me, and that’s not a good thing: spell effect are extremely bland, so much so the look like they were developed for a mobile game to be played on phones, and the “skill tree” is more of a “skill twig” with pretty much forced and obvious choices, few of them interesting (some will hate this take but D3’s rune system was infinitely better).
Not to mention the whole demi-MMO thing plaguing the game with Radio Towers woops I meant “Lilith Shrines”, “events” (world quests lite) and the like.
Now don’t get me wrong I’ll play D4’s campaign and most likely rush through seasons as well because of FOMO. I’m not immune to it. But other than that I currently see no reason whatsoever to prefer D4 over LE.
Just my 2 cents of course.
Played the D4 beta for 4 hours… I don’t know how to put it, it lacks as an ARPG, the combat is OK but the skills are a bit boring. The story seems interesting, but… Definitively I’ll wait for a discount.
Yeah, also has soo much of an MMO feeling, one thing I love of this kind of games is the refreshing changes of scenery, seems that game is all over that big barren-snowy map. Desert? Jungle? seems will not happen until 70 bucks DLC.
Frankly, even I didn’t expect much of blizzard at this point, I’m quite disappointed. I was forced to stop due to a server connection error, maybe I will finish the beta tomorrow, and that’s about it.
It’s fairly entertaining to watch the levels of nitpicking, and unrealistic expectations just because they don’t want to like a game. I get it. I didn’t want to like it either. But I also understand that 25 levels is about 5% of the leveling experience. None of the end-game systems are playable. And only the first Act is available.
They can’t really be forgiven with the login/connection issues at this point…given their experience with WoW and D3. They should have this shit taken care of before it ruins the initial impression. Other than that, it’s a refreshing change from the current ARP offerings. It has an MMO-lite feel, which I kind of enjoy. We’ll see how the rest of the game pans out.
I can only talk for myself, is just the contrary, I wanted to like the game, I am a long time Diablo fan, and I don’t mind different takes or mixing genres. Maybe I’m too too much of an ARPg enjoyer.
Who is this aimed at? I like the game, just not as a Diablo game. The servers were just as bad the first beta, Blizz ironed em out for the most part a day after the last beta began. I was able to make a Necro(I didnt have the willpower to not try this beta aswell), but have been kicked and put into queue non stop since.
@Ninakoru We will get different maps, but the dungeons wont change, and thats all we know about end game right now, juiced dungeons. Rifts v2. And ya, the social mmo whatever the hell you wanna call it aspect of it is just bad, especially when players of drastically different levels are in the same zone.
Do you though? Because plenty of people actually want to do the opposite - as in, they want to like the game. I preordered it and I’m not gonna cancel despite its evident shortcomings. As to expectations being unrealistic, is it really so unrealistic to hope for them to not make the same mistakes that alienated a good chunk of the player base from them after the negative lesson of Diablo Immortal and the positive lesson of D2 reborn? Perhaps I’m crazy but I don’t think there’s anything unreasonable about it. I could ask more, say, what’s unrealistic about expecting an upgrade in spell effects instead of a colossal downgrade? I literally can’t see most some of them (skeleton’s projectiles, most basic skills’ projectiles, even chain lightning which was so flashy in D2 and it looks like a starter skill in D4). Oh, and let’s not forget meteor. Remember D2/3 meteors? Damn, those were satisfying to drop on enemies. D4 meteors on the other hand feel and look like artillery duds.
Agreed, I find it fairly entertaining when the Diablo 4 fan club writes off any criticism players have, ESPECIALLY when the criticism comes from an admitted D2 enjoyer. If you dont like this game just go play D2R! Such a weird deflection.
This game has issues, ones that are actually objective, crazy! For me, I hate how zoomed in the camera is, and find melee to be in a weird place against bosses. I can deal with the basic ass skill tree, UI made by one of the employees kids, and simple gearing, but for the love of god, let us zoom the camera back even if just like 20% more.
I though the D4 beta was duller than dirt. The pace is super slow and two of the classes are op beyond belief even for a beta. My biggest issue was that melee characters are at a MASSIVE disadvantage in game when it comes to boss fights. So many mechanics in those fights to dodge and range just basically ignores them and keeps uptime at near 100%. I don’t think there’s really any way to fix this either.
I’m not sure we are playing the same game because D4 plays a whole lot like an MMO and the pace is way off the mark for an ARPG. By refreshing do you mean that melee is significantly weaker than the pure casters? Otherwise i have no idea what is “refreshing”. Last Epoch has a better loot system by light years and the classes are far more fleshed out. IF you just looked at the first 28 levels of LE, which is about when you can pick your primary class vs the 25 levels of D4 it’s not even close which one is better.
Blizzard has some SIGNIFICANT work to do to their game in two months to make it be anything more than a 6 month flash in the pan and then dead game like D3 is.
Im just finishing second round of beta, played all classes to 25. This time Druid/Necro. I cant wait for it to be released
From June ill just be playing PoE/D4
Cant really agree, I smashed beta on Veteran, I forgot to record but heres my Earth Druid. Barrier/Fortify, Heal on Howl…actually make use of the defences and you are fine
Its an MMO with aRPG elements, that World boss Dragon, I fought them 6 times now and you can avoid all their damage with dashes/timing, you dont even have that in Grim Dawn as its all a numbers simulator
I think a lot of people all insecure D4 IS actually good, I tried to dislike it and I cant, I had zero expectations and I had a blast
I love LE and I bet I’d enjoy D4 for what it is or rather could be at release. Its character progression/development mechanics seem to be rather rudimentary again, but the franchise was never known for extensive skill trees. At least D4’s systems seems to be an improvement over the ones from D3.
Unfortunately, Blizzard decided to force players to play online again and have them experience those lite-MMORPG features. Due to that I’ll pass on the game.
One thing I love Diablo for is its presentation (in all aspects) - except for part 3. It transports a grim and gritty environment/world perfectly. I’ve only seen a single short video of D4 but it seems to exactly look like I wanted it to look. That makes me kinda sad that I won’t be able to enjoy it. Maybe I’ll pick it up a couple of years down the road, when I can get it for a few bucks, just to experience the story.
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