Diablo is also backed by a multi billion dollar corp, it would be pretty sad if it didnt feel better. Sadly, D4 is as deep as a puddle. Last Epoch may be uglier and clunkier, but its a better arpg, there is no arguing that.
Blizzard knows how to make animations, and how to make them fit in the gameplay. It has always been their forteā¦ in my opinion, they know more about animations in games than actual game design, about visual feedback, about making the game āfeel goodā - with the exception of the early Diablos and the first Starcraft, where they pretty much nailed the 2D mechanics.
But this game blows anything Blizzard did out of the water with its skill trees. And I have heard many good things about other non-Blizzard aRPGs as well. In other words, today Bliz is a bit like the Disney of games. They own all the big franchises, with the best production budgets. But, maybe, they just arenāt delivering the best content anymore. Thatās for debate, of course.
LE, Grim Dawn, Chronicon, The Slorgmancer, Ghostlore, hell even Titan Quest, do arpg better. D4 is a shell of a game. People new to the genre are in awe because its purty, but once you get to level 60, even the most casual player sees the cracks. Its funny going to the PoE subreddit, there are so many new people there because of D4, and they seem to absolutely love PoE. D4 being a shell of a game was the best business decision GGG ever made.
There is a lot to argue about because LE isnāt the better hack and slash game because the main part of said games is fighting and the combat pace and feel of LE is guttertrash compared to most other hack and slash games and worlds appart from what D4 is.
Itās a matter of taste at the end of the day but LE has so many weaknesses in itās current state that I donāt even want to start a descission about it because itāll never be objective. D4 isnāt automaticly a winner here or the best hack and slash game ever D4 is a sad excuse of game made by a company with that many talent and financial power not to speak of the development time to getā¦ this?
LE and D4 have a lot of work ahead because both games arenāt in that good of a state.
But if the fighting in this game is not as good, it is also because of small things which can be fixed. Like the very low threat that monsters restricted to normal, physical attacks, represent. This weakness gets fixed, and the game is immediately more immersive and engaging as a result.
But at least we have, over here, the excuse of not being 1.0 yet. While the mainstream game already passed an extensive testing phase and quality control. Honestly, I never buy games in early access myself, because those development stages are very important too. This game was the exception to my own rule.
I never hear people call games like PoE. LE. or Diablo hack and slash. That doesnāt really encompass the genre very well. Yes you kill a ton of shit, but you also level up, use a wide variety of abilities, find interesting gear, and somehow, have to put something together that can withstand the increasingly difficult content. Thats an arpg. Thats where D4 falls flat on its face.
Even on the Bliz forums, nobody is excited for the season. I am not reinstalling the game for it. Good looking and smooth dont mean shit when you 2 viable skills, the most boring loot system ever, and nothing to strive for once you hit world tier 3. In fails at the most fundamental levels. LE, by definition, does the genre better.
The gameplay is hack and slash. You arenāt solving complex puzzles. You arenāt navigating through in-depth questlines. You arenāt deeply impacting the game world. You arenāt executing actions in a strategic, turn-based, combat system. As you would, in an actual RPG like Baldurās Gate or Divine Divinity 2. Youāre just running around, through hordes of enemies, mindlessly slaughtering themā¦ looking for that piece of cheese at the end of the treadmill. It encompasses the genre perfectly.
Sure, youāre assigning skill points. You figuring out gear. Youāre using skills. Which you do in every single *RPG game. But, the core gameplay is āhacking and slashingā through metric fuck-tons of monsters.
Cool, still never hear people call the genre hack and slash. By that metric, guess WoW is a hack and slash also. Lets just get rid of genres as a whole while we are at it.
Iāve said this elsewhere, but from what Iāve seen of D4, the color palette looks like nonstop grey on grey, brown on brown, or white on white. The environments, character designs, enemies, everything looks uninspired, even down to the UI which looks like a mobile game. Iām sure it feels fine to play and people who are new to Diablo will enjoy it. But I donāt see anything in it for me.
And Iām not happy about any of that, by the way. I donāt root for one game over another one. Itād be nice if people would always deliver the best product that people can pay them for. What Iām more unimpressed by is the media campaign that came right before launch where they paid all the right people to say it was amazing and the best game ever made, etc. I didnāt want to believe it was that easy to manipulate influencers and astroturf public sentiment. But Capcom did the exact same thing with Street Fighter 6.
I miss when the internet was a place where real discussions and critique could happen and not this āeverything is awesomeā bandwagon that comes around for every new thing. Thatās partially why I like being on this forum, is because it didnāt used to happen here, and still doesnāt for the most part.
Maybe Blizzard used AI to generate the environments. That would explain the lack of sharpness or detail in the screenshots, and also the āpaintedā but boring visual style of the game.
I agree with astroturfing being a thing in the industry. In fact, I have come to believe that the opposite is also true, that certain games have been destroyed in āprofessionalā reviews as some kind of a hit job.
Thatās very much the case, certainly. Thereās probably manipulation on things like Metacritic also. We know thereās working of Steam reviews. Itās nice how just when things were looking up and the world was becoming an interesting place to live, all the corruption and censorship made it to the internet just in time to ruin everything. Kinda depressing.
Oh well, at least we still have each other / this community.
Metacritic is a sham, all reviews are weighted. I popular outlet like IGN influences a score more than a lesser know outlet. It breaks the entire system.
Said weakenesses have always been there and not many people voice their concerns when it comes to them. To me it looks like a lot of people want to like LE no matter what and overlook the issues that are there.
Iāll make an example. I have a friend who likes superfuse and playes it like a maniac. Every time he tries to convince me to play the game as well I say āno thx!ā and we have a n hour long debate about how bad the combar in superfuse is when even LE is gold vs that game.
We never had a fluid combat system in LE and I think it will never be on the same level as in other hack and slash games. Please donāt start with the ābut itās a small studio!ā because even small stuidos should produce quality content.
Maybe itās just me and I playd to much LE but after experiencing the fluidity and smoothness of other games combat LE is even more unintresting to me even when I realy like the idea behind the game and most of the game systems in place.
Yeah but EHG wants to release this year so this excuse will be invaild soonish and I donāt think they are able to change this in time. Iām not even sure if they are not like the state the combat of the game is in and leave it like it is . What do I know? On top of it it looks like most people are okay whith what they get so it loks like a āmeā issue anyway .
Diablo was calles āisometric hack and slashā in the beginning and they stuffed it into the ARPG genre because reasons. All you do is kill stuff by whatever means but there is not much roleplay and I think there is no hack and slash game out there where choice matters or where you can make different approaches to reach you goal. The onle RPG thing you do in LE is the choice whom you give the ledger in the beginning and this choice matters 0. So no I canāt tell why itās called ARPG because every P&P roleplayer would call this āpowergamingā and would nod be fond of a player who does so 8except for other power players ) .
Iām neither but Iāve nothing to do next WE so Iāll play a toon to 100 and take a look at it. But if the other seasons are trash tier as well Iām out and wait for the next intresting game thatāll come outā¦ most likely BG3 or Atlas.
When it comes to loot D4 is a flawed system that makes 0 sense for sure, then again the groundworks of the itemisation are far better then in LE because itās less of a slot machine on top of a slot machine on top of a slot machine to artificaly increase the time you spend ingame.
Look at the endgame of D4 while itās not the best itās stellar compared to Monolith of Fate and even helltides have the same impact on the world as Last Epochs ātime travelingā because it changes the world arround you slightly.
We can go back and forth about it for sure and I think taste playes a big role at the end of the day. Also I think D4 will be a whole other game in 6-12 months because they already fall back in old behaviours with their patches and season themes and Iām bored fast if every season is just another power fantasy with a different endboss on top.
This could quickly become one of those endless and pointless debates on the net. But I donāt think it is as simple as people just wanting to like the game despite its faults.
I think it is more like Diablo and indie aRPGs having more differences than just the budget. Like: aiming to a totally different audience. You seeā¦ I donāt think Blizzard is incapable of delivering a very deep system and game design. They clearly can. I think they just donāt want to.
Blizzard and the other, mainstream companies, focus their effort on the casual gamer market, that is, the large majority of videogame players who want everything streamlinedā¦ everything simple and uncomplicated, but very flashy. In other words, the market where the big money is to be made. The large game studios have to adapt to the preferences of their chosen audience if they plan to have more sells. Put a lot of funds into marketing too, because casual gamers donāt always know what they want.
Indie games are oriented for old, serious, hardcore or simply nerdy gamers who feel they arenāt a priority anymore for the big companies. And they are right, theirs is a niche market which is the target for the small studios. Of course, if we were talking about the same Blizzard from the nineties, the time when gamers were still, in fact, geeksā¦ then yes, there be no way that Blizzard lost in this comparison. But mainstream games arenāt for geeks anymore, so people who want different from modern standards have no choice anymore but to look into indie games, or go back into the classics.
Blizzard is going to polish its products like it always does. But it isnāt planning to change its audience anytime soon.
. What do I know? On top of it it looks like most people are okay whith what they get so it loks like a āmeā issue anyway