Path of Exile is >>>>>> anyway. Surpassing poe in terms of quality wil be a real challenge for d4, I dont think they can pull it off. But D4 will still be an economic success based on name recognition alone... *sigh*

POE was a d2 ripoff, blizzard should just rip off POE for D4. come full circle!

I think that, while PoE is an incredible game with varied content ( with all the different patches and expansions ) it's still lacking in some aspect. Diablo 3 for all it's flaws plays better than pretty much any ARPG in terms of it's fluidity. The visceral kinetic energy the euphoria of using abilities and doing shit has always been the high point of Diablo 3 as a whole. I think some of the animations for attacks and all is by design, more strategic movements and usage of abilities but also because they didn't have the polish that Blizzard had as well. This isn't new in that department, almost all MMO post-WoW always had stiff walking animations and shit which made me trying to get into to some of them a harder ask.

It is also less beginner friendly, I think PoE has many barriers of entry and it's "sphere grid" is one of them, as well as the many multipliers and how they all interact. Coming up with new fun builds always makes you look at spreadsheets
Customization is great and Diablo 3 was very bare-boned and had very little but I think a middle ground can be achieved as to catch the most potential interested players.

The key to getting a piece of the market is to have your own strength. Also, while PoE is an amazing product and is still growing with amazing continued support it's still pretty niche : https://www.pcgamer.com/path-of-exile-smashes-its-player-count-record-following-free-betrayal-update/
Any competent diablo can sell boxes and boxes and keep a way higher concurrent player base, it just means that Blizzard is going to have to start releasing more competent products. I know... right now it looks like it's something of a problem. The way they've been handling Overwatch's balance and updates hasn't been stellar. They had a great product at the start but mismanaged it. Although I guess it's sort of explained by the next the OW 2.0 whatever that thing is.

I think PoE took more notes from Titan Quest personally. The way levels were design and their layout, some cutomization is the same as well. Big emphasis on percentages is a big one. I'm sure there's a lot more but it's been a while. Truthfully a lot of stuff in PoE was a first for ARPGs which is why ARPG fans have the game in such high regard. Big innovations in a genre that had very few new games post D2.

oh for sure, it was the unofficial D3. they did what blizzard should have, take an existing loot table setup and look, add a bit more build/item customization. and dial in the right drop rated to keep people slashing. workable trading.

whereas D3 had too much customization, but most was useless. as there were really only a handful of builds that could clear top content. the game itself had zero replayability, the story sucked. you couldn't find an item worth trading even if u mf'd for 2 hours, and you couldn't trade items after like a year of the game existing. it became create char > speed leveld through event content > speed geared through carrys > do nothing because u cant find upgrades or trade almost anything.

Truthfully after RoS and Loot 2.0 I had a bit more faith in the diablo devs. A shame we never saw the 2nd expansion because it was cancelled in favour of helping with other projects and Diablo 4. Seeing it and the progression would've make my estimation of how good of a product we're getting to see tommorow and future Blizzcons a bit more easier.

Im one of the few people that was ok with the shitty story line in D3 as long as the real money AH was up. if there's a game that i can grind for like a few hours a day and sell the items for real money i dont care if it's a plot on par with Tremors 4. as long as the mechanics are decent, and u can find sell-able items in a reasonable window of time, i'm in.

even if it was only gold i would still be in i'd say. but the cash in cash out option was cool i thought.

the game was far from perfect but the gem system was good. having to upgrade gems all the way up and get gem cutting recipes i liked. the idea that u need to put together several gems worth a few million each just to min max out a few more dps felt a lot like diablo to me.

the game fell apart when they tried pvp and added -lvl req item. getting a full lvl 60 set at like lvl 42 was just silly. as if leveling wasn't easy enough.

they certainly looked at elements of both since both were amazing games, but i'm pretty sure chris wilson mentioned in an old interview that he created poe to be a successor / hommage to d2 in particular, and it certainly shows in its whole aesthetic.

Azmodan never shut the fuck up during that shitty game. "You'll never set up your catapults twe destroyed"

"You set up your catapults, but i broke into your base"

"You beat my fat larder thing, but you'll never destroy my trebuchets"

"You destroyed my trebuchets, but you'll never do whatever is next"

and so on and so on and so on and so on.

fuck that game.