Just wanted to see if I hit my head here, because I haven’t seen any criticism on a topic that I think is the single biggest issue with this game - it’s missing Diablo’s snappiness.
For d1 and d2, both were games with near-instant responsiveness, which would give you clear “I can’t do this yet” feedback, letting the success of your game be based on how fast and how well you do things.
All I’ve seen, from the alpha to now, is a focus on “power fantasy” and damage numbers, and “making the player feel like they’re progressing”, which it looks has made the game so achingly meta and self-aware that it feels like it’s been dumbed down to such an extreme degree. D1 was a program someone wrote to let you kill skeletons in a satisfying way. D4 is an object on a spreadsheet with X features, where X is the most broadly-known attributes of a previously successful title.
If McDonald’s followed this strategy, they would sell a vaguely burger-shaped blob that is one third fries, one third chicken, and one third Big Mac, with no cohesion or any of the distinct features that made each product successful on its own.
This game feels clunky, and the only risk to your character is getting one-shot. I’ve played to 55 and I genuinely do not understand how you guys play this, it’s like playing d2 over a Webcam feed from Justin.tv in 2008 while you steal Wi-Fi from Starbucks from the parking lot.
There’s no difficulty in escaping/strafing monsters, there’s no value to positioning other than stepping out of traps, and there’s no quick thinking needed - you either survive the burst damage or you don’t.
I don’t get it, the game feels like it was designed by people who don’t play video games based on a description someone gave them of what it’s like to play Diablo.
The point of d2 isn’t loot or “feeling powerful”, it’s about figuring a way out to beat the game with a high degree of success, compared to your previous experience. It can’t be defined in one sentence, and it’s a vague, general feeling of getting better at a game. Loot was only a part of this.
The same way chess is satisfying to play, d2 was satisfying. There was risk and strategy, and not simply “you can’t do this yet because you don’t have the gear” or “well scale this monster down for you to be able to kill”.
Is it just me? It feels like the whole dynamics of d2 were rejected in favor of what some MBA’s understanding of d2 was based on Surveys.
It also feels like nothing changed since the alpha trailer, but hey.
Am I taking crazy pills?
This post was edited by Jewsus on Aug 11 2023 12:24pm