You are just desperately trying to twist and misrepresent my argument. I never said D4 is years ahead other games, I said its approx. 25 years ahead of PoE 2 for example in areas such as cinematics, story telling and so. As I specifically mentioned, PoE 2 cinematics are far worse quality than even D3 had, 15 years ago. Atmosphere, character immersion (again, with specific examples given). And yet you keep arguing against things I never said.
The way I remember "playing D2" was that I spent significantly more time on loading screen, running in town, muling items, or teleporting around (or waiting in town for others to teleport) and searching for next levels than in combat or doing anything fun. The fact that there are loading screens in D4 (amazing observation from you) is irrelevant, because I never spend 50% of my play session on loading screen, whereas is D2 I did spend 95% of time doing everything except for playing and having fun.
Sure, some of this were technical limitations, but not most of it. Game was simply designed in this way that favours teleporting to chests or bosses and restarting game over and over, rather than actually playing.
And BTW D4 will be there in 50 years, just like D3 and D1 are still there, it will never go away. But you are delusional if you think that D2 has a significant player base, remember that before D2r we knew how many players were there on b.net, and it was maybe like 25k of which like 90% were bots. Still the same in D2r, one can only see battle.net FG vs balance trades here on jsp, where some people are buying 20x copies of D2r.
Judging numbers on ladders today there are probably not even 100k accounts including bots. So maybe current population of D2r is like 20-30k players? I think thats optimistic.
D2r sold 5 million copies, most were bots, but even then most were just nostalgic players who left right after they remembered why they quit playing in the first place.
There are just few tens of thousands of people, maybe, who still think that D2 is a good game. So yes, D2 is still here and not going anywhere, just like there are still some D1 players, but your sense of superiority is delusional, you are just dwelling in last century. The world has moved on and you are just angry than you and your gaming preferences were left behind. Enjoy warlock update, thats the only thing you will get, and you know why? There simply is not enough of players who think about the world the same way like you to justify working on D2 or similar game.
Im sure that you are just imagining that there is like "silent majority" of players who enjoy PoE, D2 and other games and Blizzard is only making D4, but the reality is that D4 is dwarfing all other ARPGs on the market combined. GGG considered it major milestone that PoE2 sold 1 million copies, and give how the interested in game is falling, I doubt they sold much more since. That already tells anyone reasonable enough everything one needs to know. So if you put together PoE1+2, LE, current D2r population all combined, D4 player base is still probably 10x bigger than that. But sure, go ahead and imagine that somehow game like PoE 2 that sells only 1 million copies represents "silent majority". D4 sold 12 millions in first 3 months before going to Steam.
I can still see that this subforum is still full of people who have no real life and just want to trash D4 all day so Im gonna leave. Cya
Never once compared player base between them games. you brought that up yourself. You're the one who claimed d4 is the better one with superior ingame features such as no loading screen which in fact is plain wrong. it loads whenever i do anything outside of helltide, even helltide itself i have to tp there to play in unless you choose to ride your horse there then fair play
D4 players base is 10x of both poe + le combined is also another wild claim. show me where you pull those numbers from?
You brought them all up and decided to bash d2 and poe2 where the simpler answer is to just name them d4 features that makes it >d2 just as the OP topic, no need to bring poe2 into it or maybe the way you think is both poe needs to be bad in order to make d4 look good.
If we judge arpg games purely according to its category
Then what does d4 bring? Campaign
1. Combat - sure i'll give point to its with them better graphics than d2
2. Itemization/loot - dog shit, literally the worst system in any arpg, massive thanks to smart loot and account bound system
3. Build variety, character progression - absolutely tiny pool of playable builds, this gets even worse when smart loot is in place, everyone plays the same meta class, all loots on market to trade is only that class gears. Progression, getting to an end game build and +250paragon level in about 48 hours of playing time is another joke
4. Endgame. Name me some great end game features that d4 brings if anyone can complete a build within 48 hours after season releases. what are we staying to grind for? pits? or silly leaderboard?
5. Quality of life feature- i'll give points to this as d4 does have some good qol like armory, but still more to improve, sell all button for example
6. Value - for that pricetag at release followed by 2 expansion, that puts d4 as a horrible game vs money spent for its value
Don't know why you saw me as a d2 player or even delusional. look at the whole topic and reply, noone but you are backing d4 and call it superior. You quit d2 because of loading screen to join another loading screen at d4 is funny
, even worse this season where you have to keep porting to different boss via their bloodsoaked sigil. or maybe you ride your horse to each boss then my respect for you sir.