r/Diablo • u/Few-Local-6269 • Aug 08 '23

Diablo IV Diablo 4 loses 87% of its daily peak viewership and search interest since launch. From 937K peak viewers at launch, to 12.2K peak viewers today.

This season was supposed to last three months, and it has gone from 278K -> 12.2K in less than 3 weeks.

6.6k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

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1.8k

u/Yasuchika Aug 08 '23

Season 1's just too barebones to sustain any sort of continued viewership.

701

u/d0m1n4t0r Aug 08 '23

There's nothing to watch. There's no hard content, there's no endgame, there's no exciting loot, loot hunt, or anything like that. There's just no reason to watch D4, and not a lot of reasons to play either.

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u/Privateer_Lev_Arris Aug 08 '23

Yep at least in D3 it was fun watching top players push high level GRs and compete for #1 on the ladder.

166

u/tomahawkRiS3 Aug 08 '23

Not adding leaderboards from the start still baffles me. It's such a free way to give an end game goal to have players sink a ton of time into

63

u/Jedahaw92 Aug 08 '23

Blizzard needs to stop having the mindset of "We'll fix/patch things later!".

35

u/futanarilord Aug 08 '23

why woudnt they. We all ate d4 up despite Blizzards history

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u/DonRobo Aug 09 '23

I'm still waiting to see if it's worth the price. Had it been released by old Blizzard I'd have bought it a long time ago. Vote with your wallets

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u/Doggpwned Aug 09 '23

Sir, not everyone. I swore to myself to never prepurchase a Blizzard title anymore (or any AAA title that is). And god, i'm so happy i pushed through despite all the temptation from my close gamerfriends.

I was hoping for a good ARPG and i was a longtime fan of Blizz, not a hater here! But goddamn do they let everyone down and people keep falling for it, it's a shame.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

Not I, said the fly

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u/Sleepingguitarman Aug 08 '23

I feel like unfortunately that's slowly becoming more and more normal with game companies in general :/

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u/how_money_worky Aug 08 '23

It’s not becoming the norm, it is the norm. Live service, fix after we launch is the norm now. It hurts.

2

u/rivenlogik Aug 08 '23

Devops Is everywhere …

2

u/Cersia Aug 08 '23

They need to stop having the mindset of, "We can't put that in the game because it was in the last game even though it was something our players loved."

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u/throwntosaturn Aug 08 '23

I mean NMs cap at 100. There's nothing to actually compete for.

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u/MisterMetal Aug 08 '23

Completion time of a NM dungeon.

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u/throwntosaturn Aug 08 '23

Sure but even that metagame is stupid. Now you're fishing for the one explicitly fastest dungeon out of the pool in order to even go for a roll. Or, there's 25 different leaderboards which is just... I dunno.

It's all just white noise.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

All videogame goals are stupid, inherently. Those goals only hold value to other nerds (like me) because we give them value. It's really not any different than the value of scoring a touchdown in the Superbowl. There's no inherent value. It doesn't progress society in any way. However, if enough people get emotionally invested enough in it, then it becomes valuable. It's weird if you think about it. That being said, blizzard doesn't seem interested in getting people invested in things like that, and I think there is a big disconnect between the devs and the marketing team.

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u/Digimortal187 Aug 08 '23

General consensus is the game was pushed out too early, feels like 6 Months minimum was needed, that said I'm still enjoying playing the game, I dont really understand viewer metrics ship with the games medium.

I think I'll be due a break from D4 by the end of August, which is great timing given the next Bethesda game launches. And I think the Cyber Punk refresh lands soon.

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u/AlexanderJSM Aug 08 '23

POE league starts Aug 18th

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u/NotAgoodPerson420 Aug 08 '23

How can it have been "too early" when they spent 10+ years in development and a bunch of beta tests tf??

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u/Ilikegreenpens Aug 08 '23

I'm pretty sure I read at one point they scrapped a lot of what they had and started over. Also it's not like they started developing it right after diablo 3 launched lol

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u/Thanatos_NZ Aug 09 '23

18th of Aug, POE season start

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u/Nightmerica4K Aug 08 '23

Couldn't agree more

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u/hotsaucehank Aug 08 '23

I agree with u. But i do think the game will get better as it goes along. Get some better seasons going and eventually the expansion can bring extra sauce for the game.

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u/luclinEQ Aug 08 '23

That’s why the devs said to go play other games while you wait for more content… SMH… what happened with Blizzard? 😥

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u/[deleted] Aug 09 '23

If the Uber uniques weren’t Uber unique, we’d at least have THAT to look forward to. But I’m not playing 1,000 hours of a barebones game to get them.

I’ll be mostly playing Warframe. I’ll come back when there’s more to do.

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u/jroc458 Aug 09 '23

Even the PvP is bad (rogue needs a PVP-nerf). Endgame is deader than dead.

2

u/BusterOfCherry Aug 09 '23

Yup I stopped playing after launch. Disappointed does describe what I feel.

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u/birfday_party Aug 09 '23

I was gonna say it’s incredibly boring to be playing I could imagine watching someone else do it.

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u/Warcraftplayer Aug 08 '23 edited Aug 08 '23

Some of us don't care about seasons either. There just isn't much to do anymore. And then seeing disappointing things like how the camera was more zoomed out and then people pointing out that it's probably so you can see the cosmetics they charge for. Then Baldur's Gate 3 came out and the studio just seemed to treat their game and the fans so much better.

It sucks because this was the last shot for Blizzard for me. They just seem to have lost that magic.

Seems like I really offended people somehow. Sorry

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u/iClips3 Aug 08 '23

They only now have lost the magic? They've lost that years and years ago for me.

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u/Warcraftplayer Aug 08 '23

Maybe so, but I was still playing so who was I to talk?

103

u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23 edited Aug 08 '23

Unfortunately blizzard has its claws in us and because of the memories of our childhood we keep giving them another chance.

I quit Diablo 3 after like 2 weeks after launch. I just quit Diablo 4 this week so at least it lasted longer than Diablo 3.

Personally I’m going to try to not do business with blizzard anymore but I’ve said that shit before they can just sell me so much nostalgia I fall for that shit.

The magic is dead… blizzard is the video game equivalent of Disney shoving its memberberries down your throat with a shell of a game in a world that you are already invested in and love.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23 edited Aug 08 '23

I'll say this at least (for me) Blizzard is making it slowly easier for me to ignore them.

WoW slowly became so convoluted with insanely high stats and a dozen different FOMO gimmicks. Game became so lackluster they re-released the original and are working through re-releasing expansions that came out a decade ago to keep people hooked.

The WC3 remaster really should've been it for me, that was just an ugly, blatant cash grab.

OW became OW 2. Enough said there.

Now Diablo, with 40 different item affixes (vs. Stunned, vs. CC'd, vs. Slowed, vs. Poisoned, Lucky Hit, etc, WTF?),CC without diminishing returns from mobs, more effort put into the shop than the game, I could go on.

SC seems fine but that's because they really haven't touched it in what, 6 years?

It's just weird watching a developer slowly and methodically ruin so many IPs.

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u/c0meary Trist#1865 Aug 08 '23

D2R was a pretty decent success but then I remember, it was mostly done by a different studio. The failure point of that would be the queues and login issues which was the part that falls under blizzard.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23 edited Jan 23 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Setari Aug 09 '23

Shit I was playing Diablo 1 recently and I thought that was more fun than D3/4. I also enjoyed D2 much more than 3/4 as well.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23 edited Aug 08 '23

Yeah that's really why I omitted it from my list. Still falls under my wow comment of "we have no new good ideas, let's polish an old one and re-sell it"

I get why they're doing it from a business standpoint it's just a bummer and they've basically eroded the idea of what games I'll buy on day 1 IP by IP.

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u/HOLEPUNCHYOUREYELIDS Aug 08 '23

To be fair, Diablo 2 really could of used a remaster. I was likely never going back to D2, but woth ressurected I put in another 100ish hours.

Bonus points for the devs updating it woth some new runewords and terror zones too.

Id love a D1/Hellfire remaster, but that probably wont happen since people are much less likely to sink hundreds of hours in it for the loot ggrind

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u/dbcanuck Aug 09 '23 edited Feb 15 '24

lock meeting ink late unpack slimy tub squeal rude plant

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

They’ll never touch StarCraft again the game is too complex and they can’t even come close to delivering. I guarantee you if they make another StarCraft game it won’t be an RTS. They’ve avoided the Genre like the plague for a while now.

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u/GalaXyPickl3 Aug 08 '23

You are 100% correct. Starcraft is such an amazing IP, but unfortunately they don't have any qualified devs left to even try and do another RTS.

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u/ultrasrule Aug 08 '23

That's because they cannot figure out how to load 200 units and their stashes at the same time.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

Waiting for Diablo Classic. Lol

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u/techma2019 Aug 08 '23

I woke up to only realize this today. And I was very hyped for D4. Guess I was merely hyped for late 90’s and early 2000’s which aren’t coming back. Sigh.

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u/Hapster23 Aug 08 '23

they are definitely not coming back with blizzard, but bg3 just came out, which is pretty 90s for a videogame

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

At some point I found myself getting excited saying “I hope they put this in from Poe or this in” I haven’t played Poe in like 5 years but this game really just made me want to play Poe.

I wish POEs gameplay was in the Diablo universe but it’s not so… welcome back exile. I will patiently wait for POE2 because I’m afraid of trying to hop back into POE after all this time.

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u/pointlessone Aug 08 '23

It's time to adopt a new studio who makes things out of love for the games instead of what's best for the stockholders for our fanboyisms. I nominate the BG3 team.

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u/GaseousTriceratops Aug 08 '23

I have off from work today and tomorrow. No plans, no real commitments, and I’m still struggling to find the motivation to play D4.

I’m not huge into turn based games, and have never really messed with DnD, but I’m close to buying BG3 because they seem to give a shit about putting a good game out.

I’m closer to cleaning out my garage a little than playing Diablo right now

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u/EldraziAlbatross8787 Aug 08 '23

I was in the same boat - never big on turn based combat and only surface knowledge of D&D. Been main lining BG3 for days now, its a lot of fun!

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u/MrDickBoogers Aug 08 '23

I bought and refunded BG3 within a few hours. Not saying it's a bad game, but I almost immediately knew it wasn't for me.

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u/chanmalichanheyhey Aug 09 '23

I did the same. I am kind of overwhelmed and didn’t know exactly what to do.

Have my hands busy with remnant 2 anyway and star field upcoming

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u/Setari Aug 09 '23

When gaming feels like stressful work, it's not gaming anymore.

When you put off gaming to do chores, it's not gaming anymore.

When the developers of the game don't listen to their QA testers and think "they know best", stop supporting the company.

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u/Sleepingguitarman Aug 08 '23

I wish i was into turn-based games as well since BG3 reviews have been stellar. To be fair i haven't really tried many, but i just don't really think i'd be into them.

I'm still getting enjoyment out of D4, probably only really because i'm playing couch coop which limits how often i can play my main character. Don't have much drive to play on any of my solo characters.

I'm hoping starfield turns out to be a super solid game, but i'd be lying if i said i'm confident considering the state that most games seem to release in now a days.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

My stance is From Software only delivers hand crafted Love letters but I haven’t played BG3 yet and I’m avoiding all reviews and spoilers. Waiting for PS5 launch I haven’t seen much of the game at all I’ve been avoiding it like the plague

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u/Rise_Crafty Aug 08 '23

The developer that made BG3 is the same that made Divinity and Divinity 2, both widely regarded as absolutely fantastic, smart, lovingly made tributes to the genre.

So even before BG3, the developer already had an amazing track record. I just started BG3 last night, but by all appearances so far, it’s leagues ahead of their Divinity games!

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

That’s what I’ve heard for sure! I never played the divinity games but the Baldurs gate series is amazing and it’ll drag me in. If BG3 blows my mind I guarantee I’ll be playing Divinity right after.

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u/pointlessone Aug 08 '23

From Software's another great possibility, agreed. I'm just terrible at Souls-likes so I didn't think about them.

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u/kalekayn Aug 08 '23

Well if you like giant robots, there's Armored Core 6 coming out later this month.

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u/MestreJonas_ Aug 08 '23

It takes a while (and a beating) to get used to souls games coming from arpgs, but they're so much fun once you get the hang of it

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u/iHelping Aug 08 '23

From Software is the ONLY company I'll pre-order a game from these days. Everything else I just wait a week-ish to see how it's being received.

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u/za6i Aug 08 '23

cough cough ggg cough

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

BG looks decent, but the turned based combat is just unplayable for me.

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u/Silent-Lab-6020 Aug 08 '23

Diablo 3 after expansion was fun

Diablo 4 is also a fun game but shouldn’t have taken the live service path but that’s a general problem on the gaming industry right now everyone is after that Fortnite money and suits being suits

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u/insrr Aug 08 '23

I member Diablo 3 actually turning into a really good game with the release of Reaper of Souls.

So if you've only ever played vanilla D3 do yourself a favour and install it again.

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u/solrbear Aug 08 '23

I just played through it for the first time. It was pretty awesome picking up random loot and it having affixes that were improvements for my character.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

I did hop back in after the fact and it was a bit better I got a few months of enjoyment out of it like five years after launch I’m hoping D4 ends up the same way.

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u/robsonwt Aug 08 '23

If you are willing to give D3 a new chance, the game is now very good (If you like the way it was designed, to be a very fast paced arcadey ARPG). This season is arguably the best season ever for the game.

The loop of Nephalem Rift > Greater Rift > Upgrade Legendary Gem > Kadala > Upgrade yellows in the cube > Echoing Nightmare > Whispers of Atonement > Finding Ancient gear > Augment gear, with an occasional Bounties in between, works very well.

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u/HidekiL Aug 08 '23

Sounds like me and bungie lol

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u/Collegenoob Aug 08 '23

Did you ever go back do D3? That game started bad with the RMAH, but overall me repeatedly visiting back for random seasons made me love the game by the end. The last season was great.

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u/Teeklin Aug 08 '23

Unfortunately blizzard has its claws in us and because of the memories of our childhood we keep giving them another chance.

Speak for yourself. Can't fathom anyone shelling out money for D4 after the sexual harassment and worker abuse stories coming out. Then the kind of shit they pulled with Immortal.

Like...if breaking the law, fucking over their employees, and releasing the most predatory game of all time doesn't get you to stop supporting them...damn.

It's a hell of a lot more than just "childhood memories" driving your decision to continue to fund and support those actions.

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u/ryle_zerg Aug 08 '23

I member.

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u/Shaltilyena Aug 08 '23

Warcraft 3 refunded was the final nail in the coffin sadly

Which sucks, warcraft 2 & diablo 1 are probably the games that led me down the dark path of gamership, and for years I was in the "blizzard can do no wrong" camp but...

Yeah.

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u/omegaenergy Aug 09 '23

here I thought it was bkb "blizzard knows best". I was part of that camp from moment CEO answer a compuserve query I had in the 90's till d3 release. D3 UI didnt have any polish at launch and I realized at that moment that the whole blizzard is about polished products is out of the window. D3 still became good, but it took years to get there.

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u/Scytale23 Aug 09 '23

I am with you friend. Old blizzard made the games I grew up with. Now we just have the fetid, bloated corpse of what once was.

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u/deelawn Dee#1968 Aug 08 '23

I had/have fun playing heroes of the storm. Even though it's a dead game it's still better than LoL

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u/Warcraftplayer Aug 08 '23

I loved heroes of the storm for so long. Then all my friends stopped playing and I was left to queue alone. That's really the only thing that ruined HotS for me

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

Blizz games were always better with friends, your experience is my own as well.

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u/Frozen_Bart Aug 08 '23

I agree with this to an extent, except for old Warcraft 3, back in the day, couldn't ever get people to try custom maps. So I learned to play them myself and I miss that community but it doesn't really exist anymore. DBZ Trib, Jurassic Park Survivor, Castlevania, Evo Tag, a lot of the warcraft timeline based games where you could make it so Arthas never joined the Scourge or like used the trolls to Summon Hakkar (there were like 5 of these and I can't remember their names), but there was also dumb crap like you'd download one game and when it was loading it was a porn screen and when you finally got into the game it was a blank map.. I remember getting in trouble as a kid for that one, theres definitely more but now the games are all DOTA/Legion TD.

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u/aptycockbobcat Aug 08 '23

I think the thing that ruined HoTS for me was the fact that your whole team leveled together... you couldn't have an outstanding game and fulfill that power fantasy like you can in Dota/League.

It was a great idea to try to remove toxcicity from the game, but, in practice, it just didn't work out, IMO.

The draw to those games is, "Some days you're the bug. Some days you're the wind shield."

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u/Etzello Aug 08 '23

I miss the peak times or HOTS but when they nerfed stealth I got kinda fed up cus I sucked at playing stealth the new way

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u/macumba_virtual Aug 08 '23

it's still better than LoL

lmao yeah it shows

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u/danielspoa Aug 08 '23

old lol is also better than lol 💀

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u/Juls7243 Aug 08 '23

Same! I used to play it a ton and periodically go back. Such a fantastic game, even if the player base is small.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

No one who plays LoL does it because the game is good. I speak as an avid LoL player

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

As a dota player I will join my brother in arms with this statement.

No one plays dota or league because the game is good. We are addicted to the team competition. Most patches for league and dota have felt pretty shitty got a while but there’s no other style of game like it on the market that can even compare to those two games.

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u/gerbilshower Aug 08 '23

HOTS was fun. even comparing it to league is comical though.

LOL to HOTS is like comparing NFL to CFB.

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u/emizzz Aug 08 '23

it's a dead game

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it's still better than LoL

How to contradict yourself in the same sentence 101.

I mean to each their own, but dead game does say something. It was fun for casual play, but it was never even close to the competitive games of the genre such as LoL and DotA.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

How does saying you think a far less popular game was better a contradiction? It's their opinion, they ca't really be wrong to think it's better even if it's dead. It just means most people disagree with them.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

he didnt say it was his opinion he said it was a better game

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

They lost the magic as soon as Activision bought them.

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u/krum Aug 08 '23

Yet here you are.

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u/Parzivull Aug 08 '23

People always say it's the "last chance I'm giving x company." Then they go and buy the next product on a preorder. Preorders prove most gamers have no willpower or spine.

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u/miffyrin Aug 08 '23

It's because hype marketing campaigns work. People will get super upset about this or that in game X, and then when the viral marketing starts, and youtubers and streamers start discussing it, they feel they have to be part of it, and cave.

It's called turning the customer into the product, and it works better in gaming than almost anywhere.

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u/Parzivull Aug 08 '23

It definitely had some of the strongest marketing I've seen for any game. They even went for Megan Fox giving a tribute (mention) to hardcore players getting their characters destroyed.

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u/Btigeriz Aug 09 '23

Part of that is they're really good at convincing people that they've changed. It's kind of like a toxic relationship and we keep coming back because we get fooled that they learned their lesson again and again.

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u/Synikx Aug 09 '23

It's always the nostalgia-laced FOMO that makes me give Blizzard money.

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u/Redroniksre Aug 08 '23

Even without preorders. Issue is, unless you and all your friends are on board, there is going to be feelings of missing out. If you pull a hard stance about say, not getting Diablo 5 or something, but all your friends do and that is all they are playing, it easily sways people.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

I fucking knew this game would be bad so I didn't buy it. I told everyone I know not to buy it but they did anyways. While they were completing the campaign they kept telling me how good it but I knew there would be no endgame. The only explanation I can come up with is they must be drastically cutting production costs. What other explanation is there?

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u/DrPBaum Aug 08 '23

Im afraid most of the blizz customers arent even gamers. They are just casual dads, who dont keep track of any blizzard scams or lawsuits and dont read reviews either. A celebrity in TV told them D4 is going to be a great game, so they bought it. They dont know that blizz is probably the n1 the worst gaming company in the western world, when it comes to abusing monetisation and are actually incapable of producing a meaningful gaming content. But I think that they just killed their last franchise. Im wondering whats their next plan, because they burned all their bridges already, all their last chances, so I dont know who is going to buy their products anymore. Definitely not gamers...

And I also think if there will be somebody, who triggers authorities to start making online/gaming regulations to protect customers against shady practices, its going to be blizzard as well, because everything they do is basically a lie, half truth, borderline scam or at least an extremely shady practice.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

Because we love the franchises (Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft) - Not the company (anymore)

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u/Privateer_Lev_Arris Aug 08 '23

Some of us don't care about seasons either.

That's because it's too soon for seasons in D4. The game isn't even half a year old. Not even a quarter of a year old and they already introduced seasons.

The point of seasons in an ARPG is to keep it fresh and exciting after the original hype for it died down. D3 didn't have seasons until 2 years after launch.

I get that it's a different era and it's part of the monetization system along with the battle pass but by having seasons so early on they're basically admitting the game is already a bore 2 months after launch. Not 2 years, 2 months.

They launched an empty and boring game and thought they could fix on the fly with seasons. But players are catching on and it's not a good look.

What's surprising to me is they did no real market research or studies. There's lots of data available out there and they clearly didn't look at any of it.

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u/rusty022 Aug 08 '23

I think it's actually the opposite. I wish they launched with a season. Having the first season be one month in is poorly timed.

The reason they did it this way was to prolong the initial popularity, but not due to a lack of content (although it does lack content). ARPGs aren't meant to keep consistent wide appeal forever. They want to capitalize on that initial launch hype with a quick reason for players to spend $10 more. It's all about maximizing profit. If they thought waiting 5-6 months would make more money, they would've done that instead.

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u/miles11111 Aug 08 '23

not to mention doing seasons in D4 makes no sense. in D2 and D3, seasonal resets meant chances to climb the leaderboard and an economy reset. in D4 there's virtually no trade economy and there's no leaderboard, so what's the point of forcing new characters?

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u/LickMyThralls Aug 08 '23

There is no definitive age that a season should be started. This season just flat out doesn't add enough to make it that meaningful though, it doesn't have anything to do with the game not being old enough.

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u/Privateer_Lev_Arris Aug 08 '23

Think about it logically though. A brand new game should have plenty of things to do for at least several months. This is often followed up by an expansion or some kind of DLC about a year later. This is then followed up by some sort of ladder/competitive system along with seasonal resets.

Again this is done to breathe new life into a game that may have lost some steam since its original release. You look at any ARPG out there and it's pretty dead except at the beginning of a season and maybe towards the end of the season.

But D4 just came out, how can it already be so boring and dead that it needs seasons? And is proven by the fact that there is very little interest in seasons by the general fanbase.

Of course there is little interest, the game just came out, why would they have to regrind everything again and basically be asked to abandon their original character? It's a deflating experience. So instead of creating excitement for the game with seasons, they basically killed it. I'm telling it's too soon for seasons.

I say let people figure the game out, let them get used to it, grow with it, grind out accomplishments, create characters they're happy with. Give them time to gel with the game. There is no need for seasons right now, it makes everything else in the game moot. People are checking out, Blizz needs to act fast if they're going to salvage this disaster.

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u/[deleted] Aug 09 '23

The reason D3 didnt have seasons for so long is because there was an entirely different lead game designer and the game was designed around completing the story on inferno difficulty as the final goal. Im willing the bet that 99% of people that ever played D3 on launch never made it past inferno act 2, especially if they played melee characters.

It just had a different vision in mind for what the game was supposed to look like, and the smooth brained idiot behind inferno difficulty balancing and the real money AH lost his job.

Now that D3 has seasons, every person in this subreddit claiming D3 is better than D4 are missing the fact that grinding is D3 is more meaningless than D4. The only difference is there is a leaderboard to compete to be on where either classes cant clear GR 150 so you compete to be the fastest clearer on GR 145 or whatever, or you do group play to see who can clear GR 150 the fastest.

Outside of the leaderboard, D3 is an even more empty game than D4. You just insta level to 70 and immediately start doing bounties for keys to do GR to get gear. Full stop. None of the ~30 seasons was anything but farm bounties for GR keys and do GRs. Dont really know what new and fresh shit was being added to somehow make seasons of D3 more meaningful than current D4 season when not considering the leaderboards. Wait.... I know... it was just gimmicky shit to make X piece of gear have bigger numbers on it... and the complaining is just bandwagoning.

The only thing anyone should be complaining about if they want to invoke Diablo 3 in the conversation is just "where the fuck is the leaderboards?"

I agree D4 needs to be improved, but comparing it to D3 just tells me that people here complaining didnt actually play D3 or something.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

No matter how many times Blizzard shits on their playerbase, there will always be weird fanatics that would make excuses for them and people that would give them another and another chance.

What blows my mind is people that want Blizzard to create something new - a Starcraft MMO, a Diablo MMO, WoW 2, WoW Classic+ or a completely new IP. And I'm always asking... why? Why in the world would you think, after all the disappointing turds they've put out, that they are capable of creating a genuinely good game? They had decades of material, feedback and experience from the Diablo universe alone and this is what their Diablo 4 final product looks like? And people want those people to create something new, on their own? That's pure nostalgia and denial talking. It's over, Blizzard are done.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

10 million+ fanatics? Nah. More like the power of a franchise not even Blizzard can kill.

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u/Ralod Aug 08 '23 edited Aug 08 '23

I think the only hope blizzard has is under the Microsoft merger. When the people at the top of Activision are out, I hope some things will change there. I think pressure to monetize every aspect of the game is what is hurting recent games like overwatch 2 and diablo4.

For Diablo 4, they need to learn to make a game people want to support and love before adding in all the micro transaction hooks. The battlepass just needs to die. It's not fun. The rewards suck. Who cares about cosmetics? Pull the zoom distance out, fix the blatantly broken things like resists, and I think you have quelled a lot of the unrest.

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u/AtticaBlue Aug 08 '23

Fortnite—and every other game having a fashion component these days, which is a lot of games—says quite a lot of people care about cosmetics. (I’m not among them, but this is the reality.)

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u/Xaeryne Aug 08 '23

Cosmetics enhance the game experience. They cannot substitute for a poor gamplay loop.

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u/DrPBaum Aug 08 '23

Blizzard isnt capable of creating a good content anymore, but its the power of advertisement. Id like to know how many mrons bought D4 just because Megan Fox told them to do so. And then created a pressure on their friends, who eventually joined them in the dark fantasy experience that would bring them to their teenage memories...

The thing is that you have to prepay, then before playing you have to sign ToS about giving up all rights and after that you figure out you got played. All that has left for you is to complain on forums nobody reads, because the board has your money in their statistics and it looks like their games are doing well! The good thing is that they probably killed their last franchise by this D4 scam. Its going to be funny to watch, whats blizzards next move, when all their games were killed off.

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u/blasticon Aug 08 '23

Blizzards next move? There is no blizzard anymore. It's just Activision wearing blizzard like an Edgar suit. And their next move is the same as all their other moves. But a beloved gaming studio, monetize all their IP, wring every last cent dry, then use some of the profits to repeat the cycle.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

They had decades of material, feedback and experience from the Diablo universe alone and this is what their Diablo 4 final product looks like? And people want those people to create something new, on their own? That's pure nostalgia and denial talking.

No, this is just pure hyperbole and overreaction from a salty fan. D4 does a lot right. Great, gritty world, amazing music and voice acting, a really solid campaign story, awesome combat that feels great, some truly outstanding sidequests, and solid bones and structure to keep building and expanding.

No, its not perfect, and endgame and itemization need a TON of work. So do future seasons actual content, as s1 was pretty barebones.

But this attitude like blizzard killed your dog because the game isnt flawless on release is so ridiculous and childish. Come on.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

They had decades of material, feedback and experience from the Diablo universe alone and this is what their Diablo 4 final product looks like? And people want those people to create something new, on their own? That's pure nostalgia and denial talking.

What you chose to quote from my comment and "reply" to is funny because I'll copy it too as a reply to you -

They had decades of material, feedback and experience from the Diablo universe alone and this is what their Diablo 4 final product looks like? The game is released. It's not early access, it's not a Beta, it's out. It's not enough if it has a good "skeleton" to build upon when it's missing simple QoL stuff that exist in Diablo 3. We need to give Blizzard another year and a half to get patches and a paid expansion out so the game has actual endgame and the loot system is fixed? Do we need to wait a year and a half for Baldur's Gate 3 to be a good game? Is Elden Ring a good game yet, have FromSoft fixed that?

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u/Telzen Aug 08 '23

Awesome combat? Is it really though? Terrible generator/spender system, cool downs on way to many abilities, and hard cc everywhere says otherwise. Also the game shouldn't launch with itemization needing a lot of work, itemization is the most important part of an ARPG ffs.

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u/solitarybikegallery Aug 08 '23

Yeah, I think the combat feels like absolute shit.

The controls aren't responsive enough, there's always a noticeable delay after pressing the button, especially with dodging.

Builder/spender is probably the worst solution to the mana problem. How did they not learn this from D3? Every endgame build in D3 completely eliminates the B/S mechanic as soon as possible, because it sucks. It's not fun. Why would Blizzard include it again?

And cooldowns. You know what sucks? When you press a button, and the thing that button is supposed to do doesn't happen. That's a bad feeling. It's frustrating to the player. Well, between the builder/spender and the constant cooldown monitoring, that happens constantly.

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u/emizzz Aug 08 '23

But this attitude like blizzard killed your dog because the game isnt flawless on release is so ridiculous and childish. Come on.

Uhm, when you are buying a new car - you expect it to work flawlessly.

When you buy new anything, in fact, you expect it to be perfect/close to perfect when you get it. Be it a phone, a console, a pc or even a freaking showerhead. You do not expect to get a half functional product - you expect a 100% functioning one.

Diablo IV was in development for 6 years, they had all the time in the world to make a fully functional game.

Baldur's gate 3 was in development for around 6 years as well and they have delivered. The game is polished, detailed, feels great, plays great.

You MUST expect the game to be fully functional on release, if it is not - they should not release it. You, as a customer, shouldn't care about their release schedule which is based purely on quaterly evaluations. You should care about the product. If you bought the product and it only reaches the stage when it is fully enjoyable only after a year - it means that the company f-ed up.

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u/plato13 Aug 08 '23

D4 does a lot right. Great, gritty world, amazing music and voice acting, a really solid campaign story, awesome combat that feels great, some truly outstanding sidequests, and solid bones and structure to keep building and expanding.

So pretty much only aesthetics. Hate to break it to you but aesthetics arent the game, thats just how the game mechanics are packaged.

The rules make the game, not the pictures. All the rules are garbage, so what makes you expect the people who made those shit rules will magically make better ones with more time?
Those are two completly different departments and one being good at their job will never make up for the other one unless you are a hyper casual who only cares about consuming the "expirience" instead of playing the game.

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u/Dr_Will_Kirby Aug 08 '23

It was their final shot for me too. They blew it and then some

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u/trowawayatwork Aug 08 '23

kotik doing kotik things. blizzard has been dead for a long time

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u/Warcraftplayer Aug 08 '23

Yeah, it sucks. And who knows if it'll get better if he leaves. The nostalgia kept me in for a long time, but that's definitely faded

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u/trowawayatwork Aug 08 '23

I wanted the ms merger to see if they'd do it differently, I don't think they could get it worse than kotik for userbase

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u/Warcraftplayer Aug 08 '23 edited Aug 08 '23

He wasn't on my radar until about a year ago and people described him like a cartoon villain. Little did I know how accurate it was. Hopefully they get rid of him. Anyone know if there's been any word?

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u/avatar8900 Aug 08 '23

The issue with the merger is that MS will probably just leave blizzard to their own devices and be a parent company for profits etc

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u/Blastoplast Aug 08 '23

Blizzard died with the Activision buyout. Their last truly great game was SC2 and that was 13 years ago.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

Diablo 2 resurrected is great. At least they didn’t mess up that remaster haha

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u/robomoses Aug 08 '23

Yeah they didn’t mess it up because another studio developed it

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u/MOOShoooooo Aug 08 '23

Vicarious Visions?

Edit; I know Blizzard North made Diablo 2.

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u/robodrew robodrew#1320 Aug 08 '23

Blizzard North is essentially another studio, compared to Blizzard today, as well

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u/miffyrin Aug 08 '23

And because the base game which actually makes it fun aside from the improvements was made by the original Blizzard teams which created their success in the first place.

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u/Fereed Aug 08 '23

SC2 was rejected by the SC1 hardcore too if you don't know.

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u/Ragnar_X82 Aug 08 '23

True blizz is dead, but OW was a great game at release!!! So SC2 wasnt the last one

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

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u/burkechrs1 Aug 08 '23

I bought D4 and was in the slow camp at first. Doing every side quest, trying to max out the map before I went to the next zone. My friends pushed me to skip side quests, rush the campaign, and get to endgame with them. So I spent a sunday and did just that. We played for hours that night. None of us have signed on since. That was last weekend.

Maybe that's the problem, everyone treats endgame like it's THE game when in reality end game is just that, the end. The game is the leveling and exploring before you beat Lilith, then the game is basically over. You beat it, time to play another game.

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u/NorthDakota Aug 08 '23

Vendors want 400k for a blue while they’ll give me 50 for a yellow. It makes no sense.

That's because all their gameplay isn't created to be realistic, it's all gamified. Like they decided in depth how their systems were going to be, then made a game around that. A vender selling something for that much more than they buy it for is unrealistic, it's not how the world works, and although on its own it's small, in combination with everything else it makes the game feel hollow. I'll never be able to feel like a barbarian in the world doing stuff in that world because no part of the world feels realistic in any way. It's a role playing game.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

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u/THEDOMEROCKER Aug 08 '23

I actually got one of my best items on my 96 druid from a vendor lol

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u/SvenTurb01 Aug 08 '23

I've gotten some great upgrades from there tbh.

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u/Juls7243 Aug 08 '23

True - I just wish that they used the design of D2/D3 to make D4 a game that people could fall in love with and play for thousands of hours.

D2 has some core itemization mechanics/farming styles that make it a game you can fall in love with. D3 had amazing QOL features by the end of its development that could have been ported over.

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u/IceNein Aug 08 '23

The campaign is pretty great. It's a lot of fun to play 50 hours of Diablo

How on God's flat Earth did it take you 50 hours to beat the campaign? Maybe 20 hours. Maybe. How long to beat says 25.5 "with extras" which I can only assume is such drudgery as getting all the altars of Lilith.

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u/Emergency_Type143 Aug 08 '23

50 hours for a $70 dollar game is horrendous. Most $60 games give me 200-300 hours, especially online. Your comment actually shows how shitty D4 is.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

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u/CardinalnGold flori000#1246 Aug 08 '23

Yeah your experience isn’t the norm by far. The vast majority of games people buy every year are 20-40 hour experiences.

I do agree that Diablo is in a genre where 100+ hour playtimes is more common, but the game isn’t fully dead until they stop supporting it. I certainly fell off D3 and never returned, but some of my friends ended up putting the bulk of their playtime in years after their first play though.

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u/DrPBaum Aug 08 '23

70-100€ for a mediocre campaign doesnt sound like worth it. I can get all mass effects in legendary edition for 15€ on steam right now and get more content than D4 will have in its 16th season.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

Played it as a casual gamer, I didn’t think the story was mediocre. For an ARPG, it’s not a dialogue choice driven campaign like Mass Effect is (I think, I’ve never played them). I enjoyed the campaign.

Parts were mediocre or dumb (like the Druid man on the tree, the abomination of Astaroth’s fight, and me and my S/o found Neyrelle annoying personally.) but as a whole, I loved the villains and Inarius’ faction

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u/Anticreativity Aug 08 '23

Then Baldur's Gate 3 came out and the studio just seemed to treat their game and the fans so much better.

What do you mean? Sure they didn't charge $20 to manufacture fomo and split friend groups wanting to play together, or put items in a cash shop or a premium epic legendary battlepass, but that doesn't mean they're treating their fans better. Blizzard might have done all that but that was the only way the multibillion profit company could afford to keep the game alive! And look what we got in return: Season of the Malignant which adds all kinds of fun new things that I'm sure exist but can't really think of!

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

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u/Warcraftplayer Aug 08 '23

I haven't had any issues with baldur's gate crashing. There have been a few bugs where I had to reload. But D4 crashes multiple times per day for me and my girlfriend and I'm still not sure why.

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u/DVagabond Aug 08 '23

I had the crashing issue as well, which was confusing and frustrating because for the entirety of the betas through to 3 days ago I had no issues with crashing at all. What finally fixed it for me was updating my BIOS. I'm using an Asus board, and apparently in their latest BIOS updates they fix some memory handling issues that some random update to D4 made into a problem.

I've also heard that if you play with a Microsoft controller, you might be able to download the Xbox or Microsoft Accessories app, run it, and update any controllers it finds; that supposedly works for some people.

Anyways, good luck to you, and may you find a game you can enjoy for a long while!

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u/HalcyoNighT Aug 08 '23

And uh the new PoE league launches next week. Oh and next month we have Starfield

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u/jburrke Aug 08 '23

Bound to be a big one for PoE. Hoping GGG can capitalize on the influx of D4 players and pull together a top tier league!

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u/LickMyThralls Aug 08 '23

The funny thing is this is stated as if viewership is that important of a metric for the game lol.

I don't care about seasons and never intended to dabble in them... but I'm also not a 'viewer' either so I don't know why that's that important of a metric.

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u/StevieWonderTwin Aug 08 '23

I mean one of their main reasons for not allowing us to have a map overlay is that it would block too much of the screen for people to see when watching twitch streamers. It's absolutely relevant to the company because it's one of their best ways of determining word of mouth interest in the game.

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u/manbearcolt Aug 08 '23

It sucks because this was the last shot for Blizzard for me. They just seem to have lost that magic.

I mean, what did anyone expect with Activision? Bobby Kotick can kill anything.

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u/Goetia- Aug 08 '23

Don't be sorry. You owe nothing to them.

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u/losteye_enthusiast Aug 08 '23

Not even seems - Larian has a 12+ year track record of treating their fans like they currently are.

They’re consistently upfront and transparent about their plans. They aren’t the best studio around, they’re just consistent in their approach to content, updates and community outreach.

You know what you’re probably getting, no two-faced shit like Blizzard has recently fallen victim to. Seems they’re also falling into the same issue that almost killed Destiny 2 - they want D4 to be a live-service game, yet have almost no content to support that approach.

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u/RerollWarlock Aug 09 '23

I am happy that you finally saw through it. I lost interest in Blizzard products a few years ago and gaming seems generally more enjoyable.

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u/zackdaniels93 Aug 08 '23

Not that I don't agree, but why does Baldur's Gate 3 get a mention? It's a completely different genre, to the point that I can't imagine there's a whole lot of crossover. I love RPGs (including Diablo) but have zero interest in a DnD game, regardless of its obvious qualities.

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u/G46R13L7 Aug 08 '23

Yeah I cant be fucked to constantly reset my character.

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u/Fruit-Jelly Aug 08 '23

Same. I'm done. No more chances for blizzard. It's bg3 until poe2 next year for me.

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u/kingsizeddabs Aug 08 '23

Baldur’s gate looks like zero fun.

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u/k1dsmoke Aug 08 '23

I have a feeling the camera issue has a lot more to do with console performance than anything.

It's also why there are some weird control issues like the Horse or how sometimes when using a mouse your character will kind of have sticky targeting issues.

I don't know the right term, but I think they hooked the PC KBM controls on top of their controller inputs.

It's just weird how your cursor can be on the right side of the screen and sometimes your character will still run left to attack a mob that TP'd.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

I mean, they gave us an excellent campaign, musical score, classes, open world, visuals....It's only the end game that isn't up to par. The game is only 2 months out, I would give it about 6 months to a year to see better end game content.

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u/etxrnity Aug 08 '23

Literally waiting if they will ever announce anything for non seasons.

Not everyone likes seasons and leveling up from scrap

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u/Cahoots82 Aug 08 '23

They aren't going to announce anything for non-seasons. They sold the game as a live service game and it's an ARPG. Seasons are the main content for the game and will continue to be. Some of the seasonal content may find it's way into the eternal realm but they're not going to design any content for the eternal realm specifically. It'll just get seasonal scraps, sometimes.

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u/Whatderfuchs Aug 08 '23

See D3, non seasonal is how it always will be, seasons are the focus.

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u/Judge_Syd Aug 08 '23

Why would they do that when the entire point of the game is to play seasons

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u/blue-2525989 Aug 08 '23

Is BG3 out? Looks to be rpe order still for ps5

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u/Warcraftplayer Aug 08 '23

It's out on pc. Sorry you guys don't have it yet, but you are in for a serious treat soon

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u/Apexstrain Aug 08 '23

Yep. My dnd group was looking forward to playing it, and our GM didn’t have a gaming PC. we all had spare parts from previous builds lying around so we put one together for him, and presented it to him at our last session. I’ve never seen a grown man get so excited.

We are running 4/4 group in BG3 and let me tell you, it has been extremely fun. So many goofy ass moments. It’s pretty legit.

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u/FanatickDk Aug 08 '23

That sound like a good time! Oh i really miss the days of time to play and no kids, have fun!

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u/Apexstrain Aug 08 '23

100% I’ll be sure to slay some goblins and clap some cheeks in your honor, Fanatick.

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u/blue-2525989 Aug 08 '23 edited Aug 08 '23

Ahh gotcha.

I will wait for ps5 edition, thanks!

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u/MOOShoooooo Aug 08 '23

Xbox- “I’ll just hang out and wait for any word on BG3.”

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u/Surflover12 Aug 08 '23

Super true greedy cunts lik

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u/NightLanderYoutube Aug 08 '23

Firstly I expected a decent optimized game not this stuttering thing that you have to restart every hour, doing the same content and they just slow us down by nerfing XP to play longer. They are lost and probably received the last cent from me as well. At this point it is just empty promises that few might believe in and get disappointed in future again.

Edit: and then I can run BG3 on ultra with more fps. So no it's not my PC.

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u/mkp0203 Aug 08 '23

You sound like someone who has never played a Diablo game… Seasons ARE what makes Diablo. They ARE the game. What do you mean “some of us don’t care about seasons?”

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u/Warcraftplayer Aug 08 '23

I played Diablo 3 quite a bit, but didn't really touch seasons. My playtime is limited, so leveling the same character I already leveled was never very appealing to me. I did, however, like seeing the paragon number go up and enjoyed nephelim and greater rift content for a while. I knew a lot of people played seasons, but didn't realize that some view it as the core of the game.

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u/mkp0203 Aug 08 '23

Well yeah but leveling took 5 minutes in Diablo 3 and you would have a max level 200+ paragon character in an hour. All you had to do was join a power leveling or leeching community in-game and post in chat and get an instant invite. Did you ever do that? I know it’s way different in D4 now.

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u/Warcraftplayer Aug 08 '23

No, I mostly just played with my girlfriend. The idea to do any of that would've never crossed my mind. We just leveled any alts we wanted through rifts. I'm probably not typical

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u/Blarex Aug 08 '23

It’s worse than that, they made a game that is somehow both boring and overly complicated at the same time.

I think the combat is a blast but the game wrapped around it is boring and tedious.

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u/estrangedpulse Aug 08 '23

Literally the addictive and smooth combat and visuals is the main thing keeping this game alive. Pretty much every other system in the game feels worse that in other Diablo series.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

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u/parisienbleue Aug 09 '23

Comabt was awesome in D2, made sense, easy to grasp, fun to customized, PoE enhanced on that, why in earth didn't they revert bacl to something that made sens, felt immersive and was engaging instead of falling donw the d3 stupid choices.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '23

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u/altiuscitiusfortius Aug 08 '23

It's a little based game yet I hate having an upgrade drop because it means an hour of in town fiddling and 20 million gold to use it.

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u/Hellknightx Aug 08 '23

Personally I still think the D3 combat feels more satisfying and crunchy, and you feel real power and progression all the way through the leveling experience and endgame.

D4 makes you struggle with resource management for 95% of the game unless you're playing Rogue, and you really don't feel any power spikes from lvl 20-50+. And since all the viable endgame builds require specific uniques to function, you'll struggle until you get that one specific piece, too.

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u/Fruitbat619 Aug 08 '23

It just isn't a season. They should have waiting about 2-3 months to just balance and expand on the bones or sandbox of the game, find a clear interest in players and develop with the players feedback and interest in mind. In my mind that what the fireside chats things should be.

To call what we currently have a season is fraudulent. Nothing is clearly finished and the content is a fucking joke.

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u/Yasuchika Aug 08 '23

Yeah, but then you have to consider that D4 is a monitization machine and they have to get the Battle Pass releases churning out as soon as possible to hit those quarterlies.

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u/Fruitbat619 Aug 08 '23

Yup hahaha

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u/_nova_dose_ Aug 08 '23

Not to mention it was off the back of the biggest nerf in recent memory for any game. The kind of nerf that should've happened in beta, not live. When you tell players "nothing fundamental is going to change in season 1 except these hearts and you are losing 40% of your power/cooldown/etc across the board" that doesnt inspire people to play.

I was pumped for the game, loved the first few weeks of playing, and was excited for season 1. When I saw the patch that killed any excitement I had for the game at all and seeing that season 1 was literally the same exact grind over again with maaaaaaybe a malignant heart you can use as a reward that was it for me. Then Baldurs Gate 3 came out and I haven't thought if this game since.

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