Hi, I would like to share my thoughts on the current state of the game (Season 4) and my expectations for future seasons. These are my reflections, and I apologize in advance if anyone feels offended, but as a player who loves Hack & Slash games, I am concerned about the current situation in the game and Blizzard’s approach as well as the players’ attitudes towards the title… Please take this with a grain of salt; some will agree, some won’t, and others might take it personally and feel offended. For which I apologize. Let’s begin…
Current state of the game:
The game is slowly starting to follow the trend of D3. Those who played know that DPS starts reaching into the billions… There’s nothing wrong with that; in H&S games, you need to feel progression… However, in D4, we achieve this progression too quickly. Upon surpassing the magical level 70 and unlocking World Tier 4, the character gets a significant boost. And it doesn’t even require much effort, due to the MMO aspect of the game. You just need to participate in activities like legions, Helltides, or world bosses to effortlessly and without planning acquire free gear that drastically increases your DPS and sustain.And here the first problem arises. People complain about the lack of content… The truth is that there’s a lack of endgame because the content has good foundations, but it lacks rare items and challenging content that would provide real rewards corresponding to the difficulty level. Most things are within easy reach. And it’s the players’ fault… The season lasts 3 months, yet there are players who, two days after the start of a new season, complain that they don’t have the best items in the game and don’t have time to play and grind… My comment here: This game is not for you; install an auto-track, auto-drop mobile game where you’ll have that. The game has lost its meaning and the emotions that accompanied the moment when you dropped something rare and knew you were one in a million others who managed to get it. Not just another million people who have it.
And regarding endgame content… The game lacks balance, and with each season, despite cool changes, we hit a wall… There’s nothing wrong with the game having something that only a few can accomplish. But in the current situation, everything is being made to make the game easy. At the same time, we have something that requires a lot of defensive systems and high DPS, yet the balance is so poor that we reach a character limit (there’s nothing more we can upgrade in the build) and still can’t overcome that wall. I’m talking about the Butcher’s Pits. With each level, mob HP and DPS increase, yet we lack character progression options that would allow us to overcome this wall. We have plenty of resistances, armor stacking up to 9500 (and this is a flaw, lazy design evident at high levels of the pits), and many % reductions from various other mechanics… However, the formula is so strange that these reductions aren’t felt and are hard to calculate. I also think that the design of resistances is lazy, not intuitive, and you never know if it’s enough.
To conclude the topic of the current state of the game, I feel like I’m playing a pre-alpha version of a title that is changed 180 degrees every season. However, with each new addition, there are numerous issues: calculation errors, logical errors, and bad decisions… For most players, the season ends after a week… Trading has picked up a bit this season, but it only proves that it’s better to base the MMO aspect on this feature, allowing for trading of everything and letting players shape the economy… This way, no one would complain about the lack of gold…
Future seasons and game development:
Here, I believe the game should receive endgame content with each season that becomes a permanent addition to the game… Why work on something for so long just to throw it away? Blizzard, don’t you think this undervalues the hard work of your employees? Conduct a survey a month into the season, allowing players to decide if the season’s mechanics should become part of the core game or not. When there are too many mechanics, let the players choose or decide yourselves which one is outdated and should be removed.
Changes I would like to see in future seasons:
Paragon Rework: Create another “passive tree” that allows for character building geared towards endgame. Rework glyphs… Let them have different rarity options (like common, magical, rare, legendary, and unique items)… Enable trading of glyphs between players; let glyphs have random affixes like items, and unique glyphs additionally change configuration and power just like items. Additionally, they should be rare, especially legendary and unique ones! These should be obtainable from difficult content (e.g., very high levels of the Butcher’s Pits) and would allow for character enhancement. Increase the number of glyph slots on paragons. Create one large paragon tree, place the current paragon key stones in appropriate places, and allow players to choose their development path.
Class Specialization: A character should be able to choose a specialization, meaning a spell they can specialize in and, for a fee, change the specialization at any NPC at any time. How do I envision this? I want to be a specialist in one of the basic attacks or one of the main spells. After choosing a specialization, I get a separate skill tree for that spell, and every x levels, I get x points to spend. Here, I have the option to choose key runes that change the spell’s effect. For example, I’m a sorceress, I choose the Arc spell, and I have small key runes that give +% multiplier or % increase DPS, mana reduction, and large runes that, for instance, make Arc jump x times more, or Arc triggers a lightning nova with each bounce, or Arc deals x% more DPS for each jump when it hits a single target and doesn’t jump to another target.
Special items and season concept: So we get 4-6 bosses from which items with an additional “title” characteristic of each of them drop (more on this later). Each of these bosses are rival subordinates of two pinnacle bosses (two kings). Each subordinate controls a pool of regions on the map where they dominate (control their territory). Similar to Helltides, activities appear on the map in one of the regions where we fight enemies, dropping materials that allow us to summon a specific subordinate (with an x% chance to drop a material to summon the king, and fighting the king will require fragments from each subordinate, 2-3 fragments per king). On the map where the event takes place, there is an x% chance that an item with the title of that subordinate will drop, and each such item has an additional pool of affixes characteristic of that subordinate (e.g., +x DPS to weapons for every x intelligence/dexterity, etc., this is where the designer needs to be creative). Additionally, there is a chance that two subordinates appear in adjacent regions and a special event begins, where we have a conflict between two subordinates (they can also be from the same king), where we fight both factions, with both factions also fighting each other. Here we have a chance to get items with a double title and a chance for affixes from two different factions (a larger pool, but also a chance for cooler and stronger combinations)… And accordingly, we have the opportunity to collect materials that summon two fighting subordinates and an extra chance for items with a double title. Now regarding the kings, we have the opportunity to fight each of them with the appropriate fragments. Kings will drop items with their title. They also have a chance to drop uniques that can be upgraded (uber activity in the season). Unique items have an aspect that allows for embedding another aspect and allow for an additional 1-4 extra stat slots. And finally, each king drops their own fragment and we can fight two at once, having both fragments. Here is the uber pinnacle activity… Of course, the team would have a lot of work, but it would be interesting to see such a season. PS: Additionally, kings drop special scrolls/stones (with a higher drop chance), and subordinates of the kings and their armies drop them with a lower drop chance. These allow for unlimited affix changes, and each of these stones has different effects. For example, one stone changes a random affix to another, another allows for the addition of an extra affix (a very rare and highly desired item by players), another increases a random affix to a greater affix (also very rare and highly desired by players), and another randomly changes the value of one affix (you can roll a lower or higher stat)… and so on.
To summarize, I would like the game to be more challenging and not become boring after a week. Crafting should matter, and the pool of affixes should be larger and more interesting. Currently, we are looking for numbers for a specific type of DPS… We embed aspects and that’s the end of character development. There is a lack of opportunities for building and developing characters, as well as upgrading weapons… Let’s not kid ourselves; currently, we look for items with the right affixes and all with greater affixes. And that’s the end…