Liked diablo 1, loved diablo 2, felt like blizzard stole from my wallet directly with diablo 3 (I couldn't even FINISH the base game!), didnt buy diablo 4.
I don't just think it's me getting older, these games are getting objectively worse. The sheer amount of missing features and repetitiveness in 3 compared to 2 was so obscene that I told myself I wouldn't bother with 4 - and I haven't.
Also, a counterpoint to "You Can’t Go Home Again" :
The Discourse seems to agree that Diablo 3 got better at some point (Probably around the time of the console release and when they scrapped the real money auction house), I think?
Maybe they can do it again?
It's a little odd how many lessons they don't seem to have learned from the last time they launched to general disapproval, though.
I think the general consensus is that Diablo 3 eventually got good. It certainly was worth supporting for a long time. These things can turn around, with work.
One thing I think would be worth trying in this sort of game is rather then sticking post game character in the post game world of ever bigger numbers so you can get ever bigger numbers you can instead play though the main story over and over again with some minor changes adding on each time (like more forms for bosses, extra wings in the dungeons, a few extra cutscenes and ability to play though in challenge modes for extra rewards) and using you crazy powerful end game character. As you keep going through you gets some sort of points you can spend on uber upgrades with you getting more points the more and harder challenges you take on at once.
Variations on this have been tried -- Most relevantly, Diablo 2 essentially had a New Game + and a New Game ++ as its post-game content. I kind of assumed that was still what they were doing in 3 and 4, but I haven't been following the series closely. But D2 was influential enough, I think it pretty much set the standard for the ARPG genre post-game? By and large all the numbers just went up and the elite enemies had more random modifiers; not much in the way of additional uber upgrades and challenge modes beyond some end-game weird hidden recipes to summon super-difficult variant bosses and enchant gear with rare rune combinations that did special things. I also remember being frustrated at how little challenge there was to D2 until looping through the whole damn thing to a higher difficulty.
Some other games do different stuff-
WoW (and I think FF14?) raids add whole /layers/ of extra mechanics to contend with as players move on to trying harder difficulty settings, in addition to bigger numbers. Those are pretty satisfying when an entire team learns how to dance the steps to a complicated encounter.
Browser RPG Kingdom of Loathing has endless New Game + loops where you fully reset your character every time, but accrue small permanent perks. It has over the seasons added many variations on the base game to try.
"I’ve seen so many people complaining that Diablo 4 doesn’t give them the same thrill Diablo 2 did... Of course it doesn’t. If you played Diablo 2, you can never get that thrill again. You are no longer the same person you were when you played Diablo 2."
Not really the point, I know, but I feel like *so many* nerd controversies boil down to people looking for someone to blame that something they experienced at 26 wasn't as profound as something they experienced at 14.
Last Diablo I played was the original. The first interesting encounter I remember is The Butcher.
I don't think you actually need to kill The Butcher, but if you do you get his sweet sweet unique item.
That's the sort of risk/reward payoff old school gamers understand. I tried watching some D4 streams and I also could not tell what was even going on... incidentally I capital-h Hate bullet hell style games because of the confusing overstimulation.
Your games are nice (I've bought some) but I refuse to use Microsoft products so I need them to run decently under emulation, and the recent reboots have struggled.
Liked diablo 1, loved diablo 2, felt like blizzard stole from my wallet directly with diablo 3 (I couldn't even FINISH the base game!), didnt buy diablo 4.
I don't just think it's me getting older, these games are getting objectively worse. The sheer amount of missing features and repetitiveness in 3 compared to 2 was so obscene that I told myself I wouldn't bother with 4 - and I haven't.
Also, a counterpoint to "You Can’t Go Home Again" :
You can, and it's called Path of Exile.
The Discourse seems to agree that Diablo 3 got better at some point (Probably around the time of the console release and when they scrapped the real money auction house), I think?
Maybe they can do it again?
It's a little odd how many lessons they don't seem to have learned from the last time they launched to general disapproval, though.
I think the general consensus is that Diablo 3 eventually got good. It certainly was worth supporting for a long time. These things can turn around, with work.
One thing I think would be worth trying in this sort of game is rather then sticking post game character in the post game world of ever bigger numbers so you can get ever bigger numbers you can instead play though the main story over and over again with some minor changes adding on each time (like more forms for bosses, extra wings in the dungeons, a few extra cutscenes and ability to play though in challenge modes for extra rewards) and using you crazy powerful end game character. As you keep going through you gets some sort of points you can spend on uber upgrades with you getting more points the more and harder challenges you take on at once.
Variations on this have been tried -- Most relevantly, Diablo 2 essentially had a New Game + and a New Game ++ as its post-game content. I kind of assumed that was still what they were doing in 3 and 4, but I haven't been following the series closely. But D2 was influential enough, I think it pretty much set the standard for the ARPG genre post-game? By and large all the numbers just went up and the elite enemies had more random modifiers; not much in the way of additional uber upgrades and challenge modes beyond some end-game weird hidden recipes to summon super-difficult variant bosses and enchant gear with rare rune combinations that did special things. I also remember being frustrated at how little challenge there was to D2 until looping through the whole damn thing to a higher difficulty.
Some other games do different stuff-
WoW (and I think FF14?) raids add whole /layers/ of extra mechanics to contend with as players move on to trying harder difficulty settings, in addition to bigger numbers. Those are pretty satisfying when an entire team learns how to dance the steps to a complicated encounter.
Browser RPG Kingdom of Loathing has endless New Game + loops where you fully reset your character every time, but accrue small permanent perks. It has over the seasons added many variations on the base game to try.
Fourth last paragraph, maybe Cyberpunk not Cyberpuck?
But honestly, an air hockey Cyberpunk crossover game does sound awesome.
Yep. Ubuntu.
"I’ve seen so many people complaining that Diablo 4 doesn’t give them the same thrill Diablo 2 did... Of course it doesn’t. If you played Diablo 2, you can never get that thrill again. You are no longer the same person you were when you played Diablo 2."
Not really the point, I know, but I feel like *so many* nerd controversies boil down to people looking for someone to blame that something they experienced at 26 wasn't as profound as something they experienced at 14.
Last Diablo I played was the original. The first interesting encounter I remember is The Butcher.
I don't think you actually need to kill The Butcher, but if you do you get his sweet sweet unique item.
That's the sort of risk/reward payoff old school gamers understand. I tried watching some D4 streams and I also could not tell what was even going on... incidentally I capital-h Hate bullet hell style games because of the confusing overstimulation.
Your games are nice (I've bought some) but I refuse to use Microsoft products so I need them to run decently under emulation, and the recent reboots have struggled.
I have played most of his games just natively on a mac without issue. Are you emulating them on Linux?
Yes I am. I'll try again when I get my next hardware upgrade, as things have improved.
Ubuntu 22.04 at this moment.