Maybe i'm getting older or maybe it's Blizzard, but I don't know what's going on anymore. I was taking some time today, laying back and thinking about all the decisions since 2008 that Blizzard has made.
Hearthstone: Wtf is this...? Well, i'll tell you just how popular it is.. there's a whopping 3 PEOPLE viewing the Hearthstone sub-section of the forum. Didn't Blizzard already have a card game?
Mists Of Pandaria: A lot of people have a problem with Pandas.. I'm not one of those people but who is to blame for the entire Hozen race? Do people honestly find the Hozen race funny or relevant to the game? At the end of Brewery, there's dancing monkeys who talk in Ebonics.
- Dailies galore. Someone at Blizzard got the impression that we not only enjoy dailies, but we'd prefer to rely on them for gear when the game started!
- Valor cap. Not only did they implement ridiculous gating with dailies, but then they put in a 1k Valor cap because "making people wait" is the best way to progress/keep people subscribed apparently!
- What's that? You haven't had enough gating? WELL YOU'RE IN LUCK! If you want access to a Legendary quest chain, that's even more gating! Ffs...
- RNG galore. If you thought there was plenty of dailies and you just thought to yourself "man, I wish there was enough RNG in this game to make my head explode", well do I have special news for you! About 75% of your Legendary chain, will be completely customed through RNG!
- LFR. LFR is one of the worst things they've ever done to the game... it doesn't cater to casuals and I'm tired of seeing that excuse thrown around. LFR tailors to lazy people who want to put in minimal effort or AFK with a possibility at loot. They didn't implement any kind of system that detects AFKers, they don't punish AFKers, they only made the sense of community worse and they refuse to acknowledge the problems LFR is creating.
Get rid of LFR or put it on tune with normal difficulty. In before: "WAAAHHH but then I couldn't AFK if the game knew I wanted to be lazy!"
- PvP. What in the world are you guys doing to PvP? Healers are more insane than ever, despite what the incompetent devs think and now they're making them even more annoying to kill? For the love of god! It's hard enough downing them with a group and constant CC but now they're going to make them even harder to kill..
Also, do we really need that much CC in this game? I can't imagine a 40 versus 40 all out brawl, it would be a constant CC fest. Actually I can imagine, you tried being melee in an AV turtle lately? It's one of the most annoying things I've ever done... pretty much perma-slowed/dazed and CC galore! Don't worry, you got a 2 minute trinket for one of your 1 billion annoying CC effects.
Cataclysm: Now, I don't know what Blizzard was working on while they did the second half 80+ for Cataclysm, because it sure as hell wasn't Diablo 3! Dragon Soul was the biggest spit in the face raid that I've ever seen.. I can't believe how half-assed it was.
Hard Heroics: This absolutely baffles me to this day.. Blizzard didn't make the game hard and they didn't make heroics hard, people have just gotten worse. Why? Blizzard doesn't encourage anyone to learn their class, their mechanics or anything! As a matter of fact, Blizzard has taken an Obama stance to gaming and they'll just give you free shit for being lazy! I'm sorry people, but the heroics in Cataclysm were by no means of the imagination difficult.. if using CC on a marked mob is difficult, I don't know what to tell you.
The worst thing they did in Cataclysm was going super casual. People got bored with the game at this point.. People weren't quitting because "omg too hard", they were quitting because Cataclysm was boring. Honestly, if people find WoW too hard, they sure as hell won't make it on other MMOs or play them very long, so stop using the excuse that people quit in Cataclysm because it was too hard in the beginning. It wasn't, they just dumbed the game down to a Toddler's level and people got bored.
Merging With Activi$$$$$ion: WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY!
What in the world were you thinking? Do you not know the history behind this company? Do you not know the history behind what a greedy blood sucker Bobby Kotick is? I don't care how much money the merger personally made the top executives, you can't honestly tell me someone wasn't stoned or drunk when they decided to go forward with this.
"Oh, but they operate as seperate entities." Yes, they do.. I know that.. I'm tired of seeing that excuse too, but do you really think Activi$$$$ion has absolutely no say in the design process of the games? They're tied together! Ever since 2008, it's been Actigreed saying "JUMP" and Blizzard going "How high?"
Diablo 3: Words... can not express my anger for what they have done to the most beloved franchise of all time. Back in 2008 through 2010, they had a lot of great features for the game and a lot of great things in the works for this game, I remember the videos.
However, for whatever reason, they decided to pull most of those features, give them a basic UI look and release a half assed Diablo game.
Story: What the... who wrote this story?
Act 1: Find Cain, Cain gets kidnapped and killed by Magic Butterfly Queen
Act 2: Find body parts for guy who betrays his people "ahhahaaahaha", then you kill the child Emperor
Act 3: The boss pretty much tells you everything you need to do before fighting him and challenges you to do so
Act 4: Again, the boss tells you everything you need to do in order to get to him
The story basically, the bad guys always tell you their diabolical plans and how to stop them.
Itemization: Go to hell for Itemization. Who honestly thought that giving every item in the game, completely randomized RNG stats when paired up with an Auction House would be a brilliant idea? Also: WHO PUTS AN AUCTION HOUSE IN A HACK N SLASH ITEM FIND GAME!? You even said it yourself in a video, loot is the most important part of Diablo!! What the hell is a matter with you?
Forced Gameplay: Hey guys, want to go back and do a couple bosses from A3? Well, make a NEW GAME because in order to play Diablo 3, you have to follow the same ridiculous written story for children and go Waypoint by Waypoint. One does not simply just go through the world of Diablo, you have to choose a quest and go with that.
Seriously what are you doing anymore Blizzard...? "Oh but we still have 8.3 million subscribers!" THAT'S A PRETTY SIGNIFICANT LOSS FROM 12 MILLION JUST 4 YEARS AGO!
Want your Glory Days back?
- Dump Activi$$$ion
- Get rid of LFR or tune it on par with normal difficulty
- Bring back immersion and gameplay that forces terrible and lazy players to learn the core mechanics of their class
- STOP RELYING ON SO MUCH RNG. Instead of making content hard, you just implemented a shit ton of RNG instead
- Stop making WoW easier.. because I'm not sure it's really possible at this point to be any easier
- Fire the Diablo 3 development team.. start fresh.. hell.. hire random people off the street who have at least played the Diablo series. I don't know how many monkeys you have working on the game, but do you know how long 1.0.8 took to release? I don't know either, because I STOPPED COUNTING! Oh and not only did a minor patch take this long but one of the most game breaking bugs makes it into this minor patch too! I just can't wait to see how long 1.1 takes!