There's no room for PoE-like games

[Difuid]

There is room for hack n' slash or ARPG games, but nowadays these games come burdened with RNG based character progression instead of a personal skill based one, and that sucks.

[Rawrajishxc]

I think there is room for PoE-like games.

Exactly, there should be even more of them considering how popular the genre is. Tons of people are interested in them, we just keeping getting disappointing ones like TL3 and Wolcen.

[Alcsaar]

Yeah POE is super overrated, I just do not get the hype. plus the leveling system and the skill system is so confusing.

PoE isn't overrated, its an amazing game. But yes, if you don't put in the time to learn the complexities of the system, of course its going to seem over rated.

The leveling and passive system is actually not bad AT ALL once you understand it.

PoE is the only ARPG that releases new content every 3 months without fail *for free*. On a game that is *already* free to play. There are no other ARPGs on that same level of content delivery.

[Coldkil]

The leveling and passive system is actually not bad AT ALL once you understand it.

I think this is the biggest disclaimer. It's not complicated, but it definitely requires some effort beforehand that not every player wants to put in a game. For a new player, even following a guide can be dauting due to the immense amount of informations that need to be digested and assimilated.

However, this has always been a design choice. GGG was fine with it right from the very beginning and not afraid if the game would have become a niche one but with a string core community. And it turned out that actually many players wanted to put the additional effort required, so it just worked for them.

Personally, after 650-ish hours i think i got what i wanted from it, and right now i don't like it too much due to the bloating the game is suffering - they cannot just put stuf on top of other stuff and should revamp gameplay so the GOGOGO mentality is less effective, but that's just me. In the end, if i can do a build i like to play and clear the content at a pace that's fast enough for me, why should i bother about people zipping the whole game in two days. I'm just waiting for PoE2.

[Naramag]

I don't think there is room PoE-like games (hack and slash). Chaosbane wasn't that succesful and D3 was also fail. Can't see how D4 is going to success.

I played path of exile when it came out, recently I played it again. I never got far. Not that is was too difficult, but it simply wasn't my cup of tea. So I think there is room for any kind of game. Because as long as it's working not bug riddled, there are people who will like it. And even bug riddled games will be played, just look at Bethesda.

[Lora]

I don't think there is room PoE-like games (hack and slash). Chaosbane wasn't that succesful and D3 was also fail. Can't see how D4 is going to success.

what a blank statement to make. i'm sure theres gonna be lots of room for discussing how wrong you are.

[cozzri]

Just adding to this - even Blizzard itself admitted the hype was too much and totally out con control, and that lead to very nasty side effects which include or can be boiled down to a lot of disgruntled players bashing the game for what it was (and not the actual issues) damaging the Diablo franchise/brand. Reason why the team suddendly stopped giving out informations or talk to the community (which also lead to other bad side effects).

The game is still a financial success and plays really well - so it's not a trainwreck or shovelware. In the grand scheme of things though, while revenue was good the PR damage is still lingering and showing its effects (total aggression against Immortal, or very slow approach from both team and fans to D4).

The hype was right on par for a game that was immensely popular. Diablo fans wanted a sequel to a beloved game, Diablo 3 carried over very little of what made Diablo 2 so engaging and immersive. The first second in the game when your own character speaks sets up the dynamic of the game; you are not a hero, you are playing a character that is. Right off the bat that inclines someone to be less invested into their own character. Combine this with no attribute customization and skills points each level makes it feel worse. World building in these types of games benefits greatly from lore instead of dialogue; the lore notes were great, dialogue not so much because it breaks up gameplay too much (This was fixed by allowing you to skip dialogue, but its still a core issue of too many trips back to town i.e. roadblocks to action and eventually adventure mode). However, the various difficulty/game settings broke up the community too much so it was hard to find people to play with, endless grind sounds good until you realize there's limited people to play with at any given tier. With how long the campaign is, having that many difficulty settings just makes the population problems worse.

The game definitely feels like shovelware, log into D3, then go on PoE; the population speaks for itself. I feel like they abandoned D3 after the RMAH got removed due to too many legal issues. That was suppose to be the business model that sustained revenues for the game; and shoehorning cosmetic/booster shop to a game that was already suffering from PR damage was never an option.

There is room for more games like PoE; its why they are making PoE2 to directly compete with D4; both games are looking to be highly accessible for the less numbers inclined crowd.

[rhythmmyme]

I see what you're saying.
I read at some the other day that people pre-ordered fifa21 over a million times and broke the EA games record!!

[Aggrophobic]

I don't think there is room PoE-like games (hack and slash). Chaosbane wasn't that succesful and D3 was also fail. Can't see how D4 is going to success.

Blizzard has sold an insane amount diablo 3 boxes and games though. I'd hardly call it a fail.
There sure is room as well. Some of us find PoE way to clunky and old. I'd be happy to try out a new one that isn't the clusterf**k that is PoE.

[kukkamies]

The game definitely feels like shovelware, log into D3, then go on PoE; the population speaks for itself. I feel like they abandoned D3 after the RMAH got removed due to too many legal issues. That was suppose to be the business model that sustained revenues for the game; and shoehorning cosmetic/booster shop to a game that was already suffering from PR damage was never an option.

The leaks from inside Blizzard do show that they abandoned D3. Kotaku with title "The Past, Present, And Future Of Diablo" from a few years ago.
The feeling was that marketing and business people thought launch of D3 was too awful and they didn't believe in the team to fix it. So they canceled 2nd expansion before RoS was even out and any hope for future of D3, instead jumping straight to D4.

[msdos]

I was reminded PoE existed today. I fizzle out of that game very quickly. Anyway, this thread reminds me of why I can't quite put my finger on why I fizzle out of PoE/Diablo-esque games. I played them all, not so much D2, but D3, PoE and Grim Dawn..

They don't feel like RPGs, something is off with the character building in those games, I think that's what it is for me, Grim Dawn being the least worst of the offenders.
What I mean is: In PoE your character is just a template basically and you make him look different with MTX and you run cookie cutter stuff, there isn't much character customization going on or even building.
"Okay, I follow this path in the tree and pick this basic secondary path" then after that you're done customizing your character through choices, it's all gear building.

Compare that with Wasteland where you build your character and it actually feels unique and as you level you keep making choices that affect how you play outside of loot.
I think good RPGs have multiple avenues of progressing your character other than just gear building, like picking talents, gaining abilities, quirks, traits, skills, reputations.

I guess the perfect MMORPG would look like WoW, but when you hit level cap, instead of losing the ability to choose talents for your spec, it just keeps going, so an artificial experience bar. After you hit cap another talent row would appear under, then after you fill the exp bar, another talent row. The devs would just keep thinking of new talents.
Right now, instead of that, they're making them other things that you interact with. Cov abilities, legendaries, gear, blah blah. I don't really see the point of it other than just trying to keep more people employed, fluffing pillows.

[BrintoSFJ]

PoE isn't overrated, its an amazing game. But yes, if you don't put in the time to learn the complexities of the system, of course its going to seem over rated.

The leveling and passive system is actually not bad AT ALL once you understand it.

PoE is the only ARPG that releases new content every 3 months without fail *for free*. On a game that is *already* free to play. There are no other ARPGs on that same level of content delivery.

There is no complexity, there is nothing so profound to understand, the entire talent tree system is just bloated garbage. There is no actual choice of character building in the game. They have literally copied every kind of system the three Diablo games have and put them all into their game with different look and flare.

- - - Updated - - -

I see what you're saying.
I read at some the other day that people pre-ordered fifa21 over a million times and broke the EA games record!!

There are several billion football fans all over the world. It is no surprise a FIFA game would break sales record. Crazy fans would do anything for a new FIFA game even if it is just reskinned version of the previous one. Football fans are crazy that way.

[Coldkil]

They don't feel like RPGs, something is off with the character building in those games, I think that's what it is for me, Grim Dawn being the least worst of the offenders.
What I mean is: In PoE your character is just a template basically and you make him look different with MTX and you run cookie cutter stuff, there isn't much character customization going on or even building.
"Okay, I follow this path in the tree and pick this basic secondary path" then after that you're done customizing your character through choices, it's all gear building.

They're in fact ARPGs, so there's less focus, or better, less "depth" in character building. Skillset, talents and gear are all interconnected and yes, endgame revolves mostly around farming gear. They're looter games at their core.

I'll leave the cosmetics aside. PoE has "one of the best" systems because it leaves you extreme freedom in your choices, or better, gives you the illusion of it. Personally, Grim Dawn and Wolcen systems are way better because they're less hardcore and don't revolve around avoiding noob traps like "you need to get enough +hp% or you're just gonna die".

All you say is true and right, but the point is that Diablo, Grim Dawn, PoE etc are not pure RPGs but are a different genre. Many people like them exactly because there's more focus on combat and less on character building/decisions, but i also acknowledge that the ARPG formula is pretty dates and stale in some situations. We need to see a real improvement/change on that that sets a new standard. And i don't think D4 is going to be that, since Blizzard is working on it with the goal of recovering the brand damage suffered in the past years.

[Tang0]

There are several billion football fans all over the world. It is no surprise a FIFA game would break sales record. Crazy fans would do anything for a new FIFA game even if it is just reskinned version of the previous one. Football fans are crazy that way.

I mean... yeah... literally billions...

On a side note, there’s always room for poe-diablo-like games. Any good game will generate a community around it.

[Rennadrel]

There is room for it, Blizzard just ultimately screwed themselves over with the launch of D3. I lost interest when the game was still in it's early stages and still had the P2W Real Money Auction House and they were nerfing the fuck out of the Demon Hunter right as I hit Act 4 on whatever the hardest difficulty was at the time. Maybe they should have considered how they treated the game and the players by not making stupid changes for the sake of balance or profitability. It's a single player game anyway, who cares how fast players get through the content?

[SirBeef]

There is room for it, Blizzard just ultimately screwed themselves over with the launch of D3. I lost interest when the game was still in it's early stages and still had the P2W Real Money Auction House and they were nerfing the fuck out of the Demon Hunter right as I hit Act 4 on whatever the hardest difficulty was at the time. Maybe they should have considered how they treated the game and the players by not making stupid changes for the sake of balance or profitability. It's a single player game anyway, who cares how fast players get through the content?

Screwed themselves into one of the most successful games ever in terms of units sold. Doesn't really seems like a screw up.

[mrgreenthump]

There is room for it, Blizzard just ultimately screwed themselves over with the launch of D3. I lost interest when the game was still in it's early stages and still had the P2W Real Money Auction House and they were nerfing the fuck out of the Demon Hunter right as I hit Act 4 on whatever the hardest difficulty was at the time. Maybe they should have considered how they treated the game and the players by not making stupid changes for the sake of balance or profitability. It's a single player game anyway, who cares how fast players get through the content?

Blizzard didn't screw up with D3, they just abandoned it. They fixed a lot of the core problems after launch and with the console release. This went on with RoS. But they just removed all funding from the dev team, because not having a live service these days is just not acceptable, afterall you can only get so much from players with just BtP. Hence they didn't see a way to make D3 a cash cow, so we are getting a D4.. That will likely be monitized to hell.

[Rennadrel]

Blizzard didn't screw up with D3, they just abandoned it. They fixed a lot of the core problems after launch and with the console release. This went on with RoS. But they just removed all funding from the dev team, because not having a live service these days is just not acceptable, afterall you can only get so much from players with just BtP. Hence they didn't see a way to make D3 a cash cow, so we are getting a D4.. That will likely be monitized to hell.

If the game actually had more content than just play through the same story as many times as possible by yourself and with friends, I'm sure they could get more players and people playing more. If they want to monetize stuff, it should be like any other good game that does it with character skins and costumes, rather than actual armor pieces that give you a distinct advantage over some thing you can get in game just by playing.

[Illuminance]

Screwed themselves into one of the most successful games ever in terms of units sold. Doesn't really seems like a screw up.

This is a specious argument.

* Diablo 3 didn't sell Diablo 3. Diablo 2 did. The successful sales largely depended on the reputation that had been established before anyone bought the sequel.
* Even when a game sells copies, there are other ways it can fail, and D3 has no shortage of these. There's the long term marketability of the franchise and the opportunity cost of releasing a substandard product. If you tunnel vision on D3 sales you might see success, but their decisions surely are going to adversely affect D4 sales. The void left by the low quality of D3 essentially made it possible for a free to play game from a no-name small New Zealand studio to succeed, so now they have real competition. Fans are going to be reluctant to buy in blindly, too, after witnessing what's happening to the Diablo series. If Diablo 4 sells millions of copies less than it could have, you can pretty much blame D3's "success."
* None of the things Rennadrel mentioned helped with the game's success (RMAH, inability to balance the game). These were definitely screw ups.

It's definitely worth wondering how much more successful D3 would have been with proper development and support. Passing up the chance to continue to catapult the franchise and genre to new heights to me is a missed opportunity and a huge screw up.

[SirBeef]

This is a specious argument.

* Diablo 3 didn't sell Diablo 3. Diablo 2 did. The successful sales largely depended on the reputation that had been established before anyone bought the sequel.
* Even when a game sells copies, there are other ways it can fail, and D3 has no shortage of these. There's the long term marketability of the franchise and the opportunity cost of releasing a substandard product. If you tunnel vision on D3 sales you might see success, but their decisions surely are going to adversely affect D4 sales. The void left by the low quality of D3 essentially made it possible for a free to play game from a no-name small New Zealand studio to succeed, so now they have real competition. Fans are going to be reluctant to buy in blindly, too, after witnessing what's happening to the Diablo series. If Diablo 4 sells millions of copies less than it could have, you can pretty much blame D3's "success."
* None of the things Rennadrel mentioned helped with the game's success (RMAH, inability to balance the game). These were definitely screw ups.

It's definitely worth wondering how much more successful D3 would have been with proper development and support. Passing up the chance to continue to catapult the franchise and genre to new heights to me is a missed opportunity and a huge screw up.

At first. Maybe a decent chunk of first year sales at best. Butthurt D2 players reviewbimbed D3 to hell and back and were, and still to this day, persistent in trashing D3. If anything the D2 effects was initial and had zero relevance to the 20+ millions sales that came after the first year.