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I honestly don't care any more. There are soo many good ARPGs out there already and Last Epoch and POE2 on the way. D4 can die behind it's shallow design and money based goals.

You could say Diablo 4 is on its Path into Exile

POE: We understand labs were bad. Blizzard: Hold my beer.

These devs have taken blizzards massive resources to insult both ARPG and Diablo fans everywhere. S3 is beyond pathetic.

I still cant believe that while D2 was 33-50% trading and here we are 6+months after release and the 12,000 employees cannot figure out how to implement functional trading in D4... Unreal! 11th Hour Games has 12 employees and they made an auction house and an entire trading faction.

Long live the true heir to the Diablo 2 legacy.

Yo man, big congrats on your first sponsor! Crazy to see your growth over the months, all that work paying off!

Congrats on your channel growth, very articulate explanation of this season

I am at the highest end of casual to lowest end of hardcore. I had a couple level 100s and several uber uniques the last D4 season and listen to a ton of content while I work. This season of D4 is very lacking, but most of all its just without any focus of what its trying to do. It has a casual amount of content, then paces it out for a hardcore amount of playtime. That level of grind turns what could be fun into a slog that has everyone logging off. I understand that its hard to fix a lack of content. But faking it by insane grind doesn't work. Congrats, people are not stopping after a week because they finished all the content...they are stopping after 2 days when they realize its pointless and unfun to continue. Surely they are working on some patch right now to help .But after their "fixes" for Abattoir of Zir, I have no faith in their ability to properly gauge how much to do. They could probably make this a fun experience by increasing the damage of the pet 10x, and reducing the amount of grind to complete the glyphs for it by 100x. I am calling it now, instead they are going to try to fix it by giving the pet 1.25x increased damage, and reduce the grind by like 25%. I am playing PoE this league, and having a lot of fun, but I am also close enough to the casual playerbase to know that I am right around the cutoff of minimal amount of "hardcore" ness to have an enjoyable time playing PoE. I have friends that played D4 with me that would never have the time to invest to get over the new player hump in PoE. If D4 could accept the role it put itself in, that would be fine. Casuals could play D4. Hardcores could blast through D4 then spend the rest of their time in PoE. I would not have been mad at this D4 season at all if it was a a 50 hour snack I could enjoy before diving into the five course meal of a few hundred more hours into PoE.

Seems like they need to go back and rewatch Chris Wilson’s legendary GDC talk! If only Blizzard wasn’t shortsightedly reliant on paid expansions! Such a great take here Tri yet again!

your videos keep reaching better quality one after another, gratz on the first sponsorship, you deserve it

congrats on the sponsor! that's so neat! glad to see your channel growing exponentially.

This Chris talk at GDC ages so well and I even use when designing for products that are not game related. One of the best resources ever for retention.

10y POE player having more fun in POE this league than ever so much I did not even consider rolling a character in D4. Im expecting the launch of Last Epoch to cause a mass exodus from POE at which point I might join them if trade collapses. D4 has SO MANY issues I dont see it being good for at least a year and thats gonna require ALOT of redesigning and restructuring seasonal content

Normal player here. This season sucks. Bad time for a "mid" season. Last Epoch around the corner and ABSOLUTE banger PoE season rn. Why would I waste my time on a mid season? I hope team 2 saves us in season 4.

This is a very good point (team split). Hopefully some manager at blizzard picks up your video.

The answer to 'how' is that the growth and inevitable bloat of the industry making these massive money projects has resulted in malignant mismanagement and a diseased work culture. Tasks that use to be handed out and handled in hours or days are now posted on a 'productivity' platform for departments that take weeks and months while having meetings about the decisions no one wants to make because everyone is avoiding being responsible for them. There is no creativity, no innovation, no vision, and no passion. Just a ton of wageys working an assembly line of tasks for a paycheck.

Great video as usual, i feel like not only should Blizzard re-evaluate what Chris spoke about but also re-evaluate their teams working on seasons. Feels like season 1 and 3 where made by people who not only dont play their own games but also dont understand the player base.

Grats with the sponsor :D

I remember when Blizzard’s name was revered in the gaming community. They have systematically destroyed their reputation and good will.

Congratulations on the sponsor man. Good luck for the future. :)

Gz on the sponsor, nice content as always!

The problem is that if you want an easier Path of Exile, with more approachable gearing, crafting and endgame systems, but with much of the same flashy playstyle and an endless grind with rising difficulty, you can simply play Last Epoch, which costs a fraction of Diablo 4's price, and it's created and maintained by people who are clearly knowledgable and enthusiastic about the ARPG genre. You lose the extremely high-budget cinematics, but I prefer my games to have gameplay.

No matter how much content they add, D4 will never not be boring until they change how combat works. Like Quinn said, it's like slapping someone in the face five times so you get one shot with a gun.

Another great video!

Congratz on the sponsorship! Honestly, Im glad I diddnt spend $70 on this game. Some of my friends did, they played like 20-30 hrs in s1 and havent opened it since.

spot on analysis

I was reading an article about the situation and thought it sounded like they were describing a bunch of inexperienced devs releasing a game for the first time and then I realized that is probably the case.

I'm a big Diablo fan, probably have 10k hours into Diablo 3 at this point. AS I TYPE THIS I am logged into season 30 of D3. D4 is such a letdown. Tri, I used to rage against your videos (but didn't post any comments) cuz you said things in prior videos I did *not* want to admit to myself were true. Season 3 was my wake-up call. I am sad though. I've been trying to get into PoE, but I have a new-ish Intel i7 13,700k processor in my newly built PC, and I keep getting crashes after anywhere from 30 seconds to 30 minutes of playing PoE. I keep getting some corrupted data thing. Reinstall after reinstall hasn't fixed it. So, despite knowing PoE would be endless entertainment for me, I feel unable to engage with it due to this bug that seems common for new intel processors like mine. Anyway. I am so glad for your content and your videos. Have been subscribed since I saw you blow up on Asmongold's stream. I am sorry I didn't take what you said in prior videos so well, but I am glad I didn't post any negative comments. Now that I can see how bad D4 is for myself from an honest perspective, I can appreciate a video like this SO MUCH. Thank you man.

Grats on the sponsorship, you deserve it.

Imagine buying D4 when you have Path of Exile for free

I’ve said it from day one of d4. They refuse to look at any other game in the genre as if they are such giants they have nothing to learn from anyone else. It’s insane

We need POE 2 Now!!! 😂🤪👌👌👌

For now we can play Last Epoch (21.02. releasedate) and wait for POE2 (massive hype)

Ive seen you on asmonds channel before. Congrats you made it to my algorithm without piggybacking

Great commentary. I made it about 2 hours into the season and called it quits. Went and tried D3 again, and having a good time with it.

The Spice must flow! (1:22)

I’d rather spend that $100 on PoE2 than an expansion for D4. That first major expansion for D4 should be free for everyone that purchased D4 before the expansion.

Heyo, just a suggestion/feedback as a viewer of your video: First, I liked the video! What you covered was interesting and I'm now gonna go check out that GDC presentation. I love me some good game design understanding. BUT, while the subtle music in the background is a nice vibe, it clashes with any other background noise that's going on (like my playing poe on my main monitor.) I had my poe music at like maybe 10% and had to turn it off to be able to watch your video. Nothing major but something to consider. Maybe I'm in the minority though.. I do have a hard time processing words when there's too much music/noise in the bg. Unfortunately I don't have a way to turn up your voice without increasing the music. Hopefully this doesn't come off too complainy, you do you =]

Congrats on your sponsor.

First time watcher, great video dude! congrats on your first sponsor

Congrats on your sponsor bro

What's the background song in this video?

Couldn't agree more. I like Diablo 4, and I'm beyond frustrated to see it butchered on and on. I'll share this video about. If nothing else, spreading the word (aka flat-out instructions) may sway right people in the right places. Also congrats on the first sponsor!

D4 is a very casual ARPG, shallow as a puddle, no thought required and designed for people who do not typically play ARPGs so repeating mistakes is fine, as their target audience is totally different.

Great video Tri! Love your content man. So hyped for poe2 it's not even funny! D4 is just asking to be beaten into submission. Thats crazy lol 😂

grats on your sponsor hopefully you pop off in 2024

With the recent layoffs it's a certainty that there won't be any great blizzard games for years to come, and that D4 will not improve substantially either.

You're not cynical, you're skeptical, and with damn good reasons.

Yep, that’s beat saber. I recognize those motions

Gratzz on the sponser :) I'm a sucker for cool T-shirts.

Glad you're a fan. After all, without me you wouldn't have the computers you so crave.

8:40 I don't consider POE to aim every class of players. It's too complicated for many peoples. Not a critic, it's just not for everybody like that. Don't get me wrong, I found your video (analysis) very good (if not excellent).

Hey Tri, great video as always chief! However, I disagree with one part in your video: Season 2 being a good season. It was "good" for the wrong reasons, and I think Blizzard made a massive mistake in Season 2: letting the OP builds fester for so long before S3. There were several people warning about not getting too comfortable with the Meme Ball Lightning build, or HOTA, or whatever builds because they were bugged and over-tuned. No one listened and called them Negative Nancys. But they were right. Come S3, it was a massive wake up call. It quelled the complaints about Sorc being a garbage and boring class with only one viable spec, or how worse off the Barbarian is after the massive nerfs each season and patch updates, and it gave Blizzard a slight boost of confidence. But few people knew they were just buying themselves time with the broken builds. Now, not only is your Skitter bot complete garbage, along with the skill and support gems being trash, the classes are back to being trash, unless you're a Rogue or Necro. I will go so far as to say that S1 - S3 were all trash. Complete, utter, poop. But on the bright side, each season showed some progress. The only issue was the slight step forward was met with 7 steps back. This may be a hot take but, when they debuted S3, the dev that was talking about it looked very bored, no energy, low T, etc. He wasn't excited in the slightest to talk about it. I think he would've fallen asleep if it wasn't a live stream. I know I did. But I think there is a bigger issue going on, and I will say it has to do with that dimwit Rod Ferguson. He has a pretty craptacular history of screwing Devs and Dev cycles up with his idiotic planning and prioritization, a la Gears of War and Destiny for example. I think he is (and other management dolts there) hamstringing the Develops at Blizzard from doing some cool things, implementing cool ideas, and letting the Devs explore and try awesome things. I think that's the problem. I do agree breaking the teams up with even and odd season design and an expansion team was Terd Ferguson's idea, ergo a terrible idea. You're splitting resources and quality control. And worse yet, I don't think all teams talk to each other either, for lessons learned, what worked, what didn't work, new ideas, etc. It's a horrible setup all around. You'd think after D1, D2, D3, they'd have collected and archived notes of what players enjoyed about each game, what they didn't like about each game, and what they wished the games would do in the future. Anyways, if Rod would stop focusing on MTX sales and development, and leave the Devs alone, or better yet, get fired and flip burgers for a living, I think Blizzard can recover. I am not a fan of Rod Terd Ferguson, and wish someone would put him in his place and let him know he's a worthless scab. I think the Devs need to be free to explore and try cool stuff, and talk to each other for lessons learned. Otherwise, it will be too late for Blizzard to ever catch up when PoE 2 releases, or when Last Epoch releases. The Devs are not the entire problem. It's the dumbasses above them, to keep the MTX money coming over people having fun. Just my two cents.

if D4's big expansion will be more than 60 bucks the whole game will die very swift death

The moment Diablo 4's season 4 will end up with lower numbers than Last Epoch (after its launch in Feb 21st) it will be a testament that the ARPG crown is no longer on Blizzard's head. The competion is real, PoE, LE and even Grim Dawn with its upcoming expansion this year are literally rewriting the genre without those we once called the gods of the genre.

until they fix itemization and add runewords/sets or item tiers of this magnitude it will be hard to make amazing seasons, but with a few patches season 3 can be really good under the circumstances.

It's had the same launch mistakes in D4 as D3. The same mistakes in Season 3 and season 2 They can't even learn from their own mistakes - so expecting to learn from others is a stretch.

There's no way I would give 100$ for an expansion.

S3 did not see like a change, but the game still fun for me.🙂

I will be glad if they focus more on Diablo 2 resurrected and Diablo 3 and improve the game with new skills and new classes they cannot go beyond in this competitive world actually

So the Devs alternate seasons? So in what, six months this team came up with a skitterbot? That's literally six months of work? Didn't ONE GUY do HotA league for PoE? And are these teams held in prisons, unable to communicate with their company or the other team?

I see you have that Lloyd Christmas haircut

I'm not sure there are actually old designers from D3 still at work or old WoW, maybe they all left. And I'm not sure if those in charge are actually competent at their job.

Btw, do you have word whether MTX from Xbox will be transferrable to PoE2 PC. I got a new PC and it's kinda hard to play in PC when I know my shiny MTX is only usable in PoE1 Xbox. I got the 2024 Supporter Pack btw (not cheap)

I dont get it at all. Diablo immortal has it right exept predator mtx make diablo 4 like immortal with thoes gems as base. If immortal would be whitout mtx it would be huge

the problem with d4 dying is that may make ggg slow down the season bangers. the last 4 were really good

As long as D2R is still running I could careless!!

They not even learned from the experiences of their own previous games. How comes, that D2 and D3 are loved, but D4 is not? How come, that the mechanics of the previous games where fun, D4 mechanics are not. There are even gamers, who go back to D3 and want rather play even recycled seasons from D3 than the current D4 season.

The recent layoffs for them come at the cost of management. Profit come first for these types of companies, game design is second. Played D4 for like a week and that was enough. Eventually this will catch up to them but I thought the same thing with madden so who knows

HOLY SHIT. Approx. $14 - $30 million for a cinematic??? Did I calculate that right? Seems like my math isnt mathing...

How long before they announce a fire side chat and the XP weekend they will do to pull people back.

I don't know much about D4, i just know that Quin69, a 'diablo main', quit this season after not even a single day played. Congrats on the sponsor dude, well deserved!

kinda feel like the biggest problem d4 has at the moment....is that its still new aka it does not have years of base game content players can fall back on to consume should the new season fail to interest them obviously this does not excuse or answer the issue of the season itself being bad for neither d4 or poe when that happens but it does give ggg a helping hand in cases where a league may not be recieved well i feel like this makes it even more important for blizz to not fumble as much around with seasons as they currently are because they just do not have that base content yet to fall back on which makes it even worse when a season fails

It's a shame gameplay and itemization in D4 is lacking, because I find the art style, sound and music quite spectacular and great. Also, rotating teams is something Activision has been doing with the Call of Duty soap opera, maybe Blizzard was forced to copy it.

I can't help but think that blizzard tried to dunk on PoE by telling them - "here's how u do traps" - and to be fair D4 traps are miles better than lab traps in poe, however what they failed to realize is that hacknslash arpg players - we don't stop every second to try and solve trap puzzle, we rush trough maps to maximize drops and if anything hinders that - it's bad no matter how well executed it is. that's about it.

Season 3 made me buy Last Epoch. Im so hooked I will prolly buy D4+ an all its 3 expansions 3 yrs later on Steam's 75% discount to be worth it.

Season 2 gave D4 a glimmer of hope, then S3 happened and it went away. Blizzard has proven time after time that money and appeasing their shareholders is more important than player retention and fun.

That's because no one that currently works on D4 has ever done an ARPG. Not just the ground level coders (Which is normal. They get purged and moved around whenever a project is finished) but the leadership. They're all WoW and very RECENT WoW developers. And they can't copy PoE or whatever because that opens them up to espionage lawsuits. Any other questions?

11:16 to be fair I do not recall any outroar from the community when Blizzard essentially sold us Starcraft II three times at a premium.. The base game only contained the campaign for the terrans after all, and both expansions, which added the zerg and lastly the protoss with their respective campaign both came at full prize releases. To be fair, Blizzard was a different company then, but I happily paid the 80 bucks (or was it 70?) for all three collector's editions. I also recall that D III collectors edition sold for several hundreds of dollars after they had sold out. So all the hype about the outrageous pricing is, imo mostly owed to Blizzard's corruption and bending the knee to the suits in recent years. It's no longer about "we release it when it's done", it's about "how much money will this make us" . Diablo Immoral kinda sealed their fate and makes it easy for everyone these days to jump on the hate bandwagon. Again, noone had a negative word to say when they essentially sold us what would today be considered an unfinished product, and then sold us the rest of the product in two expansions, which both came at the same price as the original, unfinished game.. and everyone was OK with it. I know I was ok with it paying 80 buxks 3 times and have 3 nice collector's edition boxes on my desk.. But ya, again, Blizzard was a different company back then. And seeing how I usually never even get a response from just about anyone when pointing out this simple truth (if you factor in inflation then 80 bucks back then would be 100 today) people are not willing to accept that bashing Blizzard for the expansion price is partially just part of the hype (it just gives more clicks to be outraged about the price and conveniently forget they did it before when we were all diehard still Blizzard fanboys, cause that Blizzard company still seemed to care about its customers, unlike today where predatory game mechanics are becoming increasingly common, with Blizzard being maybe one of the most immoral of them all )

4 hours in D4 was enough for season 3 for me.... In the first 30 minutes i was already upset with the endless knock backs

Just sad to see how things went from WC: Orcs Vs Humans to a demo game (D4). That's the last time Blizzard see a penny from the likes of me I'll kick the bucket with D3 collectors edition box when I go.

I know it will probably never happen, but I am waiting for D4 to be a finished game at a reasonable price.

Surely people do not think playing several hours a night is casual

How do you conclude that casual and “normal” players are unhappy? I probably fall between those two as you defined them. I just beat the boss and unlocked the vaults last night, i’ll try them tonight maybe. I think all the hates been coming from hardcore players. I’m still up in the air

even with season 2 being so good, it still had its issues. i might just be done with diablo games. i dont wanna be stressing about what needs to be fixed in the game. and also pay $100 per expansion. imma just stick with poe and maybe test out last epoch

Par for the course in software development in general these days. It’s a head scratcher to be for sure.

Where is PALADIN class

I fucking hate the lab in poe

At first I thought D4 looked at d3 as the best possible arpg ever. Now I know I must be wrong, as they clearly didn't even look at d3 to begin with. Now, tbh, I can't see a big corp doing the GGG move of no pipelining.

They probably won't do reallocation soon because they're looking forward to the cash out they'll be having at the expansion release.

My popcorn is ready for the burning!

I think since they patched it S3 is fine. Not amazing but a good way to spend a few hours a night for me as a semi-casual player. I hope things improve and I really hope that POE2 is great. People are acting like POE2 is a sure thing but there have been quite a few mid leagues in POE 1 so I wish people wouldn't overhype games before they come out.

Season 2 gave me hope that this game was finally moving in the right direction. Season 2 was decent, not good or great, just decent. Blizzard took a step forward, then several backwards on this. I think we truly have a case where the devs do not play their own game. It's the only thing that makes any sense. I'm still just astounded at the colossal nature of this screw up. Not just season 3, but the entire game. D4 plays like a game from a decade ago. Build build build, spend, build, build, build, spend FOR ETERNITY. A chimp could play this game with ease.

Tldr at 9:58 You’re welcome!

Just to note, my friend and i are enjoying Season 3. We haven't gotten that far, only playing about 4 -6 hours, are around level 20, and have completed the first two quests of the storyline. So to say that no one is enjoying this season isn't true.

The answer to the title is: they dont look at other games and just do everything by themselfs. Thats why D4 is missing things and has problems that had already been solved in D3.

I can't believe people still give this company a chance

they still have to add a templar and a monk, so people will be back and buy just to test