4 ms·

> Once you get to the endgame it's pointless, and people basically blaze through the base game on purpose. And once you get there it really is no more than a sl

> Once you get to the endgame it's pointless, and people basically blaze through the base game on purpose. And once you get there it really is no more than a slot machine that caters to people with serious gambling addictions. Feels like you're missing the point of end-game players. It's not the slot machine. It's pushing further and further into end-game content. It's a race to see who can dive deeper into dungeons and what builds are necessary to push to the true "end game". Diablo, the campaign, is and has always been trivially easy. Super high levels of these dungeons stack up so many resistance penalties and the level difference adds so much damage reduction (for enemies) and increase (for you) that it becomes much more of a skill based game. This is what I play these games for. Not the campaign that you can sleep through. For my wife, the game ends when we kill the big baddie together on normal difficulties. For me that's when the content just starts getting interesting. There is a lot of grinding involved, but you're having to pay so much more attention to what abilities / upgrades / paragon selections you make none of which are important at all for the main campaign.

themagician 3y ago
I don't know how you do it, but I'm actually fascinated by it. I like watching Diablo players rant on YouTube, but for me the game pretty much ends after the campaign too. I wish it didn't because I find the campaigns great. Even just exploring the map and all the different atmospheric elements. It just feels too short. I don't want to optimize my character. One thing I loved about D3 was that the entire skill tree was accessible to you. In D4 that's true right up until around 50 when it becomes cost prohibitive to respec.
- tstrimple 3y ago
  One way I look at it is by the time you beat the game for the first time unless you've done quite a bit of side content, you still may not be a high enough level to unlock all of the abilities. You've only seen a fraction of the unique items floating around since most don't even drop until World Tier 3 or 4. You've likely only gotten the chance to play one or two themed builds based around the items which have dropped. You've probably not touched the paragon board or glyphs which can change things up quite significantly and enable a number of other builds that aren't really viable without the boost. I'm "only" level 78 on my main and I'm still upgrading glyphs and working my way through the paragon board. Or I was before the season started, and now I'm playing a fresh barb instead of sorc. I wouldn't mind more free respec opportunities, but I don't think it's exceptionally expensive. Just verified on my 78 sorc that it would cost just over $1MM gold to reset all of my points. That's maybe 3-4 dungeon runs. However to reroll an attribute at the enchanter, it's now costing me above $1.5MM for a single role, it also requires forgotten souls. Refunding skill points is much cheaper than upgrading end game gear! It also took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize you don't have to reset all skill points. If you right click on a skill it'll remove it one point at a time for under $20k / point.
  - tarsinge 3y ago
    I don't understand the appeal of these things. For games that are not skill and/or reflexion oriented like Diablo once you've finished the campaign you have experienced what the game had to offer, a good hero journey. Replaying for other classes, missed side quests or simple monster bashing can be fun too. But what you describe seems not to be the satisfaction of discovering, only on collecting and checking boxes for the sake of it. This is akin to trying every parameter on a slot machine and trying to get every combination. That's very close to gambling addiction or OCD for me.

themagician 3y ago

I don't know how you do it, but I'm actually fascinated by it. I like watching Diablo players rant on YouTube, but for me the game pretty much ends after the campaign too. I wish it didn't because I find the campaigns great. Even just exploring the map and all the different atmospheric elements. It just feels too short. I don't want to optimize my character. One thing I loved about D3 was that the entire skill tree was accessible to you. In D4 that's true right up until around 50 when it becomes cost prohibitive to respec.

tstrimple 3y ago
One way I look at it is by the time you beat the game for the first time unless you've done quite a bit of side content, you still may not be a high enough level to unlock all of the abilities. You've only seen a fraction of the unique items floating around since most don't even drop until World Tier 3 or 4. You've likely only gotten the chance to play one or two themed builds based around the items which have dropped. You've probably not touched the paragon board or glyphs which can change things up quite significantly and enable a number of other builds that aren't really viable without the boost. I'm "only" level 78 on my main and I'm still upgrading glyphs and working my way through the paragon board. Or I was before the season started, and now I'm playing a fresh barb instead of sorc. I wouldn't mind more free respec opportunities, but I don't think it's exceptionally expensive. Just verified on my 78 sorc that it would cost just over $1MM gold to reset all of my points. That's maybe 3-4 dungeon runs. However to reroll an attribute at the enchanter, it's now costing me above $1.5MM for a single role, it also requires forgotten souls. Refunding skill points is much cheaper than upgrading end game gear! It also took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize you don't have to reset all skill points. If you right click on a skill it'll remove it one point at a time for under $20k / point.
- tarsinge 3y ago
  I don't understand the appeal of these things. For games that are not skill and/or reflexion oriented like Diablo once you've finished the campaign you have experienced what the game had to offer, a good hero journey. Replaying for other classes, missed side quests or simple monster bashing can be fun too. But what you describe seems not to be the satisfaction of discovering, only on collecting and checking boxes for the sake of it. This is akin to trying every parameter on a slot machine and trying to get every combination. That's very close to gambling addiction or OCD for me.