End Game #1 - Diablo IV
The first of many explorations into the fabled endgame of many games, starting with Diablo IV.
This is a cathartic dump. I went from thinking I would be playing this game feverishly every season to logging on to using it as a supplement for very long winded podcasts.
It’s still a grand game, but there’s a weird meta to it as you reach level 100. It’s like the drama is required to sustain the blood and guts and glory. I find myself taken out of the game a lot. These are some thoughts as to why.
Momentum Sputters
Diablo 4 is such an interesting beast. A return to form for Blizzard. A massive success. Suddenly, a massive failure? All within a few months after launch.
Think of this: You can pick a skill like Incinerate for the flavor of shooting a literal death-ray, only to discover that the build that uses nothing but a basic auto attack is objectively more powerful, mobile, and fun. (I picked the auto-attacker, arc lash, by the way.)
Ah Incinerate. You are a truly cool skill where you stand stationary and channel fire like a Dragon Ball Z plasma chucker. It’s also worst skill because it locks the player in place, does middling damage, and had a bug that made it cost extra if cancelled.
Through my playtime to hit level 100, Sorcerers use ice shards and blizzard if they’re ice, arc lash if they’re lightning, and I genuinely never crossed paths with any of the fire builds after level 70. To simplify, fire builds are bazookas. Big area coverage but slow to reload. If something is left standing, the player has no luxury of firing again.
Contrasting the bazooka is the meta of machine guns. All strong sorceress builds apply smaller damage packets at a blinding rate. Ice Shards fires like a literal gun. Blizzard has an aspect that creates an ungodly number of secondary projectiles. Arc Lash doesn’t use resources at all and rains every other lightning skill on every hit.
The rate that the strong builds pump out damage is several factors higher than what’s offered in fire. It doesn’t matter if you can expect 100% critical rate on Meteor if another build is dumping 5 skills in the time it takes to drop a single rock.
Going into the patch, I expected the developers to see this trend and make corrections. Instead, the same hierarchy remained within sorc builds with the added benefit that most of them became shadows of their former selves, completely incapable of clearing the dungeons they could breeze through the day before the patch.
I’ve heard of this experience before, mostly through friends who toiled away at WoW, but I personally never felt the impact of the full force of a well-meaning development team. At least, until this patch. It was bewildering to see the build I was playing reduced to dust, but also seeing no clear winners in other skills. I jokingly told my friends that Incinerate was going to be the new meta because that would be the absolute coolest thing to do to Sorcerer before a new season.
Instead, a complete halt to momentum, hope, and excitement for the sorcerer.
Marshmallows Burnt Over Hellfire
The Diablo IV Campfire Chats were first introduced as a way for the developers to communicate with the community at large without having a specific product to sell. Cookies were brought, Game Director Overlord Rod Ferguson joyfully shouldered his way in, and the atmosphere felt as about as relaxed as you can expect a publicly streamed meeting with your literal boss could be. The first one was all smiles.
Honestly, very ambitious and surprisingly sweet. Blizzard created a foundation of communication with its player base. A modernization of patch notes, if anything, built for the era of gamer that grows weary of reading. A place for Youtubers to farm clips and monologue infinitely on their thoughts.
But that was last patch. The Season of the Malignant is upon us and the most recent patch is much maligned. This campfire chat was for apologizing for the state of the game. The developers once said, “This is the darkest story we’ve ever told” when referencing the game’s plot.
That was definitely said before this stream. This is Retail Hell made manifest.
It is weird to see developers having to put on the mask of shame to appease an angry mob.
I gave into sin, much like the villagers of Diablo 4.
I balked, laughed, sneered, snarled. I reveled in the idea that me, the almighty consumer, had brought these monster developers to their knees by agreeing with redditor screeds. After all, I leveled my Sorcereress. I read a maxroll guide, followed it sheepishly for over 40 hours, exuded absolutely zero independent thought, and reaped the rewards with complete certainty that I deserve the credit for slogging through the endgame against better judgement.
They promised us a new patch philosophy, earlier updates on the drafts of the notes, a solemn decree that they would never patch the game this way ever again. Stuff that most MMO players dream their developers would say. Stuff born of pure, ugly consumer malice. Such a rare catharsis to see Blizzard bend the knee and beg for forgiveness from players that deserves zero courtesy.
This is the joy of Diablo 4. An utterly indulgent game in all ways. A game that lets me show an unfiltered ugliness without having to worry about losing people to play with. No, this game will be popular no matter how poorly I represent it. I am granted the freedom of pure negativity because in the end, the game is great, but it has to be the best to sustain its monstrous scope.
It must soar above the petty requests of its players or die.
I think to myself, “The game would be better if it posed a challenge. This is true. I have the most fun when I have to focus. Surely this justifies the patch.” The thought crumbles underneath a more sinister, cynical rationale:
Diablo 4 is too widespread of a game to dare suggest players improve at the game. This is a game that must capitulate to influence or risk being labeled as callous and unresponsive. Besides, it is Blizzard. Their GaaS model deserves only contempt. Overwatch 2’s failure makes me righteous. I only tolerate this game because it provides cheap and abundant thrills by the truckload. Anything that interrupts that is vile. It is my right, my duty, to hate this game with everyone else for its own good.
Yeesh! That felt good to get off my chest. Thanks for reading even if you found it loathsome.
If you’re wondering what I’m doing now, I am still goofing around in Diablo 4 on a barbarian, but it functions as a waiting room for Remnant 2 with friends.