Blizzard Admits Diablo III End-Game Failure

[Andy Chalk]

Blizzard Admits Diablo III End-Game Failure

Blizzard acknowledges that Diablo III does not have "a proper end-game," and says it won't for quite awhile to come.

Whether Diablo III [http://www.amazon.com/Diablo-III-Standard-Edition-Pc/dp/B00178630A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341421960&sr=8-1&keywords=Diablo+3] is really as much of a mess as its detractors claim, or if it's just a victim of hype and Blizzard's previously unblemished record of success, is a matter of enthusiastic debate. But even Blizzard admits that it's not perfect, and further (and worse), that fans looking for proper end-game content are likely going to have a long wait on their hands.

"We recognize that the item hunt is just not enough for a long-term sustainable end-game. There are still tons of people playing every day and week, and playing a lot, but eventually they're going to run out of stuff to do (if they haven't already)," Community Manager Micah "Bashiok" Whipple wrote on the Diablo III General Discussion forum. "Diablo III is not World of Warcraft. We aren't going to be able to pump out tons of new systems and content every couple months. There needs to be something else that keeps people engaged, and we know it's not there right now."

"We're working toward 1.0.4, which we're really trying to pack with as many fixes and changes we can to help you guys out (and we'll have a bunch of articles posted with all the details as we get closer), and we're of course working on 1.1 with PvP arenas. I think both those patches will do a lot to give people things to do, and get them excited about playing, but they're not going to be a real end-game solution, at least not what we would expect out of a proper end-game," he continued. "We have some ideas for progression systems, but honestly it's a huge feature if we want to try to do it right, and not something we could envision being possible until well after 1.1 which it itself still a ways out."

Diablo III launched without an end-game, he explained in a separate post, quite simply because Blizzard didn't think it would be needed so quickly. "We believed pre-release that the item hunt would be far more sustainable, and would work to be a proper end-game for quite a while," he wrote. "That didn't turn out to be true, and we recognize that."

Source: Battle.net [http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/6019511928?page=1]


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[Coreless]

My question is, what kind of endgame is even really considered an "endgame" for ARPGs? Endless dungeons? PvP? The only games of this type that I have played recently are Torchlight and Diablo 3 so I'm not exactly sure what an endgame would even entail with this genre. What did Diablo 2 do that kept people around for like a decade? and was it even an endgame or did people just play the game over and over with different characters?

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

It probably says something that I haven't gotten anywhere near the end-game for D3. I quit playing after the fifth time I almost died due to Internet lag IN A SINGLE-PLAYER GAME.

Also, from quite a few forum posts I've read in other places, the higher difficulties have item drop-rates and enemy skills that practically mandate either grouping with other players or hitting the auction house for gear that'll help survival.

 

[Vivi22]

My question is, what kind of endgame is even really considered an "endgame" for ARPGs?

This is what I'm wondering as well as someone who hasn't really played much in the genre before. I always thought it was just a matter of grinding, PvP and trying out other character builds that sustained these games in the end. Have I been wrong in this assumption?

 

[Xanthious]

The auction house totally kills the item hunt. You don't need to hunt for items you simply need to farm gold. It doesn't help that farming gold is painfully easy. On top of that the items themselves aren't nearly as interesting as they were in D2. They are all relatively generic and only differ because of the difference in the numbers.

Diablo 3 simply has been one screw up after another after another. They couldn't have done a better job of shitting on the Diablo franchise had they outsourced it to Zynga. Diablo 2 has thrived for a decade plus because it is largely everything that Diablo 3 can never hope to be. Blizzard should be wholly ashamed of Diablo 3.

 

[Kordie]

My question is, what kind of endgame is even really considered an "endgame" for ARPGs? Endless dungeons? PvP? The only games of this type that I have played recently are Torchlight and Diablo 3 so I'm not exactly sure what an endgame would even entail with this genre. What did Diablo 2 do that kept people around for like a decade? and was it even an endgame or did people just play the game over and over with different characters?

I kinda agree... Diablo 3 isn't World of warcraft? ummm... no shit? What kept people playing D2 was hunting for items and PvP.

You put in an AUCTION HOUSE and expect the item hunt to be sustainable?

That kinda ruins the item hunting, so PvP is all thats left?

 

[Coreless]

It probably says something that I haven't gotten anywhere near the end-game for D3. I quit playing after the fifth time I almost died due to Internet lag IN A SINGLE-PLAYER GAME.

Also, from quite a few forum posts I've read in other places, the higher difficulties have item drop-rates and enemy skills that practically mandate either grouping with other players or hitting the auction house for gear that'll help survival.

Pretty much, once you get to Inferno the difficulty (depending on your class) is time, it becomes nothing but watching the AH and gold farming. I've pretty much hit a brick wall with Act 2 on my Barb, the gear I need never drops or when the it does drop its mostly worthless for my class. I think out of about 60-70 rare drops I find something that might be usable but not really good enough to help push me further.

 

[mindlesspuppet]

Here's a thought, how about finally making a patch that allows players to game WITHOUT BEING ONLINE ALL THE TIME?! I have no interest in making a diablo account, a battle.net account and I have no interest in having the game lag and be tied to the whims of my (relatively poor) internet connection.

Hence, no sale. Do something Blizzard. It's not your end game that's broken. It's your GAME.

Hey now, Blizzard did do something! They gave us all a ton of good reasons to buy Torchlight II.

 

[Zeriah]

Having never played D2 and haven't played D3 it doesn't matter to me, but I am curious about what 'end game' means in these types of dungeon crawlers? What does D2 have that D3 doesn't? I thought the 'end game' in these things was just repeatably grinding the high level dungeons over and over for RNG-stat loot, so it will take a really long time to get the perfect gear, hence the long play time. Both games have this as far as I'm aware.

So what's different with D2 apart from the auction house?

 

[Torrasque]

"We recognize that we fucked up, several times, can you get off our ass now?"
No Blizzard. I'm still pissed off.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Here's a thought, how about finally making a patch that allows players to game WITHOUT BEING ONLINE ALL THE TIME?! I have no interest in making a diablo account, a battle.net account and I have no interest in having the game lag and be tied to the whims of my (relatively poor) internet connection.

Hence, no sale. Do something Blizzard. It's not your end game that's broken. It's your GAME.

The game is broken because your internet connection sucks?

OT: That's fine by me, I stopped playing after I completed the game on Normal and have only just gone back to it and I'm still playing through Nightmare, so I still have plenty of stuff to do.

 

[StriderShinryu]

You put in an AUCTION HOUSE and expect the item hunt to be sustainable?

This was instantly my thought as well. I quite enjoy the game but find that even the stuff you can get by crafting is often more than enough to give you success (at least on the initial difficulty, I haven't played enough to advance past that yet so final results may be different). I haven't used the AH and don't plan to, but I've heard enough from enough people to know how game breaking it must be.

So, yeah, when you put in not only one but two systems that freely and nearly completely overstep the "loot hunt" aspect of the game, is there really any wonder why the loot hunting isn't that compelling?

That said, I look forward to seeing why they do decide to do in the future. There's really no way for them to just instantly not have the AH, so it will be interesting to see what they try.

One a side note, I highly doubt PvP will be that exciting either given that players who have geared up via the AH will be heads and shoulders above anyone who hasn't min/max'ed themselves that way anyway.

 

[Easton Dark]

Most of your game's a failure, Blizzard. Learn from this and do better next time.

*buys Torchlight 2*

 

[Wolfram23]

Funny, the term "end game" now means the part of the game that Never Ends.

Oxymorons.

 

[tmande2nd]

Just one dumb choice, after another, after another, then denying it all over again.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Here's a thought, how about finally making a patch that allows players to game WITHOUT BEING ONLINE ALL THE TIME?! I have no interest in making a diablo account, a battle.net account and I have no interest in having the game lag and be tied to the whims of my (relatively poor) internet connection.

Hence, no sale. Do something Blizzard. It's not your end game that's broken. It's your GAME.

The game is broken because your internet connection sucks?

The game is broken because it treats the players like criminals, has crappy servers that won't allow people online on a whim and, on top of it all, if you dare to buy a digital copy, you're not going to get to play it for three days after the purchase because they want to validate it due to the ridiculous auction house.

1. I'm not getting how it treats the players like criminals.

2. I don't think anyone is experiencing any logging issues anymore because that issue was sorted.

3. They stopped doing that stupid thing where it caps you for 3 days if you bought a digital version.

The game works just fine, it's not broken.