Well, they aren't moving in the right direction. All they have done is release a few laughably OP builds and an XP boost so the streamers have something to jerk off to. All the top bosses die in seconds. What is the point of playing the game other than loading up some streamer's McBuild and playing through a game where there is exactly 0 challenge?
The core of the game is still complete trash. The loot is trash, the paragon board is a bad joke and their wizard chores get really boring by level 65. Further, there's fuck all for build diversity at all. For instance, Sorcerer has one build this season. My spec has zero build changing or defining gear; it is McLoot and nothing else.
The big shit is they have absolutely nothing beyond recycling some shitty ideas and making everyone start over every season, and none of the powers stay with your character. Memba in WoW, we all hated borrowed power? This is the same exact thing, but worse because you have to do that boring ass 1-100 level grind again. Devs are still lazy and stupid, and trying to cloak their inability to design and develop a game beyond OP specs is plainly evident the moment you ding past level 50.
I can't even remotely debate about the loot. You're right. But let me address the rest.
I have played nothing but Barbarian so I can't comment on any other class but I can say that there are now 5 legit viable builds as far as build diversity goes. Last season there was one. HOTA. This comes from the season powers. The revamped uniques. The overpower stat being good now. The buffing of skills. Stat caps which are easy to hit. The revamping of the resists. I'm sure other classes (not all) are in the same boat. For the record I have tried all those builds without this seasons powers. They go from OP as fuck DOWN TO great.
These are all changes in the right direction. Now just balance that shit out.
You are also correct that bosses are laughable easy, which I complained about day two. BUT these are very easy fixes. World bosses just needs a HP to high fuck buffs, pools of AOE damage that matter, and a quick quick must avoid mele and ranged attack that won't intsa gib you, but fuck you up enough that means next hit you potentially die. The mechanics on the new bosses are actually great. They just don't matter after 75. At 100 they need to scale to the same danger level when you were lets say 65. You all know what I mean. Overall the INITIAL fights if you haven't outgeared/leveled them are fun.
They addressed a bunch of QOL issues, and made small/big changes that a lot of us here were asking for. The grind. The horse. Bank space. Gold amounts. Respec costs. Mob density ETC. These are things that they pretty much did a 180 on. Not giving them credit for going against the grain of what bullshit they were trying to pull season one isn't fair. At least acknowledge they conceded to the mass exodus and fixed a ton of shit that needed fixing. At least give the alcoholic credit for going to AA.
I'm not sure what you're looking for in innovations from D4, but most of these games are all the same.
Last Epoch (just using this since it's the last ARPG I played) for example at it's core has added what? Traveling through time? Everything else is standard fair, just cleaned up. I haven't touched Last Epoch in more than a month. More than six months if it wasn't for a decent sized patch that I was curious about, that didn't keep me interested.
POE is definitely a better game with the builds being the best in ARPG's (with the steepest entry curve evvvvvvvveeeer). But what was so innovative?
Grim Dawn, great game that you need to mod the fuck out of. Again what was innovative?
In my ARPG's I just want noticeable power climbs. Good looting. Fun boss fights. An end game goal boss. The ability to gear up alts with my previous characters (D4 REALLY needs this.)
I can say I am not fighting D4 any longer, but having fun with it. But at the end of the day, until they fix loot or add a filter they will ALWAYS be "headed in the right direction".
www.gameleap.com
