Today I say goodbye to diablo 4

I've been busy with POE recently. the new WW ascendancy gave my shitty ass build more power and with the way the economy is working, i managed to buy a mageblood.

i AM HAVING FUCKING FUN PLAYING POE NOW. all it took was a mageblood lolololol.

and yeah i bitched about leaving POE a lot, i have posted various times about quitting but i keep coming back.

as of now, i am fairly confident that i will be playing POE longer due to my exploits in affliction league.

this is how i've enjoyed temp leagues in POE for all these years. i do not care for the MTX challenge rewards too much but i want the gear/league exclusive gear.

despite how the popular trend is playing new leagues every league. my heart still lies in standard. everything i do is for standard and always has been for standard. i can begrudgingly hate a league to its core but rough it out for the sake of standard (crucible).

ultimately at the end of the league i push my standard character a little bit further. becoming a little bit stronger.

so how the fuck does this have anything to do with diablo 4.

d4's version of standard is dead. neutered. castrated. i am NOT a temp league enjoyer. if i play a temp league and i enjoy it, it is an added bonus but it is NOT my reason of playing a new league. i would outright skip leagues if i saw no benefit to my standard character.

currently diablo 4 is on season 3.

as a recap. back when d4 released, it came with no seasons. we just played it and i honestly enjoyed it.

then before the first season a huge nerf wave came. to many, we saw it as a rebalancing of sorts.

little did we realize that this was due to blizzard wanting a way to give players power via seasonal mechanics.

how asmongold put it "they cut off one arm to give us another". on surface level all is good. you still gain a huge amount of power from season mechanics.

that said, as a standard andy, i quickly checked the official FAQ page.

"

WHAT HAPPENS TO MY CHARACTER/PROGRESSION AFTER THE SEASON ENDS?
The character and progress on that character is transferred to the Eternal Realm. You can play this character whenever you want in the Eternal Realm. Specific Season-only features will no longer be accessible in the Eternal Realm.

what this meant was D4 cut off our arm, forcing us to play in seasons to get back our arm. but if we're on standard, we're fucked. some d4 simps would defend d4 citing either

1. you have access to your best gear whenever you want on standard, you dont need to regrind

2. this allows the devs the ability to introduce interesting new mechanics!

my retorts:

1. even with your best gear on standard, a character with decent gear AND seasonal mechanics can easily outperform a standard character.

2. SURE! you're not wrong with that. but i didnt sign up to d4 to play EVERY season. i am NOT a seasonal player. in the entire history of diablo franchise, standard characters are significantly weaker than a seasonal one.

for sure some seasons such as one of d3's season gave players a seasonal buff that gave all set items count as +1 (if you had 2 out of 4 equipment set, you would be considered to be having 3 out of 4). which is in itself huge, d4's seasonal mechanics are a much larger buff in comparison.

on a little rant. i dont understand why seasonal/temp league enjoyers tend to love shitting on STD players. "thats what you get for playing standard" and tons of other condescending ass remarks. all diablo clones started off with standard. all diablo clones have a version of standard. not all of us have the luxury of playing so much.

if standard leagues was given a little more love, how does this impact temp league players? NOTHING. all this disdain for std just to rub it in. kick people when theyre down.

back to topic.

now i've established that in d4, standard, you're going to be weaker than a seasonal character by default. no matter what you do.

now it's season 3. this is d4's 3rd attempt at seasons. they are not going to be changing from this model anytime soon.

as a standard enjoyer, i have SO MUCH FUCKING DISDAIN towards this level of disrespect towards standard enjoyers.

a lot of "old school" /boomer diablo enjoyers all started out from diablo which only had "standard". this is how it started. this is history.

there definitely are other reasons for me to give up on d4. but i guess i really dont need to list them out. fundamentally d4 will be focused on seasons.

very much unlike poe where i actually get to bring back powerful items from my time in a temp league.

its sad for me to give up on a franchise i loved from childhood. but i guess this is where i say my goodbyes.

heck i didnt even realize s3 was out till recently.

Nice post. It's a bit long but I still enjoyed it all. There are many similarities in the way we play. I feel like I could have written most of that myself. The main difference is that I had kind of decided that playing standard in D4 is just not for me. The sad part of that decision is that when the season is horrible like the current D4 season then I have to find a different game to play. That's why I'm back playing PoE. I played standard for a while and have switched to Affliction.

Irony is you ARE a boomer. Or at least closer to it than many here. I feel D4 is aimed more at Gen X and Xennials than boomers but obviously the only people to care about that distinction are gen x and xennials; anyone younger than that generally doesn't care to learn why we use the term "boomer" and thus why it doesn't apply to people not born in a fairly specific period.

D4 is aimed squarely at the first generation of life-long gamers, who were roughly college age when Diablo 1 came out and pushing towards Unsupervised Adult Life when D2 was all the rage. People who used the term "all the rage". Dad gamers rather than granddad gamers. In my experience granddad gamers are more into things like Gran Turismo with a racing chair. Grandma gamers are more likely to hit zelda or mario but yes there are and always have been exceptions. One of the most well known Diablo 1 clans was run by a grandma (the CCC) and we know at least one frequents this forum for... Some inexplicable reason. Blessed we are for whatever said reason might be.

Point being for someone with hefty RL obligations D4 can and will last months. And that is more likely to be a gen x parent still in the workforce than a retired boomer with nothing but time on their hands.

I see no point in "saying goodbye" to a game that has no ongoing costs to play - - just set it aside and check later or something. Quitting a service game with ongoing costs is healthy, but one you can come back to later for no cost and with minimal fomo is just another investment - - bad or good. If it never comes good, oh well. But if it does, hey, you can just play it again and enjoy that. You are much, much less likely to make a game part of your identity when you don't have to subscribe to it. Again, I find that healthier than forming a sort of parasocial, tribal attachment. To that you should say goodbye, if it's not sparking joy.

But a game as simple and discrete as D4, to which service and mtxes simply don't come naturally and are easily ignored? Might see ya later someday, not goodbye.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

Grandma gamers are more likely to hit zelda or mario but yes there are and always have been exceptions.

Grandma Gamer reporting for duty :P

Zelda? Mario? Never!!

PoE all the way ;)

So, lots of Grandmas and Grandpas in this thread, Boomer Grandpa here. :-)

Nice post Chan (as usual), I guess I'm an exception to the race car game fondness. Just ARPG's on my desktop and Chess and Backgammon on my iPhone.

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xjjanie wrote:

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

Grandma gamers are more likely to hit zelda or mario but yes there are and always have been exceptions.

Grandma Gamer reporting for duty :P

Zelda? Mario? Never!!

PoE all the way ;)

You're a serious anomaly and you know it! My mum (god rest her thumbs - - the rest of her is fine though) raised me on Sierra games and then Super Nintendo. Pretty sure her last game was Majora's Mask. Wait no. Final Fantasy XIII. She definitely did XII...

I actually find your case deeply fascinating and wish you'd been at the PAX meetups back in 2013 and 14. PoE is a horrifically complicated game that defies gamers of all ages, all walks of life. I can grasp Diablo grannies. Zelda grannies. Sudoku and farmville grannies. Call of duty and skyrim grannies. Sure. But the infamously mean-spirited PoE? I have questions. So many.

Otoh some of my highschool friends are not far off granny status so....that's a cold bucket of water to be sure.

TD: it's the whole "I don't do X" thing I find so prevalent in Boomers. My dad in law is adamant he doesnt like seafood, but we made him fall in love with lobster and prawns. He doesnt play silly video games, those are for kids, but his racing chair is amazing and his skill at tuning cars in GT7 comes from a lifetime of real life experience. I suppose its a gentle and endearing hypocrisy. My mum is an incredible landscape artist but swears up and down she doesn't have any talent for it. I dunno. Some lingering self-abasement from being raised by a quietly abusive/abused Silent Generation? We Gen Xers are just straight up Whatever Man. And tmk both you and janie would be closer to early X or very late boomer.

Shit sorry for the hijack.

Goodbye Diablo 4. Hello... Shit, which game were we meant to be playing this week?

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

Goodbye Diablo 4. Hello... Shit, which game were we meant to be playing this week?

Clearly Last Epoch ;)

hoho this won't be the last time you touch D4.

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Jerle wrote:

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

Goodbye Diablo 4. Hello... Shit, which game were we meant to be playing this week?

Clearly Last Epoch ;)

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