• Gangreless@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Forced online is literally the only reason my husband and I didn’t buy this game. We can’t be the only ones and they’re definitely missing out on a good chunk of money

  • RoboticMask@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    While I don’t condone DDoS attacks, the only reason for D4 to be online-only is monetization IMO: Blizzard wants to sell cosmetics, so people have to see other people wearing them. There is little gameplay benefit from being an MMO-lite.

    • teft@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Probably all sorts of datamining regarding the way people play also. Can’t do that so easily if people are playing offline.

      • IowaMan@lemmy.worldOPM
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        1 year ago

        Brilliant insight. They probably are tracking metrics on what will encourage people to buy stuff the most too

        • themoonisacheese@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Activision owns patents on the following:

          • A system that tracks what store items you might be interested in, and places you in matches with high-skilled players who own that item, making you associate the item with high skill

          • A system that places you against lower-skilled opponents immediately after you bought an item, making you associate making a purchase with being better.

          From here to “they want you to look at other players and how expensive their shit is” is only one step. Honestly at this point I’m even surprised they’re not faking it entirely, making other players just happen to be wearing expensive skins on your screen even if the actual account hasn’t bought that. It’s not like you can check anyway.

            • themoonisacheese@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              Indeed. It also has the inherent side effect of making the game pay to win, because if you don’t pay you get put in hard matches against the skilled people who paid, and if you do it puts you against weaker opponents. This is why micro transactions should be banned straight up, even if they do not impact gameplay. Belgium had the right idea.

    • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I quit everything Blizzard after Starcraft 2, that game had so much down time, and although it did have an offline option, you couldn’t get new technologies as rewards in the campaign, when servers were down. Making it kind of redundant to have the offline mode IMO.

      You can call it a boycott, but a company gone bad, rarely turns back to good again.

      Fool me once and all that.

      • Gabu@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Blizzard died for me when they started killing Hearthstone. I haven’t regretted it since.

        • arefx@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Blizzard died for me when Activision bought them and they became another victim to capitalism.

    • simo@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I started playing PoE after getting to somewhat endgame in D4. Got to level 60 something and my buddy and I were like…sooo…whatcha wanna do now? Dungeon I guess? Then we just kinda stopped playing. The rubber banding and random lags were super annoying and resulted in many deaths - we had a great time but needs a lot more cookin in the oven.

      PoE on the other hand has been super refreshing and non laggy (the joy of 10 yrs of development I guess) and there’s soo much to chew on. In a way it feels like a natural extension of D2 (played D2R for the first time last year).

        • simo@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It’s real good man. D2 I found had a great loot feeling, but the general signposting of where to go was shit. But this was mostly because they didn’t update D2 in the remastered version much because I guess they knew people would be pissed if they updated it too much.

          D4 was initially epic with the bois, but the slow grind and analysis paralysis of loot was annoying in the end. So much garbage loot with no filters and way too many affixes on weapons, you sit there for ages wondering if that bit of loot is better…or worse?? Or maybe good for that thing, but not the other. Urgh, and the legendary aspect thing was annoying to manage (shit, I found a weapon, but uh oh, I don’t have an aspect in reserve to apply to this cool new weapon, so my build will be fucked??? yay!)

          PoE has that D2 loot feeling, power growth and SPEED that D4 simply can’t have due to level scaling. Honestly, why is a group of minions giving me a hard time in D4 when in PoE I can blast a screen worth of little shits in one go? Super fun.

          I don’t mind being a shit character when i’m level 10, NOT 70. It was a pain post campaign in D4, I should be a god not some weak maggot after I saved Sanctuary lol.

          Give it a shot, it’s free :) I think it’s due an update in August [new league].

    • Anemervi@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      How do you know that no one who has played PoE has needed/wanted offline mode?

      Personally I don’t play PoE because of their policy on respeccing. An offline mode would likely make it possible for me to bypass that with mods.

      Speaking of mods D2 had awesome ones so it’s sad 3, 4 & PoE are so locked down with the online mode to prevent this.

      • uranibaba@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I don’t, but I have never seen anyone complain about it. I am but one voice is this world, though.

  • iAmTheTot@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Between always online games, and Starfield confirmed not having a physical disc release, I am weary for the future of gaming.

    • hydro033@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Blame the era of rampant gaming piracy. No disc is fine, useless overhead that’s just more plastic in a landfill.

  • sw2de3fr4gt@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    People are still buying games from Blizzard? It’s like everybody forgot what a terrible company it is.

  • Jaysyn@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I quit buying Blizzard products after the bNetd fiasco. Fuck them straight to hell.