Diablo 4 Would Kill Path of Exile

After the last blizzcon? This has to be a flippen troll dude..

I mean if Diablo 4 was the game people were hoping Diablo 3 was then yea maybe. Though there's not really any evidence that they're even working on Diablo 4 at the moment so there's that too.

Even if D4 would suck, there would still be people believing in D5. Some people are just born to be naive and easily impressed.

Some people are still in a decades long honeymoon phase with Blizzard (although she already betrayed you dozens of times).

Diablo (from D3 onwards) focusses in a more streamlined, casual experience. Blizzard seem to be sticking to this approach since Diablo Immortal more aggressively targets that type of player.

PoE focusses on a more hardcore, deep and comprehensive experience. While a quick glance might convince a person it's the same as Diablo, only a few minutes of play reveal what a completely different beast it is.

Because of that superficial similarity, there is a degree of player crossover between the games. Diablo players get bored with Diablo, look for a game that seems similar... of course they're going to end up at PoE for better or worse. Sometimes they won't be aware of how different PoE is until they play it, other times you'll get D3 players who mastered D3 and actively welcome the deeper and more challenging PoE because of that.

But a few things are obvious: once you've tasted the forbidden fruit of Path of Exile, there are 3 possible outcomes:

1) You'll become used to the depth of PoE, and the casual nature of Diablo will become more apparent, so it probably won't appeal to you any more since your tastes will have changed.

2) You'll be so intimidated by almost every aspect of PoE that you feel you'll never be able to learn/understand/play it, that you'll go right back to Diablo and never look back.

3) You'll enjoy the depth of PoE, but dislike the difficulty or the high degree of complexity, so you'll go on the forums/Reddit and constantly try to get GGG to drop the difficulty and make PoE a bit more casual.

In these cases, we lose people in category (2) every day, and barely know they were ever here. This isn't an issue. Category (1) players might be curious about any Diablo 4, or simply "like the look" of the game, so we would lose some of them temoorarily - but they'd be back to PoE once they had their fill and been confronted with the reality of how casual Diablo really is.

The category (3) players might temporarily leave, just like the category (1)'s, but more of them would just decide to stay with Diablo. So we would lose some players - but since they'd be the ones who always go "I hate the new content, it's too difficult" every single update would that even be a bad thing?

We have to recognize there *are* players in PoE who's heart truly lies with Diablo, but who play PoE due to Diablo not getting any substantial updates for years. The aren't really "PoE players", but just people looking to get "more of Diablo" by looking outside the bounds of that game. While they're here they bump up player figures slightly, maybe spend money on MTX, but the more of them there are the more likely it will be that GGG may start tailoring PoE more towards them.

So if and when Diablo 4 comes out, people looking for "more Diablo" can find "more Diablo", and wouldn't need to keep trying to turn PoE into Diablo. That will be a small drop in players, but the health of the game should improve a bit.

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Kasapnica wrote:

In order to fight PoE they have to fight with 7 years of content. Releasing D4 and put occasional patch ain't enough. And judging by the last 2-3 years, Blizzard ain't exactly gaining trust.

Blizzard has to prove themselves in order to regain the trust of arpg/D2 fans.

But regular content update isn't everything, furthermore the rate at which path of exile releases content seems to be important for its own survival(which may be indicative that other things are lacking). I mean D2 has not had content updates for 15 years but is still popular, because the foundation is super solid.

If D4 is of great quality then players will naturally gravitate towards it no matter if is has less content(as long as the foundation is solid). This isn't exactly a genre that is flooded with new releases and to be absolute fair the huge success of Path of exile up until now has been the lack of a real online-arpg competition, D3 was to controversial and Blizzard abandoned it a long time ago. But what have they been working on since the reaper of souls release back in 2014? That's the big question.

Path of exile is good and is still going strong but do not underestimate the desire in people to try out new things, especially when it comes to a new game engine with the Diablo name and lore attached to it(yes nostalgia is a real thing, unfortunately in this case as Blizz doesn't really deserve it with D3).

I'm pretty certain this is what Chris meant when he mentioned that ''Path of exile has to be ready for the next-gen arpgs''.

Diablo 4 is coming IMO(and sooner than skeptics might think) as these leaks and blue comments as of late feels very intentional, stuff like Diablo devs inviting Quin69 to Blizzcon 2019(who isn't even playing D3 nor do i think he cares about a D2 remaster or that silly phone game) more or less confirms IMO something of a larger scale is going to be revealed at the show this year. I doubt it is a new D3- xpack. It's of course best to keep the expectations low but i personally wouldn't be surprised if a bomb is dropped later this year. We'll see.

As long as Bobby Kotick is CEO of Actiblizz, the Diablo franchise is dead. RIP

Why are you people worried about a game that hasn't even been announced yet?

It's two very different crowds, so I highly doubt it.

Path of Exile will feel it, but the playerbase is here for the complexity of the skills, the gems and the overall difficulty of the game. Diablo is the direct opposite, with little to zero consequence for bad decisions and a flat progress. What one user groups likes, the other doesn't.

I can take myself as an example. I was a diehard Diablo fanboy for years. I played Path of Exile when it was in beta on my PC and played it for about a year. Then I regressed to Diablo.

Meanwhile I started playing Dark Souls (as in I played to a unsafe amount of time). I fell in love with the difficulty and the consequence of not playing properly. The difficulty and the tactics required.

When PoE launched on PS4, I downloaded it and bought supporter packs off the bat. Now playing it, I could never imagine playing Diablo 3 again. The whole mentality behind Path of Exile is a vastly different beast, where the developers gives players the tools and lets them do with them what they want. They acknowledge that there are pitfalls and there are bad decisions - But it's up to you as a player to figure it out.

If and when Diablo 4 releases I will probably play it. But only to complete it and get the story. All this becuase the mindset of Blizzard has permanently changed. It's more PG13 than ever, and they are scared of consequences as their playerbase no longer tolerate it, due to years of being able to change everything on a whim.

On top of it, Diablos maintenance is a far shot from what Path of Exile is. They added like one feature over the course of what... 5 years? Rifts and greater rifts. Meanwhile Path of Exile has had numerous leagues and expansion packs. It's not even a contest.

Path of Exile is still what it once was at it's core. The playerbase knows this. This is possibly also why you see a lot of newer players now who try it out and a lot leave again. They came over from Diablo and expected the same thing. Some stayed and were caught, but I could imagine at least half were turned off by the difficulty and the consequences - Something one like me loves.

I don't see Path of Exile being in danger when and if Diablo 4 releases. If anything, it will solidify it's position on the market as the "grownup Diablo" as Blizzard has shown no intent on recapturing the grimdark essence that Diablo was.

TL;DR - Path of Exile will be fine. It's like comparing Cartoon Network to HBO. Two different target groups for the same genre.

Chris says poe will take on D4. Wonder what gave him the idea