Diablo 2 was popular for its multiplayer aspects, not its single player. Yall need to learn that.

Diablo 2 was and is popular because it's a good game.

I would say it's a mix of things that made that game great. The atmosphere, soundtrack, the characters. The class skill tree system with the itemization. Then you can throw on some multiplayer aspects like PvP and trading. Trading allowed items to have value and create chase items for players. Might even be able to throw in the social aspect of it as well. Playing video games with others and chatting was still in its early days back then.

All that being said, most people played by themselves. It was a primarily single player experience for most players. Same as this game.

The only thing Multiplayer was good for was trading, couldn't care about it otherwise. Battle.net itself the interface was terrible, nobody really used the chat imo, people just named their lobby after what their goal was and people joined it based on that, whether that be a lobby for trading, farming or PvP. Diablo 2 itself was definitely not popular for the multiplayer aspects but for the mechanics, music, cutscenes and story at the time that it had as back then there wasn't much else in terms of aRPG's. Also sorry for saying but if you're in a game alone whether that be while connected to battle.net or not that is still singleplayer and most people spent their time that way until needing something. If you're going to call a game multiplayer just because you're connected to the internet then you're naive.

People only used offline play for modding and messing around and even at that during Diablo 2 days TCP/IP (LAN) was pretty popular and people played together without using official Blizzard servers (aka Battle.net)

I don't know about other people but that is how I played Diablo 2 most of the time during its prime days, would be with a large group of friends playing via LAN whether that be at one of our houses, a cafe or a place back in the day we had nearby called WizzMasters where dozens of people would go to play PC games via LAN together.

PoE is more interesting to play alone. Most of the mechanics are designed for solo play. The presence of aurobots and other freaks opens up the possibility of partyplay, but ofc does not make it a priority. I doubt that it is interesting for someone five of us to run after DD as a player who is essentially playing alone.

Collect a petition, let's see how many people want a global game rework for the party play. I've heard lately they quickly solve problems 0.001% of the community.

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e1337donkey wrote:

I would say it's a mix of things that made that game great. The atmosphere, soundtrack, the characters. The class skill tree system with the itemization. Then you can throw on some multiplayer aspects like PvP and trading. Trading allowed items to have value and create chase items for players. Might even be able to throw in the social aspect of it as well. Playing video games with others and chatting was still in its early days back then.

All that being said, most people played by themselves. It was a primarily single player experience for most players. Same as this game.

This is probably the most fair reply. Respect.

As for the other people:

Why does GGG have to make this game only for those already playing it? If Asmons WoW streamers play both mmorpg's & arpg's, then theirs a audience outside of this games audience or forum. If pvp streamers are eyeing Lost Ark, they'd test this game too. If Final Fintasy'ers, see this game adds rp elements in a bigger town, bards, taverns, campfires, they'd transfer over too.

If Lazy Peons fanbase are panning this game, then mmorpger's are interested too, perhaps yes, waiting to hear of better multiplayer play 1st. Even in POE, I've talked to people in global chat, people who play Ragnarok Online private servers, Planetside 2, & Final Fantasy as 2nd or 3rd game, they play.

So this post isn't just for entitled pve players, nor players who already play POE right now. As for Diablo 2, I'm not saying the game was mostly single player, nor mostly multiplayer. Also not agreeing that it falls in the middle. The belief is that it " leaned " multiplayer. Battle.net proved that. Not that it was a multiplayer nor single player game entirely. Simply leaned that way more.

I was just watching a streamer druid, running with 8 other friends, in Diablo 2 resurrected beta. He was talking about; how he didn't like how Diablo 3 had only 4 party multiplayer. That Diablo 2's 8 players party is better.

(You know what's better than that? 12 player party, 20 player party. kek.)

(Diablo 1 was a single player game tho)

(Still morpg's / arpg's, prefer if they at least have Guild Wars 1 level of multiplayer towns. Hosting less than a major mmorpg 400+ people?, but hosting more people in large towns than just 10 wwhich POE has rightnow. Thus 60 - 100 people towns is the sweet spot)

(Also, I'd suggest POE 2 to make map rushers less viable, idk how, tho it's possible. Not every rpg game has rushing as a strategy)

To meet on fair ground, would to say; for POE to please both types. Visual immersive storyline progression, ambient atmosphere, dificult boss mechancis & varying bigger town npcs for guild pvp maps, plus social event fields near town(s). Both. More multiplayer options, doesn't mean less single player options.

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PrairieTutanka wrote:

Why does GGG have to make this game only for those already playing it?

They don't have to.

But you have to remember that PoE has always been a singler player game - first and foremost. Sure, you can party up and PvP if you want to, but there aren't (and shouldn't be) any clear benefits in doing so.

The moment they start catering to MMO players and PvP players, is the moment they start adding benefits and indirect requirement to those elements, locking content behind it - and that would be screwing their fanbase over in a huge way.

What draws a lot of MMO players to MMO games, is that you HAVE to party up to do certain content. You HAVE to include a DPS, a healer and a tank to do certain content. They CAN NOT do that here, and a lot of the reasons to party up (except "fun" and "social") becomes impossible, more or less.

Adding elements like that would also be "stealing" development time from their established fanbase. You should've been here when they announced the X-Box version. It was mayhem; "I didn't signe up for this shit" and "This isn't where my money was supposed to go". Telling players in a mianly single player game that A LOT of the future resources are going to be spent on PvP and MMO elemets is not going to sit well.

However, that does not mean that they shouldn't make the game more party friendly, because they should. And it doesn't mean that they shouldn't build on certain social aspects of the game, because they should - and they are, with some guild improvements over the next league(s).

But the main reasons? They CANNOT lock content, bosses, rewards or other stuff behind neither PvP nor party-only elements.

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Phrazz wrote:

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PrairieTutanka wrote:

Why does GGG have to make this game only for those already playing it?

They don't have to.

But you have to remember that PoE has always been a singler player game - first and foremost. Sure, you can party up and PvP if you want to, but there aren't (and shouldn't be) any clear benefits in doing so.

The moment they start catering to MMO players and PvP players, is the moment they start adding benefits and indirect requirement to those elements, locking content behind it - and that would be screwing their fanbase over in a huge way.

What draws a lot of MMO players to MMO games, is that you HAVE to party up to do certain content. You HAVE to include a DPS, a healer and a tank to do certain content. They CAN NOT do that here, and a lot of the reasons to party up (except "fun" and "social") becomes impossible, more or less.

Adding elements like that would also be "stealing" development time from their established fanbase. You should've been here when they announced the X-Box version. It was mayhem; "I didn't signe up for this shit" and "This isn't where my money was supposed to go". Telling players in a mianly single player game that A LOT of the future resources are going to be spent on PvP and MMO elemets is not going to sit well.

However, that does not mean that they shouldn't make the game more party friendly, because they should. And it doesn't mean that they shouldn't build on certain social aspects of the game, because they should - and they are, with some guild improvements over the next league(s).

But the main reasons? They CANNOT lock content, bosses, rewards or other stuff behind neither PvP nor party-only elements.

Yes I half agree with you on the aspect of that being wrong to do. However those examples are 2 different topics, when you dissect them.

1) Parties
2) Locking gear behind parties

2 topics. The answer is simple. Just update the parties. Without locking the gear. Easy solution. Make all items accessible to both types of players, via 2 different ways of obtaining it.

As for having a healer class, or more healer gems. Yeah while their figuring out how to make the fighting more engaging or rotation specific, for POE 2. That's something they may figure out. How to prolong combat enough for a healer class to be needed. How to scale the damage for such a class.

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PrairieTutanka wrote:

That's something they may figure out. How to prolong combat enough for a healer class to be needed.

They can't make a healer class needed :P

I get your point; options, both for parties and single players. That would require a lot of work, though. Lot of balancing. Lots of new items. So I don't know, think it would be more counter-productive to their current players, than it would be productive in terms of acquiring new players.

I don't see many players playing MMO's going around 'demanding' to be able to run the best dungeons/expeditions solo. I'm sure some MMO's let you do this, but I'm not a experienced MMO player (I will be working on that from Sep 28th :P).

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Phrazz wrote:

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PrairieTutanka wrote:

That's something they may figure out. How to prolong combat enough for a healer class to be needed.

They can't make a healer class needed :P

When you say "can't," do you mean with or without the context of other design choices they've already made?

It's perfectly possible to make healing skills viable in ARPG, because the four core archetypes for player characters are melee/warrior, archer/rogue, caster/wizard and summoner/priest. This last needs skills that buff, debuff or heal her minions in order to have something to do during combat, other than resummoning minions.

You can try to offer more than one each, but the five core types of priest casts would be:
1. (re)summoning obviously (should be cooldown or conditional, e.g. requires corpse, so #4 is viable)
2. aggressive buffs on their minions, or debuffs to enemy defense (default for farming purposes)
3. defensive buffs on their minions, or debuffs to enemy aggression (damage mitigation prior to contact — must be much stronger than #2 to be viable, plus makes priest feel priesty)
4. healing (damage mitigation after contact, also makes priest feel priesty)
5. minion movement speed/teleport (1-4 can require channeling/stationary but this cannot as priest would also need to move with her pack)

The problem in PoE is that, instead of getting the benefits of priest skills from a priest channeling them, the effects are generally made automatic, no channeling required. Summons tend to have high base regeneration, and if you want to supplement their healing in PoE you stack on an aura or take the Necro Aegis keystone, instead of casting a healing spell. As a result of this, summoners in PoE don't feel very much like priests, which is a disservice to the players.

In general, a heavy reliance on auras is a bad design decision, because that make the default source for group buffs auras instead of priests. You can either have people play the class, or you can have those same functions fully automated. The decision PoE made to go hard on auras, and especially on innate minion life regeneration per second, is why it's not really possible to fit a viable healing class into the game now.