The Path of Exile provides some good ideas for Diablo IV
Posted by Cadencealida on December 9th, 2019
Earlier this month, Blizzard caused a great stir and excitement in the official disclosure of Diablo IV. If Blizzard wants Diablo 4 to be as successful as possible, it will need to find ways to improve the game. But many changes have occurred since the release of Diablo III in 2012. There is currently one king of ARPG, the Path of Exile (PoE) for Grinding Gear Games. It succeeded in achieving what Diablo III could not achieve. It has a stable number of players, it has an integrated economic system, and allows players to freely trade between POE Currency and POE Orbs. It can copy (and exceed) the transaction history on Battle.net, and perhaps most importantly It has succeeded in creating a harsh and dim tone similar to Diablo I and II. This is the reality that Blizzard has to face.
Grinding Gear Games' most outstanding achievement is probably its level of interaction with the PoE community. Developers even host their own ExileCon, where founder and CEO Chris Wilson speaks directly to players. Through this interaction, fans can feel like they are a viable part of the community and its growth. PoE regularly introduces new game mechanics for new alliances, such as Bestiary, Delves or Incursions.
The Path of Exile also has a good reason to get players back: gambling. No, not a trophy box gambling-endgame system. It relies heavily on RNG, but it's so refined that it doesn't look fair. Players use various items to modify their affixes and gem slots. There is also an active economy, which revolves mainly around chaos and sublime spheres. Buy POE Orbs will give players almost endless builds, and the endgame production system also provides PoE life that Diablo III does not have.
Diablo IV needs to learn the lessons learned from the III season, and imitate the success of PoE by introducing interesting and novel concepts in each season, and incorporate it into the base game after the season. In this way, the game can continue to develop and provide more content for players.
