Lately I’ve been shutting my brain off after work and playing a metric boat-load of [[Diablo IV]]. I’ve mentioned how [[Time to Time-Sink|time-sinks]] can be therapeutic before, which is where this has stemmed from. As I’ve played, though, I’ve been unable to stop thinking about the genre **Diablo** more or less invented, as well as the people who are fans of the genre. Because in truth, I find ARPGs and their fans to be absolutely baffling to me. I don’t say this from a place of antagonism. I just truly don’t understand what’s up. What I mean by this is that I have never seen a fanbase that so thoroughly hates the genre they’re playing more than ARPG fans. It almost feels like a bit at this point. ARPG fans hated **Diablo III**. They *despise* **Diablo IV**. They don’t like **Path of Exile 2**. They like **Titan Quest II** at the moment, but once that leaves early access I assume they’ll hate it too. Oh and of course they think **Last Epoch** is boring. Most of them like **Grim Dawn** though! So there’s that I guess. Why do ARPG fans hate so many ARPG games? It kind of reminds me of another topic I’d like to write about at some point, which is the push and pull between a gacha game and the fanbase that plays it. ARPG players want a game they can play forever, that has deep loot and itemization, and an endgame loop that is satisfying for 1000s of hours, and it needs to be given new “content” at a constant pace. It has to be hard, but it has to make you feel like a god. You should be able to clear a dungeon by just pressing one button, but also you should be able to dodge every move, but also it can’t be too fast, and don’t forget those complex builds! I enjoy **Diablo IV**! I get to play as a hot woman with a six-pack who poisons and/or eagles people to death with a glaive like Zidane uses in **Final Fantasy IX**. I’ve already put about 26 hours into it. I understand I’m not a hardcore player, and maybe when I get to it I’ll understand why people loathe it so. But I already feel like I’ve gotten my money’s worth, so is that really worth the animosity it and other ARPGs get hit with? I keep thinking back to this review, which is a big part of why I’m exploring this topic: ![[What is up with ARPG Fans Man-1754922016307.png]] I have started drafting this post on August 11th. 20 days ago this person wrote this sarcastic, negative review after playing **Diablo IV** for 79 hours. *And then they put in another 54*. They played this game they ostensibly hate for another 3~ hours every single day up until I began this draft. I worry for this person, and a lot of other ARPG fans. What compels this sort of response? Is it bait? It could be. But I think there’s something deeper at play here. ARPGs are fun because they’re basically dopamine blasts at their purest, almost caveman-like form. I *know this* when I choose to play them. I press buttons to make things explode into loot, which makes me stronger and stronger so I can press more buttons. It’s why I love games like **Phantasy Star Online**, **Disgaea**, and the rest. **Diablo IV** has the added appeal of feeling extremely weighty in its combat, which I find a lot of ARPG games to kind of lack. And my hot buff lady character, but I won’t belabor that point. The thing is, I can’t play **DIV** forever. I can’t play most games forever, but it seems that ARPG fans want to do exactly that. I’ve seen people on the **Diablo IV** subreddit talk about how they’re “casual fans” and then state that they’ve put 120 hours into the game. I’ve seen people say that there isn’t enough “content[^1]” in the game’s seasonal system to justify playing it. What is “enough” in this instance? How does a game in this genre ever have enough for its players to be happy when, as soon as a new patch drops, someone on YouTube gives them a calculated build to destroy everything in the game as quickly as possible? I realize I’m asking a lot of hypothetical questions right now, but I’m genuinely not sure what the answers are here. When it comes down to it, I feel like players of this genre have forgotten that [[The Endgame is Fun|the endgame is supposed to be fun]]. If I’m not having fun with a game, I’m just not going to play it anymore. I don’t care if I’ve played for 5 minutes or 50 hours; if I paid $5 or $50. Life is too short to be spending time on something you hate so much. In one of the last posts I looked at before I finished my dive into this rabbit-hole, I saw someone talk about **Diablo IV**’s player numbers. “The game is dying,” they said. Even putting aside the idea that “# of players = quality of game” being extremely silly: *17,000k* people were playing it at 3PM on a Wednesday in America. But okay, let’s say that’s a terribly low number, I’m happy to accept that. Have you considered that maybe it’s so low because the game is 2 years old, and people have moved on? And have you considered that maybe you should too? I mean that sincerely! Do something else with your time. Pick up a new game, or even a new hobby. Let games bring you joy again. Do not be taken in by the treadmill of seeing a number go up if seeing that number go up isn’t making you happy. You deserve better! [^1]: I put this in quotes because I loathe the word when it comes to art and its value to be honest, and I might have to write about that in a separate piece too lol.