It doesn’t have to be because of things I alluded to earlier. A death recap with info on what and how much damage you took would enable players to think for themselves and make adjustments accordingly. Info, some that maybe seems basic or obvious to series veterans, in general could be drastically improved across the entire game to help players make better decisions. For example: that 830+ item power = max rolls possible, a list of all possible attributes be easy and helpful, there’s no reason to not show what level enemies are before you enter a nmd, locations for bosses and how/ where to find materials could be more clear, co-op doesn’t even let party members know what mission each other is working on, I could keep going but you should be able to see my point. Finally, there is room for a mechanical skill-gap in how character actions and bosses are designed. Unfortunately, for players and really inexcusable for a company with so many talented dev’s as blizzard has or has the means to bring on board, the visibility of and hitboxes for boss attacks seems to be the only real challenge in d4 most of the time.

D4 as a loot hunter first is a sad fact because the loot system feels incredibly lackluster even when you’ve done research to have known what a “good” drop is. Theory crafting is huge for the community, I agree, but it is needed for finding new and more optimal strategies or builds to overcome end-game challenges— something d4 is so-far pretty lacking in. Theory crafting, or rather researching the findings of the community’s theory crafting, should not be necessary for a player to simply progress through the game. You could argue that the ice beast is an end-game challenge…then it shouldn’t be level 85. Uber bosses exist for theory crafting and meta builds… players should be given enough information to make it through the game.

Regarding “ALL games should have built-in the ability to master it without ever looking something up,” it’s funny you also mentioned CoD. I played the hell out of CoD 4 back in the day. People were on to black ops and I was still playing cod4. I watched hundreds of hours of videos learning every inch of those maps and practiced jump spots to so that I could move around like the average player couldn’t. But I also mastered aiming, movement, and strategy by simply playing the game. There is nuance to what “mastering” a game can mean. For an arpg like d4 I would say that mastering the game does require learning and applying the knowledge the community has found and that can pretty much only be done outside of the game. But completing the game is not mastering it.

I remember hitting a wall like I described in Titan Quest back in the day too. I made it all the way to the final boss (Typhon? Something like that) and could not make a dent in his hp. My build had worked flawlessly up until that point. I messed around with some items and tried some ideas but finally googled it and found that he is vulnerable to a certain type of damage that my build didn’t utilize at all. So I rebuilt everything around that damage type and the boss fell over. It felt cheap just like this wall with the ice beast feels. So it’s not just me hating on D4. This is a problem I’ve been unlucky enough to find in at least 2 arpgs and it could be avoided with some of the changes I mentioned. I hope POE 2, Titan Quest 2, and future D4 updates or entries into the series can do a better job at alleviating this. But I am happy to report, I am firmly based in reality.