Diablo 4 crossed $600 million of
revenue within the first five days
on the market. This has made Diablo
4 the fastest selling game of all
time for its developer and
publisher, Blizzard. Making it also
more popular than the previous
installments in the Diablo series,
reeling in many new players to the
ARPG genre altogether. While
reception for the game has been all
things considered generally
positive since launch, recently
players of the game have
increasingly become more negative
and less fond of Diablo 4. This is
partly a result of more and more
players reaching endgame, which in
its current state has some problems
that we will discuss in this video,
but for some also the realization
that Diablo 4 is an ARPG that draws
its long-term existence through
seasonal content, backed by the
idea that you make a new character
every season. Rod Ferguson, whom
oversees the Diablo franchise,
confirmed this as well in a tweet.
Responses to the tweet were very
mixed. For players familiar with
previous Diablo games and the ARPG
genre, Diablo 4 was a very popular
game. It wasn't anything new. This
seemed like obvious news, as they
have experienced similar systems in
the previous installments of the
franchise. But for the hordes of
new players that the game has
drawn, it did. Many couldn't even
believe that such a mechanic exists
in the first place or that it is in
this game. Some responses to Rod's
tweet went then as following. Gotta
be honest, as a new player, I don't
see myself grinding like this
again. If I have to start from
scratch for season 1, I'm likely
done maining Diablo. And I know
there's a ton of people in the same
boat. I care about my current
character. I'd just say... It if I
lost. This is not going to resonate
well with a lot of the more casual
players. You're turning off a large
percentage of the player base. Why
did I even start playing then? I
should have waited for season 1 to
start first. What a scam. I have
zero desire to start over again if
it means my character keeps
becoming useless. Well, it was a
cool few weeks. Diablo is a great
game. Unfortunately, developers
refused to make a better seasonal
system, so this game has officially
died for no reason other than
developers like torturing players.
Cool, so cool. I hope the game sees
a huge dip to force developers to
change this. And many more similar
type of responses could be found in
the thread. As you see, tension
would raise as a result of Rod's
tweets and it led to many outlets
covering the conversations that
took place on Twitter and informing
everybody that Blizzard confirms
the need to create a new character
every Diablo 4 season. Which in
turn was mocked by veteran players
since this seemed like it was
stating the obvious. Which in turn
lead to more heated discussions
about seasons in Diablo 4 in other
places. Making the subject of
seasons a trending topic for the
past few days. The main argument
from players that don't like the
seasonal system can be summarized
as following. If every few months
my character and with that all my
time and effort becomes completely
obsolete, then what's the point of
even playing? While players that
are familiar with seasonal content
and in fact enjoy seasons respond
to that that it's all about the
journey of leveling, gearing, and
making your game. And that's why
I'm here today. I'm here to talk
about the game. I'm here to talk
about the game. But when you take a
look at theory and terminology in
business, you'll actually find out
a lot less if you're a Rest
Following, like all apps out there,
here. But to really understand why
such a divide has transpired in the
first place, we need to understand
how seasons work. How seasonal
content works is that every season
you create a new character to
experience the season-specific
content of the current season that
is taking place. The seasons will
introduce new quests and lore, but
also specific season-bound concepts
and ideas that can change the way
you level, your gear, and
abilities. that you have. Generally
speaking these season specific
mechanics can for example lead to a
faster leveling process or a way
that makes you more overpowered
than is possible in the base game.
Aside from the season specific
content there's also a Diablo 4
battle pass which is tied to these
seasons. The battle pass can be
progressed by playing the seasons,
the free portion of the battle pass
can give you in-game advantages and
the paid portion of the battle pass
will in turn earn you cosmetic
items and things of that nature.
Your old characters do not get
deleted every time you start
playing a new season which seems to
be a common misconception
currently. Instead they will go to
the eternal realm which is also the
realm that currently all our
characters are on. You can still
play your old characters anytime in
any way you want if you wish but
just not with the new seasonal
content. While not having your old
characters deleted is a sign of
relief for a portion of the player
base that oppose the idea of
seasons there's obviously still the
overarching argument that making
new characters every season in
order for you to experience new
content still technically kills off
your previous characters because
you simply just can't use them to
experience the new content. On the
other hand new seasons can be a
good reason to try out a different
class, try out new builds and play
in a different way as a result of
the season specific content.
Generally season specific content
is meant to be a refresher with
some kind of twist to the gameplay
loop as at some point you have done
everything anyways regarding the
base game so this twist is meant to
give you a fundamentally new
gameplay experience. All in all you
could say that the divide is caused
by two fundamentally different
types of players. Those that are
attached to their character of
which obviously the idea of making
a new character every few months
isn't going to resonate well with
compared to those that are attached
to the journey rather and
essentially are what was previously
the dedicated Diablo 3 player base
so in a sense these will be the
core players that keep the game
alive. However Blizzard had a much
more aggressive campaign of
promoting the game compared to
previous games even endorsing
companies like KFC and mainstream
celebrities to make the game more
aggressive and more fun. And that
is good because Diablo 4 also
caters to this new population of
gamers as it's a very welcoming
game and not overly complicated to
get into. Thus it's only logical
that the grain draws an entire new
population of gamers that have
never played an ARPG before leading
into these new types of clashes
between different types of players.
The problems that some people have
with seasons might be exacerbated
by current problems plaguing Diablo
4 and the general state of endgame.
Which brings me to the next point.
Problems with endgame. The specific
portion of leveling that has been
described as bland and even tedious
by the community has mostly been
the leveling experience from level
70 to level 100 give or take. At
level 70 you will most likely have
world tier 4 unlocked and there's
not really much to look forward to
between level 70 and level 100. The
problem is really as simple as
that. At level 100 you obviously
have uberlith but those 30 levels
between 70 and 100 which do take a
significant time to level compared
to the first 70 levels is
essentially the same as the first
70. So you can't really get to
level 100 without the level 100.
Some elements that might contribute
to Diablo 4 endgame not feeling
meaningful might be that there is
no real reason to push high
nightmare dungeon tiers when
leveling or even at level 100 as
there is no reward structure
implemented that rewards you for
reaching said high tiers in the
first place. Then you can also get
a lot of your desired gear that is
the best for your build
specifically or almost the very
best at a relatively low level.
Really the moment you unlock world
tier 4. So that's So it could be as
early as level 70 to say level 75
which makes the gearing process
pretty mundane as well in that 70
to 100 bracket. When you have
already good ancestral gear with
your desired stats while you're
like level 75 what are you going to
be looking forward to in the next
25 levels? Upgrades to your already
good gear just boils down to small
percentages of increases to your
stats. It is not exciting.
Ultimately this problem is the
result of the loot tables being
just too random. You getting that
perfect ring that makes you never
look again at another ring from a
random easy weak mob that you
killed at like level 70 shouldn't
be a thing if you want to keep
itemization interesting from level
70 to 100. That fourth primary
emotion you get when you get
Guardage to climb that tower while
you're at level 77. At the same
time the current loot tables don't
reward you for doing more difficult
content. That enemy that oneshots
you in a Nightmare dungeon isn't
more interesting to loot than a
random enemy that you oneshot. And
yes, there is a really good chase
item that you can grind for but
they are so rare that you will
never see them anyways. What also
won't see is you becoming a,"Den
ellos no institution truly powerful
as you getting stronger is offset
by the enemies that scale with you
as you level. Naturally thanks to
how scaling works in this game. Not
to mention that classes are not
balanced. Some classes only have
one viable end game build while
others have multiple. And then the
build diversity for these classes
in itself is also just too sparse.
You will see that a lot of players
are catering to one specific build
style for their class and the
numbers do reflect that. So there's
also a discrepancy to be found
there in regards to class balance.
What isn't balanced
either is the need to do the
renowned grind every single season
which many players have been vocal
about and generally the renowned
grind has been described as tedious
and egregious but thankfully we can
cut down a bit on the renowned
grind as you don't have to do all
of it for example the alters of
Lilith are permanently unlocked
once you get them and they will
also stay active for your new
characters so it could be something
to work on if you haven't unlocked
them yet the alters of Lilith
provide individually small bonuses
but if you unlock all 160 of them
then communitlately speaking these
alters will provide you extra
useful stats for your character
that can for example help out in
getting paragon requirements of
rare nodes as well as provide you a
nice boost for any new character
and the map will also stay
uncovered once you have export all
of it for all your future
characters so while there's a
significant portion of the renowned
that you will have to do every
single season at this point in time
these two elements have been
confirmed to transfer over to new
characters and with that make the
renowned grind a bit less tedious
is it enough to fulfill the player
base regarding the renowned grind?
all together knowing that you will
for instance still have to do a
bunch of side quests scattered all
over the map every season well
opinions on that vary but this is
currently the state of the renowned
grind now while the last few
minutes might sound a bit
pessimistic the good news however
is that everything i just mentioned
can be fixed relatively easily i
will be giving some examples that i
think that personally could work
out nightmare dungeons can get much
better loot and rewards by fixing
the loot tables classes can be
balanced by tweaking numbers
obviously that is a good thing but
balancing and new play styles
emerging happens all the time in
these type of games new content
gated behind higher levels or even
world tier 5 which apparently clues
for existing have been datamined
can be introduced at say level 85
which can be an incentive to keep
leveling and make that leveling
process from level 70 to 100 more
fun as there will be something to
actually look forward to halfway in
that leveling bracket that would
then also make gearing more
exciting again between 70 and 100
as a new world tier means that we
can obtain a lot more content and
we can also get a lot more content
from the player as well as the
player can obtain a new type of
gear that is an upgrade to the best
gear that we currently already can
obtain as low as say level 70
regarding scaling the solution here
might be from the player instead of
a complete overhaul of the current
system the paragon boards hold a
lot of power that you will notice
as you get into very high level
brackets there are a bunch of these
types of nodes that increase your
power multiplicatively and getting
multiplicative increases as
indicated by the x in the end game
is a huge source of power
that you can actually get from the
paragon boards and it's a lot
easier to get from the paragon
boards than say world tier 2 as for
those that are leveling in low
levels you will notice more of the
scaling as you can get these type
of power increases from the paragon
boards all in all i think two
current main aspects that is making
the community mad can be tied
together if leveling in itself
becomes more fun and the problems
with the game are worked on as the
highest priority then that could
mean that there will also be
generally less problems with the
idea of her starting every season
for both seasons as well as new
players if leveling is fun and
something to look forward to then
generally speaking more and more
people will be willing to do it
every season if leveling is tedious
and boring then why would you want
to level once let alone every
season the developers have
announced that big balance patches
are coming which can be the start
of a positive trend of the game
becoming better and better if the
developers listen to the variety of
complaints continue to improve the
game across the board then that
could only mean that we're
currently playing the worst version
of diablo 4. all in all we should
probably wait longer before we draw
major conclusions about the game
and the game itself if you're not a
fan of the game then you should
definitely check out the video
description for more details about
diablo 4 being optimistic however
is not a bad idea at all
considering it's not just a
coincidence that the game reached
its current popularity in the first
place