Image Credit: SelinaB / GamifiedLife, LLC
Burnout by Level 75 is Incredibly Disappointing.
Blizzard has some redesigning in their future to keep Diablo IV interesting for long-term players.
My husband and I have been so excited about Diablo IV since Blizzard offered beta testing earlier this year. We have taken every opportunity to play and have spent countless hours having a great time plowing through the game over and over again, thanks to the many play-through opportunities we’ve had during the two beta testing weekends, early release, the official launch, and now season 1. We even coined household phrases for when we have had a bad day and want to let off some steam with the game. We will say, “I’d like to do some Diabloing” or “It’s Diabloing time” or even “Want to do some Diabloing?” It’s silly but fun!
The Turning Point
Lately, we have reached a point in the game where the story is done, we’ve played the map events many times, and we’ve completed most of the side quests several times, due to the multiple playthroughs, and we just need to level grind to complete the requirements for Season 1. And things have gone from fun to mind-numbingly boring.
To be fair, in order to be a half way decent blogging team, we are more than the average gamers in terms of played hours but we are also not playing the game 8 hours a day, 7 days a week either. On average, we have probably put in 2-3 hours a night and longer 4 hour game sessions on Saturdays. During the beta tests, we did marathon game which was both insane and awesome at the same time.
Blizzard announced that they will be increasing experience in the next update, due out September 14, 2023. Yet, from all accounts, this is just for the season.
The Bigger Problem
I’m holding out hope that the update will help (a lot) but the bigger problem is that some of the magic from the Diablo 3 Rifts is gone. In Diablo 4, rifts were replaced with Nightmare Dungeons, which are just not as much fun. Yet, I can’t quite put my finger on what really makes them so different.
I think part of it is that in Diablo 3’s Rifts, players randomly changed dungeon enviroments several times before completing the event. You gained lots of loot, slayed loads of monsers, and were able to move quickly and most importantly, felt powerful yet challenged. In Diable IV, assuming you are trying to maximize your time and experience, you end up playing the same 4-12ish dungeons over and over again, slowly progressing in difficulty. (And don’t get me started on the poison effect that keeps distroying my sorcorer’s health even with potions and item stat upgrades.)
Today, was the second day of play that I literally started nodding off during a nightmare dungeon. I don’t think the increase in experience points is going to fix the issue that those dungeons just get old after a while. It might be time for Blizzard to go back to D3 and look at why those Rifts worked so well and take a page from their own playbook.
