Diablo IV Blog Update Offers Details on Season Three, Midwinter Blight Event | MMORPG.com

System · November 2023

Diablo IV Blog Update Offers Details on Season Three, Midwinter Blight Event | MMORPG.com

Blizzard shared details on new content coming to Diablo IV's Season of Blood, Season Three, and Midwinter Blight, the game's first seasonal event, in a new blog post.

Read the full story here

Neoyoshi · November 2023

So Diablo 4 released in June; and they are already talking about Season 3 content.

That right there is them 'showing their hands' in terms of how shallow this game really is compared to what came before it.

Season/ladder content in previous Diablo entries lasted a hell of a lot longer for pretty simple reasons- the replay value and gameplay loop was more self-contained with the game world and never needed a 'hard' reset to exist. The Ladder season was just complementing already engaging and highly replayable content

I truly believe Blizzard f'd up by completely abandoning 'randomized content' and random map generation for static open worlds with little cubby holes with 'random monster encounters'

KnightFalz · November 2023

How much profit did the seasons of prior Diablo entries provide? Such would be limited to whatever new purchases of the game and expansion each season led to.

How much profit do seasons of Diablo 4 provide? It can potentially be drawn from every prior purchaser of the game along with whatever new purchases of the the game and expansion(s) come with each season.

From a profit potential point of view, which method is more f'd up?

Blizzard done fixed Diablo real good, from their perspective.

What company wouldn't want to turn what was a game series of essentially burst profitability to one with the potential to have more bursts of such with an ongoing stream as well?

Scot · November 2023

"According to Activeplayer.io, Diablo 4 has averaged 5,274,267 players during the last 30 days as of October 6, 2023. This means Diablo 4 has lost around 1.3 million players in the last 30 days."

I don't think the player base is abandoning D4 I think overall it is stable, but I do think a significant number of players are reacting now they realize how little is being done to fix issues and add new content.

I would like to remind everyone that this game got a score on MC of 86, was that justified? Maybe I have not played, I am sure many on here would say yes it is justified. But to me that score plus a few overs I have seen over the last couple of years does mean we have to look into games more than ever before we buy.

Aeander · November 2023

Scot said:

I would like to remind everyone that this game got a score on MC of 86, was that justified?

Yes. If the issues that people come up with are the result of hardcore burnout, nitpicks, or personal preference, a score in the 80s and 90s can absolutely be justified.

Neoyoshi said:

So Diablo 4 released in June; and they are already talking about Season 3 content.

That right there is them 'showing their hands' in terms of how shallow this game really is compared to what came before it.

Season/ladder content in previous Diablo entries lasted a hell of a lot longer for pretty simple reasons- the replay value and gameplay loop was more self-contained with the game world and never needed a 'hard' reset to exist. The Ladder season was just complementing already engaging and highly replayable content

I truly believe Blizzard f'd up by completely abandoning 'randomized content' and random map generation for static open worlds with little cubby holes with 'random monster encounters'

New seasonal content is a bit like steak seasoning. Just because all a steak needs to be good is salt and pepper doesn't mean it wouldn't be even better with something more.

Also, some of us remember that we mocked Diablo 3 for not keeping pace with the seasonal content of Path of Exile. Blizzard took note.

Celcius · November 2023

Neoyoshi said:

So Diablo 4 released in June; and they are already talking about Season 3 content.

That right there is them 'showing their hands' in terms of how shallow this game really is compared to what came before it.

Season/ladder content in previous Diablo entries lasted a hell of a lot longer for pretty simple reasons- the replay value and gameplay loop was more self-contained with the game world and never needed a 'hard' reset to exist. The Ladder season was just complementing already engaging and highly replayable content

I truly believe Blizzard f'd up by completely abandoning 'randomized content' and random map generation for static open worlds with little cubby holes with 'random monster encounters'

The reason they are adding content more often is because D4 bad? Lol. Sorry the quote got messed up cause these forums suck

IceAge · November 2023

Neoyoshi said:

Season/ladder content in previous Diablo entries lasted a hell of a lot longer

Did you even D3 "bro" ?

Sorry, I had to say it lol.

Seasons in D3 were usually 3 months long. Starting from Season 20, they .. increased it, but not because..whatever you said it in your comment.

https://d3resource.com/seasons/

Even tho, the last .. 8 season were longer than previous ones, the median days of a season from 1-28 its around 108 days. Not even 4 months.

So your "lasted a hell of a lot longer" its actually you just..lying or having no clue wtf you are talking about.

D2 yes, they were longer, but again, not because of what you said. There was small changes/content in new Ladder Seasons in D2 back in the days and that's it. Almost zero new content. Just your..usually Reset.

So yea. 3 months per season is very common and acceptable for D4, D3, PoE, etc ..

ValdemarJ · November 2023

Sounds like they're digging in even harder with the MMO style grind and loot. I couldn't stomach hitting level 100 in Season 1, or after season 1 for that matter; very few people did. So, one of their big "repeatables" is a post 100 ride with a kill an uber boss entrance requirement, and it gives better rewards. That is MMO style looting, not ARPG to me.

Nothing about this, or any season, is really going to sound exiting until stop trying to make the game feel like a half-assed MMRPG.

Sovrath · November 2023

Scot said:

"According to Activeplayer.io, Diablo 4 has averaged 5,274,267 players during the last 30 days as of October 6, 2023. This means Diablo 4 has lost around 1.3 million players in the last 30 days."

I don't think the player base is abandoning D4 I think overall it is stable, but I do think a significant number of players are reacting now they realize how little is being done to fix issues and add new content.

I would like to remind everyone that this game got a score on MC of 86, was that justified? Maybe I have not played, I am sure many on here would say yes it is justified. But to me that score plus a few overs I have seen over the last couple of years does mean we have to look into games more than ever before we buy.

Maybe they just play the content once and move on.

I mean, if I were to play Diablo 4 I'd go through it once and then done. If an expansion came out it would be the same thing.

Not everyone plays these games continually as if they were an mmorpg.

JeroKane · November 2023

ValdemarJ said:

Sounds like they're digging in even harder with the MMO style grind and loot. I couldn't stomach hitting level 100 in Season 1, or after season 1 for that matter; very few people did. So, one of their big "repeatables" is a post 100 ride with a kill an uber boss entrance requirement, and it gives better rewards. That is MMO style looting, not ARPG to me.

Nothing about this, or any season, is really going to sound exiting until stop trying to make the game feel like a half-assed MMRPG.

The worst is how they did the whole level scaling in D4, where you literally get punished for leveling up and not able to catch up with the right loot drops.

Especially post level 50 and going into Tier 3, you really started to notice this where you suddenly feel less powerful with each subsequent level and not able to get the right drops for your build.
Which is problem number 2..... terrible itemizatio, because builds being entirely dependent on getting the right Legendary aspects, which are ultra rare drops. It's one of the worst itemization design decisions I have ever seen.

Diablo 3, for example, wasn't anything like that. Nor other popular ARPG's, where you actually feel more and more powerful when you level up and acquire better loot, where you get rewarded by moving up into Difficulty Tier. I just like the whole Difficulty Tier system in Diablo 3 way better, than how they have done it in Diablo 4 with just 4 Tiers and level scaling, which just kills any sense of progression and/or feel your character actually getting more powerful.

Neoyoshi · November 2023

I wouldn't be this hard on the game if i didn't care about it; i don't want to come off as a hypocrite- but i did enjoy the main campaign, i can honestly say the core hook of the game was never a problem (at least from what i could see).

My impressions of it right now come from the games launch period; which wasn't awful, but once i got to a certain point- progressively began feeling miserable. (mained Sorcerer)

Now i will be reinstalling it this evening and trying it out again, because i think it's only fair i see how much has changed since launch- but please understand, i'm a bit of an older person(not super old, but older), i was 17 when Diablo came out in 1996, i played a crapton of DiabloII:LoD, i dealt with a era of losing CD keys and having to rebuy Diablo 2 multiple times- i suffered through the mires of Diablo 3 and it's rocky but fairly pleasantly game life - my gameplay opinion and taste is going to be skewed towards a very particular brand of Diablo experience- notably 'randomised map layouts' and gear having locked-in levels.

I'd be playing D2:R if it wasn't for the fact that i do not want to pretend it's the early 2000's again and try to fake enjoyment or enthusiasm, i already tried and i couldn't bring myself to enjoy it.

So i want to enjoy a newer Diablo experience, but it does kind of feel like they created a very different type of game this time and just slapped the Diablo name on the package, because Diablo himself went out to buy milk and cigarettes.

I brought up the way D4's season content is being rolled out because it really does feel quick to me; but i'm not going to give up on it just because i disagree with it's direction.

JeroKane · November 2023

Neoyoshi said:

I wouldn't be this hard on the game if i didn't care about it; i don't want to come off as a hypocrite- but i did enjoy the main campaign, i can honestly say the core hook of the game was never a problem (at least from what i could see).

If there was one thing I did enjoy in Diablo4, then it was the main campaign. I did it two times on two different chars and it was excellent.
It's just that after finishing it, getting into Tier 3 and then the whole experience... it just all falls apart. It just becomes a boring grind, with boring loot and terrible itemization.

Neoyoshi · November 2023

JeroKane said:

Neoyoshi said:

I wouldn't be this hard on the game if i didn't care about it; i don't want to come off as a hypocrite- but i did enjoy the main campaign, i can honestly say the core hook of the game was never a problem (at least from what i could see).

If there was one thing I did enjoy in Diablo4, then it was the main campaign. I did it two times on two different chars and it was excellent.
It's just that after finishing it, getting into Tier 3 and then the whole experience... it just all falls apart. It just becomes a boring grind, with boring loot and terrible itemization.

This is the thing i really wish they would completely overhaul; there is just too much going on with item stats.

This Carbot video sums it up pretty well.

KroxMalon · November 2023

Seasons are the worst thing to happen to gaming, besides loot boxes which seem to be dying thankfully. It's an excuse not to make a decent game and story. Sucks that this generation made gaming about loot and epics. It was exciting in the Vanilla days of WOW, but it's gone too far. Game design and content make a game not loot. In a magnificent story an awesome weapon should be earned and won through trials and ordeals, not thrown at me from a firework in a fu@king box.

JeroKane · November 2023

KroxMalon said:

Seasons are the worst thing to happen to gaming, besides loot boxes which seem to be dying thankfully. It's an excuse not to make a decent game and story. Sucks that this generation made gaming about loot and epics. It was exciting in the Vanilla days of WOW, but it's gone too far. Game design and content make a game not loot. In a magnificent story an awesome weapon should be earned and won through trials and ordeals, not thrown at me from a firework in a fu@king box.

Seasons have always been part of ARPG's though, but yeah it's a bit of a double edged sword.

The negative side is, that you never get really invested in your characters, as they get shelved at the end of each season and you never touch them anymore. Often end up deleting them even to free up character slots.

Problem with Diablo 4 is that they tried to make it more MMO like with open world zone, slow long leveling curve (still slow for most even after 50-100 boost in Season 2), so most people never reach the level cap in a season.

Then they monetize the Seasons in Diablo 4 with Battlepasses, which means greed comes into play and Blizzard tries to rush Seasons, so people end up buying Battle passes more often within a year.
So as before a Season would last roughly 4 months, now in D4 seasons last 2 and half to 3 months. Which is just too short.

But yeah.... I had just wished they had come up with a different Seasons mechanic in Diablo 4, where we would all just stay on the Eternal realm, people having the choice to keep using and investing more time in existing characters and Seasons just adding new seasonal content and events on the Eternal realm.

Scot · November 2023

Sovrath said:

Scot said:

"According to Activeplayer.io, Diablo 4 has averaged 5,274,267 players during the last 30 days as of October 6, 2023. This means Diablo 4 has lost around 1.3 million players in the last 30 days."

I don't think the player base is abandoning D4 I think overall it is stable, but I do think a significant number of players are reacting now they realize how little is being done to fix issues and add new content.

I would like to remind everyone that this game got a score on MC of 86, was that justified? Maybe I have not played, I am sure many on here would say yes it is justified. But to me that score plus a few overs I have seen over the last couple of years does mean we have to look into games more than ever before we buy.

Maybe they just play the content once and move on.

I mean, if I were to play Diablo 4 I'd go through it once and then done. If an expansion came out it would be the same thing.

Not everyone plays these games continually as if they were an mmorpg.

This is what I think I would do and guilders think likewise so not enough are willing to invest the time in the game. It looks like it is going on the back burner now which is a shame, I really liked the fresh graphics look. I am not one for going back to a game with every expansion but I don't think most of them are that bothered about that side of it. I guess you could call this a downside of being only in mature guilds, maybe we are too mature?

KnightFalz · November 2023

Scot said:

Sovrath said:

Scot said:

"According to Activeplayer.io, Diablo 4 has averaged 5,274,267 players during the last 30 days as of October 6, 2023. This means Diablo 4 has lost around 1.3 million players in the last 30 days."

I don't think the player base is abandoning D4 I think overall it is stable, but I do think a significant number of players are reacting now they realize how little is being done to fix issues and add new content.

I would like to remind everyone that this game got a score on MC of 86, was that justified? Maybe I have not played, I am sure many on here would say yes it is justified. But to me that score plus a few overs I have seen over the last couple of years does mean we have to look into games more than ever before we buy.

Maybe they just play the content once and move on.

I mean, if I were to play Diablo 4 I'd go through it once and then done. If an expansion came out it would be the same thing.

Not everyone plays these games continually as if they were an mmorpg.

This is what I think I would do and guilders think likewise so not enough are willing to invest the time in the game. It looks like it is going on the back burner now which is a shame, I really liked the fresh graphics look. I am not one for going back to a game with every expansion but I don't think most of them are that bothered about that side of it. I guess you could call this a downside of being only in mature guilds, maybe we are too mature?

ARPGs can be played that way, but you won't get much time out of them with that approach. Longevity of play in such comes from making new alts. Seasons adjust that process by changing the conditions those new alts play through if the player participates in them. Replaying is essentially the core feature of this genre so these games best serve players that enjoy doing that.

Scot · November 2023

KnightFalz said:

ARPGs can be played that way, but you won't get much time out of them with that approach. Longevity of play in such comes from making new alts. Seasons adjust that process by changing the conditions those new alts play through if the player participates in them. Replaying is essentially the core feature of this genre so these games best serve players that enjoy doing that.

I have commented on this before, as soon as some reviews called D4 "MMO-like" players like me got their hopes up too high. But when you think about it, many MMO players like making alts and leveling them up, so I don't think this is an automatic turn of to MMO centric players. It is all down to how much replaying is seen as a grind, but then "the grind" is always the bogeyman of any game. Personally, I have played a lot of ARPGs but my interest wanes after bringing a few toons to max level. That said I loved those games, so D4 is till very much in my sights.

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