While I said I would give Diablo 4’s post-launch seasonal model a shot, I found that I really have not been engaged with it at all past maybe 10 days after release where I already completed the battle pass and it felt like there was little else to do.
Yes, some of this is a lack of actual activities, Malignant Tunnels and one boss fight, the main problem I see with Diablo seasons is the fact that there is not really…actual loot to farm in a looter, which seems problematic.
This comes in two forms. The first is loot you can actually use in gameplay. The season launched with just a single new Aspect for each class, one that would be for a very specific build that you may not even want to use. The same goes for uniques. One per class, where essentially it’s just a harder-to-find Aspect with less ability to customize it. There were also two new neutral aspects and one uber unique that’s impossible to get.
The “loot,” I suppose, is Malignant Hearts, which set up unique seasonal builds for the duration of the season. However, once you got 3-4 you liked, there was no real drive to keep farming them, and I ended up with dozens and dozens I didn’t want to use because I knew what I was sticking with practically since week 1. None of this is terribly motivating to farm for any length of time.
The second aspect here is cosmetics, of which there are essentially zero. The battle pass offers a free track with the worst armor set I’ve ever seen in any Diablo game, and I am not exaggerating. The second set which applies to all classes is pretty good, but it’s just through achievement grinding through a paid battle pass, it’s not actual loot you’re trying to find.
Then we arrive at the twenty five different armor sets that are on sale in the shop. They cost $25-$35 in Platinum bundles, usually, and none of them are found out in the world. There are in fact zero new cosmetic armor pieces that drop in the world at all this season, only one or two random things like a Butcher-based horse. With five pieces per set, that’s 125 cosmetics in the store that do not drop in the world. Plus there are weapon skins and back bling and special tattoos as well. Even the uniques, including the new ones, do not have unique cosmetic looks to them, which is nuts. It’s right there in the name! Unique!
It is just wild to me that this is a looter that jams every single cosmetic piece of loot in the store, and has not even ten things to try to farm for a class in a season. And most of them will not fit your preferred build at all.
There has to be some compromise here as the live service space has evolved way too much since Diablo 3 started seasons, and those gave out better rewards too. Blizzard is going way too hard on the cosmetic shop and it’s a huge turn-off, even to a former cosmetics whale like me. Something has to change.
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