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Season 20 was the last time I played Diablo 3 seriously, and I remember the exact moment I reached a breaking point. I was in the middle of a greater rift, it could have been my fifth or fiftieth of the night, and I was watching Birds of Prey on my other monitor. Just after Harley finished confetti-shotgunning her way through the police station, I looked over at Diablo and realized I had not once even glanced at the screen for the last 20 minutes. I’d reached a p✱oint where I was playing Diablo 3 completely on auto-pilot, so I decided to quit.
I know Birds of Prey is a dope movie, but even so, if I’m so disengaged with a game that I’m just clicking and clicking without even looking at the screen, I should probably find a better use for m🐠y time. I still love the grind - I’ve got thousands of hours in Destiny to✅ prove it - but Diablo 3 is a Skinner box that steals your time without offering anything of substance in return.
I’ve played a lot of Diablo 4 over the past few weeks, and while it certainly has its issues, I’m just so glad it isn’t Diablo 3. It very easily could have been, too. A fresh coat of paint, better animations, and some modern monetization hooks like a battle pass is 🧸all it really needed to justify its existence. Almost 11 years after Diablo 3, I think fan🐷s would have been receptive to just more of the same - as long as it brought back Diablo 2’s skill trees, which seems to be the one sticking point players always bring up about Diablo 3.
But Diablo 4 is a very different game, and many of its changes seem to have been made in direct response to the exact kind of problems that pushed me away from Diablo 3. D4 is a slower game, and the c🅠ombat demands your full attention. Mobs are less dense, but deadly, and many enemies have deadly attacks that they telegraph so that you have time to get out of the way. Survivability is a much bigger focus now, and you can’t get away with building your character purely for dealing damage. The level scaling also ensures that you’re going to be challenged no matter what. Gone are the days of clearing rooms with a single ability and blitzin🐎g through dungeons in a matter of minutes. You actually have to play Diablo 4, which is a good thing.
Most of the complaints I’ve seen about D4 so far have to do with the paciꦕng, which I totally understand. People are already frustrated by the way towns are spread out so you have to spend extra time visiting all the vendors, and they don’t want to spend so much time fighting through each dungeon. People want to be able to instantly teleport to nightmare dungeons the way they could teleport into greater rifts in Diablo 3, and teleport directly to other players in their party rather than returning to town first to find their portal.
Players are always going to push for faster gameplay and more efficiency, but it’s important to remember that a lot of these changes are what make Diablo 4 what it is. Some of the friction in Diablo 4 has been created to intentionally slow the game down and prevent it from becoming the same mindless grind that Diab💧lo 3 was.
I’d like to see some QoL improvements. I don’t think you should have a cool down when you dismount your horse intentionally, especially ജif you were forced to do it because there was a cliff y♋ou had to climb. I also think the towns could shrink a little so you don’t have to spend so much time moving from shop to shop every time you go back to the vendor. But at the same time, I’m happy with inconveniences if they mean Diablo 4 gets to be a more engaging game. The best thing about Diablo 4 is that it isn’t Diablo 3, and I hope Blizzard sticks to its guns no matter how many people want it to go back.