In preparation for Season 1 of the Diablo IV ladder, Blizzard released an update that significantly impacted characters’ damage output. This has led to the unfortunate effect of completely nerfing most builds and ramping up the difficulty while slowing down the pace and loot contained within in-game events like Helltides.
In a Reddit post currently sitting with over 10,000 upvotes, community members in the r/diablo4 subreddit voiced their displeasure with the recent update, with one user stating,
I just don’t understand why they want to make this game more of a chore. Who approves these changes??
Another user stated,
My problem is that they seem to caught up in “balance” and not actually trying to focus on what’s fun. It’s like every change and balance is just being made by people sitting in a room crunching numbers rather than playing, experimenting, and feeling what makes the game more enjoyable.
Other threads have started criticizing the game, specifically the new update for destroying the fun many had with the title just two days ago.
This has also resulted in a noticeable decline in the game’s Metacritic score, with the User Score now sitting at a paltry 4.6/10.
On Twitter, most players are lambasting the announcement of the new patch in the comments, with much of the same feedback and criticism found on Reddit.
Adam Fletcher, the Community Development Director for Diablo IV responded to the criticism, stating,
We have been hearing feedback from players regarding some of the changes in 1.1.0 for DiabloIV. We are going to have a Campfire Chat later this week on Friday to talk more about it. We will have more details/timing in the next day. Thanks again for the feedback!
While this certainly is a setback for the highly-popular ARPG, we’ll have to wait and see whether its impact is long-lasting or whether new game mechanics in Season 1 will complement the changes that have been made.
We’ll be following along with the story in our news section.
