Please don’t take this negatively – I had an amazing time in Seasons 0, 4, 6, and 8 and I’m genuinely excited for Season 9. After hundreds of hours, there are just a few things that eventually made me stop playing or caused my friends not to start the season at all.
Gameplay Flow:
Improving the overall flow is key. Actions like using portals in Kurast or The Pit feel unnecessary. The Kurast totem, for example, should activate automatically when nearby instead of requiring a click. Any click that can be removed without sacrificing meaningful decision-making is a huge win for flow.
Bosses – especially Duriel and Andariel – should not have long invincible phases. Instead, apply a temporary 400% damage barrier (as an example). Players with enough damage should not be forced into downtime. Too often, Diablo 4 feels like you’re waiting, not playing.
Reward Systems:
Co-op dungeon content is currently dead, high-tier Pit runs are not rewarding, and Kurast rewards don’t scale with performance. There’s too little incentive for player skill. Compared to other ARPGs (even Diablo 3), there’s a lack of impactful “punch” in the gameplay.
I’m hopeful that difficulty will finally match the quality of drops, and that new dungeons will bring real, challenging, and rewarding content. I need the “punch” (mentioned in campfire)
Risk vs. Reward:
We need more mechanics that introduce real choices. For example, in Infernal Hordes, affixes could exist that risk ending the run (e.g., -50% resistances but 3x Aether per Hellborn). These decisions make content more engaging and strategic.
Builds, Tooltips & Bugs:
Much of the game currently relies on brute-force repetition. Many high-end players just grind the same content thousands of times, which burns them out after a few seasons. Too often, success is about gear checks rather than actual build or player skill.
Tooltips are often misleading. You can’t just trust a Unique or Legendary’s description – you need to test everything extensively, which stops casual players from experimenting.
A potential solution would be showing estimated DPS or a min-max damage range (single target) per ability. Also, bugs like double-dipping or trigger issues either make or break builds. I understand some bugs are complex, but this leads to unreliable gameplay.
Suggestion:
An internal simulation system could help. You’d test combinations of aspects, glyphs, and abilities with set conditions (e.g., 100% crits, overpower) and compare expected vs. actual results. Weapon base values could be normalized (e.g., 100) to ease comparison. This would help catch scaling issues even before a PTR/Patch and lead to more balanced patches.
I know this would take work – but it could be a major step in the right direction. I just want to share ideas that might help improve the game further.