If it feels like you’re getting left in the dust by other Diablo IV players, don’t worry: game director Joe Shely has revealed that the “significant majority” of players haven’t finished the game yet.
Speaking with a group of senior Blizzard developers in a new ‘campfire chat’ livestream series for the RPG, Shely said while many players were powering through the main storyline to reach the endgame, this wasn’t at all the case for most of the player base.
While a large portion of players have yet to finish Diablo IV, Shely said, “many of the people who are watching this stream, and our dedicated players, play through content much more quickly and have been experiencing this situation with the dungeons.”
If you’re wondering what the dungeon situation he refers to is all about, PC Gamer was quick to pick up that this was referring to a trend in players opting to grind Diablo IV’s normal side dungeons, as opposed to the Nightmare dungeons that were designed for the exact purpose of endgame grinding.
The Blizzard team indicated that they’d be looking to increase Diablo IV’s Nightmare dungeons’ rewards and XP, as well as making them much easier to access through fast travel with Nightmare dungeon sigils, to entice players to partake in them more frequently. Of course, as an added side effect, normal dungeon XP is getting nerfed to push players towards the intended endgame content, much to the frustration of some players.
The team also confirmed that it was “time for the buffs,” so hopefully there won’t be too many more nerfs to these dungeons for those looking for a simpler grind in their journey to the endgame.
The campfire chat covered a number of other changes coming to Diablo IV as Blizzard continues optimising the player experience. For example, Gems are set to be included in the materials tab as opposed to the regular inventory as of Season 2. A large Client patch, with 13 pages of patch notes, is also planned — with performance improvements incoming shortly.
Despite many players still dragging their feet through the initial Diablo IV campaign, the game has already surpassed 350 million hours played (probably largely thanks to hardcore players who have become completely Diablo-pilled, the absolute grind machines they are).
It’s reassuring to know that I, and many others, aren’t the only ones who are still only a little ways into the story – even if, personally, it’s mainly due to my knack of dicking around in-game instead of progressing along the actually intended and developed questline.
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