Diablo IV’s Next Season Promises Easier Level Grinding To Win Back Players

Diablo IV’s Season of Blood goes live October 17, and it’s aiming to inject some life back into the loot RPG with blood-sucking foes and quality-of-life fixes. The game’s developers promise players will level up 40 percent more quickly than last season, potentially paving the way for more fun and less grinding.

During yesterday’s live stream, Blizzard revealed season two revolves around fighting off blood-thirsty hordes and using their health-stealing abilities against them. Players will gain access to 22 new Vampiric Powers that can be activated using new Pact Armor, acquired throughout the season. Currencies called Standalone Pacts and Cleansing Acids will let you rework the armor you find to make sure it aligns with the Vampiric Powers you’re using. It’s a whole new kind of buildcrafting economy infused with spooky vibes right in time for Halloween.

But the real promise of Season of Blood lies in how it aims to reduce player burnout, making it easier to hit level 100, and have fun ripping through nightmare dungeons and new end game bosses as a super-powered leech. Players will get more XP, and Nightmare dungeons will be more streamlined. Here’s a preview of the relevant changes:

Experience and Monster Levelling

• Decreased the time spent to reach level 100, making the journey about 40% faster. The experience gained from killing monsters at level 50+ has been significantly increased and rises steadily as you level.
• Prevent Monsters from being less powerful as character level increases by making Monsters in World Tier III and IV match the current player level at a minimum after Levels 55 and 75 respectively. This increases the overall experience of levelling, making it much smoother.
• Incenses now grant a bonus to Experience and persist after death.
• Increased the potency of Experience bonuses (Elixir, Season Blessings) by making them multiplicative with the World Tier bonus.

Nightmare Dungeons

• Expedited the demon slaying process as Nightmare Sigils now teleports you directly into the Nightmare Dungeon.
• Avoided some players not getting Nightmare Sigils from Dungeons that have no final boss, Nightmare Sigils are now rewarded upon completing a Nightmare Dungeon instead of final boss defeat.
• Objectives have been removed from some Dungeons, only defeating the boss is needed to defeat the Nightmare Dungeon.
• Multiple Nightmare Dungeon Afflictions have been updated.
• Massively reduced backtracking by placing all Dungeon objectives on the critical path of a dungeon, making them much harder to miss by taking a wrong turn.
• Many dungeon layouts have been redesigned.
• Improved the overall readability of Traps by enhancing their overall visual effects and reducing their crowd control.
• Endcaps have been added to ensure Dungeon layouts don’t feel too linear.
• Paragon Glyph experience has been increased.

It all sounds great, and will hopefully prevent more players from stalling out in the back-half of the race-to-100 grind. But the rewards for getting there are also getting more interesting. Season of Blood will add five new endgame bosses to Sanctuary, with the chance to drop specific pieces of Unique and Uber Unique loot. They are: Grigoire, The Galvanic Saint, Echo of Varshan, the Beast in the Ice, Dark Master, and Echo of Duriel. Each boss will have a specific way to summon them, and carry a unique cosmetic. Other endgame activities are improving as well, with cooldowns for Legion Events and World Bosses getting reduced, and the rewards for Helltide chests increasing. Even Dungeon Events are getting more monster density.

I’ve only touched on some of the new content and changes coming in season two (the rest is outlined over on Blizzard’s website), but it paints a clear picture of a live-service action-RPG that seems to be moving in a more rewarding and less tedious direction. Shortly after Diablo IV’s release, the developer said it wanted players to feel empowered to take a break and later dip back into the game at the start of a new season, without feeling like they had fallen behind. As someone who fell off of Season of Malignant early on, that’s definitely the feeling I’m getting with Season of Blood. Hopefully the new improvements coming make it easier to hang on for the full ride this time.