Diablo IV: Striking a Balance Between Hardcore and Casual Players
Examining the clash between Diablo IV's hardcore and casual audiences, unraveling the pivotal systems sparking debate: seasons, renown, and itemization.
This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment, trading, or legal advice. The views and opinions expressed herein are exclusively those of the author.
Today marks the release of Diablo IV Season 1, and it’s astonishing how quickly the game gained immense popularity since its launch just last month. Blizzard pulled out all the stops when it came to marketing the game, including TV commercials, social media ads, twitch drops, KFC rewards, and more. Diablo was everywhere. In turn, Blizzard announced that Diablo crossed $666M in sales in just six days, becoming their fastest-selling game of all time, outpacing World of Warcraft: Shadowlands.
These results weren’t entirely surprising considering the anticipation surrounding Diablo IV prior to its release. Many ARPG enthusiasts went as far as calling it a contender for game of the year, purely based on the pre-release developer blogs. Based on these blogs, it was evident that Blizzard’s primary goal was to appeal to as wide an audience as possible by deliberately designing the game for casual players. This involved building the game from console-up, incorporating increasingly simplistic in-game progression systems (quick leveling, occultist crafting, renown, etc), and implementing an elementary endgame. This was a seemingly smart decision by Blizzard since Path of Exile has a concrete lock on being the most mechanically advanced ARPG on the market.
However, when you take a historically hardcore genre and associated audience that appreciates challenging, skill-based gameplay and introduce them to an overly simplified product geared toward casuals, the developers make their job that much more difficult to satisfy players. And the opposite certainly holds true as well, introducing casuals to their first ARPG experience with the traditional hardcore-oriented systems will cause Blizzard some headaches.
And that’s exactly what is occurring. Hardcore players, while frustrated, understand that Diablo IV isn’t designed for them, yet they are longtime enjoyers of the IP, combat replayability, and overall satisfying grind. On the other hand, casual players have not hesitated to voice their dissatisfaction with certain aspects of the game’s systems that they were not aware of at the time of purchase.
These specific systems have sparked a surge of community backlash, as players have raised valid concerns regarding the game's progression mechanics, including seasons, the renown system, and itemization. These elements have faced significant scrutiny for their excessively demanding nature and perceived lack of consideration for the time invested by casual players. Consequently, a concerning amount of players have expressed their intention of quitting the game, ultimately second-guessing their $70+ purchase.
This evolving scenario provides a fascinating case study that explores the convergence of traditional ARPG mechanics with the expectations of a new generation of players. In this article, we will delve into the realm of ARPG seasons, the renowned system, progression concerns, and itemization. Additionally, we will examine the reasons behind the community's discontent, explore the viewpoints of long-time ARPG players, and propose potential solutions for Blizzard to consider in order to mitigate the growing tensions.
The Issues
Seasons
Diablo seasons are updates that occur every quarter, bringing fresh content to the game such as engaging quest lines, refreshed meta, new skills, and overall mechanics. However, to experience the seasonal content, players must start from scratch by creating a new character and resetting their progress. This becomes problematic, especially considering that only seasonal characters can contribute to the progression of the battle pass, which numerous players have already pre-ordered. This stands in contrast to MMORPGs, where expansions frequently increase the level cap for existing characters, motivating players to level up while discovering new content, and getting ready for challenging dungeons and raids.
The overall distaste toward seasons was an unpleasant surprise for Blizzard and many legacy ARPG players, especially since seasons are present in several modern ARPGs including Path of Exile and even previous Diablo titles. Interestingly, despite Diablo 3 having seasonal content and being one of Blizzard’s best-selling games, there wasn’t any significant community backlash toward this system. This suggests and possibly confirms that Diablo IV, for many players, is their first experience playing an ARPG with seasonal content.
In contrast, returning ARPG players have expressed their sincere disagreement with these new players and have voiced their enjoyment in seasonal content which contributes to the intended lifecycle of ARPGs.
Returning players view seasons as a system that contributes to a long-lasting and fulfilling experience, offering the following benefits:
Camaraderie - Players who have completed previous seasons come back online, and a vibrant camaraderie is established, fostering an enjoyable and immersive experience.
The Journey - The focus is on the journey rather than the destination. When players embark on a new season, they eagerly anticipate a leveling experience that is meaningfully differentiated, requiring them to utilize fresh mechanics and methods to compete (e.g. introduction of new classes, meta refreshes, and diverse dungeon affixes).
Barriers to Entry - The seasonal system fosters a welcoming environment by allowing players to start over together, reducing the intimidation factor and alleviating the fear of being left behind. It serves as an entry point for newcomers to the game, ensuring that everyone can participate without feeling disadvantaged.
Replayability - ARPGs are renowned for their replayability but they can sometimes become stagnant after a brief period, unlike MMORPGs that place significance on endgame activities. Seasons, however, inject a renewed and revitalized experience, effectively extending the lifecycle of the game. This novelty cycle keeps players engaged and ensures that the game remains dynamic and captivating over an extended period.
Regardless of the arguments from both sides, it’s in Blizzard’s best interest to form a compromise between the two camps. On one side, there’s the casual player base that doesn’t dedicate too much time to the game but values their progress. On the other hand, the hardcore player base advocates for a more traditional approach and want Blizzard to cater to their preferences.
By finding a middle ground that addresses the concerns of both casual and hardcore players, Blizzard can strike a balance that accommodates a wide range of player preferences. This compromise may involve implementing systems that allow casual players to progress at a reasonable pace while providing more challenging and rewarding content for the hardcore audience. Such an approach can foster a more inclusive and harmonious community, ensuring that both player segments feel valued and heard.
Renown
The renown system in Diablo IV plays a crucial role in influencing worldbuilding within the player community and enhances the core gameplay experience. It is entirely intended to be straightforward and simple, yet a gateway to additional mechanics. However, for many players, it can become a tedious and time-consuming system.
Within the renown system, players complete 6 different tasks to earn “renown points” that unlock bonus XP, skill points, and most importantly, paragon points. Paragon points provide players with a means to acquire passive skills for their characters, ranging from enhanced attributes like intelligence, willpower, and dexterity, to class-specific bonuses such as fortified damage or increased minion damage. The paragon system is an intuitive way to create a playstyle that players uniquely desire, like focusing on dps, survivability, versatility, etc.
The system encourages world-building by rewarding players for various activities such as discovering waypoints to enable convenient teleportation, completing side quests and dungeons, and stumbling upon random altar statues scattered across the map, each waiting to be uncovered and explored. But since the Diablo map is vast and expansive, it takes time to discover and unlock each of these elements, creating an unnecessarily long, not-so-fun experience.
The primary issue with the renown system closely mirrors that of seasons. With each new season, players are required to begin anew with their renown progress, effectively re-accomplishing objectives they have already completed. This system can make players feel as if their time invested is not being appreciated since they are essentially redoing previously completed content. Blizzard's intention behind this reset is to promote world-building and exploration when fresh content is introduced.
Moreover, the incentives provided by the renown system often do not align with the needs and priorities of the players. As previously mentioned, achieving renown involves discovering altars scattered throughout the world, completing side quests, and engaging in dungeon runs. However, much of this content is not essential for reaching a character's maximum level. Altars merely offer minor world buffs, side quests yield minimal XP gains, and while dungeons constitute a significant aspect of the game, there is no requirement to explore all 150+ of them. Additionally, the renown system introduces a gatekeeping mechanism by requiring mastery to unlock 20 crucial paragon points, which creates a disconnect between the forced in-game content and the natural incentives for level progression.
Itemization
The most recent cause of debate among the Diablo IV player base revolves around the scarcity of ultra-rare items, or uber uniques, which have become a significant point of contention in the game's itemization system. The ongoing debate started with a tweet from Diablo IV’s Lead Class Designer, Adam Jackson.
There are a few points to note from Adam’s tweet that have caused angst.
There are uber unique items that are exceedingly rare and extraordinarily challenging to obtain. Even after accumulating over 500M+ hours of playtime, the community has only confirmed less than five instances of these items dropping (excluding Blizzard’s patch glitch which rewarded ~140 uber uniques to players). The odds of acquiring one of these six items are so incredibly slim that players would have a better chance of winning the lottery or getting struck by lightning (RIP minmaxers).
These rare items can drop from defeating level 85+ mobs, regardless of whether they are encountered in dungeons or in random world encounters. In Diablo IV, the game mechanics are designed to allow lower-level characters to engage with higher-level mobs in a forgiving manner. Consequently, a level 70 player rarely encounters a level 70 mob, especially since mobs that are three levels greater than the character grant a significant 25%+ experience bonus. In reality, that level 70 character is often facing level 85+ mobs. As a result, obtaining BIS gear does not necessarily require the character to be at the maximum level, which inherently diminishes the motivation for players to progress their characters to level 100.
Technically, a level 100 character can spam level 85 mob dungeons to increase their chances of obtaining these rare drops, leveraging the speed at which they can clear the dungeon.
There is a noticeable disparity between gameplay difficulty and the quality of loot drops. For instance, completing a tier 50 nightmare dungeon with level 104 mobs does not guarantee better loot drops compared to completing a much easier tier 31 dungeon with level 85 mobs. Surprisingly, players can obtain BIS gear by participating in world events such as Helltides or defeating Worldbosses, which are considerably easier than nightmare dungeons, especially when playing solo. This counterintuitive itemization system poses a significant drawback for many Diablo IV players, particularly considering today’s new season, where acquiring these items remains pointless due to character resets. If the game did not have seasonal resets and allowed for trading, this system might be more acceptable.
Solutions
Seasons
Considering the simultaneous release of new content exclusively available to seasonal characters, we propose making the same content accessible within the eternal realm. This approach would allow players to continue their progression with the characters they have invested time and effort into, enabling them to explore improved, more balanced, and exciting new content. Through this solution, we can potentially increase player satisfaction and reduce churn caused by gamer fatigue. Furthermore, as the eternal realm evolves into a dynamic and breathing world, players should have the freedom to advance their battle pass through both the eternal realm and seasonal content, based on their preferences. Maintaining a live gameplay experience and preserving associated progression systems, such as paragon points, increased item level, and battle passes, will result in a more user-friendly game mode, aligning with Blizzard's original intention for Diablo IV.
Renown
The straightforward solution to address the community's concerns regarding the renown system is to eliminate the requirement of re-completing the system each season. Alternatively, Blizzard could consider repurposing the easier components of the system to align with the natural level progression of players, such as discovering new dungeons or exploring different parts of the map. However, having to rediscover the altars of Lilith or repeat side quests feels like an unfortunate waste of players' time. We believe that not only is this the simplest solution to address the concerns raised by the community, but it is also the most effective. Implementing such changes could prevent a significant amount of player churn, as many influential members of the community have expressed their lack of motivation to solely progress in new seasons due to this system.
Itemization
The loot dropped from mobs needs to reflect the associated gameplay difficulty. Moreover, the level difference between a character and the mob should impact the loot quality, a system proven successful in MMORPGs over and over again. For instance, a level 90 player completing level 93 dungeons should have a greater chance of obtaining high-quality loot compared to a level 95 player completing level 95 dungeons.
Furthermore, item level consistency should be improved during player progression. It’s frustrating when endgame content rewards players with items that were obtainable 20 levels prior. As someone who is level 100, receiving loot with item levels ranging from around 680 to 810 creates a significant discrepancy. Moreover, it's disheartening to find that around 90% of my drops are below an item level of 800.
In terms of drop rates, we believe that uber uniques should drop more frequently, especially considering seasonal content resets. While a robust trading system can justify the current drop rates, most trading activities revolve around relatively insignificant items. Therefore, increasing drop rates and introducing a minor RNG component for the item level of uber uniques could be a simple yet effective solution. Allowing the item level to vary between 810 and 830, for example, would ensure that an 810-level uber unique is still superior to ancestral unique items, while a rare 830-level item provides even greater benefits.
Lastly, focusing on uber unique drops and their associated obtainability, we believe that Uber Lilith should guarantee an uber unique item drop, similar to how early-game campaigns guarantee legendary drops. Uber Lilith serves as the final and ultimate challenge for players after reaching level 100. It’s the most mechanically demanding boss in the game and requires some practice to overcome. Yet, the drops from this boss encounter have been lackluster, to say the least. Ensuring a guaranteed or significantly increased RNG chance for an extremely high-level ancestral unique or uber unique (particularly due to seasonal resets) would make logical sense for Diablo IV.
Conclusion
Diablo IV's release has sparked a lively debate within the community, highlighting the challenges of catering to both hardcore and casual audiences. The game's success in terms of sales and marketing efforts cannot be denied, yet it has also faced significant backlash from players who feel that the design choices favor a more simplified and casual experience.
The issues surrounding seasons, renown, and itemization have been at the forefront of player dissatisfaction. To address these issues and reconcile the interests of both player segments, a compromise is needed. Blizzard should consider making seasonal content accessible within the eternal realm, allowing players to continue their progression and explore new content without the need for repetitive resets. Repurposing the renown system to align with natural level progression and addressing the consistency of item levels during player progression can enhance the overall experience and sense of accomplishment.
As Season 1 releases today and continues for the next three months, we hope that similar changes outlined in this post are made to provide an overall more favorable playing experience that sustains the player base. By implementing these improvements, Blizzard can foster a more inclusive and engaging environment, ensuring that all player types can find enjoyment and longevity in Diablo IV.