Diablo 4 developers gently suggest players should 'take a break', as the brutal grind continues to wear them down
As reported by Gamesradar+, a developer livestream last week featured an offhanded remark by associate game director Joseph Piepiora while they were discussing Diablo 4's seasonal structure.
«When you’ve reached all the goals and done the things you think are important, take a break, that's fine [...] we do the same thing,» he then goes on to add «when a new season [arrives] and there's new things for you to come check out, that's a great time to come back [...] that's exactly when you should come back and check out Diablo 4 fresh.»
That's a good mentality in theory, and it jives with a design statement set out a little earlier in the stream by Rod Fergusson, franchise general manager: «We want somebody who buys the game a year from now to not feel like they're a year behind [...] seasons allow us to have that fresh start for everybody.»
It reminds me of how Naoki Yoshida, director and producer of Final Fantasy 14, addressed the question of how to maintain motivation while playing. «Do come back and play it to your heart's content when the major patch kicks in, then stop it to play other games before you [get] burnt out, and then come back for another major patch.»
This idea has generated a lot of good will for Square Enix's flagship MMO because Final Fantasy 14 doesn't build itself upon any brutal grinds. You simply do the content, and then it's done. The same cannot, however, be said for Diablo 4.
In a thread titled «Longtime Diablo 2 Player Here — Diablo 4 Loot System is Just Not Fun», user Eastern-Track-8009 writes «I feel like after 40 levels or so in Diablo 4, the loot just got super repetitive and was merely micro upgrade upon micro upgrade.»
Meanwhile, Blizzard's latest clamp-down on ultra-rare items still has
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