Diablo 4’s most frustrating endgame feature can never truly be fixed

Season 7 of Diablo 4 has frustrated a lot of hardcore players, but fixing the issues with loot is more complicated than they realize.

Diablo 4 has been a massive success, but the game’s seasonal content always becomes mired in controversy, with the pursuit of loot often being at the center of it. Unfortunately, this is a byproduct of what the game has become, and there’s no easy fix.

You see, Diablo games used to be about completing quests in a narrative-driven adventure where increasingly better loot enabled players to become stronger and progress in their journey. However, since Diablo 4 fully embraced live-service elements, the pursuit of loot has become the journey.

This creates a problem when it comes to player satisfaction, especially for those who start a new character every season, like it’s Groundhog Day. When a new season rolls around, committed players blast through to the endgame and strive to constantly find better gear. This becomes the sole focus – and an endless climb without a summit.

The endless grind

Once they max out their stats, finding better gear becomes much harder, and already rare drops become even more elusive. Players may endure hours of Helltides, hunt Whispers, and kill the game’s uber bosses over and over without ever finding anything that scratches their itch.

Their frustration compounds when they’re rewarded with mountains of loot, but none of it allows them to grow in power. Sure, every now and then, they’ll find something special, but as they ascend further towards godhood, these moments become increasingly sparse.

Back in Season 4, titled “Loot Reborn”, Blizzard overhauled Diablo 4’s loot system to make it more rewarding. They succeeded, and this helped lots of players find more high-end gear and have a good time. It meant that another tier of success was available to the more casual players, those who may play a new season for a while but then get bored and move on to something else.

The ones who stick around, though, will soon outclass this tier, and two seasons later their discontent is starting to show in the community. This puts Blizzard in a difficult spot. Do they make these super rare items easier for the hardcore players to obtain? If so, surely the same thing will happen again, and eventually, this will utterly break the balance of the game.

Or do they go back to the pre-Loot Reborn days and make it harder for everyone to find high-end gear, essentially leveling the playing field? This would increase the value of loot, but it’s unlikely to please those who have become accustomed to better things. It also risks alienating the casuals, who, after playing a season with every character class by now, might be finished with Diablo 4 until the next expansion.

Reasons to return

The fact is, simply making a new gimmick every season might not always be enough to tempt these players back. Not everybody wants to go through the slog of making a new character again and again. While some players love to do this, with some doing so without ever questioning it, others simply resent doing so – and have since Diablo 3.

So Blizzard has to strike a balance between keeping their hardcore crowd happy and making sure their much larger, but less committed, player base also doesn’t lose interest. Most Diablo 4 players don’t have hundreds of hours to pour into the same game every season and aren’t going to reach the dizzying heights of those that do.

Therefore, those who do find themself plateauing, and then stagnating once they get there, are likely to always get to this place eventually. No matter what Blizzard does, this destination is inevitable. The more a player succeeds in Diablo 4, the harder the next rung on the ladder becomes to reach. These players are also in the minority, even if they are a vocal minority.

It begs the question of whether the current approach to seasons in Diablo 4 is really the best one to take. While chasing loot has always been part of Diablo and always will be, have players become too fixated on it – and has the full embrace of live service elements enabled this?

While Blizzard may throw a bone at the more committed players, it’s far more likely to prioritize the needs of the many over the few. There’s a long wait until the next expansion, and fixing Season 7’s issues with loot could only create more problems down the road.