I think that you’re probably correct here and it’s kinda weird to be an “Eternal-only” player. On the other hand, most people ain’t them. Most people embrace seasons and actually prefer to play that way so that they don’t just get bored at the top and stop playing altogether. Hell, most people will probably embrace the partyfinder, too, despite all the moaning about it. I don’t really mind that there’s a small proportion that play only on Eternal though. The only thing that bothers me is some of them expect the game to develop in a way that anybody could have told them it would not, given the long history of Diablo expansions and the changes they result in, especially as of 2014 and the release of RoS. Everyone should basically expect that their gear is made obsolete with each expansion and then be pleasantly surprised if one of these future expansions doesn’t do that. 
Frame it and hang it above the bed.
To keep the narrative honest, I beleive most eternal players have expressed that they expect big changes with expansions and old gear being made obsolete with (at a bare-minimum) an Item-Level increase.
There is a big difference between every 3 months and every year.
Frequency, frequency, frequency…
Otherwise, eternal is just seasonal without a seasonal mechanic.
The timing of it all was just unfortunate into this expansion. Too much too soon. But it needed to be done.
A “we aplogize to eternal players, this isn’t our intention to have such massive changes to gear happen every season”, would have gone a long way. But the silence and the backlash from seasonal players on the forums makes the message read as, “don’t play here for eternal, we don’t care”. Which is fine, if that is how they intended for it to be taken.
I think if there is a dip in #'s right now, they will have assumed it is just due to the short season. If you are an eternal player, just keep sitting out until they address the issue or the game naturally finds a place to somewhat settle.
This, I can agree with. The constant shakeup because they released the game a year before it was finished has caused everyone on both sides of the product a whole hell of a lot of issues, and to be honest, I have sympathies for most involved, even the lower level devs on marching orders. 
Seasonal only players doesnt even belong to Diablo franchise at all , go back to your Fornite hole or whatever is the putrid lair you came to Diablo franchise .
Focus in seasonal only players , thats how this game became a massive failure after the huge sales of the 1st week back in 2023 .
Seasonal doesnt matter? Come on man. Its most the economic driving force in the game. You might not like it but reality is reality. Bliz gets rid of seasons and the game is dead in a day.
Primarily the desire to never have to redo their character with each new season. 3 months feels like an eternity for most seasonal players, but for those who may play infrequently they may never get their character the way they want on seasonal.
This is the idea, anyway.
Linking Eisenhorn’s comprehensive post to this discussion. Perhaps it should be its own thread. Panoramic perspective incoming:
Wow… you must have not played D3 at all. You know the best selling one out of the entire franchise. Even if you combined all of them together including D4, it would still not be close.
And you also must have not even bothered to properly familiarize yourself with how D4 was and is marketed.
It’s hard to respond seriously to such an absurd take.
The production and monetary model of this game is seasonal. It was always advertised as seasonal. It has been reinforced time and again by the devs that it is seasonal.
You are welcome to hold your breath for it to change. But I wouldn’t recommend it.
I honestly don’t know how many more examples you need to see that eternal and pvp are always secondary to seasonal.
I want to first say I agree that Seasonal Realm is important to Blizzard’s current plans but D3 prior to RoS, D3 was actually on its equivalent of the Eternal Realm.
“It wasn’t until the expansion that seasons were introduced – and IIRC it wasn’t even immediately afterwards but several patches into RoS – after they’d introduced a bunch of new sets – that D3 Seasons came along.”
Let’s not play revisionist history. Just because this propaganda is repeated over and over, doesn’t make it true. The franchise has ebbed and flowed more than you are proclaiming.
Not everyone plays the meta. There are a lot of fun builds. I’ve been in many seasons with the same build and theoretically just improving my items. But that’s not what happened.
No different than telling eternal players to quit.
Such an odd dynamic here. I dont think id tell pvp or hardscore or ssf people to quit.
First they came for the pvp.
Then they came for ssf.
Then they came for eternal players.
Then they came for seasonal and there was no one left to speak for the seasonal players.
Get my drift people?
I don’t know who you were replying to in reference to revisionist history but I fully admit to that very point.
Meaning to respond to LordTovek.
hopefully seasons go pay only. no more of this optional free to play seasons.
no need to hope, this will never happen.
He’s definitely trolling, haha.
it already IS according to some people that play seasons. they keep stating that is where blizz makes their money.
You say season will be pay only, I say it wont happen.
how can I make this anymore clear???
no, I said hopefully it DOES go pay. you say it won’t. I say people are claiming that is where blizz makes it’s money. off of seasonal content/players.