After trying to fill out a recent survey from Blizzard, I closed out of it due to many of the questions not really representing my feelings on the current state of the game, nor having enough characters to truly write out a response. So this will serve as my feedback, much of what will probably account for naught due to the fact we are getting a Roadmap before season 8 for the next few seasons, probably taking us to the second expansion.
D4 has been an enjoyable enough game to play each season, and see the evolution since release. However, I do feel it’s kind of a mess in areas. I’d like to highlight three: 1) Seasonal Flow/Endgame, 2) Original game systems not keeping up to the standards of evolved game. 3 )Itemization.
Seasonal Flow/Endgame:
I feel like the seasonal flow and endgame are at odds with each other, and the endgame activities themselves are at odd with each other and do not have the best of flow. Endgame flow is better now than at launch, but feels stagnant in terms of; to get A, do 1, to get C, do D, etc.
For seasonal, the seasonal zones take me out of doing the endgame in order to interact with the seasonal mechanic. Seasons were presented to take a page out of the current state of Diablo 3’s seasons book; a season specific theme/mechanic with a storyline played in game as opposed to flavor text in the patch notes. S1 did this aspect well, despite being one of the weaker seasons. With S1, like with D3, I could interact with fighting malignant and getting the hearts in most content (at least, once they patched the Wrathful in a good state). Season 2 introduced the Seasonal Helltide Zone, which became the best place to farm the blood to level powers, but I could also still find Blood Fountains in Dungeons to give a bunch. Season 5 allowed Elites killed anywhere to give reputation for the seasonal reward board. S6 forced us to use consumable potions on a timer to farm reputation, which worked terribly until they patched it. With S7, we are relegated to the Seasonal Zone/Dungeons to farm Rot for purchasing and leveling the majority of the season powers.
Unlike Diablo 3, Seasons in D4 have generally been gated to a Seasonal Helltide, invoking a grind that pulls you away from the other grinds you need to push into the endgame systems and higher difficulties. With D3, I can do most content and interact with the theme, such as the current D3 theme where the Crucibles required to get your season powers can drop anywhere. I’m near Paragon 220 this season, with two characters and 9 Legendary Glyphs and I have not touched Kurast Undercity, nor have done Helltide beyond Season Journey objectives.
This leads into the next issue, flow of endgame. Pits are fine, though not as good as Greater Rifts in D3 and the Map Selection variety is lacking (better since S6 though adding some Nahantu dungeon maps). NMDs are decent for the Mats farming, with Hordes as an alternative, but now feel less rewarding for fighting the boss. Kurast Undercity serves as a multi farm function, but feels more annoying to do for uniques/mythics than simply farming the boss mats and running Lairs. Also, without another scaling activity, this leaves only the Pits for pushing Paragon as well as the sole Glyph leveling activity.
I don’t have anything necessarily concrete with this, but Diablo 3, despite having less endgame activities, has a better flow. Even Diablo 2, with it’s pretty much non-existent endgame, has a better flow. With D3’s current state, you Bounty for the Season Journey, get your needed caches (RRoG, Gloves of Worship, etc), and while you are doing those, you can farm the keys for Ubers, do Visions to get mats, item drops, bounty mats, and GR Keys. You can do normal Rifts for the same things as Visions. Open world can spawn portals to Cow Level, Greed’s Domain, or Pony Level. Multiple things to farm that flow well into each other to ultimately farm and Push Greater Rifts, leveling your gems. With D2, monsters have loot pools and Treasure Classes based on Area Levels, and you can target types of items based on this, such as Nightmare Andariel for SoJ. D2R adds to the mix with Terror Zones, giving some scaling based off of character level.
- OG Systems behind:
D4 has an issue of original game designs not catching up with the current game designs. While this is better since expansion, there is still work than needs to be done. D2 had the same problem as well when the game evolved into 1.10 and beyond (even though D2R 2.4 did some work to improve the issues), such as the issue of being forced to choose between multiple elements and doing crappy damage or doing good damage but having to deal with immune skipping/merc killing immunes due to synergies, which also left behind many OG skills for only niche purposes (like PvP). And example of what I mean by this, is the Paladin Skill Fist of the Heavens. Originally, this skill could be leveled as an aid to killing Physical Immunes for a Melee Pally, or as a means to kill Oblivion Knights while under the effect of Iron Maiden. With synergies, this skill no longer had room to be leveled, and due to it’s limited targets it could damage, was hard to build a spec for.
In terms of D4, The Paragon Boards and Glyphs no longer serve the original purpose of the launch game. These systems functioned under the premise of a slower paced character specific leveling journey, which we no longer have. These systems were never perfect, even for the original purpose. Pathing through the boards is tedious, and due to build guilds, is mostly a solved puzzle for the major meta builds. I preferred the simplicity of D3’s Paragon, despite the fact that after 800, your efficient choice was just to dump points into main stat. The Glyphs requiring specific stat pathing in a range around it was also never good, but due to the slower pace of the game, you could get by with a weaker glpyh meant for utility until you leveled your powerful ones to 15. Now, you are left with a bunch of glyphs that generally remain useless, many not even catching up to mechanics changing (such as Necro minions getting full stats instead of partial, leaving the secondary bonus on the minion glyphs with armor and resistances, sort of useless).
With Paragon being shared now, the current glyph system not being universal is a pain point for alts. With D3, Legendary Gems could be shared, in D4, there is no such system for sharing glyphs, despite many of them being the same across each class. Not only that, but you have to collect them all on the alt, despite being able to path Paragon through 5 boards if you had already leveled it that high, then they don’t even always drop from the source you level them in like the GRs in D3. This of course, can be cheesed by leveling alts with caches, which will drop the glyphs.
Another aspect I feel no longer serves the original purpose, is skills and how builds function. D4 was built under the premise of a slower paced journey, with more methodical action combat. Hence, why it retains the builder/spender system of D3, as well as an increased focus on Cooldown and rotational based skills. With having higher monster density, and now a more current D3 based progression speed, it would be nice to have some more builds not relegated to CD spam and short burst duration buff/utility CDs. In D2, if I invested in Shout Skills and their synergies, they had a meaningful duration. In D4, I get a couple seconds more max in an already short duration for full investment. Even in D3, Barb shout duration was more meaningful. I’m not saying CD abilities are bad, but I’d like to see more playstyles that are not centered around them or short burst skill. There has been some work over the seasons on this, but not enough to really engage me to play more than a couple of characters a season; I’d really love to see a D4 Barbarian closer to the D3 WW Barb with BK Swords or a D2 Strafe Amazon, or a D2 Zeal Paladin, etc.
- Itemization:
Itemization in D4 is a mess. D2 is the GOAT in this regard (despite the flaws of runewords overtaking it since 1.10), and D3 is notorious for the sets. I almost prefer the original launch itemization we had for D4 compared to what we have now. There are a bloat of useless legendary powers as well as useless uniques already in the game. There are too many multipliers is a huge issue, and the other is that items are more build defining than they are build empowering. D3 had this issue, but Kanai’s Cube allowed for a mix of multiple set pieces and legendary powers to create builds; in D4, we’re stuck taking multiplier legendary powers and multiplier uniques to make builds, and empower them through masterworking and tempering. Even D4 Runewords lean too much into multipliers for some builds. Example, I was contemplating a WW Barb this season using the two Barb Shout runes to automate my shouts for my buffs as well as combining with Vocalized Empowerment for Fury Sustain, but I would have to give up Quakes, and without a viable alternative for the multiplier bonuses you get with quakes unless I used Ground Stomp to create them (which would go against the reason of the shout runes), I abandoned the idea.
Another issue D4 shares with D3 is the loot hunt aspect revolves around simply getting higher legendary affixes and higher rolls of the same gear you already are wearing for your build. Primals with D3, and D4 has Mythics and Greater Affixes. D2 on the other hand, had Jewels and charms, as well as runes with base bonuses outside of runewords to find.
Anyways, long read, but really wanted to put this to words in feedback.
Like an “abstract” of thesis 
