I’ve been playing Diablo for over 20 years, and this season is one of the most disappointing I’ve ever seen.
This is not due to the witch powers. The WD in D3 was great, and the powers are well done.
It has to do with the state of the game/class builds.
Barbarian: Run in circles and kill everything with EQ. Attacking is optional unless you’re pit pushing.
Druid: Snapshot.
Rogue: Snapshot/hit 4 buttons/second, hit skills in specific order.
Necro: OP builds (and no variety for leaderboards)
Sorcerer: Only a few builds can do any type of pit pushing, but firewall is almost impossible to play on a console - for console players - sorcerer isn’t a great class right now. The new uniques are a lot of fun, but pit 100 is an absolute slog with them. What should have been a fun season with new toys turned into using old builds instead.
In early D4 seasons, position, skill, using the right skill at the right time was needed for clearing NMD 90+ and finishing NMD 100 felt like an accomplishment.
The same could be said for clearing pit 150 in S5 or hitting AoZ 15+. That took some work, skill, and several weeks of playing.
Did you kill Lilith in S1-S5 on hardcore? Nice job! Did you kill her in S6/S7 - meh, she’s easy now.
This season is about hitting the correct buttons in the right order to snapshot runs or hit many buttons per second that builds are all piano based. Any semblance of skill has been removed outside of the very top pit pushers.
The last 2 seasons have been incredibly easy. I work FT and play a few hours before work. It took less than 25 hours to completely every step of the seasonal journey this season.
By week 2, I didn’t even know why I was playing d4. I finished every challenge by s5 from base game, and then when VoH launched, it took a month to finish all the new challenges.
As D3 seasons was also starting, I jumped into D3. I always liked rifts more than the Pit by a wide margin. The fun easter eggs of Whimsydale, Vault, Cow level. The randomness of Whimsydale and Visions are nice. You’re excited when you see a primal drop.
In D4, mythics are just another grind.
Button pushes, cooldowns, etc were a bit slower in the early seasons. And while the XP did need to be adjusted from S0/S1 - D4 has moved from skill/thoughtful play to embracing button mashing, snapshotting, and a very easy gameplay.
Please make it so you need some skill to play the game. Yes, D4 needs more endgame activities. It needs to make the pits actually fun to play. But most of all, it should make people think about strategy, builds, and not just embrace button mashing/snapshotting/exact skill orders for a build to work.