That’s a rap for me regarding any serious playtime for S8. I may log on for game pass point reasons to get free stuff but I am ending the grind today.
Overall I found the season to be a bit too much of a grind for my liking. There was too much intentional slowing down through reducing player power, reducing exp gain, extending boos fights or standing around waiting for events.
Reducing the ability to target farm and lowering the amount of GA drops was also not a good thing. There were drops to be had locked behind an RNG mini boss and turning in the repeatable coffers. Fortunately they turned the NPC quest lady into a vendor for the extra spectral ash otherwise I suspect many players would struggle to upgrade gear in a shortened season.
Pits are still overturned and the gateway towards the only real meaningful progression you can make in the game. Everything is tied to glyphs and glyph progression. Players are forced to engage with this content more times than I feel is necessary to gain significant power. Progression needs to be made in other ways. Pretty much everything outside of the pit at endgame is side content. There is way too much emphasis placed on this one game mode and more needs to be done to balance the diversity of activities that reward player progression.
The return of Belial was a nice touch, but it all feels a bit contrived when it’s locked behind layers of farming plus RNG. For those that can’t grind hard in a season the actual engagement with the main seasonal theme is going to be minimal. Gating seasonal content is never a good idea because it can discourage players from engaging in future content.
Anyway enough from me. See you in July for S9.