Why I'm Not Playing Diablo 4 - A Frustrating Trade Perspective

PC General Discussion
1

Dear Blizzard Team,

I’m writing as someone who wants to love Diablo 4 but I can’t bring myself to play it due to poor fundamental design decisions around trading that feel both half-hearted and user-hostile.

The Core Problem:

Your trading system exists in the worst possible middle ground.
It’s available enough that players feel compelled to use it, but so deliberately crippled that the experience is genuinely miserable. We’re still taking screenshots of items with our phones, posting to external Discord servers, and coordinating manual meetups in Kyovashad like it’s 2001. This isn’t challenging gameplay - it’s just bad UX.

Pick a Lane:

If you genuinely believe trading undermines the core loot experience, then disable it entirely. Make Diablo 4 a pure drop-based game. That’s a legitimate design philosophy and I’d respect the conviction.

But if trading is allowed to exist, then commit to it properly. Build actual infrastructure. Give us searchable listings, in-game item searches by stats, secure trade windows with proper verification - all the bells & whistles.
You have the resources to make a shining global standard of what trading should & can be.

The Real-Money Elephant in the Room:

Real-money trading happens whether you acknowledge it or not - you’ve just pushed it to sketchy grey-market sites where players risk scams and account theft. Meanwhile, games like EVE Online and your own WoW (via tokens) prove you can incorporate RMT safely without destroying game integrity.

And here’s a radical thought: offer separate server types. Solo Self-Found for purists who want pure drop-based progression. Open Economy servers for players who want full trading access. Ironman modes work perfectly in Old School RuneScape - this isn’t reinventing the wheel.

Why This Matters:

I’m not playing your game. I’m playing competitors with better QOL instead. And I’m not alone. The market is too competitive now for players to tolerate deliberately frustrating systems. “But it’s Diablo!” only carries so much weight when Path of Exile 2, Last Epoch, and others actually respect their players’ time.

You’ve built something with incredible potential - the combat feels great, the atmosphere is perfect, the endgame activities are engaging. But you’re haemorrhaging players over stubbornness about basic quality-of-life features that your competitors solved years ago.

The Ask:

Either fully commit to trading with proper infrastructure, or remove it entirely and own that design choice. This lukewarm middle ground where trading exists through time draining, soul sucking, grey market alleyways is killing player goodwill.

You’re Blizzard. You have the talent and resources to build excellent systems. You’re just choosing not to, and I genuinely don’t understand why.

A frustrated fan who wants to come back but wont degrade myself to your current poor Quality of Life service experiences.

16 Likes
2

why do you do that? Isnt windows+shift+S far more comfortable?

4 Likes
3

The fact that I need to take any screenshot at all and post it to an external third-party website as any part of a trade is deplorable.

You’ve addressed a microscopic symptom while ignoring the fundamental systemic issue.

Focusing on screenshot methods rather than addressing why screenshots are necessary in the first place is exactly the kind of poor bureaucratic response that keeps rubbish systems rubbish.

4

Goodbye and take care.

2 Likes
5

i mean, i dont have any issues with trading, hence why i dont have a lot to say on your matter. I was merely hinting that you can do it far easier.

Anyway, you are playing other games that are more suitable to your demands, which is nice i guess?

1 Like
6

why are you here with that response?
What’s your contribution to this thread regarding feedback over current systems?

3 Likes
7

Well we might get self-found mode soon and you can use that to not have trade and problem solved. I also wish we could get an AH but that is not going to happen.

1 Like
8

(post deleted by author)

9

Trade system feedback does often pop up, and this is one of the few places to express feedback to Blizzard staff.

Changes to trade have been implemented over the years, and if you’re now happy with trading, it’s perhaps due to changes that were previously implemented through feedback channels.
I’m sure most people respect how systems and functionality evolve which is why it’s so odd D4 is seemingly stuck in the year 2000 for some QoL aspects.

While you may be happy to know I can play other games, companies often understand there’s a certain formula: for every person who speaks up, it usually represents a multifold of people who don’t, which can translate to huge missed revenues - over an issue they are capable of not only solving but excelling in.

1 Like
10

The problem with RMT is that it’s a form of cheating. People will cheat whether or not trading is in the game. Saying, “well trading is an additional avenue where players can cheat” isn’t a good argument against allowing trading because if all facets of the game were taken out that could allow players to cheat, then the game wouldn’t exist at all. Trading is just a fun additional multiplayer part of the game that should be expanded upon.

Also, if the game had no trading it would barley be a multiplayer game. What would you do with other people that you can’t do by yourself if trading didn’t exist? Just pvp and group dungeons? We don’t really have group dungeons yet and we await the pvp support.

1 Like
11

To pad his post count.

Anyways, trading was addressed in recent interviews with developers from a few popular streamers. SSF will be in the works in the near future, but only for the sake of fair leaderboards. Blizzard being the kings of copy+paste, they should take inspiration from Last Epoch’s system.

4 Likes
12

Let’s be honest about something @OP

Let’s say that tomorrow there’s no limit on trade, already, so every item tradeable

Do you think the game will fix suddenly fly to the sky and no more frustrations for noone ?

More over do you think that the trillions of gold that some players have will be.. fair for others ?

Like, I can get takes that have personal frustration behind but I find it really hard to believe that the solution to D4 is allowing (unlimited) trade tbh :thinking:

1 Like
13

Parts of this echo feedback that’s legitimately been provided to Blizz persistently. Good on you for putting down your ideas, adding to the discussion.

What are you doing Blizz?

1 Like
14

(post deleted by author)

15

I can see your frustrations over some aspects related to trade, but those things are not what I’m trying to highlight here.

Some replies are already coming in with the first angle of ‘making your mind up’ over whether to allow or disallow trade - suggesting that Blizzard are seemingly moving forward with a solo self-found style of play. I will try that - I certainly will.
I can wholeheartedly get behind a grind fest with no trading and compete. That’s an angle I can respect, and it puts all players on an equal playing field.

Yet the other, more pressing angle in my opinion is this: if trading exists (and it does), then make it not horrible with proper infrastructure, awesome UI, and built-in functionality.

Right now we have the worst of both worlds: trading exists but requires external this, that, and the other, and takes so long to complete. It’s simply bad design and poor UX.

As for gold inflation concerns - that’s a separate economic balance issue that exists regardless of how good or bad the trading functionality/UI is.

My frustration isn’t that I can’t trade unlimited items. It’s that the trading that does exist is deliberately made as clunky as possible instead of having good quality-of-life features that D4 is falling way behind on.

2 Likes
16

There’s more than meets the eye I’d say. The problem with trade is - if want to encourage trade-like experience then drop rates of gear need be lower

If want to keep it “SSF” then drop-rate quality needs to improve a bit (not play 200 rounds of Pit or boss rounds to get a single Mythic, if that even)

The issue I have with gear (specifically) in D4 is there are no “increments” type drops, it’s either GG or nothing (especially once get up to T3, it’s super hard to get an upgrade unless fight Lillith and get the Mythic, and if it’s a good one you can work, if it’s a bad one, well, tough luck, have to play 30+ more Paragon levels to unlock/clear things)

That being said, D4 lacks the Charm/Idol/Jewelry mechanic (the advanced fine-tune things), arguably they can add a few more of those Chaos Perks as an item or rerun chaos armor into chaos gear (armor to armor, weapon to weapon, jewelry to jewelry, so it’s not broken/OP)

But again the issue is that they tried to “keep it simple” and not add a secondary fine-tune mechanic via gear but then as a result of that vear too much into multiplier optimizing

If they add a new socket type I could see gear work, especially if they find a way to make Rare & Magic items function eventually (trading or no trading)

1 Like
17

It would if they managed their Eula to a reasonable level.

Botting will undermine this until Blizz acts proactively.

So yes, it will likely address some of the issues but the leaderboard will still be dominated by Eula breaching until they make decisions on this.

Opinions will vary. Imo any leaderboard achievement is meaningless when it will be known that botting is an unmitigated competitive advantage in use. It’s actually likely to be worse in SSF because a) the trade option is likely gone and b) any player reporting of bots that takes place will also be gone.

The decision Blizz needs to make IMO is to drop the Eula or enforce the Eula. What will it be Blizz?

Either of these goes much further toward levelling the playing field.

18

I agree, current trading experience is miserable.
And i also agree witht he notion that either they have to improve it heavily OR just make it pure SSF.

Current trading is available but incredibly awful and not fun to use but still.. its there and you feel compelled to use it regardless of the hassle. I’m not gonna farm for 6 ohm myself when i CAN spend the time to trade for it even though its not enjoyable its way way way faster still.

Make it more user friendly and the game will be better off as well. An ARPG with a proper solid economy has better community engagement. A PURE non trading ARPG game tends to fizzle out into nothing (see D3), it just becomes a blip slowly but steadily.

SSF is good to have alongside. But what people miss is that SSF is more fun when theres is another game mode with trade and economy because it gives your char and your items a value even though you cant trade it. It just feels good.

1 Like
19

Lets be honest here stop making up a stupid scenario and then using that scenario to try and prove a stupid point of yours

21

Trading sucks in this game. OP makes good points.

1 Like