ADiablo 4player has put together a list of design elements that Blizzard implemented in pastDiablogames but left out of the new release. Now thatDiablo 4has been available for a week, at least via early access, players have grown comfortable with the gameplay. In doing so, some have noticed certain features fromDiablo 3or evenDiablo 2that are absent fromDiablo 4. It’s unclear if these decisions were made intentionally or not, but someDiablo 4players have grown frustrated all the same.
What makes the situation complicated is how differentDiablo 4is compared to its predecessors.Diablo 4is both always online and a live-service title. Where past releases have had major multiplayer components, significant design decisions were made based on quality-of-life issues for the offline single-player experience. WhereDiablo 3might implement a feature to save players time,Diablo 4might choose not to because live service games carefully manage how much time is required to complete certain tasks.
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Reddit user Communist_Pants has put together a list of quality-of-life issues they describe as “time-wasting design decisions” that Blizzard had solved in past games but left out ofDiablo 4. To grab players' attention, Communist_Pants calls attention to one particular missing feature in their post’s title. They note thatDiablo 3allowed party members to teleport to their allies by right-clicking their portrait.Diablo 4players can’t do that, instead requiring players to create a town portal, travel back to town, allow their teammates to use the portal, and then teleport back to the action.
The list includes several such examples of theseDiablo 4time-wasting design decisions. Other examples include splitting the repair vendor and blacksmith salvaged into two separate NPCs, placing players' stashes so far away from Waypoints and vendors, the ability to set a default town portal location,gems taking upDiablo 4inventory spaces, typing “/r” to reply to a whisper, and some items requiring players scroll down on their item information to see some statistics. In other words, there are a lot of small but surprising problems Blizzard appears to knowingly have introduced.
There are issues beyond negative changes Blizzard has made frompastDiablogames toDiablo 4, though. One notable criticism listed is a lack of an easy way to see all ofDiablo 4’s in-game spawn timers, whether for events, world boss spawns, Hellfire, or otherwise. Players have to wait for icons to appear on their maps, and then hover over them to get more information. A simple list of these timers would be a massive quality-of-life improvement.
What’s so frustrating forDiablo 4players is that it’s unclear if Blizzard made these design decisions with the intention of limiting players or not. It could very well be that Blizzard’sDiablo 4team is simply learning as it goes, and quality-of-life improvements will come in time. Yet it’s also possibleBlizzard put these limitations inDiablo 4with intent and no improvements will be made. Hopefully, Blizzard will be transparent about its design decision-making to help giveDiablo 4players some peace of mind.
Diablo 4is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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