Diablo 4 can make a lot of demands on your time (Picture: Blizzard)
A reader explains why he’s stopped playing Diabo 4 and why he finds the structure, and its demands on your time, so frustrating.
I hadn’t played a lot of Diablo until this year, but I thought I knew what it was about. I played some co-op Diablo 3 but never owned the game, so I thought I’d give Diablo 4 a go from the start and be there from the beginning. I really regret that decision.
Diablo 4 is a very odd game. It’s clearly very good and very well made in terms of the action, the graphics, and all the deep amount of abilities and powers and everything. However, for some reason, it has the mentality of a mobile phone game, where it’s constantly trying to trick you into doing mindless, repetitive tasks every spare moment that you have.
With mobile games they do that because that’s all there is, but Diablo 4 is a really good game and the way it’s structured, with constantly having to redo the same, or more or less the same, mission or area again and again is so annoying. It reminds me of Destiny, which I could never enjoy for long and I guess this is because both games are live service titles.
Diablo 4 isn’t really about the story, but I was having fun with the campaign, while most of the stuff I was seeing was still new, but once you beat the basics the endgame becomes this weird slog to level up and get all the rare loot. You begin to realise that Blizzard probably think this is where the game actually starts and yet that’s exactly where I lost interest.
Everything you have to do is so complicated, not in the sense that you can’t understand what you’re meant to do but that you’ve got these long lists of things to accomplish and it’s all just busywork towards finally getting something new to play with… which will immediately lead to another shopping list of things to do.
It’s too much like hard work. I feel like I’m running errands the whole time, not saving the world from an ancient evil. It’s even worse because you know the game will never end and some excuse will be found for fighting the same bosses and monsters again and again.
It all has the grind of a boring day job and when I heard that the new season was even worse, and you had to make a new character to play it, I just checked out. If Diablo 4 was a movie you’d say it could be saved by a good editor but because that’s not how games work, you’re stuck with a game that’s great fun in the moment but an absolute chore long term.
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I don’t see it changing either. A lot of people seem to be happy with the way it works, since it is very good at making it seem like you’d doing something, even if real achievement is constantly just out of grasp. Although, even if it was half as popular as it is I’m sure it makes an absolute fortune from microtransactions.
It’s not for me though, I’m cashing out and do not plan on returning. If there was a similar game with a different structure, and less demands on your time, I’d be interested but I’m sure if one does come to prominence, it’ll be just as desperate to use up every waking moment of your day like Diablo 4.
If this is the sort of thing Sony is going after with all their new live service games then I have got a bad feeling about the future of this generation…
By reader Jonti
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A reader explains why he’s stopped playing Diabo 4 and why he finds the structure, and its demands on your time, so frustrating.
