Summary
- Diablo 4 Season 8 will introduce significant difficulty changes to address player concerns about the game becoming too easy.
- To make the zero to hero journey more satisfying, fewer Legendary items will drop while leveling in Season 8.
- Endgame players will also face challenges as reaching the highest Torment tier will be more difficult.
Blizzard has revealed that Diablo 4 Season 8 will make some significant changes to the game’s difficulty. The journey to Diablo 4‘s endgame has become too easy for many players in recent Seasons, and Blizzard is seeking to address this.
For many players, Diablo 4‘s endgame is where the game truly begins. The problem is that with every new character, players still need to wade through the early game content to get there. This has led to many experienced players rushing through this content, finding the most efficient ways to reach the endgame as fast as possible. This isn’t a problem for every gamer, but it doesn’t seem like it’s the experience Blizzard wants for the majority of its players.
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In the latest campfire chat discussing the Diablo 4 2.2 PTR update, design director Colin Finer pointed out that early game redesigns that came with the Vessel of Hatred expansion have “sort of gone down the drain in terms of how fast players are chewing through some of the content,” with players reaching the maximum level much quicker in Season 7 than previous. According to Blizzard’s numbers, it took players around 15 to 17 hours to reach Level 60 in Season 6, compared to just nine hours in Season 7. Blizzard claims that the initial journey in the game has “missed the mark” in this regard, with the plan being to “take a look at the 1 to 25 experience and just smooth that out a little bit.”
Diablo 4 Season 8 Will Be More Difficult Than Previous Seasons
More changes to the difficulty will also come through items, with fewer Diablo 4 Legendary items dropping while on the way to Level 60 “in the spirit of making sure that zero to hero journey is really satisfying.” As of Season 7, Blizzard claims that players were getting a Legendary every three to four minutes within an hour of playing, which is “too prevalent.” Endgame Legendary drop rates will remain untouched, but the amount players will encounter while leveling from 1 to 60 should make it much more difficult to blast through the early game content with the best items.
Endgame players aren’t escaping difficulty increases, either. Players were reaching the highest Torment tier much faster than ever before. Consequently, Blizzard will be making changes to make the jump between Torment levels much more difficult, as it wants reaching the highest level to be “aspirational.” As previously revealed, Diablo 4 will also be adding a classic Diablo 3 enemy in Season 8, which should prove to be another tough test for even the game’s best players. Diablo 4 Season 8 is set to launch on April 29, when players will be able to try out Blizzard’s difficulty changes for themselves.
Action RPG
Hack and Slash
- Released
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June 6, 2023
- ESRB
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M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language