As a Diablo veteran, it’s been interesting to watch the drama unfold as more and more people discover the way seasons work in Diablo 4. There’s two distinct reactions I’ve seen: people that are new to Diablo and incensed that you’ll have to start a whole new character each season, and veterans who are like, “Yeah, duh.”
I’ve always seen the seasonal grind as one of Diablo’s strengths. Instead of coming back to a fully-geared character with a complicated build and trying to remember what the heck I was doing, I get to just start a brand new character from scratch. In some ways those early hours with a new character are the best part of the game, when things are still simple and the world is full of potential. The grind can wear you down, but sometimes it feels good to start over with a clean slate.
At the same time, I get why new Diablo players are confused. Other games, like Destiny 2, don’t make you start over with a new character every few months, that would be absurd. The continuity and constant progression with your character is part of what makes Destiny so successful, and no one would want to farm up the same weapons over and over season after season.
Though other ARPGs like Path of Exile work just like Diablo, I can understand why the uninitiated would assume restarting the game would be a tedious exercise. Just hearing that this is how seasons will work has put some people off from playing the game at all.
This puts Blizzard in an awkward situation. Having self-contained seasons is the way Diablo has always worked, and I’m sure the developers were more than a little caught off guard by the negative reaction to them doing the same thing that’s worked for over a decade. In last week’s Campfire Chat, the devs explained that they’re reevaluating what players will need to redo each season in order to address some of these concerns. Seasonal characters won’t have to rediscover the entire map, for example, nor will they have to collect the Altars of Lilith they’ve already found. Renown from those tasks will be earned automatically when you start a seasonal character. Still, those changes aren’t enough for everyone.
One thing that makes Diablo 4 different from its predecessors is the battle pass. Right now, players will only be able to earn battle pass progression each season by playing seasonal characters. What many are calling for is to be able to progress the battle pass with their non-seasonal characters that they’ve been playing with since the game launched, otherwise known as the Eternal Realm. With the grind to level 100 taking upwards of 150 hours, it’s to be expected that some people will still be trying to max out their original characters for many months to come. Those who aren’t ready to start new characters want the opportunity to earn battle pass progress too, instead of feeling like they’re wasting time on a character they’ve already invested so much into.
Blizzard hasn’t commented on this request one way or another yet, but I can understand why it might be apprehensive to make that change. Seasonal characters are proven to keep players coming back for more, and allowing people to do everything on one character may end up being demotivational in the long run. I can understand why Blizzard wants to encourage players to engage with the seasonal loop by trying new classes and experimenting with new aspects instead of grinding one player to death until the game becomes old and stale.
Ultimately, giving players the choice is the right call. If someone only wants to play their OG Druid until the end of time, they shouldn’t be excluded from the battle pass, especially if they’re paying for it each season. This is one situation where Blizzard might know what’s best for its players but it’ll be better to just give people what they want. The company that once infamously told a player who requested classic WoW servers and was told “You think you do, but you don’t” probably isn’t in a position to tell people how they should enjoy its games anymore. We wouldn’t have WoW Classic if players didn’t tell Blizzard what they want, and history has proven that it’s better when it listens.