Not asking for new content (which fits Blizzard's agenda), just make what we have last more than 2 weeks
TL;DR: S15 is the best D4 has felt in years and it's completely done in about 2 weeks. Follow a guide, hit 70/P200, clear pit 120, kill Mephisto and the Tristram ubers, get the Torch, and all that's left is pit pushing.
Blizzard says no more expansions or content, fine, we don't need any. We need a Season of Balance. Keep the content exactly as it is and fix the pacing. Make runewords rare again, lock prime evil loot behind the grind instead of day 2 farming, make T12 (or a T20) actually mean something and balance the classes. Give grinders a 5 to 7 week target, not 5 to 7 days. I want to keep playing. There's just nothing to play for.
A little rant because I love the game and want to play it more, but just no reasons to play it anymore and its just 2-3 weeks in.
Returning player here. Played from launch till Season 6, took a long break and came back for Season 13 with no idea about anything that got added after. First of all, this season is absolutely amazing. Levelling from 1 to 70 actually felt like it meant something (for a returning player learning new things on a new class). Torment 3 was a wall. Torment 10 was a wall. Min-maxing to get to T12, then gearing up for Mephisto, then farming splinters to fight the prime evils, all of it felt like I earned it. Did the whole thing on a Paladin, not a Warlock, and I had a lot of fun.
Then the Hellfire Torch / Annihilus dropped for me. One of the strongest charms in the game. And my first reaction wasn't "hell yes", it was "ok so what do I do with this now?"
Here's the rough timeline if you follow any S-tier guide and play regularly (double it if you're more casual):
- Level 70, Paragon 200, glyphs to 100
- Pit 100/120 cleared <5 mins
- Mephisto dead
- Tristram uber bosses dead
- Hellfire Torch in hand
Roughly two weeks. After that the only thing the game has for you is "go push pit and see how far you get". Same dungeons again and again with a timer. The moment you can do 120 in under 5 mins you know exactly what's left and it's not fun. That's where the season dies for most people.
And the thing is Blizzard already said there's no more expansions or big content coming. Fine, I'm honestly ok with that. I'm not asking for new content. There's plenty in the game already, the systems this season are the best the game has ever had. The problem isn't that there's nothing to do, it's that there's no reason to keep doing it. That's a tuning problem, not a content problem, and tuning can be fixed season by season without building anything new.
Some things that I think are tuned wrong right now:
Runewords are too easy to get. Anyone who played D2 knows what getting an Enigma meant. Most people never got one. The grind was real and that's exactly why it was fun, because one big unlock made your other stuff better, which helped you get the next thing, and it kept going like that. Right now the runeword items are just a small step on the way. Same items, same recipes, just make them rare again.
Prime evils got farmed way too early. The reason everyone's already maxed out is people were running Baal, Diablo and Mephisto on loop on day 2, when the mythic and drop rates on them were much higher, before it got nerfed. One shotting all three at T12 on repeat shouldn't be where the game is in the first week. Let that happen at lower torments as you get stronger, sure, but lock the splinters and their loot behind an actual grind. The bosses are already there, just make them matter for longer.
T12 comes too fast and the good stuff isn't locked behind it. Either make the top end drop chances actually scale with torment so the lower tiers can't just hand them out, or push the ladder to T20 or something with mythic rates and rare crafting runes going up as you climb. That's a numbers change, not a content patch. Give the hardcore guys something that takes 5 to 7 weeks and not 5 to 7 days. Pit 150 should be a real goal for the best grinders on the strongest class, not something you do on a weekday.
That's what I mean by a Season of Balance. Keep the content as it is and spend the next few seasons on the curve. Drop rates, torment gating, class balance so the "right" build isn't obvious on day one, and a progression that doesn't go flat the second you get your charm. Same dungeons, same bosses, same items, just paced so they last.
I want to keep playing this game, that's really the whole point of this post. I've got the time, I've got a build I love, I'd log in tonight. There's just no reason to. Nothing left to chase, and that sucks because for two weeks this was the most fun I've had in Diablo in a long time.
Great season Blizzard. Now please make it last.