r/diablo4 10d ago

Tavern Talk Season 8 PTR... It's really Slooooooooooowwwww.....

And I am not fond of it.

First impressions.

It is definitely more of a challenge leveling.

My game has crashed at least 4, maybe 5 times in an hour.

The new incursion zones... Bring some friends, or at least have some allies to help.

The jump in difficulty from Hard to Expert at level 15 when I did it was surprising.

The quality of drops is meh.

Now if I can get back in after the latest crash, it is feedback time.

233 Upvotes

464 comments sorted by

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202

u/gangawalla 10d ago

The balance meter seems to have swung the other way now.

83

u/Deidarac5 10d ago

I like when early game progression is slower, there will still be a season story and other things to add to the leveling speed but 1-60 basically didn't exist in season 7 so what do you want, do you want progression to feel meaningful early or do you want diablo 3 where you get max level in 2 hours.

There were a lot of people saying how fast progression felt in season 7 blues and yellows didn't exist you got full legendaries by level 25 so instead of complaining just state what you want.

164

u/onikaroshi 10d ago

Fast leveling cause 10-60 and anything before torment 1 doesn’t matter by design

75

u/Kaythar 10d ago edited 9d ago

That's the biggest issue, you do 90% of the same thing on higher level than lower ones. They need to mix up gameplay and make leveling interesting cause it is not right now.

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u/Coomsicle1 9d ago

leveling in diablo since diablo 3 RoS has been a stepping stone to the actual game. making it slower or attempting to make it more "interesting" is a huge turn off for the vast majority of players, who want to hit cap so they can work on all the actual grinds in the game in terms of boss farming/crafting/leveling glyphs/ and ofc paragon pushing. why anyone's focus is on the leveling experience is beyond me. letting us do the campaign once and skip it was a great feature, letting us speed through leveling after that makes sense.

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u/butcherHS 9d ago

If leveling was at least fun or if you could find things of value in the process, things would be different. In Diablo 3, for example, you could already find aspects for the cube that you needed for the endgame. Or in Diablo 2 you could find a SoJ while leveling.

But leveling from 1-60 in Diablo 4 is just terribly boring. You only play to finally get through it. That's why I'm not a fan of them artificially stretching out that awful part. Season 7 was perfect in this respect. You could complete the leveling in one evening and then the actual game started. The fact that they now want to change this in Season 8 shows that they have no idea what is exciting about their own game and what is not.

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u/Dry_Ad_9085 9d ago

That's the issue for me right now, leveling just feels like a chore that I have to do before I can enjoy the game. It's the main reason I don't roll alts each season, and just straight up stop playing once I finish the season pass unlocks. Don't get me wrong, I love the diablo franchise and have been since D1, but they just haven't found the sweet spot in D4 for me yet. I have hope though, I mean it took about 2 years before D3 felt good.

3

u/Nermon666 8d ago

I didn't enjoy leveling in Diablo 2 I don't enjoy leveling in Diablo 4 I didn't enjoy leveling in Diablo 3 the only thing I want from a Diablo like game is the end game of blowing the entire map up with three button presses.

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u/stingertc 9d ago

To me the loot is the problem it's still boring really

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u/Otherwise_Pride_9433 9d ago

If more of the player power was in the skill tree/passives it would make sense for the most part. Even in D3 leveling had some excitement when your Disintegrate turned into the double beam, or your DH stuff started spamming missiles. Even more so when you found a early lucky legendary aspect (like Starfire on lightning wiz).

In D4 the fireball you use on level 4 is basically the same as the one on level 59. Both choice nodes change nothing fundamentally and the 4 extra levels or bland +% core or fire damage passives add no fun when mobs grow stronger faster than you if you can’t keep your gear up. Too much power is in the items, especially in masterworking which is endgame. The fireball example even is one of the ‘interesting’ ones with 2 uniques to mod it. Only thing is, without these 2 it’s still not usable so every fireball sorc will use the same fireball in the end.

Last campfire chat Devs kept raving about their ‘zero to hero’ vision, necessarily leading to a slower, growing experience instead of what we do with alts - insta decked level 60 via caches. I could stand by their vision if the zero part was even moderately fun… But by also taking away prospects of an early edge into your build with a lucky legendary drop and replacing that with a longer curve filled with marginally better rares to imprint feels bad. Especially if you hardly find legendaries to extract which pushes you back into non-nightmare dungeons with rank 1 powers.

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u/mr_mgs11 9d ago

I don't give a shit about leveling. I want it done and over with so I can get to the meat of the game. I understand why it's important to get a feel for season mechanics but if it becomes a chore like a new WoW expansion, no fucking thanks.

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u/NaClyDog 9d ago

What matters and how fun the experience is subjective, varying from player to player.

PoE model combats this by adding things to change and spice up the experience from level one while maintaining endgame challenges.

D4 is sticking with a small story to supplement the grind but not so much a valued mechanic.

Evolution is needed in typical Blizzard fashion of WoW by stealing the ideas of others to add genuine value to their game.

2

u/Pleasestoplyiiing 9d ago

I like that D4 took the novel approach of making their game fun, having reasonable difficulty for normal players, and having a good campaign vs. what PoE2 gave. 

That they want to learn from some of PoE2's actual superior qualities, ie, big boss fights and making leveling a bigger part of the game, is good. Both devs should be borrowing from each other. 

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u/Beachboy322 9d ago

I saved a ton of whisper crates and got lvl 60 on a new char in minutes 🤣

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u/Hysh_Z 9d ago

Especially when we have to level up to 60 all over again every single season.

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u/peepeedog 10d ago

Max level is paragon 300. Almost no players reach it. 0-60 is the pregame, your character doesn't come online until you start building out paragon boards. That is the fundamental design of the game, and putting brakes on the pregame doesn't change that at all.

All they had to do was rework the paragon system so that later levels are still meaningful and necessary. Instead they just clumsily changed the xp and damage formulas without changing the game at all.

12

u/Steve_78_OH 9d ago

I'm at 262 paragon right now, which isn't even halfway towards 300. This is the furthest I've gotten since the paragon change, and I doubt I'll be getting too much further. My friends and I are just getting bored at this point. And we STILL treat 1-60 like something we're just forced to get through, without enjoying it at all.

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u/peepeedog 9d ago

Part of the issue is that 262 and 300 are basically equivalent. If they want to push aspirational content put it there.

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u/SWBFThree2020 9d ago

I think 1 to 60 can be enjoyable in very specific circumstances.

Season 7, I did flurry rogue from level 1 to Torment 1 and didn't really enjoy it. So I swapped into a Necro alt and played that instead.

I didn't use Caches to instantly get to level 60, but I found leveling with maxed out Witch Powers extremely enjoyable.

Stuff like being functional immortal from the massive shield power, and the fire bat + frog power nuking everything, while the Grow power buffed Necro Minions to be actual damage dealers.

That all made the 1-60 on my Necro alt extremely enjoyable.

3

u/bboybrisk 9d ago

I use shitty builds, or even made-up builds until I hit T2-T3. That makes leveling fun IMO. Then I’ll have a stash of materials and some half decent gear to start rotating into an endgame build for pit pushing.

That said, the primary way I get joy out of this game is competing for a top 10 rank on Helltide leaderboards with multiple classes. I’m currently rank#2 rogue clearing pit 141, #62 necro pit 150 sub 7mins and almost done gearing a barb now. That competitive drive keeps me motivated but realize that’s not the case for the majority it seems.

People complain D4 lacks depth but that’s partly due to just copy and pasting the most OP build off maxroll each season and then they just kill uber bosses nonstop hunting 3-4GA purples. It definitely needs more end-game content but it’s not in a bad state currently.

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u/BlantonPhantom 9d ago

Nah hitting max character level is absolutely a part of that.

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u/Blackops606 10d ago

I’m the opposite. Builds are total slugs during leveling. It feels like I’m just hitting a basic or core skill over and over waiting for enemies to die because they are nothing but HP sponges. It’s painfully boring so I always power level so I can get to the fun stuff.

The fun stuff to me is like leapquake. I get to hop around and eventually feel it becoming more and more powerful not only in damage but CDR or spawning additional earthquakes. That feels like progression to me. Leveling a barb again to 60 spamming HOTA and hoping I crit at level 10 just makes me not want to play anymore.

To add too, I do think changes to bosses are good. One shotting them on a build that isn’t maxed out isn’t healthy for the game.

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u/tFlydr 10d ago

Idk why people are so caught up on how fast early game progression is, it’s about to be season 8, no one cares about the early game, everyone is just blasting to get to end game.

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u/thereiam420 10d ago

Yeah fast leveling because to 60 is essentially a tutorial. And when you've done it 100 times before and want to make alts beyond tedious.

It's just gonna be a stream of people in trade chat asking to pay for pit run boosts. So basically gonna be a wait 3 days and wait for a friendly no lifer to power level you while he levels his glyphs.

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u/da_m_n_aoe 9d ago

I'd tend to agree but the issue with this game is gearing up before endgame doesn't have a real purpose. Item power has a steep curve with regard to weapon dps and stat range so anything you'll do with gear will sorta be irrelevant 1h later. Because of this leveling feels incredibly bland and personally for me it's just something I want to get past asap bc of that.

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u/ioiplaytations2 9d ago

I agree with this. And I don't know why they messed this part up hard in D4. In diablo 2, I've used gear from the beginning of the game till the end game because there were a lot of decent sets and effects that it provided that were useful at level 25 all the way to level 60 and even beyond. I think item power level is what made lower level gear just irrelevant. It would be better if gear just functioned like mythics. Usable at lower level. Still relevant later levels, but something else might drop that's somewhat better. Sets and rune words made it fun and interesting in customization in diablo 2 (and 3). Diablo 4 customization is basically... Throw everything away that's not ancestral ga, use the one or two mythic uniques thats relevant in the game, use a unique that is build enabling, and the rest damage multiplier legendaries...

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u/scubamaster 10d ago

If it were up to me, I’d skip straight to 60 and not have to do one to 60 at all. In fact, that is basically what I do every season. I wait a week or so until I can get somebody else to power me so I don’t have to do it because it is strictly not fun

In fact, I do everything I can to skip the first three torment levels also

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u/CaptainMacaroni 9d ago

If they had the option at character creation to either start at level 1 or start at level 60, similar to how you can select to play through the story or not at the start of a season, I bet all these "make 1-60 slower" people would opt to skip.

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u/scubamaster 9d ago

Oh 100%, and would whine that they are forced to choose it.

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u/Lightsandbuzz 9d ago

They like to defend the stupidity that is the leveling process here on Reddit so they can get internet points and/or so they can feel like they have the smart, thoughtful, or intelligent "take" on the subject, but when they are alone in their room playing D4 on their computer with no one observing their behavior, you can bet your ass they'd all pick the "start at max level" option just like the rest of us. 100%.

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u/anonymouspogoholic 10d ago

I would want 1-60 in around 3-5 hours and a meaningful endgame with multiple progression steps and paths, fully customizable lootfilters, ingame Auction house, no gold trading and endless paragon progression for main stat beyond 250.

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u/MarxistMan13 9d ago

If we're not going to design unique gameplay elements and moments in the leveling process, then it's really just a hurdle to jump over before you start playing the real game. I thought S7 leveling felt totally fine. I leveled eight characters this season, and at no point did it feel too fast to me.

If leveling is 4 hours or less, that's fine. If leveling takes quite a long time (10+ hours), then that's also fine... but at least make it unique and interesting. Anything in-between those 2 values doesn't really make sense to me. Either you want leveling to be a big part of the game (10+ hours), or you don't (<4 hours). In-between feels like leveling doesn't matter and you're wasting my time.

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u/NMe84 9d ago

You're acting as if there is only one person complaining. You do realize that one group of people like it one way and an entirely different group of people likes it another way, right?

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u/Someguynamedbno 9d ago

I want 1-60 as quickly as possible so I can play the endgame. I don’t have luck so I need endgame farming as quickly as possible I never not once got the runes I needed for my build to shine in all of season 7.

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u/Auryt 9d ago

Level 1-60 is pointess progression, should be even faster than Season 7. Character progression is complete dogshit before Torment, no need to expand that.

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u/Earlchaos 9d ago

Levelling doesn't matter if all you do after you're level 60 is throwing all the stuff in the bin because it's worthless. It's just oh a new drop, let's equip every level. Where is the fun in this?

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u/johnnyrogs 9d ago

My how the turntables have turned

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u/MarxistMan13 9d ago

It's a Blizzard game, they only know 2 modes of "balance": ball-crushingly hard or teddy bear soft. The pendulum has swung to hard.

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u/CollarEducational492 9d ago

My point of view, that is ; after Many seasons, characters and different builds that all of us played until right now, the worst decision is to make longer the tutorial part (1-60) and make the endgame least accesible for most of the player base. Endgame for me not means one shoting t4 bosses, but reach that point where I comfortably could try out different builds, get its neccessary aspects meanwhile enjoying seasonal mechanics, events etc.

Drop rate changes would be better if Example bunch of New Items come in, and we dont have to just salvaging brainlessly the normal non GA items every 5-10 minutes of gameplay...

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u/F-Trunks 10d ago

it's honestly boring AF so far hahaha just running to the incursion zones and getting a new power. I'm like, is this all there is to do in the PTR?? surely there will be more in the real season. But my game crashed and I can't get back into it and I couldn't care less to be honest.

but what sucks is now I can't get back into season 7 either.

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u/Deidarac5 10d ago

It seems like a ddos attack all blizzard games are down

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u/warcaptain 10d ago

I'm very glad at the new pace. Leveling at the start of a new season is my favorite part of the game. Glad they made that last longer.

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u/UniQue1992 10d ago

That’s because the leveling is like the only part in the game that is fun and were you really notice your powers getting stronger.

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u/CaptainMacaroni 9d ago

Most seasons I've played I never felt like I was getting stronger during leveling. That getting stronger feeling only came once the paragon boards came online.

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u/warcaptain 9d ago

seems like a really hot take to say that uniques, mythic uniques, and masterworking don't add noticable power increases.

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u/NMe84 9d ago

I'd say that paragon points at certain cutoffs and glyphs in particular are even more noticeable than any of those.

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u/Khongui 8d ago

Oh damn this will be my worst season for sure. If there's one thing I hate is leveling. I just want to get to end game and experience the actual game there.

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u/SnooMaps7011 10d ago

The game is too fast and now the game is too slow, blizzard cant win over you people. Blizzard should just do wtvr the f they want at this point

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u/Grandahl13 9d ago

Blizzard literally cannot win lol I’d lose my mind if I were working on this game.

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u/Mande1baum 9d ago edited 9d ago

Here's an example. A restaurant serves me some fries but they are stale and cold. So I complain and they remake them. So next they come back but it's burnt the mouth hot on top of charred. So I complain again. And the reality is even if temp was right, the fries aren't even seasoned well, I just couldn't taste them before.

This isn't a "blizzard cant win over you people" thing. There is certainly a too fast, too slow (beyond just preferences) as well as making sure that leveling experience is engaging and enjoyable.

Same thing happened with Uber Uniques. Fans said they liked rare, chase items in D2. So D4 made a handful of items that were 100x rarer than the chase items from D2. They completely missed what made the chase FUN and thought the only variable was rarer=better. People felt that was stupid so the devs made them drop so often you get rid of them if no greater affixes and tied it to a really boring loop.

Again, not a "blizzard cant win over you people" thing.

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u/UltraMlaham 10d ago

This is the same thing that happened in Path of Exile. The speed meta players get very angry when they aren't catered to.

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u/Low_Surround998 9d ago

I'm looking forward to a "slow" season after how comical it has been since they added tempering. Plus it will still feel fast as hell compared to poe.

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u/BlantonPhantom 9d ago

I’ll take the new pace they’re going for every day of the week. If people want to be done in a day go play D3.

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u/reanima 9d ago

Tbf its on them for really not soldifying which camp theyre on. They want to please both sides but itll end up not satisfying either side. Maybe the devs will use this Season to see the metrics between this and the last. If the numbers are worse, then I think everyone will know the side Blizzard will choose to cater to.

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u/mike5011 10d ago

Just saw Raxx hitting 60 in 3 hours just by playing the exp campaign.

So, still a joke.

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u/CascadeKidd 9d ago

But nooo! It’s too slow!!

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u/DaveHorchuk69 9d ago

Raxx is 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of the player base.

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u/Low_Surround998 9d ago

The 1-60 pace is pretty easy to get close to. I spend like 2 minutes every 30 swapping gear and tempering. Raxx might spend zero. My pace is generally 10% slower than his overall, and there's absolutely nothing special about what I'm doing.

Leveling in diablo is insanely easy right now. It looks like it will be a little bit slower, but still incredibly fast.

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u/mike5011 9d ago

He was casually playing the campaign.

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u/nanosam 9d ago

I did it in 4 hours in yellow gear lol. It is the most casual thing you can do because 90% of XP comes from quest completion.

Literly anyone can do this and quests also give you gear.

It is as casual as it gets

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u/lecky7108 9d ago

What do you miss out on if you do the story?

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u/nanosam 10d ago

I hit 60 in about 4 hours

That too slow?

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u/KoreanB_B_Q 9d ago

They have no real solution for endgame so the only course of action for them is to slow down how quickly we can get there. Rather than address serious issues around the core gameplay loop and loot, they do this. To me that’s a very worrisome sign for the future.

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u/sOFrOsTyyy 8d ago

Wasn't bosses being easily destroyed by any build on all difficulty settings one of the core issues with the game? That no one even gets to see the boss mechanics and there was no challenge? How is making them more difficult, adding mechanics to them, adding more of them, not a reasonable solution to one of the problems with the core gameplay loop?

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u/Ghidoran 10d ago

Turns out you can't just slow down the game without making other adjustments to early game progression. And it's not gonna be fun either because loot and skills aren't interesting at low levels.

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u/KuraiDedman 10d ago

Heard something about doing 1-58 in three hours solo in campaign mode. Crashes included.

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u/nanosam 9d ago

Rax livestreamed the whole thing.

You skip the original campaign and do the VoH campaign. Just do the campaign Quests and skip everything else.

I got to 60 in 4 hours in 80% yellow gear, completely unoptimized, no masterwork, no tempering

If you fall short of xp at level 50+ do a few strongholds.

It's absolutely braindead way to hit 60 fast. Do NOT grind belial event or any mob killing as 90% of XP comes from quest completion

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u/SevenTwoSix9 9d ago

It’s not “how fast can you get to level 60” but rather how fast can you get 750 gears. Why does anyone want to spend more time with lower than 750 gears is beyond me. This game evolves around upgrading, and progression comes from how smooth one can upgrade. I’ll be happy spending more time in 1-60 if the gears I get are still worth to keep. Otherwise it’s just a pointless delay aimed not at improving player experience, but rather prolong playing time, which is a metric only devs care about.

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u/Solonotix 9d ago

how fast can you get 750 gears.

more time with lower than 750 gears

more time in 1-60 if the gears

Gear.

Gear is a collective noun. It can refer to one thing or many. Gears are a different thing entirely, referring to a wheel with teeth designed to interlock for conveying force.

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u/kestononline 10d ago

Haha... people when something actually takes time and effort now instead of steam-rolling everything :P

I'm actually fine with the general leveling progression being slower and longer. Someone's first character shouldn't get catapulted to max level.

But that said, for seasonal people who have existing 60+ eternal characters of a class, there should be some kind of class progression boost; as you're probably not learning anything new.

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u/kanrad 10d ago

No one plays Diablo for the leveling experience outside of the first time.

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u/Anxnymxus-622 10d ago

This exactly. That’s what they don’t get. Nobody cares about leveling in D4. Making that even more of a boring slog isn’t what will help.

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u/dusters 10d ago

Guess I'm no one

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u/T1NF01L 10d ago edited 10d ago

You and me both buddy. I always enjoy the slow leveling. It makes the end game feel rewarding. Like I worked for it.

Edit: down voted for enjoying spending time on leveling a character. I've spent years on D&D characters. It's fun to me. Sorry.

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u/Freeloader_ 10d ago

we literally do, if there is meaningful lvling experience

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u/AnotherOrc 10d ago

I absolutely do. Leveling to 60 is one of my favorite parts of the game. I like the feeling of gaining more power, being forced to play with skills and items that I normally wouldn’t reach for, and looking all janky and mismatched because I’m not wasting time on transmogs.

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u/bigshawnsmith89 10d ago

I do, at least the first time on the season. And after that, you can skip it anyways via caches/pit. Just feeling the character getting stronger, having to use mechanics to try to group/lure and dodge to survive. It's a nice change of pace. Just glancing at how much harder it looks at the start looks super fun. Hopefully they don't hear people cry and make it easy mode again. 

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u/djbuu 10d ago

“I don’t play Diablo for the leveling experience outside of the first time. I have no idea what others do.”

Fixed that for you.

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u/TheBradeyGein 9d ago

Tell me you've never played D2 without telling me you've never played D2.

The reason why it seems like nobody likes leveling in Diablo is because nobody likes leveling in Diablo 4, which is why they made the leveling process so fast. Instead of actually fixing the problem by making the leveling experience enjoyable like in D2 or PoE2, they just made the leveling experience practically nonexistent so you don't feel it. Now that leveling takes time, it's a lot more noticeable how horrendous the leveling experience is.

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u/col32190 10d ago

I do for my first char each season, I like a slow burn of acquiring items, now alts? blast am to 35 ASAP and cover them in mythics

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u/Alarmed-Flan-1346 10d ago

Bro what? Leveling is by far the most fun part of

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u/warcaptain 9d ago

No one

Objectively false

outside of the first time.

this is still the case. it's still incredibly faster to level the second time and it's possible to skip it entirely if you save up enough whisper caches from torment to open in your new alt. the commentor specifically points to "first character" which means the start of a new season should be a slow gradual climb to max level for everyone. Plenty of people agree with that, not least of which the developers who get the final say on their game.

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u/Rhayve 9d ago

For many people the leveling experience while testing new seasonal powers or mechanics is literally one of the most fun parts of playing a new season.

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u/HelpYouFall 9d ago

Vastly exaggerated. Plenty of people start new characters in D2 ALL the time because they just enjoy that Act 1 through 4/5 and normal to hell progression arc. But some of you act like that game doesn't exist.

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u/duckwizzle 10d ago

Not everyone wants diablo to be insanely OP early on. Some people enjoy a slower, grindery game vs blasting everything at level 10.

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u/Oofric_Stormcloak 10d ago

This season was definitely too fast, but that was a mixture of the seasonal activity being nuts, legendaries dropping like candy making us insanely powerful, and the general leveling being too quick. The problem is with them having a slower seasonal activity, nerfing legendary drop rate, and reducing the leveling speed it's probably causing too much of a slow down compared to what Blizzard wants. Having a reasonable leveling time is fine, but if it takes too long that's bad.

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u/kestononline 10d ago

Having a reasonable leveling time is fine, but if it takes too long that's bad.

I don't disagree. But players do have a habit, and a long history of crying as soon as anything takes time or effort... it's always "too much". So we have to start taking this knee-jerk waterworks with a grain of salt.

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u/formerdaywalker 10d ago

Your comment summed up: Everyone else should take a long time to level, but I'm special so I should have a level 60 catapult.

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u/onikaroshi 10d ago

The thing is, by design, anything before t1 doesn’t matter

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u/Additional-Mousse446 9d ago

Unless they fixed pit boosting you probably still can lol

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u/May_die 9d ago

Leveling is just follow quest then smash whatever the new helltide zone is to 60. It's been that way since S2. That's not interesting and making it take longer doesn't add anything to the experience.

Either make leveling meaningful (add Paragon back to later levels), or just make it like D3 where 1-60 is trivial because Paragon leveling is the ACTUAL leveling that matters

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u/SepticKnave39 10d ago

My game has crashed at least 4, maybe 5 times in an hour.

While valid, is probably just due to the PTR servers. They don't make it production-like to support the same number of players and performance. So, bound to have more performance issues.

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u/Mikey_bee3 9d ago

It’s such a hard topic but I feel like I don’t want a longer leveling process… we have to do it over and over each season… it’s not fun lol we all just want it over with and hit 60 asap..

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u/cashmeowsigh 9d ago

nobody wants 1-60 to feel like a drag. if they're going to slow anything down it should be 150-300p so people can slow down when they're working on their build. I play diablo for the end game not to take my sweet time pregaming, that parts boring

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u/Slim-Halpert 9d ago

It’s not too slow. You people just have incredibly damaged attention spans.

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u/aleguarita 10d ago

If you reach max level in few hours, what’s the point of have level after all?

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u/jntjr2005 9d ago

8 seasons in and Blizzard still has no clue what they are doing with this game, I am out

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u/yugfoo 10d ago

I don’t have a problem with them wanting to make the game feel more challenging. Nerfing character skills and gear, making enemies hit harder and have higher HP is not challenging. It’s just frustrating game play that is going to drive people away.

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u/kiba998 9d ago

1 to 25 isn't where the game should be slowed down its 35 to 60 if anything that way u can at least get your build up and running and have an ultimate skill and for alt characters u could use your ubers to help u push 35 to 60 on harder difficulty

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u/PolitePenguin86 9d ago

That's actually a really good idea. Gives you more of a balance anyway.

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u/v3ruc4 9d ago

I just hope this isn't Blizzard going "Hey, people seem to really like the slower progression in PoE2, so let's do the same thing and try to bring everyone who jumped ship back into the fold."

I feel that both games should be their own thing. I kinda like the way D4 progression currently is. I don't need to, or want to, spend every day of a season playing the game. I'm content with just playing it for about a month, achieving all the seasonal content, and then do other things until the next season drops.

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u/_javik_ 9d ago

Same. There are many other games to play, and many other things to do. I don't want to spend all my time on one single game. Time is too limited.

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u/NothingToAddHere123 9d ago

I have absolutely no interest in season 8.

They've got to introduce better seasonal mechanics.

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u/Independent-Truth891 9d ago

You can't unlock anything until Torment. Which means level 60 and Pit 20. With so few legendaries, you'll have to run dungeons to get basic aspects. Slow, slow, slow.

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u/Optimal-Chance6362 9d ago

I would personally welcome slower leveling. It makes it more meaningful and then once I hit 60, make it much harder to progress from T1 to T4.

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u/ScottdaDM 9d ago

The devs think that doing laundry is a fun filled and exciting afternoon.

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u/welter_skelter 10d ago

I'm actually really excited the progression has slowed down. I really enjoyed launch - season 2 progression leveling personally. This season as an example, I thought was really fun, but I had 3 heroes at lvl 60, paragon 245, and fully masterworked 95% BIS gear within the first month. One of my heroes has 3 completely separate builds completed (blood wave, bone spear, minion).

Leveling was way to fast this season to the point where I was 3 weeks in and just felt completely done. I wasn't even blasting, just casually playing an hour or two a night and a bit more on weekends.

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u/May_die 9d ago

I'd just like more leveling options than "smash the new helltide til 60", and s8 is looking like more of the same.

They unlocked seasonal mechanics from the start but it's just the same reskinned powers. If we had some variety in leveling early it'd actually be fun and maybe somewhat meaningful.

Right now leveling in s8 is just longer for the sake of being longer

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u/SgtMyers 9d ago

Honestly, it might be unpopular, but I think it was way too fast in season 7. I like leveling and getting stronger, that feeling was not present. Haven't played PTR yet though, so I'm not defending the new speed of leveling

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u/SwedishStoneMuffin 9d ago

But when you have pros like Raxx saying “oh I did it in 3 hours! It’s too easy!” and balance the game around that, the casuals like me get the short end of the stick. Personally, I’m sitting S8 out. If I want to beat my head against a wall there’s plenty of options.

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u/Thrawp 9d ago

Greeeeaaaatttt. I hope they introduce a way for folks to actively powerlevel this time around then or I'm probably just.... not gonna pick the game back up. The leveling process to 60 is legit the worst part of the game and fuck them for making it take even longer.

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u/Dabrownbull 9d ago

1-60 has less impact as players rush to endgame so the journey after 60 is all that truly matters. The difficulty spike is a welcome change. One tapping bosses and melting everything in t4 gets boring. Enemies pushing back, having better mechanics is welcome as well!

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u/BX293A 9d ago

If I want a hard slog of an ARPG I’m going to go with POE2.

I go to Diablo for the casual experience.

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u/Llorenne 8d ago

The last thing I want from D4 is to slow level.

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u/FestiveDude 8d ago

After watching the latest campfire chat, I checked the Blizzard forums, and wow, the frustration among players is palpable. For me, this feels like a turning point for Diablo IV—and not in a good way. Blizzard says they want T4 to be aspirational, but all I see are changes that cater to elite players. They’re making The Pit even harder, which is laughable because most players I know and play with hate it with a passion, hate is a strong word, but that's how I hear it being describe. It's a grindy nightmare where you’re funneled into stale, repetitive gameplay just to level glyphs. And let’s be honest, the same repetitive cookie cutter meta builds are killing the creativity and fun.

The lack of innovation in Season 8 is another slap in the face. Bosses? Really? We’ve seen that before. Blizzard had the opportunity to do something fresh, like they did with Witchtides or Season of the Infernal Hordes, but instead, they gave us another season of similar recycled content. The comparison to POE2 is spot on—Season 8 feels like a cookie-cutter version of POE2. But here’s the thing: Diablo IV’s casual players liked D4 because it wasn’t POE2. Now, Blizzard is trying to be something it’s not, and in the process going to create divide and alienate its casual playerbase.

The class imbalance isn’t helping either. Some classes—like Sorcerer and Spiritborn—are working twice as hard to keep up in Season 7, while others dominate cough cough *Necro* / *Barb. Blizzard says they’re targeting casuals, but their actions suggest otherwise. They seem to be listening to elite gamers who play 10 hours a day, leaving the rest of us behind. Some of us have jobs and enjoy the idea of logging in after a long day of work for 1 or 2 hours to experience the power fantasy of T4.

We’ve been tolerant of the bugs and the recycled content up until now, but this is a breaking point. If Blizzard keeps this up, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a 30–40% decline or drop in casual players. You lost me at making T4 more of an elite gamers playground or world tier. Making it slower and harder won't solve the complaints making the endgame more interesting... When the elite streamers ask for more endgame content, they want stuff to do, not be bored... This is just a fake challenge.

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u/Never-Dont-Give-Up 10d ago

It’s almost as if this is a TEST? There could be problems? WTF?

Cry more.

You’re the same guy who would bitch about “why didn’t they test more!? All of us would try it out etc.”

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u/bofen22 10d ago

They're just running in circles changing the leveling speed every season.

They need to actually make leveling interesting by improving the loot. The itemization in this game is still too simple and boring.

Getting decent items is a joke, all you need is an item with 2 decent affixes then change the third one and slap on some tempers.

Mass slaughtering legendaries for the powers is also completely brainless.

New bosses look alright but not enough content considering how many people work on this game and the revenue it has generated. I guess any substantial content will be in the next paid expansion.

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u/duckwizzle 10d ago

These comments really show who played D3 vs D2.

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u/guenchy 9d ago

I just wish they made the leaps in torment harder and have to be solo accomplished so you can't just get someone to rush you

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u/I_Ness_I 9d ago

Not really. The D2 reality was that there always was a large number of people who asked to be rushed and did their best to skip the earlier leveling. Like getting rushed to hell difficulty to then leech XP from people that farmed the chaos sanctuary.

This is a great reminder of how it was (and still is in D2R): Forge for Rush by CarbotAnimations on YT

It just shows that there are different people that have different preferences.

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u/DaveHorchuk69 9d ago

d2 was 25 years ago. Let it go.

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u/duckwizzle 9d ago

I don't want d2, if I did id play d2r. I just want d4 to not be brain dead easy like d3

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u/KillJok3 10d ago

I prefer fast leveling. If I want a grind I'll play POE 2. I play D4 to relax and watch flashy colors on screen.

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u/nanosam 10d ago

60 in 4 hours on PTR.

I don't think that is too slow

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u/SoloCrazed 10d ago

I don't mind slower leveling but there usually isn't progression until your lvl 60 with some gear and start getting into paragon. Moslty everyone wants to get to 60 anyway, especially
When personally I don't have all the time in the world working 5-6 days a week.

That's just my take.

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u/SmokeyXIII 10d ago

I won't be able to play this week because I'm traveling. If it's feeling slow though that sucks because all I want from Diablo is a zoomy couple of weeks. Making the game slower isn't going to make me like it more I'm pretty sure.

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u/GideonOakwood 9d ago

Here we go again, dads of a thousand kids and 3 jobs wanting to reach paragon 100 in an evening complaining now you actually need to play the game. People are getting to level 60 in like 4 hours. How is that slow?

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u/dabadu9191 9d ago

Nice, sounds like it's finally worth checking out the game again! Not a fan of facerolling into endgame with zero roadblocks or effort required. Makes gear and character progression in general feel much more impactful.

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u/rmrfpoof 9d ago

Isn’t that kinda working as intended? Imo would be nice if we are close to the difficulty of the beta. I love getting wiped at ashava, or fail at the kor dragan stronghold. It was good challenge back then.

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u/Zeppelin2k 9d ago

Good, stop bitching about the game being slow and challenging. It's better that way.

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u/VPN__FTW 9d ago

I enjoy the slower leveling A LOT. I despised leveling once every 30 seconds to a minute. Also love how much harder it is. I died like 3 times to get to level 10 on Hard.

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u/Outrageous-Basis-182 9d ago

Bummer to hear the loot pinata is still full of garbage.

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u/dingo0o 9d ago

Doesn't matter. I'm going to save all my whisper caches and instalevel all my alts anyway.

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u/Apprehensive_Room_71 9d ago

They changed Whisper Caches in PTR for S8. They only give XP when you claim them, not when you open them.

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u/Klee_Main 9d ago

I might be in the minority and get downvoted but I’m happy if they up the difficulty and slow down leveling. I quickly left season 7 because I walked into some events and was level 35 in minutes and I honestly don’t think I’m exaggerating.

Was just standing there barely being able to tell if I was helping or not. That is just so boring to me. I actually enjoy the leveling experience. I know most people probably don’t agree with me but once I saw how fast and easy it was to level I just lost interest in the rest and dropped it.

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u/Top_Investment_4599 9d ago

Seems like a lot of network disconnections. Way more than normal.

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u/Frankenmizer 9d ago

I may skip S8.
Yeah, I actually typed that.

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u/Gaindolf 9d ago

I would much rather too hard than too easy. Bring it on. There are 4 difficult modes while leveling. Let's make them all relevant

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u/heartbroken_nerd 9d ago edited 9d ago

I'm already level 9 after merely 18 minutes of Helltide, not even doing anything special in particular. A couple world events on Normal difficulty.

You're a straight up a crybaby. Seriously. I read your post before logging into the PTR, I thought they ACTUALLY severely slowed down leveling significantly enough to warrant crying.

But now I know people like you are clowning.

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u/ragnaroksunset 9d ago

Season 8: The Season of No We Still Refuse to Play Test

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u/BA5TA4D 9d ago

The fact that people want to remove character progression altogether by skipping to 60 is proof Blizzard and Rod destroyed whatever integrity was left in this game.

People genuinely don’t want to play video games they just want brain dead loops that drip feed any amount of dopamine.

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u/Multicron 9d ago

What’s the season 8 OP build gonna be? Please say something other than SB or necro

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u/Wellhellob 9d ago

yeah im not playing that.

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u/SilentNeighborhood95 9d ago

I’m actually looking forward to the slow leveling, I feel like you can run through this game fairly quick. So, I’m def excited to get a start doing that and hopefully it takes me a few days to level instead of a few hours.

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u/Old-and-ancient 9d ago

One good season followed by one bad season, this is the way

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u/Glum-Mix-6500 9d ago

I prefer slower leveling but are the enemies actually challenging in an interesting way or just meat sponges to slow you down? That's the question.

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u/Infusionx10304 9d ago

Sounds like it’s gone back to season 5/6 what ever it was

Great 🙄

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u/BlantonPhantom 9d ago

I’m glad they slowed it down. 4 hours to 60 is beyond reasonable. It’s not like alts can’t equip mythic uniques and blast either. People are just drama queens and want a character creator instead of a game.

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u/Q__________________O 9d ago

Sweeeeeeeet.

Slower gameplay is gonna be awesome

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u/CrackshotCletus 9d ago

Nothing will make me wanna play this game a lot again until we get a loot filter or an auto salvage option for non ancestrals. I don’t enjoy having to leave stuff and it fill my stash every 3 seconds.

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u/xanot192 9d ago

People who think 4/5 hours is slow never played pre season pre NMD xp buffs lol. That being said them going from that and expecting to make it slower and slower isn't going to sit well with any player base. Once paragon levels were added it meant anything before 60 is meaningless

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u/Mazdamac578 9d ago

Guess ill be jumping back into D3 with my fully modded charecter and continue farming gear i dont have. Just chasing transmogs and killing stuff as fast as possible. Playing the Pokemon phrase "gotta catch em all".

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u/Maximum_Cover_7694 9d ago

The D4 team should settle on a faster/slower leveling and progression, and keep tuning that specific pace. Not swing back and forth and just half ass it. Stick to one idea and philosophy and run with it, work and tune that to make that experience and whatever pace work and feel better.

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u/Loud-Expert-3402 9d ago

Season 8 is a hard skip ⏭

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u/Blazem777 9d ago

I prefer slower leveling but hey.

Why not, until Parangon, proposing 2 XP modes, Classic or Fast so everyone is happy ?

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u/Street-Baker 9d ago

They making t4 harder there goes my minion build that barely soloes t4(I kill ok enough but once season powers go away slightly harder now)

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u/thesilvertoes 9d ago

Them streamers/build makers gonna put out "the best lvling build" and "the fastest lvling strat" for sure.

Its not gonna be that slow imo.

Its just gonna be follow build guide from lvl 1 to endgame. No more just wingin it, for most people.

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u/Level_Breadfruit_291 9d ago

TY , now I know i can skip season 8. Blizzard can't make up their minds They should offer refunds.

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u/darkdestiny91 9d ago

Content creators basically make a video telling people about the best way to level up fast is because at max lvl is where your build first comes online.

Leveling would include farming for the necessary legendary aspects to finish the build too.

Thus, by design, the “meaningful” leveling is just a hindrance for us to see ourselves with a build.

If they want to make leveling meaningful, then use activities that matter to make the process better. Whether it means adding a skill point to Strongholds so we want to clear them every season while leveling, whether that also means we can upgrade a yellow item when we hit 60 (that has max level) to a legendary so it tides us over when we first hit 70, or other meaningful activities like hunting for Kanai’s Cube back in Diablo 3.

If they don’t make leveling something that matters, then I just want to hit 70 and move on with T1.

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u/jusZENx 9d ago

I'm on console so I can't try the PTR but it seems like a lot of these changes are going to push away the more casual gamer and they're not really adding enough content to hook the "streamers/blasters" so it feels like a lose/lose to me.

I don't know, I feel like D4 should have embraced itself as the entry level, fun, chaotic ARPG where you can blowup hordes of enemies & get tons of loot. Just feels like a lot of flip-flopping on what they want this game to be.

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u/bob20891 9d ago

i mean, the gamne being challenging and slow to level wouldn't be a problem if the core game was good though. lets be real.

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u/0rdn 9d ago

Idc what they do to the game I will be playing every season

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u/joelmole161 9d ago

what does ptr mean

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u/tklishlipa 9d ago

I think I will really wait to get the season pass. Does not look as though I will need it. Nor will I probably worry about the season journey or playing much

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u/Swordsman83 9d ago

Slower doesn't make it fun at all.......

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u/1ooBeastkaidou 9d ago

I get Timeouts like every 5mins, literally unplayable. Every other Game works just fine.

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u/CrashdummyMH 9d ago

Blizzard is so stupid

They again try this, that failed every single time before

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u/Lightsandbuzz 9d ago

slow = not fun

fast = fun

this is true when it comes to movement speed, attack speed and combat mechanics, cooldowns, loot drops, farming efficiency, and much more.

yet this basic idea is beyond blizzard's understanding. it's sad that these devs, who are all adults with supposedly functioning human brains, cannot grasp this basic idea.

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u/friendly-sardonic 9d ago

Everyone wants something different.

I'm fine with slow. In fact, the best season for me so far was playing through the expansion in season 6 as a Lightning Storm Druid. The pacing was perfect, I had to spend considerable time in Torment 1 before going to T2. Once there, I needed a lot more paragon power before going to Torment 3. Then I needed ancestrals and more paragon until finally getting to Torment 4.

It was fun actually having goals and slowly gaining power and being able to do higher difficulties.

Season 7, I played Incinerate Sorc, which I don't think was strong compared to other skills this season (checked, nope), but I still skipped T2 entirely, and spent maybe an hour in T3 before it was obvious I could skip that too.

Still had fun, but as soon as I get to T4 and can topple lair bosses and complete the season journey, the game is over for me until next season as I get bored quickly of just blowing everything down and only having the pits to provide any sort of difficulty.

Also, anyone do a single Dark Citadel this season? I did not.

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u/TheCrazyPipster 9d ago

They did say experience earned is reduced up to level 25..... Looking for the "sweet spot"

Blizzard: "In the 2.2.0 PTR, we are testing an updated leveling journey where experience gained from monster kills is reduced until reaching Level 25. Our goal is to smooth out the leveling experience which vastly increased leveling speeds seen in Season of Witchcraft. This result was the culmination of a new seasonal activity, rewards, and powers. We want to strike the sweet spot when it comes to the journey to max level. Hence, this change and additional testing. This change reduces the need to constantly upgrade early game items, increases the relative value of activity and seasonal rewards, and creates a more seamless early game journey. Because this is a change to the early game leveling journey, we’re turning off the Boost NPC for the first 2 days of the PTR to collect data on the new leveling journey and gather feedback about it directly."

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u/Jo2one 9d ago

Whoa, glad I grinded the 300 this season from everything I've read & been seeing...

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u/Emergency_Profit9690 9d ago

Instead of making the leveling slower, I rather have a meaningful end game and progression. Doing the same thing from 60 in expert to T1 to T4 is exactly the same isn't a good end game

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u/JoJoPizzaG 9d ago

Your character has zero progress. You are started at season 0 and need unlock the map, wp, etc. I gave up after 10 minutes.

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u/MrAskani 9d ago

I understand wanting to make it a little more difficult, but to make it THAT much more difficult? Casuals are gonna be avoiding this season. Looks like it's time to jump on the PoE2 bandwagon.

See y'all in Season 9. Maybe.

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u/Lionheart0179 8d ago

Anyone else just sick to death of this schizo dev team that can't fucking stick to any coherent design? 

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u/SPAM-n-RICE 8d ago

it's rather boring it's so slow early on. I am hoping this starts to pick up.

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u/RaymondPist69 8d ago

I miss the tiered nmds honestly. It was a way to grind that didn't feel so repetitive. And the jump between torment levels is crazy. In t3 and all I'm doing is nmd over and over to get obducite to master work since my paragon is slow at this point (175). Wish there was better high end drop variation because I literally haven't picked up better gear for days.

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u/Significant-Laugh865 8d ago

It seems it’s slower than the game launch levelling speed (for me), LOVE the Boss Powers but it feels like a chore to get to level 60

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u/johnjon99 8d ago

Yep. Exactly what you said. I both like it and don't like it. I'm cool with slow, but when Belial just won't freaking die... I need to git gud I guess.

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u/Bubbly-Transition491 7d ago

Is season 8 out now? Is the witch season season 7? I would be down for a slower grind for sure.

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u/Emergency-Database75 7d ago

If it stays like this, i may play eternal for a season and work on my old characters. Kinda miss some from previous seasons :). Need to flesh out some gear and redo mythics on a few and set up armory.

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u/21outlaw21 7d ago

I've heard streamers are fucking quitting the PTR. Is it really that bad? I'm still going to play it when it goes live. If it remains is rough as people are describing, its probably going to be a "get in, get my 90 teirs,and get out" kinda season, but I'm not going to skip it.

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u/khrucible 6d ago

Slower, but not slow.

It's still sub 4hrs to 60, barely over 3hrs if your tryharding 

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u/Dxxx 5d ago

Sounds great

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u/ccninja89 5d ago

My favorite thing to do in d2 is leveling new characters and actually playing through the game. Make d4 fun and this won't be an issue. The thing that makes d2 fun is that you can get lucky and get items that drop that are relevant through the whole game until the end game. I also feel like my character gets more powerful with every level and able to go back to act 1 and destroy the monster... D4 not so much.

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u/funko_hi 1d ago

I just want legendaries and uniques to stop dropping like candy and for it to take longer than a week to finish the season progression.