There was a time when I thought Diablo IV was going to be my new live service game of choice. There was a good chance the IV wasn’t going to mean 4, but instead mean the IV drip needed to sustain me while I spent all my time clicking on skeletons until they exploded. I liked Diablo IV at launch and the game has seen significant improvements since release. But over a year later, the game still hasn’t grabbed me the way I thought it would.
I was a fairly faithful Destiny 2 player until Lightfall came out, having spent hundreds of hours with my Titan. I was incredibly disappointed in the expansion and felt like the Destiny 2 spell had worn off on me. It turns out I wasn’t the only one who felt that way as Lightfall marked one of the lowest points for Destiny 2. I dropped Destiny 2 cold turkey and never looked back even with the promising release of The Final Shape. Feeling like a man without a country I had my hopes set on Diablo IV being the next game to offer me an evergreen and never ending experience. During my time with Destiny 2 I was pretty invested in the live service experience.
I was buying the expansions. I tried to grind out the battle passes. I would splurge on a couple of cosmetics here and there. I was even scheduling my play time around limited time events and seasonal content. I bought in and realised that if this could happen to me with Destiny 2, it could probably happen to me with another game. I’m not sure I’m a 100% sucker for live service games, but I know what I like – I appreciate the scope and consistency of the content those types of games provide.
After the alpha and beta period I was buying what Diablo IV was selling. With open world gameplay and bigger focus on live service, I for one welcomed the always online experience this time around. When the full game launched it was pretty clear that Diablo IV was trying to emulate a similar type of live service experience as its contemporaries. Diablo IV brought hell with it with the inclusion of real money microtransactions. I perused the digital dress up storefront but nothing caught my eye.
Skins for your mount? I didn’t even have a mount yet. Costumes? Some looked neat but weren’t for my class. Digital deluxe upgrade? Surely if I cared enough I would have gone all in at launch, but I didn’t. Oh. and don’t call me Shirley.
I didn’t have a hole burning in my pocket, but I was willing to toss Diablo IV a couple of bucks after having already spent full price for the game. The premium costumes weren’t doing anything for me, but maybe a battle pass would not only give me more incentive to play the game with the promise of limited time unlocks.
The way seasonal content is accessed in Diablo IV is awful. It’s so bad it makes me wonder why Blizzard even bothers with the live service experience. Unlike Destiny 2, Diablo IV‘s seasonal content is only accessible from a separate mode outside of the main game. So forget taking your favourite Sorcerer into Season 4’s content, you can only access the new season and battle pass when you make a new seasonal character.
Seasonal characters are only active during the season, and when time is up those characters revert back to regular characters. Your seasonal Cinderella story is over, and those glass slippers you were aiming to get at the end of the battle pass go away. So unless you’re someone who wants to replay Diablo IV multiple times, you may want to stay away from the seasonal content and play one character at your own pace. Even though I’m someone who wants to make new characters, the seasonal presentation hasn’t convinced me to play the game the way I would other live service games.
I like Diablo IV, but I have always played the game casually because of how inaccessible the seasonal content and battle pass feel. It’s easy to jump in and out every now and then when you lack a fear of FOMO, something all live services games mercilessly try to beat into players. But in a game where I don’t feel like I have wrung everything from it, it’s hard to be motivated to dive into the battle pass grind knowing I’ll be cut off from everything I have done so far. In Diablo III I hit max level with every character class, something I haven’t done yet in IV.
I probably won’t buy Vessel Of Hatred or any other expansion pack until I have run out of meaningful things to do in Diablo IV. What that means is I’ll eventually move on from my Sorcerer and pick up another class to hit max level in before doing it again with another class. However, I won’t be doing so in step with the seasons – because I just don’t see a point. If they ever remove restrictions around battle passes and seasonal characters I could see myself grinding out a battle pass. Until then I’ll see where the revised Paragon system takes me until I decide it’s time to say goodbye to my Sorcerer and try a new character class. Blizzard seems too eager to pull players away from characters they have spent a lot of time with, something I don’t feel many of their contemporaries do.
Diablo IV is a good game, and is close to being a great live service game. I just wish Blizzard would seriously reimagine the game’s backwards approach to seasonal content and battle passes. At least I can say I’ve saved a lot of money so far.
