Diablo 4 has made many positive changes in season 2, which did include some buffs to the larger world, knocking enemies up a few levels rather than letting players overlevel them in most cases. There are also new endgame bosses meant to offer a challenge, culminating in a fight against Uber Duriel.
But it does feel like an old problem remains. At the highest levels of Diablo 4, it still feels like the only true challenge is pushing yourself into higher and higher Nightmare Dungeons, or fighting Uber Lilith, which offers no meaningful rewards for completing a badly designed boss fight.
Very quickly, with anything approaching a reasonable build, the at-level enemies and the slightly higher ones in Helltides just instantly die if you breathe in their general direction. The same thing goes for most of the new bosses and of course, World Bosses, which are able to be burned in mere seconds with even a couple strong players in World Tier 4.
Yes, I definitely agree that it’s fun to level up and feel strong in a game like Diablo 4. Without question, that’s true. But there is a line to walk here between most of the game feeling irrelevant and being strong. I also think drop rates could still use some help, at least in the larger world and not a seasonal zone like Blood Harvest, and a World Tier 5 could help with that.
It does seem inevitable that World Tier 5 will arrive at some point, but despite new challenges introduced this season, I would maintain they are not challenging enough. I am far from the perfect min-maxed endgame player, but right now it feels like it’s harder to say, just find Living Steel chests than it is fighting anything in the game except higher tier Nightmare Dungeons, which is the problem we had since launch. Duriel at level 100 is something I guess, but again, it’s less about challenging mechanics with him with high end builds that can still auto-burn him, and more about just timegating in terms of collecting the materials to fight him in the first place.
It just seems like the time has come for World Tier 5 to hit the game. Obviously past Diablo games had lots of challenge levels and in Diablo 3, plenty were added in time. I just think most players past even like level 75 are so strong we’re just back to the whole “push high Nightmare Dungeons” which is definitely getting old after all this time.
I do think there is a lot more to do in Diablo 4 now. Leveling has improved, looting has improved somewhat. The new seasonal stuff is very fun. But again, after a certain point it feels like there’s not enough to challenge you. And that can happen very, very quickly into the season. Time for a change.
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