'Dead and buried'; Diablo 4 Fans Frustrated With Change in Level Scaling
Blizzard is once again taking flak because of patch 1.1.0 for Diablo 4. This time the community took aim at the updated game world level scaling, which, to put it mildly, did not please the masses.
Update to accompany the launch of the first season in Diablo 4 has once again come under fire of criticism. This time part of the game's community loudly communicated online that they do not like the changes in level scaling, which were introduced by patch 1.1.0.
Game supporters believe that with the seasonal patch, the sense of seeking adventures in the open world of Diablo 4 "died and was buried".
Problems of the redesigned open world
Problematic patch 1.1.0 for Diablo 4 caused monsters on rank III and IV worlds grow in strength slower than the player from a certain point and not - as before - along with the character.
For example, now monsters in Nightmare mode (world rank IV) always start at level 75. The monsters "advance" to the next level, 76, only when the player in question reaches level 81. And so until the maximum experience ceiling is reached, the difference between the player and the creatures is five levels in favor of our characters.
At the launch of the first season, Blizzard explained its decision by wanting to give players "a better sense of power progression and mastery over the world." The problem is that Blizzard apparently forgot to make the appropriate modifications related to the changed scaling.
- After all, when killing monsters of a lower level than ours, we get comically little experience, in view of which...
- ... endgame characters having 5 levels more than creatures, exploring the open world of Sanctuary almost stopped progressing.
- To make matters worse, changes in scaling also affected side quests, cellars, dungeons, minor events or even a brand new "malignant dungeons".
Frustrated players
The aforementioned problems have angered some supporters of Diablo 4, who expressed their dissatisfaction in a thread on the game's subreddit.
Interestingly, its creator suggested that the changes in level scaling resulted mainly from the developer's "misunderstanding" of player reactions to the originally implemented mechanics.
"(...) dungeons, cellars, objectives, whisper trees, side quests, Legion events. I'm level 80 and all this cool content is completely useless. All of it gives me negative experience scaling when I fight monsters below my level."
"By far the worst insult from the developers are the malignant dungeons. You have brand new seasonal content that gives me NEGATIVE experience points!"
Some supporters noted - rightly so - that with the changes introduced in patch 1.1.0, the only viable character progression path became Nightmare Dungeon..
"You create this colossal land with all sorts of things to do, but take it all away and you force everyone to go through nightmare dungeons at levels 76-100 and say goodbye to the beautiful world on the surface."
It's worth noting at the very end that the previous level scaling system in Diablo 4, which has accompanied the game since its release, was also the subject of discussion among the game's community - but somewhat less heated.
And while Blizzard is certainly keeping an eye on this issue as well, there are many indications that the upcoming patch 1.1.1, which will debut on August 8, will focus more on character class changes, leaving out other game systems.
