Diablo 4 devs walk back patch changes as Metacritic score plummets
There's also been several unintended changes in the new patch
Diablo 4's devs are already rolling back changes from its latest patch as players are review bombing it.
Diablo 4 patch 1.1.0 went live earlier this week, ahead of Season 1 launching later today on July 20. Blizzard immediately acknowledged a lot of players didn't like the patch, with it nerfing a vast amount of builds and characters at large, including in particular the Sorcerer, which players believed was basically useless before the new patch kicked the class while it was down.
One change that wasn't in the new patch was a change to the World Tier 3 and 4 level requirements. The new patch quietly required players to be level 40 to play on World Tier 3, and level 60 to access World Tier 4, which was discovered and chronicled by the YouTuber just below.
Diablo 4's developers are already rolling back this change. Global community development director Adam Fletcher was hot on the case yesterday, revealing that both the level requirements for World Tiers 3 and 4 would be rolled back and removed entirely. We don't know when these changes will kick into effect, but you'd think it'd be sooner rather than later.
We will be removing the level requirement for World Tier 3 & 4.July 19, 2023
Additionally, Fletcher took to the Blizzard forums shortly after the patch went live to reveal there'd be several fixes coming for unintended bugs in the new patch. In particular, there'll be a fix for the amount of Aberrant Cinders that Helltide Chests drop, which will mercifully be good news for those who're repeatedly grinding out the endgame activity.
Fletcher's also confirmed via Twitter that the Hatred's Chosen buff has been re-enabled with the new hotfixes. You might recall that Diablo 4 players were manipulating the Hatred's Chosen buff to collect millions of the Seeds of Hatred in mere minutes, and Blizzard actually removed the buff entirely from the game earlier this week. Now it's back in action, hopefully without the exploit included.
The 'Hatred's Chosen' buff has been reenabled with the rollout of Hotfix 2. We have also addressed the drop rate of Aberrant Cinders in Helltide that was reported yesterday. https://t.co/cyPUfffLPh https://t.co/Ar1W8zml3NJuly 19, 2023
These u-turns from Blizzard on changes arrive against the backdrop of an increasingly dissatisfied player base. Right now on Metacritic for example, Diablo 4 has a user score of just 3.0 out of 10, with a staggering 3,234 negative reviews, and there's been nothing but negative user reviews for well over 24 hours now.
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"The good of the first season? nothing... they even doubled the time it takes for you to recall back to base. just so you stare at the loading bar while you contemplate why even bother with this game," read one particularly brutal user review. There's dozens upon dozens of other recent user reviews with the exact same sentiment towards the debut season.
Things really aren't looking good for Diablo 4 right now, and Blizzard is scrambling to make things better for the player base as quickly as possible. Here's hoping the new content on offer in the game's debut season can appease the unhappy players out there.
Check out our Diablo 4 Unique items guide for a look at how to get all seven ultra-rare weapons and armor items in the game, including the brand new Spear of Lycander.
Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.
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