Diablo 4 streamer Mekuna just beat the new Lord of Hatred campaign's nasty new Torment 12 difficulty tier in 17 hours – and the fact that he was able to complete such a hardcore feat seems to worry him. Not because playing 17 hours straight of Diablo 4 likely does something funny to your organs, but because he thinks T12 is too achievable.
Mekuna writes in the description for his summary video on YouTube discussing what he calls the "Diablo 4 LoH Endgame Issue," "it just didn't take that long. With the right approach, anyone can do it."
To me, a person who cannot play a game for longer than eight hours without worrying she's forgotten what sunshine feels like, Mekuna's concerns here seem unrealistic – but they are also indicative of the rift beginning to form in the Diablo 4 community between no-nonsense players desperate for bigger and dirtier challenges, and those who just aren't.
Shortly after Mekuna concludes his 17 hour T12 run on stream – the Diablo 4 expert did the whole thing in one sitting – he laments the fact that "there is no, like, aspirational content" that motivates him to grind more and "makes me want to log in."
To developer Blizzard's credit, Diablo 4 associate game director Zaven Haroutunian recently addressed these demands from some players for more "aspirational content," explaining that, "What we've tried to do is as much as possible in Lord of Hatred is create opportunities for players to make their own goals, their own aspirational goals."
But Mekuna, and similarly competitive Diablo 4 players like him, don't seem satisfied with this populist approach. In his analysis video, which you can watch in full above, the streamer concedes that "T1 to T12 is, like, way better for the general playerbase, because it separates the progression way better for them."
That said, "I feel like the marketing that Blizzard put into that was, T12 was supposed to be aspirational content, and it was something we were going to strive for," Mekuna explains. "The way it was communicated to us was a bit misleading. We were thinking about reaching T12 in like two weeks of grinding, and unfortunately, that didn't happen."
"We are still missing something about the end game," the streamer says. Mekuna also makes a point to mention, "I also see people that's going to come and say it's because I'm a streamer, it's because I no-life the game. Well, that [T12 challenge] just took me 17 hours, and this has nothing to do with being a no life."
But a top YouTube comment keeps him in touch with the reality for people whose jobs don't require them to play Diablo 4: "What you did in 17h, I will take a month to do."
