With Diablo 4 having arrived in early access late last week, ahead of its full release on June 6, those who plumped for one of its special editions have already scythed through a lot of enemies.
Despite some players having had their arrivals in hell delayed by frustrating launch errors, many seem to have made a lot of progress so far. A vast swath of hardcore fans choosing to pass the time waiting for the game to release by reading reviews, planning out their intended builds or organising a party of friends to accompany them in their adventures has probably helped.
In fact, as is proven by a recent Reddit thread, a fair few of these hardened hell-raisers have already managed to play enough of the title's end-game loop to debate whether the gameplay experience it offers is too grindy.
How much progress have you made in Diablo 4 so far?
“I am currently level 66 playing mostly solo in torment, so I have quite a [few] hours poured [into the game] already.” declared user EzSkillshot in a post on the subreddit r/diablo4, continuing: “My opinion on the current end-game loop is that it has too much intentional downtime and [too many disagreeable] elements, [making] the grind just too unfun [to be worth it]."
They went on to provide a list of ten reasons why they’ve come to this conclusion, including combat and dungeons seemingly not changing enough to offer fresh challenges to highly-levelled players, the game’s map featuring lengthy commutes that aren’t alleviated by mounts with “clunky” movement and the need to pick up a lot of relatively unrewarding loot.
While a few of their fellow players agreed with some of the points EzSkillshot made, especially regarding the tedium of traversing the game’s environments, many rejected them as either being inaccurate or the result of general burnout induced by putting in the hours necessary to hit the end-game this early in the game’s lifespan.
In response to one such comment, user Chadthebu11 argued: “If the people who grind hard in the first week are vocal about problems, you shouldn't dismiss them. Those same complaints will be said by the casuals in a few weeks [time],” leading Large_Economist_9250 to retort: “Any problem is going to be exaggerated if your entire reality is focused on [nothing but] those problems for [a number of days solid].”
Regardless of how you’re finding Diablo 4’s gameplay loop so far, make sure to follow us for an array of guides to everything from quests, to bosses and even its upcoming seasons.