Diablo 4 Lord of Hatred: The Good, the Bad and the Downright Atrocious

What is a day of Diablo 4’ing without me putting more thoughts into the game? I figured that as I continue to play the game and experience the expansion, more of my notions are formulating into more organized ideas especially as I watch more streamers play this game, interact with people on various boards or social media and get asked about my thoughts. I’ve done a similar exposition on the subject before and I think dividing up a review into these high level areas helps me create a nicely summarized framework for a game like this where I can bullet point things into lists to digest. Heck, I might even make this feature a permanent thing for this blog in the future for content in general.

The Good

• Removing Passives from the Skill Tree – I think the old passives, including the last key notables, was an excellent choice. I think for newer players, the passives made little sense and not tangible enough especially when you needed one to work with other conditional elements. Probably, the biggest bonus to me was the idea of relegating passive upgrades to the Paragon Board and mostly trying to keep the core skill tree relatively clean.
• More Meaningful Upgrades to Skills – This idea was more like an upgrade of Skill Runes from Diablo 3. I think the pieces here are clearer in intent like changing a Sorcerer’s Hydra into a Frost one or adding another Wolf for a Druid. In addition, by cleaning up the skill tree and enforcing more meaningful side choices, I think the game now has a clearer path for room to expand on the skill tree rather than combating passives that may outweigh choosing a skill or some other obscure mechanic hidden behind odd combinations and conditionals in the backend systems that certain players may abuse.
• The Horadric Cube – There’s no question that the Horadric Cube is a massive win here. The existing crafting systems (Tempering, Enchanting, Aspects, Socketing and Masterworking) actually synergize quite well with this new system that make crafting actually fun and interesting to perform. The last expansion’s Rune system also works quite well when you can use the Horadric Cube upgrade Rune in conjunction with the Jeweler’s 3:1 random craft to get end game Legendary runes. This is not a perfect crafting system but it’s clearly a vastly improved scenario that was a badly needed addition to Diablo 4 to make crafting actually an endgame goal.
• War Plans – Compared to the failed and wasted Raid system from Vessel of Hatred, War Plans has proven to be a fairly decent (albeit simple) end game system that enhances your activities and provides certain key rewards. The real key though is the addition of activity trees where people can use the experience gained to augment their end game. While the current implementation is still what I consider a rough draft, it’s a great starting point to incorporate past seasons, future seasons and potentially integrate outdated content into the core experience for the player.
• Talisman System – The new Talisman system is a nice addition in trying to further enhance the player’s power. I think of the Talisman system as more of an inverted Kanai’s Cube system especially when you take into account how a player can use a Unique charm (or 3 with the Mythic version) to “add” a gear slot without sacrificing a key armor slot (e.g. a Spiritborn can now use Helm of Perdition and employ their unique helmet as a charm). I think an underrated piece here is gaining small affixes like Movement speed which really helps early leveling until one can acquire decent boots and the higher end Tempering recipes. It’s still a pretty rough system that can use adjustments but I can see potentially in the future how more slots can be added if Blizzard wanted to but still retaining the main concept intact.
• Loot Filter – Major QoL win here. I started using one the other day (got it working!) and the change in drops is quite significant in a positive manner. I think setting up a generic filter isn’t too bad in just getting rid of non-Ancestrals, uniques and Aspect upgrades. But the main win is clearing up the clutter especially from certain bosses that have bad loot explosions that are a real pain to handle.
• Goblin Realm – Yes, this is a D3 copied idea but it still works when you get it. I don’t think the drops are as impactful mostly due the limitations of ones inventory. Also, the boss at the end (a smaller version of Greed, I believe) feels lackluster compared to the original D3 version. It’s still a nice surprise when you get it.
• Chaos Waves in Helltides – This is a small feature that carried over from S10 which is used as a node on the Helltide activity tree. But it’s a really fun one that provides some neat bonuses. One of my favorites is when you can get unique drops especially on fresher characters.
• Extra Bosses Everywhere – I think it’s cool that you can now see various bosses outside of their lairs. The Nemesis one is very intimidating but also incredibly rewarding when you encounter one. But this is the prime example of what I had been talking about in previous blogs on how having customizable content experiences can really enhance the core game play.
• Changes to the Pit Layout – The Pit is something I never really cared for because of how it was meant to mirror Greater Rifts from Diablo 3 but it never hits its mark because of the structure. I think the layout changes to the Pit are really good because it changes up the map configurations. They’re still mostly linear in nature but you can go down small side paths without having to deal with extraneously long treks while fighting the countdown timer. Also, I’m very glad they removed the horrible boss arena aspect because those were just problematic. That makes boss fights a little more dynamic, especially since mobs can still swarm you after a boss gets summoned. In some cases, that could be a boon.
• Faster Glyph Leveling – While I’m still not happy about the Pit being the only mechanism to level up Glyphs, the part I do think is very good is how you can use the activity tree to configure more points into glyph leveling. It’s still tedious to level Glyphs but you can get a large number of upgrades faster. That means less Pits in general, even though I think the activity has become less painful and tedious in general.
• Aspect Reduction – I think one thing is that a lot of Aspects had been removed, consolidated and/or moved elsewhere to skills or uniques. I still think there’s a lot of bloat with Aspects but the general noise ratio has shrunk, which was badly needed. I still am uncertain how they see Aspects but I do like the fact that they’re not the main thing which enabled the core builds any longer.
• Temper Recipe Reduction – Like Aspects, I think the number of Temper recipes had been reduced. Certain parts I will miss like utility Tempers you could add to boots or armor that would increase the size of certain skills. I think those type of things really work better in a skill tree where you have meaningful skill side upgrades that a player can put more points into. So hopefully, those types of Tempers will eventually return but in the form of either side nodes in the skill tree or an updated Paragon Board.
• More Builds – In general, there are more flavors of builds than before due to the main upgrade to skills that flavor a build. Not all builds might be considered meta or end game viable but the shake up in these systems do make things vastly more interesting, at least for now.
• More Meaningful Crafting Materials – One of my blogs addressed how certain key crafting materials ought to be highly sought after and be elevated into first class citizens for end game crafts (similar to Sanctification). Well, we got them in a variety of ways. Likewise, it makes things like Tributes and certain Dungeon affixes highly sought after.

The Bad

• Rune Reduction – It seems that after taking a pass at the existing systems, Runes got hit too. In a few cases, I am not overly fond of their removal such as the Earthquake rune. Oddly, in searching for the ability to cause Earthquakes, I can’t find anything. Maybe it’s in HotA but I really miss being able to level a new character with Bac – Tec and running around and destroying things.
• Material Scarcity – I think in changing these systems, material scarcity continues to plague the game. Right now, the main missing ingredient is Forgotten Souls. I heard from Kripparian’s stream the other night that Ancestrals give Forgotten Souls (which was a great tip btw) but they still remain very tough to find especially once you start min/max’ing a character (or in my case multiple characters). I suppose in a game that requires a clear grind, having a high end resource being semi-scarce is a good thing but it is a pain point. For some things like the Unique crafting material, I think it’s fine to be rare. But Forgotten Souls is a real tough one at this stage due to either the cost or limited amount one can receive. It’s not a be-all/end-all issue but again it is a pain point that might need a small adjustment.
• Legion Events – While Legion events are still fun to do, they need a reason to do them. With the introduction of War Plans, I really hope that they change these activities to activated events rather than timed ones and that they become incorporated into War Plans. As a group activity, these as-is are fun to do. I think having a separate activity tree for Legion events, keeping them part of the open but instanced world and making them more customizable with key rewards (can anyone say crafting materials????), these things should be able to make a major comeback.
• World Bosses – Like Legion events, World Bosses should not be timed anymore. I think making these summonable like Azmodan from S11 is the way this encounter ought to be handled. Making them summonable and incorporating them into War Plans with their own activity tree will greatly improve the novelty of having World Bosses as opposed to once again being a 10 second semi loot pinada (which apparently they are now again)
• No Dedicated Whisper Activity during War Plans Configuration – This part I don’t understand. I know there’s a separate activity tree for Whispers but I’m mystified why they weren’t included as part of the War Plans setup. There’s also a few activity nodes that I don’t understand like having monsters coming out of the caches. I can’t tell if that’s what is causing the in town monsters. But I wish Whispers became another activity one could complete to increase the variety of War Plans things to do. Like one thing I would do to make Whisper activities really interesting is to use the activity tree to add “green Helltide” type of old seasonal Whisper content back (e.g. turning a zone into a Vampire zone or bringing the Realm Walker). Having the old seasons become an activity a user can add to the node of the Whisper activity tree would vastly improve the variety and number of things one could do while not being competitive directly with Helltides (because we can still keep the Helltide content as a separate activity that is mutually exclusive from these Whisper activities and give players alternative zones to farm). This should really be a no brainer and a lower effort feature because of how Blizzard has these activities already built into the history of the game.
• Strongholds – Strongholds badly need love. I think a lot of players avoid these because they’ve done them a thousand times. But now they’re an impediment because of how certain dungeons can be blocked. For War Plan activities and Escalating Sigils (I think the game just kicks you out if you encounter an area with blocked access because of Strongholds). I personally don’t mind Strongholds because they are effectively an easy way to gain levels early on and a way to break up leveling for non-story mode based characters (especially new seasonal ones). I have a variety of ideas of how these can be improved (even adding them into War Plans if they get revamped) but the main point here is that these are outdated pieces of content whose original purpose has been superceded by the evolution of the game and require a major overhaul. Otherwise, they simply stick out like a sore thumb or red headed stepchild.
• Continuing Imbalance of Builds – Despite the revamp, not all builds are created (or redone) equally. From what I know, the truly OP builds are mostly those with some bug that wasn’t caught by QA. Even if that’s not the case, some builds/classes just got left in the dirt like the Necromancer (namely Minions). Outside of the multiplier problem, I think the odd conditional interaction between skills, items and other elements continue to plague the game. I don’t think there’s an easy solution especially when the game wants players to augment skills with subsystems. But it is painful to see a skill like Blood Surge not be used more often for whatever reason.
• Minion Necromancer – Oddly, of all the summoner classes, the Minion Necromancer to me seems like the saddest. Besides bugs, the main culprit that I think hurt Minion Necromancers early on was the immediate pre-nerfing of a unique that would’ve allowed Minion Necromancers to get up to 28 Minions (I think Skeletons). The excuse that was given was the typical “server issues” whereas Companion Druid with their army of fury critters and the hundreds of Ancestors for Barbarians are fine. Heck, even Rogue’s Shadow Clone proves to be better than the lowly Minion Necromancer. For me though, the real killer is the lack of customization for Necromancers. A while back, I tried out a Bone Skeleton Mage Necromancer that employed Bone Spear with the Helmet. While novel in concept, it wasn’t good. I still like the idea of being able to link my Necromancer skills to my minions. I think if Blizzard took a hard look at this concept, it would clearly differentiate how a Necromancer operates from other summoner builds. Like why can’t we have Bone Spear Skeleton Mages? Or Blood Surge Blood Golems? The potential is there but the real link is connecting a Necromancer’s inherit skills back to their minions to make them far more interesting. Not only does that open up the diversity to the types of Minion Necromancer, but it hopefully gives new life (pun partly intended) to them that currently does not exist.
• Evadeborn Meme – I know there’s a bugged version of this class/build but multiple seasons in a row where Evade is the only meta? I’ve been wanting to play a non-Evade Spiritborn for sometime but the class has been underperforming outside of the Evade builds, at least from what I’ve seen. I really wish that Blizzard had created an Amazon class and/or Monk rather than establishing an oddball class that fits nowhere. It was a lot of fun when it first came out but as we have learned, the first class of a DLC/expansion is going to be bugged and overpowered (purposefully). That doesn’t mean that the class should be in a bad state afterwards.
• Warlock – At this stage, as much as I’d love to try the Warlock, the visuals just cause me problems. I think the visuals are a bigger issue overall but I think pointing out that Warlocks are suffering as a result is the key takeaway here.
• Major Nerfed Paladins – After removing the Castle node, Paladins simply haven’t been the same. It’s sad given that this class was probably one thing new players wanted to experience since it’s a popular archetype in the realm of fantasy. It’s still viable but it won’t see the higher tiers that broken classes are experiencing. I don’t think this was intentional but I think the Castle fix should’ve waited until after Season 13 at least as a sales tool.
• Forgotten Souls Scarcity – I mentioned this as a pain point that isn’t a complete killer because having worth farming for is good. But it does inhibit a smoother crafting experience especially when GA tempers are affected by RNG. I think they just need to either adjust the numbers for the cost or add content that is target farmable for this precious currency.
• Meaningless Herb Nodes and the Alchemist – Mining nodes still are highly valuable in Helltides mostly due to the scarcity of Forgotten Souls, the high yield for Cinders and the occasional gem dust. But Herbs themselves have no place in the game in this season. Along with that the Alchemist serves no purpose since potion upgrades and Elixirs/Incense were removed. I don’t know if there’s plans to turn any of these things into something worthwhile but it’s clear that the ideas are antiquated and require a complete re-examination or ought to be completely removed from the game.
• War Plans Activity Tree Re-spec Cost – Not a complete deal breaker for me but it does force you to be absolutely sure about the paths you choose since re-speccing cost a ridiculous amount. Since they removed the cost for re-speccing a character, I have no idea why they added a cost for re-speccing the Activity Tree, especially when it’s already lean.
• No Account Wide War Plans Experience – This isn’t necessarily my own complaint. I think part of this issue is when you start up a new character and how having a completely unlocked War Plans might cause a new character from fully utilizing their War Plans. For instance, it makes no sense for characters below Torment and max level (not Paragon) to have Boss Lairs be unlocked and fully specc’d out. In that instance, the player would die as a level one. For me I think the current implementation is okay if the activity trees aren’t expanded upon. But I am really pulling for an increase in the number of nodes for the Activity Trees and expanding the activity types for War Plans. The way I would handle the situation is to prevent gaining full experience until the player enters Torment I on max level (if the user starts a new character). I think the hard part is determining a sweet spot for alt characters while not overwhelming them with fully unlocked trees that may cause them grief. But I think the situation is as trivial as some players are thinking, which is why I’m hesitant on making this a major issue.
• Loot Filter UI/UX – The Loot Filter does need some more work in terms of wording and a tutorial on how to use this thing. Some parts aren’t worded clearly not their intent and probably require tool tips on how each component is used (especially certain hide/show options). I think that the campaign should have introduced a quest line to help players learn how to learn the Loot Filter as opposed to hiding it as a feature. As silly as that may sound, I think Loot Filters end up becoming more for advanced players of this genre. But it’s one of those things that when you use one, you realize the high value and inherent worth in improving ones gaming experience. I can’t imagine how many players who aren’t used to ARPGs get confused because they don’t understand how their character and loot works.
• Still Beta Feeling – I honestly think this current S13 is nothing more than a live test server at this stage. There’s too many bugs and issues that ended up getting a hard deadline but still feel incomplete or broken. And I suppose that’s fine for a live service game but I think the game still needs a lot of polish to turn it to a B level (where it’s probably a B- level in my book)

The Downright Atrocious

• Visuals are really bad – If there’s one major complaint I have about the game is that the visuals are in a really bad state. One of the previous seasons addition for on death effects have made the updated content to feel downright terrible. I know they added a bunch of updates and the added difficulty. But these updates clash with the art style and the overall experience is god awful. But I place this issue under downright atrocious because I think the visual piece is going to be really hard to fix based on the art style. I think the art style is meant to be immersive and visceral but the way it’s implemented causes conflicts everywhere, whether it’s lag, FPS issues or unseeable ground effects. The game would be better serviced with these visuals using a slower pace. Otherwise, the current pacing, which is more on the level of a Torchlight Infinite, ends up hurting how the visuals work because you simply can’t see anything. You’d need to do more on adding opacity to skill effects, better highlighting of monsters and objects, improved pickup radius and better visual indicators that don’t clash with skills such as extreme colorization to indicate the type of damage being used. I think the latter part would be good if enemy effects could not overlap. Otherwise, it would simply be slop visually and not help the current situation.
• Item Pickup Sucks – As someone with various physical problems with my hands (carpal tunnel, two broken fingers, etc.), I think still being forced to click on small areas to grab items or interact with objects is horrifically painful. I maintain that the solution to item pick up is to convert the Loot Filter into a Loot Vacuum mode that can be enabled with a checkbox. While pets are the primary method for handling out of range currency types, I would prefer that a person could just run over the Loot and have it placed in their inventory. If you add a scrollbar to each inventory slot with a FAR larger space allotment, it would solve the bulk of the complaints for inventory management. This should be as bad of an issue as it is in this type of game especially when like games have already solved this QoL problem. And it isn’t a skill issue either; it really is a QoL problem.
  Likewise, the interaction with objects like Prisoners continue to be problematic. I know some of that was solved like doors but dungeon quests are particularly painful. Same thing with chests. I think these things should be auto opened or interacted based on distance. If players really want to feel the click, just provide a checkbox to enable clicking on objects. But I shouldn’t have to suffer physically because of wretched UI/UX.
• RNG upon RNG Progression – I will never stop fighting this issue with Blizzard’s core design philosophy. I feel that at a certain point, progression feels awful because of how RNG based almost every design decision ends up becoming. Crafting and War Plans were already inflicted with this form of punishment for no good reason. An example of this is Transfiguration. I was excited to see a version of Santification make its turn. But the outcomes for Transfiguration don’t feel as worthy of an RNG chase because of not allowing for the legendary power to be crafted. But the real issue is that finding a good base already is problematic especially due to the revamped Uniques (which I’ll talk about). Even when you get a solid item, you can still “brick” it. But why? I would prefer the currency to Transfigure to be super rare and a chase item rather than not having a more deterministic thing that I can craft upon something. The new system does work better than before but it’s still in a very rough phase. But I think the RNG dependency is what kills the game entirely at some point. Like I should have a clear path for how I can reach the end game not depending on sheer luck all the time.
• Mephisto Fight – I think only one person likes this fight in the world. But he enjoys pain and suffering. The real issue is that this fight is a dissertation on miscalculations in design vs genre. It’s basically a World of Warcraft version of a mythic raid boss fight where you’re forced to learn god awful mechanics and need go through multi-phases and start from scratch if you’re defeated. On top of that, the fight isn’t really a “challenge” but just a ton of crap thrown at you. Like the change of skills and the pull out view that is disorienting. Add one shots and this no longer becomes aspiring content but just a flat out “fuck you” from the vast majority of the player base, almost as reprehensible as the dead raid from Vessel of Hatred that ought to receive the proper treatment of being permanently deleted from the game. This fight was semi-okay for the campaign to do on easy mode. But that’s where it belongs along with the trash Lilith fight (and yes, I did beat her but only by outgearing her).
• One Shot Mechanics – In general, one shot mechanics are dogshit that makes everything one tries to build up for seem meaningless. Player damage should be gradual that break down the defenses that lead to conservative potion usage rather than sudden panic mode that occurs infrequently (like the shitty DoT scaling problems). The issue with one shot mechanics is that it’s a disruptive experience that most often induces confusion partly because of a lack of a combat log.  The other problem is that it’s impossible to build up any meaningful defense because of the dilution of defenses into the general “Toughness” notion and the equally obscure “resistances” category. Damage Reduction also provides almost no meaningful interaction against one shot mechanics. To me if I’m using a Shako and have 20% damage reduction, I should see 20% of my life still intact when I get hit by one of these so-called one shot mechanics. Otherwise, it’s a bill of goods that Blizzard is selling you.
• Multipliers – I think most people agree that the real core problem in Diablo 4 is the wholehearted embracing of multipliers. I think multipliers in this game are baneful where the mathematics can’t easily be controlled and it’s tough to see how everything works out because of out-of-control, nonsensical scaling. I have no easy solution to the multipliers problem but it’s something that makes the game hard to balance around and needs to receive a deep examination. The only multiplier that makes sense to me is a critical strike. But I think the multiplier used on that effect be simple in the math where the idea is that you’re hitting a vulnerable spot that instantly kills an enemy or gets close to taking that thing down.
• Damage Types – If Damage Types retained the Diablo 2 Rock – Paper – Scissors notion, it might sort of work. The real problem is that there’s a variety of damage types that don’t really mean much in the scheme of things. In fact, I would argue having these different types of damages hurt in that there’s not a lot of actual difference. Like what’s the difference between a Fire dot and Poison dot? They simply are dots with a different flag. Then you get even more confusing damage types like Vulnerable and Overpower. Part of the problem in conjunction with multipliers, one shot mechanics and defenses is that none of this is self evident. You pretty much have to understand a poorly conceived system that probably needs more overhauls, especially if someone wakes up and decides to remove most multipliers from the game. Again, I consider this a downright atrocious problem because the issue is deeply buried.
• On Death Effects – I probably don’t have as big of an issue with these as the majority of the players but I need to identify it as the culprit that sits under almost everything else listed here. The problem is that you cannot prepare for the on death effect that one shots you when it happens. You can’t anticipate how badly it would affect you outside of “well, it was your fault for standing around.” While I can applaud the updated elite/rare affixes, I think they still need to be balanced where defenses play a better role or that the visualizations improve. I think that Blizzard will have an impossible time in the near term finding a solution for the visualizations because of the art style. That part requires an entire graphics engine overhaul and you won’t see anything like that in the near future. So the only compensation is to lower the intensity of the damage these effects do or cause them to shut off the moment a mob that invokes the effect dies. Since the math is probably impossible for Blizzard to handle, the easiest, lowest hanging immediate fruit is to simply cut off the effect after the mob dies. There is no other elegant solution here without actual engine fixes.
• Bugs – Bugs were expected from a new expansion especially with this amount of refactoring for existing systems. But some are just so bad that they make the game unplayable. I think I would be a lot more forgiving towards Blizzard if the game had better overall leadership. There have been improvements and the expansion does show that there is a positive willingness to listen and change. I think that whatever we’re seeing is the remnant of damage from the revolving door for this game where each new major group coming in has a different idea of how to implement the game. So that vision whether it’s democratic, KPI driven or done through some bad apples have serious issues that are bleeding into the overall quality of the game.
• Performance – I’m separating out performance from bugs just because it deserves a category in itself. I noticed that the game degrades over time and I’m not the only person. Certain areas like elevations seem to cause incredible lag while a simple action like opening ones inventory in town triggers more lag. If you add all the other “Downright Atrocious” items listed here, it makes HC only seem like a masochist’s wet dream. Despite that, having a poorly performing “modern” game has no place when the old Blizzard motto was to make a game that works on old hardware. My gut tells me that the issue is partly network related and graphics related where the assets and various effects are badly intermixing and too many calculations are being done that a lot of machines can’t handle. Also, I’ve read that the game experiences a big memory leak and it’s been an ongoing issue for years now. I have a feeling that it’s unsolvable based on how the engine works and without a serious revamp to tone down graphics or reduce calculations to make things less taxing on the CPU and memory, you aren’t going to see any fix for this issue.
• Poor Teaching Experience – Something that occurred to me about how this game operates is that there’s really no tutorial mode to help players learn how to play the game. I think the campaign ends up hurting because the story ends up being a horribly gratuitous way for some writer to masturbate his/her writing fantasies to as opposed to using the campaign as a mode for aiding new players to existing, revamped and new systems. Like there’s no such thing as a base build that a new player can use to experience the game. I see a lot of new players on Twitch struggling because they have no idea how the game works, what skills work with what, understanding the abomination of a confusing, inexplicable damage type system, etc. The game would do much better by cutting down the campaign and using it as a tutorial mode for key mechanics in the game rather than an overdrawn exposition for someone’s bad taste in writing. I think moving forward, the campaign mode either should be cut down to only relevant parts to teach new players or existing players about these systems (i.e. the intro mode) or introduce a hand holding mode that gives gear and leads players to experience the game as it should. I feel a lot of players who don’t understand how an ARPG works probably end up quitting after the lengthy campaign, believing they beat the game but only learn of the game because of the overhype. But they never understand what makes the game reasonably fun, which is tragic because of how the systems can be pretty fun.

Final Thoughts

Again, the key thing here is that Lord of Hatred managed to really nail some of the core things people were begging for. There’s a very good base in terms of the new systems that can be expanded upon. I think many players can see the potential for the new foundation, which means that Blizzard did a reasonable job here. However, the really reprehensible areas are either unfixable or need a monstrous overhaul that prevent the game from reaching anything higher than a B level currently, especially at the level expected from a Blizzard game funded/owned by Microsoft. It shouldn’t be the case where independent competitors are pushing out better ideas.

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