Blizzard's late-night emergency patch saved Diablo 4's most controversial season yet

GamesRPGDiablo 4Blizzard’s late-night emergency patch saved Diablo 4’s most controversial season yetWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Tyler C. / Blizzard)

Diablo 4 season 3 screenshot of Rogue and Seneschal construct companion

Last week, Blizzard learned just how little Diablo 4 players want to avoid traps while doing dungeons. Reddit and social media were ablaze withcriticisms over season 3’s new vaultsand the robot companion. It was as if the success of season 2 was an anomaly and Diablo 4 would go back to being the tedious grind it was when it launched.

But late on Friday, Blizzarddropped a patchthat targeted the season’s worst issues: the traps and the rate at which your companion’s skills upgrade. Vaults are considerably easier now and the robot spider takes no time to grow into a powerful companion. The Reddit threads died down and people seem happy. Season 3 is saved.

Before the patch, the amount of loot you got at the end of a vault would depend on how many traps you ran into. Each trap you tripped would remove some of your Zoltun’s Warding buff, earned with Pearls of Warding unique to the season. Screw up enough times and you’d lose too many stacks to open the bonus chests at the end. Players started bolting through traps just for the single guaranteed chest instead of trying to maintain the buff for the extra rewards.

(Image credit: Tyler C. / Blizzard)

Diablo 4 season 3 screenshot of loot drops in a vault dungeon

Now, season 3’s new systems have a satisfying loop: You complete open world events for vault materials, spend those on vaults for companion upgrades and gear, and then repeat all that until you’re strong enough to kill the new boss—who can drop two extraordinarilypowerful Tuning Stones.Items are still a pain to parse given how manypointless stats exist in Diablo 4, but that’s something Blizzard plans to fix next season. And you could argue that rushing through traps defeats their purpose. But the community’s flip from rage to praise after Blizzard’s quick turnaround on the patch will hopefully highlightwhy season 2 was greatand a philosophy that should be followed in the future: Diablo 4 is simply more fun when it’s generous to everyone.

We’re all farming the same handful of vaults over and over for piles of loot that often aren’t that good, and yet it’s still much better than not doing that. Character progression, whether it’s leveling up or gearing up, is wicked fast again, which has opened the door for new builds as people get back to experimenting. This is the kind of creativity and excitement you want in a Diablo game, especially as people prepare for The Gauntlet, a fixed weekly dungeon with leaderboards coming later in the season.

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Blizzard’s solutions for season 3’s problems show a willingness to just let players have their fun and accept that not every new idea works out as intended. A much improved reception for the season doesn’t offset the fact thatMicrosoft laid off 1,900 Activision-Blizzard employeesin the same week, unfortunately—a devasting loss that surely didn’t make working on a patch like this any easier. If anything though, it shows Blizzard’s ability to interpret feedback and stay flexible, which will be crucial as we get closer to the big changes in season 4 and the Vessel of Hatred expansion later this year.

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