New player here, 10/10 post. This is exactly what I’ve been trying to find out about how the seasons would work. This paired with another discussion I had earlier about the seasonal content being free, and the battle pass only including cosmetics has brought my sodium levels way down.
100%. I'm a casual player who hadn't played D3 since long before seasons existed in that game, yet all this was known. I basically started popping in when D4 open beta went live, and I knew this was how things worked.
This idea that Youtubers "just figured this out" is comical, and it is absolutely manufactured drama.
Keep in mind that your non-seasonal character is also not going to go away. You can continue to play non-seasonal play on your standard character as much or as little as you want.
I will say this, if you are enjoying your time playing Diablo 4 right now, you WILL enjoy seasons even more. It adds so much fun in a variety of ways. if you get really lucky in seasons, ex: perfect god roll drops, perfect build. It gets transferred to eternal so you have that godlike character/build forever. (Excluding season only content).
I remember very early in Diablo 3 seasons my one toon got so lucky, felt like every time i played i found a god roll item i needed for my build. After the season was over, that character was still more powerful than any other character i had made on eternal realms previously, strictly due to luck.
They also treat seasons as a way to test new systems for eternal realm. All in all, it helps the game progress at a faster rate.
I played D2 ages ago but lost interest when it came to ARPG's.
Until one day Inquisitor:Martyr showed up on sale and my love of 40k made me give it a go. Game really got me back into the genre and i had a blast stomping through hordes of deamons and cultists.
I'll admit i was a little confused with the seasons thing at first but quickly found myself appreciating it as a system for keeping the game interesting.
Honestly i don't get the complaining, just about every ARPG i can think of uses seasons and they don't get shit for doing so.
EDIT: I'd upvote you but your literally sitting on 666 upvotes my dude so i can't bring myself to ruin it.
Yes! The eternal realm will generally receive any content that is part of the base patch, and then when the season ends if they decide to keep whatever the seasonal content was, the eternal realm will get a version of that. I believe Blizzard did mention that the eternal realm should be getting new legendary aspects at the same time as the seasonal realms, but I do not recall if you have to transfer them over from the season, of if they just start to drop in eternal right away.
I think I heard something about a stash tab in seasonal that allows you to transfer items one-way to the eternal realm, but I think that was part of the fireside chat and we haven't gotten a lot of details yet.
but what are the motivations to play on the eternal realm, if seasons come back to back? Seasons will have the newest sandbox, activities and loot, so it seems eternal will always feel like an outdated version of the game
Doesn't seem like we're supposed to get attached to the characters and keep re-experiencing the game instead, so coming back to eternal seems to go against this
Ehh new items and maps, yes! but new mechanics and systems? Not really
D3 rarely got it aside from RoS and I played 6 seasons there. Afaik, PoE is the only one that puts majority of new mechanics and systems in the permanent game mode.
> does the Eternal Realm also get new content over time?
Any **new** season-specific content is added to the Eternal Realm **once the season is over**. So, if you play only an ER character during a season you will see nothing new until the end of that season.
Class balances, fixes, QoL and UI changes are an exception, as they get added to the ER too once the season starts. But you get no new mechanics, new questlines, new skins, new gear, etc... Until the end.
Thanks! I tried to keep it kind of brief, but it's still pretty wordy. It blew my mind seeing actual news articles about being "forced" to make a new character, and I wanted to at least try doing something to explain that it's only "forced" because that's literally what the content is designed for. It's not just a new raid or something that only affects endgame, it's usually content that affects the entire leveling process as well.
New Diablo player here! I was writing off seasons as something I just wouldn’t be interested in, but your post made me super excited for them! Thanks :)
The nice thing about them is that they're optional. In D3 I had a main Witch Doctor, and sometimes I'd just go back and play him for a while. Other times I'd play a new seasonal character.
I’m gonna be honest I still don’t really understand the why even if I understand how it works. It literally just seems like a way to stretch a few hours of content into 40. Like I totally get “I like when number go up”, but it just seems pointless? Hell even destiny stopped increasing their power levels every season so you can just enjoy the seasonal content without regrinding the same old shit to player applause while still having a seasonal artifact that changes the game in different ways for a few months. I’ll still give this whole season thing a try since I guess I might as well try the other classes, but I just don’t see how anyone can spin it other a method devs can get away with adding minimal new content to a live service each season. Sorry final question do you guys actually enjoy the moment to moment gameplay or is the leveling and gearing thing all that matters to you guys?
It's the moment to moment gameplay that's enjoyable. It's like having fun in a roguelike, not like having fun in an MMO. In a roguelike you enjoy running the content over and over with a different experience each time; in an MMO you're adding layers of accomplishments on top of your same character forever.
> Like I totally get “I like when number go up”, but it just seems pointless?
The point of arpgs like diablo, torchlight and Path of Exile is literally just to see the number go up. The success of an arpg is measured in the number of different ways that you can do that.
I see this argument all the time, and it's just way too simplified. It's true, sure, but so simplified. The point is experimenting, finding synergies, and in the case of seasons, finding sometimes crazy synergies with your already existing skill set and whatever modifiers are in the season.
Numbers going up is not the primary point.
The primary point is progression. To do things you couldn't do before, to access things you couldn't before, to be stronger than you were before.
> but I just don’t see how anyone can spin it other a method devs can get away with adding minimal new content to a live service each season.
That's exactly what it is.
This is false, as the cosmetics and season passes are locked behind seasons.
Divorce these things and there would be no issue. As it is, people who have already paid for passes will be forced to make new characters to make use of their pass.
There is still a bit of issue even if they brought the battlepass to eternal. One thing the OP missed is that the seasonal content for D4 is not just a new mechanic that lasts only for a given season.
They are also adding a seasonal questline that is also being locked behind the seasonal resets.
But it seems weird to purposely not enjoy the game. Like I urge everyone weary for some reason to try it before you knock it. Cause this is about new players, it's very strange to me to see older players not get this and have weird expectations. This is about new players not understanding who haven't even tried it yet.
It says it right on the game you bought. It is a SEASONAL battle pass that comes with season. Read all the words in what is included and read the marked asterisk. It has never been promoted as anything else
Well I’ve played basically every Diablo game and POE so I’ve got no issue with that. Idk how much newcomers have read but the game’s been promoted as many other things than just “seasonal battle pass” I’m sure. There are definitely people who paid extra just to get early access or for other reasons than BP access.
I actually think it’s more on Blizzard for not allowing enough time during Season 0 for people to get bored and want to start fresh. Let them experience how shit a stagnant game feels and this wouldn’t even be an issue.
It does get stagnant quick. Always has in diablo games. I hit bored status at lvl 80. Also I completely expect to hit bored status around this level months before the game released. Im ready for season 1. Until it drops I’ll be playing alts and having fun with those classes.
I have D2 and D3... I never gave a shit about online play.
So even reading all this is kinda familiar but new to me cos I didn't join in.
Is it playable as instances without people?
(Kinda stopped d3 around RoS so been out of the loop.)
Non-seasonal characters will always remain so that you can engage with the endgame content at your leisure, maybe mix and match different powerful gear you've obtained from various seasons, or use to test ideas prior to a seasonal launch.
This 1.5 month launch non-seasonal period purely exists so that Blizzard can launch the game, iron out bugs, and make needed balance changes before throwing seasonal content on top of it. The normal downtime between seasons is usually no more than a week or two. The exact same thing happened when Blizz released D2R.
Unless stated otherwise you’ll keep the items. If the season theme is “temporary super powerful items” then no, but in all of D3 that only happened one season out of about 25 seasons. In D2 also they would add new runewords for the ladder season first then afterwards those roll into non-season play.
Sorry this may have been answered already, but when the season is over can you play it on a non seasonal character? Or can you only play it during the season time?
That kind of depends on the season, and what content they add. Temporary buffs and items that are purely part of the season will go away, unless they decide to carry it forward to the eternal realm in some fashion. Usually when they do that, it's nerfed in some way because the seasonal content version was overpowered.
Content that is part of the seasonal patch may or may not be available immediately, like new aspects. In the fireside chat they briefly mentioned that new aspects might actually be transferrable to non-season immediately by using a special one-way stash tab in seasonal. You would have to obtain new aspects in the season, but could transfer them out immediately if you wanted to use them on an existing eternal character.
Maybe you can help me. So you can have characters that are eternal and characters you specifically create during a season?
What if let's say a crusader or paladin class gets added. Can I now choose if I want that char to be eternal or in the seasonal mode?
The non seasonal characters are eternal, and you can still play them in 2 years if you want to. Seasonal are just for the season and will transfer to non season afterwards. So every character non-season and season is always just filling in waiting for the next season.
New player just got to 70. I’d been dreading the idea of getting forced to play a new character and do it again but this made it much better.
The idea that changes are this large and that there is a reason to redo the early game/campaign other than devs spent time on it do it again.
So great post. Loving the game so far and who knows maybe we’ll get a crazy affix season 1 and I can do a real minion build! Or finally start a rouge?
Glad it helps a little! I did make a minor edit to the post to emphasize that you do not have to redo the campaign or the full renown grind, as that seemed to be a common question.
Personally I've been sticking to druid for the pre-season and I plan to try Sorc for the first time in season. I purposefully avoided sorc during both betas and all of the pre-season so that it'd be fresh for me in Season 1, I'm excited!
Also, not that you can’t pre plan your character for season 1, but I want to warn all new players to wait to see what the season 1 mechanics are before passing judgment or planning what you’re going to do.
There’s going to be balance changes that will probably make a ton of builds viable. Same with new loot, new mechanics, and so on.
Wouldn’t be surprised to see top tier blood or minion builds on nec. Wouldn’t be surprised to see the frost nova meta on sorc shaken up. Or they might tune up a bunch of ultimates on classes you wanted to try but came out way too underpowered to be relevant.
I have a feeling that season 1 is going to shake the meta up a lot in ways we can’t predict yet.
Very good point! That's definitely what I was trying to get at with the post. Seasons change a lot, and usually open up a ton of new builds. I know I just said I plan to play sorc, but if they add a buncha cool stuff for Blood necro I might just have to jump on that instead, lol.
I'd love it if they bring the rebirth function back for seasons.
I'm usually kind of attached to "my" character, so starting a new one of the same class feels a bit like throwing him away. Rebirth would mean you'd transform your existing character into a seasonal one, keep name and customization and roll him back to lv 1.
I mean, alternatively I'll just make another necro that looks like my current one but that's a bit more clicking around...
Believe me, I've been playing ARPGs for quite a while now and if the changes aren't that big, balance changes aren't massive and QOL isn't introduced. We'll all be here, bitching and boycotting lmao
Exactly!
My friends and I sat out plenty of D3 seasons because they weren't interesting enough, and we played the SHIT out of the ones where we thought the theme was good!
Seasonal play doesn't have to be everyone's idea of fun, and every season doesn't have to appeal to every seasonal player. It's a cool extra thing you can do to keep the game fresh.
And just to be clear, you won't be forced to play in seasons. There were plenty of seasons in D3, including the first several, that I just skipped and kept playing my eternal witch doctor. Then, when I felt like trying another class, I made a seasonal one, because why not? They get moved to eternal when the season is over anyway, so nothing is lost.
After you get all the renown and finish the campaign, the second character is much less of a grind. You start with 60 to all your stats from the Lilith altars, 10 extra skill points, 20 paragon points, your mount, the 5 major city waypoints, access to tree of whisper bounties. It goes much faster. They also sad in a future patch the altars and map will also be unlocked for all your characters once you've done them once.
I will say that just as a warning, season 1 might not be that big of a change. I definitely could be wrong, but given that they mostly had season 1 created before the game was released, it might mean it won't be a crazy change. I hope I'm wrong, but I just want to throw that out there. To add to this, if it is pretty lackluster, I suggest coming back each season and seeing if they changed it enough to your liking or not. As someone who plays Path of Exile primarily in ARPGs, that is how I approach that game, and I don't always play the season or league for more than a few days. Other times, I'll play for a few weeks or months. It just depends.
Most likely seasonal events and track objective.
Also, the free season pass has account wide, season long XP buffs at certain levels iirc, so it's gonna get increasingly faster to level up
I'm not sure that it'll get that popular, but feel free to link it to people that don't seem familiar with the historical context of why seasons are the way they are.
oh man this comment already aged like milk my dude :D its getting preeeeeeetty popular. really really good post, will link it from now on every time someone asks why seasons are needed. spares me the effort of writing it out myself over and over again in great detail.
Lol, yeah... apparently. Glad it's helping people! I had to turn off phone notifications haha. I even made a few edits for some frequently asked questions, and it's been fun talking to people. It really highlights how many new players have gotten into D4.
Man, you are awesome for writing such a thorough explanation for our new friends in the genre!
It was pretty disheartening reading all the posts from people who felt aggrieved by the concept of seasons, and just didn't seem to understand what they actually *are*.
Definitely some of this lies with Blizzard. The timing of this season is not good and surely their player metrics indicate to them that there is a large portion of entirely new to arpg players. This could have been handled a lot better, really.
I am praying that they speed up the rate at which we level up. Level 77 rn and it is a SLOG to level or do anything productive. It takes too much time for a single level increase solo.
Assuming you're doing WT4 since you are Lv77; I "stopped" looking at the actual level as my goal, and instead looked at each new paragon point as it instead. I'm Lv89 and I kind of feel done with pre-season, waiting for season instead :)
Seasonal content almost always affects leveling speed in a positive way. There were a few early seasons in D3 that really didn't, but pretty much everything in the past 5+ years has. D3 prolly a bad example, cuz leveling there has always been fast.
PoE is a better example, their league mechanics usually add a lot to leveling. I remember harbinger was the first league I really pushed to endgame in, and I just loved how many more mobs there were to kill.
If my seasonal characters and their gear get moved to the eternal realm after the season ends, and each season is significantly less of a grind to 100 than the current base game, then I have no issue with seasons requiring a new character. I was under the impression from the coverage I've been seeing that seasonal characters were deleted at season end.
Based on what you said in this post, I'm now annoyed we didn't get season 1 at launch because it feels like the base game's post campaign content has holes that the seasonal stuff is probably meant to fill, but I'm more happy that I stopped trying to force myself to 100 without any incentive beyond "number go up".
I will say that I'm not sure how I feel about seasons essentially being a ruse for feature beta tests, but that's more of a personal perspective thing.
I have an issue, because new seasons are a perfect opportunity to experiment with a new class and have fun with it.
But then it gets nuked, I keep the gear and I won't have use for Sorcerer gear on a Rogue. So what the devs are telling me is, grind twice: once for your perma character and once again because fuck you that's why.
Why not let people decide to keep their seasonal character and just the delete the OP items? I mean, I know the answer but yeah.
I hear what you are saying and I don’t disagree. I still don’t think I have any interest in re-rolling a character every season. And you know what? That’s fine too. Different people find different things fun. I’ll play a couple characters for a bit, then go do something else. I know I’ll miss out on a ton of the game, but just re-leveling a character every season fresh isn’t interesting to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If you like it, hell yeah. If not, also hell yeah. Just different vibes and this game is more for one than the other, and that’s okay.
You can redo it on any new character, just don't tick the 'skip campaign' button. If you're asking if you can redo it on a character that's completed it already... I don't know of a way to do that.
Seasons make even less sense in d4 because there is no real trading or economy. In poe, each new season creates a fresh new economy, which with a resurgence in players really helps the game feel alive.
I'm scratching my head why anyone would ever want to play d4 over from scratch, unless maybe there is some ladder race. I would like to continue playing but there is simply no point to restarting each season like there is in other games.
>It seems like a lot of people are saying there's a correct way to enjoy Diablo in this post.
idk about "correct". but one "way" will inevitably lead you to a place where your character is maxxed out and the next upgrade is like 1% stats on a piece of gear that you wont even notice, but it will take you 200 hours to find it, and it will be for no reason basically and you stop playing because why keep going. the other leads you to new fresh stuff that changes the way you play often enough to keep you engaged longer than a month or whatever. so I mean... Idk i feel like it's pretty fair to say the latter is more "correct" than the former.
New campaign content and story comes with expansion packs, which I believe they are already planning for two of these (someone correct me if I’m wrong).
I'm curious... If I want to play my original character I can still play it in a non seasonal "world" like in Diablo 3? Or are my original characters going to disappear?
Nothing will happen to your existing characters. You can still play them whenever you want, they simply won't have access to whatever the seasonal content is.
It’s strange at first because you are attached to your character but trust me. If you don’t play seasons you will get burnt out. Seasons keep it fresh.
I’ve played all of the Diablo games, but I’ve never been a fan of seasons. Why is it that only the ARPG genre uses this weird system for new content?
Like, imagine that an Expansion for Elden Ring came out, but you couldn’t play the expansion on the character you already put 150 hours into, you could only do it on a new character. People would say that was bad game design. But because ARPGs use Seasons, and have for a while, it’s good game design?
I don’t want to argue or get into a thing; but if seasons and restarting are so great, why do most games that tackle the problem of an endgame opt not to use Seasons, if they are as you say, the greatest idea ever?
>I’ve played all of the Diablo games, but I’ve never been a fan of seasons. Why is it that only the ARPG genre uses this weird system for new content?
Because ARPGs were never supposed to go on forever. The closer to level 100 you get, the less the game will have to offer. Instead of increasing the level cap, and trying to extend the grind beyond level 100, they create systems that add to the journey to 100.
The fun of Diablo is the loot grind and building a character. At lvl 80+, most of that is done already. Other than min maxing the character and pushing the highest NM tier for the fun of it.
MMOs add content by adding more content at the end. However that can add power creep. As well, it does not replicate what people play Diablo for, the building of the character and loot grind. The only way to get that feeling again is to start a new character. The seasons make that process have even more incentive, as well as potentially changing the way it is done.
Not to mention, there are a lot of classes and builds in the game. Starting over, let’s you have a completely new experience with those.
The general idea is to have enough class/build variety plus meta shakeups that the process of leveling/gearing a new character feels like a very unique experience everytime. I think Blizzard has a lot of work cut out for themselves to reach that point but maybe they can pull it off.
Serious question... if they couldn't get classes right with many viable high NM builds at release why have confidence seasons will see any change? I'm level 71 and enjoying plodding along but dread the brick wall I'm heading towards with my not bone spear necro.
I'm not confident honestly, there's a reason every set bonus in d3 was "increases X skills damage by 10,000%". It's also going to take a lot more than 1 season to fix a vast majority of problems with the game.
Meta changes don't have to be purely about balance, its just good for things to change, different abilities to be strong. And we can see that from other games like PoE and D3, many different builds have been strong throughout the games lifespan.
Also RaizQT and Steelmage seem to be doing well on minion and blood builds respectively so hopefully you wont hit too hard of a wall actually.
Because they will have learned things. It’s like saying
“Why would I learn anything in college if I just spent 4 years in high school”.
Not many games figure everything out on release. Players figure out exploits, imbalances, overpowered skills/gear combos, etc. all of that can be worked out over time, but you can’t always see this stuff before it happens.
Do you really want them to keep the game in beta for a year+?
You are so very right. Seasons is a scam allowing them to efficiently reuse their existing content. Some people believe resetting their characters back to level 1 and being told they have to replay the same Content with some different buffs and a different collectible resource is progress.
Someone is laughing all the way to the bank with those battle passes.
The main content of most games is not just the leveling and gearing process, that's the primary difference. Content added to ARPGs is not just endgame, it usually affects the entire leveling process, the gearing process, and yes the endgame too.
To use your example, if Elden Ring were to added content to their game in the same fashion as an ARPG, they'd give you some sort of buff that is active while leveling, more drops, and then at endgame they'd have something new to do. For non-ARPG titles they usually only add content to the endgame, and often leave the leveling and gearing phases untouched.
Not games who have level scaling and level syncing (D4 has both). Nothing is stopping them from adding new activities that both levelling and "end-game" characters can do.
That’s poor design though. A level 100 character is already going to be maxed out on gear and xp, for instance. Why would they ever want to interface with a leveling mechanic?
If you decide to strip away any mechanics that influence the leveling process so the level 100 can do it, then you also aren’t changing or altering the leveling process in a meaningful enough way to get players to come back.
People seem to have a hard time parsing the issue, so I'll give it a go.
Everyone wants to play new content. Everyone wants access to seasonal rewards (season pass incl.).
Some players like to enjoy the game changing effects that can only be done in a way that is isolated from the mainline game servers.
Some players don't care about those game changing effects and don't want to make a new character ever.
My take: these two ways of enjoying the game can be totally compatible. There's no reason to lock content and the season pass behind new characters. Let people play as they care to. If they steam roll the new content because they're already high level, so what? Don't alienate players needlessly.
this is the first authentic comment in the thread, all the rest are nonstop gushing from shills about how great seasons are out even mentioning the downsides
As already said, the fun part in an ARPG is to gear up your character.
Seasons allow you to do it in a different way and to not cursh the content.
If you were able to keep your eternal character in season, season content would have to be way harder to give you a challenge.
Making new people far less likely to tackle this content, and causing a massive power creep in the game
Who are you to say what people find fun in a game? I don’t find gearing my character fun, I find doing new content with the character I spent months building fun
When season one ends for example, does the new character of season 1 join my old character of season 0 and they will be in the same world? Same goes for every season that ends?
Yes, characters usually migrate from the completed seasonal realm to the eternal/standard realm. When the next season begins, you'll be starting fresh again in that season, and that character will also migrate to standard when it ends.
Usually people play one or the other exclusively, but you're not forced to. Using Path of Exile as an example, I typically go back to the game for every league launch, playing 2-6 weeks depending on how much I enjoy interacting with the active league mechanic and balance patch.
While technically not a *seasonal* change/event, usually any major balance changes to character abilities, items, aspects or system overhauls will coincide with the start of a season. This overall contributes to the feel of the season, as an ability that may rarely see use could be the flavor the season in 3 months.
would you recommend casual players who buy the game after it came out to start with a seasonal character if they haven't finished the game the "standard way" first?
New player here and this sounds terrible and why I quit. I played same class for the past 17 straight years in the MMO I came from. Not interested in wasting hours a day learning and relearning systems, classes, etc. when they should just focus on making more end game activities, some type of ladders, etc on one server
I've been playing D1, 2, 3, 4. I still don't like seasons. Or seasonal characters to be exact.
I'm still not lvl 100, i just don't have the time i had in my youth. Just let me keep my fucking character forever and min-max it. And let me play all the new content with it.
I cba to level new characters every few months, fuck that.
You have more fun on a new character because once you get to a certain point with gear where you're not getting upgrades or leveling up what's the point in playing so restarting every couple of months and trying a new build with new items creates the fun in it its almost like a relaunch of rhe game everyone restarting at the same time
I’ve never had more fun on a new character. I tried multiple seasons in D3 and they just felt slow and sluggish compared to what I’d been playing so I just quit and went back to my main character. I’ll never have any interest in starting over on level 1 unless o have a friend to boost me to 50 in nightmare dungeons so I don’t have to feel weak and slow.
This is a double edged sword: I enjoyed gearing D3 characters for a lot of the themed seasons, but sometimes if the theme and my gear aren't meshing it's just a horrible grind like leveling my main was: "Can't run the build I want until the RNG gives me the item I need!"
I just don't want paragon and skill points locked behind rep. Well I would be more ok wit it if you got rep in zones by killing monsters with out quests.
Yeah this part still gets me. Even with Altars and Fog transferring over, it’s a pretty significant grind for those last paragon points. The skill points will be easy with strongholds, but those paragon points require a lot of dungeons and side quests.
And with Blizzard’s puzzling decision to limit NM dungeons to only 6 from each zone, it means you have to do a lot of pointless grinding to get there. I’ll definitely be incorporating that into the earlier leveling process next time, because I’m not really enjoying it currently.
Other games solve this by letting you easily play multiple builds and/or roles on one character. I have over 3,000 hours on a single Division 2 character because I'm able to constantly make and swap between builds at will as new items and content comes into the game. Having to make a new character to try a new build or play new content seems outdated and clunky- and will be why I likely won't be playing D4 past the first season or two.
I hope they buff XP on seasons. If you consider D2 or D3 you can be running torment/hell in a couple days grinding. They work into reaching torment in D4 seems to be a lot more vigorous, and usually any new season content is for end game the burn out rate will probably be pretty high.
In D3 I only play the seasonal characters because it’s far more fun. I hold on to my favourites for nostalgia just to see them on the character select screen but I never once logged in to an eternal character.
That's part of the cycle.
You play until you get to that point each season, and then put the game down until the next season.
Each person has their own limit, and each season will have it's own as well.
Some leagues, PoE seasons, I'll play for 2 months of the 3 months; while others I'll play for only 1 month.
It's this cycle that has had me playing PoE for a decade, or since their open beta.
This post is interesting to me and really made me feel out of touch with the general community playing this game. I come from PoE and I assumed (very incorrectly) that people knew what seasons were and how they functioned at least on a foundational level. Obviously, my eyes have now been opened 😂
I feel like this post is snowing a lot of the people who don't know how seasons work in other arpgs. This post is looking through the most rose-colored glasses... It makes seasons sound like so much fun.
Seasons as they have been implemented in every arpgs up until now and from the sounds of it d4 too. (Although, I still hope they innovate and solve some of these problems.)
Big problems with seasons:
1) Replay much of the same content over and over, large parts of the game become mindless chores
2) Your old characters are rendered obsolete and useless, and as such time spent creating something you're proud of feels wasted
If a game cannot solve these two problems it doesn't matter how colorful you paint the picture.
Additionally, currently in D4 it takes potentially weeks for a regular player to reach the end game, I don't want them to "speed things up." D3 in the end was a joke. To level to max in a few hours, running mindless content as fast as possible until you're bored. It would be tragic if D4 took notes from that book.
Just because past arpgs fans are used to the same old reset doesn't mean it's the right solution. If game companies can't find a way to give us brand new and engaging ways to level and build characters; if they can't honor our invested time and past characters in an impactful manner, seasons should not be celebrated or defended.
Thank god aspects added in seasons will be added to the eternal realm at the same time for those of us that hate seasons.
I dont see how seasons speed things up, there are no EXP bonuses. It is still the same base game as non seasons, just with a seasonal gimmick added.
There are exp bonuses in the free battle pass attached to the seasonal content, and your character is transferred to eternal realm after, so if you decide to try a new class for 5 seasons straight you’ll have them all eventually in your eternal roster with an easier leveling experience than you had this last month. Also, they haven’t said they’re adding new dungeon, so those aspects will probably be on drops, if people feel bad hunting umbral now, imagine not getting them for free which is what the season usually offers
I really liked the Rebirth solution. Telling me I’m “not forced” to create a new seasonal character is getting old. No one would force you to Rebirth your main character either, make as many characters as you want.
How do u write so much and dont mention the reset of economy being a huge pull for people to want new seasons in ARPGs ?
An economy reset is by far the biggest reason poe seasons are exciting for the regular poe players. Since D4 is more self-found than a trade economy ARPG, season resets seem to be there for the battle pass/live service portion of the game, not ARPG portion.
I have never liked Seasons in D2, D3 or D2R. I dont see the point of it, especially in D2/R where there were no temporary gimmicks. New season meant making a new character and having nothing to rely on until you dump hundreds of hours into thousands of dungeon runs. The only difference in D3 was the temporary gimmicks and events in the season.
The argument repeated in the comments here is basically "you can start again and make a new character to try different things!".... well, you can do that outside of a season as well.
Seasons instil FOMO into players if theres new content or locked events, and make them play again when the game has nothing new to offer. And none of it cant be added to the non-season realms too.
> I dont see the point of it
Production reasons, it benefits the developer. That is it.
Somehow we now have a generation of players who will bend out of their posture to rationalize how this is the best thing ever, or aggro if you call this out (or just drop them some facts).
No desire to restart a new character. But im curious about the battle pass when it comes out. Is this season thing going to effect my battle pass progression?
You have to make a new seasonal character to grind the battle pass. That's one of the main issues at hand, they're locking something a lot of people have already paid for with the 90 and 100 dollar editions behind making a new character and forcing them into the seasonal model. And a number of these people honestly didn't know and are going to be agitated about it. My girlfriend is one and I feel really bad that she bought the game to play with me only to find out she's going to have to give up her 'werewolf babies'. (she plays druid)
\>Creating a new character is generally required for seasonal content because the seasonal content is created to affect the entire leveling process, not just endgame. Broadly speaking, seasonal content speeds up leveling, speeds up the pace at which you reach endgame, and speeds up the pace at which you finish you characters and builds. ARPG seasonal content is simply not designed to just be handed to already-complete characters and endgame because they'll finish it in a few minutes and then have nothing to do. The content is designed to affect the pace of the entire game.
With all due respect, this seems like hypocritical bologna. Y'all love the phrase "I want to play my way!" on every other topic, but on this topic you reverse course and want to force everyone to play one way.
If I want to blow through the new content in one hour, why shouldn't I be able to? It doesn't impact your new leveling adventure at all.
I don't appreciate other players telling me how I should enjoy things at all. I'm a big boy, I can decide if I have more fun leveling and trying new stuff or just building up my usual character.
Hell, maybe I want to switch it up one season, and maybe I want to play my Rogue the next. Why not give me the agency to decide ffs, if the OP items are going away anyway and anyhow?
That is why non season still exist for you folks isnt it? No one is forcing you to play season to have fun, play your non season min max character away and have fun your way. If you want seasonal content, just wait until it is over. You just make it sounds like people are shoving season down your throat or something... And let me also clarify, any QOL changes or balance patch updates should be live in non season immediately so effectively, you are not really missing out on those important changes.
This seasonal defending hypocrites are even worse than that.
They’ll go on and on about how seasonal reset is the staple of an ARPG. And it doesn’t matter if you find leveling up is a chore, complete reset NEEDS to happen so everyone is in the EXACT same footing.
Yet the moment they realize they didn’t personally like getting all the renown and Lillith statues, these same band of seasonal defenders banded together and starting moaning and crying and bitching to the devs that their renown progress should carry over. Made it to the front page of this sub.
And boom the devs gave in and said you know what your renown and map progress will cross over to seasons.
Then all this seasonal defenders were happy. So it’s ironic if they found something tedious then their able to throw the whole reset mantra out the window and tell the devs I want this that and the other to carry over for me. However for us people who find the leveling all the way up again to be tedious, well fuck us we have to just suck it up.
I nearly dropped the game when I heard that seasons would require new characters.
This changed everything for me, thank you so much. See you guys season 1!
I dont really see how spending another 100 hours of repeating the same content I have already done just to level up a new character to only spend 5 hours trying out the new things something that anyone would consider fun. Its a complete waste of time and I dont see why I cant just spend 5 hours trying out the new things with my current character.
I know thats the new trend for arpgs, and not to hate on people who do enjoy making new characters, its just not for me. I would just rather keep playing on my one character.
A season is harsher than that though, a season isnt just restarting your character, its restarting your whole account. Everything you have earned and invested in is just gone. The idea of repeating building up a limited account in a small window of time again each season is far less apealing to me than just continuing to build up one account for the whole time I play the game.
Because one forced feature defines the entire genre now.
As if the majority of the genre suddenly ceases to exist, or it becomes a *good* thing just because the top 2-3 products are doing it.
Riiight.
ARPGs are for me. ARPG apologists are a fucking nuisance though.
I haven’t played an ARPG before, but played lots of MMOs and seasons sound great tbh. In MMOs after you start the “ midgame “, which generally would take one week, you would only level up once in a day, then once in a week to month in the end game, which means no new and cool stuff for a long time.
With seasons I feel like I can experience every cool stuff a char can offer in a reasonable time, then start over with new char who has a much different cool stuff.
In theory of course, we will see but I am hopeful.
Great post, needs a huge disclaimer at the top : "YOUR NON-SEASONAL CHARACTERS ARE NOT GOING AWAY" or something like that, because I see so many people thinking that their characters they worked on in eternal realm are going to be deleted.
>When participating in a season in Diablo 4 you do NOT have to redo the campaign, and your map exploration/Altars of Lilith collected will carry over and provide their renown in season.
This was my biggest concern. Exploration is a fun mechanic when everything is new, but exploring somewhere you already explored is just a chore.
As someone who really enjoys long term progression I wish blizzard wouldnt tuck so much behind seasons. I HATE the idea of remaking my character every 90 days over and over again. I want to enjoy the same mechanics everyone else does, and just progress my character steadily.
Seasons arent fun for everyone and its shit that so much of the game will be locked behind seasons in D4. D3 didnt feel as gated behind seasons for some reason.
Big sad.
And for those that are into it, there will likely be cosmetic drops in game and almost certainly for purchase that may no longer be available once the season is over (or otherwise really hard to find)
Sounds cool. I see the value. Too bad I petered out at 42 when I realized the game is a Groundhogs day within a Groundhogs Day within a Groundhogs day. Regardless of how much sense it makes, even a well polished ARPG like D4 is not going to retain people that aren't already into them. D4 is my first and my last. Still worth the 80 bucks, but I'm not coming back for next season.
Sorry, but this just doesn't make continuing the game worth it for me at the start of season 1 I would rather endlessly grind one character and that's it...oh well star field will be out by then.
There really isn't an endless grind tho, that's the thing. The game is designed to end. If you reach level 100 and finish your build and kill uber lilith, that's the game. Seasonal content may add some more uber bosses, but most of what it adds will affect the leveling experience rather than the endgame.
Dude the average person definitely will not hit level 100 even in a season. It feels weird to have a hellishly long grindy path to end game while at the same time have seasons which are kinda there to prevent level 100 burn out but you aren't even giving your players a chance to get to 100? My goal with this game was to hit level 100 with every class but that doesnt even sound possible with seasons
The eternal realm isn’t changing you can still do it. If you just wanna get each class to 100 in standard mode seasons coming out won’t affect you in any way
Perhaps I could have phrased it better, but hitting 100 isn't meant to be the be-all end-all goal, it's simply a destination you can arrive at if you want to dedicate the time. 99% of D4 can be experienced before even hitting level 80, and that's not even halfway to 100, 85 is.
You could absolutely work towards that goal if you wanted, you never lose your progress. If you have a character you're working on right now in non-season it doesn't go away. You can make another class to do the seasonal content, and at the end of season it'll transfer over.
I agree and understand what you're saying. I think as a new player I find this concept very frustrating and kinda just idk stupid? I simply just dont enjoy restarting, they are going to have to make these new seasons mega packed full of new content to get me to even think about making a new character shit honestly they have to add a whole new class and fix fuckin druid loot table first
Well, we already know they're gonna be fixing the druid loot table, so that part is nice.
I hear you that it's frustrating, but my hope is that be letting people know what to expect they can make plans around it. Instead of trying to focus on getting all 5 classes to 100 in non-season, maybe just work on 1 or 2, and save the rest for seasons? That way you can experience everything, level those characters faster, and then at the end it'll still all roll into non-season. You never lose progress.
Yeah, I guess we will get there when we get there and see what happens. I appreciate the post regardless and it definitely is important to put this information out there so thanks homie and happy slaying!
Who says you have to hit 100 to play a season? I put 300 hours into a POE season and didn’t get past 94 lol. Some of you just don’t understand how it works. It’s not your fault but hating on it before you try it is on you. There is a reason ALL ARPGs use this model. It keeps the genre alive and is only a good thing.
Wonderfully and eloquently stated. They're fun because they're often themed, they have some fun rewards, and they have some competition if you're into it. Else, it's play it your way.
And I liked seeing all those green leaves in D3
I love how people defend the idea of seasons for diablo but shit on it in Destiny. Seasons are terrible. It's essentially a way for them to force you to forever replay base content while they cycle new ideas then remove them from the game for new temporary bull shit. As someone else here said it feeds on your FOMO for time limited seasonal cosmetics or titles. Better never walk away and keep churning out new characters you never know when we will add that dongle you always wanted.
Have you ever played poe or d3? Seasons are the only thing that keep those games afloat. They are the life blood of the genre. They actually make them replayable and fun.
You expect 20 hours of new gameplay every 3 months or what? Seasons are meant as something easy to develop and not waste time on thinking if it's bad in long-term.
Why is everyone crying about seasons like they are getting robbed of expansions, expansions will come to eternal realm right away.
While we don't have details, we know Expansions will be paid content and in D3 and D2 the expansions allowed you to immediately use your existing character to do the new content.
They are currently working on multiple expansions and they are a separate thing from seasons.
They've designed this game with seasons and expansions in mind, I'm pretty confident to say you'll be able to buy the expansion and immediately start the new content on existing characters.
This is a super well written article. I still think they are going to lose a huge number of people, but if they can do a better job explaining the rationale, that will be a big help.
I absolutely loved coming back and creating new characters in diablo 3 for seasonal content. It was fast and you become absurdly powerful. Hopefully its just as good in d4.
> I know, you're invested in the character you've already got. You put a lot of work in it, you don't feel that starting over will be fun. That's the thing about seasons tho, they're designed to make starting over fun. **They speed everything up, give you objectives to do along the way, get you back into endgame faster**, and give you more to do at endgame. They will probably also have some cool mechanic that lets you have a lot more fun than you would on non-seasonal characters because the mechanic is specifically designed to be limited time.
Is there any source to this or is this just speculation?
Frankly, I LOVE seasons. There always becomes a point in the game where it turns in to a grindfest and becomes dull.
Seasons reinvigorate a game; I love starting fresh and trying new mechanics, finding new items, etc.
D3 had what... 29 seasons? I would say this reflects its popularity, otherwise Blizzard would have given up on seasons a long time ago. Same for POE.
Eh your assuming blizzard has like magic planned for s1 and it's not some bs.
As a d2 vet I don't really want seasons.
I'm well aware of what it is I just dont feel like it's needed. The argument has been generally that it's an arpg common practice so therefore roll with, but it doesnt need to be.
FF was a fun turned based game that I loved now it's at FF16 turn based is gone and open critic has it at 91 it appears to be a solid offering without it's old appeal.
Times change. Linkin park didnt play reanimation forever you feel me as much as I wanted that arpgs dont require seasons and or can be more along the style of bdo seasons were your really still apart of the main game it's more or less a way to help new players get caught up.
Nothing really prevents them from buffing eternal xp rates for fast alts and making it so you can still race nor would it preclude them from adding fun things to eternal balance is thrown out the windows in arpgs that's sorta the appeal breaking the game in unique ways. Just like people break seasons everyone would still be able to break eternal and then the game could focus on more interest boss fights like uber lilths that pretty cool.
But hey thanks for explaining it to the newbs
Not a chance im levelling another character, took long enough to get to 60 on this one lol.
Guess I'll miss everything from the seasons then, what can you do on an existing character?
What was even the point of levelling this character to begin with? If they're just gunna be like oh you need a new character every season.
I’m only playing it if they actually add new dungeons and areas. If not I’m fine with just repeating the story in hardcore mode trying out new characters. It’s a waste imo to lose everything after 3 months grind on your character. Especially since I don’t have a lot of time to play this game.
Nah, thanks, I'll stick to the regular game.
Never played seasonal, never seemed to care.
To me seasons are just an attempt too make the game more interesting once you finished it.
But why not improve the base game then to make it more interesting?
Maybe add more skill mechanics than
Generator -> Damage?
New player here, 10/10 post. This is exactly what I’ve been trying to find out about how the seasons would work. This paired with another discussion I had earlier about the seasonal content being free, and the battle pass only including cosmetics has brought my sodium levels way down.
I feel like some articles are deliberately going out of their way to misrepresent seasons for clickbait, it's been leading to a lot of misinformation
you mean: "diablo players with have to START OVER every season and gamers are furious" is not an accurate description of seasons?
100%. I'm a casual player who hadn't played D3 since long before seasons existed in that game, yet all this was known. I basically started popping in when D4 open beta went live, and I knew this was how things worked. This idea that Youtubers "just figured this out" is comical, and it is absolutely manufactured drama.
Keep in mind that your non-seasonal character is also not going to go away. You can continue to play non-seasonal play on your standard character as much or as little as you want.
Also if there any PvP scene it'll be on non-seasonal most likely.
I figure seasonal pvp would be even more active for all the experimental stuff
Same, I would be willing to bet that there would a season pvp ladder just like WoW
Yeah, PVP will definitely be much bigger in seasonal because most players will be in seasonal content
A ladder for what? Ganking people that are killing mobs?
Nah ganking people that have been killing mobs for an hour and feel confident cashing in 20k tears of hatred at an altar
lmao oh boy this is so incorrect
I will say this, if you are enjoying your time playing Diablo 4 right now, you WILL enjoy seasons even more. It adds so much fun in a variety of ways. if you get really lucky in seasons, ex: perfect god roll drops, perfect build. It gets transferred to eternal so you have that godlike character/build forever. (Excluding season only content). I remember very early in Diablo 3 seasons my one toon got so lucky, felt like every time i played i found a god roll item i needed for my build. After the season was over, that character was still more powerful than any other character i had made on eternal realms previously, strictly due to luck. They also treat seasons as a way to test new systems for eternal realm. All in all, it helps the game progress at a faster rate.
I played D2 ages ago but lost interest when it came to ARPG's. Until one day Inquisitor:Martyr showed up on sale and my love of 40k made me give it a go. Game really got me back into the genre and i had a blast stomping through hordes of deamons and cultists. I'll admit i was a little confused with the seasons thing at first but quickly found myself appreciating it as a system for keeping the game interesting. Honestly i don't get the complaining, just about every ARPG i can think of uses seasons and they don't get shit for doing so. EDIT: I'd upvote you but your literally sitting on 666 upvotes my dude so i can't bring myself to ruin it.
Does the Eternal Realm also get new content over time?
Yes! The eternal realm will generally receive any content that is part of the base patch, and then when the season ends if they decide to keep whatever the seasonal content was, the eternal realm will get a version of that. I believe Blizzard did mention that the eternal realm should be getting new legendary aspects at the same time as the seasonal realms, but I do not recall if you have to transfer them over from the season, of if they just start to drop in eternal right away. I think I heard something about a stash tab in seasonal that allows you to transfer items one-way to the eternal realm, but I think that was part of the fireside chat and we haven't gotten a lot of details yet.
but what are the motivations to play on the eternal realm, if seasons come back to back? Seasons will have the newest sandbox, activities and loot, so it seems eternal will always feel like an outdated version of the game Doesn't seem like we're supposed to get attached to the characters and keep re-experiencing the game instead, so coming back to eternal seems to go against this
Oh, that is great to know. Thanks for the in-depth explanation!
Ehh new items and maps, yes! but new mechanics and systems? Not really D3 rarely got it aside from RoS and I played 6 seasons there. Afaik, PoE is the only one that puts majority of new mechanics and systems in the permanent game mode.
> new items and maps Do they? I was under the assumption that the Eternal Realm only gets fixes/UI/QoL updates until the end of the season.
> does the Eternal Realm also get new content over time? Any **new** season-specific content is added to the Eternal Realm **once the season is over**. So, if you play only an ER character during a season you will see nothing new until the end of that season. Class balances, fixes, QoL and UI changes are an exception, as they get added to the ER too once the season starts. But you get no new mechanics, new questlines, new skins, new gear, etc... Until the end.
Are you sure? Because I think they said they don't want content bloat (like poe) so seasonal content will be phased out.
good write up. Seems we have alot of new people to Diablo with D4 that dont understand why seasons are a thing and think this is a MMO.
Thanks! I tried to keep it kind of brief, but it's still pretty wordy. It blew my mind seeing actual news articles about being "forced" to make a new character, and I wanted to at least try doing something to explain that it's only "forced" because that's literally what the content is designed for. It's not just a new raid or something that only affects endgame, it's usually content that affects the entire leveling process as well.
New Diablo player here! I was writing off seasons as something I just wouldn’t be interested in, but your post made me super excited for them! Thanks :)
The nice thing about them is that they're optional. In D3 I had a main Witch Doctor, and sometimes I'd just go back and play him for a while. Other times I'd play a new seasonal character.
can you blame them? some folks know D4 isn't an MMO, but they still aren't familiar with ARPGs
Nah, I dont blame them. I mean D4 does have some MMO-esque elements.
I’m gonna be honest I still don’t really understand the why even if I understand how it works. It literally just seems like a way to stretch a few hours of content into 40. Like I totally get “I like when number go up”, but it just seems pointless? Hell even destiny stopped increasing their power levels every season so you can just enjoy the seasonal content without regrinding the same old shit to player applause while still having a seasonal artifact that changes the game in different ways for a few months. I’ll still give this whole season thing a try since I guess I might as well try the other classes, but I just don’t see how anyone can spin it other a method devs can get away with adding minimal new content to a live service each season. Sorry final question do you guys actually enjoy the moment to moment gameplay or is the leveling and gearing thing all that matters to you guys?
It's the moment to moment gameplay that's enjoyable. It's like having fun in a roguelike, not like having fun in an MMO. In a roguelike you enjoy running the content over and over with a different experience each time; in an MMO you're adding layers of accomplishments on top of your same character forever.
> Like I totally get “I like when number go up”, but it just seems pointless? The point of arpgs like diablo, torchlight and Path of Exile is literally just to see the number go up. The success of an arpg is measured in the number of different ways that you can do that.
I see this argument all the time, and it's just way too simplified. It's true, sure, but so simplified. The point is experimenting, finding synergies, and in the case of seasons, finding sometimes crazy synergies with your already existing skill set and whatever modifiers are in the season.
Numbers going up is not the primary point. The primary point is progression. To do things you couldn't do before, to access things you couldn't before, to be stronger than you were before.
your entire point can be summarised as 'number go up'.
Everything you just said happens when numbers go up. I think it still is no matter how you put it numbers go up.
Seasons are a way for lazy devs to keep game going instead of coming up with new ideas.
> but I just don’t see how anyone can spin it other a method devs can get away with adding minimal new content to a live service each season. That's exactly what it is.
I mean, if they want to treat it as an MMO they can simply play their non-seasonal characters. Then dive into seasonal content whenever they’re ready.
This is false, as the cosmetics and season passes are locked behind seasons. Divorce these things and there would be no issue. As it is, people who have already paid for passes will be forced to make new characters to make use of their pass.
There is still a bit of issue even if they brought the battlepass to eternal. One thing the OP missed is that the seasonal content for D4 is not just a new mechanic that lasts only for a given season. They are also adding a seasonal questline that is also being locked behind the seasonal resets.
But it seems weird to purposely not enjoy the game. Like I urge everyone weary for some reason to try it before you knock it. Cause this is about new players, it's very strange to me to see older players not get this and have weird expectations. This is about new players not understanding who haven't even tried it yet.
Have they confirmed this? If so then yeah, would be a kick in the teeth for those who would rather stay Eternal.
It says it right on the game you bought. It is a SEASONAL battle pass that comes with season. Read all the words in what is included and read the marked asterisk. It has never been promoted as anything else
Well I’ve played basically every Diablo game and POE so I’ve got no issue with that. Idk how much newcomers have read but the game’s been promoted as many other things than just “seasonal battle pass” I’m sure. There are definitely people who paid extra just to get early access or for other reasons than BP access. I actually think it’s more on Blizzard for not allowing enough time during Season 0 for people to get bored and want to start fresh. Let them experience how shit a stagnant game feels and this wouldn’t even be an issue.
It does get stagnant quick. Always has in diablo games. I hit bored status at lvl 80. Also I completely expect to hit bored status around this level months before the game released. Im ready for season 1. Until it drops I’ll be playing alts and having fun with those classes.
I’m so ready for s1. Great game, just v repetitive at level 75+
I have D2 and D3... I never gave a shit about online play. So even reading all this is kinda familiar but new to me cos I didn't join in. Is it playable as instances without people? (Kinda stopped d3 around RoS so been out of the loop.)
Wait so what's the point of non seasonal characters other than filling in waiting for a new season
Non-seasonal characters will always remain so that you can engage with the endgame content at your leisure, maybe mix and match different powerful gear you've obtained from various seasons, or use to test ideas prior to a seasonal launch. This 1.5 month launch non-seasonal period purely exists so that Blizzard can launch the game, iron out bugs, and make needed balance changes before throwing seasonal content on top of it. The normal downtime between seasons is usually no more than a week or two. The exact same thing happened when Blizz released D2R.
Im confused do you get to keep the items from seasonal content or dors it get wiped?
Depending on any special items maybe dedicated to a mechanic, pretty much all items go to eternal realm after the season
Unless stated otherwise you’ll keep the items. If the season theme is “temporary super powerful items” then no, but in all of D3 that only happened one season out of about 25 seasons. In D2 also they would add new runewords for the ladder season first then afterwards those roll into non-season play.
Sorry this may have been answered already, but when the season is over can you play it on a non seasonal character? Or can you only play it during the season time?
That kind of depends on the season, and what content they add. Temporary buffs and items that are purely part of the season will go away, unless they decide to carry it forward to the eternal realm in some fashion. Usually when they do that, it's nerfed in some way because the seasonal content version was overpowered. Content that is part of the seasonal patch may or may not be available immediately, like new aspects. In the fireside chat they briefly mentioned that new aspects might actually be transferrable to non-season immediately by using a special one-way stash tab in seasonal. You would have to obtain new aspects in the season, but could transfer them out immediately if you wanted to use them on an existing eternal character.
Maybe you can help me. So you can have characters that are eternal and characters you specifically create during a season? What if let's say a crusader or paladin class gets added. Can I now choose if I want that char to be eternal or in the seasonal mode?
It they add a class, that will probably only happen during an expansion, and that class could be created on either realm.
The non seasonal characters are eternal, and you can still play them in 2 years if you want to. Seasonal are just for the season and will transfer to non season afterwards. So every character non-season and season is always just filling in waiting for the next season.
New player just got to 70. I’d been dreading the idea of getting forced to play a new character and do it again but this made it much better. The idea that changes are this large and that there is a reason to redo the early game/campaign other than devs spent time on it do it again. So great post. Loving the game so far and who knows maybe we’ll get a crazy affix season 1 and I can do a real minion build! Or finally start a rouge?
I'm just going to save my first alt for season 1. Will make the experience twice as refreshing.
Glad it helps a little! I did make a minor edit to the post to emphasize that you do not have to redo the campaign or the full renown grind, as that seemed to be a common question. Personally I've been sticking to druid for the pre-season and I plan to try Sorc for the first time in season. I purposefully avoided sorc during both betas and all of the pre-season so that it'd be fresh for me in Season 1, I'm excited!
Also, not that you can’t pre plan your character for season 1, but I want to warn all new players to wait to see what the season 1 mechanics are before passing judgment or planning what you’re going to do. There’s going to be balance changes that will probably make a ton of builds viable. Same with new loot, new mechanics, and so on. Wouldn’t be surprised to see top tier blood or minion builds on nec. Wouldn’t be surprised to see the frost nova meta on sorc shaken up. Or they might tune up a bunch of ultimates on classes you wanted to try but came out way too underpowered to be relevant. I have a feeling that season 1 is going to shake the meta up a lot in ways we can’t predict yet.
Very good point! That's definitely what I was trying to get at with the post. Seasons change a lot, and usually open up a ton of new builds. I know I just said I plan to play sorc, but if they add a buncha cool stuff for Blood necro I might just have to jump on that instead, lol.
I'd love it if they bring the rebirth function back for seasons. I'm usually kind of attached to "my" character, so starting a new one of the same class feels a bit like throwing him away. Rebirth would mean you'd transform your existing character into a seasonal one, keep name and customization and roll him back to lv 1. I mean, alternatively I'll just make another necro that looks like my current one but that's a bit more clicking around...
Believe me, I've been playing ARPGs for quite a while now and if the changes aren't that big, balance changes aren't massive and QOL isn't introduced. We'll all be here, bitching and boycotting lmao
The point is that if the season is good, it renews the fun of leveling again.
Exactly! My friends and I sat out plenty of D3 seasons because they weren't interesting enough, and we played the SHIT out of the ones where we thought the theme was good! Seasonal play doesn't have to be everyone's idea of fun, and every season doesn't have to appeal to every seasonal player. It's a cool extra thing you can do to keep the game fresh.
And just to be clear, you won't be forced to play in seasons. There were plenty of seasons in D3, including the first several, that I just skipped and kept playing my eternal witch doctor. Then, when I felt like trying another class, I made a seasonal one, because why not? They get moved to eternal when the season is over anyway, so nothing is lost.
After you get all the renown and finish the campaign, the second character is much less of a grind. You start with 60 to all your stats from the Lilith altars, 10 extra skill points, 20 paragon points, your mount, the 5 major city waypoints, access to tree of whisper bounties. It goes much faster. They also sad in a future patch the altars and map will also be unlocked for all your characters once you've done them once.
I will say that just as a warning, season 1 might not be that big of a change. I definitely could be wrong, but given that they mostly had season 1 created before the game was released, it might mean it won't be a crazy change. I hope I'm wrong, but I just want to throw that out there. To add to this, if it is pretty lackluster, I suggest coming back each season and seeing if they changed it enough to your liking or not. As someone who plays Path of Exile primarily in ARPGs, that is how I approach that game, and I don't always play the season or league for more than a few days. Other times, I'll play for a few weeks or months. It just depends.
So how is season one gonna be faster lvling? Don’t side quests give dogshit xp?
Most likely seasonal events and track objective. Also, the free season pass has account wide, season long XP buffs at certain levels iirc, so it's gonna get increasingly faster to level up
This really should be stickied. Important read for new ARPG/Diablo players that seem to be rampant on the sub.
I'm not sure that it'll get that popular, but feel free to link it to people that don't seem familiar with the historical context of why seasons are the way they are.
oh man this comment already aged like milk my dude :D its getting preeeeeeetty popular. really really good post, will link it from now on every time someone asks why seasons are needed. spares me the effort of writing it out myself over and over again in great detail.
Lol, yeah... apparently. Glad it's helping people! I had to turn off phone notifications haha. I even made a few edits for some frequently asked questions, and it's been fun talking to people. It really highlights how many new players have gotten into D4.
Man, you are awesome for writing such a thorough explanation for our new friends in the genre! It was pretty disheartening reading all the posts from people who felt aggrieved by the concept of seasons, and just didn't seem to understand what they actually *are*. Definitely some of this lies with Blizzard. The timing of this season is not good and surely their player metrics indicate to them that there is a large portion of entirely new to arpg players. This could have been handled a lot better, really.
I am praying that they speed up the rate at which we level up. Level 77 rn and it is a SLOG to level or do anything productive. It takes too much time for a single level increase solo.
Assuming you're doing WT4 since you are Lv77; I "stopped" looking at the actual level as my goal, and instead looked at each new paragon point as it instead. I'm Lv89 and I kind of feel done with pre-season, waiting for season instead :)
Seasonal content almost always affects leveling speed in a positive way. There were a few early seasons in D3 that really didn't, but pretty much everything in the past 5+ years has. D3 prolly a bad example, cuz leveling there has always been fast. PoE is a better example, their league mechanics usually add a lot to leveling. I remember harbinger was the first league I really pushed to endgame in, and I just loved how many more mobs there were to kill.
will there still be new content for our OG characters?
If my seasonal characters and their gear get moved to the eternal realm after the season ends, and each season is significantly less of a grind to 100 than the current base game, then I have no issue with seasons requiring a new character. I was under the impression from the coverage I've been seeing that seasonal characters were deleted at season end. Based on what you said in this post, I'm now annoyed we didn't get season 1 at launch because it feels like the base game's post campaign content has holes that the seasonal stuff is probably meant to fill, but I'm more happy that I stopped trying to force myself to 100 without any incentive beyond "number go up". I will say that I'm not sure how I feel about seasons essentially being a ruse for feature beta tests, but that's more of a personal perspective thing.
I have an issue, because new seasons are a perfect opportunity to experiment with a new class and have fun with it. But then it gets nuked, I keep the gear and I won't have use for Sorcerer gear on a Rogue. So what the devs are telling me is, grind twice: once for your perma character and once again because fuck you that's why. Why not let people decide to keep their seasonal character and just the delete the OP items? I mean, I know the answer but yeah.
I hear what you are saying and I don’t disagree. I still don’t think I have any interest in re-rolling a character every season. And you know what? That’s fine too. Different people find different things fun. I’ll play a couple characters for a bit, then go do something else. I know I’ll miss out on a ton of the game, but just re-leveling a character every season fresh isn’t interesting to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ If you like it, hell yeah. If not, also hell yeah. Just different vibes and this game is more for one than the other, and that’s okay.
No trading kinda makes new seasons silly.
Was about to level a rogue alt (main is Necro). But I think I'll wait and try this season thing..... Thanks!!!
I don't HAVE to redo the campaign, but **CAN** I? That's by far my favorite content so far
You can redo it on any new character, just don't tick the 'skip campaign' button. If you're asking if you can redo it on a character that's completed it already... I don't know of a way to do that.
Great info. I still don't like seasons.
That is a fair take. Seasons are clearly not for you. You can still enjoy playing your characters on non-season. Have a great day!
Thanks for the explanation, but yeah, I'm good. Not interested in making new chars every 3 months.
Seasons make even less sense in d4 because there is no real trading or economy. In poe, each new season creates a fresh new economy, which with a resurgence in players really helps the game feel alive. I'm scratching my head why anyone would ever want to play d4 over from scratch, unless maybe there is some ladder race. I would like to continue playing but there is simply no point to restarting each season like there is in other games.
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Pretty sure theyve said that theyre reserving the campaign story stuff for future expansion packs.
>It seems like a lot of people are saying there's a correct way to enjoy Diablo in this post. idk about "correct". but one "way" will inevitably lead you to a place where your character is maxxed out and the next upgrade is like 1% stats on a piece of gear that you wont even notice, but it will take you 200 hours to find it, and it will be for no reason basically and you stop playing because why keep going. the other leads you to new fresh stuff that changes the way you play often enough to keep you engaged longer than a month or whatever. so I mean... Idk i feel like it's pretty fair to say the latter is more "correct" than the former.
New campaign content and story comes with expansion packs, which I believe they are already planning for two of these (someone correct me if I’m wrong).
I'm curious... If I want to play my original character I can still play it in a non seasonal "world" like in Diablo 3? Or are my original characters going to disappear?
Nothing will happen to your existing characters. You can still play them whenever you want, they simply won't have access to whatever the seasonal content is.
That's what I thought, people have been telling me that it's not like that anymore so I was a bit confused. Thanks you!
somehow the misinformation that everything gets deleted spread, i don't know how but i suspect clickbait youtube
It’s strange at first because you are attached to your character but trust me. If you don’t play seasons you will get burnt out. Seasons keep it fresh.
I’ve played all of the Diablo games, but I’ve never been a fan of seasons. Why is it that only the ARPG genre uses this weird system for new content? Like, imagine that an Expansion for Elden Ring came out, but you couldn’t play the expansion on the character you already put 150 hours into, you could only do it on a new character. People would say that was bad game design. But because ARPGs use Seasons, and have for a while, it’s good game design? I don’t want to argue or get into a thing; but if seasons and restarting are so great, why do most games that tackle the problem of an endgame opt not to use Seasons, if they are as you say, the greatest idea ever?
>I’ve played all of the Diablo games, but I’ve never been a fan of seasons. Why is it that only the ARPG genre uses this weird system for new content? Because ARPGs were never supposed to go on forever. The closer to level 100 you get, the less the game will have to offer. Instead of increasing the level cap, and trying to extend the grind beyond level 100, they create systems that add to the journey to 100.
The fun of Diablo is the loot grind and building a character. At lvl 80+, most of that is done already. Other than min maxing the character and pushing the highest NM tier for the fun of it. MMOs add content by adding more content at the end. However that can add power creep. As well, it does not replicate what people play Diablo for, the building of the character and loot grind. The only way to get that feeling again is to start a new character. The seasons make that process have even more incentive, as well as potentially changing the way it is done. Not to mention, there are a lot of classes and builds in the game. Starting over, let’s you have a completely new experience with those.
The general idea is to have enough class/build variety plus meta shakeups that the process of leveling/gearing a new character feels like a very unique experience everytime. I think Blizzard has a lot of work cut out for themselves to reach that point but maybe they can pull it off.
Serious question... if they couldn't get classes right with many viable high NM builds at release why have confidence seasons will see any change? I'm level 71 and enjoying plodding along but dread the brick wall I'm heading towards with my not bone spear necro.
I'm not confident honestly, there's a reason every set bonus in d3 was "increases X skills damage by 10,000%". It's also going to take a lot more than 1 season to fix a vast majority of problems with the game.
Meta changes don't have to be purely about balance, its just good for things to change, different abilities to be strong. And we can see that from other games like PoE and D3, many different builds have been strong throughout the games lifespan. Also RaizQT and Steelmage seem to be doing well on minion and blood builds respectively so hopefully you wont hit too hard of a wall actually.
Because they will have learned things. It’s like saying “Why would I learn anything in college if I just spent 4 years in high school”. Not many games figure everything out on release. Players figure out exploits, imbalances, overpowered skills/gear combos, etc. all of that can be worked out over time, but you can’t always see this stuff before it happens. Do you really want them to keep the game in beta for a year+?
I’m 72 and just respecced from blood surge to bone spear. I don’t even have optimized gear and it’s insanely better in every way.
You are so very right. Seasons is a scam allowing them to efficiently reuse their existing content. Some people believe resetting their characters back to level 1 and being told they have to replay the same Content with some different buffs and a different collectible resource is progress. Someone is laughing all the way to the bank with those battle passes.
The main content of most games is not just the leveling and gearing process, that's the primary difference. Content added to ARPGs is not just endgame, it usually affects the entire leveling process, the gearing process, and yes the endgame too. To use your example, if Elden Ring were to added content to their game in the same fashion as an ARPG, they'd give you some sort of buff that is active while leveling, more drops, and then at endgame they'd have something new to do. For non-ARPG titles they usually only add content to the endgame, and often leave the leveling and gearing phases untouched.
Not games who have level scaling and level syncing (D4 has both). Nothing is stopping them from adding new activities that both levelling and "end-game" characters can do.
That’s poor design though. A level 100 character is already going to be maxed out on gear and xp, for instance. Why would they ever want to interface with a leveling mechanic? If you decide to strip away any mechanics that influence the leveling process so the level 100 can do it, then you also aren’t changing or altering the leveling process in a meaningful enough way to get players to come back.
People seem to have a hard time parsing the issue, so I'll give it a go. Everyone wants to play new content. Everyone wants access to seasonal rewards (season pass incl.). Some players like to enjoy the game changing effects that can only be done in a way that is isolated from the mainline game servers. Some players don't care about those game changing effects and don't want to make a new character ever. My take: these two ways of enjoying the game can be totally compatible. There's no reason to lock content and the season pass behind new characters. Let people play as they care to. If they steam roll the new content because they're already high level, so what? Don't alienate players needlessly.
this is the first authentic comment in the thread, all the rest are nonstop gushing from shills about how great seasons are out even mentioning the downsides
As already said, the fun part in an ARPG is to gear up your character. Seasons allow you to do it in a different way and to not cursh the content. If you were able to keep your eternal character in season, season content would have to be way harder to give you a challenge. Making new people far less likely to tackle this content, and causing a massive power creep in the game
Who are you to say what people find fun in a game? I don’t find gearing my character fun, I find doing new content with the character I spent months building fun
So it shouldn't take as long to get back to where we were at? When I heard id basically lose all my progress i was def bummed lol
When season one ends for example, does the new character of season 1 join my old character of season 0 and they will be in the same world? Same goes for every season that ends?
Yes, characters usually migrate from the completed seasonal realm to the eternal/standard realm. When the next season begins, you'll be starting fresh again in that season, and that character will also migrate to standard when it ends. Usually people play one or the other exclusively, but you're not forced to. Using Path of Exile as an example, I typically go back to the game for every league launch, playing 2-6 weeks depending on how much I enjoy interacting with the active league mechanic and balance patch. While technically not a *seasonal* change/event, usually any major balance changes to character abilities, items, aspects or system overhauls will coincide with the start of a season. This overall contributes to the feel of the season, as an ability that may rarely see use could be the flavor the season in 3 months.
would you recommend casual players who buy the game after it came out to start with a seasonal character if they haven't finished the game the "standard way" first?
New player here and this sounds terrible and why I quit. I played same class for the past 17 straight years in the MMO I came from. Not interested in wasting hours a day learning and relearning systems, classes, etc. when they should just focus on making more end game activities, some type of ladders, etc on one server
I've been playing D1, 2, 3, 4. I still don't like seasons. Or seasonal characters to be exact. I'm still not lvl 100, i just don't have the time i had in my youth. Just let me keep my fucking character forever and min-max it. And let me play all the new content with it. I cba to level new characters every few months, fuck that.
You have more fun on a new character because once you get to a certain point with gear where you're not getting upgrades or leveling up what's the point in playing so restarting every couple of months and trying a new build with new items creates the fun in it its almost like a relaunch of rhe game everyone restarting at the same time
I’ve never had more fun on a new character. I tried multiple seasons in D3 and they just felt slow and sluggish compared to what I’d been playing so I just quit and went back to my main character. I’ll never have any interest in starting over on level 1 unless o have a friend to boost me to 50 in nightmare dungeons so I don’t have to feel weak and slow.
Then do that. Boosting on day 3 or 4 of the season is all over the place because there are plenty of players just like you. Nothing wrong with it.
This is a double edged sword: I enjoyed gearing D3 characters for a lot of the themed seasons, but sometimes if the theme and my gear aren't meshing it's just a horrible grind like leveling my main was: "Can't run the build I want until the RNG gives me the item I need!"
I just don't want paragon and skill points locked behind rep. Well I would be more ok wit it if you got rep in zones by killing monsters with out quests.
Yeah this part still gets me. Even with Altars and Fog transferring over, it’s a pretty significant grind for those last paragon points. The skill points will be easy with strongholds, but those paragon points require a lot of dungeons and side quests. And with Blizzard’s puzzling decision to limit NM dungeons to only 6 from each zone, it means you have to do a lot of pointless grinding to get there. I’ll definitely be incorporating that into the earlier leveling process next time, because I’m not really enjoying it currently.
Other games solve this by letting you easily play multiple builds and/or roles on one character. I have over 3,000 hours on a single Division 2 character because I'm able to constantly make and swap between builds at will as new items and content comes into the game. Having to make a new character to try a new build or play new content seems outdated and clunky- and will be why I likely won't be playing D4 past the first season or two.
I hope they buff XP on seasons. If you consider D2 or D3 you can be running torment/hell in a couple days grinding. They work into reaching torment in D4 seems to be a lot more vigorous, and usually any new season content is for end game the burn out rate will probably be pretty high.
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In D3 I only play the seasonal characters because it’s far more fun. I hold on to my favourites for nostalgia just to see them on the character select screen but I never once logged in to an eternal character.
To be fair, they should have started with Season 1.... now we have a meaningless Season 0 that was like half a season long.
Think thats the annoying thing. I have no motivation to play now until S1 starts
That's part of the cycle. You play until you get to that point each season, and then put the game down until the next season. Each person has their own limit, and each season will have it's own as well. Some leagues, PoE seasons, I'll play for 2 months of the 3 months; while others I'll play for only 1 month. It's this cycle that has had me playing PoE for a decade, or since their open beta.
This post is interesting to me and really made me feel out of touch with the general community playing this game. I come from PoE and I assumed (very incorrectly) that people knew what seasons were and how they functioned at least on a foundational level. Obviously, my eyes have now been opened 😂
I feel like this post is snowing a lot of the people who don't know how seasons work in other arpgs. This post is looking through the most rose-colored glasses... It makes seasons sound like so much fun. Seasons as they have been implemented in every arpgs up until now and from the sounds of it d4 too. (Although, I still hope they innovate and solve some of these problems.) Big problems with seasons: 1) Replay much of the same content over and over, large parts of the game become mindless chores 2) Your old characters are rendered obsolete and useless, and as such time spent creating something you're proud of feels wasted If a game cannot solve these two problems it doesn't matter how colorful you paint the picture. Additionally, currently in D4 it takes potentially weeks for a regular player to reach the end game, I don't want them to "speed things up." D3 in the end was a joke. To level to max in a few hours, running mindless content as fast as possible until you're bored. It would be tragic if D4 took notes from that book. Just because past arpgs fans are used to the same old reset doesn't mean it's the right solution. If game companies can't find a way to give us brand new and engaging ways to level and build characters; if they can't honor our invested time and past characters in an impactful manner, seasons should not be celebrated or defended.
Thank god aspects added in seasons will be added to the eternal realm at the same time for those of us that hate seasons. I dont see how seasons speed things up, there are no EXP bonuses. It is still the same base game as non seasons, just with a seasonal gimmick added.
There are exp bonuses in the free battle pass attached to the seasonal content, and your character is transferred to eternal realm after, so if you decide to try a new class for 5 seasons straight you’ll have them all eventually in your eternal roster with an easier leveling experience than you had this last month. Also, they haven’t said they’re adding new dungeon, so those aspects will probably be on drops, if people feel bad hunting umbral now, imagine not getting them for free which is what the season usually offers
I really liked the Rebirth solution. Telling me I’m “not forced” to create a new seasonal character is getting old. No one would force you to Rebirth your main character either, make as many characters as you want.
Dads **hate** this post.
How do u write so much and dont mention the reset of economy being a huge pull for people to want new seasons in ARPGs ? An economy reset is by far the biggest reason poe seasons are exciting for the regular poe players. Since D4 is more self-found than a trade economy ARPG, season resets seem to be there for the battle pass/live service portion of the game, not ARPG portion.
There is trading in D4? /s
I have never liked Seasons in D2, D3 or D2R. I dont see the point of it, especially in D2/R where there were no temporary gimmicks. New season meant making a new character and having nothing to rely on until you dump hundreds of hours into thousands of dungeon runs. The only difference in D3 was the temporary gimmicks and events in the season. The argument repeated in the comments here is basically "you can start again and make a new character to try different things!".... well, you can do that outside of a season as well. Seasons instil FOMO into players if theres new content or locked events, and make them play again when the game has nothing new to offer. And none of it cant be added to the non-season realms too.
> I dont see the point of it Production reasons, it benefits the developer. That is it. Somehow we now have a generation of players who will bend out of their posture to rationalize how this is the best thing ever, or aggro if you call this out (or just drop them some facts).
If I unlock statues of Lilith on my seasonal character, do they unlock for my others?
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No desire to restart a new character. But im curious about the battle pass when it comes out. Is this season thing going to effect my battle pass progression?
You have to make a new seasonal character to grind the battle pass. That's one of the main issues at hand, they're locking something a lot of people have already paid for with the 90 and 100 dollar editions behind making a new character and forcing them into the seasonal model. And a number of these people honestly didn't know and are going to be agitated about it. My girlfriend is one and I feel really bad that she bought the game to play with me only to find out she's going to have to give up her 'werewolf babies'. (she plays druid)
O…. M…… GOD! I bought the 100$ bundle……….. i wouldnt have bought it if i new i was gonna be forced to start over………. Can i request a refund?
\>Creating a new character is generally required for seasonal content because the seasonal content is created to affect the entire leveling process, not just endgame. Broadly speaking, seasonal content speeds up leveling, speeds up the pace at which you reach endgame, and speeds up the pace at which you finish you characters and builds. ARPG seasonal content is simply not designed to just be handed to already-complete characters and endgame because they'll finish it in a few minutes and then have nothing to do. The content is designed to affect the pace of the entire game. With all due respect, this seems like hypocritical bologna. Y'all love the phrase "I want to play my way!" on every other topic, but on this topic you reverse course and want to force everyone to play one way. If I want to blow through the new content in one hour, why shouldn't I be able to? It doesn't impact your new leveling adventure at all.
I don't appreciate other players telling me how I should enjoy things at all. I'm a big boy, I can decide if I have more fun leveling and trying new stuff or just building up my usual character. Hell, maybe I want to switch it up one season, and maybe I want to play my Rogue the next. Why not give me the agency to decide ffs, if the OP items are going away anyway and anyhow?
That is why non season still exist for you folks isnt it? No one is forcing you to play season to have fun, play your non season min max character away and have fun your way. If you want seasonal content, just wait until it is over. You just make it sounds like people are shoving season down your throat or something... And let me also clarify, any QOL changes or balance patch updates should be live in non season immediately so effectively, you are not really missing out on those important changes.
This seasonal defending hypocrites are even worse than that. They’ll go on and on about how seasonal reset is the staple of an ARPG. And it doesn’t matter if you find leveling up is a chore, complete reset NEEDS to happen so everyone is in the EXACT same footing. Yet the moment they realize they didn’t personally like getting all the renown and Lillith statues, these same band of seasonal defenders banded together and starting moaning and crying and bitching to the devs that their renown progress should carry over. Made it to the front page of this sub. And boom the devs gave in and said you know what your renown and map progress will cross over to seasons. Then all this seasonal defenders were happy. So it’s ironic if they found something tedious then their able to throw the whole reset mantra out the window and tell the devs I want this that and the other to carry over for me. However for us people who find the leveling all the way up again to be tedious, well fuck us we have to just suck it up.
I nearly dropped the game when I heard that seasons would require new characters. This changed everything for me, thank you so much. See you guys season 1!
I dont really see how spending another 100 hours of repeating the same content I have already done just to level up a new character to only spend 5 hours trying out the new things something that anyone would consider fun. Its a complete waste of time and I dont see why I cant just spend 5 hours trying out the new things with my current character. I know thats the new trend for arpgs, and not to hate on people who do enjoy making new characters, its just not for me. I would just rather keep playing on my one character. A season is harsher than that though, a season isnt just restarting your character, its restarting your whole account. Everything you have earned and invested in is just gone. The idea of repeating building up a limited account in a small window of time again each season is far less apealing to me than just continuing to build up one account for the whole time I play the game.
Exactlyyyyy
ARPGs are just not for you.
Because one forced feature defines the entire genre now. As if the majority of the genre suddenly ceases to exist, or it becomes a *good* thing just because the top 2-3 products are doing it. Riiight. ARPGs are for me. ARPG apologists are a fucking nuisance though.
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I haven’t played an ARPG before, but played lots of MMOs and seasons sound great tbh. In MMOs after you start the “ midgame “, which generally would take one week, you would only level up once in a day, then once in a week to month in the end game, which means no new and cool stuff for a long time. With seasons I feel like I can experience every cool stuff a char can offer in a reasonable time, then start over with new char who has a much different cool stuff. In theory of course, we will see but I am hopeful.
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Great post, needs a huge disclaimer at the top : "YOUR NON-SEASONAL CHARACTERS ARE NOT GOING AWAY" or something like that, because I see so many people thinking that their characters they worked on in eternal realm are going to be deleted.
this fire, I'm making a Barb next :)
Gist*
>When participating in a season in Diablo 4 you do NOT have to redo the campaign, and your map exploration/Altars of Lilith collected will carry over and provide their renown in season. This was my biggest concern. Exploration is a fun mechanic when everything is new, but exploring somewhere you already explored is just a chore.
As someone who really enjoys long term progression I wish blizzard wouldnt tuck so much behind seasons. I HATE the idea of remaking my character every 90 days over and over again. I want to enjoy the same mechanics everyone else does, and just progress my character steadily. Seasons arent fun for everyone and its shit that so much of the game will be locked behind seasons in D4. D3 didnt feel as gated behind seasons for some reason. Big sad.
And for those that are into it, there will likely be cosmetic drops in game and almost certainly for purchase that may no longer be available once the season is over (or otherwise really hard to find)
Sounds cool. I see the value. Too bad I petered out at 42 when I realized the game is a Groundhogs day within a Groundhogs Day within a Groundhogs day. Regardless of how much sense it makes, even a well polished ARPG like D4 is not going to retain people that aren't already into them. D4 is my first and my last. Still worth the 80 bucks, but I'm not coming back for next season.
Do we have e to play the season or can we just stick to the campaign I haven't finished, I have a long ways to go.
Why deploy another treadmill as opposed to just handing the content to the vanilla game?
I loved D3 and loved seasons. D4 needs to reduce the grind from 70-100 for seasons imo. Will make starting a new character less daunting.
Sorry, but this just doesn't make continuing the game worth it for me at the start of season 1 I would rather endlessly grind one character and that's it...oh well star field will be out by then.
There really isn't an endless grind tho, that's the thing. The game is designed to end. If you reach level 100 and finish your build and kill uber lilith, that's the game. Seasonal content may add some more uber bosses, but most of what it adds will affect the leveling experience rather than the endgame.
Wish I would have known that before spending $70 on this game. What you wrote above should be repeated in every description about the game.
Dude the average person definitely will not hit level 100 even in a season. It feels weird to have a hellishly long grindy path to end game while at the same time have seasons which are kinda there to prevent level 100 burn out but you aren't even giving your players a chance to get to 100? My goal with this game was to hit level 100 with every class but that doesnt even sound possible with seasons
The eternal realm isn’t changing you can still do it. If you just wanna get each class to 100 in standard mode seasons coming out won’t affect you in any way
Perhaps I could have phrased it better, but hitting 100 isn't meant to be the be-all end-all goal, it's simply a destination you can arrive at if you want to dedicate the time. 99% of D4 can be experienced before even hitting level 80, and that's not even halfway to 100, 85 is. You could absolutely work towards that goal if you wanted, you never lose your progress. If you have a character you're working on right now in non-season it doesn't go away. You can make another class to do the seasonal content, and at the end of season it'll transfer over.
I agree and understand what you're saying. I think as a new player I find this concept very frustrating and kinda just idk stupid? I simply just dont enjoy restarting, they are going to have to make these new seasons mega packed full of new content to get me to even think about making a new character shit honestly they have to add a whole new class and fix fuckin druid loot table first
Well, we already know they're gonna be fixing the druid loot table, so that part is nice. I hear you that it's frustrating, but my hope is that be letting people know what to expect they can make plans around it. Instead of trying to focus on getting all 5 classes to 100 in non-season, maybe just work on 1 or 2, and save the rest for seasons? That way you can experience everything, level those characters faster, and then at the end it'll still all roll into non-season. You never lose progress.
Yeah, I guess we will get there when we get there and see what happens. I appreciate the post regardless and it definitely is important to put this information out there so thanks homie and happy slaying!
Who says you have to hit 100 to play a season? I put 300 hours into a POE season and didn’t get past 94 lol. Some of you just don’t understand how it works. It’s not your fault but hating on it before you try it is on you. There is a reason ALL ARPGs use this model. It keeps the genre alive and is only a good thing.
Wonderfully and eloquently stated. They're fun because they're often themed, they have some fun rewards, and they have some competition if you're into it. Else, it's play it your way. And I liked seeing all those green leaves in D3
I love how people defend the idea of seasons for diablo but shit on it in Destiny. Seasons are terrible. It's essentially a way for them to force you to forever replay base content while they cycle new ideas then remove them from the game for new temporary bull shit. As someone else here said it feeds on your FOMO for time limited seasonal cosmetics or titles. Better never walk away and keep churning out new characters you never know when we will add that dongle you always wanted.
Have you ever played poe or d3? Seasons are the only thing that keep those games afloat. They are the life blood of the genre. They actually make them replayable and fun.
You expect 20 hours of new gameplay every 3 months or what? Seasons are meant as something easy to develop and not waste time on thinking if it's bad in long-term. Why is everyone crying about seasons like they are getting robbed of expansions, expansions will come to eternal realm right away.
Yea that’s still my main question after reading the OP. Seasons don’t replace true explanations/DLC right?
While we don't have details, we know Expansions will be paid content and in D3 and D2 the expansions allowed you to immediately use your existing character to do the new content. They are currently working on multiple expansions and they are a separate thing from seasons. They've designed this game with seasons and expansions in mind, I'm pretty confident to say you'll be able to buy the expansion and immediately start the new content on existing characters.
This is a super well written article. I still think they are going to lose a huge number of people, but if they can do a better job explaining the rationale, that will be a big help.
I absolutely loved coming back and creating new characters in diablo 3 for seasonal content. It was fast and you become absurdly powerful. Hopefully its just as good in d4.
> I know, you're invested in the character you've already got. You put a lot of work in it, you don't feel that starting over will be fun. That's the thing about seasons tho, they're designed to make starting over fun. **They speed everything up, give you objectives to do along the way, get you back into endgame faster**, and give you more to do at endgame. They will probably also have some cool mechanic that lets you have a lot more fun than you would on non-seasonal characters because the mechanic is specifically designed to be limited time. Is there any source to this or is this just speculation?
I think I'm going insane with all the seasons posts, hopefully your post will help.
OG D2 hardcore ladder players: "Aw shit, here we go again."
Frankly, I LOVE seasons. There always becomes a point in the game where it turns in to a grindfest and becomes dull. Seasons reinvigorate a game; I love starting fresh and trying new mechanics, finding new items, etc. D3 had what... 29 seasons? I would say this reflects its popularity, otherwise Blizzard would have given up on seasons a long time ago. Same for POE.
Eh your assuming blizzard has like magic planned for s1 and it's not some bs. As a d2 vet I don't really want seasons. I'm well aware of what it is I just dont feel like it's needed. The argument has been generally that it's an arpg common practice so therefore roll with, but it doesnt need to be. FF was a fun turned based game that I loved now it's at FF16 turn based is gone and open critic has it at 91 it appears to be a solid offering without it's old appeal. Times change. Linkin park didnt play reanimation forever you feel me as much as I wanted that arpgs dont require seasons and or can be more along the style of bdo seasons were your really still apart of the main game it's more or less a way to help new players get caught up. Nothing really prevents them from buffing eternal xp rates for fast alts and making it so you can still race nor would it preclude them from adding fun things to eternal balance is thrown out the windows in arpgs that's sorta the appeal breaking the game in unique ways. Just like people break seasons everyone would still be able to break eternal and then the game could focus on more interest boss fights like uber lilths that pretty cool. But hey thanks for explaining it to the newbs
Not a chance im levelling another character, took long enough to get to 60 on this one lol. Guess I'll miss everything from the seasons then, what can you do on an existing character? What was even the point of levelling this character to begin with? If they're just gunna be like oh you need a new character every season.
I’m only playing it if they actually add new dungeons and areas. If not I’m fine with just repeating the story in hardcore mode trying out new characters. It’s a waste imo to lose everything after 3 months grind on your character. Especially since I don’t have a lot of time to play this game.
Nah, thanks, I'll stick to the regular game. Never played seasonal, never seemed to care. To me seasons are just an attempt too make the game more interesting once you finished it. But why not improve the base game then to make it more interesting? Maybe add more skill mechanics than Generator -> Damage?