A while back I asked Blizzard if they had any further plans for level 100+ content, given that once you got up there, there did not seem to be that much left to do other than stack higher and higher Nightmare Dungeons for no real reason. They said yes, and while I thought they just meant the new Duriel farm system, there’s…quite a bit more than that.
This week brought the addition of Abattoir of Zir, a seasonal challenge mode where challenge is absolutely an understatement. You need to have completed the full slate of seasonal objectives, some of the hardest feats in the game, to even be able to start it. Then you take your toughest characters and builds and see how far you can get.
This has drawn mixed results. Many members of a crowd constantly clamoring for harder challenges are now saying it’s too hard. Part of that may be the actual difficulty, other complaints are more about the length of the grind to push further into the challenge. Blizzard is about to announce some changes to Abattoir of Zir, but to this point, here a number of the top complaints.
- One-shot, unavoidable deaths from things like off-screen crossbows or explode-on-death enemies that are hard or impossible to track.
- The Sigil Dust entry requirement which seems entirely too steep and disconnected from the season itself and the currencies you gain from it.
- Glyph XP is not balanced for any kind of reasonable time investment, higher tiers do not reward enough.
- Affixes are too numerous and too damaging and Blood Seekers can be a bit out of control.
Even Elon Musk has chimed in to say “it’s a fun challenge, but some tweaks would be great.” Musk frequently posts footage of his Tier 100 Nightmare Dungeon-clearing Druid, which he also says should be buffed as “the weakest character by far.”
Despite being a new activity, these are not uncommon problems in Diablo 4, really just new variants of them. One-shot deaths have been a problem before, especially in hardcore mode, and many of those were scaled back, including things like explode-on-death enemies, which are yet again a problem here. And there are always complaints about the length of a grind, which is “difficult” in a different sense, but more exhausting than challenging. Again, in the base game, Blizzard has gone to great lengths to reduce that grind.
We will see what changes Blizzard comes up with and implements soon, but they will indeed be making it a bit easier in some form or another, as it’s a fine line to strike between challenge and frustration. Will update this post when we know more.
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