Official Feedback: Blizzard Admits Diablo 4 Season 3 “can be improved” After A Bad Start

Blizzard admits Diablo 4 Season 3 “can be improved” after a bad start. As Diablo 4 Season 3 plummets on Twitch just days after launch, Blizzard responds, saying it’s “reviewing feedback” to plan improvements.
Diablo 4 Season 3 isn’t off to the best start, with Blizzard already responding to widespread complaints with its new offering just days after launch. As even its biggest and most enthusiastic streamers, and its wider player base as a whole, express disappointment with the trap-filled Season of the Construct, game director Joe Shely says the team is already planning improvements.

Comments

1.Following initial assurances from community manager Adam Fletcher that Blizzard was looking into feedback internally, Diablo 4 game director Joe Shely adds, “We’re carefully reviewing feedback, especially from folks who have played many hours already, and we’ve agreed on several things that can be improved. More details soon.”
2.“I don’t like the theme,” streamer Max ‘wudijo’ R. says in a video posted to his YouTube channel. Along with being a top player who has already scored multiple wins as the first Diablo 4 player to hit level 100 solo in Hardcore, he’s also typically one of the most positive voices in the Diablo 4 community, so hearing him so immediately underwhelmed is certainly striking. “I think it needs some hot fixes…or a new season.”
3.Ryan ‘Raxxanterax’ S., who has been directly referenced by Blizzard in past live streams for delivering regular feedback lists that have previously influenced development direction, spent some time yesterday writing up a Season 3 summary with his viewers.
4.Among his key criticisms are vaults and traps, with a “general sentiment that they are not fun” and very few opportunities to deal with them, disable them, or avoid them entirely, and pets being impactful as they lag, attack too slowly for too little damage, and apply inconsistent buffs to the player.
5.Raxx’s list also addresses how long the grind to level up the construct is, exacerbated by the fact that it must be done independently for each character. He also mentions several more long-form issues such as a continued lack of endgame activities, the largely repeated Uber Unique grind from Season 2 being “not fun anymore,” and a feeling that we’re all waiting for the itemization improvements already promised to arrive in Season 4.

The absolute top-level players and Blizz are saying it badly…then there’s you ‘Season is fine’

The issue with D4 it's not just the seasons, the whole core gameplay experience is terrible then compound that with bad seasonal ideas and horrible loot and you have the mess it is now.

Microsoft Layoffs

Except Blizzard admitted that Diablo 4's third season had poor content. Microsoft has announced the firing of 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees, the departure of current Blizzard president Mike Ybarra, Blizzard co-founder and current Blizzard chief design officer Allen Adham, and the cancellation of a previously announced survival game in development.

In addition to the layoffs, Blizzard President Mike Ybarra has also decided to leave the company. "As many of you know, Mike previously worked at Microsoft for over 20 years. Now, as President of Blizzard, he has completed this acquisition, and as such he has decided to leave the company." Matt Booty, president of Microsoft Game Content and Studios, said in an internal memo.

Microsoft plans to name a new Blizzard president next week. Allen Adham, Blizzard's chief design officer, is also leaving the company. "As one of Blizzard's co-founders, Allen has had a wide-ranging impact on all of Blizzard's games. Allen plans to continue to support the industry's next generation of designers, so we will continue to feel his influence, directly and indirectly, well into the future." Booty said.

As part of the changes, Blizzard's previously announced Survival game was canceled, and Booty said that Microsoft would be "shifting some of its staff to one of several promising new Blizzard projects that are in the early stages of development".

In the same month, Riot Games, Google, Discord, Twitch, Unity, eBay, and others also announced job cuts.

Microsoft completed its $68.7bn acquisition of Activision Blizzard in October after a 20-month battle with UK and US regulators. Former Activision Blizzard chief executive Bobby Kotick left the company at the end of December, and Microsoft did not appoint a direct successor. A range of Activision Blizzard executives now report to Matt Booty.

Today's layoffs come a few months after a major change in Xbox leadership, with Sarah Bond promoted to President of Xbox, leading all Xbox platforms and hardware efforts, and Booty promoted to President of Game Content and Studios, overseeing Bethesda, ZeniMax Studios, and Activision Blizzard.

Microsoft last announced massive layoffs a year ago, affecting 10,000 employees. Microsoft is due to report its second quarter 2024 financial results next week, which will for the first time include results from the impact of the Activision Blizzard acquisition.

Conclusion

Diablo 4 Season 3's gameplay is undoubtedly terrible, and player reactions have spoken for themselves. There are rumors that the designers for Season 3 are the same people as for Season 1, and if that's true, it's really unfortunate news. The layoffs made by Microsoft will hopefully change the internal situation of Blizzard a bit, so that the designers can feel the pressure to make changes to the content of the third season, to recover the lost players, and to renew the glory of the second season. Buy Diablo 4 gold coins and items at Gameusd, if you have any needs.