The start of Season 3 in Diablo 4 was mixed: After the acclaimed Season 2, the new content felt simply slow. There was criticism and even insults. Blizzard released an emergency patch a few days later. Now the opinion has completely turned around: Season 3 is suddenly a hit. And the changes are not the only reason.
This was the criticism:
- Season 3 brought some new features, including a companion for all players and a new type of dungeon, the vaults. The theme of the season is arcane constructs.
- After the first days, the mood was bad. Players said: the pet is useless, the vaults are boring. There was a lack of content where one felt powerful.
- Even experts agreed here. Raxxanterax praised the season in many areas, but criticized: as everything is slower, the motivation is lacking.
What players are saying now: After almost entirely negative comments on Reddit and in the forums, the voices are now predominantly positive. There is only little criticism left, and when there is, someone immediately counters.
Players say: Season 3 is now really good. “I take everything back that I said,” says one user on Reddit. “I used to hate the season […] now I am at World Tier 4 and it is my favorite season so far.”
As a plus point, the user mentions the now permanently available Hell Tides. Even the Seneschall, the companion construct for everyone, is super useful. Especially when using the right combinations of runestones. At first, the Seneschall was useless.
Yet Blizzard didn’t really change anything about it.
Blizzard tweaks vaults, players are now at World Tier 4
In the emergency patch 1.3.0a from January 27, Blizzard primarily changed how the vaults themselves work – thus passively buffing the Seneschall. Or rather: It is now faster to level him:
- Leadership and calibration stones drop more frequently
- Vaults and especially the annoying new bosses give more loot
- Traps are now less strong and, more importantly: the knockback has been removed
- The new Uber-boss Echo of Malphas has been adjusted; he is now stronger but drops unique stones more often
Additionally, there were a few bug fixes and quality updates, such as in terms of materials. You can find the full patch notes for patch 1.3.0a here.
What is probably more important for the sudden change of opinion is that players are now further along in the season. They are not crawling around at low levels but are at World Tier 4.
The vaults are now better than the nightmare dungeons for some fans. The mob density is great, there are no annoying side quests to do, and the most important thing: There’s finally a big loot explosion at the end. Exactly what I said just a few hours earlier: The feature that annoys everyone makes me happy – just a bit later.
