On May 14, Season 4 started in Diablo 4 and players were initially met with a big patch. There was no preload. Blizzard commented on this and noted: This should be different in the future.
On Tuesday, May 14, it was finally time: The new Season arrived in Diablo 4 and numerous players had already been waiting for hours prior to the release for the download of the new features. However, at the launch at 7 PM, there was initially a setback because: The Season came with a large patch and preloading was not possible.
While we accompanied the season start with the ticker, we read about players who had to download 11 GB, as “Compadre” noted in the comment section of the ticker. Others had a smaller patch of about 7 GB ahead of them. In the Blizzard forum and on social media, the community expressed dissatisfaction regarding this. Community Development Director Adam Fletcher then responded with a post.
Players should have a larger time window in the future
What was the problem? In the Blizzard forum, numerous users had already been discussing for hours before the start of the new season whether there would be a preload. This was the initial question of the thread, posted by “LaXMoB” at 4:15 PM on May 14.
On X, the Diablo expert Rob2628 wrote around 5 PM that the preload “should start in an hour.” But the patch preload did not happen. At 6:40 PM, he wrote in a new post on X (formerly Twitter):
Starting Season 4 without a pre-patch download sounds like a really bad idea for many people who do not have access to incredibly fast internet speeds. I wish this were different to allow for a fairer season start…
What does Blizzard want to do better? Adam Fletcher addressed the community in the Blizzard forum, as well as on X, with a message. He writes in the forum that there have been discussions about improving the process in the future and giving players more time to prepare with downloads.
On X, the Community Development Director notes that the team wants to make an effort “to change this in upcoming seasons so that players have a larger time window to download the patch earlier.”
Do you think there should be a preload before new seasons? Or do you think it’s not that big of a deal? Although the absence of a preload and the huge influx of players at the season start put a bit of strain on the servers, there is still plenty of time to level up.
And leveling in this season is definitely much faster than before. The XP gain has been greatly increased in world levels 2 to 4, and there are new, cool activities that earn you a lot of XP. How you can level up best can be found here: Diablo 4: Leveling up quickly in Season 4 – Leveling Guide up to Level 100
