Diablo 4 is almost a month old, but Blizzard says most of the people playing the RPG haven’t even finished the campaign yet. Diablo 4 director Joe Shely made the comments during a recent Campfire Chat segment, Blizzard’s video updates on Diablo’s future, while discussing planned changes for Nightmare Dungeons, Diablo 4’s most important endgame challenge (thanks, PC Gamer).
It turns out most players haven’t even unlocked them yet, even with the highly publicized “race to 100” competition.
“The significant majority of our players haven’t finished the game yet,” Shely said. “But many of the people who are watching this stream, and our dedicated players, play through content much more quickly and have been experiencing this situation with the dungeons.”
“This situation with the dungeons” Shely mentions is a balance problem where Nightmare Dungeons – the only reliable way to get plenty of XP in the endgame – aren’t giving enough XP. Shely said players are just grinding the dungeons’ regular variants instead. The lower difficulty level means they can clear regular dungeons more quickly, so the XP gains end up being higher for the time spent.
Whether more people complete the campaign ahead of the first season remains to be seen. Diablo 4 is much bigger than its predecessors, with significantly more to do outside the main story if you’re keen on exploring and questing. Combine that with multiple new releases surrounding Diablo 4 and the fact that people often leave games unfinished, and it’s unsurprising that people haven’t finished the campaign yet.
Those who do reach the endgame will find it rather less of a grind. The dungeon problem and other balance issues are reportedly changing in updates that Blizzard has planned for the near future, which Shely called “the time of buffs,” an indirect nod to the recent patches that made gaining XP more difficult and nerfed classes.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF
