Blizzard has been busy fixing the issues surrounding the patch, which has been received negatively by the community, to put it mildly. However, the content of the first season is not as bad as it might seem due to the wave of criticism.
A new threat on the horizon
In this article, I’ll try to summarize all the essential information about the highly anticipated first season of the latest Diablo, which invaded Sanctuary on July 20th under the title Season of the Malignant, including the controversial patch that set the Internet forums ablaze. Also worth mentioning is the battle pass, which appears in the game for the first time.
You can join the new season immediately with a new character, provided that you have already completed the main campaign of the game. In the season, the option to skip the campaign and start a new adventure right away is welcome. Season of the Malignant brings a separate story told independently of the main campaign. After Inarius and Lilith were banished from the world of the living, a new threat looms over Sanctuary in the form of abominations called Malignants, who are said to be even more ferocious and dangerous than the usual hellspawn. A former priest of the Cathedral of Light discovered a way to stop this infection and imprison corrupted hearts with the Cage of Bindings. So it is once again up to the pilgrim to contain this contagion before it spreads throughout the world.
Collector of Corrupted Hearts
The principle lies in the fact that the new season modifies some elites into more powerful versions, which are additionally enriched with other properties. Upon their death, Malignant’s rotten heart falls out. Using the aforementioned Cage of Bindings, you initiate a transmutation ritual that summons an even more powerful demon of the Fallen Elite. If you defeat it, you’ll literally get a heart in a cage that you can graft onto jewelry just like gems. Of course, these hearts have special and new abilities similar to aspects of legendary equipment that significantly affect and change the game mechanics experienced.
Looted hearts have up to 4 different colors, which correspond to the same colored slots in the jewels. You can hunt malignants in tunnels, which is similar to a classic dungeon, where there is an increased occurrence of these monsters and a classic boss lurks at the end of each tunnel. An invocation ritual is also used to summon the boss. You can even choose what color heart you want the boss to drop. This allows players to hunt for exactly the hearts that fit their rings and amulets. In addition to demon hearts, the season adds new legendary and unique equipment that will be able to be carried over even after the end of the first season.
Season of the Malignant is neatly organized into seven chapters. In each chapter you complete various tasks from the trivial to the less trivial. I wasn’t expecting anything groundbreaking, but tasks like light up one place for fast travel or collect 15 herbs seem a little subpar to me when I consider that a player playing a season usually has an entire campaign behind them. So forcing him to do such trivial tasks is slightly out of line. I can imagine that there are fewer quests in each chapter, but they will be more imaginative and fun. On the other hand, because the tasks are from the simpler category, the progress during the season is relatively fast. The purpose of progressing through the chapters of the season is, of course, to collect the necessary points for the battle pass.
A battle pass that doesn’t bring anything essential
The battle pass itself is huge, but I honestly still don’t see the deeper meaning behind it. There are a lot of cosmetic accessories, but what really has some weight in terms of seasonal play are the so-called Smoldering of Ashes, which are also part of the basic battle pass, i.e. free. For these items, you then buy blessings, which give you various bonuses in the form of faster experience collection, etc. The possibility of earning only 666 Platinum, premium currency, through the battle pass process also looks very suspicious. This amount is not even enough for the basic cosmetics in the in-game store, let alone the purchase of another battle pass. What the authors are trying to achieve is a mystery to me.
Reputation destroyed by one update
In conclusion, I would like to mention my own observations from the new Patch 1.1, which caused review bombing of the game itself and raised a wave of resistance to such a level that the management itself was forced to organize a sit-down by the fire last Friday, where they tried to cool the passions of the players and promised to correct the very unsuccessful nerfing tsunami that affected everyone and everything. The authors originally wanted the new patch to limit some overly powerful stats and strengthen the less used abilities and talents. Sadly, the result was exactly the opposite.
The stats that everyone maxed out continue to max out. Classes that were barely surviving became unplayable, just as even the hardest Nightmare dungeons were suddenly no-go zones for even the toughest heroes. The Aurors promised a fix almost as soon as the patch was released and really started to act, but again it feels like they are shooting from the waist. Most recently, we can read that for example, in the level 100 Nightmare dungeon, for example, the health of enemies was reduced by 82% and the attack by 79%?! I wonder who is responsible for game math at that company. Hi Blizzard, is anyone testing there? Or can we expect a similar numerical equilibration after every patch and player protests?
And if you decide to test, also focus on starts without the trial/error principle. To have the entry to the first story dungeon bugged right after launching a Season that half the game world is waiting for is a shame beyond compare. There were more bugs, luckily most of them have been fixed, but still. Unforgivable for the quality and size of this studio.
And it’s a shame, because the new season is playing excellently despite the aforementioned ailments. I enjoy the main story and progressing through the season is fast thanks to some trivial tasks that don’t take much time. The brand new features gained by the heart are fun to try out and test the new features of familiar skills. I must say that, for example, such a necromancer with rings set with hearts is a walking bane for infernal creatures.
All characters will get new stronger benefits in the new season, which is the reason to try out a new character. Despite the aforementioned bland and unsalted battle pass, which is frankly on the ass of most players, and a disastrous start with a very bad patch, the new Season of the Malignant is fun enough to swallow many more hours of my free time. However, the question remains whether Diablo IV can repair its reputation, as the people have made it clear. Don’t try these experiments on us again.
2023-07-25 05:02:40
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