Diablo 4 Season 14, Season of Death Awakening, has been running for some time now, and both professional and casual players have already entered and explored it. However, surprisingly, as the first season update after the second expansion, S14 has received very negative reviews.
From the initial server congestion at the start of the season to the constant emergency hotfixes, all of these issues severely hampered the smoothness of players’ gameplay in Diablo 4 and the process of creating builds, something that had never happened in previous season updates.
So what exactly did this 3-year-old MMOARPG do in Season 14 that disappointed players and even garnered so many negative reviews? D4Gold.com analyzed various comments and posts on social media and in the community to summarize some of the main reasons for the situation in D4 S14.
Fickle Hotfixs
From the perspective of many players, it’s not a big problem for Diablo 4, as a large-scale game, to release hotfixes at the beginning of the season to address some shortcomings in the current season’s patch. However, in Season 14, these hotfixes have been too unpredictable, always deliberately making things difficult for players.
For example, there were some external balance adjustments made to the boss Mephisto, the Lord of Hatred. In LoH expansion, it became an important source of efficient XP farming for many players due to its high experience reward. However, because of a cutscene that could not be skipped, this boss could not be the best farming spot, which caused many players to complain.
So in Season of Death Awakening, the developers removed this annoying cutscene, further reducing the efficiency of XP farming for players. But then the developers weren’t happy, because they didn’t want the fastest way to gain experience in the game to become repeatedly killing the same boss, so they urgently released a hotfix.
This includes reducing the experience dropped by defeating Uber Mephisto and transferring some XP orbs to Uber Mephisto’s Hoard, which can only be unlocked and obtained using Crux of the False Prophet key. This change renders farming Mephisto boss ineffective, further discouraging players from tackling higher difficulty content.
Most importantly, the obstacles for players to create the best builds in Diablo 4 have increased. However, this isn’t entirely hopeless. You can seek help from D4Gold.com, which offers a huge amount of cheap Diablo 4 gold and all types of items for sale, helping you skip the tedious farming and directly tackle endgame challenges.
Numerous Unrevealed Changes
Apart from fickle Hotfixs, some in-game changes that were never revealed in patch notes, developer livestreams, or any other form of notification have left players feeling neglected by the developers, especially the safety bubble that disappeared during The Pit event, which is not what players wanted.
This change means players in The Pit now need to be constantly vigilant. Even after completing a level and preparing to upgrade Paragon Glyphs, a pool of poison will appear in front of you, created by the boss. Once you step into it, a horde of enemies will attack you one after another, hindering your upgrade journey.
While D4Gold.com strongly advises against entering the venomous area unnecessarily, if you want to farm more experience or gold by relying on those small monsters and your build is solid enough, you might as well give it a try. Furthermore, the developers increased the drop rates of certain Gem Fragments on Nightmare Sigil, such as Diamond Reserve, Sapphire Reserve, and Horadric Emerald Reserve.
While this change seems player-friendly, its lack of public announcement has left many players unaware of the details. D4Gold.com believes that while this is not the developer’s biggest dereliction of duty in Season 14, it is precisely because of its inaction that players are unable to understand the beneficial things the developers have done, thus exacerbating the conflict.
Season Mechanism Error
Next, D4Gold.com will discuss another issue: the season mechanics of D4 Season 14 have a major flaw. The season patch notes stated that Deathtoll Chamber, which appears after Realmwalker event, would be the top source for farming the newly added Superior Lair Keys throughout Season 14. However, after testing by players, it was found that this was a complete hoax.
Even at Torment 12 difficulty, not a single Superior Lair Key has been seen in Deathtoll Chamber, far fewer than the four promised by D4 at the beginning of the season. Not only that, the other loot obtained while running this Diablo 4 in-game event was of low quality, not nearly as generous as what one would expect from a main event of the season.
Quality of Life Bugs
Finally, D4Gold’s concerns regarding Season 14 are numerous bugs affecting quality of life, including but not limited to certain effects or buffs failing to persist when switching between different classes and builds; and some must-rolled affixes in certain Mythic Uniques appearing multiple times, such as the maximum health affix and the primary attribute affix.
While this issue may not have as significant an impact on most players as the previous ones, such minor disruptions to their quality of life can still lead some players to abandon Diablo 4 and switch to other similar games, resulting in player attrition and numerous negative reviews, which indirectly contributed to Season 14 being unpopular with players.
These are some of the main reasons why Diablo 4 Season 14, Season of Death Awakening, is receiving so much negative feedback on social media and in the community. Like all players, D4Gold.com is hoping that this game, with its three-year history of success, can regroup and fix Season 14 while there’s still time. Enjoy the game!