Diablo 4 is an outstanding game in its own right; the story is actually good, Lilith is a compelling villain, and the gameplay loop is just as addictive as you’d want it to be. Like with most other things in life, though, there’s always room for improvement, so here are some ways Diablo 4 could’ve been even better.
More Innovative Boss Mechanics
While I’m not a huge fan of Lost Ark‘s over-the-top story and vibe overall, there’s just no denying that it brought a lot of fun new things to the ARPG table, including interesting boss mechanics that went beyond just DPS checks. That’s the thing about Diablo 4; most of the bosses, and especially the world bosses, really just feel like DPS checks.
Group up with a bunch of people, whack the boss a bunch, make sure not to stand in the glowing red spots, and keep going until the boss goes down. The Butcher is easily one of the most mechanically interesting bosses in the game, and I definitely wish we could’ve seen more of that in the other boss designs.
Mechanics that require some form of coordination or a bit of puzzle-solving would’ve added more depth and nuance to Diablo 4’s bosses, and it’s a shame that they largely still feel rather simplistic.
A Bigger Focus on the Multiplayer Aspect
Diablo has always been better with friends, and Diablo 4 really doubled down on the multiplayer aspect of the game by introducing a shared open-world where you could encounter other players out in the wild and take on world events and bosses together. This is a great step in the right direction, though we can’t help but wish there was just a bit more to it.
As it stands, there are only a handful of world events available in the game, and they’re not particularly interesting. The world bosses are great, though as we’d alluded to earlier, more interesting and challenging mechanics that actually required proper coordination between players would make those encounters even better.
Leaning hard into multiplayer would inevitably push Diablo to become a bit more MMO-like, just like Lost Ark, and maybe that’s not such a bad thing. After all, the game truly shines when you get to enjoy the grind in a group, so why not push for that?
Have Things Carry Over Through Seasons
The real longevity of Diablo 4 comes in the form of seasons, which were introduced with Diablo 3. With the start of each season, players will get to create a new character, go through the campaign and all the World Tiers all over again, and see how efficiently they can play through the game and get to the endgame section. Seasons worked great in Diablo 3 because the campaign was short enough, and the world was also small enough for players to be able to blast through quickly.
With Diablo 4, however, it could very easily become a bit of a boring grind. Having to accrue Renown points all over again is a total pain, not to mention having to activate all your Altars of Lilith, and uncover the world map. All of this means things could get very tedious very quickly. The map is huge, and the campaign isn’t exactly a short romp; just getting to endgame will take quite a bit of time, making each season feel like a drag.
It would be nice if we could have certain things carry over between seasons, such as your accrued Renown and activated fast travel points, especially in a game as big as this one.
More Space
I’m not just talking about gems in your inventory, I’m talking about Aspects too. Inventory and stash management in Diablo 4 feels really bad. As you approach the end of the campaign, you’ll inevitably find your inventory filling up with all sorts of gems you pick up along the way, and even if they stack, they fill up so quickly.
And once you get into Aspects and collecting them from dungeons and extracting them from Legendaries, those start filling up your inventory as well. Having to constantly fast travel back to town to clear out your gems and Aspects gets old real fast, especially when you just want to concentrate on farming other things.
Get Rid of the Weird Side Quest Cap
Diablo 4 offers up a whole ton of side quests for you to take on, and sometimes, it’s just more efficient for you to accept a bunch of them and knock them out as you’re exploring the world map. And yet, Blizzard has decided to put a cap on the number of side quests you can accept at any given point in time.
You’re capped at 20 side quests, which might sound like a lot, but given that it’s possible to just come across new quests as you’re killing random mobs or opening chests, that can fill up quickly as well. It’s a very strange and arbitrary limitation to put on a game like this, and your questing would go by so much smoother if you could just accept all the quests you wanted in one go.
About the author
