Diablo 4 players are disappointed in Season 8 for one major reason

Diablo 4’s PTR has given players a chance to trial some of the new Season 8 content, and most players have the same complaint: Classes losing their identity by the end game.

In order to keep Diablo fresh, the devs have added a new gimmick every season to try and add some spice to builds, give players some new stuff to work toward and new ways to interact with the same game mechanics.

This sounds good on paper, but, in practice, player feedback indicates that many of these amped-up new powers aren’t appealing to the reasons people picked their class in the first place.

As nice as it is to get augments that drastically increase the power level of your class, players are looking for something that’ll give them a stronger axe swing rather than a massive laser in Season 8.

Diablo 4 players fear classes are losing their identity

Upon release, Diablo 4 was praised for its class and build diversity. The game’s structure allowed for players to pick and choose which abilities they wanted to invest most in, along with a variety of passive buffs that allowed them to further amp their abilities.

Every once in a while, you’d get a class-exclusive Legendary as well, one meant specifically to give a certain ability new functions and completely change the way you play the game. And, while these items do still exist in this version of the game, seasonal items and powers have taken over in terms of meta builds.

Now, Season 8 is adding boss powers that can apply to every class. There are 24 in total being added, with the Legendary ones really changing the game. Here are a few examples of what you can expect these to do:

Belial’s Eye Beams

• After you drink a healing potion, gain 75% Damage Reduction for 2 seconds and summon eye beams that Corrupt enemies for 1,750% damage over 3.5 seconds. Then, your Healing Potion becomes disabled for 5 seconds. You may drink your Healing Potion at full health.

Harbinger of Hatred’s Volley

• After damaging a Vulnerable enemy, shoot piercing projectiles that last 1.3 seconds, dealing 400% Fire damage and applying Vulnerable. Deals 40%[x] increased damage to Vulnerable enemies.

Powers like these have been the focus of players’ ire. Though they do change things up significantly, they also apply across all classes and lack a unique flair that makes a class really worth playing. No matter if you’re playing Sorcerer or Barbarian, Belial’s boss power is still going to give you laser beams.

Dexerto

“Yeah when I saw those new powers I was like please not again this crap. When I play as a barbarian I want to use my axe not shoot fckn lasers…” said one Redditor.

Others want meaningful, permanent changes to the game and its mechanics rather than seasonal mechanics that last for a limited time and serve to add powers like these without keeping them around permanently.

“Stop tweaking numbers, stop re-arranging the chairs on the deck, and start adding new content. I gave them a lot of slack the first few seasons, but it’s insane that they STILL haven’t nailed down what they want to do for even the most basic elements of gameplay design like difficulty scaling.”

This comment touches on Torment IV’s massive difficulty spike for the season, something that’ll make good loot and taking advantage of these boss powers even more essential. However, it has also created concerns that using the meta boss powers will create a similar gameplay feel across every class.

“The constant push and pull of the sweeping changes they make from one season to the next is starting to just feel like instability. I understand that classes need a bit of spice added from time to time, but they’re basically doing it at the cost of the game and class identities,” another Redditor claimed.

Though players have their grips with the Season 8 update outside of class identity (a lack of new end game content outside of new bosses, trials still being MIA, Torment IV’s blanket difficulty increase, boss drops getting drastically nerfed), it’s been a prevailing issue since Diablo 4’s seasons began.

While some are still optimistic Season 8’s focus on bosses will deliver, with them being excited to try and create broken boss power builds, others want to see classes evolve and be built upon over time rather than having to grind a new seasonal mechanic every time a massive new update comes out that’ll just be ditched when the season ends.