Diablo 4 continues to revert changes made in its highly unpopular patch 1.1, increasing the experience gain rate on World Tiers 3 and 4

As the first season of Diablo 4 approached in July, the game received a patch that was undeniably unpopular. To put it mildly would be an understatement - the gaming community was in an uproar, to the point where the developers felt compelled to issue an emergency broadcast where they stated, "we have no intention of releasing such patches in the future."

Instead of repeating past mistakes, the Diablo team has gradually begun to address them. According to Gamesradar, a hotfix has increased the experience gained from defeating monsters in World Tier 3 by 5% and in World Tier 4 by 15%.

This can be seen as a restoration of what had been weakened and had caused player dissatisfaction - the reduction in experience bonuses for defeating higher-level monsters (from 25% at three levels higher to a mere 15% at around ten levels higher), as well as the world bonuses they had recently started to reintroduce.

While technically good news, it seems that many players would have preferred these mistakes to never have happened in the first place. In a post on the game's subreddit, players didn't view the hotfix as a generous gift but rather as a long-awaited acknowledgment that the developers had made errors. The top comment by user SQRTLURFACE reads, "Classic Blizzard. Remove XP, then give XP back, and call it a hotfix/patch."

I'm not particularly surprised by the lack of goodwill from players. That initial patch eroded the community's trust in the game by reducing the effectiveness of all classes (including the already struggling Sorcerer) and significantly slowing down the endgame. One of the most frustrating changes was adding an extra 2 seconds to dungeon teleports, which seemed like an unnecessary inconvenience at the time. I'm still not entirely clear on how that change improved the gaming experience.

This doesn't mean that genuine efforts haven't been made to improve the game, but there has undoubtedly been a fair amount of confusion along the way. Diablo 4's excessive crowd control was toned down earlier this month, loot filters are promised for the future, and adjustments to enemy density were made in August. Whether it's too little, too late remains to be seen.