Blizzard has put out a surprise mainly for the fans of the Diablo franchise, announcing the postponement of the Compass to Carnage event until the 25th of November. The official Twitter account of Diablo 4 announced the change of date accompanied by their usual fiery emoji enthusiasm and assuring “More Compasses. More Aether. More Chaos.” However, the reaction from the gaming community has been… not really the happy one that Blizzard was probably hoping for.
What is it that makes the delay so important? Initially, the Compass to Carnage event was thought to be the one to bring the game to life much earlier in the season, but now it is so close to the end that most of the players would have already switched their attention to other games or are just waiting for the next season to start. This very timing has put a lot of people in the Diablo community in doubt as to why Blizzard would choose such a time for an event that should be so major in terms of engagement if the engagement is at its weakest naturally.
The responses from the players have been quite violent and the truth is? It is really hard to contradict them. A gamer called Kagitaar really put the group’s confusion into words when she said,”…why though? That puts it at the very end of the season. Who the hell is going to show up for that?” And they are correct; seasonal content is usually required to be released when players are most involved in the season and not when they are already thinking of leaving.
However, the change of date is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of player frustrations. The comment section below Blizzard’s announcement is practically a masterclass in the discontent of the gaming community. Players are expressing their discontent regarding issues as varied as the duplication of Mythic items reducing the desire to play (hats off to Crowzer who got the same Mythic item two times and simply quit) to the main design problems with horde events themselves.
The compass system seems to be one of the pain points in particular. Several players have come forward reporting they have huge amounts of compasses but cannot do anything with them. CosmicGirlWorld was quite direct: “I have more wave 10 compasses than I know what to do with lol. I’m good.” Others like SebastienL59 indicated resource imbalance issues, saying that they have a mountain of obducites but only 150 forgotten souls. Therefore, they cannot properly masterwork several characters’ gear.
The critique is more extensive than even just inventory management. A good number of players criticized the horde events as fundamentally uninteresting. Odog575 seemed to be giving voice to many when he said, “Hordes aren’t really fun. Just a trip for a little loot. Need something different than 10 waves of enemies.” And Drewzee0 made a good point about having to finish whole horde events even after getting the main reward, calling the remaining waves “useless” for just a few million extra gold.
What is especially impressive is that there are players who are almost telling Blizzard that they have completely lost interest in the game. TheOnlineGam4r’s “Your game is dead” and onfiyar’s “Nobody cares guys. The game is boring, that’s just the truth sorry” are just a couple of examples that vividly illustrate the decline of goodwill. Even more serious are the comments of the analytics-minded, such as the one made by Genesis, who said that Blizzard has already lost more than 4,000 followers in just two weeks, and their posts have been getting only 150 likes on average despite having a million followers.
A significant part of the criticism is that the players are calling for more substantial content updates rather than what many are referring to as “boost events” that are not really adding anything new to the game. APmith summed it up well: “A real event would actually add something new to the game to acquire or engage with. But these boost events are not even good for the game and not exciting either.”
Still, in the midst of chaos, some players managed to come up with constructive suggestions. ThingsR65888 suggested reviving the treasure goblin event to draw players in, while proteus61585 simply begged for “less compasses and more chaos armor drops.” Many players shared the same view that chaos armor drops rarity is too low, especially at this late stage of the season when increased drop rates could help keep players engaged.
The timing of the announcement—and the very negative response—triggered deeper issues related to the current direction of Diablo’s development. Players are already voicing their displeasure about event delays, patch pushbacks, and what many perceive as tedious content design, so Blizzard may have to significantly revise its approach to seasonal content.
