Blizzard has made a not-so-transparent tweet through the official Diablo account, which, depending on the point of view, has either lit a great fire in the community or has the people screaming in vain. The tweet is, “The fight against chaos needs a new kind of soldier 🌎 Last chance to gift yourself some Terran inspired armor… for now,” and it takes the customer straight to the in-game shop. It is a short message in which they are actually communicating to the whole audience that this StarCraft-themed armor set is going out of the Diablo 4 store, at least for now. The ‘for now’ does the heavy lifting; it expresses a possible future return, perhaps at a higher price, one never knows.
From the moment the news broke, the community had mixed feelings. The players showed up with completely opposite responses. User GAM3S.GG stated the simple, ‘That armor is fire’, to which it was fair. The armor does look either hot or sick according to one’s taste, it is all big and sci-fi among demons and gothic churches. This is a crossover with Blizzard‘s own StarCraft universe, specifically the Terran faction, so it has that industrial, space-marine vibe. Glitchy 🪄 even became lyrical, stating, “The armor’s intensity reflects the mounting struggle in Sanctuary. That slow pan… indeed, the weight of our burden is being accentuated.” Deep stuff, man.
Nevertheless… oh boy. If one were to scroll down the comments section, they would find the other half of the replies, a masterclass in gamer frustration. The tweet was like a dam that was broken and all the complaints about the current state of Diablo 4 were allowed to flow through. A big number of complaints came up and I mean all of them.
Let’s begin with the most noticeable: the price. User filliswillis could not help but state, ‘Only 28 dollars 🤣’. Then RobedLogic jumped in with ‘$40 expansion, $30 skin.’ Ouch. That is the main issue, isn’t it? The gamers see a really cool cosmetic that they cannot have because it is behind an expensive paywall that is almost equal to the price of some indie games. drini999888 was not silent and shared his thoughts with a reply to another user, “Totally agree. I have the cash to spend it but I won’t be supporting these microtransactions. 30 euros for a skin, you can buy 2 games for that lol.” The value proposition is a never-ending battle in live service games and Diablo 4’s shop is the frontline.
The contention is not just about the money for this armor. No, the replies quickly became a general therapy session for Diablo 4 players. Jokers Wild is upset about a transmog glitch that has not been fixed: “I would get the armor but you guys didn’t fix the bullshit transmog glitch… I can’t transmog ANYTHING properly and it’s pissing me the hell off since I paid 70 for this fucking game. FIX IT.” So, even if you wanted to buy the item, one of the major purposes for showing it off is apparently not working for some.
Then, the issue with server reliability comes in. BoyLazlo was quite explicit in his complaint: “Lag and rubber banding all over the place, I play 3 other live service games with zero issues but Diablo 4 is just horrible. I can’t even walk without rubber banding backwards all the time with a 2-second delay on everything. Fix the servers.” It’s not very cool to be looking slick in your new Terran gear if you are moving across the screen as though you are on a bad connection.
And the bugs! WILDBUSHDOG GAMING brought up a specific quest and class problem: “Since the season 11 update, the Sacred Hunt quest is locked out, along with Spiritborn runes on Xbox consoles. Can we get a fix before the New Year?” B-Rich asked for a hotfix allowing players to add sockets to a particular type of gear. CleverAnonymity complained that the grinding for one boss was completely out of sync with the rest of the season. It is an entire list of ‘other things’ that just seem more deserving of the attention than a new skin.
Some players are just… done. DuckD41789 went so far as to call the game a “dress-up simulator.” ReallyOkPerson commented, “I am 400 hours into POE 2 right now, sorry.” (And then got a beautifully chaotic response from Enkidyev: “And I’m 400 hours into your mom, but I don’t feel like telling everyone” – never change, Twitter). EmpMagiPhul is biding his time for a colossal sale: “D4 for $4, I will be waiting until such a sale.”
