A first look at the reactions of the Diablo community makes it clear that joy and sorrow are indeed close together.
For a little over 24 hours, Diablo fans have finally been able to play Vessel of Hatred. The first major add-on brings tons of new features to the game, most notably a new class and the continuation of the story from the main game.
The question is:How well did the fans receive the add-on?
We took a look at the Blizzard, Reddit and Steam forums for you. The result didn’t surprise us, because in our test, we came to a very similar conclusion as the community.
The Spiritborn comes off best of all
Let’s start with the good stuff first. In particular, the gameplay around the new class of the Spiritborn (in English Spiritborn
) is praised by many fans. For example, it is described as the most polished and flexible class, and as super fun and unique.
Another Reddit user is similarly impressed, smugly noting: The Spiritborn feels good, I expect a nerf pretty quickly that will fix this.
But there are also critical voices that see the Spiritborn as nothing more than a Monk from Diablo 3 in a new guise Some even claim to have recognized that the new class reuses some of the Monk animations.
The new map doesn’t really ignite.
With the return to the jungle of Nahantu, Blizzard probably wanted to tap into nostalgia. However, this plan only partially worked. Of course, there are also words of praise for the new area of the add-on. But mostly the spark just doesn’t really want to ignite.
One user writes something like this:
Another fan also doesn’t seem receptive to the nostalgia:
I’m trying to figure out why they continue to market Nahantu as a Diablo area we’ve never seen. So far, Nahantu is just Kurast and the surrounding areas. We’ve been here before; it’s not new; sure there are a few new things that weren’t here last time, but it doesn’t make it a new place that has never been seen in the games before.
The story… oh, where to start?
Spoiler warning:Do you know what happens if you haven’t played the Vessel of Hatred campaign yet but read on anyway? Exactly: you’ll learn a few important points of the story. We don’t want that, you don’t want that, so you’d better read about the best builds for Season 6.
Let’s not beat around the bush: The campaign story is by far the most unpopular part of the addon.It’s amazing how uniformly negative the fans’ opinion is on this point. We tried to find a positive voice for the story – in vain.
The hottest thread in the Blizzard forums right now, , is all about how disappointed fans are with the story, especially the anticlimactic ending. This comment sums up the community’s mood on the subject well:
This can’t be true, hinting at a Mephisto fight in the main game, then naming the add-on Hatred
and finally you don’t fight Mephisto, lol
On Steam, the campaign is even rated as complete garbage
Whew, that hit home!
You realize: the mood in the Diablo community has been better. Vessel of Hatred has not brought joy to many fans, but rather a bitter disappointment. The question now is how Blizzard will react to this feedback. It would not be the first time in the long history of the series that the development team has addressed the most pressing issues with future patches and made improvements.
