Diablo 4 players continue to grow frustrated over the random server shutdowns that happen without warning, potentially ruining game sessions. Since it launched in early June, Diablo 4 has been a massive success story for Blizzard, even becoming the fastest selling game in the company's history. The launch is already the polar opposite of the difficulties that faced the release of Diablo 3, which was held back by a number of problems including server errors locking players out.
For all of this success, Diablo 4 hasn't been a perfect launch. While critics and players have found a lot to love with Diablo 4, there have been a few things that seem to underwhelm fans. Outside of some of the UI, especially with skill trees, Diablo 4 players have compiled a list of missing quality of life features in the attempt to bring awareness, so Blizzard will hopefully address some or all of these things in a future update. Blizzard has proven already that it isn't afraid to update the game often, though it seems this process has started to rub some players the wrong way.
Diablo 4 embraces the fully online live service model, something which has divided fans. However, as part of this always online system, Blizzard is often applying fixes and updates, though the process forces the servers to go down for a set period of time. While the studio typically uses social media to announce these updates, the server downtime takes in-game players by surprise and kicks them out to the main menu. For players like Same-Drink2905, this process has gotten frustrating as the servers can go down without any in-game warning, suddenly kicking players out regardless of the run or high level event they're attempting to complete.
Same-Drink2905's Diablo 4 subReddit post called for Blizzard to follow in the footsteps of World of Warcraft by adding a warning message in advance of a server shutdown, allowing players time to finish what they're doing. Comments on this thread seemed to rally around the idea, especially if it helps prevent players from losing hard-earned progress due to a server shutdown.
Not having advanced warning could also prove fatal for Hardcore players. With permadeath active, players are at risk of losing their characters permanently if a server shuts down at the wrong time. Inf act, two high profile Diablo 4 hardcore players recently lost their characters due to shady circumstances, one at level 100 and another at level 92. A server disconnect ended the level 100 character's run, as Diablo 4 no longer auto-saves before a game abruptly ends.
Diablo 4 is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
