There’s a new hotfix for Diablo IV, but it doesn’t address the overwhelming amount of criticism for the preseason patch. However, it’s still a good fix, as it addresses two major issues the game has been plagued with – one of which was introduced in the latest patch.
Hotfix 1 is the first patch released after the massive 1.1.0a patch, which includes some serious nerfs to all classes/crit damage, as well as a slowdown of the XP gain and leveling curve.
It’s also adding Season of the Wicked to the game ahead of the official start of the season later today, but that excitement has been overshadowed by one of the game’s worst patches.
The patch makes two changes. First, it restores the Chosen of Hatred buff, which Blizzard disabled earlier this week, making hunting down other players in Diablo 4’s PvP areas nearly useless. The buff is back, but don’t expect to collect as many hate seeds as you could before (that’s why it was disabled in the first place). This is especially true for necromancer minions and druid pets.
One unfortunate bug that contributed to the poor response to the preseason patch was a significant drop rate drop for Anomalous Cinders, the currency of the limited-time Helltide event. Blizzard purposely increased the price of chests that players could use this currency for, so everyone assumed the drop rate was nerfed as well.
The good news is that this was a bug, the anomalous cinders should now drop as often as you’d expect, which I guess is true. This latest patch is now available on all platforms.
Before starting a new seasonal character (which is required to experience seasonal content), you should definitely take a few minutes to do this. This will get you well prepared for the start of the season.
