It’s no surprise that one of the main complaints about D4, are simple QoL issues. Like D3, we’re running into stash limitations (we currently have only 4 shared stash tabs which I have easily filled up with mostly Sacred legendaries for sorc; I’ve dismantled most of the standard T1/T2 legendaries and know I will do the same for most of this Sacred gear once I get to T4). I expect extra stash unlocks to be gated behind seasonal content like how it was for D3 (since this “carrot on a stick” approach worked well even though folks like myself, had stopped playing; to date, I haven’t unlocked any additional stash in D3). I know some believe Blizzard might be trying to monetize stash tabs (but I believe this will cause an uproar and detract from the “cosmetics only” shop, so I expect it to be unlocked via seasons).
Related to limited inventory space, is the fact that gems clog up a huge portion of it. Your personal stash doesn’t even have a separate gems tab for example. And unlike D3, they take up the same size slot as a piece of gear. And it’s really bad since each gem tier occupies its own slot, and can stack only to 50. And we know that T4/Nightmare isn’t going to be the end of the difficulty scaling (since one can presume there will at least be a T5/Hell difficulty content/dungeons to pay homage to the original Normal, Nightmare, Hell difficulty that was part of the original, D2, and original D3 game play; some of this has been datamined recently though the usual caveat applies since often times, there are stuff left in the client that were just used for testing/tidbits for dataminers that they knew weren’t ever going to be implemented), where one can also expect higher quality gems (similar to the system in D3). As of now, I’m creating mules to stash gems (but this isn’t a long term solution since we’re limited to 10 total characters at the moment). The solution to this is simple; a separate personal inventory tab AND a separate shared stash tab for things like gems, consumables, sigils, and extracted aspects.
I do get the old school notion of limited space requiring you to decide what to keep and toss. I remember this inventory tetris thing in original Diablo where the ground in Tristram would be covered with pieces of gear, spell books, and gold piles since there was no way to hold it all. We of course don’t have this option in an online only game. In D3, I remember proposing switching the shared inventory to personal, and having one separate tab for shared. Considering the amount of build diversity just per class, the designed limitations for a game like this in 2023, is just a seriously bad decision (and unfortunately, the D4 team seems to have made some of the worse QoL decisions for this game).
The lack of a loot filter (with regards to the above) is a huge glaring omission and along with the lack of a search bar to quickly find stuff in your stash (D3 eventually added this). I also don’t buy the argument that it is missing because of console (since I know there are console players that are very adept at inputting text using the controller). Instead, it seems a lot of the UI was left as an afterthought with many of the abstractions designed to have both console and PC sharing the same elements (but lacking the refinements to make sure they worked well on their respective platforms). It just feels like something like a basic search filter was left out due to a lack of time.
I previously brought up the need to run/ride to dungeon entrances (and I also noted how that was probably an intended design so that players would partake of activities along the way). But it’s really a poor QoL decision because we have Tree of Whispers (for the early transition into a tier) and Helltides to get players into the different parts of the game world. Town hubs in D3 were actually one of the best designs in the franchise where everything was there, whereas in D4, the placements are pretty much intended time sinks. I often times simply port to the Tree of Whispers waypoint because both the blacksmith and stash are right next to each other.
I’ve also mentioned the mount and its issues. The mount would normally be considered a QoL plus (to help you move faster in between points of interest) in addition to being a key part of the monetization when it comes to accessorizing them (the Primal Instinct mount itself is a Twitch paid 2x sub drop). Myself, I got one of the “best” mounts (from a cosmetic PoV) as a drop from one of the Legion events; the Spectral Charger) but I often times just find myself running on foot. When you instill too much friction in their use (the friction being actual roadblocks/barriers that require you to dismount to remove them, having certain mobs inflict a slow, many terrain obstacles/collision maps that the mount catches on, and mobs damaging your mount where it causes a dismount and added cooldown to re-mount), it causes more annoyance/frustration.
While I haven’t yet reached the point of having to re-spec the Paragon boards, it’s clear what a pain that will be since there is no one-click button to reset each/all boards. Again, I get there is probably a designed intention of dis-incentivizing constant changes to them (gold costs being one though at T3+, gold drops in more abundant quantities, and re-speccing and re-rolling gear properties are the intended gold sinks). The point however is that we’re not even a month into the game, and these QoL issues are already pain points for most players who are now venturing into the actual end game (I don’t see how these don’t turn into ad nauseum complaints several months from now).
