Remember "Ruins of Eridu," Blizzard's ninth hotfix for Diablo 4, where the most exploitable dungeons were nerfed, elite spawn rates plummeted, and you really have to work for the extra paragon points after level 50 will no longer be available.

Hotfix 9 was released last Monday, June 12, with changes aimed at "standardizing the density of elite monsters spawning in dungeons." In short, places like Eridu will no longer have a noticeably larger number of elites filled with XP and loot than other Diablo's dank wall holes. Predictably, fans are not overjoyed.

The Diablo4 subreddit is already awash with revolting players, with multiple threads dedicated to complaints about the patch earning thousands of upvotes and various glorious Reddit awards. The most popular is a thread on AudioRejectz, titled "Devs, we run dungeons to level because the XP sucks everywhere!" The post, which has received over 4,000 upvotes and seven awards at the time of writing, criticizes Blizzard for nerfing Diablo's current power leveling venues instead of buffing alternative XP sources.

AudioRejectz wrote that the reason Diablo players, especially solo players, continue to return to XP farms like Eridu is because "XP everywhere else is bad. The thread further states that "world bosses, hell tides, [nightmare dungeons] all need XP buffs" and that it is "very frustrating that [Blizzard] is making it increasingly difficult to level, especially for solo players."

This sentiment is now pervasive in the Diablo community, as evidenced by the high number of upvotes, with user Recovery_Water, who received the most votes in the AudioRejectz thread, commenting, "D3 experienced the same thing, players demand more density Entreric's comment agrees: "This game has learned nothing from D3. This game has learned nothing from D3.

The anger is not focused on one thread. In another thread, "Stop nerfing mob density in certain dungeons!" by a user named obvious1, "Buff the density in other dungeons!" a thread with about 2,400 upvotes and lengthy comments; StoiaN40's "Can Blizzard stop nerfing any fun / good dungeon in the game?" thread with 1,600 upvotes; and "Stop nerfing dungeons in the game?" by a user named "StoiaN40" with 1,600 upvotes, Janus408's "Stop nerfing, start buffing" thread has 1,100 upvotes, and the actual announcement thread for the hotfix is equally disturbing. I hope you get the picture.

I'm too careless of a Diablo player to be outraged by this change, but I understand the community's frustration. It must be aggravating to feel like something is being taken away from you, rather than added, with each patch of the game, and it creates a sense that the player's understanding of the game and its mechanics is being punished. The XP farm for this game probably needed some tweaking, but it would be nice if Blizzard would provide some carrot to accompany the stick. Maybe with hotfix 10?