Diablo 4's epic stallion may be more powerful than ever, but the game itself is in a tough spot. Disgruntled players have always existed, but the blow the preseason one patch dealt to its reputation has severely degraded the game's community atmosphere, and while Blizzard has apologized for the update's devastation, it has not completely retracted, and the game's once hype-hole In spaces like subreddit, the mood is still acrimonious.

Other studios have taken notice: in a chat with IGN, the developers of the long-running Diablo-like Path of Exile offered their take on Diablo 4's season one launch, which was a flop, and while sympathizing with Blizzard, their fans need not worry, they emphasized.

"Honestly, when I look at that, all I can think is, 'That's a lot of work. Jonathan Rogers, the studio's technical director, described the challenges of running a season-based live service game. The learning process for running such a season-based live game is daunting," Rogers says, but thankfully, Grinding Gear has "learned lessons on how to do this over the years of running a season-based challenge league."

"I'm very sorry because I'm sure the developers have good intentions, but yes, it's a hard lesson to learn," Rogers said.

Managing Director Chris Wilson was a bit more specific. He said, "Sometimes developers see something in a game that's too fast and they think, 'Oh, that's just a game, it's too fast.' I assume you are referring to the class-based nerf in Diablo 4's 1.1.0 patch. What the process is," Wilson did not say. However, I believe it bears no resemblance to Blizzard's response to 1.1.0.

With "Diablo 4" fan sentiment in such a state, Rogers was understandably keen to emphasize how "Path of Exile 2" in "Diablo 4 Grinding Gear" would be unlike "Diablo 4." D4 is "going the way of the MMO," Rogers said, referring to the plethora of cooldowns and the open-world design.

POE2's design philosophy is to have "not a lot of cooldowns," Rogers said, instead focusing on the action: "Which skill is best to use at this moment? Things like never losing control of your character: ...... That's kind of our main focus," he said. He also emphasized the depth and complexity of the game to "Diablo 4," which is not that surprising to someone like me who has fired up "POE 1" and faced a skill tree like the spiral diagram in "Ars Goetia."

I haven't spent much time with Path of Exile, but I must admit that hearing Rogers distinguish it from Diablo in this way makes me more tempted than ever; I enjoyed about 20 hours in D4, but I've been out of the game to focus on other things for It has been a long time. Maybe I'll join the closed beta of Path of Exile 2 next June 7, when it takes place.