Diablo 4 Season 14 dramatically reworked Mythic items in Blizzard’s ARPG going forward, and judging from early feedback, it’s a change that isn’t going over well.
Season of Death Awakening launched on June 30 and introduced what Blizzard coined Mythic Uniques 3.0, a new system where any of the game’s hundreds of Unique items could be found (or turned into) even stronger Mythic versions. In theory, it would open up the game’s endgame build options and give players more choices when it comes to outfitting their characters. Far from just a temporary seasonal change, Blizzard stated it intended for Mythic Uniques 3.0 to be a permanent part of the game going forward.
The downside of the new system is that it also added more randomness to Mythics, making it so even formerly best-in-slot Mythic Uniques (now called Iconic Mythics) like The Grandfather or Heir of Perdition are now, more often than not, significantly worse than before and usually not worth using. Equally annoying, crafting a Unique into a Mythic Unique using the Horadric Cube is largely random, rewarding a different item than the one originally put in the cube.
Mythics additionally seem to be more rare than before, with lower drop rates and the removal of the ability to craft specific Mythics. Taken all together, acquiring usable Mythics now feels almost entirely out of players’ control.
Blizzard knew the Mythic item changes would be controversial. In an interview with GameSpot ahead of Season 14’s launch, Blizzard said it was trying to “split the difference” between its goals for the game’s “long-term health” and feedback from the community it received on the Season 14 public-test-realm. It seems that approach isn’t going particularly well, because one look at places like the Diablo 4 Reddit or at videos from various Diablo content creators paints a picture of a largely unhappy playerbase frustrated by the season’s unpopular Mythic changes.
In a widely upvoted post, Reddit user Oct_ showed a screenshot of having achieved rank 1 on the Hardcore, Solo-Self Found Diablo 4 leaderboard. However, they lamented the fact that they’d played for nearly 50 hours and had not found or been able to craft a single usable Mythic yet.
“The mechanic makes it impossible for normal people to get that chase item,” Oct_ wrote.
Another Reddit user, Thirteenera, provided some data on Mythic Unique drop rates and revealed that after “days” of farming 1,400 lair boss runs, they received a total of 50 Mythic items. Of those 50 drops, none were useful for their build. While many Iconic Mythics were once universally useful across most builds, most Mythic Uniques are now niche in their purpose, meaning finding one that is useful for a given build is now far less likely.
Others have called out how bad and misleading it feels to put a Unique item into the cube, use the “upgrade” feature (which implies the item is being improved), and then receive a completely different, and likely useless item in exchange. Many players state the phrasing needs to be rewritten to let players know they aren’t really crafting an upgrade but gambling.
It’s not just on places like Reddit that players are complaining. Diablo content creators like Rhykker also don’t seem happy with the changes. Rhykker said they are having fun with the new seasonal events, but that “everything I loved about Mythics is gone.”
“Mythics are harder to get and weaker than they were,” Rhykker said in a recent video. “I’m okay with harder to get, but it doesn’t feel exciting to work harder to get something crappier than we used to have.”
Another content creator, Rob2628, stated in their most recent video that Season 14 is a “big step backwards,” lamenting the fact players can only wear one crafted Mythic item, how difficult it is to find Iconic Mythics, and the sheer amount of RNG involved along the way.
“I think the general consensus is that the new changes to the Mythics, especially with the crafted tag, have been very negatively received in the community, and I agree, rightfully so,” Rob2628 said. “It is very, very hard to get Mythics, even for players that play a ton.”
That’s not to say everyone dislikes Mythics 3.0. Another popular Diablo content creator, Raxxanterax, said in their recent “The State of Diablo 4 Season 14” video that they are a fan of Uniques being able to drop as Mythic quality, even if he is largely unimpressed with the season overall and thinks Blizzard needs to change its approach to seasons.
“I think it adds dopamine,” Raxxanterax said.
Season 14 is still in its early stages, so it’s possible Blizzard could adjust drop rates or make changes to Mythic crafting to elminate some of the pain points players have complained about before the end of the season. Even if the new season isn’t being received well overall, there have been some universally good changes, like fixes to make Diablo 4’s worst grind a lot easier.
