In a fairly unexpected change, Blizzard has disabled Hatred’s Chosen in Diablo 4 after the developer identified an issue with the game’s PvP. Blizzard did not say what the issue was, but explained that you’ll no longer gain the buff of Hatred’s Chosen while in Fields of Hatred.
Fields of Hatred are designated zones in Diablo 4’s map where players can go after other players. While you can target monsters in those zones, the best rewards come from fighting other players.
If you manage to earn 100 points from killing other players (~ten kills), you become Hatred’s Chosen. This reveals your real-time location for everyone else to see for five minutes. The player who ends your reign gets rewarded handsomely, but you’re also incentivised to try and stay alive during the hunt.
While you’re Hatred’s Chosen, you earn Seeds of Hatred with every hit you land. Seeds of Hatred is the zones’ main reward. But you can’t take Seeds of Hatred outside Fields of Hatred without purifying them at designated Altars of Extraction, which is what makes Hatred’s Chosen the most powerful buff in Fields of Hatred.
If you survive the full five minutes, all of your Seeds are purified immediately, turning into Red Dust – the currency that you can use to buy from vendors in the area and so on. This is what makes risking it all to become Hatred’s Chosen worth it.
But not won’t be true again until Blizzard can re-enable it. In an announcement on the Diablo 4 forums, Blizzard explained that you will still see the UI alert for Hatred’s Chosen, but the buff will not trigger. This also means you’ll no longer earn Seeds on every hit.
“We will be working on a fix in an upcoming update and will update the community when this is enabled again after a fix has been shipped,” the developer said.
This obviously means that you shouldn’t bother targetting other players right now in Fields of Hatred, until the issue has been resolved. We’re expecting the big pre-season patch to arrive tomorrow, July 18 – so hopefully the patch notes will include a fix for that issue.
If you haven’t done so already, you should definitely start checking off everything on this list to prepare for Season of the Malignant.
