Blizzard pulls Diablo Season 2 trailer that got almost everything wrong, its fumbled sums stunlocking this streamer with laughter
There's a lot to unpack here.
Diablo 4's Season of Blood drops tomorrow. In the run-up, the game's social media accounts have been in overdrive—dropping trailers, explainer videos, memes, all that good stuff. One such video, however, came and went like a vampire in the night.
As spotted by PCGamesN, a video promising to explain "the best quality-of-life changes coming with Season of Blood" was pulled from Diablo 4's official Twitter account earlier this week after it… didn't do that. It's gone now, but the internet's collective all-seeing eye has immortalised it forever.
"Let's observe what we have here," says seasoned Diablo 4 YouTuber and streamer Raxxanterax, barely able to contain his laughter before he gets into the muck of it. First up, the screenshots of the Nightmare Dungeons, headlined with a proud Before and After, were actually in reverse. Comparing it to a wrap-up of a recent developer livestream, the Season of Blood's dungeon map is actually the one contained under the "Before" tab.
There's some other nitpicks, like how the horse comparison doesn't show much of anything in the way of differences (although we do know we're getting some major horse buffs). The real star of the show here, however, is this screenshot.
There's, uh, there's a lot to unpack here. First off, 40% of 1,000 is 400. 1,000 multiplied by 400 is 400,000 experience points, which is probably not the current bonus, unless I've missed something. What's more likely is that it's 1,000, plus a 40% bonus, which is… still not 1,040. Hm.
Then there's that bottom equation. Assuming the intention here is (1,000 x 1.2) x 1.2, the result of that is 1,440, not 1,400. That's because you're essentially taking 20% of 1,200 (240) and slapping it on top of 1,200. It seems like the napkin maths here assumed it was the same as 1,000 x 1.4, which isn't the case, or we wouldn't be here.
So let's correct things based on what makes sense. The top sum should be 1,000 x 1.4 (which is the same as adding 40% of 1,000). That equals 1,400. The bottom sum should be (1,000 x 1.2) x 1.2, which equals… 1,440. Technically an improvement, but not something to write home to Lorath about.
This mind-prison of multiplication gets Raxxanterax nearly cry-laughing at the end of it all. "Blizzard," he says in between breaths. "I'm trying to build some hype for your new season, but you're making it real hard."
Granted, the scuff itself is understandable—errors get made in first drafts all the time, especially when deadlines and time pressures come into play. What's more surprising is how this got past the usual approvals processes. I've reached out to Blizzard for comment, and I'll update this article if I get an answer back.