Diablo IV’s Loot Friction Problem
If you’ve spent any real time grinding through Diablo IV’s Nightmare Dungeons or racing through open-world events, you’ve probably noticed a familiar irritation that keeps popping up.
You blast through packs of enemies, push forward at full speed, and then—you see them. Those tiny glowing experience orbs, sitting in a sad little line behind you like breadcrumbs. You stop. You turn around. You click them. You run back again. And you think to yourself, “Why am I doing this in 2025?”
It’s a tiny thing, but it builds up fast, especially during long farming sessions. Before you know it, the clicks pile up, the movement feels choppy, and the constant interruptions start creeping toward carpal tunnel territory.
Why Speed Matters
The problem is compounded in the game’s faster-paced sections, where speed and efficiency are crucial. Every second spent manually picking up XP or gold adds friction to the otherwise fluid combat loop, breaking immersion and slowing down progression.
For players who enjoy marathon farming sessions or repeated dungeon runs, this repeated micro-management becomes surprisingly exhausting. This is exactly why so many voices in the community are asking Blizzard to let pets collect XP drops automatically.
It’s a small change that could dramatically smooth the experience, letting players focus on combat and exploration rather than the tedium of chasing orbs. It would finally bring Diablo IV’s quality-of-life systems closer to the convenience long seen in Diablo III and other modern ARPGs.
Current System Flaws
The way the system works now slows everything down. You’re in the middle of a fast, clean run, and a single delayed Animus orb forces a full turn-around because the orb didn’t drop right away. Sometimes it appears half a second late—long after you’ve dashed ahead with a movement skill. Anyone using fast builds is hit even harder because enemies can be killed off-screen.
You might not even realize something dropped until the pet starts drifting backward like it suddenly remembered something important.
When loot spawns outside the field of view, the pet often fails to reach it in time. XP, runes, seeds, and other items get left behind without anyone noticing.
This not only interrupts the flow of a run but also diminishes the pet’s role as a helper. Rather than streamlining gameplay and reducing tedious micromanagement, the current system adds friction and occasional frustration.
What should be a convenience becomes another thing to monitor, undermining the sense of speed and efficiency that Diablo IV’s combat is built around. For players trying to optimize runs, it’s a constant reminder that the pet’s potential as an automated assistant is only partially realized. A smarter, fully reliable collection system could dramatically improve the overall experience.
Momentum vs. Friction
The overall flow of Diablo IV suffers for no real reason. The game is packed with systems designed to make combat fast, fluid, and satisfying: movement-heavy builds, high-density dungeons, devastating area-of-effect abilities, and countless ways to increase run speed or efficiency.
Yet all of that carefully crafted momentum comes to an abrupt halt the moment a tiny XP orb or Animus fragment drops behind you, forcing a frustrating backtrack. This isn’t a test of skill or strategy—it’s a jarring interruption that feels more like a relic of older design philosophies than a deliberate gameplay choice.
The problem isn’t that the game is too hard; it’s that friction has been inserted into an otherwise smooth loop. Players aren’t asking for hand-holding or a nerf to challenge—they want a modern experience where the game respects their time and allows them to stay in the flow, free from constant micro-management.
ARPG Comparisons
The contrast becomes even clearer when looking at other ARPGs:
- Torchlight: pets can run errands, sell junk, and handle menial tasks while you keep moving.
- Diablo III: implemented expanded pickup automation that let loot and gold flow to the player without breaking the action.
- Last Epoch: has auto-loot for a wide range of drops.
- Path of Exile: loot filters are so sophisticated they’ve become almost an art form, letting players instantly focus on what matters without wasting time on clutter.
Even in single-player ARPGs, modders routinely add auto-loot because it’s become a baseline expectation among players. Diablo IV does make some strides—auto-salvaging blues and yellows is a helpful step—but XP orbs, Animus, runes, and seeds still cling to older conventions.
For a game that emphasizes speed, momentum, and fluidity, these constant, repetitive interruptions feel out of place. They break the rhythm of gameplay, add unnecessary frustration to long runs, and make you painfully aware of every small, avoidable click.
Diablo IV needs a system where pets or automated mechanics handle these minor chores seamlessly, letting players focus on combat and exploration, rather than babysitting the loot they’ve earned.
Pets and Speed
Faster pets are another major request from the community. Right now, pets move as if they’re out for a leisurely stroll rather than keeping pace with Sanctuary’s fastest builds, and the discrepancy becomes painfully obvious in high-speed dungeons.
By the time you’ve dashed through a room or cleared a pack of enemies, the pet is still struggling to catch up, missing drops or getting stuck behind obstacles. Some pickup animations must finish before loot is counted, creating even more delays.
A helper that slows you down is the opposite of helpful. Ideally, pets should either match the speed of modern builds or implement an instant-vacuum mechanic, where loot automatically travels to the hero without requiring the pet to physically reach it, maintaining the flow of high-intensity runs.
Advanced Pet Features
Beyond speed, there’s a lot of potential in more advanced pet features that handle basic inventory management.
- Imagine marking certain items as junk and sending the pet off to salvage them automatically.
- Have the pet organize runes, seeds, and other resources while you continue fighting.
- Pets could even auto-store items in the stash when inventory space is low, reducing constant interruptions mid-run.
These conveniences already exist in other ARPGs and are considered standard for quality-of-life design. Incorporating them into Diablo IV would dramatically streamline gameplay, letting players focus on combat, exploration, and loot hunting instead of micromanaging clutter.
More time slaying demons, less time babysitting inventory, and a smoother, faster-paced experience all around.
Loot Filters
A simple loot filter is another idea that keeps coming up in community discussions. Nothing overly complex—just intuitive, user-friendly options such as:
- “Pick up everything except gear.”
- “Pick up only runes and crafting materials.”
- “Auto-pickup gear over a chosen power level.”
These settings give players meaningful control over what they collect without turning the game into a spreadsheet or forcing constant inventory micromanagement. They also keep the screen clean during intense runs, letting players focus on combat rather than chasing minor drops.
By setting clear rules for loot, the player experience becomes more fluid, allowing heroes to move at full speed without unnecessary interruptions.
Conclusion
All of this leads to one clear conclusion: pets should pick up everything that isn’t equipment—and they should do it fast, automatically, and without breaking the momentum of a run.
This isn’t about making Diablo IV easier; it’s about making the action smoother, cleaner, and more enjoyable. Other ARPGs have offered these conveniences for years, and the community demand for similar systems in Diablo IV continues to grow.
Implementing a smart, fast auto-loot system would be a small change with a huge impact, improving every run, every build, and every session, eliminating the tedium of chasing glowing orbs across the ground.
If Diablo IV ever adds this feature, it wouldn’t just be a minor quality-of-life improvement—it would feel like the game finally evolved to meet the expectations of modern ARPG players, giving pets a real purpose as helpers and letting players experience the game as it was meant to be: fast, fluid, and relentlessly fun.
Finally matched the pace at which it is already meant to be played. And honestly? It’s long overdue.
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