Yeah, I agree, the Battlefields are odd... It would have been so much nicer if they would have tied it into the actual game in some manner, perhaps make it some sort of proving ground/trials/training camp that you can travel to and participate in. It's just weird to find a key lying around, touch it, and suddenly have the ability to teleport at will to some alternate universe where a bunch of skeletons are standing around waiting for you to kill them. (Also, of course, merchants hang out there...how convenient)
When this Battlefields idea was first mentioned/introduced, a lot of people claimed it would make the game more replayable. I argue that it makes the game less replayable. Here is why: serious players of a game like this want to visit everywhere, do everything. The Battlefields is super-boring, so the idea of going through them yet again is pretty painful. As a result, people are less likely to re-play the game than they would be otherwise. I know this is true for me. So far I have restarted the game twice, playing almost all of Act I a total of 3 times. Both my 2nd and 3rd game I had plenty of fun replaying through the parts of the main story that I'd already done, but going through the Battlefields again was pretty bad...
I find myself agreeing with you on this, battlefields are boring+buggy , even now I find myself ignoring the battlefields in act IV
~Cent~
