Today there was another live Diablo 4 developer chat discussing numerous topics following the recent changes that were announced.
We’ve broken down the highlights from the chat which are as follows:
Diablo 4 Developer Chat Points of Note
- End cap dungeons are incredibly hard and allow you to access the next World Tier.
- Higher World Tiers will be more challenging as new monster mechanics come into play.
- World Tier 3 sacred items start to drop with a large range of power. Items will drop with the level you found them at so you could get an excellent item with a low level requirement that you could use on another character due to a lower level requirement.
- Helltide brings new monsters, new events, and players will collect cinders to open Helltide caches. Caches will be specific to item slots. Each cache will have an icon that indicates its content type such as boots.
- Cinders will be lost when you die, around 50% of them. You need to spend them. Be greedy and you could lose a load.
- Helltides will last about an hour with rotating areas in Sanctuary.
- .Nightmare Sigils open up a portal near an existing side dungeon with different applied afflictions.
- Paragon Glyphs will be found and upgraded in Nightmare Dungeons.
- Break down Sigils you don’t want at the Occultist and create new Sigils.
- Rare Nodes on the Paragon Board come with Bonus that offers a boost such as more damage to Elites if the requirements are met such as reaching a certain amount of dexterity. Subsequent boards will have higher requirements for these Rare bonuses.
- Legendary Paragon Nodes are a Legendary power unique to the Paragon Board system.
- Glyphs are socketed on the Paragon Board which also affects nearby nodes. As these are leveled up, the radius effect increases.
Class Change Notes
The following image highlights the class changes the team has been focusing on since the open beta ended. There are a few changes that are not listed below such as Legensat Power effectiveness has been updated.
More Notes
- Dungeons – More ambushes added and the Dungeon layout and objectives have been changed. These have been changed to avoid backtracking.
- Kill all monster Dungeons less of an issue as monsters left will seek you out.
- The Reset Dungeon button was added early in the development when there wasn’t an easy way for them to reset naturally. The way it was done added undesirable secondary effects. Since it was added, the amount of time for Dungeons to reset organically has been sorted out. Dungeons can still be reset, it’s just done naturally now after specific periods of time such as 60 to 120 seconds.
- Another Beta test with new Mount reward – Coming in May.
- PC performance updates in the next beta will be added.
Q&A
How long will it take to get through the Battle Pass?
They want to make sure players can complete the Battle pass in the “course of time”.
Will Nightmare Dungeons rotate through each season?
We want to take a subset of the 150 or so dungeons with a number of those rotating each season so we are highlighting different kinds of objectives, layouts, monster families, and experiences. We don;t want players to have to be thinking about all 150 dungeons every season, every time with regard to this Season in particular. We want to rotate these Season to Season whole we are looking at other ideas.
Do you have any plans to keep interest for people who don’t plan to play in Seasons?
I want to say this, we will be adding rich and interesting content updates for Seasonal players but we’ll also be making balance changes and adding new Legendary, unique items and things for players who are playing in the Eternal Realm, a place where you will never have to worry about a character reset or these kinds of things. There will always be a new infusion of content at that level for players going onto that space.
Was the skill tree designed so that in the course of Seasons or expansion you would be able to add new passive or active skills?
Yes. The skill tree at launch is the beginning for these classes. We will be looking for new opportunities to create more playstyles, we’ll be adding new passives, and new skill sin the future. These things are likely to happen in our larger expansion updates rather than things that might be happening as part of Seasons.
Altars of Lilith Between Seasons. How will they work?
They have two purposes, this larger collectible feature and collect all of them, Renown is reset on a Seasonal basis. Altars also have another purpose,m when you find one they give you a stat boost that applies to your character and all characters on that realm. Once you’ve collected that stat boost, there is no need to go collect the Altars of Lilith with every new season. We want it to be a feature for players who explore Sanctuary for the first couple of times at most. Engage with them or ignore them in Seasons in the future.
In other words, unlock a persistent stat boost in Season 1, it will persist in Season 2.
Are there specific places to find specific items/item types or certain items dropping off certain monsters?
We have a number of creatures that drop certain things. World Bosses for example drop Scattered Prism which is the crafting material you need to add sockets to items in the game. Then there are certain content types that have the chance to grant certain materials such as upgrading Glyphs in Nightmare Dungeons.
When it comes to item farming, certain monsters have a higher chance to drop certain kinds of items. A bonus chance to drop certain item types that is happening in the background. For example, Skeletons have a chance to drop crossbows irrespective of class. Drops can be based on the monster types players are engaging with.
Will there be any changes made after the server slam beta test?
No, you are testing a version of the game very close to the launch version of the game. We will continue to take feedback and making changes.
Overlay vs Mini-map? Why no overlay?
When you are playing through an ARPG, you are switching between two modes of behaviour. You are killing monsters or you are navigating. You are switching back and forth between those quickly and it can be helpful to have that be as fast as possible. The overlay map is very effective at doing that. In fact it’s so effective there’s no reason to ever close it. We have seen other games solutions to mitigate effects on combat, fading areas around the player, or things like that.
What we are trying to do is keep the combat and navigation spaces as clean as possible by separating them a little bit more. That’s why you see the mini-map, pins on the map, indicators on the mini-map, we want to add more of those kinds of things but also hat players have the tools to move back and forth efficiently and they don’t think it’s a huge, hassle. We are going to be continually looking at this feedback.
Are all Dungeons single floors?
One of the things we have done in Diablo 4 is you don’t have to load between dungeon floors. An interesting effect of that is you might now always notice when you are going down. into a lower floor. There are staircases an moments where that shows up in the UI nut in many cases our dungeons do have multiple floors and because it’s so seamless you don’t always notice. In terms of when you think back in Diablo 1 and go deep below the Cathedral, this very deep dungeon, out dungeon tech can do that too.
PvP, is there instanciung to seperate solo and groups?
Be minful you are entering chaotic realm of threat. THere is things like we bucket players by level so you are not going up against players of really high level. In other words no, walk in with friends or prepare to occasionally die. If you wanlk into the Fields of Hatred and are immediately kiled by other player there is actualy no penalty as you have not acquired any PvP resources in that zone anyway. They have nothing to gain from killing you and you have nothing to lose.
Fields of Hatred are fairly large areas, so there are some tools to avoid the same group of players repeatedly killing you. There are also two fields of Htred, you can move between Fields of Hatred. There are Elixirs than can all ow you to be more evasive and get away from situations where you feel you are at more of a disadvantage. There are also several Altar locations where you can turn in your rewards to get your Red Dust.
Controls and Access question
No mouse and fjeyboard on console, No couch co-op on PC. Check new customisation controls in the Sever Slam.
Will the crafting system become more robust
Yes, Diablo 4 is about killing monsters collecting loot, we are going to be changing and adding new crafting options.
Ray tracing?
After launch.
Can you pick up craftin materials from your mount?
You can when you are mounted.