Diablo IV Lead Game Designer Joe Shely posted a new quarterly blog update to highlight a few changes done to itemization — based on player feedback.

This new iteration of the game shows us that Diablo IV is heavily inspired in the roots of Diablo II, while borrowing modern quality of life features seen Diablo III that you should expect in a 2020s video game.

This blog focuses on itemization, item qualities, weapon types, primary stats, and Legendary affixes.

The character UI has also gotten some visual changes:

  1. Angelic, Demonic and Ancestral stats have been removed from the character sheet. These have been replaced by the usual Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, and Willpower.

The best part about this change is that it looks strikingly a lot like the Diablo II skill points system where you applied available earned skill points to any of the attributes mentioned above.

2. The inventory bag lost three slots compared to the February 2020 Quarterly update’s image. Back then there were 36 Equipment slots. Now there are only 33 Equipment slots.

3. The gold amount was removed from the character pane, and moved to the bottom-left corner — below the Inventory slots.

4. In this iteration, for some reason, the Talents tab has been removed. It is likely a temporary design that will be updated at a later time, or the Talents have been moved to the icon bar.

5. The UI color palette has been darkened a bit to look grittier.

6. Item slots and item icons size seem to have been decreased about 10-15%.

7. The character’s 3D model now has a breathing animation.

8. The environment is grittier and darker than what we have seen in BlizzCon gameplay livestreams — with a fog of war radius.

9. The chat window is now on the bottom-right corner — and it gets hidden behind the character window when that’s opened.

10. The Talents Tree adds another layer of complexity that we haven’t seen before in any Diablo game. Upgrades for certain abilities are tied to the amount of stat points you have applied to Dexterity, or Strength, etc.

So this is a good indication that stat point resets are going to come handy when you encounter a new item that benefits Whirlwind, for example, and you wish to upgrade into a specific Whirlwind talent.

I am sure this latest quarterly update has hyped fans a lot. Can’t wait to get into Beta to check out these new changes. In the meantime, Diablo II might be a good placebo for those who never played that game.

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