Nevalistis on Diablo IV Quaterly Updates

Written by medievaldragon on January 9, 2020. Posted in Diablo 3 News, Diablo 4

Diablo IV community manager Nevalistis addressed concerns in a Reddit thread about Diablo IV quaterly updates. The next update will be posted before April.

Nevalistis: I mean, we’re 7 days into 2020. For some, the first day back at work from holiday vacation was yesterday. I understand how excited everyone is, but let’s set expectations and cover a few points (some reiterated, some that might be obvious but should be said).

Diablo IV very, very early in development. Part of the reason we’re aiming for quarterly updates is because there’s not a lot right now that’s ready to share. If it was ready to show, you saw it at BlizzCon.
Diablo IV isn’t the only project we’re working on, though it might be the one you’re most excited about (and it’s fine if you are). As a reminder, we have patches actively being developed for Diablo III as well as the ongoing work on Diablo Immortal. For both bandwidth reasons on our end as well as avoiding flooding our (currently shared) communication channels, there’s strategy needed in pacing out the distribution of information.
Q1 means sometime between now and the end of March. April would mark the beginning of Q2. I don’t have a time estimate for you, but my personal goal is to aim for somewhere in the middle to second third of the quarter. I’m not sure where exactly it’s going to land; we’ve never approached communication in quite this manner before, and sometimes there’s changes and schedule adjustments that need to be made. I suspect there will be many learnings for myself and the team with the first update as a result. 🙂
We want to put a lot of time, effort, and polish into these updates because they are so few and we care a lot about our work. However, ultimately, the content will be decided by (1) what’s ready to show and (2) what conversations we’re ready to have with the community. For example, I wouldn’t expect the first update to be about the intricacies of end-game activities. It’s still too early (some areas of the game are still in concepting, while others are being actively implemented) – but we do want to make sure we’re checking in with you on systems of interest as they come together, concept art, and possibly in-progress models. It’s really going to vary. Actually making the game will always be the priority.
Blogs take a really long time to produce, especially when they are of this caliber and content level. If video is required, even more so (as it adds an entire new team and process for review/approvals). What content we end up showing will drive the production needs, which is part of why it’s so hard for me to give you an estimate on arrival.

Making games is complicated. So is supporting and communicating around them. Almost none of it can be done fast if we’re going to do it well. We want to make sure the information we’re giving is as clear and accurate as possible and, while we want to maintain transparency, we also don’t want to risk over-promising and under delivering. This happens all too often by showing features too early.

So we are going to take our time. I understand it’s hard to be patient; I literally live day to day in a building full of cool stuff I can’t share and sometimes it’s maddening. You can bet your hard earned gold we’ll be sharing what we can as soon as possible, and it’s okay to take a break from the waiting if it’s eating at you. We’ll just be here, hard at work.

Unofficial Confirmation that was Rathma in the Diablo IV Cinematic?

Written by medievaldragon on November 20, 2019. Posted in Diablo 3 News, Diablo 4

Personally, I haven’t heard any developer confirm that the character welcoming Lilith in the cinematic is in fact her son Rathma. I might have missed that if otherwise.

PiZZaPatriZZa shared in Reddit a link to a thread response by Customer Support Tyryndar where he “unofficially” confirms that was Rathma. I’d prefer a developer to confirm this, but this is what we got so far. So you should hold it cautiously for what it is.

Letter from David Kim: Diablo IV System Design (Part 1)

Written by medievaldragon on November 19, 2019. Posted in Diablo 3 News, Diablo 4

Diablo IV lead system designer David Kim posted a letter to the community today addressing feedback concerns and highlighting plans for the Diablo IV System Design ranging Itemization, Elective Mode, Ancient Items, the end-game progression system, sources of power, and keyed dungeons.

Recently, we were told fans would get a quarterly update on Diablo IV. It’s great to have two letters from the developers barely two weeks after BlizzCon. Hopefully, we will continue to have this openness in between those quarterly updates. That’s the right path.

I have learned over years of experience that the player community is an incredibly valuable resource to draw upon when designing and refining a game. By working together, we can achieve great things. The biggest challenge with parsing community feedback is that with so many opinions, the takeaways are rarely unanimous. Diablo IV is still very much in active development, but we plan to keep you in the loop as we continue to design and iterate so that you can be a part of what we’re building. I am so incredibly appreciative for all the feedback we’ve received so far and I’m eager to dive into some of the most talked about topics.

Itemization

We’re still working through all the feedback that came in regarding itemization and we’re actively discussing ways to add more depth and complexity to base items (including Rares), ways to add greater variety to item affixes to make those powers interesting and your choices meaningful, and ways to give players more freedom to choose how to customize items, so you can have fun exploring a wide range of effective gameplay possibilities instead of just looking up “the optimal build” online.

We’ll go into way more depth regarding itemization in a separate post soon, but we don’t want to leave you hanging until then—so we’re going to update you on a few other topics now.

These are some of the topics that we’re seeing come up most often, but if we’re missing something, please let us know and we will try to share our thoughts on those subjects as well in future updates.

Elective Mode in Diablo IV

There’s a misconception that Diablo IV will lock skills to specific slots because of the BlizzCon demo user interface. Like many other things in the demo, the UI is not final and we will support Elective Mode-style skill selection. Skill selection and assignment will always be completely open for all players.

Ancient Items

We completely agree with the community sentiment—Ancients as they are don’t really serve a clear purpose in Diablo IV. We should have done a better job of explaining the role of Ancient Items in Diablo IV. We had a preliminary direction to share, but you’ve brought up some great points, so we’re revisiting our designs with your feedback in mind. We hope to have more details to share in the follow-up itemization update.

Endgame Progression System

We haven’t decided whether the character leveling and experience system should be finite or infinite. We’ve been discussing the pros and cons of both and would love to hear your thoughts. There seems to be some concern around infinite being worse because it will eventually overshadow all the power granted by other sources. However, we can control how much power each system gives, whether it’s infinite or finite.

For example, say we’re talking about thousands of hours of gameplay . . . within those thousands of hours, we could choose to create a finite system that grants 1,000,000 times more power than an infinite system, making it practically impossible for the infinite system to catch up in power.

Also, power increase doesn’t need to be linear throughout the ranks—it can slow down as players reach higher levels. We believe the more important question is what experience feels best for players, and we can playtest various approaches to tuning to find the power curve that makes the most sense.

We have a couple reasons for having a different experience system in addition to a level cap. A level cap gives us the ability to grant players a sense of completion. But for players who want to go deeper into the game, a second experience system allows us to capture the fun of achieving those really difficult endgame goals and ranks. We can also introduce additional depth through this system, because players will be more experienced with the game at this point. Ultimately, our goal is to create a meaningful system that provides clear choices depending on your preferred playstyle in the endgame.

Sources of Power

The community has shared many good points on the topic of power sources and we’re reevaluating how much power comes from each source at any given time.

However, we want to clarify that in Diablo IV, power doesn’t come mostly from items. We want to have a good mix of power sources: characters naturally get stronger as they level up, skills have ranks that increase power, talents provide specific playstyle choices and additional character power, and of course items grant power and meaningful choices as well.

Something else to keep in mind is Legendary powers are just one part of an item’s power, and they won’t invalidate all other Affixes due to how powerful they are. For example, two to three normal Affixes are currently equivalent in power to a Legendary power on most items.

Keyed Dungeons

A big question that’s come up is exactly how Keyed Dungeons are different from Rifts. Keyed Dungeons introduce greater challenges as their tiers increase through Dungeon Affixes. The majority of dungeons are real places in the world, and players will know some information about them including what types of monsters, events, and layouts to expect. With this information, as well as the specific Dungeon Affixes being displayed on the key, players will be able to strategize their approach before going into the dungeon. We believe this is the biggest change from Diablo III Rifts: the added planning and strategizing that takes place before you decide to run a Keyed Dungeon.

Please continue to share your thoughts—we want you to be involved in the Diablo IV design process. I personally believe in making the best decisions for the game based on the strongest design ideas, no matter where they come from. My biggest hope is for us to be able to constructively discuss and iterate on the topics that are most important to the community—so keep the feedback coming!

See you in Hell,

David Kim
Lead Systems Designer
The Diablo IV Team — source

Elements I Would Like To See in Diablo IV

Written by medievaldragon on November 17, 2019. Posted in Diablo 3 News, Diablo 4

Diablo IV is ripe with potential for new systems, lore, returning features from previous games, and new content. I have many expectations. Some which I know, and others yet to be explored in the deepest corners of my mind.

DIABLO LORE

In terms of Lore, I would like to see quests, and special events based on things we have read before in the Diablo novels and comic books. For example, now that we get to explore Scosglen — how about finding characters like Barbarian Renit, Necromancer Cairo, the Zakarum Paladin Hale and Bay, the spirit of Druid Azgar the werebear and the ghost of Naz. One of the loot items could be the Hand of Naz — after following a series of quests.

BlizzCon 2019 Diablo IV Systems and Features Panel Transcript

Written by medievaldragon on November 13, 2019. Posted in BlizzCon 2019, Diablo 3 News, Diablo 4

Welcome to the Diablo IV Systems and Features panel. I hope everybody is here to hear about our systems and features. That is the only deck we have. So that’s what you get. My name is Tim Ismay. I am a senior producer on the Diablo IV team. I have a moderate amount of knowledge about all the things we work on. Not to worry. I have a collection here of experts that have deep knowledge of all the things that we work on. So they will be talking more than I will.

A Letter from Diablo 4 Game Director Luis Barriga

Written by medievaldragon on November 13, 2019. Posted in Diablo 3 News, Diablo 4

Diablo 4 game director Luis Barriga has issued his first post-BlizzCon letter to the fans. The essence of the letter is to expect quaterly updates from the Diablo IV team which includes behind-the-scenes looks at the progress made in its development.

Luis Barriga teases there is a cool update coming in February 2020. Hopefully, we get to learn whether the Horadric Cube is back, as that system has not been mentioned at all at BlizzCon 2019. There are many systems that were not revealed for Diablo IV yet such as: Transmog, Enchanting, Jewelcrafting, Blacksmithing, Gambling Vendors, and many others.

It is a big departure to have updates every 4-months right after BlizzCon, compared with Diablo Immortal which went completely silent for a whole year. Very good sign, but that means only 3 Diablo IV updates per year.

If you missed the BlizzCon 2019 virtual ticket VODs, feel free to read our full Diablo IV panel transcripts.

BlizzCon 2019 Diablo IV: World and Lore Panel Transcript

Written by medievaldragon on November 11, 2019. Posted in BlizzCon 2019, Diablo 3 News, Diablo 4

Elizabeth: Hello, everyone. I have been waiting a long time to say this, but: Hello, BlizzCon! Hey, guys! Thank you so much. I am Elizabeth Seminario. I’m a producer in the Diablo team, and this is Diablo IV: World and Lore. Are you guys excited? Awesome.

We are excited too. We are excited because we finally get to talk to you about some of the things that make this such an amazing game. So that could be the places that you travel, or the friends and foes that you meet along the way, and the stories that you collect during your adventures. So I ask you to play along a little bit longer with my extended metaphor. Grab your dusty Barbarian pelt, or maybe it is a Sorceress cloak, and stay awhile and listen.

BlizzCon 2019: Inarius in Diablo IV

Written by medievaldragon on November 7, 2019. Posted in BlizzCon 2019, Diablo 3 News, Diablo 4

What do you think about Inarius being in the Diablo IV Cinematic? Wait… Inarius was in the cinematic?! Yes, indeed. Well, technically in a blink and you miss him moment. When Lilith was breaching the veil of the bloody gateway, between her eternal prison and Sanctuary, there were fractions-of-a-second flashes in unison with the creepy music strokes.

In three of those flashes, if you pause at the right frame, you will see Inarius chained in what we know is the Chamber of Mirrors deep in the Burning Hells.

These flashes tell me that Inarius immediately sensed Lilith’s return. Kinda like a spider-sense of terror.

BlizzCon 2019 Diablo 4: Unveiled Panel Transcript

Written by medievaldragon on November 5, 2019. Posted in BlizzCon 2019, Diablo 3 News, Diablo 4

Luis: Hello, BlizzCon. My name is Luis Barriga — game director for Diablo 4.

Tiffani: My name is Tiffani Wat — senior producer on Diablo 4.

John: My name is John Mueller — art director on Diablo 4. Wow. What’s up? We are here.

Luis: We can finally say it.

John: I know, right?

Tiffani: We can finally talk about Diablo 4.

John: Yea, it’s been a long time.

Luis: Can we just take a minute to just recognize how stacked this BlizzCon is? Overwatch 2, Shadowlands, Battlegrounds, Diablo 4. I am kinda jealous of you, guys. For sure.

BlizzCon 2019: The Diablo IV Legendary Loot

Written by medievaldragon on November 4, 2019. Posted in BlizzCon 2019, Diablo 3 News, Diablo 4

David Kim mentioned in one of the interviews that the Diablo IV Legendary loot seen in the demo was set to drop from specific locations. Usually at the beginning in the Corbach Crypts, from the world boss: Ashava the Pestilent, or from the Garan Hold dungeon. That it would be different in beta and the shipped game.

That might explain why the same loot would drop from the tough world boss and the trash mobs. I watched over 5 hours of Diablo IV gameplay livestreams, and took screenshots of all the legendaries I saw, including those that repeated to compare their stats. Let me know what you think, and what you would like to see in Diablo IV.

The developers really want to hear your feedback and welcome new ideas as well. I can forward them to our Blizzard Entertainment contact.