Blizzard Leadership Interview: Discussing Diablo 4’s Endgame and Live-Service Future

Just days before Diablo 4’s launch, Blizzard’s leadership team was already excited to discuss ARPG’s endgame and the impending future of live services, which for the first time ventured into the GaaS model.

Blizzard, which is currently in pre-season, has been almost hesitant to discuss what’s next as hellfire is still burning, but the team is already hard at work developing season content and a full expansion. We sat down to talk to Mr. Rod Ferguson. Diablo’s General Manager and his Zaven Haroutunian, Diablo’s Associate Game Director, discuss their vision for Diablo’s never-ending struggle.

IGN: Diablo 3 kind of crossed the line between being a live service. There were seasons, but no regular content drops, and Diablo 4 seems to have one. Does it contain substantive story content?

Zabun Haroutunian, Associate Game Director: When we shipped Diablo 3, we didn’t really have a live service plan. We just said, ‘We can patch the game as support, [develop] “Reapers of Souls”. That was the start of the season, and even after that it took a while to get to where it is today, which is great. With Diablo 4, we plan to provide that level of support, and more, soon. We’re already talking about Season 1. We are also talking about live services. We build our games with these things in mind from the beginning.

Rod Ferguson, General Manager: As we’re looking into supporting Diablo 4 as a live service, we’d like to include story as part of that as well. How each season unfolds will be more questline based. Includes narrative questlines.

Diablo 3 was meant to add mechanics and balance and overwhelm certain things for fun and whatnot. In Diablo 4, there’s a richer background to the season, and also the narrative theme you’re working on, and things relate to that. Cosmetics relate to it, machines relate to it. There are narrative questlines that do not extend the campaign, but rather take place within the open world. Because the good thing about this world is that there are so many stories that can be told without being a Lilith/Inarius story.

But as we look to the future of expansions, they are opportunities where we can continue to expand the game in terms of story, mechanics, and world.

It was like a setup, right? Nyrel is leaving the Sanctuary area we are in, so perhaps there will be new regions and stories. And obviously Mephisto will be very mean to us in the future.

Ferguson: (Smiling and looking away) Those are all great guesses.

IGN: The difference between a live service game’s success or failure is a content pipeline and the ability to deliver quickly after release. Does Blizzard have a separate team dedicated to season-related things that they are already working on?

Ferguson: Yes, one of the things you have to do as part of your live service is to stay ahead of content delivery. Set expectations: If there’s something really, really wrong, fix it right away. But if there’s something that doesn’t suck but needs to be worked on, it may not show up next season right away. Because that season is actually a long way off. [in development] than you think. Season 1 is already pretty much done, so things we wanted to fix at launch might show up in Season 2.

We intend to respond very quickly, but you need to understand that we have a tremendous team already building content and Season 1 is already pretty much done when we release this game. I’m here. We’ll have to think about that for Season 2 and future expansions.

The big thing for me after 24 years in this line of work is that I’ve moved on from working so hard to release a game and then taking six weeks or something off. Here we need to build a sufficiently capable and large enough team to be able to build all this sustainably. The moment you launch, we have to be on site the next day to continue supporting players, listening to feedback, working on Season 1, working on Season 2, and what.

So you can’t train really hard and then take a vacation. You have to think, “I need a team big enough to have multiple lanes of development.” That’s why we often think of lanes as swim he lanes. There’s the main game, there’s Season 1, there’s Season 2, there’s this expansion. All these are being developed in parallel.

Talk to the players there. If you think it’s just a quality of life issue, not something that breaks, it might not show up next. Because the next thing may already be in the can.

When will cosmetic shops, battle passes, etc. come to the game?

Ferguson: split. The period between the release and the first season is called the “preseason”. As such, some shops will be available with limited inventory in the shop during preseason. At the start of Season 1, you’ll find a Battle Pass, a better season-themed shop, and much more.

One of the cool things about our shop is that it has a recommendation engine that actually has intelligence. So find out what you’re playing. If you’re a regular librarian, you’re probably thinking, “Hey, did you know there’s some new savage stuff in the store?” “Hey, I noticed you always see bloody stuff when you’re in the store. So here’s the new bloody stuff.”

As part of preseason, we warm up our recommendation engine and test its technology in preparation for the start of Season 1.

Paragon points seem to stop at level 100 instead of continuing almost infinitely like in Diablo 3, what is the reason behind that?

Harutunian: The upper limit is 100. It’s actually very important that the power doesn’t increase indefinitely. We really want the points you earn to be truly meaningful choices every time you earn them. You can attach boards, but you’ll end up running out of points.

Looking at the numbers alone, it’s also worth pointing out that Paragon points aren’t just for leveling. It can also be obtained from other systems. The Altar of Lilith also earns you Paragon Points, so you’ll earn Fame as well.

Are there any plans to add Paragon Points to go even further in the future?

Harutunian: never say never. We’ll see what we need to do for a theoretical future season and work from there.

IGN: What do you expect players to do once they reach level 100? What is the final endgame about?

Harutunian: Most players probably finish the campaign around level 45. Both Capstone Dungeons are challenging things people can aim for and achieve. And there’s also a level 100 boss that unlocks at the very end.

All other systems are slowly unlocked over time.Beginning with a whisper, then a nightmare [Dungeons], then Heltide. Beyond that, we will begin to enter the realm of live services and will continue to add more systems and features in the future.

And I think the Nightmare dungeon is over level 100 and up to level 150. So the character limit is 100, but Nightmare can exceed it even more in his dungeons.

Ferguson: Worth mentioning, just like the Altar of Lilith, where increase sticks with you. [on future characters] — Same goes for campaigns. Once you have completed the campaign on your account, when the season appears, you can skip the campaign and show up at level 1 Kyovashad and leave immediately. Similar to Diablo 3’s adventure mode, you can run the endgame and play in the world without going through the campaign.

You must play the campaign once to participate in seasonal content, but once you do, you can skip the campaign for all remaining characters in future seasons.

IGN: What about the limit of 20 side quests?

Harutunian: So you can actually carry 20 or more. What we do is make room for the quests that our characters have. As just one example, Rogues get priority quests when they reach certain points. These are unrestricted, so it’s kind of open-ended, and we have extra room for that.

Beyond that, it’s just a technical limitation. There is a limit to everything, so up to 20.

IGN: Why would a vendor charge so much for their product? Why spend tens of thousands of gold on Bruce?

Harutunian: So if you go to a dealer that sells swords and such, you know exactly what you’re getting, and you can make that decision. Like it or not, there is no risk or opportunity.

It may not always be best in class, but we know what we get and what we charge for it.

Ferguson: The cool thing is, obviously, gold is shared between characters. So we get to the point of “oh, I have a level 1 character, but I have level 60 gold, so I can buy whatever I need to tune myself.”

What about respect for the characters? What makes Endgame so expensive?

Ferguson: It’s not meant to be prohibitively expensive, but it’s meant to add friction. Looking back at Diablo 3 on set as an example, there’s the concept of “change classes, change clothes”, and I wanted to lean a little more into Diablo 2’s progress, but it’s this perpetual It was a set. you are building towards something. And while it’s important that I’m making certain choices about it, we made it very cheap early on to say, ‘Oh, I picked the wrong path’ or ‘I want to try this. I want to be able to make you think.

This is another reason to improve your skills. So you can say, “Oh, I got Whirlwind with an axe. He can try Whirlwind and see if he likes it without adding points.” And what we’ve found is that, generally speaking, once you reach level 80, you’re probably carrying around a fair amount of gold, and can perform abilities like “erase my entire tree”. It costs a little more to do it, but it doesn’t. “I can never get this money back. I don’t know how I can get my wealth back.” That means it’s a moment of friction, “Do you really want to do this?” I didn’t want it to end up being unimportant.

One of the important things about live service games is that the game launch is the beginning. Start here. This is not the end. Therefore, store prices with vendors can change with server-side updates, and the cost to respec the tree can also change with server-side updates. We will listen and pay attention to what is happening in the economy and the world. As you know, we continue to evolve and along the way various elements are tweaked, refined and optimized.

IGN: What if I like my build but you nerf it? Is it correct to think that I have to be wealthy enough to make that change and adapt to the new meta? ?

Ferguson: If that’s our responsibility, maybe we can do something to help our players. We intend to do it in a player-friendly way. It’s just part of the live service.

Also, as the season progresses, you’ll be starting new, fresh seasonal characters, so the thought arises, “Oh, I’m so into this that I can’t start all over again.” Once you start, you’ll be a Season 2 character. start fresh.

Diablo 4 recently launched to critical acclaim. IGN’s review called it “an absolutely addictive sequel with near-perfect endgame and progression design.” At the time of this writing, ARPG is available through “Early Access” players who purchase a premium version of the game, with general release scheduled for June 6, just days after he.

Travis Northup is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @TieGuyTravis and read his Click here for the game article.