Video Games

Interview: Diablo 4 Developers Talk About Class Changes, Dungeons, and More Ahead of Final Beta Test

Diablo IV recently went gold after a long development period, but the team at Blizzard are iterating and planning for the future of live-service action RPGs. The weekend scheduled for May 12th. Following his first two Beta Weekends, which fully featured the first act of Diablo 4’s campaign, the developer decided to rework the character based on player feedback, everything from balancing his class to reworking dungeons. Moved quickly to implement a number of changes, including Also change the font used.

Among these developers were Game Director Joe Shely and Associate Game Director Joseph Piepiora, who had the chance to discuss their beta learning and surprise “server slam” weekend. For a quick jump into Act 1 of Diablo 4.

“We looked at all the different dungeon objectives to make them as fun as possible.”


One of the biggest pieces of feedback from the last Beta Weekend was that dungeons required a lot of backtracking and recurring objectives and took too long to complete. server slam.

“We looked at all the different dungeon objectives to make them as fun as possible,” explains Shelley. “Where did you look, especially when it comes to backtracking? [objectives] It was spawning in terms of the dungeon layout. We’ve also adjusted the way the dungeon is laid out…so that the layout itself should be less backtracking.”

Piepiora added: Now some of these creatures start chasing you. ”

The developers also addressed random events that should have happened within the dungeons, but they did very little during the first two beta weekends.

“There are events that show up. Tiles have events that allow you to participate in mechanics like Jar of Souls instead of the normal set of monsters,” explains Shely.

I’ve played the Diablo 4 beta for over 80 hours and can attest to the rarity of events like Jar of Souls. This randomly occurring event spawns a jar and sends waves of enemies at you.You can feed souls filling jars by killing enemies and spawning special bosses that give powerful loot when killed. [these events] It was very unlikely,” admits Shely.

But with the next server slam and the launch day version of Diablo 4, the odds of seeing these events actually happen are much higher. , 60% of the time,” says Piepiora. “Well, it’s a big difference when players start going through these spaces. You get to see more of that content.”

Another major change rolling out over the weekend of the Server Slam Beta is the rebalancing of character classes. Clearly Overwhelming Necromancer Provides several key buffs to the Druid and Barbarian classes.

“To clarify, the Necromancer also got a buff.”


One of the ways Necromancers defeat Pegs is by making the tanks of their summonable armies slightly weaker. “We want players to be able to summon skeletons and dispose of corpses as part of their necromancer-playing routine. It’s about managing these skeletons, mages, and golems while you’re playing…so we want to make sure players need to resummon them from time to time in different battles,” Piepiora said.

“To be clear, the Necromancer also got a buff as part of the Book of the Dead feature, which actually improved the attribute stats of many of these effects,” Piepiora explained. We wanted to make sure there was a wealth of interesting options for players to choose from, and that’s the core of many of our balance foundations.”

I was also able to confirm that the Necromancer’s Bone Spear ability also maintained its brilliance, so my fellow Necromancers shouldn’t have to worry too much about these balances.

The Druid and Barbarian classes felt pretty underpowered compared to the other classes, but each gains a lot of buffs, including stronger abilities and reduced cooldowns for both. Importantly, the Barbarian’s damage resistance is increased by 10%. Piepiola notes that level 25 doesn’t exactly reflect how each class feels when a player hits max level, but some of these changes should make the leveling process better. said.

“The way we buffed was very useful in increasing survivability and making these classes feel a little more competitive in the early game,” Piepiora explains. “However, there are a number of mechanics that players have not unlocked as part of the beta. Druid Spirit Boons can be used to unlock new, very powerful passive powers from spirit guides, but as part of level 25/Act you get the chance to see some of them There was no.”

In addition to changing character classes and dungeons, Blizzard has implemented many other changes. This includes an overhaul of the fonts used to make item descriptions and stats feel more worldly, and the corresponding removal of the “Reset Dungeon” button. Improvements to players abusing features, and improvements to The Butcher, a demon that randomly spawns in dungeons with murderous intent, make it even more deadly.

“The team is already working on creating really interesting content for players to experience once the game goes live.”


As someone who’s spent thousands of hours playing and talking about live service games, I admit I’m impressed with the speed with which these changes have rolled out. Game-as-a-service strife.

” [developers] Those working to get the game ready to ship are transitioning to work on future expansions and live services explains Shely. While playing cards close to his chest about what the live services team is working on, Piepiora said, “The team is already working on creating some really interesting content for players to experience once the game goes live. And we’re really excited to continually grow, iterate, and create new and fun opportunities for players to engage with the core Diablo experience.”

The server slam will start on May 12th and end on May 14th. Players will have an exclusive chance to win the Ashaba His Mount His Trophy if they manage to defeat the Beta World Boss at level 20. Drops have been reduced to a much more generous level, and the new level cap makes the fight more difficult.”Really she’s Ashava’s server her slam, right? She’s going to slam the server,” she joked Piepiora say.

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

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