Diablo IV Quarterly Update - Q1 February 2020

Is it possible to introduce more melee styles. This way we have more combat mechanics. Example, chained weapons (aka God of War style). The normal weapons of Diablo are usually simple knifes and long weapons. Their attacks are an animation which overshadow the weapon.

Example weapon focused abilities, weapons that grapple and throw enemies (like Dr Strange’s magic cloak). Or oversized weapons, weapons bigger than human body that can sweep aside simple projectiles. Melee mechanics with combo attacks or timed attacks that uses timing for power. Example with chained weapons, left click, left click and finally hold. Or weapons that respond to furious mouse clicks frenzy (whips). Perhaps if I hold two mouse buttons the hero will stay stationary (like wizard discharging disintegrate beam) but his rope weapon responds to sweeping mouse gestures. This changes Diablo IV to have elements of attack combos and connected with hero abilities that truly extend these. Passive melee fighting abilities also become possible. For example, abilities which unleash 3 copies of phantom character who charge in front and who perform the previous attack combo (its unleashed when you successfully chain two types of combo). This can lead to outrageous legendary abilities that are reserved for special classes. Example when you hit with 3 types of combos consecutively, will summon 12 copies of hero performing random attacks that cannot be interrupted.

Instead of plain jump and chop for x5 damage and animation.

hay i was wounder you guy now ween you let blizcon 2019 pople play 23 mint of
dablio 4 is olny 3 class in it i hope you bussines make more class for d4 ?

Agreed. The roll/dodge mechanic in D3 is excellent and will hopefully be incorpirated in D4. With the power of the Xbox series X and the PS5, there is no reason why the console and PC version can’t be the same. I enjoy playing on a controller but there is no reason why keyboard and mouse cannot be supported in D4 for consoles. Player choice is key!

It is and they will. All versions will have that dodge mechanic. D4 has been developed for both PC and console form the start, which should also mean cross platform play for those interested in that.

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Thanks for the quarterly update!
It’s great to hear you taking the BlizzCon Demo Feedback to heart! :+1:

Below I’ve posted a couple of rough ideas on how to diversify classes and their gameplay.

Assassin
Is the only class who can target specific body parts of enemies. Skills have a different effect for each body part. Also whenever an Assassin stands still and performs no actions it cannot be detected by enemies.

Amazon
Is the only class who can customize how projectiles move and interact with enemies and the environment. Projectiles can be homing or split, scatter, multiply, bounce, change direction etc. and any combination of these. These effects can be customized to be triggered after x time or when hitting an enemy or wall etc.
The customization can be done for projectiles launched from bows, crossbows, spears, javelins etc. I’m hoping for a comeback of the Lightning Fury Amazon here :slight_smile:

Crusader
Is the only class who can use a block ability to block elite abilities when timed correctly. The block ability could work much like the barrier shield for Reinhardt in Overwatch. The block ability can be enhanced to deflect enemy special abilities back at the source.

Barbarian
Has the Arsenal system.

Druid
Is the only class for which skills have an extra effect based on the environment.

Sorceress
Has the Enchantment system and is the only class that can manipulate time for allies and enemies. A Sorceress can for example rewind all actions of an enemy for the last 2 seconds, for example undoing a lethal attack to an ally. Rewinding the actions of enemies does not interfere with the actions of allies.

Necromancer
The necromancer can use formations with his Skeleton army, like a rectangle formation around him, to protect him from melee and ranged attackers.

This is what we need. I go into some detail why how it will end up making D4 as good or better than D2.

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Yeah no thank you. I’d rather move forward.

First of all thanks for the quarterly update and for this ongoing communication, even tough this update is a little bit underwhelming, especially aftet Kims reaction to itemisation i tought you would talk a little bit more on that front, how the itemisation is progressing and what the current iteration on them is…

The UI seems verry consolish with Grids so it is easier to navigate with a controller, dont fall into that trap, make a PC game first. Why just not make a DIablo 2 or POE like Inventory where items are anatomicaly where they should be and not on the sides, than make a togable 3d model of the character…

Its a good step to make the item art more realistic, but make the items look like they looko n the characters…

It really bothers me that the items are all the same size, first its not logic for a ring to be the size of a 2h Axe or Stave or an Body Armor peace… Second it makes those big items shrink and loose Detail in the inventory… You can make different sizeditems without Tetris management, look at Grim Dawn and theyre automatic sortment of loot, i think this would be an easy implementation…

I liek that we have a center UI again for HEalth mana and action bar, consider making the HEalth and Mana globes on the left and right corner of the screen or give us the option to customize it…

I like what you are doing with enemys, fammilys and different behaviour, hope itm akes for tactical combat and not just 1 shooting whole screens liek other ARPGs.

I am verry scared about the itemisation, Skills and Talent tree, everything seems underwhelming, we need a lot of options for customazing adn making owne builds. Considr makeing a Stats System adn expanding the Tlaent tress…

Example

Barbarian coudl hae 3 Trees : Juggernaut, Berserker, Marauder…

Druid : Shaman, Shapeshifter, Beastmaster…

take youre time, be creative, dont make a shallow console gmae again, you have this one chance to make something that wil last and that you can milk money of and make us happy at the same time… If the game is shallown, noone will play it for the long run…

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Thank you for update!
I want to give my feedback for information from BlizzCon till now:
Runewords - Dislike (Looks very poor and simple);
Maxing ALL skills in endgame - Dislike (Key Point);
Attack/Defense changes on items + LIKE (Finally!);
Consumables on non legendary items + LIKE (Great!);
Realistic Art Design of environment, arts in february update and everything else + LIKE (Key Point);
Inventory - Dislike (Huge dissapointment for me, one slot items and items being so small in a game where one of the most important gameplay activity is farming ITEMS, very bad);
Life/Mana bars Left/Center optional + LIKE (Nice feature).

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As for the max points on all skills, that is only if you choose to. So 1, nothing forces you to apply skill points at all and 2, they talked about those really dedicated to maxing them all out would do so.

Of course all can change.

A sure, what cons has it… Just make the items auto sort and the one and ONLY “con” is gone… Let us enjoy big item art and let us differentiate between armors, big 2h and rings and helmets fast… As bariga said, itemisation isone of the core pillars if not the moste imlortant thing in diablo, so make items great again, starting with godamn good art and not some yugioh cards in my inventory…

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Dear Diablo IV dev team,

would you please put a sticky up like this one in the D2 forum.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/blizzard/c/diablo-ii-general-discussion/48

It would be great if the large existing Diablo II player base had the opportunity to share with you their ideas and concerns. Many D2 players don’t play D3 and many that do don’t visit this forum. When the D2 ladder resets in June 25k will be hitting the above forum to read the announcement.

I think you’re missing out on the opportunity to hear from arguably the largest player base in the franchise.
The player base includes:

  • Softcore ladder players
  • Hardcore ladder players
  • Hardcore ladder player killers
  • Ladder players who only magic find
  • Ladder players who only play to 99 characters
  • botters and hackers (bad, but their honest opinions should be heard.
  • Non ladder players who PvP
  • Non ladder players who casually play
  • Single player communities include:
  • Holy Grailers (dedicated website)
  • Speed runners (Dedicated website) thousands of people watch D2 speed running streams every day
  • Solo self found 99er Challengers (dedicated website)
  • Lan players

There are easily more than 100k people on half a dozen Websites/forums/apps/groups everyday talking D2.

Thank you for your consideration.

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Yeah, D2 only good for talking. Most D2 players cheat their progression which renders the game not very fun.

:laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

Why would you openly share your ignorance about a game’s player base you know next to nothing about? There are websites, Facebook groups and Discords that host tens of thousands of Active legit D2 players.

And only ignorant people wouldn’t listen to a hacker. That’s about as foolish as not listen to a burglar explain how they choose houses to break into. They are the source information the security industry uses to develop their protocols. Blizzard should be listening very closely to hackers.

I suggest studying The Art of War if you want to learn how to live wisely in the world.

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Isnt it a tragedy that they make ICONS for items ( like look at those items in the inventory, they look like some Yugi Oh Cards adn not actuall items) and not actuall Items…

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Doesn’t bother me one bit. You guys act as ifnit is some immersion breaking tragedy but ever feel carrying impossible amounts of gear while doing impossible feats while never needing rest not a problem.

Blizzard, please drop the current D3 / PoE 6 skill system and return the franchise to the D2 skill and hot key system. It will work on console. DOOM Eternal has 14 hot keys, one for each weapon. If you look at DOOM Eternal regarding weapon switching you’ll see that flipping between a lot of hot keys does not slow the player down on console. I am not comparing a FPS with Diablo, I’m just saying it is being done today in modern games.

Doing this will help contribute to adding a lot of depth and variety to character builds and play styles. It will also allow you to develop truly challenging monsters that require creativity and skill combined with gear and build.

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Maybe we could hear something about what kind of difficulty levels are being planned for D4 in the next little chat you have?

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Very important topic I agree. Hope that the higher diff doesn’t become about higher HP/Damage and/or overcrowded places, but rather give them special abilities OR at least make the very progress (not the late game only) harder

Examples for 1st: Fallen gain berserk when low on HP, skeletons throw bones at one another to “heal longer” the one under attack, stronger Melee fighters have a charge ability to engage faster, or at least make them smarter (i.e. not chase your character 1v1)

Examples for 2nd: Increase repair cost/s at the return for extra magic find (i.e. increased rarity of loot). Resistances/Increased-damage is fine but as long as it’s kept reasonable, for example 50% resistances and 50% extra damage is JUST enough (as long as the baseline game is challenging itself)

Yes, very interested to hear some update about that :slight_smile:

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I agree. Not that more damage and health is always a bad thing. Then they can different items, have the same items and increase the amount of affixes on items or have different legendary powers and set bonuses, along with new recipies.

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