yea i guess something else we learned in this blog post was a pretty pog new sorc skill 
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Very nice update but canāt tell much about this. I think we should get updates of things we can give more feedback to improve the game as soon as posible.
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That was more entertaining than I thought actually, I especially like that you provided us those long ambiance videos to help us feel the world of D4 at home while doing something else.
Donāt have much feedback to give, everything sounds great ! The best proof of it is that my only drawback would be on the visual side : that huge floating snake covering the screen might disturb readability and doesnāt even feel like itās doing any damage on the ground. Not very subtle eitherā¦ letās hope itās an early and unfinished sketch. Its sound is on point though. 
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Sound has always been such a critical component to the immersion of any Diablo game. From items dropping or being sorted in your inventory, to the music and ambience all around, or spell effects and monsters. It all becomes greater than the sum if its parts. Each Diablo game has audio that is just embedded in my mind and fondly recalled often. I canāt wait to discover what audio in Diablo IV sticks out to me the most.
These extended audio clips are fantastic. Slightly separate from the audio is just watching the game world itself in these videos. Seeing the water puddles get bigger the longer the rain falls or the way foliage or objects sway in the wind or get pushed by creatures as they moved through. Such wonder attention to detail! I feel like all the little details just make the game world so much better. Thank you for investing the time and effort into so much extra detail. I love that youāre taking the time to create lots of variations to the sounds and I even noticed some of that in these videos. Particularly the breakable objects one. Such a small thing but itāll mean so much in the long run.
One thing I noticed was the Wood Wraith didnāt disturb the foliage at all as it was walking through it. It made the monster not feel grounded and connected to the game world. The monster itself looks/sounds amazing though! Similarly the Inferno snake; unless this was just an audio demo, it didnāt feel a part of the world. It looked like it was just a graphic over the game and not on the ground able to hit anything. Maybe burn marks on the ground would help? Otherwise itās gorgeous! I love the new take on Inferno. The fire skills in general are crazy good. I love both the sound effects and the particle effects like the bits of ash that fly off as the firebolt shoots or the snake twirls. LOVE it.
Anyway, even getting a look at some more dungeon interiors in these clips was a nice treat, your art team is doing such an amazing job. This game is gorgeous!
Canāt wait for the next update! Very excited to learn more about systems but I am also glad to see itāll include visual effects as well!
One last thing, I wanted to thank your team(s) for putting more and more accessibility features into your games. Itās great to hear that Diablo IV will have a suite of features. Even the latest accessibility additions to D2 with D2R were huge for me. The adjustable sliders for specific sound groupings has been such a huge quality-of-life change. Iām not even hearing impaired and they helped immensely. I would love to see a future quarterly update focused on all the accessibility features you either have implemented already, are working on getting in, or even others you aspire to add in the future.
Thank you for this quarterly update! Canāt wait for the next one =)
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i agree the snake is a bit over the top^^
it should look less plastic and more flaming
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Yeah, itād be nice if the inferno skill scorched the ground.
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It does look like itās off the ground but certainly should at least be scorch marks at the tail part i agree.
Would be interesting to see what flame effects it does to foes.
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Itād be something else if the flame can pull in nearby enemies while also burning them.
Indeed. The lack of flaming effect on the ground too.
My main issue though is that itās opaque, you canāt see anything below. Even if the animation is kind of short, itās still bothering the action.
It looks like a placeholder tbh. Feels like itās not what they intend to ship.
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I know that this Update is about sound, but I canāt help myself to give feedback on the visuals / graphics that were shown in the videos, particular on the skills Fire Bolt, Fire Ball and Inferno. Sure, their visual designs are not final, but it is important to give feedback early on.
Fire Bolt
Fire Bolt does - from my perspective - not really look like a Fire Bolt, bur rather like a Fire Arrow, as it is very pointy at its tip, instead of having a more rounded shape at the tip, so it feels a bit off, at least for me.
Furthermore, the Fire Bolt travels really fast, which also makes it appear to me more like a (Fire) Arrow Skill being shot, rather than it looking like a Fire Spell.
Maybe that is because that is how I am used to it from having played Diablo 2 for so many years where Fire Bolt has a much more rounded tip and also travels slower, dunno, I just know that these two things make Fire Bolt feel a bit off for me.
Fire Ball
Fireball - as seen in the āBreakable Destructives Sound Designā Video - does imo not look thick enough. The ball feels and looks too sleek for my taste. Maybe you can emphasize the āBallā-aspect of Fire Ball a bit more and make the ball a bit thicker.
Along with that, the explosion of the Fireball is more like a Nova, rather than an Explosion, which at least for me makes the āexplosionā part a lot less visually satisfying. Explosions like these in Diablo 2 and also from other games detonate in a dense, expanding āFire Ballā / āFire Orbā instead of a sleek āFire Novaā.
I hope you are going to make a few more adjustments on that.
Inferno
I know, this is very obvious in an early design phase, but I am gonna give feedback on its visuals as well, since we canāt know what the direction is you wanting to go with it, so I have to give feedback on what you have shown.
It is probably just personal preference, but I would make the whole snake a lot more ethereal and a lot less corporal, if that makes sense.
It currently looks like a physical snake whose body is slightly on fire, which is fine, but imo it could be a lot cooler than what it currently is by making the snake consist not of something physical/dense/tangible, but rather be made of fire itselfā¦
ā¦ so instead of a sold body, it could be formed of pure fire itself, which is less tangible/more ethereal than a burning but still physical body.
Maybe you like the image I had in my mind that I tried to convey here as much as I liked it, who knows, but do what you think and feel is right for this skill.
Few examples of beings made of pure fire & flame:
https://www.meme-arsenal.com/memes/5c896da3714b2539f0c093b87c8c28a5.jpg
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To end on a positive note: the Wood Wraiths looks and sounds really cool, I have to admit that.
Maybe in a later Update you also can share more about the music of D4.
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that just sounds like being used to an old game with certain animation styles
a bolt is usually even faster and smaller than an arrow because its shot from a crossbow
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Some alternative words for āless subtleā and āless plasticā to describe what you want to convey are:
- āless corporealā
- āmore etherealā
- āless tangibleā
Eventually that can help some people to understand what we are trying to say/convey, and I am 100% with you on this.
I think it would be cool if the snake itself would ājustā be made of pure fire / pure flames.
Maybe there are even other / better words to describe what we are talking about.
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i think they got it xD
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I am happy to see Joe Shely as the new Diablo 4 director. All the best to him and the whole team working on this project! Itās about time to give us something to play, guys.
Iād comment these days on the blog since I want to give myself more time to hear all the sounds with proper headphones.
I am excited we are to finally look at the D4 endgame in next update - put more details coupled with direct questions to us so that itās more clear for the community how to structure its feedback.
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Do it for the sound effects! 
Everything sounds cool and nice! I love everything about these sounds, the atmosphere is spot onā¦ BUT!
Thereās a thing I donāt understand, if we talk about sounds, why didnāt we get to know or hear nothing about the composer of the game music soundtrack?! This is also very important for the gameās atmosphere and our emotional response to itā¦
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Amazing update as usual here, not much to say as everything sounds as good and real as it could possibly be.
The only thing Iād point out is on the Scosglen raining video track, the trees and how they sway donāt look too ānaturalā at all really, may want to look into that.
Canāt wait for the next update!
Edit: Came back to add some things for future reference perhaps(assuming they even read every single comment here).
- Tell us what the special Druid class feature is beyond just shapeshifting.
- We will need an update on character customization again in the future, showcasing female Druids, male Sorcs, and more on the male Rogues!
- More explanation and coverage of the skill trees at some point.
The reason I list all this is that weāve nearly covered every topic possible so some things will have to start overlapping in terms of theme/topic now.
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I like
- The making of : Very interesting !
- You understand how sound is important (D2 gems can be recognized just by their sound)
- Sound replayability
- The neutral pets / critters in the Dry steppes
- The rain in Scosglen : Feels relaxing. Made me think of the first seconds of the Dungeon Keeper Intro:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N5ODEGR1KQ - Wood Wraith : has Lord of the Ring vibes. Could be a Druid pet (see Last Epoch)
- Destructible objects
- The work achieved so far
I dislike
- The sea. Feels static / plastic, with a little bit of slime. Add seagulls, grey/green crabs, some transparency, make the sea foam move, smoothen the top right rocks (IRL rocks shall be smoothened by sea), add some rolling pebble sound. Inspiration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd--SZYuWf8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuaNArNjBtkhttps://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/pebble-beach-en-bretagne-les-cailloux-ont-cart-sur-une-plage-142933796.jpg
- The Fire Snake. Feels plastic and not bound to the environment (āover the topā). Add shadows, transparency, blending in the environment, scorched ground, more flaming stuff ? Maybe keep the head but gradually set the the tail be 100% flames ? Inspiration:
https://www.meme-arsenal.com/memes/5c896da3714b2539f0c093b87c8c28a5.jpghttps://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/b4acd1a5-7c89-4799-915f-4a866d75f5cd/d7l189u-b4c5a4b8-2b40-4e51-95cb-71c502c6a8dd.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcL2I0YWNkMWE1LTdjODktNDc5OS05MTVmLTRhODY2ZDc1ZjVjZFwvZDdsMTg5dS1iNGM1YTRiOC0yYjQwLTRlNTEtOTVjYi03MWM1MDJjNmE4ZGQucG5nIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.-6kwO6F8bN_dpIxmWOcEsNQkKUzblKtsNsU1LWTU2uAhttps://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/022/695/536/large/catalin-lartist-snake-god-resize-color.jpg?1576358780
- The tumbleweeds in the dry steppes. Feels like a glitch. Currently way too much transparent. It nearly does not exists. It disappears by fading while still being on screen: this is weird. It should have more presence if kept in the game.
- The trees shaking in a loop. I want this monotonic loop to be broken by gusts of wind. Same request for grass I suppose.
- Some firebolts start with a low-pitched sound that is confusing with the ending explosion (my ears believe there are 2 explosions, but there is only one on screen)
- The video clips are in 1080p whereas I expected 4Kā¦ (1080p on a 4K screen is pixelated). Please fix this for the next quaterly update
I wonder
- Do the dry steps burn with fire skills ?
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Enjoyable, sound design do a difference but as mentioned in the update itās pretty much invisible.
Remembering me D1, I found myself parking my Rogue just to listen to sounds & music several times, the mood was just perfect to get immerge into that slaughtering fest.
Thatās maybe because Iām a musician who like to be unnoticeable, most of the time, that I like the āāinvisibleāā aspect. I admit that I did few gig standing right next to the drummer, just to have a good laugh with the technicians & the back stage crew 
Nonetheless, thank you for this update, to donāt give up and for all meticulous work done and the elaborate view putted in details.
Playing Diablo 3, Diablo 2 Resurrected, Path of Exile, Wolcen and Last Epoch made me realize that Diablo 3 has one the best skill system. It easily allows lots of combinations with free respecialization, so you can experiment and change your build according the items you find over your journey. It is highly flexible and adaptative. You are never penalized for trying. Once you tasted that freedom, it is hard to go back and stick to a tree.
The only drawbacks I found :
- Unability to select multiple runes of 1 skill. Given the situation I might want to use cold rather than poison (monster immunities), or freeze before poison (combo). But because Iām in combat I cannot change the rune. The solution would be to allow players to slot multiple runes of the same skill. Ex : Key 1) Cold Scythe Key 2) Poison Scythe.
- Maybe I want to distribute points into a skill / rune to specialize, but Iām not sure if this is a good idea since itemization can automatically handle the skills / runes empowerment
I noticed that too. Feels like a wood boat cracking in the background. That audio effect shall be reworked because currently too proeminent.
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