Diablo IV Quarterly Update - Q4 December 2020

Biggest criticism and the MOST glaring flaw is caster weapons (wands and staves) should have spellpower, not attack power. What is that?

But I’m excited for the game. I disagree with having magic/rare/legendary/Unique, I’d prefer magic/rare/SET/Unique. I will miss item sets.

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Yeah, this is still needed in the weapon redesign.
And having 2 separate dmg numbers on weapons; kinetic and magical, would also be a step up imo.

Cast speed/attack speed should be a rollable affix on all items. That doesnt mean weapons themselves cant also have a base attack speed. This is a really good change.

No trading should be allowed in Diablo 4. It only makes the game worse.
PvP is fine though.

I wonder if sets are gone, or they just didn’t mention them.
While I think sets could have a good role to play, I surely wont miss them at D4 release, if they are gone, considering how badly Diablo 3 handled set items.
Maybe they could be brought back later… IF Blizzard understand how to balance them (which pretty much means they need to be slightly underpowered).
Also, I’d say, focus on smaller sets. Like 2-3 item sets. Not big 6+ item sets. And make them work with all classes.

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I’ve consistently been one of those voices for costless respecs here, further acknowledging that just changing skills around means nothing if you don’t have the gear to back it, among other nuances relative to player convenience or BS pseudo-RP strongarming (and I say this as someone who likes to legitimately RP in more flexible media). Part of me hopes this is just a wink and a nod to those who believe steep costs are mandatory when in reality it’d just be a lot of easily farmable gold once you’re endgame. I’d still prefer no cost at all, but if it turns out like PoE’s orb system or something more like D2’s, no thanks for sure.

Moving on, I’ll just remain disappointed at this continued chasing of making all item tiers matter. Devs say they don’t want players scouring through every item, only to chase a philosophy that promotes exactly that. I’d honestly rather them just make it so items only drop with x affix(es) every 10 levels and be rid of the concept of rarity altogether outside of uniques (which I do hope level adjust to avoid OP lower level items and prevent some few neat things from being antiquated). Rares and Legendaries are also coming off as an exercise in redundancy with the presented affixes for the latter not really wowing me. I’d just say to scrap the legendary tier altogether and add random affix adding consumables where the player could choose to sacrifice a mod on a rare if you really want that distinction to remain since the pitch there seems to be ignoring gear slot restrictions.

Rest is really just me thinking we’re still way into the basics a year later for anything to feel exciting or interesting.

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Thanks for this update, I can’t wait to test the game!

My reactions and concerns :
I have the impression that you are really going in the right direction, I like the way the affixes are distributed between the rarities of items, so that each rarity has its own advantages.
Legendaries and uniques ones look good. I just hope that uniques can really change the way spells work and that there is more than one unique per skill, otherwise I’m afraid it’s just like this: “I spec into this spell, so I’ll have to use this unique item”.

And my last big concern is the attack and defense statistics. What are they? What does it mean? If I get a unique item with 500 defenses and then a rare one with 800 defenses, is it just better ? (Then there’s no point in looking for other affixes, even more so with the weapon attack stat)
It feels like you want to make it easier to understand the power of objects, but for me it’s just confusing.

But overall, very good improvements since last itemization update. Keep up the good work !

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Have some thoughts, overall very excited with the update. First comment/question- items are mentioned with regard to differentiation, attack speed vs damage per hit etc, the one thing that still has me really concerned is weapon itself as the primary source of damage (basis for attack) for magic users. To me this fundamentally makes no sense, as stated in the update, as adventurers gain experience and skills they become more powerful , items should augment their abilities not be the sole basis of their power. That was one of the most puzzling things with D3, I pick up an axe as a wizard and somehow my damage doubles for spells. I think the system employed in d2 makes much more sense, damage is derived from skill and attribute points primarily for magic users. Maybe I misunderstood but the example of sorceress with staff vs wand has me worried, why should my attack speed for a spell depend on the weapon I have in my hand. I agree that the items can and should have a profound impact, but if my staff breaks my sorceress should still be able to make it rain seriously damaging fireballs etc. the item focus for magic users in terms of bonuses should be skill and or attribute boosts that in turn make the character more powerful, as an aside I think it’s cool when they unlock additional skills or add unique bonuses to skills, but that’s like unique/ high end bonuses.
The other thing I miss from D2 which was addressed briefly in the update was reassignment off skill points/attributes, to me this one one of the coolest things about d2, investing in the character, building skill and attributes towards and identify. Multiple separate builds, it takes more time but is way more gratifying then being able to do everything all at once, part of it is the journey, not just the destination, if you want to be a pole arm wielding basher, that has a much different feel/gameplay at lower levels with weaker items vs higher lvl, that’s part of what adds to the accomplishment when you finally reach a high level with items, is in the beginning certain builds are harder vs others
Just my two cents

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They pretty much said it will be a really rare thing for magic and rare items to compete with legendaries. If anything, rares will have less of a role than they did in the previous iteration.

Indeed.

Yeah, we really need some explanation on what the goal is with the attack stat. Basically show us the dmg formula.

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Maybe i have missed it but, where is the weapon damage types? Like Physical or Elemental damage all i see is generic attack. So my weapon doing physical or fire damage mean nothing or dont matter or just straight up dont exist?

The one thing i did like about this update was the bonuses for for different stat threshold though!

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Consider changing the color of the Unique item icons. The off-white color doesn’t feel that special. Looks like a common item at first glance.

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I do agree with people that you need to iterate on the attack stat though. Are there elemental type damages on weapons or does everything just scale off of the attack damage on the weapon and skills themselves? Hopefully you plan on adding actual attack speed values onto weapons also.

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But the question is… are you going to keep nerfing wizards in this game and leave them last place for a year?

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Random Legendary affixes
:rocket: Skyrocket the number of possibilities. Great Idea for build diversity. Keep users playing, looking for the perfect item for their build idea, adapted to their current configuration. Each player get a unique experience. Love it ! :heartpulse:
For increased fun and crazyness, these random Legendary affixes should also appear on weapons & Set items (like Krelm’s Buff Bracers, but harder to roll since it is a Set item).

Micro-Sets
Focus on Micro-sets (2, 3, 4 items max).
Some of them class-locked and other ones class-free.
Ideally, just like Legendary, Micro-sets can loot in different flavors. For a given set, you should be able to use Shoulder-Helmet-Bracers or Boots-Armor-Ring. This would increase a lot build diversity. Of course, keep intermediary Set powers to incentive players to complete one possible full-combination of the Micro-Set.

Items look
Great ! Special kudos for the Gengis Khan barbarian. It’s exacly what we are looking for. Strong identity through style.

Strength, Dex … unlocking items powers
Very interesting for build diversity. Better on skills than on items, since skills are related to classes, and items are not. Good choice, then. Just need to increase the number of possibilities (more than one variation).

Balancing blue, yellow, orange
Okay but need a character / damage sheet somewhere to verify if the new blue item is better than the orange one. I propose to integrate a kind of D4Planner inside the game to help players to compute DPS and make choices. We could even allow players to save their projects and set auto-set loot filters to their target.

Stormwalker’s Cudgel
The chance percentage is missing in the description of the unique effect. Percentage should always appear. Chance percentages guide players when constructing their builds (do or don’t use this), as they let them know if the new item is better than the old. If the percentage is fixed, just display it in white. But please display it.

Attack Speed
Same observation, show numbers, please !
Very Fast Weapon 1.40 Attack / second

Item output size
Just like the attack speed, the output size must scale with the item.
I expect a staff to produce a bigger output than a wand.
That would justify the lower attack speed.

Carving with Upheaval
Should be temporary somehow or players will try to dig holes to restrain bosses. Also, it should work differently depending on the ground type (Sand, Dirt, Brick, Stone…). Carving in a stone ground should be a lot harder (slower), and should throw stones instead of sand / dirt / etc. It means skills efficiency should be adapted to the ground they interact with. Example : Fire VS Ice environment, and vice / versa. Yeah, it’s challenging but refreshing !

Skills Tree
Please more like Diablo 3 (Runes+FreeSkills) or Last Epoch (Runes+Points+ShortTree) than Wolcen (Meaningless unbalanced deep tree with no way to reach the other end of the tree once you go one direction : It auto-cancels combinations thus ruins build diversity. Same remarks apply for its Mana/Rage system, forces you in unwanted combinations).
A game should open possibilities, not lock them.

Respecialization
Relative cost is one idea.
Another highly experimental idea : Use a simili Diablo 3 Armory concept to store not only the build, but also the Spent points in Strength / Dex … And make players to pay with in-game money for storing the configuration. Allow players to instantaneously switch between two configurations outside fights, so they can adapt for a boss without going to town (Ex : Nova for trash, but switch to Corpse Lance before a boss fight, then re-switch on Nova when boss is down).
Towning is not playing.

Chill to Freeze
Interesting mechanic. What about Heat to Burn ?

Inventory management / 1 slot items
A balanced, reasonable choice considering screen sizes and the exponential number of items generated by random legendary affixes. Simplifies a lot inventory management

Unique Items
Keep them for story items. Like “Lancelot du Lac sword”. These items have a strong identity, unique design, are common knowledge among inhabitants of the realms, and are definitively related to their history. Another source of Unique is a distinct character or boss looting the object. Example : Leoric loots Leoric’s Crown.

Roleplay and story choices
Example : Story character proposes you as a reward a choice between N Uniques. You have to recreate a character and redo the story N times to get all these Uniques.

Demonic Powers
Why not pledge allegiance to, form a bond with, or challenge a demon to get a fraction of its power / skills / bonus ? And you can select 1 or more in a Kanai Cube system (multiple means you divide each power impact). Being infused by a given demon powers could apply modifiers on you own skills / items (ex: Andarielle : Increased Poison Damage, Duriel : Increased cooldown). The game itself then becomes a Monster Hunter game, where you chase demons for their demonic powers (Andarielle, Duriel, Mephisto, …etc.). By the way, throw away angels, demons are far more interesting.
https://blackclover.fandom.com/wiki/Devil#Known_Devils

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Why is it that when a legendary item always rolls uniquely, why are they not called uniques?

I’d probably prefer magic/rare/unique/sets item tiers, where sets have unique, static affixes, and can combine to have set bonuses upon completion. However, they can’t overwhelm itemization like in Diablo 3.

Partial set bonuses should still be a thing, too. Just not as powerful.

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On itemization: I’ve been pretty critical of many of the past quarterly updates, but I don’t really have anything bad to say about this one. Keep iterating, you’re going in the right direction.

As for respecs: I’m all for making respecs cost something substantial. Otherwise, your character wouldn’t have a specific identity. Every character could just turn on a dime. A significant cost late game, but a low cost early, will allow experimentation early on while enforcing your character identity at higher levels.

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These aren’t really affixes, they are passive skill nodes placed on items.

Affixes should also affect the items, i.e. increased physical damage, increased armor, added armor.

The blog says the goal is to be somewhere between Diablo 2 and 3, but it’s actually just looking like Diablo 3 with uniques.

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Very specific feedback:

The wand animation, it looks like she’s poking someone’s eye out. It shouldn’t be a thrust. Please, change it to something more like a weave. Look at HP if you need inspiration, but the eye-poking just looks weird.

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Wolcen literally gives you a way to turn parts of the web around (the 3 wheels), so you can reach skills in all kinds of directions.
That said, yeah, Last Epoch seems like an even better way to go.

100% agreed. Dont hide important numbers.

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I like the stat points. Cool that there is some choice going on there individually for the stats and I also like the effects you all put on the skills that unlock at certain stat thresholds. Feels very D2 like to boost a stat to a target amount for a nice bonus and adds some fun certainly. Hopefully it can make +stat gear useful in D4 in other ways rather than just damage. In D2 +stat gear is often very useful as place holder gear until you get torches (and or an anni) or to wear high requirement gear.

Itemization - weapon speed modifiers are a great start. I like what you all said about blue, rare, and legendaries and uniques :partying_face:. Very glad uniques will be back and have their own art and more fixed affixes, how cool and really feels more like D1 or D2, it should give players a bunch of options to consider when gearing up which is fantastic (and those options will be more than simply bigger numbers with legendaries and uniques).

Overall some good ideas you all came up with that should satisfy a lot of fans. This was a pleasurable update to see! Good work D4 team!

I am concerned about how elemental damage will be done on weapons and hope you all have good ideas on that as well. I like how in Diablo 2 or in Grim Dawn players are incentivized to go after damage types because they already have modifiers (enhanced damage in D2 is only physical, +% to dmg type in GD, - enemy resist in D2, etc) that boost damage to that type or for element specific bonuses such as prevent monster heal, chilling, etc.

I hope something fun like this is planned for elemental damage and that every single type of damage isn’t exactly equal in every situation. For instance, an axe that does 1k physical damage per second vs a wand that does 300 physical and 700 cold damage per second should not be equally effective on a barbarian probably. It crushes the fantasy and makes items feel like they are all just bigger numbers. Please, I don’t want to wear a hurty wand on my barbarian unless I’m making a very niche barb or unless the wand itself is very niche in that it is a melee weapon.

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This is a larger step in the right direction than I was anticipating. Keen to see more iterations on specific affixes and the range of affixes for magic/rare/etc.

If you’re looking to build strong pvp you will need items that aren’t class specific to some degree. Diablo 2 had a great set of those items providing raw defense, crushing blow, cannot-be-frozen type affixes.

Glad to see Magic items can have few affixes, but higher potential rolls especially if max sockets is part of that, where rares max out at 2 but usually roll 1 if any.

The “mechanics” + “of the whale” affix gear in diablo 2 was relevant for pvp and often better than other rare gear or even unique gear for some builds. Adding a flat 100 health and 3 sockets combined with runes/gems made for really cool builds in pvp where most pvm uniques added less advantage.

Also pvp at lower lvls (lld and mld) in diablo 2 was fantastic with barely any uniques being Best in Slot. The diversity of the rares and magic items or rune words in lld and mld was fantastic and complimented the skill/stat system so well. With quest rewards you could be lvl 30 with 40+ skill points assigned to max out, or spread out among key duel skills.

As for uniques, I think these sound great, with set affixes. This means there will be perfect rolls and non perfect rolls building a spectrum which (god willing) is a good dynamic in an open trade world. I want people to once again be able to get econ phd’s from your games.

Keep iterating and keep updating!

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I like that there will be a cost to respeccing. If balanced right I’m imagining it being like it was in Vanilla WoW with talent respecs: Something you could play around with, but not really something you wanted to do 5 times a day unless you were super rich.

Assignable stats making a return, I love to see it. Tying in some unique skill bonuses is nice, as I would have otherwise been worried about things like “barbs just go all in on str, it’s your best stat”.

Weapon types seem nicely varied, and the stuff with rarities seems like it should help to keep things below legendary relevant late into the end game as they’re have more powerful affixes. All around good stuff.

Also seeing uniques with pre-defined stats is just great.

All in all this is pretty much hitting the right direction on all fronts in my opinion.

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Looking better already

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