Hi David,
you want Players to be part of the design process
I have learned over years of experience that the player community is an incredibly valuable resource to draw upon when designing and refining a game. By working together, we can achieve great things. The biggest challenge with parsing community feedback is that with so many opinions, the takeaways are rarely unanimous. Diablo IV is still very much in active development, but we plan to keep you in the loop as we continue to design and iterate so that you can be a part of what we’re building. I am so incredibly appreciative for all the feedback we’ve received so far and I’m eager to dive into some of the most talked about topics.
This is great to hear.
Whenever you are in doubt with regards to player feedback, and find it to be going in opposite directions -
or
Whenever there is a doubt amongst the team, about which direction to take-
Always return to the older Diablo games and think “What would the old D1/D2 Devs would’ve done?”
The answer to this question will come from studying the 90s Diablo games and learning about how they are designed. The kinds of systems they can lead to, can be awesome for Diablo 4, provided you appreciate them, study them and apply your creativity towards improving them.
Itemization - Empower Player Choice
you want to give players more meaningful choices
We’re still working through all the feedback that came in regarding itemization and we’re actively discussing ways to add more depth and complexity to base items (including Rares), ways to add greater variety to item affixes to make those powers interesting and your choices meaningful, and ways to give players more freedom to choose how to customize items, so you can have fun exploring a wide range of effective gameplay possibilities instead of just looking up “the optimal build” online.
We’ll go into way more depth regarding itemization in a separate post soon, but we don’t want to leave you hanging until then—so we’re going to update you on a few other topics now.
These are some of the topics that we’re seeing come up most often, but if we’re missing something, please let us know and we will try to share our thoughts on those subjects as well in future updates.
It is great to hear that you have heard some of our feedback for Rare items, and other lower tier items - Mr Llama has a great video that expresses this feedback.
But …
I don’t think the end goal should just be meaningful choice.
I think the end goal should be Empowering the Player’s Choice.
Empowering the Player’s Choice should be the Goal for the Devs, and it can only be achieved by putting the Player in situations where he needs to Sacrifice one type of power for another.
Rares vs Legendaries
One Player wants his items to support his skills, whatever he chose on the skill tree (the vanilla skills). The best way to offer him that is through numerical buffs on Rare Items.
Second Player wants his items to have cool game-changing affixes like the Jade set and Multi-Fireball staff in D4, that changes up how his skills work. The best way to offer that is through Legendary or Unique Items.
The way to give those options is to allow for both Choices by having Rares (numerical buffs) and Legendaries/Sets (game-changing affixes) to compete with each other.
This empowers the Players to play their own way, using the Skills and skill variations that they like to use.
No to Ancient Items and Mythic Items
You are revisiting ancient items
We completely agree with the community sentiment—Ancients as they are don’t really serve a clear purpose in Diablo IV. We should have done a better job of explaining the role of Ancient Items in Diablo IV. We had a preliminary direction to share, but you’ve brought up some great points, so we’re revisiting our designs with your feedback in mind. We hope to have more details to share in the follow-up itemization update.
I hope you remove them altogether. Ancient Items and Mythic Items are just stronger Legendaries and Uniques, and while there are many arguments talking about how it feels to find Legendaries and identify them as non-ancient etc, I find that -
Ancient Items and Mythic items easily destroy this balance between Rares (numerically strong) and Legendaries (unique affixes).
They will create a situation where the Player has to have them, above his choice of skills.
Player One who wants to buff his vanilla skills through Rare items, will find it impossible to have his items compete with Mythic Items.
One Player wants his items to support his skills, whatever he chose on the skill tree (the vanilla skills). The best way to offer him that is through numerical buffs on Rare Items.
So Ancient Items, Mythic items, D2 LoD Runewords, and any other items even Rares and Legendaries and Sets, that are “Must-have items” should be avoided.
The goal should be to empower the player’s choice.
Ask yourself -
- What do the different types of Players want to do?
- How can we give them options to do that?
This applies not just to Items but also to Skills.
Skill System - Give Player’s Choice
One player wants to swap between Werewolf and Werebear forms, whereas the second player wants to use Storm skills alongside his shapeshifting.
They want to build hybrid druids. You can support that, and I see your Passive tree does support them.
But …
If a third Player wants to just be a Werewolf Druid, without Bear form or Storm Skills, then you must have options that empower this fantasy.
Currently on the Passive Tree, the only Options available to Shapeshifters are Multi-shapeshifting into Wolf-Bear back and forth or using Storm skills alongside Shapeshifting.
These are Hybrids.
We always need a Pure option.
Diablo IV should offer Pure Werewolf, Pure Storm Druid, Pure Werebear, Pure Summoner and Pure Earthbender within the Druid class.
A third option should be added - Every time you use skills of the same Animal Form, your damage is increased by 10% for 10 seconds, stacking up to 4 times. All stacks are lost if you use a different form or use Storm skills.
The Skill tree should be diverse enough to give players options to be Pures or Hybrids.
Elective Mode in Diablo IV
You say that Skills are unbound and can be selected in any fashion - like in elective mode
There’s a misconception that Diablo IV will lock skills to specific slots because of the BlizzCon demo user interface. Like many other things in the demo, the UI is not final and we will support Elective Mode-style skill selection. Skill selection and assignment will always be completely open for all players.
In Diablo 2, the way you reached the stronger skills was through a path that involved investing in the weaker skills. This meant that a pure build, such as Pure Werewolf, would emerge from the path you took and emerge through synergies available on that path.
If Diablo 4 will remove that Skill Path and Skill Synergies then you have to be extra careful and provide this type of Pure and Hybrid styles of play through Passives Tree.
But what is even more important than that is the Progression that the Player feels as he unlocks the various skills on his path.
1. Skills of the same Tier Should Unlock All at Once
If all skills are open and unbound, they cannot unlock 1 after another as shown in the Systems panel at Blizzcon. They must unlock all at once at different Tiers. All Spirit Generators must unlock at Lv 1 for instance. All Spirit Spenders should unlock at Lvl 6, etc. So that a Werewolf Druid can select skills that fit his theme at each interval.
Recall the Druid Skills unlocking in Tiers
2. Skill Points/ Tomes Should be Limited
Skill Points and Skill Tomes should be a limited resource. It should not be possible to max all skills in the tree. It should only be possible to maximize only the 6 skills which you have invested into.
Character Building and Itemization that reinforces the Player's Characters is the way to go
This leads us into…
Levelling System - Focus on the Journey
You are considering various Endgame progression ideas
We haven’t decided whether the character leveling and experience system should be finite or infinite. We’ve been discussing the pros and cons of both and would love to hear your thoughts. There seems to be some concern around infinite being worse because it will eventually overshadow all the power granted by other sources. However, we can control how much power each system gives, whether it’s infinite or finite.
For example, say we’re talking about thousands of hours of gameplay . . . within those thousands of hours, we could choose to create a finite system that grants 1,000,000 times more power than an infinite system, making it practically impossible for the infinite system to catch up in power.
Also, power increase doesn’t need to be linear throughout the ranks—it can slow down as players reach higher levels. We believe the more important question is what experience feels best for players, and we can playtest various approaches to tuning to find the power curve that makes the most sense.
We have a couple reasons for having a different experience system in addition to a level cap. A level cap gives us the ability to grant players a sense of completion. But for players who want to go deeper into the game, a second experience system allows us to capture the fun of achieving those really difficult endgame goals and ranks. We can also introduce additional depth through this system, because players will be more experienced with the game at this point. Ultimately, our goal is to create a meaningful system that provides clear choices depending on your preferred playstyle in the endgame.
In Diablo games, a sense of completion already emerges within the Player when he beats Hell mode.
When the Final Boss of the hardest difficulty in a Diablo game is beaten then there is a sense of completion.
This sense is also present at Normal and Nightmare level, depending on what your preference is. For many players doing the Normal mode in D2, will give them a sense of completion.
So adding an additional Levelling system on top of a Level cap, is unnecessary.
The Endgame should start right at the first Level 1.
When the player first enters the world of Sanctuary, immediately they should realize that the journey is important here and not what is at the end of the game. There is nothing special waiting for them at the end of the game, the game itself should be the endgame.
1. Stats feed into This
As you level up, you invest attribute points into Strength, Dexterity, Vitality and Energy, and improve your character so that they can wear certain items or have more life or be able to cast more spells or be able to block more. This makes levelling a fun process.
2. Skills feed into This
As you level up, you invest skill points, and improve your hero. You select your skills and work towards improving your selections. This makes levelling a fun process.
3. Talents Feed into This
As you level up, you invest talent points into the various nodes and climb down the tree towards the specialization you want. The game offers you a variety of different specializations to choose from and leaves it to you to come up with more options. This makes levelling fun.
4. Items feed into This
As you level up, you find items that improve your character, and you find items that you can wear at higher levels without it becoming obsolete like in D3. This makes levelling a fun process.
Investing into Stats, Skills, Talents and Items, while playing through a variety of content, should be the core loop of the game, wherein levelling towards a max cap of 40 or 99, whatever arbitrary number we want to max it at, should happen in the background.
Then when you have 1 character that has either beaten Hell or has reached a point where you are satisfied with his progress, you start another Character and go on the same journey where choosing to invest in different Stats, Skills and Talents and Randomized Affixes on Items, Areas and Monsters, provide for a unique experience again.
In Diablo 2, as I play it again after 7 years or so, I once again find myself doing these things, and they feel infinitely more meaningful than grinding a post-Lvl 70 endgame with infinite Paragon points. Where starting a new hero is pointless because everything is unlocked and is available to be swapped around in 2 seconds.
Blissful Failure
Make the journey from 1-40 the game itself. Make that enjoyable.
Make Level 40 impossible to reach, to the point where no one can reach it no matter how much they play (maybe 1-2 players ever reach it), and create an environment where the player enjoys the journey to get to it.
The Diablo 2 levelling system has a very eastern philosophy vibe to it, where you have an impossible to reach level, and you will fail when trying to reach this level, but you will fail blissfully and will do so while living a meaningful existence.
In Diablo 3, you lived as a “miserable success”,where you got everything you wanted but the journey to get it was meaningless.
Eastern Mystic talking about dying as a Blissful Failure
Diablo 4 should have such a system where levelling up becomes harder and harder and this point the Player realizes the journey of playing the game itself is what is important.
Having the player in a state where he does not want to get to the endgame - that is important, that should be the goal. You want players to be so happy with the game and the journey of it, that they don’t care about reaching any endgame, they simply enjoy the process of playing.
Rewarding the player too much with fast levelling and high amount of item drops like Diablo 3 does, works opposite to this goal.
It is ok if the player fails to reach max level.
It is ok if the player fails to get the best items.
If is ok if the player fails to max out all their stats, skills and talents.
It is the journey that should matter.
The journey should be designed so that the Player should be open to doing it again and again with different Characters (speciializations within a class).
Sources of Power
You want Players to acquire Power outside of Gear through their Skills and Passives.
The community has shared many good points on the topic of power sources and we’re reevaluating how much power comes from each source at any given time.
However, we want to clarify that in Diablo IV, power doesn’t come mostly from items. We want to have a good mix of power sources: characters naturally get stronger as they level up, skills have ranks that increase power, talents provide specific playstyle choices and additional character power, and of course items grant power and meaningful choices as well.
This is good to hear as it should be possible to beat the game naked (ie without any gear) by both melee and caster builds.
You know a game is well-designed when one of your favourite streamer spends 2 hours beating the final boss without gear.
That can be an exciting challenge to do, and it can only exist if the game is fundamentally designed well.
This is why it is important to have the power distributed to the Stats, Skills, Talents and Items more evenly, and important for Boss encounters etc to be designed well, so that such challenges can emerge naturally without the Developers having to create them.
You say -
Something else to keep in mind is Legendary powers are just one part of an item’s power, and they won’t invalidate all other Affixes due to how powerful they are. For example, two to three normal Affixes are currently equivalent in power to a Legendary power on most items.
If 1 Legendary Affixes competes with 3 Normal Affixes, then I hope that you offer Rare items in the game that have 3 More Affixes than Legendaries.
As I mentioned earlier, it is important that Rare items can compete with Legendary items since Rare items allow Players to play with their Vanilla skills, where as Legendary items modify vanilla skills to open up new stylesof play.
if you close-off the Vanilla styles of play with powerful Legendary Affixes, then you are not offering Players more choice. You can simply shoehorning them into various Items.
For example, in Diablo 3, a Witch Doctor who wants to use Spirit Spells or Zombie Bears is forced into Carnevil, Jade, Firebats or Gargantuan build. This is because Rare items cannot compete with the 10,00% damage that these items offer.
So you have to be very careful with how you design your items.
More Legendaries is not always better. Sometimes a simple Rare item goes farther towards empowering player progression than a shiny legendary.
Stats - Attribute System
One thing you did not talk about is the Stat System or the Attribute System.
The gool old -
Strength
- to add more weapon damage
- to wear Heavy Armours and Weapons
Dexterity
- to get a higher rate of blocking with shields
- to hit more accurately
- to wear certain Weapons
Vitality
- to get more life and stamina
- to get higher critical chance on potions
Energy
- to get more Resource like Mana
- in Diablo 2, most characters avoided investing into Energy so in Diablo 4, other effects like Resource Cost reduction, a Shield system that overlaps the healthpool, etc can be added here to make it a more enticing option
For Casual Players -
The stat system was effective in providing interesting options while levelling, which not only made levelling a fun process but also gave the casual player a way to build their Character in the way they wanted to.
I remember when I was young I would put points into Strenght to get more weapon damage for my Barb and in Energy so that I could cast more spells on my Sorc.
Casual players do not care about what is optimal, for them the experience of spending points and building their character in numerous areas, feels engaging.
For Experienced Players -
The stat system had a fairly optimal strategy. Put enough points in Strength and Dexterity to wear your gear, no Points in Energy and all remaining points into Vitality. Some builds would try to maximize Dexterity for Block chance. But no builds maximized Strength or Energy.
Where this system really shined was when the player would try to minimize their spending on Strength and Dexterity and tried to Max out Vitality.
As you know the Items in Diablo 2 had stats on them as well. So if you had for example Sigon’s Gloves that gaveyou 10 to Strength, then you could wear all your Gear with 90 Strength requirement,at 80 and invest those 10 points into Vitality. I did exactly that in my recent playthrough of Diablo 2.
So this type of system adds a lot of depth, even though there is a single goal of maxing vitality.
If you are contemplating whether to add such a system to Diablo 4 or not, then remember that it is better to have this system than to not have it.
It adds an additional dimention to the player progression, on top of Skills, Talents and Items, and makes the game overall more complex and deep, where the player must make small choices in many areas, each time they level. This makes for a pretty engaging system and an engaging levelling process.
Of course, the Stat/Attribute System can be improved for Diablo 4. But it is best to keep it than to throw it away like Diablo 3 did.
Try to work with the systems of older Diablo games rather than throwing them away. You will always find they have some special nugget to offer to the Player and his gaming experience.
Finding, Crafting & Trading
Another thing you did not talk about is the acquisition of Power - how the player gets his items.
One Player wants to find the best items through Playing the game. The best way is to offer them a choice where sacrificing some power for Magic Find and doing MF runs will help them find what they need.
Second Player wants to have certain control over his items, by means of Crafting and controlling affixes. The best way is to offer them OG Runewords (which is different from D4 runes, in that it is a crafting system) and (Horadric Cube) Crafting recipes with certain guaranteed affixes.
Third Player enjoys the nuances of Trading and is willing to trade everything for the exact item he wants. So offering him a safe system for trading is the way to go.
All these options are needed from Lv 1 to Max level, from the earliest levels of the game, to the highest levels, so that the Player always has ways to acquire power.
The only difference is that it should be harder to acquire power at highest levels. But you want most of your players at lower or middle levels and only a handful at that highest level.
There is a hidden fourth player that I forgot to mention. A player who uses Vendors to acquire power. This option should be available at lower-middle levels. In Diablo 2, you could find certain items at Vendors which by adding gems, jewels or runes, could give your character power temporarily until you found better items.
For example, while playing Diablo 2 with Mr Llama’s guided play-through, I bought a socket spear from Charsi and put a bunch of Rubies for Fire Damage. This gave my Character more power for the next few levels, until I found a better Javelin and Shield.
This added to my experience of the game, and gave vendors a purpose to exist in towns.
I mean if levelling does not matter, vendors will be pointless, which is the case in Diablo 3.
So the Levelling journey has to matter, and Vendors have to matter.
Now that I am pretty high level in the game. The Vendors still offer me with healing, potions, portal scrolls, identify item scrolls and a chance to gamble for upgrades.
The socketing system in Diablo 3 was nice and together with the gambling system and levelling gems, it made vendors matter.
But with levelling gems, the reliance on playing Greater Rifts made Greater Rifts mandatory content.
This leads us to…
Dungeons
You clarify how the new dungeon system is different from Rifts
A big question that’s come up is exactly how Keyed Dungeons are different from Rifts. Keyed Dungeons introduce greater challenges as their tiers increase through Dungeon Affixes. The majority of dungeons are real places in the world, and players will know some information about them including what types of monsters, events, and layouts to expect. With this information, as well as the specific Dungeon Affixes being displayed on the key, players will be able to strategize their approach before going into the dungeon. We believe this is the biggest change from Diablo III Rifts: the added planning and strategizing that takes place before you decide to run a Keyed Dungeon.
So far I like the idea of Keyed Dungeons.
But…
I hope in Diablo 4, there is no mandatory content.
Keyed Dungeons are interesting content if they are optional. As soon as you make them the best thing available to the player, then they will feel like a chore. Just like how Greater Rifts felt in Diablo 3.
Endless difficulty systems like Greater Rifts work best when they are optional content.
In fact, I hope to see something like Greater Rifts in Diablo 4 but only as an optional thing that a player can do, alongside multitude of other types of content and alongside different types of runs.
You say to keep sharing thoughts with you.
Please continue to share your thoughts—we want you to be involved in the Diablo IV design process. I personally believe in making the best decisions for the game based on the strongest design ideas, no matter where they come from. My biggest hope is for us to be able to constructively discuss and iterate on the topics that are most important to the community—so keep the feedback coming!
Hey if you read this letter and found it valuable then I don’t mind writing you a letter everytime you update us. 
Your signature
See you in Hell,
David Kim
Lead Systems Designer
The Diablo IV Team
