Future Direction of D4

PC General Discussion
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This is my first time posting here, and I’m a bit nervous—but here goes nothing. I initially tried to give feedback in-game, but the character limit was far too restrictive. So, I’m hoping someone from Blizzard will see this and pass it along. I spent about two hours putting together my thoughts, which ended up filling five pages in a Google Doc. I’d love to hear any suggestions, whether you like what I’ve come up with or not.

  • Loot Filter

    • Something similar to Last Epoch’s would be amazing so we could create our own in depth filters in-game or import/export to share with friends all from within the game itself
    • If something even easier to understand needs to be done then add a couple boxes to tick in the in-game settings that allow us to:
      • Only show ancestral legendaries, all uniques and legendaries that have aspects/aspect levels that we have not collected
      • Only show ancestral legendaries and all uniques

  • Endgame

    • The Pit
      • Gameplay for the pit is pretty solid as is right now, what we really need is leaderboards for them (one for each class, one for overall, and one for 2, 3, and 4 player parties)
      • Add a 6th glyph power that unlocks once 5 glyphs have been upgraded to level 100
        • This power would be class specific and would be able to be leveled to level 200. Once it reaches level 150 doing a pit level 150 would only have a 5-10% chance of upgrading for the last 50 levels
          • This would give an additional reward and something to work toward after leveling your main glyphs to 100.
    • Nightmare Dungeon
      • In my opinion Nightmare Dungeons need to be the main source of getting Masterworking materials, but give us some ways to upgrade keys (similar to juicing in PoE) this would give us a way to make the keys harder and also increase the amount of awarded Masterworking materials
        • My idea for this would be to use either gold or a mixture of the Stock Goods and Sigil Powder, or better yet repurposing the Khazra Horns for this
        • I think there should be 5 levels to upgrading (add more if needed):
          • Level 1 - Base Key
          • Level 2 - 10% more health, damage, and number of enemies and increases Masterworking Material drops by 15%
          • Level 3 - 15% more health, damage, and number of enemies and increases Masterworking Material drops by 20%
          • Level 4 - 20% more health, damage, and number of enemies and increases Masterworking Material drops by 25%
          • Level 5 - 25% more health, damage, and number of enemies and increases Masterworking Material drops by 30%
    • Helltide
      • Helltide should be the best way to farm mass amounts of gear, the last two seasons there wasn’t really a reason to farm them so increasing the amount of gear from chests in Helltide should at least give us a reason to do it again.
      • Bring back the potions that increase the level of monsters in Helltide, adding difficulty and monster density as an optional potion would be great
    • Infernal Hordes
      • Keep the Hordes as they are, but adding a chest that gives Boss Summoning Materials could make it the best way of farming Boss Summoning Materials (while still giving us an option get smaller amounts of gold, masterworking materials, and gear then the End Game options)
      • Remove Spires (they just aren’t fun)
    • Kurast Undercity
      • Kurast Undercity should be by far the most efficient way to farm any materials (similar to how it is now), however the keys for it should be much rarer, to give players a reason to do the other events for material farming
        • This would make getting a Undercity key much more fun and exciting when it happens
    • Tree of Whispers
      • Keep this as the best way to get gold (as it is now)
      • Whispers are pretty good as they are now especially with Headhunts
      • Add a Boss summoning cache as an option to pick from
      • The only thing I think absolutely needs to be changed is the cap on Grim Favors, just allow us to obtain as many as we want and then turn them in 10 at a time for rewards
        • Having to stop and teleport back to the Tree or mounting up mid session and running to look for a Raven just takes away from the flow of the game and just isn’t fun
    • Ubers
      • Keep T1-T4 Ubers as they are now (they are fine as is)
      • Add an option to fight them on a difficulty level that is similar to the difficulty of Lilith for each Uber (only on T4)
        • Make it cost 2-3 times the amount of Summoning Materials
        • They shouldn’t have an increased chance to drop anything
        • Defeating each one the first time should drop a Resplendent Spark just like Lilith
        • Defeating them on this difficulty again would just be for the fun of the difficulty
    • World Bosses
      • Increase the chance of World Bosses to drop Unique mount and mount armor (add more drops as well) options with them being on such a long timer them being the best option of farming anything would just be unfun
    • Dark Citadel
      • Give us the option to do this solo, there are players out there that like to do Solo Self Found and having this only being a multiplayer option just makes it impossible for those of us that like this way of playing the game to even do this

  • Seasons

    • Keep the Season 7 mechanics (it’s an amazing seasonal mechanic)
      • Keep the Witch Powers just tune them down since it won’t be the main seasonal event
        • Either reduce by ~50% the amount of Restless Rot that is needed to upgrade everything, or reduce the max level of the regular witch powers to 10 (this would reduce their power and the amount of Restless Rot needed all at once).
      • Keep the Headhunts (more fun things to do is always great) make Headhunts the way to farm Restless Rot to upgrade the powers).
    • Don’t be afraid to do more fun and weird things, not all seasons need to be reputations with an Open World event to farm.
    • Season Theme Ideas (a few of the ones I’ve thought of)
      • The Cursed Sigil
        • Concept: A mysterious, pulsating sigil appears in the skies above Sanctuary, warping reality and infusing regions with dark magic.
        • Event Mechanics:
          • Corruption Zones: Specific areas become “cursed,” spawning enhanced enemy types and environmental hazards.
          • Purification Quests: Players must locate and cleanse cursed altars scattered throughout the region before the sigil’s influence overwhelms the land.
          • Timed Challenges: Success is measured by how quickly and thoroughly the corruption is lifted.
        • Rewards:
          • Cosmetic items that visually represent the purification process.
      • Trials of the Damned
        • Concept: A demonic gauntlet emerges—an ever-shifting arena where only the most resilient souls can prevail.
        • Event Mechanics:
          • Solo or Co-op Gauntlets: Players face a series of increasingly difficult waves of monsters and environmental hazards.
          • Leaderboard Challenges: Time-based or score-based challenges that track individual and group performance.
          • Scaling Difficulty: As players progress, new mechanics (like cursed minions or trap-laden corridors) are introduced.
        • Rewards:
          • Unique seasonal titles, banners, and cosmetic effects.
          • Powerful relics that offer a risk/reward dynamic in future runs
      • The Sin-Eater’s Feast
        • Concept: An ancient, spectral entity known as the Sin-Eater roams the land, consuming the souls of demons to sate its insatiable hunger—and offering power in return.
        • Event Mechanics:
          • Soul Harvesting: Players collect “corrupted souls” from fallen enemies during special events.
          • Mini-Boss Encounters: Occasional clashes with manifestations of the Sin-Eater that offer high rewards if defeated.
          • Risk vs. Reward: The more corrupted souls you have unclaimed increases damage done by X%, increases damage taken by X(2)% or X(3)%, and movement speed increased by X% (can go above the movement speed cap of 200% to 225%) you must balance the risk of losing between half and all of your corrupted souls (by dying) and the reward of increased damage and movement speed for quicker farming
        • Rewards:
          • Exclusive weapon enchantments and gear modifications that change the way players approach combat.
          • Temporary buffs that alter gameplay mechanics, providing strategic depth.

  • Seasonal Events

    • I think taking a page out of World of Warcraft’s book would be a great idea
      • Add some relatively rare (something like 1 in 5 chances) bosses that could spawn in Nightmare dungeons that drop currency that we could save up to buy themed items from a vendor (mount armors, trophies, seasonal pets)
      • Have the world bosses replaced by 1-2 themed world bosses (Krampus, Giant Pumpkin, Rabbit, etc…)
        • Have a ~10-25% chance to drop a mount based on the seasonal event (sleigh for Christmas, broomstick for Halloween, mount based on each lunar new year,etc…)
      • Add open world events as well
        • Dragon egg hunt (during easter)
        • Unique spawning vendors that show up at the taverns during halloween
          • They could sell temporary costume transmogs that can only be worn from October 25th to November 5th or something
      • Revamp the current Reputation system for Seasonal Events (10-15 rewards max)
        • Make them significant and include cosmetics and unique mounts

  • Gameplay

    • Add more exciting aspects and uniques (here is just a few of my thoughts)
      • Barbarian
        • All Healing Received increases are converted to Fury per Second (could allow for builds that could be built around constantly casting Whirlwind)
      • Druid
        • More things that make staying in human form an option later in the Endgame (it doesn’t have to be amazingly strong but having the option is good for build diversity)
      • Necromancer
        • Unique that after using your Ultimate (or whatever skill) converts all Skeletal Warriors to Skeletal mages for X amount of time, during that time Skeletal Mages do X increased damage but also drain X amount of health from the player until they return to Warriors
      • Rogue
        • Casting Flurry causes a shadow clone to dance around enemies that were damaged which does X amount of extra damage to them and blinds them for X time
      • Sorcerer
        • Spells that pass through Firewall also do X amount of burning damage over time, enemies that are burning do X amount less damage to the player and take X amount of increased damage from the player
      • Spiritborn
        • Using your Ultimate skill summons another random Ultimate summon but only does X% of their normal damage

  • Mercenaries

    • Have them stay at level 10 once you have leveled them once (similar to how renown and alters were changed to)

  • Cosmetic Rewards

    • There needs to be more cool options that can be farmed throughout the game, the store has plenty of amazing cosmetics but add more in the game for people to farm for, this will give people a reason to keep playing even after they have finished for the season.
3 Likes
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i like all these idea’s

i would like undercity tokens to be tradeable though.

sorc need more love then firewall burn… its already in the game infact…

sorc need a unique glove that changes frozen orb to alternate elements and apply all cold/frozen/chill bonuses to all elements. so you can get fire damage frozen orb to proc and it apply burn or lightning version of orb was proc’d and it stuns ect, and it scales all versions of the either random element it chooses or go in order through a rotation (bonus if it always matches tal’rash ring) so you dont loose damage when it rolls to lightning with no points into any lightning perks

  1. but since there’s already alot of frozen orb stuff, maybe make a ice shards with this idea instead ???

and the world boss having a increased loot pool for cosmetics that you havent unlocked yet (it already has mount armors for each type) would be cool, but also apply this to legions also and a small rate then world boss. i don’t ever go to legions since season 3 except for battle pass checkoffs, they became obsolete.

i would like to also allow us to “reset” strongholds, only after we have beaten them once, then scales the stronghold area’s to the party leaders paragon (giving a viable xp grind area outside PITs post 240 paragon, just so we can add some options at end game)

keeping witch powers would be great, but wouldnt scale well with new seasonal power creep. i would like the “gems” to stay. the combo armor/resist at grand level. just add the “headhunters” to random undercity tokens. or other areas of the game thats low activity

i dont agree with making citadel solo. its a pain X10 to co-op every once in a while with some random fresh timers, they dont get on voice, they dont listen when told where to stand, they die alot and often just leave the party before finishing all the wings… it would be nice to add incentives to stay GROUPed for ALL 3 wings with same people. nudging people to learn the fun mechanics that this content has to offer

the stronger version of ubers for sparks is a good idea, its kind of a roll back system as was in the game till last season…i would like us to fight the other STORY bosses more in the “skip the campaign” settings… so many cool fights we only ever get to fight once… plus giving them the more loot pools to spread all these new unique out over

and infernal hordes need spires removed agreed, but also the Mass’s need to spawn mobs and if not killed in 10 seconds they spawn the Mass lords. so you dont need to kill them if your going for a min/max aether collect run and solo play in there isnt ruined if your using a low mobility hero.

i really want to see NMDs get “stronger” versions if it is going to be the masterwork material farming thing… its boring late late game

1 Like
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I can dig it, OP. I really like the 6th class-glyph unlock idea too. We just need content challenging enough (or builds tuned lower) to need something along these lines. Still, would be cool anyway.

I also really dig the seasonal event ideas. One can only hope Blizzard takes note.

1 Like
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I agree, the game has tons of potential they just need to put some more creativity and work behind it. I even sent the link to my google doc to Adam Fletcher on Discord so here’s to hoping they notice and at least think about some of it.

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I mostly disagree with the whole post, it’s far too convenient. I’m quite sick of doing hundred of Pits, and I don’t want to do the Infernal Hordes anymore as too repetitive.
I think this game needs a serious content update, to make events less repetitive (and so less boring).

  • Infernal Hordes should have a bigger map, and a much darker hell atmosphere (like the D1 and D2 hell), and no more Soulspire.
  • Helltides are fine though, probably the best event.
  • Nightmare Dungeon should give much more obdusite, to be a good alternative to Infernal Hordes, maybe add some scrolls to improve a Nightmare Dungeon.
  • The Pit, I’m quite sick of it, as we must do it to improve our damage. And it doesn’t scale well for every classes. Some will struggle around Pit 60. And I don’t want to do 400 pits to have level 100 with 4 glyphes (or 800 pits for a level 200 as proposed). Not to mention it will multiply with the number of classes you play. We should have an alternative to improve the paragon glyph.

That’s my two cents.

2 Likes
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Not going to lie, I completely forgot Legion Events even existed, I don’t think I’ve done them since season 3 as well now that about it. I also really like the idea of resetting Strongholds as an optional xp farm.

I still think we should still get a solo version of the Citadel though. They could make it give more or better rewards for grouping, but in my opinion locking that gameplay behind group only content really hurts those players that just don’t enjoy group play. I raided in World of Warcraft in the top for 15 years (and in the top 200 for my last few years playing the game) and I really loved it but I’m past that part of my life and I’d really love the chance to just be able to jump in D4 and give it a shot on my own time without having to rely on others like any other part of the game.

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