Official Patch Notes: Diablo IV Patch Notes — Diablo IV — Blizzard News
Blog Post for S14: Hunt the Death Cult in Season of Death Awakening — Diablo IV — Blizzard News
- Should be noted some changes are listed in the patch notes while others are listed in the blog post
Link to the official Streams
Twitch: Twitch
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VIcpKdsOk8
As per the norm, this is just a recap of what they’ve said and have gone over, highly recommend watching the full thing if you wish to dive deeper. You may notice I’ve organized it to their own respective categories versus how it was organized during the dev update.
Attempted a new format for the Q&A, let me know what you think.
Seasonal ONLY
Rifts:
- Decreased the time to stand in a tear.
- Better rewards all around.
- Difficulty of Rifts decreased for early levels.
- Seasonal Boss becomes a Lair Boss after beating the story line version
Crafting Mythic Quality Uniques:
The ‘Upgrade to Mythic’ recipe in the Horadric Cube now always creates an item for the same gear slot. (Changed from the PTR)
- I.e. - Slot in a Unique for gloves, hit the button, now turns into a random pair of Unique gloves of Mythic quality (may or may not be the same pair of gloves you put in the cube)
- Previously on the PTR it could be be turned into any random slot within a specific category
- Previously on the PTR it could be be turned into any random slot within a specific category
Obtaining Mythic Quality Uniques (Seasonal Only)
- New Seasonal Lair Boss has a chance to drop a Mythic Unique directly.
- Guaranteed 1 Mythic Unique through the Seasonal Rank Rewards
- Showed a cache for Rank 7 completion, there may be more for 8 and 9)
- You can craft Mythic Quality uniques in the cube using the new seasonal currency, but can only ever equip 1 of these type.
- You can equip as many dropped Mythic Quality Uniques as you want though.
Base Game Changes:
Regarding Mythic Quality Uniques
Both Seasonal and Eternal characters have a rare chance to find a Mythic Quality Unique whenever an ancestral unique would normally drop.
Solo Self Found:
- No grouping/trading
- Open world you can still fight alongside other people, but cannot group with them
- All instanced content is strictly solo (pits, IH, NMD, etc.)
- Dark Citadel disabled
- SSF share their own stash, currency, Paragon, and more only with other SSF characters on their account.
- Seasonal Only based mode, Eternal Realm will NOT be getting SSF
- Selecting SSF for that character is permanent for the duration of the season and cannot be changed. At the end of the season, SSF characters will revert to Eternal characters with the ability to group and trade again as normal.
War Plans
- Can now be synched in groups.
- Increased activity base experience improved with scaling improvements starting at T8 and higher.
- Helltide Activity is based off spending cinders (no longer opening chests).
- Spend 75 in Normal to Penitent, Spend 250 in T1 and above.
- New nodes for Escalation NMDs and Longer Helltides (750 cinders spent if I remember)
QoL:
- Added Chest & Objective Icons for NMDs
- Horadric Chests now appear on the minimap and overlay respectively.
- Obols Cap increased from 2500 to 25000
- Gold Cap increased to 999 Billion
- Gem Fragment Cap increased to 999 Million
- Gem Fragment drop rate has improved significantly in Torment tiers 10 and above.
- High Tier Gems now return the intended higher number of fragments.
- Added missing Boss Trophy items for Astaroth and Bartuc
- Echoing Hatred Keys now drop at a higher rate
- Loot rewards from Helltide Chests have been improved.
- Infernal Hordes - Gold Chests now grant more gold
- Charms now group together when sorted.
- Purveyor of Curiosities in Temis now grants Uniques when gambling
Item & Crafting Changes:
Cube:
- Unique Charms & Non-Ancestral Uniques can now support Unique Power Reroll within the cube to reroll the Unique Aspect/Power.
- Chromatic Tuning Prisms can now roll +All Resist.
- Previously it only allowed for singular resists
- +All Skills can now be added to an amulet via the Adept’s Tuning Prism
Uniques Of All Types:
- All Unique items now have 2 guaranteed affixes when dropped.
- Check patch notes for specifics
- Unique, Mythic Unique, and Iconic Mythic Items can now have affixes altered via Enchanting.
- Can only reroll 1 affix per item
- Added affixes from Enchanting, Transfiguration, and Tempering are always max rolls when added to a Mythic Unique.
- Chaotic and Focused Reroll Transfigurations have been removed for Unique and Mythic Unique items. (Changed from the PTR)
Talking Points - Philosophy Behind Changes
- The following is lightly summarized
What are some of the things we can expect to be different from the PTR to the Season release?
For those curious about the philosophy behind the changes to Uniques, Iconic Mythics, and the new Mythic Quality for Uniques
Click Me for Answers
Art Peshkov - Lead Systems Designer - We found that there are many items that could have been built, right, but there are a few that dominate the meta. Heir of Perdition right. So what we really wanted to do, was elevate all Unique items to a higher level of potential.
Charles Dunn - Senior Game Designer - A lot of the class specific uniques that maybe didn’t get a chance to shine, cause they were overshadowed by mythics (iconic mythics) in the same slot. Heir of Perdition took out the option for other helms. These other items didn’t see a lot of play because the mythics (iconic mythics) were just so much better. We’re excited that the new Mythic Quality Uniques will be able to compete with the Iconic Mythics.
Art Peshkov - Learnings from the PTR, biggest thing we wanted to address is the fixed affix count and identity of Unique items. We heard a lot of feedback that unique items didn’t have an identity anymore. Also randomness with crafting outcomes and trying to target specific slots. We wanted to refine this loop and make it better.
So the first change we made was making Unique items have 2 fixed affixes. We also decided it was healthier for the game to allow for Enchanting on these items instead of ‘Focused’ and ‘Chaotic Rerolling’ through the cube. For Seasonal Crafting a Mythic Quality Unique we updated it so you can target these items by item slot. So if you put in a 1 handed weapon you’ll get a 1 handed weapon Mythic, put in a ring, you get a mythic ring, etc.
What kind of class balancing can we expect this season?
Click Me For Answers
Charles Dunn - Senior Game Designer - With the launch of LoH a few months back, we had massive overhauls to all the classes, there’s so many new builds and possibilities that have come out. “We think players have really only kind of scratched the surface of some of the builds that are out there and possible to make.” Part of that is because some of the numeric tuning, maybe a build wasn’t quite there numerically, the numbers weren’t good enough, so we really took a pass to buff up a lot of those underperforming buildings that maybe didn’t get a chance to go into the limelight.
On the other hand we looked at some of the outliers that were maybe a little too high, a little too strong, and they ended up kind of making players feel like you were playing it wrong if you weren’t playing these builds. When something is just so much better than the other options it kind of crowds out those other options. Even though we want you to be able to play the wide variety of builds that are possible in the class.
We really were focused on making sure that you’re able to explore a bit more of the depth that the updated skill trees really offer.
Art Peshkov - Lead Systems Designer - As far as overall class balance, we believe the game is best when there’s room for everybody to grow and push. When there are these outlier builds it makes the landscape harder to evaluate for everybody else.
Charles Dunn - Senior Game Designer - Our focus this season is making sure there is a bit more parity, and then that will in turn lead to a bigger build variety of options of what you can play and be competitive with every other build.
Q&A:
Will drop rates be increased for Solo Self Found?
Drop rates are not increased in SSF mode.
Are there any plans for account wide War Plans?
We hear you on the feedback for per character War Plans. We are investigating making War Plans per partition (similar to paragon points), nothing concrete yet, will talk about it later.
Will we be able to make custom War Plans instead of being forced to run activities we might not be interested in?
We are looking at other ways to customize or have some agency over your war plans (in regards to picking your own activities). Nothing specific at this time, but we are looking at it.
Can you temper on a Mythic Roll Greater Affix or only on a max roll?
Whatever you do to an Mythic Quality Unique the outcome of the Affix will always be maxed rolled (assuming it doesn’t hit GA of course). If you add Temper, and it does not roll a GA, the temper will be maxed rolled. If you enchant it’ll be a maxed roll, if you
When you enchant, it’s value will be maxed rolled.
Are the OG Mythics (Iconic Mythics) receiving a nerf or staying the same for this season?
Some have been reduced in power level, such as the Heir of Perdition which has been dominating the meta. Our philosophy here, because they are now mythic uniques like anything else, we try to balance them at approximately the same power level as other uniques when they hit the mythic version. So the idea is that after the adjustments, something like Heir of Perdition should be comparable to other helm uniques that are also at that mythic power level. So that’s our philosophy.
Prior mythics should have been stronger, they were rare, they were stronger, higher rarity. That’s not the case, now they will be brought down to the same power level as other uniques.
Since Tower and LB are now officially releasing. How often will we have balance updates to the tower throughout the season, and what might the cadence be for bug fixes for the tower?
We do want to really respect the time that players invest into their builds. If we’re going to launch the season, and there or may not be some balance issues, we want to make sure that any adjustments we make doesn’t invalidate somebody’s build that they invested a lot of time into.
We’ll still fix the really high, really critical, oh my gosh you’re breaking the game. But in terms of like, oh this is maybe a little stronger than intended, as a general philosophy we’re going to let that ride out. Because we know players have invested time into making that build and collecting those items, so we want to respect that.
Can we expect to get an activity tree (war plans) for the open world that doesn’t involve Helltides? Maybe can we get some love for Cellars?
We can definitely investigate new trees with new content. Right now we’re looking at ways to enhance War Plans as a feature itself rather than specific existing activities, but it’s always a possibility. Plenty of room for future design space.
Is there any chance to be allowed to import loot filters or to add them to our account via Bnet?
I think that would be something we can definitely look into. I know that would be a good QoL to look into for future updates for sure.
If you’re playing Solo Self Found, is not being able to be in a party, does that apply to the tower as well, or is everything solo except for world events?
You are not allowed to be in a party at all, period. You can find other people running around the world, if you go to a world event or legion event subzone, you’ll see other players there, you can engage in doing the activity, but you cannot party, period.