On my birthday, there was a Discord Dev Q&A session where they went into a little more depth about the upcoming changes/features, decisions and a few surprising future pieces. Because of the new information, I felt some of it was worth writing down and reflecting upon.
Skill Tree Rework
With the updated skill tree, the team discussed a few key ideas here which practically reflected my vision of how the skill tree should operate. One of the most interesting pieces was how many passives were getting removed or mostly reworked. Also, the big key passives you acquire at the end of the current skill tree will be completely removed. The idea here is to avoid unclear mathematical bonuses that have little actual effect on skills or just general flat numbers and allow players to fine tune how the skills themselves function. The example they’ve given is the reworked Hydra skill where you can see explosions, higher attack rates and converting the hydra from fire to frost damage. One person mentioned that this aligned closer to the Diablo 3 runes for skills except that you still will have a large number of points to adjust the numbers for these skills. Some passives will remain as long as there’s some degree of meaningful adjustments that can be made but by in large, almost all of these nodes will probably see massive adjustments.
Instead, the power will be spread out more as in the Paragon board and itemization. They did not mention any specifics on how or if the Paragon system will be adjusted but I’m guessing that’s where another major chunk of power increase will be derived. But as I stated in previous blogs, this helps immensely to clarify the type of build a person wants as well as the way one can invest their skills and gear. In turn, I’m truly hoping to see a larger diversity of builds appearing on launch.
Talismans and Set Bonuses
Now that we have a clearer view of how Talismans, Charms and Set bonuses will operate, they explained more on the theory behind set bonuses and how they wanted to bring these ideas into the expansion in comparison to Diablo 3. The way the team described the change vs Diablo 3’s sets was to avoid the tension in gear slots with being forced into using a set. Also, the team did not want to add ridiculous multipliers to the set bonuses in the way the Diablo 3 sets had done. Instead, sets for Diablo 4 will be additional types of customization for a character rather than mere damage boost. They provided the concrete example of allowing Druids to have Bear companions (I’m not sure if this replaces a Druid’s Wolf companions but this is a good example of a visual customization). Another example is that unlike Diablo 3’s armor sets, these Charm sets won’t push players into using a 5 or 6 set bonus; instead, we can mix and match doing things like having three 2 set bonuses, which sounds really cool. Lastly, they added that another item called a Seal which plays into the set bonuses.
Thematically, I think this implementation of Charms is actually kinda nifty. I was listening to Kripparian earlier talk about one of the worst Diablo 2 features and he mentioned how Charms were poorly managed in terms of ones inventory. And the issue there mostly is the tetris juggling one must perform in order to handle their inventory. But with Charms in Diablo 4 receiving it’s own interface through the Talisman mechanism, we will be getting a dedicated mechanism to use Charms. And Charms will not be just for sets but be of any rarity, which means you can have additional items to help improve your character. After hearing the philosophy behind these new Charms, I am very intrigued and look forward to using them. This definitely sounds like a net positive in the game while trying to retain both the flavors of Diablo 2 and 3 without being too disruptive and forcing players down a narrow funnel for playing the game.
War Plans
There was a little more provided on this feature where the main piece was how these skill trees would grow as you level them up. This does make me curious given the samples shown on the main Spotlight video where these “trees” did seem limited in size/scope. And as I mentioned in a previous blog, I really wanted to see difficulty scaled through War Plans as it can be the way one not only gains agency for their end game but being able to make it as difficult as they’d want. And if this does become the “how”, I hope that the tree itself can be extended very far with numerous mods that allow us to challenge ourselves and make the game more interesting.
Loot Filter and Crafting Materials
One of the hot topics on Reddit discussed how the loot filter did not provide an auto-salvage mechanism as well as how the items still appeared grayed out. With regards to the grayed out items, it sounds like the sample video was a work in progress but items will actually be hidden on release with the loot filter. However, the interesting tidbit came around the topic of item salvaging. Currently, players pick up a ton of gear and probably salvage the bulk of it. Most of it goes into a meaningless bucket for crafting and over time, we end up caring less because the amount becomes negligible due to the sheer amount of material.
But the developers want this idea to change by changing the purpose behind drops to be something people can use rather than just salvage for crafting materials. In turn, there will be other means for obtaining crafting materials while gear won’t be used as much for crafting except maybe at the early stages. This sounds really good because of how picking up most items feel useless and that it feels as though they want to have a different means for obtaining crafting materials. But that makes sense given how the newer dungeon affixes or Inferno Hordes rewards have crafting materials (as well as some other scenarios). And as I mentioned, we really need ways to obtain things and give meaning behind activities.
Solo Self Found Mode
One big reveal in this session was the mention of a Solo Self Found mode. This is one thing a portion of the player base want and it sounds like it’s in the works. The problem of not being able to implement it immediately is figuring out how it’s going to fit in the existing system. For instance, will an SSF person be the only person in a world boss fight? Will there be enough drops available to compensate for a more tedious mode? So this won’t be seen for the expansion’s release but might turn out at some point.
Rebirth
The concept of a Rebirth is one Diablo 3 players frequently post about. While internal discussions are happening, it’s not on the official radar. But they do recognize the fact that at the very least, the idea of recreating a new character each season can be tedious especially when we only have 14 or 16 slots available.
Power Progression
I talked about the Skill Tree rework as part of altering the power progression for players. Part of that power progression will involve crafting. The concrete piece discussed was Transfiguration. I noticed it was an ability in the updated Horadric Cube sharing a similar color to Chaos Powers/armor and Sanctification. The developers talked about how Transfiguration will resemble Sanctification. I imagine that part of the way Transfiguration will work is to allow players to apply at least some sort of Legendary power to their items. I talked about the issue of Aspect bloat or Mythics competing for gear slots in the current paradigm. If we get a better version of Sactification that allows us to apply Legendary effects (i.e. aspects, powers) to our gear with a certain currency type, then it will help reduce the feeling of wasted Aspect bloat as well as finding a solution for gear that compete for spots (e.g. Shako vs Loyalty’s Mantle). If we get that, then people won’t have to cry about bringing back Sanctification from a past season (as an example).
And while touching on the subject of Aspects, people did ask whether or not Aspects will remain as a method for power progression. They still will be around just as Uniques. But they want Uniques that help enable builds rather than act as a stat stick or raw modifier. Now, I have to say if they stay true to their word, I have to wonder how that will be implemented because of the vast number of Uniques introduced in the game. Gear in general will see modifications as a result partly from the updated skill tree. Like if there were specific passive skills that a piece of gear would have, then there’s a good chance that they’ll probably get removed as a result of the pruning. But as an example, how would something like a Rod of Kepeleke be handled? Will it stay the same? Or will we a see a new Unique emerge that is more focused on enhancing a real skill?
Next, there was mention for a Torment 5 (at least). I know the idea of increased Torment levels has been a mixed bag. In my case, I’m not really for it just because War Plans seem like the tool to handle end game and difficulty. So what will Torment mean? More aggressive AI? I think people are generally weary for increased Torments because most people associate the idea with more damage/more health sponges.
Final Thoughts
Now, that more has been revealed, I have more confidence about the expansion at least in terms of the updated systems. The big picture mostly sounds like the move towards the right direction. And I did mention the things that I would like to see worked on. In the meantime, I am excited to give all this a try once it comes out. Everything should be new and I’m kinda hoping no new guides will be provided so we can all enjoy this new world from scratch in an updated discovery phase.
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