Yesterday, Blizzard livestreamed their Diablo 30th Anniversary Spotlight where they showed updates to three of their major games in Diablo 2: Resurrected, Diablo:Immortal and Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred. Diablo 2 probably received the biggest noteworthy thing where they released a new DLC that included some end game components, QoL updates and a new class: the Warlock. If anything though, the Warlock became a cross game theme for Diablo in that all three games received a similar class update. While I am eventually interested in giving the Warlock a try in Diablo 2, the focus on this post will be on the Lord of Hatred details.
New Class Reveal: Warlock
For the last week or so, during the PTR as well as someone in China, someone data mined the new class or leaked it, which turned out to be the Warlock. Some said that the PTR itself showed the class unveiled without being named. Officially, Blizzard has released the second major class to the expansion with a high quality video, illustrating this new class. In contrast to the already released Paladin, the Warlock thematically serves a dark force where they take command of demons and use them to their advantage.
Along with this reveal, another source had demonstrated (by accident) an actual playthrough sampling of some of the new powers being offered in the Warlock. Most of leak was shutdown but I did manage to get a peak of the Warlock in action. The high level TLDR; is that the Warlock functions similarly to the one from World of Warcraft. It will be heavily minion based but the Warlock can take control over other Demons and gain their powers. One thing I saw for instance was the Warlock transforming into a Demon himself, which reminds me of one of the Mist of Pandaria builds (Demonology?). Also, fire is a heavily used element for this class. I will say that the video showed a variety of distinct play styles that honestly look pretty damn cool to try so I am very eager for this class to be released. Blizzard did mention that a more in depth talk will happen on March 5th to discuss this class.
New Zone: Skovos
The spotlight gave a nice preview of the Skovos islands. They mentioned that it was inspired by Mediterranean landscape with the mountains, waters, etc. From what I heard in general, this new area is supposed to be quite large so I’m hoping that it exceeds what we received in Vessel of Hatred. They mentioned the city of Temis, which will be the new major hub in this region. At least from what I’ve seen, it looks like King’s Landing and a little bit of Braavos (heck maybe that’s why they sound similar). There should be more lore to uncover in this region.
End Game: War Plans
So here’s where things get interesting for me. The idea here is that there a player will choose five activities from the pool of Inferno Hordes, Lair Bosses, Undercity, Helltides, the Pit and Nightmare Dungeons in a “playlist” type of manner. With that you can customize how these things interplay such as spawning a Butcher during a Pit run or substituting Duriel instead of the Blood Maiden in Helltides. They provide a unique skill tree to modify how these activities work.
Let me pause here to interject my thoughts. The thing this skill tree portion reminds me of is Path of Exile’s map tree. I’ve never had the opportunity to try the Path of Exile later end game with the integration of the map tree but I did think it was a brilliant way of customizing ones experience on top of the way modifiers worked in maps or general activities. I don’t think this skill tree is nearly as deep as Path of Exile’s but I think the choices will carry more impact per node chosen. I haven’t seen a great deal of detail for these trees but I do think they look a little thin. But it is one of those things that is a start. I still think that we still should get more modifiers such as the stuff we saw from Mindcages, Seething Opals and Rootholds. Again, I need to get a pass at these to really judge.
The other concern I have is that while they do modify the existing activities in the current game, they don’t introduce any actual new activities for this part of the end game. There is the Echoing Hatred, but that is a side thing that I’ll talk about next. I did mention that the current content is still shallow and repetitive. While we’ll see more layouts because of the new zone (especially for Helltides and Nightmare Dungeons), the actual content itself doesn’t change much. It’s just more modifiers with the existing stuff. I still hope to see the eventual inclusion of older seasonal content like Vampire Zones, S3’s dungeons, etc. just to change the activity type up and possibly have some additional powers and customization for our characters through other mechanisms that aren’t just for a single season but permanent additions to the game. Since War Plans introduces a skill tree to beef up the difficulty, I don’t see why it’s unreasonable not to unleash more power creep because the difficulty can be bolted on with more modifiers in the War Plan skill tree mechanism.
Either way, this still is a good start and I hope they can further evolve this new skill tree with more nodes to add more difficulty and rewards (a reward can even be these old season powers which would be awesome to farm).
New End Game Activity: Echoing Hatred
They describe this new activity as a very rare key to unlock this feature. This is described as a gauntlet type of activity where the difficulty escalates as you complete waves. So it’s similar to Echoing Nightmares from Diablo 3 except that they don’t drop a Whisper of Atonement, which was used to help ancient augment gear in Diablo 3. Naturally, the rewards are meant to be better as you survive waves and eventually you can be overwhelmed. Bosses can be tossed at you as well and there’s four Pylons in each corner from the demo they showed.
So for me at least, I’m not entirely impressed by this feature because it’s just another gauntlet type of activity. We’ve already received numerous similar activities where you’re in a single location and just defeat waves of monsters. While I can appreciate another end game mode, there’s really nothing creative about the experience. Many people still are joking that this is just Diablo 3.5 because they’re simply importing all the main features over. I think they still need different activities that doesn’t depend on some sort of time based, wave/gauntlet scenario. But I suppose this is still better than PVP and the failed Raid.
System Update: Skill Trees
I had to give it to the speaker in owning up to the skill twig meme. But the main thing here is the revision of how Skill Trees will operate in Lord of Hatred. The best way I can describe the new Skill Trees is what I had been ranting/blogging about for quite a while in how Skill Trees, the Paragon Boards, Aspects, Masterworking, etc. all needed to be distinct. This Skill Tree revision look really good and is a great start for where I think the game needed to move towards in terms of how the idea of skills should take shape. The main idea here is giving identity to a build that favors your play style. The examples they provided was changing the Hydra type to Frost or improving the attack speed at the expense of uptime. Or causing something to blow up as a result of the Hydra shooting a fireball at something. I have said that the issue was that the game had gone too much into numbers rather than visuals or feeling and that the Skill Tree made no sense or differentiated itself much from the Paragon board. So this is something I’m extremely excited to see in action.
That said, there wasn’t any mention to how Paragon Boards are affected. I feel that most people are unhappy with them because they’re confusing and a mess, requiring a build guide to enter in quite frequently nonsensical choices such as someone using some frost legendary node when they’re a fire based sorcerer. Most of that theorycrafting to me was more like bugcrafting and taking advantage of poorly conceived interactions between gear and skills. Then the part with numerous nodes that just filled in some mathematical formula to conditional unlock other things to me is frustratingly intuitive. I mentioned that I truly despise the current Paragon Board because it really isn’t clear and it’s an utter pain to deal with. So maybe by the next expansion, they’ll change how the Paragon Board works. The one thing I believe is that with these new Skill Tree changes, the Paragon Board and Glyphs should be the thing that scales your skills per level. I would prefer ditching all the weird resistance, life, attribute, etc. type of nodes completely and just connect these boards to specific skill sections that we can put our points into as well as using Glyphs to multiple the base effect in a certain manner. But that would take considerable change even though it would streamline how a build operates much better rather than compete against the mess known as the Path of Exile skill wheel.
At any rate, the other benefit of this revamp is that the current meta will die and everyone will need a new build guide to figure out how this new system will work with our current gear as well as some new itemization being introduced here.
New Itemization: Talisman, Charms and Set Charms
Similar to Runes in Vessel of Hatred, this feature gets unlocked through the campaign. There are seven slots and are activated through placing the charm inside the talisman. Charms can be of any rarity but they are introducing the idea of set charms which will have bonuses depending on how many combinations are connected. These will function like armor sets from Diablo 3 and from the video, it does look as though they will have a similar structure with three bonuses and a few affixes associated. They are saying that set charms are going to be the most powerful of the group (which means they’ll probably be pretty rare).
From what I heard, the dev team wanted to keep the idea of sets in the game. However, since the current itemization system would prevent the use of sets, adding this Talisman/Charm feature would be the workaround. I suppose that you still will need the normal aspects and uniques but these set charms are going to funnel you towards a group of skills. I’m very mixed on this because of how rigid builds became in Diablo 3. I guess in a way, it won’t be as bad necessarily because you have to still farm normal gear as well as these charms and a lot of builds end up becoming defined by guides. But it does seem to move the direction of the game into a stricter play style because of how Talismans and Set Charms will be the power base. Also, I can’t tell at this stage how influential or necessary Set Charms will become due to the different manner in which Diablo 3 scaled their difficulty to the current Diablo 4 setup. Like will it be necessary to have a full five+ set bonus of charms to enter Torment 4?
The really problem with armor sets in Diablo 3 was that the multipliers in the 3rd bonus were utterly ridiculous but necessary as one voyaged into the end game. But there were more slots of gear with other support pieces to really punch through the high end difficulty. Next, what will this mean for other existing things like Mythics? Will they become less relevant? So this is another thing we’ll need to see. Perhaps, the real net use will be seen in Echoing Hatred runs where the power creep is necessary.
Lastly, one other question I have to wonder is how many of these set bonuses will be available? Will these be conceived by the developers or randomly generated? I’m sure that they will mostly likely be handcrafted by the developers to prevent bugs from occurring. But the issue is that we will beholden to their resource capacity and might only see a limited number of these sets fleshed out. I think if Charms and set bonuses were randomly generated, while frustrating, they could be more interesting especially as a new type of item hunt (i.e. getting the right combos of sets from a large pool)
Crafting: Horadric Cube
Besides the revamped Skill Trees, the Horadric Cube is the other thing I’m really looking forward to. Just from the preview, I can see Transmutation and Item crafting. A simple example is adding an affix to an item. Also, they have the Kanai’s Cube feature of upgrading items to legendaries and uniques. Unfortunately, I don’t see the ability to assign a legendary ability the same way as Kanai’s Cube. While Talismans and Charms will add more properties and additional things to look as an item hunt, we still will have Aspect and Unique bloat. If we see the return of Chaos Armor and Sanctification just as-is, then we won’t need the ability to assign additional legendary abilities. I do see that there’s a “Transfigure Item” but that’s still underwarps. I am hoping that given the color, it takes the form of Sanctification (meaning allowing one to add a legendary power similar to Sanctification) but we’ll have to see what that becomes.
Quality of Life Update: Loot Filter
Pretty much what many other games have introduced. At least for this demo, they “grayed” out the unwanted items which to me doesn’t really filter anything out. So I’m hoping you can completely hide unwanted items. Also, compared to the loot filter introduced in today’s Diablo 2 warlock DLC launch, there’s no import type of thing. So I’m hoping that they do add at least a few ways we can visual things better (especially something such as Runes which should get a beam color no matter the rarity).
A Further Announcement at Blizzcon?
They did an (un)funny bit at the end of the main spotlight stream where they pretended the cameras weren’t rolling and joked about a reveal at Blizzcon. No one is certain what this reveal is, although some people have mentioned about a port to different platforms or an enhanced version of the original Diablo 1 (which is weird because they already did something like that as an event in Diablo 3). The only thing we know is that supposedly it’ll blow our mind. Because it will be at Blizzcon, I’m sure that this thing should be huge and Diablo related. But Blizzcon won’t happen until Sept 12-13 this year. As we’re already getting this expansion for Diablo 4, I’m guessing this announcement will be a different game or maybe an update. The only game that pretty much is on life support though is Diablo 3. As most of those features are trickling into Diablo 4, I don’t think we’ll see anymore updates to that game again (until we get a nostalgia remake). What I’d prefer is just more expansion releases to Diablo 4 or even minor DLCs that aren’t expensive.
Post Spotlight Thoughts
For the most part, everything announced here already was mentioned briefly on the expansion page with slightly more depth as well as the official revelation of the Warlock class. The only thing missing was Fishing but I’m guessing that’s going to be such a minor component in the expansion it wasn’t worth talking about (and certainly won’t be the massive unveiling at Blizzcon). That said, I think this preview looks good so far. I wish more systems were tacked on, modified or removed but the vast majority of the features here look decent. Again, I’m mostly excited for the Skill Tree revamp and Horadric Cube. The Warlock class looks decent and will most likely be insanely powerful on launch. War Plans looks a little thin based on the skill tree shown but it’s still a step in the right direction with the capacity to improve as the game evolves.
I didn’t really care for Echoing Hatred nor Talisman/Charms. Echoing Hatred is just another wave gauntlet system and I’m wary of Sets. While they were fine for Diablo 3 as a partial fix to the poor itemization from the initial Diablo 3 launch, they did hurt build diversity in the long term because of how rigid the skills were to be used and the fact that there were so few sets. Many of those sets simply tried to do too much or got nerfed when people attempted to make them more interesting through combining their bonuses with other set bonuses. At least for this version, you won’t be locked into the armor and weapons used from what it seems and have a new item hunt with charms. So the item hunt portion I do like. We have yet to determine how detrimental the dependence on these bonuses will be though. For me, I don’t want the odd conditional usage that has been present that caused Diablo 4 to contain a badly designed item affix system. If these sets are random, then I actually won’t mind as much.
Now, let me lay down things that weren’t shown that need to be addressed (besides fishing). I have stated the missing pieces that should be prioritized especially in seeing how things will change with the expansion as we get closer to launch.
- Clans – Again, I really want Clans to be utilized better. Considering the game want to have a social component, there’s nothing to really promote the main social feature to connect friends, family, etc. This would be my highest priority in seeking a massive update.
- Paragon Board – Now, that Skill Trees will be revised and have meaning, the next thing to fix at the top of the systems list is the Paragon Board. I have mentioned that the Paragon Board is how you’d scale your skills (i.e. the numbers) while the Skill Tree acts as the flavor of the skill. With Talisman/Set Charms/bonuses and the recent update to Toughness, there’s less reason to have odd percentages here and there for resistances, etc. In that manner, I’d prefer the Paragon Board to simply be how we end up adjusting the skills numerically. I don’t mind Glyphs as an additional source of multiplicative power with bonuses that get activated at different levels so that’s how I would really manage the bigger numbers for the skill.
- Enchanting – While the Blacksmith is far less annoying and Aspects became a good example of how to handle a library of abilities, Enchanting (minus the upcoming Horadric Cube) still is the odd man out in terms of an archaic system that either needs to be upgraded or removed in favor of the Horadric Cube. At the very minimal, it should introduce a QoL type of feature similar to Torchlight Infinite that allows a person to add an affix and a minimum amount to auto roll against. Otherwise, this feature is a mindnumbing waste of time at this stage.
- Strongholds – Another meaningless feature. The main reasons to do these are to unlock portals, dungeons and legion events zones. The portals are the most useful part. Once their XP got nerfed, then I only would use these during leveling or the guaranteed tempering recipe. But these need a second glance since they really don’t add much to the game anymore.
- World Bosses – I know they did a little more to give Lair summoning materials, more Nightmare Dungeon Sigils (especially this season) as well as a high chance to get a mythic Undercity tribute but as it stands now, World Bosses remain static and were not included in that list of War Plan activities sadly. One thing I did like about Season 11 with the Azmodan altar fight is that you could summon him. You can still fight Azmodan in the World Boss zones too but I really detest the timer part. Instead, I think the better model is to have a summoning altar and connect the World Bosses to War Plans to boost the difficulty by introducing different ways of battling them. They now have the system to make these fights more dynamic and I think combining a summoning altar with War Plans will transform World Bosses into something more interesting especially as a group participation activity (not a forced one but something anyone can join in).
- Legion Events – Occasionally, I found myself soloing these because hardly anyone does these anymore. If they’re connected to an activity in the season journey, you might get lucky in encountering someone here. Otherwise, there’s no reason to do these. I’m really surprised that Legion events weren’t included as part of War Plans because Legion Events are pretty fun in a group and would be quite interesting if mixed War Plan trees cross over to create completely chaotic scenarios during Legion Events.
- Non-Helltide Whispers – Areas not influenced by Helltides or seasonal zones are practically dead beyond the exceptionally rare person trying to complete a quest or doing a whisper during Helltide downtime. I really think they should’ve not just kept War Plans to Helltides in the open world but made it apply to everything just because the same zones get tiresome after a while. I mean, it would be cool to see again the Headrot zones or Realm Walker mixed in with all this just to have a change of pace.
- Old Seasonal Events – I think the potential for War Plans can be infinite in how it can be expanded in a variety of ways. But imagine if you could incorporate old seasonal content with related rewards. Like what if you could get the little Construct doing the dungeons or open world spots for the upgrades and combine that into a War Plan. That would be one hell of a reward. Or you get a bonus Vampire Power slot on gear with powers you can level. I really want to see the return of old successful seasons or even just the content so we have more to do in conjunction with War Plans. One thing I will say is that they showed the Chaos Rift in Helltides as part of the Spotlight. I don’t know if it’ll make a return, but I’m really hoping to see Chaos Armor and Sanctification come back in some form and that gives me some hope.
- 2nd Tempering – I was hoping with the expansion and the expected power creep that the 2nd Tempering effect would be allowed here. While we still don’t know all the details on Horadric Cube crafting, I’m assuming that the normal crafting parts will continue. But at the very least, the 2nd Tempering should’ve stayed for Ancestral Legendaries.
- Mercenaries – While still new, there wasn’t any indication of new Mercenaries nor changes. I doubt in the interim will see significant changes for Mercenaries in terms of how they’re implemented. But I was hoping to see new Mercenaries made for the expansion. And again my main long term hopes for mercenaries is the ability to recruit a full party (rather than just enlist an extra one), gearing them and having an expanded and real skill tree. I wouldn’t mind if they had their own set of stats and could die either but in their current implementation, Mercenaries remain very bland and deserve a significant upgrade.
The two elements I’m glad did not receive any updates mentioned were PVP and the Dark Citadel. I have heard that some people do the PVP zone for the quick whispers while the Dark Citadel recently was used to farm a specific potion to be used for Tower pushing. I still believe both areas should be removed and/or revamped. But I hope that we won’t see them as integral parts of the season journey.
At any rate, I am quite excited for the expansion more than anything else. I think there’s a lot to figure out on release and certainly more to do. But at the same time, we do need more variety of activities or at least repurposing existing ones from seasons just to have more places to farm.
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