In a candid Diablo IV developer livestream, Blizzard said it realizes the game’s controversial Season 1 update missed the mark and is vowing to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
The update, which drastically reduced player power by nerfing affixes like Vulnerable damage and Critical Strike damage while also nerfing important defensive stats, has not gone over well with the Diablo IV community. It’s a fact Blizzard is well aware of and addressed head-on.
“We want to acknowledge everyone’s feedback in regards to reducing player power,” associate community management director Adam Fletcher said. “We know it is bad. We know it is not fun. We ourselves know that it’s not the greatest play experience for players out there.”
Fletcher said the team doesn’t plan to ever do an update in the style of patch 1.1.0 “ever again.” Blizzard spent much of the livestream discussing how it planned to go about making that a reality. Game director Joe Shely said Blizzard’s goal is to make the game more fun for players, and if something does end up being overpowered, that it will stay in the game until Blizzard can offer “compelling alternatives.” However, game-breaking bugs or exploits will be addressed and fixed quickly.
As for why Blizzard took aim at player power, associate game director Joe Piepiora said reducing that power is “never a good experience,” but it was one that was necessary for the game to move forward. Changes to cooldown reduction and Vulnerable damage were done so that they wouldn’t remain the most important stats in the game.
Piepiora said part of the problem is that builds taking full advantage of cooldown reduction and Vulnerable damage are almost mandatory to do some of the game’s highest tiers of Nightmare dungeons. However, Piepiora said Nightmare dungeons were never intended to be such a test for players and are currently “overtuned.”
Blizzard will be making Nightmare dungeons easier in in a patch coming July 21, a change that was originally intended to accompany patch 1.1.0 and the reduction in player power but didn’t. As an example of the kind of Nightmare dungeon difficulty reduction players can expect in the future, Piepiora said that tier 100 Nightmare dungeons will become the equivalent of what is currently tier 70.
To still provide a challenge for min-maxing players looking to tackle Diablo IV’s hardest challenges, Blizzard will create a new form of endgame content designed to push players and their builds to their limits in the future.
Another Diablo IV update, patch 1.1.1, will arrive in the next few weeks to address some fan complaints, with Blizzard planning to host another developer livestream on July 28 to dig into more detail. Moving forward, Blizzard vowed that patch notes for Diablo IV would be accompanied by developer livestreams and arrive well ahead of the patch’s release day, to give the community more time to digest all the changes.
Diablo IV Season 1 started July 20, and introduced a new mechanic in the form of Malignant Hearts. Players will need to create a new seasonal character and have completed the game’s campaign to participate in the season.
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