The Blizzard RPG game Diablo 4 has been available for a few weeks, and we’ve already seen some significant changes, with more to come. Classes in Diablo 4 have received specific attention, but the development team hasn’t forgotten about overall balance. Blizzard has now explained how it intends Diablo 4 to avoid the loot cave issue that plagued Destiny.
Talk of buffs, nerfs, and balancing in Diablo 4 came from the recent campfire chat livestream, and we’ll be focusing on words from both Diablo general manager Rod Fergusson and Diablo 4 game director Joe Shely.
“I wanted to create this meme that was like ‘We want a balanced game where there’s no meta and every build is viable’,” Fergusson says.
“We have a philosophy that as part of balancing the game, that be the world or the classes, there will be pluses and minuses that have to be applied to the game,” Fergusson explains. Much like with Diablo 4’s best XP farm spot, Blizzard wants to make changes to ensure you play the game in a broader, more balanced fashion.
Fergusson then compares Diablo 4’s own balance to the ‘Destiny loot cave’, where you would find a spot in Bungie’s game and farm loot like it’s “Christmas morning all day long.
“For the good of the game that has to not exist at some point,” Fergusson adds. “That’s a problem that [Bungie] fixed, and you understand eventually why they did that.”
Fergusson goes on to discuss how Diablo 4 wants to do a similar thing and make sure that the class and character progression is done in a fun way instead of being focused on key areas like ‘loot caves’.
Starting with the original Destiny back in 2014, the ‘loot cave’ was an easy way to farm rewards and feel good doing it, but it ended up taking away from getting loot by other means, and in the end, it wasn’t actually the best way to get loot, it turns out.
Shely expands, talking about how Blizzard wants to make sure you always have lots of choices in how you level up and acquire loot.
“Sometimes people will say, ‘Well, anytime something is too strong can’t you just buff everyone else?’ And while in theory, you can do that when you have many classes and builds and one thing that’s too strong, the process of buffing everything else is likely to result in more balance issues, and you can very quickly end up in a place where you have 65,000% on whirlwind or something.
“Our philosophy is to prioritize improving choice by looking at things that are not working and making them better,” Shely adds, saying it’s “time for the buffs” in Diablo 4 after weeks of nerfs.
The Diablo 4 campfire chat was filled to the brim with useful information and changes from Blizzard, ranging from nerfs to those frustrating ground effects, a change to gems taking up your inventory space, and a concentrated effort from Blizzard to cut back on the amount of Diablo 4 seasonal busywork you’ll be doing between new characters as well.
With Diablo 4 season 1 on the horizon, you’ll want to make sure you’re up to speed with all the best Diablo 4 builds from both us and Blizzard, to help make sure you’re completely prepared for when the world of Sanctuary kicks itself into overdrive. You should also catch up on any missed Diablo 4 dungeons too, as we have a round-up of every single one in the game right now.