For the full interview in its entirety, check out Rob2628's Youtube or the vod on his Twitch Channel
Interview Highlights
Reward and Difficulty Scaling
The first half of the interview discussed how difficulties and rewards scale throughout the game, including the addition of more Torment Difficulties and the perceived challenges of the Tower, Pit, and Capstone Dungeon bosses, which are often seen as giant health sponges rather than engaging fights. Blizzard responded, stating that they're aware of the health issues and are working on making the fights more engaging, rather than drawn-out. Their goal is that bosses should always be dangerous, but never drag out simply because of health scaling. The balance isn't yet reached, as players often become immortal in the endgame, which needs to be addressed.
Experience Changes
Experience farming in Diablo 4 is a non-stop topic as players try to go for the prestigious Paragon 300. Rob2628 pointed out some aspects of Experience that didn't scale very well with increased torment difficulties or more challenging content, including Experience Motes from monsters and caches. This is on Blizzard's radar to be changed; harder content should generally yield better rewards, including experience.
Additionally, the campaign was discussed due to its high efficiency, particularly at the start of a season. Blizzard does not want the Campaign to be the only way to level efficiently, and the new Seasonal Journey is a great alternative, they pointed out, which is also required for the additional skill points in Season 11. The balance should be such that leveling through the Seasonal Journey is a viable and competitive strategy compared to other methods.
Stat Caps
Stat Caps on things like Attack Speed, Items scaling a stat, or Paragon Glyphs have been commonplace for multiple seasons. Blizzard generally wants to avoid capping effects, as they can often obscure the impact itself and create friction regarding gearing. Attack Speed was explicitly highlighted, and trying to remove the caps and streamline stats is a core design goal moving forward.
Editor Note:
Attack Speed in Diablo 4 has a cap of 200%, but this cap is split across two individual caps of 100% each. Effects, passives, and item affixes fall into one or the other 100% caps, which can result in attack speed affix rolls on gear being entirely wasted. During the conversation, this was explicitly pointed out as being really unintuitive and on the list for changes.
Miscellenous Notes
The end of the interview featured some rapid-fire questions, and the interview in general had a lot of questions with auxiliary answers that shed some light on issues, especially when compared to how mechanics played on PTR.
Capstone Dungeon Bosses
Bosses were definitely overtuned, and Capstone Dungeon Bosses will not have resilience in the future.
Cooldown Reduction Affixes
With the changes to Tempering, Cooldown Reduction was feeling a little weak, so hands and rings now can roll the Cooldown Reduction Affixes, letting players build into the known archetypes
Sanctification Updates
Indestructable is Removed from the pool of outcomes
Sanctification is meant to be the final gambling step, not a required step for upgrading gear. The goal is for players to pick up multiple items and refine them over time, aiming to achieve an upgrade through the random system.
Sanctification was tuned with Eternal in mind, rather than being a big flashy seasonal mechanic like Chaos Powers or Horadric Powers. It's not as exciting as it should be currently, and Blizzard is looking into how to engage players more
Higher Rarity Items such as Harlequin Crest shouldn't have their defining stats like Cooldown Reduction removed through Sanctification. These are handled and removed on a case-by-case basis to avoid moments that are particularly annoying for the player.
Rewards from The Tower
Past the initial implementation of the Tower in Season 11, Blizzard is looking to add two reward tracks to the Tower for players to aim for
For players not interested in pushing to be rank 1, there will be a milestone/reputation style reward track that will give functional rewards to aid the character in progression
For players that are pushing to rank 1, Leadboard rewards are going to be cosmetic, and planned to only function on the character that earned the rank. These will not be account-wide, as the achievement is tied to the power and journey of that character specifically.
Clarity of Stats
Toughness is unclear currently, but it is a necessary evil to remove the caps on Resistance/Armor moving forward in the game. Blizzard is actively looking at ways to add clarity back to defensive stats in the future
Attack Power has long been a stat that doesn't accurately depict the true power of a character, and this is changing only to show the damage of the Mainhand Weapon instead, which should at least be more accurate. In the future, Blizzard is exploring ways to enhance clarity on this stat as well.
Melted Heart of Selig
Melted Heart of Selig was a massive discussion on PTR, and it is receiving changes that will allow it to be tuned appropriately. As a result, resource caps on other items are also going away. The idea of Selig being a shielding defensive item is something Blizzard loves, but the resource generation it enables is too much.
Gold Drops
Gold should primarly drop from monsters, not from selling gear
There is no Sell-All button, but gold drops have been rebalanced and players should not feel the need to sell nearly as much as they did before, which should alleviate the problem
