Diablo IV Quarterly Update - September 2020
The Diablo IV Quarterly Update, written by Luis Barriga and David Kim, has been released with a focus on Skill Trees!
Originally Posted by Luis Barriga & David Kim (Official Post)
To the Diablo Community,
Hello, and welcome to a new installment of our quarterly Diablo IV developer updates. We enjoyed hearing your thoughts on our last blog and have followed many of the discussions it kicked off within the community. It’s very encouraging for us to hear that you appreciate the steady update cadence and the behind-the-scenes looks at our early work. We’re also excited by all the positive reactions we’re seeing to the art, cinematics, and the addition of open-world gameplay to the Diablo franchise. The team has pored over a lot of constructive feedback regarding the current direction of itemization, and we’re looking to give you an update on items later in the year. Some of the progress we’ve made will speak directly to the questions we’ve seen raised in the community, so stay tuned!
I couldn’t be more excited to share the details in today’s update! Our Lead Systems Designer, David Kim, will take us on a deep dive into the ins and outs of the new Skills and Talent systems. We are currently playtesting the new systems, and the early feedback is super promising. I hope you enjoy it, and as always, we’ll be following conversations on our forums as well as other community sites.
Thank you for all your continued feedback and support in this journey as we make the game.
-Luis Barriga,
Game Director, Diablo IV
Skills & Talents
Today, we‘re going to look at skills and talents—a topic many of you have asked about. But first, a quick update on the things we’ve Shared in our previous development blogs.
Ancestral/Demonic/Angelic Powers
To begin, some of you let us know that the fantasy of Ancestral/Demonic/Angelic Power just isn’t cool enough in the current version of the pitch. Duly noted! Another problem we identified was the ratio of effort to rewards. For example, in order to gain specific, minor bonuses, players would most likely have to carry around several extra pieces of gear, each with different amounts of Ancestral/Demonic/Angelic Power on them. You would then need to constantly calculate each of the power levels of those items and compare with their overall power. It felt like an excessive amount of bookkeeping for the player.
However, one thing we really liked about the system was the gameplay of managing stats in meaningful ways to hit certain bonus thresholds that then make your items better suited for the playstyle you are going for. We need some more time for iteration/rework here and look forward to sharing more on itemization in our next quarterly blog.
Legendary Items
We are exploring some big changes in this space for two reasons:
1. We agree with the feedback that a character’s power is currently too dependent on items. We plan to put more of the player’s power back into the character to make build choices more impactful, rather than have the majority of player power coming from the items they have equipped. That said, it’s important that we strike the right balance so that itemization choices always feel meaningful.
2. We’ve also had very mixed team feedback regarding core itemization. We’re currently looking at how to best differentiate our various item qualities. For example, should Magic quality items have higher affix stats than Rare items?
You can expect to hear more about legendary items in our next blog.
New Skill System
As Luis mentioned, we have made some major changes to Diablo IV’s Skills and Talent systems. We’ve been reading through a lot of the comments from the community and agree that the Talent system needs more depth. Similarly, Skill system progression felt too simple, which created issues where a player would have no meaningful reason to spend their skill points. With this valuable feedback in mind, we’ve have been iterating on a new Skill System.
As you can see from the screenshot below, we have separate sections for Skills and Passives in our freshly painted Skill Tree. Take a look:
The Sorceress skill tree. The branches contain skills and skill upgrades, while the roots contain powerful passive effects.The upper Skills section is where you will spend the Skill Points that you earn by leveling up. Here, you unlock brand new skills, unlock additional functionality for these skills, and unlock Passive Points that you can then spend on the lower Passive section of the tree.
You can spend skill points on square nodes to unlock new active skills for your character.
Spend points on circular upgrade nodes to enhance active skills you've unlocked.
As you explore the branches of the tree, you will find passive points.
You can spend passive points in the roots of the tree to unlock powerful effects.The Skill Tree you see above consists of many specific nodes, a sample of which you can see in the screenshots above. If we imagine every single node on that massive Skill Tree affecting different skills in different ways, the path that you decide to take will determine big power increases and playstyle choices.
The Passive part of this system is where you will find more general upgrades to your character. These effects are not specific to particular skills. Therefore, the Skill Tree will have a good mix of all types of different choices for players to make.
One last thing we want to point out is that players will not be able to acquire every Skill Tree node. We’re currently aiming for 30~40% of the nodes filled in for end game, so that players can have very distinct, and different ways they build out their character.
Sorceress Enchantment System
Many of you might remember the Barbarian’s unique Arsenal system—their ability to carry and smoothly swap between multiple deadly weapons—which greatly increased their power. We’ve also been exploring unique class mechanics for our other classes. The main goal for us here is to have very unique class-specific mechanics in Diablo IV. We have this goal because Diablo is the kind of game where many players try out different builds or classes, especially during seasonal play. We believe that unique class mechanics with very different strengths and playstyles compared to other classes will make exploring the different classes—and playing the game—much more fun.
For the Sorceress, we’ve been trying out the Enchantment System. This is how it works:
The Ball Lightning skill. Unlike other classes, each Sorceress skill has two possible effects.Sorceress skills can be placed into two locations: an active skill slot (that every other class also has access to), and an Enchantment slot. If you place a skill in the Enchantment slot, you can no longer use it as an active skill, but your character instead gains a secondary bonus power.
Ball Lightning as an enchantment. You can gain the secondary effect of a skill by placing it in an Enchantment slot instead of an active skill slot.The power you gain from Enchantments is extremely significant, and you can currently make builds based around your Enchantments, your active skills, or a mix of both.
Here is an example of this system using the Meteor skill. Meteor allows you to call a fiery chunk of rock from the sky. If you choose to slot it as an Enchantment, you won’t be able to control your Meteors, but they’ll fall onto enemies periodically. This skill is still under development and may be different in the final game.We’ve been testing this class mechanic for a while now, and the team feedback has been really positive. This new system now empowers you to make some interesting choices to strategize around which skills you would want to slot in as an Enchantment, as you won’t be able to put one skill in both places.
We are also exploring a Druid-specific class mechanic as well, and we’ll have more information on that to share in the future.
End Game Progression System
Lastly, we have been hard at work on our end game character progression system. This important feature is going to take a little more time (it won’t be in the next blog), but we wanted to mention it here because it will be the other significant source of power that comes from your class. This system is intended to provide more depth and replayability than what Paragon currently offers in Diablo III. We, and many Blizzard gamers, have talked about the concept of “easy to learn, difficult to master.” We believe that the end game progression system is where the difficult to master component will come in, and should meet the expectations of the most hardcore Diablo players out there.
We are excited to read through the feedback from the community regarding our revamped Skill and Talent system as well as our new Sorceress Enchantment system. We are always reading through the comments on our forums, Reddit, social media, and more for your feedback. As always, please remember that none of this is final as the game is still actively in development. Your constructive discussions around these features will help Diablo IV’s development the most, and we greatly appreciate all your continued support and discussion related to the game.
We will see you all in our next quarterly update as we dive deeper into some of the itemization changes that we have coming. Thanks again!
-David Kim,
Lead System Designer, Diablo IV
This whole skill system looks and the idea of it sounds awful. I don’t understand why they can’t copy d2’s skill tree, update and expand on that? It had synergies, play style choices and increased your power as you leveled. Sure items really improved your character but skill points were just as important. If I wanted a great frozen orb sorc I would max ice shard(for the synergy) and max frozen orb. I would have to commit to that build and I was rewarded in power for doing so. This whole new system seems like they’re trying to reinvent the wheel when the wheel is already damn near perfect.
This is amazing idea with actual tree skill system I like it and I don't get others why they complain its still not final they are just showing what they have in mind and on paper showing visually. The concept of all this skill system I think is just a beginning it will evolve later actual tree will grow and expand every skill with each tree branch and it's a brilliant idea! Can't wait to see end game progression system... It's a bit sad that they are so slow making Diablo IV in 2019 Nov 3 they overview feature showed skill points and talent trees I get it that was Blizzards ideas how they see game should look but in 2020 Sep 29 everything have changed they started to listen fans how they feel and yes we asked more in depth so Blizzards adds actual skill tree (massive :D) can't wait next Diablo IV quarterly update I guess sometime in 2021 about itemization and in 2022 end game character progression system damn I will be old at the time game will finally be released.
At least they aknowledged the fact that currently characters power is too dependent on items.
I do hope they take a step back (well, at least a couple of steps are needed but let's give them some time...) and give players more options about how the character build is created and developed.
Having skill points to assign to increase the power of a certain skill seems good to me, it may not be like D2 but some of it remind me of the idea of skills and synergies, so not so bad.
I'd like to see a more detailed explanation about it to get a better idea, perhaps we'll have more info in February 2021.
1. Skill tree from UI/UX POV looks really bad IMO. Despite cool demonic tree on the background. To me its too chaotic, hard to "read" and visually not appealing as a whole.
2. Skill tree as system in this form either was revealed very poorly or just plain bad design. Its impossible to give any appropriate feedback on it right now, its just to little info about it atm, better just don't show this kind of early prototypes at all.
Probably the only thing about this that I do like from the Skill Tree is knowing that we won't be able to unlock every skill. And the Sorceress Enchantment thing looks too much like the rune system from D3.
I'm really getting the feeling this game will not be like a Diablo game anymore.
One of the biggest downsides for me personally is the open world system with mounts... I mean come on!
Diablo 3 always had a problem of monster density. I participated in the Friends & Family beta; repeatedly complained about it on the forums but they never listened. Well they did once but then nerfed it again.
In an open world there will be so many open spaces where there is actually nothing to do and will actually make the game feel empty and we will need to move from one pack to another and another and get the feeling everything is seperated. It's actually like a cheap way to fill up map space.
See I whole-heartedly disagree and feel Diablo 2s skill system was boring to borderline pointless because of exactly as you say "I wanna play a frozen orb sorc I max orb & frost shard". I much prefered D2 before synergies when I could have fun variable builds that utalised hydras, forb and lightning. Now you spend all of your points specializing in 1 ability because you spend 20 points in the ability itself and the other 60 in it's synergies which just leaves me with thinking what even was the point? May as well have just hit lvl 30 and it said "do you want to be Forb, Fireball or Lightning" and then those spells just get progressively stronger as you level as it'd be the exact same thing.
Skill trees should be about interesting, impactful decisions where you go "Oh I want this but then I can't have that". If it's bland and cookie-cutter then it may aswell not exist.
So even if it's a good idea, because it vaguely looks like it's similar to something in D3 that makes it bad? D3 did a lot of things right.
I never really liked the rune system in D3 - that doesn't make it bad - it just means I don't really like it.
The graphic engine looks like d3. its trash. get rid of it and make a true diablo game. thank you sincerely the diablo community
the items looks like d3.( overpowered garbage) And im sure the drop rate will be awful too. ( Should copy d1-d2 )
open world diablo ? no thank you
make the game scary . diablo 3 wasnt scary at all make the game in a scary atmosphere
Make the game Pc only . Diablo is a PC game not a console game yes blizzard you want money but if you want to make a good game you need to focus on one port. not 6 at the same time. if you want to dissapoint all your hardcore diablo 2 audience go ahead and release this trash Also. id like to point out that they copied duriel , andariel, Lilith . and others stuff maybe this game is 0 creativity
I am sorry to knock you off your pedestal but you really don't speak for the Diablo community. As an older gamer i remember the original games with great nostalgia, they were amazing but the world has moved on. D3 was a good game it just lacked replayability for me. D4 could be very good, it is way too soon to see, I quite like some of their concepts and want to see how they flesh out.
By all means have an opinion, but remember there are many people out there with different opinions, maybe better feedback is to say what you personally don't like. As to making games scary, it is hard now in a world when scary has become the new normal. I remember playing Doom when it came out as a younger man and boy that scared me to death, I also remember resident evil as well and how that also scared me too. I would love to recreate those feelings but it is hard to keep people scared in this type of game, you can enjoy it's dark lore, graphics, music etc but in my opinion no Diablo game was ever scary, fantastic games they were though.
Well said, couldn't agree more
I enjoy how at the start your like "Make the game a carbon copy of d1/d2, stop trying to innovate with the gear/drop rates/open world etc." and then in the second part you've gone "look all you did was copy Durial, Andy and Lilith.. This game has 0 creativity". Do you even know what you want or are you just complaining for the sake of it?
As a serious response, it's a Diablo game... Reusing the prime evils etc. is part of it it wouldn't make sense to create all new threats as THAT wouldn't be a Diablo game then.
Also, D2 items were OP did you not play D2? They just didn't feel as OP because the game was so easy you could clear it naked.. In top gear you could 1 hit everything and 3 hit bosses. You could clear screens of mobs by walking past them. I also feel that D3 has one of the most "scary" zones out of all which was the area in Act 3 with those giant demons chained to walls, moaning in pain... Nothing in D1/D2 had that level of horror.
copied duriel , andariel, Lilith? . do you know without lords of the hell no lore for diablo 4 ? it was the only way. diablo has taken killed in 3 games and what ? the saga has sold the same ^_^. these diablo fanboys are alwasy funny....
D2 skill tree was even close to being perfect though. It had poor choices, with only 1-2 active skills and very few build ideas for each class. Synergies were introduced much later, and it actually limited your choices further! you were forced to max out things you wouldn't typically use in your primary build. Furthermore, every build was: Strength- none, Dexterity, none, Energy, none, Vitality, max
I don't want that again. I don't want POE either, which requires studying and hours on forums researching synergy. This skill tree at least is headed in the right direction, by not being D3, which was pick skills without consequence around BIS gear that everyone uses.
I would prefer a simple tree of choices that get powerful the more you commit points into. Add further customization to your build with things from the arsenal and enchantment system. Then you throw items in the mix, and now your character and build looks more unique and stands out a bit more.
They have a long way to go, but D2 skill tree should not be what they are looking at for perfection. because it wasn't.
There isn’t a lot different here than there was at the alpha stage of D3.
there was a huge emphasis on “choose the way you play” which an infinite number of skill choices. But ultimately it came down to the armour sets that ended up dictating the best skills to use.
ultimately some skills will be more overpowered than others which will eventually lead to a single optimum build...
honestly I think a whole new damage system has to be made that doesn’t rely on skills or stats like strength, dexterity and intelligence..
Skill system is looking good, the visuals aren't very appealing yet with the demonic tree. I get the concept but it doesn't flow very well. Not a huge issue.
BUT. please PLEASE 100% SCRAP the Ancestral/Demonic/Angelic Powers idea. It will only end up being tedious and create poor choices based on those specific stats on gear. I get whoever came up with it probably thinks they are a genius and its "new" or "inventive".. but its not. Its making gear too much of an emphasis instead of skills and their combinations. how skills work, their synergies, the points put into them and their effects should be 99% of the D4 teams focus.