Today, Blizzard announced changes coming to the launch version of Diablo IV after evaluating all the feedback gathered from last month's record-breaking beta weekend on PC and consoles.
The first and most requested change from the community is the reduction of dungeon backtracking. Some dungeon layouts have been optimized to alleviate this tedious task and improve exploration. Additionally, small groups of monsters will now seek out groups instead of hiding in far corners to help players achieve the “kill all monsters” goal.
The mechanics of key objectives appearing in dungeons have also been improved. For example, carrying items that need to be placed on pedestals to open certain doors will now provide movement buffs to the player, reducing channel time interactions with these items or eliminating them entirely. will be done. Meanwhile, structural objectives in dungeons have been upgraded with additional combat mechanics. Finally, as a dungeon improvement, the chance of an event occurring during a dungeon run has been increased from his 10% in the beta to his 60% in the retail version of Diablo IV. Similarly, events occur more frequently in cellars (short dungeon-like types of content found in taverns).
The difficulty of boss fights is adjusted to suit the melee playstyle, but in the beta version they were at a significant disadvantage compared to the long-range playstyle. As you might expect, Blizzard has tweaked a lot of spells and skills. For example, stun and freeze conditions affect an elite monster twice as long before he becomes immune (uncontrollable) for a while.
In terms of class balance, Barbarians now have their passive damage reduced by 10% and their Whirlwind skill deals more damage (but also increases the cost of Fury). Druid companion skills deal more damage, and all ultimate skills have shorter cooldowns. Necromancer's minions now die more often and the damage dealt by corpse explosion skills has been reduced, while Book of the Dead bonuses have been increased. Rogues received upgraded bonuses for multiple passives and Deception skills, but Imbument skills now take longer to recharge. Finally, the damage of Sorcerer's Chain Lightning has been reduced, but the opposite happened for the Charged Bottle spell.
Note that Diablo IV will be available starting June 6th, but customers who pre-ordered will get it four days earlier. If you haven't seen our Diablo IV Endgame interview yet, be sure to check it out.
