last 48 hours Diablo IV Below is a bit chaotic A highly controversial change to player power levels of The game’s first preseason patch. Right now, developer Blizzard is working a bit on damage control, and will be livestreaming on July 21st to discuss its decision-making process and what changes they’re making in response to the overwhelmingly negative feedback.
Diablo IV‘s latest patch 1.1.0 saw a significant reduction in player power across the board. Changes include reducing the XP earned in various activities and reducing the role of status effects such as vulnerabilities that have played a central role in class building. To say the least, it’s been a tumultuous set of changes, all of which are documented. Exhaustive list of changes with official patch notes. As promised, Blizzard hosted a livestream today to address these changes as well as provide an update on upcoming changes to the game, especially in response to negative feedback on the previous patch.you can Watch the full stream here:
Reduce player power: “We know it’s bad. We know it’s not fun.”
On stream, Blizzard’s Associate Director of Community Management Adam Fletcher was quick to react to the overwhelmingly negative feedback on the patch, admitting that mistakes were made and that the reduced player power had ruined the enjoyment of the game for some players.
Fletcher said Blizzard had specific goals in mind with its latest patch and wanted an opportunity to explain why they made these changes, but the good news is that the team “will never do another patch like this again.”
Blizzard plans to ‘always provide patch notes well in advance’
While the latest patch slashed player power and hit the core of the developing meta, one of the most chaotic elements of it all was how suddenly the patch notes arrived, how long they lasted, and how completely unpredictable it felt to happen in the game’s first season, which kicked off on July 20th.
As a way to get ahead of future issues like this, Blizzard has promised to provide patch notes “well in advance,” estimating that patch notes will go live about a week before the new update. The game’s next patch, version 1.1.1, is due out soon, and Blizzard will be discussing specific details about that patch in a separate livestream chat next Friday, July 28th.
Explanation of player power changes
While some may have felt Blizzard’s explanation for the dramatic overall nerf was lacking, associate game director Joe Pipiola explained that the reductions in player attributes, such as cooldown rates, and status effects, such as vulnerabilities, were done to expand player choice. Regarding cooldown speed in particular, Pipiola said:
[Cooldown reduction (CDR) is the most powerful stat] of Diablo IVThe reason is clear. Because if you can hit her CDR up to a certain point using certain class mechanics, you’ll effectively get instant active skills. This gives you unlimited resources, unlimited movement speed, and unlimited damage resistance. Once you start considering these things, the effectiveness of other options starts to be dwarfed.
During the delivery, Piepiora and game director Joe Shely realized that overwhelming builds and swarming enemies were at the heart of action RPG power fantasy. However, the team is now concerned that player choice in builds is dying in favor of the go-to meta. In other words, if you don’t value cooldown reduction or optimize your build to send enemies to Vulnerable status, you’re operating at a disadvantage.
Piepiora said the vulnerability that had its damage modifier significantly reduced in patch 1.1.0 made it the only way to actually start damaging enemies at certain play levels. The team said they believe this is inconsistent with their vision for the game and, in many ways, a result of the heavy impact of the high-level Nightmare dungeons, which Pipiola said is one area of endgame content that doesn’t offer a lot of customization or choice and tends to demand very specific builds.
In reality, Nightmare Dungeon has been heavily tweaked from where it actually needs to be based on the role it plays in the game itself. As such, Tier 100 Nightmare dungeons are excruciatingly difficult for most classes to actually get through, and as a result, the opportunities and options available to players when they start working on that tier’s content start to dwindle. To actually get past these spaces, you have to resort to very, very specific builds, very specific setups, which give you access to near-instant cooldowns on some skills, etc. And that wasn’t the actual intent of that content.
Apparently, the Nightmare Dungeon will be changed in at least two ways. Horde densities increase for power fantasies that destroy vast amounts of enemies. Also, regarding Piepiola’s remark that the Horde’s overwhelming difficulty is heavily influencing build choices, the difficulty has been lowered and the Tier 100 Nightmare Dungeon will be reduced to the current difficulty level 70 Nightmare Dungeon.
Patch 1.1.1 will address some concerns
During the stream, the team stressed that their actual goal was not to slow down the game and slow progress, but many felt that changes to the game mechanics, such as increasing the time it takes to teleport out of dungeons, seemed to suggest otherwise. Commenting on that very change, Shelley said the team will continue to evaluate such changes going forward, but didn’t hesitate to mention why that particular change was introduced in the first place.
The upcoming patch 1.1.1 will address various issues present in the current build of the game. Blizzard revealed some of such changes, such as an additional tab for stash sizes to alleviate inventory management concerns, and a 40 percent reduction in respec costs to allow players to better respond to changes in the game’s meta and have more choices about build diversity as the game progresses. Other specific details, such as changes that made certain classes’ power levels and strengths significantly lower than others, will be revealed in more detail in next week’s livestream.
The team stresses that they don’t intend to abruptly deprecate skills and items as powerful as the latest patch, and promises to provide more alternatives in the event that significant changes may occur in the future. A hotfix with patch notes will be released later today (July 21st). expected to hit Diablo IV‘s website Shortly before going live.
It’s not uncommon for live service games to make sudden changes like: Diablo IV However, community frustration with poorly communicated and implemented changes can easily build up over time, causing burnout and resentment.Time will tell how fast Diablo IV I have recovered from this uproar.
