Blizzard Entertainment developers have posted a new retrospective about the recent Diablo IV beta weekends. In it, the team reveals that it learned several lessons watching players tackle the game. In addition, community feedback has been noted, all of which has led to a number of significant changes being prepared ahead of the game’s June launch.
After the Early Access and Open Beta weekends concluded, the development team read through all your feedback and reviewed gameplay data. Using this information, we have made a variety of fixes and updates to various systems in Diablo IV, all of which will be present in the version of the game that launches on June 6. None of this would be possible without the community’s dedication and love for the Diablo universe, to which we say THANK YOU!
Several key areas being addressed ahead of launch
- Dungeon layouts – Anyone who played in the beta weekends for any length of time became instantly familiar with dungeons in D4. Their layout and variety were lacking. Developers noticed that players were unhappy with the amount of “backtracking within certain dungeons.” As a result, several dungeons will receive updates. These include: Caldera Gate, Defiled Catacombs, Derelict Lodge, Forbidden City, Hoarfrost Demist, Immortal Emanation, Ko Dragan Barracks. Maulwood, and Rimescar Caverns.
- Dungeons will offer a 60% chance to have an Event spawn. This is up from 10%.
- Dungeon gameplay is being tweaked across a number of areas.
- Effects like Stun and Freeze can be applied to Elite Monsters twice as long before they become Unstoppable.
- All classes will have access to sufficient skills that remove control-impairing effects.
- Many Legendary Powers have had updates to their effectiveness.
- All classes have incoming changes.
- UI updates
- Encounter updates and bug fixes
- Cellars will have a better chance for a dungeon Event to spawn
- Quality of Life updates
In addition to the above, devs also announced that the next Developer Update Livestream will take place on Thursday, April 20th at 11:00 am Pacific / 2:00 pm Eastern.
Check out all of the retrospective and all of the details on the Diablo IV official site.
