Patch 1.1.1 for Diablo 4 is just a little over a week away and today Game Director Joe Shely, Associate Game Director Joe Piepiora, Lead Class Designer Adam Jackson, and Associate Director of Community Management Adam Fletcher provided an overview of the changes we can expect. The Patch will deal primarily with Class balance as well as improving overall performance and is scheduled to go live on Tuesday, August 8th. The Patch Notes will be posted on Wednesday, August 2nd and there will be more Patches and improvements coming to the game down the road.
The Devs mentioned that it is very important to them to be transparent with regard to the changes they have planned as well as the philosophy behind those changes. In this way they expect to be able to better incorporate feedback from the Diablo community.
Diablo 4 campfire chat main points
- The next Patch is intended to improve the fun and effectiveness of the Barbarian and Sorcerer classes.
- The plan for the Barbarian is to make the early game feel more fluid by increasing Fury generation from basic skills as well as improving the endgame by changing some of the affects on Unique Items to make them more attractive and effective. Updating the Uniques will partially improve existing items and will fully improve newly acquired items.
- The plan for the Sorcerer is to reverse some of the nerfs that were implemented to balance other greater powers. One example is the Aspect that allows the Sorc to cast an additional Hydra will no longer reduce the duration of the Hydras. The survivability of the Sorc class overall will also be improved.
- Improving the overall power level for all classes that are currently underperforming to make them more fun and competitive.
- Improving the attractiveness of Unique Items that are currently underperforming for all classes across the board.
- Build-specific designs will become more useful by making affects on items more widely applicable. One example is that Chain Lightning will now do bonus damage when it ricochets off of anything rather than just the player character.
- Necromancer minions are a core aspect to the class fantasy, but are also very complicated game mechanics. Although the next patch will change relatively little about this aspect of the game, the team is looking at ways to improve the way they scale and proc other skills and affects.
- Regarding Druid companions, they will also be buffed in the next Patch. However, the Devs want to avoid Druids having a greater number of more powerful minions compared to the Necomancer class, which would undermine the fantasy of the Necromancer.
- Monster density will increase in Nightmare Dungeons and Helltides by approximately 50% without interfering with player character performance.
- Boss changes will include boosting their health in WT3 and WT4 to make them more challenging. At the same time, Dungeon Bosses, Legion Event Bosses, and the Butcher will be guaranteed to drop at least one Legendary Item beginning at Level 35.
- Treasure Goblins will be guaranteed to drop at least one Legendary Item beginning at Level 15.
- The timer for the Leave Dungeon emote will be reset back to 3 seconds.
- Negative affixes that will be removed from Nightmare Dungeon Sigils include Resource Drain, Cold Enchanted, and Backstabber.
- Future improvements will include finding ways to bring different types of damage closer together. A current example is Crit Strike Chance and Crit Strike Damage being paired with Vulnerable Damage. The Devs want to make other types of damage, such as Damage Over Time and Overpower Damage, to have greater parity with Crit and Vulnerable damage.
- Improving the scaling to builds and affects that currently do not scale well. An example is Legendary powers for the Barbarian that spawn earthquakes or dust devils that currently deal flat damage will scale better to improve the effectiveness during the late game.
Patch notes balance changes preview
All the details are available in text form here.
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Monsters
Malignant Hearts
Unique Items
Q & a
Any planned changes to XP in the late endgame?
-XP gained from Nightmare Dungeons, Helltide Caches, and the Tree of Whispers has already been increased. The next Patch will increase monster density in Nightmare Dungeons and Helltides to offer even more XP.
What are the planned changes to Crowd Control?
-Future changes will make situations with a high density of powerful enemies more fun to play.
What are the planned changes to Resistances?
-The vision for the future is to make this aspect of game more impactful, meaningful, rewarding, and more fun to play.
What are the planned changes to Mounts?
-Mounts will be modified to make them easier to maneuver and to improve the boost stacking for console gamers.
What are the planned changes to Overpower Damage?
-The original intent of the stat was to be meaningfully different than Critical Strike Damage that rewards players for creating a tanky character and that scales off of Max Health, Fortify, and the percent of remaining health. The problem right now is that stats such as Critical Stike Damage and Vulnerable Damage that scale multiplicatively tend to overshadow Overpower Damage. The goal is to develop Overpower, as well as other damage dealing vectors, to have greater parity with Crit and Vulnerable.
What are the future plans for more character customization, such as pets, wings, etc.?
-The Devs do intend to add more of these elements to the game.
These are just the main points, however you can watch the full stream below for more details.