Diablo IV Quarterly Update – December 2020

This year’s final quarterly update for Diablo IV primarily revolves around the game’s itemization, focusing on item qualities, weapon types, and the importance of unique items. However, it also mentions the game’s updated approach to primary stats and its limited respec option.

Here’s a pretty sizable excerpt to get you started:

Hello, and welcome once again to the Diablo IV Quarterly Update—our last for 2020!

Progress on the game continues at a steady clip and we’re excited about several big updates and revisions that the team’s worked on for a long time that we are trying to complete before the holidays. Today’s topic centers on one such major revision, which also happens to be the most requested topic this year: Itemization.

Items are the lifeblood of Diablo. They are the element of the game that captures your imagination and keeps you playing and wondering, “What if?” after you put the game down. Whether it’s anticipating the next piece of perfectly rolled godly gear or kicking around item combinations in your head like a mad scientist, items are undoubtedly a major part of what makes Diablo so compelling and so different from other games.

Understanding how important it is to get itemization right, we paid special attention to early player feedback about this part of the game. We knew that many more iterations awaited between what we showed you at BlizzCon 2019, our follow-up blogs, and the final game release. We also knew from past Diablo entries that we will need to have the time and resources to make these iterations—thankfully, we have that baked into our current schedule. Getting all of your feedback encouraged us to move some of that iteration time forward so that we could get our newest direction in front of you sooner.

Lead Game Designer Joe Shely is going to walk us through all of our major itemization updates today. We’ve reviewed every aspect of itemization from top to bottom and reworked elements that we felt weren’t living up to their potential—from the individual stats that our classes tap into to the visual representation of items in your inventory. Of course, it’s still early and we still have lots more playtesting and iterating to do, but we think this direction puts us down a more solid foundational path and we couldn’t be happier to share it with you today.

You can keep tabs on what we’re up to on social media, and as always, please tell us what you think of this update on our forums and all your favorite places to talk Diablo! We’re probably hanging out there too, and we’ll continue to look out for popular topics to tackle in future blogs.

Speaking of which, our next update will take place during BlizzConline, rather than in blog form. We’ve read speculation about what it could be and want to ensure you that it is something chunky indeed. Without spoiling the surprise, Iet’s just say it involves a new version of the campfire scene we showed you last BlizzCon.

Thank you all, and see you in Hell!

-Luis Barriga,

Game Director, Diablo IV

Today we’re going to look at some changes to items in Diablo IV and update you on a few things we’ve shared in our previous development blogs. In deciding what changes to make, we focused on three core ideals:

• First, we want to strengthen class identity by providing intuitive fantasy hooks. Items and skills that lean into the fantasy of your class are best.
• Second, we want to support deeper customization through our itemization. Items should support and enhance your class, not define it.
• Finally, we’re landing on overall depth somewhere between Diablo II and Diablo III. We aim to provide years of things to discover and countless ways to build a class.

Skill Tree

Since releasing the last quarterly blog post on the skill tree, we’ve been reviewing all of your feedback. Our team has also had a lot of hands-on time with our skill trees in frequent internal playtests, including an extended progression playtest. Based on this, we’re confident that it’s a solid direction, so we’re going to iterate on it and make further improvements. For example, we’re increasing the clustering of related skill nodes, so players don’t have to go across the tree to find skill upgrades for their builds.

The ability to re-specialize or ‘respec’ your skills is a tricky one to balance. Like many of you, we want choices to matter and characters to feel different from each other—not just one click away from being identical to all the others. We also want to encourage players to experiment with different skills when they start playing, and discover builds that are right for them. In Diablo IV, you will be able to respec your skills and passives. The number of times you can do this will be unlimited, but it won’t be free. It will be easy to do when you first start a character; as your character grows, the effort and cost required to respec will grow too. In the end-game, changing your build will require a significant investment, to appropriately match the time and effort you’ve put into defining your character.

Primary Stats

In our last blog, we agreed with your feedback that too much of a character’s power came from the items they wore. And we liked the imagery conjured by the phrases “Angelic Power” and “Demonic Power,” but they didn’t reinforce the fantasy of what being a Barbarian, a Sorcerer, or a Druid is all about. So we went back to our roots and looked at the classic RPG elements of early Diablo games. What are you really doing when you wade through a horde of monsters and emerge a level higher on the other side? You’re training; you’re practicing a skill; you’re getting better at what you do. Becoming stronger, and smarter.

When you gain a level, you’ll receive points to spend in Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, or Willpower, along with your skill points. Of course, most Barbarian builds are going to benefit from a healthy measure of Strength, but as you build out your character and decide on skills and synergies you’ll want to mix in other attributes.

You can supplement your character’s stat build with items to give you a little more Willpower here, a little more Strength there, but the vast majority of your stats will come from how you choose to spend your points.

And here’s where it gets really interesting. Many of the nodes in each class skill tree have additional effects if you meet specific primary stat thresholds. You’ll get the baseline effect of these nodes when you spend the skill points to unlock them, but get enough of the corresponding primary stat and the bonus effect will activate.