Diablo 4’s recent beta pulled in more players than any beta for the series has in the past, and while Blizzard Entertainment will, of course, be thrilling about the traction the game is getting, just as valuable is going to be all the feedback the developer will have received on how to improve the game following on from its beta.
And it seems the developer has already made a number of changes, some of which are quite significant. From dungeons and their layouts to other aspects like class balancing, UI, and more, Blizzard has detailed an exhaustive list of changes and improvements that it’s making to Diablo 4 based on all the feedback it has received for the beta.
Where dungeon layouts are concerned, Blizzard has focused on reducing “certain kinds of backtracking which detract from a player’s experience”, while it has also attempted to address complaints about tedious objectives in dungeons.
“While our dungeons offer a variety of Objectives to complete, player feedback stated that the action of completing each Objective felt tedious,” the developer says. “We hope that providing bonuses, such as the increase to mobility while carrying certain Objective items, will streamline and vary the experience of completing Objectives. This adjustment is merely a starting point, and we intend to extend this philosophy to keys in a future update.”
Blizzard has also tweaked individual classes and buffed some of their attacks that were deemed overpowered, fixed issues with the UI, tinkered with various encounters, and more. You can read the notes in their entirety below.
Blizzard will be revealing more about Diablo 4, its endgame content, and its progression systems in Developer Update stream on April 20.
Diablo 4 is out on June 6 for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Xbox One, PS4, and PC.
BETA FIXES AND CHANGES:
DUNGEONS
Dungeon Layouts
One of the most common pieces of feedback we received is that players felt they were doing a lot of backtracking within certain dungeons. We have optimized multiple dungeons across all zones to minimize the need for backtracking. Here is a list of dungeons specifically in the Fractured Peaks zone which received layout updates:
- Caldera Gate
- Defiled Catacombs
- Derelict Lodge
- Forbidden City
- Hoarfrost Demise
- Immortal Emanation
- Kor Dragan Barracks
- Maulwood
- Rimescar Caverns
Dungeon Events
- The chance for an Event to spawn inside of a dungeon has increased from 10% to 60%.
Dungeon Gameplay
- To reduce the need to backtrack, small numbers of straggling monsters will seek out the player to help complete the Kill All Monsters objective.
- When Animus is gathered, the player and nearby allies will:
- Gain 10 Resource.
- Reduce all active Cooldowns by 1 second.
- Depositing Animus channel time was reduced from 3 to 0 seconds.
- The time to Rescue was reduced from 3 to 1.5 seconds.
- All Rescue objectives now drop a Health Potion upon completion.
- While carrying the Ancient’s Statue, Bloodstone, Mechanical Box, or Stone Carving, you will receive a Momentum bonus granting a 25% move speed increase to you and nearby allies.
- Pedestals have had their channel time reduced from 2 to 0 seconds.
- Returning a Portable Object to its Pedestal now fully restores Health, Resource, Potions, and resets cooldowns for all nearby players.
- All doors will now generate a minimap ping when they are opened.
- All Structure Objectives in dungeons now have additional combat mechanics players must overcome.
CLASSES
General
- Effects like Stun and Freeze can be applied to Elite Monsters twice as long before they become Unstoppable.
- Reviewed class skills to confirm that all classes have access to sufficient skills that remove control impairing effects.
- Many Legendary Powers have had updates to their effectiveness.
Barbarian
- A flat 10% passive damage reduction has been added for the Barbarian Class. Some Skill Tree passives had their damage reduction effects reduced to compensate.
- The Whirlwind Skill now deals more damage and consumes more Fury.
- The Double Swing Skill Enhancement refunds its full Fury cost when used on Stunned or Knocked Down enemies.
Druid
- Companion Skills will now deal heavily increased damage.
- All Ultimate Skills have had their cooldowns reduced.
- Usability improvements have been made to Maul and Pulverize.
- Using a non-Shapeshifting Skill will transform a Druid back into their human form.
Necromancer
- Summoned Minions will die more often, requiring players to utilize Corpses more often.
- Many bonuses in the Book of the Dead have had their stats increased.
- The damage dealt by the Corpse Explosion skill has been reduced.
- The brightness of the Skeletal Warriors and Mages has been reduced.
Rogue
- Upgrades for Subterfuge Skills have had their bonuses increased.
- Multiple passive Skills have had their bonuses increased.
- All Imbuement Skills have had their cooldowns increased.
Sorcerer
- Charged Bolt’s damage was increased and the Mana cost to cast has decreased.
- Decreased the damage of Chain Lightning and reduced its effectiveness against Bosses.
- Decreased the cooldown for the Incinerate Skill’s Enchantment bonus.
- Firewalls will now spawn underneath enemies more frequently when using its Enchantment bonus.
- Increased the Lucky Hit chance for the Meteor Skill’s Enchantment bonus.
UI
- Fixed an issue where the built-in Screen Reader was not reading key prompts, game options details, and other UI text.
- Fixed an issue where actions could not be bound to the mouse wheel.
- Fixed an issue where Evade couldn’t be bound to the right Analog Stick on controller.
- Chat will now display on the left side of the screen when using the centered action bar configuration.
- A character’s stats will be displayed by default when players click the Materials & Stats button within their Inventory.
- The Move and Interact inputs can now be mapped to one button while the Primary Attack input is mapped to a secondary button.
- The sans serif font used in-game has been replaced with a new serif font.
ENCOUNTERS
- Fixed multiple issues that allowed bosses, like the Butcher, to become unresponsive.
- The Butcher has been re-evaluated for difficulty and will present a greater challenge in World Tiers III and IV.
- Bosses such as T’chort, Malnok, Vhenard, and others were reevaluated for mele character difficulty, resulting in changes to attacks and fight mechanics.
- Fixed an issue where Vampire Brutes using the Shadow Enchant affix would chain-cast Impale.
CELLARS
- Increased the chance for a dungeon Event to occur in Cellars.
- Cellars will now consistently reward a chest upon completion.
- Fixed an issue where Cellars would prematurely be marked as complete.
- Fixed an issue where the guaranteed elite monster would be absent from a Cellar.
GENERAL QUALITY OF LIFE
- Fixed an issue where players could increase attack speed by move-cancelling attacks early.
- Fixed an issue where characters weren’t immune and untargetable after loading into an area.
- The Reset Dungeon button has been disabled.
- Fixed an issue that caused Gale Valley and Serac Rapture to have less monsters than intended until the campaign quests in those territories was completed.