DIABLO IV Devs Talk About Reworked Skill System and More
The development team over at Blizzard have shared an update with fans looking forward to Diablo IV. As part of their quarterly blog update, the team offered fans a look at skills and talents. The team also shared some ways that they’re listening to fan feedback, a look at the Sorceress Enchantment System, and some fantastic new images. I do want to applaud the team for seemingly listening to their fan base. Hopefully, it pays off.
So, let’s look at some of the adjustments the team has decided to make. First, they had an idea for Ancestral/Demonic/Angelic Power for characters. Players weren’t won over by the description of how these would work and the team agreed. They felt there was too much bookkeeping to actually be fun and worth it. They do like some of the idea and are working on reworking the system to be better. The other item the team addressed legendary items. They’ll be adjusting items to be more impactful and build on your character’s strengths instead of being your character’s strength.
Now, let’s talk about Skills. The team agreed that the current Skill progression system felt too simple and lackluster. Well, they’ve been reworking things to look like the Sorceress skill tree pictured below. The upper Skills are bought with Skill Points earned by leveling up. New Skills are unlocked, new functionality can be added to skills, and Passive Points can be unlocked for the lower part of the tree called the Passive section. The Passive section is more about general character upgrades. The team does point out that players will not be able to unlock the entirety of their Skill Tree. Instead, you’ll be able to get about 30-40% of the Tree’s nodes.
Finally, let’s take a look at the Sorceress Enchantment System. A Sorceress can place their skills into one of two locations. There’s the active skill slot and an Enchantment slot. Putting a skill in the Enchantment slot makes it unavailable to use as an active skill, but grants you a secondary bonus. For example, Ball Lightning currently turns Crackling Energy (something that grants 25 mana) into Ball Lightning which I assume is somehow better.
Are you excited for Diablo IV?