As we get ready to jump into Diablo IV’s first season, three Diablo IV devs took the time to answer some burning questions about how all of this will work. This was a unique opportunity to learn more about how this first season will run; the fact that they started working on this season in January indicates how committed the team is to having the seasons run smoothly and how important they are to Diablo IV’s long-term life. The devs who participated in this interview are Associate Game Director Joseph Piepiora, Game Designer (Dungeons) Michelle Pina, and Game Designer (Quests) Madeleine James.
How The Season Will Work
The first and most obvious question regarding seasons in Diablo IV is whether players must complete the campaign storyline before embarking on their seasonal journey. James answered this by explaining that they view seasons as endgame content and that players will need to have finished the main story at least once to start their seasonal journey. She continued, “In the case of someone who wants to play the campaign in season one, they absolutely can do that. You’ll be able to progress through the battle pass as you do that, not all the tiers because some of them are tied to getting your first heart, but you’ll still get that progress.”
Piepiora added, “In a situation where a player has already finished the campaign on a previous playthrough when they start the season and make a new character, they can make the decision to skip the campaign. Right at level one, you’ll be able to engage with the content of that season, so you’ll able to get started on that questline, right off the bat meet Cormond our new character in season one and start finding malignant creatures, and start digging deeper in.” As someone who was never interested in the Diablo III seasons, all of this sounds wonderful. I love that I can replay the campaign if I want to or start with a new storyline to play through and dive into new things.
One of the benefits of the way they are structuring seasons in Diablo IV is that it allows the team to not only stir up the meta to keep things interesting but also try new things they wouldn’t otherwise if they had to consider the effect it would have on the long-term player experience. With the addition of the 32 new malignant powers, which Piepiora said were “on par with or a few are above legendary powers in terms of strength,” plus the class balance changes they’ve announced, they really expect to see a lot more variety in the builds players come up with.
Piepiora also had this to say about why seasonal things won’t carry forward to the eternal realms:
“Diablo IV is designed from the ground up with this idea, with this character reset methodology in mind, and we do this because of a couple of things. One, we want to be sure that whenever a season rolls that’s the best time to come back and check out Diablo IV. There’s not really the opportunity to fall behind in this way and there’s always the chance to catch back up and jump right back in with everybody and enjoy all of the new stuff. Another way to think about this also is when you start a new character in a game, if it’s a typical live service game, you have an expectation that is starting way over, that’s the beginning, you have to grind so long to get back to the content that’s relevant.
"The reality in Diablo IV, and I think ARPGs in general go down this road, a lot of the enjoyment of the game is the journey of building a character and reacting to the drops that happen for you, and those sort of things as you go… A Diablo game in my mind has a certain cadence of reward, for example, whereas I’m playing, I expect to find legendary items at roughly this kind of rate, I expect to make build changing decisions at this kind of rate, I expect to have really challenging encounters at this kind of rate. These things change if you start imagining if these things need to be really fun for the course of a season for one character playthrough, and that’s really the focus, then what can you do to spread the butter out over more bread? That’s the way we tend to look at things.
"We want to make sure these things feel punchy, when items drop for you, make sure you are making really steady progress, that you have goals, and that you can really get the best gear for your character. Then know in the future, the next time you want to play again, you have the ability to play a different class, you have all these new things to go after and chase as part of the new season roll, we want you to have an extremely good time playing. We think players who are engaging with this and thinking about what this will mean for them, not everyone has had that experience before, and we hope people come to check it out and get to see what it feels like to play through the game in this way, with these new toys, with the battle pass online, being able to level up a bit more quickly as a result of the ashes you’ll be unlocking through the pass as part of the free track.”
I understand wanting to keep Diablo IV approachable for new and returning players; that specific issue comes up a lot in MMOs. It requires a shift in mindset, however. I am sad to be setting the character I’ve been playing on the eternal realm to the side and playing a new one.
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James also added her thoughts regarding the hesitancy to start new characters “My eternal character that I did in season zero, you know, before season one, all of that loot is still relevant and still great, and it’s still going to be relevant and great at season seven.” Which is a good point. They have said that any expansion-related stories or storylines leading to what’s next wouldn’t be done via the seasons. So when those happen, I’ll be able to dust off my old character, hop right back in, or pick up one of my other characters from the various seasons. I’m still skeptical about what this experience will be like, but I am really interested in trying it out.
James also clarified that in addition to progression from our characters on eternal carrying over to the seasonal characters, progression within a season on one character would carry forward to other characters you make that season. This is a remarkable feature, as knowing that once I do things once, I won’t be starting from scratch again that season makes me more inclined to try multiple different classes or different builds on other characters.
New Things to Do
One of the new things to do in season one is Malignant Tunnels which are intended to be highly replayable dungeons. I was curious about what makes these more repayable than the regular dungeons. Pina explained that the malignant tunnels are procedurally generated in the same way all of the dungeons in Diablo IV are, and they are designed to be the primary place for players to farm their malignant hearts.
She continued, “They focus on kill objectives, they are really gross, when you go inside of them, they are really nasty. Also, say you have bad rng, and you have a ring with an orange socket in it, which means it would be for vicious malignant, and you haven’t come across a vicious heart in so long. There’s an optional event at the end of malignant tunnels, that you can get to once you complete the main objectives, which are just two or three objectives. There you can use a craftable object that you craft with Comond, called an invoker and there are different types of invokers that match the malignants. So, you would craft a vicious invoker and you would use it on a vicious outgrowth, that’s the event it’s called malignant outgrowths, basically you stab the outgrowth you want with the proper invoker. Then it will spawn a vicious malignant that you can farm for yourself.”
Piepiora added that there will be six new malignant tunnels this season, and they are also designed to be shorter bites of content than some of the dungeons currently in Diablo IV. He also pointed out that they are designed as the go-to for players if they are looking to farm specific malignant hearts, and there will be ways to increase the challenges and rewards as the character levels up. It’ll be interesting to see how this aspect of the season works out. It all sounds great, but I also worry about getting bored of them despite the procedurally generated element.
Later in the interview, Pina also mentioned that malignant tunnels are not part of the nightmare dungeon system and won’t generate nightmare sigils. However, they have some progression related to your progress through the seasonal journey. On the topic of nightmare dungeons, James also mentioned that the roster of these dungeons would be completely different in season one than they were at launch. So, no need to keep farming the same six dungeons.
Looooot!
One aspect that has some players concerned is that a gold drop percentage buff is part of Diablo IV’s paid battle pass and could give players who buy the premium pass a leg up on obtaining legendary and sacred items since these things were all tied together in Diablo III. Thankfully Piepiora quickly confirmed that the drop rate for types of gear is separate from the drop rate for gold. He also clarified that players can modify the malignant hearts that drop, but that’s part of the free battle pass, so everyone can access that.
One of the main things players will be going after in season one is the malignant hearts, which can be slotted into the jewelry, essentially in place of a gem slot. This begs the question, how powerful can they be if they are just gems? James jumped on this question to say, “they are very different from gems in the current game. They are basically legendary powers… I’m looking at the page right now and one of my favorites is when five enemies get close to you it will automatically stun them for every x amount of seconds.” Which, yea, that sounds like something I’d expect to find on legendary gear.
All in all, season one does sound like it’ll be an interesting experience, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it all does shake out. I know there is a lot of the community worried about all the nerfs going out and some of the changes between how seasons will work here versus how they worked in Diablo III. There’s a lot that is really hard to judge without experiencing it all. Some of the weirder nerfs might make more sense after we see all the various malignant powers available. Nonetheless, I am looking forward to firing up this season and checking it out. Don’t forget to log on to your most progressed eternal character before firing up your new seasonal character!