When I think of character customization, I generally think of character creation options. Everything to do with how a character looks and sounds, and to a lesser extent, what class is selected. In Diablo IV, Blizzard is looking to push character creation further with various choices players make while playing. Last week we had the opportunity to participate in a roundtable interview with Lead Class Designer Adam Jackson and Lead Game Producer Melissa Corning, where we delved into some of the real nitty gritty of how the customization systems work. So, let’s dive in.
Character Creation/Class Options
During the beta, we looked at all the options for character creation customization. I was delighted to see the body markings in the options, but many of them had facial markings as part of the package, and some just clashed with the options I picked for my character’s face. In response to a question about changes made based on feedback, Corning pointed out that they heard this particular point of feedback a lot. She explained that they are currently looking into whether they can split the options for face markings and body markings into two so that players have more choices in this regard.
One common aspect of character creation is choosing the body type/look of the character’s body. In Diablo IV, each class has a specific body style associated with it to maintain each class’s silhouette. Regarding the Druid specifically, some people expressed interest in having a skinnier option. Corning addressed that by saying:
“There’s no plan to currently, it’s obvious we made this decision from the beginning because our goal was to be visually distinguished, as Adam also said. Also, we have hundreds of pieces of gear in the game, and all of it is hand-crafted for every single class. By actually having a specific look, we can guarantee that no matter how you customize your character, every single piece of gear is going to look absolutely fabulous on your character. So that is also something that we take into consideration.”
One of my favorite classes to play is the Crusader because it is so easy to make completely broken builds and run around without fear of anything. Sadly, there is no Crusader in Diablo IV at launch, and this is the case for a few popular classes from past games. You might assume they would try to cover some of what is missing from their available classes. However, Jackson explained why they are conservative with that, “it is a fine line because we do want to balance the old with the new… I think you can find some aspects of that in certain ways in our classes. For example, the Rogue has a lot of similarities to what the Demonhunter did in Diablo III. There’s a lot of arrow-based archer fantasy and combat, and you know they move around really quickly across the battlefield. We don’t purposefully try to hit everything one to one, though. One because it’s hard to make new things if all you are doing is referencing old things. But also, if we make something too one-to-one, that means we can’t bring that class in, in the future if we wanted to.”
Talents and Paragon Trees
After the beta weekends last month, one of the big points of contention raised was how much it costs to respec a character. This is an essential aspect of the system because sometimes players will choose abilities that could be better in hindsight or abilities that were working well stop being as effective when you get to later levels, or simply a playstyle ends up not being as enjoyable as anticipated. If the only way to fix these issues is to start a new character, that can be an incredibly discouraging experience for players. As a result, the ability to respec becomes incredibly important, and if it costs too much, you might feel like you have to reroll anyway. Jackson addressed the way the team is thinking about respecing in Diablo IV as follows:
“We have to balance this idea that we want players to commit to this fantasy and a character and have actual weight and meaning to their choices, but we also want them to feel free to customize their character and explore and try different builds/fantasies and ways to play. Where we’ve landed on that earlier on in the game, it’s very, very cheap to the point where it’s essentially free, to respec your character and change around you build and experiment and do what you want, particularly through the campaign. And then when you get to the really late game, we do kind of want you to start to optimize and focus on a build. And focus on a real fantasy so you can have that identity of ‘I am a werewolf Druid’ or ‘I am a blood-casting magic Necro’. To balance those is where we got with the respec costs. As far as the idea of making everything free forever, I don’t think we’ll be going in that direction anytime soon. But this is a live service game, and we are continuing to listen to feedback from the community.”
I understand where he’s coming from on this, though I prefer having more fluidity in changing my choices; that does result in the choices not meaning much because they can be changed at any time. Also, what’s too expensive is a subjective call and depends greatly on how freely currency flows in game. From what we’ve seen so far, they are leaning towards it being on the more expensive side of things, especially when it comes to paragon points. It sounds like they are planning to fine-tune that a bit after launch based on feedback from players and player behavior.
Cosmetics
Diablo IV strikes a much darker tone than Diablo III and never really lets up. With that in mind, since the overworld is shared, how cosmetics are handled will affect players even if they stick to what they want to see. For example, a player who wants to keep with the more dark and serious game theme could feel like seeing someone else running around in a “silly” transmog as breaking their immersion. Corning had a concise and to-the-point comment about this concern, “Every single piece of equipment in the game right now is specifically designed to fit within the vision and the feel, the gothic horror kind of style of the game.” This is a little disappointing as someone who enjoys the randomness some people come up with. However, I don’t fault them for this either.
Overall, I’m excited to have all the different ways to customize my character at my disposal, but how the respec costs work out will be a huge factor in how free I feel to try random things in my build. Additionally, considering they are highlighting all the choices players have with their characters, the one body type for each class feels out of place. But hey, if that means there won’t be any clipping on the gear I wear, I guess it’s a worthwhile sacrifice. We’re closing in on launch, though, and I can’t wait to explore all of Diablo IV.
