English
Gamereactor
news
Diablo IV

Diablo IV: Paragon Progress takes place on a game board

Blizzard also talk about item effects, game physics and animations.

Subscribe to our newsletter here!

* Required field
HQ

Two of Blizzard Entertainment's developers, Joe Piepiora (lead systems designer) and Daniel Briggs (lead visual effects artist), have told us a little more about the progress that the team has able to make to Diablo IV in the last three months. The studio keeps their fans up to date on adjustments made at regular intervals and this time subtleties are clarified, ranging from progress systems to the visual representation of adjustment options.

Diablo IV
Diablo IVDiablo IV

Piepiora confirms, for example, that items that you find on your travels through Sanctuary can contain the affix "+ [Skill]" . If you put on such an item, you gain access to said ability or strengthen the corresponding talent by one level. You can destroy items at the occultist to keep certain properties as essence. The essence obtained can be transferred to another item, so you can perfect your builds. Of course there are various restrictions, for example an item can only use one active essence and unique items are excluded from this process.

In contrast to Diablo III, you won't have to try desperately to grind certain item types in order to unlock a certain bonus skill. The equipment in Diablo IV should be generated randomly so that you can accommodate increases in value in all item slots. However, if you absolutely want to replace a certain item, for example your trousers or a helmet, then you should look specifically for enemies of one kind. In Diablo IV, opponents will prefer to hoard certain types of items.

If you reach the provisional maximum level of level 50, you will unlock access to the Paragon progression system. In the upcoming action role-playing game from Blizzard, this is a kind of game board on which you invest points in order to expand. In this space there are tiles with different effects that give your character passive advantages. When you reach the end of the board, choose a new Paragon board with fresh features. Blizzard describes that there are so-called "glyphs" that can be built into this in order to occupy several fields with the corresponding bonuses. Apparently there will also be possibilities to enhance the effects of the glyphs used in order to get even more advantages.

Diablo IV
This image gives you an impression of the passive bonus effects that you can unlock on the Paragon field.

The artists at Blizzard also made various advances over the last quarter, Daniel Briggs tells us. AOE damage (area effects) are now animated more precisely, skills and animations of talents take into account player movements and the equipment used by the user, and thanks to the physics system, enemies react more realistically to hits (which also applies to ragdoll physics). Class-specific abilities determine how the enemy units die (i.e. whether they burn or freeze to death, whether limbs are cleanly severed or torn apart, etc.).

The special effects of the abilities adapt dynamically to the environment, which is illuminated by the unit abilities under specific rules. Ultimate skills can even temporarily change the weather, which in turn affects the appearance of the skills. According to Briggs, the strength of talent will be visually reflected in Diablo IV. As a result, one can apparently visually see whether a poison arrow does 20 percent more damage or whether it is twice as strong as normal.

There was also information on the status of development, but we still haven't received a release date. Game Director Joe Shely describes that the team is testing an internal version of what is being regarded as a "significant milestone in the development". Blizzard removed Diablo IV and Overwatch 2 from the next fiscal year a few months ago moved, so we'll probably have to wait until at least 2023 before we get our hands on these two games.

HQ

Related texts



Loading next content