The team behind Diablo 4 has introduced a new way for players and fans to engage with them – “Campfire Chats.” These streams involve important figures from the Diablo 4 team, discussing game mechanics and future updates, and engaging with player concerns and feedback. In this article, we will look at the central insights of Diablo IV Campfire Chat, which took place on 16 June 2023.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A New Format for Fan Interaction
“Campfire Chat” is an interactive session where developers discuss with fans potential changes and updates to the game in a casual and accessible format. The debut of this chat confirmed that Diablo 4 is a living project with room for tweaks and improvements in response to player feedback.
For campfire chats, we want to use this format to chat with the community and make sure that you all get an opportunity to hear from us and talk to us a little bit more often.
The stream was attended by:
Successful Launch
One major topic of discussion was the successful launch of Diablo 4. The game has already chalked up over 350 million hours of play since its release, and the reviews have been glowing. The developers credited their live operations team for ensuring a smooth launch and ongoing playability.
Tiffany White oversees the large live ops team and has been instrumental in Diablo 4’s success. According to her, both hotfixes (server-side fixes) and client fixes (fixes requiring an update to the player’s game client) have been crucial in maintaining the game’s stability and performance post-launch.
Future Improvements
The team also emphasized their commitment to ongoing development. They aim to act on feedback and issues as quickly as possible while navigating the complexities of certification processes and QA checks.
One example of this continuous improvement is the team’s plan for a “chunky” client patch. They hinted at performance improvements and other substantial changes, though full details weren’t revealed during the chat. Adam Fletcher showed a 13-page list of updates, which could warrant a temporary maintenance window to roll it out effectively.
This is we’re talking about actually reacting to what’s going on as opposed to things we already knew we wanted.
One of the critical elements of Campfire Chats is a focus on reactive development. According to the developers, this means reacting to ongoing developments within the game and its player base instead of premeditated plans.
Balancing Act
The balancing act in Diablo 4 involves changing both the game world and classes. The developers compare this to adjusting pluses and minuses in the game. They understand the potential discontent among the players when a particular feature or class is nerfed, but they believe that such decisions have to be made for the good of the game.
We have a philosophy of balancing the game, whether the world or the classes will be pluses and minuses that must be applied to the game.
The team shared their objective of providing players with a lot of choices. This involves deciding where they level up or acquire loot and how they choose to build their characters. The developers also discussed the challenge of balancing power among classes and building to ensure every choice becomes moderate.
Our goal is to have a lot of choices for players, both in terms of being able to make lots of good choices for where you’re going to level or acquire loot and also in terms of your character having lots of choices.
Nightmare Dungeons
Feedback from the community, be it from social media, forums, or content creators, has been a valuable resource for the team. The most crucial feedback so far has been around dungeons. Responding to this, the developers have implemented several hotfixes to improve dungeons, particularly adjusting the density of Elite Packs in different dungeons.
Nightmare Dungeons, designed to be highly replayable, have become a point of contention among the player base. The developers have listened to the feedback and plan to increase the XP gained from these dungeons to make them more efficient than side dungeons.
We’re improving the rewards from Nightmare Dungeons to make them more what the intention was. That’s the place you farm.
These improvements also include a feature allowing players to teleport directly to these Nightmare Dungeons, reducing unnecessary travel time and increasing farming efficiency.
Preparing for Season One
With the impending launch of Season One, the team is working diligently to iron out any issues and ensure the new content and updates are ready. Season One is expected to launch mid to late July, and the team aims to implement Nightmare Dungeon improvements by then.
The Nightmare Dungeon changes that Joe was talking about, the goal are to have that out before season one.
The developers addressed key player concerns about the transition to the new season, especially regarding the progression system. They explained that the fog of war that players had cleared in their map would carry over into the new season, and any renown earned from clearing these areas would be credited to them at the start of Season One. Moreover, the stat bonuses from the Altars of Lilith will not be reset with the new season, allowing players to retain them.
The fog of war you’ve lifted on your map, the amount of the map you’ve exposed going into the season in the internal realm, will be what you see in the season, so you don’t have to go and reveal the map again.
The team also said that while most side quests will continue to reset with each season, they are considering retaining some aspects in future updates.
We’ll continue to evaluate, some things are fun to do every season, and some things, after you do them a few times, feel like, ‘Ah, why do I have to do this again?’
Armor and Materials
Speakers talked about the current caps on materials, stating that there is no specific reason to cap Veiled Crystals at 10,000, and they will increase this cap. This change is especially beneficial for higher-level players naturally picking up a lot of gear and salvaging it for materials.
There’s no particular reason to cap Veiled Crystals at 10,000. We’re just going to make that bigger.
Another of the topics broached during the chat was armor resistance and its current dynamic within the game. As it stands, the interaction between armor resistance and other elements within Diablo 4 can be complex, which might make it difficult for players to discern their exact function. Furthermore, the current interaction pattern diminishes the value of resistances in gameplay.
And what we’re seeing right now is that because of the way all of these things are interacting in a complex way, it can be hard for people to figure out exactly how they work.
Death Protection in Hardcore Mode
The developers know that disconnects, especially those beyond a player’s control, can be incredibly frustrating.
To address this issue, the team has proposed introducing a mechanism that triggers a ‘Scroll of Escape,’ a rare consumable item, in the event of a disconnection. This will ensure the player’s character is safely teleported to a town. However, as this complex system requires significant work, the team anticipates this feature being implemented by Season Two.
When we detect that you’ve disconnected, if you have one of these Scrolls of Escape in your inventory, it will trigger even though you weren’t there to trigger it.
The Mechanics of Power
The team also pointed out that players may focus on the wrong metrics, namely item level rather than item power.
Item power is the number that people should be focusing on as opposed to specifically item level.
For example, a lower level character gets a power bump due to higher item power on a lower level item.
The developers also acknowledged some bugs in the game, like certain unique items dropping for the wrong character class, and promised fixes in upcoming patches.
Social Features
The speakers also shared insights about upcoming social features designed to facilitate better interactions among players, especially those looking to join in-game groups.
While these changes may take time, the team assured players that improving social features is integral to their plan.
Stability Concerns
Technical issues concerning the game’s performance and stability were also discussed during the chat. The developers shared that they’re actively working on these issues, with their graphics engineering team diligently addressing different scenarios causing performance problems.
The developers encouraged players to continue reporting any issues they encounter in the game, urging them to share detailed information about their problems on the Diablo 4 forums. This collaborative effort between the developers and the game’s community is crucial to the ongoing work to enhance the game’s performance and stability.
Live Q&A
The “Campfire Chat” session wrapped up with a live Q&A, taking questions directly from the game’s community. We have compiled them for you in a convenient table:
While the game is still a work in progress, “Campfire Chats” offer a valuable look at the development process, as well as a chance for players to interact with the team behind the game.
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