Blizzard ended the Diablo 4 Constructs developer pre-season stream by sharing news about how class and item balancing will be implemented in the future, as well as the philosophy behind this new approach.
The developers don’t want the meta to get stale, but they also realize that taking good stuff away from players quickly can ruin the fun. This is what actually happens.
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As revealed in the show, Diablo 4 will now receive two updates per season. The first one comes at the beginning of the new season and the other comes halfway through the new season. The updates that start each new season will obviously include new content that will come in the form of legendary and unique ones. Every class should have something new. The first update will also bring new balance adjustments to classes, and may include design changes that go beyond just messing with numbers.
Blizzard generally wants to buff rather than nerf, but when something becomes too strong/weak it will be viewed as a bug that needs to be fixed.
Balance changes also extend to drop rates, monsters, and more. By the same token, Blizzard also hopes to use the start of the new season to make bigger adjustments to the game. While these are obviously not guaranteed to happen every season, the idea is that the start of the season is a good time to start new initiatives or changes to the way existing mechanics work (such as when the resistance changes for Season 2).
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The mid-season update, on the other hand, is when you can expect the return of old content. Just like Blizzard brought back some of the evil forces in the form of rings in Season 2, you can expect favorites from seasons past to find new life in the current season. They don’t necessarily come in the form of loot; some may end up being aspects or even paragon nodes.
Likewise, balance updates will also be released with the mid-season patch, albeit to a smaller extent. Blizzard isn’t going to make any spectacular nerfs to anything (except for critical bugs), but you might notice a buff or two.
In case you missed it, Blizzard has also made some big changes to Seasonal Journeys, starting with Season of Construction, which is probably the biggest change to Diablo 4 yet in terms of content. These quality-of-life updates look good, too.
Builder season kicks off on Tuesday, January 23rd 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm UK.
