The preseason patch for Diablo 4 was a bit of a disaster. While it did bring much-anticipated Season of Vicious content to the game, most of the excitement was sucked away due to what patch 1.1 did to the game.
While sweeping meta changes are standard for a big patch starting a new season, that’s a bit much for a young game. Blizzard flattened XP gains (making grind slower), nerfed all classes, plugged some power balance holes that groups relied on, reduced the effectiveness of some crutch stats, but didn’t offer alternatives – just to name a few.
Blizzard had to host an emergency stream to address these feedbacks, which drew an uproar of criticism. While the discussions are pretty positive, the developers aren’t ready to give up on any of the larger changes in the 1.1 patch. Instead, we got a small hotfix that makes Nightmare Dungeons more bearable and fixes a few bugs.
But the developer did commit to changing its entire approach to patches, starting with the next patch: Update 1.1.1. The patch is expected to be released within the next two weeks. Instead of removing the patch notes after the patch is released, Blizzard will share those notes on Friday, a few days before release.
Patch 1.1.1 will be the first to get Diablo 4 back on track. Wizards will get a ton of lesser-used Legendary buffs, with Barbarians not far behind. While this may not solve all the problems suffered by the struggling class, it is certainly a start.
The density of monsters in endgame events — a popular topic among players — is increasing. Specifically, you’ll encounter more monsters in Nightmare Dungeons and Helltide events. This should make it easier to level up, especially now that nightmare dungeons are less strenuous.
Speaking of drudgery, Blizzard said it’s considering increasing XP rewards to make the journey from level 50 to 100 smoother, but didn’t say if these will be coming in 1.1.1, or how much of a boost players can expect.
what are we yes There’s definitely a new hidden tab coming in 1.1.1, not much, but again, it’s a step in the right direction. Elixir stacking has also been improved, which is another small change that helps with inventory/storage management.
Another piece of good news is that reconfigured gold costs have been reduced, with Blizzard promising a 40% reduction. More details on the changes 1.1.1 will make to the game will be discussed in the next stream.
The Friday, July 28 Campfire Chat will be streamed live on Twitch and YouTube as usual and will take place on 11am PT / 2pm ET / 7pm BST.
The patch itself should be out in about a week, sometime in the first week of August. More patches for the first season are also in the works.
