Diablo IV: new experience and item systems, adjustments and visual effects … Everything that should be remembered from the progress of the developers

Game news Diablo IV: new experience and item systems, adjustments and visual effects … Everything that should be remembered from the progress of the developers

The header video corresponds to the Diablo IV announcement trailer that was released during Blizzcon on November 1st, 2019.

In the last quarterly report of the year, Blizzard reported on the progress of Diablo IV. In a post on the studio’s blog, Joe Piepiora (Head of System Design) talks about the new Paragon system and the new objects, while Daniel Briggs, manager of visual effects for the game, talks about visual effects and readability.

A new experience system and revised items

These are primarily the skills addressed by the team with the return of the skills + affixes. Powers can now be enhanced, increasing potency. Ranks that can be improved thanks to skill points, but also through objects: some give a skill a rank or even unlock it if it has not yet been learned. A great way to test some performance without investing in it.

Changes are also expected for Legendary Powers, a cornerstone in Diablo. They can now be found on all types of items (ring, leggings, breastplate …): this means that there is no longer any need to search for a specific category of items to find their power. A change that comes with the arrival of the Occultist, a new non-playable character. The latter makes it possible to extract a legendary power in the form of gasoline, destroy the object and re-inject it into another weapon.

But that’s not all ! A new progression system is reserved for the highest level characters in Diablo IV: the Paragon board. It allows you to customize your character when the Paragon levels are acquired and the bonus levels are restored once the maximum level is reached. This pattern board visible below has different types of tiles: normal, magical, rare and legendary. The rarer the disk type, the greater or even unique the performance granted. In addition, it will also be possible to embed sockets in certain types of panels to improve the bonuses granted. Finally, the last type of disk, and last but not least: the gateway disks. They allow players to expand their pattern board with another and connect it to the existing one, which promises even more player customization.

Visual Effects: “Gameplay Above All”

In a more technical paragraph, the gigantic explosions and impressive visual effects of the skills are presented without compromising the clarity and legibility of the game,

Areas of effect expand outward over time, and melee hits follow the movement of your weapon. Animated target areas allow us to improve the way damage is applied in Diablo IV; the fight offers more gripping feelings and the physics of the monsters appear more realistic. Payloads also give us the ability to incorporate a subtle nuance of timing into all kinds of skills.

In addition, the developers explain that the animation data allows them to make the game more immersive because they can locate the place where the monster is to receive the impact. As an example, they state that when a monster is hit in the knee, blood rushes from the knee and the enemy swings as if they were hit there. Light also plays an important role in the work of the team behind Diablo IV. Unlike its predecessors, it uses a PBR system: that is, materials react to light. A process that improves rendering and immersion, but isn’t always easy to use for a game like Diablo:

If we were to only use the ambient lighting and actually follow the rules of the PBR model, the game’s legibility would suffer, especially in dark places where gun movement would be difficult to distinguish. To remedy this, many visual effects themselves emit light that diffuses into the environment. Several in-game ultimate abilities even allow you to change the weather and ambient lighting for a limited time. Our goal is to find the right balance between clarity of the game and immersion in the universe.

The same quarterly report states that Blizzard’s approach to its games over the years has been as follows: “Gameplay above all“. A credo that for Blizzard puts the game style in the foreground, which wants to be entertaining. An entertainment that also pervades the visual aspect:

Your decisions shouldn’t just affect your character’s stats. When we’re happy with a class skill, the effects team gives developers the ability to dynamically change the size, intensity, and duration of a skill. Your skills will see their visual intensity increase as you level them up and select items that increase their strength.

At the end of the report, Blizzard states that skill-related death effects were added to Diablo IV after the success in Diablo III. Depending on the ability she kills, enemies will react differently. For example, the witch can sink them with lightning or burn them, while the thief can tear off an enemy’s skin or let their entrails gush out.

Ultimately, this quarterly report says Diablo IV is moving forward. This is also evidenced by the test that is currently taking place internally, which is synonymous with an important stage in the development of the title. We’ll have to wait a little longer before the game is released: On November 3rd, Activision-Blizzard announced that it would be released later than planned for Diablo IV and Overwatch 2. PS4 and Xbox One.

Source : Diablo IV Quarterly Report: December 2021