If there’s a game where balancing is essential, or even mandatory, it’s Diablo. And the fourth episode will not escape the rule either.
As part of the release of diablo 4 On June 6th, we had the opportunity to interview Associate Game Director and Art Director Joseph Piepiora and John Mueller about Blizzard’s next big game. We took the opportunity to ask about the balance of Hack’n Slash, a key concept players expect on the turn.
A perfect balance for Diablo 4?
Apparently it was difficult to conduct an interview diablo 4 without asking questions about balancing, which is quite a complex term for a development studio. In fact, it very often happens, even after long internal testing sessions, that an online game is completely unbalanced when it is released.
The balance of Diablo is very important. Do you have any additional information you would like to share with us ahead of the game’s release?
Going forward, balancing will be a constant conversation. The goal is to listen to the players and the community.
With the seasonal rhythm, We will patch every season and not continuously. We believe that all builds will be in a balanced situation, with some naturally being stronger than others, but if players are obviously finding builds that are really too strong and need to be downsized, we will be able to work on that.
So the goal isn’t to offer hotfixes as soon as a build is suspected of being unbalanced, but rather to wait until the end of a season to do something. History to analyze all the elements that the developers have in their hands.
Diablo 4: an artistically stunning game
In addition to balancing, we were also able to look at another important aspect of the game, which is the artistic direction, which is particularly impressive in Diablo 4.
What is your artistic inspiration for Diablo IV – film, painting?
I really like art, especially painting. And there is one painting that made a big impact on my life when I saw it, it was The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault. We wanted Diablo 4 to look like an old master painting.
As reminder The Raft of Medusa is an oil painting on canvas created between 1818 and 1819 by the French Romantic painter Théodore Géricault. The theme refers to the tragic sinking of the frigate jellyfish. This was responsible for transporting administrative equipment, officials and soldiers assigned to what would become the colony of Senegal, but apparently nothing went as planned. And it’s true that by admiring the work of Diablo 4’s artists, we can get a certain closeness in the use of chiaroscuro.
