Blizzard has published its finals Diablo 4 Blog of the year on Monday, and it came with a lot of information. The topics range from loot to legendaries to the new Paragon system and visual effects.
Since the blog post is around 3,500 words long, it’s a little intimidating to look at. Here are the five things you need to know:
With Skill + items, you can unlock skills early on
In Diablo 4, some items have bonuses for certain skills like “+4 to Flay”. The more bonus points a skill has, the more powerful and useful it becomes. If players have not yet unlocked this skill, they can use it as long as they have equipped the piece of equipment – even if their level is too low.
You can transfer legendary powers with a new NPC
The occultist is a new NPC in Diablo 4, and is able to distill legendary powers into various items. Legendaries work differently in Diablo 4, and the same force can fall on different kinds of objects. If you have a legendary power for a weapon that you don’t want to use, you can take it to the occultist and he will break it down into a new item called essence. Essence is just the legendary power with no attached items. You can then put the essence on a new item of certain types and make a rare item a legendary with that certain power.
The example on the blog post is a barbarian ax with the pent-up power that makes anger skills do additional damage the longer you stop using them. The occultist breaks the legendary ax into pent-up essence (and destroys it in the process). The essence item then says you can use it on a rare one-handed weapon, two-handed weapon, gloves, rings, or an amulet.
Certain monsters hoard certain items
One of the smaller changes highlighted in the blog post is to help players find specific items. Instead of loot being the typical Diablo cash, certain monsters are possessed by certain item types. For example, bandits tend to wear maces, crossbows, and boots. Players in need of a new legendary pair of pants should try hunting down a pack of drowned enemies.
It’s a bit silly having to hunt down the pants-obsessed when you want a better chance at the pants you’ve got your eye on, but it should make farming a little friendlier.
The Paragon system has a few Way of exile Skill tree vibes
The Paragon system is at the center of the most complex section of the blog post. As soon as you reach level 50, you will collect Paragon Points – similar to how you got them Diablo 3
Each class starts with their own board and they can use points to unlock nodes in different ways. There are normal stats nodes, magic nodes that give bonus values, rare nodes that give mild effects, and a single legendary node that gives players a new legendary power. There are even glyph sockets on the field that allow players to use special items in dungeons that offer new effects.
You can also adventure to the end of your board, which allows you to attach a new board (complete with a new legendary knot) to your old board. You can build on these boards permanently and increase your performance dramatically over time.
Each class makes monsters pop differently
Finally, the team touches on some powerful visual enhancements that are coming up Diablo 4. One of the more interesting changes is that certain classes have unique destructive effects on enemies. As in Diablo 3
Sorceresses can freeze and burn monsters, while barbarians can cut or crush them in half. Rogues are able to spill or poison a monster’s guts onto the field, causing its skin to melt. Druids can crush enemies with boulders, leave a stain on the ground, or explode them with lightning.
Each class has its own little list of effects that are listed in the blog post that require a redirect from Diablo 4‘s new game director Joe Shely. He replaced previous ones Diablo 4 Game director Luis Barriga, who left the company in August after the state of California filed a lawsuit against Blizzard on harassment charges. More than 40 Activision Blizzard employees were fined in the months following the initial lawsuit.
Research by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) found that women at Activision Blizzard are paid less and sexually harassed without punishing the perpetrators. Since the filing of the lawsuit in late July, the DFEH has expanded its complaint to include allegations that Activision Blizzard “suppressed” evidence in its investigation. The company denies this claim.
Activision Blizzard is currently facing multiple lawsuits and an investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. One of their lawsuits, filed by the U.S. Equal Opportunities Commission, was settled for $ 18 million earlier this year.
Company employees also continue to speak up on social media and elsewhere to encourage significant change. You can read more about the allegations against Activision Blizzard in the explanation of Polygon.
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