Blizzard listened to the community feedback after the Diablo 4 open beta and made some changes. Here is what changed after the Diablo 4 beta.
Back in March, we could enjoy two full weekends of Diablo 4 already. The closed and open beta weekends were a huge success and players enjoyed trying out the new entry to the series after more than 10 years.
While the feedback in general was really positive and most players had an awesome time in Fractured Peaks, there was also some criticism. We also already mentioned what we liked to see changed.
But that's what a beta is for after all, so Blizzard answered in a blog post, detailing what they changed based on the community feedback.
So let's see what was changed and if they also listened to our feedback...
- If you haven't pre-ordered Diablo 4 yet, do so on Amazon !
Diablo 4 Beta Changes
In the following, we will list the most important changes Blizzard made based on community feedback.
Dungeons
One major issue for many players was the extensive backtracking and the duration of events in dungeons. To prevent this, Blizzard optimized the layout of many dungeons to make sure objectives are positioned along the main dungeon pathways.
They also implemented some gameplay changes, like faster movement speed while carrying a portable object or small numbers of monsters seeking out the player to faster complete the "Kill all monsters" objective.
All in all, dungeons should now feel much less tedious and more fun to complete.
Cellars
Cellars are basically mini dungeons with only one room and a guaranteed elite monster encounter. In the beta they felt a bit redundant, but Blizzard now increased the chance for a dungeon event to occur and also made sure cellars now consistently reward a chest upon completion.
Classes
First of all, many legendary powers got updates to their effectiveness and all class skills were reviewed to make sure all classes have access to sufficient skills that remove control impairing effects. But obviously there were also changes to the classes themselves:
Barbarian
- A flat 10% passive damage reduction has been added for the Barbarian Class. Some Skill Tree passives had their damage reduction effects reduced to compensate.
- The Whirlwind Skill now deals more damage and consumes more Fury.
- The Double Swing Skill Enhancement refunds its full Fury cost when used on Stunned or Knocked Down enemies.
Druid
- Companion Skills will now deal heavily increased damage.
- All Ultimate Skills have had their cooldowns reduced.
- Usability improvements have been made to Maul and Pulverize.
- Using a non-Shapeshifting Skill will transform a Druid back into their human form.
Necromancer
- Summoned Minions will die more often, requiring players to utilize Corpses more often.
- Many bonuses in the Book of the Dead have had their stats increased.
- The damage dealt by the Corpse Explosion skill has been reduced.
- The brightness of the Skeletal Warriors and Mages has been reduced.
Rogue
- Upgrades for Subterfuge Skills have had their bonuses increased.
- Multiple passive Skills have had their bonuses increased.
- All Imbuement Skills have had their cooldowns increased.
Sorcerer
- Charged Bolt’s damage was increased and the Mana cost to cast has decreased.
- Decreased the damage of Chain Lightning and reduced its effectiveness against Bosses.
- Decreased the cooldown for the Incinerate Skill’s Enchantment bonus.
- Firewalls will now spawn underneath enemies more frequently when using its Enchantment bonus.
- Increased the Lucky Hit chance for the Meteor Skill’s Enchantment bonus.
To sum it all up, the Druid should be a lot more effective now and the Necromancer got a much needed nerf. The devs also mentioned that there will be more balance changes coming as soon as Diablo 4 is released.
Encounters
The most important change here is that Blizzard reevaluated a bunch of bosses for melee character difficulty, resulting in changes to attacks and fight mechanics. This should make sure that all builds, even purely melee focused classes, won't be too frustrated with some boss fights.
General Quality Of Life
Blizzard made sure that players can no longer increase their attack speed by move-cancelling attacks early and they disabled the "Reset Dungeon" button. According to them, there are more than enough dungeons and the normal dungeons aren't intended to be repeated indefinitely. However, they are looking into a solution to allow players to complete a specific dungeon several times.
Why No Overlay Map?
Well, those are a lot of good changes and apparently Blizzard really did listen to the community feedback. However, they didn't address everything...
Yes, Diablo 4 has a shared world and the whole concept of playing with others and being able to complete world events together is at the core of Diablo 4's gameplay, so obviously there will not be a single player or offline mode, but what about a simple overlay map?
Basically all Action RPGs, including older Diablo games, have a semi-transparent overlay map. The map of Diablo 4 is massive and it is easy to lose track of where you have to go next, so an overlay map would be the best way to solve that problem. But the Diablo 4 beta didn't have that feature and Rid Ferguson himself (general manager of Diablo) said that there are no plans to add it:
No plans at the moment.
— Rod Fergusson (@RodFergusson) April 14, 2023
We don't have any statement on why they don't want to integrate this feature, but our best guess is that Blizzard wants players to focus on the gameplay and not a map while playing Diablo 4.
These are all the changes made after the Diablo 4 beta. There will probably be a bigger day one patch, so we expect some more changes at launch on June 6.
Have you already picked your starting class?