With talents, you determine what your character can do and how he plays in Diablo 4. In the latest test, testers were able to try out the talents and finally talk openly about their impressions of the new action RPG. Blizzard changed the talent system several times and now seems to have reached a good point.
The most important things about Diablo 4:
- Diablo 4 is set to be released for PC, PlayStation, and Xbox in 2023 – according to rumors on June 5.
- Tests have been running for some time, but until now no one was allowed to talk about it. Nevertheless, there were gameplay leaks and player opinions on Diablo 4.
- Now the first official tests have been released from journalists and experts who were able to get an impression of the systems in an early version.
What exactly are talents? In Diablo 4, there is a talent system that roughly strikes a middle ground between that of Diablo 2 and Diablo 3. You distribute skill points when leveling up and thereby learn new abilities or enhance them through passive bonuses and levels.
Since the announcement and the first images of Diablo 4, a lot has changed. In early images, structures could be seen that strongly resemble Diablo 2. Here, it appeared that one could skill increasingly stronger abilities from top to bottom.
Later, the talents turned into an actual tree that gradually fills with blood and has branches and splits to provide a more complex selection. Together with the huge Paragon board, all of this made it seem as if the talents in Diablo 4 would become as extensive as Path of Exile. This game is considered so complicated that some players think, one must be a masochist to enjoy it. However, Diablo 4 seems to be moving away from this approach.
You are not supposed to be able to unlock all abilities, as seems to be the case in the latest tests. Here you can see gameplay from 3 of the classes in Diablo 4:
Talents are now more linear, less complex
In the latest builds, it can be seen how the talents tend to follow a line from which various skills spread out (via Polygon). By distributing points, new nodes must be reached, which are then expanded with skills and passive abilities.
This makes the talent system significantly more accessible, which according to the executives was supposed to be the goal. Diablo head Rod Ferguson says:
Diablo 2 felt like making a commitment. You could reskill once per difficulty. But in Diablo 3, you switched builds like clothes. Everything was based on gear and not on skills.
Rod Ferguson to Polygon
As Joe Shely adds, it should be easier to try out new builds in Diablo 4. Each point can be redistributed individually at any time, but at increasing gold costs – thus a middle ground between Diablo 2 and Diablo 3.
The possibility to reskill is also supposed to be extended to the Paragon system, which, however, was not yet available in the latest tests. The decisions are supposed to remain meaningful. At some point, it should be so expensive that one might be better off considering starting a new character than redistributing skill points.
Additionally, skills will reappear on items, similar to how it was in Diablo 2. This way, it will be possible to try out certain abilities before even learning them, to decide whether one wants to use them.
Generally, Diablo 4 is taking a step back and building on systems that were well received in previous installments, to improve them further. The developers have repeatedly emphasized that Diablo 4 is utilizing the best features of previous games:
Diablo 4 gets the best features of its predecessors – The chief excites fans with just one sentence
