At BlizzCon 2023, MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus had the chance to speak with the heads of Diablo 4. Associate Game Director Joe Piepiora and Production Director Tiffany Wat answered questions about the new expansion Vessel of Hatred, the current state of the game, and the future of Diablo 4.
Blizzard announced Vessel of Hatred as the first expansion for Diablo 4, which is set to be released at the end of 2024. Otherwise, the information about the game was quite scarce this year: Especially the soon upcoming changes were presented in detail.
For example, the powers from Season 1 are returning in the form of items and the first seasonal event, the Winterplague, is coming up. There was no concrete information about the new class in Vessel of Hatred or more than the info that it goes into a jungle.
In the interview, I tried to squeeze out a few more details from the two and asked them about the development of Diablo 4 so far. Several exciting answers emerged around the key aspects of Diablo: looting and leveling.
Tiffany Wat has been with Activision since 2007, initially as a tester. She has been working at Blizzard since 2011, where she was also responsible for Diablo 3. Joe Piepiora has been with Blizzard since 2017 and worked on Heroes of the Storm before Diablo 4.
You can watch the full interview here in the video. Below we have a translated transcript for you:
We can make improvements so that affixes feel more significant
MeinMMO: One of the biggest criticisms in the past has been that there are too many affixes on the items. You have already worked on it and trimmed the “Damage Buckets”, but how do you want to further improve the system?
Joe Piepiora: “Let me take a step back: We know that there are a few very important things for an ARPG and a Diablo experience that need to feel right. Killing monsters needs to feel good, and the rewards for that are the drops on the ground. When you collect them and compare, it needs to be fun. […]
Since the release, we have already made many improvements to the system, but there is still work to be done. The affixes are currently a small problem. When a player has, for example, four helmets […] and compares them, there are so many affixes that can potentially be on them […] it can be challenging just to compare each of them. Even rare helmets can have 4 different properties.
But you are actually only looking for a few good affixes to know that the item is worth keeping. Cooldown reduction, for example, is a very strong affix on helmets. So when you see it, you know that you should take a closer look at the item to see if there is anything else you want on it. Sometimes it can feel great, like you found the jackpot. But just finding one “cherry” is hard. Two will be difficult because there are so many possibilities. […]
It’s easy to say: There are too many affixes. And we don’t necessarily disagree. But it’s inherently harder to find an item that you really want to keep, upgrade, enchant, … We have these issues with itemization today. We want to make changes to this as we continue to develop it this year and next year.
We can make many improvements so that the affixes themselves feel more significant and address where affixes repeat and aren’t so relevant. […] There is a lot of room for improvement, and we are very keen on improving and polishing the system.”
MeinMMO: It feels a bit like a more comprehensive crafting system was planned. Are there plans to expand the system, such as rerolling multiple affixes or creating recipes like in the Horadric Cube?
Joe Piepiora: “[…] There isn’t too much depth in terms of item modification and upgrades in the current crafting system. We can definitely make significant improvements here. And there is a lot of room, for instance, as you said: What if I could change two affixes? There are many things we can do. […] We have some ideas that I can’t talk about today, but we are already working on them.”
Seasonal powers are supposed to be very powerful, but we can’t bring them all back
MeinMMO: You have now introduced the Malignant Rings, and especially Necromancers are happy that their OP ability from Season 1 is coming back. Do you plan to bring back the best skills from each season?
Joe Piepiora: “Not necessarily. With seasons, we can experiment, do strange, interesting, or in many cases too powerful things. And we want to ensure that you get new toys every season that are interesting and allow you to rethink your build. […]
We always want to introduce new things that players can experiment with, new stones with which to build their castles. That’s what makes ARPGs a special genre. […]
We like the idea that things players found particularly cool or powerful return. But we don’t want to commit to doing that for every single season. […] Such abilities should feel good in the season and sometimes they come back. Seasonal powers should be very powerful, but we can’t bring them all back.”
MeinMMO: What are actually your favorite classes?
Tiffany Wat: “Necromancer. I love the idea of a giant skeleton army. Bone spear is currently the best build, so I’m switching back and forth. In Season 0, I played the bone spear, now I’m playing with the army. But in development, my main class has always been the Sorceress. I love Hunters too – it’s hard to decide.”
Joe Piepiora: “This season, I’m playing a fire wall Sorceress, and it’s incredibly fun. The Rusty Seal Ring of X’Fal is beautiful, everything explodes, lots of Lucky Hits, feels good.
Last season, I was a Hunter, and before that a Barrage Barbarian. It’s always fun. But right now in Season 2, I’m almost done with the first character and want to start a second one. That will probably be an army Necromancer. I have a few ideas, but I won’t share them. We’ll see if I’m right about that.
Since we have the adjustments with the experience points in Season 2, it’s much faster to level a character. That’s why I’m currently playing even more […] I’m really enjoying mowing down through hell floods and blood harvests in the 30 minutes between two meetings. […]”
Tiffany Wat: “That’s exactly why I’m also playing 2 characters and even decided to play hardcore. And that’s why I’m also playing an army Necro, which helps a lot in hardcore. With the Malignant Rings that automatically activate corpse abilities, it gets even better.”
MeinMMO: You just talked about leveling being faster now. However, there is still the limit of world level 3 that lies behind the campaign. If someone reaches level 50 in Act 2 or 3, they first have to slog through content for a while before they can continue leveling. Are you planning to make world level 3 available earlier?
Joe Piepiora: “Interesting. We haven’t talked about that yet. […] But you can now choose to simply skip the campaign and play with friends. […] However, the story also doesn’t really accelerate the leveling flow. […] The XP changes we made significantly affect world levels 3 and 4 because we got more feedback here. It feels slower here, which was never our intention.”
A final assessment of BlizzCon 2023 can be seen here:
You will enjoy the new class
MeinMMO: Regarding the new class that is coming: You decided on something completely new instead of the Paladin, which would encompass everything that’s still missing. Why?
Tiffany Wat: “One of the main pillars of Diablo 4 is to honor the legacy. When considering who we want to see around the campfire, we decided on five classic archetypes. But as a development team, we also like to have fun, and with the expansion, we have the opportunity to explore new ideas. We also want to bring these new ideas closer to the community.
The current class lineup is super solid, all classes that you already know. The possibility of creating something new with new themes, new aesthetics, is very exciting. I hear that our community really wants to play the Paladin, but I think you will enjoy the new class. More on that next year.”
MeinMMO: There was already datamining before BlizzCon, through which some of the new expansion became known – including the name of the class, “Spiritborn.” Some people thought of the Monk from Diablo 3. Are there plans to bring back old favorites like Monk, Witch Doctor or Crusader?
Joe Piepiora: “When we think about a new class, there are a few things we need to consider. On one hand: what is the gameplay niche of this class, purely mechanically? What distinguishes it from what other classes can already do? […] On the other hand, it’s about what the actual fantasy of this class is, which makes it feel distinct and unique.
As Tiffany mentioned earlier, we focused on honoring the legacy with Diablo 4. We really wanted to ensure that some of the core fantasies that players have experienced throughout the Diablo games come back well in Diablo 4. […]
These [class fantasies] are very strong themes around which we can build skills and unique gameplay that supports them. And they also support the ideas we have regarding how the classes play mechanically. Whenever we think about what we want to add to Diablo 4 – whether it’s a new or recurring class – we consider what space this class should fill. How does it feel special? And importantly: does it encroach on another class’s space? […]
When Vessel of Hatred comes out, there will be updates to [all classes]. We will continue to improve them. And we want all these things to continue to harmonize as they grow.”
MeinMMO: Can you at least give me a small hint about the fantasy of the new class?
Joe Piepiora: “No.”
Tiffany Wat: “Well, we are visiting the new region of Nahantu – or at least new in Diablo 4. We already know the region from Diablo 2. […] We now know that the inhabitants call the area Nahantu. As you know from the teaser, it is deep in the jungle, where Kurast is located […] That gives us the opportunity to tie the theme of the class, as Joe mentioned, to the region itself.”
MeinMMO: Will you also raise the max level?
Tiffany Wat: “We can’t talk about that yet.”
MeinMMO: Tiffany, you have already worked on Diablo 3. What lessons could you draw from it to improve Diablo 4?
Tiffany Wat: “Your community is your most important asset. […] If you’re not in active dialogue with your community, then nothing matters because no one plays your game. From the beginning, we planned for Diablo 4 to be supplied with content for a long time and to live long.
To make that work, we respond to feedback and constantly change and improve the game. We need a team that constantly monitors the live services – that’s Joe’s team. And then we need a team that works on expansions – that’s my team. This lesson we learned right at the beginning. If we want to keep the game alive for a long time, we need these focused people.
Exactly that was missing in Diablo 3, or at least it wasn’t as easy. We had to focus more on whether we wanted to work more on the expansion and future content or fix problems. […]
People now think very positively about Diablo 3, but if you think about how it was at launch … many improvements came very long after the original launch. Some even only after Reaper of Souls, which also still received updates. Joe’s team has done a great job of responding quickly.
Season 1 brought a lot of great content, but didn’t address issues from the release because his team had to finish the season for the most part before [Diablo 4] even launched. Once we had the opportunity with Season 2, there was player feedback that shows that your feedback is being heard. That shows that the system works and that we listen to your feedback and incorporate it into development. […]
That’s one of the biggest lessons that I as a player think benefits me.”
MeinMMO: With Vessel of Hatred you are bringing back Mephisto. But people are still wondering where Diablo is in a game called Diablo. Where is he?
Both laugh.
Tiffany Wat: “He lurks. As Great Evils do.”
MeinMMO: You announced the Winterplague as the first seasonal event. Will it repeat, like the Blood Moon event in Diablo Immortal, or do you have more events planned?
Joe Piepiora: “We want to bring the first event to Diablo 4 first and see how people react. […] We can’t talk about what further plans we have for seasonal events yet, but we are paying close attention to how players engage with it and how much they enjoy the first event.
If they really like it, it might come back in the future. We’ll see then.”
MeinMMO: If you were Lilith, how would you have prevented your children from destroying you?
Joe Piepiora: “Uff. You start, you’re a mother.”
Tiffany Wat: “Oh dear. Yes, I have a one-year-old child, so I’m not as experienced as Lilith. I think I wouldn’t allow my children to drink my blood.”
Joe Piepiora: “Would that be the first? To prevent your children from destroying you, you would avoid letting them drink your blood? That’s a good point.
If I were Lilith, I would make sure to stay hidden and manipulate from the shadows.”
Tiffany Wat: “And never be summoned from behind the tissue curtain.”
Joe Piepiora: “And if so, I would be much more careful with my intervention [in the lives of my children]. Give them more space, allow them to be kids. And then I would step into their lives later as a wise guide to take them by the hand.”
MeinMMO: Even if the divorced dad tries to turn them against you?
Joe Piepiora: “Well…”
Tiffany Wat: “If I knew that was happening, I probably wouldn’t have been with Inarius in the first place.”
Joe Piepiora: “With enough foresight, I probably wouldn’t have married Inarius…”
MeinMMO: Thank you for the answers!
Even if BlizzCon 2023 was a bit meager in terms of Diablo, WoW fans were particularly enthusiastic about the new announcements. MeinMMO demon Cortyn thinks: BlizzCon 2023 was exactly what we deserved
