In Diablo 3, you deal so much damage with your attacks that almost the entire screen is covered with it. This makes it hard to track which ability causes how much damage and which enemies are affected. In Diablo 4, this is supposed to be different, the developers revealed in a livestream.
What did the developers say? In a livestream on February 28, Blizzard employees discussed some details about Diablo 4. One topic was the damage numbers. These are not supposed to be as absurdly high as in the predecessor, but instead significantly smaller.
Lead Systems Designer Meng Song explained that initially, the health points in Diablo 4 were steadily increased:
If we want to increase the defense of a monster from level 31 to level 32 by 10%, that means the level 32 monster will have 10% more health points. If you do that from level one to level 100, you end up with a very large number, even in the billions or trillions.
Game Director Joe Shely said that the numbers then are “hard to understand,” especially because the combat system is so fast and action-packed. The interface is also completely overloaded by these high numbers.
That’s why Diablo 4 focuses on higher armor values for enemies that avoid incoming damage, rather than simply increasing their health points.
How bad and confusing the numbers already looked in Diablo 3 is shown in this screenshot. You neither know which damage belongs to which enemy nor can you read the numbers well. This should not happen in the successor:
Discussion about armor design and new areas in the GameStar video
What else happened in Diablo 4? In the livestream, the developers also discussed the design of the gear and showed the rewards for reaching level 20 in the beta.
Overall, the video is received very well by the community, and there is praise for how the developers communicate with the players. You can watch the one-hour discussion on YouTube.
In addition, our colleagues at GameStar released a new video about the game on February 27, summarizing the key information about Diablo 4 and especially showing new areas and new monsters.
If you want to read all the info about Diablo 4, you will find a summary in our large hub article: Diablo 4: All about Release, Classes, Beta, and Gameplay.
What do you think about the adjustments to the damage numbers? Do you find it important or do you not care about the overview and just value slicing through the enemies? Feel free to share it in the comments.
If you want to learn more about the topic of classes, you will find information in this article:
In Diablo 4, all 5 classes have special mechanics – We explain them to you
