Diablo 4 Campfire Chat recap: “We don’t plan on doing a patch like this ever again”

Whew, what a week it has been for Diablo 4

Diablo 4 Global Community Development Director Adam Fletcher didn’t mince words in the recent Campfire Chat.

“We’re telling you guys now that we completely hear you loud and clear,” Fletcher commented. “We don’t plan on doing patches like this ever again, where we’re not going to be essentially removing the fun and the player power from players drastically.”

Did anyone else have that on their bingo card? Fletcher was joined by Associate Game Director Joe Piepiora and Game Director Joe Shely to tackle this Campfire Chat.

I have to be honest, I overall feel torn. In a lot of ways, the trio said the right things. This was not a great patch, and they know it. They admitted a lapse in communication leading up to such a monumental patch. They clarified the reason for the Vulnerability changes—which I agree with, by the way. Experience gains are getting another rework.

But, in some ways, it also seemed tone-deaf. They admitted we need more stash space, but are only giving us one new stash tab? I think they could double our current stash tab limit and it would still be too limited. Also, how can you admit Sorcerer’s got the short end of the stick while still acting like The Oculus isn’t a meme Unique?

It was just three days ago that patch 1.1.0 was released for Diablo 4 and brought a heap of nerfs. Calling the patch a disappointment would be an understatement. The purpose of this Campfire Chat was to address player feedback on the patch, and what we can expect moving forward. There’s a lot to talk about, so let’s jump in.

The Good

• An imminent patch is on the way to address some important timely issues. This includes some buffs to Sorcerers and Barbarians that are in a rough spot after patch 1.1.0. There’s no exact time frame but that leads to our next good point.
• Another Developer Livestream will be held Next Friday to go over the changes for the upcoming patch, which will follow shortly after. The team admitted they have to improve communication on upcoming patches, and they plan to do so starting immediately.
• The reason behind a lot of the big nerfs and changes was explained. Essentially, the Diablo 4 mission statement is to have a wide variety of viable builds for all classes. They feel they missed the mark on this and are bringing most builds down to a base level so they can balance accordingly. Furthermore, there are some changes coming in terms of end-game difficulty that may make some aspects of Diablo 4 easier. Therefore, they didn’t want the experience to become trivial. They want level 100 to feel like an achievement, not a job.
• As a follow-up to the previous point, the team admitted they shouldn’t have done everything all at once. It’s ok to let some builds stay overpowered while they work to increase build diversity.
• Respec costs are being decreased by 40%. I don’t think there should be a cost to respec in the first place, but this is a good middle ground.
• The trio agreed Nightmare Dungeons are too difficult and will be altered so that future Tier 100 dungeons are more similar to current Tier 70 Nightmare Dungeons. A hotfix is coming later today that will decrease the higher difficult tiers.
• Experience gains from level 50-100 is getting an adjustment so that leveling is easier.

The “Meh”

• The massive Vulnerability and Cooldown changes—or should I say nerfs—were made because they felt they were overturned and too powerful. After hearing their explanation I do kind of agree with the changes, but that leaves us in a weird spot. Most builds focused on these two because it seemed to be what we were supposed to do at the end game. Without this, what stat are we supposed to be targeting? Lucky hit?
• Nightmare Dungeons and Helltides are getting an increased monster density. This is technically a good move, but why only in these content areas? Higher mob density is a staple for Action RPG games and a great way to feel powerful after successfully perfecting a build.
• The Elixir stack size limit is being increased to 99. This is a good step but nowhere near enough to fix our inventory issues.

The Ugly

• A point that was reiterated mostly by Piepiora throughout the stream is that while some of these changes may seem harsh now, it’s to achieve a bigger goal in the future. I understand game development is tricky, but as a long-time World of Warcraft player, I can’t trust this. Too many changes seemed out-of-touch with the players, only to be told it would make sense in the future. In most cases, this never happened, or Blizzard would backtrack and agree with the original player feedback. I understand this is technically a different team, so I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that this is only such a big change because Diablo 4 is a live-service game and therefore is still very early on.
• The Oculus is still the Unique Sorcerers get for this season. Sorry, I’m mad about this. This “Unique” is literally a meme.
• Blizzard admits we need more Stash space yet are only giving us one new Stash Tab. This is like someone saying they are very thirsty and you give them an ice cube.

The Future

• Leaderboards are still in the works and are planned to release in Season 3.
• Season 2 will include new ways to specifically target Unique drops.
• An all-new Endgame activity is planned for Season 2.
• More updates for Season 1 are expected after 1.1.1.
• Uber Unique drop rates will be increased in the future

Overall I’d say this can be considered a successful Campfire Chat. I still have my reservations, but I think we can at least reset the doomsday clock.

Blizzard will be hosting another Campfire Chat on July 28 to discuss the details of upcoming patch 1.1.1.