Blizzard Doesn't Want to Force Group Play - Vessel of Hatred Gamescom 2024 Interviews with wudijo, Wccftech, & Windows Central

Diablo IV Posted 2024/08/29 at 10:14 AM by silec

The interviews below are only a summary of new information. Make sure to check out the full interviews linked below!wudijo Interview with Aislyn Hall & Brent GibsonTo watch wudijo's interview in full, check out their YouTube video!

Blizzard wants to make sure that everyone can reach the higher World Tier difficulty levels, not only a small percentage of the most dedicated players.

The developers expect to eventually reach a point where they are happy with the amount of core activities in the game. They are likely going to focus on revisiting activities to enhance them further once they have reached that point.

Blizzard does not want to force players to play in a group in order to obtain the best gear in the game. They want to make sure that everyone can play the way they want to play. Aislyn added, "When it comes to power progression we want there to be primary sources but we don't want them to be exclusive".

"It's really important when you're playing an ARPG that the most efficient way to play evolves, because if we get to a point where the best thing to do in the game hands down is one activity eventually doing that day in and day out will get a little boring".

Adding more vertical character progression is something that the developers have talked about. Blizzard will use the time after the release of the upcoming progression reworks and the new expansion to evaluate what works and what doesn't and apply that feedback to the Seasons going forward.

The Party Finder will be available to test on the upcoming Patch 2.0 PTR.

Players will lose out on potential power if they choose not to utilize Mercenaries since there will be no alternative buff to their function.

During playtesting, some newcomers took "a little over 3 hours to complete the " while some QA testers cleared it "in just over an hour".

Wccftech Interview with Aislyn Hall & Brent GibsonTo read Wccftech's interview in full, check out their article!

Blizzard has no plans to have more defined player roles, like tank or healer. "It's more about the activity. When we talk about cooperative mechanics, anybody can play any role, and the activity is just calling for a different type of interaction from those worlds. The focus is on the activity, not necessarily the class".

Vessel of Hatred is going to have new items for all the existing classes.

Blizzard wants to make sure that players have more agency over tuning the difficulty from the early game to the late endgame, which has been a philosophy for the devs with the upcoming progression rework.

Windows Central Interview with Gavian Whishaw & Rod FergussonTo read Windows Central's interview in full, check out their article!

The length of the Spiritborn class mechanic quest is somewhere between what the Sorcerer and the Druid have to do - "more than Sorc, less than Druid".

The quest to unlock each Mercenary will only have to be completed once, the process does not need to be repeated each Season.

Rapport for every Mercenary will reset with each Season.

There will be a marker system (on the emote wheel) for the Dark Citadel to coordinate with other players.

Instead of slowing down gameplay, like the traps did in Season 3's Vaults, the Dark Citadel mechanics "reinforce and enhance the combat". "It keeps you fighting, you want to be constantly moving through any activity".

Comment by RellyneWhen you start to give more rewards (from XP all the way to more drops) and easier time to groups (fast clears, easier boss battles, etc), you're actually forcing players to group play.Comment by yseratheawakenedWhen you start to give more rewards (from XP all the way to more drops) and easier time to groups (fast clears, easier boss battles, etc), you're actually forcing players to group play.Comment by immoralsoulWhen you start to give more rewards (from XP all the way to more drops) and easier time to groups (fast clears, easier boss battles, etc), you're actually forcing players to group play.Comment by AzeymaI'm okay with the increased xp when in a group, but the problem is when you have bosses that require materials, being a solo player just feels bad when you KNOW that people who group up who've done the same or even LESS amount of work than you get an even or greater amount of summons and just more loot, it feels incredibly bad as a solo player.Comment by lelailaFarming Mythic uniques without group is pain in the a... And now they release content for groups only.. sure they don't force us to play in group. Without group I get less content so I don't buy this expansion. They do the same #$%^ like in wow with group finder.. it should not be necessary on a single player gameComment by AlustrielJust find alternative ways to increase your character's power. Grouping is optional, always has been and while humanity has a community/social aspect to our culture, it does not spill over into our own personal fantasy of video game heroics unless of course we are 'balanced' or overly extroverted by nature and want attention from our peers then we tend to group.

I would not think, as this is an opinion, that Blizzard would ever force players to have no choice but to group. It is like when you go to a certain company to buy gas for your car, if everyone avoids one that is a top contender, then they have no choice but to drop their price or lose money. So saying, if the numbers still show poorly for this new feature event, then Blizzard will have to rethink their method of 'group' v 'non-group' rewards.

I will NEVER group just for a chance to reset my tempers because they are bricked, I'll just sell/salvage the item and keep farming every now and then for a new item. This game is nothing but a grind as even when you have 10 two to three GA affix items, 9 will give you fails at what you want, and one will pass, but with the lowest stats. It is almost like there is a hidden AI running to determine what each player's desires for the temper are (by analyzing their build) and it thwarts your rolls on purpose. It is really frustrating at times, so I just trash the thing and forget about trying for a week as it pissed me off.

I remember the Primals in D3, you have about 1 out of 100 for a good unique legendary chance to drop, then 1 out of 1000 for it to be a primal. With the 5 zones daily cache rewards, you could amass a large number of treasure caches to open all at once and at the end of a week, you'd have at least one Primal. The other areas were the funky weird unicorn land and the cow level, clearing both of those usually gave one or two Primals.

Still lots of work to do on this iteration of Diablo, keep on developing please and thank you.