Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred Early Access Q&A with Brent Gibson, Rex Dickson, Colin Finer, and Kyle Martin

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Stay a while and listen, Wanderer - story spoilers for Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred can be found ahead. Continue on at your own risk!Question: The new class Spiritborn is characterized by its agility. In this regard, does it share any similarities with the Monk from Diablo III? Which playstyle has made the most significant impression on the development team so far?Brent Gibson: Agility was very much one of the things we were focusing on. We wanted to have a class where martial arts was a big part of the playstyle, so it just made sense. As for the Monk, we have a pretty solid grasp of the types of mechanics that work well in the game, and there are inspirations from several classes that you can see in the Spiritborn. However, the mixture is very unique to the class itself and plays very differently from the classes before.Question: Are there plans to further develop the mercenary system in future seasons (i.e., new companions, expanded skill trees, new additions to the den)?Rex Dickson: As with all new features, we first want to gauge the community reaction before we determine what our next steps are. If there is demand for investments in the mercenaries feature from our fans, we will keep adding them to future releases moving forward.Question: The new expansion "Vessel of Hatred" added the Runewords system, aimed at empowering players. However, unlike Diablo II, it appears that runes cannot be used to craft new gear or drastically alter playstyles. What were the design considerations behind updating the Runewords system in this expansion, particularly in comparison to Diablo II? Was there a conscious effort to differentiate the mechanics from those in Diablo II?Colin Finer: We have a lot of systems in Diablo IV that alter playstyles, so we spent a lot of time discussing what role Runewords should play in that ecosystem. Ultimately, we were inspired by Diablo II's Runewords like Enigma—specifically the ability to steal other class' magic. What we wanted to avoid was creating a situation where Runeword items were always BiS. We didn't want you to have to give up your Tempest Roar or perfectly rolled Fists of Fate to equip this new item type. We felt like that would narrow build diversity and creativity too much. We wanted runes to be complementary to your build.

That said, we have set up a new crafting option that allows you to craft mythic uniques with sets of runes, which we think will capture the feeling of creating extremely powerful items as well as the sense of incremental progress with each rune you find.Question: It's more of a "seasonal" question, but I'd appreciate if you can offer some insight. We are reaching the point of deleting characters just to make room for Seasonal ones. Do you have any plans to introduce a "Rebirth" function, so we can keep the gameplay stats (hours played, how many times rebirthed, max achievements, etc.) between seasons?Rex Dickson: We have added 2 additional character slots to coincide with the release of the expansion. We have heard the community feedback about the desire for rebirth, and it is being considered and prioritized along with other top requests.Question: Any thoughts on an armory-type feature with loadouts so I can easily switch from Boss to Speedrun, etc.?Brent Gibson: Absolutely! Armory is top of mind for all of us at the moment. The game has several new things that impact your build coming into Vessel of Hatred, and there are more things to come as the game evolves. This means that when we introduce something like an Armory, it has to be a system that can grow with us, so we are working to reach a more steady state with Vessel of Hatred so that the Armory system can start on a better footing. So, for us, this is more of a question of when the Armory is coming, not if.Question: What are your thoughts on adding effects for individual Runes (similar to D2) when they are being socketed, so that there is another alternative to Gems besides Runewords? What was the decision behind Tenets of Akarat not granting account-wide bonuses like the Altars of Lilith in the rest of Sanctuary?Colin Finer: Like all new features, we will iterate and add to the Runewords system over time. We think having additional affixes on individual runes is a cool idea and a great callback to Diablo II. Our goal with Diablo IV's Runewords is to reward experimentation as you figure out the best combination for your build with the runes that are dropping. If we find that having additional affixes assists that goal, we're more than open to adding them.Question: Is there a possibility we could see Dark Citadel content that’s soloable, but perhaps with AI companions or mercenaries filling in for the rest of the party?Rex Dickson: Unfortunately, making a solo version of the Dark Citadel would amount to a major redesign, turning it into something quite different from what we intended. Creating viable AI partners for all the custom mechanics featured in the Dark Citadel is an interesting idea, but it would represent a significant investment for our team in creating custom components not used elsewhere in the game.Question: The story of Vessel of Hatred is also dark and gloomy. There seem to be many thought-provoking lines, so what aspects did you pay special attention to during the development stage?Rex Dickson: One of the hallmark elements of the Diablo series is the dark tone. It is a critical part of our process to ensure tonal consistency across each entry of the franchise. This permeates the visuals as well as the narrative and quest design. Our Game Director sets some high-level themes they want to establish, and the teams come together to determine how best to achieve them. This was especially challenging given the warmer color palette of the expansion. We are incredibly proud of the results.Question: Why did you decide to finish the story like you did? Do you believe people might be disappointed by the ending and the quests after the wolf fight? What are your plans for continuing the story? Will we see the finale in another DLC, as part of the seasons, or in the next Diablo main game?Brent Gibson: Great questions. For the first, we knew that we wanted the story of Mephisto to be told over multiple releases. It is exciting to build up a character like him over a longer period of time. Many times in games, you rush a character's development because you only have so much time to tell your story. The exciting thing about a live game is that we can build up over multiple expansions, making our character richer and more meaningful. This is just the next chapter of that story.

For the second, a good story shouldn’t rush to its conclusion immediately. The buildup is exciting and important. Some of my favorite fictions leave you on a cliffhanger as they build that tension to an epic conclusion. This is what we are looking to build up as we unfold the fate of Mephisto.

For the last, we have big plans for the continuation of the story going forward. One of the things I am looking forward to seeing is how the return of Mephisto impacts Sanctuary as a whole. As we lead up to future releases, we want to see threads of continuity from season to season. You see this already with the Realm Walker spreading hatred and corruption in season six. These are some of the things you can expect, and it shows that the spread of Mephisto’s influence goes well beyond just Nahantu.Question: There will be an Uber Version of Mephisto fight like Lilith?! The boss fight in the story was amazing, really. Would be nice to have something like that as the "next chapter" instead of only the Uber Lilith.Colin Finer: We won't have an Uber Mephisto fight available for the launch of Vessel of Hatred. However, we're currently looking at all our Tormented Bosses and how we can expand that list. Mephisto's Harbinger is an awesome fight that we want to see return and is at the top of our list.Question: The Festering Dark is a wonderful experience (getting lost, using the lamps, the darkness mechanic, etc.). How did it all come together? Would love to hear about the story of how that area was designed.Rex Dickson: Initially, there was some fear that doing a dark maze format for a Diablo stronghold wasn’t going to be fun. There was a lot of iteration landing on the right blend of ‘just enough’ UX without hand-holding. Additionally, it took us a lot of time to figure out how to get the mechanics dialed in. Certainly a pretty big departure for us in terms of gameplay. All of this came to fruition via countless playtests and feedback sessions, but we are happy with where it landed.Question: Players can now invest up to 5 skill points in Ultimate Skills. Can players expect builds focused on Ultimate Skills to become more viable? Additionally, if there are any Runeword or Mercenaries that can support Ultimate Skills, please introduce them.Colin Finer: We absolutely want Ultimates to be more viable, and this is just one of the steps we're taking to make them so. We have a Rune of Ritual, Zan, that triggers on ultimate use and a Rune of Invocation, Zec, that reduces the cooldown of your Ultimate skills. Plus, there's an Aspect that on Ultimate cast triggers your Mercenary reinforcement, allowing you to double dip on that power.Question: Any thoughts on adding Seasons to the Eternal Realm? I have played through all of the Seasons to date, but I haven't had a chance to play my Eternal Character—which still sits at Level 83 even though I have had max-level characters each Season. Eternal Realm: Play Season content with your max-level character. Season Realm: Start from Level 1.Brent Gibson: We have definitely been paying close attention to both seasonal and eternal players. Both ways to play are hugely important to both the game and those who enjoy playing either way. We are taking a very close look at our features as we consider what should live where. Infernal Hordes is a great example where we felt like this should live in both places. I think we can expect more updates where content and features may exist in both realms. As we move forward, we will be transparent about it, but we are not at a point where we can talk specifics about anything at this time.Question: Resources have been a major choke point in the test environment, particularly Iron Chunks and Angelsbreath. I know there was one answer that these were not dropping correctly from some sources, but are there also plans either to increase drop rates through Salvaging or reduce the items needed for potion and gear upgrades?Colin Finer: The launch of Vessel of Hatred will have sweeping tuning and balance changes, especially on crafting resource economy. The final tuning state requires significantly less salvage for item modification, as well as huge buffs to salvage sources from things like Bosses, Whisper Caches, and the Infernal Hordes.

Oh, and a change we made based on player feedback from the PTR is that all non-legendary items are auto-salvaged starting in torment, so you'll be getting a lot more there!Question: For high-level players who already have access to endgame content, does this major update to the Mercenaries system still provide valuable benefits?Rex Dickson: Yes, we realize the high-level endgame players are mostly interested in content that expedites and/or benefits their progression. The best way to extract the mercenaries' value is by synergizing them with your build to make you more powerful vs. expecting them to be a significant source of kills in the endgame content.Question: Did the team consider bringing back Ormus' voice actor from Diablo II? Between Meshif and him, I noticed many of the characters that were brought back from Diablo II were recast.Kyle Martin: I can take this one—we did reach out but were told that William Bassett has chosen to retire and we wanted to respect that. Agreed, he has an iconic voice. I love his performance in Diablo II!Question: Bit of a no-brainer, but now that Dark Citadel has been conquered (all three wings), I assume we'll get more raid content in the future? And if so, are these limited to expansions or will they be added with seasons?Rex Dickson: Dark Citadel is a big new idea for a Diablo game, and we want to gauge the community reaction before we decide how we want to move forward with it. If we see a lot of feedback that we do more with this mode, then we will certainly take that into consideration in our future release planning.Question: Could you introduce the system or content that you focused on the most during the development process of Vessel of Hatred?Rex Dickson: It is hard to say if there was any one specific area of emphasis, as we expect all our content to meet or exceed ‘Blizzard Quality’ expectations. Dark Citadel and Undercity were both significant investments, as were Mercenaries, but the two largest areas of focus were the campaign/world and all the major systems changes.

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