At gamescom 2024, we had the opportunity to speak with Rod Fergusson, the Diablo boss, and Gavian Whishaw, the executive producer of Vessel of Hatred. The interview covered, among other things, class balance in Diablo 4 and what that means for the Spiritborn, which comes into the game with the DLC.
A central theme in Diablo 4 is the balancing of the five classes. With each new season and many patches that are released in between, the developers make adjustments that sometimes have a larger, sometimes smaller impact on the classes. Most recently, the balancing was revised in Season 5 with buffs, nerfs and new items. This makes two classes in particular stand out, which currently dominate the endgame with their powerful skills and builds.
MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus spoke to Rod Fergusson, the head of the Diablo franchise, and Gavian Whishaw, the executive producer of Vessel of Hatred, at gamescom 2024 about class balancing in Diablo 4. The developers revealed what they pay particular attention to when it comes to balance. Spoiler: For the Diablo boss, fun comes first.
Blizzard explains the Spiritborn, the new class in Diablo 4 and its spirits
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“It’s about making it exciting and fun”
The first expansion for Diablo 4, Vessel of Hatred, will be released in October. Various experts already had the opportunity to test the Spiritborn and its skills at an event in July 2024. This has already resulted in theoretical crafting for builds, including some potentially overpowered options.
We wanted to know what is most important to maintain class balance – especially with regard to the new class. Rod Fergusson explains in his answer to the question what is important to him when it comes to balancing:
Well, it must be fun. […] Balance is something that takes time. […] If you overreact, you’ll never find balance because you never take the time to really figure out where the power curve is. For us, it’s really about making it exciting and fun. But we also know that we need to get it into the hands of the players because even if we put hundreds of hours of testing into balance, once it gets into the hands of the players, they’ll discover cool ways to create a build within that class.
During the conversation, we mentioned that Spiritborn felt a little weaker than other classes in testing. The question that arose was whether this was due to a general power nerf or due to the builds we were playing.
Gavian Whishaw explained: “As soon as [die Builds] hardened, you’ll notice the difference very clearly. It’s like your first class when you get your hardenings, that’s it.”
Previously, the executive producer of Vessel of Hatred noted that he is always surprised by how fast the Spiritborn is. He says: “There are so many skills that cover distances so quickly – that’s why I don’t go all Jaguar, it’s too fast, it’s too much.”
The pit as a means to talk about balance
We also talked about the fact that classes have been heavily balanced in Season 5. We wanted to know what will change in terms of class balance in general. Fergusson says that the team is aware of disagreements within the community about which classes are doing well and which are not, and what has worked well.
However, the last few seasons have presented the developers with a great opportunity to communicate with the players. And that is connected to an endgame activity:
What I’ve found is that the pit is a great way to communicate with people, like, hey, the druid can’t get past pit level 90, what’s going on? It’s been a great way to talk about balance and how deep you can go into the pit now that the Holy Bolt elixir is gone. […] We want to make sure that at least one build for each class has this kind of strength in the game.
For Fergusson, however, it’s not always about how far you get. He himself doesn’t play meta builds. The Diablo boss tells us what he’s enjoyed most so far this season:
Like I said, I’m not a meta player, so I built a summoning wizard this season. I can beat bosses, I got to level 100, and I got my glyphs to 21, but for me it wasn’t about dominating the pit; it was about what was the most fun. And summoning 24 Hydra heads was super fun (laughs).
In the interview, Fergusson emphasizes that the team eventually realized that it was OK if certain things were “overpowered” or worked differently than expected. Their goal is to offer players fun. And they want to let the players have that fun – as long as the servers remain stable, says Fergusson.
As far as the servers are concerned, Blizzard recently had to pull the emergency brake – and weakened the Sorceress’ strongest build.
October will show how the new class fits into the balancing and what adjustments still need to be made to the Spiritborn or the other classes to bring them into line with each other.
MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus had the opportunity to test the Spiritborn from Vessel of Hatred in advance in July 2024. He was able to more or less let off steam for two hours and try out the skills of the spiritborn. You can find his impressions of the new class here: Diablo 4: I was at Blizzard and played the new class from Vessel of Hatred – This is what the Spiritborn can do
Webedia Gaming (GameStar, GamePro, MeinMMO) accompanies the major gaming event as the official media partner of gamescom 2024.