The PTR in Diablo 4 has ended and various players and experts are drawing conclusions. We summarize here what important innovations are coming to us in Season 4 and what still needs to change.
The PTR (public test server) in Diablo 4 took place from April 2nd to April 9th. There, players were able to test the new features that will be added to the title in Season 4. They looked in vain for a season theme – Blizzard recently explained the reason for this.
Overall, the insight into the new season was received quite well by the community. An expert said in his live stream: If the season theme is good, it will be “by far the best season.” We summarize below what important innovations are coming to Diablo 4 with Season 4 and what still needs to change according to the community .
After the PTR we are back in Season 3 of Diablo 4:
Diablo 4: The gameplay trailer for Season 3
More videos
Autoplay
The most important innovations in Season 4
One of the biggest criticisms of Diablo 4 since its release is the loot. Blizzard will change a lot of this in Season 4: The loot system will be completely revised. New and improved endgame activities are being added, which players have been demanding for a long time.
There will be the following new features in Season 4:
Adjustments to items
Less “useless” loot: Enemies level 95 and above now always drop items with an item power of 925. Unique items and Uber Uniques drop at earlier levels. At world level 3 only “holy” items drop, at world level 4 only “bequeathed” items drop.
Acting revision: The acting will also be revised in Season 4. You can then trade Legendaries and Uniques, but not Uber Uniques or items that are tied to your account through crafting. Materials for summoning Uber bosses will probably become much more important.
Smaller affix pool with more useful values: In Season 4 there will be a smaller pool of affixes, which will remove many duplicate or conditional effects. The total values of the affixes are increased, the amount of affixes on items themselves is reduced. Legendaries then only have 3 affixes, yellow items have 2. Legendary affixes can drop in a “larger” version that is 1.5 times as powerful.
Code of Power: In Season 4, Legendary Aspects will be transferred to your Code of Power as you dismantle items. If you find new, stronger aspects, those in your codex will receive an upgrade. The Code of Power then has a search and sorting function.
Two new crafting options
Tempering (hardening): In Season 4 you have two options to adapt your items to your builds. With “tempering” you add new affixes to items with reusable recipes. According to Blizzard, the recipes can be looted in most of the game’s content. The recipes are divided into categories (roughly resource, mobility), ancestral items can have two hardened affixes from different categories.
Masterworking (completion): With “Masterworking” you increase the values of the affixes on your items. To do this you need the materials that you collect in the pit. There are a total of 12 upgrade ranks, and every four ranks a single affix is greatly upgraded. The other ranks slightly increase the values of all affixes.
And enchanting items costs significantly less in Season 4 thanks to a gold cap:
New endgame content
New activity “The Pit”: At world level 4 you will receive a quest that aims to complete a nightmare dungeon at level 46. Afterwards, you collect rune shards during endgame activities. In Cerrigar you activate an obelisk when you have enough shards and use it to enter the “pit”. Your goal is to kill as many monsters as possible while a timer is running. Portals take you to the next levels up to the final boss. In the “Pit” you collect new materials, the “Stygian Stones”, with which you summon the “tormented echoes”.
New Uber Boss: A new boss is moving in with Andariel, who, according to the developers, drops the same loot as her brother Duriel. In addition, there are “level 200” versions of the existing bosses, called “tormented echoes”, which present a new challenge. If you place a “Tortured Echo” for the first time, it will drop a “Magnificent Spark” (account-bound) as a reward.
Helltide Rework: The more monsters you slaughter, the more your “threat” increases. There are three levels of Hellflood threat, at level 3 you become “Hellmarked”. Assassins will appear and will ambush you. Using currency found in Tormented Gifts, you can also start a new event for a boss fight and powerful rewards. In addition, the hellfloods in Season 4 are also available at world levels 1 and 2.
Balance changes to classes
There are a number of balance changes to the classes and new items that strengthen previously useless builds. All classes receive their own new unique items. There will also be two new Uniques that all classes can equip:
Tyrael’s Might (Unique Chestguard): While at full health, your skills unleash a divine barrage that deals damage.
Yen’s Blessing (Unique Boots): When casting a skill, you have a 20-30% chance to cast a skill that is not a mobility or ultimate skill and that is currently on cooldown. This effect can only occur every 12 seconds.
The necromancers in particular are getting various buffs in Season 4, so that minion builds could become more useful again. How the balance changes will ultimately affect the builds will become clear in May.
“Quality of Life” improvement
The zoom factor is a topic that has been bothering players even before Diablo 4 was released. The camera perspective was already criticized in the beta, saying everything was simply too close. Players feel like they’re playing in a tiny room and can’t see everything.
In Season 4, the developers are adding another zoom function and the community is happy. For some, this is exactly a reason to get back into the game.
“Useless” yellow items, confusing drops
What needs to change in Season 4? In a YouTube video, Diablo expert Raxxanterax summarizes his impression of Season 4. What he is particularly critical about is the fact that yellow items drop in the pit, even though they no longer do much good at world level 4 since they only have two affixes. They cannot be supplemented by others. But you need the materials, so mats should just drop directly instead of the yellow items.
The hell flood is now much more fun for him, but everything is red – the events, the embers, the floor, the area damage, traps. That makes it difficult to see everything. The problem also exists with Uber Lilith.
As for the bigger affixes, in his opinion, items that have the stronger affixes should have a different color when they drop. They would also need a certain marking in the inventory so that they can be recognized at first glance – for example a colored border.
On Reddit, user “Meldarion92” summarizes his suggested changes for Season 4 on April 7th as follows:
Items with larger affixes and Uber Uniques should be given a different color than drop so that players “actually experience a WOW! effect when they get a good item.”
Nightmare dungeons are even less fun than before, especially after being in the Pit. He thinks they could add “random groups of goblins” to add variety.
In his opinion, it takes far too long to get recipes for crafting. Your drop chance should be increased.
The discrepancy between single player and team play is too high in terms of the materials needed for bosses and the pit. This should be balanced “so that no mode has disadvantages” and rotation of activities does not become mandatory.
He also suggests a “favorite teleport option” “so we can always teleport to our favorite location.”
He would also like more storage space and more options for leveling glyphs outside of nightmare dungeons.
Many players were really excited about the content on the PTR, but this in turn creates a problem because some players will abandon Diablo 4 after the PTR.
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.OkPrivacy policy