Diablo 4 devs on ensuring no class gets left behind

It's hella tough.

In just a few short months, everything from class balance to unique drop rates in Diablo 4 have swung so far from launch as to be almost unrecognisable. Sorcerers, once a joke to play in the end game, now dominate Uber bosses in moments. Uniques, previously so rare as to be disregarded entirely, are now farmable thanks to those aforementioned Ubers.

Stevivor sat down with Diablo 4 developers Adam Jackson and Tiffany Wat at Blizzcon to talk through community feedback and making sure no classes get left behind.

Hamish Lindsay, Stevivor: Balance in a game like Diablo can be a hard thing to strike. Can you talk me through the balance philosophy you approach each season with?

Adam Jackson, Diablo 4 Lead Live Class Designer: How deep do I want to go? I have a six-point PowerPoint that I give to the team regularly that everyone on my team must watch. Seasonal balance I guess is a good place to start; I’ll talk about maybe some of the difficulties that we run into and why it’s hard, and how we kind of think about the things that are hard.

In a season, we always introduce a whole lot of new stuff. A lot of new mechanics. Malignant hearts. The vampiric powers in Season 2. Then we also introduce legendaries and uniques and things that are going to stay forever. Some stuff is being pulled out, some stuff is staying in. We want that stuff to be really exciting so it has to be really strong. It has to fit in with the game and make players feel good.

Diablo inherently is a very multiplicative game when it comes to the math and how things work, and that makes it really hard to balance things to be very close to one another. In a normal game that’s not of the multiplicative nature, if you’re off in your power balance then a normal thing is 1 and the strong thing is 1.2 or like 20 percent, or maybe 30 percent if you’re crazy. In Diablo, it can easily be like 300 percent just by like one or two multipliers being off. That can result in just like crazy different differences in power.

We saw this a lot at launch and we’ve gotten a lot of it more in line, but we kind of see it where there’s an acceptable range of power. We know not everything is going to be perfect, that’s just a fallacy. Not everything is going to be exactly here but they need to be within a range that’s kind of reasonable.

Players I think could be like, “okay maybe my build is here and there’s something a bit higher, but it’s close enough. If I can do the content, that’s okay.” That’s what we’ve kind of embraced for Season 2. Every normal build when played really well and optimized should be able to complete the content – that’s one of our benchmarks.

That also means that some builds will, due to oversights or bugs, instead of being here, they’re like stronger. There’s a few of them a Season 2 right now, if you play a sorcerer, you might know what I’m talking about.

When we have that happen, you know we launched the game and our idea is we can’t have that because long term, we can’t just like make everything go up and keep doing that right? Because you’re just gonna get to billions of damage very, very quickly. So we have to bring it down. But, after we brought them down so many times people were like “every time we find fun, you guys just take it away.” That’s not fun. That sucks. We’ve kind of changed our view and we still eventually have to do that (bring things down).

For the long-term health of the game, we can’t just leave things up here forever because then if you’re not playing this build, what are you doing here? It’s trivializing everything and we can’t make everything there every time because of what I just said. Our thinking now is that we want to communicate early and often to players.

When something’s broken we’ll let you know and you can have your time and fun with it. Eventually you’re going to have to eat your vegetables, but we’re going to let you play it with it for a while. As long as we do that and are like consistent with the communication part, I think we’ll be okay.

That’s kind of where we’re at. We want things to be in the range, and I think over time more and more things will be in this range more solidly. Right now though, we released so much game that there’s so many numbers, there’s so many unique synergies, there’s so many legendaries, uniques paragon boards, skill trees. All these things have to mix together and I think that’s the most off we’re ever going to be.

We’re still catching up with some of those things getting out of whack, and then eventually we’ll get to a point, pretty soon hopefully, where the only things that are out of whack are things that we just recently introduced. So instead of a lot of things to think about it’s just a few new things. Then we’ll just get closer and closer and better with it. For now I think we’re still kind of in the backlash of the launch period of there’s just so much game.

We’ve also revamped all the math in Season 2. So that’s again a lot that I don’t think we’re going to be doing forever, and so we’ll get into a more stable place. But even then, there will always be this (a standout build) somehow. There will be a class that’s the best and we’ll have to wait a while, and then we’ll have to bring it in line.

My favourite part actually is not bringing the top things down, but bringing the bottom up. I really enjoy finding all the builds that are kind of niche or aren’t functioning well and working well and finding creative ways to really eek out the fun in that.

That’s actually the fun, part of balance that people will talk about. They always think of balance means bring good down, or add less fun. In our view balance is actually how can we inject the most fun into the game possible?

We only nerf if it means the game will be more fun because ultimately at the end of the day we want more fun. It’s just that in a weird way, nerfing can be more fun because it means that everything else is in line and more things are viable.

What we really chase is choice, we chase more choice for players. So, whatever results in that is what we do. Which is why even season 2 you saw like a lot of buffs of things. The uniques all across the board got buffed, because more choice. We want things to be interesting, right?

Stevivor: And how do you sell that to players? To make sure that they understand that actually this makes things more fun?

Tiffany Wat, Diablo 4 Production Director: The only way is to talk about it, which is why Adam is frequently a member of our campfire panels.

Jackson: Yeah it’s just to keep banging it over again that, like, no, we don’t hate that you have fun. It’s just you have to think about the long-term sometimes, just sometimes! Not all the time, just a little bit sometimes.

Wat: It’s great to be able to engage with our community, though. Obviously, they’re very passionate about the game. So the opportunities that we have, whether it’s campfire chats or we have an incredible community team. It’s really a powerful tool for us to convey the context and what our goals are.

Jackson: I agree. It’s my probably my favourite part of the job and I want to do it even more. Getting in front, talking with people. I think a lot of times players play the game, they have a point of view, and they don’t know we’re thinking.

We have a point of view as creators and you know of course, we have different views and sometimes they’ll clash. A lot of times they don’t actually, but then that’s easy. If it’s like, hey, they think we should do something, we think we do something, just do it. That’s what Season 2 is a lot of: easy wins.

But when you talk about complicated, difficult answers, which balance often is because it’s like there’s a pro and a con, a lot of the times you don’t just get a free lunch. I think it’s better to arm the players with knowledge where we tell them, “hey, this is the problem. This is what we think. What do you think?”

Then, we can have a proper dialogue where they’re also armed now and they can talk to each other more intelligently and talk to us more intelligently because they know our opinion versus they just think something. They’re kind of in a black box and they don’t know what we think and so they can’t come to the same viewpoint and conclusions that we do, which I think is an unfair starting ground.

So actually what I enjoy is kind of bridging that gap and telling them how we see the problem and what we’re thinking the solution is and even telling them before we do it what we think the downsides will be. Saying, yeah, we’re okay with eating that. Do you think it’s okay if we eat that and then we can have a proper dialogue rather than just no fun, which nobody likes.

Stevivor: In Diablo 3, two classes were basically left behind or considered to be left behind for a long time by the player base. How do you avoid that creeping back in to Diablo 4?

Jackson: I think as long as we stay connected to our game, and being a super active live service really helps. We’re pretty responsive to player feedback and trying to make sure things aren’t left behind, right? I mean, you even look at the swing between launch and now, or even betas and launch.

At launch it was “oh, Sorcerers are left behind. They have no resistances. They can’t do anything.” Now? Not quite that way. We have a team now, like a live team, I’m the Lead Live Class Designer now. As you saw we put together a team that is really focused on specifically maintaining the live game and making sure that the experience of your average player is good.

Wat: Like Adam was saying, we have a very, very dedicated and distinct team that is focused on Live. Unfortunately, that’s not something that we had on Diablo 3, but I mean, Diablo 4 is a game as a service. It is a live game that we went into knowing that we wanted to support this with regular updates and that’s something again that Diablo 3… Diablo 3 was a live game, but I think we had a different approach to it.

Now we have set up a team that we can actually react to things. It’s sad that Diablo 3 had two classes that were left behind or perceived as left behind because, of course, that’s never your intention, right? No game developer sets out like, you know, Adam was just talking about balance, nobody wants there to be a class where it’s like, I’m not going to choose that class because obviously it’s not as good.

So now we are equipped with the tools, I’m a producer I’m a tool to ensure the game is treated well. We have the ability to react, we have the people that can react to it. As I mentioned opening ceremony, we have a separate team that’s working on the expansion. I think that’s what’s so amazing, is that we have the capability of focus on different areas of the game and be making sure that we are continuing to grow the game. While also ensuring that what is out there right now, which again is our top priority, is being maintained and kept healthy, making sure we’re finding the fun constantly.

Jackson: From the ground up, the team was built with this in mind which wasn’t as true with Diablo 3. We’re going to update this for a long time. We have long-term plans, we’re going to maintain the live service and make it really good for players constantly. We’re doing seasons and expansions. We’re going to commit to this and make it good. There’s a lot of talk that way and thinking that way and support that way. It’d be pretty hard to have that situation happen again, just with the way that we view the game right now.

Wat: I think that’s why we were able to announce a new expansion within the first six months of us actually launching. I’m a little bit biased, but I’m super proud our team was able to do that.

Stevivor: Diablo 3 really laid the groundwork for seasons, hey? They’re everywhere now.

Jackson: I think so. It’s our own learnings from that, honestly.

Wat: Diablo 3 is incredible. I mean, I’m biased — I also worked on Diablo 3 for many years so… *laughs*

Jackson: *also laughs* I did not, but I agree.

Wat: That’s what’s so awesome about working at Blizzard — you get to continue building on the legacy and learning from things. You know, Adam worked on Heroes [of the Storm] for a very long time, and so being able to pull learnings from a lot of the different games that are company has is really amazing.

Jackson: It takes a D3 to make a D4, like we couldn’t have made this from the ground up because we didn’t have those lessons. But now we’re like we think about a differently when we start which is a very powerful jumping point, it’s a stronger foundation, I think.

Stevivor: Obviously anecdotally in my experience, and from Reddit and stuff like that, you see there’s a lot of churn from season zero. A lot of people who are going to come back. What’s the upsell or like, what’s the pitch to get those people back into Season 2, Season 3 and obviously the expansion?

Wat: I mean I think it’s all the work that Adam’s team has been doing. It is really, I mean, that’s why we keep reiterating “We’re listening to your feedback, we want to understand” and we have our own thoughts on why people were not interested in continuing to play. Because we want them to keep playing our game and seeing all the amazing updates.

Again, I think Adam mentioned, if you play the game now versus when it launched in June, we’ve made drastic changes. When I got to announce the quality-of-life changes on everything stage, those are some of the biggest cheers out there. Like, that is what people want. And so I think it’s like, again, going back to communicating to the community. We are hearing you.

You are like a huge part in  helping us make this game the best version of Diablo 4 that can possibly be. I think that is the best way. Then obviously continuing to innovate, bring in regular cadences of new content. New activities, really cool stuff to grow the world of Sanctuary and to continue growing my hero and my player class. Building up that trust that we are committed to this game is the best way.

Jackson: Yeah, I’d say to the people that have turned “the stuff that you didn’t like has either probably been addressed already, or is probably going to be.” If the players say something, they don’t like it, we are very open to addressing it some way. I think Season 2, really proved that.

[Is there] a reason why you left? We have probably already addressed it some way. If not completely, we’re going to continue to do that.

Wat: We’re players ourselves, we have a lot of the same thoughts. Yes gems, in the inventory do feel very terrible. We didn’t on the forums and say I’ve never thought about that. It actually helps reinforce our ideas. Like that’s right. We should fix this.

Thanks to both Jackson and Wat for their time — and make sure to head here to read a transcript detailing their thoughts on Diablo 4‘s launch demons.

Diablo 4 is now on Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, PS4 and PS5; a special 35% XP boost event takes place between 21-27 November.

Diablo 4 6 June 2023 PC PS4 PS5 Xbox One Xbox Series S & X   Buy on Windows PC via Battle.net Buy on the Microsoft Store Buy on Amazon: PS4, PS5, Xbox