Diablo 4 has endured a bit of a dip since the highly successful launch period but there is hope that a wealth of changes introduced in season two can revitalize the game.
The Season of Blood is launching on Oct. 17 at 10 a.m. PT and will bring new content in the form of vampiric powers to utilize, new enemy types to defeat, and a new big-bad to tackle in Sanctuary.
However, it’s not just the Seasonal Realm that will be getting a significant refresh as quality-of-life changes across the game will aim to improve the overall experience.
Blizzard revealed many of these in the Oct. 4 developer update livestream, a mammoth two hours of news, and released a hefty blog post covering the changes.
If you didn’t have time to watch the stream or don’t fancy skimming through the blog post, we’ve got you covered with a round-up of all the big quality-of-life changes coming in the Season of Blood.
Endgame bosses added
Five new bosses are being added to Diablo 4 in Season of Blood, available across both the Seasonal Realm and the Eternal Realm, with each boss being accessible in different ways and providing their own set of unique rewards.
Among the new bosses is Duriel, King of Maggots, who has a “significantly increased chance to drop Uber Uniques”, while each of the bosses comes with a chance of dropping unique cosmetic items that are specific to earn of them.
The five bosses in Diablo 4 and the World Tiers they are available in are:
- Grigoire, the Galvanic Saint – World Tier 3 & 4
- Echo of Varshan – World Tier 3 & 4
- The Beast in the Ice – World Tier 4
- Dark Master – World Tier 4
- Echo of Duriel – Woridl Tier 4
Improved Endgame activities
Endgame activities have been significantly improved for Diablo 4’s Season of Blood, with one of the major changes coming to World Bosses—who now spawn every 3-and-a-half hours, almost half the previous six-hour spawn cycle.
Legion Events will also be more common, appearing every 25 minutes instead of 30, and bugs related to the event pins for both have been fixed. In both cases, the length of warning timers has been increased.
Other activities like Helltide Chests, cashing in Grim Favors, and completing individual Whispers will now result in increased Gold and Experience, while Nightmare Sigils awarded from opening Whisper Caches will now always be within five levels of the highest-level Nightmare Dungeon the player has completed.
Increased experience rate and monster leveling
Reaching Level 100 in Diablo 4 will be less of a grind and it will now be 40 percent quicker to reach the maximum level, with experience awarded for killing monsters at Level 50+ being “significantly increased”.
In World Tiers 3 and 4, the minimum level of Monsters will be Level 55 and 75 respectively, while Monsters spawning in both World Tiers will always match the current level, and Incenses now grant a bonus to experience gain and persist after death.
Finally, the impact of Experience bonuses from Elixirs and Season Blessings is increased as they are now multiplicative with the World Tier bonus.
Nightmare Dungeon tweaks
One of the biggest adjustments for Nightmare Dungeons being introduced in Diablo 4’s Season of Blood is that Nightmare Sigils will now teleport you immediately into the dungeon, rather than outside, reducing the amount of time spent in loading screens.
Nightmare Sigils are now rewarded for completing a Nightmare Dungeon, rather than defeating a boss, meaning that dungeons without a final boss now provide a worthwhile reward, and objectives have been removed from some dungeons—leaving defeating the boss as the only requirement for completion.
Backtracking in Dungeons will be “massively reduced” by placing all objectives on the critical path and many layouts have been redesigned, while there is also an increase to Paragon Glyph experience.
Mount improvements
Horse-riding in Diablo 4 has received some much-needed attention, including an increase to spur duration and the ability to break barricades. Overall, base speed has been increased by 15 percent.
Versatility for combat and mounts have improved with the reduction of ability cooldowns by 50 percent, with manual dismount cooldown now five seconds instead of 10 and forced dismount from damage reduced to four seconds instead of 10.
Finally, the delay between a dismount combat skill becoming available after mounting, like the Barbarian’s Bounding Slam, has been reduced to three seconds instead of 10.
Major item adjustments
Inventory space will be “significantly freed up” as Gems will now be a crafting material, a change that has been called out for ever since Diablo 4 first released, and Hardcore players are now prevented from losing their progress due to connectivity issues, as a Scroll of Escape now consumed if a Hardcore player disconnects while in combat.
Overburdening inventories have also been reduced, as Normal, Magic, and non-sacred Rare items in World Tier 3 will drop as crafting resources, while the same is the case for Normal, Magic, and non-ancestral Rare items in World Tier 4. To compensate for both, Gold drop rates have been increased.
Whisper cache rewards will provide items with +10 Item Power, while upgraded caches provide +2- Item Power rewards. Meanwhile, Helltide cache rewards will provide +20 Item Power.
Other major Diablo 4 improvements
Diablo 4 players will now have reduced time spent gaining renown each season and all earned renown rewards persist between seasons and characters—including Skill Points, Potion Capacity, Max Obols, and Paragon Points.
Two additional character slots have been added and players who have not completed Diablo 4’s campaign will not be locked out of Seasonal content, with an option added to skip the Campaign on character creation if any character on your account has completed the Prologue.
Minion and Companion attacks will now not be wasted, as they will no longer target invulnerable enemies.
Published: Oct 5, 2023 05:51 am