Diablo IV showcases customization options throughout the game’s systems.
Diablo IV Showcases “Your Class, Your Way” Plus System Requirements
One of the things that theDiablo IVteam has been repeating time and time again is that they want player choice to be one of the biggest features of the upcoming ARPG. The latest developer blog outlines some of the biggest points that they’ve come up with for players to create heroes that are truly theirs.
Various head honchos on theDiablo IVteam have taken it upon themselves to discuss these at length.
The Diablo IV Uniqueness
Self-expression starts with the players' choice of class. Whether you choose the mightyBarbarian, sneakyRogue, magicalSorcerer, drearyNecromancer, or ritualisticDruid, you will have a good time.
For those unaware, here are each of the game’s classes in a nutshell
A Face Only Lilith Could Love
Diablo IV will also be the first in the series to offercharacter customization. While it may not be as deep as say,Black Desert, the customization options will have a healthy variety. Previous games in the series merely offered the choice of gender (Diablo III) or just a class with a predefined look (Diablo I and Diablo II). You get the standard choices of hairstyles, eye colors, and other accessories. Where it gets cool are the tattoos or war paint that you’re able to apply to your heroes with. Some of the designs are crazy good and look really fitting for the Diablo IV aesthetic.
The game’s transmog system will also further fuel the customization engine that Diablo IV is implementing. While systems such as these are not new, it should give players tons of options to thoroughly express themselves. Collecting new gear will automatically unlock the item’s look in your wardrobe. Players can thus assemble ensembles that act as a preset for all theirarmorpieces. You can swap to any of your ensembles in any town.
Lastly, players will gain access tomounts. It wasn’t previously clear when these get unlocked. But this new blog post confirms that mounts will become available account-wide once a player has completed the main questline. Just like the playercharacter, there will be tons of customization options for our steed. In fact, maybe there will be different mount types and won’t be just limited to horses.
A Skillful Paragon
Now you may look how you want to. This time, Blizzard explains how you can play how you want to. It starts with your character’sbuild.Attributeslike Strength, Intelligence, and Dexterity aren’t too big of a choice in the game as they grow organically or can be found on equipment. What you will need to make smart decisions are the skill points.
The Diablo IVskilltrees are quite deep and have tons of branches that are all worth exploring. You have on your tree nodes that represent Skills, Passives, Enhancements, and Key Passives. Skill points are quite limited (99 from leveling up, the rest can be obtained from Zone Progression), so you need to decide which are worth investing in.
Active Skills can be leveled up 5 times, however, certain items can increase this even further. Additionally, players can actually obtain skills from items themselves, allowing them to gain an active without investing a precious point. The only downside is that you cannot actually upgrade skills that are granted solely from an item.
The Itemization
Speaking of items, we do know that Legendaries will be much rarer in the live game and theServer Slam. This is probably for the best as obtaining these should be quite special. We did get a glimpse though at two Unique items from the blog post as well as the video.
First is the Blood Artisan’s Cuirass, a unique chest piece for Necromancers. The piece greatly enhances Blood Orb usage by increasing damage and healing granted by these. Furthermore, picking up a certain number of Blood Orbs spawns a Bone Spirit that will deal damage based on the Necromancer’s Life Percentage.
The next is Windforce, which makes its return fromDiablo II! Windforce is a unique bow that adds levels to the Rogue’s passiveImpetus. It also grants attacks with the weapon a large percentage to knock back enemies while also dealing double damage.
Hero vs Hero
We all know that Diablo’s Hardcore Mode features Permadeath. However, when it comes to PvP, Associate Game Director Joseph Piepiora confirmed on Twitter that you can permanently die when slain by a fellow hero of Sanctuary. This means that death will certainly wipe out the player’s character in hell. So, they best be prepared. This doesn’t come as a major surprise since Blizzard has been signaling the return of the harsh consequences of participating and dying in PvP. Nor will these characters ever be restored at any point in time.
In Diablo IV, the Fields of Hatred is where the slaughtering between players happens. With Fearless Combatant, the goal is to slay 10 foes in Hardcore Mode so it’ll be a battle as to how many characters you’re risking to lose by engaging in this massive undertaking.
The Room of Requirement
Lastly in the developer update was the confirmation of the PC System Requirements. Blizzard was gracious enough to give information for four presets: Minimum, Medium, High, and Ultra. They can be found below:
Minimum Spec Requirements
Settings to run Diablo IV at 1080p native resolution/720p render resolution, low graphics settings, and 30fps.
Medium Spec Requirements
Settings to run Diablo IV at 1080p resolution, medium graphics settings, and 60fps.
High Spec Requirements
Settings to run Diablo IV at 1080p resolution, high graphics settings, and 60fps.
Ultra 4K Spec Requirements
Settings to run Diablo IV at 4K resolution, ultra graphics settings, and 60fps.
The Coming of Diablo IV
It isn’t too long till the heroes of Sanctuary can rise up once more. Aside from the official release inEarly June, we have the upcoming Server Slam next month to look forward to. Blizzard is once again opening the gates of hell in preparation to literally slam the servers.
All feedback from the previous two betas have already been implemented so it’ll be up to us to test how much the servers can handle. Those should help the team anticipate the number of servers that they need and to adjust them accordingly to make sure that the game’s performance won’t suffer in June.
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