Diablo 4 Quarterly Update

On Wednesday, 2/26/2020, Blizzard released a new quarterly update on the development progress of Diablo 4.

In the update, Angela Del Priore, Lead UI Designer, discusses some of the UI changes coming to the game. Candace Thomas, Senior Encounter Designer, discusses a new monster family coming to the game, the Cannibal Tribes. If you want to read the update directly from Blizzard’s site, CLICK HERE, otherwise, we’ll summarize the update highlights below.

UI Design, Controller Support & Co-op

UI (User Interface) is the way we interact with the game, i.e. in game menus, on screen displays, functionality, etc… After the BlizzCon Demo of the game a few months back, they have made some changes to various UI’s. The first one is the Inventory.

Inventory: They are working on giving the items more natural textures and realism, as well as toning down the brightness and saturation of the backgrounds of the images. Here is sample image of some Icon Styles.

They also stated that they reorganized the layout of the inventory to be more balanced. Here is an image of the Druid Character Tab, where it shows the items equipped, Character Level, Attack power, Defense, Life, Gold and the Inventory Slots below. Another point to mention is that it looks as if all items have a slot, regardless of items size. In past Diablo games, larger items took up a larger percentage of your inventory.

Character Skills & Talents: The following image shows some screen shots of the character skills and talents tab.

On the Skills tab it looks as if you will earn points, and be able to spend those points to build certain skills. In the case this image you have 6 different skill sets (Minor Destruction, Major Destruction, Defensive, Conjuration, Mastery, Ultimate) It is also evident that this is a console interface as the labels are XBOX labels.

The Talents tab shows a more of a tree configuration that looks as if it unlocks additional levels as you build your character.

Either way, there should be plenty of character customization available with the skill and tree configurations.

Left Click Rebinding

Feedback from BlizzCon had a number of players asking for the option to rebind their primary skill to something other than the LH mouse button. Due to this feedback, Blizzard has added the ability for all skills slots to have their keys rebound. They also plan to support rebinding on controllers as well.

The Left-Corner Action Bar

For Console Players, the bottom left corner will be where the action bar will be placed.

For PC Players, the default mode will actually be moved to the bottom center, with an option to move it to the bottom left if you are playing on a TV, or with a controller at a farther distance away. It is nice that for PC, they are offering two configurations depending on the user’s preferred play style.

Controller Support on PC

As this is the first time a Diablo game is being developed for both PC and Console play, the decision was made to support controller input on PC, and as such required a navigation and screen layout that works similarly whether you are using a mouse or a controller. While the flow may not work the same, the layouts will be consistent.

Couch Co-OP UI

A focus for Diablo 4 is the 2-Player Co-Op experience. Due to a substantial amount of feedback, the developers are focusing on bettering the co-op experience so that UI screens can be opened independently or at the same time, without affecting the other’s gameplay.

Monster Family & Design Highlights: Cannibals

Monsters in Diablo 4 are classified into “Families.” Previously, families such as the Fallen and the Drowned were introduced, and in this quarterly update, we are now introduced to the Cannibals.

Here is some of the Commentary (in Italics) from Candace Thomas at Blizzard on “What is a Monster Family and Why does it matter?”

Before we dive into the specific mechanics of the Cannibal family, let’s take a moment to talk about our design philosophy when it comes to monsters.

In the bestiary of Diablo III, we classified monsters into broad categories like demon, unholy, undead, humanoid, or wildlife. These monsters served as an anchor to the story by adding to the overall setting and tone, which made the whole game feel complete.

In Diablo IV, the vast and seamless world we created necessitates a slightly different approach to worldbuilding and storytelling. It requires building Sanctuary as a living, breathing character—especially through its creatures. Since we have everything from serene ocean cliffsides to the gaping maw of Hell itself, what does that mean for the bestiary? Well, to fill those areas and make them feel real, we definitely needed to have more non-aggressive wildlife than in Diablo III. But never fear, we still have plenty of monsters to fight.

Every monster has been reimagined, but in a darker, more gritty art style. We have lovingly handcrafted every creature you’ll encounter from the ground up: that includes demons, NPCs, Act Bosses, and even the skittering critters you can crush underfoot. Though we still pay tribute to some hallmark gameplay—such as Fallen Shamans resurrecting other Fallen—we have completely reimagined things in other places.

To have these creatures feel more sophisticated and robust, we designed them in what we call “monster families” and archetypes. Each family has a different combat style and feel. For example, the Drowned family has five members in various archetypes: bruiser, ranged combat, melee combat, swarmer, and dungeon boss.

Each archetype plays a different role in combat. Swarmers strike in groups, making AoE attacks feel satisfying. Bruisers are larger monsters with high health values, which will make damage over time abilities feel good. Melee combat units act as shields by standing in the way of projectiles for their ranged counterparts. Situations like this provide the player with interesting positional dilemmas if they want to focus fire on ranged units. When adding all of this together, each encounter with the Drowned will be slightly different with regards to player positioning and choice of attack. These rich and varied combat experiences are the power of a monster family.

Who are the Cannibals?

Here is a brief image introducing the Cannibal line, followed by a brief panorama video.

The Lore:

“Corpses riddled with bite marks. Splintered bones scraped clean of marrow. Tongues sawed off and eyes gouged out of their skulls. These are the bloody fingerprints the Cannibals leave behind—if they leave behind anything at all. No one is certain where they come from, but some legends claim they are a former tribe of barbarians, banished from Arreat years ago. Whether their cannibalism led to their exile or developed out of desperation afterward is unknown. The outcasts brought their endless hunger to the Dry Steppes, and from there spread to the far corners of the world to prey on lonesome caravans and unsuspecting villages.

The few who have survived encounters with these butchers share the same stories. They tell of the mad fire that burns in the eyes of all Cannibals, of how eating the flesh of their victims in battle only fuels their hunger for more. They whisper of the unlucky souls spared in the attacks, hauled off like livestock for the raiders to pick clean until their next hunt. And then, they say no more. The silence speaks for them: sometimes it is better to die than to live and remember.”

– Liya Khal’tib

Lore by Matt Burns

Cannibal Weaponry:

The Cannibal family has four members. They each have their own unique weapon and a significantly different silhouette or stance to help differentiate them from one another. There are two standard melee combatants: one wielding a two-handed greatsword cleaver, which delivers a slow, sweeping frontal attack; and the other using a lightweight halberd which allows them to leap at players from a great distance and crash down with a devastating attack.

The bruiser uses a spiked club in each hand to deliver intense blows that will stun players if they aren’t paying attention. By contrast, the dual-axe-wielding swarmers can unleash a flurry of frontal attacks that will quickly kill if left unchecked. However, this is a less binary pass/fail than the bruiser’s stun attack. If the player finds themselves surrounded by flurrying swarmers, getting hit by the bruiser’s dazing blow would remove all possibility of escape. It’s combinations of attacks like these that make this family so deadly.

Archetype:

Earlier, we explained how different monster archetypes play different roles in an encounter. For example, players who want to efficiently kill ranged monsters will need to learn how to reposition their accompanying melee attackers so that a cleverly dropped area of effect ability will target both clusters of enemies. This makes for interesting on-the-fly decision-making, and skilled players will be able to spot the optimal positions for these attacks very quickly.

By design, the Cannibal family has no ranged units. Instead, they spring at the player with supernatural swiftness. Some may close the gap by leaping over obstacles and would-be competitors, while others will swiftly and deftly maneuver through other monsters to get first blood. This provides a very different experience and gives the player less time to make thoughtful positioning decisions, thus making combat with these flesh-eaters feel frenetic.

Well, that’s it for the content of the Diablo 4 Quarterly Update, hopefully this builds some excitement for the game. It looks as if Blizzard is really trying to continue listening to the community to develop a game for us that is fun and engaging.