Diablo II: Resurrected Patch 2.4 – Ladder, balansering av klasser, nya runord
Jag var först inne på att skriva ihop en artikel om detta till idag, men när jag tänkte efter blir det bättre om jag bara dumpar hela press releasen här. Jag vill ändå försvara min shameless copy/paste med att det faktiskt tog en hel del tid att formatera om allt så det ser bra ut!
Diablo II: Resurrected Patch 2.4 Highlights | Coming Soon
Greetings Heroes of Sanctuary. We’d like to take this opportunity to highlight the exciting balance changes that will affect our ensemble of heroes, alongside a couple of new features coming in our next Diablo II: Resurrected update.
PLEASE NOTE: Game content discussed in this blog is not final and subject to change.
Table of content
Ladder rank play
Class Balances Changes
New Rune Words & Mercenary Changes
Developer Stream
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When we first started, our priority for Ladder Rank play has always been for this mode to be a smooth experience. The competitive nature surrounding this feature demands stability, as players race towards 99. Our teams have continued to invest time in making the game experience and performance smoother for everyone.
Ladder rank play
Like Diablo II Classic, Diablo II: Resurrected will feature four different Ladder modes, including:
Version | Description |
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Standard Ladder | The casual version of Ladder play that encompasses playing with four acts. |
Hardcore Ladder | The hardcore (only 1 life) version of Ladder play that encompasses playing with four acts. |
Standard Expansion Ladder | The casual version of Ladder play that encompasses playing five acts, as it includes the “Lord of Destruction” expansion content. |
Hardcore Expansion Ladder | The hardcore (only 1 life) version of Ladder play that encompasses playing five acts, as it includes the “Lord of Destruction” expansion content. |
Players that participate in the Ladder system have the chance to unlock a host of unique upgraded Rune Words. At the end of a Ladder season, Ladder characters will be moved into a “non-Ladder” version of the game. Then at the beginning of the next Ladder season, players will make a new character and start all over again to earn new rewards. Currently, we don’t have specific new Runewords to showcase, but if you tune-in to our Developer Stream (more details below) hosted by content creators MrLlamaSC, you’ll be able to receive a glimpse!
Lastly, we’ve been monitoring discussions around Ladder Rank play in the community. The duration of Ladder is an element our team is still trying to gauge as we progress forward, but we’re looking to create the “rush” of a new ladder and find the best timeframe for Ladder rotation that meets our players' expectations. We’ll continue monitoring our community’s opinion and preference on this front as we approach PTR for Patch 2.4 early next year.
Class Balance Changes
The last patch to make balance changes to classes in Diablo II was Patch 1.13c, which was released on March 23, 2010. Now, eleven years later, we’re making new changes to expand build diversity, and retain class fantasy and specialty. These goals are crucial. We’re reviewing underused skills, assessing casting delays, making tooltip quality-of-life changes, and more to fulfill these goals.
We want to empower players to be creative with the builds they want to play, but we don’t want to “reinvent the wheel” and steer classes from their core purposes. Without diving into the specifics, let’s take a peek at the philosophies behind various Class changes.
Amazon
The Amazon's agility and versatility are profound. Generally, we like the current state of the Amazon class and believe her to be quite balanced. Nonetheless, we see an opportunity to improve the Amazon's melee skills by buffing her power and freeing up skill synergy requirements to promote more build diversity. We’re evaluating synergy requirements, melee skills we think are underused, and other improvements to empower melee Amazons to have more freedom and viability.
Additionally, we are also considering buffing certain skills in the Bow and Crossbow tree to help improve bow gameplay in higher difficulties.
Assassin
The Assassin vanquishes evil from the darkness with great ease. However, for this class, we see an opportunity for the Martial Arts builds to shine brighter. Martial Arts skills can become increasingly challenging to perform in higher difficulties, so we are re-evaluating how to improve generating and spending Combo Points.
Furthermore, various Trap skills are not often used. So, we’re re-evaluating synergy requirements to promote more trap builds.
Barbarian
The brawn of the Barbarian is unmatched. Nonetheless, we see opportunities to add more diversity to Combat skills. We're looking into adding more possibilities with Combat Skills such as Leap Attack and Grim Ward.
Additionally, we think Throwing Barbarians can be more viable, so we are looking into enhancing the Double Throw and Throwing Mastery skills.
Druid
The bestial ferocity of the Druid makes all tremble. With that said, we see exciting opportunities to level up certain aspects of this class. From our perspective, Druid Fire skills are underperforming. We're re-evaluating Casting Delays for Fire skills, exploring improvements to some of their Physical Damage components, improving synergies. We’re also looking at potential tweaks affecting other Elemental skills that are underused. We want to improve the controls for Arctic Blast too, so it’s smoother to use in gameplay.
Regarding Summon skills, we believe Summons are weak in high difficulty. On this front, we’re evaluating health gains per level, quality-of-life improvements, damage output, and new synergies.
Lastly, we're evaluating improvements to the Werebear skills
Necromancer
The commander of death sends his foes to an early grave. Like the Amazon, we like the current state of the Necromancer class. Nonetheless, we see an opportunity to improve specific Summons we believe are underused. We're exploring improvements to Skeletal Mages and making lesser used Golems more effective.
Additionally, we see opportunities for Bone skill improvements in high difficulty. We’re tweaking synergies on this front.
Paladin
The wrath of the holy zealot is glorious. Despite this, we believe certain Combat skills are underused. We’re exploring ways to make lesser-used skills (I.e., Fist of the Heavens) more utilized, so players have more reasons to spend skill points to unlock these skills.
We also see an opportunity to scale Offensive Aura skills as well. This includes making improvements to AoE Damage auras to make them more effective at closer range. We also want to improve Thorns so that it can scale better and deal more reliable damage at higher levels.
Sorceress
There is no greater master of elemental magic than these mages. We're very satisfied with the Sorceress’s current state, but we see a few of opportunities for improvements.
Regarding Cold Skills, we believe there can be more diversity with the armor skills (I.e., Frozen Armor, Shiver Armor, and Chilling Armor) for distinctive advantages.
We are also looking into adding more build possibilities around lesser used Lightning skills by exploring more skill synergies.
Lastly, we’re also revisiting Fire skills, to improve underused ones, like Hydra. Additionally, we're exploring making player control improvements to the Inferno skill so that it is less clunky to use.
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New Rune Words & Mercenary Changes
The journey for treasure will enter a new chapter at Patch 2.4 release. New Horadric Cube Recipes, Set Item changes, and new Rune Words are on the horizon. New Horadric Cube Recipes being implemented will allow for the upgrading of Set Items to give more item build possibilities. Set Item changes will update underperforming Set Items, to have more bonuses, giving players more incentive to pursue Partial and Full set items that can complement the skill changes alluded above. Lastly, new Rune Words will be added to complement the Skill and Mercenary changes coming in Patch 2.4.
On the Mercenaries front, we’ve seen feedback from the community, and we are making improvements to Mercenaries in a variety of ways. We have seen that players are enjoying using the Desert Mercenary, and we want to give more reasons to use the other 3 mercenaries, so we are looking into improving their skills and stats to enhance their identity and fantasy.
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Developer Stream
This blog is just scratching the surface about upcoming changes and features coming in Patch 2.4 PTR (coming early next year)! To learn more, we invite you to join Community Content Creator, MrLlamaSC, and Studio Design Director, Robert Gallerani in their upcoming livestream. This broadcast will be both a presentation and an opportunity for members of the community to ask questions. We can’t wait to share more with you then!
When | December 16 | 11:00 AM (PST) |
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Where |
This has been an incredible year for Diablo II: Resurrected. We wish our community a happy holiday season and a happy new year! Thank you for playing our game and thank you for your continued support!
If you want to learn more about Diablo II: Resurrected, check out our website here, or for real-time updates, follow our official Twitter @Diablo.