by dredscythe - 3 years ago     show comments

With all things Diablo, today we got a full court press Q&A from the leads of Diablo II: Resurrected (Rob Gallererani) , Diablo IV (Luis Barriga), and Diablo Immortal (Wyatt Cheng) led by Rod Fergusson (Diablo Franchise Executive Producer).

NOTE: This will not be a 1 for 1 transcription, but a general summary of the questions and answers. They will also be arranged in sections pertaining to each game for ease of looking through.

Diablo II: Resurrected

Question: High texture animated cinematics for each act at the end like Diablo 3 had?
Answer: They are remaking shot for shot each cinematic with the original soundtrack. The voice performances are being kept and up-resed as well.

Question: While there is cross-progression, thee does not seem to be cross-play, clarify?
Answer: You’ll be able to take your character with through saving on Battle.net servers, so no matter what platform you are on you’ll be able to progress on that character. The base platforms though won’t be linked, hence no cross-play. Leaderboards are global, so you will be able to compete that way.

Question: Controller support on PC?
Answer: Plug controller in, hit button, UI switches over – yes!

Question: Local Co-op, like “Couch Co-op” in Diablo 3?
Answer: No couch Co-op, moving the character out of the center of the screen altered the old feel of Diablo 2. However, there will be Network Co-op, just like it was before with up to eight players when one player hosts on Battlen.net. The Switch will also have Local play.

Question: More bot and cheat protection in Resurrected?
Answer: Modern Battle.net will be better and give far more tools to combat bots and cheaters.

Question: Will there still be player collision in the game?
Answer: Will still be there in game, it’s a part of the game.

Question: What patch will Resurrected be based off of?
Answer: Patch 1.14, current live version. Aware it has it’s own quirks and will work around how it is and make best decisions.

Question: Will the resolution be updated to 720P or 1080P from the default?
Answer: The game will run at 4320P on PC uncapped FPS and 2160P on next gen consoles at 60FPS.

Question: Old Frame rate system, breakpoints, and maintaining the feel?
Answer: Older game ran on frames not time, which meant there were breakpoints depending on how fast your attacks were. They are just adding smoothing to the animation, but using the base system to do the checks, leading to the same experience. This is how the uncapped FPS allowance can work with the 25 FPS base system.

Lightning Question: Will trading still function the same way in game?
Answer: Yes, but there are more QoL improvements such as Item Linking in trade chat, Item Compare, etc.

Lightning Question: New Runewords in Resurrected?
Answer: No.

Lightning Question: Will Resurrected overwrite an original Diablo 2 install?
Answer: No, absolutely not. Completely separate game, install.

Lightning Question: Can I load a Diablo 2 character into Resurrected?
Answer: No.

Lightning Question: (Rod) Will my Shocko still be green?
Answer: Yes.

Diablo IV:

Question: Rogues being canonically women and gender locking?
Answer: Other groups of Rogues exist and will be introduced. No gender locking of Rogue or any class along with lots of customizations.

Question: Rogues are part of one faction?
Answer: Their are many factions for the Rogue in game.

Question: When you hit a monster in game it gains a highlight around it that can pull you out of the gaming experience, toggle option?
Answer: They like what they have, but acknowledge as part of accessibility concerns so it should be addressed that way – not mandatory.

Question: Last quarterly update saw a big update in items, with legendaries affixes and damage multipliers. How is the team going to handle the escalation of these scalers and make sure they don’t run away? How will things be balanced?
Answer: Want players to feel more powerful as they progress, but they have gotten this question before and are aware. Shouldn’t expect to anywhere near the damage numbers of Diablo 3 by any means.

Question: Biggest challenge with community making a darker world for Diablo 4 compared to that of Diablo 2, limitations?
Answer: If they go to hard, people get too numb to it – tuning it out. There are going to be horrific scene, but balance it out with fleeting moments of tranquility to make the dark times hit that much harder in contrast.

Question: Support for Druid builds that can stay in one form e.g., Were-form longer?
Answer: Can make build with skills that are all one form or another. You will eventually, after a small amount of time not using one of those abilities, revert back to caster form.

Question: Diablo 3 felt isolated with no trading, plans for it in Diablo 4?
Answer: Yes, trading will be a social (where planned) along with trading through clan bank.

Lightning Question: Will every class have there own class quests?
Answer: No, this is something for the Rogue to feel special and connected to the world.

Lightning Question: Transmogs coming to the game?
Answer: Yes.

Lightning Question: Fishing?
Answer: No.

Lightning Question: Diablo 4 have couch Co-op?
Answer: Yes.

Lightning Question: Town portal scrolls or books?
Answer: Yes.

Lightning Question: Will we see any angel meddling in the world?
Answer: Technically, yes.

Lightning Question: Were we ever close to Inarius prison during our Diablo adventures?
Answer: No.

Diablo Immortal:

Question: Key take aways from the Tech Alpha?
Answer: With a focus on early to mid game systems, being able to test controls, and Diablo authenticity. With players reaching level 45 quickly gave them more push to get on end game which will be talked about later.

Question: Continue the trend of Seasons from Diablo 3 in Immortal
Answer: Calls out main reasons for liking seasons, that being resets and starting new when gearing gets stale. They intend to keep game fresh with regular updates, but do not intend to specifically reset progress. Make sure characters can take advantage of new systems as they come out.

Question: Will the lore go through Diablo 3 and Diablo 4?
Answer: No, lore will be between end of Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 – a 20 year period. The Library of Zoltun Kulle will allow them the potential to explore older events, similar to how The Caverns of Time in WoW functioned.

Question: Game coming out when?
Answer: No date right now. More testing ahead then behind us. each class (Editor Note: appears to be) will have its own testing phase along with going through PvE and PvP Elder Game Systems.

Question: How will game updates work, in what form, after release? Expansions?
Answer: Have a long path of content planned after release. New story lines, dungeons, areas, paragon trees, gear, classes, etc. are all in the works.

Question: Will there be PvP and PvE competitive systems with leaderboards that players can spend time with even after finishing the main storyline?
Answer: Lots of content for both after storyline. No new things to tell today, but they are in the works for both PvP and PvE alike.

Lightning Question: Will there ever be mass PvP for guilds in the open world?
Answer: Yes.

Lightning Question: Gestures be included for character animations?
Answer: Maybe.

Lightning Question: Support for 120hz devices?
Answer: Not on release, but maybe later.

Lightning Question: Release include Necromancer and Crusader classes?
Answer: Yes.

Lightning Question: How many players in largest raid?
Answer: Unknown at this time.