Diablo 4 continues to evolve more than a year and a half after release, with major changes to the endgame, difficulty level, and even items. Now, as part of Diablo 4 Season 7, Season of Magic, Blizzard is adding another permanent game-changing feature to the ARPG: the Armory.
The functionality of the Armory is simple. Players can save up to five loadouts per character. At the click of a button, players can swap out all of their equipped equipment, but more importantly, they can also swap out Skill Points and Paragon Points. Once a loadout is saved, characters can freely swap between loadouts for free, providing easy access to up to five different builds and allowing players to experiment and try new strategies.
In many ways, the Armory is a culmination of how Blizzard’s thinking has changed since the release of Diablo 4. At one time, reassigning skill points and paragon boards (or re-rolling item attachments from an enchanter) cost a fortune in gold, but over time that cost has become less onerous. Armory now allows players to completely swap out almost all of their key choices for their characters and flip builds as often as they want without paying any kind of cost.
It may seem like an obvious addition, but it’s a bigger deal than you might initially think, and will undoubtedly lead to more creative builds. To learn more and discuss the paradigm shift that Armory represents, GameSpot spoke with Diablo 4 design director Dan Tanguay and game designer Sean White about how Blizzard’s stance on features like Armory has changed. Along the way, we also covered other additions to Season 7, including how the team decided on a slew of witch doctor-inspired abilities and the possibility of getting a whole witch-themed class in Diablo 4 going forward.
When Diablo 4 was released and began transitioning into the live service game we know today, Tanguay said some aspects of the game didn’t match what players wanted. This led Blizzard to take a closer look at player feedback and implement changes like the Loot Reborn update in Season 4 and a major difficulty overhaul as part of Season 6.
Next on the player feedback list is adding an arsenal. Despite the feature appearing in Diablo 3 and Blizzard’s mobile spinoff Diablo Immortal, Tanguay said the decision to add Armory to Diablo 4 wasn’t that simple. He said that because Diablo 4 has a mix of returning franchise players and new players, they first needed time to figure out what players want from the game.
According to White, at launch the team had a strong desire to “make choices matter.” But over time, games have added more and more choices to players, but not given them more tools to experiment. This forced Blizzard to choose what direction it wanted the ARPG to take, Tanguay said.
“Do we want to encourage that kind of experimentation, or do we want to say that we have to start over again to do this experiment, or at least take the time, pay the cost, and invest in the barriers in front of that experiment? ” Tanguay said. “Ultimately, we decided not to put as many barriers to experimentation based on what we heard from our players. We found that, even in later seasons, the more we encouraged player experimentation and the fewer the barriers, the higher the barriers. Ultimately, Diablo 4 and Diablo games in general have a variety of classes and builds within those classes, so it makes sense to try and encourage players to explore every space as they would explore the overworld. of sanctuary.”
While much of Diablo 4’s live offerings are focused solely on seasonal servers, the game’s non-seasonal Eternal realm looks set to greatly benefit from the addition of the Armory. Players who used to dread creating a new character every few months can now easily try out new builds without the pressure of having to start from scratch.
“There are a lot of Eternal players who want to continue playing their characters,” Tanguay said. “Armory is very attractive to them because now they have their own characters and can create variations on those characters seasonally without the pressure of time.”
The Armory will be a permanent addition in the future, and the rest of the season will revolve around players gaining new magical abilities to overdrive their builds. Many abilities, such as Piranha Do, Poison Frog Servant, and Soul Harvest, are inspired by the Shaman class from Diablo 3. Once the team decided on their approach when depicting Diablo 4’s “selfish” swamp witch. The season’s theme of adding Witch Doctor flavor seemed like a natural fit, White said.
“There are similarities to Witch Doctor that paved the way for, ‘Okay, we’re kind of doing a Swamp Witch. Let’s try to bring back a fan favorite from Diablo 3,’” White said. “I’m a huge fan of the Witch Doctor, but at the same time, I’m going to try to put a cool twist on it and make sure it’s still witch-themed but also bring new things that you haven’t seen before.”
Since Diablo 4 lacks a witch doctor and has a whole new set of witch-themed abilities, there seems to be a possibility of a fully fleshed out witch class like its current ARPG rival Path of Exile 2. Tanguay didn’t rule out the idea and ultimately said that if something is popular as part of the season, the team will find a way to add it permanently in some shape or form.
“Currently, we believe these permissions will only apply to the season,” Tanguay said. “We may incorporate some new features in the future, just like we brought back some abilities as items in previous seasons, but that leaves the door open and allows us to say, ‘You know what, Season of Magic was really good.’ I’m exploring it, but I think I might take a class like that in the future.’ I’m not saying we’ll have one, (but) we’ve left that door open, and it’s important for us to talk to our players and make sure we don’t close too many doors so that we can continue. “You have to understand what it is and be able to respond to it.”
Diablo 4 Season 7 starts on January 21st.
