Diablo IV Developers Discuss Player Autonomy Over Class Builds

There is a large sub-set of players want to be able to play games their own way, not be bound by barriers created by the development teams, but be let loose to play in the world the way they want. This extends to, in many RPGs, having the scope to be able to build out your player character the way you want, and not be forced down a linear pathway that results in all characters being the same at the end. The team at Blizzard is proving to be acutely aware of this trend in player behaviour and have worked hard to give players exactly what they’re looking for in this regard with Diablo IV. Speaking to Australian outlet, Press-Start, Diablo IV‘s Lead Class Designer Adam Jackson, spoke about how the game allows you to play your way.

Jackson said when asked how this decision influences class and class build design,

I could for hours on this, and I have with my team many times. From the ground up, this is probably the most important thing we think about when designing classes. We have certain pillars on our team of the way we think and the questions we constantly ask ourselves whenever we’re like ‘hey, I wanna do this’. We ask, what about all of these things that we care about? We’re constantly challenging ourselves in that way. To give you an idea of a couple of things that we think about and why this core theme comes up in so many different ways is that one of our pillars is that we want to deliver the fantasy of our classes.

When you pick a class, say a barbarian, there are a lot of fantasies that we could attach like I’m strong, I’m physically powerful, I can get mad and do things. They’re basic concepts, but then we add our own fantasies on top of that. Out of the fantasies that you would expect to play when you log into the game, we created ideas like the Berserking Barbarian where you’re really mad, and you want to keep that buff up all the time or the master of weapons where you’re swapping between different weapons and really tactical and just this beast that’s mowing through enemies. We’re thinking of the way that we expect players to want to play, and then we make sure that we’re delivering that via gameplay and the different builds that you can create within those fantasies. Checking boxes that we know players are going to want.

The Sorcerer is a little different, you have a lightning skill, a fire skill and an ice skill. Right away, you’re thinking about casting using all of these elements and ‘what fantasies we would want to deliver?‘. Then we hook up different gameplay mechanics and ways to build. The tricky part is making sure that within a single fantasy, there are multiple ways to play. I don’t want my fire Sorcerer to look exactly the same as yours. That’s a whole other challenge to overcome. We put destinations for players, with these fantasies, with the ways they want to play, and then we create multiple roads to get there. You’ll notice that in the skill tree, every single skill in the game has two exclusive choices so that you can customise that skill for you. Individually, that’s already neat, but when you can do it across six skills on your action bar, that’s a lot of different ways that you could potentially build your fire Sorcerer, for example.

On top of that, we have legendary items that further enhance and change the customisation. We have over a hundred legendary powers in the game that can change the way you play. The combination of these different things means that even though you and I might be playing the same general fantasy, what we care about, how we play, how we engage in combat, and the stats we prioritise could be completely different. That’s where we really want to sell this idea that Diablo IV really is your very own character, and you can make it the way you want. There are a whole lot of ways to make it successful and make it feel interesting.

Diablo IV launches on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on June 6, 2023.

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