Blizzard has revealed a new development update for Diablo IV that details the reworks being done to the game’s skills and talents system.
“We’ve been reading through a lot of the comments from the community and agree that the talent system needs more depth,” Diablo IV lead systems designer David Kim wrote in a blog post. “Similarly, skill system progression felt too simple, which created issues where a player would have no meaningful reason to spend their skill points.”
So now, skills and passive abilities exist in separate sections of the skill tree. By leveling up, you’ll earn skill points that you can then spend to unlock certain skills, additional abilities for the skills you already have, and passive points. With passive points, you can unlock new passive abilities for your character.
“The passive part of this system is where you will find more general upgrades to your character,” Kim writes. “These effects are not specific to particular skills. Therefore, the skill tree will have a good mix of all types of different choices for players to make.”
Kim also mentions that under this new system, players will likely only be able to earn about 30-40% of a character’s skill tree by the end of Diablo IV’s campaign. This should ensure that all players “can have very distinct, and different ways they build out their character.”
Diablo IV still doesn’t have a release date. After seeing the game at BlizzCon 2019, it seems like Blizzard is making an altogether different beast to what Diablo III is–Diablo IV is a return to the series’ darker roots.
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