'Your character is not lost': Diablo 4 game director Joe Shely clarifies seasonal shifts

You may not earn as many rewards for playing, but your investment into each character will not be diminished.

In an interview with international media on Wednesday (Dec 7), Diablo 4 game director Joe Shely addressed concerns about the seasonal model of the game.

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Responding to queries from AsiaOne about whether player investment in characters would be wasted with each iteration of quarterly seasonal updates, Shely replied obliquely: "What I will say is that we've designed the Paragon Board to be something that you're experiencing on your way up to level 100, it does have a cap.

"And also that similar to Diablo 3, when a new season rolls, your character is not lost — you can continue to play that character on the Eternal Realm."

Although information is sparse about this "Eternal Realm", it's likely that it will be no different from the overworld of Diablo 4, and non-seasonal characters can still interact with seasonal ones, grind for non-seasonal gear and do non-seasonal quests.

In Diablo 3, both seasonal and non-seasonal characters would exist in the same overworld, except that seasonal characters would be 'tagged' under their season and would get to experience the new content of the season they were created in.

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When the new season ends, the 'tag' gets removed, and the seasonal character becomes non-seasonal.

To participate in the latest season, players would have to create a new character again. Hence many Diablo fans are worried about having to go through the grind again for every new season in Diablo 4, nullifying the work they did in previous seasons.

While it is still unknown if the rewards of each new season — new loot, quests and content to clear — will be worth the effort, the burden of the grind is somewhat lessened in Diablo 4.

"There's the ability to carry stuff forward as well, in terms of what you can do," General Manager Rod Fergusson said. 

"Like if you've completed your campaign on one character in your account, then every other character, whether this season or the next, can opt out of the campaign."

Mounts, too, would be permanently unlocked for your account once you've unlocked it on a character, Shely added.

And there were also concerns about skill reset costs hitting sky-high margins that would make it so expensive that it would be easier to create a new character.

Much like the seasonal model, do these scaling costs then mean that Diablo 4 will have a trend that encourages players to create new characters?

Shely said in response to our query: "I understand how you could come away with that perception. Let me say that we have designed the Diablo 4 skill tree and the Paragon system to provide character advancement from level 50 to 100 so that there is a focus on investment and making meaningful choices. 

"And that means that there is a cost to that when you want to change your build around." 

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But the skill resets aren't just for the entire tree, but also for individual points as well, Shely caveated. 

In the preview build that AsiaOne had access to, we also noticed that the cost of resetting individual skill points was rather low and is probably an alternative to just hitting the full reset button for the skill tree.

He added: "Because our goal is [for you] to have a sense of investment in your character, and also because as you advance into the higher levels, you start to get more and more gear and equipment that's focused around that build.

"The cost to respec — which is a gold cost, your regular currency in the game — does go up and it starts to become more of an investment if you want to respect your whole character, especially at the higher levels.

"But there's no situation where you could be trapped and unable to respect your character, even at the end of the game."

While it's still unclear just how much investment will be needed every season and whether or not seasonal rewards are worth the grind, it's good to note that players do have different perspectives on what they would consider an enjoyable grind.

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"Looters (the genre of Diablo games where players constantly tackle content for better gear) suit the live-service model really well," YouTuber Skill Up said in a recent review of Diablo 4.

"You just want some excuses to keep logging back in, some new areas to explore, some new enemies to fight, some new loot to collect, maybe some new story beats if we're lucky.

"I can see that formula working well for Diablo 4… it could give us a Diablo game that feels more alive between its major expansions than any previous game has felt."

Diablo 4 is expected to release on June 6, 2023 and a public beta will be available prior to release.

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khooyihang@asiaone.com

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