Diablo 4 Season 11 PTR brought many changes, such as leveling, crafting, and new leaderboards, but the experience wasn't as good as Season 10.
However, Season 11 hasn't officially launched yet (its release date is December 9th), so there's still plenty of time to fine-tune it. In a recent developer interview, the developers discussed their plans for Season 11 and future updates, even hinting at the next expansion for Diablo 4.
Sanctification
Sanctification is one of the seasonal features of Season 11. Its operation is similar to Vaal Orb in Path of Exile. Using it on an item might give it better affixes or remove its useful affixes, rendering it worthless, and the item cannot be sanctified further. This feature is mainly for trying to upgrade items that are close to their endgame value; players can also choose not to use it.
The developers understand that players don't want to destroy valuable and unique gear and Mythic items, but they also feel that a completely risk-free experience would reduce player excitement. They believe that ideal sanctification should allow for an unlimited number of sanctifications of the same item, rather than a single, decisive result.
They plan to protect very high quality Diablo 4 items; for example, sanctifying Ancestral and Mythic items will not remove their affixes and will yield better results. Sanctifying rare items, however, still carries risks.
Masterworking
In PTR 2.5.0, Masterworking has been significantly modified. It now only increases the item's base stats, such as weapon damage, jewel resistances, and armor values. This prevents players from acquiring significant amounts of key modifiers like cooldown reduction, attack speed, crit, and skill levels through Masterworking, resulting in a substantial decrease in character strength.
The developers believe the current Masterworking system is similar to Blacksmith's Whetstone and Armourer's Scrap in Path of Exile; the gear-up process is monotonous and uninteresting, simply clicking to upgrade until the maximum level, failing to provide players with surprise and satisfaction.
They mentioned adding a new Masterworking bonus on top of the existing one, though they didn't specify what it would be. Any change, however, would be beneficial.
The Towers Rewards
The Towers is a new leaderboard system with more detailed rankings than The Pit, but it lacks rewards, resulting in a lack of player motivation. According to PTR data, even the strongest classic Barbarian builds are far from reaching floor 150 in The Towers, and after the new patch, even reaching floor 100 may be difficult.
The developers have reduced the HP of the Towers bosses and shortened the reward interval from every 10 floors to every 5 floors, up to floor 150. They believe that even with these changes, reaching floor 150 will still be extremely difficult. They speculate that players' progress in The Towers will typically be about 10 floors lower than in The Pit.
They plan to design The Towers as a more competitive endgame mode, differentiating it from the more diverse and fun-filled Pitfalls mode. This will involve optimized map generation rules, such as prioritizing upward routes, reducing unnecessary dead ends, and preventing important enemies from spawning in remote corners.
Finally, based on player feedback, they plan to offer rewards for players challenging The Towers. For individual players, rewards based on clearing specific floors will be introduced, such as gear and transmogs. Players who rank high on the leaderboard will receive functional rewards, prestige titles, and halos (cosmetics).
Finally, a Build Viewer will be added, making all builds on the leaderboard public and transparent, while also optimizing the leaderboard UI and notifications.
Future Update Plans
The development team stated that the future focus is on adding depth to existing content, rather than simply bloating the game with a large number of new events. They don't rule out adding new content but prefer to refine the existing systems.
Magic Item Upgrades
The developers mentioned considering giving magic items affixes and making them upgradable. This could make more types of items valuable in the endgame. This isn't without precedent; at least in Diablo II, magic items proved useful due to their potentially high specific skill bonuses.
However, to encourage players to forgo some legendary aspects in favor of magic items, their affix strength would need to be five to six times greater than it is now. This change is expected to be implemented as early as Season 12.
Chaos Uniques Items
Season 10 Chaos Unique items, including Chaos Perks and Chaos Rifts, are highly popular mechanics among players. The developers are happy to integrate them into the game, but they need to find a suitable way to avoid disrupting long-term balance and diversity. They mentioned that some Chaos Perks might return as Legendary Aspects.
Gold And Material
The developers' long-term goal is to ensure that gold primarily comes from killing monsters rather than selling items. They have already significantly increased the amount of gold piles dropped by monsters in Season 11.
They are also considering changing Boss Materials to a currency, so they don't take up inventory space, but the trade-off might be that they will become untradeable.
The Next Expansion
Finally, Zaven, the game's Associate Director of Expansion, hinted that all Diablo fans should pay attention to The Game Awards on December 11th. He strongly suggested that there would be an announcement about Diablo IV expansion pack, and perhaps we'll even see an exciting trailer.
That concludes the main content of this developer interview. Overall, the official team has listened to player and community feedback while also having its own update plans, and Season 11 experience should be better than the PTR.
