Blizzard Admits It Messed Up With Diablo 4’s Disastrous Nerf Patch, Announces Upcoming Sweeping Changes
Blizzard has addressed the backlash to Diablo 4’s controversial nerf patch, promising a new patch to revert many of the changes it made.
In a livestream, associate game director Joe Piepiora, game director Joe Shely, and community chief Adam Fletcher discussed the thinking behind the 1.1.0 patch that sparked uproar within the Diablo 4 community for drastically reducing player power.
“It’s not the greatest play experience for players out there,” Fletcher said. “We don’t plan on doing a patch like this ever again. We hear you loud and clear.”
“We know that reducing player power is never a good experience,” Joe Piepiora added. “Sometimes we just don’t get it quite right.”
Patch 1.1.1 is expected within the next two weeks, perhaps just a couple of days after another livestream set for Friday, July 28. This patch hones in on improving the power of the Sorcerer and Barbarian classes in particular after both suffered drastic nerfs. Specifically on the Sorcerer, players can expect a boost to survivability, Blizzard said.
The patch will also increase the density of monsters in Nightmare Dungeons and in Helltides, two key endgame activities. Addressing inventory concerns, 1.1.1 will add an additional stash tab in which players can store items. The elixir stash size will be brought up to 99. 1.1.1 also brings character respec costs down by about 40%, so players feel more inclined to try out new builds.
Crucially, the upcoming patch will adjust XP gain from level 50 to 100 after players complained about hitting a brick wall from around level 70. “We are not trying to slow down the game,” Shely insisted. “We want level 100 to feel like an achievement, not feel like a job,” Piepiora added.
In the shorter term, a hotfix is planned for release
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