Blizzard has published its quarterly development update, in which the studio confirmed that the changes will continue.

Blizzard wants to put less of an emphasis on the gear our character will have. Instead, the character’s primary stats and skills will be more of importance, as these will determine the power altogether. Levelling certain stats will unlock bonus effects, which in turn will encourage the players to focus on a specific build and not scatter the points around.

Each weapon type (such as a wand, a sword, or a mace) will feel distinct, and Blizzard wants us to hunt for unique weapons. Each of them will have specific speed stats and characteristics. „To see what that feels like in action, we’ve added weapon speeds and inherent characteristics to all weapons in our latest internal test environment. In general, one-handed weapons excel at letting you attack and reposition quickly, while slower two-handed weapons deal more damage. You can feel the differences between them.

In addition to speed, each type of weapon has an inherent physical characteristic. For shields this is block value, meaning that any shield you find in Sanctuary is going to have block, in addition to any magical affixes it may have. As physical properties, these traits are consistent across all weapons of the same type and cannot be modified,” Blizzard wrote.

They are also overhauling the weapon rarity. More variation will be present at each level. Mythics are getting removed in favour of more Unique items with set powers and affixes: „We’re increasing the potential power of individual affixes on Magic items. We’re increasing the maximum number of affixes on Rare and better items in the endgame. Legendary affixes now roll randomly (Yes, really!) on Legendary Items. And Unique items will replace Mythics.

We still like the idea of Mythic items, but we don’t want to create an item quality that invalidates all others, so they’re out for now. […] Unique items are making a comeback in a big way in Diablo IV. We’re embracing the fantasy of these build-around items with completely fixed affixes, heavily thematic and usually class-specific powers, and distinctive looks,” Blizzard added.

Diablo IV is officially in development for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, but at this point, there has to be a PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series version planned.

Source: WCCFTech