Better loot, and more ways to upgrade it, have come to Blizzard’s ARPG.
By Cameron KochTwitter: @comradekoch on May 14, 2024 at 12:50PM PDT
Diablo 4 Season 4, Loot Reborn, is now live on all platforms, and it brings the biggest changes yet for Blizzard’s ARPG across both the Eternal and seasonal realms. We’ve also gotten a very extensive set of patch notes for the update.
Unlike previous Diablo 4 seasons, which introduced new questlines and unique seasonal mechanics, Season 4 instead focuses on and retools core aspects of the game going forward. Gear in the demon-slaying ARPG has undergone a significant overhaul as a result.
Items will now roll with fewer, but more-potent and less-niche affixes, and can be upgraded in two new ways. One method is through Tempering, which contributes an additional affix from a new Tempering Recipes, while Masterworking intensifies the affixes on an item. Legendary Aspects are now passively added to the Codex of Power, exempting the need for extraction, enabling players to swap their Legendary Powers more liberally as they collect new gear. To add, playing on World Tier 3 will consistently yield Sacred items, whereas World Tier 4 will continually produce Ancestral items.
This should result in players being more potent than ever before, and they’ll require that power to triumph over a demanding new 200-floor endgame dungeon, where superior-level Masterworking materials can be found. There are also considerable modifications to Helltides, with the integration of the endgame activity to lower-level World Tiers, new Accursed Rituals within the Helltides that can summon the new Blood Maiden mini-boss, and a new threat mechanism within Helltides that will have players challenging evil versions of each Diablo 4 class named the Hellborne.
Obviously, a new season would be incomplete without balance adjustments, and there are plenty of class enhancements and fine-tunings to Legendary Powers and Unique items. Diablo 4 Season 4 was the game’s first season to undergo substantial playtesting on a public test realm, and it appears that Blizzard gained some invaluable feedback during that process. Some of the alterations following player feedback from the PTR include the fact that Masterworking no longer has a chance to fail, enhancements to the new Tempering and Masterworking UIs, improved rewards from defeating the Blood Maiden, an icon to designate when an item has rolled with a unique Greater Affix, and more.
Given such a colossal update, some aficionados were displeased to discover there was no way to pre-download the patch a few days beforehand. According to Diablo community development director Adam Fletcher, Blizzard plans to address that complaint in future seasons to permit “more of a window for players to grab the patch earlier.”
You can see a selection from the patch notes below, but you’ll need to head over to Blizzard’s site to see the full list–they are long.
Developer’s Note: We appreciate all the feedback our players provided us during our Public Test Realm for Season 4: Loot Reborn. The following section highlights key bug fixes and feedback adjustments.
For full details on Itemization including Legendary Aspects and the Codex of Power, Item Affixes, Greater Affixes, Tempering, Masterworking, please read our Season 4 blog here.
Here are some of the major items coming with Itemization updates:
Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com