‘Diablo 4’ manager says classes shouldn’t always feel equally balanced
Rod Fergusson, general manager for the Diablo franchise at Blizzard, has shared that not all classes in Diablo 4 should feel equally balanced at all points.
Diablo 4 kicked off its first beta on Friday (March 17), giving players an opportunity to play three of the game’s classes before the game’s next open beta on March 24.
While two classes – Necromancer and Druid – are yet to be unlocked for players, those who took part in the early beta got to try out the Sorcerer, Rogue and Barbarian classes.
However, a number of social media posts and threads on the game’s subreddit have claimed that Diablo 4‘s Barbarian class feels much weaker than its counterparts.
Speaking to NME‘s Jake Tucker, Fergusson acknowledged that balancing would play a larger part in Diablo 4 since the game will place more emphasis on player versus player (PvP) interactions.
However, Fergusson shared that although classes should feel balanced to play against each other, not every class should feel as powerful at the same time as others.
“There is a lot of balance there, but the trick around balance is that it’s a balance over time — not a balance of the moment,” shared Fergusson. “Not all classes at level five should have the same power.”
“Due to the enchantment specialisation, Sorcerers will have the most skills of any class because [with] Barbarians having four weapons, they will have the most legendary slots of any class. When you take that across all of them, there will be different points in time [where] a Barbarian is in some ways a little underpowered compared to some of the other classes in, say, the first 10 to 20 levels.”
“But when you get to level 30 to 40 and Legendaries are falling a lot, Barbarians can be super strong,” Fergusson continued. “Then there are things around skill gap, which I think is built into it. I think the agility and mobility of a rogue is harder to play than a necromancer that has 12 skeletons fighting on their side that they can just send out and fight.”
Joe Shelly, game director for Diablo 4, added that “when you’re balancing something to be equal, you can make the mistake of balancing it to be the same”.
However, the director acknowledged that there were a few underperforming areas – such as Barbarians’ Hammer Of The Ancients, and Sorcerers’ lightning abilities – that the studio would be taking a look at.
In other gaming news, Ubisoft has revealed an upcoming roguelike that it is making exclusively for Netflix.
The post ‘Diablo 4’ manager says classes shouldn’t always feel equally balanced appeared first on NME.
Andy Brown
NME
