In a conversation with NME, Diablo 4 director Joe Shelley rejected criticism of the dungeons in Diablo 4, which, according to some players, were too repetitive during the beta testing of the game.
The first beta version of Diablo 4 took place last weekend (March 17-20), giving players the first opportunity to play the upcoming Blizzard Entertainment role-playing game.
Although the game was received mostly positively, some players argued that the dungeons of Diablo 4 seem too repetitive and devoid of variety.
In a conversation with Jake Tucker from NME, Shelly acknowledged the reviews and stated that the limited beta gaming area was partly to blame.
“Dungeon reviews are something that we are very interested in,” Shelly shared. “Beta is isolated in one area of the world. There are five zones in the world, and you only play through Fractured Peaks. We have added more than 100 dungeons to the game — many of them are not in Fractured Peaks. We expect that as you level up your character, you will travel through many different dungeons, rather than going through the same dungeon over and over again.”
“The game rewards you for that,” the director continued. “We have mechanics like Codex Of Power, and we have different types of mechanics for different dungeons. In some dungeons you need to kill all the monsters, in some there are different goals. Some of them have bosses at the end, and others have events at the end. It’s really about—during the level—up period-experiencing all the different dungeons that exist in the world, and of course, in the beta version, you’ll only get a part of that.”
However, Shelley added that the endgame experience in Diablo 4 will be more diverse, as the mechanics of Nightmare Dungeon will allow players to use keys to change existing locations with additional affixes.
Rod Fergusson, general manager of the Diablo franchise, added that Blizzard wanted Diablo’s underground locations to have a “sense of place” so that players would have a recognizable place associated with their passage of Nightmare, and not with Greater Rifts Diablo 3, which presented one randomly generated dungeon.
“Having this sense of place makes the world stronger,” Rod continued, adding that Blizzard “will continue to work on dungeons and other features” after the full launch of Diablo 4.
Elsewhere in the interview, Fergusson said that problems with the beta server will lead to a better launch of the game, and stated that classes do not always have to be equally balanced.
