Quality-of-life updates are the best boon for Diablo 4’s second season

Diablo 4’s Season of Blood brings some cool new vampire powers into the fold, but the real star of the action game’s second season is its sweeping quality-of-life changes. The open-world Sanctuary will be easier to navigate, level up and gain quality loot.

Game director Joe Shely and associate game director Joe Piepiora sat down to do a roundtable interview with Polygon and other outlets ahead of Blizzard’s Oct. 4th livestream, and gave additional context to Nightmare Dungeon changes, Renown, and more.

The most significant changes that players will notice in Diablo 4’s second season update will be an increase in experience gains. Blizzard claims players will be able to reach the level cap of 100 about 40% faster than in Season of the Malignant — which already increased experience gains compared to Diablo 4’s launch. The process will be smoother and more enjoyable for the players, since monsters are now matched to their level between 55-75.

Shely said that players had set themselves a goal last year: to reach level 100. But many players never reached that level because XP gained was so slow. This should enable more players each season to hit the level cap, and allow them to have a fully maxed out build.

Image: Blizzard Entertainment

As for how players will spend their time at max level and where they’ll be able to earn some of the game’s most powerful items, enter the five new endgame bosses: Grigoire The Galvanic Saint, the Echo of Varshan, The Beast in the Ice, the Dark Master, and the Echo of Duriel. Each boss has its own laundry list of busy work for players to complete in order to unlock their encounter — such as completing Nightmare Dungeons above level 30 or completing Grim Favors — but they also come with Unique rewards. That’s Unique with a capital U.

The bosses offer their unique helmets, making it much simpler to find. You can run dungeons instead of doing that. You can also find out more about the following: the desired item drops, players can just gather all the materials, kill The Beast in the Ice, and then do it all again if they don’t get what they wanted. It’s the Echo of Duriel that is the most intriguing, because Duriel can drop ultra-rare and super unique items, which were almost impossible to obtain before. Players will have to defeat the other four bosses in order to be able to fight Duriel.

Blizzard’s designers didn’t build these bosses to be as tough as the ultimate Uber Lilith fight. The bosses should (hopefully), be challenging for the majority of players and provide a way to target some important items. The Echo of Duriel (who is level 100) will be the most difficult of the new bosses, but the reward will obviously be worth the struggle, considering he’s the only way for players to farm Uber Uniques in Diablo 4. Blizzard confirmed that in their interview with us, players who had more gold in the game than they did time will also be able trade items to get what is needed to summon Duriel or the other bosses.

Image: Blizzard Entertainment

Nightmare Dungeons still remain as a place to farm better items or push your builds to the limit. The dungeons will be much easier and more enjoyable. Nightmare Sigils are now able to teleport the player directly to the dungeon, instead of the entrance.

The ability to teleport to Nightmare Dungeons was a welcome addition, but players still have to travel the globe on their horse to get to events such as Helltides or the seasonal event Blood Harvest. Season 2 has also seen improvements to mounts. They are also faster now, with dashes that will let them break barricades on the road. Shely told us that the mounts should be more intelligent as well, and they won’t get stuck on objects in the world as easily as before.

Two of the other biggest pain points — gems and Renown — are also getting addressed in this season.

The grind to accrue Renown — the resource players get for completing activities in each area — is no longer something players will need to partake in every season. Much like the Altars of Lilith change in season 1, players who’ve fully unlocked their Renown track with one character will never have to do it again.

Previously, players would have to max out their Renown — which all but required doing nearly every dungeon and most side quests in the game — every season in order to get all available Skill and Paragon Points. Not only is that not the case anymore, but (unlike with the Altars of Lilith carryover) you won’t need to first log into a character that’s completed the Renown track in order to propagate that data to the rest of your account. Piepiora assured us that this data migration would be done without the extra step for season 2.

Image: Blizzard Entertainment

This is yet another massive 180 on the Renown system from Blizzard in barely five months’ time. When we asked about the massive shift, Piepiora told us that players simply weren’t having fun redoing the grind every season, hence the move here (as with the Altars last season) to alleviate the pressure on players to only play “efficiently.”

As for gems, these items will no longer take up bag space, as they’re now considered crafting materials. It’s part of a major upgrade for the Stash. Stashes now appear in more locations — including all minor towns with a Waypoint in them — and players can search their Stashes for specific items and affixes.

The following are some of the biggest changes to Diablo 4Season of Blood. Shely and Piepiora said that focusing on upgrades to quality-of life was due in large part to Season 2 being the season when they and other players were finally able. Diablo 4Team could listen to feedback. Season of the Malignant was released so soon after Diablo 4 (just over a month), that season’s content was largely finished before players had really gotten to dive into the action-RPG. Blizzard’s response to feedback from players has improved with the second season.

The Season of Blood content and all of the changes will be available on October 17, just weeks before Blizzard is expected to reveal the new updates. Diablo 4’s first expansion at BlizzCon 2023.