Blizzard promises major dungeon improvements for Diablo IV launch

The recent set of Diablo IV betas pleased most, but not without caveats. Dungeon design was a primary complaint; the entire community seemed in agreement this key endgame system was tedious due to all the backtracking required and having to kill stragglers before you could complete your goal. Additionally, repetitive layouts were brought up by content creators and fans constantly.

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With the game due to launch in just two months (June 6), the concerns were amplified as many feared developer Blizzard would not be able to address the issues in time. Fortunately, that appears to not be the case. A new blog on the official website spells it out plainly: dungeons will receive major improvements to layout and gameplay, thus minimizing the need to backtrack and increasing fun factor.

"Players previously needed to enter side rooms to interact with Structure Objectives, causing them to retread the same path," the post explains. "Now, many of our Structure Objectives have been repositioned along main dungeon pathways, making them easier for players to reach and allowing them to readily explore the dungeon after defeating the Structure."

On top of that, stragglers will sport AI that causes them to seek out the player, so you should no longer need to chase them down.

As for gameplay, it won't be fully addressed by launch, but the studio will have some of its early improvements ready to go. Focused on objectives completion, the key changes include the removal of objective channeling time and the addition of a Momentum bonus for 25% move speed when carrying Ancient's Statue, Bloodstone, Mechanical Box, or Stone Carving.

"This adjustment is merely a starting point, and we intend to extend this philosophy to keys in a future update," says Blizzard.

Balance and user interface changes are planned as well, of course (the highlight of the latter being the ability to bind move and interact inputs to one button with primary attack now mapped to a secondary button).