Blizzard Entertainment’s popular action RPG, Diablo 3, has been around for nearly seven years, bringing a slew of content to those who have been around since launch. While there has been that steady stream of updates available for players, the team behind the game would like to be more open about Diablo 3‘s ongoing development moving forward, as well as continue to find new and exciting ways to play the game.
On a recent post from Blizzard Entertainment, the developer outlined what we can expect from Diablo 3‘s Seasons and patches. Seasons (specifically themed Seasons which began with Season 14) are limited-time events where you begin a new character from scratch and experience the game in new ways, as well as earn exclusive rewards that can be carried over to nonseasonal characters. These themed Seasons have been quite the success for Diablo 3 with Season 16 being one of the most popular Seasons overall.
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“Since the addition of themed Seasons, Season 16 was one of the most popular Seasons overall, with Season 17 showing similar participation,” said Blizzard. “…Based on your positive feedback and increased participation in Themed Seasons, we think we are moving in the right direction. Continue to let us know how we can make your adventures even better!”
Currently, Blizzard is in the process of creating more Themed Seasons, new sets for each class, Legendary powers, and a few more balance changes. Additionally, more quality-of-life features and gameplay updates will also make its way to Diablo 3 as the team finds new ways to play the game.
For that successful Season 16, the Diablo 3 team had tried a new approach for its public test server with only a week of public testing. The patch notes are given during the PTR starting period with changes posted when the patch is publicly released.
This condensed PTR format was “highly successful” in comparison to the way Blizzard used to handle PTR. Since participation, data, and feedback for PTR drops after the first week, the previous method did not yield the same kind of results the new approach does. As such, Blizzard plans to continue to use the condensed PTR format moving forward.
Blizzard also wants to highlight changes that were made by feedback in a more noticeable fashion. Exactly how this will be done is still not known, but the team says they will make more of an effort to highlight feedback that is given by the community. Additionally, the developers plan to further explain the intent or inspiration for future design changes.
These announcements are a response to players wanting more transparency from the Diablo 3 team. This includes clarity on what the future plans are for the game and what the team is currently working on. The blog says that the team wants to talk and interact with the community with posts like these, as well as having a frequent presence on the forums.
