Diablo 4 director: it's normal for action RPGs to undergo major reworks

The story of Diablo 4 over the last three years has been one of constant reworks and reinventions of its basic systems. Loot was "reborn" in its second season and then changed again last year, and the game's max level was reduced from 100 to 60 when the first expansion arrived.

To players who don't log in every season, it can look like Blizzard can't decide what the game should be; three years after release, things nevertheless seem to have settled somewhat. Game director Haroutunian calls these shifts "transitions." "I call them transitions because the people who play an action RPG from the start, they change as they play that action RPG more and they start requiring different things," he explained.

"Friction points that we could never imagine—that players might never even imagine—suddenly rear their head over the course of 10,000 hours." An author who has played every season says problems that were invisible at launch can become glaring.

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