Former Diablo 4 lead Adam Jackson is back to talk about Diablo 4 once again. In a recent interview with PureDMG, Adam Jackson goes over the several challenges Diablo 4’s development faced during his time on the project, along with numerous details, both about the development process and other impacts fans may not have known until now.
Working on Diablo 4
Diablo 4 has come a long way since launch. With 10 seasons and one expansion currently under its belt, the game has undergone drastic alterations, and naturally, the vision has evolved since its inception. So, how does a team develop for a game that needs to constantly evolve?
Adam Jackson had this to say:
“…as the game evolves, the needs of the game change pretty dramatically. You’re no longer trying to introduce people so much to your world from point-blank. You need to make your game continue to surprise and delight existing players. And the problem space that you run into there, which is what you described, is once people have been exposed to your game, surprising and delighting them does not mean more of the same. If you do more of exactly the same, they’re not going to be very surprised or very delighted, and it’s not going to be very interesting.
So, you have to wow them. What does wowing them mean? It usually means some version of bending or breaking the rules that you set out when you first made the game. So eventually, what happens, this is really the source of a lot of power creep in games, it’s not that the designers want to make things more powerful and ‘number must go up’. It’s that it’s a natural result of you needing to continue to impress your players and give them something that they haven’t seen that is going to make their eyes go wide and excited to come back season after season or expansion after expansion, whatever.”
Looking Back on Earlier Diablo 4 Seasons
Looking back, everybody knows that Diablo 4 had a rough start. It wasn’t until Season 2 that the game really began to take off. When looking back on those earlier times, Adam has a few insights into why classes were hit with nerfs in Season One.
“Yeah, um. There’s a couple stories I could tell. Probably the one that I’ll do, though, is Season Two. So, to paint a picture of what was going on. You remember Season One launched, there were a lot of big problems with the game, and people weren’t very happy. Funny enough, remember that talk I gave you about, like, power creep and all that? We were trying to get ahead of that in Season One. If you remember when we nerfed CDR and stats on items, we were trying to sneak in some control because we launched too powerful and we wanted to leave room for future seasons to not get too out of control. That was why we did it. And of course, the community found out immediately and saw, “Oh, they put in these buffs, but there’s a bunch of fluff here, but they nerfed the big things that are important”. And we tried, but I stand by it, but it needed to happen. But, you know, it was a tough time, right?”
From the community side of things, transitioning from having all classes be strong and fun to play to being directly hit with the nerf bat sent shockwaves throughout the community, a development that some fans are unsure whether Diablo 4 has fully recovered from.
Community Backlash
Continuing from that previous note, sometimes the community isn’t fully aware of the power it has over its developers. Outcry and feedback can be a powerful tool for changing the game and addressing issues. One such example is the recent outcry of Season 10’s Soulspires desperately needing a change, and thankfully, Blizzard listened. But in the heat of wanting change, fans forget that there are very passionate developers working on the team.
Adam highlights one such case, revolving around the infamous Diablo incident:
“Little personal tangent. I will say it’s a travesty, and it’s a ball with Diablo, so you know enough. But Wyatt (Cheng), the don’t you have guys have phones meme, it’s a travesty what happened to him. And I feel so bad if you knew that man as a designer, he is one of the best designers that has ever worked on games. I’ve been in rooms where he could design circles around me. I’m pretty good. You know, not to brag, but he is insanely passionate, insanely good, and it is so sad to me that his legacy is just going to be one meme for something that’s not even really his job for going in front and talking to people, having a nervous moment, and then that’s what happens.”
The People Behind the Screen
Everybody remembers that incident, and it is likely still referenced from time to time. However, Adam’s words do hold true: the community can help nurture and foster a game, or it can be like trying to please a wildfire. So, remember to be kinder to your developers, and know that there is a lot more going on behind the scenes that you may never realize.
These are just a few eye-opening interactions that took place in this interview, with plenty more that we haven’t highlighted. We cannot recommend watching the full interview enough, and we wish Adam the best of luck with all your future works. Thanks for all your work on Diablo 4!
