Diablo 4 looked almost as complex as Path of Exile, but shows a much simpler system in the first test

With talents you determine in Diablo 4 what your character can do and how he plays. In the latest test, testers were able to try out the talents and finally talk openly about their impressions of the new action RPG. Blizzard changed the talent system several times and seems to be in a good place now.

The most important thing about Diablo 4:

What exactly are talents? In Diablo 4, there is a talent system that is roughly a middle ground between that of Diablo 2 and Diablo 3. You distribute skill points while leveling and learn new skills or improve them through passive bonuses and levels.

A lot has changed here since the announcement and the first pictures of Diablo 4. Structures that are strongly reminiscent of Diablo 2 could be seen in early images. Apparently, more and more skills could be crafted here from top to bottom.

Later, the talents became an actual tree that slowly fills with blood, with branches and ramifications intended to provide more complex choices. All this, combined with the huge Paragon board, made it seem as if the talents in Diablo 4 were going to be as extensive as Path of Exile. This is considered so complicated that some players think you have to be a masochist to enjoy it. Diablo 4 is apparently turning away from this path.

By the way, you shouldn’t be able to unlock all skills, which seems to be the case in the latest tests. Here you can see gameplay for 3 of the classes from Diablo 4:

Talents are now more linear, less complex

In the most recent builds, talents can be seen to follow more of a line from which various skills spread (via polygon). By distributing points, new nodes must be reached, which are then expanded with skills and passive abilities.

This makes the talent system much more accessible, which, according to the bosses, should have been the goal. Diablo boss Rod Ferguson says:

Diablo 2 felt like committing. You could reskill once per difficulty. But in Diablo 3, you changed builds like you changed clothes. Everything was gear based and not skill based.

Rod Ferguson to polygon

As Joe Shely adds, Diablo 4 aims to make it easier to try new builds. Each point can be redistributed individually at any time, but at increasing gold costs – a middle ground between Diablo 2 and Diablo 3.

The possibility of re-skilling should also be extended to the Paragon system, which was not yet available in the latest tests. The decisions should remain meaningful. At a certain point, it’s so expensive that it’s better to consider starting a new character than redistributing skill points.

In addition, skills should reappear on items, similar to what happened in Diablo 2. This makes it possible, for example, to try out certain skills before you can even learn them in order to decide whether you want to use them.

In general, Diablo 4 takes a step back and builds on systems that were already well received in earlier parts, in order to then improve them a bit. The developers repeatedly emphasized that Diablo 4 uses the best features of previous parts:

Diablo 4 gets the best features of its predecessors – The Boss wows the fans with just one sentence