Diablo 4 was down for maintenance on Monday, with another update scheduled for this afternoon (June 27), in what could mean a giant update for fans of the franchise. Since it's launch, the game has been plagued by bugs and server issues, but this extended maintenance could usher in big changes to fix key elements of the Blizzard Entertainment title.
Diablo 4 was released in early June and was almost immediately hit by quick-fix patches to make the game playable. With so many areas of the game needing to be fixed, gamers are hoping that this extended downtime means things are being taken care of.
The Mirror reports that Blizzard General manager Rod Fergusson said that an incoming patch is so big, that it will likely need a maintenance window to roll out. Not only has there been one maintenance window this week, there is going to be two.
The first period started at 5pm on Monday (June 26) and ended at 10pm. Meanwhile, today's maintenance window is set to start from 5.30pm and last until 10pm. While Blizzard hasn't explicitly said the gigantic update is coming this week, it is widely accepted that it is.
According to The Mirror, based on what was discussed about this update in the recent Diablo 4 Campfire Chat, here's what to expect in terms of early patch notes, according to Redditor Chad_RD:
- More XP from Nightmare Dungeons
- Ability to teleport to nightmare dungeons
- New characters will have map and lilith altars unlocked
- Renown earned for statues of Lilith and map exploration will persist between seasons
- Map fog of war will be removed
- Quests will be reset for seasonal characters, but may be changed in future
- Seasonal characters will need to earn Tier III, IV, V renown rewards
- Stats or paragon obtained from Lilith statues will remain
- Will need to finish renown from waypoints, quests, dungeon completions each season to round out renown and unlock paragon points, the third skill point, and obols
- Gem/inventory friction addressed (but season2)
- Material cap increases
- Resistances in higher WTs made more impactful than now (season2)
- Disconnect protection for hardcore
- Scaling? item power addresses scaling, focus on item power instead of levels?
- Druid barb unique drops will be fixed - uniques of other classes will still occur
- LFG tools looked at/workshopped
Additional notes from Q&A portion:
Not planning to add more robust TP to player features
Buffs to many classes/systems, may touch resource generation for some builds
Mob density at floor (baseline), may go up from here (focused on discussing XP factor rather than fun factor)
More options for character customization, some new options for changing current characters (long term timeline)
Completed sidequest tab? improvements to journal and what it tracks
Search functions for stash/dungeons beyond console keywords not planned, but will be evaluated
The standouts worth mentioning are the material cap increase, the class buffs and disconnect protection. Gamers hope the big update will cover the game's main issues and start getting Diablo 4 to the "polished" state the developers in the Campfire Chat envisioned.
