Diablo 4 Uniques were "generally not exciting enough", so the devs updated almost every single one

Nov. 5, 2023

“This is how we’re going to be looking at making Uniques, uh, unique going forward”

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At BlizCon’sDiablo 4 campfire chatthis year, spokespersons for the game announced some vast changes to theDiablo 4 Uniques, due to a general consensus that they’re “not exciting enough”.

“For the endgame chase items, they’re supposed to be really really awesome and cool… they’re just not hitting the mark a lot of the time,” they made clear during the presentation.

“Too often, players don’t feel good when they drop and really what is an alarm bell for me personally, is that when there’s a unique for your build and it’s intended to be good for that build (say like a fireball unique for a fireball sorcerer) and then the fireball sorcerer doesn’t even want that.

“We don’t want that situation to happen, whether it’s because the unique effect isn’t good enough, or the stats on the gear aren’t good enough.”

There’s a fourfold strategy to the fixes, and it goes like this: Adding new stats such as “increased tornado duration” to Uniques; giving larger existing stat ranges; overriding slot rules such as allowing a Unique to roll on Cooldown Reduction; and updating unique effects that add to player power.

“This is how we’re going to be looking at making Uniques, uh, unique going forward.”

Of course, a “giant pass” like this - with updates to almost every Unique in the game - is big and could make players a little nervous over their current build.

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In order to alleviate fears over such massive changes, the devs want to make sure transparency is at the heart, so everyone can be on the same page when dolling out feedback.

“Something that is really important to me and the team is that when we’re talking to you about the updates we’re doing to the game, that you understand why we’re making these change and what our goals are, because you’re gonna see as we go through all these, we’re changing a lot of all the underlying math and other systems of the game work. And the odds are high that we don’t nail everything perfectly.

“But if you understand what we’re trying to do, and we’re more transparent about that, then when you’re having discussions with each other and when you’re giving feedback to us, they can just be a little bit more high level, and better sources of information when you also understand why we’re doing things.”

Katie is a freelance writer covering everything from video games to tabletop RPGs. She is a designer of board games herself and a former Hardware Writer over at PC Gamer.

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