Diablo 4 puts you in a world full of danger, and it’s your job to not succumb to it. For the most part, the RPG game makes it pretty obvious when something is bad for your health, but certain effects can get lost among the chaos, especially when playing as certain Diablo 4 classes. One of the most frustrating ways to die in Diablo 4 then is being oblivious to dangerous ground effects but, fortunately, Blizzard’s dev team is just as susceptible to them as you are and they’re hard at work to change that.
A lot of things in Diablo 4 explode, or drop pools of poison, fire, or other nasty substances on the ground that will cause you a very bad time if you stand on them. When it’s all kicking off, it can sometimes be difficult to realize that you shouldn’t be standing right there until it’s too late. Personally, it’s those yellowy, gunky explosions that catch me off-guard – even now, they often don’t register to my brain as a reason I shouldn’t stand around picking up the loot that just popped out.
Diablo general manager Rod Fergusson and the game’s associate production director Tiffany Wat are both Necro mains, meaning they’re even more acutely aware of the problem as fans of the ‘Blighted Corpse Explosion’ ability used in some of the best Necromancer builds. The effect this causes on the ground can make seeing other dangers particularly difficult to spot.
“One thing you and I both experience a lot with our Necro play is the blighted corpse problem,” Fergusson says to Wat during a developer campfire chat, joking, “I think Josh calls them ‘corpse farts’ – it’s not my favorite term.” Quite, but I fear it may stick now. Fergusson continues: “We know that because of the opaqueness of that effect, sometimes there can be an explosion waiting for you underneath there and you can die.”
“That is one of the things we are fixing [currently],” Wat confirms. “I actually care a lot about this because I use blighted corpse on my Necro. With all the corpse farts on the ground – now that is canon,” she notes to Fergusson’s visible delight, “it’s very difficult for me to see a lot of the affixes or some of the enemy or PvP fire on the ground, so I’m looking forward to those changes.”
This change isn’t just designed for Necro, however. Wat remarks, “I know there was some discussion of ‘is this intentional?’ It’s not intentional, we will be fixing it and making it a little bit easier, in general, to see which are the dangerous effects on the ground – making sure that’s always readable to the player, and that our sort order is correct. If there’s a fire enchanted, which is the affix that gets me, that I can definitely see it.”
As a Rogue main myself, I’ve definitely run into a similar issue with my poison traps – the green pool of death looks lovely, but it almost always takes me a while to realize that my enemy has responded in kind with a pool of their own that I shouldn’t just be standing in, and it blends a little too closely with those aforementioned pus-yellow bursts as well. So I’m very glad to hear this is high on the team’s task list.
Elsewhere in the chat, the team talks about several other big changes including how gems in your Diablo 4 inventory will be given a new home, and plans to cut back dramatically on all that Diablo 4 seasonal busywork for your future characters. Development of a live service game is always an ongoing process, but I’ve been pretty impressed by the overall approach the team has taken so far – and their transparency with players.
While we await the arrival of Diablo 4 season 1, you’ll probably want to figure out what you enjoy playing most, so be sure to check out the best Diablo 4 builds for some fantastic ideas because we’ve consulted with Blizzard devs for their personal favorites along with the picks of our own loot-loving experts.