Diablo 4's Age Of Reworks Might Finally Be Over With Its Next...

Paladins aren't the only exciting things coming in the Lord of Hatred expansion.

Diablo 4 has changed a lot since it came out in 2023. Compared to the game it was back then, the current version practically feels like a sequel. Almost nothing has been left untouched over the course of its seasonal updates and system overhauls. But with the launch of its next expansion, I think its era of constant reworks will finally be over.

On April 28, its second expansion, Lord of Hatred, will launch and bring with it a new campaign, a new region to explore, two new classes (including paladins), and several features players have been asking for since the game came out. They're the kind of things that simply wouldn't work in the game it used to be.

A great example of this are loot filters, which are finally coming in Lord of Hatred. I'll admit, I used to be against the idea given how important churning through loot is in Diablo games. But with the changes to items in the current season and the new ways to craft gear into exactly what you want, I'm sold on the ability to sort your items before you even pick them up. It's a common feature in other action RPGs to let you customize what items you see on the ground so you get that jolt of excitement when something good does drop—a feeling that becomes way too rare in Diablo compared to other games like Path of Exile 2.

Lord of Hatred is also expanding each class' skill tree to give you the kind of build-defining options that were previously gated behind specific loot. Someone once did the math and found out that your skill tree accounts for a fraction of your character's power compared to your gear, which rendered all the other choices you made rather moot. It was far more important to get the right items than it was to think that hard about your skill tree, and, frankly, that just never made sense in an RPG.

The reworked skill trees will hopefully pair well with another system that could transform how you play Diablo 4 once you're fully leveled up and on the hunt for bigger and better upgrades in the endgame. Blizzard calls it "War Plans" and says it will let players "craft their own endgame progression path, selecting favored activities and layering strategic modifiers as they push toward high-value rewards."

War Plans sound exactly like the thing that has kept people playing Path of Exile for over a decade: an endgame skill tree. Now, I don't know if it'll literally be a skill tree in Diablo, but it will be some way

Source: PC Gamer