Well, that didn't go as I'm sure Blizzard planned... but Diablo IV had its recent 1.1.0a balance patch and boy, gamers aren't happy. The new patch reduced the power and effectiveness of some character builds, making the game more of a slog, and the late-game areas much harder. No new update will reduce the power of our Ready to Ship Gaming PC systems, that's for sure 😉
Blizzard has been taking it all in, acknowledging feedback from players and pledging to not release a patch like that for Diablo IV in the future. During a recent live stream, Adam Fletcher, Associate Director of Community Management said: "We know it is bad. We know it is not fun. It's something that we ourselves know, it's not the greatest play experience for players. We don't plan on doing a patch like this ever again. We've most definitely heard the feedback from the players on that front".
Blizzard also tried explaining the reasoning behind the patch, with Joe Piepiora, Associate Game Director, explaining that Diablo IV is ultimately a game "about choice". The developer felt particular builds based around cooldown reduction were so powerful, giving players access to instantaneous active skills, that they threatened the usefulness of other builds by comparison... so, they had to go.
Piepiora promised that in the future, Blizzard would do better considering player fun in their attempts to balance Diablo IV, with Fletcher adding that the developer would commit to sharing patch notes earlier in the future so that the community had time to read and digest updates before new patches are rolled out.
Diablo IV's upcoming patch will be v1.1.1, with Blizzard noting it is revising Sorcerers and Barbarian classes so that they are more powerful again. We can expect more details on that patch on July 29.
