A core feature of Blizzard’sDiablo action RPGs is build customization, andDiablo 4has taken character building to new heights for the series thanks to its Paragon Board system. ResemblingDiablo 3’s Paragon levels in name only,Diablo 4’s Paragon Board is a highly customizable endgame progression system that gives players tons of ways to enhance their characters and focus on their preferred playstyles.
In a roundtable interview withDiablo 4Associate Game Director Joe Piepiora and Lead Game Producer Kaleigh Calder, Game Rant asked about whether players will be able to save and possibly even share their Paragon Board loadouts. The developers also went in-depth about the thought process behind the Paragon Board’s capped progression as opposed toDiablo 3’s virtually limitless growth, and how this new system facilitates deeper customization and more interesting character building.
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Diablo 4 May Implement Loadouts in the Future
With Blizzard’sWorld of Warcraftaddingtalent loadouts with the Dragonflight expansion, devising character builds was made much easier as players can quickly alternate between variations of the complex new talent tree to find what works for them. SinceDiablo 4’s Paragon Board is an equally diverse system featuring tons of possibilities, it would be extremely helpful for players to be able to do something similar. Unfortunately for now, a loadout feature for the Paragon Board won’t be included at launch.
That is a really great suggestion, and I think it’s something that we would like to do in the future for the Paragon Board, but it’s not something we’re going to have right at launch. The idea of being able to save loadouts on the Paragon Board that you may load up between characters – like if you wanted to play Sorceress for one season and you saved it and you want to play a Sorceress with the same kind of build in the next season – we like the idea of being able to export that and send it to your friends. We love those ideas. We don’t have them available immediately, but it’s a cool suggestion.
Piepiora noted that it would also be interesting for players to be able to export theirDiablo 4buildsso that they can share them with each other. Although these features won’t be available at launch, players can almost certainly expect third-party Paragon Board calculators and other tools that can help with theorycraft in the meantime.
Diablo 4’s Paragon Board Is Built For Experimentation
Diablo 4’s Paragon Boarddiffers fromDiablo 3’s Paragon levels in that it ends at level 100, affording players 220 points to spend on their Paragon Boards. Piepiora says that this gets players thinking about how to optimally allocate their points, rather than relying on endless incremental power boosts.
When we thought about the Paragon System for Diablo 4 one of the tenets we had for ourselves was to cap progression, as opposed to having unlimited progression. We want players to find combinations of the points they’ll be earning throughout the game that feel like they are maximized – they’re the best possible configuration – versus endlessly acquiring more and more points and continually progressing the power of your character. We want you to reach a certain point once you reach level 100 where you’ve got 220 Paragon points, all of your skill points assigned to your character, and your items, and now it’s about configuring your board exactly the way you want.
There’s enough potential for variation that twoDiablo 4sorceressescould end up with vastly different playstyles depending on how they approach the Paragon Board. Sections of the Paragon Board can even be freely rotated so that players can target specific nodes, which is a rather novel idea for a progression mechanic. Overall, it seems to be an impressively deep system, and it will be interesting to see how fans react to it once the game launches in June.
Diablo 4is out June 6 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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