Blizzard has revealed a few of the changes it's making to d4 items following recent beta playtests, and from what I can easily see, it's addressing the largest concerns I believe people had.

One of these was boredom with dungeons, specifically in having to traipse backward and forwards across them. "One of the very common bits of feedback we received is the fact that players felt these were doing a large amount of backtracking within certain dungeons," the organization said in a blog post. "We have optimized multiple dungeons across all zones to minimize the requirement for backtracking."

In Fractured Peaks alone - the zone within the demo - nine dungeons have experienced their layouts changed. And wherever a dungeon comes with an objective, especially one you need to carry around, nowadays there are movement speed buffs along with other enhancements to help keep the pace up.

These are:

To lessen the need to backtrack, small amounts of straggling monsters will look for the player to assist complete the Kill All Monsters objective.

When Animus is gathered, the ball player and nearby allies will: Gain 10 Resources / Reduce all active Cooldowns by 1 second.

Depositing Animus channel time was reduced from 3 to 0 seconds.

The time for you to Rescue was reduced from 3 to at least one.5 seconds.

All Rescue objectives now drop a Health Potion upon completion.

While carrying the Ancient's Statue, Bloodstone, Mechanical Box, or Stone Carving, you'll receive a Momentum bonus granting a 25% move speed increase for you and nearby allies.

Pedestals have experienced their channel time reduced from 2 to 0 seconds.

Returning a Portable Object to its Pedestal now fully restores Health, Resource, Potions, and resets cooldowns for those nearby players.

All doors will generate a minimap ping when they're opened.

All Structure Objectives in dungeons are in possession of additional combat mechanics players must overcome.

Regarding classes: Barbarians have, not surprisingly, been buffed. Specifically, they have been given a set 10 percent damage reduction to allow them to stay alive more reliably in the melee range.

And with regards to that, numerous bosses happen to be "re-evaluated for melee character difficulty", leading to changes for their attacks and mechanics.

Also not surprisingly: Sorcerers and Necromancers happen to be nerfed. Necro minions now die more regularly and Corpse Explosion is not as ridiculously powerful, and Sorcerers have experienced chain lightning dialed down.

General

Effects like Stun and Freeze could be applied to Elite Monsters two times as long before they become Unstoppable.

Reviewed class skills to verify that all classes get access to sufficient skills that remove control impairing effects.

Many Legendary Powers have experienced updates for their effectiveness.

Barbarian

A flat 10% passive damage reduction continues to be added for that Barbarian Class. Some Skill Tree passives had their damage reduction effects reduced to pay.

The Whirlwind Skill now deals more damage and consumes more Fury.

The Double Swing Skill Enhancement refunds its full Fury cost when utilized on Stunned or Knocked Down enemies.

Druid

Companion Skills will deal heavily increased damage.

All Ultimate Skills have experienced their cooldowns reduced.

Usability improvements happen to be made to Maul and Pulverize.

Using a non-Shapeshifting Skill will transform a Druid back to its human form.

Necromancer

Summoned Minions will die more regularly, requiring players to make use of Corpses more regularly.

Many bonuses within the Book from the Dead have experienced their stats increase.

The damage dealt through the Corpse Explosion skill continues to be reduced.

The brightness from the Skeletal Warriors and Mages continues to be reduced.

Rogue

Upgrades for Subterfuge Skills have experienced their bonuses increase.

Multiple passive Skills have experienced their bonuses increased.

All Imbuement Skills have experienced their cooldowns increase.

Sorcerer

Charged Bolt's damage was increased and also the Mana cost to cast has decreased.

Decreased the harm of Chain Lightning and reduced its effectiveness against Bosses.

Decreased the cooldown for that Incinerate Skill's Enchantment bonus.

Firewalls will spawn underneath enemies more often when using its Enchantment bonus.

Increased the Lucky Hit chance for that Meteor Skill's Enchantment bonus.

Other notable changes include The Butcher being buffed on World Tiers 3 and 4, which weren't within the demo and I shudder to consider what that'll be like, and cellar dungeons are now being made less boring having a greater opportunity to trigger events, and also to award you with chests.

Oh and also the Reset Dungeon button continues to be disabled.

Apparently, some Hardcore players were utilizing it to get out of sticky situations, as well as in general, Blizzard wants you to definitely move around, not farm one place. "Still," it said, "we realize it can be fun to repeat a particular dungeon, and also the team is looking for a more permanent means to fix this."

You will find the full listing of changes around the Diablo 4 website.

d4 items launch in a little under two months' time, on 6th June, though should you pre-order it, you are able to play from midnight on 2nd June in the UK, or 4 pm yesterday in Pacific time US. So far, we're big fans of the items we've seen, but it will be interesting to determine what the rest of the game holds especially the endgame.