Blizzard is reworking the leveling curve in Diablo 4 for the Lord of Hatred expansion
The pace of leveling in Diablo 4 is set to shift when the Lord of Hatred expansion drops on April 28. Blizzard wants early levels to feel more substantial – no more blazing through the first 20 levels in minutes only to hit a wall later. The total time to reach the new level cap, raised from 60 to 70, stays the same.
Game director Colin Finer explained the change at a recent press event at Blizzard headquarters:
"We've actually rebalanced it a little bit. We've increased the level cap [from 60 to 70 in Lord of Hatred] but the time it takes to get max-level is the same.
"What the curve is going to look like is today, you get through one to 20, one to 25, really quick. It's almost over in a second. What we're doing is front-loading a lot of the monster cleaning you do early, so it's slower early, but then in the later levels, it's much less. Imagine it takes 20 hours to get the max level: we're essentially saying the first 20 levels are going to take a little bit longer but the back half is going to be much faster.
"The thought is you're going to have a lot more skills at your disposal, you're going to be killing way more monsters, and we want that to be snappy and more evenly paced throughout."
There's a practical benefit to slowing down the early game: players actually get to learn their characters. When new mechanics and systems roll in gradually, they have time to sink in. Rush through those levels too fast and it all becomes noise.
The Lord of Hatred expansion brings a lot of new content to Diablo 4 – two new classes (a warlock and a paladin, the latter free to try next week), a new region, a new storyline, and fresh systems and quests. The most significant change, though, may be the overhauled and expanded skill tree, which Blizzard hopes will finally give the game the build variety it's been missing.
Combined with loot reworks and other systemic changes, it shows Blizzard is willing to revisit the fundamentals when something isn't working. Three years on, Diablo 4 is in better shape than it's ever been.
