26 June 2023 , 12:00
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After a slew of hotfixes, Diablo 4 is expected to be on the receiving end of a bumper update as early as Tuesday, given the double sessions of planned maintenance on Monday and Tuesday.
Update: Diablo 4 patch notes for update 1.0.3 are now live and there are huge XP and loot changes as well as a slew of class buffs.
Original story: Since its launch at the start of June, Diablo 4 patches have been coming thick and fast, starting pre-launch for early access players. Aside from the first sizeable update pre-launch, the hotfixes have addressed smaller, more immediate issues; although they've not all been innocuous. Hotfix 10 nerfed Druids – an already weak class – and last Friday's Diablo 4 hotfix 12 massively nerfed the Barbarian's Hammer of the Ancients.
The community was livid, but thankfully, it was due to a bug rather than a stealth class nerf and Activision Blizzard quickly deployed hotfix 13 the same day to revert the damage. Now all eyes are on the next significant update which is slated to be the big Diablo 4 patch the developers delved into during the Campfire Chat. General manager Rod Fergusson said that the patch is so big – with 13 pages of patch notes and counting – that it will likely need a maintenance window to roll out. And what have we got this week? Two of them.
Diablo 4 maintenance dates and times
The upcoming Diablo 4 maintenance schedule is listed on the dedicated support website. On Sunday, the page stated that the game will be unavailable during these windows, but has since been updated to read, "players may experience interruptions of service including disconnects, but should be able to log back in". So be sure to finish up any business you have in Sanctuary before the following Diablo 4 maintenance windows, just in case.
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Diablo 4 maintenance – Monday, June 26
- Starts: 9am PDT / 12pm EDT / 5pm BST
- Ends: 2pm PDT / 5pm EDT / 10pm BST
Diablo 4 maintenance – Tuesday, June 27
- Starts: 9.30am PDT / 12.30pm EDT / 5.30pm BST
- Ends: 2pm PDT / 5pm EDT / 10pm BST
Diablo 4 maintenance: patch notes
Blizzard hasn't explicitly said that the big update is coming this week, but given the timing of the Diablo 4 maintenance, the giant list of hotfixes so far, and what the patch is set to address, it would certainly make sense for this week to be the week. If that's the case, the first proper post-launch Diablo 4 patch will likely go live on Tuesday, June 27.
Based on what was discussed for this "chonky" update in the Campfire Chat, here's what to expect in terms of early patch notes, but bear in mind we'll get a full and detailed breakdown once it's rolled out. Thanks to redditor Chad_RD for the summary:
- More XP from Nightmare Dungeons
- Ability to teleport to nightmare dungeons
- New characters will have map and lilith altars unlocked
- Renown earned for statues of Lilith and map exploration will persist between seasons
- Map fog of war will be removed
- Quests will be reset for seasonal characters, but may be changed in future
- Seasonal characters will need to earn Tier III, IV, V renown rewards
- Stats or paragon obtained from Lilith statues will remain
- Will need to finish renown from waypoints, quests, dungeon completions each season to round out renown and unlock paragon points, the third skill point, and obols
- Gem/inventory friction addressed (but season2)
- Material cap increases
- Resistances in higher WTs made more impactful than now (season2)
- Disconnect protection for hardcore
- Scaling? item power addresses scaling, focus on item power instead of levels?
- Druid barb unique drops will be fixed - uniques of other classes will still occur
- LFG tools looked at/workshopped
Additional notes from Q&A portion:
Not planning to add more robust TP to player features
Buffs to many classes/systems, may touch resource generation for some builds
Mob density at floor (baseline), may go up from here (focused on discussing XP factor rather than fun factor)
More options for character customization, some new options for changing current characters (long term timeline)
Completed sidequest tab? improvements to journal and what it tracks
Search functions for stash/dungeons beyond console keywords not planned, but will be evaluated
The standouts worth mentioning are the material cap increase, the class buffs, and disconnect protection. In Diablo 4 Hardcore mode, players' characters are permanently deleted upon death. If you have no one to blame but yourself, fair enough. But if there are server troubles or your internet gives us the ghost, it's treated as a player death.
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Hopefully the big update will come after the Diablo 4 maintenance and those 13 plus pages of patch notes will cover the main issues and start getting the game to the "polished" state the devs in the Campfire Chat have envisioned.