Update from D2R lead producer on what's next for the game

Full report here.
Link to stream with timestamp here.
Text summary below for those who want it:

Matthew Cederquist, Lead Producer for Diablo II: Resurrected and other legacy games at Blizzard Entertainment, joined Mrllamasc's stream after the initial (non)announcements at BlizzCon. Llama directly asked him whether anything could be shared about what is coming up for D2R.

Matt shared that the devs put out the recent updates to those ~10 unique items in the last season patch as a feeler to see the community's reaction to making updates to the legacy itemization.

They are looking at about 211 unique items they might update over time. He suggested they might be updating 25 items per patch in the future, including updating early, mid, and TC87 uniques. He likes the idea of helping make players who never found a Jah and Ber during a season to feel excited to see a great unique drop.

They still want feedback on whether it is good for Stealth and Spirit to be as strong as they are. They want to hear feedback from the community about what they would think if the devs did anything to change those super powerful runewords to make them a less obvious choice. They are being careful because they want to keep the game's 1999 design choices relevant rather than making the game a "modern" D3 or D4.

Llama asked him if they are considering changes like adding Teleport to Werewolf form. "We have some things in mind that will come out in due time." They're specifically watching things like melee balance vs. casters, poison bug, Max damage/ED bug.

Matt was asked about whether they are dealing with bots. They are "taking a close look" and have several ways to detect bots. They have more coming on this soon.

They are actively looking at changing the online/social lobby. They haven't decided if they want to blow up the current experience completely or to make more minor changes, but "we can do better."

Regarding user-generated content (mods): the devs have played/do play them and respect them as being cool games (as long as you purchase the product!).

Matt: Switch 2 would be great for D2R, it would be a great candidate for it, but he has nothing to announce as of today. Cross-play is in the same category as that.

There may be a PTR for the Mosaic changes. Matt likes the idea of doing one when there is a big set of changes.

How about PVP? PVP is a sticky issue. It has a place in D2R, but it doesn't hold much weight for the community at large. We don't want to balance the game around PVP, but they consider PVP when designing new skills for Warlock. He admits the design for the Abyss skill was a miss on that front though. They might make some minor changes. They're not interested in having separate skills or stats for PVP versus PVE in D2R.

"Nothing for trading" right now. He admits it's funny to have to go to other sites for trading right now, and he'd like players to be more integrated in the game community. He also likes that you have to chat with another person to bargain to get a trade, even if it's on another site.

He feels D2R is a good place for a SSF mode, but they don't have one coming for D2R right now.

There are a lot of old used assets in the game. Don't necessarily think that Standard of Heroes or a Jawbone in a screenshot is a teaser. They also don't feel like making Standard of Heroes different is a great idea.

Adam23 wrote: 1 hour ago

To look at 211 uniques, imagine that! They actually listen carefully.

Yeah that's like half the uniques in the game, of which there are 415 in total at the moment.

So basically, while every other Blizz Game community got at least sth. to look out for, we got nothing (again).

Or is there still hope for Sunday?

/edit: And while the announcement of a new Diablo game (except Immortal) would have hyped me to Infinity and beyond before Diablo 3, the announcement of D5 for me is rather a signal or self-confirmation that D4 was just a massive fail. Even D3 still shines in comparison to this piece of sh** game.