Better. Much better.

I've just finished second-screening the second of two Diablo IV Season of Blood live-streams, and I have to say, this one was better.

I'm not going to do the same exhaustive blow-by-blow of all the changes, for three reasons:

1. they didn't give an exhaustive list of the changes being made, instead giving examples of each change type, along with an explanation of the design philosophy behind changes of that type; 
2. an exhaustive list of all the changes (i.e. the patch notes) is going up on the Diablo IV web site, so anyone interested in all the granular detail really should just be reading those; and
3. there are plenty of D4 content creators who are better positioned to opine about each of those changes, since they actually play the game and I don't.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that the philosophy behind the changes was the interesting part for me; the details of the changes themselves weren't what I was there for. Frankly, sitting through two hours of granular details about each fucking change, no matter how small, was excruciating last time; it felt like a desperate attempt to pad the run time, executed by people who knew that their list of announcements was actually rather thin.

This stream, by comparison, moved. Touching lightly on each change type, and then detailing the decision-making process behind it, not only kept the pace brisk, but left me feeling much better-informed after only ninety minutes than I felt after last week's two-and-a-half hour marathon.

So, how did they do? Honestly, pretty well.

What I was looking for in this stream was pretty simple. 

• I wanted to hear them acknowledge that the game had clear, fundamental design issues which needed to be addressed;
• I wanted to hear them discuss how they were approaching each fundamental design problem;
• I wanted them to acknowledge that more work still needed to be done; and
• I wanted them to have made progress in tackling fundamental design flaws in attributes, skills, and items broadly, and not just unique items.

That's setting the bar pretty low. Do they know that they have problems? Do they understand that pretty much every system in the game needs re-working? Are they making any progress on those rework tasks?

The answer, in all three cases, was yes. Not only have they acknowledged the shortcomings of their attribute, skill, and item systems, but they've also committed to re-balancing monsters, beyond just adding a few new boss fights to the late game. For only a few months' work, it was a genuinely impressive amount of progress.

Now, to be clear, Diablo IV will still have fundamental design issues after these changes. Attributes, Skills, and Itemization all needed to be reworked, but so does almost every aspect of the open world (except for the horse, which they're alreay fixing), along with dungeons. Even after these changes, D4 is still a long way from being a game that I'd be willing to buy. But it might actually, finally, be moving in the right direction.

Overall grade:

B-