At BlizzConline 2021, the Diablo 4 team discussed enemy camps, the open world, mountains and PvP.
In a What is next segment for Diablo 4, showed the development team a little more with the Rogue class and also discussed the open-world aspects of the game as well as PvP.
According to Blizzard, there will be a lot of exploration in the open world, and with an open world, the team can dive into how Sanctuary fits together, like the player who can drive from Scosglen to the broken peaks using mounts.
One of the coolest things about assemblers, is that there are different horse breeds and other assemblies that you can find around the world by completing puzzles to find hidden places, or to kill specific types of monsters. You can also find things to customize your horse, such as armor, hoof plates and trophies. There are many ways you can personalize your mountain to make it feel like your companion.
There is more you can do with mounts than just riding on them. The crook can, for example, jump from the mountain into the air and fire Rain of Arrows to destroy everything. Your mountain can not be damaged, but if you are attacked on horseback, it forces you to climb down and engage.
Another aspect of the open world is camps, which are basically a stronghold of the evil in the world. At these camps you can expect all sorts of monsters and bandits whose sole purpose is to take over the area. You will wander to these spaces and start recycling them for the residents of Sanctuary. Each has its own story and a unique fixed place in the world.
Queries are something you can randomly encounter in the world, but camps are a fixed institution that, if you encounter them, can have an impact on the open world that everyone can see. After defeating the evil, you unlock that camp and create a new waypoint that did not exist before. Suddenly all the markets open, you will have a blacksmith and a salesman in a place that did not exist before. New quests can emerge, and new stories can even be told. Dungeon entrances can even appear in these locations afterwards.
Actually, you are helping to re-establish these areas in Sanctuary when you take back these camps from the enemy.
With PvP, there will be areas called Fields of Hatred in the open world in which you can freely step in to digest and turn against other players. PvP is not mandatory as these locations are optional for the player to go to. Here you can collect Shards of Hatred by killing monsters and communicating with the environment, not just by killing other players.
If you earn these shards, they will be in an unpurified state and must be brought to a purge to convert them into a currency that you can use in the small campsites around the hate fields for armor, trophies or other content. If you want to clear a shard, it will alert other players who will come in and try to attack the player and take their shards before the ritual can be completed. Once purified, it’s you to keep, but before it is purified, it’s an honest game for other players in PvP.
The more you turn against other players, the more you will become a vessel of hatred. Once that happens, everyone within a large radius of uu will see it as a threat on the map. They will get a bonus for killing you, and if that happens, you will have a set amount of time you need to survive. If you can survive the amount of time and those you try to destroy or defeat, there will be a very big bonus in the end.
According to Blizzard, it just scratches the surface of what you can expect in Diablo 4.