Diablo 4's latest update, patch 2.2.2, just made a big change to Masterworking costs, but maybe doesn't go as far as players would like.
The update, which is now live, reduces the cost of basic Masterworking materials for upgrade ranks 1-4, as well as for resetting Masterwork ranks. That means early upgrades and even late-game resets will require fewer of the following materials: Rawhide, Iron Chunks, Veiled Crystals, Coiling Wards, Baleful Fragments, Abstruse Sigils, and Forgotten Souls.
That's a welcome change, and Blizzard said in the patch notes its goal is to ensure that those materials don't limit when players can Masterwork gear.
However, two other costs, Obducite and Gold, will stay the same. While the Obducite, a material earned from specific endgame activities, makes sense, it's the Gold cost that players are still taking issue with. Masterworking, and resetting ranks to get perfect rolls in particular, is a massive Gold sink, one that can easily add up to hundreds of millions of Gold for a single item for those looking to min-max.
As players on places like the Diablo 4 subreddit have noted, the upgrade materials other than Gold and Obducite have never felt like much of a problem, and therefore many players aren't feeling much of a change. Some are confused by the fact that it still costs so much Gold, having read that Masterworking became cheaper and just assuming the change meant Gold costs. Many players on Reddit cite the RNG involved with getting perfect Masterwork rolls, and the exorbitant costs, as one of the main reasons for giving up on their character each season, something that the new update does little to address.
Whether Blizzard will make more changes to Masterworking in the future remains to be seen, but the only other major change in the patch is the disabling of the DirectStorage setting on PC so Blizzard can investigate potential performance issues. Players can choose to re-enable the setting for faster load times by taking the following steps:
Diablo 4 Season 8, which revamped its endgame bosses and added a Berserk crossover, is currently live. Testing for Season 9, which will let players build their own Horadric spells, is currently underway, with the season set to begin on July 1.
Source
The update, which is now live, reduces the cost of basic Masterworking materials for upgrade ranks 1-4, as well as for resetting Masterwork ranks. That means early upgrades and even late-game resets will require fewer of the following materials: Rawhide, Iron Chunks, Veiled Crystals, Coiling Wards, Baleful Fragments, Abstruse Sigils, and Forgotten Souls.
That's a welcome change, and Blizzard said in the patch notes its goal is to ensure that those materials don't limit when players can Masterwork gear.
However, two other costs, Obducite and Gold, will stay the same. While the Obducite, a material earned from specific endgame activities, makes sense, it's the Gold cost that players are still taking issue with. Masterworking, and resetting ranks to get perfect rolls in particular, is a massive Gold sink, one that can easily add up to hundreds of millions of Gold for a single item for those looking to min-max.
As players on places like the Diablo 4 subreddit have noted, the upgrade materials other than Gold and Obducite have never felt like much of a problem, and therefore many players aren't feeling much of a change. Some are confused by the fact that it still costs so much Gold, having read that Masterworking became cheaper and just assuming the change meant Gold costs. Many players on Reddit cite the RNG involved with getting perfect Masterwork rolls, and the exorbitant costs, as one of the main reasons for giving up on their character each season, something that the new update does little to address.
Whether Blizzard will make more changes to Masterworking in the future remains to be seen, but the only other major change in the patch is the disabling of the DirectStorage setting on PC so Blizzard can investigate potential performance issues. Players can choose to re-enable the setting for faster load times by taking the following steps:
- Open the Battle.net Launcher
- Navigate to Diablo 4 and click the gear icon for game settings
- Check "Additional command line arguments"
- Add: -enableds
Diablo 4 Season 8, which revamped its endgame bosses and added a Berserk crossover, is currently live. Testing for Season 9, which will let players build their own Horadric spells, is currently underway, with the season set to begin on July 1.
Source