Category Archives: Diablo 3

1.0.4 Barb and Legendary Changes Announced!!

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1.0.4 LEGENDARY CHANGES!!

1.0.4 Legendary Item Improvements

by Andrew Chambers Aug 14, 2012 6:34 PM PDT

1.0.4 Legendary Item Improvements

Soon after we released Diablo III, many of you commented on Legendary items. Most of those comments were fairly harsh, but they were also dead-on accurate. In many ways the Legendary items that we released with the game were just Rares with flavor text. You called us on it, and we’ve listened.

Since then I’ve been working hard with the team to give Legendary items some of the flavor and feeling that they deserve. With patch 1.0.4 just around the corner, and the new Legendary items coming in that patch, I wanted to share some of the changes with you here today.

Let’s talk about the biggest complaints we heard from you all, along with some we had from our team, and look at what we’ve managed to do to address them.

They Should Feel Unique

Many of you commented, rightly, that the Legendary items in the game didn’t feel unique enough. Something that Diablo II did really well was to create some very memorable items, and they were called “Uniques.” While we call them Legendaries now, the word “unique” was something we tried to keep in mind when making these changes. The rarity of Legendary items combined with their color means that when they drop you should feel like you’re getting something special, something that isn’t just another sword. A truly legendary item should have history behind it, something that you can imagine a powerful wizard imbuing with special magics from within the depths of his musty library.

Part of that feeling comes when you equip the item, and you see that it has special, custom artwork that sets it apart from every other item in the game. The artists already nailed this part of it, but with 1.0.4 they’ve gone the extra mile to ensure these items show off, visually, how truly epic they are. But we’ll cover that in a bit.

On my end, the design end, to get the uniqueness into Legendary items, we’ve added custom effects to over 50 of them. Here are just a few.

 

 

We’re letting players exact some revenge on rare and Champion and Rare packs by giving players monster affixes through Legendary items. This is just one example.

 


Reminiscent of the Enchantress ability, this lets you turn enemies against each other.

 

 
Aside from looking really cool as it leaves a trail of fire behind you, this lets you create some interesting traps.

 


There’s some just-for-fun stuff too. Everyone wants to be just like Ghom! These pants make you “stinky”, complete with debuff and gas cloud effect — you can even spread this effect to friendly players.

Old New
 

A giant column of light shoots down, summoning an Angel to fight by your side. ‘Nuff said.

Old  New

This sword has a chance to summon a demon to fight with you — with a twist. This demon has the Fire Chains affix, and the other end is attached to your character. Mwahaha!

Promote Build Diversity

Because Legendary items are unique, we can do some fun stuff with them that we can’t really do with other types of items. One of the main goals of Diablo III and the skill/rune system is providing a huge amount of character customization. With Legendary items we can help support those goals.

In 1.0.4 we’ve added a number of items that really fit into a niche skill kit. This can help people to branch out into less common builds by seeing this item and thinking, heck, why not give it a try? They may not have the highest DPS stats in the game, but they can help you play your class in new and interesting ways.


Some people want to try out a ranged barb. We think that’s awesome. Here you go.

 

 

The melee wizard concept is pretty popular, and we think this wand will be too.

 


Certainly not an uncommon build, but this is a great item for any pet-focused witch doctors, and with the pet buffs also coming in 1.0.4 we think it’s going to be very desirable.


Provide Interesting Choices

With great power comes great responsibility. Some affixes in the game seem like they’d be too unbalanced if we let them stack too high. So how do we make sure we can go higher?

 

 

Goldskin is a good example. 100% gold find on it, plus monsters have a chance to drop gold when you hit them. Not too bad, right? But the tradeoff is it can’t roll core stats. We instead follow the flavor of the item, and being a skin of gold (!), provide you with some additional resistances and mitigation. It’s going to create some interesting choices on how you can make this item work for you. You have to find other ways to get the stats that you really need if you really want all that sweet, sweet gold. Balancing your items out like this can provide some fun and interesting challenges.

Honoring Our Ancestors

We brought a lot of items back from the Diablo franchise for Diablo III, but in many cases all we really did was bring back their name. I don’t think we did a great job initially of bringing back the way that they helped you play the game. We’ve done a pass on all the “ancestor” Legendaries to make sure they remain as true to their name as we could make them, and in some cases we’ve made them even better.

 


New Frosties feel a lot more like old Frosties, with big bonuses to Cold Damage and Cold skills

 

.

 

Honoring the original by giving all projectile attacks a chance to pierce through the target’s defenses.


They Feel Powerful

We used to reduce the value of certain affixes on Legendary items because we were concerned that having fixed affixes would make them unbalanced. What it actually did was make those items kind of crappy. For example, if the item’s level (ilvl) was 50, the first affix would always roll at 50, then the next would roll at 47, and the next would roll at 43. This was done to offset the power of fixed affixes in a random world, but we’ve learned it’s not necessary, and Legendary items being powerful is OK. So lesson learned, we no longer reduce the value of any of the fixed affixes on Legendary items.  For example, if an ilvl 50 Legendary item had Strength as one of its fixed affixes, previously it may have rolled a range that you would have seen on a level 45 item, making it seem really underpowered, but now it will always roll within the range of a level 50 affix.

In addition, Legendary items used to cap out at ilvl 62, making it near impossible to find a weapon that had strong DPS. No more. We’ve promoted a LOT of the new Legendaries so that they will roll at ilvl 63, giving them access to the highest possible affix rolls that are in the game.

We’re also working on some changes for 1.0.4 to make two-handers better in general, and this will affect two-handed Legendary items as well.

Here’s a good example of all-of-the-above.

Old New

BOOM.

Everything Else

That probably about covers it for the major points we’re hitting with Legendary items in 1.0.4, but there’s a few extra details on how they’re going to work once the patch hits we want to make sure everyone is prepared for.

Going Forward - As a reminder, these changes will only affect Legendary items that drop after the release of patch 1.0.4. This includes items that haven’t been identified yet (as items are rolled when they drop). With the extensive changes being made we can’t exactly translate old Legendary items to new. What might have been a decent item could become worse if we re-roll it, and vice-versa.

Not Everything is Changing! - Sometimes a Legendary just being really powerful is enough, and some Legendary items are already really good. Helm of Command, for example, won’t be changing in 1.0.4.

What About Sets? - It’s worth clarifying that green Set items are Legendary items (just with a set bonus) and so the above philosophy applies to them as well. Some set bonuses are changing, they’re becoming more powerful, and a lot of them are having their base ilvl increased to 63.

New Set Names - As set bonuses won’t interact between pre-1.0.4 and post-1.0.4 sets, the new Sets will have new names, as well as new individual pieces, to prevent confusion.

Crafted Legendaries - If you currently have a crafting plan for a Legendary item, and if we change the item that you’re able to craft in any way, you will NOT have to get a new crafting plan for that item. If you craft something right after 1.0.4 comes out you’ll get the new item.
We thank you for your continued feedback, and look forward to seeing how the new Legendaries treat you in 1.0.4 and beyond. Look out for additional 1.0.4 info blogs as we near the patch release.

One More Thing…

I’m really proud of how the entire team came together to make these changes — and it truly was a team-wide effort. When we were first discussing buffing Legendaries and making them cooler, a bunch of the artists got really excited and went out of their way to make them a whole lot sexier. Here’s a sneak peek at just a few of the changes they’re making to the items, as well as some of their proc powers.

Please enjoy!

Andrew Chambers is Senior Game Designer on Diablo III, and spent six months running a live action Vampire the Masquerade game for over 100 people, and it mostly wasn’t to meet girls… mostly.

 

1.0.4 BARBARIAN CHANGES!!

 

Patch 1.0.4 Preview: Barbarian

by Wyatt Cheng Aug 15, 2012 9:00 AM PDT

Patch 1.0.4 Preview: Barbarian

One of our primary goals with class changes in patch 1.0.4 is to help improve build diversity. Of course, this has been a goal for the Diablo III development team since launch, but our approach this patch has been a little different. For 1.0.4, we’re taking a good look at some of the most unpopular skills for each class, figuring out why they aren’t being used in your builds, and then seeing how we can make them better — either by redesigning how they work or just buffing the hell out of them.

For barbarians, we focused on improving the following areas:

  • Bash and Cleave are not very attractive compared to Frenzy
  • Many of the damage-oriented Fury Spenders don’t do enough damage to justify the spot on your bar

Fury Generators

Frenzy:
It’s easy to see why Frenzy is the most popular Fury Generator right now.  It generates a solid amount of Fury, it has the highest single-target damage of any Fury generator, and it has the highest single-target healing using Life on Hit.  The bonus attack speed also provides good combat mobility as well as the option to focus all your damage on a single target or distribute it between multiple targets as needed.  We’re going to buff Bash and Cleave to be viable alternatives to Frenzy for people who would like to try a different play style.

Bash:
From a design perspective, Bash should be the definitive choice when it comes to maximizing your Fury generation. That’s not currently the case, and given the current state of the game, this means attacking the problem from two sides. First, we need to make Fury a more attractive resource to build up (which also means making Fury Spenders more attractive, which I talk about below). Second, we’re going to increase the amount of Fury generated by Bash from 6 to 8, as well as the amount of weapon damage done by Bash from 150% to 165%.  The goal is to make Bash not only a very compelling option if you decide you want to focus on Fury generation, but also an appealing single-target alternative to Frenzy if you don’t enjoy its mechanics (like having to manage Frenzy stacks).  Currently, Frenzy surpasses Bash in single-target damage as soon as you have your third stack of Frenzy, and it feels like the breakpoint should be around the fourth stack instead. These changes should help better balance the appeal of the two skills.

Cleave:
Looking at the three basic Fury Generators (Frenzy, Bash and Cleave), the role of Cleave is fairly straight-forward: it should be the clear winner when there is more than one target to hit. In a single-target situation, however, Cleave will always perform worse than Bash and Frenzy. While this is intended to a degree, the amount of single-target damage you currently have to give up feels too great to make the trade-off worthwhile. At an extreme, if Cleave did almost exactly the same damage as Bash or Frenzy, but had the ability to hit a second target when one was around, Cleave would definitely become that “clear winner.” So, to make it more appealing to some players, our goal is then to find that sweet spot between where Cleave is now and doing the same single-target as Frenzy and Bash.  We’re going to increase both the damage and proc coefficient on Cleave to close the gap when fighting a single target.

Fury Spenders

For many players, using Hammer of the Ancients, Seismic Slam, or Rend just doesn’t seem worth it.  To make these skills more attractive, we’re going to straight up buff their damage across the board.  How much?  Well,  we noticed that more players use Battle Rage than any of these other Fury Spenders, but Battle Rage is less exciting to use and doesn’t quite evoke the same visceral joy.  So, we used Battle Rage and Frenzy as our starting point.  We basically asked ourselves the question “How much damage would Hammer of the Ancients have to do in order to make Frenzy + Hammer [of the Ancients] as appealing as Frenzy + Battle Rage?”  Players who really want to go the extra mile for the most damage could go so far as to combine all three skills together, so we kept that in mind as well.

Hammer of the Ancients vs. Battle Rage was a simple starting point, but we used similar approaches with Seismic Slam, and Rend.  The basic idea was: Fury generation isn’t attractive to players because Fury spending isn’t attractive to players, so what do the numbers need to be to fix that? To continue using Hammer of the Ancients as an example:

  • We’re increasing its base damage from 200% to 325%
  • We’re increasing the damage for Rolling Thunder from 155% to 275%
  • We’re increasing the damage for Smash from 270% to 406%

And to provide another example, here’s what we’re doing with Rend:

  • Weapon damage increased from 210% over 3 seconds to 700% over 5 seconds
  • Lacerate weapon damage increased from 271% over 3 seconds to 903% over 5 seconds
  • Bloodbath weapon damage increased from 60% over 3 seconds to 100% over 5 second

With these improvements (Whirlwind and Seismic Slam will be receiving similar tweaks to improve their viability), we hope to see Fury Spenders become more appealing for all levels of play.

But What About…

I’ll close by adding that there are no changes planned for either Sprint or Battle Rage, so all you crazy double tornado barbarians will still be able to log in after 1.0.4 goes live and continue with your current build. Or, you can try out some of the new toys we’re adding. Either way, we hope you have fun and are looking forward to 1.0.4!

Be sure to check out our other class previews for patch 1.0.4:

  • Demon Hunter (Coming Soon)
  • Monk (Coming Soon)
  • Wizard (Coming Soon)
  • Witch Doctor (Coming Soon)

 

Wyatt Cheng is a Senior Technical Game Designer for Diablo III. He is currently trying to convince a friend to make him a baneling plushie doll. (Any takers?)

Blizzard HACKED! LOTS of new info! 1.0.4 is 4th week of August!

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Developer Blog – 1.0.4 Systems Preview


Here is the list of changes outlined in their recent post about Diablo 3 changes coming. 1.0.4 is targeted for the 4th week of August!

 

Official Forums

  • Magic find and gold find will no longer be averaged in multiplayer games.
  • Monster health will now be a flat increase of 75% health (per player), regardless of the difficulty in multiplayer.
  • No more enrage timers on elites.
  • Elites will no longer heal to full health
  • They are increasing the health of normal monsters (but increasing the drop of magic or rare items by a factor of four), and lowering the health of champions and rares to shrink the gap between them.
  • They are adjusting fire chains and shielding, and REMOVING Invulnerable Minions.
  • They want to make all items that drop be good, however this is not something they can fully do in 1.0.4. However weapons of ilvl 61 and 62 can now roll damage that extends all the way to top ilvl 63 weapons
  • To help with the dual-wielding  and two-handers, they will be adding a new set of stronger affixes
  • Reducing repair costs of high-end items by 25%
  • Legendary changes will have its own blog post
  • MANY more blogs to come covering the buffing of unused skills, and big improvements to wd pets.

 

 

A new magic find system will be coming in 1.0.4 it seems by thier recent Blue post! It will be called “Levels of Excellence”, keep an eye out for more info!

 

HACKED! 

 

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Forums)

 

Players and Friends,

Even when you are in the business of fun, not every week ends up being fun. This week, our security team found an unauthorized and illegal access into our internal network here at Blizzard. We quickly took steps to close off this access and began working with law enforcement and security experts to investigate what happened.

At this time, we’ve found no evidence that financial information such as credit cards, billing addresses, or real names were compromised. Our investigation is ongoing, but so far nothing suggests that these pieces of information have been accessed.

Some data was illegally accessed, including a list of email addresses for global Battle.net users, outside of China. For players on North American servers (which generally includes players from North America, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia) the answer to the personal security question, and information relating to Mobile and Dial-In Authenticators were also accessed. Based on what we currently know, this information alone is NOT enough for anyone to gain access to Battle.net accounts.

We also know that cryptographically scrambled versions of Battle.net passwords (not actual passwords) for players on North American servers were taken. We use Secure Remote Password protocol (SRP) to protect these passwords, which is designed to make it extremely difficult to extract the actual password, and also means that each password would have to be deciphered individually. As a precaution, however, we recommend that players on North American servers change their password. Please click this link to change your password. Moreover, if you have used the same or similar passwords for other purposes, you may want to consider changing those passwords as well.

In the coming days, we’ll be prompting players on North American servers to change their secret questions and answers through an automated process. Additionally, we’ll prompt mobile authenticator users to update their authenticator software. As a reminder, phishing emails will ask you for password or login information. Blizzard Entertainment emails will never ask for your password. We deeply regret the inconvenience to all of you and understand you may have questions. Please find additional information here.

We take the security of your personal information very seriously, and we are truly sorry that this has happened.

Sincerely,
Mike Morhaime

 

Patch 1.0.4 Information coming soon! 

 

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Forums)

 

Patch 1.0.4 Information Coming Soon
The Diablo III developers have been hard at work on some exciting new features and updates for the game. Many of you have asked for more details, and we’re busily preparing several developer blogs filled with information on what’s coming in patch 1.0.4. In the meantime, here’s an overview of the information we’re planning to share here on the Diablo III community site in the not-too-distant future.
Please keep in mind that this list isn’t set in stone, but it should provide a useful preview of what we’ll be revealing in the days ahead.
  • System Changes, by Wyatt Cheng
    Senior Technical Game Designer Wyatt Cheng is preparing a high-level summary of some of the system changes planned for 1.0.4.
  • Legendary Items, by Andrew Chambers
    Senior Game Designer Andrew Chambers is working on a blog detailing all the ways we’re making Legendary items stand out.
  • Magic Find Update, by Jay Wilson
    Following up on earlier discussions, Game Director Jay Wilson will be providing an update on how Magic Find is evolving in patch 1.0.4.
  • Class Changes, by Wyatt Cheng
    Wyatt will also be providing a preview of the changes we’ll be making for each class in 1.0.4 (and the philosophy behind those changes).
  • Patch Notes, by Lylirra
    Of course, this is all building up to the actual patch 1.0.4 release, and we’ll be releasing the full patch notes shortly before the update goes live.

We’re also planning to run some interviews and developer chats surrounding patch 1.0.4, and we’ll be sharing those on the Diablo III front page. Be on the lookout, as we’d love to get you involved in any live chats we host.

As always, your constructive feedback is very much appreciated. Stay tuned for the updates to follow!

 

Character Profiles are now LIVE! Visit the forums or the main site and it will be listed under your name when you log in!

 

Rubberbanding was “Apparently” Hotfixed as of recent as well! Let us know if it works!

 

Canceling auctions as well as 6 Property searching is being targeted for 1.0.4!

 

Chewing Fat has did some work on some Diablo/etc themed comic strips! Check them out!

 ChewingFat.co

*Credit to ChewingFat.co for the Article Image’s*

Invulnerable bugs, MoP D3 stuff, Patch tuesday!?

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Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Forums)

Bug Fixes
  • Fixed a bug that allowed wizards to become permanently invulnerable

  • Fixed a health regeneration bug that occasionally affected barbarians when using Furious Charge

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Forums)

 

We have been notified by PayPal that they will be performing a scheduled maintenance to their system on July 27 and August 3, 2012 to improve the performance of their services. During this maintenance window you will receive an error message when trying to purchase items on the RMAH using PayPal or attempting to receive funds. The transaction will however be recorded and our system will automatically process it again at a later point. Please note, that this will delay the arrival of your funds.

  • Friday July 27, 2012 between 09:30 CEST (08:30 GMT) and 09:40 CEST (08:40 GMT)

  • Friday August 3, 2012 between 09:30 CEST (08:30 GMT) and 09:40 CEST (08:40 GMT)

Originally Posted by Blizzard

 

Hardcore players represent! Did you know that Hardcore characters in Diablo III have an average lifespan of only 6 hours? (Source)

Mists of Pandaria release date announced!

 

Looks like MoP will be hitting the shelves on Sept. 25, 2012! Be sure to preorder it soon, they have Digital Deluxe versions as well as Collectors editions through many retailers!

  • A new Feat of Strength, Panda-monium, which is achieved by registering a copy of theMoP Collector’s Edition.
  • A new banner sigil and accent combo featuring a panda face and some pandaren-style linework.
  • A pair of black demon wings, along with the string “SpecialGiftWingsBuff_name – Collectors Edition Buff.” Unlike the banner options and the Feat of Strength, there’s some speculation that this may not be a MoP CE reward, but the string at least raises that possibility.

8 HOUR Maintence, 1.0.4???

We will be performing scheduled maintenance on Tuesday, July 31st. Maintenance will begin at 3:00 AM PDT and conclude at approximately 11:00 AM PDT. During this time, all servers and many web services will be unavailable. Thank you for your patience.

LIVE Multiple Multiboxing Wizard’s and Monk’s in Live stream! Also a Donation Item Room!

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Multiboxing Wizards and Monks Live Stream!

 

This is a stream of a group of friends on Diablo 3 that are helping each other and the community out alot that I thought would interest some people! The link will take you to Twitch.TV live with either Inigo or Myself streaming Monks or Wizards! 

They also have a game setup for people to donate miscellaneous items to, that others can join and look through the items for upgrades for watching, and following their stream! You will need to get in contact with Baelin, Inigo, Gates, Mugidora, or Rakunvar(me) in Twitch’s chat room or in game to get on the list to do this! (Do not abuse this or you will be kicked/banned from the stream!)

 

http://www.twitch.tv/rakunvar ~~ Wizard’s

http://www.twitch.tv/d3_inigomontoya ~~ Monks

Please be respectful while watching, talking, or asking to receive items. Inigo and his friends are the ones hosting this and any thing associated with it will need to ask them. I will be in the chat room under “Rakunvar” if you need anything.

 

Remember Multiboxing is NOT a form of Exploiting, nor Botting! Botting is a form of Automation/Automated key’s being used without a user, while Multiboxing with “ISboxer” is just cloning keys to separate windows, while the person is present and causing it to do so. This is a “Grey Area” for blizzard which is why no one that solely Multiboxes ends up getting banned. (To my knowledge.)

 

If you enjoy their stream, please make sure you click “Follow” above the Video! 

New Blizzard Information, Comic Strips, and more!

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Mike Morhaime

Mike took some time to write a pretty long letter to the Diablo Community. Here’s some of the key points as well as the entire letter to read over.


  1. 1.0.4 ~~ “will also include new and improved Legendary items that are more interesting, more powerful, and more epic in ways you probably won’t be expecting.”
  2. 1.0.4 ~~ “this update will contain changes designed to further deliver on the team’s goal of promoting “build diversity,” with buffs to many rarely used, underpowered class abilities.”
  3. 1.1 ~~ He talks about the Auction House having some changes with this patch.
  4. End-Game ~~ “We’re also working on a gameplay system that will provide players who have max-level, high-powered characters new goals to strive for as an alternative to the “item hunt.” We’re not ready to get into specifics just yet, but I can say that we’re actively taking your feedback into account as we plan out the future of the game.”

 

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Forums)

Dear Diablo Players,

Now that Diablo III has been out for two months, I would like to take a step back and discuss the launch, the feedback from the community, and talk about what the future holds for the game.

We’ve had an enormous amount of feedback since the launch. I speak for everyone at Blizzard when I say that we appreciate the passion and affection many of you have for the Diablo series. We truly believe “Every Voice Matters,” so I want to thank you for sharing your experiences in an effort to help us improve the game. Your support makes it possible for us to continue doing what we do, and we never take that for granted.

The launch week of Diablo III was memorable for many reasons — some positive, and some not so positive. We were thrilled that Diablo III had the biggest PC-game launch ever, surpassing the lifetime sales of Cataclysm (the previous record holder for biggest PC-game launch) in a matter of weeks. We’ve been floored by the response.

However, the launch had many challenges as well. It has always been difficult to forecast how many players we will have. With World of Warcraft, it was a challenge to handle the immediate demand when we launched back in 2004, and that was just in North America. We eventually expanded to other regions and reached nearly 5 million players by the end of the first year, and there were a lot of growing pains with that. However, we’ve never gone from 0 to more than 6 million players across multiple continents within a few days with a brand-new game. For Diablo III, we looked at historical sales for Blizzard games and other top-selling PC games and watched preorder numbers. We even upped our estimates to ensure we had additional capacity, or so we thought. In the end, it just wasn’t enough, and that is something we will work hard to conquer for future releases.

In response to the immediate and overwhelming demand for the game, the team worked around the clock to support all regions, increase capacity, ship additional hardware to our datacenters, and troubleshoot and fix bugs as they sprang up. While things have by and large been running smoothly for several weeks now, various game-related issues have come up that we have either already responded to or are continuing to investigate (such as the latency issue some of you are experiencing) and make adjustments for. Rather than address every subject individually, I’ll just say that even as we work to address or resolve current issues, it’s always possible that further issues will crop up. We hope that our actions in the past have demonstrated that above all else, we’re committed to delivering an awesome game experience, and we hope you’ll have faith that we will continue to keep that commitment and respond to any new or outstanding issues quickly.

We are not satisfied with breaking launch records; we want people to continue playing and enjoying Blizzard games for a very long time. The Diablo III team has made an epic, entertaining, and beautiful gaming experience. That being said, we know that it isn’t perfect. Our teams are working hard to improve the game balance, build on our design, and listen to what players are saying to make it the best game it can be.

You’ve seen some of that work already in patch 1.0.3, and you’ll see additional improvements with patch 1.0.4. On the game balance front, this update will contain changes designed to further deliver on the team’s goal of promoting “build diversity,” with buffs to many rarely used, underpowered class abilities. Another topic we’ve seen actively discussed is the fact that better, more distinct Legendary items are needed. We agree. Patch 1.0.4 will also include new and improved Legendary items that are more interesting, more powerful, and more epic in ways you probably won’t be expecting.

We’re also working on a number of interface updates, including social improvements that will allow players to more easily view their friends’ achievements, more quickly join games, and more efficiently communicate with each other. In addition, we’ll be making updates to the auction house in the future to provide players with better information through tooltips and notices, offer improved search functionality, and more.

Regarding the real-money auction house, our primary goal for including this in the game was to provide convenience and peace of mind for those players who might otherwise turn to third-party services to buy items. Black market trading sites can put accounts at risk and create many customer service challenges. We felt that the players themselves also deserved the opportunity to benefit from the extra loot they found, as opposed to having all of the benefit go to the black market/illegal trading organizations. We know the auction house isn’t perfect, but with your help and feedback, we’ll be able to continue making it a better experience for those who choose to use it. On the flipside, we are also committed to ensuring you have a great experience with Diablo III without feeling like the auction house is mandatory, which was never our intention. Thank you for all the feedback about that.

One other common topic we’ve seen in the forums is the always-connected experience, and the perception that the online requirement is nothing but an ineffective form of copy protection that has already been cracked. While we’ve never said that this requirement guarantees that there will be no cheating or game cracks, it does help us battle those problems (we have not found any fully functional cracks). More important to us is that the online requirement is critical for the long-term integrity of the game experience. I fully understand the desire to play Diablo III offline; however, Diablo III was designed from the beginning to be an online game that can be enjoyed with friends, and the always-online requirement is the best way for us to support that design. The effectiveness of the online elements — including the friends list and cross-game communication; co-op matchmaking; persistent characters that you can use by yourself, with others, and in PvP; and some of our customer support, service, and security components — is tied directly to the online nature of the game. These and other online-enabled features are essential to our design for Diablo III. That said, there are still improvements we believe we can make to expand the online experience and make co-op play even more rewarding, and this will remain one of our priorities moving forward. Overall, while there are some downsides to the online-only approach, I still believe this was the best long-term decision for the game.

I know many of you are also looking forward to patch 1.1, our PvP update, which will provide new experiences and give you a whole new way to apply the skills you’ve picked up while battling demons. This patch will also build on the social and auction house changes I mentioned above, and the team will continue to fix bugs and further tune game balance as well.

We’re also working on a gameplay system that will provide players who have max-level, high-powered characters new goals to strive for as an alternative to the “item hunt.” We’re not ready to get into specifics just yet, but I can say that we’re actively taking your feedback into account as we plan out the future of the game.

As always, we appreciate your candor and passion. Your constructive feedback and thoughts are valuable — they will continue to help us be a better company. I just want to reiterate that while we can’t claim to have ever shipped a perfect game, we are committed to supporting our games relentlessly and making improvements where we can. Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Mike Morhaime

 The usual maintenance will be changed up this week it seems as well! 

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Forums)

We will be performing scheduled maintenance on Friday, July 20th. Maintenance will begin at 5:00 AM PDT and is expected to last for 2:00 hours. During this time, all realms and many web services will be unavailable.Thank you for your patience.

 

HellYeahComics.com has been creating some fun comic strips for Diablo 3 I think everyone will enjoy! 

Check the other comic strips out here

 (Article’s main image credited to Hellyeahcomics.com and Oskar Pannier ~~ Link)

Lots of new info about Diablo 3! Diablo Statue Giveaway!

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Diablo III Builds Used by the Developers
Ever wonder what builds some of the developers use while playing Diablo III?  PCgamer was able to talk to five developers and have them share some information about the builds they uses while playing! Check out the article to see what they have to say about each build.


Blizzard RMAH commodities and gold are now LIVE!

Head on over to the AH and check them out!

 

Diablo 3 Profiles!

 

We’ll soon be adding a new feature to our official Diablo III site. Profiles will let you review all of your character information at a glance, share it with others, and check out the accomplishments of the other heroes out there.

You’ll be able to look at your heroes (or your friends’ heroes) from any page on the Diablo III site through our personalized menu. If you’re curious about the exploits of your fellow forum posters, it’ll be a simple matter to click over to their profiles and feel envious of their gear or how long they’ve managed to keep their Hardcore characters alive.

Our first profiles release will include these two elements:

  • A career tab that displays all of your heroes, how far you’ve progressed in the Diablo III campaign, how many foes you’ve slain, the names and playtimes of your fallen Hardcore heroes, and more.
  • A heroes tab that shows off your equipment (including dyes, socketed gems, all equipment bonuses, etc.), your attributes and skills, the skills and equipment of your Followers, and more.

 

We’re planning to add tabs that’ll show off your artisans and achievements as well. Profiles will be available on the site sooner rather than later, but you should feel free to share your suggestions and thoughts in the comments section below or in the Website Features forum.

See you in Sanctuary!

- Blizzard Web Team

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Forums)

Loot-hoarders and demon-slayers, take note: our Diablo III Game Guide on Battle.net has been hit with a volley of new information. Today’s update includes:

  1. a complete roster of all current monster affixes
  2. a new game difficulty page. The page includes a chart demonstrating how monster resistances to crowd control scale in higher difficulty levels.
  3. information about the difference between dual-wielding and two-handed weapons
  4. the hidden workings of Magic Find
  5. details on health globe drop rates
  6. a list of emotes and commands

Isn’t any fun changing skills when you want to if you lose your stacks of NV. You’ve got to understand that, right?


Being able to experiment with skills and try out different things is not the same as min/maxing builds against enemies by being able to swap skills mid-fight. When we say build variety, we mean there are many options to choose from, not that you should literally be swapping between tons of builds in a single session.

Before release there was a huge outcry that there was no permanence to characters. You essentially had all skills at all times. We agreed, and when we added the NV system we discouraged skill swaps (by removing stacks) to encourage character permanence. The system and solution were almost unanimously applauded as a system hitting multiple issues in an elegant way.

Now, in practice, some people really want to be able to swap around skills whenever they want so they can have a better chance at different encounters and types of fights. That’s understandable, of course. Everyone wants to be optimal at all times all of the time. That’s not the opposite of viable build options, though. So we have a situation where we agree with all those pre-release voices and do like there being some build permanence, finding that build that can deal with a lot of situations is more compelling and difficult than just swapping out to different builds to deal with each situation. On the opposite end there’s a lot of people now that think that min/maxing sounds like a lot of fun, and the little bit of character identity it adds be damned.

I don’t really have much to add at the moment except we understand the situation, we’re aware of what people want to be able to do, and considering all the factors we don’t have a consensus except that the system is working well enough right now that we’re not going to rush to change it.

 

 So, when are you going to nerf Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage affixes?


We’ve no plans to nerf +Crit Chance or +Crit Damage. While +Crit Chance and +Crit Damage are very strong right now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with something being strong. As mentioned above, players doing too much damage is not enough reason for us to bring out the nerf bat. Neither affix is having a negative impact on build diversity (we’re seeing a pretty good balance overall), and there aren’t any technical issues with them being stacked to higher values. It’s something we’re keeping an eye on of course.

 

Why aren’t monster affix combinations restricted in some way?


Monster affixes are actually grouped into categories and then restricted based on those categories (to a degree). Our restrictions aren’t as tight as some players have suggested, but in the end we found that adding extra limitations often made Elite pack encounters very predictable and repetitive, which kind of went against our design goal for these types of monsters.

We know that not all players will see eye-to-eye with us on how these categories are organized, and we expect some criticism and disagreement, especially from such a passionate group of gamers. While we’re happy with where affix combos are right now, we’re open to feedback and especially constructive discussion. :)

Here are the categories:

Strong CC (Limit 1):

  • Knockback
  • Nightmarish
  • Vortex

Defensive (Limit 1):

  • Avenger
  • Extra Health
  • Health Link
  • Horde
  • Illusionist
  • Missile Dampening
  • Invulnerable Minions
  • Shielding
  • Vampiric

Aggressive (No Limit):

  • ArcaneEnchanted
  • Desecrator
  • Electrified
  • Fast
  • Fire Chains
  • Frozen
  • Jailer
  • Molten
  • Mortar
  • Plagued
  • Reflects Damage
  • Teleporter
  • Waller

 

Is Whimsyshire considered an Act I or Act IV zone?


It’s considered an Act III/Act IV zone, depending on difficulty. The monsters in Hell are considered Hell – Act IV monsters, and the monsters in Inferno are considered Inferno – Act III/Act IV monsters. The drop rates buffs from June 28 affect the zone accordingly.

 Any updates on more than 3 search affixes on the AH?

No updates to share right now, but we do understand that this is something players would like to see in the future. It’s definitely feedback that we have relayed, but we just don’t have any new information to share about the auction house UI at this moment.

Action Bar Locking!

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Forums)

We agree that it can be frustrating to accidentally swap your skills in combat (especially if it causes you to lose an NV stack), so we’re planning to add in an action bar lock for Elective Mode in an upcoming patch. Right now, we’re looking at patch 1.0.4.

In the meantime, as other players have suggested, you can enable Elective Mode, select all of your skills according to the build you want, and then disable Elective Mode. This will temporarily lock your action bar. After that, you can still make changes to your skills by opening up the Skill UI, but if you want to drag-and-drop your skills or make combinations that aren’t available normally, you’ll need to re-enable Elective Mode.

 

Is it appropriate to ask you on twitter anything about what we can expect for WD changes in 1.0.4? I got some hints on the forums.

We took your ideas for witch doctor buffs, and then we doubled them.‪#boom‬ (Source)

SIDESHOW COLLECTIBLE GIVEAWAY!!

 

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Forums)

Today at Comic-Con, we were excited to reveal the newest Sideshow Collectibles statue. A true embodiment of terror, Diablo stands as The Prime Evil in a scene reminiscent of the final moments of the game. Sculpted by Brian Fay (who also sculpted the Lich King statue), Diablo stands at a terrifying 22 inches of polystone.
 
Sideshow Collectibles is holding a giveaway at their site for the chance for one lucky winner to receive this Diablo statue. Be sure to enter before August 12!
 
Check out the preview images below, and keep an eye out for future updates on pre-ordering this amazing piece of work!

Diablo 3 Damage Calculator, Patch notes, and PvP Matchmaking!

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Dyril has created a Web based DPS Calculator that is really amazing! Very simple to use and you can save different profiles to return to later!! Be sure to be careful if you clear your cache though as it will clear your profiles.

 

I strongly suggest checking it out at http://theasiangamer.com/

 

 

 

 

 

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Forums)

Diablo III Patch 1.0.3b – v.1.0.3.10485

The latest client patch notes can be found here.
Visit our Bug Report forum for a list of known issues.
The most recent hotfixes can be found here.

Auction House

  1. Bug Fixes
    1. The “Bid” and “Buyout” buttons will now be correctly grayed-out in the confirmation window when attempting to purchase an item with insufficient gold

Bug Fixes

  1. General
    1. Fixed a bug where leaving a heavily-populated General chat channel would prevent players from rejoining any General chat channel until they logged out and logged back in
    2. Fixed several tooltip-related bugs that were occurring when viewing items with 2 or more sockets in the auction house and profile pages
    3. Fixed a rare crash with tutorials on item pickup

Here’s some info posted by Bashiok about PvP Matchmaking and it relating to the RMAH and such.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Forums)

More specifically, based off of your win/loss record. It’s not dissimilar from the matchmaker found in StarCraft II, which is based off of the Elo system used for Chess championships. Your win/loss and who they were against determines a ‘skill rating’, which is used to match up against other players of a similar rating. The intent is to get an even/fair match. Regardless of any individual factors like build, gear, or player ability, you’ll find some equilibrium where you’re facing off against players that you’re about as likely to beat as you are to lose. If getting better gear raises your abilities then you’re simply matched against players of a higher rating. Changing builds or just getting better at PvP could have the same effect. But regardless if you move up or down you’re ultimately still netting around a 50/50 win/loss as you’re always matching against similarly rated players.

Excellent…some attention to PvP. Hoping to pick your brain on further specifics, if you’ll allow me.
- Will players be able to gamble on matches?
- Will teamplay still be allowed, taking into the same level of aggregate matchmaking as SC2 currently does?
- Just how far out are we? Is the team hopeful for a 2012 release?

I don’t want to squash any excitement about PvP, because we think it’s going to be a lot of fun, but a lot of the details are still in flux. We’re focusing on 1.0.4, and once that’s behind us we’ll be a lot closer to sharing some more concrete details on the “PvP patch” as they solidify.

Umm… that rating system wont work. You can’t use ratio, because someone fighting harder opponents will have the same ratio that someone fighting weaker opponents will have. It would be like pairing up professional baseball players against little leaguers simply because they have the same team batting average and era. It’s not a fair fight.

Oh no, it’s not based on ratio. Look up the Elo system, I’m sure there’s a wiki that can explain it better than I could.

Blizzard acknowledges lack of endgame and a Gem Calculator! RMAH Commodities Tuesday?

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Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Forums)

We recognize that the item hunt is just not enough for a long-term sustainable end-game. There are still tons of people playing every day and week, and playing a lot, but eventually they’re going to run out of stuff to do (if they haven’t already). Killing enemies and finding items is a lot of fun, and we think we have a lot of the systems surrounding that right, or at least on the right path with a few corrections and tweaks. But honestly Diablo III is not World of Warcraft. We aren’t going to be able to pump out tons of new systems and content every couple months. There needs to be something else that keeps people engaged, and we know it’s not there right now.

We’re working toward 1.0.4, which we’re really trying to pack with as many fixes and changes we can to help you guys out (and we’ll have a bunch of articles posted with all the details as we get closer), and we’re of course working on 1.1 with PvP arenas. I think both those patches will do a lot to give people things to do, and get them excited about playing, but they’re not going to be a real end-game solution, at least not what we would expect out of a proper end-game. We have some ideas for progression systems, but honestly it’s a huge feature if we want to try to do it right, and not something we could envision being possible until well after 1.1 which it itself still a ways out.

 

Thank you very much for this informative and honest answer. Though to be honest what this answer really reveals is “we didn’t have a real end game ready or in mind and aren’t sure how to retain customers, the game was released before it was quite ready, possibly because of the giant outcry from the fans”

Hindsight is 20/20 I suppose, but we believed pre-release that the item hunt would be far more sustainable, and would work to be a proper end-game for quite a while. That didn’t turn out to be true, and we recognize that.

 

Can you quantify ‘tons’ of people playing? I mean if you are counting the US player base that might mean 7 players if we are using weight ratios here …

Haha… oh wait, that’s mean! I don’t know that I’m allowed to release specific concurrency numbers, but we have hundreds upon hundreds of thousands playing every night. Comparing to just normal drop-off post release of a WoW expansion, Diablo III has been very solid, and it’s not even out in China yet.

Diablo 3 Gem Calculator

 

mbsurfer created a Gem Calculator that he would love to share with everyone! It will let you calculate how much it will cost to craft any type of gem. You can add the current prices of all the mats and select which quality of gem’s. It will tell you the price of everything! 

 

http://diablo-3-gem-calculator.com 

 

July 3
Bug Fixes
    • Fixed a bug that allowed players to earn additional stacks of Nephalem Valor or guaranteed item drops by killing multiple monsters simultaneously from the same Champion or Rare pack
    • Fixed even more game and service crashes

Blizzard MF gear swap thought’s and incoming RMAH commodities

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 Magic Find Gear Swapping

Magic Find Gear Swapping

Orig. Article: by Wyatt Cheng Jul 3, 2012 9:00 AM PDT

Since release it has become an increasingly common practice to keep a Magic Find (MF) set in your inventory, and swap it in shortly before a kill. Philosophically we don’t have a problem with the practice. While players getting more Magic Find for their kills isn’t a game breaker for us, many players have said they don’t enjoy doing it but feel the benefit is too large to ignore. Since the call for a solution really comes from all of you, we’d like to invite you to chime in with your opinion on what the solution could be.

It’s worth keeping in mind that if we do implement a method to alleviate gear-swapping in combat, we’ll simultaneously be looking at ways for players to get an added MF bonus to compensate.

Here are the solutions we’re currently considering, and would appreciate your feedback and opinion on what seems the most reasonable for you, and why:

Option 1: Set a Magic Find Cap

We could set an MF cap between something like 100% and 200%. Nephalem Valor provides 75%, so you would need between 25% and 125% to reach the hard cap. Everyone could find ways to hit the cap for MF% on their gear and then stop.

Pros: Creates a gearing-game around trying to hit the “MF% cap” that some players enjoy. It also solves the swapping issue for people with enough gear to hit the cap. Players who want to min-max and gear swap can do so, and players who think it’s stupid but feel “compelled” can try to hit the new cap instead.

Cons: Depending on where the cap is set, it may not actually alleviate gear swapping, and players who wish they didn’t have to will feel compelled to do so. It also devalues a highly valuable stat, and desired stats mean desired gear, which helps diversify the item hunt.

Option 2: Slowly Adjust Magic Find Over Time

When you equip an item with Magic Find, we don’t let your MF% change right away. Instead your Magic Find slowly “drifts” towards the target Magic Find — potentially something like 1% every 3 seconds. If you open up your Character Details sheet, you can see the number change “8%… 9%… 10%.” Even though you could in theory switch to Magic Find gear for the killing blow and get a few extra percent, it’s probably not worth it.

Pros: High degree of visibility as your stat sheet updates. Still allows you to swap your gear when you get an upgrade in the world without having to feel bad about putting the item on.

Cons: May not  alleviate the problem for players who still feel compelled to get a few extra MF%. Depending on the rate, some players may just swap in an item during the last 20 seconds of a fight even though they don’t want to.

Option 3: Use your average MF% or your lowest MF% of the last 5 minutes

We could sample your MF% every 30 seconds or so and create a moving average, or use the lowest MF% the game has seen on your character in the last few minutes.

Pros: A lot of the same benefits as Solution 2, but harder to game. Still allows you to switch gear when you get an upgrade, which is great.

Cons: Difficult to communicate. We’d have to communicate this on the Details page somehow, but during normal gameplay there could be the sense of not knowing what your “moving average” is and wanting to look at it. Magic Find is already a difficult number to feel at any point in time, so hidden rules that modify Magic Find feel that much worse.
 

Option 4: Zero-Out Your MF% for 3 Minutes After Swapping Gear

When you swap gear, your Magic Find is disabled for 3 minutes.

Pros: Absolutely effective at discouraging gear swaps. Still allows you to swap gear when you find an upgrade, and the 3 minute duration is probably short enough that if you kill an Elite pack and get an upgrade, you can put that upgrade on and have your Magic Find active again by the time you get to the next pack.

Cons:  Players who are unfamiliar with the system may open up their details page and see their Magic Find as 0% and not understand why. We could mitigate this by making the 0% MF colored with a tooltip stating the countdown until your Magic Find would work again, as well as what your Magic Find will be when the time expires.
 

Option 5: Gear Swapping Interacts with Nephalem Valor

There’s a whole class of solutions that interact with Nephalem Valor. For example, we could remove a stack of Nephalem Valor when you swap a piece of gear.

Pros: Stops gear swapping just for the last kill, while still allowing the player the option to do so.

Cons: Some players will lose a stack by accident. We could put a confirmation box in to address accidental loss of a stack, but game-interrupting popups are potentially character-killing. It also causes co-op players to drop out of sync. One person may switch gear and lose a stack or two, and if it happens before a boss they’ll want to clear two more packs before hitting the boss, but the other party members may not want to — causing some tense social situations in co-op play. Finally, it tightly couples two systems together and generally tightly-coupled systems don’t function over the long haul as well as loosely-coupled systems. In other words, future changes to the Nephalem Valor system or the Magic Find system (or systems related to those two systems) become harder to make as both systems would be impacted.

While we’re having our own discussions and tests of how well these options could work, we’re interested to hear your thoughts. We’d mainly like to hear which approaches you like, if there are any specifics you like or don’t like about it, and why. Having the context of how this affects you personally really helps us.

We’re going to be locking down comments in this article to focus feedback to one location, so please head to the forum thread link below to discuss.

RMAH Commodities incoming! (Except Gold)

 

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Official Forums)

The following commodities will be available soon for trading in the real-money auction house:

  • Gems
  • Dyes
  • Crafting Materials
  • Blacksmithing Plans and Jeweler Designs
  • Pages of Training

The ability to trade gold as a commodity won’t be included in this initial update, but we hope to enable it in the near future. Keep an eye on this thread for further updates.

 

Leave us some comments, and don’t forget to do the same to Blizzard! 

 

1.0.3b Released ~Notes~

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http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/6214196/Diablo_III_Hotfixes_-_June_Updated_628-6_28_2012#blog

June 28

Items

The drop rates for high-end items (items level 61-63) have been increased for Acts III and IV of Hell difficulty and Acts I – IV of Inferno difficulty:
The new approximate drop rates are as follows:

Hell – Act III and Act IV

iLvl 61: 13.9%, up from 9%
iLvl 62: 3.45%, up from 1.9%
iLvl 63: 0% (no change)

Inferno – Act I

iLvl 61: 23.9%, up from 17.7%
iLvl 62: 12.6%, up from 7.9%
iLvl 63: 4.8%, up from 2.0%

Inferno – Act II

iLvl 61: 23.3%, up from 18.6%
iLvl 62: 18.6%, up from 12.4%
iLvl 63: 9.3%, up from 4.1%

Inferno – Act III and Act IV

iLvl 61: 27.1%, up from 24.1%
iLvl 62: 21.7%, up from 16.1%
iLvl 63: 16.3%, up from 8.0%

Bosses

Bosses are now guaranteed to drop at least 1 Rare item for players with 4 stacks of Nephalem Valor and at least 2 Rare items for players with 5 stacks of Nephalem Valor

Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug with several items that would allow those items to block pathing when dropped on the ground
Fixed a crash that could sometimes occur when a player was interacting with environment objects (e.g. opening chests or clicking on a lectern)
Fixed several additional game and service crashes

 

How do you like the changes they made here? Let us know what you think!