Diablo 3 Blog Guide: News and Updates

Showing posts with label News and Updates. Show all posts

Blizzard on End Game Solutions

Bashiok has posted about end game solutions on the official forums. Looks like we will be seeing changes to end game in upcoming patches, as well as PVP in 1.1. Below is the full post.

Blizzard blue tracker: July 4, 2012.

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.

Auction House or Not Web App

Also check out the Auction House or Not web app (made by postm) that we added to the tools section today. It helps you determine quickly and easily whether you should sell an item on the AH or vendor it. We already have a great Auction House, Salvage or Sell guide in the guides section, but this tool makes determining what to put on the AH even easier. Note when using this, make sure you use it as a starting point, not as a final say in whether you sell an item or not. Always double check on the AH to make sure the item you have isn't worth a lot before scrapping.

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Magic Find Gear Swapping

10:20 AM | Labels: News and Updates

July 3, 2012: Blizzard is taking suggestions on how to improve magic find gear swapping. Below are 6 options they have proposed. Stop by their feedback thread to give your thoughts about what you think would work best!

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.

Check out the forum thread link to give your input on the choices.

Drop Rates Increased - June Hotfixes

11:46 AM | Labels: News and Updates

Today's hotfix has increased the Neph drop rate for all acts in Inferno. Bosses are now guaranteed to drop at least 1 rare with 4 stacks of Nephalem Valor and 2 rares with 5 stacks.

Here are the hotfixes:

June

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: 9% to 13.9%
    - iLvl 62: 1.9% to 3.45%
    - iLvl 63: 0% (no change)
  - Inferno – Act I
    - iLvl 61: 17.7% to 23.9%
    - iLvl 62: 7.9% to 12.6%
    - iLvl 63: 2.0% to 4.8%
  - Inferno – Act II
    - iLvl 61: 18.6% to 23.3%
    - iLvl 62: 12.4% to 18.6%
    - iLvl 63: 4.1% to 9.3%
  - Inferno – Act III and Act IV
    - iLvl 61: 24.1% to 27.1%
    - iLvl 62: 16.1% to 21.7%
    - iLvl 63: 8.0% to 16.3%

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

June 29 Bug Fixes

General
- Identifying an item will no longer allow players to circumvent a skill’s attack animation cooldown
- Fixed a bug that allowed players to temporarily increase their attack speed or double-cast a skill by clicking repeatedly on Town Portal while performing an ability
- Fixed some additional (but rare) game crashes
Auction House
- Fixed a bug that was causing stacks of commodities in a player’s stash to update incorrectly if the items being sent from the Completed Tab were purchased from multiple different sellers

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Patch 1.0.3b Delayed

11:48 PM | Labels: News and Updates

Blizzard Blue Tracker: June 27, 2012

In general we tend to not provide release dates or specific timeframes for patches due to the complexity of the updates, and the possibility that we’ll discover an issue that keeps us from releasing it on time. We discovered a few such issues late into the testing of 1.0.3b, which means it won’t hit this week as previously mentioned.

However, we know that a number of changes in 1.0.3b have been highly anticipated, and so we spent the better part of today pulling specific changes that did not run into testing issues out of 1.0.3b, and turning them into hotfixes. These include the Inferno drop increases among a couple others, and will be applied with off-peak rolling restarts tomorrow morning. We’ll also be updating theJune hotfix blog with specific changes (including new drop rates) tomorrow morning after we manage to wrangle up a cup of coffee.

1.0.3a Patch Notes

7:23 PM | Labels: News and Updates

Blizzard Blue Tracker: June 25, 2012

Diablo III Patch 1.0.3a – v.1.0.3. 10235

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.

Classes

Witch Doctor
- Bug Fixes
  - Zombie Charger
    - Skill Rune – Zombie Bears
      - Fixed a bug where Zombie Bears were unable to attack targets on slopes
      - Zombie Bears should no longer become stuck on objects with which they shouldn’t have collision

Items

General
- Equipped items will now take "wear-and-tear" durability damage at half the previous rate
  - Please note that durability loss as the result of normal combat is different from the 10% durability loss characters will incur when they die. Equipped items have always suffered durability loss while fighting, and we are simply slowing the rate at which the loss occurs.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug that was causing Unique monsters to not drop the appropriate amount of loot when slain
- Fixed a bug with linking items with 3 gem sockets
- It is no longer possible to create fake achievement links

Bug Fixes

General
- Fixed a bug that was causing the “Switch Hero” button to occasionally disappear after leaving a game while in town
- Fixed several gold and leveling exploits

Fixed several game and service crashes (for Mac and PC)

Scheduled Maintenance

We will be performing scheduled maintenance for Diablo III starting tomorrow at 5:00 a.m. PDT in order to deploy patch 1.0.3a. We anticipate that maintenance will conclude and that all services will be available by approximately 7:00 a.m. PDT.

Important: Please note that you will not be prompted to download patch 1.0.3a until the patch is live in your home region. If you are logging in from a European or Asian client, you will need to wait for this patch to release in that region before it can be installed. Additionally, if your home region is the Americas, you will be unable to log into Europe or Asia using Global Play after patch 1.0.3a is live until those regions have also patched.

For reference, here are the scheduled maintenance times for each region:

The Americas: 5:00 a.m. PDT to 7:00 a.m. PDT

Asia: 1:00 p.m. PDT to 3:00 p.m. PDT

Europe: 8:00 p.m. PDT to 10:00 p.m. PDT

Please note that these times are subject to change. For time zone assistance, please visit: http://everytimezone.com

Blizzard Answers Questions from the Community

7:30 PM | Labels: News and Updates

Blizzard Blue Tracker: June 22, 2012

1) Champion packs over Bosses – I understand why you want to push people to fight champion packs. In Diablo 2 they were almost entirely avoided for the sake of getting to the bosses faster for better loot. However you must realize that MANY people find boss fights more entertaining? It also goes against the logic of some random monster is more dangerous than the greatest battle commander in all of the burning hells! Why is blizzard adamant that players avoid bosses and fight champion mobs when the outcry (for the most part) is the opposite?

Ideally, we'd like both Champion packs and bosses to be satisfying. It's a tricky balance to get right, though, when you consider that a) player's gear is always improving, b) new builds and techniques are being discovered pretty regularly, and c) Champion packs are random and bosses are predictable.

In general, random content (i.e. Champion packs) tends to be more enjoyable over the long-haul because it helps to ease off some of the repetition -- not just in terms of what you're fighting and how you're fighting it, but also in terms of seeing different environments, dungeons, and events. Predictable content (i.e. bosses) usually doesn't have that same appeal, at least not for everyone. Not only does the environment remain the same for boss fights, but strategies can be optimized and practiced to the point of efficiency, which often makes killing bosses the path of least resistance to the greater reward. Unfortunately, in the case of bosses, following the path of least resistance can sometimes result in gameplay feeling too repetitive.

Pre-patch 1.0.3, getting a 5 stack of Nephalem Valor, doing a boss, and then resetting the game and repeating the process was considered to be most optimal. This is probably more interesting than simply doing boss runs only, but we wanted to get players out into the world and exploring more of the Acts. To encourage that, we moved some of the reward from bosses to packs. We're pretty happy with the results of this change, but we're also concerned that players appear to be skipping bosses completely, so it's possible we went too far. Again, it's a delicate balance.

Right now, we're keeping a close eye on how players are adapting in-game to the change as well as continuously reading your feedback online.

2) Valor buff. Diablo 3 was advertised as having a wide variety of skills that can be swapped in and out at any time, even in battle (with a small delay for use). This allowed greater variety in the abilities that champion mobs could have and provide greater challenges for the player. You also then provided a Valor buff that is supposed to encourage players to kill more champion packs. But oddly you choose to have the valor buffs be removed if the player changes their skills (or even moves a skill on the hot bar from one position to another). This goes against the entire design of the buff and the goal of having players kill as many champion packs as possible, Why was this decision made and with what logic?

This was actually a decision we made based off player feedback. On the one hand, there's a lot of enjoyment in being able to swap your skills at will and tailor your builds to the environment around you. On the other, there’s also gameplay to finding a build that really works for you in a variety of situations.

During beta, we received a lot of feedback from players who wanted to be able to swap skills any time. We also had a large number of players who wanted to have a sense of their characters "build," or some sort of build identity -- especially at later levels. We understood both points of view, so with Nephalem Valor you can still swap a skill out at any time, but there is a penalty for doing so (i.e. losing your stack).

As sort of an aside, we know that it can be SUPER frustrating for players who use Elective Mode to lose an NV stack due to a poorly-placed click near your Skill bar. Because of this, we're looking to add an action bar lock for Elective Mode in an upcoming patch.

3) The IAS nerf was handled poorly in my opinion. I completely understand WHY the nerf was needed and probably agree with the logic that it needed to be changed. However HOW it was handled was a dropped ball. I believe that the best way to handle the situation was to bring in either diminishing returns or a hard cap (like run speed) that a player cannot go over. This allows people to still gain value from their RMAH purchases without feeling ripped off and also discourages people from stacking the stat over other stats which you want to be a greater focus for the character. It also maintains value in the IAS items for future sales. Why was the IAS nerf not handled in this manner?

When we posted the Patch 1.0.3 Preview, we actually mentioned that we were considering several options to address IAS. Here's the actual quote from the blog, just for context:

There are two different solutions we’re considering to reduce the effectiveness of Increased Attack Speed. The first is to simply reduce the value on all the items to their desired values. In general our desire is to never change items as that makes them feel less concrete, but the upside is you would still be able to look at an item and know exactly what you are getting. The other approach is to change the formula used for attack speed aggregation so that stacking attack speed from multiple slots suffers from diminishing returns. The downside of that approach is that it introduces yet another hidden modifier on an item property (and many people dislike hidden modifiers), and complicates the already difficult decision of item gearing.

As you can see, diminishing returns were on the table. If you look at the blog comments, though, some players said they liked the idea of diminishing returns while others said liked reducing the stat value instead. In the end, we felt that hidden diminishing returns might have made you feel better about your items, but that it addresses the issue with IAS in a much "sneakier" way. Feedback already told us that players disliked hidden modifiers, and we were concerned that diminishing returns would make the gearing process more complicated.

It was a complicated situation, and there were pros and cons to both solutions (as noted above). As a result, it was a difficult decision to make, but we opted for the more direct, upfront approach of just reducing the stat value.

4) lackluster skills. Nether tentacles. Fix, bug, nerf or whatever you want to call it was probably deserved and required. However I have a design question based around the outcome of this change. If a skill is changed, updated or fixed to a point where not a single player wants to use that skill anymore wouldn’t that be a bad change or too drastic? Will further skill changes(give wiz tornadoes love) be in the near future to give people more options than just pick the next best skill available?(my hopes are to have several options of equal strength, currently I don’t feel that way with the DH setup)

We're planning on doing a lot of skill tuning in patch 1.0.4. We're also planning on explaining/previewing those changes in a developer blog in the near future.

5) The pots/breakables Magic find nerf. It seems from the players standpoint that this is an odd change. Nobody that I saw was complaining about having to put on magic gear to maximize their chances and opportunities with pots and breakables. Yet the reasoning given was that you felt it was unfun for the players. Can you elaborate a bit more on this as I feel the players think differently.

After reviewing all the feedback we received following this change, we'd like to add items back onto breakables as well as allow Magic Find to affect those drops. That said, the issues that motivated those changes still exist, so we want to make sure that when/if we do revise those changes, it doesn't result in us being right back where we started. We don't want players avoiding monsters altogether in favor of farming breakables, and we don't want players feeling like they need to always switch to their Magic Find set before opening Resplendent Chests and other environment objects. I don't have an ETA to share right now for when those changes might be made.

6) Stat stacking. It was mentioned that blizzard does not want players to stack stats in a way that they feel it is a must skill over the base stats such as Dex or Str or Vit. If that is true, why do barbarians and monks (and probably everyone else now after the current changes) have to stack resist all up to ridiculous levels just in order to survive?

I can't recall who said this, or where it was said, but that's not our current philosophy. If players want to stack other stats over Dex/Str/Int/Vit/etc, or feel as though they need to in order to get the most of out their game time, then that's okay.

If you feel as though the current stat model isn't ideal, then please let us know -- and provide alternative solutions if you're able!

7) IAS Side effects. The IAS nerf has had a few side effects which I am not sure were considered in the process. Monks and some barb builds relied on IAS to provide adequate healing through either leech or on hit healing abilities. However with the IAS nerf many are finding that this is no longer a viable path. Is there anything being done internally to consider this unintended consequence?

Actually, it was quite the opposite. This was one of the main reasons for the IAS nerf. In fact, if it wan't for those additional side effects, and only about DPS, we likely wouldn't have changed IAS at all.

Again, as stated in the Patch 1.0.3 Preview:

While we don’t have an issue with there being important stats, Increased Attack Speed in particular has secondary effects on mobility in combat, resource generation and resource consumption. We want there to be options and considerations for how you gear up, and one uber trump-everything stat can really work against choice and options.

Here's the link again: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/6262208/

8) The repair cost increase I believe is also a fair change; however the unfair part of this change was to the wear and tear of doing battle. Now I know that it has already been stated that this is being looked at for an update, are you able to share any reduction values or ranges that are being considered internally? (ex. 50%, 75%...)

I've mentioned this in other threads already, but we agree with you and we're looking at reducing the durability hit you take from normal wear-and-tear. No values to share at this time, though.

06/21/2012 07:02 AMPosted by Gremble
9) Who are you kidding, all the WD re-rolled Barb or DH already!

See response to #4.

10) Boss over tuning. In the recent patch there was significant changes done to some boss fights. However there appears to be a bit of over tuning done in a few cases (in others much needed difficulty improvements). In two cases, Seigebreaker and Cydea however there appears to be a bit of excess difficulty added to the point that in most cases the fights are impossible(for some classes). In seigebreakers case the addition of dmg reflect with a short enrage timer makes him quite the fight to handle on ones own. Cydea has had her little spiders amped up in an insidious way where they spread out and virtually refuse to attack or follow the player unless he/she goes near them. This causes the player to have to fight through them to get back to cydea, however once enough spiders are killed cydea auto jumps off the screen and spawns more spiders. Essentially making the fight a burn her down before she jumps or you lose fight. Are any hot fixes or minor updates being planed to fine tune these updates or do you feel that the current difficulty is appropriate?

I just asked Wyatt Cheng this question and his response was (and I quote): "Bosses are exciting punctuation marks in your Champion and Rare pack wasteland."

I'll be honest and say that I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I'll follow up with him a little later once he's feeling a little less Mad Max and get back to you. :P

06/21/2012 06:08 AMPosted by Tealeaves
11) Favourite snack while playing? I love me some fuzzy peaches

Lylirra: Beef Jerky
Bashiok: Beef Jerky
Zarhym: Beef Jerky
Wyatt: Beef Jerky

If you're a jerky fan like us, I highly recommend Alien Fresh Jerky (especially their Whiskey Jerky) and Smoked Meats.

12) The quitters. Many of my friends who played the game have found the recent patch changes to create an unfun atmosphere within the game. They have recently stopped playing entirely in some cases and in others have become frustrated and play much less. While I respect that this is “your game” and you will present the vision that your team has come up with. Are any considerations being made to the players who recently disliked the changes?

We're definitely taking all feedback into consideration. In addition to that, we're already planning to make some changes based on that feedback.

13) GAH. 13 is my lucky number so this will be the last question. Due to the recent changes and increase cost of playing the game (gold wise) players have to maximize their income to offset these changes. One of the major ways players make money is through the gold auction house. Is there any consideration being made to increasing the limit of 10 items per account that can be up for sale to help compensate for this increase in costs?

No plans at this time.

Also about low loot drop chance in Act 3:

I unfortunately don't have any specifics to share just yet, but we agree they are low and are looking at adjusting them. We should have more details early next week.

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Blizzard on the IAS Nerf, Champion Affixes, Repair Costs and More

2:01 AM | Labels: News and Updates

Blizzard commented on the IAS nerf and whether other things will be nerfed as well. Looks like it was just a one time thing, and they won't be touching other major gameplay mechanics unless there is an "extreme situation". Below is the full post as well as a few other comments about champion affixes, repair costs, magic finding gear, and more.

Blizzard Blue Tracker: Updated June 21, 2012

IAS Nerf:

There are plenty of stats we could have nerfed, there are many (some which have been mentioned) which are probably skewing itemization and build variety. We nerfed IAS because it was probably the worst offender, and because unlike most other stats has a bigger impact on mobility and resources. We know build variety is still affected by a number of issues and factors. We plan to really attack that problem in 1.1, but we didn't think IAS could sit as it was until then.

We don't want people to be afraid of nerfs, and ... I guess maybe I can try to get that across by saying we could have nerfed a bunch of stats that probably deserve it to some degree, but we didn't (aren't you thankful!?), because we don't believe our design approach should be constantly noodling with really important things, like stats. It should only be when we have an extreme situation developing, and we felt that was the case with IAS.

Champion affixes:

There's a difference between saying "that's an unfair affix combo" and "I can't beat this affix combo" (yet). Certain affix packs will be harder than others. The variance in randomness and in the difficulty of the packs is completely intentional and we're happy with where things are right now.

Having to restart a game or skipping packs altogether is also totally fine. As you become more powerful, finesse your builds, and develop a variety of tactics to use in different situations, you'll be able to kill more monsters. If you could kill everything uniformly the first time you stepped into an Act, you'd have a really limited sense of progression and the feeling of becoming "more powerful" wouldn't be as present. The design intent is that some affix packs will unbeatable for you at first, but then you'll come back later and get your sweet (and well deserved) revenge. We feel that making every affix combo equally difficult would take away the satisfaction of overcoming the more challenging combos later on.

Repair Costs:

No one is going to like additional repair costs. I'm not sure how any feedback would be "Great, I really love paying more for repair costs." however, we have seen enough feedback and data to show that the ratio is pretty good as long as people aren't throwing their character's corpses against enemies. Death has meant nothing for a very long time now. It's going to take some getting used to and just understanding that death is no longer something that just happens, it should be something you're really fighting to avoid, and potentially being smarter about tackling content you can actually tackle.

That said, we think the normal wear and tear is maybe too high. Just fighting is probably too expensive, and we're looking at potential adjustments there.

Magic Finding Gear:

Ultimately, we think players running around with an entire set of Magic Find gear and swapping out those pieces every time they want to open a chest, smash a pot, or click on a weapon rack isn't really all that fun, and we didn't want the game's mechanics to make players feel like they needed to do that in order to be the most efficient. We also don't want players avoiding fighting monsters just to run after shiny clicky things (we want you to do both). In both situations, this is something we wanted to discourage and we implemented changes we felt would accomplish this.

We're already working on another developer blog that delves more deeply in to our current philosophy regarding Magic Find gear swapping, why it's our current philosophy, and how we're looking at improving Magic Find in general, so that will probably provide insight on this particular topic. No solid date on that blog yet, but it's definitely coming soon(tm).

Additional Changes:

While I'm unable to say one way or another whether "this is where things will stay," we're definitely not opposed to making additional changes. Iteration is big part of our design philosophy, and we will continue to make improvements to the game (maybe not forever, but definitely until we feel that everything is in a good place). For example, we're currently looking at a number of solutions for how to curb the popular practice of players swapping out their normal gear for Magic Find gear right before a kill to min/max their efficiency. In general, this isn't something that those players seem to particularly enjoy, but instead feel compelled to do because of how efficient it is.* Also, to be very clear, this practice is not intended. (The developer blog I was talking about previously will go into the solutions we're considering in much more detail.)

There will always be situations where our definition of "fun" and some players' definitions of "fun" will vary, but in general our goal when making changes like these is to improve the overall game experience. We might not always succeed, but this is what we strive for. For environment objects and destructible objects, it became an issue of players repeatedly choosing to avoid killing monsters in favor of smashing pots. Not because they particularly liked smashing pots or didn't particularly like killing monsters, but because it what was most efficient. We want you to kill monsters. We also want you to not have to worry about dragging along a separate set of Magic Find gear just for the sake efficiency gains. Did we succeed with these changes? Maybe. We think it was the right move, but it's only a day out from the patch and we're still waiting for all the feedback to settle.

By the way, when players say things like "Blizzard just wants us to play the game the way they want us to play it," that's both true and not true -- but maybe not in the ways that you think. We definitely encourage experimentation, exploration, and variety. We've seen a lot of interesting tactics and builds and play styles develop since launch, and we're still seeing players find new ways to progress their characters. And that's really freaking cool. What we don't want to have happen, though, and where we're most likely to step in make changes, is when a certain tactic or a single way to play becomes the ONLY way to play. (Treasure Goblin farming is a another good example of this. For most, it was fun mostly because of the rate of loot reward...but, you weren't really fighting all that much, and because it was one of the most rewarding tactics out there, that meant a lot of players were driven to play that way, even if they didn't want to.)

*I realize this not exactly what you were suggesting, but I wanted to make it clear that we're not opposed to making further changes to a specific mechanic if we feel that it's not where it should be.

Destroying Objects:

For clarity, we never said destroying environment objects wasn't fun. You can still smash objects for a chance at gold drops, or just because you want to. Players feeling like they needed to always carry around MF gear and switch to that gear before destroying environment objects in order to be as efficient as possible, however, was something that was repeatedly communicated (in these forums even) as something that wasn't enjoyable -- and we agreed.

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Diablo III 1.0.3 Patch Notes

7:21 AM | Labels: News and Updates

Here are the patch notes for 1.0.3. (Deployed June 19, 2012.)

Diablo III Patch 1.0.3 - v.1.0.3.10057

Table of Contents

General

To prevent monsters from being unintentionally kited into town from other areas of the game, portals have been placed at both ends of the bridge from New Tristram to The Weeping Willow. Towns have always been intended to be a safe haven from combat, and this change will help keep the denizens of New Tristram safe from the dangers that lurk beyond its walls.
The real-money auction house is now available for Chilean, Argentinian, and Brazilian currencies

Battle.net

General
- Friends will now sort alphabetically by name within the Friends List, first by Real ID and then by BattleTag
- The Quick Join menu will now also sort alphabetically by name, first by Real ID and then by BattleTag
- Chat settings and preferences will now be saved whenever you log out
- Reporting another player using the Report > Spam option will now mute that player for the duration of your gaming session
Bug Fixes
- Using the /who command in a heavily populated chat channel should no longer cause the client to crash
- The "Invite to Party" button should no longer become grayed-out if a player:
  - Declines a party invite
  - Requests a party invite and then declines it
  - Accepts a party invite, but immediately then leaves the party
- The character screen should now always display the display the correct act and quest information
- If Real ID has been disabled for a Battle.net account, attempting to add a Real ID friend in Diablo III will now prompt the player with the following error message: "Battle.net is unable to add friends because you have Real ID disabled."

Classes

Barbarian
- Active Skills
  - Ignore Pain
    - Skill Rune – Contempt for Weakness
      - The amount of damage reflected will now cap at the player's maximum Life
  - Overpower
    - Skill Rune – Crushing Advance
      - The amount of damage reflected will now cap at the player's maximum Life
      - The tooltip has been updated to represent that both melee and ranged damage are reflected
  - Weapon Throw
    - Tooltip now displays the correct duration for how long a target will be slowed: "Hurl a throwing weapon at any enemy for 100% weapon damage and Slow the movement of the enemy by 60% for 1.5 seconds." (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)
- Passive Skills
  - Relentless
    - Now reduces the Fury cost of all skill by 75%, down from 100% (the 50% damage reduction remains unchanged)
Demon Hunter
- Active Skills
  - Cluster Arrow
    - Skill Rune - Dazzling Arrow
      - Tooltip now displays the correct type of weapon damage dealt by Dazzling Arrow: "Enemies hit by grenades have a 55% chance to be stunned for 2 seconds and changes the damage to Physical." (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)
  - Grenades
    - Skill Rune - Stun Grenades
      - Tooltip now displays the correct duration for how long a target will be stunned: "Hurl grenades that have a 25% chance to Stun enemies for 1.5 seconds." (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)
- Bug Fixes
  - Caltrops
    - Skill Rune – Jagged Spikes
      - Effect will now only stack up to 10 times on a single target
  - Elemental Arrow
    - Skill Rune – Nether Tentacles
      - Tentacles will now only hit each target once
Monk
- General
  - Monks can now use spears, two-handed weapons, and two-handed swords
- Active Skills
  - Serenity
    - Skill Rune – Instant Karma
      - The amount of damage reflected will now cap at the player's maximum Life
  - Seven-Sided Strike
    - Skill Rune - Sustained Attack
      - Tooltip has been updated for clarity: "Reduces the cooldown of Seven-Sided Strike to 23 seconds." (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)
  - Mantra of Retribution
    - Damage will now cap based on the maximum Life of the target
- Bug Fixes
  - Near Death Experience
    - Fatal damage absorbed by Serenity will no longer trigger Near Death Experience
Witch Doctor
- Active Skills
  - Summon Zombie Dogs
    - Skill Rune – Leeching Beasts
      - Tooltip has been updated for clarity: "Your Zombie Dogs heal 50% of the damage they deal as Life divided evenly between themselves and you." (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)
Wizard
- Active Skills
  - Diamond Skill
    - Skill Rune – Mirror Skin
      - The amount of damage reflected will now cap at the amount of damage absorbed by Diamond Skin
  - Magic Weapon
    - When activated, a buff icon will now appear that displays the amount of time remaining
  - Meteor
    - Skill Rune - Star Pact
      - Now deals damage as Arcane instead of Fire
  - Passive Skills
    - Paralysis
      - Tooltip now displays the correct duration for how long a target will be stunned: "Lightning damage dealt to enemies has up to a 8% chance to Stun the target for 1.5 seconds." (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)

Items

General
- + Attack Speed bonus values on weapons and armor have been reduced by 50%
  - This change does not apply to quivers
- High-end items (items level 61-63) will now drop in all Acts of Inferno and Acts III and IV of Hell difficulty
  - The new approximate drop rates are as follows:
    - Hell - Act III and Act IV
      - iLvl 61: 9%
      - iLvl 62: 1.9%
      - iLvl 63: 0%
    - Inferno - Act I
      - iLvl 61: 17.7%
      - iLvl 62: 7.9%
      - iLvl 63: 2.0%
    - Inferno - Act II
      - iLvl 61: 18.6%
      - iLvl 62: 12.4%
      - iLvl 63: 4.1%
    - Inferno - Act III and Act IV
      - iLvl 61: 24.1%
      - iLvl 62: 16.1%
      - iLvl 63: 8.0%
  - Please see the Patch 1.0.3 Design Preview for more information and specific details
- Repair costs have been increased for item levels between 53 and 63
- Magic Find will no longer be considered when looting objects in the environment such as chests, barrels, vases, pots, and corpses
- The item quality of all components needed to craft the Staff of Herding, as well as the Staff of Herding itself, have been changed from Common to Legendary (i.e. their item names will appear orange in color)
- The Staff of Herding can no longer be salvaged or dropped
- Crafted items that are dropped on the ground due to a player’s inventory being full can no longer be seen or picked up by other players
- Unique monsters in Hell and Inferno difficulty are no longer guaranteed to drop two Magic items when slain
- Weapon racks will no longer drop weapons 100% of the time
- Destructible objects no longer have a chance to drop items, and will only have a small chance to drop gold when destroyed
Weapons and Armor
- "Balanced" superior items (i.e. Balanced Short Sword) will now grant a percent attack speed increase that only affects the weapon itself, rather than a flat increase to attacks per second that affected both equipped weapons when dual-wielding
- Crowd Control Reduction from items and skills will now reduce the percentage value of Slow, Chill, and Attack Speed debuffs rather than reducing how long the debuff lasts
  - For example: previously, if you were debuffed by a 60% slow that lasted for 2 seconds while wearing gear that provides 20% Crowd Control Reduction, your movement speed would be reduced by 60%, but only for 1.6 seconds. Now, the same amount of Crowd Control Reduction will reduce the Slow effect to 48%, but the effect will remain for the full 2 second duration.
- Manticore now has one additional bonus affix
User Interface
- Minimum damage and Maximum damage values will now display separately in an item's tooltip (i.e. "+2-4 Damage" will now display as "+2 Minimum Damage” and “+2 Maximum Damage")
- Tooltips for items on the ground will now show comparison stats
- Resist values will now be taken into effect when calculating the Protection comparison stat (the Protection value is an average protection estimate of all your resists)
- When comparing a two-handed weapon against two currently-equipped one-handed weapons, the game will now simulate the removal of both one-handed weapons (instead of simply removing the main-hand weapon, which resulted in an inaccurate comparison)
- When selling items to a vendor, the most recently sold items will now always display at the bottom of the Buyback tab
Bug Fixes
- Items level 50 and above will now display their item level in the tooltip
- Damage Over Time (DoT) skills will now properly benefit from items with the +Critical Chance affix
- Legendary items with the +Attack Speed bonus will now correctly provide a bonus to attack speed
  - Please note that this fix will only affect new Legendary drops. Existing Legendary items will be addressed in future patch.
- Players wearing +Life on Kill items should no longer receive a benefit from this affix when "killing" friendly monsters (e.g. when a witch doctor re-summons a Spider Queen while another Spider Queen is still active)
- Fixed a bug with linking items with socketed gems in chat
- Fixed a bug where vendors would occasionally not have any items for sale
- Fixed a bug where selling more than 12 items to a vendor and then buying back 1 of those items could cause multiple items to disappear from the Buyback tab
- Fixed a bug where swapping a 1-slot item (i.e. a ring) with 2-slot item (i.e. a weapon) in the second or third tab of a player’s stash would sometimes cause the 2-slot item to be filtered incorrectly to the first tab
- Fixed a bug that was causing Collector's Edition dyes to sell for the same price regardless of stack size

Crafting

General
- The gold and material crafting costs for all items level 1-59 have been reduced by 50% to 75%
Blacksmith
- The gold cost to level the Blacksmith has been reduced by 50%
- The number of Pages of Blacksmithing, Tomes of Blacksmithing, or Tomes of Secrets required to level the Blacksmith has been reduced
  - Base levels now require 1 page/tome, down from 5
  - Milestone levels now require 2 pages/tomes, down from 5
- The number of Pages of Blacksmithing and Tomes of Blacksmithing required to craft items level 1-59 has been reduced
- Items with 3 affixes no longer require Pages of Blacksmithing or Tomes of Blacksmithing to craft
- The gold cost of crafting items with 4 affixes and 5 affixes (including items in Inferno difficulty) has been reduced
- Weapon crafting costs have been reduced
- The chance for level 60 items to produce Legendary crafting materials when salvaged has been reduced
Jeweler
- The gold and material cost to combine gems ranks 2-8 has been reduced
  - Combinations for these ranks now only require 2 gems, down from 3
    - The gold cost to combine each rank of gems is now as follows:
      - Rank 2 - Flawed: 10 gold (down from 500 gold)
      - Rank 3 - Regular: 25 gold (down from 750 gold)
      - Rank 4 - Flawless: 40 gold (down from 1250 gold)
      - Rank 5 - Perfect: 55 gold (down from 2000 gold)
      - Rank 6 - Radiant: 70 gold (down from 3500 gold)
      - Rank 7 - Square: 85 gold (down from 7500 gold)
      - Rank 8 - Flawless Square: 100 gold (down from 20,000 gold)

Followers

General
- Bug Fixes
  - Fixed a bug where the maximum Life of your followers was being displayed as different values in different parts of the game UI
Enchantress
- Skills
  - Mass Control
    - Radius reduced from 15 yards to 8 yards
    - If Enchantress also has Reflect Missiles trained, Mass Control will no longer accidentally hex the player when both skills are activated
    - Skill will now correctly target enemies in all circumstances

Bosses

General
- Bosses have had their pathing improved
- The quality of the item for the fourth stack of Nephalem Valor from bosses has been slightly reduced
Skeleton King
- Abilities
  - Will now summon Skeletal Archers in Hell and Inferno difficulties
The Warden (mini-boss)
- General
  - Now has Fast and Molten affixes, in addition to Jailer
  - In Inferno difficulty, the Warden will also gain the Desecrator affix
Butcher
- Bug Fixes
  - Fixed an issue where the corner panel fires in the Chamber of Suffering were doing twice as much damage as intended
Ghom
- Abilities
  - Gas Cloud
    - Radius of Gas Cloud has been slightly reduced
    - Slowing effect has been removed
    - The amount of damage dealt by Gas Cloud when first entering the cloud has been reduced, but the amount of damage incurred for remaining in the cloud has been increased
    - In Inferno difficulty, Gas Clouds will last longer, spawn 2 at a time, and (after 4 minutes) spawn more quickly
Maghda
- Bug Fixes
  - Punish Dust projectiles can no longer be reflected
Zoltun Kulle
- General
  - Zoltun Kulle will now enrage in Inferno difficulty after 3 minutes, using his Ceiling Collapse ability more often and for much higher damage
- Abilities
  - Ceiling Collapse
    - Can now be cast at a player from any range
  - Fireball
    - Fireball attack now moves slower
    - Can now be cast at a player from any range
  - Teleport
    - Will now Teleport and run away from the player less often
    - Will now occasionally Teleport to the player
Belial
- General
  - Belial will now enrage in Inferno difficulty after 3 minutes in his final phase, increasing the number of green pools dropped across the entire encounter platform
- Bug Fixes
  - Fixed a bug that was causing Belial to use his breath attack away from the player rather than towards the player under certain circumstances
Siegebreaker
- General
  - Overall damage has been reduced
  - No longer vulnerable to Confuse and Charm effects
  - Will now drop a health globe every 25% health mark (i.e. at 75%, 50%, and 25% health)
  - Now enrages after 4 minutes
  - In Inferno difficulty, Siegebreaker will now gain the Reflects Damage affix
Cydaea
- Abilities
  - Spiderlings
    - Spiderlings will now have an easier time hitting players, but their damage has been reduced by 20% to compensate
    - In Inferno difficulty, Spiderlings will now live longer, be more spread out, and (after 4 minutes) spawn more often
Rakanoth
- General
  - In Inferno difficulty, Rakanoth will now become much more aggressive after 3 minutes
Izual
- General
  - Health pool has been increased
  - The number of Oppressors that join the fight has been reduced from 4 to 2
  - Will no longer target Followers or Tyrael as frequently
- Abilities
  - Base Attacks
    - Base attack damage has been lowered
    - No longer does Cold damage on top of base attacks
  - Charge
    - Charge damage has been reduced
    - Knockback has been removed
    - Will Charge slightly more often, but will only target players
  - Frozen Bombs
    - Frozen Bomb damage has been reduced
    - Bombs will now explode faster
    - Only 8 Bombs will now spawn around the player rather than 12
    - Bombs will spawn at Izual's feet less often
  - Frost Explosion
    - Frost Explosion damage has been reduced by 70%
    - Duration of freeze has been increased
    - Damage dealt to players while frozen will now break the effect
    - Players can now use defensive cooldown while frozen
    - Players can no longer avoid being frozen by doing high amounts of amount to Izual
- Bug Fixes
  - Izual will no longer spawn twice if a player skips his introductory cut-scene
Diablo
- Bug Fixes
  - Damage Over Time (DoT) effects will now be properly cancelled when Diablo becomes invisible and casts Shadow Clones in Phase Two
  - Diablo "Stomp" ability is now correctly classified as a debuff instead of a buff
  - Fixed a bug that was causing pets to not attack Shadow Clones

Monsters

General
- Champions, Rares, and Uniques have had their pathing improved
- Elite packs (Champion/Rare) now drop an additional item for players with 5 stacks of Nephalem Valor, which is guaranteed to be of Rare quality
- Damage from monsters in Acts II, III, and IV in Inferno difficulty has been reduced
- Colossal Golgor base damage has been reduced
- Herald of Pestilence tentacle attack damage has been reduced
- Soul Ripper and Soul Lasher damage has been reduced and both monsters will now run away less often
- Wasps in Act II, Mage Constructs in Act II, and Winged Mollocks in Acts III and IV will now run away less
- Succubus monsters will now run away less and for a shorter distance
- The health pools of Woodwraiths in the Highlands now match the health pools of Woodwraiths in the Fields of Misery
- Lacuni and Scavenger Rares and and Champions will now un-burrow when called by their allies
- Bloodclan Warriors no longer knockback when buffed and attack slightly slower
- Morlu no longer have the Invulnerable Minions, Health Link, or Fire Chains affixes
- Plagued, Arcane Enchanted, and Electrified monsters no longer have resistance to Poison, Arcane, and Lightning damage (respectively)
- Leaders of Invulnerable Minions packs have had their health pools reduced
- Mortar monsters can now hurl projectiles farther, but their minimum range has also been increased by 100%
Bug Fixes
- Interrupting a monster attack before it lands will now properly trigger its cooldown
- Treasure Goblins will now drop gold piles for all nearby players
- Lacuni Warrior Rares and Champions will now reset their enrage timer correctly in Inferno difficulty
- The Succubus "Blood Star" debuff will no longer affect the player if the damage from the projectile is dodged/blocked/etc
- The damage from the Succubus “Blood Star” debuff will now scale based on the current cost of a player's skill, even if the cost is reduced by items or skill runes
- Monsters with the Extra Health affix should no longer gain more health every time players leave and join the game
- Monsters with the Reflects Damage affix will no longer reflect Follower damage back to the player
- Monsters with the Health Link and Knockback affixes will no longer knockback friendly monsters
- Fixed a bug that was causing Champion Wallers to occasionally create walls at their location rather than the player's location
- Fixed a bug where Sandwasp projectiles could sometimes become invisible

Bug Fixes

General
- The experience bar for characters at level cap on a Guest Pass account will now display 0/0 experience. If the account holder upgrades to the full game, their characters will be at 0/41000 experience towards the next level.
- The speed of the animation that plays when resurrecting another players should no longer scale with your attack speed
- Attempting to cast a skill while spamming the Town Portal hot key will now correctly interrupt the Town Portal cast and animation
- Players who use Town Portal while in a tar pit will no longer keep the tar pit debuff after being teleported
- It is no longer possible for players in Hell difficulty to skip to Inferno difficulty by creating and leaving Public Games
- It is no longer possible to prevent character death in a single-player game by pausing the game in one game client and then logging into the same account from a different game client
- Fixed a bug where The Lyceum in the Southern Highlands was not appearing
- Fixed a bug where players could switch their offerings in the Trade window right before clicking "Accept" and, due to high latency, the game would not always be able to verify that both players were accepting the same offerings
- Fixed a bug that was allowing players to temporarily pick up items that belonged to another account
- Fixed a bug that was causing players to become stuck when using a banner to port to another player that was in an "un-walkable" location (i.e. to a barbarian in the middle of performing Leap)
- Fixed a position desync bug (aka "rubberbanding") that could happen when some movement skills (Strafe, Whirlwind, Tempest Rush) ended because the player ran out of the appropriate resource
- Fixed several issues where a player's character would get stuck or "rubberband" while moving if their movement speed was slowed in any way
- Several performance improvements have been made to both the PC and Mac client
Auction House
- Item tooltips in the auction house will now correctly reflect stat bonuses provided by socketed gems
- Items with class-specific affixes should now display the class restriction properly
- It should no longer be possible for players to purchase a stack of items so large that it cannot be sent to their stash
- The data displayed in each auction house tab should now properly reset when logging out

If you are experiencing technical issues with the patching process, connecting to Battle.net after installing the patch, or errors while playing a newly-patched game, please visit our support site or post in the Technical Support forum for assistance.

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