Travis Day just announced that they will be doubling the droprate of legendaries in an upcoming hotfix:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/11307900907?page=23#451Hey folks I'm back with some clarifications and some news that should please everyone.
First the clarification, the timer system that works behind the scenes is meant to be exactly that, behind the scenes. No you can't afk the system, there are a lot of moving pieces to it and we talked about it extensively before we implemented it to guarantee its not exploitable. At it's heart Diablo is a game about slaughtering demons and getting random cool rewards. The system that is in place should never be experienced by 99% of the population, it's there for the 1% who just get really bad random rolls for an excessively long period of time. If we want you to get a legendary every 2 hours, the system basically says "ok it's been like double/triple that period of time, just help the guy out!"
Second and more importantly. I'm in the process of working up another hotfix for the beta that will do 2 things.
1. Reduce the chance for Kadala to give legendary items. We have a lot of solutions to the split farming problem but they are going to take a little time to be put in place and in the mean time we don't want peoples feedback to be completely skewed based on her rewards. This reduction will be revisited once we fix all the split farming issues.
2. Double the legendary drop rate. Your feedback hasn't been falling on deaf ears, and much discussion and deliberation has gone into it. We know that drop rates aren't exactly where we want them right now and it's very important to us to get as much feedback as possible during our beta. We are going to adjust the legendary drop rates via hotfix so that you guys have as much time as possible to test and give us feedback on how the changes feel, also more time for us to compile data and get RoS to be the best it can be.
Travis says it's for the beta, does that mean the PTR doesn't get it? And was the PTR and beta droprates for legendaries different? While people were panicking about low droprates for legednaries, my Demon Hunter on the PTR found a really nice Balefire Caster that was better than my Windforce, and a Quiver that allowed me to summon two additional Sentries. I'm like, "yeah...low drop rates? Really?"
That would be nice if they were doubled on the PTR too, though, I'd gladly get a bunch to test.
They doubled the drop rates, but reduced the chance of getting a legendary from gambling. We all knew this was coming as there's been a TON of backlash about the fundamental difference between finding an item and going to a vendor and clicking on their wares for a while.
Even if the ultimate legendary acquisition rate (drops + gambling) remain roughly the same, I can guarantee that most people are going to find the game more enjoyable because they're going to be finding a lot more of their legendaries on the ground versus from the gambler. This also has a HUGE impact on people who do not buy RoS (since it doesn't seem they will get gambling, although that could change).
Ultimately, given BoA, this is exactly the mentality I wanted to see from the development team, and has somewhat renewed my faith in them. If I'm finding roughly one legendary per hour then I think it's safe to say that no item should ever feel "unobtainable" and that the carrot on a stick is functioning. Of course testing is necessary, but this is a very good step to making the "item hunt" actually feel like an item hunt and not a blood shard hunt.
EDIT And it goes a long way to making those builds that are "locked" because you don't have the proper items feel obtainable too. At the end of the day the legendary acquisition from gambling needs to be low enough that it's just a bonus, and not the mainstay of gearing. If you get one legendary every 2-3 days from gambling, that rate is probably low enough that gambling won't feel mandatory, but large enough that it would be supplemental to farming IF you chose to do that.
01/16/2014 03:22 PMPosted byamberrorPool of reflections = 0.25% xp bonus = useless. It does not stack either. I'm thinking maybe it's a bug, why not 25%?
This actually is a display bug. It should be granting 25% bonus experience on the current PTR and Closed Beta build.
Also, while the basic percent bonus doesn't increase with additional Pool of Reflection buffs, the length of the buff does effectively stack each time you claim an additional Pool. The amount of bonus experience you can benefit from should show up when you hover over your experience bar, and this value will increase by about 10% of the current experience required for your next level/Paragon level for each Pool claimed. This bonus persists on logout, but is lost upon death.
I feel it's also worth mentioning that we're working on a tuning pass for Paragon leveling experience. In addition to increasing the amount of experience monsters grant when defeated, we'll also be reducing the amount of experience needed to gain additional Paragon levels. =)
They doubled the drop rates, but reduced the chance of getting a legendary from gambling.
For what it's worth, he says the Kadala nerf is just temporary until they solve the split-farming problem.
Did they say somewhere that they were thinking of increasing it between 50% and 100% from where it was? I think all the complaining did was convince them to test down from the maximum range instead of up from the minimum range.
BETA and PTR is the same servers, patches everything so yes PTR folk will get 2x legendarys also.
Now my question is did the reduce the "safety net" down to 1 hour from 2 or did they boost monster drop rates by 2. Both nets more legendarys.
But the safety net brings almost equal grounds to both 10 hours a day players as well as 1 hours a day players. But hardcore players will far more enjoy the monster 2x drop rate as that means farming faster and more efficient yelds way more legendarys in the long run but the casual player is loosing out.
But the safety net is also highly exploitable even for the simplest of bots, And knowing that you will gain a legendary every 60-90 min is also not extremely rewarding when it finally drops.
Its still a more consistent way to do it and i like it.
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I think that meeting he was walking into when he posted went something like this... "jesus, just double or triple the drop rate so they'll shut up for a few days while we figure out where we want this thing." Sometimes I think they cripple themselves listening to too much feedback when the spectrum of people who play this game is so huge. That said, I'm gonna go find me a heap of legs before they nerf it again.
But the safety net is also highly exploitable even for the simplest of bots, And knowing that you will gain a legendary every 60-90 min is also not extremely rewarding when it finally drops.
No you can't afk the system, there are a lot of moving pieces to it and we talked about it extensively before we implemented it to guarantee its not exploitable.
And even if bots exploited it, what do I care. BoA.
01/16/2014 03:22 PMPosted byamberrorPool of reflections = 0.25% xp bonus = useless. It does not stack either. I'm thinking maybe it's a bug, why not 25%?
This actually is a display bug. It should be granting 25% bonus experience on the current PTR and Closed Beta build.
Also, while the basic percent bonus doesn't increase with additional Pool of Reflection buffs, the length of the buff does effectively stack each time you claim an additional Pool. The amount of bonus experience you can benefit from should show up when you hover over your experience bar, and this value will increase by about 10% of the current experience required for your next level/Paragon level for each Pool claimed. This bonus persists on logout, but is lost upon death.
I feel it's also worth mentioning that we're working on a tuning pass for Paragon leveling experience. In addition to increasing the amount of experience monsters grant when defeated, we'll also be reducing the amount of experience needed to gain additional Paragon levels. =)
Definitely going to second on this. When I heard about the Pool of Reflections addition, I was really excited for an awesome Survival Bonus incentive to keep people trying to NOT die. Even just having 25% more XP gain not only feels a bit better, but gives a reason to stay alive, and I think that's great. Combined with a slightly different Paragon XP curve...leveling could get seriously fun seriously fast.
I actually kinda hope it gets enough positive feedback that they provide higher XP buffs for additional pools. Not, like, 1 Pool = 25%, 2 Pools = 50%, etc...but ya know, you get 1 Pool, it gives you an additional 25% XP...maybe 5 Pools gives you +50% XP...15 or 20 gives you 75%, something like that. I mean, they seem to randomly spawn anyway, so they're not easy to find. It'd take some pretty serious exploring to find just 5, let alone keep finding them.
Then again, you run into someone in a public game with +100% XP gain just from Pools, that's a pretty nice feather in your cap.
Anyway, just wanted to shine some additional light on this. Thanks for posting it!
But the safety net is also highly exploitable even for the simplest of bots, And knowing that you will gain a legendary every 60-90 min is also not extremely rewarding when it finally drops.
No you can't afk the system, there are a lot of moving pieces to it and we talked about it extensively before we implemented it to guarantee its not exploitable.
And even if bots exploited it, what do I care. BoA.
Well reading into the blue post, the safety net won't even kick in until HOURS after the ~1-2 hour mark have passed.
Think of it this way. Travis said F&F was roughly 5x their goal drop rate. That means pre-hotfix we're at their goal, again according to Travis. If we double that we're at 2x. That's still 2.5x slower than F&F drop rates.
We know F&F was too high. Travis said once per 40 minutes with some people who were able to very efficiently farm Torment 6 using CB and broken builds were getting as high as one per 20 minutes. We also know that once per two hours (Travis' number, not that of the community) was low enough that many people felt thoroughly frustrated.
We can also extrapolate that once per 20 minutes is just a bit more than 5x once per two hours so when Travis categorized F&F drop rates as "5x too high" it would seem he was referring more to the once per 20 minutes figure more than the once per 40 minutes figure as once per 40 minutes is roughly 3x once per two hours.
That being said, if people were complaining that the once per 20 minute drops they were seeing in F&F streams from top streamers using CB, etc., then once per 60 minutes is three times rarer than that, and may very well be a accurate starting point from which to move the bar in small increments to fine tune it.
And, frankly, Travis said yesterday that they were within 50-100% of where they felt the drop rates should be. So, maybe, just maybe, they were being too cautious with the tuning. Obviously you never want drops way too high (F&F, for example) or way too low. But if we're arguing a few percentage here and there, I'd actually rather they erred a few points too high than a few points too low with drop rates. I'd rather be slightly over-rewarded than slightly under-rewarded because it keeps that carrot-on-a-stick drive going.
I'm not completely sure how I feel about this but it goes live. I think doubling it may be a bit too high.
In a few weeks people will have so many legendaries that farming goes significantly faster and the "one legendary per 2 hours" will turn into something like "1 legendary every 30 minutes" or so, at which point they'll do another 180 on the drop rates. Like I said - they will not have "too high" drop rates when RoS goes live. It would just be irreversible, and Blizzard knows that. People just need a bit of an incentive to play ladder now.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest this "doubling" is only temporary due to the gambling change because of split farming. Look at how he worded it, it's so that testers can continue to get what they need to.. y'know.. test.
yesterday: droprates are in the ballpark
today: and then we doubled it
gotta love blizzard
sigh
"Second, the drop rates being "in the ballpark" means they aren't off by a factor of 10. The F&F drop rates were at least 5 times higher than what we were aiming for, and the current drop rates are probably likely within the 50-100% range."
gotta love reading comprehension.
Here is the thing, they made drop rates too high initially and got the feedback on it. Then they drastically lowered the drop rates and got the feedback on it. Maybe they did this intentionally as to paint a better picture of the middle ground, which is maybe what "doubling it" means in this case. I know it's hard to not be entirely cynical at this point, and it isn't unjustified, but here is hoping.
My feelings about this game are akin to a roller coaster ride. I'm hoping Reaper of Souls turns out to be something really great.
But the safety net is also highly exploitable even for the simplest of bots, And knowing that you will gain a legendary every 60-90 min is also not extremely rewarding when it finally drops.
No you can't afk the system, there are a lot of moving pieces to it and we talked about it extensively before we implemented it to guarantee its not exploitable.
And even if bots exploited it, what do I care. BoA.
This. Let the bots run wild. They're only ruining their own fun. It's not like they can sell their gold or loot like they did before.
Now you could argue that this could give them an unfair advantage if/when they implement a ladder. But then it would be very easy to track and ban them.
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First the clarification, the timer system that works behind the scenes is meant to be exactly that, behind the scenes. No you can't afk the system, there are a lot of moving pieces to it and we talked about it extensively before we implemented it to guarantee its not exploitable. At it's heart Diablo is a game about slaughtering demons and getting random cool rewards. The system that is in place should never be experienced by 99% of the population, it's there for the 1% who just get really bad random rolls for an excessively long period of time. If we want you to get a legendary every 2 hours, the system basically says "ok it's been like double/triple that period of time, just help the guy out!"
Second and more importantly. I'm in the process of working up another hotfix for the beta that will do 2 things.
1. Reduce the chance for Kadala to give legendary items. We have a lot of solutions to the split farming problem but they are going to take a little time to be put in place and in the mean time we don't want peoples feedback to be completely skewed based on her rewards. This reduction will be revisited once we fix all the split farming issues.
2. Double the legendary drop rate. Your feedback hasn't been falling on deaf ears, and much discussion and deliberation has gone into it. We know that drop rates aren't exactly where we want them right now and it's very important to us to get as much feedback as possible during our beta. We are going to adjust the legendary drop rates via hotfix so that you guys have as much time as possible to test and give us feedback on how the changes feel, also more time for us to compile data and get RoS to be the best it can be.
Travis says it's for the beta, does that mean the PTR doesn't get it? And was the PTR and beta droprates for legendaries different? While people were panicking about low droprates for legednaries, my Demon Hunter on the PTR found a really nice Balefire Caster that was better than my Windforce, and a Quiver that allowed me to summon two additional Sentries. I'm like, "yeah...low drop rates? Really?"
That would be nice if they were doubled on the PTR too, though, I'd gladly get a bunch to test.
Think I'll do that anyway when I get home.
They doubled the drop rates, but reduced the chance of getting a legendary from gambling. We all knew this was coming as there's been a TON of backlash about the fundamental difference between finding an item and going to a vendor and clicking on their wares for a while.
Even if the ultimate legendary acquisition rate (drops + gambling) remain roughly the same, I can guarantee that most people are going to find the game more enjoyable because they're going to be finding a lot more of their legendaries on the ground versus from the gambler. This also has a HUGE impact on people who do not buy RoS (since it doesn't seem they will get gambling, although that could change).
Ultimately, given BoA, this is exactly the mentality I wanted to see from the development team, and has somewhat renewed my faith in them. If I'm finding roughly one legendary per hour then I think it's safe to say that no item should ever feel "unobtainable" and that the carrot on a stick is functioning. Of course testing is necessary, but this is a very good step to making the "item hunt" actually feel like an item hunt and not a blood shard hunt.
EDIT
And it goes a long way to making those builds that are "locked" because you don't have the proper items feel obtainable too. At the end of the day the legendary acquisition from gambling needs to be low enough that it's just a bonus, and not the mainstay of gearing. If you get one legendary every 2-3 days from gambling, that rate is probably low enough that gambling won't feel mandatory, but large enough that it would be supplemental to farming IF you chose to do that.
This actually is a display bug. It should be granting 25% bonus experience on the current PTR and Closed Beta build.
Also, while the basic percent bonus doesn't increase with additional Pool of Reflection buffs, the length of the buff does effectively stack each time you claim an additional Pool. The amount of bonus experience you can benefit from should show up when you hover over your experience bar, and this value will increase by about 10% of the current experience required for your next level/Paragon level for each Pool claimed. This bonus persists on logout, but is lost upon death.
I feel it's also worth mentioning that we're working on a tuning pass for Paragon leveling experience. In addition to increasing the amount of experience monsters grant when defeated, we'll also be reducing the amount of experience needed to gain additional Paragon levels. =)
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I think that meeting he was walking into when he posted went something like this... "jesus, just double or triple the drop rate so they'll shut up for a few days while we figure out where we want this thing." Sometimes I think they cripple themselves listening to too much feedback when the spectrum of people who play this game is so huge. That said, I'm gonna go find me a heap of legs before they nerf it again.
Originally Posted by (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
No you can't afk the system, there are a lot of moving pieces to it and we talked about it extensively before we implemented it to guarantee its not exploitable.
And even if bots exploited it, what do I care. BoA.
I'm not completely sure how I feel about this but it goes live. I think doubling it may be a bit too high.
Think of it this way. Travis said F&F was roughly 5x their goal drop rate. That means pre-hotfix we're at their goal, again according to Travis. If we double that we're at 2x. That's still 2.5x slower than F&F drop rates.
We know F&F was too high. Travis said once per 40 minutes with some people who were able to very efficiently farm Torment 6 using CB and broken builds were getting as high as one per 20 minutes. We also know that once per two hours (Travis' number, not that of the community) was low enough that many people felt thoroughly frustrated.
We can also extrapolate that once per 20 minutes is just a bit more than 5x once per two hours so when Travis categorized F&F drop rates as "5x too high" it would seem he was referring more to the once per 20 minutes figure more than the once per 40 minutes figure as once per 40 minutes is roughly 3x once per two hours.
That being said, if people were complaining that the once per 20 minute drops they were seeing in F&F streams from top streamers using CB, etc., then once per 60 minutes is three times rarer than that, and may very well be a accurate starting point from which to move the bar in small increments to fine tune it.
And, frankly, Travis said yesterday that they were within 50-100% of where they felt the drop rates should be. So, maybe, just maybe, they were being too cautious with the tuning. Obviously you never want drops way too high (F&F, for example) or way too low. But if we're arguing a few percentage here and there, I'd actually rather they erred a few points too high than a few points too low with drop rates. I'd rather be slightly over-rewarded than slightly under-rewarded because it keeps that carrot-on-a-stick drive going.
In a few weeks people will have so many legendaries that farming goes significantly faster and the "one legendary per 2 hours" will turn into something like "1 legendary every 30 minutes" or so, at which point they'll do another 180 on the drop rates. Like I said - they will not have "too high" drop rates when RoS goes live. It would just be irreversible, and Blizzard knows that. People just need a bit of an incentive to play ladder now.
Keep drops high put Ladder system in the game and reset every 6 months now that is fixed. lets move on to skills and stuff
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest this "doubling" is only temporary due to the gambling change because of split farming. Look at how he worded it, it's so that testers can continue to get what they need to.. y'know.. test.
Here is the thing, they made drop rates too high initially and got the feedback on it. Then they drastically lowered the drop rates and got the feedback on it. Maybe they did this intentionally as to paint a better picture of the middle ground, which is maybe what "doubling it" means in this case. I know it's hard to not be entirely cynical at this point, and it isn't unjustified, but here is hoping.
My feelings about this game are akin to a roller coaster ride. I'm hoping Reaper of Souls turns out to be something really great.