Blizzard Agrees That Act 3/4 Drop Rates Are Low
Since patch 1.0.3 there has been a lot of discussion around the drop rates of high ilvl gear in act 3/4. Bashiok posted saying that they agree that drop rates are low.
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.
1.0.3 Inferno Monk Guide
Thaya has posted his Inferno Monk guide, which is fully updated for patch 1.0.3. If you are working your way through Inferno as a Monk make sure to take a look at this guide.
13 Questions Answered
Lylirra hit the forums and answered thirteen questions. Make sure to read the full post for all the info!
Blizzard has heard the feedback and they do wish to add items back onto breakables as well as allow Magic Find to affect those drops. (Read question 5 for more)
After the 1.0.3 change to NV, Blizzard feels people might be skipping bosses completely now. They will be keeping an eye on this.
A "Lock Actionbars" is still on its way for a later patch.
Patch 1.0.4 will have a lot of skill tuning.
We will be getting a developer blog on the skill changes in the near future.
Good questions! I'll see what I can do to answer them.
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, 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...n/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.
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.
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.
No mention of the overall nerf to drop rates though? Many players now feel act 1 to be the best farming spot in the game. Drop rates for acts 2-4 need a slight buff imo. http://us.battle.net...ic/5911501949#6
Blizzard News
Pico wraps up this week's Blizzard news with the world first Diablo 3 Hardcore Inferno Kill, the latest D3 patch that changed the game, Mists of Pandaria got some new content, and Starcraft Heart of the Swarm releases a bit more information. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2A04pqLMio How Much Have You Made off of the RMAH?
Now that the RMAH is live in all regions that support the RMAH, how much have you made using the RMAH?
I know isn't cool people complaining in the forums, but, c'mon, we all must agree that they took years saying "We don't want to release the game because we feel that it isn't good yet" and when they finally release it, nothing work as they want, they keep changing everything and the game end up being worst than was before.
I know that when you release a game it will have some problems, but how the item status would work, jewelcraft and blacksmith upgrade, bosses and monsters skills, drop rate and repair prices should be tested and optmized way before the release, years of development, months of beta and still blizzard released an unfinished game, thats why people are going crazy...
I cant stand the repair cost and IAS Nerf. Im happy they are bringing back MF for chests and racks. D1 and D2 had it.. wtf were they thinking to nerf it? I like that they raised the drop chance in A1 cuz i was getting balls. How was i susposed to get decent gear for A2 if A1 Drops were shit.
why is Blizzard acting like little bitches nerfing everything? They Force you to waste your time grinding and "explore the levels"... Every game i join the map is the same shit and so repetative.
Blizzard coded this shitty drop rate in for sure.With the nerf to Inferno they weren't sure how much easier it would be for players, and if it was too easy there would be a influx of good loot hitting both the auction house's. They gotta be a lot more careful now that people can make money off this. Blizzard should hotfix this, not data mine how easy it is for players to kill mobs in later acts. Call me crazy but that's what I think is going on right now.
What is the problem with making bosses and champions (both killed with 5xNV) drop roughly the same loot? This way players can decide wether or not to fight bosses or go elite pack hunting
Ahh, this is the Blizzard we all know and ... love. Adding stuff in one patch only to remove it in the next, treating live servers as beta servers. Really, everybody should get the beta FoS because that's the state the game is still in. They seriously can't have a internal testing team, or those guys should all get fired and replaced by anything. At this state I think a toaster could do a better job.
What I don't understand is why INFERNO is dropping ilvl 51-59 items. I'd rather have LESS items drop off of champions that are of greater ilvl. For the sake of legendaries with ilvl 58-59, bump them up to ilvl 60 so they are viable in endgame (or have some sort of special code that allows lower level legendaries to still drop).
A1 - mostly ilvl 60 items with incremental chance for ilvl 61,62,63
A2 - mostly ilvl 60, 61 items with incremental chance for ilv l62, 63
A3/4 - mostly ilvl 60, 61, 62 items with incremental chance for ilvl 63
THAT is how I envision this should be... or something close at least. None of this sub-60 bullshit
What is the problem with making bosses and champions (both killed with 5xNV) drop roughly the same loot? This way players can decide wether or not to fight bosses or go elite pack hunting
The problem emerges when they drop the same loot like they do now because if your someone that likes to farm bosses, you need to spend time farming champs for your 5 stack to then go kill your boss. Now with boss farming you reset the game, in which causes you to lose the NV buff. Making you kill champs again for a 5 stack.
Building up a NV buff sucks and is boring since while your building it the chance of something good dropping is slim to none, on top of it being slim to none when at 5 stack.
I guess I must be one of the few that doesn't bother to change into MF gear at all? The change to destructible objects was ridiculous either way. I guess a nerf wouldn't bother me so much if Blizzard hadn't decided to basically remove the entire loot table. Chests, on the other hand, should remain unaffected by MF.
Forgot to add that I don't use the RMAH in any way. However, I would probably be more open to it if Blizzard would let me use the Battle.net Balance to, you know, buy stuff from their digital store? There's some pets and mounts I'd love to have as a collector.
I guess I must be one of the few that doesn't bother to change into MF gear at all? The change to destructible objects was ridiculous either way. I guess a nerf wouldn't bother me so much if Blizzard hadn't decided to basically remove the entire loot table. Chests, on the other hand, should remain unaffected by MF.
Forgot to add that I don't use the RMAH in any way. However, I would probably be more open to it if Blizzard would let me use the Battle.net Balance to, you know, buy stuff from their digital store? There's some pets and mounts I'd love to have as a collector.
Glad they've acknowledged it, too bad they aren't actually fixing it in a timely manner. If it was something that benefited the player, it'd have been nerfed Wed morning. Done with the game until they fix act 3 drop rates.
But I like destroying stuff in addition to killing monsters. I didn't go out of my way to farm them, but it was nice getting to break some stuff up and sometimes get an item on occasion (plus a little gold). I must be the only one who dungeon crawls - every time. (Excepting speed run achievements.)
Am I playing the game wrong because I don't go for FOTM?
i dont like the 1.03 change. where is the WD‘s pet buff?
Probably next patch. Who knows, though. I'm waiting for WDs to be able to use more than just splinters builds to be effective solo. I want a damned effective firebombs and pet build already!
In the meantime I'm just making a killing selling these million gold items I keep finding and improving my DH.
Since patch 1.0.3 there has been a lot of discussion around the drop rates of high ilvl gear in act 3/4. Bashiok posted saying that they agree that drop rates are low.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
1.0.3 Inferno Monk Guide
Thaya has posted his Inferno Monk guide, which is fully updated for patch 1.0.3. If you are working your way through Inferno as a Monk make sure to take a look at this guide.
13 Questions Answered
Lylirra hit the forums and answered thirteen questions. Make sure to read the full post for all the info!
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
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, 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...n/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.
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.
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.
No mention of the overall nerf to drop rates though? Many players now feel act 1 to be the best farming spot in the game. Drop rates for acts 2-4 need a slight buff imo.
http://us.battle.net...ic/5911501949#6
Blizzard News
Pico wraps up this week's Blizzard news with the world first Diablo 3 Hardcore Inferno Kill, the latest D3 patch that changed the game, Mists of Pandaria got some new content, and Starcraft Heart of the Swarm releases a bit more information.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2A04pqLMio
How Much Have You Made off of the RMAH?
Now that the RMAH is live in all regions that support the RMAH, how much have you made using the RMAH?
This CM must have been a political student.
In france we call it "langue de bois" the fine art of saying nothing but beeing sure to take 30 minutes to say it
I know that when you release a game it will have some problems, but how the item status would work, jewelcraft and blacksmith upgrade, bosses and monsters skills, drop rate and repair prices should be tested and optmized way before the release, years of development, months of beta and still blizzard released an unfinished game, thats why people are going crazy...
why is Blizzard acting like little bitches nerfing everything? They Force you to waste your time grinding and "explore the levels"... Every game i join the map is the same shit and so repetative.
When will they give us pvp?
Indeed. I mean, apart from telling us that:
They have no intention of restoring bosses to the top of the loot-chain
They're committed to the current NV model, and the only relevant change will be the announced locking feature
The IAS change was a damned if you do, damned if you don't thing, but they're sticking with the across-the-board nerf
The pots nerf was done reluctantly, but their hand was forced by an unnamed influence (i.e. bots)
They're aware that RA-stacking is current best-practice, but that's not by design and they want to make sure that other options remain viable
The IAS nerf was specifically because of how melee classes benefitted from haste-based builds
The next patch is not 1.1, but will be a tuning patch
... actually... you know what... I think you might actually be wrong... which has never stopped a good forum-snark before, so kudos I guess.
But , my ilv never changed!!!!
IT'S COOOOOOOOOOL!!
A1 - mostly ilvl 60 items with incremental chance for ilvl 61,62,63
A2 - mostly ilvl 60, 61 items with incremental chance for ilv l62, 63
A3/4 - mostly ilvl 60, 61, 62 items with incremental chance for ilvl 63
THAT is how I envision this should be... or something close at least. None of this sub-60 bullshit
The problem emerges when they drop the same loot like they do now because if your someone that likes to farm bosses, you need to spend time farming champs for your 5 stack to then go kill your boss. Now with boss farming you reset the game, in which causes you to lose the NV buff. Making you kill champs again for a 5 stack.
Building up a NV buff sucks and is boring since while your building it the chance of something good dropping is slim to none, on top of it being slim to none when at 5 stack.
Isendims#1577
Forgot to add that I don't use the RMAH in any way. However, I would probably be more open to it if Blizzard would let me use the Battle.net Balance to, you know, buy stuff from their digital store? There's some pets and mounts I'd love to have as a collector.
I dont, its just not fun to do or worth to do.
Isendims#1577
Am I playing the game wrong because I don't go for FOTM?
Probably next patch. Who knows, though. I'm waiting for WDs to be able to use more than just splinters builds to be effective solo. I want a damned effective firebombs and pet build already!
In the meantime I'm just making a killing selling these million gold items I keep finding and improving my DH.
Glad to hear they realize it's an issue. I'm loving the gameplay with 1.0.3... I can't wait to see more exciting loot.