A Few Questions Answered
Bashiok took the time to answer a few questions, however please keep in mind This system is a work in progress, this information can easily change while the system is being worked on!
Originally Posted by Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
(When you say extra loot, do you mean, extra loot. Or do you mean extra loot that is on par with what elite/champs drop. I remember from the article before, bosses do not drop gear that is as good as champs/elites.
They will drop gear as good as champions and elites with this buff (because you have to kill champions and elites to get it, which was the point). With the buff active you’re guaranteed one extra item drop from the boss, and it’s likely that it’ll be 1 item per stack of the buff. Up to X stacks. We don’t know how many it’ll be, probably a handful.
How many stacks will there be if any?
We're not totally sure but probably a number you can count on one hand.
Do you lose the buff when you die?
It lasts through death currently, and we like it. I know some people will also want it to be a punishment for death, but repair costs are already extremely impactful.
Does the buff split between players?
Like someone joins after you've been killing and they have less stacks? It's a direct increase to your MF/GF, so it uses the same mechanics.
Do you lose it on disconnect?
There's a small grace period, similar to WoW where you can get back into the game before your character is actually logged out (ie a timeout), but yes if your character times out you would lose the buff.
What is the Time limit on the stack, if any?
We're messing with times from about 15 minutes to an hour. We don't know yet.
Do Stacks get removed after a boss?
We don't really think it needs to. Your focus is still going to be seeking out champions and rares. If you want to get full stacks, kill a boss, and then try to rush to kill another boss before the buff falls off... have fun? It's not going to be the most lucrative way to play, so it's likely a non-issue hypothetical.
They will drop gear as good as champions and elites with this buff (because you have to kill champions and elites to get it, which was the point). With the buff active you’re guaranteed one extra item drop from the boss, and it’s likely that it’ll be 1 item per stack of the buff. Up to X stacks. We don’t know how many it’ll be, probably a handful.
How many stacks will there be if any?
We're not totally sure but probably a number you can count on one hand.
Do you lose the buff when you die?
It lasts through death currently, and we like it. I know some people will also want it to be a punishment for death, but repair costs are already extremely impactful.
Does the buff split between players?
Like someone joins after you've been killing and they have less stacks? It's a direct increase to your MF/GF, so it uses the same mechanics.
Do you lose it on disconnect?
There's a small grace period, similar to WoW where you can get back into the game before your character is actually logged out (ie a timeout), but yes if your character times out you would lose the buff.
What is the Time limit on the stack, if any?
We're messing with times from about 15 minutes to an hour. We don't know yet.
Do Stacks get removed after a boss?
We don't really think it needs to. Your focus is still going to be seeking out champions and rares. If you want to get full stacks, kill a boss, and then try to rush to kill another boss before the buff falls off... have fun? It's not going to be the most lucrative way to play, so it's likely a non-issue hypothetical.
Nephalem Valor Buff
Blizzard just posted an article describing the mechanics and the goal of the new Nephalem Valor buff!
Originally Posted by (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
We’re working hard on balancing and testing Diablo III, and one of the major components is making sure that the end game experience is fun and exciting. We’d like to share a few of our goals for end game:
The exact amount of magic find and gold find provided by the buff is still being reviewed, as is the amount of extra loot you get from a boss while the buff is active. We’re also playing around with whether or not the buff stacks, what the duration should be, and whether or not it should persist through death. We want to make sure the buff is strong enough to make staying in your current game more rewarding than creating a new game. At the same time, if the buff is too strong, it risks making shorter play sessions feel not worthwhile.
We expect this system will encourage players to stick with a skill build of their choice, select an area of the game they enjoy, and sweep it for rare and champion packs on their way to a boss, finishing off a run with a boss that’ll be worth killing. If you wanted a shorter play session you could be done at that point, but if you have more time, the path of least resistance would ideally be to stay in the same game and make your way towards the next boss.
- We have an enormous number of skill build combinations, and we want a lot of those skill builds to be viable and interesting
- While there are millions of skill builds available to players, we don’t want players swapping skills regularly to beat specific encounters as they come up
- We don’t want repeatedly running specific three-minute chunks of the game to be the most efficient way to acquire gear for your character
- While a three-minute run shouldn’t be the most efficient, we also don’t want you to feel like it’s a two-hour commitment every time you sit down to play
- Bosses should still feel worth killing
The exact amount of magic find and gold find provided by the buff is still being reviewed, as is the amount of extra loot you get from a boss while the buff is active. We’re also playing around with whether or not the buff stacks, what the duration should be, and whether or not it should persist through death. We want to make sure the buff is strong enough to make staying in your current game more rewarding than creating a new game. At the same time, if the buff is too strong, it risks making shorter play sessions feel not worthwhile.
We expect this system will encourage players to stick with a skill build of their choice, select an area of the game they enjoy, and sweep it for rare and champion packs on their way to a boss, finishing off a run with a boss that’ll be worth killing. If you wanted a shorter play session you could be done at that point, but if you have more time, the path of least resistance would ideally be to stay in the same game and make your way towards the next boss.
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
(Nephalem Valor Only For Inferno?
No, it kicks in at 60. Once you hit 60 you have access to this buff regardless of difficulty. You can use it and go back to Hell to help you gear up for Inferno, absolutely.Diablo 3 Beta Screenshots
Today we have some 4 player screenshots with a lot of action! Enjoy
that also assumes you (and anyone else in the party) wait for 4 people before starting, too
At the rate people join, 4 people will join before you find and kill a champ, thats not an issue imo
Does the buff also increase your MF for subsequent champion kills? In that case it might indeed be the most efficient to clear an entire game, but if it's only for bosses, people will just look for the best spot and start doing runs...
Shame indeed.
So another player resetting their skills DOES affect your own MF/GF. That makes no sense
So why introduce this gameplay-affecting mechanic only at the end, where most won't reach for months-years?
Because it being said by Blizz, that when you'll finish hell, you'll be 60. So then you'll start to farm or try inferno for the best gear. This will be implented for make that last part of the game (farming) more interesting, not to help find better gear while you lvl up.
In other words, because your friend could not stick to his build, you are punished.
Am I understanding it correctly?
These were pointed out already I guess, but I'll just point out what personally bothers me:
-Very low stacks. It basically brings back boss runs because of it, doesn't it? I thought the point of this would have been having people going all over the place. This certainly doesn't do that. It just means you have to kill champions in the way to the boss. Its better than not having it but... plus, if it doesn't reset after a boss, then you just go straigth to other bosses? Not sure how this plays out ultimately but its not -quite- what I had in mind.
-I still see no point whatsoever in a time limit on something that goes out when you leave the game. Make me get it Blizzard, there's no reason.
-I can't possibly agree that one person changing skill in a group penalizes everyone heavily. Thats just dumb.
- Shared buff? Horrible idea. I should not be punished because a random in my group decides to change his build. What did I do wrong?
- Handful of stacks? If you can count it on one hand, you better have to use the full hand because if you don't it'll be such a low amount of stacks that you'll just load from the last checkpoint and do a boss run.
It was such a good idea too. I really hope they rethink things a bit.
I for one, never finished Hell in Diablo II. I was level 68, had fairly good gear, and the farthest I got was Act II Hell before my account got deleted... (I got a virus, restarted comp, had to reinstall Diablo II, but had lost my cd-key... And Blizz deleted accounts if they were inactive for 90days) Suffice to say, the worst time of my entire life...
It was so long ago, 11 years, that I don't remember how long I even played... Not sure if it was months, a year, or longer. But getting past level 70 would take hours of running Cow Level just for a couple %... >_<
I guess Blizzard will make it easier to level up to 60 for those casuals... And Inferno will be the "Hell" of Diablo II.
I may have never finished Hell in Diablo II, but it is still my favorite game of all time, and it had the most significant impact on who I am more than anything else in this world. I view it as a near religious entity, and Deckard Cain is like a grandfather to me...
Would it be better to run around looking for special mobs, and keep killing special mobs with the buff from the previous special mobs
or
Would it be better to run around looking for special mobs, and once you've gotten enough of the buff go kill a boss.
Those special mobs give better items at higher droprates than bosses, so rushing a boss will NEVER be the best choice. But they didn't want bosses to be pointless, so they gave us this buff.
Like Serefkana said, in Inferno, special mobs drop better loot than bosses, so you won't see this scenario.
The purpose of the Nephalem buff is twofold:
1) to make killing Bosses useful
2) to make skill choices more meaningful