One of the big changes of patch 1.0.3 was the removal of magic find calculation when looting destructible objects. Lylirra posted giving some information about this change. Blizzard is also looking at how much durability we lose from normal attacks.
Lylirra also goes on to state that they will be posting a developer blog about their current philosophy regarding magic find gear swapping.
Originally Posted by Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
(I think you're asking why we made the following changes, so that's what I'm going to attempt to answer for you. (If that's not why you made this post, please let me know.)
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™.
Unique monsters in Hell and Inferno difficulty are no longer guaranteed to drop two Magic items when slain
Please note that these monsters still have a chance to drop two Magic items, but that those drops are just no longer guaranteed.
Also, keep in mind the following:
But if perhaps someone on the blue side can at least admit "yeah, it still needs more work, this is not where things will stay" and you say this very DIRECTLY, maybe people will be less upset.
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. 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 everyone was 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.
Also, as an aside, will that blog post be going over the other changes as well, or merely trying to ease the blow from the radical changes which happened?
It'll be focused on Magic Find gear swapping only. We want to try to do more developer blogs in general, but have each blog be shorter and only address about 1-2 topics (rather than having a big wall of text that may or may get read completely).
If discussion is so cool where have you been for the past day? D:
I was out sick.
Please don't use words like "everyone".
Totally fair critique. You've my apologies, good sir (or madam), and the post has been amended.
But I LIKED smashing pots!
Me too. And I'm still going to smash every. single. one. of them, for the sheer pleasure of it.
so... i'm smashing pots and other smashables...and my gear is losing durability.... why is this happening? seems unnecessary.
We agree, and we're already looking into reducing the durability hit players take from normal wear-and-tear. This way, players who never die aren't getting hit with a giant repair fee every 3-4 hours.
"We think it isn't really all that fun, but I sure love doing it!"
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.
this idiot doesnt even play the game obviously. just a forum poster. good luck if you ARE destroying pots etc... it costs durability to do so. and they dont drop much at all. enjoy the repairs.
I responded to a similar concern previously. Here's a link so you don't have to go back and search through older posts. (Unfortunately, the "Next Blizz Post" feature is broken right now, so I know it's harder to follow the conversation. =/)
- Weapon racks will no longer drop weapons 100% of the time
- Magic Find will no longer be considered when looting objects in the environment such as chests, barrels, vases, pots, and corpses
- Destructible objects no longer have a chance to drop items, and will only have a small chance to drop gold when destroyed
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™.
Unique monsters in Hell and Inferno difficulty are no longer guaranteed to drop two Magic items when slain
Please note that these monsters still have a chance to drop two Magic items, but that those drops are just no longer guaranteed.
Also, keep in mind the following:
- 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
But if perhaps someone on the blue side can at least admit "yeah, it still needs more work, this is not where things will stay" and you say this very DIRECTLY, maybe people will be less upset.
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. 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 everyone was 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.
Also, as an aside, will that blog post be going over the other changes as well, or merely trying to ease the blow from the radical changes which happened?
It'll be focused on Magic Find gear swapping only. We want to try to do more developer blogs in general, but have each blog be shorter and only address about 1-2 topics (rather than having a big wall of text that may or may get read completely).
If discussion is so cool where have you been for the past day? D:
I was out sick.
Please don't use words like "everyone".
Totally fair critique. You've my apologies, good sir (or madam), and the post has been amended.
But I LIKED smashing pots!
Me too. And I'm still going to smash every. single. one. of them, for the sheer pleasure of it.
so... i'm smashing pots and other smashables...and my gear is losing durability.... why is this happening? seems unnecessary.
We agree, and we're already looking into reducing the durability hit players take from normal wear-and-tear. This way, players who never die aren't getting hit with a giant repair fee every 3-4 hours.
"We think it isn't really all that fun, but I sure love doing it!"
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.
this idiot doesnt even play the game obviously. just a forum poster. good luck if you ARE destroying pots etc... it costs durability to do so. and they dont drop much at all. enjoy the repairs.
I responded to a similar concern previously. Here's a link so you don't have to go back and search through older posts. (Unfortunately, the "Next Blizz Post" feature is broken right now, so I know it's harder to follow the conversation. =/)
Repair Cost Discussion
Another big change in patch 1,0,3 was the increase to top gear repair costs. This time Bashiok hit the forums for discussion.
Originally Posted by Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
(Which community manager has the fortitude to address the 90% negative feedback surrounding repair costs
Oh... I guess me.
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, and 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.
So your logic is. You don't like it?, Who cares. deal with it. lovely
No, our logic is we have logic as to why we make changes, and we'd be happy to have a conversation on them if you'd like.
Ummm am I missing something here??? Why dont you give us what we want? I mean we are your customers, dont you want to keep us happy and playing this game? Or you want us to leave and buy a competitors game that wants to keep us happy..
REMEMBER: If no one is playing you game then your RMAH profits will suffer.. You need as many people as possible playing to make you greedy real money over and over..
Making more adjustments eh? again you throw something to us, change it and change it again. When are you gonna learn??? This is Blizzard, I used to think the most polished and best gaming company out there. I used to think you guys only delivered polished ('it will be ready when its ready') software. Now we all know you guys take 12 years and still deliver us unfinished and not balanced software.
You want a balanced and well-polished game, but you also want us to do whatever you want (most of which will not lead to a balanced and well-polished game). I'm not sure you're working in the same direction on those points.
Death shouldn't be such a huge concern in D3, if so, why bother making a separate mode called hardcore?
Right! I mean, why even have death at all?
I'm making a steady profit on Act 1. Here's what I'm doing:
1) I'm clearing everything.
2) I'm getting and keeping an NV 5-stack.
3) I repair when gear goes yellow.
I die infrequently, but occasionally. However, with a 5-stack of NV, and sometimes before that, so many creatures drop 500-1000g at a pop that there's no way I could run out of money for repairs.
Thanks!
I am not DYING. I am however losing money because of the repair costs.
I addressed that in my original post. (last sentence)
Oh... I guess me.
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, and 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.
So your logic is. You don't like it?, Who cares. deal with it. lovely
No, our logic is we have logic as to why we make changes, and we'd be happy to have a conversation on them if you'd like.
Ummm am I missing something here??? Why dont you give us what we want? I mean we are your customers, dont you want to keep us happy and playing this game? Or you want us to leave and buy a competitors game that wants to keep us happy..
REMEMBER: If no one is playing you game then your RMAH profits will suffer.. You need as many people as possible playing to make you greedy real money over and over..
Making more adjustments eh? again you throw something to us, change it and change it again. When are you gonna learn??? This is Blizzard, I used to think the most polished and best gaming company out there. I used to think you guys only delivered polished ('it will be ready when its ready') software. Now we all know you guys take 12 years and still deliver us unfinished and not balanced software.
You want a balanced and well-polished game, but you also want us to do whatever you want (most of which will not lead to a balanced and well-polished game). I'm not sure you're working in the same direction on those points.
Death shouldn't be such a huge concern in D3, if so, why bother making a separate mode called hardcore?
Right! I mean, why even have death at all?
I'm making a steady profit on Act 1. Here's what I'm doing:
1) I'm clearing everything.
2) I'm getting and keeping an NV 5-stack.
3) I repair when gear goes yellow.
I die infrequently, but occasionally. However, with a 5-stack of NV, and sometimes before that, so many creatures drop 500-1000g at a pop that there's no way I could run out of money for repairs.
Thanks!
I am not DYING. I am however losing money because of the repair costs.
I addressed that in my original post. (last sentence)
Blue Posts
Lots of 'hot' topics today, worth checking these blue posts out.
Originally Posted by Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
(Nerfs
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.
Every time we turn around it is a nerf. why don't you try a buff for once? You might find you like it.
There were buffs in 1.0.3.
You can't balance a game by just buffing, well you can but it gets out of hand way too quickly. If there's one skill that's too strong you have to buff everything else equally to compensate, and then rebalance the entire game around all those buffs. It doesn't really work. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Nerfing Monster Affixes
This thread has a lot of good feedback regarding affix packs (as does this thread), but let me try to address one question really quickly:
I dunno, OP has a point with certain combos. Vortex + frozen+ arcane + desecrate can be a pain, or similar with waller.
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.
I posted about this a few weeks ago, and our general philosophy hasn't really changed since then. You feedback is still encouraged, though!
Edit: if you actually even care, look at my recent posts and that's why. I really did try to play this game and enjoy it.
Thank you for contributing to this community! I'm sorry to see you go, but I hope that you'll return to Sanctuary again in the future. If not, enjoy your gaming adventures, and best of luck.
Its not present, this is the first game I have played that as I got higher level, I feel weaker, and I have to go back and farm stuff just to progress through the game. In case nobody has told anyone at blizzard, games are supposed to be fun. This aint fun.
(For you) what would make affix combos more fun, but still be reasonably challenging? Keep in mind that we don't intend for players to be able to easily kill everything they come across the first time, every time in the later difficulties.
This question is open to anyone reading along. If you have suggestions or thoughts, please chime in!
How about those more difficult affixes result in a higher chance to get a rare from those mobs?
Interesting suggestion. I'll definitely pass it along.
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
"Evil Bashiok"
I have been gaming for a lot of years and i must say i have never seen a more scum bag mod in any game ever you my friend need therapy and a job that does not involve you speaking to the public Blizzard not firing you just shows how little they care about their customers.
muh pride!
I try to converse with people, and in some cases that means challenging them. If we're just talking to talk, or you want someone to say "Thank you for your feedback" and move on, you're probably looking for something other than the forums. These specific forums (outside of bug report and tech support) are here for conversation. While understanding the community sentiment is part of our job, so is relating our intentions, and that's really going to require a conversation and not me just bullet-pointing out the changes. You can get that from the patch notes. If we're going to have a conversation, and especially when one person is very upset, it's not always going to be a pleasant experience.
Challenge?
... hope blizz is enjoying the drastic drop of players using public rooms, that's about 2k right?
I'm not sure why everyone seems so hung up on that. I guess it seems like it'd be an effective way to try to get us to change something they don't like. I'm honestly not sure why that number seems different. Maybe functionality changed, but we had as many people playing last night and tonight as we had a week ago. We haven't noticed any change in concurrency. But again, I don't really think it's relevant to any issues you have or our desire to hear you out and explain our intentions.
I don't give a damn about your muh pride, put someone on the line with we can properly talk to.
It doesn't appear that's actually what you want.
http://us.battle.net...#1244&sort=time
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Clans
It is definitely a request that we've heard loud and clear, though. Clan support would be a nice-to-have function set.
I wouldn't say "no plans at all". But I wouldn't say "soon", either. It's somewhere between the two. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Magic Weapon and Bugs
The functionality of Magic Weapon hasn't been changed, but we did fix a bug that was causing the skill to display the wrong damage values in the character sheet when active. We missed this bug fix originally, but have since added the following line to the official patch notes (under Classes > Wizard > Bug Fixes):
Run speed is a bit slower. Can't outrun mobs I used to.
We didn't make changes that should outright decrease your character's run speed, so would you be willing to post this in the Bug Report forum so QA can take a look? Unfortunately, I can only move whole threads over to that forum and not individual replies, but that is definitely the best place to bring this up
This literally made no sense.
It's possible I misunderstood the original concern, in which case I apologize and will happily attempt to clarify.
That said, I think it's important to mention the previously undocumented bug fix, since the fix itself has had an affect on the values that display in the character sheet when Magic Weapon is active (as compared to pre-1.0.3), and that isn't always fun for players to see if they don't understand why. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Mortar
Thank you for the reports! Our Quality Assurance team is investigating this as a possible bug. With patch 1.0.3, we increased the dead zone for Mortar monsters (the area around the monster where you can stand and not be a target for their mortar attacks), which should reduce the chance for characters from being hit when in melee range.
If characters in melee range of Mortar monsters are being targeted more often, that's not intended. We know players are reporting this happening fairly frequently when a Mortar monster stops up against a wall, so we'll be looking into those situations as well as when the monster is just being attacked out in the open. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
PvP Patch
PvP is currently scheduled to hit with the 1.1.0 patch. No date to share at this point, though. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
What is Fun?
Redirecting back to the original thread (post cap has been extended): http://us.battle.net...opic/5888889794
There's a lot of good feedback here, and it's definitely better to be posted in one place rather than fragmented all of over the forums.
Games are defined by their limitations. Limitations can also be defined as rules, and rules exist to achieve some kind of goal. Our goal with the game is to ensure the best ways to play the game are actually playing "the game" (which isn't MF gear swaps and urn runs), that it shouldn't be efficient to die 40 times an hour, and that itemization and class build diversity is as broad as we can make it. Most of the changes people are discussing fall into one of those categories.
Just for reference, here are some potentially pertinent changes made in Diablo II 1.10.
Reduced the effectiveness of Experience runs, power-leveling, and leeching.
Increased the Experience penalty for Character level 70+ as follows: Character level 1 - 69: 100% Experience Character level 70 - 99: 85% - 0.8% Experience (approximately exponential decaying)
Encouraged players to play in more of the Diablo II areas/locations/levels.
Reduced drops from the most-run Super Unique monsters, Thresh Socket and Pindleskin.
Cut Experience and reduced drops in the Cow Level.
These were really intended to get people out and into the game, reduce the repetitive runs, and try to hit a goal where these quick repetitive actions were not the best way to play the game. Ultimately it was probably too little too late. The idea that 'this is an ARPG and so you should be able to do whatever you want' doesn't really amount to much of anything.
The fact that players are dying 40 times an hour lies on you, my friend. I'm not asking for a nerf to the content, but rather a fix to the system.
How so? Stop doing content that's too hard for you.
If you really have to ask "How so" you don't look at your own forums too much, do you? I'm not the only one that gets upset when an Invicible/lifesteal/poison/descrator/molten mob wrecks my face, over and over again, because I'm melee and there's not a damn thing I can do to avoid the crazy high damage.
I agree some combos are very difficult for certain classes and builds, and not fighting those very hard combos is an option.
Our item pool philosophy is that you can break an urn and get the best item in the game - it's all a matter of chance.
Yeah, that's getting thrown around a lot, and I agree we've damaged that goal, but we do have an obligation to try to keep the game in check. We're working on ways to get back to that, though. I don't think any of us thinks the game is perfect, and I doubt we ever will. It's an ongoing process.
Guys, I challenged Bash and he, well, bashed me back. Both sides (Blues and Browns) are stressed and frustrated right now. No animosity on either side, we can turn this into a positive. It's gotta start right here, right now though. Open, honest communication from both sides, no anger, no baiting, no trolling, and we can make this the great game it deserves to be.
To answer his previous post, in the open world you do have the option of trying to avoid the mobs. In any cave, dungeon, or area with corridors, you don't. That makes up probably half the game, at least. For instance, half of Act III is in the open battlefield (you can try to avoid mobs). The other half is in the keep, in the dungeons scattered throughout, or underground, all of which are corridor based. You go forward, or you stop playing. That's what the issue is.
I don't want to see Bash get in trouble, and I don't want an apology. I just want to see this game get better, and not because I payed $60 for it. It's because it has so much potential to be one of those legendary games (like Diablo II is/was).
Thanks for that, and I agree I really am dying for people to just be reasonable and calm and rational and want to talk. Thank you for the concern, but I'm not going to get in trouble. Challenging people's ideas and statements is part of my job, because that is what part of a conversation is. Us just talking at each other, or you saying something and me smiling and saying 'thanks for the feedback' probably isn't that helpful for anyone.
I didn't want to imply that we think everything is necessarily perfectly balanced, but certainly having some affix combos you can't beat, you gear and skill up, and then are able to beat is part of the progression. That's a notable point at which you can take note of a change, be it a new build, or power increases, etc. We're ok with there being moments where you say "I can't beat this", because if those moments didn't exist there would be no notable meaning to your character's progression. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Zomibe Dogs
It is kind of wonky right now. =/
We're already working on two fixes for Zombie Bears. The first is to address the issue where Zombie Bears are unable to attack targets on slopes. The second is to improve Zombie Bears pathing so they no longer get stuck (or stuck as often) on objects with which they shouldn't have any collision.
These fixes are currently slated for 1.0.4, but may be implemented sooner. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Starter Edition restrictions
If you're experiencing Starter Edition restrictions 72 hours after completing a digital purchase, you'll want to contact customer support at your earliest convenience. Here's a quick link for submitting a help ticket: http://us.battle.net...article/contact
Our representatives will be happy to able to assist you with this issue. :)(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Act 3/4 Loot
Act 3/4 loot is bugged, and not dropping loot as intended.
We're going to look into this. We're not aware of any issues, but of course that doesn't mean there isn't one.
I used to get ~5-6 ilvl 63 rares every 15 minutes, now I get about 1 per hour.
This makes me wonder if this isn't just a perception issue? We didn't expose ilvl before 1.0.3, so could this be because there was some expectation of "if an item was good it was ilvl 63"? Of course that's not necessarily true. A well rolled ilvl 61 could be better than a 63.
Hey Genius, Those that did a lot of farming knew what the names of ilvl 63 items were. God you are so stupid.
Hi! Not a people person? A simple "We know the base items." would have sufficed. Thank you for your assistance.
The irony is delicious. He's just responding to you in the typical douchey tone you're so fond of responding to people with.
Please point me to where I call people stupid.
As a civil person I would like to thank you for your response and I do hope you guys look into this issue. I literally went from playing 12+ hours a day to 1 hour simply because its unrewarding to see ilvl 51-56 rares drop from a champ and rare packs in Act III. The risk/reward just ain't worth my time anymore. I really want to like this game but I just can't right now
Hah. Well, thanks. I'll get back as soon as I hear something.
way to dodge the OP questions.......
You trolling?
A cheap excuse is usually, considered stupid.
I said we'll look into it... (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
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.
Every time we turn around it is a nerf. why don't you try a buff for once? You might find you like it.
There were buffs in 1.0.3.
You can't balance a game by just buffing, well you can but it gets out of hand way too quickly. If there's one skill that's too strong you have to buff everything else equally to compensate, and then rebalance the entire game around all those buffs. It doesn't really work. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Nerfing Monster Affixes
This thread has a lot of good feedback regarding affix packs (as does this thread), but let me try to address one question really quickly:
I dunno, OP has a point with certain combos. Vortex + frozen+ arcane + desecrate can be a pain, or similar with waller.
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.
I posted about this a few weeks ago, and our general philosophy hasn't really changed since then. You feedback is still encouraged, though!
Edit: if you actually even care, look at my recent posts and that's why. I really did try to play this game and enjoy it.
Thank you for contributing to this community! I'm sorry to see you go, but I hope that you'll return to Sanctuary again in the future. If not, enjoy your gaming adventures, and best of luck.
Its not present, this is the first game I have played that as I got higher level, I feel weaker, and I have to go back and farm stuff just to progress through the game. In case nobody has told anyone at blizzard, games are supposed to be fun. This aint fun.
(For you) what would make affix combos more fun, but still be reasonably challenging? Keep in mind that we don't intend for players to be able to easily kill everything they come across the first time, every time in the later difficulties.
This question is open to anyone reading along. If you have suggestions or thoughts, please chime in!
How about those more difficult affixes result in a higher chance to get a rare from those mobs?
Interesting suggestion. I'll definitely pass it along.
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
"Evil Bashiok"
I have been gaming for a lot of years and i must say i have never seen a more scum bag mod in any game ever you my friend need therapy and a job that does not involve you speaking to the public Blizzard not firing you just shows how little they care about their customers.
muh pride!
I try to converse with people, and in some cases that means challenging them. If we're just talking to talk, or you want someone to say "Thank you for your feedback" and move on, you're probably looking for something other than the forums. These specific forums (outside of bug report and tech support) are here for conversation. While understanding the community sentiment is part of our job, so is relating our intentions, and that's really going to require a conversation and not me just bullet-pointing out the changes. You can get that from the patch notes. If we're going to have a conversation, and especially when one person is very upset, it's not always going to be a pleasant experience.
Challenge?
... hope blizz is enjoying the drastic drop of players using public rooms, that's about 2k right?
I'm not sure why everyone seems so hung up on that. I guess it seems like it'd be an effective way to try to get us to change something they don't like. I'm honestly not sure why that number seems different. Maybe functionality changed, but we had as many people playing last night and tonight as we had a week ago. We haven't noticed any change in concurrency. But again, I don't really think it's relevant to any issues you have or our desire to hear you out and explain our intentions.
I don't give a damn about your muh pride, put someone on the line with we can properly talk to.
It doesn't appear that's actually what you want.
http://us.battle.net...#1244&sort=time
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Clans
It is definitely a request that we've heard loud and clear, though. Clan support would be a nice-to-have function set.
I wouldn't say "no plans at all". But I wouldn't say "soon", either. It's somewhere between the two. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Magic Weapon and Bugs
The functionality of Magic Weapon hasn't been changed, but we did fix a bug that was causing the skill to display the wrong damage values in the character sheet when active. We missed this bug fix originally, but have since added the following line to the official patch notes (under Classes > Wizard > Bug Fixes):
- Magic Weapon
- Fixed a display issue that was causing Magic Weapon to increase the character sheet damage value by an incorrect amount (the functionality of the skill has not changed)
Run speed is a bit slower. Can't outrun mobs I used to.
We didn't make changes that should outright decrease your character's run speed, so would you be willing to post this in the Bug Report forum so QA can take a look? Unfortunately, I can only move whole threads over to that forum and not individual replies, but that is definitely the best place to bring this up
This literally made no sense.
It's possible I misunderstood the original concern, in which case I apologize and will happily attempt to clarify.
That said, I think it's important to mention the previously undocumented bug fix, since the fix itself has had an affect on the values that display in the character sheet when Magic Weapon is active (as compared to pre-1.0.3), and that isn't always fun for players to see if they don't understand why. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Mortar
Thank you for the reports! Our Quality Assurance team is investigating this as a possible bug. With patch 1.0.3, we increased the dead zone for Mortar monsters (the area around the monster where you can stand and not be a target for their mortar attacks), which should reduce the chance for characters from being hit when in melee range.
If characters in melee range of Mortar monsters are being targeted more often, that's not intended. We know players are reporting this happening fairly frequently when a Mortar monster stops up against a wall, so we'll be looking into those situations as well as when the monster is just being attacked out in the open. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
PvP Patch
PvP is currently scheduled to hit with the 1.1.0 patch. No date to share at this point, though. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
What is Fun?
Redirecting back to the original thread (post cap has been extended): http://us.battle.net...opic/5888889794
There's a lot of good feedback here, and it's definitely better to be posted in one place rather than fragmented all of over the forums.
Games are defined by their limitations. Limitations can also be defined as rules, and rules exist to achieve some kind of goal. Our goal with the game is to ensure the best ways to play the game are actually playing "the game" (which isn't MF gear swaps and urn runs), that it shouldn't be efficient to die 40 times an hour, and that itemization and class build diversity is as broad as we can make it. Most of the changes people are discussing fall into one of those categories.
Just for reference, here are some potentially pertinent changes made in Diablo II 1.10.
Reduced the effectiveness of Experience runs, power-leveling, and leeching.
Increased the Experience penalty for Character level 70+ as follows: Character level 1 - 69: 100% Experience Character level 70 - 99: 85% - 0.8% Experience (approximately exponential decaying)
Encouraged players to play in more of the Diablo II areas/locations/levels.
Reduced drops from the most-run Super Unique monsters, Thresh Socket and Pindleskin.
Cut Experience and reduced drops in the Cow Level.
These were really intended to get people out and into the game, reduce the repetitive runs, and try to hit a goal where these quick repetitive actions were not the best way to play the game. Ultimately it was probably too little too late. The idea that 'this is an ARPG and so you should be able to do whatever you want' doesn't really amount to much of anything.
The fact that players are dying 40 times an hour lies on you, my friend. I'm not asking for a nerf to the content, but rather a fix to the system.
How so? Stop doing content that's too hard for you.
If you really have to ask "How so" you don't look at your own forums too much, do you? I'm not the only one that gets upset when an Invicible/lifesteal/poison/descrator/molten mob wrecks my face, over and over again, because I'm melee and there's not a damn thing I can do to avoid the crazy high damage.
I agree some combos are very difficult for certain classes and builds, and not fighting those very hard combos is an option.
Our item pool philosophy is that you can break an urn and get the best item in the game - it's all a matter of chance.
Yeah, that's getting thrown around a lot, and I agree we've damaged that goal, but we do have an obligation to try to keep the game in check. We're working on ways to get back to that, though. I don't think any of us thinks the game is perfect, and I doubt we ever will. It's an ongoing process.
Guys, I challenged Bash and he, well, bashed me back. Both sides (Blues and Browns) are stressed and frustrated right now. No animosity on either side, we can turn this into a positive. It's gotta start right here, right now though. Open, honest communication from both sides, no anger, no baiting, no trolling, and we can make this the great game it deserves to be.
To answer his previous post, in the open world you do have the option of trying to avoid the mobs. In any cave, dungeon, or area with corridors, you don't. That makes up probably half the game, at least. For instance, half of Act III is in the open battlefield (you can try to avoid mobs). The other half is in the keep, in the dungeons scattered throughout, or underground, all of which are corridor based. You go forward, or you stop playing. That's what the issue is.
I don't want to see Bash get in trouble, and I don't want an apology. I just want to see this game get better, and not because I payed $60 for it. It's because it has so much potential to be one of those legendary games (like Diablo II is/was).
Thanks for that, and I agree I really am dying for people to just be reasonable and calm and rational and want to talk. Thank you for the concern, but I'm not going to get in trouble. Challenging people's ideas and statements is part of my job, because that is what part of a conversation is. Us just talking at each other, or you saying something and me smiling and saying 'thanks for the feedback' probably isn't that helpful for anyone.
I didn't want to imply that we think everything is necessarily perfectly balanced, but certainly having some affix combos you can't beat, you gear and skill up, and then are able to beat is part of the progression. That's a notable point at which you can take note of a change, be it a new build, or power increases, etc. We're ok with there being moments where you say "I can't beat this", because if those moments didn't exist there would be no notable meaning to your character's progression. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Zomibe Dogs
It is kind of wonky right now. =/
We're already working on two fixes for Zombie Bears. The first is to address the issue where Zombie Bears are unable to attack targets on slopes. The second is to improve Zombie Bears pathing so they no longer get stuck (or stuck as often) on objects with which they shouldn't have any collision.
These fixes are currently slated for 1.0.4, but may be implemented sooner. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Starter Edition restrictions
If you're experiencing Starter Edition restrictions 72 hours after completing a digital purchase, you'll want to contact customer support at your earliest convenience. Here's a quick link for submitting a help ticket: http://us.battle.net...article/contact
Our representatives will be happy to able to assist you with this issue. :)(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Act 3/4 Loot
Act 3/4 loot is bugged, and not dropping loot as intended.
We're going to look into this. We're not aware of any issues, but of course that doesn't mean there isn't one.
I used to get ~5-6 ilvl 63 rares every 15 minutes, now I get about 1 per hour.
This makes me wonder if this isn't just a perception issue? We didn't expose ilvl before 1.0.3, so could this be because there was some expectation of "if an item was good it was ilvl 63"? Of course that's not necessarily true. A well rolled ilvl 61 could be better than a 63.
Hey Genius, Those that did a lot of farming knew what the names of ilvl 63 items were. God you are so stupid.
Hi! Not a people person? A simple "We know the base items." would have sufficed. Thank you for your assistance.
The irony is delicious. He's just responding to you in the typical douchey tone you're so fond of responding to people with.
Please point me to where I call people stupid.
As a civil person I would like to thank you for your response and I do hope you guys look into this issue. I literally went from playing 12+ hours a day to 1 hour simply because its unrewarding to see ilvl 51-56 rares drop from a champ and rare packs in Act III. The risk/reward just ain't worth my time anymore. I really want to like this game but I just can't right now
Hah. Well, thanks. I'll get back as soon as I hear something.
way to dodge the OP questions.......
You trolling?
A cheap excuse is usually, considered stupid.
I said we'll look into it... (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
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Originally Posted by Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
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I have been farming ACT 2 quite a lot after patch, and frankly every time I tele back to town I have about 30% in my bag above ilvl 61. I sell the rest and turn all the ilvl 61+ items for mats. Most of the time those ilvl 61 items have worthless stats, but I think the likelihood to see that lvl is quite OK.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRQijskAMp4
And they're not even trolls, that's whats most impressive.
There REALLY are many butthurt people.
Goddamit, just make a civil conversation and give it some time. Things are going to change...
Its like "Blizzard: We are removing the green dye because we felt like it wasn't that good looking." and the whiners responded "WTF!?!?!?!?!? Where is the character customization???? Are you serious Blizz? Green dye was my favorite! What am I going to do right now???? The other dyes are totally worthless, what color should I dye my armor, brown??? This game is shit, D2 was much better because I could socket an emerald in all my items and be a very fine green warrior. I am asking for a refund tomorrow, f*** u Blizz! I will never buy your games again!".
Well, D2 had a lot of unique stats on gear that could make low level stuff really good. The only thing that comes close in D3 for me as a wizard are those lvl 44 pants with movement speed that pretty much is BiS until you can get some lvl 60 set pants with movement speed. For melee it is String of Ears, with it's 20% melee reduction, which is lvl 52 yeah? I have yet to see any low level sets with awesome set bonuses, but I can be wrong about that I guess.
I really can't stand Bashiok. Like when Krippi and his noob barb friend killed Diablo on hardcore. Why even make a snide comment without any facts, especially a wrong one? I've had enough of this game, I might stick around and help my friend finish the game before we move on to something else. Made the money I paid for the game back on RMAH so overall I still think it's been a good experience. Was a great game up to inferno pretty much, had some fun there too but overall I've never found so many flaws in a game. Which is funny, considering it's been in development for 12 years, they had a solid concept to build on since it's pretty much just an upgrade from D2 and Blizzard in the past have been considered one of the absolute best developers in the world.
I hate teh way that 99% of the people in these posts say it but for me it was part of the core of Diablo. I always used to tell people that I loved the game because you can break open a barrel and get the best item in the game. Now that is not true and it makes me sad :(. Also maybe it was a day 1 bug or horrendous luck but literally out of the 10 unique mobs I killed (both rare, quest and event) I think two had 1-2 blues, 3 had a few gold drops and the remaining 5 had 0 items or gold on them. That's annoying because some of them aren't easy to kill, and it depreciates the value of the random events.
diablo 3 is not as bad as everyone says it is, but its still a pretty huge disappointment. it took a few weeks for that to set in after everyone got over the initial hype - many people clearly feel duped and let down. the way blizzard is handling the community is not helping. the community is also out of control - worst ive ever seen on the official forums..
This, the nerf to drops from destructibles, and repair costs are the things that irk me, a self-proclaimed "casual" D3 player. I died 3-4 times last night because I would Zbear it up, and it would hit the lip of a bridge in Act 4 Hell. Really hope the hey hot fix this ZBear bug.
I know what you mean, but unfortunately they are just giving fuel to the fire. direct interaction with the playerbase is a bad thing. blizzard needs to shut up and stop replying. let us wonder what they're thinking. let us post the long ass conspiracy theory crap and dont reply to it at all. and stop posting in the pony threads and the song lyric threads. - that just lets the complainers know you're reading their shit but not doing anything about it. instead it looks like you're wasting time rewriting carly jepsen lyrics instead of fixing your broken ass game.
a few blue responses to huge bulleted lists of complaining makes everyone feel entitiled to a response to their own personal bulleted complaint list. bashiok especially often trolls people and gives sarcastic responses that just make people angrier. sometimes they're funny and sometimes i go 'wow, what a douche' because he does it to someone that really was being sincere and didn't deserve it.
it used to be very rare to hear from a dev team except at pre scheduled house of commons/chatlog sessions, IRC visits, etc. the rest of the time they were... well... developing! there were no 'community managers' whose entire job it is to act as a liason between the team and the players. all the community managers manager to do is piss off the community. they're a distraction at best, which i think is honestly what they're there to be.
I don't think a lack of communication is a solution, you said it yourself, it'll just inspire conspiracy theories and when they don't reply people will just use it as justification saying Blizzard's too scared to admit they're wrong/lying. I certainly believe the official forums are just terrible atm and if I knew more about law I'd say Blizzard has a pretty strong case to sue a few people for harassment. :\ That said, I follow a lot of indie developers and Blizzard does a poor job responding to the community compared to them. Its funny when Bashiok trolls haters but in the end it just makes them more angry and want to stay on the forums and spread that hate. The truth is some of these changes made in 1.03 are pretty substancial (literally cutting IAS in half, MF on chests, etc.) and I can see where a lot of people wouldn't understand the reasoning for them. Thats why they need to communicate more instead of less.
You know, like Blizzard in 1999.
It's all about volume.Now they have a global, multi-million user player base and that automatically brings with it a % of insufferable forum goers. And for blizzard, that number is a lot. Bashiok responds this way because players have to know that what they want is not what's best for the game. If you are having a conversation with someone and they start calling you some of the names people use on the official forums, you would snap their neck.
If I spend two hours playing with some friends in an evening i might walk away with 100-150k, I cannot buy a decent upgrade for under 2million ... so 15-20 days of grinding the same shit. it just isn't a whole lot of fun. the vases nerf only punishes those of us not botting or doing vase runs.
2 hours a week clearing DS got old after 6 months, but at least there I was garaunteed gear for myself or an alt ...
That and spirit walk. Geesh. How could spirit walk not function properly?
For the record, I'm really enjoying D3 even though I have some things I would like to see addressed.
Yup that's a trend these days. WoW forums was always on and on about how they nerfed a class/feature/content that ruined the game. SC2 forums are a bit more level headed I would say.. D3.. oh man. Always with the complaints (which are valid sometimes. But the way it's worded is often horrendous and very combative). You have to realize why there's a huge shitstorm now though. A lot of people spent millions in gold on their gear just to have it nerfed to the ground.
But geez what do you expect? It's blizzard and a game just came out. People should expect a lot of patches and changes.
this is something new to gaming industry.