Upcoming Change to Trail of Cinders and Patch 1.0.5
It looks like Trail of Cinders will be getting a nerf come 1.0.5. This also means we will be seeing a patch hit before the big 1.1.
Originally Posted by Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
(In patch 1.0.5, we will be fixing a bug with Trail of Cinders that is causing the rune to deal five times more damage than intended. As a result of this fix, the amount of damage done by Trail of Cinders will be reduced from its current value (1500% weapon damage over 3 seconds) to 300% weapon damage over 3 seconds. While this bug was discovered very quickly after 1.0.4 released and is capable of being hotfixed, we didn't want to move forward with the fix without giving players proper notice. We also know that players are having fun using Trail of Cinders in their builds, so -- although this is an important issue we want to address -- we're opting to wait for the next client patch to make any adjustments.
We recognize that some builds which currently use Trail of Cinders will no longer be viable once this bug is fixed. Ultimately, we want to continue to provide players with more build options and ways to feel creative with their skill/gear selections, but not at the expense of going against our design goals or creating situations which can encourage players to limit themselves defensively.
Discipline-based skills were never intended to trump Hatred-based skills when it comes to dealing damage. Instead, Discipline should be something you build up and save to use defensively, or to provide utility in addition to dealing damage. Allowing Trail of Cinders to remain in its current form goes against this philosophy, and in addition creates risky scenarios for players (after all, if you’re incentivized to spend all your Discipline doing damage, it won’t be available when you need it to keep yourself alive with skills like Smoke Screen or Shadow Power).
We don't yet have a date for when 1.0.5 will be released, but we'll provide more information as the development process continues. We'll also update this thread with a reminder once we're close to releasing the patch.
Agree not a bug a bug is something that is doing something not as intended. It is dealing 1500% damage it is working as it was designed.
The fire on the ground deals damage 5 times a second, and we set a value for how much damage we wanted Trail of Cinders to do in that period of time. Unfortunately, that value was incorrectly added to the individual ticks. So, the amount of damage currently done by each of those 5 ticks is actually the total amount of damage it's supposed to do over the entire second. That part is a bug.
We didn't catch this during testing, which is absolutely our fault. There are still very good reasons for fixing this issue, and they're are outlined in the main post.
My understanding is, you wanted it to do 1500% weapon damage over 3 secs, but actually it was doing 5 times that = 7500% over 3 seconds? So if the initial goal was 1500%, why in the hell you guys throwing out numbers like 300%?
Not quite. =/
We originally wanted Trail of Cinders to deal 300% weapon damage over 3 seconds (or approximately 100% weapon damage each second). What ended up happening, is that -- instead of the rune doing only 100% weapon damage each second -- it now does 100% weapon damage each tick. The fire damage ticks 5 times each second, so 15 ticks for the entire duration of the spell. That's 1500% weapon damage, or 5 times more damage than originally designed.
I know its early days for this game, but I hope that you will allow for some evolution in the characters you guys have made. I mean, why not allow for a switch in playstyle for those that choose it. Since the patch, I have been using TOC as an offensive and putting my char in danger as a result, but its way more fun than keeping my distance.
Please don't set all your ideas in stone yet, there may be much better way to go about it... or at least give us the freedom to choose.
This is definitely feedback I will be relaying back to the developers. Thank you for sharing it.
So the bug is that it's doing more damage per second that as intended? Why don't you jut fix it and leave it at 1500% over 3 seconds? What's the point of bringing it down to 300%?
It was never intended to deal 1500% weapon damage over 3 seconds (that's the bug). The actual value we designed for Trail of Cinders in 1.0.4 was 300% weapon damage over 3 seconds.
whoa, whoa, whoa! you mean the patch notes you released were a lie?
http://us.battle.net...7029347#classes
this clearly states 1500%. that means if you didnt intend for it to be 1500% then it was completely untested AND no one checked the patch notes either.
do you have no quality control division? no testers? why the heck are you lieing to us?
The note was written based on incorrect information, yes (which due to the fact that we missed this issue during testing). We've already identified why we missed this issue originally and have improved our processes so that the same issue won't happen again -- both for in terms of testing changes and confirming information put into the patch notes.
Is it a bug that the toottip says 1500% as well?
The tooltip pulls from the actual game data. Since the rune is currently dealing 1500% weapon damage, the tooltip value reflects this.
There are still tooltips in game now that don't accurately reflect the skill they are describing. So, your theory doesn't work.
And blizzard has said that there will be safeguards before. But they continue to fail with this beta product.
And on top of that they pretty much tell us we're all stupid by proclaiming it to be a bug instead of having a bit of integrity and telling the truth.
It actually depends on how the tooltip is set up, and from where its pulling its data. In the case of Trail of Cinders, the tooltip is displaying 1500% weapon damage over 3 seconds because that's how much damage the rune is currently doing; the values in the tooltip are pulling that information directly from the game (i.e we didn't manually update the tooltip in 1.0.4).
Regardless, if we just wanted to nerf Trail of Cinders, we'd just say that we were nerfing it. We've made similar announcements in the past. This particular change is the result of a bug fix, however; if we called it something other than a bug fix, then we'd be lying.
We recognize that some builds which currently use Trail of Cinders will no longer be viable once this bug is fixed. Ultimately, we want to continue to provide players with more build options and ways to feel creative with their skill/gear selections, but not at the expense of going against our design goals or creating situations which can encourage players to limit themselves defensively.
Discipline-based skills were never intended to trump Hatred-based skills when it comes to dealing damage. Instead, Discipline should be something you build up and save to use defensively, or to provide utility in addition to dealing damage. Allowing Trail of Cinders to remain in its current form goes against this philosophy, and in addition creates risky scenarios for players (after all, if you’re incentivized to spend all your Discipline doing damage, it won’t be available when you need it to keep yourself alive with skills like Smoke Screen or Shadow Power).
We don't yet have a date for when 1.0.5 will be released, but we'll provide more information as the development process continues. We'll also update this thread with a reminder once we're close to releasing the patch.
Agree not a bug a bug is something that is doing something not as intended. It is dealing 1500% damage it is working as it was designed.
The fire on the ground deals damage 5 times a second, and we set a value for how much damage we wanted Trail of Cinders to do in that period of time. Unfortunately, that value was incorrectly added to the individual ticks. So, the amount of damage currently done by each of those 5 ticks is actually the total amount of damage it's supposed to do over the entire second. That part is a bug.
We didn't catch this during testing, which is absolutely our fault. There are still very good reasons for fixing this issue, and they're are outlined in the main post.
My understanding is, you wanted it to do 1500% weapon damage over 3 secs, but actually it was doing 5 times that = 7500% over 3 seconds? So if the initial goal was 1500%, why in the hell you guys throwing out numbers like 300%?
Not quite. =/
We originally wanted Trail of Cinders to deal 300% weapon damage over 3 seconds (or approximately 100% weapon damage each second). What ended up happening, is that -- instead of the rune doing only 100% weapon damage each second -- it now does 100% weapon damage each tick. The fire damage ticks 5 times each second, so 15 ticks for the entire duration of the spell. That's 1500% weapon damage, or 5 times more damage than originally designed.
I know its early days for this game, but I hope that you will allow for some evolution in the characters you guys have made. I mean, why not allow for a switch in playstyle for those that choose it. Since the patch, I have been using TOC as an offensive and putting my char in danger as a result, but its way more fun than keeping my distance.
Please don't set all your ideas in stone yet, there may be much better way to go about it... or at least give us the freedom to choose.
This is definitely feedback I will be relaying back to the developers. Thank you for sharing it.
So the bug is that it's doing more damage per second that as intended? Why don't you jut fix it and leave it at 1500% over 3 seconds? What's the point of bringing it down to 300%?
It was never intended to deal 1500% weapon damage over 3 seconds (that's the bug). The actual value we designed for Trail of Cinders in 1.0.4 was 300% weapon damage over 3 seconds.
whoa, whoa, whoa! you mean the patch notes you released were a lie?
http://us.battle.net...7029347#classes
this clearly states 1500%. that means if you didnt intend for it to be 1500% then it was completely untested AND no one checked the patch notes either.
do you have no quality control division? no testers? why the heck are you lieing to us?
The note was written based on incorrect information, yes (which due to the fact that we missed this issue during testing). We've already identified why we missed this issue originally and have improved our processes so that the same issue won't happen again -- both for in terms of testing changes and confirming information put into the patch notes.
Is it a bug that the toottip says 1500% as well?
The tooltip pulls from the actual game data. Since the rune is currently dealing 1500% weapon damage, the tooltip value reflects this.
There are still tooltips in game now that don't accurately reflect the skill they are describing. So, your theory doesn't work.
And blizzard has said that there will be safeguards before. But they continue to fail with this beta product.
And on top of that they pretty much tell us we're all stupid by proclaiming it to be a bug instead of having a bit of integrity and telling the truth.
It actually depends on how the tooltip is set up, and from where its pulling its data. In the case of Trail of Cinders, the tooltip is displaying 1500% weapon damage over 3 seconds because that's how much damage the rune is currently doing; the values in the tooltip are pulling that information directly from the game (i.e we didn't manually update the tooltip in 1.0.4).
Regardless, if we just wanted to nerf Trail of Cinders, we'd just say that we were nerfing it. We've made similar announcements in the past. This particular change is the result of a bug fix, however; if we called it something other than a bug fix, then we'd be lying.
+x% Elemental Damage Mechanic
Originally Posted by Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
(The "+x% Elemental Damage" affix works by adding "x%" of your physical damage to your attack, in the form of the damage type listed.
So, really basic example:
We realize the current wording for this affix can be confusing, and it's something we'd like to make more clear in the future. If you have any suggestions for how this affix could be better worded, we're definitely interested in your suggestions. Just keep in mind that space is limited in item tooltips, and that whatever we use would need to be translated into all of our supported languages.
So, really basic example:
- Your physical damage is 100, and the item adds +3% Fire damage.
- You gain 3 extra damage to your attacks as Fire damage.
- Rings, mojos, orbs (etc) that have an "X-Y" damage affix (e.g. "1-2 Damage")
- The base damage range of your weapon, before any elemental damage is added from the affix
- +Min or +Max affixes on weapons
We realize the current wording for this affix can be confusing, and it's something we'd like to make more clear in the future. If you have any suggestions for how this affix could be better worded, we're definitely interested in your suggestions. Just keep in mind that space is limited in item tooltips, and that whatever we use would need to be translated into all of our supported languages.
Diablo III Web APIs
Diablo III's web API has been active for a few weeks now, and Blizzard has posted an update.
Originally Posted by Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
(With the recent release of character profiles on the Diablo III community website, we’ve also introduced new Diablo III Community Platform APIs. These APIs allow fansite creators and other community developers to access the same sort of game data available on our profile pages – along with a little extra.
What’s New?
The new APIs we've released fall into two categories: dynamic data and static game data.
Dynamic Data
The new dynamic data APIs include Career Profiles and Hero Profiles, which cover information that changes regularly as people play the game.
The second category of APIs – static game data – includes Item, Follower, and Artisan APIs. Data provided by these APIs doesn't generally change, and when it does, it’s generally accompanied with a game patch.
What’s New?
The new APIs we've released fall into two categories: dynamic data and static game data.
Dynamic Data
The new dynamic data APIs include Career Profiles and Hero Profiles, which cover information that changes regularly as people play the game.
- Career Profiles are high-level summaries of a player’s accomplishments, and are associated with a game account. Here, you’ll find a hero list, fallen hero list, details on the player’s artisans, and information on game progress (such as overall quest completion).
- Hero Profiles contain hero-specific information, such as equipped items, skills, base attributes, game progression information, and follower details.
The second category of APIs – static game data – includes Item, Follower, and Artisan APIs. Data provided by these APIs doesn't generally change, and when it does, it’s generally accompanied with a game patch.
- Item information contains everything you need to know about an item. At this time, we are providing information for generated items – items that are dropped or crafted in-game.
- Follower information allows you to get detailed skill information.
- Artisan information allows you to get detailed information on what an Artisan has available at each tier, including the recipes that can be learned and information about the recipes’ requirements.
Diablo III Inferno Booster Pack Giveaway
Our weekly Inferno booster pack giveaway is currently going until Monday! Make sure to check out the official contest thread for information on the prize on how to enter.
It is possible, but incredibly unlikely. If you would have read the post or/and have any shred of idea about development (I have btw) you would know that things like the numbers in the tooltips or large chunks of changelogs are generated automatically and processed. Nobody has time to write all this from hand!
Since a lot of you seem to be on this bandwagon, let me point something out to you that may shock you.
So by calling it a bug they're trying to divert the blame away from themselves?
Personally it seems like a case of spoilt child syndrome with a hint of no real life experience.
(P.S. It's amazing to see how much this forum has declined in only a month, they make the game easier and it brings out even more whiners and noobs who can't figure it out, at least before when it was hard it discouraged a lot of bad players)
The game is essentially just a big database, so a simple test with an excell spreadsheet or even a piece of paper would show to you how it is possible. The developers entered in data wrong, which is a bug in the database. The people that create the patch notes pulled their information from the same database that had the incorrect numbers.
To test this do the following:
Write a number on a piece of paper
Give the number to a friend and have them write a sentance with the number.
Now what happens if realize you wanted to write 42 instead of 43? Did you make a mistake? Is your friend lying? Are you slapping your friend in the face because you told him to change it to 42 because that is what you meant? Did you lie to your friend? Did you slap him in the face by saying you made a mistake?
Its funny how Blizzard says its a bug, says they made a mistake, explained how it really should be. And yet people with no proof of a lie claim it is a lie. Or that Blizzard doesn't know what bug means and is changing the english language in order to fool the community.
There are plenty of things to criticise Diablo 3 and Blizzard about, but doing so over this just shows that the true intention is to troll rather then criticize.
they pay their bills and make their investors happy
Now if they touch WDs with stuff like this...* (raises and shakes fist)
*Can they at least feel strong for 3 months!?
Then basically they're just incompetent. If the person behind the changes didn't notice that the ability was doing 1500% instead of the intended 300%, and as a result call it a 'bug', then yeah, there's no other logical explanation.
I'd have more respect for a developer that simply states, "Oops, we made it way too powerful. Our bad, we'll fix it" over one that sayd, "The ability that says it does 1500% damage is actually doing 1500% damage and that's a bug that needs to be fixed."
IMO, if an ability states it does 1500% damage and it actually does 1500% damage, that is not a bug. Overtuned? sure. Overpowered? Definitely. But, it's doing what it says it's supposed to be doing and just needs to be toned down and brought in line. However, if it said it was supposed to do 300% damage and was instead doing 1500%, then that would be a bug and I would understand it being called as such.
As it stands, I don't appreciate Blizzard calling this a bug. They're adjusting a (very) overpowered ability, not fixing an unintentional bug. It may have been unintentional for the ability to be as powerful as it is, but this was not the result of a bug but rather an oversight.
I read how they "explained" it's a bug. To me, that's just more insulting to people. I simply don't understand why they couldn't have come out and said, "We made ToC way too powerful. Our bad, we'll be reducing it's power to be more in line with where we originally intended it come next patch" That I would have been fine with.
Let me also just say, I don't even play a DH. I have a 60 DH, but I sold all her gear so she's pretty much naked. This change means nothing to me. But saying that when the patch notes and tooltip of the ability state it does 1500% damage and it in fact does 1500% damage and then try to call that a bug a week and a half after the patch goes live? I call BS on that. Again, whoever was adjusting the numbers should have instantly realized 1500 is not 300, or they're incredibly incompetent and needs to find new employment. Even if by some chance they legitimately didn't notice at first, they should have immediately noticed it after the patch went live and a hotfix within 24 hours would have been okay. No, they waited nearly 2 weeks, then come to everyone and say, "ToC is way too powerful, but not because we made it like that but rather due to an unforeseeable bug. We're fixing this with the next patch". Yup, *cough* BS.
Those two things mean the same thing when talking about Video games. Who do you think creates the code that causes bugs? Entering the wrong value is a bug. It doesn't matter what an ability says it does and what an ability actually does. What matters is that a developer entered the wrong value and thus created a bug.
The tooltip for Trail of Cinders automatically pulls its value from the incorrectly entered value, so it will always reflect the damage it actually does. You are just out for a witch hunt and looking to crucify Blizzard every semantics. If you don't like Blizzard, Diablo 3 and the direction they are taking the Franchise that is fine. But there is no reason to rant over something that is a bug.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bug
I understand that not every can be computer savy and might not understand the terms used in regards to Computer/Video games. But multiple people, including Blizzard, has clearly explainded how and why it is a bug.
Diablo 3, the game, is the computer program. The variable that holds the numerical value for Trail of Cinders is a part of that computer program. Yes the skill does exactly what it states it does, but that doesn't mean that the value entered is correct. An incorrect value is a bug.
You picked out a few words to show how it is not a bug while ignoring the words that state mistakes that produce incorrect or unexpected results are considered bugs. A developer entering the wrong value for a skill is a mistake that produced an unexpected result because it wasn't supposed to do that much damage.
A developer entered the wrong value for how much Damage Trail of cinders does. How is that not a bug? When talking to your project lead that something feels wrong and the find out that it is because of an incorrect value for a line of code, how is that not a bug? What do you call a line of code that is incorrect and giving an unintended effect?
If it truly wasn't their intention to make it 1500% damage, you'd be absolutely correct. I however am saying their intention was to make it 1500% damage. They never originally intended to make it 300%, they're just saying that now to save face. However, they didn't realize exactly how powerful 1500% damage over a few seconds would be at the time and since they now realize that 1500% is way overpowered. So, they are now coming out and stating, 'we never intended it to do 1500% damage. that's a bug' when in reality, it's not a bug, they just overcompensated with the ability. Hence, they are intentionally misleading the community by calling it an unintentional bug when it is nothing of the sort. I believe this is to keep the community outcry to a minimum. 'Bug fix' sounds a lot better than 'nerf', but this is also what I find personally insulting. The community can be a very mature group of individuals, there's no reason to mislead them.
Let me put it another way. For example, lets say they intended for a reasonably well geared DH to be able to kill an elite pack in 20 seconds. They adjusted ToC to 1500%, along with tweaking other skills, tested it a bit and within their testing, they were killing elite packs within approximately 20 seconds. It looked good, so they patched it in. However, once it went live, they found DHs killing elite packs in 10 seconds. They notice the main cause is ToC doing way more damage than they intended because they didn't understand exactly how much 1500% over a few seconds impacted their killing power. They realize that ToC needs to be nerfed, but instead of calling it a nerf, they're claiming it's too powerful 'due to a bug' and is instead needs to be 'fixed'. They didn't intend it to allow DH to kill so efficiently, that much is clear. In that respect, the fast killing is unintended. This however is not a bug. There's a difference.
That was just an example to express my point. If you still believe that it's a bug, I can't change your mind. We have very different opinions on what constitutes a bug then I guess. The ability was overtuned. Overtuning an ability does not constitute a bug in my eyes. Calling it a bug is insulting. If it actually is a bug, then it's the result incompetence on a grand scale. People that incompetent shouldn't be the ones making adjustments to the game period.
It pretty much boils down to this:
If it really wasn't a bug but are calling it one to keep community outcry low, then they are just insulting the people that know better. Especially when they easily could have just come out and stated they overcompensating on an ability and it needs to be brought in line. It happens, most people understand that.
If it actually is a bug, as many of you here are arguing it is by tossing around definitions of what actually defines a bug, then it simply shows their incompetence on their own patching process. It was simply too obvious to not notice before the patch went live. It was extremely obvious to notice after the patch went live. It was simply too easy to hotfix immediately after noticing. That's all under the assumption that it was in fact, an unintended bug. Yet for some reason it took Blizzard 2 weeks before "noticing" this "bug" and yet instead of fixing such a gross miscalculation caused by a "bug" (that they are implying it is) they are allowing it to thrive until the next official patch. Sorry, I guess I'm just too stubborn to buy into that BS.
I respect blizzard and I enjoy playing Diablo 3. However, Blizzard knows that D3 is in a pretty rough spot right now. They are going out of their way to ensure the players that are still playing remain happy and are doing everything in their power to bring those people that left back into the fold. Turning around in 2 weeks after a patch and nerfing an ability that really does require it is a fine line to walk. When people start crying nerf, they risk the possibility of losing people still playing as well as risk scaring those that are contemplating coming back away. So, they call it a 'bug fix' in an attempt to alleviate that. (the only other option being to allow ToC to remain in game as it is, which is pretty much unacceptable).
I understand what they did and why they did it. I don't respect it though or acknowledge that it was necessary.
Almost all comptuer bugs are the result of Human error. Why? Because humans are the one that write computer code. Some computer bugs are the result of the compiler which isn't directly related to human error.
Actually you're just misrepresenting their audience. Silly poster, you need to get a life.