Blizzard at PAX East, Diablo 3 Boss Mechanics, Legendary Item Drop Rates, Monster Affixes, Poll: What's Your Preferred Format fo

Blizzard at PAX East
Blizzard will be announcing a new game on PAX East! It's not going to be a sequel, expansion or Titan. So what could it be?






Diablo 3 Boss Mechanics
Players have liked some of the more interesting boss mechanics in Heart of the Swarm and wish some of these mechanics make their way into Diablo 3. Grimiku drops some feedback on bosses in the game.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

We love some of our boss fights (like Belial, Butcher, and Diablo), but agree that some of them could be better. We’re certainly interested in hearing feedback about what you think could make a boss fight more fun, and would like to hear any examples you may have. The more specific, the better. The examples can come from any game, but if you’re referencing HOTS, then please try to avoid sharing any spoilers, if you can.

It’s worth noting that opinions are probably going to vary quite a bit on this. Some players may like the idea of needing to tether a charging boss to a heavy object to slow him down, (even if the strength of those tethers scaled with a hero’s power) while other players may find the mechanic a frustrating chore after a few times. Something else to consider while offering suggestions is that different games are going to have different limitations when it comes to bosses. For example in Diablo III, the encounters have to work with heroes that have different skills and power levels. I bring this up because not every game has to consider this, and designers can tune a boss knowing exactly what a player's damage output, skill selection, and health pool is going to be.




Legendary Item Drop Rates
Feedback was given on why drop rates on legendary items are generally low.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

I can promise you that we do not hold a personal grudge against you, or anyone else for that matter.

Legendary drops are rare and random, and although things like Paragon levels and Magic Find gear increases your chances of getting legendary drops, you are never fully guaranteed to see a certain ratio of drops. Since drops are random in this game, it is unwise to try and rely on a system that goes something along the lines of X hours played = Y number of legendary drops.

Sometimes you can be lucky and get many legendary drops within a short amount of time, and at other times it can take a long while before you get any. Such is the nature of RNG... It does seem like you are having a streak of bad luck though, which understandably can be annoying when farming for legendaries.

You are not the first one to complain and probably won't be the last. Apparently, they are working on improving itemization right now. Even though its good news, I think It is a bit too late if you ask me.
We are most definitely looking into improving itemization in Diablo III, but although these improvements might not happen over night, we are fairly optimistic that they will still be quite popular once implemented. :-)

There have indeed been other players in the Diablo III community who have posted their feedback and concerns about legendary drop rates, like for an example this thread.

Itemization is a hot topic in the community, so in addition to the developer journal on improving itemization that we posted recently, we are also seeking to answer some of the many questions about itemization from the community.

Start adressing some of the serious and in-depht posts on this forum instead of making cheap crowd pleasing posts.
First of all, what is serious and what is cheap is rather subjective and completely in the eyes of the beholder. You may have the opinion that this thread is cheap and unworthy of a response, that is your prerogative of course, but others are of a different opinion and they think that this is an important topic that needs to be addressed. Question is, whose opinion matters the most?

I try to address hot topics in the community as much and as often as possible, but I do not always have concrete or accurate information needed to address particular topics posted in "serious and in-depth" threads. Where and what I post of course depends on the nature of the topics being discussed in those threads and also whether or not the developers are ready to share information on the topics in question.

As mentioned in a recent thread on the topic of blue posts, we do reply to threads whenever we have some information we can share. Since I had some information I could share in regards to this topic on itemization, I posted it.

In general, if you are not satisfied with the posts that we do, please feel free to send us an email about it. In fact we would appreciate if you did so. If you feel that we really need to address any given number of "serious and in-depth" threads in particular, please do not hesitate to email us a list of said threads, and we will see if we have some information that we can post in them. But please try to avoid derailing threads with off-topic posts about where we should or should not post.

Community feedback: do you have feedback about the forums, blog articles, live event presence, contests or community staff? We always appreciate such, and encourage you to send it to CMfeedback-EN@blizzard.com. Please note that while feedback mails are all read and taken into account we can’t respond to these.
http://eu.battle.net...opic/2583878364




Monster Affixes
Travis Day came by to show his appreciation for the nice ideas players are having about Monster Affixes and also to give a bit of a hint for where they want them and legendary items to be.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Wow 35 pages of ideas, you guys are awesome. I just wanted to come give everyone who is posting ideas in this thread a high five. It's really awesome to see the community come together and get constructive and creative. I haven't been able to read through this entire thread yet but when I go home at night I have the forums on my second monitor and read through as much of the feedback you guys give as I can.

I see a lot of ideas that revolve around things like "make proc scalars better with this item". As a general design note, those are the kinds of things that we try to avoid when possible. We want players to look at items and think "whoa thats awesome". If we made something that increased a proc scalar what instead happens is someone says "ok lemme go pull up my excel spreadsheet and my calculator and I'll get back to you with how good this thing is", in other words, it's a very math driven design that doesn't really sell the visceral that we are going for. So let's put a pin in proc scalar related ideas and instead try to focus on ideas that would legitimately change your gameplay experience as much as possible.

Also the goal of our legendaries in the long run is "Game changing not game breaking". We wouldn't make something that say increased the damage of your primary spell by 500% or made you invinvible 90% of the time. It's fun to be powerful but we still want players to feel engaged by the game.

*A wild Travis disappears through his treasure portal!




Poll: What's Your Preferred Format for Developer Interviews?

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

We're always looking for ways to improve communication about the game, especially as it relates to developer interviews. So, for this week's poll we'd like to know which developer interview format you prefer the most.

In addition to voting, please also elaborate on what you think makes for a successful (or unsuccessful) interview: Some examples include:
  • What topics interest you most?
  • Why do you prefer the format you voted on?
  • What sites, podcasts, or streamers are your primary sources of Diablo news?
  • What sites, podcasts, or streamers have conducted the most compelling interviews in the past?
  • In a single interview do you most prefer one-on-one, multiple people asking questions, or multiple developers answering questions?
Keep in mind this is specifically about press and fansite interviews with developers, and not public Q&As. The two aren't mutually exclusive, and we certainly plan to host more Q&As in the future.

Thanks!

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