Four sites have collaborated on an interview during Gamescom and some new information has come into existence. The interviewees are Josh Mosqueira and Kevin Martens and the sites are Blizzplanet, GamersOrigin, InDiablo.de and Millenium.org. Here's a brief summary of new things, which will be included in our massive expansion recap shortly. Alternatively you could just listen to the entire interview below!
- Account Binding items is not yet final, Blizzard would like some feedback from people that have tried the expansion at Gamescom
- The Black Soulstone being buried in the cinematic took place beneath Bloodmarsh, a playable zone outside Westmarch
- The zone progression will be Westmarch - Bloodmarsh - Pandemonium Fortress, with more zones inbetween
- The developers have wanted to do a completely random city tile set for some time now and they've finally done that with Westmarch
- There are graphical improvements in the expansion, like new shaders
- Many social features are being improved, but nothing is in a state of being announced as of now
- A Necromancer NPC will be present in the new Act
- The Horadrim have been made anew by Tyrael. One of the new faces from the order, with whom players will get familiar, is Lorath Nahr
Wyatt Cheng on the Mystic
Wyatt Cheng came by the forums to give a very nice explanation on how the Mystic currently works in Reaper of Souls. As a bonus, Lylirra confirmed at the bottom of the post that socketing is indeed one of the stats the Mystic can enchant on an item!
Originally Posted by (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
This is spot on.
We are still iterating heavily on the system, so the exact details may vary from what we talk about today, so let's talk about our values. By focusing on our design values, even if the exact implementation changes, you''ll be able to see our intent and what's important to us. Here are some of our design values for enchanting:
Value: It's important for the actual hunt for the loot to still matter
How enchanting supports this: As currently designed, you are only allowed to reroll ONE property on an item. In this way, each item can only be changed so much from it's original state. This allows enchanting to feel meaningful, while still allowing lots of room for players to resume hunting for an even better "base item" to enchant into an even better item.
Value: We want this to be a meaningful end-game sink
How enchanting supports this:
1. As previously mentioned, all items that are enchanted will be bound to account
2. Even though you are allowed to reroll only ONE property, you can reroll that property over and over. For example, suppose an item has 200 str, 200 vit, 80 res all, +1200 Life on Kill and +400 Life on Hit. You might choose to reroll the +1200 Life on Kill and get +87 Hitpoints per second. You can then reroll the +87 Hitpoints per second and get +4 gold pickup radius. You can reroll the "mutable" stat as many times as you want, but the other 4 stats (200 str, 200 vit, 80 res all and +400 Life on Hit) are now "locked in" and cannot be rerolled.
3. We want to ensure enchanting is meaningful on Legendary items. We are working hard to make sure Legendary items are awesome. If we want enchanting to be a meaningful end-game sink, it needs to work on the best items in the game. It has not yet been determined whether this means you can enchant the "guaranteed" properties of a Legendary, or if you can only reroll the "random" properties of a Legendary. This aspect of the design is still under iteration but at the end of the day we want enchanting Legendary items to be worthwhile.
Value: We want to avoid "Buyer's Remorse"
How enchanting supports this: Have you ever played an RPG with an enchanting system that sometimes randomly made the item worse? Since we're allowing the result to be random, it's possible that your choices for enchanting are worse than the property you're replacing. Oftentimes this can lead to a feeling of dread when you begin the enchanting process. Or maybe you re-enchant the item over and over hoping to at least get something better than what you started but you get unlucky and run out of money or reagents before you get a good roll! To mitigate this, when we present you the list of options one of the options is ALWAYS the original property. So if you don't like the new options you can always choose to keep the old one. Now you can enchant with peace-of-mind.
Standard disclaimer. Enchanting is a work-in-progress. Expect it to change before it's done, but this is a glimpse at the current state.
I think the answer is yes, if I did not hear it wrong, Josh said on the Gamescom presentation.
Correct. Sockets are a possible affix that can be re-rolled onto an item (at least currently).
We are still iterating heavily on the system, so the exact details may vary from what we talk about today, so let's talk about our values. By focusing on our design values, even if the exact implementation changes, you''ll be able to see our intent and what's important to us. Here are some of our design values for enchanting:
Value: It's important for the actual hunt for the loot to still matter
How enchanting supports this: As currently designed, you are only allowed to reroll ONE property on an item. In this way, each item can only be changed so much from it's original state. This allows enchanting to feel meaningful, while still allowing lots of room for players to resume hunting for an even better "base item" to enchant into an even better item.
Value: We want this to be a meaningful end-game sink
How enchanting supports this:
1. As previously mentioned, all items that are enchanted will be bound to account
2. Even though you are allowed to reroll only ONE property, you can reroll that property over and over. For example, suppose an item has 200 str, 200 vit, 80 res all, +1200 Life on Kill and +400 Life on Hit. You might choose to reroll the +1200 Life on Kill and get +87 Hitpoints per second. You can then reroll the +87 Hitpoints per second and get +4 gold pickup radius. You can reroll the "mutable" stat as many times as you want, but the other 4 stats (200 str, 200 vit, 80 res all and +400 Life on Hit) are now "locked in" and cannot be rerolled.
3. We want to ensure enchanting is meaningful on Legendary items. We are working hard to make sure Legendary items are awesome. If we want enchanting to be a meaningful end-game sink, it needs to work on the best items in the game. It has not yet been determined whether this means you can enchant the "guaranteed" properties of a Legendary, or if you can only reroll the "random" properties of a Legendary. This aspect of the design is still under iteration but at the end of the day we want enchanting Legendary items to be worthwhile.
Value: We want to avoid "Buyer's Remorse"
How enchanting supports this: Have you ever played an RPG with an enchanting system that sometimes randomly made the item worse? Since we're allowing the result to be random, it's possible that your choices for enchanting are worse than the property you're replacing. Oftentimes this can lead to a feeling of dread when you begin the enchanting process. Or maybe you re-enchant the item over and over hoping to at least get something better than what you started but you get unlucky and run out of money or reagents before you get a good roll! To mitigate this, when we present you the list of options one of the options is ALWAYS the original property. So if you don't like the new options you can always choose to keep the old one. Now you can enchant with peace-of-mind.
Standard disclaimer. Enchanting is a work-in-progress. Expect it to change before it's done, but this is a glimpse at the current state.
I think the answer is yes, if I did not hear it wrong, Josh said on the Gamescom presentation.
Correct. Sockets are a possible affix that can be re-rolled onto an item (at least currently).
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Another Confirmation on Pre-Expansion Patch Content
Before the expansion is released, we intend to have a pre-patch that will implement many of the new systems and features we’ve talked about for Diablo III for free. We want to make improvements to the core gameplay experience for all players, but at this time we don’t have a full list on which features will be included in this free update and which will be exclusive to the expansion.
The features we’re looking to require the Reaper of Souls expansion are the new Crusader class, Act V, the Mystic, and progressing beyond the current level cap (level 60). (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
There Could be More Crafted Legendary items in RoS
We’ve certainly discussed the possibility of adding in some new craftable Legendary items into the expansion, but we don’t have any concrete plans just yet.
What kind of Legendary items would you like to be able to craft? If you had full control over the system, how would you want that process to work? (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Before the expansion is released, we intend to have a pre-patch that will implement many of the new systems and features we’ve talked about for Diablo III for free. We want to make improvements to the core gameplay experience for all players, but at this time we don’t have a full list on which features will be included in this free update and which will be exclusive to the expansion.
The features we’re looking to require the Reaper of Souls expansion are the new Crusader class, Act V, the Mystic, and progressing beyond the current level cap (level 60). (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
There Could be More Crafted Legendary items in RoS
We’ve certainly discussed the possibility of adding in some new craftable Legendary items into the expansion, but we don’t have any concrete plans just yet.
What kind of Legendary items would you like to be able to craft? If you had full control over the system, how would you want that process to work? (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
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Posted Sep 5, 2013now time to read
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Posted Sep 5, 2013now give me beta.
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The enchanting is certainly really good. I just wished there was a superior legendary level item that would drop. That would encourage players for the "farm". It would be amazing to now take that item you just farmed for a very long time and upgrade to become extreme.
Having more legs drop in expansion is nice, but somewhat not nice. I hope there are just some extremely amazing stuff we can hope either from crafting, from certain bosses or just a hard way of finishing a content.
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Posted Sep 6, 2013- The Horadrim have been made anew by Tyrael. One of the new faces from the order, with whom players will get familiar, is Lorath Nahr
I initially read this as "made a new", and somehow understood it as in a form of resurrection. Poor Cain. Suppose it was his time. But will Lorath Nahr have me "Stay awhile and listen"?-
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Posted Sep 6, 2013Random, but still not as random as Diablo 2. If it truly is random like D2, then expect no one to play any act except 5.
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Posted Sep 6, 2013-
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Posted Sep 6, 2013People don't want randomness for the sake of it (as they usually think they want), they want randomness because of another more important concept: the idea of "meaningful exploration". And 100% random won't solve that.