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Update: added a link below to Wyatt Cheng's most recent tweet on the drop chance of Legendaries from Caches - "chance of legendary from bounty cache goes from ~50% at torment 2 to guaranteed at torment 6".

Changes to Leveling Bounties

The so called "leveling" bounties, which grant a big experience bonus without requiring the player to actually kill any enemies, will be temporarily disabled in a hotfix in the near future, and tweaked in a future patch. Read the details below!

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Greetings, nephalem! 

One of our ongoing goals for Diablo III (and Seasons in particular) is to promote diversity in play styles and encourage a variety of experience whenever possible. In line with this goal, and as a direct result of your feedback from Season 1, we're in the process of implementing a series of hotfixes that will temporarily disable the following events as eligible bounties:

• The Matriarch's Bones
• The Jar of Souls
• The Miser's Will
• A Miner's Gold

This change will apply to both Seasonal and non-Seasonal games. Additionally, please note that these hotfixes will only remove the above events from the active bounty pool, not the game itself. The events can still spawn in-game and will provide rewards as normal. 

We don't have an ETA at this time for when these events will be re-added to the bounty pool, but are working to have them available for Season 2. 

Looking Forward:

In Season 1, many players were able to quickly level their heroes and earn a coveted rank on the "Race to the Top" leaderboard exclusively by running the bounties in question. While we won't be removing any Conquest credit or ranking from players who chose to use this particular technique, we will be making changes to these bounties for future Seasons. The desire here is to help promote an environment where the most efficient way to play is also the most varied (and ideally the most fun too). With this, one of our goals for Seasonal Conquests is to encourage players to try out different tactics and explore different play styles, so we will be evaluating all Season 1 Conquests with that goal in mind and making changes for Season 2 as needed. 

Once again, thank you for your feedback. We'll continue to grow and improve Diablo III with your support, so please keep posting! In the meantime, we wish you glory and good fortune in Season 1, and good luck to those still racing for a spot on our current Conquest leaderboards. 

See you in Sanctuary!
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And why is this being applied to non-seasons?

Same reason. The way the events play out as bounties right now doesn't really align with and/or support our design goals, or what we'd like the game experience to be (not just for Seasons, but the game as a whole). We'd prefer not to have the most efficient way to level up to 70 be running same 1-4 bounties over and over again that just require you to move around, stay alive, and not actually kill any threats. While this technique was used to level in Season 1, that gameplay exists in both Seasonal and non-Seasonal games. 

In a future patch, we hope to return these bounties to the active pool (for everyone) in a form that actually involves the kind of demon murder we know and love.
*edits for clarity

Major Hotfixes!

Did anyone think the developers were taking a break after Patch 2.1? Nope, they have been watching us and working diligently to fix some issues.

Among the more important changes from earlier today are: higher chance at getting bounty-specific Legendary items (looking at you mister RoRG), as well as a tweet from Wyatt Cheng himself suggesting a player to try getting his Ring on Torment 2 (~50% chance of Legendary @Torment 2 and 100% @Torment 6) ; tweaks to the "Cesspools"; increased drop rate for the Key of Trials and increased Blood Shards from Greater Rifts.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

[UPCOMING HOTFIXES]
Below you will find a list of hotfixes recently applied or coming soon that address various bugs or mechanic tweaks.

These hotfixes should not require you to download a new patch. Some of the hotfixes below will go live the moment they are implemented while others may require restarting the game to go into effect. Please keep in mind that some issues cannot be addressed without a client-side patch. Also note that changes to certain abilities will not be reflected in its tooltip until a patch is issued.

Last updated September 3. Hotfixes are denoted by the date they were applied to live servers.

[UPCOMING HOTFIXES]

Bounties:

• The following Bounties have been disabled
  
  • The Matriarch's Bones
  • The Jar of Souls
  • The Miser's Will
  • A Miner's Gold
    
    • For more information on this change, please refer to our philosophy post

[LIVE HOTFIXES]

General:

• The drop rate for bounty-specific Legendaries has been drastically increased and scales based on game difficulty (9/3)
• The Cesspools should less frequently spawn enemies immediately at the start of the level (9/3)

Nephalem Rifts and Greater Rifts:

• The drop rate for Key of Trials has been significantly increased (9/3)
• The amount of Blood Shards that drop in Greater Rifts has been increased; this number scales based off the tier of the Greater Rift completed (9/3)

Items:

• Boon of the Hoarder should now work correctly when your pet kills an enemy (9/3)

Fresh Meat N' Greet

Blizzard is starting a project in which they will be interviewing members of the community to talk about a variety of subjects. Check the details in the post below!

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Ahhh, fresh meat! The world of Sanctuary is a BIG place, defended by hundreds of thousands of heroes each and every day. To help you get to know some of these fellow nephalem a little better, we've created the Fresh Meat N' Greet.

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Getting to Know You...

Beyond having quite possibly the best name ever, what exactly is the Fresh Meat N' Greet? In short, it's a recurring series of interviews featuring you, our community. a few times each month, we'll sit down and chat with six different community members, one for each class, and then post our Q&As right here on diablo3.com. Questions will cover a variety of topics, including generic coversation starters ("How long have you been playing Diablo games?"), class-specific call-outs ("What's your favorite skill or skill rune, and why?"), and ridiculous non-sequitors that pretty much have nothing to do with anything, but screw it, let's ask them anyway ("Selene vs. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: who wins?").  We also believe in paying it forward, so if you're interviewed, you'll get to nominate community members for the next round and add your own question to the mix!

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Round 1, Hype!

We've gone ahead and selected the first six adverturers to interrogate. Check out their interviews by clicking the links below, or simply head to each class forum and look for the corresponding sticky post at the top.  

• Barbarian (Agency#1564)
• Crusader (Raistrev#1900)
• Demon Hunter (KirusAlufras#1739)
• Monk (Davlok#1847)
• Witch Doctor (Sal4m4nd3r#2673)
• Wizard (apo#2677)

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We hope you enjoy this series, because after all of your deeds of valor are written in the history of Sanctuary… it will be within the hearts and minds of friends that you are truly remembered.

Round 3 Livestream VOD

The VOD from last week's Play Your Way Thursday is up on Twitch and Youtube. 

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Last week, not only did Patch 2.1.0 launch, but we hopped on to our channel over at Twitch.tv and livestreamed the build you voted for, Deadset's Leapquake Crusader! If you missed the live broadcast, the VOD of our play session is available on bothTwitch and YouTube!

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For our third Play Your Way livestream, associate game designer John Yang took some time to carry me, the talentedYouTuber Qelric, and our Play Your Way vote winner Deadset (of Deadset Gaming) through some Greater Rifts! Both Qelric and Deadset regularly play in our European region and were gracious enough to power up some Crusaders in the Americas to game with us. While we were fairly under geared for the powerhouse that is Mr. Yang, we pushed onward while conversing about Deadset's build, the new Roland's Legacy set, and anything else that tickled our fancy! If you want to witness our deaths and successes yourself, or hear the answers to the handful of Twitch questions we answered during the broadcast, check the video embedded video below or watch the VOD directly on Twitch or YouTube.


Want to know more about the builds we were running? Here's what we were rolling with:

• Brandy "Nevalistis" Camel
  • Zoosader Variation
• John Yang
  • M6 Cluster Arrow
• Qelric
  • Leapquake Variation
• Deadset
  • Leapquake

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Thanks to those who joined us in chat and rooted us on (or kept a death count, as the case may be)! Don’t forget to play yourway and send your builds in to us at PlayYourWay@blizzard.com!i

Vita UEE Off-Screen Gameplay

Have you wondered how it would look like to play Reaper of Souls remotely with a PSVita? Undecided whether it would be worth to even have a PSVita for that? No need to wonder anymore. The DualShockers youtube channel has posted a gameplay video of it. Check it below!