What's New in the Closed Beta
The Closed Beta is upon us and with it many things have come. Here's a list of changes we've covered below:
- Cursed Chests
- Infernal Machine and Hellfire Ring
- Bounties, Nephalem Rifts, Blood Shards and Gambling
- Paragon 2.0
- Misc and Quality of Life
Cursed Chests
- Cursed Chests have been added into the game!
- The chests are currently located in set areas and are farmable. This is likely to change
- We have a video of a Cursed chest that you can check out at the end of the post
- During the waves event we got on our Cursed chest, after we completed the Bonus requirement we started getting Elite packs with each new wave
- For the "Kill a certain number of mobs" event we needed 150 for the bonus. For the Waves event we needed to complete 5 waves
Infernal Machine and Hellfire Ring
- New Infernal Machine and Hellfire Ring plans have made their way into the Beta. Machine plans seem to drop randomly off of the current Keywardens and the Hellfire plan is sold next to the old one in Act II
- Instead of one Infernal Machine the plan now gives you 4 different ones - Infernal Machine of Gluttony, of War, of Bones and of Evil
- Each of them require 4 ingredients to craft - Key of Gluttony, Key of War, Key of Bones and Key of Evil. Crafting currently costs 100 000 gold
- Right now the keys drop off the regular Keywardens, but the Key of Gluttony is a bit more illusive and no one has so far found one (that we know of)
- Not having all keys means no one has yet seen the new Infernal bosses, but we have some clues that point out Diablo himself might be one of them
- Instead of 4 there is now just 1 Hellfire Ring that the plan offers upon learning
- The Hellfire Ring has 45% Experience increase and 6 random properties. Crafting cost is 50 000 gold
- The new ring reagents needed for crafting are Leoric's Regret, Vial of Putridness, Idol of Terror, Heart of Evil
Bounties, Nephalem Rifts, Blood Shards and Gambling
- Unique Bounty mobs now have special name plates, which looks quite nice in-game. Check out a screenshot below
- Act IV now has the same amount of Bounties as the other Acts - 5. Previously it had 4 and players could finish it slightly faster
- Completing 5 Bounties gives 1 Horadric Cache, which contains about the same items from pre-Closed Beta
- Nephalem Keystones now drop far less. In fact we've only seen them off the Horadric Caches awarded for doing Bounties. If this is the case it would mean you can do just 1 Rift per a set of Bounties
- Completing a Neplahem Rift gives 1 Greater Horadric Cache
- Blood Shards can no longer buy you a Greater Horadric Cache. The option has been removed from the vendor
- Gambling Amulets now costs 15 Blood Shards (up from 5), Rings now cost 10 Blood Shards (up from 5)
Changes to Paragon 2.0
- The Paragon 2.0 Tabs have new and changed stats
- Core now has your main stat, Vitality, Movement Speed and Maximum Resource
- Offensive has received no changes
- In Defensive Dodge has been replaced by Life Regeneration (165.1)
- The stats in Utility are now Area Damage (1%), Resource Cost Reduction (0.20%), Life on Hit (82.5) and Gold Find (1%)
Misc and Quality of Life
- Collector Edition wings now activate permanently! You also click them ones and they stay on until you click again. You don't need to carry them in your inventory. Selling the wings removes them from your character as well. The wings still don't show in the login screen
- Scroll of Mysteries have been turned into Consumables. Their effects now have a better description. Examples are: 300% More Damage to Bosses, 100% More Experience Gained
- Crushing Blow has been removed from the game altogether
- Many crafting prices have been readjusted and there are no more placeholder prices
- New Legendary ingredients have been added to the game. Some of the crafted Legendary items now require a certain unique Legendary ingredient. For example Griswold's Perfection now requires a Griswold's Scribblings. They drop very rarely just like any other Legendary item
- Scholarly Writings have been removed from the game. Previously they played the role of a new Tome of Secrets. The new "used for everything" reagent is Death's Breath. It drops from Elite packs and rarely from normal mobs. Also Horadric Caches
- Commas have been added to the damage numbers that show up on screen!
Man, loving every change so far. RoS is defiantly going to be the LoD of D3!
looking good. Now if only i could get a beta key
Bit worried by the apparent removal of Magic Find. Really don't want to be gear swapping in RoS...
Last we heard Magic Find was getting hugely nerfed anyway, with a greatly diminished effect on Legendaries.
I'm not in the closed beta, on the PTR and there are some major issues that need to be addressed:
Loot 2.0 both sucks and is awesome at the same time. The lack of drops (even bad ones) is demoralizing. Killing things -feels- pointless, especially at a higher level. At a lower level, it's worse. I made a 1 level (master) and leveled him to 15 so far. All his gear is either vendor or crafted. The legendary I did find was replaced 10 minutes later. This -sucks-. Good thing so much gold drops, cuz it feels like you are going to need it. I was level 10 before I even reached Cain so that felt odd.
Density in Act 1 sucks. There is nothing to kill.
The difficulty curve between expert and master is silly. My level 60 WD (100K dps) - expert is too easy. Master takes too long to kill stuff.
On the plus side, that the monsters level with you is sweet. Nothing is ever too easy. Though, I fear, that Belial is going to take on Master and higher LOL.
If this game is released with Loot 2.0 as is, the crying in the community will dwarf anything heard thus far. It's not an ARPG without constant loot drops.
Cursed Chests
Playing in Hard+ we got....
- Waves of enemies, more in each wave, same time. Ended after 4 waves.
- Waves of enemies, more in each wave, same time. Could go on forever.
- Chest with no shrine, touching it 3 champions appeared. "Kill before time runs out!"
Playing in Normal, I got....
- Kill group of white mobs before time runs out.
Just curious...is this "new" Hellfire Ring the NEW Hellfire Ring, or a different Hellfire Ring added as an alternative for crafting the existing Hellfire Ring?
Also...I find it interesting the reagents needed to craft it, as well as the Keys that craft the machines to (presumably) get them. The Key of Bones, for instance, implies the Skeleton King (as does Leoric's Regret, obviously), but Leoric is already part of the tag team with Magdha in the Realm of Discord.
Could this mean that Leoric is being lifted out of that tag team and being given his own "realm," of sorts? And if so, who would take his place alongside Magdha? Maybe she could team up with Uber Araneae, and the evil sorceress could team up with the Spider Queen? Not going to speculate on what that Realm would be called, ;-)
Anyway, the chances of Uber Diablo, and possibly even Uber Malthael, would be awesome. More huge and gigantic bosses is a-okay in my book, :-)