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Tavern Talk Summary

Given the length of the Tavern Talk stream, we have put together a summary with more meaningful topics. Check it out below! Mind how quite a few class-specific questions can only be found in the full transcript. Also the VoD is already up.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Source)

• Trials are being heavily analysed and we can expect changes as soon as they have something solid.
• Platinum and Cosmetics are coming to new regions (servers) - so only China. Not on NA, EU, KR and TW servers!
• There are no announcements or plans of bringing those over. It was said they definitely don't want boosters and P2W on the current servers.
• It was hinted that Diablo will be "free to play" on the China realm.
• No plans to remove Pylons in GRs. Small variance is ok - but not 10 levels of difference.
• Immortal King's power is being flexible and matching any skill - its strength can grow a lot with new "skill specific" items.
• New Sets are meant to be the stars of Patch 2.2, and not old sets turning into the absolute best with buffs.
• Season 3 is expected to be longer than Season 2, but shorter than Season 1.
• New Sets and items will focus on different skills (Seven Sided Strike, etc) but old ones will remain faithful to their fantasy (like Raiment sticking to Dashing Strike).
• They are ok with how "non build defining" (or non-BiS) Ancient weapons present a tough choice when paired against BiS or build-defining non-Ancient weapons.
• More Weapons with interesting affixes and that can compete (so that Furnace isn't the only choice).
• Devs are not happy with permanent immunity, perma-CC and no resource management.
• Cursed Realms are datamined and there's nothing to be said about them.
• Hotfixes mid-season (like the Sever change) will likely not happen anymore (so gonna have to wait for a patch) - internally they struggle a lot with this discussion, with the team being split.
• No plans to allow Gem converting (red -> green), making targeting items easier (through Kadala), removing Gold Find from Paragon, changing Topaz bonus on Helms.
• Leaderboards are awesome, but the devs don't balance the game around them, and they don't want to put too much focus on the competition (like giving exclusive ranking rewards).
• On putting new Crafted Legendaries and Sets - they prefer working on improving what's in the game already (Helltooth, Invoker).
• John Yang said he will personally start working on Helltooh as soon as 2.2 hits, and is actively gathering feedback on that set!

Stream Transcript

Below is a transcript with all the questions and answers from the Tavern Talk stream. The VoD is already up on Twitch if you want to watch the whole hour presentation - it starts at around the 22 minute mark.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Source)

The current live gold/xp buff was brought up. Meant to celebrate RoS' 1 year anniversary.

 

DH and WD mobility not on par with others chars - plans to address that?

Back in the day they discussed mobility and decided on the higher mobility classes. They also did an in-depth pass on this before RoS launched.

 

It's generally intended for DHs to have higher mobility and WDs to be on the lower end. Ideally the WD should excel in other areas. But they don't want 3 classes boosting ahead and 1 falling way behind in multiplayer.

 

Example of suggestion on the forums - make Soul Harvest increase movespeed by a small amount.

 

Have you guys ever thought about using "multiple trial keys" and receive that many keys for whatever level we reach?

They have considered it. Trials have been criticized a lot (both by the public and the team). They are seen as a "sore point" and solutions are being discussed.

 

Given all the negative feedback about Trials, do you agree they need to be fixed?

The devs agree that "something" needs to be done. They do serve a purpose, but are too "high friction" and being worked on.

 

They don't want a giant drop-down menu that lets people pick their GR level similar to Monster Power.

 

Given the clear western demand, will cosmetic-only transactions ever be available out of China?

Some changes are being made to the game to new regions (don't apply to NA, KR, TW, EU) - boosts, new stash spaces, new char slots, etc.

 

No plans to announce anything right now, not even cosmetics. Wyatt wanted to be clear that they have no plans to sell boosts in the previous regions - Blizz doesn't want a Pay to Win situation! It works in a free-to-play model!

 

The reason why in some upcoming region they're trying this new Platinum system, which can be earned by playing, so that players can buy the boost without ever giving any money to Blizz.

 

Are there plans for a 6pc IK bonus beyond 100% damage increase?

The plan is to keep it as is. Because of how open-ended and flexible the set is. They don't wanna have IK out as the absolute strongest set from the beginning of patch 2.2.

 

Philosophy behind set changes: Raekor has been the primary end-game build, with Leapquake being ok-ish, and IK being ok-ish too. The idea is to make Wrath of the Wastes to be the star of the new patch, they want players to feel incentivized to use it.

 

Have you guys considered changing Pylons in Greater Rifts?

Wyatt said that Pylons are in a better place than they used to be. Not ideal yet, but they don't wanna remove them completely.

 

They are happy with small variances. They would do something if a Pylon would allow you to go 10 levels above the normal - like Conduits could do for Barbarians before.

 

Season 1 seemed too long. Season 2 seems to short. What can we expect in the future?

Season lengths are dictated by development schedules. This new season has a ton of new content.

Next patch likely contains a new set for Crusaders, Monks and WDs.

 

Season 3 is likely gonna end as they get ready internally. They expect S3 to be longer than S2 and shorter than S1.

 

Would you ever consider making Aether Walker affix work how teleport works baseline?

No.

 

Why does every WD set include a Vodoo Mask, with strong ("mandatory") items using this slot (Jeram, Carnevil, Quetzcoatl), forcing WDs to use RoRG.
They don't feel RoRG and Vodoo Masks are the cause, but rather that there are no strong competitors in ring slots for instance.

 

Many monks wanted Sweeping Wind or SSS to be the focus of the Raiment set, why was Dashing Strike chosen?
They wanted to reinforce the playstyle and fantasy of an ultra fast character flying around the battlefield murdering everything.

 

Any thoughts on Wizard's resource management? Only class that can't spam a worthwile spell.
They are actually glad that the Wizards have an actual resource management, and ideally all classes would have to manage their resouces. That is always under the radar.

 

Rather than giving them a spammable spell, they'd rather incentivize Wizards to use interesting abilities (like with the new Tal Rasha's set).

 

Allow "swapping" of gem colors? (converting gems) At a 1:3 ratio for instance.
No. They don't want to let people convert those. Ideally classes have a purpose for all types of gems.

 

Any plans on making changes to Ancient weapons' damage ranges? As of now, a terrible ancient weapon is better than an amazingly rolled build-dfining regular Legendary.
It was said that this kind of situation is actually intended. If you have a perfect Furnace against an ancient weapon, you're presented with a "tough choice".

 

Any plans to make the topaz in helmet reduce resource cost? (very popular request)
The design answer is "there's likely someone there who likes magic find" and for that guy it would feel horrible to change it. Hinted a future new gem (Sapphire) for new gem functions.

 

Any plans on incorporating Ancient's Fury into the IK set bonus, or making all runes generate fury?
The Fury Generator rune is deemed mandatory, and that's under the radar.
That is one of the reasons the bonus for Bul Kathos is +10 Fury/sec, to make sure you aren't forced to run that rune.

 

Any plans on removing Rends animation so it doesn't interrupt Whirlwind?
No. The idea is for them to have a moment of vulnerability when casting Rend (since Whirldwind can now reduce damage by 40%).

 

What happened to Cursed Realms, will we see them next patch?
It was only datamined info, nothing that was talked about and they're not ready to announce anything about it.

 

Why did you change the mechanics of Sever mid season?
For those who don't know Sever had an interaction with Marked for Death rune from DH that allowed damage to spread, and it was crazy powerful.

 

They're trying to avoid situations where damage is insanely out of line with everything else (old Explosive Palm, Rimeheart, etc). Sever was implemented as a "cosmetic effect" (dealing tons of damage would make the monster explode).

 

Internally they were split on doing it mid season! Also, they don't tune the game around leaderboards. It was heavily discussed where to draw the line of "when do we hotfix something", and the conclusion was how ideally they would wait until a future patch to fix it.

 

Gambling/farming for specific (often build defining) weapons is a nightmare because of Kadala. Any plans to improve that?

The TLDR answer is No. Gambling serves the purpose of increasing the chance of getting a certain item, but not making it a given.

 

Does Blizzard plan to address/compensate Jade WD for the Spirit Walk change? Because Spirit Walk + Grave Injustice was the backbone of the whole build.
They don't like permanent immunity, and Spirit Walk was almost at that. They really like the Jade Doctor playstyle and realize they took away a lot of survivability, and want to compensate for that.

Survivability is something that they're always analysing. They think immunity can be a part of your kit, but not the backbone of it.

 

When you look for feedback during the PTR, are you actually looking for ideas and concepts, thoughts about how the gear is working (feel while playing), the damage of the items, or just bugs?
All of the above!!!

 

Sometimes PTR suggestions are awesome but not "viable" for that particular PTR, due to the time it takes to develop those. Helltooth was brought up, and is the first thing John Yang wants to work after 2.2 hits! He's writing down all suggestions made on the forums.

 

Any chance of removing Gold Find from Paragon points and replacing it with Damage to Elites?
Absolutely not.

 

Not everyone likes gold find, but for some people it might be useful and fun.

 

Which criteria is used to determine if a set is overperforming or underperforming from your perspective, what do you balance them around?
Overall they would be happier if a class has several viable ("within 3 Greater Rift levels of each other") end-game builds.

 

They worry a lot more about playstyle than actual number tuning. If a build could finish GR 70 but was insanely boring to play/use, then they'd have a big problem with it.

 

Any thoughts on removing or making 6 piece bonuses less of a requirement so pople can use the sweet uniques you have designed, rather than being forced into a 6 piece set?
Their end goal is having a variety of playstyles that allow people to play their characters the way they want. And sets bonuses are part of that.

 

Any plans on making new craftable legendary or set items?
Not currently, because there are already so many legendaries and sets that need attention that they would rather focus on those (like Invoker or Helltooth).

 

Monks need some loving! 2 many sets compete for the same slots. Why do none of these sets have a bracer? Inna's boots should be replaced with bracers.
Monks received quite some love on S2 and are one of the most rolled classes. They think they're solid right now but will continue getting new cool items.

 

Any chance to have an increase to rare weapons drop rates in season? I'm paragon 460 and have not found a Dagger of Darts yet and took me until para 450 to find my first SMK.
The devs follow the philosophy that "rarity = power", so getting a new item you'd feel awesome. But rather than reducing the rarity of some items, they want the "lesser more common items" to be exciting too (with special affixes).

 

On Seasons
Tough internal dilemma - "how much do they incentivize seasons"? Over half of the playerbase took part in seasons. They are seeing feedback from people that don't want to be "forced" into seasons.

 

Things like new sets are not gonna be seasonal only, but some build defining legendaries (Obsidian Ring of Zodiac) and other items will - (like Dead Man's Legacy being sort of a 7th piece for the Multishot set).

 

What was your rationale for 2 consecutive nerfs to the Wizard sets while even at the first iteration of the PTR they still weren't up to par with DH dps output?
PTR is meant to have huge changes, so people should have that in mind when testing or following PTR news/changes. (note: DHs dps output wasn't addressed in any question)

 

The new Garg ring is great but when used with Wrathful Protector it lasts 15 secs + it sometimes takes 4 sec for hem to hit ... Can you increase the duration?
They'll take steps to address that over time if it happens to be an issue.

 

What's the reasoning behind 6pm PST season start times instead of 3pm PST so that eastern players have ("more") time to play.
Ultimately it was kind of a mid-way point. No perfect solution to everyone, so it seemed like a "reasonable" one.

 

The wizard seems to lack skills that benefit the party as a whole, whereas every other class has skills that can buff offense/defense. Any changes to that?
The answer would be Delsere's... they consider it substantial group utility.

 

Have you ever considered making a legendary gem tab similar to the heirloom tab in WoW. Every character can use the same gem and you level it up through the tab. It's a quality of life change.
Travis Day would love this.

 

The original design was that if you leveled a legendary gem, whoever had that gem would get it rank increased too and it proved to be a *huge technical hurdle*. So maybe in the future if it's possible.

 

If perma immmunities are bad (nerfed in PTR) why is perma-root not nerfed? It seems to promote a DPS meter style.
Perma-cc should not be a thing. It's currently viable and would be even stronger with Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac. It's on the list to be dealt with, but not for 2.2.

 

In Season 3, all of the "cheat death" passives were fixed but one: Unstable Anomaly. Will this be fixed so Wizards won't die immediately to AoE effects?
The devs want the "cheat death" passives to feel somewhat different. But maybe they should get over that - it will be discussed.

 

Did you ever consider giving a Reduced Cost Reduction and Damage Reduction stack in 6p Rolands?
No, as they don't want bonuses to have the same feel and have them all stack the same bonus and playstyle.

 

Any plans on increasing multishot for DHs to increase Unhallowed Essence viability? Or reduce Shield Bash wrath cost to increase Roland's?
They think these questions are power-related. They don't think Unhallowed is weak right now.

 

Fun fact: Holy Shock rune of Sweep Attack is not Holy. Why make the new Denial shield non-Crusader (and thus no RCR, CDR, specific skill damage)?
They talked on stream about maybe changing it to Holy. Will be looked at. The Denial bonus was put there because it seemed fitting, and when creating the bonus they didn't consider the relation to CDR, RDR and specific class skill damage bonus.

 

Dexterity/Strength scales with Armour, and Intelligence
They are ok with a choice of "do I want res all or armor". They don't want to exacerbate the math in the game.

 

How do you feel about using pre-existing items in the game and making them into sets? Like having Velvet Camaral and Mykens Ball of Hate and have a set bonuses that increases the damage of Electrocute?

They talked about how some items that have synergies are meant to feel like sets but without having the "set brand" on them (like Goldskin + Goldwrap, Cindercoat + fire items).

 

What is your stance on on-kill effects? I feel the recent change to In-Geom has shown heir uselessness once again.
Wyatt thinks In-Geom is fine, as it can be a permanent bonus if your power level is high enough. He doesn't agree with the item being deemed useless.

 

Any plans for rewards for leaderboard rankings at the end of a season?
They never discussed that internally. Travis Day at the spot said he's strongly against that as it would put too much of a strong focus on the competitive aspect of leaderboards. The devs want to celebrate each player's journey.