Patch 2.3.0 Developer Q&A Transcript | Category: Diablo BlogSeptember-8-2015 2:45 PM PDT (9 years ago) ![]() |
![]() We were asked some great questions at our Reddit Q&A on Tuesday, September 1st. In case you missed them and the answers provided by our team, we've included a recap below, complete with handy links to each topic of discussion for your reading convenience! Table of Contents Items
Whimsybandit: Is a proper gem sink being considered, maybe via a cube recipe or whatnot? As it stands, gems are in high demand early into a Season and then they become more inflated than gold.
jcooper1876: Diablo III has been quite the ride. Since its release, we've had a new act, a new class, a new play mode, new character skills, new sets, changes to old sets, new bounties, new rifts, a new rift type, new gems, Seasons, new difficulties... everything has changed, except for one thing: the ONLY option for a weapon socket is an emerald. Will this ever change?
For the case of gems in weapons, buffing Amethyst is a great idea, because the benefit it provides (+Life on Hit) is a completely different choice from the current leading gem: Emerald = Critical Hit Damage. Buffing Diamonds (+Elite damage) and Rubies (+Flat damage) is slightly less interesting because it will probably come down to one mathematically correct answer depending on the weapon and build. Lastly, our goal is to have Topaz be the gem to use for the Thorns of the Invoker set.
OtterAbsurdity: Now that each class has a couple of decent sets, can we get a small balance pass on them to even them out? I love the playstyle of full 6pc Delsere and Marauders, but I feel like I'm gimping my friends by using them and it's frustrating.
TyphoonCane: Currently there are a few classes that can mix sets getting six pieces of one set and four pieces of another, is this something you want to see more of or is it something that you'd rather not happen more often?
goykasi: Is anything being done about the Arachyr 4pc bonus? All feedback and complaints on PTR were seemingly ignored.
Nazgren: Any chance for a "close-quarters" DH build? They have plenty of knife based skills.
2pc - While equipped with a melee weapon, all damage is increased by 1000%. 4pc - Shadow Power gains all runes and lasts forever. 6pc - Impale deals 30000% weapon damage to the first enemy it hits. The idea is that the set is extremely strong on single-target damage, but weak on AoE. To help with that, a new dagger will have the power "Every second, the damage of your next Fan of Knives is increased by 250-300%." To help with movement, a pair of bracers has the power: "After using Impale, Vault costs no resource for 2 seconds." That item will allow you to Vault into position to Impale the high-value targets. Additionally, we're also allowing Demon Hunters to use melee weapons with quivers because the fantasy of this quick-moving assassin build is about speed, not walking around with a shield ;) OwenLantos: With so many newer and stronger class sets, some of the old class sets (e.g. Firebird's Finery, Jade Harvester) became extremely weak. Are there any plans to rework these sets in the near future? Possibly in 2.4? I really like Firebird Wizard, but it is just so underwhelming right now...
You all will see these updates in the near future in patch 2.4.0
Iwillforgethisacc: I have two questions regarding Kanai's Cube: When I reroll a Legendary item, can it roll Ancient? And if I use a Ramaladni's Gift and then reroll it, will the socket from the gift be lost?
aeclasik: Can we see more / improved Kanai recipes down the road? Such as removing the nine gem limit, or reforging Ancients?
OBrien: Is the Hope of Cain recipe about as powerful as you guys intended? Did you mean to put it in in order to make Torment 10 rift farming competitive with Greater Rift farming?
CarbonatedFalcon: Any chance that the reforge legendary recipe "Law of Kulle" gets re-costed? As it stands, it's kind of ridiculously priced. Even if it is powerful.
Syntaire: The ability to change one Set item into another with the cube is great, but it only works on sets with three or more pieces. I understand that this was partially in response to the relatively cheap cost of the recipe being exploited to get perfect rolls on various items. However, because of this limitation I've been attempting to get Shenlong's Fist of Legend with the upgrade rare recipe for several days and only have about six or seven Relentless Assaults to show for it. It's getting a bit demoralizing. Is there any possibility of a new recipe that works specifically for the two piece sets? Perhaps something like three of the same piece and some Forgotten Souls / Death's Breaths will give the other piece?
We removed the ability to do small sets because the intent of this recipe was not "create Focus" "create Restraint." Also, players were using this recipe to make class sets Ancient. In both of those cases the question we had to answer was "Do we cost it around what they are using it for, or do we restrict it to the purpose it was designed for?" We decided that ensuring the recipe fulfilled its design goal, allowing players to finish class Sets, was more important to us than providing yet another way to make Ancient items or generate specific items because both of those already have recipes designed explicitly to that end. whimsybandit: Can we get a way to craft Ramalandi's Gift via the cube? Even if its hyper expensive...
Larklen: Are there any hidden recipes with the Cube that have yet to be discovered?
Sargon16: What are your thoughts on the current situation with Death's Breath? This one material is the sole limiting factor in progress, acquiring more has become the most important thing we do, and our primary goal in farming.
IdahoSciGuy: Hey guys! Thanks for this Q&A. This patch has been great, a real blast. Especially with the introduction of Kanai and Kanai's Cube. It was incredible going through the Ruins of Sescheron in search of the cube, and coming upon a lore book that speaks of this legendary warrior. Then, I would get chills realizing that this was based on a real person, and their memory. My question is, what was the character creation process like with Kanai, and how were you affected during Kanai's creation? Thanks again for an amazing patch!
The most important thing was to make sure that we were paying homage to him. For example we didn't want players to click on Kanai while he was sitting on the throne, that didn't feel right to us. There is also a hidden event surrounding Kanai that is based on what month it is. That event really was a way for us to play one last time with him, to have him adventure with us again. As to how it affected people on the team: there are no words I can use that would properly convey how important this was to us. The hole this has left in our team is one that cannot be filled and shouldn't be filled. Thank you for the kind question. TricksterClown: Will cubed Legendaries from Season 4 roll over to non-season once it's over?
Davlok: The only Kanai cube missing is "Upgrade Legendary to Ancient". Are there any plans to add that? Obviously it should be a substantial cost - like 5x Ramaladni’s Gifts + 50 Forgotten Souls. Either that or any thoughts about having an Auction House return for non-season only?
TMSquared: Kanai's Cube has introduced a fascinating branch of gameplay: legendary affix "combos". Specifically, the interaction between Madstone, Uliana's six piece bonus, and Gungdo Gear sets the mind ablaze with possibility. It reads and plays beautifully, and was a major incentive for me to dig through the game's item trove to find additional "combo" pieces. Is this a favored design facet, and will we see additional Legendary powers that interact so well together?
welshwizardd: Why has the number of lower level class specific items (Armor & 2-Handed Weapons) the Blacksmith can forge been reduced so drastically? The only things that seem to have escaped the cull are the one handed weapons and off-hand items for ranged classes [DH/WD/Wiz].
Itarie: Why did you reintroduce the crafting problems you removed from the game once with the Act-specific crafting materials?
aeclasik: Any plans for gold sink? I'm twenty hours into my Season 4 character with 600 million gold...
Thrashlock: Any plans on Thorns? The latest scaling buff was nice, but it's still lacking far behind any other sets. Now that the Thorns of the Invoker set only drops for Crusader, I expect there to be more changes to Thorns in the future.
Mase123y: What are the updates going on with Area Damage? Last patch, it was said from developers it may/may not get a full rework. Currently, it does not function 100% as the tooltip states. It is specifically disregarding certain damage bonuses which nerfs some classes more than others. The PTR fixed a few of these issues, but then broke them again in the last week of the PTR. What was going on internally that last week that reverted these fixes?
In patch 2.3, we fixed most of the issues, e.g. Area Damage working with Wrath of the Berserker - Insanity and similar skills and items. However, a few issues remain (which I believe include Area Damage's interaction with Delsere's and Bracers of the First Men). These remaining issues were deemed too risky from a code standpoint to hotfix because the code touches the order that damage bonuses are calculated and applied, and it was causing other bugs with Elemental Damage bonuses and damage amplification debuffs. We plan to fix all remaining issues in the next major content patch when we have PTR time. Sorry that it's taking so long. We appreciate your patience.
RandomPrecision1: So it seems there are some game files where Malthael absorbs the power of Mephisto and Baal, as well as Diablo. For instance, there are sound files and particle effects for Baal and Mephisto attacks. Are you able to tell us anything about this alternate version of the Malthael fight that didn't come to be? That is, what would've happened, and/or why didn't that version make the final cut? I think it'd be fun to see our old pals Mephisto and Baal outside of the Prime Evil again - it's been a while. :)
We tried this out but we felt that the flow of the fight didn't work as well and we ended up focusing on the fight that you know now.
TyphoonCane: Is there any reason that DoTs don't take into account attack speed at this point? It seems unreasonable that your damage over time skills are actually hurt by choosing a faster attacking weapon and basically rules out using skills like Blizzard and Locust Swarm if not using a two-hander.
Also note that when it comes to casting a spell like Haunt, Attack Speed does let you cast Haunts more often - so allowing Haunt to also benefit from Attack Speed rolled into its damage would essentially amount to double-dipping.
deadyahaje: Any plans to change some of the Paragon stats? For example, Gold Find or things like Maximum Mana are kind of worthless in my opinion.
akaimba: What are your thoughts on the current build diversity?
I will say that I think it's improved in Patch 2.3.0. We saw Barbarians get a Hammer of the Ancients and Seismic Slam + Immortal King build to compete with the top Whirlwind builds. Whirlwind + Rend is also now a thing (again). Witch Doctors saw Helltooth builds perform near equal to Carnevil builds. Monks now have a generator build and a Uliana's build. If we do our jobs right, this trend will continue. jiminee: Right now, the Monks, and Witch Doctors are mostly sought after for groups since they have the capability to tank. As a person that mains Demon Hunter, I'm a bit jealous that these classes have the capability to switch between having a DPS build and a tank build. Is there any chance to relook at the tanking mechanic in such a way that it would be feasible to have a tank build for all classes?
Demon Hunters may be on the low side of group utility right now. In patch 2.2.0, that was okay because Slowball pumped out more damage than any other class, but with the removal of permanent Crowd Control that changed. I'll keep an eye on Demon Hunter group utility and see if any changes are needed and can be made for the future.
Arillious: Any chance we will be able to retire non-Hardcore characters and save them in something like the Hall of Fallen heroes? I hate deleting countless hours just to make a spot for a new Seasonal character.
Oranite: Right now the gap in efficiency between solo play and group play is quite large. Does your team have any plans to not necessary completely close the gap, but at least narrow it somewhat?
For us it is an issue than the efficiency of groups who are stacking +XP% don’t get to wear their awesome, face-melting gear. The game should be about slaughtering monsters to get rewarded with epic loot. It’s a lot less fun when you don’t get to do the slaughtering. Exacerbating the situation isn't experience farming itself, it’s how different the activity is from other activities in the game. I was listening to the State of Sanctuary podcast, and one of the hosts actually mentioned this – in Patch 2.1.0, experience farming wasn't considered as big a deal, not only because the rate of XP gain wasn't as large, but more importantly, XP was a natural by-product of trying to get Legendary items, Blood Shards, or generally melting faces. Today, the activity that maximizes your experience per hour is no longer the same as the one that maximizes Blood Shards and Legendaries with a powerful build. Because the activities aren’t the same, it forces players to choose between playing the core game as it was designed and wearing +%XP gear in a specifically calibrated environment. We agree that these activities need to be re-aligned again, and that’s what we’re re-examining. Some people have also asked if our intent in changing experience sharing in Patch 2.3.0 was to better balance multiplayer rewards. Functionally speaking though, there isn’t a difference before and after the patch. Players can still wear the exact same amount of bonus XP gear and perform about as well in Greater Rifts. The difference is that before only two people would be getting all the benefit. How the rewards are split is a separate topic from whether XP gear provides too much benefit. Let’s talk philosophy. We want people to play together. I think everybody understands that groups should be better than solo, but there’s debate about how much that difference should be. If I’m playing by myself and then a friend joins me, I should be a little bit better off, right? The issue is that this is only true when you and your friend are exactly the same power level. Realistically, in Diablo III, the power level of players varies widely. You may be in full Ancient gear with your six-piece set bonuses and all the appropriate complementary Legendaries while your friend only has their four-piece bonus and a non-ancient weapon. Is it okay for your friend to join your game and your experience to be worse? We took a long look at the way the game has evolved over the last three years and made a judgment call: as much as possible, we want a friend joining your game to make your experience better, not worse. People shouldn’t feel they need to inspect you when you join a public game and your friend that stopped playing for two months shouldn’t feel like a burden for wanting to play with you. Generally, you should prefer to have company in your game than not. Then there’s the suggestion that we should remove the 30% bonus to experience gain in multiplayer. It comes from a well-intentioned place. However, once you examine all the sources of advantages in multiplayer groups, that 30% experience bonus is the least significant. It’s easy to pay attention to because it's the most visible of the multiplayer bonuses, so it’s also perceived as the most advantageous. Here are the main advantages to playing multiplayer and farming experience:
If you feel that XP% gear shouldn't be this good in the first place (regardless of whether you’re in a group), then that's fair. My long explanation is to explain why we are happy with the 30% bonus in groups, but we are examining the other three major contributors to see what we can do there to shrink the gap between solo and group play while still keeping group play better - even when your under-geared friend joins.
drunii: Do you have any plans to scale the health of Elite enemies compared to Champions? It's so much easier to kill a blue pack (Champions) than a yellow one (Elites).
DogterSmok: What is your stand on the 'feel' or atmosphere of the game as opposed to older Diablo games? I hear a lot of critics saying that Diablo 3 feels more 'epic' or Warcraft-ish than its gothic, dark predecessors. Do you agree? Is this how you meant the game to be?
Nadiar: /u/BlizzRichieMarella what has been your favorite model to work on in Diablo?
Angzt: Does the Leoric family have any specific affinity to being "possessed" by Diablo? So far, both of King Leoric's sons and his granddaughter had to suffer through that. Does Diablo just like royal blood? Edit: Also, does Leoric have any more descendants we should look out for in the future? ;)
As to other family members waiting in the wings… what an interesting idea! jcooper1876: What is going down in the Skovos Isles? Lorath and Tyrael are always going on about it. Is this a hint at upcoming new content?
But many other parts of Sanctuary are equally dangerous, so Skovos is just the topic at hand between Lorath and Tryael. halftankofgas: When are you going to reveal what we all already know -- that Tyrael is the real villain of the series!?
halftankofgas: The designers who worked on Greed's realm did an absolutely amazing job. I think the feeling of moving up and down vertically adds some really cool vibes to the area. Is there any chance we'll see more tile sets and zones like this in future content patches?
valondon: Will we see the Ruins of Sescheron appear in Rift maps?
CrazedRavings: Would you ever consider making it so the deeper you go in Rifts the higher chance there is of coming accross an encounter (whether it be goblins, Key Wardens, or something new) to give players a reason to stay in once the guardian is dead?
DoubleTwist_89: Have you considered or are you considering a "stat squish" at some point? It would make the numbers a lot more manageable for players, and I'm certain smaller numbers wouldn't hurt server performance.
Amatulos: Certain builds require keeping an eye on your buffs to maximize your damage (for example Tal Rasha’s Elements, and builds using Taeguk or Convention of Elements). However, when playing in a party, these buffs can disappear once you get more than eight buffs. Is it possible to allow players to choose which buffs they always want to see, so these buffs are easier to track?Bottom of Form
We have been avoiding simply adding more buffs because having a large number of buffs on the screen is not only visually unappealing, but it can be just as frustrating to locate the buff that you care about in a sea of buffs. I view buffs broadly in 3 categories: Category 1: "Always On" buffs. Really obvious ones are the Multiplayer buff, or when there is a Community event in place. These buffs are great to know, but they take up one of your precious buff slots. Monk Mantras are a slightly less "always" version of this. If I'm in a party with a monk wearing Inna's Mantra, suddenly all players in the party have half of their buff slots tied up. Category 2: "Reassuring buffs". These are buffs that you want to know they are on you, but they don't affect your moment to moment gameplay. A good example of this would be Storm Armor on the Wizard, or Frenzy skill stacks on a Barbarian. Many times you want to know the skill is working correctly, but you aren't checking on the buff in the heat of combat. Category 3: "Moment-to-moment buffs". These are the buffs that actually affect you moment-to-moment and are usually the source of complaints. Focus and Restraint are a great example here. Overall our goal is to find alternate ways to communicate Category 1 and Category 2 buffs so that Category 3 buffs can take center stage on the buff bar. We don't have anything to share at this time, but I assure you that with the introduction of all the extra powers players have from Kanai's Cube, combined with new Legendary items that make you powerful but require some degree of buff tracking (builds that use Vyr's Amazing Arcana or Chantodo's Resolve come to mind) the desire to address this is greater than ever.
TyphoonCane: Would you consider a quality of life change for showing resource cost and cooldowns for a given skill in the skill tooltips? I'm suggesting specifically for skills with cooldowns to be grayed out with a number counting down to represent that remaining cooldown, and for skills requiring resource to list in their tooltips the resource per cast.
jiminee: Is it possible to add in the tooltip, or add any sort of indicator, to show that a legendary item has its power already extracted in the cube?
notyouagain2: Hi. Do you think it would be possible to add an option to auto pick up crafting mats in the future?
puggi: Is there any chance you all will fix the Witch Doctor lagging in Greater Rifts this season?
I do want to make it clear we will make sure the power level of the build isn’t reduced at all.
Since most of these improvements need to come in the form of hotfixes we have to be very careful that our changes are limited in scope and very thoroughly tested. The funny adage of “99 bugs in the code, take one down patch it around, 147 bugs in the code†is often true. As a Hardcore Witch Doctor in Season 4 myself, I have selfish motivations to fix this as well =). (I still haven’t lived down how I changed a parameter in a projectile function a few years ago in a hotfix to fix a Demon Hunter ability, and completely broke Zombie Bears for the entire game for a few days.)
PsyTech: Since the release of bounties there have been many instances where a bounty will become bugged and unable to be completed. Could we perhaps get some sort of mechanism to talk to Tyrael and get a new bounty if one becomes 'stuck'?
However, we don't have any plans to add a mechanism to reroll a stuck bounty. We wouldn't want this to become a way to flip bounties and instead we want to make sure all bounties that can roll are functional. We get reports of stuck bounties internally, as well as hearing about them on the forums. Feel free to list any that you discover and we can compare them against our list.
Redzombie78: Is any of this new stuff in Patch 2.3.0 coming to consoles? Thunderclaww: Pretty sure everything but Seasons are available on the current-gen consoles. Last-gen consoles are no longer supported.
Sir_Pillows: My question is about the game in general part. Are there any future plans to clean up console? I love the couch co-op feel of it and playing with my buddies that don't have a PC is great. Unfortunately, online public games are plagued with cheaters and hacks that just defeat the purpose of the game. While I can just play solo or with my friends to avoid these exploits, I would like to see Seasons and other competitive aspects of Diablo brought to console. Either way, I'd appreciate a response. Thanks for your time!
Because of how the game is architectured on console there is unfortunately a limit to what we can do to affect people who hack the game. This was one of the tradeoffs of allowing Diablo 3 to work offline on console. That being said, we are always looking at improving the situation, and we recently made a change to how Legendary Gems work on console to address some of the cheating surrounding them. HansBoopie: Hello, are there any plans on adding controller support into the PC version of Diablo like there is in the console versions? Thank you all for making such a wonderful game!
Not only did we add an Evade move but we also changed how some of the skills function and how the camera behaves. Adding controller support for PC would require bringing those changes as well which is not feasible.
Qraparta: If we could go back in time to the launch of Diablo 3 what would you guys have done differently than you actually did?
BraveSirDave: Stash space has become such a critical issue in the game that players are using "hacks" like mule characters or putting legendary gems into unused sockets to free up space. The silence of the dev team on this issue (or worse, the condescending "if we give you more you'll just want even more") is really frustrating. When are you planning to address this issue?
PsyTech: As you guys are probably aware, there are several third party overlays for Diablo. What is your stance on these applications? Would you ever consider building some of their features in game (like range display, affix display, DPS meters)?
bfodder: Why haven't we seen any action taken on those using it then?
Alvraen: What's the best player story you've heard? Also, thank you. My dad and I bonded over Diablo and it's why I know English.
Alvraen: Favorite item?
Additionally (for those who don’t know), this item was designed by the crowd and attendees at BlizzCon 2014 via the “Design A Legendary†event so it’s nice that we have an item that's designed with help from the players and is named after the convention.
S-band_radar: Which one of you guys has the highest Paragon so far?
perds: How many energy drinks were harmed in the making of this patch?
Astral707: Above & Beyond are my favorite DJs, and the Diablo franchise are my favorite games. Who is responsible for all the A&B references in D3? We should be best friends.
hanz12891: Will Diablo have a lot of stuff to show in blizzcon?
Radical5: Are there plans on adding purchasable cosmetic items, such as pets, portraits, wings, etc.? I ask because it seems like the new wardrobe screen seems to be a lot bigger than necessary for one or two pets/wings.
That said - I love that there is room for lots of pets, wings and portrait frames. I hope we'll be able to use this system for various rewards. For example many of you may have seen that you can earn a unique Heroes of the Storm Portrait Frame and Pennant for reaching account level 12 in Heroes. There's also the Season Journey rewards with the Frost Hound pet and the cool new Portrait Frames. (I just got my Slayer in Hardcore last night, working on Destroyer next!) WarMenace: Do you guys plan on having this season go for four months as well? Or are you planning on re-working the season lengths?
ThatGuyYouKnowkappa: Since 2.3.0 is out and so is season 4, what are you planning to do/what are you working on?
Fleiya: Can you put a Pomeranian dog in the game somewhere? I really like poms. Pugs are fine too.
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