Patch 2.3 Testing Expands to Season 4
A small PTR patch brings a test of the next Diablo III Season
New Patch 2.3.0 PTR Patch
The second PTR build for patch 2.3.0 arrived on Tuesday, bringing it to version 2.3.0.32528. The patch includes small fixes and changes since the first major patch 2.3.0 PTR patch, but they do not reflect the feedback so far from the PTR testing community.
Post by Blizzard (Blue Tracker, Official Forum)
Just a new PTR build.
This is correct, and it's a very minor one. Primarily, we wanted to get out the Mac client fix prior to beginning Season 4 on the PTR, though there are also a couple of bug fixes and tweaks. We're working on updating the patch notes a little later this evening. Season 3 should also be ending shortly and we'll be starting Season 4 a little later this week.
Note that this patch won't have any major design revisions; we're still working on those iterations (and digging through your amazing loads of excellent feedback) and we'll let you know when a larger PTR patch is on its way.
Patch 2.3.0 PTR Update
Here are the handful of posted changes in the latest PTR patch. The Mac PTR client is also now working, taking care of an issue with the first build that prevented it from connecting.
PTR-ONLY CHANGES
- Adventure Mode
- Horadric Caches now only drop 1 act specific crafting material below level 70
- Fixed an issue that caused the Act IV bonus cache to take up less inventory space than intended
- Items
- Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue that caused the buff icon for Archon stacks to disappear when Archon expired with The Swami equipped
- Fixed an issue that prevented several item affixes from being restricted to the proper classes
- Fixed an issue that caused Chantodo's Resolve set bonus stacks to reset when taking a portal
- Bug Fixes
- Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue preventing the Mac client from launching
ADVENTURE MODE
- Nephalem Rifts
- Conduit Pylon
- Duration has been increased from 15 to 30 seconds in Greater Rifts
- Conduit now deals damage based on your current difficulty level or Greater Rift tier
- Conduit now deals reduced damage to bosses and Rift Guardians
Conduit Pylon Revamp in Greater Rifts
The Conduit Pylon has often been focused on during Greater Rifts, to get a big boost to finish the rift, or to beat the Greater Rift Guardian. A number of changes are happening to the pylon in patch 2.3. Developer Wyatt Cheng stopped by reddit to discuss the intent of the changes, just before the new PTR patch went up.
Changing conduit is intentional but the current PTR does not reflect it's final form.
There were a number of design goals with the change to conduit pylon
One of the tricky things with the conduit pylon is that the damage required to create the zoom-zoom fantasy of running down a hall killing normal monsters also melts Rift Guardians. Our initial version of the updated Grift Conduit killed Rift Guardians without any help from the player (Reduced RG health + 30 second duration + adjusted damage calculations, etc.)
So internally Rift Guardians take 75% reduced damage from Conduit in greater rifts. I honestly don't remember if that change is on the current PTR, I just know that other than the 30-second duration the current PTR does not reflect how conduit will work in the next PTR patch.
This is very accurate.
We tried rifts without pylons and with greatly reduced RNG - it was not good. We added pylons and branches in the dungeon because without it the rifts are incredibly dull. More accurate and competitive at the very high end? Sure - maybe. But Greater Rifts are designed as highly replayable dungeons and without the randomness from sources like Pylons they lose a lot of their replayability.
I talked about why the randomness is an important design element of Greater Rifts on the Westmarch Workshop back in April. Here's a link at the 1:23:55 mark:
https://youtu.be/VQY7uCToGtY?t=1h23m55s
The UI makes it really clear whether you're ahead or behind the timer, and the more randomness that's removed the more clearly you know whether you're going to succeed or fail very early on, which can make the entire duration of the rift feel miserable.
There were a number of design goals with the change to conduit pylon
- Move it back to 30 seconds, because 15 just felt like a big letdown compared to the normal amount - picking up a conduit pylon in greater rifts was no longer a moment of elation as you zappity zap monsters as you run by.
- Make it NOT interact with Power pylon so you aren't trying to fish for power/conduit back to back
- Make it roughly equivalent in raw efficiency but in a different way than power pylon
- To allow conduit pylon to scale consistently across different grift levels.
- To have safeguards in place so conduit pylons aren't ever "required" to beat a rift guardian.
One of the tricky things with the conduit pylon is that the damage required to create the zoom-zoom fantasy of running down a hall killing normal monsters also melts Rift Guardians. Our initial version of the updated Grift Conduit killed Rift Guardians without any help from the player (Reduced RG health + 30 second duration + adjusted damage calculations, etc.)
So internally Rift Guardians take 75% reduced damage from Conduit in greater rifts. I honestly don't remember if that change is on the current PTR, I just know that other than the 30-second duration the current PTR does not reflect how conduit will work in the next PTR patch.
I cant seem to find any argument for keeping pylons in Greater Rifts.
Some RNG (including pylons) gives a player a fighting chance to beat a Grift if they're a little behind.We tried rifts without pylons and with greatly reduced RNG - it was not good. We added pylons and branches in the dungeon because without it the rifts are incredibly dull. More accurate and competitive at the very high end? Sure - maybe. But Greater Rifts are designed as highly replayable dungeons and without the randomness from sources like Pylons they lose a lot of their replayability.
I talked about why the randomness is an important design element of Greater Rifts on the Westmarch Workshop back in April. Here's a link at the 1:23:55 mark:
https://youtu.be/VQY7uCToGtY?t=1h23m55s
The UI makes it really clear whether you're ahead or behind the timer, and the more randomness that's removed the more clearly you know whether you're going to succeed or fail very early on, which can make the entire duration of the rift feel miserable.
Season 4 on the PTR
Season 3 has come to an end on the test realm, and Season 4 will begin on the PTR at Thursday, July 9 at 5:00PM PDT (8PM Eastern time). This will include all the new Season 4 items, with the stats detailed in the patch notes. The brand new Season Journey feature will also be unveiled in Season 4, and tested once the season starts on the PTR.
Post by Blizzard (Blue Tracker, Official Forum)
Attention, nephalem,
Season 3 will be ending on the PTR today, July 7, at 5:00 p.m. PDT. This is in preparation for the launch of Season 4 on the PTR, which will begin Thursday, July 9 at 5:00 p.m. PDT.
Seasonal characters will roll over to non-Seasonal just as they do when a Season ends on live. Note that importing a character from live after the start of Season 4 will automatically convert your Seasonal characters to non-Seasonal; Season 4 characters must be leveled in the Season 4 environment.
Thank you, as always, for your diligent testing and excellent feedback!
Season 3 will be ending on the PTR today, July 7, at 5:00 p.m. PDT. This is in preparation for the launch of Season 4 on the PTR, which will begin Thursday, July 9 at 5:00 p.m. PDT.
Seasonal characters will roll over to non-Seasonal just as they do when a Season ends on live. Note that importing a character from live after the start of Season 4 will automatically convert your Seasonal characters to non-Seasonal; Season 4 characters must be leveled in the Season 4 environment.
Thank you, as always, for your diligent testing and excellent feedback!
Post by Blizzard (Blue Tracker, Official Forum)
Will chars be wiped?
While characters won't be wiped, Seasonal characters will be rolled to non-Seasonal just as they are on live when a Season ends.
Note that importing characters again will accomplish the same result and any Seasonal characters will be converted to non-Seasonal; once Season 4 begins, you'll need to level a character to test it. This is intentional as we want players to test the pacing of leveling in the new Season with all the Adventure Mode changes.
Hunter's Wrath and Wraps of Clarity
Two of the new Demon Hunter Legendary items introduced in patch 2.3 are Hunter's Wrath and Wraps of Clarity. Their current Legendary powers on the PTR are as follows:
- Hunter's Wrath (Belt) - Your Hatred generators attack 30% faster and deal 30-40% increased damage
- Wraps of Clarity (Bracers) - Your Hatred generators reduce your damage taken by 30-35% for 5 seconds
Post by Blizzard (Blue Tracker, Official Forum)
Hi all. I wanted to clarify the design intent and functionality for these two items - Hunter's Wrath and Wraps of Clarity:
Hunter's Wrath
This item is intended to be an option to increase Hatred generation for builds that spend Hatred as the primary source of damage, such as Marauder's and Unhallowed Essence with Multishot. The item was designed, tested, and tuned with primary skills in mind and as such will not work with Elemental Arrow+Kridershot or Chakram+Spines of Seething Hatred. The tooltip will be clarified to say "primary skills" instead of "Hatred generators" in a future PTR patch.
Wraps of Clarity
This item is intended to be a defensive option to fit into most builds, including builds that use Elemental Arrow/Chakram as Hatred generators and was designed and tuned as such. Many Demon Hunter builds currently could benefit from a defensive option in the bracer slot and no build should be able to over-benefit from the existing design and tuning values. With that all said, the Wraps of Clarity will be changed to work with Kridershot/Spines of Seething Hatred in a future PTR patch.
Hunter's Wrath
This item is intended to be an option to increase Hatred generation for builds that spend Hatred as the primary source of damage, such as Marauder's and Unhallowed Essence with Multishot. The item was designed, tested, and tuned with primary skills in mind and as such will not work with Elemental Arrow+Kridershot or Chakram+Spines of Seething Hatred. The tooltip will be clarified to say "primary skills" instead of "Hatred generators" in a future PTR patch.
Wraps of Clarity
This item is intended to be a defensive option to fit into most builds, including builds that use Elemental Arrow/Chakram as Hatred generators and was designed and tuned as such. Many Demon Hunter builds currently could benefit from a defensive option in the bracer slot and no build should be able to over-benefit from the existing design and tuning values. With that all said, the Wraps of Clarity will be changed to work with Kridershot/Spines of Seething Hatred in a future PTR patch.
Season 4 on the PTR will bring even more content to try out, no doubt with large queues as well. Patch 2.3.0 is a very large update to Diablo III, and we'll see new PTR builds with many more changes as the testing continues!
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